(Current Affairs) National Events | September: 2013

National Events

Cauvery Water Scheme, 2013 Notified

The Union government notified Cauvery Water (Implementation of the Order of 2007) Scheme, 2013 to implement the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT), 2007. Under the scheme, a supervisory committee will be formed as notified by the ministry of Water Resources. The committee will be headed by the Water Resources Secretary, while Chief Secretaries of the Cauvery basin States/Union Territory (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala) will be the members. The Central Water Commission (CWC) chairman will also be a member and the CWC’s chief engineer will be the Member- Secretary. The headquarters of the committee will be in New Delhi. The scheme will be in place till the Cauvery Management Board is constituted as mentioned in the award. The chairman of the Committee may apply to the Supreme Court for appropriate directions with notices to other States if he thinks it is necessary. As per the notification of the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT), 2007 in February 2013, the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), chaired by the Prime Minister, and the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC), headed by the Water Resources Secretary are no longer functioning.

Both committees were formed as per the directives of the Supreme Court to monitor the implementation of the interim orders of the tribunal. Supreme Court of India in its interim order on 10 May 2013 had directed the union government to constitute a supervisory committee for implementation of the final order of the CWDT dated 5 February 5, 2007 as notified on 19 February 2013. The Tribunal which included Chairman
Justice N.P. Singh and members N.S.

Rao and Sudhir Narain was set up in 1990. It had determined the total availability of water in the Cauvery basin at 740 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet at the Lower Coleroon Anicut site in a Unanimous award in February 2007. In the final order the Tribunal gave Tamil Nadu 419 TMC of water (as against the demand of 562 TMC); Karnataka 270 TMC (as against its demand of 465 TMC); Kerala 30 TMC and Puducherry 7
TMC. It had reserved 10 TMC for environmental protection.

160 years old Telegraph Services in India ended

Union Government on 12 June 2013 decided to discontinue the Telegraph Services in India from 15 July 2013. Telegram in India was also known as Taar. The decision of ceasing the services of Telegraph came up after more than 160 years of its being into operations. The last time Telegraph would be used to send atelegram on 14 July 2013. A circularwas issued by Bharat Sanchar NigamLtd (BSNL) Corporate office on 12 June 2013 and sent to different telegraph circle and district offices with an order to discontinue the telegraph services from 15 July 2013 onwards. As per the issued circular, the telegraph offices under BSNL have been directed to  stop booking telegraph from 15 July 2013 onwards. The decision came up in consultation  with the Department of Posts because the service was not commercially viable.

To maintain the losses and declining revenue, the telegram charges for inland services were hiked in May 2011. BSNL has suffered an annual loss of 300 - 400 crore rupees from telegraph service alone. Before this, the telegram services for overseas communication were withdrawn by BSNL in April 2013. The telecom offices has been directed to maintain log books, service messages, delivery slips for six months from the date of booking. The telecom offices will also have to maintain the press reports, complaints and other messages from different consumer forums of one year. The telegraph staff members will be deployed to mobile services,
broadband services, landline telephony.

Difference between telegraph and telegram

Telegraph is the means via which a telegram is sent, whereas, telegram is the message itself. Telegraph is a communication system that is used to transmit and receive the unmodulated electric impulses via radio or wire. The telegraphs are the messages send by the telegram and are transmitted as a series of short and long electric impulses. Whereas, telegram can be defined as the message that is encoded, decoded or telegraphed in form of the original message.

Different Kinds of Telegraphy technology in series of development:

Optical Telegraph: for the first time, telegraph came in form of optical telegraph

Electrical Telegraphs: One of the earliest electromagnetic telegraph designs was created by Pavel Schilling in 1832. Morse Telegraph: An electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signalling alphabet with Morse. The first telegram in the United States was sent by Morse on 11 January 1838, across two miles (3 km) of wire at Speedwell Ironworks near Morristown, New Jersey.

Oceanic Telegraph Cables: The first commercially successful transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully completed on 18 July 1866. The lasting connections were achieved by the ship SS Great Eastern, captained by Sir James Anderson. The telegraph across the Pacific was completed in 1902, finally encircling the world.

Wireless telegraphy: Nikola Tesla and other scientists and inventors showed the usefulness of wireless telegraphy, radiotelegraphy, or radio, beginning in the 1890s. Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrated to the public his wireless radio receiver, which was also used as a lightning detector, on 7 May 1895.

Telex: In 1935, message routing was the last great barrier to full automation. Systems that used telephone-like rotary dialing to connect teletypewriters were developed by many service providers of telegraphy. These
systems (machines) were called “Telex” (TELegraph EXchange). Telex machines first performed rotary-telephone-style pulse dialing for circuit switching, and then sent data by Baudot code.

National Issues
Current Affairs
Downloads
Civil Services EXAM
Civil Services Preliminary
Civil Services Mains
UPSC