Daily News (In Short)-4-August-2015

#* NDA relents on land bill, but Parliament uproar continues

New Delhi: Even as uproar in the Lok Sabha continued on Monday with Speaker Sumitra Mahajan having to step in with drastic measures, a window of opportunity opened with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) agreeing to some of the demands of the Opposition on the contentious land acquisition bill at a meeting of a joint Parliamentary committee formed to discuss the bill.

In a major climbdown following sustained opposition pressure, the government on Monday agreed to drop most of its contentious amendments to the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, bringing back the crucial clauses related to consent of affected families and social impact assessment (SIA). The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had brought in nine main amendments, six of which were discussed at the meeting of the joint committee of Parliament, and consensus was evolved.

The government’s ordinance to do away with SIA and take away farmers’ rights to refuse any land acquisition bid, found no support from the committee as it also struck down provisions to acquire land for industrial corridors. The panel also recommended that acquisition for affordable and rural housing as well as social infrastructure should not bypass the SIA and consent clauses.

Meanwhile, a jubilant Congress claimed victory on Monday, when clear indications emerged that the government, after months of standing firm, had virtually agreed to return almost entirely to the text of the Land Acquisition Act passed during the UPA’s tenure in 2013. Trinamool members Derek O’Brien and Kalyan Banerjee, though, walked out of the meeting, saying that as the amendments were circulated only in the morning, they had little time to study them. The consensus report is likely to come by 7 August.

An opinion piece in The Financial Express said the BJP’s climbdown on the land bill is more of a face-saving measure, and that there is no doubt that returning to the UPA’s 2013 Act would be retrograde.

Meanwhile, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan cracked the whip in Lok Sabha. With the opposition creating ruckus in Parliament demanding resignation of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Mahajan on Monday suspended 25 Congress Members of Parliament for disrupting the house. Asserting that her patience was being tested by the opposition parties, the Speaker also adjourned the House for the day.

Though this is unprecedented, Parliament watchers say the Speaker has acted under the provisions of the rule book. The Rule 374(A) of Parliament says: “Notwithstanding anything contained in rules 373 and 374, in the event of grave disorder occasioned by a member coming into the well of the House or abusing the Rules of the House persistently and wilfully obstructing its business by shouting slogans or otherwise, such member shall, on being named by the Speaker, stand automatically suspended from the service of the House for five consecutive sittings or the remainder of the session, whichever is less.”

Incidentally, Mahajan’s tenure as the presiding officer was not supposed to have generated the heat it has. For the first time in 30 years, there was a clear parliamentary majority in the Lower House, and an Opposition so decimated that not a single party qualified for the post of Leader of the Opposition. The Speaker of such a House was supposed to rule gently, allow the Opposition its space in debates and restore some of the deference to the Chair that more precariously balanced Lok Sabhas hadn’t in the past. What is even more surprising is that it happened on the watch of the mild-mannered Mahajan, so identified with the image of an indulgent but proper elder sister, or Tai, that she has officially adopted it on her official resume.

Parliament, meanwhile, may continue to be paralyzed with nine opposition parties—Trinamool Congress, CPI(M), CPI, JD(U), RJD, NCP, RSP, Muslim League and Aam Aadmi Party—in a show of solidarity, deciding to boycott the Lok Sabha for the next five days to protest against the suspension of 25 Congress MPs. The Congress, which has decided to boycott the House for the rest of the week, is also in talks with the Samajwadi Party in this connection.

#* RBI Monetary Policy review top 5 points: Guv Raghuram Rajan keeps interest rate unchanged at 7.25 pct

The Governor Raghuram Rajan-led Reserve Bank of India (RBI) held policy rate at 7.25 percent on Tuesday, pausing as widely expected after a spike in food prices sent consumer inflation to an eight-month high.
The RBI has reduced the policy rate by a total 75 basis points since January, when it embarked on an easing cycle.
Monetary and Liquidity Measures:
On the basis of an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation, the RBI has decided to:
1. keep the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) unchanged at 7.25 per cent;
2. keep the cash reserve ratio (CRR) of scheduled banks unchanged at 4.0 per cent of net demand and time liability (NDTL);
3. continue to provide liquidity under overnight repos at 0.25 per cent of bank – wise NDTL at the LAF repo rate and liquidity under 14 – day term repos as well as longer term repos of up to 0.75 per cent of NDTL of the banking system  through auctions; and
4. continue with daily variable rate repos and revers e repos to smooth liquidity.
5 Consequently, the reverse repo rate under the LAF will remain unchanged at 6.25 per cent, and the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate at 8.25 per cent

#* Centre inks peace accord with Naga insurgent outfitThe government signed a peace accord with the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), one of the largest insurgent outfits, which has been demanding a unified Naga identity and a separate ‘Nagalim’ State for over six decades.
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B2vLkO9ma4eRd3haaG1GbktIc3M

The details of the accord were not released by the government, and there is no clarity on the “sovereignty clause,” being demanded by the insurgent group.

Besides the IM faction, there are two more groups — Khole-Kitovi (KK) and Reformation (R) — which were not part of the accord.

They have signed a ceasefire agreement with the government till April 27, 2016.

In March this year, the Khaplang faction, led by S.S. Khaplang, broke the ceasefire with India and is suspected to be behind a series of violent attacks in Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, where 18 personnel were killed in an attack on an Army convoy.

R.N. Ravi, the Naga interlocutor, signed the accord with the NSCN-IM at a much publicised ceremony at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence. Besides Mr. Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval were present.

Naga problem was a legacy of British rule, says Modi

After the government signed a peace accord with the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Unfortunately, the Naga problem has taken so long to resolve because we did not understand each other. It is a legacy of the British rule. The colonial rulers had, by design, kept the Nagas isolated and insulated. They propagated terrible myths about the Nagas in the rest of the country…They also spread negative ideas about the rest of India among the Naga people. This was part of the well-known policy of divide and rule of the colonial rulers.”

Joyson Mazamo of Naga Hoho, the apex body of the Naga tribes, told The Hindu: “Until and unless we see the contents of the accord, it is difficult to say anything. We were not involved in the talks with the government, though. The I-M group does not represent the entire Nagas but it has popular support.”

The group met Mr. Modi in June this year and demanded a lasting solution to the Naga problem. Mr. Mazamo added: “We want integration and want all arbitrary boundaries removed.”

The NSCN (I-M) has been fighting for an independent Nagaland, but later on demanded a ‘Greater Nagaland’ by slicing off parts of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh to unite 1.2 million Nagas. The demand was opposed by the three States. In 2012, the UPA government formulated an agreement to be signed with the Naga groups, but it was shot down by Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh of the Congress.

After Monday’s accord, NSCN (I-M) general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah, who signed the pact, said in a statement, “Better understanding has been arrived at and a framework agreement has been concluded, based on the unique history and position of the Nagas and recognising the universal principle that in a democracy sovereignty lies with the people.”

He said: “After decades of confrontation and untold sufferings, the Nagas decided to have political dialogue with the Government of India in view of the acknowledgement that the government will seek a peaceful solution, leaving aside the military solution.”

Though Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh was present at the ceremony, sources said, the Home Ministry was kept out of the loop in the entire process. It is learnt that none of the senior officials of the Ministry, which is involved in the day-to-day operations in the north-east, was involved in it. The agreement was the culmination of over 80 rounds of negotiations spanning 16 years, with the first breakthrough coming in 1997 when a ceasefire agreement was sealed.

Before the agreement was signed, Mr. Modi spoke to leaders of various parties, including the former Prime Ministers, Manmohan Singh and H.D. Deve Gowda, Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh, Mayawati of the BSP, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.

He also spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa, besides Nagaland Governor Padmanabha Acharya and Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang and DMK president M. Karunanidhi.

#* Late British Prime Minister Edward Heath accused of 1961 sex assault on young boy

Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath has been accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy whom he had picked up while the youngster was hitchhiking, a published report revealed Tuesday.

The claim, which was first published in the Daily Mirror newspaper, was made public one day after Britain's police watchdog said it would investigate claims that authorities failed to pursue an allegation of child sexual abuse against Heath in the 1990s. A public inquiry in Britain is investigating whether police and other authorities covered up sexual abuse by powerful people over several decades.
The new allegation against Heath dates back to 1961, when Heath was a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party. The alleged victim, now 64, says he was hitchhiking to London from his home in the suburban county of Kent when a car pulled over and picked him up. In the car, the youth struck up a conversation with a man he later identified as Heath. The future Prime Minister allegedly invited the boy to spend the night at his apartment in the well-heeled London neighborhood of Mayfair.

"I was grateful and accepted but knew that he hadn’t asked out of generosity and that I would have to pay, probably with my body but it didn’t bother me, as I had been using my body for over five years now and it was almost second nature," the Mirror quotes the alleged victim as telling his attorney in a letter.

The man claimed that he reported the alleged abuse two months after it happened, but was ignored by social workers. He did not recognize Heath as the man who had picked him up until four years later, when he saw the then-Conservative Party leader's picture in a newspaper.\

The Mirror reported Tuesday that detectives from Scotland Yard's sexual exploitation unit plan to interview the alleged victim.

According to the Mirror, Heath's accuser previously had been sexually abused by his father and family friends, worked as a male prostitute during his adolescence, and was later convicted himself of sexually abusing children. The Daily Mail reported that the latest inquiry was launched after a retired police officer claimed that a criminal trial in the 1990s was shut down by prosecutors to protect Heath. It is not clear if the derailed trial concerned Heath's alleged victim.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said Monday it had received an allegation "that a criminal prosecution was not pursued, when a person threatened to expose that Sir Edward Heath may have been involved in offenses concerning children."

#* HSBC’s profit before tax from India falls 12% to $335 million

Mumbai: Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd (HSBC) on Monday said its profit before tax from India fell 12% to $335 million in the six months ended 30 June from $380 million in the corresponding period in 2014 as the bank earned less from its lending and fee businesses.

Profit after tax from its biggest division in India, called the global banking and markets division which includes earnings from investment banking and treasury, fell 20% to $195 million in the six months ended June from $243 million in the year earlier.

In India, the bank’s loan book increased to $8.46 billion from $7.05 billion in June 2014 led by an increase in its loan book to finance companies and international trade to $6.18 billion from $4.99 billion last year.

#* BCCI claims IPL sponsors backing Board after first working group meeting

New Delhi: The BCCI's four-member working group, formed to study the Justice Lodha panel's verdict relating to the IPL 2013 corruption scandal, on Monday met for the first time to discuss the way forward for the cash-rich league's next edition and said the sponsors were fully behind the Board.
The Board had given the committee six weeks' time to draw up a roadmap for the IPL after the Justice Lodha committee suspended the owners of the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals Gurunath Maiyappan and Raj Kundra while banning the franchises for two years last month.
File picture of Rajeev Shukla. AFPFile picture of Rajeev Shukla. AFP
"We have started meeting all the stakeholders from today. Today the representatives of Yes Bank came and met the members of the working group. Yes Bank is one of our sponsors. Similarly we will meet other sponsors and also speak to them about how to make IPL 9 a success," IPL governing council chairman Rajeev Shukla, who is also heading the working group, said.
After this round in Delhi, the working group will move to Mumbai.
"In Mumbai we plan to meet at least four franchise owners. We have set the ball rolling. We have to discuss all the possibilities about new teams and future of players," he added.
Asked if the sponsors are wary because of the controversies surrounding the T20 tournament, he said "Absolutely not. Sponsors are fully behind us. They are bullish."
On the contentious issue of conflict of interest, Shukla said, "Our president has also issued a statement. All required steps will be taken."

#* Twitter Testing a 'News' Tab in Mobile Apps

Twitter is testing a new feature in its mobile app that shows 'News' tab in its mobile app. Several reports on the Internet claim that select Twitter users in the US can see a new section in their mobile apps dubbed 'News', and Twitter has confirmed the experiment.
As reported by BuzzFeed, the new Twitter feature includes a list of trending news stories along with their headlines. On tapping the headline of the news story, a dedicated screen for the article opens up, showing the news story with an image and also the top tweet section below the story.

A Twitter spokesperson in a statement told BuzzFeed, "We're experimenting with a news experience on iOS and Android as we continue to explore new ways to surface the best content to users."
Considering that the 'News' tab feature is currently in its testing phase, we can expect that it might take some time before the option is visible to everyone on the micro-blogging website - if the company decides to roll out the feature globally.

The News tab feature showing up in mobile Twitter apps shares a lot of similarities with the company's recently rolled out 'Tailored Trends' that replaced the previously available Discover Tab feature. The Tailored Trends feature is visible under the Search button in the app and besides showing Twitter trends also gives a short description of each topic.

The new 'News' tab feature appears to be a part of the micro-blogging website's bigger plans under Project Lightning. The details about the yet-to-be-announced Project Lightning were reported in June. Twitter is said to start curating tweets on live events in an attempt to make the platform more user friendly for real-time news feeds.

Project Lightning will reportedly allow users to follow events instead of just people and even allow uploading images and videos that can be shared across websites.

#* After missteps, SC is finally on the right track with Sahara

Winston Churchill's pithy comment on Americans, that they can be counted on to do the right thing after exhausting all other options, applies in some measure to where the Supreme Court is heading in dealing with the case of Subrata Roy of the Sahara Group.
At a hearing yesterday (3 August), the bench headed by Justice TS Thakur, who will become the Chief Justice of India later this year, wondered aloud about two things; whether it should appoint a receiver for Sahara's properties given that a group claiming Rs 1,85,000 crore in assets is unable to pay a meagre Rs 10,000 crore to set its chief free; and whether Subrata Roy is in jail "by choice."
These are the right questions to ask and the answers should have been obvious, given the content of the orders and observations by securities regulator Sebi and the Supreme Court itself. In August 2012, the apex court asked two Sahara group companies to refund all money collected from investors, amounting to around Rs 24,000 crore at that point, to its investors - with the money to be routed through Sebi to ensure bona fide payments to genuine investors.
Three years later, Sahara has simply refused to pay, making up various excuses along they way - that the money is already repaid; that it is difficult to locate all its small investors; that it is difficult to raise so much money at one go, and so on. These are likely to be red herrings, and the real clues lie in the Sebi order of June 2011 - where it found several investors to be fictitious - and Supreme Court's own final judgment, where too it smelt the odour of benami investors.
Reuters imageReuters image
When you suspect that many of Sahara's investors may not exist, the first thing to do is to appoint a receiver so that you can probe real ownership and protect the assets from being transferred clandestinely. Instead, when faced with Subrata Roy's recalcitrance, the court finally sent him to jail in March 2014 - and is now stuck with a prisoner who it does not know what to do with.
Subrata Roy's inability - or unwillingness - to sell his properties and stay in jail is a pointer to two possibilities: that the properties Sahara allegedly owns may not be its own in reality; and trying to sell them may pose more dangers to him than staying in jail. If some of the properties are indeed found to be benami, it follows that you can't sell them. The "real" undisclosed owner will be miffed if you sell his property to get out of jail.
The Supreme Court has two problems on its hand: it cannot hold a man in prison indefinitely if he refuses or chooses to avoid paying the bail amount demanded (Rs 10,000 crore); secondly, it has to find a way to get an unwilling Sahara group to pay Sebi the money allegedly owed to investors as per its own judgment dated 31 August 2012.
The money owed to Sebi has now bloated beyond Rs 36,000 crore, with accumulating interest, and keeping Roy in prison means every additional day of refusal to pay costs him over Rs 10 crore. And that is a conservative estimate. No sane man with assets of Rs 1,85,000 crore will let his liabilities bloat by Rs 10 crore a day unless he has no intention of paying up - or is faced with some other compulsion he can't talk about.
The only logical way out of this quagmire of rising dues, a prisoner happy to remain in prison rather than pay up, and a Supreme Court worried about keeping a man endlessly in prison is to appoint a receiver for all of Sahara's properties. This will ensure safety of the collateral, save Roy from his benamdars, if any, and allow the court to recover dues from property.
Another obvious thing the Supreme Court failed to do was to ask its own Special investigation Team to ferret out black money to look into the Sahara Group. This is like ignoring the elephant in the room while chasing cockroaches elsewhere.
It is time to both appoint a receiver for properties and to ask SIT to sniff around Sahara's properties to find out who their real beneficial owners. The Supreme Court, having exhausted all other options, is finally left with only one choice of action: the right one.

#* Scientists successfully breed symbiotic bacteria in mosquitoes to control dengue fever

Guangzhou City: In a breakthrough, Chinese scientists have successfully bred a symbiotic bacteria in mosquitoes to inhibit the spread of dengue fever in south China's Guangdong Province.

The scientists from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou City inject Wolbachia into Aedes albopictus, a kind of mosquito originating in South Asia and often spread dengue viruses.

Wolbachia is a genus of bacteria that only live inside insect cells and can inhibit dengue viruses in mosquitoes.

“Dengue viruses normally need to replicate in mosquitoes. But the symbiotic bacteria can prevent the replication of the viruses. So the viruses are controlled in the mosquitoes,” said Xi Zhiyong, medical professor at Sun Yat-sen University.

Earlier this year in March, the research team has launched a pilot program in the city and released mosquitoes carrying with Wolbachia into nature.

The scientists have planned to release a large number of male mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia into nature and reduce mosquito population in order to control the spread of dengue viruses.

“All mosquito eggs cannot hatch due to our control in some areas. In other areas, at least half of the eggs cannot hatch,” said Xi.

According to Xi, mosquitoes with Wolbachia will not harm people because the bacteria cannot survive in human bodies.

Dengue is a viral disease of the tropics, transmitted by mosquitoes, and causing sudden fever and acute pains in the joints. Since dengue fever is caused by a virus, there is no specific medicine or antibiotic to treat it.

#* Now, ‘smart’ mirror that tracks your health

Researchers are developing a ‘smart’ mirror that detects changes in an individual’s face and breath to help them monitor their health.
The Wize Mirror will use an array of sensors to detect changes in an individual’s face and breath that point to the
onset of diabetes, a heart attack or other cardiovascular diseases.
The Wize Mirror, being developed by Semeoticons, a research group backed by the European Commission, then provides a health score and suggest lifestyle changes.
A multispectral imaging system, which uses five cameras to capture specific wavelengths of light and a skin heater to stimulate the face, analyses tissue for fat content and blood for haemoglobin levels.
A 3D scanner constructs a digital model of the face for analysis by software for shape changes, such as weight gain or swelling, while software checks for signs of stress, fatigue or anxiety, ‘The Times’ reported.
The Wize Sniffer captures breath samples to detect toxic molecules that suggest the use of tobacco and alcohol. The whole process takes about a minute.
Clinical trials of the Wize Mirror are expected to begin next year in Italy and France.
 

#* Google Hangouts Gets New Custom Invitation Options

Google has quietly rolled out a new feature to its Hangouts app that gives users control over how others get in touch. The new 'customise invites' option in Hangouts lets users choose to receive invites from people who have their phone number, those who have their email address, or everyone else. 
hangouts_customise_invites_screenshot_ndtv.jpg
The new feature doesn't require any app update and seems to be a server-side update that enables the new "customise invites" option.
The new option can be found in settings of the Hangouts app under "How others get in touch with you." On tapping the 'Customise invites,' users are given three options: people who have your phone number; people who have your email, and everyone else. All the three options further offer three ways for these people to contact you - can contact you directly, can send an invite, and can't contact you.

Notably, the Hangouts app shows the default option for all three new 'customise invites' options as 'can send an invite'.

Google back in May at a Reddit AUA (Ask Us Anything) session had revealed its role in assisting the US government in surveillance and disclosed it does encrypted Hangouts conversations but remained unclear on the use of end-to-end encryption. It later, separately clarified that Hangouts does not use end-to-end encryption.

In the post-Snowden world, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) has been a topic of concern with respect to various services that involve communication. While WhatsApp late last year added end-to-end encryption to its messaging service, there are still a few services that have still do not feature the same, which makes them susceptible to interception.

#* World glaciers melting faster than ever

London: The intense ice loss of the past two decades has resulted in a strong imbalance of glaciers in many regions of the world, says an alarming study, indicating that glaciers will suffer further ice loss even if the climate remains stable.

"The observed glaciers currently lose between half a meter and one meter of its ice thickness every year. This is two to three times more than the corresponding average of the 20th century,” explained Michael Zemp, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service at University of Zurich, Switzerland, and lead author of the study.

Exact measurements of this ice loss are reported from a few hundred glaciers only.

"However, these results are qualitatively confirmed from field and satellite-based observations for tens of thousands of glaciers around the world,” he added.

According to the team, the current rate of glacier melt is without precedence at global scale, at least for the time period observed and probably also for recorded history.

In addition, the study shows that the long-term retreat of glacier tongues is a global phenomenon.

Glacier tongues in Norway have retreated by some kilometres from its maximum extents in the 19th century.

The World Glacier Monitoring Service has compiled worldwide data on glacier changes for more than 120 years.

It just published a new comprehensive analysis of global glacier changes in the Journal of Glaciology.

In this study, observations of the first decade of the 21st century (2001-2010) were compared to all available earlier data as well as to reconstructions from pictorial and written sources.

#* Ban idiots who ban things: Sonam Kapoor on #PornBan

The government's porn ban has elicited equal measure surprise and ridicule on the social media. Celebs voiced their opinion on the recent decision and called it "impractical", "illegal" and "impossible". Some even surmised that after beef and porn, what would the government ban next?

Actor Sonam Kapoor called it out by tweeting, "Ban idiots who think banning things is going to make a difference to Indian mentality.. #sooverthisgovt  #NextBanIdea #sick #ashamed."
Author Chetan Bhagat took the issue headlong when he wrote on Twitter, "Don't ban porn. Ban men ogling, leering, brushing past, groping, molesting, abusing, humiliating and raping women. Ban non-consent. Not sex. Porn ban is anti-freedom, impractical, not enforceable. Politically not very smart too. avoidable. Let's not manage people's private lives.Porn ban is anti-freedom, impractical, not enforceable. Politically not very smart too. avoidable. Let's not manage people's private lives."
Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma shared a series of tweets on the subject. He wrote, "The best way to tackle a presumed menace is to bring it out in open rather than pushing it under the rug or pretending it doesn't exist. History proved it multiple times that if anytime anything is banned it will just gather strength in the underground. All in all any deprivation of personal liberty of an individual by a government  amounts to a regression of social progress of that country."
Actor Uday Chopra tweeted, "So India bans porn. Will this decision lower the cases of sexual violence or increase it. I wonder." He then followed it up by asking people what should be banned next.  
 Rajeev Khandelwal, actor: By acting so strict,  the government will lose the youth’s support. Some choices are best left to individuals in a democracy Rajeev Khandelwal, actor

Mayur Puri, screenwriter: Dear government, what you really need to ban is illegal sharing of music and films on the internet. That’s killing the industry.

Onir, filmmaker: We never really address the issue, we are constantly trying to curb freedom. This will only encourage illegal activities. 

#* Pakistan's got talent! Post your cricket videos online and get picked, says PCB

Karachi: The PCB has found an unique way to tap budding talent as a launch of web portal is on the anvil in order to give the spotters an idea about the reservoir of talent in the region.
According to information received, the PCB will shortly launch a website on which any player who believes he is good enough to be considered for competitive cricket, can post a short video of his batting or bowling skills and other details about himself and his career.
Representational Image. REUTERS.Representational Image. REUTERS.
"These videos will then be viewed on a regular basis by the coaches at the NCA who will assess the talent on display. If the coaches find anyone suitable for future consideration he will then be called to the NCA for a further trial," one board official said.
He said the idea to launch the website was floated by Chairman Shaharyar Khan, who was frankly fed up hearing of complaints that so and so deserving talent was ignored as he didn't have the approach to be considered by the NCA coaches.
"The idea is to not only expand the base of raw talent around the country but to also ensure no deserving player is ignored in future," he said.
The official pointed out that internet facilities were now available even in remote areas of Pakistan so the board was expecting a strong response when the website is launched.
The PCB and its selection committee has in recent times increased its stress on unearthing new talent and currently Pakistan's former captain and fast bowling great, Wasim Akram is supervising a short camp for young pacers in Karachi.
However the bunch of pacers sent to the camp were selected by the national selection committee or regional coaches not by Wasim himself.

#* BCCI claims IPL sponsors backing Board after first working group meeting

New Delhi: The BCCI's four-member working group, formed to study the Justice Lodha panel's verdict relating to the IPL 2013 corruption scandal, on Monday met for the first time to discuss the way forward for the cash-rich league's next edition and said the sponsors were fully behind the Board.
The Board had given the committee six weeks' time to draw up a roadmap for the IPL after the Justice Lodha committee suspended the owners of the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals Gurunath Maiyappan and Raj Kundra while banning the franchises for two years last month.
File picture of Rajeev Shukla. AFPFile picture of Rajeev Shukla. AFP
"We have started meeting all the stakeholders from today. Today the representatives of Yes Bank came and met the members of the working group. Yes Bank is one of our sponsors. Similarly we will meet other sponsors and also speak to them about how to make IPL 9 a success," IPL governing council chairman Rajeev Shukla, who is also heading the working group, said.
After this round in Delhi, the working group will move to Mumbai.
"In Mumbai we plan to meet at least four franchise owners. We have set the ball rolling. We have to discuss all the possibilities about new teams and future of players," he added.
Asked if the sponsors are wary because of the controversies surrounding the T20 tournament, he said "Absolutely not. Sponsors are fully behind us. They are bullish."
On the contentious issue of conflict of interest, Shukla said, "Our president has also issued a statement. All required steps will be taken."

Asked if the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals will need to pay franchise fee during the two years that they are suspended, he said, "No, they don't need to pay anything. Neither do they pay anything to us nor do we have to pay anything to them.
The working group comprises Shukla, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry and IPL governing council member and former captain Sourav Ganguly, and will be assisted by Usha Nath Bannerjee, the Board's legal counsel. All of them were present in today's meeting.
Asked about the working group's views on having two new teams for IPL, Shukla said, "We don't have any views right now. Once we talk to all stakeholders we would then put forward our viewpoint."

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