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National: Census indicates alarming level of foeticide in Jammu & Kashmir Primary abstract of 2011 census, has indicated an alarming level of female foeticide in Jammu and Kashmir as a drastic decrease of 79 females per thousand of children has been noticed in the basic age group of 0 to 6 years. In each unit of 2,000 children, there were 941 females and 1059 males in 2001. The ratio has been found to have fallen to 862 females: 1138 males in 2011. This phenomenal decline has brought J&K down to the bottom of the list among all Indian States with just Haryana and Punjab behind it. In child sex ratio, J&K was better off with 963 females in 1981. It gradually dropped. As against the national average of 919 females in 0 to 6 years age group, Haryana (834), Punjab (846), J&K (862), Rajasthan (888) and Gujarat (890). Chhattisgarh (969), Kerala (964), Assam (962), West Bengal (956), Jharkhand (948), and Karnataka (948) have recorded the best figures. In J&K, all the 22 districts have witnessed decrease in the number of female children. Pulwama tops the list with the loss of 217 female children per thousand. Kerala example draws U.N. praise Kerala provides an empirical example to show how it is possible to achieve both growth and improved income distribution through human development. Among three dimensions – education, health and income – the potential lost due to inequalities is the highest in education, while the extent of inequality is staggering in health. This is done using the methodology to estimate a new index called the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), proposed by the UNDP. The loss due to inequality is the highest with respect to education (43 per cent), followed by health (34 per cent), and income (16 per cent). The average loss due to inequality in India is 32 per cent at the all-India level. It is the highest for Madhya Pradesh (36 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (35 per cent) and the lowest for Kerala (17 per cent).Kerala is the only State in the country which remains in the ‘very high human development index (HDI)’ with respect to all the three dimensions, both with and without adjustment for inequality. The loss in the education component on account of inequality at the all-India level is 43 per cent. The loss is the highest in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand (46 per cent) and the lowest in Mizoram (17 per cent) and Kerala (23 per cent). Nagaland (0.987) ranks first in terms of income index, followed by Kerala (0.953) and Punjab (0.915). The lowest ranked are Bihar (0.498) and Orissa (0.504). Book your train tickets from mobiles from July 1 From July 1, you will be able to book your train ticket through your mobile phone at a cost of Rs. 6. IRCTC has developed a software, providing two options of using the mobile phone to book tickets. The SMS process or the menu-based USSD (Unstructured supplementary data) can be used to book tickets at the designated number, which will be released later. Railway Minister C.P. Joshi will launch the scheme on July 1. IRCTC has decided to notify later the designated number for purchase of tickets through mobiles. Passengers will have to register their mobile numbers with IRCTC and 26 banks that are providing the facility before booking the ticket which is a two-SMS process at the cost of Rs. 3 per SMS. Banks will charge payment gateway at the rate of Rs. 5 for any transaction below Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 10 for an amount in excess of this. IRCTC is introducing the mobile wallet concept, from which the ticket fare and its service charge will be deducted. India ranks 141 of 162 countries in peace index India ranks low at 141in this year’s Global Peace Index (GPI) that measured peace in 162 countries, according to 22 qualitative and quantitative indicators of the absence and fear of violence. The major indicators that bring down India’s ranking are militarisation, domestic and international conflicts, and corruption. In the South Asian region, Sri Lanka is one notch above India at rank four while Bhutan is the most peaceful country. It is followed by Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, in that order.

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Cashless treatment for road victims from July 1 The first project of cashless treatment for those injured in road accidents will be launched on the Delhi-Gurgaon-Jaipur national highway on July 1. The 225-km highway is one of the most accident-prone stretches in the country claiming about 250 lives annually. An initiative of the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways C.P. Joshi. The objective is to get medical help within six to seven minutes of an accident and reach medical care in the golden hour for which 10 ambulances will be stationed at vantage points. Treatment will be provided for at least two days at the 51 notified hospitals. The government will bear the cost for a maximum of Rs. 30,000 per victim at Central Government Health Scheme rates. J&K Assembly panel for ban on use of polythene A Jammu and Kashmir Assembly committee has recommended a complete ban on the use of polythene throughout the State. The use of polythene is already banned in Srinagar and many tourist resorts of the State. The committee on environment, which met under the chairmanship of M. Y. Tarigami, discussed various issues related to the adoption of eco-friendly measures. The panel suggested that the district administration should formulate action plans for conservation of wet lands, forests and springs in their respective areas of jurisdiction. Veteran Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla dies Congress veteran Vidya Charan Shukla, who sustained bullet wounds in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh, died at the Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon after suffering from multi-organ failure. He was 84. V C Shukla, a former union minister, was elected to Lok Sabha nine times, the first time in 1957, he was Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting under the late Mrs Indira Gandhi. He had sided with VP Singh in the late 80s and joined the Jan Morcha in the run up to the Parliament elections in 1989. Shukla became a minister in VP Singh government and later switched to Chandrashekhar to remain a minister in the shortlived JD (S) government. CRPF unveils first squad of woman commandos The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has introduced its first 30-member all-woman commando squad. The paramilitary women commando team includes two officers and has undergone a tough regimen of training at Jodhpur Police Academy in Rajasthan. CRPF director general Pranay Sahay said the Mahila battalions of the force were the most manifest form of women's empowerment and had been able to present an example before the country with their courage, dedication and loyalty. The group of 30 bravehearts has also achieved the tag of being the world's first all-women paramilitary pipe band. It made its first public performance at the Kadarpur Group Centre of CRPF. The band, which got its ceremonial colours April 2012, was led by the Major of Pipes sub-inspector Darshana Kumari. The band plans may soon be included in the Gunnies Book of Records for being first such band. India has 50 lakh child labourers Fifty lakh children eke out a livelihood in the country, of whom 17.5 lakh are in Uttarakhand, according to the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). The second-largest share of child labourers comes from West Bengal (5.5 lakh), Rajasthan (4.05 lakh) and Gujarat (3.9 lakh), the NSSO estimated on the eve of the World Day against Child Labour on June 12. Though the ban on child labour in homes and in eateries has been there since 2010, thousands of children work as domestic workers or in 'dhabas' and even in factories under hazardous conditions. International Labour Organisation (ILO) has marked 2013 as the year to combat child domestic labour, which has become a growing menace in India. Child labour in India is governed by the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986.

International: World's oldest person dies in Japan at 116 The world's oldest person has died at the age of 116. Japan's Jiroemon Kimura had been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest living person, the oldest living man and the oldest man ever. He died of natural causes. Kimura, of Kyotango, Japan, was born April 19, 1897. According to Guinness, Kimura was the first man in history to have lived to 116 years old. Kimura became the oldest man ever on Dec. 28, 2012, at the age of 115 years, 253 days, breaking the record set by Christian Mortensen, a Danish immigrant to the United States, whose life spanned from 1882-1998. The title of oldest living person is now another Japanese, Misao Okawa, of Osaka. She is also the world's oldest living woman.

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China links rivers, Yangtze water flows in Yellow River China has achieved a breakthrough in diverting river water to its arid regions, having inaugurated the first phase of a five-decade project to integrate the waters from the mighty Yangtze and Huang He (Yellow) rivers. Water from the lower reaches of the Yangtze, Asia's longest river, flowed through the lower reaches of the Yellow River, marking a milestone in China's south-north water diversion project. Yangtze water was expected to reach the Datun reservoir in east China's Shandong province, at the northern end of the project, in 72 hours, according to the provincial construction management bureau of the south-to-north water diversion project. Some 1.5 billion cubic metres of Yangtze water is expected to be sent to Shandong every year after the phase 1 of the eastern route project is fully operational. Chinese spacecraft blasts off with three astronauts China's latest manned spacecraft successfully blasted off on a 15-day mission to dock with a space lab and educate young people about science. The Shenzhou 10 capsule carrying three astronauts lifted off as scheduled from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert. It is China's fifth manned space mission and its longest. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Long March 2F rocket and will transport the crew to the Tiangong 1, which functions as an experimental prototype for a much larger Chinese space station to be launched in 2020. The craft will spend 12 days docked with the Tiangong. The craft carried two men, mission commander Nie Haisheng and Zhang Xiaoguang, and China's second female astronaut, Wang Yaping. China is hoping to join the United States and Russia as the only countries to send independently maintained space stations into orbit. It is already one of just three nations to have launched manned spacecraft on its own. Wang Yaping, 35, the second woman went into space after Liu Yang in 2012.

Business & Economy: Coal Ministry serves show cause notices on 12 firms The Coal Ministry, has slapped show cause notices on 12 companies, asking them to explain their failure to develop the coal blocks allocated to them by June 30, failing which their coal assets would face de-allocation. The companies, which were issued show cause notices, are: NTPC. SAIL, TVNL, Damodar Valley Corporation, Bhushan Steel and Power, West Bengal Power Development Corporation and Madhya Pradesh State Mining Corporation, Maharashtra State Mining Corporations, Abhijit Infrastructure, Rungta Mines, OCL India and Ocean Ispat. ITC topples ONGC to become second most valued company FMCG major ITC has surpassed state-run energy giant ONGC to become the county's second most valued firm in terms of market valuation, with TCS at the top of chart. ONGC came behind ITC in the ranking of top-10 companies. ITC commanded a market capitalisation of Rs 2,64,908 crore, which is about Rs 972 crore more than ONGC's Rs 2,63,936 crore value. IT major TCS with Rs 2,93,318 crore market cap is the most valued Indian firm. RIL with Rs 2,54,444 crore market value was at fourth position, followed by Coal India (Rs 1,96,881 crore). Western Union ties up with IndusInd bank for SME services Western Union has tied up with private sector lender IndusInd Bank for helping small businesses pay their overseas vendors. Customers will need to have a current account with IndusInd Bank to avail of the facility. The importing SME will pay a fee to IndusInd, which will be arrived at after calculating for money wire charges and foreign exchange spread, for sending the money to the vendor. At present, traders pay their vendors using their banks itself. An average ticket size of an SME transaction through WUBS is about $17,000 globally. The service will be available in 22 cities in the country where IndusInd has branches. Govt bans sale of painkiller The government has banned the sale of widely-used pain-relieving medicine, dextropropoxyphene, in a move that is expected to impact pharma companies' bottom lines. The drug was under the government scanner for the last couple of years, with its sale already banned in the US, UK and other countries earlier. Wockhardt markets dextropropoxyphene as Proxyvon. Wockhardt, already reeling under the import alert on its Waluj plant imposed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently, will take a hit of around Rs 30-40 crore due to the ban of the painkiller drug.

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Adani Ports meets SEBI norm The promoter of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Enterprises, has sold 2.5 per cent of its holding to qualified investors for about Rs.1,000 crore to meet the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s guidelines on minimum public shareholding for listed companies. Shares were sold through the institutional placement programme (IPP). The IPP was subscribed 2.26 times of the issue size and had received applications worth Rs.2,260 crore. The issue price was decided at Rs.150 per equity share. The company has already issued 66.7 million equity shares of the face value of Rs.2 each, at a premium of Rs.148 a share. India to import 20 mt of LNG Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Veerappa Moily, said various state-run companies in the oil and gas sectors had initiated talks with international players to buy as much as 20 million tonnes (mt) a year of LNG. India has now become fifth largest importer of LNG after Japan, South Korea, the U.K. and Spain, and accounts for 5.5 per cent of the total trade. The nation at present has three operational LNG import facilities 10 million tonne terminal at Dahej and 3.6 million tonne plant at Hazira in Gujarat and 5 million tonne terminal at Dabhol in Maharashtra. A 5 mt capacity terminal is to be commissioned in Kochi in Kerala in 2013.