INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2012

INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2012

• A 3-day 8th International Conference on Public Administration (ICPA) – “New Frontiers in Public Administration: Practice and Theory” was held in Hyderabad from 29 October. It was hosted by the Department of Public Administration, Osmania University in collaboration with the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and the American Society for Public Administration. 120 papers were presented at the conference. Later, a symposium on the Status of Public Administration as an Academic Discipline was held and world renowned scholars like Prof. Donald C Menzel, Prof. Allan Rosenbaum, Prof. V.S. Prasad, Prof. G. Haragopal and Prof. Riant Nugroho make keynote presentations.At the valedictory, T. N. Chaturvedi, former Comptroller and Auditor General and former Governor, was the chief guest.
  
• Hurricane Sandy grew strongerbefore dawn of 29 October as it churned northward through the Atlantic Ocean en route to what forecasters agreed would be a devastating landfall, possibly within 100 miles of New York City.As the storm bore down on some of the nation's most densely populated areas, city and state officials went into emergency mode. The New York City subway system and all of the region's commuter trains and buses were shut down. The major stock exchanges called off all trading. Forecasters said the hurricane was a strikingly powerful storm that could reach inland.
  
• United Nations-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi appealed to both sides in Syria’s conflict to cease fire for the Muslim holiday this week after meeting President Bashar al-Assad, even as a deadly blast rocked Damascus. Lebanon’s opposition, meanwhile, called for a huge demonstration against the Syrian regime at the funeral later on 21 October, of a top police intelligence chief killed in a Beirut car bombing which it has blamed on Damascus. In Damascus, a bomb exploded outside a police station in a Christian quarter of the Old City, killing seven people and wounding many others, said officials and state media. The bombing came as Mr. Brahimi, after holding talks with Mr. Assad, called for “unilateral” ceasefires by the regime and the rebels for the Id al-Adha holidays.
  
• Icelanders have backed proposals for a new basic law, drafted by a citizens’ constitutional councilthat sought the public’s help on websites like Twitter, referendum results released early on 22 October. Voters were asked in the non-binding referendum on 20 October, whether they wanted the proposals of 25 ordinary citizens to form the basis of a new constitution. According to the results, two-thirds of those voting wanted the constitutional council’s proposals to be the “foundation” for a Parliament bill on a new constitution. A proposal to keep the country’s national church got the support of 57.5 per cent of voters. Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008 prompted allegations of crony capitalism and renewed longstanding calls for a revised constitution, which dates back to the country’s independence from Denmark. Any changes to Iceland’s basic law must be approved twice by Parliament, with a general election held between the votes.
  
• At least 56 people have been killed and nearly 2,000 homes destroyed in the latest outbreak of ethnic violence in Myanmar on 25 October. Twenty five men and 31 women were reported dead in four Rakhine state townships in violence between the Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities that re-erupted on 23 October. In June, ethnic violence in the western state left at least 90 people dead and destroyed more than 3,000 homes. Tens of thousands of people remain in refugee camps. The unrest is one of the worst reported in the region since June, after clashes were set off by the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslim men in May.Tensions still simmer in part because the government has failed to find any long-term solution to the crisis other than segregating the two communities in some areas. The crisis in Myanmar’s west goes back decades and is rooted in a dispute over where the region’s Muslims are really from. Though many Rohingyas have lived in Myanmar for generations, they are denigrated here as foreigners who came from Bangladesh.
  
• Mali was readmitted into the African Union (A.U.) after a meeting of the A.U. Peace and Security Council [AUPSC] on 24 October. The A.U. had suspended the West African nation after a coup in March this year saw a military junta seize power even as two thirds of Mali slipped into the control of a coalition of armed groups and organised gangs. The soldiers behind the coup had claimed that the existing dispensation was unable to tackle the insurgents in the north. Since then, the junta has given way to a transitional all-party government and has asked for pan-African assistance to regain control of its territory. Northern Mali has steadily slipped into chaos since late 2011, when entrenched gangs involved in smuggling and drug trafficking struck up alliances with a variety of armed groups , ranging from the self-proclaimed secular Tuareg combatants, some of them from Libyan Army of the Qadhafi regime to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a north African group associated with al-Qaeda. The A.U. estimates that the conflict has resulted in 160,000 Internally Displaced Persons, and another 202,000 Malians are living as refugees in the neighbouring countries of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger.
  
• A court in Italy has convicted the former Premier, Silvio Berlusconi, of tax fraud and sentenced him to four years in prison. The conviction on 26 October was the 76-year-old media mogul’s first in a long series of trials, but it did not mean he was going to prison right away. Cases in Italy must pass two levels of appeal before the verdicts are final. Berlusconi, along with others convicted in the case, must deposit $13 million into a fund as appeals, which could take years, proceed. The trial began in July 2006, but was put on hold by an immunity law that shielded Berlusconi from prosecution while he was Premier until it was watered down by the constitutional court.
  
• Switzerland has reinforced its opposition to unilateral sanctions imposed on Iran outside the framework of the United Nations. The assertion comes in defiance of such unilateral sanctions imposed by Israel, the United States (U.S.) and the European Union (EU). Not being a member of the European Union (EU), Switzerland is not bound by the decisions of the 27-nation grouping, which has recently imposed fresh curbs, including a ban on Iranian gas imports. Last month, Swiss President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf slammed unilateral Western sanctions against Iran by calling them “unacceptable”. She stressed that Switzerland would continue its economic engagement with Iran within the framework of U.N. decisions. Switzerland is a major global centre for oil trading, and is host to an office of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
  
• Despite months of protracted negotiations, mediated by the African Union (A.U.), Sudan and South Sudan appear no closer to a comprehensive resolution on issues left unresolved after the south seceded from the North last year. A primary issue is the status of Abyei — a 10,000 sq km oil-rich territory claimed by both sides.On 24 october, the A.U. High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) submitted a report to the A.U. Peace and Security Council, urging that the council give the Sudans two weeks to implement existing agreements on establishing a transitional administration for the disputed territory, and to arrive at a final solution in six weeks.
  
• With Australia and India agreeing to launch negotiations for a civil nuclear pact, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman on 22 October lifted the ban on the state's uranium mining. Uranium has not been mined in Queensland since the closure of the Mary Kathleen mine in 1982.
  
• Pakistan has sought extradition of Mullah Fazlullah, a militant commander who planned the attack on teenager Malala Yousafzai and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has demanded Fazlullah's extradition during her meeting with US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Mark Grossman. Malala came to prominence in 2009 at the age of 11, when she started writing a diary for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban. Under the pen-name Gul Makai, she described the problems caused by militants who had taken control of the Swat Valley.
  
• More than 24,000 Pakistanis on 22 October formed the world's largest "human national flag" in the eastern city of Lahore,smashing a five-year-old record set in Hong Kong, officials said. A total of 24,200 people stood up in the national hockey stadium to make the green and white Pakistani standard, smashing the 2007 record set by 21,726 people in Hong Kong. "It's an amazing, amazing display of unity of 24,200 people here in Lahore’’Guinness World Records adjudicator Gareth Deaves said on Monday to a cheering crowd. "Every single one of you holds this record," he said, handing over the certificate to Punjab provincial government representative Hamza Shahbaz Sharif. 42,813 people in the national hockey stadium sang the national anthem together, smashing the previous best of 15,243 held by India
  
• Georgia's Parliament on 25 October approved a billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili as the country's new Prime Minister and endorsed his government. When Saakashvili's second and final term ends in October 2013, a constitutional reform will transfer many of the President's powers to the Prime Minister. Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, has stressed the need to restore relations with Moscow that have been severed since the two countries fought a brief war in August 2008. He said after his approval that Georgia will rely on international assistance to try to start a dialogue with Russia "with a goal of developing a strategy for overcoming a crisis in bilateral ties”. At the same time he vowed to continue Saakashvili's course to integrate more closely with the West. "Georgia will aspire to join the European Union, maintain its Euro-Atlantic orientation and integrate with NATO," he told reporters. Ivanishvili emphasised that "the United States remains Georgia's main ally”.
  
• Archaeologists believe they have discovered the largest ancient Hindu temple ever found in the Indonesian island of Bali.Construction workers were digging a new drainage basin near a Hindu learning center on Jalan Trengguli, in East Denpasar, when their tools struck a large stone structure one metre underground. The crew then excavated a large stone plate, the first of many discovered at the site. The Denpasar Archeology Agency took over the excavation and uncovered an 11-metre-long structure. The island is home to most of the Hindus in Indonesia.
  
• The UN General Assembly on 18 October 2012 elected five new non-permanent members to the Security Council. South Korea, Luxembourg, Argentina, Australia and Rwanda are the new members. The newly elected member countries are going to serve a two-year term in the UNSC that will begin on 1 January 2013. The five new members are going to replace Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa, whose term ends on 31 December 2012.Under the UN Charter, the 15-member Security Council has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. To be elected to the UN Security Council, a country must win support from two thirds of the General Assembly members, or 129 votes.
  
• Colombian leftist rebels and the Colombian government have formally launched talks to end nearly 50 years of armed conflict,with each side laying out its vision of how the talks will develop and the type of peace that the country can hope for if a deal is reached. Negotiating teams from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and the Colombian government issued a joint statement in the Norwegian town of Hurdal, marking the start of the talks that will continue next month in Cuba. Ivan Marquez is the rebels' chief negotiator. The official launch of the talks was the first time the two sides have met publicly since peace negotiations broke down in 2002, unleashing an intense military campaign by the government of Álvaro Uribe against the Farc, which funds itself through kidnapping, extortion, drugs and illegal gold mining. The Farc negotiators reiterated their insistence that the rebel leader Simon Trinidad, who is serving a 60-year sentence in a US prison after being convicted of kidnapping three Americans, be allowed to participate as a negotiator. Márquez appealed to the US government to make "a great contribution" to Colombia by allowing Trinidad to be involved.
  
• Pakistan's Supreme Court on 19 October, ordered the government to take legal action against former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg and former ISI chief Asad Durrani for distributing millions of rupees among politicians to rig the 1990 general election. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry also said that any "political cell" operating in the presidency, ISI, Military Intelligence or Intelligence Bureau should be shut down immediately as such an institution is unconstitutional.
  
• In an international testimony to the fact that security situation in Jammu and Kashmir has remarkably improved, Japan on 20 October, has relaxed its travel restrictions to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Japan is the second country among the G8 nations to take this step. Germany had relaxed travel restrictions to the state for its nationals in July 2011. Japan’s move to ease restrictions is valid for Srinagar and adjoining areas like Gulmarg. The decision was arrived at after the Japanese embassy officials met the J&K government, and made site visits. With two of the G-8 countries easing the travel restrictions to Kashmir, many other embassies of developed countries are expected to follow suit. Sources said Australians, Canadians, British and some more countries are also making enquiries about the situation in Kashmir. The foreign tourist arrivals in J&K have steadily increased from 52,750 tourists to about 72,000 in 2011.
  
• British Government and Scotland signed on 15 October, a historic deal that will allow Scotland to hold a referendum in 2014 on whether it wants to remain part of the United Kingdom or secede from the 300-year-old political union. For this referendum, voting age will be 16 years. Agreement was signed by Prime Minister David Cameron and Scotland’s First Minister and the leader of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) Alex Salmond in Edinburgh. If Scotland does break away, it will end more than 300 years of political union with England.
  
• Libya's 200-member General National Congress on 14 October 2012 elected Ali Zidan as the new Prime Minister. Ali Zidan, an independent, won 93 votes.He beat a candidate favoured by the Justice and Construction party which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Announcing his victory, President of the National Assembly asked Mr Zidan to propose a cabinet within two weeks. Ali Zidan is a human rights lawyer. The previous Prime Minister, Mustafa Abu Shagur, was dismissed a week ago after failing to form a government.
  
• Bangladesh has been named the fifth in the list of 173 countries that are most prone to natural disasters, according to a report. The "World Risk Report 2012" examines which countries are more at risk from natural disasters than others, what contributes to this risk and what can be done about it, the Daily Star said. Island nations Vanuatu, over 3,600 km from Australia in the Pacific Ocean, and Tonga, at a distance of 5,200 km from Australia, have the highest disaster risk. Malta and Qatar face the lowest risk worldwide, said the report. It said environmental degradation is a significant factor that reduces the capacity of societies to deal with disaster risk in many countries around the world. The report was published in Brussels by the German Alliance for Development Works, UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security, and The Nature Conservancy. "This report illustrates the powerful role that nature can play in reducing risks to people and property from coastal hazards like storms, erosion and floods," Michael Beck, lead marine scientist at The Nature Conservancy, was quoted as saying. The top 15 most "at-risk" countries are all tropical and coastal. There, coastal habitats like reefs and mangroves are incredibly important for people's lives and livelihoods.
  
• The Philippines government 15 October struck a historic peace deal with the biggest Muslim rebel group, raising hopes of an end to four decades of insurgency in the south through a Malaysian-brokered roadmap towards greater autonomy. The peace accord signed between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is a major step towards achieving a settlement plan that proposes the establishment of a new autonomous Muslim-administered region.
  
• Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma waved an African Union flag, tapped a wooden gavel and became the first woman to take office as the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) at the A.U. headquarters in Addis Ababa on 15 October. Upon taking office, Dr. Dlamini-Zuma shall be confronted by simmering conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea Bissau; chronic instability in Somalia; and an insurgency in northern Mali where fighters affiliated with al-Qaeda have taken control of large swathes of land. She supported military intervention in Mali if it did not worsen an already fraught situation. She also pledged support for continued negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan as they seek to demarcate international boundaries under the aegis of the A.U. High Level Implementation Panel.
  
• India has been ranked at a poor 115 by a global survey which looked into the level of economical empowerment of women in 128 countries. The list was topped by Australia and followed by three Scandinavian countries — Norway, Sweden and Finland. At the bottom of the list were Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan and Chad.
  The research done by an international consulting and management firm Booz & Company ranked India at 115 and noted that with the second-largest population in the world, India generates 14 per cent of the global talent pool, among which are the 5.5 million women entering India's workforce each year, all overwhelmingly driven to succeed. It added that although the knowledge economy has created enormous opportunities in India, too many women are still prevented from reaching their full potential by a combination of cultural restrictions, gender discrimination, and lack of resources. It underlined that if India is to sustain its rate of growth, it will have to break down these sizable barriers to women's empowerment.
  The report is based on the country's performance in terms of primary, secondary and tertiary education, equal pay for equal work, non-discrimination policies, access to childcare, property ownership rights and ability to access credit. It also looks at whether wages are equal, the number of women in work compared with men, and whether there is equality in the number of female managers, senior business leaders and politicians.
  
• Israel's parliament voted overnight to dissolve itself and hold early elections on January 22, officials said on Tuesday. The dissolution of the Knesset was approved by 100 votes to none in a third reading after a lengthy session in the 120-seat chamber.
  
• Osman Ali Khan the last Nizam of Hyderabad was named in list of the 25 richest people across the world who ever lived by US website Celebrity Networth. Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam, who ruled Hyderabad between 1886-1967, was ranked sixth in world and the richest in India with $236 billion. He died in 1967 at age of 80. The list declared by US website Celebrity Networth was compiled after adjusting the fortunes of people across history for inflation. For example, $100 million in 1913 is equivalent to $2299.63 billion in 2012. As per the report, The 25 richest who ever lived had a combined fortune of $4.317 trillion, of which 14 are American.
  
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has categorically opposed wearing 'hijabs' (head scarves) in country's schools and welcomed the idea of returning to school uniforms. "We need to see how our neighbours in European countries are tackling this problem of wearing hijabs. Then, everything will become clear," Mr Putin said on 18 October at a meeting with representatives of the Russian People's Front.
  
• The Philippine government and the country’s biggest Muslim rebel group announced on that they had agreed on a plan to end a decades-long separatist insurgency that has killed more than 1,50,000 people. The agreement would see the establishment of a new semi-autonomous Muslim area in the resource-rich southern Philippine region of Mindanao, which the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) regards as its ancestral homeland. In this regard, Philippines President Benigno Aquino told this framework agreement would pave the way for a final and enduring peace in Mindanao. The two sides said they were aiming for a final peace deal to be achieved before the President’s term ends in the middle of 2016. Mr. Aquino said a final agreement would have to be approved by a plebiscite. Such approval is not certain in the mainly Catholic country. A planned peace deal during the term of previous President Gloria Arroyo crumbled in 2008 at the final moment amid intense domestic opposition. There are roughly four million Muslims in Mindanao. They see it as their ancestral homeland dating back to Islamic sultanates established before Spanish Christians arrived in the 1500s.Muslim rebel groups have been fighting for independence or autonomy in Mindanao since the early 1970s.The rebellion has claimed more than 150,000 lives, most in the 1970s when all-out war raged, and left large parts of Mindanao in deep poverty. The MILF is the biggest and most important remaining rebel group, after the Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace pact with the government in 1996.Mindanao is home to vast untapped reserves of gold, copper and other minerals, as well as being one of the country’s most important farming regions.
  
• A court in the Maldives on, ordered the arrest of the country’s first democratically elected President, Mohamed Nasheed,who has challenged the legality of a criminal trial against him. The court issued the arrest warrant after Mr. Nasheed failed for a second time to show up before a special three-judge bench set up to try him for abuse of power when he was in office. Earlier in the day, Mr. Nasheed said he was challenging the legality of the judicial process against him
  
• The Pakistani army has said that the Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai(14) who shot in the head by Taliban gunmen on 9 October, is being sent to the UK for medical treatment. The girl has until now been at a military hospital in Rawalpindi, with doctors saying her progress over the next few days would be "critical". The girl wrote a diary about suffering under the Taliban and was accused by them of "promoting secularism”. The Pakistani army said Ms Yousafzai's trip was being sponsored by the United Arab Emirates. The teenager - who has been campaigning for education for girls was attacked on 9 October as she was returning home from school in Mingora in north-western Swat. The Taliban has warned they will target Malala Yousafzai again.
  
• Kuwait’s ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah on 6 October, dissolved parliament, a step toward ending months of political mess and calling the second elections this year that could again swing in favour of opposition groups led by Islamist factions. The move by Kuwait’s Western-allied emir, announced on state-run media, followed a failed attempt last month by the government to overturn a voting district law that appeared to favour the opposition. New elections must now be held within 60 days.
  
• Incumbent Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has won the presidential election with 54.42 percent of the vote. With 90 percent of the votes counted, Chavez, who will serve a third six-year term starting from January 2013, defeated opposition challenger Henrique Capriles, who represents the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition and gained 44.97 percent of votes.
  
• Arabic on 10 October 2012 made its official debut among one of the Languages at Pope Benedict’s weekly general audiences. This is an exercise and attempt of Vatican to expand its reach to Christians and Muslims in Middle East. Speaking Arabic during the audiences that is broadcasted across the world on radio and television may bring down the fear of Christians in Middle East comforting them to stay back on the land that is a home for many of the holy places for Christians. It is likely that this act of Pope’s address to the world in Arabic language would help in improving the strained relations with the Muslim world. The relations between the Christians and the Muslim world turned sour after Pope’s speech at Regensburg in 2006, which made the Muslim world feel that his message was an attack on Islam. On occasion of the 50th anniversary of the second Vatican Council, Pope for the first time addressed people in Arabic.
  
• Libyan premier Mustafa Abu Shagur was dismissed on 8 October, after the General National Congress rejected his proposed "crisis" cabinet of just 10 ministers, days after his first line-up was also turned down. The embattled Abu Shagur, who had been given 72 hours to come up with a new cabinet, was relieved of his duties and the GNC will have to elect a new prime minister within the next three to four weeks. Before he had even put forward his second cabinet list in just four days, a motion of no confidence in Abu Shagur was signed by 126 assembly members. That was rejected by the GNC president. But when his pared-down list was put to the vote, 125 members of the 186 members present in the 200-seat GNC did not express "confidence" in his choices, against 44 members for and 17 abstentions. Under GNC rules, the assembly will now elect a new premier.
  
• Election Commission of India and the United Nations Development Programme UNDP on 11 October signed an MOU for cooperation in election management, particularly for supporting elections and democratic process in other countries. The MOU was signed by Shri Akshay Rout, Director General from the Commission and Ms. Lise Grande, UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator from UNDP’s side in the presence of Chief Election Commissioner of India, Shri V S Sampath, Election Commissioners, Shri H S Brahma and Dr Nasim Zaidi and UNDP Under Secretary General and UNDP Associate Administrator, Ms. Rebeca Grynspan. Chief Election Commissioner Shri Sampath observed that transparency and strict enforcement have been the strength of ECI, which have lent total credibility to Indian elections. He underlined the Commission’s commitment to work along South-South cooperation and extend support to electoral process wherever there is a need.ECI and UNDP have been working jointly in recent months to harness ECI’s competence in election management to the benefit of several countries. The collaboration is specially built around Commission’s one-year-old India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management, IIIDEM, which offers courses for international election practitioners. Election Commission has signed MOUs with fourteen countries for sharing electoral practices and extending electoral assistance.
  
• Wealth of China's super rich declines:
  As the Chinese economy slowed down due to steady fall in exports, the wealth of some of the country's richest people registered a decline in the past year. According to the Hurun Rich List, China has 251 people worth $1 billion or more, 20 fewer than last year. However, the number of Chinese billionaire has increased many folds compared with 2006, when there were only fifteen. It is the first time in seven years that the number of billionaires in China has fallen. The Chinese economy has slowed in recent months with growth falling to a three-year low of 7.6 per cent, compared with the previous year. Of the 1,000 richest people tracked by Hurun, nearly half saw their wealth shrink in the past year, BBC reported. Topping the list this year is Zong Qinghou, from the beverage company Wahaha, who is worth $12.6 bn.
  
• Aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov will be handed over towards the end of next year, Russia said on10 October as India conveyed its "serious concern" over the prolonged delay and asked it to adopt a "wartime approach" for ensuring its early delivery. The issue came up at a meeting here between Defence Minister AK Antony and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov during which Moscow said the 45,000-tonne aircraft carrier had suffered a "big malfunction" in its engine and could be handed over only in "fourth quarter of 2013".
  
• India had signed the contract for buying the second-hand warship, now rechristened INS Vikramaditya, in 2004 and it was supposed to be delivered in 2009. Due to recurring escalation in price, it was rescheduled to be delivered in December this year but the present problem has pushed it back by almost one more year. "We have handed over the revised overhaul and transfer schedule to the Indian side and we believe that transfer of the ship will take place in the 4th quarter of the 2013," Serdyukov told reporters at the joint press conference after the meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation (IR-IGMTC).
  
• Global Hunger Report 2012: India ranked at 65th position:
  The report on Global Hunger Index for seventh year was released on 11 October 2012 by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe, and Concern Worldwide. The basic theme of the report for the 2012 Global Hunger Index -- The Challenge of Hunger: Ensuring Sustainable Food Security under Land, Water, and Energy Stresses. IFPRI that calculated the global hunger Index analysed the measures based upon multidimensional angles. The published report have shown a proportional growth in hunger reduction of people worldwide but recorded the progress speed was tragically slow and alarming. The report in its findings recorded twenty countries across the world mainly from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to be highly alarming and have highest level of hunger, and showcased the sufferings of millions of poor. As per the report, the nations that had showcased an absolute progress between 1990 Global Hunger Index to 2012 Global Hunger Index were Bangladesh, Angola, Malawi, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Niger, and Vietnam. Whereas there are 15 countries that have managed to reduce it by 50 percent or more. As per the report, India instead of its fast paced economic growth in past two decades has lagged behind in improving its record in Global Hunger Index chart. In the list of 79 countries in the global Hunger Index, India was ranked 65th behind China that was placed at 2nd place position, Pakistan at 57th and Sri Lanka at 37th position. The report also points out the three countries Bangladesh, India and Timor-Leste constitutes to the highest occurrence of underweight children under the age group of five years, which records to more than 40 percent in each country. India was ranked second with 43.5 percent of the children less than five underweight in the list of the 129 countries compared for underweight child, after Timor-Leste. Countries like Ethiopia, Niger, Nepal and Bangladesh followed the chart.
  
• Radical preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other terror suspects were extradited on 5 October from the UK after Britain's high court ruled they had no more grounds for appeal in their year’s long battles to avoid facing charges in the United States.Scotland Yard said the suspects had been brought to an air force base in eastern England from Long Lartin Prison, where two planes provided by US authorities were waiting to fly them to America.
  
  
• At least 46 students were killed and several others injured when unidentified gunmen wearing military uniform attacked a hostel in northern Nigeria on 3 october. The massacre has taken place on Nigeria's 52nd Independence celebration. police sources said gunmen invaded the hostel of Mubi Polytechnic in northern state of Adamawa, killing 46 students. A lecturer said that the gunmen wore military attire and told the students to identify themselves by name.
  
  
• Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili conceded defeat on 1 October, in parliamentary pollsthat handed a victory to an opposition coalition led by billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili.Although Saakashvili remains president, the defeat of his United National Movement to Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition in the elections spells the end of his nine years of largely unchallenged dominance over Georgia.
  
  
• United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Help Age International report said India's population is likely to increase by 60 per cent between 2000 and 2050 but the number of elders, who have attained 60 years of age will go up by 360 per cent and the government should start framing policies. The report says,"India has around 100 million elderly at present and the number is expected to increase to 323 million, constituting 20 per cent of the total population, by 2050" .The UNFPA in its study in India, which was conducted in seven states, found that around one-fifth of the elderly live alone or with spouses only in both rural and urban areas. According to the report, by 2050, India and China will have about 80 per cent of the world's elderly living there, and India is likely to pip China in the number of centenarians.
  
  
• Six years after the formal end of the civil war, Nepal’s “peace process” has concluded with the integration of a little over 1,450 former Maoist fighters into the Nepal Army (NA). The cantonments where the former combatants of the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) resided have closed down, Maoist weapons are under state control, and the PLA has ceased to exist ending the state of “one country, two Armies”. Over the past five years, there has been a gradual reduction in the number of combatants in the cantonments. About 32,000 individuals had initially registered in the camps in early 2007. But the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) verified only 19,602 of those as combatants and disqualified over 4,000 persons for being under-age or joining the Maoist Army after the ceasefire began. The “disqualified” were discharged from the cantonments in early 2010. In November 2011, a seven-point agreement was signed between the parties, which stipulated that a maximum of 6,500 former combatants could be integrated in a specially created general directorate under the NA. In April 2012, the Nepal Army had also taken charge of the cantonments as well as containers that included over 3,000 Maoist weapons.
  
  
• The Indian Union Cabinet on 3 October, approved the ratification of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing signed by India. The Nagoya Protocol has been signed by 92 countries. Five countries have also ratified the Protocol. India signed the Nagoya Protocol on May 11, 2011. The country is hosting the eleventh CoP to the CBD in Hyderabad this month. India is one of the identified mega diverse countries rich in biodiversity. With only 2.4 per cent of the earth's land area, it accounts for 7-8 per cent of the recorded species of the world. It is also rich in associated traditional knowledge, which is both coded as in ancient texts of Indian systems of medicines such as Ayurveda, Unani and Sidha, and also non-coded, as it exists in oral undocumented traditions. The genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge can be used to develop a wide range of products and services for human benefit, such as medicines, agricultural practices, and cosmetics. India is a Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which is one of the agreements adopted during the Rio Earth Summit held in 1992. One of the three objectives of the CBD relates to Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), which refers to the way in which genetic resources may be accessed, and benefits resulting from their use shared by users with countries that provide them. The CBD prescribes that access to genetic resources is subject to national legislation. Accordingly, India after extensive consultative process had enacted the Biological Diversity Act in 2002 for giving effect to the provisions of the CBD, including those relating to CBD. However, in the near absence of user country measures, once the resource leaves the country providing the resources, there is no way to ensure compliance of ABS provisions in the country where it is used. Towards this, a protocol on access and benefit sharing has been negotiated under the aegis of CBD, and adopted by the Tenth Conference of Parties (CoP-10) held in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010.India has participated actively and contributed meaningfully in the ABS negotiations which formally started about six years back. The objective of the Nagoya Protocol on ABS is fair and equitable sharing of benefits, arising from the use of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies.
  
• Japan PM reshuffles cabinet, names new finance minister:
  Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reshuffled his cabinet on 1 October, naming Koriki Jojima, a senior member of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), as new finance minister. Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba was among heavyweight names keeping their posts in the reshuffle as Noda looks to move past a damaging row with China and boost his flagging popularity. The reshuffle came, as the prime minister's poll numbers remain dreary after a costly battle over legislation to double sales tax. Noda elevated Makiko Tanaka to the cabinet as new education minister, a woman with pro-Beijing credentials reflecting her father's status as the prime minister who normalised ties with China in 1972.
  
• Bhagat Singh road in Pakistan:
  Pakistani authorities have renamed a road crossing in Lahore after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh to acknowledge his revolutionary spirit and his role in the movement against the erstwhile British rulers of the subcontinent. The Shadman Chowk of Lahore will now be known as Bhagat Singh Chowk. Bhagat Singh was hanged in March 1931 in the Lahore Jail, which stood at the spot where the roundabout was built later. While authorities have changed the Hindu names of several places in the old quarters of Lahore over the years, the decision to rename a busy roundabout after Bhagat Singh has been appreciated by some local residents as a bold move.
  
• Global biodiversity meet begins:
  The mega 19-day, global biodiversity event -- the 11th Conference of Parties (COP) to Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) -- kick- started on 1 October with the inauguration of a meeting on the implementation of Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety by Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan. While 9,000 delegates from 193 countries participated in the deliberations, the five-day sixth meeting relating to Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety (COP MOP), saw the presence of around 2,000 delegates from 150 countries. At COP MOP, a host of issues will be discussed and decisions adopted for ensuring the safe transfer, handling and use of Living Modified Organisms(LMOs) resulting from modern biotechnology. Besides providing further guidance on operation of Bio-safety Clearing House (BCH), it will also adopt means of mobilising additional financial resources for implementation of the Protocol, a framework and action plan for capacity building and encourage parties to expedite domestic ratification to the Supplementary Protocol on liability and redress, among others. At COP-11 beginning October 8, delegates will review the progress of the ‘Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020’ and address ways to strengthen its implementation.
  
• Consensus reached on setting up BRICS Bank:
  Think tanks of five member--Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa- BRICS bloc, representing the emerging economies, reached consensus on creating a BRICS development bank to complement existing global financial institutions like World Bank
  
• India calls for total elimination of Chemical Weapons, WMDs:
  India on 2 October stressed the importance of total elimination of chemical weapons and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and called for universal adherence to international legal norms and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Speaking at a special meeting of the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in New York to mark 15 years of the CWC, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said India viewed the Convention as a unique, multilaterally negotiated and non-discriminatory disarmament instrument, which served as a model for elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. The Minister told the meeting that the international legal norms against the use of chemical weapons anywhere must not be breached.
  
• Russia rejects Pak plea for Kashmir mediation:
  Russia on 4 October ruled out playing a role in resolving the Kashmir problem, saying India and Pakistan were capable of settling their outstanding issues themselves.
  
• Pak SC gives govt more time to amend Swiss draft:
  Pakistan Supreme Court 5 October objected to contents of a fresh draft of a letter to be sent to Swiss authorities over graft charges against President Asif Ali Zardari and gave government time until October 10 to finalise it in accordance with its order that sought revival of the cases.