Special court in Mangalore to try sexual assault cases
Yet to be clarified whether the court will try new cases or all pending cases
The Karnataka High Court issued a notification regarding formation of special courts in 10 places including Mangalore for speedy trial of cases of rape.
As per the notification dated November 26, the High Court has designated the new Sixth Additional District and Sessions Court as the special court for trying cases of rape registered in Dakshina Kannada. The notification states that the Fourth Additional District and Sessions Judge will hold the charge of the Sixth Additional District and Sessions Court until a new judge is appointed.
An official from the office of District and Sessions Judge said the notification was not clear whether the special court will try all pending cases of rape or those registered afresh. “We are expecting clarification in this regard from the High Court,” the official said.
Two special courts are coming up in Bangalore City and one each in Bangalore Rural, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Madikeri, Mandya, Mysore and Ramanagaram.
In September 2013 the State government proposed setting up 10 special courts in the State. Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra had said stringent laws and speedy disposal of cases could act as a deterrent and bring down the number of crimes against women.
Every special court would be provided with a District Judge and 36 other personnel, the Minister had said.
The proposal was formed following activists’s demand for speedy trial of rape cases as done by a Special Court in Delhi. The Delhi Court on September 13 sentenced four persons to death for raping a girl on December 16, 2012.
Clarification awaited on
whether the court will also take up pending cases
ISRO set to catapult Mars orbiter into sun-centric orbit
In a crucial manoeuvre that will have far-reaching implications for India’s mission of sending a spacecraft to Mars, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will fire the propulsion system on board its Mars spacecraft for 23 minutes from 00.49 hours on Sunday.
If the exercise is successful, the spacecraft will be catapulted out of its present earth-bound orbit into the sun-centric orbit. The complex manoeuvre is called Trans-Mars Injection (TMI). The spacecraft’s propulsion system is called 440 Newton engine.
ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan told The Hindu on Saturday: “Preparations are going on well. Command sequences are already loaded into the computers. We are waiting for the time, that is, 00.49 hours Sunday, because commands are time-tagged. The firing of the spacecraft’s propulsion system will last 23 minutes. After that, there will be small corrections done on the spacecraft. Everything will be over by 1.30 a.m.”
M. Annadurai, Programme Director, Indian Remote-sensing Satellites and Small Satellites Systems, ISRO, said: “Preparations for the firing of the 440 Newton engine are in the final stages. Some of the commands are already loaded.” It is from the state-of-the-art ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore that the commands would be given for the propulsion system to fire. Right now, the spacecraft is orbiting the earth with a perigee of 268 km and an apogee of 1.92 lakh km.
U.S. exempts India from oil sanctions
The U.S. has exempted India, China and some other countries for another six months from the tough financial sanctions on Iranian oil sales, because they keep reducing their dependence on Iranian oil.
Tiger mauls forest watcher in Nagarahole National Park
Close on the heels of the killing of two tribals in Bandipur by a tiger, a forest watcher’s mauled body was found in Nagarahole National Park in the early hours of Saturday.
The watcher, B. Suresh (27), was confirmed in service just a year ago and was part of the Balle-Moorkal anti-poaching camp in the Kutta range in Kodagu.
Sources said Suresh had gone to fetch firewood around 5.30 pm on Friday while his colleagues remained inside the camp. They panicked when Suresh did not return for a long time and alerted their superiors, who ordered a search operation.
The staff lodged a missing complaint on Friday night with the Kutta police after Suresh was still not found. On Saturday morning, a partially-eaten body of the watcher was found at D.B. Kuppe range forests of the Park in Mysore district, Range Forest Officer, Poovaiah, told The Hindu .
“It is a rare case of tiger attack,” Mr. Poovaiah said.
The injury marks on the head and limbs of the watcher and drag marks on the ground definitely pointed to a tiger being the attacker, he said. Sources also said there were pug marks in the vicinity.
Though there were speculations that the same tiger that killed two tribals earlier could have killed Suresh, it has been described as “highly unlikely” as the two incidents have taken place nearly 20 km apart.
The body was sent for post-mortem later in the day.
Search to trap tiger
Meanwhile, the forest department on Saturday launched a major operation to trap and tranquilize the wild tiger that killed the two tribals on the outskirts of Bandipur Tiger Reserve in H.D.Kote taluk. Though the animal was sighted behind thick vegetation, it could not be caught.
The operation will recommence on Sunday. Four elephants assisted the officials in the combing operations.
Dr.Nagaraj, a veterinarian in the Forest Department who is part of the combing operation team, toldThe Hindu that the tiger’s movement appeared to be very sluggish indicating that it had not eaten for a long time.
While Basavaraju, a farmer from Nadaadi haadi was killed by the tiger on Wednesday, Cheluva, a Jenu Kuruba tribal of Seegewadi haadi was killed on Friday.
Once the tiger is captured, it will be shifted to the Bannerghatta rescue centre, according to officials.
Two tribals were earlier killed by tigers in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve
A major search operation has commenced to trap and tranquilize the tiger
Include witch hunting under laws on domestic violence and sexual harassment: study
Contrary to the belief, widows and single women are not the only ones vulnerable to witch hunting. In fact, witch-hunting appeared to be a prevalent form of violence used to target middle aged women fully ensconced in their marital homes, according to a study. This indicates the need to think about witch-hunting also as a form of violence against women and be brought under the purview of Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013, it said.
The field studies suggest that although the witch hunting draws upon superstition and involves gendered targeting of women, it is embedded in disputes, jealousies and tensions that fester between intimates, or arise in contexts where affordable accessible quality health care and education are largely absent.
The parading of women, tonsuring the hair, blackening face are forms of violation that involve more than physical injury, as they intend and result in humiliating the victim, destroying her social standing and dignity in her community. These can only be part of the penal code, not a special law, as they are particular but not limited to witch hunting; indeed, such victimisation is typical of community reprisal against social and sexual deviance by women.
Partners for Law in Development conducted a field study in three States - Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh - with support from the Ministry of Women and Child Development to document and analyse trends in the contemporary practices of witch hunting as well as their interface with the law.
The findings of this study “Contemporary Practices of Witch Hunting: A Report on Social Trends and the Interface with Law” are drawn from three sources of research: a documentation of 48 case studies from the three States that had occurred in the last five-six years from select blocks in the following districts - Bilaspur and Janjgir-Champa (Chhattisgarh), Jamui (Bihar) and Ranchi (Jharkhand); data from 86 police records collected from the entire districts -Jamui Bilaspur and Gumla and Ranchi in Jharkhand from the years 2010 to 2012; and 59 High Court and Supreme Court reported case laws from 10 States.
In 46 out of 48 case studies, the primary victims were women. An analysis of the police records and the reported judgments also indicated 86 per cent primary targets of witch hunting to be women.
The victims cut across castes and communities, largely from weaker socio economic strata with the two seeming to belong to comparable social and economic strata. “We also found evidence of women being instigators of witch-hunting although men outnumber them in this respect. Allegations about use of ‘supernatural’ powers are invariably present in cases of witch hunting. But land, property, jealousy, sexual advances and other common tensions between social intimates emerged as underlying factors a very large number of cases,” the report said.
Men outnumber women in instigating witch hunting
Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh have special laws
China’s move on East China Sea may prove tricky: former diplomat
India has officially not reacted to the developing tension between Japan and China, but former diplomats and academics here are hoping the parties to the dispute would step back before the situation took a turn for the worse.
Last week, China set up an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) covering the international airspace over parts of the disputed East China Sea, triggering protest from Japan. The zone includes a chain of islands called Diaoyu (in Chinese) or Senkaku (in Japanese), which are also claimed by Japan.
China expert Alka Acharya wanted the world to look at the issue from a slightly broader perspective, especially after the revelation that Japan had established its own ADIZin the same area in the late 1960s and sent military planes in recent years to shadow Chinese ones on grounds that they had entered Japan’s ADIZ.
Former diplomat Nalin Surie described the emerging confrontation as an “unfortunate situation” due to China taking over Japan as the top Asian power and Tokyo seeking to reclaim its position. The first stone in stoking the dispute was cast by Japan when it bought the islands back but China’s “one-upmanship” in setting up the ADIZ a few days back “could prove tricky.”
Another former diplomat Vivek Katju hoped the setting up of the ADIZ by China was in accordance with international norms and felt the U.S.’s signal by flying two of its bombers through the zone was “very clear.”
The ADIZ was basically being superimposed on the existing tensions over the islands. “The question we need to find out is whether this kind of decision is contravening any law. That’s not very clear but the declaration has certainly heightened the sense of tension. We will have to wait and watch more carefully,” observed Ms. Acharya.
Mr. Surie pointed out that this dispute was the previous Chinese government’s legacy but both the present President and Prime Minister of China [Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang] were in the decision-making loop at that time. He referred to his observations at a Chennai seminar that China’s actions on the islands’ issue vis-à-vis Japan and the ASEAN had been aggressive and in some respects this had reduced the room for manoeuvre for Mr. Xi and his new team.
“A stage has now been reached where China will be increasingly judged by its partners and the international community by its actions. Its rhetoric no longer carries conviction and it will no longer get the benefit of the doubt. Mr. Xi & Mr. Li will have to increasingly exercise Chinese power and influence in a responsible manner that is credible to its partners and interlocutors,” he said.
New defence zone has heightened the sense of tension: Alka Acharya
China’s rhetoric no longer carries conviction, says Nalin Surie
China reiterates claim on Arunachal
Xinhua’s report says the State is “under Indian illegal occupation”
China’s official Xinhua news agency on Saturday reiterated Beijing’s territorial claims on Arunachal Pradesh, coinciding with President Pranab Mukherjee’s two-day visit to the State.
In a report, Xinhua said China saw the State as being “currently under Indian illegal occupation.” “The so-called Arunachal Pradesh was established largely on the three areas of China’s Tibet — Monyul, Loyul and Lower Tsayul — currently under Indian illegal occupation,” the report said.
“These three areas located between the illegal ‘Mcmahon Line,’ and the traditional customary boundary between China and India have always been Chinese territory. In 1914, the colonialists secretly contrived the illegal ‘Mcmahon Line’ in an attempt to incorporate into India the above-mentioned three areas of Chinese territory. None of the successive Chinese governments have ever recognised this line,” it said.
The report follows a statement issued here on Friday by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which said: “China’s position on the disputed area of the eastern section of the China-India boundary is consistent and clear-cut.”
However, the statement was less strident than China’s response to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh in 2009, when an increasingly assertive Chinese government said it was “deeply upset” and expressed “grave concerns,” and publicly opposed the visit.
It remained unclear whether the Xinhua report was issued in response to Friday’s speech by President Pranab Mukherjee to the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly.
“Integral part”
The President made clear that Arunachal Pradesh “is an integral and important part of the North-east region of India and a core stakeholder in India’s Look East foreign policy.”
VCs to review progress of value-based education
Devotion to cultural heritage, not industrialisation, is real yardstick of development, says President
President Pranab Mukherjee pays homage atthe war memorial at Kohima in Nagalandon Saturday.— PHOTO: PTI
President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday stressed the importance of holistic value-based higher education to tackle contemporary moral challenges.
Addressing the Twelfth Convocation of Rajiv Gandhi University here, the President announced that a meeting of all vice chancellors in the country would be convened in February to review progress in promoting value-based education.
The real yardstick of development, Mr. Mukherjee said, was not the number of factories, dams, roads and power houses built in the country, but people, their values and devotion to the nation’s spiritual and cultural heritage.Educational institutions must inculcate the core values of love for the motherland, performance of duty, compassion, tolerance for pluralism, respect for women, honesty, self-reliance and responsibility in action and discipline, said Mr. Mukherjee.
The President regretted that India ceased to be the leading seat of higher education after having been the guiding light for well over 18 centuries from 6 BCE to 12 CE. He expressed shock that not one Indian body had been adjudged to be in the top 200 institutions in the world.
Mr. Mukherjee placed emphasis on quality and innovation in higher education and said mere physical enrolment could not spearhead development.He observed that foreign students must be invited to come to India for higher learning as opposed to Indian students going abroad for studies.
The country had to take advantage of its geographical location and infrastructure and once again establish itself as a hub of international studies.
His advice to Arunachal Pradesh was to carry out inter-disciplinary research on natural-resource management to work out alternative growth models. The thrust had to be on border trade opportunities and integration of the North East economy with the national and global economies.
The President reiterated that Arunachal Pradesh was a crucial State in matters of external relations, particularly the Look East Foreign Policy.
Pays homage
At Kohima, Mr. Mukherjee, who is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, paid homage at the Kohima War Memorial where over 2000 gallant British and Indian soldiers attained martyrdom during the Second World War fighting the Axis forces.
‘India must use its location, infrastructure to again become hub of international studies’
President expressed shock that no Indian body was among top 200 global institutions
District Magistrate arrested
In an unusual development which was described as “highly embarrassing” by the State government here on Saturday, the Siliguri City Police arrested District Magistrate of Malda G. Kiran Kumar in connection with a case involving misappropriation of funds. Hours later, the government removed Commissioner of Siliguri City Police K. Jayaraman from his post, disapproving of his action.
“We feel the arrest was warranted only if the accused was tampering with the evidence or was likely to abscond, but nothing such was applicable in this case,” the State’s Chief Secretary Sanjay Mitra told journalists at `Nabanna’, the makeshift Secretariat in Howrah.
Describing the arrest of the District Magistrate by Mr. Jayaraman as an instance of the IPS officer “exceeding his brief”, Mr. Mitra said that it was “highly embarrassing” for the State government.
India qualifies for Iran sanctions exception: U.S.
Decision based on New Delhi’s significant reductions in purchase of Iranian crude oil
India is once again among a small list of nations that qualifies for an exception from unilateral sanctions imposed by Washington on nations importing oil from Iran, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said this week.
In a formal notification regarding sanctions outlined in Section 1245 of the U.S.’ 2012 National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA), Mr. Kerry said the exception granted to India, along with China, South Korea, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan, was based on New Delhi’s “additional significant reductions in the volume of their purchases of Iranian crude oil.”
Major breakthrough
Last week, a major breakthrough in negotiations between western nations and Teheran on limiting Iran’s nuclear programme was achieved, after a lengthy imposition of crippling sanctions, including multilateral measures authorised by the United Nations as well as unilateral restrictions imposed by the Obama administration.
In June 2012, on the eve of the bilateral Strategic Dialogue, erstwhile U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton granted India a similar exception from the sanctions that kicked in the following month.
During the months of negotiations leading to that exception, it was made clear to The Hindu that India would not explicitly make any application for a sanctions exemption from the U.S., although “whether private companies engaged in the oil trade with Iran independently start reducing their volumes is another question.”
Constraints
As it turned out, several companies engaged in importing Iranian oil at the time were in any case said to be facing constraints on their business volume “given the broader sanctions against Iranian central bank and other financial institutions, and the knock-on effect that that has in terms of payment instruments.”
This week, Mr. Kerry said U.S. President Barack Obama had made it clear that Washington would “continue to vigorously implement our existing sanctions on Iran as the P5+1 seeks to negotiate a comprehensive deal with Iran that will resolve the international community’s concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear programme.”
Underscoring the U.S. belief that the sanctions had brought the regime of recently-elected Iranian President Hasan Rouhani to the negotiating table, the Secretary said that as part of the Joint Action Plan agreed by the P5+1 nations and Iran, “We will pause for six months our efforts to further reduce Iran’s crude oil sales.”
He, however, cautioned that this plan did not offer relief from sanctions with respect to any increases in Iranian crude oil purchases by existing customers or any purchases by new customers, and “we will continue to aggressively enforce our sanctions over the next six months.”
His notification came even as Mr. Obama said via a White House notification, “There is a sufficient supply of petroleum and petroleum products from countries other than Iran to permit a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products purchased from Iran by or through foreign financial institutions.”
This would be the fourth instance of India qualifying for a National Defence Authorisation Act exception as a result of its “continued significant reductions in the volume of crude oil purchases from Iran,” the Secretary noted.
Fourth instance of India qualifying for
an NDAA exception
China, South Korea, Malaysia, Turkey, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan have been exempted too
HIV prevalence rate comes down in Kerala
Ensuring care for those surviving with infection a challenge
From being a death sentence, HIV/AIDS has now evolved as a chronic yet manageable disease, with early and effective treatment utilising anti-retroviral drugs.
Thus, even as the State continues to focus on the goal of preventing new HIV infections in the general population, the major challenge in the coming years would be ensuring continued care and support services for those who are surviving with the infection.
“Kerala’s HIV prevalence rate has further come down, from last year’s 0.19 per cent to 0.12 per cent this year. The total estimated number of those living with HIV in the State is 25,090. We have achieved almost zero transmission of the infection from mother to child; the infection among those groups considered to be high-risk is also coming down because of our intensive programmes. But high-risk behaviour of those in the general population has been resulting in new infections,” a senior official working in the area of HIV/AIDS said.
“Our focus will soon shift exclusively to the issues faced by those living with HIV because the anti-retroviral therapy (ART) has made it possible for them to live normal lives. When the State began offering free ART in 2004, the strategy had been to start treatment when the CD4 count reached 200. (CD4 is the cell count indicating the stage of HIV infection when drugs should be started). In the last two years, we raised the CD 4 cut-off to 350 and soon it will be made 500. This means that we are offering treatment very early to HIV +ve persons,” said M. Prasannakumar, former head of the technical support unit for Kerala State AIDS Control Society. Early ART is now a major strategy to prevent new infections in the community because the transmission potential of the virus when a person is on ART is very low, he said.
According to KSACS, HIV prevalence rates among targeted high-risk groups have been coming down steadily, especially among the injecting drug users (IDU) and female sex workers.
“The IDU group has been a concern but we have now started oral opiod substitution therapy in over 10 government hospitals and the infection rate amongst the group is coming down. Influx of migrant workers — we have some 25 lakhs in the State — could be a concern but we can also seek relief in the fact that they are all from the low-prevalence States of West Bengal, Assam, and Orissa,” Dr. Prasannakumar said.
No complacency
But the euphoria over the State’s successes should not result in complacence in the health system because new infections have not totally disappeared in the State, warns Ajithkumar, Professor of Dermatology, Thrissur Medical College.
Syrian chemical arms to be destroyed on U.S. ship
The U.S. will destroy the most dangerous of Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile on a ship at sea, said the world’s chemical weapons watchdog Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Saturday.
“The neutralisation operations will be conducted on a U.S. vessel at sea using hydrolysis,” said OPCW in a statement.
“Currently a suitable naval vessel is undergoing modifications to support the operations and to accommodate verification activities by the OPCW,” it added.
The ship operation will destroy what is known as “priority chemical weapons”, the most dangerous of Syria’s total arsenal and ones that have to be out of the country by December 31 under an international deal agreed to avert military strikes on Damascus.
OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan on Saturday declined to name the navy vessel to be used. OPCW member states have been thrashing out the details of how to destroy Damascus’ arsenal ahead of the watchdog’s annual meeting set to start on Monday.
A final plan for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons — on land or at sea — is due to be approved by December 17.
Sigrid Kaag, the top U.N. official from the joint U.N.-OPCW mission, confirmed the use of a U.S. ship to render Syria’s most dangerous chemical weapons unusable through a dilution process known as hydrolysis, and said the resulting by-products would be destroyed by commercial companies.
“The chemical effluents, what is left when destroyed, will be treated in countries through a number of companies,” she told reporters in Damascus. The U.S. vessel “will not be in Syrian territorial waters”, she added.
The OPCW earlier this month adopted a final roadmap for ridding Syria of its arsenal of more than 1,000 tonnes of dangerous chemicals by mid-2014.
According to this roadmap, the “priority” weapons have to be removed from Syria by December 31 and destroyed by April 2014 and the rest by mid-2014.
The OPCW said on Saturday that 35 commercial companies have expressed an interest in destroying the lower priority, less dangerous weapons.
The watchdog’s director-general Ahmet Uzumcu said the various companies will now undergo evaluation before a suitable candidate is found. Despite international consensus on destroying the chemicals outside war-wracked Syria, no country had volunteered to have them destroyed on its soil.
Syria is cooperating with the disarmament and has already said it had 1,290 tonnes of chemical weapons and precursors, or ingredients, as well as over 1,000 unfilled chemical munitions, such as shells, rockets or mortars.
A team of U.N.-OPCW inspectors has been on the ground since October checking Syria’s weapons and facilities.
The destruction of declared chemical weapons production facilities was completed last month and all chemicals and precursors placed under seal, the OPCW said last month ahead of a November 1 deadline backed by a U.N. Security Council resolution. — AFP
Comet ISON probably did not survive
Too close an encounter:In this combo, comet ISON appears as a white smear heading up and away from the Sun on Thursday and Friday.— PHOTO: AP
Comet ISON seems to have perished in a much too-close encounter with the Sun, leaving only a dust trail that will disappear over time, astronomers said on Friday.
The evidence, however, is not yet confirmed, and some stargazers are holding on to hopes that a small streak satellite images have shown emerging from the flyby may point to an against-the-odds survival.
“We will have to wait a bit to see how this thing behaves in the next couple of days and weeks,” according to European Space Agency (ESA) comet expert Gerhard Schwehm, who told AFP it was “not impossible” that a part of the comet's nucleus survived the fiery encounter, but also not likely. “It looks like the nucleus disintegrated and what you see is basically the... remains,” he said.
Dubbed the “Christmas Comet”, the icy giant likened to a massive, dirty snowball, skimmed past the Sun at a distance of just 1.17 million km around 1830 GMT on Thursday.
It had been estimated that ISON would undergo temperatures of 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,700 Celsius)and lose three million tonnes of its mass per second as it made its journey around the Sun.
Most astronomers had predicted the comet, with an estimated diameter of some 1.2 km, would not survive the flypast. Several solar observatories watched ISON during its closest approach to the Sun, known as perihelion.
Several million years ago, ISON escaped from the Oort cloud, a grouping of debris halfway between the Sun and the next closest star.
— AFP
Banks can pay interest at shorter intervals
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to pay interest on rupee savings and term deposits at intervals shorter than quarterly intervals.
Since banks are functioning on core banking platform, the RBI has decided to let banks decide on the periodicity of interest payment on rupee savings and term deposits.
The RBI move, it is suggested, may set off intense competition among banks to woo deposits.
A circular dated November 4, 2000 advised banks to pay interest on savings and term deposits at quarterly or longer rests. “As banks are functioning on core banking platform, it has been decided to review the above instructions. Accordingly, banks will now have the option to pay interest on rupee savings and term deposits at intervals shorter than quarterly intervals,’’ the RBI said.
Freedom extended
The Reserve Bank has also extended the period for banks to exercise freedom to offer interest rates on incremental NRE (non-resident external) deposits with maturity of three years and above without any ceiling in order to pass on the benefit of exemption provided on such deposits from CRR (cash reserve ratio) and SLR (statutory liquidity ratio) requirements.
The RBI has now said that the banks could have this freedom till January 31, 2014. Initially, banks have been given this freedom up to November 30.
ArcelorMittal, Nippon to buy ThyssenKrupp unit
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel maker, and Japan’s Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation will jointly acquire ThyssenKrupp AG’s U.S. steel mill for $1.55 billion.
The acquirers have formed a joint venture, and will finance the deal through equity and debt, ArcelorMittal said in a statement.
The plant at Calvert, Alabama, has a capacity of 5.3 million tonnes per annum.
Strategic acquisition
“This is an important strategic acquisition for us. The Calvert plant is the most modern finishing facility in the world. It ideally complements our existing operations in the U.S. and the Americas,” ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Lakshmi N Mittal said in the statement. The transaction is expected to deliver $60 million of annual synergies and includes a six-year agreement to purchase two million tonnes of slab annually from ThyssenKrupp’s Brazilian unit, using a market-based price formula.
The Brazilian unit of Germany’s largest steel maker has an option to extend the pact by three years at more favourable terms to the yet-to-be-named joint venture.
ArcelorMittal will be responsible for marketing products on behalf of the joint venture. “The automotive market is an identified franchise business for ArcelorMittal and the Calvert facility will complement ArcelorMittal’s existing auto business in the U.S.,” the company said.
“This acquisition will also strengthen ArcelorMittal’s position in supplying the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) energy industry, which is expected to demonstrate growing demand for energy pipe and tube products due to increases in oil and natural gas exploration and production,” the statement added.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals in certain markets. — PTI
ArcelorMittal will be responsible for marketing products on behalf of the joint ventureArcelorMittal will be responsible for marketing products on behalf of the joint venture
Punching PIN must for debit card transactions
Debit card holders will from Sunday be required to punch in their PIN numbers every time they use the card, a move aimed at minimising frauds.
In June, the Reserve Bank of India had extended the deadline for implementation of mandatory PIN punching at point-of-sales (PoS) and merchant outlets till November 30 following representation of banks.
“Our back-end system is in place and we have made changes in all our PoS and merchant outlets to accept PIN (basically ATM PIN) from Sunday,” said Parag Rao, HDFC Bank’s head card payment products and merchant acquiring service.
“We have around 3 lakh PoS terminals across the country,” he said, adding that the bank has informed all its customers through all channels including SMS and mailers.
As part of awareness drive, SBI has in a notice asked its customers not to handover ATM-cum-debit card to any person.
It also advised the customers that they should not keep any records of the PIN in physical form.
According to a senior official of Canara Bank, the PIN is another layer of security for the debit card.
First, merchants will swipe the cards at a PIN enabled PoS terminal and punch in the transaction amount. That will be followed by customers entering their PINs to complete the transaction. — PTI
