Top 20 this week (17th Feb to 23rd Feb)

CURRENT AFFAIRS

USA ECONOMY
Obama is working hard to bailout US economy. He is also willing cooperation from other countries to fight global meltdown. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged China to keep buying US debt and to work with Washington in combating the global economic crisis. However, OBAMA started to distribute bailout money from the states where winning was most difficult for him. Some people said that it’s his game plan for the next elections.

USA - TERRORISM - AFGHANISTAN -PAK
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is willing for more US help. The comments came as US President Barack Obama authorised up to 17000 more US troops for Afghanistan. U.S. defence is also looking for a new agreement with Kyrgyzstan that ordered US to leave key military base which supports western troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan has also provided inputs to US policy for Afghanistan.

SWAT VALLEY, PAKISTAN
The Pakistan army said on Monday it had ceased operations against Taliban militants in the north-western valley of Swat with the peace in the region as major reason. The local people of swat valley cheered with joy but USA, India and other countries have expressed their concerns on stance of Pakistan on this issue.
Earlier, Pakistan was finding it difficult to fight with the situation. A suicide bomber blew a funeral for a leader killing 30 people. Few gunmen abducted a senior govt administrator. Govt also planned to distribute 30000 rifles to villagers so that local people can help government regain control.

LTTE WAR
LTTE urged foreign powers to step in and arrange an immediate truce but Sri Lanka said it is nearing the end of Tamil Tiger rebels and there would be no need for a ceasefire at this stage. However, fight of Tamil tigers is still fierce. Capital Colombo witnessed attack on a govt building from two planes belonging to Tamil Tiger rebels.
The civilians of the north eastern region are facing a tough time in this war. The UN and the Red Cross urged both govt troops and LTTE rebels to free civilians from the war zone.

MUMBAI ATTACKS
The investigation in Mumbai terror attacks is crawling up from different fronts. A team of FBI is arriving in Islamabad this week to question terrorist attack suspects held by Pakistani authorities. Pakistan Defence Minister said that Kasab can undergo trial in India according to its own laws as he had committed a crime in that country. However, The Police charge sheet in the terror strikes is still incomplete and is likely to be filed in 2-3 days with the city police giving final touches to it.

STANFORD CASE
Allen Stanford, a business tycoon of Wall Street was charged with an $8 billion fraud. Stanford is accused of operating a fraud centred on the sale of certificates of deposit from his Antiguan affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd. The whereabouts of the 58-year-old financier are unknown.
Governments in Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador and Caribbean suspended operations of various Banks owned by the Stanford group, amid accusations of fraud.
[Note: Certificate of deposit is similar to fixed deposits but with short period of deposit say 3 months to one year]

SATYAM CASE
New Satyam board has paved the way for allowing a strategic investor to have management control by opening up the option of the investor acquiring a 51% stake (i.e. Rs 4,000-5,000 crore investment) in the software firm. The board decided to allow the strategic investor to buy up to 31% equity through a preferential allotment and an additional 20% through a mandatory open offer.
For investigations the judicial custody of Ramalinga Raju has been extended till March 7. The investigations are being carried by 5 agencies – CBI, SFIO, SEBI, ICAI and A.P Police.


THE OSCARS
Best Motion Picture - Slumdog Millionaire (Christian Colson)
Directing – Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Actor in a leading role - Sean Penn (Milk)
Actress in a leading role – Kate Winslet (The Reader)
Actor in a supporting role – Health Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Actress in a supporting role – Penelope Cruz (Vicky Christina Barcelona)
Documentary Short – Smile Pinki (Megan Mylan)
Music (Song) – A.R.Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire)
Music (Score) - A.R.Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire)

NEWS

POLITICS
1. Rubbishing the demand of BJP leader L K Advani for a thorough judicial inquiry into the Mumbai terror attack and his view that it could not have taken place without local support, Congress alleged that such "irresponsible statements" are providing fodder to Pakistan.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY
1. Gold glitters as prices zoom to record high at the Multi Commodity Exchange of India, gold prices hit another high of Rs 15,617 (around $312) per 10 grams.
2. After causing a stir in the home loan market, the State Bank of India (SBI) has once again surprised competitors by slashing interest rates on loans for new cars to 10% for 1 year.
3. Indian telecom companies added a record 15 million customers in January, indicating that the world’s fastest growing telecom market remains untouched by the economic slowdown

SPORTS
1. The ICC on Tuesday revealed Bangladesh would host the opening ceremony of the 2011 World Cup on 19 February 2011. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will jointly host the event and participants at the meeting, who included ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat, elected to make the tournament shorter than the one the West Indies organised in 2007.

TECHNOLOGY
1. A team of students, working under the guidance of faculty members of the institute and scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are set to launch India's first nano satellite – Jugnu.
2. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) today launched next generation 3G mobile services in the country even as the private operators are still waiting to get spectrum through auction process.

OTHERS
1. Ocean Nova a cruise ship carrying 74 passengers and 39 crew members became trapped near an Argentine navy base in Antarctica.
2. Mangalore pub case: Fifteen-year-old Ashwini committed suicide because she felt humiliated, but the men who caught and thrashed her and her Muslim friend haven't been arrested yet.
3. A group of advocates on 17th February assaulted Janata Party president Subramanian Swami. They alleged him of supporting Sri Lanka in LTTE war. The violent clashes between lawyers with police in Madras High Court rocked Tamil Nadu assembly, where the entire opposition was marshalled out, and attempt to murder cases were registered against 150 advocates even as protests against police action in Chennai erupted across the state. Lawyers across the country will observe 'black day' on February 27 to protest against the police lathi charge in the Madras High Court.
4. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) have rapped the Defence Ministry for "irregular withdrawal of funds". In its report for 2007-08 tabled in Parliament, the CAG said that the Navy and the Air Force made "irregular withdrawal" of Rs 2,745 crore in February-March 2008 to pay two Defence Public Sector units (DPSUs).
5. Seventy-four workers were killed after a gas blast on 22nd February at a northern Chinese colliery, the worst accident to hit the nation's mines in over 14 months.

TOP 20 LAST WEEK (10th feb to 16th feb)

CURRENT AFFAIRS

USA ECONOMY
US congress has passed the 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan to bailout US economy.

USA-PAK-AFGHANISTAN-TALIBAN
Obama said he regards Pakistan and Afghanistan (not Iraq) as the major anti-terror front and appointed Holbrooke as special representative to both countries. Holbrooke said after his visit to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that Taliban is the common enemy of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan is facing Terror situation from Taliban. At least 31 people were killed Monday in a remote area of Pakistan close to the Afghanistan border in a missile strike from a remote operated aircraft. It is planning to introduce Islamic law in its north-western region to stop spreading Taliban insurgency.

LTTE WAR
Government troops are on a full-scale military offensive against the LTTE, which are cornered in an area less than 200 square-km in the Mullaittivu district. However, Tamil Tigers are reported to have targeted civilians preventing them from leaving Sri Lanka's war zone which may cause a delay in the situation.

ISRAEL-GAZA-HAMAS-PALESTINE
Israel is not ready to an agreement of peace with Hamas until release of soldier is agreed upon. Israeli warplanes have attacked smuggling tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, after militants in Gaza fired at least two rockets into southern Israel.

MUMBAI ATTACKS
Pakistan gave its first formal response to the Indian report on Mumbai terror attack. Although some issues are raised, Pakistan has agreed to most of the points. Also, Pakistani investigators arrested the six people charged for the Mumbai attacks. This includes the arrest of a Lashkar-e-Toeba leader and one of India's most wanted men - Zaki Ur Rehman Lakhvi. These steps will go down extremely well with New Delhi. On the other hand, Pakistan terror groups are making efforts to strengthen their stand. Mumbai police said that terror groups have approached Dawood Ibrahim to kill Kasab. Al Qaeda also warned India of more attacks if it retaliates against Pakistan.

SATYAM CASE
The government on Monday transferred the investigation of the Satyam scam to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a move which comes five days after the Andhra Pradesh government asked the Centre to transfer the investigation from the state Crime Investigation Department (CID) to the central probe agency. However, Bidding for the sale of fraud-hit Indian outsourcer Satyam Computer could begin before its accounts are restated. Details of the bidding process are expected to come as early as next week.

AUSTRALIA WILDFIRE
The Australian wildfires are expected to be an act of Human race. As, there were fresh fire attacks by some people as late as Wednesday. These Fires destroyed the town of Marysville last Saturday and decimated cities northeast of Melbourne. There are Hundreds of bodies lying in the burnt houses. However, the situation is better now with residents returning to fire-destroyed Australian town.

INDIAN ANNUAL BUDGET
1. Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Union Railway Minister, presented the interim Railway Budget for the first four months of FY2009-10 on Friday. He announced 43 new trains including four Garibraths, 15 train extensions and 11 increases in frequency competing with last year’s full-year budget.
2. Interim Budget boosts infrastructure sector. The allocation of about Rs 1, 00,000 crore to the infrastructure sector in the interim Budget presented in Parliament on Monday is expected to generate additional demand for steel, even as the industry said it was awaiting a sector-specific stimulus dose.

NEWS

POLITICS
1. Supreme Court alleged congress party of misusing CBI to save Samajwadi party leader Mulayam Singh in case of assets-in-excess than income.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY
1. India's central bank will start buying government bonds as its open market operations on February, 19 to induce more money in the market plus the government has announced Rs 3,800-crore fund infusion into state-run lenders UCO Bank, Central Bank of India and Vijaya Bank.
2. Indian state-run firms NTPC Ltd and Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd have agreed to form a joint venture to build a 2,000 megawatts nuclear power plant in India. NTPC, India's largest power utility, will hold 49 percent stake in the venture and Nuclear Power Corp will hold the majority 51 percent stake.
3. The fiscal deficit this financial year is expected to touch 6 per cent of GDP, the highest in seven years

SPORTS
1. Tennis: Vera Zvonareva justified her tag as favourite by beating India's Sania Mirza 7-5 6-1 to win the Pattaya Open. The 24-year-old Russian was tested by the world number 126 in
Bangkok, but came through a difficult first set to win her first title of the year.

TECHNOLOGY
1. Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) will be displaying the export version of the indigenously designed and developed advanced light helicopter (ALH) Dhruv for the first time at the seventh edition of the international air show, Aero India 2009.
2. Even though scientists at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) here received a setback on Thursday after the country's first cloned buffalo calf died just five days after its birth, they are happy that the "superior technology" they used for cloning was "tested".

OTHERS
1. AT least 15 passengers were killed and 100 injured when 18 bogies of the Chennai-Howrah Coramandel Superfast Express derailed near Jaipur Road railway station in Orissa on Friday evening.
2. The uniform air fare hike by all domestic airlines has come under the lens of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC). The commission would investigate the alleged cartelisation by all airlines including the national carrier Air India over withdrawal of promotional low air fares and increase in basic fares in unison
3. The Special CBI court pronounced death sentence to Nithari killings' convicts Surender Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher on 13th February afternoon. With this verdict, one chapter of the Nithari serial rapes and killings has ended on a positive note. Nithari is a village in the western part of the state of UP bordering on New Delhi.
4. All 48 passengers and crew, plus one person in the house, have been killed after a passenger plane nose-dived into a house near New York and exploded into a fireball.

TOP 20 LAST WEEK (3rd Feb to 9th Feb)

CURRENT AFFAIRS

USA ECONOMY
1. The Senate on 3rd February began debating possible changes to an $885 billion economic stimulus bill which later grown to $920 billion. The Senate voted on this version of the bill. President Obama wants to get his economic stimulus bill passed as rapidly as possible. The Obama administration has imposed a cap of $500,000 for top executives at companies that receive large amounts of bailout money.
2. United States lost almost 600000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, its highest level in more than 16 years.

LTTE WAR
1. Tamil rebels lose last airstrip to Sri Lanka army last week. Sri Lanka’s president predicted the total defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels within a few days.

ISRAEL-GAZA-HAMAS-PALESTINE
1. Israel and Hamas could carry out a long-discussed prisoner swap within six weeks, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Sunday, playing down media speculation that a deal was more imminent.
2. Human rights groups have called on Hamas officials to investigate allegations of abduction, torture and the killing of Palestinians accused of being collaborators during Israel's war on Gaza. A human rights monitor, told Al Jazeera that dozens of ‘Fatah’ members were shot and tortured as Israeli forces bombarded the Gaza Strip for 22 days.

MUMBAI ATTACKS
1. The Pakistan interior minister on Tuesday said the Mumbai attacks were planned outside Pakistan and that the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) final report will be handed over to India in a week, but Pakistan has issued a terse statement saying it has more questions and that India will have to respond to these questions before it can wrap up its probe. In response P Chidambaram said "We have given them a dossier. Let them respond to it. I will comment after they give the response.”
2. Home minister P Chidambaram visited Maharastra and Kerela on Monday 9th Feb to review the security situation in the two coastal states. The home ministry is providing assistance to nine coastal states and four union territories under the Coastal Security Scheme which was launched in 2005.

SATYAM CASE
1. A.S Murty has been chosen as the new CEO of Satyam. Murty's fifteen years in Satyam has been marked by lack of any kind of controversy, although he is reputed to know the DNA of the company. He knows each and every individual at Satyam's senior levels including their strengths and weaknesses.
2. Kiran Karnik was named Satyam's Chairman by corporate affairs minister P C Gupta. The former president of NASSCOM appointment comes a day after A S Murty was made the IT firm's CEO.

NEWS

POLITICS
1. Many muslim leaders wanted one time BJP chief minister of U.p. Kalyan singh to apologize for demolition of Babri masjid as a condition to join Samajwadi party. But Kalyan singh said he had taken the moral responsibility of demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 and resigned from the post of chief minister.
2. The release of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan will be met with joy in much of Pakistan, and an equal measure of alarm in Washington.former CIA Director reportedly referred to him as "at least as dangerous as Osama Bin Laden". Dr AQ Khan has always been a hero for many Pakistani people. The reason for his popularity is simple - he is widely seen as having made Pakistan a nuclear state.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY
1. Barely two weeks after India announced a six-month ban on toys from China, Beijing is set to challenge the decision in the World Trade Organization. The decision to ban was meant to protect local manufacturers against the flooding of the market with cheap Chinese imports.
2. India's economy will grow the slowest since 2003-04 at 7.1 per cent this fiscal, as the global economic crisis hammered industrial output and killed jobs, but the government appeared optimistic about the future. The growth rate for agriculture, industry and services is estimated to be 2.6 per cent, 4.8 per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively... the corresponding growth rates for these three sectors were 4.9, 8.1 and 10.9 respectively (last year).
3. China likely overtook the US in vehicle sales for the first time last month, a trend that could make China into the world’s largest auto market this year.
4. Employee Provident fund office (EPFO) has initiated inquiry into Subhiksha for non-payment of provident fund dues of its 4600 employees since june '08. It has given 15 days of time to deposit the money i.e. 5 crores.
5. The friction between the power and the heavy industries ministries surfaced once again when Minister of State for Power and Commerce, Jairam Ramesh urged BHEL to take over NTPC’s 44.6 per cent share in Transformers and Electricals Kerala Ltd (TELK), the Kerala government-owned electrical equipment-maker.

SPORTS
1. After nine consecutive ODI victories, MS Dhoni-led Indian team moved up to the second spot in the ICC rankings last week. India won the series against Sri Lanka by 4-1after Sri Lanka succeeded to win the last match. India displaced Australia, who slipped to third spot after their second consecutive loss in ODI series against New Zealand.
2. West Indies bowled England for 51 to sweep to an incredible win by an innings and 23 runs on the fourth day of opening test on 8th February.
3. India conceded a goal in the dying moments to lose the final of the Punjab Gold Cup hockey tournament 1-2 against European champions the Netherlands on Monday.

TECHNOLOGY
1. One Voice Technologies, Inc, california said " In the telecom sector the government owned phone company in India, MTNL will launch our MobileVoice Email service this month." It allows people to send messages (E-mail, SMS, Instant Messaging and paging), purchase products, get information and control devices - all by using their voice.

Introduction

Hi All

I have not followed the news for a large part of life because it is time consuming and boring but I always knew that I should know about the happenings around me. When I started following the news now I found that sometimes it happen that its difficult to follow a news and sometimes I miss on important news out of ignorance or shortage of time. Recently this target has become even more difficult due to excess of news on the news channels and various newspapers.

This is an intiative to know important weekly news in brief.

Follow this blog to be in touch with the curent affairs and news.


Complaints/suggestions/comments/corrections are welcome.

thanks and regards
Harsh Kumar Aggarwal - IMT, Ghaziabad
Tejash Sheth - IMT, Ghaziabad

Disclaimer:
The news are collected from different news sources and may not be the exact truth.