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MARCH THE 12TH

,2011.

A massive tsunami of 8.9 magnitude on the Richter Scale was triggered by an offshorequake in the North-western Japan. The epicentre was about 400 km (250 miles) north east

of Japan. It was 23 feet in height, and was followed by 50 aftershocks for hours. Many of

these aftershocks were more than a magnitude of 6.0. The Tsunami ran through the

Pacific at a speed of 800 kmph or 500 mph..

Tsunami waves hit Hawaii. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Kauai was the

first of the Hawaiian Islands hit by the tsunami. The Japanese government declared an atomic power emergency and evacuated

thousands of residents living close to the Fukushima nuclear plant in northern Japan after

the major earthquake even though there was no radiation leak from the facility and

problems with its cooling system were not critical.

The Central Bureau of Investigation questioned Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal and daughter Kanimozhi in connection with the 2G

spectrum scam. This is nearly a month after conducting a search at the Kalaigar TV.

1

Hataf-2 (Abdali) - Pakistans short range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, tested

successfully.

Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, announced the setting up of a group to quantify theblack money being generated. According to him, the I-T department recovered

undisclosed income of Rs.25,000 crore in the last 24 months.

The Lok Sabha unanimously gave the first stage of approval to the general budget for2011-12 by voice vote. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee vowed to achieve 9 per cent

growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during 2011-12 against 8.6 per cent this

year.

Also, an increase in the allocation of the Member of Parliament Local Area

Development Fund (MPLAD) to Rs. 5 crore from the present Rs. 2 crore was

announced by him.

1 Managing Director: Sharad Kumar


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MARCH THE 13TH

,2011

A special court in Pune disallowed the Enforcement Directorate's plea for the custody ofthe Pune- based businessman, Hasan Ali Khan, citing lack of reasonable grounds for

believing that the accused is guilty under the PMLA [the Prevention of Money

Laundering Act]. Hasan Ali Khan was alleged of money laundering. He is alleged to have

unaccounted wealth or black money worth billions of rupees in the Swiss bank. The

Enforcement Directorate of the Income Tax department, Maharashtra began probing the

illegal investments and the charges of money laundering against him.

Saldanha Report: By Justice Saldanha on violence against minorities in Karnataka. Thereport holds Karnataka's Bharatiya Janata Party government and the Hindutva brigade

culpable for the on going anti-minority violence in the State (incidents mostly involve

violence against Churches; and moral policing of inter-religious interactions in

Mangalore)

A high power review committee, consisting of cabinet secretary B.K.Chaturvedi andProfessor Roddam Narasimha, tasked by the government to review the controversial

agreement between Antrix Corporation and Devas Multimedia Private Ltd, submitted its

report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. (Compulsory reading:

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article1200374.ece ).

The committee was asked to go into all aspects of the satellite deal in which the

private company (Devas) was given virtually exclusive rights to S-band spectrum.

The Antrix-Devas deal was scrapped last month following a decision of the Cabinet

Committee on Security.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests issued a show cause to M/s Nirma Limited forpermanent suspension of work and revocation of the environmental clearance'' regarding

some of their plants near Padhiarka village in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat.The show cause has been issued under Section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act,

1986 to avoid any further damage to the wetland. The Expert Appraisal Committee

(EAC) was constituted by the Environment Ministry to inspect the plant site and to

oversee the implementation of the project by M/s Nirma Limited with reference to the

Environmental Impact Assessment report.

The government is framing a new law to deal with acts of piracy and other complicatedissues on the high seas. There is no exclusive Indian law dealing with piracy. Varioussections of UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea) define piracy.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article1200374.ecehttp://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article1200374.ecehttp://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article1200374.ece


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Gudsa Usendi is the title taken over by a high ranking member and spokesperson of theDandakaranya Special Zonal (DKZ) Committee of the banned Communist Party of India

(Maoist).

Gudsa Usendi is the shadowy figure who sent compact discs of Maoist propaganda to

Raipur politicians in 2006 and was the source of a consignment of 91 country-made

shotguns recovered from a busy intersection in Raipur in 2008.

Posterousblogging site with additional features to share videos and images was startedin 2008 by Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan with the intention of making blogging as

simple as emailing.

The draft proposal to amend the Indian IT Act so as to impose restrictions onintermediaries has provoked a huge outcry in the country. The proposed rules seek to

control the intermediaries' such as telecom networks, web-hosting sites and Internet

service providers, search engines, online payment, cyber cafes and auction sites, it is the

focus on blogs that has provoked an outburst owing to the vague reasons given by the

government to block certain websites.

Global Agriculture Investors Meet to be held in June in Bengaluru.MARCH THE 14

TH,2011.

The Government of India has proposed to nominate the name of Assam's river-island,Majuli, for inclusion in the cultural landscape' category of the United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage list.

Considered the largest freshwater river-island in the world, Majuli is located in the

middle of the mighty Brahmaputra. Majuli was shortlisted in the World Heritage Site

(WHS) Tentative List' at the World Heritage Committee session at Suzhou in China.

The nomination of Hyderabad's three Qutb Shahi monuments for the UNESCO WorldHeritage award is also being considered.

The Direct Taxes Code (DTC), which is now before Parliament, is expected to bringabout many salutary changes in direct taxes. One important change being, to

consolidate and integrate all direct tax laws and simplify the tax provisions by using

simple language.

Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC): CHAIRMAN: P.C. Chacko, Congress MP fromKerala's Thrissur


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PURPOSE: To probe into the 2G spectrum allocation issue. Prime Minister Manmohan

Singh would be called before the panel only if it was absolutely necessary and there

was a consensus among members.

STRENGTH: 30

How many JPCs so far?4 none of the four earlier JPCs had called a Prime Minister

and that such a step would be taken only if it was required for the fair conclusion of

the Committee's work.

Have any of them called the PM before?: No. Even for the current JPC the chairman

has explicitly mentioned that the PM will be called only if it is absolutely necessary

and if there is a consensus among the members.

Vinod Mehta of Outlook and Manu Joseph of Open Magazine were among the first topublish transcripts of tapped conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia

and others.

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) Chairman and Managing Director:S.K. Jain.

Miyagia prefecture2 in north-west Japan which was severely hit by the tsunami. Maharashtra CM: Prithvi Raj Chavan, was an MoS in the Prime Ministers Office

during the (now struck down) appointment of CVC P. J. Thomas.

Orissa's Science and Technology and Information Technology Minister RameshChandra Majhi is appearing for his Higher Secondary Examination this year.

MARCH THE 15TH

,2011. Public Accounts Committee is also probing the 2G spectrum. Its chairman is Murli

Manohar Joshi. America based General Electronics Co. built a reactor in Japan's quake-hit Fukushima

nuclear power plant (NPP). Major problems have arisen as it eyes a share in Indias

expanding nuclear industry which is supposedly worth $150 billion. Nuclear power plant to be built up at Jaitapur. Based on EPR technology.

2 Japan is divided into sub-national jurisdictions called prefectures.


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The Navy apprehended 61 pirates and rescued 13 crew members of a hijacked shipafter a brief gun battle in the Arabian Sea. The pirates will be brought aboard naval

warship INS Tabar to Mumbai. The hijacked ship was Vega 5. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal involved in alleged scam on

allotment of kiosks in Chandigarh.MARCH THE 16

TH,2011.

Koodankulam Nuclear Power plant- Tamil Nadu Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing into the 2002 Godhra riots case is being

chaired by R.K. Raghavan.

The United Progressive Alliance government has invited their leaders of Jats fromUttar Pradesh and Haryana to find an amicable solution to their demand for

reservation in Central Government jobs under the Other Backward Classes (OBC)

category.

The Supreme Court reserved verdict on the plea for reinvestigating the TulsiramPrajapati fake encounter case3 by the CBI.

Foreign Ministers from the G8 (the world's seven richest nations and Russia) failed toreach any agreement on a military intervention or even the establishment of a no-fly

zone against Colonel Qadhafi's forces in Libya.

France was the first country to recognise the rebel National Transition Council basedin Benghazi.

A tri-nation monitoring group of diplomats has been established in Dubai tobrainstorm ways of rescuing sailors on board ships that Somali pirates have hijacked.

This group consists of Consul Generals of India4, Yemen and the Philippines.

Mauritius5 has conferred one of its highest honours, Grand Commander of the Orderof the Star and the Key of the Indian Ocean (GCSK), on Maldivian President

Mohamed Nasheed.

3 Prajapati was killed in an alleged staged shootout on Dec 28, 2006 before the state CID(crime), then probingthe Sohrabuddin case, could record his statement. He was the sole eye-witness in the killing of Sheikh and theelimination of his wife Kauserbi.4 Sanjay Verma, Indian Consul-General.

5

President of Mauritius Anerood Jugnauth


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The India Aviation meet, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) washeld in New Delhi.

Civil Aviation Secretary: Nasim Zaidi

CII National Committee on Civil Aviation Chairman and Kingfisher Airlines CMDVijay Mallya.

Maruti Suzuki India rolled out its ten millionth car. It was a metallic breeze bluecoloured WagonR VXi rolled out from the company's Gurgaon plant.

MARCH THE 17TH

,2011.

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) General SecretaryJayalalithaa will contest from Srirangam6 in the April 13 Tamil Nadu Assembly

elections.

The Supreme Court has declined permission to a women's organisation, AkhilaDakshta Samiti, for seeking a review of the judgment7describing a woman as keep'

arguing that such an expression was derogatory to and discriminatory against women

on the basis of marital status.

The Supreme Court observed that Article 21 of the Constitution (right to life andliberty) would apply even to a foreign national staying in India. The SC made this

observation while staying the deportation until further orders of a Libyan researcher,

Aiad Amar Saad Mohamed, whose visa is due to expire.8

A high-power committee headed by Prof. Madhava Menon was constituted to evolvea comprehensive policy for autonomy of central educational institutions.' It has called

for sweeping changes in the higher education system. It recommends:

that the office of the Visitor for central universities be done away with and thepowers transferred to the Chancellor;

6She contested from Andipatti in Theni district in the last two Assembly elections.

7 A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and T.S. Thakur said: If a man has a keep' whom he maintainsfinancially and uses mainly for sexual purpose and/or as a servant it would not, in our opinion, be a relationshipin the nature of marriage' for her to claim the benefit of live-in to get maintenance under the Protection ofWomen from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. Merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would notmake it a domestic relationship'.

8 Mr. Mohammed was compelled to go to Libya to get his visa extended, he pleaded that such compulsion at atime when there are no international flights operating is a violation of his human rights.


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that all legislative framework under which these universities are established beuniformly revised and brought under a common Act.

If the recommendations are accepted, all central universities will be made to undergo

a comprehensive review of their functioning once every 10 years by an external

agency. The President is the Visitor for all the central universities.

The book, The Legislature and the Judiciary: Judicial Pronouncements on Parliamentand State Legislatures is a joint product of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat and the Indian

Law Institute.

Arrested U.S. Embassy staffer Raymond Davis was freed after blood money was paidin accordance with Sharia law hours after he was indicted for murder by a SessionsCourt in Lahore.

Emergency declared in in Baharain. Security forces in Bahrain have unleashed amassive crackdown, to crush what essentially has been a pro-democracy revolt in the

Kingdom.

MARCH THE 18TH

,2011.

The Panthers Party and the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir oppose the proposal ofchanging the nomenclature of the Governor to Sadr-e-Riyasat' and that of Chief

Minister to Wazir-e-Azam' alleging that it is a plot to project to the outside world

that Jammu and Kashmir is a separate sovereign country.

The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has done away with the controversialfinger test' conducted during a medical examination to help ascertain whether a

victim of sexual assault was sexually experienced or not. It will now be done only if

necessary.

The pro forma of the medical examination report for sexual assault victims has alsobeen simplified to make it more gender-sensitive.

The U.S. Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, visited Jammu and Kashmir. The Union Cabinet extended by a year the term of the existing Board of Governors of

the Medical Council of India. The amendment awaits approval from Parliament. It is a

six-member Board of Governors, headed by S.K. Sarin.


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The Union Finance Ministry approved 9.5 per cent interest to about 5 crore PFsubscribers by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO).

Bahraini authorities have reinforced the crackdown on the pro-democracy uprising inthe country by arresting top opposition. The police specially targeted the leadership ofthe Haq movement, which is playing a leading role in the protests. Haq party's leader

Hassan Mushaima

Patrons of the Poor: Caste Politics and Policymaking in India, written by NarayanLakshman is a comparative analysis of the policy-making processes and political

histories of Tamil Nadu.

CG

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