22.1.14
Of Underwater N-Deterrents....
India’s first indigenous nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, Arihant, will head for “comprehensive sea and weapon trials” within a month, a big leap toward the country completing its nuclear triad — the ability to launch strategic weapons from land, air and sea, a navy official said.
The 6,000-tonne Arihant is moving closer to kicking off patrols, armed with nuclear warheads, this year.
The Indian submarine will be equipped with the K-15 missile, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead up to 750 km.
Two more nuclear-powered submarines are in the works to reinforce India’s strategic deterrent force at sea.
The 6,000-tonne Arihant is moving closer to kicking off patrols, armed with nuclear warheads, this year.
The Indian submarine will be equipped with the K-15 missile, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead up to 750 km.
Two more nuclear-powered submarines are in the works to reinforce India’s strategic deterrent force at sea.
Andhra seeks time to debate T Bill
The Andhra Pradesh government has sought extension of the January 23 deadline by four more weeks for discussing and debating the Telangana bill in the state assembly before it returning to the President.
The home ministry has sent the Andhra Pradesh government’s letter to the Prime Minister’s Office, which in turn will send it to Rashtrapati Bhavan for a decision by the President.
Sources said the state government has conveyed that the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill has been debated by the Assembly only for a few days and many of the legislators are yet to speak on it.
The home ministry has sent the Andhra Pradesh government’s letter to the Prime Minister’s Office, which in turn will send it to Rashtrapati Bhavan for a decision by the President.
Sources said the state government has conveyed that the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill has been debated by the Assembly only for a few days and many of the legislators are yet to speak on it.
SC on Mercy Appeals
Inordinate and inexplicable delay in deciding mercy appeals of death row convicts or mental illness can be grounds for commuting the sentence, the Supreme Court said, granting relief to 15 condemned prisoners.
In a landmark judgment hailed by rights groups, a threejudge bench headed by Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam overruled the court’s own verdict delivered last year, saying inordinate delays in execution of a death sentence by the government amounted to torture, laying down guidelines in dealing with death-row prisoners.
The order was in response to a petition from 15 criminals, including four aides of forest brigand Veerappan, but would have consequences for a number of high-profile cases, with the court saying those suffering mental insanity and schizophrenia shouldn’t be hanged.
There are six mercy petitions pending with the home ministry.
Of the 15, two were granted relief on the grounds of mental illnesses. Another convict’s sentence was commuted as he was kept in solitary confinement for more than four years. The rest, including Veerappan aides, were given relief on ground of inordinate delay.
The right to seek mercy was a constitutional right and not a mere prerogative at the discretion or whims of the executive, the court said. It didn’t specify what amounted to inordinate delay but did say for each case, it would be decided individually.
“Like the death sentence is passed lawfully, the execution of the sentence must also be in consonance with the constitutional mandate...,” the court said.
Prison authorities must inform a convict’s family about dismissal of mercy plea 14 days before the day of execution, the court said. There was a huge uproar after it emerged that the family of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru allegedly got to know of his hanging after the sentence was carried out.
In a landmark judgment hailed by rights groups, a threejudge bench headed by Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam overruled the court’s own verdict delivered last year, saying inordinate delays in execution of a death sentence by the government amounted to torture, laying down guidelines in dealing with death-row prisoners.
The order was in response to a petition from 15 criminals, including four aides of forest brigand Veerappan, but would have consequences for a number of high-profile cases, with the court saying those suffering mental insanity and schizophrenia shouldn’t be hanged.
There are six mercy petitions pending with the home ministry.
Of the 15, two were granted relief on the grounds of mental illnesses. Another convict’s sentence was commuted as he was kept in solitary confinement for more than four years. The rest, including Veerappan aides, were given relief on ground of inordinate delay.
The right to seek mercy was a constitutional right and not a mere prerogative at the discretion or whims of the executive, the court said. It didn’t specify what amounted to inordinate delay but did say for each case, it would be decided individually.
“Like the death sentence is passed lawfully, the execution of the sentence must also be in consonance with the constitutional mandate...,” the court said.
Prison authorities must inform a convict’s family about dismissal of mercy plea 14 days before the day of execution, the court said. There was a huge uproar after it emerged that the family of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru allegedly got to know of his hanging after the sentence was carried out.
IMF bumps up India's growth forecasts
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has bumped up India’s growth forecast for the current fiscal by more than half a percentage point thanks to a normal monsoon and improved exports, virtually admitting that it may have been too pessimistic in October when it pegged the number at less than 4%.
Finance minister P Chidambaram had led India’s strong protests against IMF’s assessment, which was made amid economic gloom and a depreciating currency. In an update of its flagship World Economic Outlook (SEO), the IMF said that India will grow 4.4% in 2013-14 in terms of market prices against the 3.8% estimated initially, citing a better second half. “Growth in India picked up after a favourable monsoon season and higher export growth and is expected to firm further on stronger structural policies supporting investment,” it said.
In terms of factor cost, which is the more widely used method of computing national income in India, growth is pegged at 4.6%, revised upward from 4.25% estimated earlier.
IMF sees growth rising to 5.4% in 2014-15 and 6.4% in the year after, which is lower than the respective 6.2% and 7.1% recovery forecast by its Bretton Woods twin, the World Bank.
The estimate for 2014-15 is marginally higher than the October forecast of 5%. The fund said global activity strengthened in the second half of 2013 and expects it to gather pace thanks to a recovery in advanced economies. It sees 2014 calendar growth at 3.7% against 3.6% estimated earlier, which is forecast to rise to 3.9% in 2015. “The basic reason behind the stronger recovery is that the brakes to the recovery are progressively being loosened. The drag from fiscal consolidation is diminishing. The financial system is slowly healing. Uncertainty is decreasing,” said Olivier Blanchard, IMF chief economist.
The report – Is the tide rising? – warns that “downward revisions to growth forecasts in some economies highlight continued fragilities, and downside risks remain”. Estimates have been lowered for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Italy and the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, led by Russia.
It said the euro area was turning the corner from recession to recovery, adding that growth is likely to rise to 2.8% in the US in 2014 from 1.9% in the current year, which is good news for India’s exports. The report cautions against any rushed withdrawal of stimulus programmes.
“With prospects improving, however, it will be critical to avoid a premature withdrawal of monetary policy accommodation, including in the United States, as output gaps are still large while inflation is low and fiscal consolidation continues,” it said, adding that strong growth is needed to repair balance sheets.
In the case of emerging market and developing economies, it said there was a need to manage the risk of potential capital flow reversals.
Aviation : December 2013
India’s largest passenger carrier IndiGo lost market share for the second consecutive month as its market share slipped marginally to 28.2% in December 2013 as compared to 28.6% in the previous month. And clambering back to the second spot in December was low-cost carrier SpiceJet with a 19.1% market share, which it shared with Jet Airways, which reported a market share of 19.1% in December. However, when combined with JetLite, the Jet Airways Group was the second-largest airline with 24.6% market share, courtesy Jet-Lite’s 5.5% share. GoAir, which was the largest gainer in November 2013, kept its market share at 8.8% during December, while Air India’s share fell marginally to 19%.
Market leader in India, and also the most profitable airline, IndiGo’s declining share for the second successive issue was not a serious issue. The month of December also brought some cheer to the airlines. More passengers flew in December 2013, than they did in the same month of the previous year.
Overall, domestic airlines carried 55.86 lakh passengers or 3.37% more, during December 2013 as compared to the same month last year. During the full calendar year 2013, airlines carried 6.14 crore passengers or 4.43% more than the previous calendar year. Apart from Air India’s slight drop in market share, the greater concern was its on-time performance during December 2013. After achieving 82% on-time performance from top six metros in the first half of the 2013-14 fiscal, the airline’s on-time performance at top six metros during December was the lowest at 69.8%. The airline is preparing to join Star Alliance over the summer.
In terms of on-time performance, SpiceJet, which is chasing the more lucrative corporate clientele, achieved the best performance in December 2013, with 82.2% of its flights operating on schedule from the top six metros. With a total score of 82.2% of flights on-time, SpiceJet was at the top of the list on the parameter of on-time performance (OTP) for December 2013.
On-time performance of scheduled domestic airlines is computed by the DGCA for six metro airports — Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. There was also good news for airlines in terms of load factors. All airlines improved over November 2013, but the leader of the pack in December was JetLite, which was flying its planes 78.5% full.
Air India’s flights were also operating more than three quarters full with 77.3% load factors during the month. IndiGo’s flights were marginally less full than Air India’s as the low-cost carrier had 77.1% load factor.
Regional carrier Air Costa, which is based out of Hyderabad, was the surprise of the month. The carrier, which struggled to fill its planes even by half during the first two months of operations, had load factors of 72.6% during December 2013.
During the calendar year, Air India also managed to eat into a portion of the private carrier’s market with a 10.46% growth over the number of passengers carried last year. Air India carried 119.09 lakh domestic passengers in 2013.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
