Today's Hot Stories - March 01, 2014
10 Headlines for Today(1) Burqas turn trendy among Muslim girls, maulanas fume
(2) Sonia buries alliance rumour with TMC
(3) Pak set to get Chinese submarines
(4) Maruti Suzuki sales decline marginally in Feb
(5) FMCG companies rush to fill gaps in market
(6) Man sues McDonald's for $1.5m over 'napkin dispute'
(7) Federer out of Bhupathi-linked IPTL
(8) Tennis: Berdych through to Dubai Open final
(9) Hockey: Delhi beat Kerala in national hockey
(10) No. of Indian pupils going to UK dipped by 21% in 2013
5 Stories for Today
(1) Manipulation of opinion polls: EC asks Centre to take action
(2) Britain unveils the world's largest aircraft
(3) Govt cautious on cancer drug patent regimes
(4) Apple Inc.'s Tim Cook takes pot shots at Google over Android
(5) Fiscal deficit exceeds revised Budget estimates
(1) Manipulation of opinion polls: EC asks Centre to take action
Acting on a complaint by Congress on alleged manipulation of opinion polls by some organisations, the Election Commission has asked the Centre to take “appropriate action” in the matter.
In a communication to the ministries of Corporate Affairs and Information and Broadcasting, the EC has said the matter involves allegations of conspiracy to prepare false reports/polls for publishing misleading information on consideration of illegal payment of money in return.
“Therefore, it is requested that this complaint may be looked into urgently for appropriate action at your end,” K. Ajaya Kumar, the Principal Secretary of Election Commission of India wrote to the secretaries of the two ministries.
The EC said that it has received a complaint from Congress on a sting operation conducted by some of the organisations engaged in conducting opinion polls in connection with the elections.
“The allegation is that the organisations have agreed to manipulate the results of opinion polls by tweaking figures for publishing to the general public,” the poll panel noted.
Taking exception to alleged manipulation of opinion poll results by leading agencies, Congress had on Wednesday knocked at the EC’s doors seeking its intervention to register an FIR, invoke criminal charges and debar those involved.
Expressing happiness over the EC’s decision, the Secretary of AICC Legal and Human Department cell K.C. Mittal said, “The action taken would expose the nexus, manipulations and the vulnerability of opinion polls and the manner in which the fake projections are being used to mislead the people of India to project certain individuals and parties.”
In its missive to the EC, the Congress had also demanded that the Commission invoke its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution to ensure free and fair polls by issuing instructions banning opinion polls until expiry of 48 hours from the close of polling for Lok Sabha elections.
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath and other ECs, Mr. Mittal had sought the Commission’s immediate intervention and issuance of appropriate instructions to restrict publication of such opinion polls.
Besides, the party had also sought the EC’s intervention in registering an FIR and debarring those involved.
The Congress complaint came after a TV news channel claimed that a sting operation conducted by it had shown that some of the agencies which conduct opinion polls before elections are willing to tweak their findings for money.
The channel claimed that its sting operation had “exposed” 11 agencies which conducted opinion polls.
Source: The Hindu
(2) Britain unveils the world's largest aircraft
Britain has unveiled the world's largest aircraft—a 300 feet long monster which is part plane, airship and helicopter, capable of flying non-stop for three weeks without refuelling.
This £60 million new airship is about 60 feet longer than the biggest airliners, the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8.
Plans are to include two hovercraft type vehicles to the bottom so that the plane can land safely even on water. Capable of carrying 50 passengers on board, the company developing it says it is expected to transport 50 tonnes of freight.
Once completed for flight later in this year, the aircraft will be even bigger—390 feet long, 196 feet wide and 115 feet high—making it taller than London's iconic clock tower the Big Ben.
It has been created by Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd (HAV). The plane has had a test flight on American skies. Originally developed for the US military, the helium-filled hybrid Airlander project was scrapped owing to budget cuts. The British company now developing it believes the aircraft will change air travel forever because of the low levels of fuel use and noise pollution.
Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden, one of the shareholders in the parent company making the ship compared it to Thunderbird 2 and described the creation as a "game changer." Britain meanwhile pumped £2.5 million grant to fund research into energy efficient and quieter planes.
HAV also disclosed plans of producing 1,000 of these type of airships. Stephen McGlennan, chief executive, said: "HAV can solve aerospace industry's key challenges—creating a viable low-carbon aircraft which can travel for days and for thousands of miles without refuelling, landing without the need for airports."
Source: The Times of India
(3) Govt cautious on cancer drug patent regimes
Amid heightened scrutiny of the intellectual property regime, the government has decided to tread with caution on a compulsory licence for a cancer drug to ensure that its decision is in line with the legal provisions.
While compulsory licencing, which entails waiver of patent under extreme situations, for three cancer drugs was being pushed by the health ministry, the issue is now limited to Dasatinib, a medicine to treat a type of cancer of the white blood cells, for which Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) holds a patent.
Sources said that the commerce and industry ministry recently wrote to the health ministry, rejecting the plea that the government should issue a compulsory licence under section 92 of the Patents Act. Using this provision, the government can only waive the BMS's patent rights in case of a national emergency or a circumstance of extreme urgency, which was not the case at the moment.
There is a third possibility as well, which is to suspend the rights for public non-commercial use in special circumstances, including public health crisis. In fact, the Patents Act has listed AIDS, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics as examples.
Sources said that in case of Dasatinib, this provision may be used but then the health ministry has to clearly show that it has the budget to procure the medicine and supply it under a plan for cancer patients. "You can't expect a manufacturer to sell the medicine below cost," said a source.
Sources said that the commerce & industry ministry has pointed out that availability of patented drugs at affordable prices, which is being cited by the health ministry for granting a patent waiver, should not be dealt by the government. In fact, the health ministry was recently told that section 84 of the Patents Act clearly stipulates that compulsory licence can be issued if a "patented invention is not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price".
But the government does not have powers under the law to suspend patent rights on the grounds of affordability. The law only allows the Patent Office, which is an independent agency, to issue a compulsory licence. Last October, the Patent Office had rejected an application from BDR Pharma to make a generic version of BMS's Dasatinib, which is sold under the Sprycel brand. The proposal was rejected on the grounds that the Indian company did not make enough efforts to obtain a voluntary licence for the anti-cancer drug.
Source: The Economic Times
(4) Apple Inc.'s Tim Cook takes pot shots at Google over Android
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook took pot shots at Google Inc, saying that most users of its Android mobile operating system are using older versions, presenting a security threat. In contrast, he said, 89 per cent of users of devices based on Apple Inc.'s iOS operating system have the most recent version of the software.
Apple Inc.'s ability to again transform the fast-moving technology arena is the central question in investors' and Silicon Valley executives' minds as the company's growth slows, and rivals like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Google Inc take chunks out of its market share.
Industry executives and Apple Inc. observers continue to believe that the company will come up with some sort of wearable device, like a smartwatch, and speculation persists about a long-rumored TV product of some sort to shake up the living room viewing experience.
"We're working on some things that are extensions of things you can see and some that you can't see," Cook said at the annual meeting, referring to a 32 percent increase in research and development costs last year.
Responding to a question about innovation, Tim Cook said Apple preferred not to talk about new products under development so as not to tip off the competition.
"You can see we're getting ripped off left, right and sideways," he said.
Apple's shares fell 0.27 percent to close at $526.24 on Friday. They have clawed back substantial ground since falling below $400 in June, but remain well below the record-high $700 level of 2012, weighed by concerns about whether the company has any new hit products in the pipeline.
Though Cook steered clear of that discussion, he shed some more light on the Apple TV business, which executives have long referred to as a "hobby" for a company expected to chalk up some $181 billion in sales this fiscal year.
Apple Inc. sold more than $1 billion of Apple TV set-top boxes in 2013 and is investing heavily in the next generation of products, Chief Executive Tim Cook said at the company's annual meeting on Friday.
The $99 Apple TV set-top box, which streams content from Netflix and other video sources to a TV, had racked up $1 billion in sales in the past year, he said.
"It's a little more difficult to call it a hobby these days," Cook said.
Shareholders at the annual meeting at Apple's Cupertino, California, headquarters re-elected all board members.
In the run-up to the meeting at 1 Infinite Loop, many investors had publicly debated whether Apple should not put any of its massive cash pile to better use.
Cook said the company will provide an update within 60 days on how it will use the cash, which totaled nearly $160 billion at the end of 2013. That time frame is in line with Apple's previous comments that it would announce its latest cash management plans around April.
Apple repurchased $14 billion in stock in a two-week period earlier this year, under pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, who had been publicly calling for the iPhone-maker to buy back an additional $50 billion of stock on top of its existing buyback program.
The billionaire investor, who in late January said he held more than $4 billion of Apple shares, withdrew his shareholder proposal following Apple's announcement of the buyback.
Some analysts believe Apple may eventually dip into its coffers to buy something big. The iPhone maker has so far shied away from the mega-acquisitions that far more aggressive rivals like Google and Facebook Inc have pursued, though Cook did not rule out forking over a big sum of cash if warranted.
Cook said Apple has acquired 23 companies in the last 16 months and remained on the lookout for interesting technology and companies.
Apple is not in a race to acquire the most companies or to spend the most money, but that "doesn't mean we won't buy a huge company tomorrow afternoon," he said.
And he warned shareholders not to focus too narrowly on short-term gains.
"If you're in Apple for only a week ... or two months, I would encourage you not to invest in Apple," he said.
"We are here for the long term."
Source: The Indian Express
(5) Fiscal deficit exceeds revised Budget estimates
The fiscal deficit in the 10 months through January, 2014, has overshot revised estimates of Rs.5.24 lakh crore for this fiscal provided by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in his interim Budget last week.
According to the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) on Friday, the fiscal deficit during April-January 2013-14 worked out to be Rs.5.32 lakh crore or 101.6 per cent of the revised estimates.
The government had in the Budget for 2013-14 proposed to bring down the fiscal deficit to 4.8 per cent of GDP or Rs.5.42 lakh crore. This figure, however, was revised downwards in the interim Budget to Rs.5.24 lakh crore or 4.6 per cent of the GDP.
With actual figures for February and March yet to come, it would be difficult for the government to restrict the fiscal deficit, which is a reflection of government’s market borrowings to revised level.
As per the CGA data, the revenue deficit during the 10-month period through January was Rs.3.79 lakh crore or 102.3 per cent of the revised estimate.
Government’s total expenditure, however, was only 79.8 per cent of the revised estimates of Rs.15.90 lakh crore. The data further revealed that revenue receipts during April-January period were Rs.7.22 lakh crore or 70.1 per cent of the revised estimates.
Source: Hindustan Times
Disclaimer: All news stories and content sourced from freely available material on the internet. All sources are acknowledged.
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