India has to homogenise liability law, says GE chief – (Environment)
- Unless an agreement is reached with the U.S. on “common language” on the civil nuclear liability law, General Electric will not invest in India’s nuclear energy industry, CEO Jeff Immelt said here on Monday.
- Mr. Immelt also said GE, the world’s largest infrastructure company with a revenue of $146 billion in 2012-13, would like to see the reforms Mr. Modi has initiated to continue.
India calls Ambassador back for consultations – (International Relation)
- “Deeply concerned” over the continuing violence in Nepal, and the impact of Kathmandu’s decision to adopt the new Constitution despite India’s advice, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Monday called Indian Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae back to Delhi for consultations.
- In its third and most stern statement in three days on the situation in Nepal, the MEA said it had “repeatedly cautioned the political leadership of Nepal to take urgent steps to defuse the tension in [the Terai] region.”
For an inclusive humanities pedagogy – (Governance)
- Humanities and sciences need to interrogate each other’s assumptions and predilections. This is unlikely to happen if both the domains merely coexist in our centres of higher learning as two disparate groups
- An academic ambience that privileges sciences over the humanities, English as the medium of instruction and one identity marker over the other will create humans rich in knowledge but short on empathy. A more integrated approach needs to be devised where diverse interests can interact.
Preparing for the climate exiles – (Environment)
- The poorest and most vulnerable people, forced to move as result of climate change, will have no legal standing under the United Nations Refugee Convention.
- Anticipating the changes with rising temperatures, regional agreements, joint action, sharing of knowledge, technologies and labour agreements among nations will be crucial.
Constitution sans consensus – (International Relation)
- Eight years after the adoption of an interim Constitution that heralded a peace process, Nepal has finally managed to promulgate a Constitution.
- The path to becoming a secular, federal, democratic and republican Nepal — as the Constitution envisages it to be — was tortuous, and it could not be concluded on the basis of a consensus among the elected legislators in the Constituent Assembly (CA). But it has moved Nepal significantly and in a progressive manner away from the 1990 Constitution that maintained the state as a constitutional monarchy ruled by a Hindu king.
Save all cyber communications for 3 months – (Economics)
- The government has kicked up another controversy by proposing that every citizen should keep a copy of all their communications in the cyber space, including emails and chats, for a period of 90 days and be able to make it available to security agencies when demanded, under the Draft National Encryption Policy.
- However, IT Ministry sources told The Hindu that “this policy initiative will not impact the common man.”
Ahead of UN meet, India sends tough message to Pakistan, China – (International Relation)
- With the Line of Control (LoC), International Border (IB), Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Jammu and Kashmir witnessing hot postures by Pakistan and China, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday made it clear that the neighbours should stop promoting terrorism, infiltration and desist from provocative actions such as border transgressions for better relations with India.
- He also struck a conciliatory note, saying peace and prosperity in the Asian continent cannot prevail until India’s relations with Pakistan and China are harmonious.
Haryana poll law will hit 50% people: apex court – (Indian Polity)
- Insisting on minimum educational qualification for those contesting the panchayat elections will strike off 50 per cent from participating in the grassroots democracy for the sole reason that they are illiterate, the Supreme Court observed on Monday.
- A Bench led by Justice J. Chelameswar expressed the court’s concern when Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi described the recent amendments to the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act 2015, mandating educational qualifications, as a “progressive law.”
‘Report dispels myth of Indian firms taking U.S. jobs’ – (Economics)
- A week of high-intensity bilateral parleys kicked off on Monday morning in the U.S. capital, with the Carnegie Endowment think tank hosting a conversation between Indian Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, and the release of an Indian tech industry report illustrating the substantial magnitude of Indian companies’ contributions to U.S. job creation and investments.