October 28, 2009 South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) Ministerial Council in Kathmandu
South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) Ministerial Council was held in Kathmandu. India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said with the recession in the developed markets, all SAARC member-nations would have witnessed a slowdown in their exports. He emphasized on the increase intra-regional trade as a cushion against slowdown in exports to the US and European markets.

October 28, 2009: NREGA card now a valid document for opening a Bank account
NREGA card will now be a valid document for opening a bank account. In this regard the central Government has asked the state governments to ensure that NREGA job cards are ‘complete in all respect’ and verified before being issued. This advisory was released by Ministry of Rural development to all the states.

What is to verify?
The ministry asked the state governments to ensure that the job cards had the unique identity number, photographs of the registered members, postal account number or bank account number, elector’s photo identity card number, signature or thumb impression of the applicant, seal and signature of the registering authority and signature of the officer.

October 28, 2009: What is OWL 2?
OWL 2 is a new Internet language which was developed by an international team led by computer scientists from Oxford University and the University of Manchester. This language will enable computers to unravel the complex terminology used by experts such as doctors, engineers and life scientists, and understand what they really mean. To help computers understand and analyse specialised medical terms is one of the first and most important applications of the new language . A good example of the scale of the problem facing medics and computer scientists is the NCI Cancer Thesaurus that has swollen from 20,000 medical terms in 2004 to over 50,000 terms at present. OWL 2 definitions can be written in such a way that computer programs can tirelessly update these terms thereby updating the structure of the Thesaurus and pointing out where there are errors which is a mammoth task for humans.

October 28, 2009: Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 is effective now
Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 was passed by both the Houses of Parliament in December 2008 and was notified in February 2009. The act became effective on October 28, 2009. The act aims at tightening procedures and safeguards to monitor and intercept data to prevent cybercrimes.
The act deals with monitoring and interception. Apart from this it deals with the appointment of Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, which deals with computer security and situations arising from cyber attacks.

Please note that the government, under Section 69A of the amended IT Act, can ‘block public access of any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in a computer resource’ in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of India ; defence of India; security of the state; friendly relations with foreign states; public order; and to prevent incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to the above.

October 28, 2009: New Deputy Governor at RBI – Sabir Gokarn
Subir Gokarn will be the new deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India. RBI has four posts of Deputy Governors and the fourth post was vacated by Rakesh Mohan. Sabir Gokarn is Global rating agency Standard and Poor’s Asia-Pacific chief economist.

Please Note the names of 4 RBI Deputy Governors: Usha Thorat , KC Chakrabarty, Shyamala Gopinath & Sabir Gokarn.

October 29, 2009 : CSR Asia’s Asian Sustainability Ranking- India on Number 4
India is on number four among the countries who put heavy emphasis on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibilty) disclosure norms. The list has been topped by Australia, followed by China, HongKong and India. The top 10 companies in India’s CSR rankings include Tata Consultancy Services, ITC, Infosys Technologies, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharti Airtel, Steel Authority of India Ltd, and NMDC Ltd.

October 29, 2009: Latest Figures on India’s Exports. Decline by 13.8%
India’s exports in September stood at $13.6 billion, against $15.8 billion in the same month in 2008. The decline is 13.8 % . Exports are declining for the last 12 months. In May the exports declined by 39.2% followed by 31.9 % in June, 28.4% in July and 19.5 % in August. So the rate of decline is slowly decreasing. Industry is waiting for better days ahead.

October 29, 2009: India’s rank in various Indices:
Please note the following for Objective Type exams: India’s rank in the latest indices measuring various life & development aspects.

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