japan

The Liberal Democratic Party, LDP, led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has won an absolute majority in yesterday's Lower House elections.  The LDP's coalition partner, New Komeito, has won 28 seats.  The LDP and New Komeito are short of a majority in the upper house. The Democratic Party of Japan led by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has suffered a crushing defeat. Noda says he accepts the verdict gravely and will resign as party leader to take responsibility.

LDP President Abe told the National Broadcasters NHK that his party and New Komeito have already decided to form a coalition government and will soon have policy talks.

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Japan’s Lower House of Parliament the House of Representatives, dissolved

The Japanese Lower House of Parliament-the House of Representatives was dissolved on 16 November 2012, and paved the way ahead to general elections scheduled on 16 December 2012. 

Takahiro Yokomichi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives read out the imperial decree signed by Emperor Akihito to parliament, which proclaimed the dissolution of the government. 

Campaigns of the election scheduled for 16 December 2012 would start from 4 December 2012 and in case the ruling Noda’s Center-left Party Looses the election, Japan would get its seventh Prime Minister after many years. 

The Lower House or the House of Representatives in Japan has 480 seats and the party that would win over more than half of the seats in the upcoming elections would lead the country ahead of the crisis situation being faced by the nation and in case any of the parties fails to win majority, Japan will have to face the dramatic syndrome of the coalition government and the future of Japan would then depend on the decisions yet to come. 

Elections in Japan 

National Diet of Japan’s Bicameral Legislature is formed with the two different houses namely the lower house and the upper house. 

The Upper House is called the House of Councillors and Lower House is called as The House of Representatives. Parallel voting system is used for electing the members of both the houses of the Diet in Japan.

Article 6 of Japan states that the Emperor would appoint the Prime Minister of Japan that is chosen by the National Diet and he is also responsible for appointment of the Chief Judge of Supreme Court that is chosen by the Cabinet. 

Chapter V of the Japanese Constitution states the formation of the Cabinet and resting of executive powers to it, under Article 65. It also mentions the process of election of the Prime Minister in the Nation under article 66 and 67 and powers vested to him under the Articles 68 to 75. 

Article 66 of the Japanese Constitution states that the Cabinet should consist of a Prime Minister, who will be its head and a group of ministers of the state mentioned by law. Both the Prime Minister and the Ministers of State should be the Civilians. To exercise the executive powers, the Cabinet is collectively responsible to the diet. 

Article 67 states that the Prime Minister would be chosen from the members of the diet following the resolution passed by the diet and this selection process would follow to all other businesses. 

The Article also explains that in case any of the two houses, the House of Representatives or the House of Councillors disagree on the decision and if no agreement can be reached by a joint committee meet of both the houses, within ten days (that would not include the recess period), after the House of Representatives (lower house) has made its decision, than under such situation the decision of the House of representatives would be considered as the final decision of the National Diet.  

The house of representatives includes 480 members in total that is elected for a term of four years. Out of these 480 members 300 members are elected from the single-member constituencies and the rest of the 180 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies using the party-list system of proportional representation. To Win majority and form the government, a party needs 241 seats. 

Articles that allows dissolving of the Lower house 

Article 54. When the House of Representatives is dissolved, there must be a general election of members of the House of Representatives within forty (40) days from the date of dissolution, and the Diet must be convoked within thirty (30) days from the date of the election.

When the House of Representatives is dissolved, the House of Councillors is closed at the same time. However, the Cabinet may in time of national emergency convoke the House of Councillors in emergency session.

Measures taken at such session as mentioned in the proviso of the preceding paragraph shall be provisional and shall become null and void unless agreed to by the House of Representatives within a period of ten (10) days after the opening of the next session of the Diet.

Article 69. If the House of Representatives passes a non-confidence resolution, or rejects a confidence resolution, the Cabinet shall resign en masse, unless the House of Representatives is dissolved within ten (10) days.

Democratic Party of Japan that was ruling the Government for past three years took the decision of dissolving the house due to its recent decision of doubling the taxes and its inability to handle the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis. 

The decision of dissolving the lower house came at the time, when Japan is struggling to prop-up its economy, plans to re-establish the energy policies are on the way after the Fukushima Nuclear crisis, reconstruction of areas which were devastated by the Tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 are in process, and re-establishing good ties with China that deteriorated due to territorial dispute on Diaoyu Islands.














Earthquake in Japan
 A major 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Tokyo and surrounding areas. There were no immediate reports of
damage or injury and no tsunami warning was issued.
 Its epicentre was located near Torishima, an island about 560 kilometres south of Tokyo and was about 370
kilometres deep.







Japan’s deploys PAC-3 to respond to North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-3
launch atop the Unha-3 rocket
In order to respond to the North Korea’s (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK)) Satellite
which is scheduled to be launched b/w April 12-16, 2012, Japan’s Self-Defense Force finished the
transporting and deployment of its ground-based PAC-3 (Patriot Advance Capability-3)at 4 locations
in Okinawa including the military bases in Naha, Miyako and Chinen. Japan’s "J-alert" system, which will be used to
alert residents when the rocket is launched.
Why Japan has deployed its PAC-3 interceptors at 4 locations?
Japan has asserted that it would shoot down the DPRK’s rocket if it crosses Japan’s airspace.

The United States and Japan on 17 September 2012, announced an agreement to set up second advanced missile defense radar on Japanese province. It is an effort which is distinctively designed to counter the ballistic missile threat from North Korea.

The radar which is named as X-band radar is meant to protect Japan as well as the U.S. homeland.

The United States and its allies in the region have expressed growing concern about North Korea's missile tests and nuclear arms programs. Despite warnings by the international community, Pyongyang fired a rocket in April, saying it was meant to launch an experimental satellite. But it was generally believed the launch was a missile test.

This deal came when China and Japan is on dispute for an uninhabited, resource-rich island chain known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. The joint missile defense system encourages Japan to keep an forceful position in the Diaoyu Islands dispute, which is sending China a very negative message.

Japanese bank to roll out Cardless ATMs
Japan’s Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank is set to be the first in the world to offer a cardless ATM that uses palm
scanning technology. The bank plans to roll out the technology to 10 branches from September this
year.
How will the Technology work?
The ATM machine will run on Fujitsu palm-scanning biometric technology, which recognises the unique
pattern of veins in a palm. Bank customers will just need to scan their hand to get cash and access account details.










Japan with one nuclear reactor after shutdown
There is only one working nuclear reactor left in Japan after the Tokyo Electric Power Company closed its final
generator for scheduled safety checks. The huge utility’s total stocks of 17 reactors are now idle, including 3 units that
suffered a meltdown when the Tsunami hit Fukushima. There is assumed to be a hike in electricity demand in the hot
and humid summer season in Japan. Just one of Japan’s 54 units in northernmost Hokkaido is still working, and that is
planned to be shut down for maintenance work in May 2012.
Japan’s formerly-trusted nuclear power industry lost public confidence when the tsunami of March 2011 knocked out
cooling systems at Fukushima, sending three reactors into meltdowns.

 The Toyota Smart Insect prototype uses Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinecttechnology to enable drivers to open car doors and complete basic operations simply by speaking the requests out loud.

The vehicle has a speaker on the hood and “dialogue monitors” installed to aid in the voice recognition process. The other half of Kinect’s technology is its ability to detect motion. The Smart Insect uses this to sense when the driver is approaching the car, triggering the built-in displays to present welcome messages.

Motion controls are also used almost as an artificial intelligence component; if the vehicle believes you are about to reach for the door, it can open it for you. That’s the kind of thing that can get sticky if the software messes up, though.

Nevertheless, this smart car concept really goes all out. The car is completely electric and it charges via a standard 100-volt AC outlet. It can also connect to smartphone apps to adjust things like air conditioning and door locks. Basically, it is a demonstration of the kinds of features that are theoretically possible today, but will probably take years to ever truly be integrated into a mass market vehicle.

motion sensor,voice recog,behaviour prediction technology to monitor driver's face and activate in cabin feactures,fog lights

Japan, World Bank meeting on disaster risk management opens in Sendai

Kyodo

SENDAI — Global leaders and disaster experts gathered Tuesday in Sendai for an international conference hosted by Japan and the World Bank on disasters and development, with reconstruction minister Tatsuo Hirano vowing to do more to create disaster-resilient communities.

Cherry Plants to be planted in Japan to warn future generations about Tsunami

Cherry trees planted in tsunami-ravaged city of Rikuzentakata, Japan
Residents of the tsunami-ravaged coastal city of Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture have launched a project to plant cherry trees marking the points where waves reached on March 11, 2011 to warn future generations about a repeat of the catastrophe.

Japan launched a new Nuclear Safety Agency on 18 September 2012. The formation of this five-member Nuclear Regulation Authority was done after the country was hit by Tsunami in the year 2011 resulting in major breakdown and leakage of the Nuclear Power Plants in the tsunami-stricken-area of Fukushima Dai-Ichi Plant. Headed by the nuclear Physicist, Shunichi Tanaka, this agency is responsible for reviewing of the nuclear policies of the country.

Before the incident, Japan relied on nuclear power for at least one-third of its energy requirements but now it’s planning to increase it to a level of 50 percent of its total energy requirements. The framed policies framed aims to phase out the issues related to nuclear power of the country for next three decades.