06 November 2006
Beijing, Nov 6 (DPA) At least 17 miners were killed and 30 untraced after an explosion in a mine in northern China's Shanxi province, news reports said Monday.
Rescuers pulled out 17 bodies Monday from the Jiaojiazhai mine, near Xinzhou city, after Sunday's explosion.
The cause of the explosion is believed to be due to gas that accumulated and exploded after exhaust fans stopped working due to a power failure. The explosion caused a cave-in, hampering rescue efforts.
Rescuers are still 400 to 500 metres away from the site of the explosion. There were 393 workers in the mine at the time of the accident.
Last Tuesday, 29 miners were killed in a coal mine gas explosion in north-western Gansu province.
About 6,000 coal miners were killed in accidents in China last year, according to official figures.
Out-of-date equipment, illegal mining as well as poor safety systems and supervision are behind many accidents in China.
Beijing, Nov 6 (DPA) Forty-seven people were feared dead after a gas explosion at a coalmine in the northern Chinese province of Shanxi, officials said Monday.
Seventeen bodies were recovered Monday from the Jiaojiazhai mine near Xinzhou, officials said, and little hope remained at finding the remaining 30 missing miners alive after Sunday's blast, a top staff member who is responsible for the machinery at the mine said in a telephone interview with DPA.
"The trapped workers might not have enough air," he said.
Rescue workers were still about 100 metres away from the site of the explosion that caused the cave-in.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that 393 workers were in the mine at the time of the blast and 346 escaped.
The cause of the explosion is believed to be the gas that accumulated and exploded after exhaust fans stopped working because of a power failure.
On Oct 31, 29 miners were killed in another gas explosion at a coalmine in the northwestern province of Gansu.
About 6,000 coal miners were killed in accidents in China last year, according to official figures. Out-of-date equipment, illegal mining as well as poor safety systems and supervision are behind many accidents.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (ZEENEWS.COM) Turmeric or haldi (curcuma longa) is one of the commonest Indian spices possessing many medicinal virtues.
The literature on indigenous medicines enlists many ailments against which turmeric is effective.
It is an ideal home aid against diseases like influenza, bronchial asthma, cold and cough.
It is generally taken as a teaspoonful of dry powder boiled with a cupful of milk. It corrects the disordered process of nutrition and restores the normal function of the system.
Taken twice or thrice daily before meals, this preparation is effective household remedy in bronchial asthma.
Known for its antiseptic properties, turmeric is taken as a powder along with warm milk (30 ml) for relief from chronic cough. To prepare this, milk is poured on a hot ladle with turmeric in it and boiled over slow fire.
A decoction of turmeric powder (teaspoon) and caraway seed or ajwain (quarter teaspoon) sweetened with a few drops of honey and after cooling can be given to infants and children suffering from cold.
The rhizome juice or dry powder mixed in buttermilk or plain water is highly beneficial in intestinal problems, especially chronic diarrhoea. It also helps prevent flatulence.
Raw turmeric juice, rich in iron, with honey everyday is used in the treatment of anaemia.
Apply paste of turmeric, lime and salt for treating sprains or swellings due to sprains.
The herb is also beneficial in treating measles. Fine powdered turmeric leaves mixed with drops of honey and juice of bitter gourd leaves can be given to measles patients.
An application of turmeric powder to boils speeds up healing process. Apply a solution made by dissolving the ashes of dry turmeric roots obtained by roasting in a cupful of water over the affected portion. This enables the boils to ripen and burst.
Turmeric is also known to be effective in curing skin diseases like ringworm and scabies by applying raw juice externally on affected parts. Simultaneously, turmeric juice with honey should be taken orally.
About 20 drops of raw turmeric juice with a pinch of salt, taken first thing in morning, is considered an effective remedy for expelling worms.
Mixture of turmeric and Indian gooseberry (amla) can tackle diabetes. For hematuria (blood in urine) it is taken as three grams powder with 12 grams of Indian gooseberry.
Turmeric is also prescribed for liver and urinary diseases. It is also a component of many patent indigenous formulations.
Kabul, Nov 6 (DPA) US-led coalition and Afghan forces captured six rebels, including a known Al Qaeda terrorist, during an operation early Monday near the city of Khost, officials said.
"The detainee, who has known ties to Al Qaeda leadership, was taken into custody along with five other terrorists found in the compound, including Saudi and Pakistani nationals," according to a coalition statement released Monday.
"No shots were fired, and nobody was harmed during the operation. Several women and children were found in the compound," said the coalition forces.
The statement added that the combined force uncovered grenades, military equipment, armour-piercing rounds and AK-47 assault rifles during the search of the compound. They also recovered a camera containing surveillance video of nearby military installations.
Many Taliban terrorists and Pakistanis have been captured in Khost province, which shares a long border with Pakistan.
Mumbai, Nov 6 (IANS) Australia broke an eight-year jinx to win the elusive Champions Trophy for the first time here Sunday, beating defending champions West Indies by eight wickets in a rain-affected final.
Chasing West Indies' 138 all out in 30.3 overs, Australia made 116 for two wickets to reach the readjusted target through the Duckworth & Lewis Method and add the elusive silverware to their World Cup trophy won almost four years ago.
All-rounder Shane Watson scored an unbeaten 57 (88 balls, 4x4s) while the consistent Damien Martyn remained unbeaten on a watchful 47 (71 balls, 6x4s) when victory was achieved at the Brabourne Stadium under floodlights.
Watson was named the Man of the Match.
West Indies opener Chris Gayle, who tallied 474 in eight matches including three centuries, was adjudged the Man of the Tournament.
Australia had never entered the final of a tournament that was launched in 1998 as the ICC Knock-Out Tournament, while the West Indies played their third final.
Earlier, left-arm fast bowler Nathan Bracken had taken three West Indies scalps after Brian Lara, captain of the reigning champions, won the toss and opted to bat.
But the West Indies, although starting briskly, were bowled out for a meagre total. Australia's supposedly easy run chase was stopped by rain when the world champions were 45 for two wickets in 10 overs.
Australia had lost two quick wickets and just as opener Watson and Martyn were settling down to the vagaries of the Brabourne pitch, showers sent them into the dressing room.
When play resumed after a break of nearly two hours, Watson and Martyn resumed without letting the stoppage distract them from achieving the target without getting out.
Australia had begun their innings quite poorly, losing left-handed Adam Gilchrist (2, 9 balls) to a well-directed delivery from Ian Bradshaw. The left-arm pacer pitched it at the good length spot and the batsman had no answer to it except for edging it to Chris Gayle's chest at the first slip.
With the addition of one run to the total, fast bowler Jerome Taylor gave Australia the second shock when he had captain Ricky Ponting leg before the wicket as he shaped to play on the leg side. The skipper failed to open his account.
But opener Watson, who had earlier taken two wickets, and in-form Martyn prevented any more surprises as they started to build the innings. They had added 32 runs for the third wicket when showers came down and stopped play for the first time in the month-long tournament.
Earlier, Lara won the toss and opted to bat. But he and his team, which had been playing exceptionally well in the eight-team tournament so far, failed to get going when it mattered most.
They looked vulnerable when faced by a world class pace attack, which they had dominated in an earlier Group A league match at the same venue. West Indies had then upset the world champions Australia.
Left-arm fast bowler Bracken, who looked menacing, rattled the West Indies batting order with three for 22 from six overs.
Watson and Glenn McGrath were not much behind their lanky colleague and picked up two wickets each, while speedster Brett Lee and left-arm Chinaman bowler Brad Hogg picked up one each.
Only three batsmen - Gayle (37), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (27) and Dwayne Bravo (21) - entered the doubles figures besides the 14 'extras' that Australian bowlers gifted.
However, the start to the West Indies innings was electrifying. In-form Gayle (37, 27 balls, 6x4s, 2x6s) and Chanderpaul (27, 18 balls, 4x4s, 1x6) took the fight to the rival camp as they unleashed a flurry of boundaries and sixes.
Both Gayle and Chanderpaul spanked the Australian fast bowlers to all parts of the ground and the first three overs from Lee yielded 36 runs.
West Indies were scoring at nearly 10 runs per over, and by the fifth over the openers had put on 49 runs on the board without being separated. But in the next over, the partnership was broken when Chanderpaul dragged a Bracken delivery onto his stumps.
Sarwan (7) also departed soon when he gave an easy catch to Hogg at mid-on off Bracken in the eighth over.
The quick loss of wickets didn't bother Gayle and he carried on with his power hitting and in the ninth over hit McGrath for 14 runs. In the very next over, the 27-year old Jamaican departed as his stumps were rattled by a beautiful Bracken delivery.
Gayle's departure triggered a batting collapse and even Lara (2) failed to do the rescue act. The West Indies captain faced 19 deliveries and was out in the 15th over when he was induced to play a McGrath beauty and Gilchrist took a brilliant one-handed catch diving full stretch to his left.
Runako Morton (2), failed to repeat his match-winning unbeaten 90 against the Australians in the Group A encounter at the same venue, and chased an outgoing McGrath delivery only to give a simple catch to Gilchrist.
Bravo (21) played well to help the Caribbean side prevent the ignominy of being bowled out under the 100-figure mark.
SCOREBOARD
Final, Australia vs. West Indies (day-night), ICC Champions Trophy, Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai, Nov 5
WEST INDIES:
C. Gayle b Bracken 37
S. Chanderpaul b Bracken 27
R. Sarwan c Hogg b Bracken 7
D. Bravo lbw Hogg 21
B. Lara c Gilchrist b McGrath 2
R. Morton c Gilchrist b McGrath 2
M. Samuels c Ponting b Watson 7
C. Baugh lbw Watson 9
I. Bradshaw b Lee 7
J. Taylor not out 5
C. Collymore run out (Symonds) 0
Extras: (lb 5, w 6, nb 3) 14
Total (all out in 30.4 overs) 138
Fall of wickets: 1-49 (Chanderpaul, 5.1 overs), 2-65 (Sarwan, 7.3), 3-80 (Gayle, 9.4), 4-88 (Lara, 14.5), 5-94 (Morton, 18.2), 6-113 (Samuels, 22.4), 7-125 (Baugh, 24.6), 8-125 (Bravo, 25.1), 9-136 (Bradshaw, 28.6)
Bowling:
Brett Lee 7.4 0 49 1 (2nb)
Nathan Bracken 6 0 22 3 (3w)
Glenn McGrath 7 3 24 2 (1nb, 1w)
Andrew Symonds 3 0 16 0
Shane Watson 3 0 11 2 (1w)
Brad Hogg 4 1 11 1 (1w)
AUSTRALIA:
A. Gilchrist c Gayle b Bradshaw 2
S. Watson not out 57
R. Ponting lbw b Taylor 0
D. Martyn not out 47
Extras: (lb 4, w 5, nb 1) 10
Total: (for two wickets in 28.1 overs) 116
Fall of wickets: 1-12 (Gilchrist, 2.6 overs), 2-13 (Ponting, 3.6)
Bowling:
Chris Gayle 1 0 5 0
Jerome Taylor 7 0 42 1 (1w)
Ian Bradshaw 6 0 21 1 (1nb, 1w)
Corey Collymore 6 1 19 0 (1w)
Marlon Samuels 5 0 9 0
Ramnaresh Sarwan 3.1 0 16 0 (2w)
Result: Australia won by eight wickets
Man of the Match: Shane Watson (Australia)
Man of the Tournament: Chris Gayle (West Indies)
Umpires: Aleem Dar (Pakistan) and Rudi Koertzen (South Africa)
Third umpire: Billy Bowden (New Zealand)
Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka)
London, Nov 6 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has strongly criticised Kashmiri separatist groups for staying away from talks with the Indian government and alleged that such groups were against peace in the state.
Claiming that there had been an improvement in the state despite a rise in infiltration from across the border this year, he said that there was "no Aladdin lamp" that could solve the Kashmir problem overnight.
Speaking to the BBC Hindi service Sunday, Azad said: "We had appealed to all individuals, groups and parties to join the talks and be a part of the roundtable conferences.
"The prime minister had said all those who want peace in the state should come forward, but if someone does not believe in talks and peace, then what can be done. President Musharraf has been saying that people of Kashmir should sit down together and try to reach a solution.
"But if some of the groups who claim to represent Kashmiris do not want peace then what can we do. We get a feeling that those who have been reluctant to join the dialogue process actually do not want peace and normalcy in the state, otherwise why should anyone who claims to be working towards a solution shy away from the talks table?"
Azad, however, did not name any separatist group.
Rejecting criticism that he had failed in initiating a political move towards a solution of the Kashmir issue during the past year, Azad said: "There is no Alladin lamp to solve the Kashmir issue overnight. Unlike any other state of the country, where you have to deal only with your own people, in this state you have to deal with Pakistan, its army, infiltrators and terrorists.
"You can make your own people understand, but when external forces are involved, first of all international politics has to be taken care of. Our state has been a victim of religious exploitation and external interference during the past six decades. Both these elements have been in the state mainly due to Pakistan, which has been active in our state all this while and we have seen many examples of religious exploitation in the world, we are one of them".
Expressing hope that the forthcoming foreign secretary level talks between India and Pakistan this month in New Delhi would take the peace process forward, Azad said that during the past three years the peace process had led to silencing of guns on the borders from both sides and the people of the state had felt the difference.
"Talks are on at two levels. Firstly what the state government is briefing the centre, and secondly the talks between the two countries. It is important that infiltration should come down.
"I am saying this because this year the infiltration has gone up. In fact, it has more than doubled this year compared to last year. But look at the difference, despite the rise in infiltration, the situation in the state has improved.
"Number of killings has gone down, and so have the cases of human rights violations, custodial deaths and disappearances as also the alleged atrocities by security forces", Azad said.
Bangalore, Nov 6 (IANS) FOSS.IN, a Bangalore-based annual event that calls itself "one of the world's most focussed Free and Open Source Software events", has announced its Nov 23-25 meet will have 82 talks and tutorials.
Organisers of the FOSS.IN said they faced "truly a Herculean task to wade through the tonnes of amazing talks and tutorials". Many good talks were left out for unavailability of slots, said organisers.
By its sheer size and participation, FOSS.IN has become one of the largest and most focussed Free and Open Source Software events, held annually in India.
Over the years it has attracted thousands of participants and organisers assert that the speaker roster reads like a who's who of FOSS contributors from across the world.
Each year about 1,500 techies from what is India's closest equivalent of a Silicon Valley flock to the meet, marked by inexpensive entry fees, some geeky tech talks, and a chance for India's Open Source community from diverse states to meet up.
Key organiser Atul Chitnis said: "FOSS.IN/2006 will be full of technical talks, discussions, workshops and tutorials related to FOSS projects and technologies."
BoFs, or informal meet-ups called "birds-of-a-feather" sessions, are aimed at allowing impromptu discussions on a variety of subjects. There is also an "expo" scheduled, to focus on FOSS-related products and services at the event to be held at the National Science Symposium Centre of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
This event is targeted at those who have skills - in coding, testing and documenting - or existing contributor to FOSS projects, wanting to share ideas with colleagues.
In recent years, support has come for this event from multinationals and, more lately, the government of India, both of which see the potential of techies in a country like India in possibly shaping the future of the software industry of the planet.
Free and Open Source Software, or FOSS, is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. It also grants the right to distribute the changed program.
Since the late 1990s this has been seen as an increasingly powerful way of building software. India, because of its huge coder base, is seen as having a key role to play in the rivalry between FOSS and the more traditional way of writing software through the 'closed' or proprietary format.
In Bangalore this month-end, talks at the event will bring in prominent speakers like Canadian KDE prominent developer Aaron Seigo, Canada infantry officer-turned-GNU/Linux advocate Andrew Cowie, database guru Christof Wittig, German kernel expert Christoph Hellwig, Brazilian LinuxChix founder Sulamita Garcia, Danise Cooper of Intel and others.
Those to take part also include Australia-based Indian expat developer Sirtaj Singh Kang and Danish-Canadian programmer and original creator of PHP Rasmus Lerdorf. PHP is the third most popular programming language worldwide, playing a crucial role in cyberspace.
Talks from the growing number of Indian contributors will focus on issues like writing applications, Linux Wi-Fi, kernel testing, the made-in-Japan programming language Ruby, IT asset management, digital photography under GNU/Linux, and how to become an "Indian Debian developer".
Rahul Sundaram talks on the ambitious 'One Laptop Per Child' plan, an idea of mass-creating laptops costing US$100 for children in the 'developing' world, a plan which seems to have run into some rough weather in India, with some key officials questioning its utility here.
Bangalore-based Sunil Abraham, currently the manager of the UN-linked International Open Source Network (IOSN.net) in Thailand, talks on the impact of Indian copyright and patent law on FOSS.
By its size, scope and persistence, the event is seen as one that will have some impact on shaping the future of coding in India.
Dhaka, Nov 6 (IANS) The man at the centre of Bangladesh's electoral storm is Chief Election Commissioner M.A. Aziz, who has been asked to officially step down but is neither willing to quit nor update the voters' list that the Supreme Court has described as "flawed".
As Bangladesh prepares to go to the polls in January, the Election Commission (EC) Sunday informed the caretaker government that it is not possible to correct the mistakes in the controversial voter list due to constraints of time.
"After wasting at least six months in the voter listing job, the EC now plans to hold the upcoming parliamentary election using the 'flawed' list as it maintains it does not have any other alternative," The Daily Star newspaper reported Monday.
The commission communicated its decision to President and Chief Adviser Iajuddin Ahmed through its secretariat.
Earlier, the president had summoned the EC secretary in the wake of intense anxiety among advisers over the updated rolls, the newspaper said quoting official sources.
"The president enquired whether we could detect and cut out the fake names or any duplication in the updated voter list. I told him that we don't have adequate time in hand. We could have taken such steps had there been more time ahead of the polls," Abdur Rashid Sarkar, secretary to the EC secretariat, told reporters on his return from Bangabhaban.
The official said mistakes could be corrected only if brought to notice. A door-to-door survey was not possible.
The council of advisers sits on Monday to discuss the issue further.
Retired judge Aziz has cited time constraints in not carrying out a full-fledged updating of the electoral rolls.
The matter was taken to the high court and later to the Supreme Court, and Aziz defied court directions.
The Awami League-led opposition alliance has alleged that the number of voters, placed at 913 million as a result of the exercise carried out by the EC is "unusually high", even granting the normal population growth.
It says the EC has included bogus voters that are likely to vote for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) that ruled the country till 10 days ago.
Asked officially to step down last week, Aziz challenged an advisor, dispatched by the president, to show if there was anything in the constitution that empowered a caretaker government to remove him from the constitutional office he holds.
He was ready to be fired, but would not quit on his own.
He is being firmly supported by the BNP that had brought him to the office and has urged the president "not to disturb" him.
Guwahati/New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) The Indian government Monday tightened security along its porous frontier with Bangladesh suspecting the involvement of foreigners in the twin blasts in Assam that killed 14 people even as a separatist bomber linked to the explosions was shot dead by police.
"We know the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was behind the bomb blasts in Guwahati. We are trying to find out if they have been backed by Islamist militants in neighbouring Bangladesh," said a senior intelligence official in New Delhi.
A police spokesman in Assam said a four-member team of ULFA rebels challenged a security team near Patharquarry, one of the two locations of Sunday night's blast, on the outskirts of Guwahati.
"There were four rebels taking shelter in a farmhouse and when we reached the spot they challenged us with grenades. We retaliated and the encounter lasted for more than 30 minutes," said Rajen Singh, deputy police chief of Guwahati.
"One of the militants was killed and the other three managed to escape. We believe the dead rebel to be one of the bombers involved in Sunday night's explosions," Singh told IANS.
The joint police and paramilitary team recovered 12 grenades and some explosives from the dead militant. Police in two separate raids arrested 12 ULFA supporters from Guwahati city Monday.
Two powerful explosions rocked Guwahati one after the other Sunday evening - one at the crowded Fancy Bazaar area and another at Patharquarry on the city outskirts. Fourteen people were killed and 38 wounded in the blasts.
The ULFA is yet to own up the bomb attacks.
Rattled by the explosions, the Assam government held a series of high-level meetings. A meeting of the Unified Command Structure to review the security situation is to begin Monday evening.
"A composite team of the union home ministry is arriving in Guwahati to take stock of the situation and work out strategies," Assam governor Lt. Gen (Retd) Ajai Singh told reporters.
Union Home Secretary V.K. Duggal will chair the meeting of the Unified Command.
"This is nothing but an act of desperation with the ULFA killing innocent civilians. We are stepping up security and take all possible steps to thwart possible rebel attacks," Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
Both the chief minister and the governor visited the injured in hospitals.
"The twin blasts have caused panic and people are now scared to even move out of their homes," said Ram Bharatiya, a textile merchant in Guwahati.
"The bomb at Fancy Bazaar was kept on a bicycle and this is one of the latest modus operandi of the ULFA to keep explosives to target innocent civilians," said Assam Police (Intelligence) chief Khagen Sharma.
Meanwhile, a dawn-to-dusk general strike Monday to protest the separatist bombings hit normal life in Guwahati.
Markets in the city remained closed and the streets wore a deserted look.
The 12-hour strike that began at 6 a.m. was jointly called by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Kamrup District Chambers of Commerce and the Purvottar Hindustani Sammelan - a socio-cultural group of Hindi speaking people in Assam.
Dalian (China), Nov 6 (Xinhua) China Monday launched a 50-car freight train ferry service across the Bohai Sea - its longest marine ferry service - that will serve as a shortcut between northeast China and the country's eastern provinces.
The ferry left Lushun in Dalian City of northeast China's Liaoning province at 8 a.m. Monday for Yantai, a port city in east China's Shandong province, marking the start of railway transport across the Bohai Sea.
It is the first train ferry on the Bohai Sea, a horseshoe-shaped sea with an area of 77,000 sq km in north China.
The ferry, a roll-on roll-off vessel 182.6 meters in length and 24.8 meters wide, can carry a 50-car freight train, 50 20-tonne trucks, 25 passenger cars and 480 passengers.
For the maiden voyage from Lushun to Yantai, the specially built ferry only carried 50 railway cars loaded with cargo such as timber and grain.
The new service cuts the trip from Yantai to Dalian by 1,800 km.
It is the second marine ferry service in the country and the longest. China's first rail transport ferry sails the Qiongzhou Strait in south China, connecting Haikou on Hainan Island with Hai'an in Guangdong Province.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday asked the central government to evolve a consensus among various political parties within four weeks on erecting a temporary structure to protect Lord Ram's idol at Ayodhya from possible rocket attacks.
A bench of judges K.G. Balakrishnan and D.K. Jain granted the time following a submission made by Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium that the government was still holding talks with the parties concerned and some more time was required to complete the consultation process on erecting a bulletproof steel structure on the four sides of Ram Lalla idol.
M.M. Kashyap, counsel for the respondent Aslam Bhure, opposed the grant of time.
He said the application itself was violation of the orders of status quo passed by the apex court.
Counsel said assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh were due shortly and alleged the government was delaying the matter only with an eye on the polls.
Subramanimum said the government was willing to give its reply if the respondent gave suggestions. Counsel agreed to do so and the bench asked the government to file its reply to the suggestions as well as on the progress of the talks in four weeks and directed listing of the matter in December.
In an application filed in May during the summer vacation, the home ministry said that there were intelligence inputs warning of possible attack on certain important Hindu temples, including the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid complex, and sought the court's permission for erecting the structure.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) India will see larger inflows of talented professionals, particularly from the country's 25-million diaspora spread across 110 countries, thanks to the nation's standing in the global knowledge economy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday.
"As the Indian economy modernises and grows, we should expect a reverse migration of talent, especially from the diaspora," Manmohan Singh told the silver jubilee function of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations [Icrear) here.
"What I would call a reverse brain drain is in the making - how can we encourage this? What domestic policy changes do we make to encourage this?" he queried, asking leading think tanks like Icrear to study its implications.
The prime minister - who was a founder member of Icrear's general body - said areas such as the likely impact of reverse brain drain in various sectors and regions needed particular attention.
The Manmohan Singh government was the first to set up a separate ministry to deal with the diaspora - the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs.
Last month, the prime minister said the annual outlay on science and technology would be increased from less than one percent of gross domestic product to two percent over five years and encourage a reverse brain drain of some of the country's brightest students abroad.
Riyadh, Nov 6 (NNN-KUNA) GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman Al-Attiyah hascondemned the Israeli brutal criminal campaign against Beit Hanoun in Gaza.
In a statement issued late Saturday, Al-Attiyah said this dangerous escalation represents a war of extermination against the Palestinians which triggers further violence and tension in the region, does not serve international peace and security, and violates all international charters and laws.
Al-Attiyah urged the Palestinian people to unify their stands to confront this hostile campaign intended to exterminate the people.
The GCC secretary general urged the international community represented by the UN Security Council and the Quartet to immediately take action to halt the barbaric attacks on the innocent Palestinian people.
Bangalore, Nov 6 (ZEENEWS.COM) Finance Minister P Chidambaram today asked India's financial sector, particularly banks, to gear up to finance an Indian economy that would be the third largest in the world in a few years.
"There is only 50 percent of India's GDP which is financed by institutional credit. My concern is about the remaining 50 percent," he said at the valedictory function of Vijaya bank platinum jubilee celebrations here.
"My concern is also about the growing GDP and how we will be able to finance it," Chidambaram said.
"My concern is about the kind of human resources that we need and growth and expansion that the banking system needs to finance a growing GDP. My concern is about how can the financial system in the country gear up to finance an economy that will be the third largest economy in the world in a few years."
The minister asserted that no one can stop India's march to become the third largest economy in the world.
"And as long as it's in my power to do what I have to do, I will not allow anyone to interfere with the growth prospects of the country," he said as he urged the financial sector to support the endeavour.
"The financial sector is heart of the economy and within the financial sector, it's the banks which are the driving force," he said.
"I am confident that the banking system in the country would continue to be the engine of growth. Credit is the oil which keeps the engine of economy moving," Chidambaram said.
By Sujit Chakraborty,
Agartala, Nov 6 (IANS) The central government is considering a proposal by Tripura to lay a sub-line to link the planned India-Myanmar gas pipeline for transporting natural gas.
Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said Tripura's proposal for a 160-km link pipeline for transporting natural gas from Myanmar was being considered.
"I was told by the minister (Ramesh) that the government was considering our proposal for the link pipeline," Tripura Industry and Commerce Minister Tapan Chakraborty told IANS.
"Once the link pipeline is built, Tripura will be able to export its surplus gas to the rest of the country or can even use the gas from Myanmar to set up gas-based plants in the state."
India is pushing the $3-billion pipeline plan to import gas from Myanmar through Mizoram and Tripura.
"After the Bangladesh government refused to allow its territory for the tri-nation project, the Indian petroleum ministry has chalked out a plan to lay the pipeline via the northeast and north Bengal," said a senior Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) official.
The prospect of importing gas using a pipeline through Bangladesh was the cheapest option.
The state-owned Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) had already submitted a feasibility report to the petroleum ministry for the 1,400-km-long pipeline from Myanmar's Sitwe area to the National Grid Station at Gaya in Bihar via the northeast and West Bengal.
"A number of industries have expressed their desire to establish their units if the required quantities of gas were made available from Myanmar," said industries and commerce director Abhishek Chandra.
The ONGC is commissioning a giant 740-MW gas-based thermal power project at Palatana in south Tripura and is planning for a jump in gas production in Tripura from 1.5 million metric standard cubic metres per day (MMSCMPD) to 4.5 MMSCMPD to meet the growing demand of gas.
Gaza, Nov 6 (DPA) Hamas has agreed with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on forming a national unity government, keeping the right of choosing the prime minister for itself, a spokesman of the Islamist militant movement said Monday.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told reporters in Gaza that the new national unity government "would be declared soon after a meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya".
"Hamas movement would have the right to name the prime minister of the new national unity government," said Barhoum, declining to name the new premier who would be chosen.
Other media sources in the West Bank reported that Hamas would reappoint Haniya as prime minister of the new government, which would replace the current Hamas-led government.
"President Abbas and his Fatah movement agreed that it is the right of Hamas to name the prime minister of the national unity government, since it dominates the (Palestinian) Legislative Council," said Barhoum.
For the first since the movement was founded in 1987, Hamas participated in Palestinian parliamentary elections on Jan 25, winning around two-thirds of the 132-seat legislature. The long-ruling rival Fatah movement earned 43 seats.
Hamas formed and led a cabinet alone in late March, but the government was boycotted by Israel, Europe and the United States, setting off a political and economic crisis as the Palestinian Authority was unable to pay employees or provide services.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) Recognising India's growing clout in the global economy, the high-profile Global Partner's Meet of the US-based consultancy major Boston Consulting Group (BCG) started in the national capital here Monday for the first time outside Massachusetts.
More than 400 global partners from 36 countries and 61 offices are attending the four-day, close-door meeting that also saw Finance Minister P. Chidambaram give a perspective on the Indian economy Monday noon.
"We are having the Global Partner's Meet for the first time outside the US here in India to understand the economy and its globalisation efforts," said Hans Paul Buerkner, chief executive - worldwide, Boston Consulting Group.
"This is an internal meeting of our officers across the globe to understand and experience India's economic growth so that they can give a feedback to clients about when they go back," said Arun Maira, chairman of its India office.
During the four-day meeting, the participants will also interact with the who's who of India's corporate world, besides meeting with top bureaucrats, policy-makers and leading think tanks.
"BCG's global partners are here in India to study the growth opportunities and develop a perspective on India which they will then share with their global clients across industries and practices," reiterated Janmejaya Sinha, managing director, BCG India.
The Boston Consulting Group has been operating in India for 10 years and has operations in New Delhi and Mumbai.
Islamabad, Nov 6 (NDTV.COM) India and Pakistan have held 'back-channel' interaction, ahead of the Foreign Secretary- level talks later this month, a media report said.
Pakistan's National Security Council Secretary Tariq Aziz held parleys with his Indian counterpart S K Lambah, in a Gulf country, according to The News newspaper.
It said Aziz had since returned and reported the details of his talks to President General Pervez Musharraf.
Nothing came to surface about an agreement on Siachen, the newspaper reported.
The parleys came to an end without any agreement on a date for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Pakistan, it said.
Agreement on Siachen
Officials in New Delhi refused to confirm or deny the report.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri had recently said that the two countries were close to an agreement on Siachen.
India, however, did not share the view that a pact could come about in the near future because of terms and conditions attached.
Foreign Secretaries of the two countries are to meet in New Delhi from November 13 to 15, resuming the Composite Dialogue process, which had been stalled after the Mumbai bomb blasts.
Kasuri will also visit India later this month on a private visit during which he is expected to meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) India and Saudi Arabia Monday inked a pact to strengthen the existing cordial relations between the two countries and increase the level of cooperation in scientific and educational fields.
Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh and Saudi Arabia's Higher Education Minister Khaled Bin Mohammad Al-Angari signed the memorandum of understanding here.
The agreement, which will remain in force for at least five years with provision for automatic renewal unless objected by either side, shall encourage "visits between officials in higher education, teaching faculty, researchers and cooperate in the fields of mutual interest".
"Both the parties shall encourage direct scientific and educational communication among their respective academic and research institutions. It will also encourage expertise in the field of information technology, computer science and mathematics," a statement by the human resource development ministry said.
Besides, both the parties will encourage exchange of scholarships and seats according to available means. They shall also encourage holding university cultural weeks and in both the countries that include lectures, symposia and book exhibition.
The two countries will work together to provide access to and benefits from historical manuscripts, records and documents available in their possessions and exchange experts in this field. They will also extend support for the promotion of each other's languages, literature and history.
A 17-member Saudi Arabian delegation led by Al-Angari is in the country on a five-day official visit.
Apart from signing the agreement, the delegation will visit reputed educational institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi), Jamia Milia Islamia University and Indira Gandhi Open University (all in Delhi); Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and WIPRO Electronic City (both in Bangalore), Hyderabad University and Osmania University (both in Hyderabad).
Bangalore, Nov 6 (IANS) India's space scientists and technologists will hold a brain-storming session here Tuesday to explore the viability of undertaking a manned mission to the moon by the end of the next decade (2020).
With President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam rooting for such an adventure, about 50-60 experts from top research labs and scientific institutions will get a preview of the ambitious project conceived by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) that is planning to send an Indian astronaut into space on a indigenous space capsule by 2014.
"We have already made a presentation to the prime minister last month (Oct 17) on our capabilities to launch a manned mission into space by 2014. As preparations to launch an unmanned lunar mission (Chandrayaan-1) by 2008 are under way, we will be exploring the prospects of landing an Indian on moon by at least 2020," a top ISRO official told IANS here Monday.
At the meeting, ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair will make a detailed presentation on the pros and cons of launching a manned mission to the moon, the benefits that are expected to accrue from such a mission and the resources required to undertake it.
"We have invited the heads of various research and development (R&D) organisations, including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Indian Institute of Science, National Aerospace Laboratories and the department of science & technology to ascertain their views on the project and draw a road map for embarking on such a mission," the official said.
Based on the deliberations and feedback from the experts, ISRO plans to prepare a project report for government approval and budgetary allocation in the 11th and 12th five-year plans.
Prime Minister's Science Advisory Council chairman C.N.R. Rao and former ISRO chairmen K. Kasturirangan and U.R. Rao have also been invited to participate in the daylong session and present their views on the multibillion rupee project.
"Though we have the capabilities and resources to undertake such a mission, we need to cover a lot of ground to assess its viability in terms of the prohibitive cost, materials and manpower involved. The issue is not whether we can do, but at what cost and how the country would benefit from it," U R Rao told IANS on phone.
ISRO sources admit a manned mission to the moon would cost the nation a whopping Rs. 200 billion, while a manned mission into space would require about Rs. 150 billion over a seven-year period.
"The funds will be required to build the facilities, new technologies and training hundreds of scientists and engineers to execute the project. A host of R&D organisations such as the Institute of Aerospace Medicine and Defence Food Research Laboratory will have to be involved for preparing the astronaut(s) to survive in zero-gravity condition," a ISRO scientist pointed out.
The space agency is also toying with the idea of coining a Sanskrit name to be used for Indian astronauts who will be launched into space and on the moon subsequently.
Ironically, the annual budget for ISRO is currently pegged at Rs. 36 billion (2006-07). It has earmarked about Rs. 3.86 billion for Chandrayaan-1, slated for launch in 2008, to conduct experiments on the moon surface with its spacecraft in the lunar orbit.
In the run-up to undertaking such ambitious missions, ISRO is working on a three-tonne space capsule with life support systems and allied facilities for two people onboard. The capsule will be launched using an upgraded version of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-MK-II) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh in 2007.
The four-tonne class rocket will place the space capsule into an orbit at a height of 400 km from earth about 16 minutes after lift-off. The capsule is expected to orbit initially for a day and in subsequent launches for a week before returning for a splashdown in the Bay of Bengal.
"The voyage to moon will be of longer duration with the capsule taking at least five days to reach the destination after the launch and another five days for the return trip," the official disclosed.
The trials for the manned space missions will be taken up next year with the 600-kg Space Capsule Recovery (SRE) experiment, to be launched using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket.
The module will orbit the earth for a week and splash down in the Bay of Bengal. A number of cutting-edge technologies required for an Indian journey into space will be validated during these tests.
"A successful manned mission to moon will give India the status of a super-power with technological capability on par with the United States, Russia, European Space Agency (ESA), China (in manned mission to space), development of new types of materials and breakthrough in medicine and life sciences, communications," the official added.
According to Indian Space Commission member Roddam Narasimha, who is one of the invitees for the meeting, a manned mission to moon would make India a force to reckon with and count among the select few countries in the space club.
"India should have a major presence in space. If we make up our mind, we will acquire the know-how. We should certainly put more effort into research missions now. So far, our emphasis was on development of satellites (for communications and remote sensing) and rockets," Narasimha said.
Within ISRO, however, a few scientists have told Nair a robotic mission into space would suffice rather than an Indian undertaking the voyage in space.
"There are some within our organisation saying a manned mission is not required and a robot or instruments can do the job. I subscribe to the view that no robot or instrument can substitute the human brain when it comes to decision-making," Nair has been quoted telling the scientists having reservations about landing an Indian on moon.
Kuala Lumpur, Nov 6 (ZEENEWS.COM) Workers from India and five other nations will now have to pass a written test on Malaysian law and culture to get permits to work in the country.
Workers from India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are required to obtain the certificate of eligibility from April 1 while Indonesians will have to obtain the certificate from November 15.
The workers will receive the certificates after clearing a written test which they have to take after attending a half-day induction course on Malaysian law and culture.
The course is aimed at "familiarising foreign workers with Malaysian law and culture to minimise problems such as conflicts with employers," a media report said today.
The workers are also taught simple Bahasa Malaysia. The course outlines the labour law, health and safety procedures and where foreign workers can seek help if they are mistreated or abused, the new straits times said.
Sixty-five per cent of the 1.8 million foreigners working legally in Malaysia are Indonesians.
There are also between 300,000 and 500,000 illegal foreign workers.
By Randeep Singh Nandal
Belgaum, Nov 6 (NDTV.COM) Indian Army Chief General JJ Singh is in the US where he will be visiting a number of training centres of the US army.
This visit is the latest in growing relationships between the armed forces of the two countries.
The military contacts between the two countries have intensified in the last three years.
The Indian Army's presentation on a recent exercise Shatrujeet as the exercise was called, dealt specifically with the intricacies of modern, urban warfare.
But the students this time were US Marines and the instructor commandos in Belgaum.
It was unthinkable five years ago but increasingly the level of military cooperation between the world's largest democracy and the world's mightiest nation has grown beyond expectations.
Pictures from the last years 'Cope India' series of exercises between the US Air Force and the IAF show that F 16s and F15s took on the Indian MiGs and Mirages. The results surprised everyone except the Indian pilots.
"We have learnt a lot and we will see if we have to change the way we do a few things," said a US pilot.
Navy not behind
The Navy is not far behind. The Malabar series of exercises with the US Navy are being upgraded in scope every year.
More ships are participating and more Indian sailors are serving on American ships. There are reasons for this increased interface.
The Indian armed forces are considered to be some of the most battle hardened and well trained soldiers in the world today.
But it is also a measure of the increased political comfort between the two countries.
It is a strategic realization that in the long run, India and the US have more in common than in opposition.
For close to four decades entire generations of Indians grew up believing the US to be an adversary in the 70s when India was firmly in the Soviet camp.
General Singh would have been a young captain perhaps he too saw the US through that prism. Today he is in the US which is another small step in cementing a relationship which is within kissing distance of being a strategic alliance.
By Tony Czuczka
Washington, Nov 6 (DPA) With US President George W. Bush campaigning until the end, US voters seem ready to give him a resounding slap Tuesday in Congressional elections that are widely seen as a referendum on the war in Iraq.
Polls show Bush's centre-right Republicans likely to tumble into the minority in the House of Representatives, after controlling Congress' lower chamber for 12 years. The party is also in jeopardy of losing its hold on the US Senate.
Bush planned to rally voters in key states through Monday, then follow the election results late Tuesday from his private ranch in Crawford, Texas. Although he is not on the ballot, his approval ratings below 40 percent and an especially deadly October for US troops in Iraq have made it hard to combat the sour national mood.
By calling for an exit strategy from Iraq and appealing to voters fed up with political scandals in Washington, the centre-left Democrats have what most analysts believe is their best chance in a decade to retake Congress.
Democratic Party national head Howard Dean said on ABC television at the weekend that the war "is a mistake. We need to find a way to get out of Iraq".
All 435 House seats and one third of the 100-seat Senate are in play Tuesday. To win majorities, the Democrats must pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats.
Regardless of the outcome in Congress, Bush's second term runs until January 2009. He is constitutionally barred from seeking another term, and contenders are already jockeying for position to seek the major-party nominations for the next presidential election in two years.
Defiant on the campaign trail, Bush has stuck with his refusal to set a pullout time table. Many Republican candidates have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from his Iraq policy.
If Tuesday night turns into a rout, Bush could preside over the worst Republican defeat since the Watergate era of the early 1970s. But the White House brushed off the notion that Democratic gains would force a change of course in Iraq.
The US Constitution gives the president broad powers to command the military and to decide foreign policy, with the advice and consent of Congress required only to make treaties. The legislative branch, though, can impact presidential polices through the power of the purse, because only Congress can raise and spend money.
Bush's goal is "victory in Iraq, and it is full speed ahead on that basis", Vice President Dick Cheney said in an ABC interview aired Sunday. "It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right."
Yet, even some of the most ardent supporters of using US military might to topple former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein are backing off. Former defence official Richard Perle, a leading so-called neo-conservative, accused Bush of mismanaging Iraq in the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
US Senator Joe Biden, the Democrats' leading foreign-policy voice in Congress, said he expects the election to jolt many Republicans into seeking "a rational way in which we can responsibly bring home more troops and leave a stable Iraq behind".
"I think you will see a much more open discussion about American foreign policy," he told CBS Television.
Surveys consistently show voters ranking Iraq as their top issue, even ahead of the economy and the fight against terrorism - the very themes that Bush has highlighted in his appearances to raise campaign money and rally Republican-leaning voters.
A New York Times/CBS public opinion poll released last week that found 61 percent of respondents were for a change of US strategy in Iraq, and another 27 percent explicitly supported a troop withdrawal.
In a bid to mobilize socially conservative Republicans, eight states will vote on same-sex marriage bans Tuesday. A wave of such ballots helped turn out Bush supporters for his 2004 re-election, though the issue's momentum seems to have dwindled.
Hollywood star Michael J. Fox, who shakes visibly from Parkinson's disease, has led a Democratic campaign for stem-cell research. Bush has sought to limit embryonic stem-cell research for moral and ethical reasons related to his anti-abortion stand, but most Americans broadly favour using the technology to seek new cures for diseases.
The issue is on the ballot in Missouri, where it may swing a too-close-to-call Senate race that could decide whether the Democrats take the upper chamber. Democrats also hope that their campaign for raising the US minimum wage will bring left-leaning voters to the polls.
In other races Tuesday:
- Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford Jr could become the first black US senator from a Southern state since the brief, so-called Reconstruction period that followed the 1861-65 American Civil War, which ended slavery.
- Democrat Keith Ellison of the north-central state of Minnesota is poised to become the first Muslim in Congress. He is a US-born convert to Islam.
- James Webb, a former Navy secretary who switched parties and is one of several military figures recruited by the Democrats, is in a dead heat in a potentially decisive Senate race against a Republican incumbent.
- In Ohio, the state that sealed Bush's 2004 re-election, Republicans are struggling across the board after a scandal enveloped the governor, and a Congressman pleaded guilty to taking bribes from a Washington lobbyist.
Baghdad, Nov 6 (ZEENEWS.COM) Iraqi Police commandos on Saturday killed 53 suspected al-Qaeda militants in a fierce gunbattle on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
"This afternoon we received intelligence reports that gunmen were endangering the security of the region," said Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf, referring to the Baghdad suburb of Tuwaitha. "They are al-Qaeda."
"The national police had a severe fight with them and as a result of these clashes, they killed 53 terrorists, arrested 16, burned 40 cars and seized many weapons," he said.
Jammu, Nov 6 (IANS) The opposition parties in Jammu and Kashmir have launched a campaign demanding the dissolution of the state assembly and immediate elections to save the state from what they term as political instability, thanks to the infighting between the ruling coalition partners.
The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party have made the demand in the recent weeks. While they have little in common among them, their reasons are identical: they allege that the persistent fight between the Congress and the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the major ruling coalition partners, has left the common man disillusioned.
"Contradictions (in the ruling coalition) are more pronounced than their similarities," Samajwadi Party state unit president Sheikh Abdul Rehman observed. "This government must go."
He referred to the widening gap between the Congress and the PDP, which have been criticising each other in public on various issues including a proposal for self-rule in the state, insurgency and terrorism issues and allocation of portfolios among ministers.
Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had a tussle with his predecessor and PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed over Muzaffar Hussain Baig's place in the cabinet.
Baig, a PDP leader seen as Azad's trusted lieutenant, was given the charge of the important portfolios of planning and finance - against the recommendations of Sayeed - in the Aug 28 cabinet reshuffle.
Sayeed retaliated by recalling Baig from the ministry - a move that made it clear to all that the ruling coalition partners were not working in tandem.
National Conference president Omar Abdullah commented that the Congress-PDP fight was now affecting people of the state. "This government has failed on all counts," he said.
The government had not done anything for the people, said Abdullah, adding: "The National Conference wants to rid the state of this political fight (between the ruling partners)."
The BJP, which essentially has its base in the Jammu region, is unhappy too. "It is high time that this government was dismissed and fresh elections were held," state BJP vice president and spokesperson Hari Om said.
The current assembly was constituted in November 2002 and elections are due in November 2008 as the term of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly is of six years.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) President A.P. J. Abdul Kalam Monday called for a comprehensive renewable energy policy with a time-bound action plan to achieve energy self-sufficiency by targetting 25 percent power generation from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
"To tap the potential of wind power optimally, we need to review our policies toward renewable energy in general and wind power, solar power and bio-fuels in particular," said Kalam addressing the two-day World Wind Energy Conference cum Exhibition 2006 being held here.
"A comprehensive renewable energy policy with mandatory and time-bound provisions is an urgent need of the hour," the president said at the meet being attended by experts from 80 member nations of the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA).
By 2030, India estimates a requirement of 400,000 MW of electric power against the present 130,000 MW capacity.
"For realizing Energy Independence by 2030, in the energy mix, we have to aim for at least 25 percent of the total need should be derived from renewable energy sources," the president said.
He stressed need for research and development to reduce the investment per megawatt of power generated through improved designs and application of newer technologies.
Through the enactment of the Electricity Act 2003 and declaration of National Electricity Policy and Tariff Policy, the president pointed out that some policy framework does exist in India to promote use of renewable energy.
This includes directions to the state electricity regulatory commissions to encourage the use of renewable energy sources.
So far only 12 states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh have either already issued the renewable purchase obligation orders or have already finalised the regulations for doing so, stipulating a basic minimum quantum of energy purchase as compulsory from renewable energy sources.
"Unfortunately, in the cases of states like Andhra Pradesh, the state electricity regulatory commission has stipulated a maximum of five percent renewable which is contrary to the move to encourage renewable energy use," Minister of New and Renewable Energy Vilas Muttemwar told IANS.
Wind can rightfully take the credit of being the fastest growing energy source in the world with an annual growth rate of more than 26 percent since 1990. Despite lack of gaps in policies and infrastructure for sale of power to the grid, wind power sector in India has been recording a high growth of over 40 percent.
While the global installed capacity of wind energy was 60,000 MW by end of 2005, India stood fourth with 5,340 MW (as on March 31, 2006).
Germany, Spain, United States, India and Denmark have been the leaders in wind energy exploitation. On Oct 1 this year, India's installed capacity stood at 6,053 MW.
With the identification of several new sites and work on to develop technology to generate electricity even in sites with low wind velocity, the ministry of new and renewable energy has raised its estimate of wind energy potential in the country from 45,000 MW to 60,000 MW.
Muttemwar disclosed that sites in several states are being studied for setting up the proposed special economic zone for setting up export units for manufacture of renewable energy products like solar, wind and biomass generation equipments.
Besides producing equipment to meet domestic requirement, India currently exports 500-600 MW wind energy generation equipment annually, said Muttemwar.
Jammu, Nov 6 (IANS) The Jammu and Kashmir government Monday shifted its offices to winter capital Jammu for the next six months amid a shutdown to protest the government's reported failure to address the problem of rehabilitation of the 1947 refugees.
The gates of the civil secretariat were opened at 9 a.m. and in an hour the offices became functional. The police accorded the customary guard of honour to Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. His team of ministers was also present on the occasion.
The move is part of the bi-annual shifting of the seat of the government from Srinagar, the summer capital, to Jammu.
Outside the secretariat gates, shops and business establishments were closed as part of the shutdown called by several parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena, and the All Parties Refugees Action Committee. Traffic on roads was thin.
The strike is in contrast to last year's opening of government offices in Jammu when the city was specially decorated in an enthusiastic welcome to Azad, the first chief minister from the Jammu region. Azad hails from Doda district of the Jammu region.
The bi-annual 'durbar' move - the royal term coined during the Dogra rule for shifting of the government from one capital to the other - is more than a century-old tradition in the state.
On every last Friday of April, the government shifts to Srinagar where it reopens on the first Monday of May. The government shuts its operations in Srinagar on the last Friday of October and moves down to Jammu to be opened on first Monday of November.
Chief Minister Azad, in an informal chat with newsmen, said he was aware of the problems of the refugees. "Steps are being taken to rehabilitate them."
He also listed pushing further the peace process and speeding up development in his state as "top priorities" of the rest of the term. He would be chief minister till November 2008 - two more years before assembly elections are due.
According to him, more than 150 acres of state land was under illegal occupation by people. He said the occupants would have to vacate, or they would have to pay for legally sitting on the land.
He said that the working groups constituted after the May second round table conference on Kashmir would soon finalise their reports. "That will be a big milestone in the ongoing peace process."
Islamabad, Nov 6 (IANS) Most of the 80 people killed in the Oct 30 air strike at a seminary in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province were below 20 years age, with one as small as seven, and were all students, a lawmaker has claimed.
According to Maulana Haroonur Rashid, the lawmaker under whose constituency Bajaur, where the killings at a madrassa took place, falls, almost all of those killed were natives of Bajaur and its adjacent districts. Of the 80 killed, the ages of 79 were confirmed, including their names and addresses.
Rashid gave details of the children killed, including names of their fathers and their home addresses.
The principal of the seminary, Maulana Liaqat Ali, 34, was the eldest among those killed, said Rashid quoting from a list compiled of the victims by local workers of the area.
According to him one of the deceased was only seven-years-old, three were eight, three nine, one was 10, four were 11, four were 12, eight were 13, six were 14, nine were 15, 19 were 16, 12 were 17, three were 18, three were 19 and only two were 21-year old.
Rashid, a member of the National Assembly and vice-president of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) for tribal areas, is seeking to contradict the government version that Al Qaeda militants were receiving armed training at the seminary and that weapons and material linking the school to the international outfit were found at the site.
The government has bolstered its claim with the help of video films, shown to select media by un-named high officials.
Western media reports have said that the raid was at the US' instance, on a tip off that Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was hiding in the school.
The government has said that it acted on its own and no foreign aircraft of personnel was involved.
Protest demonstrations have continued in the area since the raid and Rashid's JI, that is part of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), is spearheading the protests.
Rashid told The News International Sunday: "We managed to compile a list comprising the ages and addresses of those who fell prey so that we could tell the world that there was no terrorist in the madrassa and no militancy training was going on there."
Jammu, Nov 6 (NDTV.COM) Four members, including three women, of a family were killed by Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Udhampur on Sunday.
Father, mother and two daughters were killed early morning in Dalwa village after they turned down a marriage proposal of Hizbul militants, said SSP Udhampur, Ramban Basant Kumar Rath.
Saturday night the two rebels went to the house of Ahad Bhat and asked him to marry off his two daughters to them but the father refused to do so, Rath said.
The duo who left the house then returned in the wee hours on Sunday with a group of militants and showered bullets on the family killing four of them.
Those murdered were Bhat, his wife Fatima and daughters Shahida and Mubeen.
The ultras escaped from the scene soon after the killings.
A massive combing operation is on to track down the militants responsible for the act, Rath said.
By Manish Chand,
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is desperate to have good relations with India, not because he is genuinely interested in peace with its neighbour, but to preserve his own military regime, says a top legal expert of that country.
"Musharraf is desperate to have good relations with India because he wants the stability of his regime and not because he is interested in peace. India and Pakistan are proceeding in a direction which can't be called friendly," Farooq Hassan, who was also an adviser to four former Pakistan prime ministers, told IANS in an interview.
"India rightly feels aggrieved by actions and tragedies emanating from Pakistan. Pakistan, on the other hand, articulates the needs of the regime in power and doesn't contemplate a wider visionary goal of peace in the region," Hassan replied when asked what he thought of New Delhi's contention that Islamabad was behind terrorist incidents in India.
A senior advocate at Pakistan's Supreme Court who has served as adviser to former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, Moin Qureshi and Muhammad Khan Junejo, Hassan is an ardent advocate of democracy and has spoken out against the "military-mullah alliance" in his country.
"Unless there is a genuine metamorphosis of the military rule towards civilian rule in Pakistan, I am not optimistic about durable peace in the region," he said, amplifying his pet theory that under a military dispensation in Islamabad, there can't be a fundamental rapprochement between the two countries.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, although he is not mollycoddling the military regime in Pakistan, is kinder to Musharraf than his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee was, said Hassan, an admirer of Vajpayee's foreign policy and "statesman-like skills".
If Pakistan is really interested in a breakthrough in its relations with India, Pakistan should begin by granting India the most favoured nation (MFN) status. "The number one priority for Pakistan should be to give India the MFN status. This should help the consumer. This could be a real breakthrough," he said.
"Pakistan is the laboratory of what is called terrorism and extremism in the West. Pakistan is so desperately poor and is in grave danger of disintegrating," said Hassan, the author of "A Juridicial Critique of Successful Treason," - an influential book on coups in Pakistan.
To make his point, Hassan quoted a report by the Rand Corporation which says that Pakistan will be reduced to just Punjab in 2015. "There is a real danger that the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Sindh, Balochistan and the Northern Areas can secede from Pakistan," he said.
Although Hassan is sceptical about the current state of the peace process between India and Pakistan, he said that there was "tremendous goodwill" among people of both the countries towards each other. "Over the last 20 years or so, people from Pakistan who came to India were from a certain lobby.
"But in the last 4-5 years, there has been a generous widening of the base. Lawyers, journalists, cricket enthusiasts and middle class people are now coming to India.
"For the first time in the history of India-Pakistan relations, there is a genuine rapprochement at the popular level which could lead to a genuine understanding of issues," he said optimistically.
"India should use its vast influence in the region to ensure that military governments do not survive and thrive in the region," said Hassan, a scholar and constitutional expert who has taught at Harvard and Oxford.
"Democracy came to the world not through the US and the UK, but from India. That is the real gift of India," said Hassan, an admirer of the Indian democratic system who at the same time hoped for a resurgence of genuine democracy in Pakistan.
Islamabad, Nov 6 (IANS) A top aide of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had reportedly approached Shahbaz Sharif for "a deal" that excluded his elder brother and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, but failed to split the Sharif family.
Shahbaz Sharif, former Punjab chief minister, was not willing to walk into his political parlour, said a news report.
Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf had ousted in 1999, has meanwhile launched a mass contact programme, using the telephone to speak to a wide range of people back home as part of his plans to return in time for the parliamentary polls, The Nation newspaper said.
On the other hand, The News International quoted "one of the top unofficial aides" of Musharraf to say that Shahbaz Sharif had been approached for "a deal" that would allow him to return home with his immediate family, but clearly excluding elder brother Nawaz.
The contact was made last month through one Brig. (Retd.) Niaz.
Besides wanting to split the Sharif family, the government quarters want to play on two sentiments of Shahbaz.
For one, that he had arrived with his family in 2004 to Lahore but was packed off the same evening. He was told that the entire Sharif family had signed a 10-year pact to stay in exile when they were allowed safe passage to Saudi Arabia and must abide by it. Sharif has denied any such deal.
The government thinks he could be persuaded to return this time.
The other reason is that Nawaz has got active in his comeback plans. Shahbaz is chief of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), but Nawaz remains its Qaid, the founder-patron.
That their father, Mian Mohammed Sharif, is no more is also supposed to be a factor that separates the two brothers, the newspaper said.
The government wants to play on the alleged sibling rivalry. Shahbaz has a politically ambitious new wife, Tehmina Durrani, who wants Shahbaz to go his way.
Emissaries of Musharraf are also keeping options open with Benazir Bhutto, the other exiled former premier. The newspaper says that if Bhutto aligns with Musharraf, she would have to rival Shahbaz, not Nawaz. The report does not explain the logic of this argument.
The Nation newspaper, in a report from London says Nawaz is very much in touch with Bhutto and the two met on Oct 19.
In Germany with his family on a brief holiday, Nawaz has begun to "address" political rallies back home. He had been busy meeting his party men last month ahead of his high profile meeting with Bhutto.
The reported meeting comes in the wake of reports that the Charter of Democracy the two signed in May this year has been a non-starter after the government succeeded in dividing the opposition on a number of issues.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) Nepal Monday shared with India the status of the democratic transformation in the country and the ongoing peace talks with the Maoist rebels with a view to integrating them into the political mainstream - a move backed by New Delhi.
Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister K.P. Sharma Oli met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and provided them an overview of the government's efforts to persuade the Maoists to give up arms and join the democratic process.
This is the first visit by a foreign minister to India from one of the neighbouring countries after Mukherjee assumed the charge of the external affairs ministry late last month and underscores the importance of peace, stability and prosperity of Nepal for India.
Oli and Manmohan Singh also reviewed the state of India-Nepal relations and discussed an entire slew of bilateral issues, including the enhancement of trade and investment and cooperation in the power sector - an area of vital interest for New Delhi.
Oli is visiting India for the first time after the restoration of democracy in Nepal early this year and nearly five months after Nepalese Prime Mnister Girija Prashad Koirla came here on an official visit.
Oli, who belongs to the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), will also visit Thiruvananthapuram and Kolkata during his week-long visit to India that began here Sunday.
India has already extended a one-time grant of nearly $20 million (Rs 100 crore) to Nepal's budget, offered a soft credit line of $100 million for infrastructure development projects in Nepal and waived all outstanding dues Nepal owed on account of defence purchases from India.
Jammu, Nov 6 (IANS) There is no US pressure for demilitarising Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad asserted Sunday.
"There is no truth in it," he said in a question-answer programme on BBC Radio.
"No one can ask India to do anything. India is a sovereign country. Someone is indulging in rumour mongering. America is not pressuring India on demilitarisation," the chief minister said in reply to a query from a listener.
The questioner had pointed to reports in Pakistani media in the context of a senior US defence official's visit to Kashmir last month.
Azad, who completed his first year in office on Nov 2, said it was the "best year" in terms of peace process as two roundtable conferences were held on Kashmir and incidents of violence showed an overall decline despite two-and-a-half times increase in infiltration from across the border.
He rebuffed the charge that security forces were not respecting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's promise of zero tolerance of human rights violations. "The prime minister's promise is being honoured in letter and spirit," Azad maintained.
"There have been the lowest incidents of custodial killings, custodial disappearances and rapes and molestation by security forces. This year, only one custodial disappearance has taken place as against at least two to three dozens in the previous year," he pointed out.
Dhaka, Nov 6 (IANS) Bangladesh's Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus has urged the president and chief of the caretaker government, Iajuddin Ahmed, to be tough and proactive in running the country.
As the caretaker government prepares for the parliamentary polls, he has asked that the president be neutral in dealing with contending political parties.
"You will have to be very tough; otherwise the nation will plunge into darkness. But you must be tough on all, not only on some particular ones," he said speaking at a grand reception accorded to him by Ahmed for winning the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006.
He also urged the president to listen to everyone but take decisions on the basis of his own reasoning.
"It's a hard time for the nation and the people want to see an active and courageous leadership," he was quoted as saying by The Daily Star newspaper.
"Set a precedent dealing with at least one area of massive corruption facing the nation during the tenure of the caretaker government," he added.
He then described power situation, price of essentials, Chittagong port, and law and order as the areas most prone to crisis.
Campaigning for good governance and against corruption even before he got the Nobel on August 13, the first Bangladeshi to win it, Yunus called on the Advisers of the caretaker government to set "at least one example of ridding a sector of corruption."
Held at the Darbar Hall of Bangabhaban amid tumultuous applause, the maiden state reception was attended by caretaker government advisers, former ministers, secretaries, diplomats, political leaders, artists, literati, and civil and military officials.
A national icon now, Yunus advised the president to "leave the trivial jobs with others and focus on how to conduct the upcoming national election in a peaceful and fair manner."
Ahmed in his address stressed the importance of creating an atmosphere conducive to holding a free and fair election. "The peaceful atmosphere brought about by the winning of Nobel peace prize must continue," he said adding, "We will have to be careful so that the peace is not hampered."
While not directly responding to Yunus's exhortations, Ahmed hoped that all discord, division and conflicts would be resolved through peaceful means.
He underscored the need for continuing the democratic progress and giving it an institutional shape. "Only then we can build a happy and prosperous country for the future generations," the president added.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) Indira Goswami, the Sahitya Akademi award-winning writer who changed over to the world of verse with a just released collection, insists she is "not a poet".
"I'm not a poet. I'm a novelist and a short story writer. These poems were written in my leisure time," said Goswami at the release of "Pain And Flesh" here Sunday evening.
The poems, which include one on Pakistan that appeared in that country's leading daily Dawn, "are a footnote to my fiction. But often the poems transcend this and form a poetic world in itself," she said after the book was released in the capital by noted artist Jatin Das.
The first ever book on poems by the writer who teaches at Delhi University was released at a function organised by the Assam Association at the Srimanta Sankaradeva Bhavan here.
Born in an orthodox family in Assam, Goswami rose to fame with her stories and novels, most of which showcased human pathos, like "My Incomplete Autobiography" and "The Man From Chinnamasta".
Winner of the Jnanpith award too, Goswami wrote the poem "Pakistan" during a visit to that country some years ago. "People liked the poem after I recited it at a gathering. To my surprise Dawn carried it in its issue the following day," she said.
Published by B.R. Publishing Corporation and priced at Rs.695, the 79-page book has eight poems, including one for Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul, to whom Goswami has dedicated her work.
By Prashant K. Nanda,
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) People suffering from spinal injuries like low back pain and disc disorder now have a reason to smile as injections of ozone gas could bring better results than conventional surgery.
Ozonucleolysis, as the treatment is medically known, has started gaining ground in western countries, according to senior doctors who are here for a conference on the subject.
"Ozonucleolysis or ozone discectomy for curing spinal injury is a better option than surgery. This new form of treatment is less painful as well as cost effective," Vijay Sheel Kumar, president of the World Federation of Ozone Therapy (WFOT), told IANS.
Over 40 dignitaries from countries like Spain, Italy and Germany are here to train doctors and share the finer nuances of the treatment," Kumar said.
"In case of surgery, the chance of recurrence of pain is nearly 15 percent as against less than three percent in ozone treatment. In the new treatment, patients don't have to stay in the hospital for a week. Only six sittings of one hour each spread over three weeks can cure the problem," said Kumar.
Ozonucleolysis has emerged as an affordable, least invasive approach and costs two-thirds the price of a conventional surgery.
Ozone discectomy is the injection of ozone inside the affected intervertebral disc. When injected, Ozone (O3) breaks down into O2 and O (single oxygen) and rapidly dissolves in the water in the disc.
As per the new technique, ozone is injected in the spine with 22G needle under the fluoroscopic guidance, with 4ml of a mixture of ozone and oxygen at a concentration of 30 micrograms per millilitre.
It causes shrinkage of the disc, thus reducing its volume and lessening pressure on the nerves. The treatment relieves pain substantially and, after two sittings, people "can go back to work under medical guidance", Kumar explained.
Said Jose B. Noci, a senior ozone therapist of Spain: "Apart from a large number of people in Italy and Germany, nearly 4,000 patients are availing themselves of ozone treatment in Spain every year."
He added: "Since the number of affected people is much more in India than the above countries, both the patients and doctors can benefit from the new technique. While the patient can benefit from the low cost, a large pool of doctors can adopt the new expertise."
Citing a study conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Health, Kumar said that around 63 percent of bidi makers suffer from recurring back pain.
In the US, back pain affects nearly 60 percent of the population, with nearly 500,000 back injuries being reported every year. While Sweden spends nearly $775 million per year due to low back disorder, the problem costs the US over $50 billion.
"The rapid industrialisation and growth in the BPO (business process outsourcing) sector, where people spend maximum of their day's time in a chair, will make spinal injury a major health concern for India," said Kumar, a neurological surgeon with over 30 years of expertise.
Kumar said fewer than 10 doctors in India are currently equipped to conduct this procedure.
Islamabad, Nov 6 (IANS) The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) plans to move court against the bans handed to dope-tainted fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Asif.
"The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has pleased the outside world and the International Cricket Council by banning Shoaib and Asif, but justice was not meted out to the two," PMA president Umer Ayub was quoted as saying in The News Monday.
On Wednesday, a specially constituted PCB tribunal had banned Shoaib for two years and Asif for one year from playing any class of cricket after it was confirmed that they had taken the banned steroid Nandrolone.
"We feel the ban is unjust, and if it is not lifted after appeals we will move to the court through our panel of lawyers, which also includes renowned lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan," said Ayub.
The PMA president also criticised the original three-member tribunal and said they were unqualified. Ayub said the bowlers were innocent and those connected with the Pakistani team should be blamed for the controversy.
"How can the doctors and trainers associated with the team be free of the blame? They should also be penalised and why blame the bowlers in a country like Pakistan where you can get every medicine without a prescription?" he asked.
Ayub said Australia banned spin bowler Shane Warne for only one year despite testing positive for a large quantity of banned diuretic.
"It's only in Pakistan where we punish our own people in a haphazard and unjust manner."
Islamabad, Nov 6 (Xinhua) Pakistan and Malaysia Sunday agreed in principle to set up a Joint Investment Company, which will provide an institutional framework to promote investment between the two countries.
"The Joint Investment Company will help enhance Pakistan investment in Malaysia and Malaysian investment in Pakistan," Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said during a press conference along with his Malaysian counterpart Abdullah Badawi.
"Pakistan and Malaysia have a very historic, close relationship and share common faith, heritage and desire for promoting peace and prosperity in the world," he said.
Aziz also said they discussed diplomatic, political, social, economic and defence ties between the two countries and ways and means to enhance these relations.
He added that trade between the two countries was good, noting there are 40 Malaysian companies doing business in Pakistan.
Pakistan was also looking for Malaysian cooperation in the fields of IT, telecommunication and education, Aziz said.
The Malaysian prime minister said he was very happy with the outcome of his talks with his Pakistani counterpart. He said the establishment of the Joint Investment Company will be yet another catalyst to further enhance investments in each other's countries.
Badawi said the current volume of trade between the two countries is about $600-700 million and will be able to reach $1 billion.
By Sunetra Choudhury
New Delhi, Nov 6 (NDTV.COM) In a country as large as India, statistics collected on a national basis frequently generate shocking stories of disparity.
Never has this been more clear than in the case of the state of Muslim development in India.
Over the last few weeks, the focus has been on the Justice Sachar report on the condition of Muslims.
While the Sachar Committee, which is looking into the representation of Muslims in every sphere, is still to submit its report, the Planning Commission already has an action plan on Muslim education.
It plans to award a scholarship of Rs 1,000 per month to every Muslim girl in the country and an incentive of Rs 10,000 to higher institutes for every Muslim graduate.
It's a radical plan and the money involved is Rs 6,000 crore.
Controversy likely
In an atmosphere already divided on reservations in educational institutes, the plan is sure to open up another floodgate of allegations and protests.
According to a Planning Commission report, only one per cent Muslim women and 3.4 per cent men in urban areas are graduates.
And in rural areas only 0.7 per cent Muslim men are graduate and women graduates are too few to even register on a survey.
And across the country, Muslim literacy rate is 59.1 per cent, while the national average is 64.8 per cent. And 90 per cent Muslim students drop out by the time they reach high school.
Dismal scenario
In fact, in terms of education, Muslims fare much worse than SC, STs across the country and contrary to popular perception, the problem is more economic than cultural.
Even though many Muslim parents do want to send children to government schools and learn English rather than send them to madrassas, surveys and complaints to Waqf boards show that government schools in Muslim-dominated areas are too few.
The Sarva Shiksya Abhiyan, which is successful in the rest of the country, does not seem to have been implemented in Muslim areas at all.
Looking at all this, a working group on education for Muslims, appointed by the Planning Commission, has submitted a roadmap for making education more accessible for Muslim children, especially girls.
"It's shocking that in minority areas, there are less or no schools, so people are afraid to go far for school," said Vimla Thorat, Chairperson, Working Group.
Key suggestations
So, the group has recommended
More government schools for Muslims, which will be implemented in 104 districts across the country where Muslim population is higher than 25 per cent
Scholarships for all Muslim girls, regardless of economic background. The amount is likely to be Rs 1,000 a month. Scholarships will be awarded to boys as well but for them, economic status will be a factor
Hostels for Muslim boys and girls. The group feels that at home girls are pressured into housework and marriage. It's an experiment that's worked with hostels for SC, STs
Incentives for higher institutes and Rs 10,000 for every Muslim graduate
As far as reservation is concerned, the Planning Commission's group has left it out of its report.
"This quota issue has become so politicised that we decided that we could help Muslims in so many other ways. We didn't need to get diverted by the controversy," said Farha Naqvi, member, Sub group.
Though the group has recommended more government schools, there will be no pressure on parents to move children from madrassas to the schools.
However, the group has suggested computerising the religious schools and five hours of computer science, English, mathematics and science as part of the curriculum.
At a time when quota for Muslims is gathering debate across the country and just a few day's after the PM said Muslims should get representation in jobs, the report is presented to the Planning Commission.
They do away with reservation but they want to take Muslims out of ghettos and into the mainstream through access to education.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday regretted the lack of appreciation in India for its transforming global equation and said political postures were stuck in the "distant past" but also unaware of the country's current interests and aspirations in the new world order.
"I am often disappointed by the lack of adequate appreciation in our country, including political leaders, of the changing nature of our relationship with the world, and indeed with the region around us," the prime minister said.
"Very often, we adopt political postures that are based in the past, the distant past, and are out of line with current interests as an increasingly globalised and globally integrated economy," Manmohan Sing said at a seminar here.
"India, I sincerely believe, is destined to be more globally engaged," he told the seminar organised to mark the silver jubilee celebrations of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations [Icrear).
The prime minister, whose comments come in the wake of criticisms over the deal being worked out by India and the US for civilian nuclear cooperation, said the country was destined to integrate better within its own region as much as with the world.
"I have often said in recent months that I do believe that there are today no binding external constraints on India's economic growth. Most constraints we face are inherently internal," he said.
"Even today, our energy security is closely intertwined with our political ties with a wide range of countries around the globe. Our food security, technology security -indeed our national security - are closely linked to the developments around the world."
Manmohan Singh said India was the talk of the global investing community today but there was also the need to sustain the optimism. For this he promised that the government would take appropriate decisions.
"At the present time there is a great deal of optimism about India not only in seminar halls but also in board-rooms across the world. This optimism needs to be sustained and converted to tangible decisions that benefit our economy."
He said to equip the polity and policymakers better, there was an urgent need to understand and analyse issues such as effects of free trade pacts, the emerging importance of trade in services and economic trends in various regions.
"We need to have a deeper knowledge of our relative strengths in many services such as entertainment, business, retailing, finance and banking, construction, education and health," he said.
The prime minister also stressed on the need for better understanding of trade in natural resources, especially in energy, where India depends on imports for some 70 percent of its fossil fuel needs.
"India is not well endowed with natural resources on a per capita basis. We have to be a major trading nation to overcome this resource constraint. But trade in natural resources and energy is not governed entirely on a pattern similar to industrial goods," he said.
"It is more complex and is closely dependent on geo-political relationships," he said, adding the areas requiring study included the impact of global economic ties and the drive by some countries to secure their resources overseas.
Mumbai, Nov 6 (IANS) Australia captain Ricky Ponting said it was the "total team effort" that helped his world-beater team lift its first-ever ICC Champions Trophy here Sunday.
"Although the team put in its best, it was Nathan Bracken who made all the difference. Bracken got both the West Indies leading batsmen - (Chris) Gayle and (Shivnarine) Chanderpaul," Ponting told the post-match press briefing.
Chasing West Indies' 138 all out in 30.3 overs, Australia made 116 for two wickets to reach the readjusted target through the Duckworth & Lewis Method and add the elusive silverware to their World Cup trophy won almost four years ago.
Ponting also had a word of praise for pacer Glen McGrath and Man of the Match Shane Waston.
"This match has added the much needed feather in our cap of trophies. It is a great feeling. The boys worked as a team and we clinched it on our maiden appearance in the finals of the Champions Trophy.
"We had missed to make a mark in the two previous tournaments, but now we have clinched it."
West Indies captain Brian Lara blamed the loss on the team's failure to capitalise on a good start.
"Although we started on good note, we failed to put up a defendable score," he said.
Baghdad, Nov 6 (Xinhua) Iraq's former president Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by a criminal tribunal Sunday, sparking angry demonstrations from his fellow Sunnis even as Iraqi Shias celebrated the verdict.
Iraq's High Criminal Tribunal handed down the death penalty to the ousted president and two of his senior aides for the Dujail case.
Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamad al-Bandar, chief judge of Saddam's Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to death over the execution of 148 people of Dujail during a crackdown on the town after a failed assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982.
The former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life imprisonment, while the other three Baath party local officials from Dujail received 15 years each.
Hours after the verdicts, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki delivered a national televised speech to welcome the verdicts, saying Saddam "is facing the punishment he deserves".
"This sentence is not a sentence on one man, but a sentence against all the dark period of his rule," al-Maliki said.
The US ambassador in Iraq also hailed the verdicts in a statement, saying they shaped an "important milestone" for the Iraqi people though they may face "difficult days in the coming weeks".
"Today is an important milestone for Iraq as the country takes another major step forward in the building of a free society based on the rule of law," Zalmay Khalilzad said.
According to Iraqi law, Saddam's case would be reviewed by a nine-judge panel. The review has no time limit but the death sentence, if upheld, must be carried out within 30 days.
Some analysts anticipated that the execution of Saddam might be months or years away, while some others expressed fears that the death verdict may deepen the rift between Sunnis and Shias in the war-torn country.
Despite a curfew imposed in the capital, thousands of Iraqi Shias took to the streets in Sadr city to celebrate the verdict, raising posters of Shia radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
In a statement issued by his office, al-Sadr called for peaceful celebrations and urged people not to attack Sunnis.
"You are called upon now to give a thanksgiving prayer," said the statement, which was read out through loudspeakers of mosques across the Shia slum.
However, Iraqi Sunnis protested against the verdict.
Hundreds of residents in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, demonstrated to protest the verdict in the Arba'ien Street despite a curfew imposed on Salahudin province.
In the town of Baiji, some 200 km north of here, US troops detained demonstrators who insisted on taking to the streets to protest against Saddam's death penalty.
Lucknow, Nov 6 (IANS) Shia and Sunni Muslims in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh - as perhaps in the rest of the country - stand divided on the death sentence awarded to ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
While leading Shia scholars and clerics see the verdict as divine retribution for a man who is accused of killing Shias when he ruled Iraq, their Sunni counterparts condemn Sunday's ruling as an American design.
Protest demonstrations have been organised in a few cities of the state, which is home to over 30 million of India's estimated 140 million Muslims.
Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, a Shia scholar and senior vice president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, declared here Monday: "Saddam Hussein was responsible for the brutal massacre of hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims in Iraq. Even a hundred death sentences would not be enough for him."
Maulana Mirza Mohammad Athar, who heads the newly formed All India Shia Personal Law Board, also came out in support of the Iraqi court verdict. "A tyrant must be punished for his tyranny," he told journalists.
Asked if he was happy, Maulana Athar shot back: "This is not an issue over which one can be happy or unhappy. All I can say is that the man has met his nemesis, that's all."
Sunni religious heads hold a diametrically opposite view and blamed it all on the US.
"It is not a court verdict; it simply demonstrates the high-handedness of the President George Bush who had personal scores to settle with Saddam Hussein," said Maulana Khalid Rasheed, the Naib Imam of Lucknow and head of Firangi Mahal, an internationally acclaimed Islamic institution here.
Maulana Rasheed pointed out: "After all, Bush's repeated allegations that Saddam was secretly holding on to weapons of mass destruction turned out to be baseless and false."
All India Muslim Personal Law Board legal adviser Zafaryab Jilani agreed with Maulana Rasheed.
"This is not a judgement from an independent court. It is clearly a pre-determined diktat from Washington. We strongly oppose this," he told reporters.
"After all Saddam was targeted by the US simply because he refused to be their tool."
All India Muslim Women's Law Board chief Shaista Ambar too denounced the death sentence.
"The whole exercise was a farce and carried out under US pressure. It is time the Indian government condemns the decision."
Ambar staged a symbolic protest demonstration before the Uttar Pradesh assembly here Monday.
An Iraqi court set up by the US Sunday sentenced Saddam Hussein to death for "crimes against humanity" along with his half brother Harzan al-Tikrit and former judge Awad al-Bander.
They were all accused of killing, torturing and deporting hundreds of people from a Shia town after a failed assassination attempt against Saddam Hussein in 1982.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (NDTV.COM) There were mixed reactions from Muslims across the country on the death sentence awarded Sunday to Saddam Hussein with some denouncing the verdict terming it as unfair while others saying the former Iraqi President deserved the punishment.
Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, said the verdict was planned much earlier and was announced by a puppet tribunal of the United States.
"We denounce the verdict which was planned by the invader (the United States). The judgement has been announced by a puppet tribunal of the US," he said.
"Instead of Saddam Hussein, Bush should have been put on trial for his crimes in Iraq where more than seven lakh people have been killed since US-led forces invaded the country," Bukhari said.
A member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board Qasim Rasool Ilyas termed the trial of the deposed leader as unfair.
"We know he (Saddam) committed crimes against his own people. But, still the trial was not fair. There were many loopholes in the entire process," Ilyas said.
"Under international laws, every person has a right to get a free and fair trial but this has not happened in the case of Saddam Hussein," he said.
Hailing the verdict, All India Shia Personal Law Board President Mirza Mohammad Athar said the deposed leader was an enemy of humanity and he deserved the punishment.
Crimes against humanity
Iraq's High Tribunal on Sunday found former leader guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging along with two of his associates.
Athar said the deposed President ruled Iraq with an iron fist for nearly three decades and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people both inside and outside Iraq.
"The Iraqi leader deserved the death penalty. The verdict should be seen as a victory for justice," he said.
Islamic scholar and General Secretary of Delhi-based Islamic Fiqh Academy, Khalid Saifullah Rehmani, said though the Arab leader was involved in crimes against his own people, he should have got a fair trial at least.
"We know Saddam was involved in many crimes and suppressed his own people. He never did any service to Islam but still he should have got a fair trial," he said.
"This is a one-sided judgement. The former President did not get enough time to defend himself," Rehmani said.
Sydney, Nov 6 (DPA) Saddam Hussein's death penalty was a triumph for the Iraqi people, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Monday as Iraqi immigrants celebrated on the streets.
"The whole process of the trial is a sign of democratic hope, and I believe the world should see it as such," Howard told reporters.
"There's something heroic about a nation that is going through all the pain and difficulty as Iraq is, yet still struggles to give this monster a fair trial. That's the mark of a country that desperately wants democracy."
With Britain and Poland, Australia committed troops to the United States-led invasion of Iraq and still has 1,300 troops posted there.
News of the verdict brought Iraqis in Australia onto the streets to celebrate.
"So many Iraqi people have been waiting for this day," Iraqi Association Incorporated spokesman Ali Doali told national broadcaster ABC.
Kassim Abood, president of the Iraqi Migrants Council, said the verdict was a milestone for Iraq.
"It's a great day for the Iraqi people, for all the victims' families, the Kurds, the Arabs, and the neighbours of Iraq that finally the day has come when Iraqi people put their judgement to the world," Abood said.
Guwahati/New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) The Indian government Monday tightened security along its porous frontier with Bangladesh suspecting the involvement of foreigners in the twin blasts in Assam even as the death toll went up to 14 with two injured people succumbing to their injuries.
"We know the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was behind the two bomb blasts in Guwahati. We are trying to find out if they have been backed by Islamist militants in neighbouring Bangladesh," said a senior intelligence official in New Delhi.
The overnight blasts in Guwahati's main business centre had killed 12 and wounded 40.
Security was also beefed up across the state with Home Secretary V.K. Duggal set to reach Guwahati to review the security with top state officials at a meeting of the Unified Command including the army and paramilitary forces.
"A composite team of the union home ministry is arriving at Guwahati Monday afternoon to take stock of the situation and work out strategies," Assam Governor Lt. Gen (Retd) Ajai Singh told journalists in Guwahati.
The home ministry also convened a high-level meeting to discuss the security situation in Assam, and decided to despatch Duggal to get a first-hand account of the ground situation there.
The twin attacks Sunday night were the biggest since the government ended a truce with the rebels in September following which there has been a steady escalation in violence in the state.
A police spokesman said two of the 40 injured in the explosions died at a hospital.
Two powerful explosions rocked Guwahati, one after the other - one at the crowded Fancy Bazaar area and another at Pathar Kuwari on the outskirts of the city.
Eight people were killed and 35 wounded in the blast at Fancy Bazaar, while four died and another five were injured in the other blast.
"The death toll in the twin blasts is now 14 and about 38 are injured," the police official said. Police have blamed the outlawed ULFA for the explosions.
The ULFA is yet to own up to the attacks.
"This is nothing but an act of desperation by the ULFA in killing innocent civilians. We are stepping up security and have take all possible steps to thwart possible rebel attacks," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told IANS.
Both the chief minister and the governor visited the injured in hospitals.
"The twin blasts have created panic among people. They are now scared to even move out of their homes," Ram Bharatiya, a textile merchant in Guwahati, said.
"The bomb at Fancy Bazaar was kept on a bicycle and this is one of the latest modus operandi of the ULFA to keep explosives to target innocent civilians," Assam police intelligence chief Khagen Sharma said.
Meanwhile, a dawn-to-dusk general strike Monday to protest the separatist bombings hit normal life in Guwahati.
"Markets in the city remained closed and the city streets wore a deserted look," a senior police official said.
The 12-hour Guwahati city strike that began at 6 a.m. was jointly called by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Kamrup District Chambers of Commerce, and the Purvottar Hindustani Sammelan, a socio-cultural group of Hindi speaking people in Assam.
By Syed Zarir Hussain,
Guwahati, Nov 6 (IANS) The Assam government Monday beefed up security after two powerful overnight explosions rocked Guwahati's main business centre, killing 12 people and wounding 40, triggering fear and panic all around.
The government is Monday holding a meeting of the Unified Command Structure to review the security situation following the explosions, believed to be the handiwork of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) rebels.
"The twin blasts have triggered panic and people are now scared to even move out of their homes," Ram Bharatiya, a textile merchant in Assam's main city of Guwahati, said.
Two powerful explosions rocked Guwahati one after the other Monday night - one at the crowded Fancy Bazaar area and another at Pathar Kuwari on the outskirts of the city.
Eight people were killed and 35 wounded in the blast at Fancy Bazaar, while four died and another five injured in the other blast.
At least 15 of the 40 injured are battling for their lives at a hospital, doctors said.
Police blamed the outlawed ULFA for the twin explosions. The ULFA is yet to own up the attacks.
"The bomb at Fancy Bazaar was kept on a bicycle and this is one of the latest modus operandi of the ULFA to keep explosives to target innocent civilians," Assam police intelligence chief Khagen Sharma told IANS.
Most of the casualties at Fancy Bazaar are Hindi speaking people belonging to the business community. "The attack in the heart of Assam' main business centre at Fancy Bazaar is definitely going to impact on the markets with fear and panic all around," Suresh Raju, another businessman, said.
"This is nothing but an act of desperation with the ULFA killing innocent civilians. We are stepping up security and take all possible steps to thwart possible rebel attacks," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told IANS.
Meanwhile, a dawn-to-dusk general strike Monday to protest the separatist bombings hit normal life in Guwahati.
"Markets in the city remained closed and the city streets wore a deserted look," a senior police official said.
The 12-hour Guwahati city strike that began at 6 a.m. was jointly called by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Kamrup District Chambers of Commerce, and the Purvottar Hindustani Sammelan, a socio-cultural group of Hindi speaking people in Assam.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will travel to Brussels this week to inaugurate an Indian cultural exhibition being organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
Gandhi, who is expected to leave for Belgium Friday, will pay a tribute to the known and unknown Indian Soldiers of World War 1 at Meenenpoorte (Menin Gate) Memorial in Ypres, said an official note from the ICCR.
The exhibition, named as "Tejas", which is projected as the centrepiece of the four-month-long India cultural festival in Brussels, is being organised by the ICCR in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture.
The four-month-long festival is said to be the largest exhibition organized abroad by the ICCR.
"The Prime Minister of Belgium (Guy Verhofstadt) and Gandhi would inaugurate the 'Tejas' at 4 p.m on Nov 11 at Palais des Beaux- Arts, Bozar where she is expected to make a speech," said the ICCR release.
The India festival, the first such cultural show here after a gap of 15 years, was inaugurated by Queen Paola of Belgium. The last festival of India was held in Germany in 1991.
At Tejas, a set of 47 exquisite Nal and Damayanti paintings made in the inimitable Kangra style of Indian miniature paintings from the 18th century will be exhibited. This is the first time these paintings are being exhibited out of the country.
The paintings, which visually narrate the mythological love story of Nala and Damayanti through an entire range of moods and settings, were originally part of the private collection of Karan Singh, the ICCR president, and are now with the National Museum.
During her two-day stay, Gandhi is also expected to meet Belgian Royal couple King Albert II and his consort, Princess Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria.
New Delhi, Nov 6 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday directed the capital's civic authorities to immediately resume the sealing drive against unauthorised shops in residential areas and severely castigated them for their inability to handle the situation.
A bench of Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice C.K. Thakker declined to grant any relief to those traders who had given an undertaking that they would stop their commercial activities in residential premises.
The court directed authorities to ensure compliance of earlier directions to seal premises if the traders did not shut shop on their own.
The court came down heavily on the central government, Delhi government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for seeking modifications of the earlier orders citing law and order problems and the inability of the police to handle the situation.
The bench reminded the central and Delhi governments that they had an obligation under the constitution to implement the orders of the Supreme Court and they could not express helplessness on grounds of law and order for not complying with the directions.
The court criticised the authorities for giving false hopes to the traders that they (the authorities) would get favourable orders.
The judges also made it clear to the traders that they could not hold the people and the law-abiding citizens to ransom by holding a dagger against the government to seek relief.
While rejecting all the applications, the court made it clear that the sealing operations should proceed as per the directions issued Sep 29 and Oct 18.
The central and Delhi governments should provide adequate police forces to MCD to carry out sealing operations as per the guidance of the Supreme Court-monitoring committee.
Monday's ruling comes a week after three days of traders' strike triggered violence in the Indian capital.
By Arun Kumar,
Washington, Nov 6 (IANS) Americans vote on Tuesday in a mid-term poll that may have the most impact on US foreign policy, including the new strategic relationship with India in the remaining two years of Bush presidency.
Pollsters, pundits and politicos alike suggest that the Nov 7 polls to the 435-member House of Representatives and 34 seats of the 100-member-Senate may see President George W. Bush's Republican party lose control of the lower chamber after 12 years.
While the House may go blue - the colour of the Democrats - with the Republicans losing 15 of their 232 seats, the Senate may yet retain its Red Republican hue if they hang on to 50 of their 55 seats in the upper chamber.
Opinions, however, differ on how the changed complexion of the US Congress could affect President Bush. Some suggest that a hostile legislature may turn him into an early lame duck - a chief executive with little authority.
Others believe that the loss of Republican control over Congress may turn out to be only a little roadblock for the president in the American system, where only a two-thirds vote in both the chambers can overturn a presidential veto.
With neither Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney standing for election in 2008, he may push on with unpopular policies regardless. As even a Democratic Congress is unlikely or unable to cut funds for the Iraq war - as it did for the Vietnam war in 1973 -- Bush may well "stay the course" there until he leaves the White House in January 2009.
The India-US civilian nuclear deal too may sail through the Senate as it has wide bipartisan support provided time doesn't run out for it in the lame duck session staring Nov 9, two days after the elections.
That would be a major setback for the Bush administration that has declared the India deal as its top legislative priority for the lame duck session. For under the American system, the new Congress scraps all unfinished business and starts with a clean state. That would put everything back to square one.
As the final weekend began, the parties made final tactical moves as candidates sparred over the war, the economy, corruption and competence, but the war in Iraq may well turn out to be a decisive factor in the battle for Congress.
In a campaign that has been marked by searing negative advertisements, the closing round over the weekend was marked by another round of dark charges on topics including coddling terrorists and raising taxes.
But, as a wag put it, who controls Congress may well depend on how far Bush and his men could "terrorise" the people into voting Republicans.
Thirty-six states will also elect governors on Nov 7. Although Election Day is not a national holiday in the United States, nine states have declared it a state holiday. Across the nation many public and private employers allow employees to take time off from work to cast their ballots.
Many states close schools because the schools serve as polling places. Town halls, places of worship, community centres and shopping centres are among the thousands of public and private facilities designated as polling places.
From the time the first polls open - as early as 6 a.m. (4:30 p.m. IST) in some East Coast states - until the last polls close at 8 p.m. in Alaska (10:30 a.m. IST), many polling sites will be full of activity.
According to the Election Assistance Commission, one-third of voters will cast ballots on new voting machines in 2006. For the first time, every polling place should be equipped with machines to allow people with disabilities to vote privately and independently. Six states will allow voters with disabilities to vote by phone using voice prompts.
Voting is not mandatory in the United States, and voter turnout generally is lower in midterms than in presidential elections. About 40 percent of all eligible voters cast ballots in the 2002 midterm elections, according to the Centre for the Study of the American Electorate at American University in Washington.
But many experts think the number of voters could be higher this election because of the increase of states allowing early voting. Early voting allows voters to cast their ballots at designated polling places anytime during a certain number of days before the election.
Additionally, more states are allowing voters to vote by mail, dropping the traditional requirement that absentee ballots be allowed only when voters are unable to travel to the polls on Election Day.