Today's Hot Stories - February 22, 2014 - PT education

Today's Hot Stories - February 22, 2014

10 Headlines for Today

(1) Raj, Uddhav Thackeray enjoy extra security cover even as their parties run riot
(2) Bapu’s grandson shuns Congress, joins AAP
(3) Obama-Dalai meeting: China summons US diplomat
(4) CSR rules soon with 10 major areas
(5) United Bank of India boss quits on medical grounds
(6) US not targeting Indian drug firms: FDA
(7) IPL 7 all set to embark on African safari
(8) Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer reach Rio Open semifinals
(9) Golf: Oosthuizen, Furyk & Fowler reach last 8
(10) Andhra florist's son tops PG medical entrance

5 Stories for Today

(1) ‘Din yields to calm on final day of 15th Lok Sabha
(2) Statehood demand in US: plan to split California into 6 picks up
(3) India needs to relax labour laws to push growth: OECD
(4) Google's Hangouts blunder helped WhatsApp
(5) Narendra Modi surprises, opts for Rs.40,000 crore vote-on-account

(1) ‘Din yields to calm on final day of 15th Lok Sabha


A day after Parliament passed the contentious Telangana Bill, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the country had the capacity to rise above partisan politics to enact crucial laws in the national interest.

“The passage of the Telangana Bill indicated that this country can take difficult decisions,” Dr. Singh said in his closing remarks in the Lok Sabha on Friday, the last day of the 15th Lok Sabha. The House was later adjourned sine die.

Dr. Singh hoped that a new sense of consensus would emerge “out of this strife and tension that prevailed in the atmosphere at times.”

“We are now entering into a phase — a phase of judgment where people will now have an opportunity to judge the performance, weaknesses and achievements of the government in the upcoming election,” he said.

In his speech, Leader of the House Sushilkumar Shinde said members from the government and the Opposition might vociferously vent their differences inside Parliament, but these sentiments were not carried outside.

Appreciating the Opposition, particularly the Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj, Mr. Shinde said they took together decisions on a number of landmark laws.

He also drew the attention of the House over the manner in which the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act was passed unanimously.

“Just one incident shook us so badly and the House passed the Bill. Despite differences we rose to the occasion and passed the Bill with unanimity, which we usually don’t see,” he said.

As she spoke for the last time, Ms. Swaraj praised UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for her gracefulness and BJP leader L.K. Advani, whose eyes welled up, for his judiciousness.

She said when the 15th Lok Sabha’s history was written, it would say that while there were the most interruptions, much-awaited Bills were also passed. Speaker Meira Kumar said she was pained by the frequent disruptions, and hoped that logic would replace pandemonium.

Source: The Hindu

(2) Statehood demand in US: plan to split California into 6 picks up


A plan to divide California into six separate US states is closer to making it on to a November ballot, with organizers gaining approval to collect signatures.

The seemingly far-fetched initiative, sponsored by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, claims "political representation of California's diverse population and economies has rendered the state nearly ungovernable."

And on Tuesday, the California Secretary of State's office gave the movement a boost, saying that proponents "may begin collecting petition signatures."

At least 807,615 voters--representing eight percent of the total ballots cast for governor in the 2010 election -- will need to sign the petition by July 18 to make it on to the ballot.

The proposal aims to split the state--America's most populous with around 38 million inhabitants--into "six smaller state governments, while preserving the historical boundaries of the various counties, cities and towns."

In 2012, California was tied with Russia and Italy--all with a GDP of approximately $2.0 trillion--for eighth place in world GDP rankings, according to the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

The proposal would create a state out of Silicon Valley, home to tech giants Google, Facebook and Apple. It would also create South California, which would include Hollywood and the US entertainment industry. West California, Central California, North California, and Jefferson in the most northern part of the state, would also go it alone.

According to the proposal, voters overwhelming approved dividing California in two in 1859, but Congress did not act due to the Civil War. Draper, who has funded more than 400 companies including Skype and Baidu, is founder of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, California.

Source: Hindustan Times

(3) India needs to relax labour laws to push growth: OECD


India needs to reconsider its overly stringent labour regulations to return to higher growth trajectory while globally the world needs to boost productivity and lower trade barriers to avoid a new era of slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned on Friday.

In its 2014 study on "Going for Growth", OECD said momentum on reforms had slowed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, with much of it now piecemeal and incremental.

"The widespread deceleration in productivity since the crisis could presage the beginning of a new low-growth era," warned Pier Carlo Padoan, deputy secretary-general and chief economist at the Paris-based OECD.

"These concerns, already prevalent among advanced OECD countries for some time, now encompass emerging-market economies and are fuelled also by high unemployment and falling labour force participation in many countries."

Commenting on India, the report said India needs to address its infrastructure shortfalls, pervasive state control in business activities and unequal access to quality education.

"India is experiencing a slowdown in economic growth since 2012. In order to maintain robust growth, it needs to reconsider overly stringent labour regulations which hinder job creation in the formal sector and leave most workers with no formal labour contract and social coverage," it said.

According to OECD, a more inclusive education system would help reducing severe poverty and inequality, while labour market reform would help reduce informality in India. India's GDP growth stood at 9% in the 11th plan (2007-12 ).

It fell to 4.5% in 2012-13 and is estimated to be only slightly better in the current fiscal at 4.9%. However, the target for the entire 12th five year plan period (2012-17 ) is 8%. OECD has been recommending India on issues related to sectors like education, labour, trade infrastructure and finance.

Some of these include, increasing the efficiency of education services, increase formal employment in labour market, reducing barriers to foreign trade and investment, promoting more effective infrastructure-related regulation and undertaking wide-ranging financial sector reforms such as easing bank portfolio restriction and allowing greater participation of foreign investors in financial services sector.

"However, the notable reforms in the country in the past two years include addressing the infrastructure bottlenecks, the reform of the land acquisition law and the relaxation of FDI restrictions in various sectors, including in multi-brand retail and civil aviation," it said.

Source: The Economic Times

(4) Google's Hangouts blunder helped WhatsApp


Just a few days before WhatsApp founders agreed to sell the company to Facebook, they were reportedly contacted by Google CEO Larry Page. According to a report on the Fortune website, Google had earlier offered $10 billion for WhatsApp but the deal did not materialize. This time Page told WhatsApp founders that they should remain independent and should not sell their company to Facebook. WhatsApp was doing great on its own, Page reportedly said.

But it is naive to think that what Page told WhatsApp was driven only by his wish to see WhatsApp prosper. While the jury is out on whether Facebook paid too much for the instant messaging service or not, there is no denying that WhatsApp is an impressive service with a big reach on mobile phones. Google and Facebook are fierce competitors and for Google it is definitely a matter of concern if Facebook owns WhatsApp.

But the bigger story here is not that Google missed buying WhatsApp. Vishal Tripathi, principal analyst with Gartner, says that despite owning the world's most widely used mobile operating system, the company has failed to come up with an instant messaging app that users can rely on.

"It looks like Google missed an opportunity here. Android is very popular and used by majority of smartphone users in the world. Blackberry was used by fewer people and yet the Canadian company managed to build BBM into a brand and kind of service that everyone wanted on their phone," he says.

It is not that Google is not aware of the important role that instant messaging app are playing on smartphones. The company had Google Talk app on Android since the beginning of the OS. Though basic, the app was noted for its fast and simple messaging interface.

But in a bid to take on the likes of WhatsApp, Google replaced Talk with Hangouts in May 2013.

The result, however, has not been pretty. Hangouts combined instant messaging with SMS and provided a unified interface. While in theory this sounds impressive, users found the interface on Hangouts confusing and bloated.

Srivatsa Sharma, a social media professional, used Google Talk to keep in touch with his colleagues until November last year. But then the Google Talk app on his phone got updated and was replaced with Hangouts. He found the new app confusing. "It is slow. Messages are delivered after a delay and there is no way to see who is online in my contact list and who is not. I ended up disabling it," he said.

Sharma and all of his colleagues then switched to WhatsApp. The app is not only simpler to use and is much faster but also allowed Sharma to create a specific group that he can use for group discussion with his colleague.

The irony here is that Hangouts app comes pre-installed on almost all new Android phones. But yet no one uses it. It lacks features that WhatsApp offers, especially those related to file sharing and group talks.

In the Android Play Store, Hangouts app has a rating of 3.7 points, which is bad for a Google app. Most of other popular chat apps have a rating of over 4 points. WhatsApp has a rating of 4.5 points while WeChat has a rating of 4.3 points. Even Facebook Messenger, which is not all that popular, has a rating of 4.2 points.

"It's confusing. I love Google apps but this (Hangouts) is really confusing. The Talk app was great! It showed properly who is online, it clearly distinguished between the Talk contacts and normal email addresses. In Hangouts, it says in my contact list that a general email is also my friend... SMS integration: it's bad, it's slow. Why is SMS looking for the internet and slowing down the process of opening the message," notes a review left by an Android user on Hangouts page.

This negative review is not unique. Thousands of Android users have given similar reviews and have left a 1 point rating, the lowest that an app can get in the Play Store, for Hangouts.

While Google has now realized the importance of a good instant messaging app and it may fix Hangouts, Tripathi says that it is too late. "I think it is too late for Google now. WhatsApp has a big lead. Yes, they are trying with Hangouts, but for a company as big as Google, they could have done much better," says Tripathi.

Source: The Times of India

(5) Narendra Modi surprises, opts for Rs 40,000 crore vote-on-account


Awaiting a cue from the new government that will assume power after the Lok Sabha elections, the Narendra Modi-government in Gujarat on Friday chose to present a vote-on-account budget, with an interim plan allocation of Rs 40,000 crore for the first four months of the next fiscal 2014-15, on Friday.

"The Union government has decided to present a vote-on-account for the financial year 2014-15 and therefore it is appropriate that the polices of the state governments are also in line with the approach and direction to be taken by the Government that is formed at the Centre. We have therefore decided to present and seek a vote-on-account for the period from April 1 to July 31, 2014 for the state, to enable us to plan in a sustainable manner," said Nitin Patel, the state finance minister while presenting an interim budget in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly, in presence of Gujarat chief minister and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

"Sufficient time is not there to think over the demands of this year," Patel remarked adding that a "Modified budget" will be presented at a later date incorporating new initiatives under Plan and non-plan sections of the budget for Gujarat.

With elections round the corner, the Gujarat government has not only refrained from imposing any fresh taxes or levies in the interim budget, but also choose not to provide any relief or sops to the people of the state. The interim budget also carries no mention of any new schemes or services.

Patel later told mediapersons that many state governments choose to present a vote-on-account budget during an election year.

"We have not introduced any new taxes since last several years. In spite of this, the state government has been able to implement development activities in the state without any hiccup," Patel told media persons later pointing out how the development expenditure for the upcoming fiscal has gone up to Rs 80,974 crore, which is more than double the non-developmental expenditure of Rs 37,627 crore.

When asked why the state government has not taken any steps to rein in the price rise that is affecting the common man, Patel said, "Keeping a tab on price-rise and inflation is Government of India's responsibility."

The total budget estimate presented in the state assembly for the entire financial year 2014-15 is Rs 1,20,390 crore which is a five percent more than the budget size of 2013-14. The total budget shows a revenue surplus of Rs 7,697 crore, while the fiscal deficit, estimated to be around Rs 17,611 crore, works out to 1.93 percent of the GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product), far below the permissible FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management) limit of three percent. The GSDP of Gujarat (at current prices) stands at Rs 6,70,016 crore for the year 2012-13.

The public debt of the Gujarat government that currently stands at Rs 1.38 lakh crore is expected to increase to 1.53 lakh crore with the net addition of Rs 15,000 crore in 2013-14.

"The advance estimates for 2013-14 show improvement in public debt to GSDP ratio by 0.5 percent. Fiscal deficit to GSDP ratio improved by 0.47 percent than budget estimates for 2013-14 which is mainly on account of healthy revenue surplus. This indicates significant improvement in state finances and full adherence to the FRBM norms," stated a release from the state government.

Source: The Indian Express

Disclaimer: All news stories and content sourced from freely available material on the internet. All sources are acknowledged.