17 January 2007
St. Petersburg, Jan 17 (RIA Novosti) Rising levels of carbon dioxide and other gases emitted through human activity, generally believed to trap heat in the earth's atmosphere, are an effect rather than the cause of global warming, according to a prominent Russian scientist.
Habibullo Abdusamatov, head of the space research laboratory at the St. Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory, said global warming stems from an increase in the sun's activity.
His view contradicts the international scientific consensus that climate change occurs due to the emission of greenhouse gases generated by industrial activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
"Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth in its intensity," Abdusamatov told RIA Novosti in an interview.
"It is no secret that when they go up, temperatures in the world's oceans trigger the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So the common view that man's industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN panel of thousands of international scientists, widely regarded as an authority on climate change issues, has for many years held a consensus that most of the warming experienced over the last half-century has been attributable to human activities.
Abdusamatov, a doctor of mathematics and physics, is one of a small number of scientists around the world who continue to contest the view of IPCC, the national science academies of G8 nations, and other prominent scientific bodies.
He said an examination of ice cores from wells over three kilometers deep in Greenland and the Antarctic indicates that the earth experienced periods of global warming even before the industrial age.
Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since the 19th century. The phenomenon by which gases such as methane and CO2 warm the troposphere by absorbing some of the infra red heat reflected by the earth's surface has the effect of a global thermostat, sustaining global temperatures within ranges that allow life on the planet to thrive.
The upper layers of the world's oceans are - much to climatologists' surprise - becoming cooler, which is a clear indication that the earth has hit its temperature ceiling already, and that solar radiation levels are falling and will eventually lead to a worldwide cold spell, Abdusamatov said.
"Instead of professed global warming, the earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015. The gradually falling amounts of solar energy, expected to reach their bottom level by 2040, will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-2060," he said, adding that this period of global freeze will last some 50 years, after which the temperatures will go up again.
"There is no need for the Kyoto Protocol now, and it does not have to come into force until at least a hundred years from now - a global freeze will come about regardless of whether or not industrialized countries put a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions," Abdusamatov said.
The 1998 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which sets greenhouse gas emission targets for the period up to 2012, entered into force two years ago following ratification by 141 countries, which together account for over 55 percent of the world's gas pollutions.
Russia ratified the treaty in November 2004, making it legally binding. But the world's top polluter, the United States, is still reluctant to sign on for fear the treaty's emission commitments will slow down the country's economic growth.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) Canada-based Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta's controversial "Water", a Hindi film on the plight of Indian widows in the 1930s, has been shortlisted for the Oscars in the best foreign film category.
The film, which is Canada's official entry for the Oscars, stars John Abraham, Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas and examines the plight of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi.
India's entry, Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra's "Rang De Basanti", failed to impress Academy members. The film starring Aamir Khan was a runaway success, but was slammed by some who said it promoted violence and anarchy.
But Indian hopes are still flying high with "Water" entering the race. The fate of the film, which is yet to reach Indian screens, will be decided on Feb 25.
"Water", which did well in North America, focuses on the relationship between a widow seeking to escape stifling social restrictions and a man from a lower caste who is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi.
Though it is a Canadian production, its theme is purely Indian and still relevant. Making "Water", which was the opening film of the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005, was not a cakewalk for Mehta.
Her first attempts to make the film in Varanasi in 1999 sparked protests by Hindu fundamentalists and she had to shelve the project. She took it up four years later and filmed in Sri Lanka with vital changes in the cast - with Shabana Azmi making way for Seema and Nandita Das being replaced by Lisa.
"Water" completes Mehta's trilogy of "Fire" (1996) and "Earth" (1998).
The film's nomination to the coveted foreign film list in the Oscars became possible by vital changes made by the organisers of the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences.
This time, entries in the foreign language category were not required to be in the official language of the country submitting the film. Any language or combination of languages is acceptable as long as the principal language is not English. "Water" fitted the bill.
"That may sound like a profound change," said Academy executive director Bruce Davis in a press statement.
"But it actually addresses a situation that has cropped up only once before in our history, and may not arise again this century. Last year, the Italians wanted to submit a picture that was clearly made by Italian artists, and which qualified for the category in every other way except one: there was no Italian language in it. All the dialogues were in Middle Eastern languages."
"Water" finds place in the list along with the acclaimed "Black Book" from the Netherlands and "Volver" from Spain.
Other films in the list are "Days of Glory" (Algeria), "After the Wedding" (Denmark), "Avenue Montaigne" (France), "The Lives of Others" (Germany), "Pan's Labyrinth" (Mexico) and "Vitus" (Switzerland).
Bangalore, Jan 17 (IANS) The 13th edition of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) partnership summit got underway here Wednesday in the presence of Portuguse President Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva, Britain's prime minister-to-be Gordon Brown and ministers from France, Canada and the Gulf countries.
Being held for the second time in India's silicon hub, the focus of the three-day summit is "Emergent India - New Roles and Responsibilities" and has brought together 750 delegates from 26 countries.
Besides the high-profile Portuguese delegation, the summit has also attracted a 150-strong business delegation from Great Britain, headed by Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Brown and Secretary of State for Trade and Idustry Alistair Darling.
The Portuguese delegation, which has evinced keen interest in networking with its Indian counterpart businesses, is focusing on tying up commercial and investment partnerships for Indian and EU markets. Portuguese minister of economy and innovation Manuel Pinho and Minister of Culture Joao Gomes are accompanying their president at the summit.
The international business delegations represent an array of industries from sectors such as pharmaceuticals, IT, manufacturing, food and beverages, banking and financial services, healthcare and infrastructure.
The high-profile French delegation, led by Minister for Industry Fancois Loos, will focus on the untapped areas in the Indo-French trade like defence, aviation, nuclear energy and food processing.
The Canadian delegation is led by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and accompanied by Deputy Minister Alastair Glass.
With the Gulf region showing great interest in doing business in the sub-continent, ministerial delegations from Kuwait and Syria are participating in the summit in a big way. Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah Saud Bin Saqr Al Quasimi is heading the Kuwaiti delegation.
"The summit is set to give a boost to economic and industrial trade and co-operation between India and participating countries, thus making India the centre of international economic activity," CII President R.Seshasayee said in his inaugural address.
Referring to the theme of the summit, Seshasayee said India's external engagement was taking place at a time when geo-economics was overwhelming geo-politics. Unlike geo-economies, with geo-politics becoming a zero-sum game, the loss of territory by a country results in gain for another country.
"When countries engage and leverage each other's economies, there is incremental gain to both. This spirit guides the partnership summit. Geo-economies should set the goal of equitable and sustainable development, inclusive growth and improved well-being of the people the world over," said Seshasayee, managing director of Ashok Leyland.
Advocating partnerships as the only way to address and resolve risks and challenges on an economically intertwined world, Seshasayee said India had the potential to impart global equation, thanks to the country's emergence as the fourth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity.
"It is time for India to take stock of global challenges and issues and craft a new role in the global arena. The summit will address some of these issues and shape the discourse of how India can play a part in the future of the globalised world," he added.
Kabul, Jan 17 (Xinhua) Armed forces of Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have agreed to set up a joint intelligence operation centre to coordinate operations against insurgents.
Richard Nugee, spokesman of the military alliance told the media Wednesday, "The Joint Intelligence Operation Center will be set up in the next, we hope, 10 days".
The center, which should enable the trio to share intelligence, would be established in ISAF's Headquarters. It will induct six Pakistani, six Afghan and six ISAF officers.
An agreement in this regard had been reached at the recent tripartite talks held among high-ranking officials in Pakistan recently.
"By sharing intelligence information, we would bring the two militaries of Afghanistan and Pakistan much close together," added a spokesman of the military alliance.
Cairo/Kuwait, Jan 17 (DPA) Foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council plus Egypt and Jordan praised the commitment of the US in the region following talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The fourth consultative meeting of the foreign ministers of the GCC Tuesday followed Rice's talks with Kuwait's Prince Sheikh al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah after her visit to Saudi Arabia.
According to the Kuwait News Agency, the ministers praised US commitments to defend the security in the Gulf, the territorial integrity of Iraq and ensuring a fair and inclusive political process engaging all Iraqi communities.
The meeting attendees - from Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates as well as Egypt and Jordan - condemned sectarian violence that undermined the ability of the Iraqi people to live in peace and security, and called for the dismantlement of all militias.
They expressed their wish to "prevent Iraq from becoming a battleground for regional and international powers" and urged all to help end sectarian violence in Iraq.
The ministers also considered the Palestinian-Israeli conflict the "central and core problem (of the crises in the Middle East) and that without resolving this conflict the region will not enjoy sustained peace and stability".
They called on Israel and the Palestinians to abide by the 2005 Sharm al-Sheikh Understandings and the Agreement on Movement and Access, and expressed hoped that the December 2006 meeting between the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would be "followed by concrete steps in this dialogue".
Before the meet, a joint press conference was held by Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Muhammad Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah and Rice.
Al-Sabah said Kuwait supported the new US plan in Iraq, saying it would bring security and stability in the country and prevent "an ugly civil war", while Rice reiterated the US belief that a new strategy in Iraq was "necessary" and "urgent".
Kuwaiti and US officials also discussed Iran's nuclear programme, with the Kuwaiti foreign minister hoping Iran would comply with the UN Resolution on Iran's nuclear programme.
Rice's visit to Kuwait is part a regional tour to bolster support for the Middle East peace process. According to analysts, another big aim of Rice's tour is gaining support for President George W. Bush's new strategy in Iraq.
The new Iraq plan, announced last Wednesday, foresees the sending of an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq to end ongoing violence in the country.
The plan has drawn fire from centre-left Democrats and some members of Bush's own Republican party.
Cuttack, Jan 17 (IANS) From putting up digital scoreboards to keeping bees at bay, preparations are on in full swing to host a one-day cricket match between India and the West Indies here next week. The day-night match will be held Jan 24 at Barabati Stadium.
"For the first time we are placing two huge digital scoreboards so that people do not face any difficulty seeing the scores," said Ashirbad Behera, the Orissa Cricket Association (OCA) secretary.
"The digital screens will also allow cricket lovers to watch replays of important shots, run outs and other special events of the match," Behera told IANS. "Besides, we are providing a new coat of paint to the galleries."
The players will arrive in Orissa Jan 22 and stay at Mayfair Lagoon Hotel here. Net practices will begin at Barabati Stadium Jan 23, he said.
Tickets will be sold from 9 a.m. on Jan 21 to beat the rush, he said. Barabati Stadium has about 30,190 seats and nearly half of these will be reserved for the public. OCA-affiliated units will get 7,950 tickets, he said.
Ticket prices will range from Rs.400 to Rs.1,500.
A swarm of bees had created trouble in the stadium Jan 11, disrupting a Ranji Trophy match between Orissa and Assam for several minutes.
"We are taking steps to ensure that no such incident recurs during the match. The OCA has given priority to removing bees from the stadium," Behera said.
"More than 70 journalists from India and abroad are likely to cover the match and we will help them with telephones, fax machines and computers with Internet connections," he said.
Barabati Stadium had hosted its first Test match between India and Sri Lanka in 1987. The first one-dayer there was played between India and England in 1982. The last ODI that has been played in the stadium was in 2003.
BHAGAT SINGH BIRTH CENTENARY CELEBRATION' MERA RANG DE BASANTI CHOLA' An Exhibition- At Ahmedabad
> Shaheed-e- Azam
> BHAGAT SINGH BIRTH CENTENARY CELEBRATION
> All India Democratic Students' Organisation
> Gujarat State committee,
> 206/1 Patel Vas,Madal Pur, Ahmedabad-380006 Ph.26579962 Mb.no-09426519196
>
>
> PROGRAMME- Exhibition on 18th- 19th. December
>
> INAUGURATION- ON 18TH. DECEMBER, AT- 11.30 A.M.
>
> PLACE-NR. GUJARAT UNIVERSITY TOWER, OPP.COMMUNITY SCIENCE CENTRE, NAVARANPURA, AHMEDABAD
> Timing of Exhibition- 11.30 Morning to 5 P.M.
> The Exhibition will continue on 19th. December at the Same place
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) Bhawana Yadav, the sister of Bharati Yadav who is the key prosecution witness in the murder of Nitish Katara, is all set to depose before a court here Thursday.
A Delhi court advanced the date of the deposition by Bhawana, the daughter of former Rajya Sabha member D.P. Yadav, to Thursday from Feb 1 on her request.
The court of Additional Session Judge Ravinder Kaur Jan 12 smmoned Bahwana for deposition in the case on Feb 1 on the request of prosecution counsel. But Bhawana's counsel Tuesday requested an early date for recording of her statement.
Besides Bhavana, Sub-Inspector Anil Samania of the Uttar Pradesh police and an HDFC bank official too were summoned Jan 12 to record their statements on Feb 1 in the case.
Bharati has already deposed Nov 29 before the court after evading the court summons to testify in the case for over two years.
During her deposition, Bharati had denied receiving any phone calls from Nitish Katara's mother Neelam Katara after his abduction.
But the prosecution insists that Bharati did receive calls from Neelam Katara on a mobile phone, bearing a number that was registered in the name of Bhawana.
The prosecution says that Bhawana's deposition is necessary to ascertain who exactly had been handling her phone in the immediate aftermath of Nitish's murder.
Bharati's brother Vikas and cousin Vishal are accused of kidnapping and murdering Nitish with whom she allegedly had an intimate relationship.
While Vikas and another accused Sukhdev Pehlwan are in jail, Vishal has been granted bail by the Delhi High Court.
Katara was abducted on the night of Feb 16, 2002 from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, where he had gone to attend a marriage party. He was later murdered.
London, Jan 17 (IANS) British Prime Minister Tony Blair has expressed his "delight" at London-based Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal donating two million pounds to the ruling Labour Party at a time when the party is facing financial ruin.
In a statement, Blair said: "I am delighted that Mr Mittal, who is one of the world's most successful businessmen, has made such a generous donation. I thank him for his continued support for the Labour Party."
Labour Party chair Hazel Blears added: "Mr Mittal has been a committed supporter to the Labour party for many years. We are grateful to everyone that contributes to the party and greatly appreciate this very generous donation."
In a statement, the steel tycoon said: "I am a long-term supporter of the Labour Party and the work it has done in the United Kingdom to improve the overall prosperity and prospects of the country since coming to office in 1997."
Mittal's donation is the second time he has donated such an amount in the last three years.
Raipur, Jan 17 (IANS) The killing of seven Chhattisgarh security personnel in coordinated blasts late Tuesday uncannily coincided with the arrival of top arrested Maoist rebel Narayan Sanyal, who was brought to Bastar district for a trial.
The personnel of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and district police were killed by Maoists in Narayanpur area, 290 km from here, after they were lured into a forested area by a tribal who falsely alerted them about a dead body there.
Sanyal was also brought to trouble-hit Bastar Tuesday to be produced in a local court for his alleged involvement in the killing of many policemen during the past several years.
He was arrested in December 2005 and has been lodged in Raipur Central Jail since then.
"Sanyal, the mastermind of dozens of Maoist terror plots, was taken to Bastar to be produced before a local court," P.D. Verma, Deputy Inspector General at the jail, told IANS.
The 70-year-old Sanyal alias Naveen Prasad alias Bijoy Dada, who is now suffering from diabetes and acute kidney problems, is an accused in 21 cases including the October 2003 attack on former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu in and the jail break at Bihar's Jehanabad in November 2005.
"Sanyal is credited with opening a chain of landmine blast training centres for Maoists in India and making them experts in planting landmines," said a senior police official.
In 2006, a total of 749 people were killed in Maoist violence in India and around 80 percent were victims of landmine attacks.
Sanyal is the lone living contemporary of Charu Majumdar who founded the violent Maoist movement in 1967 in West Bengal.
By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu, Jan 17 (IANS) Mumbai police has arrested an aide of Indian underworld boss Chhote Rajan from Tanakpur town near Nepal's border for the murder of a controversial Nepali legislator nine years ago.
Ganesh Soradi, also known as Danny and Honey Dada, was arrested Monday by a police team from Mumbai's crime department, Nepal's official media reported.
Soradi reportedly confessed that he was behind the killing of Nepali MP Mirza Dilshad Beg in Kathmandu in 1998 and the killing was ordered by Chhote Rajan owing to his falling out with Daud Ibrahim.
Beg, from the Nepal Sadbhavana Party was active in the pro-democracy movement and in 1990 was elected MP. He was expelled from the party as he became mired in controversies.
There were allegations that Beg was close to Daud Ibrahim, who is wanted by Indian police for several terrorist acts in India, including a series of explosions in Indian business capital Mumbai in 1993 that killed over 250 people.
It was also alleged that Beg was working for ISI (Inter Service Intelligence) of Pakistan. After his expulsion from the NSP, Beg joined the royalist Rastriya Prajatantra Party and became a junior minister.
An Indian gangster, Babloo Shrivastav, currently serving a jail term in Bareilly in India, wrote in his memoir that Beg used to help members of his gang and of Daud's gang to escape to other countries via Nepal as and when Indian police intensified searches for them.
In his memoirs "Adhure Khwab", Babloo Shrivastav wrote that Beg used to provide the fugitives with false passports and safe houses in Nepal and helped them reach Thailand and other safe havens.
According to the arrested aide Soradi, Chhote Rajan fell out with Daud after the Mumbai blasts and since Beg was close to Daud, ordered his killing.
A second man is also said to be involved in killing Beg, who Soradi told police, had escaped to India.
This arrest adds much credence to the perception that ISI has enhanced its activities in Nepal and there exists a nexus between some Nepali politicians and the underworld.
It also showcases how the open border between India and Nepal is being exploited by criminal gangs from both the countries.
Last year, two Pakistanis were arrested in Kathmandu after seven blasts which rocked Mumbai trains, leading to speculation that they could be connected to the crime.
Nepal's government however has maintained silence both on the alleged politician-underworld nexus and the arrests made so far.
New York, Jan 17 (IANS) The commonly used anaesthetic isoflurane could kill brain cells and raise the risk of Alzheimer's, suggests a new study questioning the safety of the drug.
Isoflurane is an anaesthetic, which is inhaled and used when general anaesthesia is required.
Many people, especially the elderly, suffer from postoperative cognitive dysfunction after anaesthesia as well as scrambling and delirium that can last six hours or two weeks or months, reported the health portal HealthCentral.
"To me, a big dose of isoflurane mimics a stroke or a bang to the head, and you don't want that as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease at any age," said Rudolph Tanzi of the Massachusetts General Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease who led the study.
Tanzi's team exposed cells that had an amyloid-beta protein, a protein that restores brain function, to isoflurane for six hours.
The researchers found that isoflurane caused these cells to die. "It also caused the cell to overproduce the toxic molecule responsible for the pathology of Alzheimer's disease, particularly amyloid-beta," Tanzi said.
This is a warning, he said. "Isoflurane may be one reason why the elderly are more prone to cognitive dysfunction following anaesthesia."
The researcher believes that isoflurane should be avoided when possible. "We don't have enough data yet to ban isoflurane... But I'm convinced enough that I won't let my mother have it. I would advise any family or friends to stay away from isoflurane."
Lucknow, Jan 17 (IANS) The Congress Wednesday withdrew its outside support to the government of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav but this will not impact on the ruling coalition when it faces a trust vote in the assembly later this month.
Yadav has convened a special session of the house from Thursday. He proposes to seek a vote of confidence later this month, with the obvious objective of pre-empting any move by the Congress to topple his government over the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, as exemplified by the gruesome serial killings in Noida town adjoining New Delhi.
Asked if the Noida killings had triggered the Congress' decision, state party chief Salman Khurshid replied: "The episode has shocked the conscience of the entire nation.
"We have taken the decision in the larger interest of the state and democracy," Khurshid maintained.
The move comes close on the heels of another ruling ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Ajit Singh walking out of the alliance last week.
The two parties account for 15 and 14 seats respectively in the 403-member house that has an effective strength of 392. This means Yadav requires 197 votes and his brother Shivpal Singh Yadav, a minister in the state government, claimed the Samajwadi Party-led ruling alliance had the support of 209 legislators.
An assembly spokesman listed the ruling combine's tally thus: Samajwadi Party-152, Loktantrik Bahujan Dal-33, Independents-15, Loktantrik Congress Party-2, Communist party of India-Marxist-1, and unattached-6.
Against this, the opposition tally is now 183, comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party-83, Bahujan Samaj Party-67, Congress-15, RLD-14, and Hindu Mahasabha, Akhil Bhartiya Congress Dal and Independent-one each.
Khurshid said he would formally convey the Congress decision to state Governor T.V. Rajeshwar Thursday.
It had always been a rather piquant situation for the Congress party. Even as it was critical of the ruling party and its ways, it could not muster up courage to walk out. The Congress leadership believed any such move could adversely affect its secular image as this formed the basis of its support to the Yadav government.
"Three years ago when we extended support to the Mulayam government, it was purely because we wanted to keep communal forces out. What has come as a rude shock to us is the fact this government was now even willing to collaborate with communal forces," said Khurshid, while expressing his anguish against the chief minister.
"The insensitivity of the government towards the problems of the common citizen, the working class, farmers, children women, Dalits, backwards and minorities has surpassed all limits," he said.
Terming it as the "right time" to sever ties, Khurshid said: "Since the assembly session is to open tomorrow, the timing could not have been more appropriate."
Asked if this would lead to the fall of the government, he replied: "In any case, it was a hollow government. Mulayam has no moral right to continue in office."
Lucknow, Jan 17 (IANS) The Congress party Wednesday decided to withdraw support to the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh.
State Congress chief Salman Khurshid's announcement to this effect comes close on the heels of the parting of ways by another ally, Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
However, the withdrawal of support would not make any difference to the three-and-a-half-year old government. The Congress has only 15 members in the state assembly of 403 members, while Ajit Singh's RLD has 14.
Since the present strength of the assembly is 392, Yadav requires a count of only 197. According to a spokesman of the assembly, the chief minister was well above the magic figure.
Yadav has already convened a special session of the house from Thursday. He proposes to seek a vote of confidence.
Hyderabad, Jan 17 (IANS) Andhra Pradesh High Court Wednesday directed the state government to submit details on the pardon granted to ruling Congress leader Gowru Venkat Reddy who was convicted in a case of double murder in 2000.
The court gave the direction while hearing a petition filed by former director general of police and opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader P. Ramulu seeking disqualification of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
The court, which adjourned the hearing to Thursday, also directed the government to submit details regarding the cases pending against Venkat Reddy.
The court disagreed with the view of the advocate general that Ramulu filed the petition for publicity and political mileage.
Ramulu, who had joined TDP in October last year, argued in his petition that Rajasekhara Reddy was not fit to continue as the chief minister and he may be disqualified. He cited the way pardon was granted to Venkat Reddy.
Venkat Reddy was released Aug 15, 2005 following the remission of the sentence by then governor Sushil Kumar Shinde. But the Supreme Court in October last year had quashed the pardon granted to Venkat Reddy, husband of Congress legislator G. Charita Reddy.
The Congress leader from Kurnool district was convicted for the murder of two TDP activists and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He had served nearly five years before the remission of his sentence. He surrendered following the apex court order quashing his pardon.
While demanding the chief minister's resignation, TDP alleged that he granted the remission just because Venkat Reddy belonged to the ruling party.
Manu Bankul (Tripura), Jan 17 (IANS) Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama Wednesday said he was against all forms of severe punishment like death by hanging and criticised the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
"I was a signatory to a general appeal against death by hanging made by the Amnesty International," the Buddhist spiritual leader told journalists on being asked if he approved the Hussein's execution last month.
"I am against hanging. You cannot achieve anything by violent means. Everyone needs peace."
The Dalai Lama was at Manu Bankul, a small town 140 km south of Agartala, the capital of the northeastern Indian state of Tripura.
He earlier addressed nearly 15,000 Buddhists, mostly from the Mog tribe. He also laid the foundation stone of a Buddhist cultural complex.
Tripura, a state of 3.1 million people, has an estimated 1,30,000 Buddhists.
In 1959, the spiritual leader, disguised as a soldier and with a small escort of 80-odd followers reached Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh after nearly three weeks of gruelling trekking on foot and on mule backs. He has been living in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala since then.
Asked by reporters about the search for his successor, he said: "Dalai Lama is not the real issue, but Tibet."
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) There will soon be a special law to curb defacement of public property in Delhi by posters and violators would be punished with a fine Rs.50,000 or imprisonment for a year, it was announced here Wednesday.
After a high level meeting, Delhi Urban Development Minister A.K. Walia said the state government is considering enacting the Delhi Defacement of Public Property Bill, 2007.
"The Delhi Defacement of Public Property Bill, 2007 is under preparation and would be considered by the Delhi cabinet very soon," Walia said.
He said the new bill would have stringent provisions. A maximum fine of Rs.50,000 or imprisonment of one year has been proposed.
The new law would replace the existing West Bengal Defacement Act that several states use to curb defacement of properties.
The state government has also directed authorities to set up 266 poster display sites all over the city within two months. The sites would provide opportunity to people to paste their non-commercial posters on them to avoid defacement of public property.
The Delhi Traffic Police has given its nod for installation of these boards - 87 in Public Works Department (PWD) controlled areas, 149 in Municipal Corporation of Delhi areas, and the rest 30 in the upscale New Delhi Municipal Council controlled areas.
The size of the boards would be 15 ft. by 5 ft. and these would be placed two and a half feet above ground level providing adequate visibility.
Walia said his ministry has given strict instructions to all concerned departments to take strong and immediate action against all defaulters.
He said he would supervise monthly review meetings to eliminate defacement in the city totally.
By Imran Khan
Patna, Jan 17 (IANS) It is good news for bird lovers. The endangered Garuda bird of the stork family has been sighted in a village in Bihar's Bhagalpur district, where the birds have also started nesting.
"The endangered Garuda birds have taken shelter on a silk cotton tree near a village in Ganga-Diara area in Bhagalpur. They are breeding, a major occasion in the conservation of the birds," Arvind Mishra, an avid naturalist, told IANS.
"The Garuda birds face very high risk of extinction if proper conservation efforts are not taken. There are only 800 Garuda birds around the world and a few dozen in India," said Mishra, coordinator in Bihar and Jharkhand for the Indian Birds Conservation Network.
The Garuda, biologically known as Greater Adjutant, is classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List 2004 of threatened species and listed under Schedule IV of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The large wading bird belongs to the Leptoptilos dubius species.
This huge stork has a naked pink head, a very thick yellow bill and a low-hanging neck pouch. The neck ruff is white. The bird looks like a vulture. Other than the pale grey edge on each wing, the rest of the Greater Adjutant's body is dark grey.
Juveniles have a narrower bill, thicker down on the head and neck and entirely dark wings, Mishra said. A Garuda bird measures 145-150 cm (about three feet) in length and four to five feet in height.
Mishra, who has been studying birds and conducting surveys for conservation, said: "The birds are on the verge of extinction. Attempts are being made all over the world to conserve and save them."
According to Tapan Ghosh of Mandar Nature Club in Bhagalpur, his club has been working hard to create awareness among the locals on the need for protecting the endangered birds.
He said that last month some villagers sighted the birds on a silk cotton tree and informed the club.
"It is big news that the Garuda birds have chosen this place for shelter and breeding," Ghosh said.
"We have seen a few baby chicks. Out motive is to provide them full protection with the support of locals. The villagers have promised not to disturb their shelter."
Mishra said that several villagers have started worshipping the Garuda birds and the tree on which they have made their nest.
Garuda is the name of the huge bird mentioned in the Indian epic "Mahabharata".
Ghosh said the nesting season of the birds is between September and January. The nests, usually built right on the top of the tree canopy, measure 90-110 cm in diameter.
The Greater Adjutant was formerly found in South and Southeast Asia but there were reports of the birds being sighted in Assam in India and in Cambodia.
"Bhagalpur is the third nesting region of this species in the world. This could be a good sign for the survival of a good number of the species," said Mishra, who has been working on a project supported by the Wildlife Trust of India for the protection of the species.
The number of these bird species has declined drastically in the past few years.
The main threat they now face in Bihar is from the local nomadic Banpar tribes, which collect the eggs and chicks and hunt the birds for food.
Another threat, according to Mishra, is the anti-inflammatory medicine Diclofenac that is used by veterinarians and a major reason behind pushing vultures to near extinction.
The Greater Adjutant feeds on the carcass of dead cattle and could be similarly affected by the medicine, said Mishra, also a member on the Bihar wildlife board.
In May 2006, 42 birds were seen by Mishra and the Mandar Nature Club team for the first time. Prior to this, the Greater Adjutant had never been seen in Bihar during its breeding period.
The Greater Adjutant, like most of its relatives, feeds mainly on frogs and large insects but also young birds, lizards and rodents.
Loss of nesting habitat and feeding sites through drainage, pollutions and disturbance, together with hunting and egg collection, has caused a massive dip in the population of this species.
Melbourne, Jan 17 (DPA) Roger Federer stretched his career domination of Swede Jonas Bjorkman to five victories Wednesday with a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 second-round win at the Australian Open.
The Swiss top seed has yet to lose a set against the veteran as the pair met for the third time at a Grand Slam event.
Federer advanced with a trio of sets, each lasting around 30 minutes; he fired seven aces and broke the 50th-ranked 34-year-old seven times.
Karachi, Jan 17 (IANS) Former Pakistan cricket team captain Moin Khan has been booked on charge of beating his wife, allegedly while in a drunken state.
He was granted bail on Tuesday by a judicial magistrate following a case registered by his wife Tasneem. Khan was arrested at dawn on Tuesday from his residence after his wife lodged the complaint with the police helpline, Dawn newspaper said.
Magistrate Khushi Mohammad gave the former Test star bail for Rs. 10,000.
Even though Moin Khan has been dropped from the national side he is still playing first class cricket. In 2005, he played in the ABN AMRO 20-20 cup as the captain of the Karachi Zebras. During the series Moin Khan set a new record by scoring the first century in a 20-20 match.
He is the only cricketer to coin a name for a cricketing delivery. In the mid 1990's he coined the mystery delivery of Saqlain Mushtaq that went from leg to off as the Doosra. It means the "other one" in Urdu. He also held the record for most dismissals behind the wicket.
By Arun Kumar,
Washington, Jan 17 (IANS) The 80-year-old Ritz Carlton, America's longest, continuously-run hotel and a Boston landmark, has become part of Tata 's Indian Hotels group and will be known as Taj Boston.
"Boston's most beloved hotel" is the newest addition to the 105-year-old Taj Group's collection of 76 fine hotels, resorts and palaces in over 52 destinations, 12 countries and five continents, the company announced in a full page advertisement in US media.
"Already the Grand Dame of Boston, the hotel maintains a rich heritage that Taj will both preserve and and enrich," it said promising "luxury beyond your wildest dreams".
Indian Hotels (IHCL), which runs hotels and resorts under the Taj brand, is reported to have acquired the Ritz-Carlton for $170 million through its US subsidiary, International Hotel Management Service.
Located on Boston's fashionable Newbury Street, surrounded by art galleries, boutiques and restaurants, the hotel opened for business in 1927 and was bought by its previous owners Millennium Partners of New York in 1999 for $122 million. It has recently completed its $60 million restoration project returning the classic hotel to its old splendour. A collection of original art and antiques is on display throughout the hotel with 273 guestrooms on 12 floors.
New York, Jan 17 (IANS) People suffering from gum disease are likely to face the risk of developing cancer of the pancreas, an organ in the digestive system, and the worse the gum disease, the higher the risk, says a study.
Gum disease is a common dental problem that may result in tooth loss.
Dominique S. Michaud, Sc.D., along with colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health, US, analysed data from 51,529 male health professionals -- a large number of whom were non-smokers -- who were followed for 16 years.
Michaud's team found that, overall, study subjects who reported gum disease were 64 per cent more likely to have pancreatic cancer, reported online edition of health magazine WebMD.
Among non-smokers, those with gum disease were more than twice as likely to have pancreatic cancer, the researchers said. The risk is more in people who lost tooth due to disease.
People with a history of gum disease, recent tooth loss, have a 2.7-fold higher risk of this fatal cancer than people without gum disease or tooth loss, according to the finding appeared in the Jan 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Previous studies have linked gum disease to pancreatic cancer. But those studies could not control for smoking, which contributes to both gum disease and cancer.
Although it is not clear why gum disease is linked to cancer risk, the researchers suggest that long-standing gum infections trigger a body-wide immune response: inflammation. Inflamed tissues give off chemical signals that promote tumour growth.
San Francisco, Jan 17 (DPA) Hewlett-Packard (HP) has invented a revolutionary computer chip that uses nanotechnology to achieve a significant performance boost.
Researchers at the world's largest computer maker Tuesday said the new approach can allow an eightfold increase in the number of transistors that can be squeezed onto a variety of programmable chips, while bringing savings in energy consumption.
The new technology works by using a grid of nanowires to connect conventional integrated circuits chips known as FPGAs, or field programmable gate arrays, the Silicon Valley company said in a statement.
Not only does the new technology promise to increase speed, but according to HP it should also be possible to manufacture the new chips in existing factories - a key advantage over current improvements which rely on reducing the size of transistors and which need new fabrication facilities for each new chip generation.
"That is (saving) five to 10 years (of) work at a stroke," James Ellenbogen, the senior principal scientist of the nanosystems group at Mitre Corporation told the Wall Street Journal.
He characterised HP's results as "amazing" and said it had the potential to extend indefinitely the reach of Moore's Law which posits that the power of microchips will double every 18 months.
Hewlett-Packard said it expects to have a laboratory prototype of the chip completed "within the year".
--DPA
By Syed Zarir Hussain,
Moran (Assam), Jan 17 (IANS) Hundreds of Hindi-speaking migrant workers in Assam are beginning to return to their workplaces 10 days after separatist guerrillas killed 61 of them in a wave of deadly attacks.
Amongst them are Subhas Jha and his nephew Surinder Tiwari who finally decided to get back to work after staying at a government-run shelter for over a week.
"We have decided to go back to work with the situation calming down and no violence reported in the past one week," middle-aged Jha, a brick kiln worker from Bihar's Kishanganj district, told IANS.
Jha and his nephew were working near Moran in Dibrugarh district, 410 km east of Guwahati, for the last seven years. "We cannot stay forever in relief camps. We have to work and earn or else how do we feed our families back home in Bihar," Tiwari said.
Authorities blamed the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) for a string of attacks targeting Hindi-speaking migrant workers from Jan 5 to Jan 8 in parts of eastern Assam.
The orgy of violence spread over four straight days had left 73 people dead - 61 Hindi-speaking migrant workers, five policemen, two government officials killed in a landmine explosion and five ULFA rebels shot dead in separate encounters with security forces.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday visited eastern Assam and assured that the government would deal with terrorism firmly. He ensured security of all sections of people, including migrant workers.
"The prime minister's statement did boost our confidence a lot," said Hari Prasad Yadav, another brick kiln worker.
At least 7,500 migrant workers were huddled into makeshift shelters in eastern Assam as precautionary measures to prevent the ULFA from striking at ease.
"More than 50 percent of the workers have returned back to their workplaces in the last few days," said Assam government spokesperson and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
The serial attacks had prompted New Delhi to launch a massive military crackdown Jan 8 against the ULFA - five rebels were killed and at least a dozen were captured in separate raids.
"There is lot of security presence now in the area and we feel secure," said Madhukar Singh, a daily wage earner. "Maybe in a day or two I shall go back to work."
Most of the victims were from Bihar and had made Assam their home for decades and doing odd jobs as brick kiln workers, fishermen, and as daily wage earners.
In 2000, ULFA militants killed at least 100 Hindi speaking people in Assam in a series of well-planned attacks after the rebel group vowed to free the state of all 'non-Assamese migrant workers'.
Srinagar, Jan 17 (IANS) Hundreds of security forces comprising elements of the army, para-military, police and the forest protection group launched a massive hunt for a man-eater leopard that has killed three children in the past five days in south Kashmir.
Seven police teams were sent out in the forested area to spot and trap the leopard, after S.M. Sahai, Inspector General of Police, Kashmir zone, visited the Chattergul village in Anantnag district in the Pir Panjal range.
"Besides police personnel, the teams would have officials of the wildlife department with them. Each team will also have one expert hunter," a police spokesman in Srinagar told IANS Tuesday.
There has been a huge protest from the villagers against the depredation by the wild cat and the government's inertia in responding to it.
The government has announced a reward of Rs.10,000 to anyone who could give exact information about where the leopard is or could trap it, an official spokesman said.
"In view of the alarming situation, all the concerned agencies including wildlife department, police, army, paramilitary forces and forest protection force has been directed to trap the beast immediately and ensure the safety and security of the general masses," Power and Health Minister Peer Muhammad Hussain said.
About two months back, a black bear was burnt alive by angry people in south Kashmir's Tral town for attacking the villagers. The video footage of the episode had led to serious condemnation by animal rights activists, including Maneka Gandhi.
Before launching the spot-and-shoot campaign, the district magistrate of Anantnag declared the leopard as a man-eater.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) As part of its global brand-building mission, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is joining hands with the Columbia Business School, one of the top 10 management schools of the world.
"A team of experts from the Columbia Business School had visited our campus earlier and everything has been finalised. We are signing the agreement Thursday," IIM-A director Bakul H. Dholakia told IANS over telephone from Ahmedabad.
"This is certainly a step ahead in our student exchange programme and better exposure for our students," he said adding that R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School is leading the delegation from the US to India.
Hubbard will reach New Delhi Jan 18 to sign the tie-up, a spokesman of the American business school said.
IIM-A authorities said that the move was part of the institute's global brand building effort.
"It's a relation between two quality institutes of the world. Both of us can exchange our expertise in teaching and research work and help students get international exposure," IIM-A chief spokesman Ashok K. Shah said.
"We have already tied up with nearly 44 institutes across the globe. Under the programme, students attend one term of three-and-a-half months at institutes abroad. And all this is giving the international recruiters a better idea about our quality.
"Though we have no dearth of recruiters, a tie-up with the Colombia Business School would boost our placement capabilities," he said.
Last year, the institute had forged a tie-up with Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.
Bangalore, Jan 17 (IANS) India's robust economic growth has put the country on the world radar for attracting investments from global investors, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said Wednesday.
"India is on the world radar as never before, thanks to the current robust economic growth. No investor wants surprises, but (they want) improvements. And that is what we promise to deliver," the minister told about 750 business delegates from 26 countries participating in the three-day CII partnership summit here.
"The time for surprises is over. Now, we shall we give you constant improvement and betterment."
Asserting there could not have been a better time to engage with India, he said the reforms process was being widened and deepened to provide opportunities to businesses from the world over.
"The foreign direct investment (FDI) regime is getting progressively liberalised. The regulatory mechanisms are being strengthened and overseas investments in key areas of infrastructure are being made most welcome," the minister pointed out.
In this context, Kamal Nath said foreign inflows, including portfolio investment, were estimated to touch about $15 billion by the end of the current fiscal (2006-07), with more overseas firms eyeing good returns from the subcontinent.
While foreign institutional investment (FII) is set to account for $12 billion, the FDI will be about $3 billion. The overall foreign investment, including FII and FDI, is expected to go up by 120 percent over the last fiscal.
Between April-November, the equity inflow was $7.3 billion, a 117 percent growth over the same period in the last fiscal at $3.5 billion.
"This is the fastest growth rate of foreign inflows into the country. It reflects the confidence foreign firms have in India, which is emerging as a major player," Kamal Nath said.
With the economy on a growth trajectory, the gross domestic product (GDP) has grown by 9.1 percent in the first half of this fiscal. The manufacturing sector grew at 12.1 percent as against 9.5 percent in the same period of the last fiscal.
"On the export front, the growth rate is three times that of the GDP at 25 percent over the last four years. In 2005-06, exports crossed the landmark figure of $103 billion. Merchandise exports along with service exports accounted for 20 per cent of the GDP," the minister said.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The Indian government Wednesday took umbrage over the alleged racist remarks against actress Shilpa Shetty on a British TV show, with two senior ministers saying the issue would be taken up with London.
Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said his ministry was acting on the reported racist remarks against Shilpa on the British reality TV show "Celebrity Big Brother" that had prompting thousands of complaints.
"We are seized of the matter and we are looking into all the aspects. We will take appropriate action as required," he told reporters here.
"Racism has no place in civilian society. The world knows that India has throughout firmly rejected all forms of discrimination and racism," Sharma added.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said the government was not accountable on the issue but was nonetheless concerned.
"The Indian government is not accountable on the Shilpa Shetty issue as it is an arrangement with an individual, but the government is committed against racism," Dasmunsi maintained.
He said he had urged External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to contact the Indian High Commission in Britain for details.
Shilpa has been the focus of attention in India and Britain, where MPs in the House of Commons, as also thousands of Asians and even feminist diva Germaine Greer, have defended her against alleged racism on "Big Brother".
Viewers in Britain have complained that Shilpa, who is participating in the show that has a group of celebrities cooped up in a house with no access to the outside world, is being subjected to racial abuse by fellow housemates.
Monday night's show, for instance, featured scenes of participants picking on Shilpa for her cooking skills.
Former S Club 7 member Jo O'Meara made fun of Shilpa's Indian accent and complained that she had touched food with her hands. He was joined by model Danielle Lloyd. She said: "They eat with their hands in India, don't they - or is that China? You don't know where their hands have been."
During her time in the house, another contestant Jackiey repeatedly referred to Shilpa as "the Indian" and never pronounced her name correctly.
The show went on air Jan 2.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) Amid optimistic notes struck by both countries, India and China Wednesday began talks to expedite a resolution of their long-running boundary dispute that continues to shadow ties between the two.
The ninth round of talks between their special representatives, Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, began here Wednesday morning.
The mood was positive and a formal statement will be issued at the end of the two-day talks Thursday, official sources said.
Ahead of the talks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao, who met on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in the Philippines earlier this week, had instructed their special representatives to act with greater "vigour and innovation" in resolving the decades-old dispute.
In a speech here Tuesday, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee set a positive tone, saying India's "relations with our neighbours, including China and Pakistan, are poised for a positive transformation."
In Beijing, before Dai arrived here Tuesday, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao described the talks as "a concrete step" to take the border talks forward.
The two Asian powers are keen to put the longstanding dispute behind and concentrate on doubling their trade to $40 billion by 2010 and improving their cooperation on global and strategic issues.
They declared a resolution of the boundary question as the strategic objective of their growing relationship during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to India last year.
New York, Jan 17 (IANS) From building houses for the homeless to tutoring children, young people of different faiths have been working together under a group run by an Indian American. The Chicago-based Inter-Faith Youth Core (IFYC), started by Eboo Patel, brings together youths from various parts of the world with the aim of promoting inter-religious understanding.
Patel, a Muslim, had migrated with his parents from Mumbai to Chicago in 1975. During his formative years in the city, he had serious discussions regarding religion with his friends who belonged to various religions.
But the idea of a youth group didn't take seed until he was a graduate student at Oxford University in Britain where Patel, as a Rhodes scholar, received a doctorate in the sociology of religion.
"The basic idea of IFYC is that young people from different religions should be volunteering together, cleaning rivers, tutoring children, building houses," Patel told the Voice of America (VOA).
"They should use that as an entrée into having a conversation about how their different religions inspire them to serve others."
First envisioned in 1998 by Patel and a few of his committed college friends, IFYC has since reached 36,000 people across the world with its message of strengthening religious identities, fostering inter-religious understanding and cooperating to serve the common good.
Every April, thousands of religiously diverse young people who are members of IFYC come together in hometowns and college campuses around the world to serve their communities and engage in dialogue.
"People are realising that this issue of inter-faith cooperation, it matters in a huge way," Patel, who believes that the most divisive issue in the 21st century will be religion, or as he puts it, "the faith line", was quoted as saying.
IFYC has partnered with such leaders and organisations as the Office of Queen Rania of Jordan, Bill Clinton, the Religious Advisory Council of the Council on Foreign Relations, the East-West Institute, the US State Department and the US Institute of Peace.
IndianMuslims.info staff reporter
Chicago, Jan 17 : In another sign of Indian Muslims taking the lead to improve the condition of their community, a group of Physicians recently formed an organization of Indian Muslim Physicians in North America.
Muslim Physicians of Indian Origin, North America or MPIONA was formed in Chicago on 23rd December 2006. The Organization intends to serve the health care and education in USA and India. It will service the community of Muslims as well as non-Muslims in USA and India.
Meeting to form the organization was attended by Dr. Khursheed A. Mallick, Dr. M. Gafoor, Dr. Azher Quader, Dr. Syed Zahid Mohsin, Dr. Tabassum Imam & Dr. Syed Nasrat Imam. Additionally names of Dr. Nasrullah Basha, Dr. Naheed Akhter, Dr. Naveed Akhter, Dr. Sohail Ahmad, Dr. Shahid Ansari, Dr. Ashraf Imam, Dr. Begum, and Dr. Naveed Mallick was proposed. These members will meet to establish constitution and by-laws.
According to an estimate there are over 45,000 physicians of Indian origin in US and over 12,000 are residents and interns. At least 3,000 of them are Muslims. MPIONA will also reach out to the second generation physicians.
Among the objectives of MPIONA is to promote education and particularly medical education among the Indians. It will also finance pre-medical courses and coaching for entrance examinations. One of the major goals is the establishment of charitable hospitals, dispensaries, clinics.
Organization hopes to start their work in India by 3rd or 4th quarter of 2007. The organizing committee is seeking members to join them in their cause.
Tel Aviv, Jan 17 (DPA) Israeli military's chief of staff Dan Halutz has announced his resignation reportedly over criticism of Israel's handling of the month-long war in Lebanon last summer.
Halutz had already informed both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz of his decision, local media reported. Olmert accepted Halutz's resignation late Tuesday with deep sorrow, Israeli news website ynet reported, citing the prime minister's office.
The head of the Israeli Defence Force had come under heavy criticism over his management of the war with Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during a cross-border raid July 12.
Halutz said he accepts responsibility for the army's failures in the month-long conflict, during which Israel failed to reach its apparent strategic goals - the freeing of the two Israeli soldiers and the defeat of Hezbollah, which has the backing of Iran and Syria.
An official Israeli inquiry into the war, headed by former judge Eliyahu Winograd, will likely release its interim conclusions in February and is expected to be critical of the political leadership as well as the military.
Israeli media reported that Defence Minister Peretz could also be forced to resign over the conflict.
Jammu, Jan 17 (IANS) The Jammu and Kashmir government has set ambitious targets for per capita income and growth rate in the budget for fiscal 2007-2008 presented Wednesday despite a decline in the state's tax revenue.
In his maiden budget speech in the legislative assembly, Finance Minister Tariq Hameed Karra laid out the promise of 6.5 percent growth rate as against 5.8 percent in the current year and a per capita income of Rs.21,362 as against the existing Rs.18,768.
He said the total receipts during the current year are estimated at Rs.14,163 crore against the budget estimates of Rs.14,436 crores, of which Rs.11,981 crores represents revenue receipts and Rs.2,182 crores are capital receipts.
The shortfall in receipts is mainly on account of the non-release of Rs.300 crores under the power reform grant, which will be flowing only in the next financial year.
Receipts on the capital account, which were budgeted at Rs.725 crores, are likely to go up to Rs.886 crores. While market borrowings will remain at the budgeted level of Rs.167 crores, loans from financial institutions will be up from estimated Rs.254 crores to Rs.415 crores, he added.
With regard to revenue and expenditure projections of 2007-08, Karra said the total receipts for 2007-08 have been estimated at Rs.16,267 crores of which Rs.13,555 crores constitute revenue receipts and Rs.2,712 crores as capital receipts.
"We are likely to receive an amount of Rs.1,471 crores as share in central taxes. Further, other central transfers are expected to be of the order of Rs.8,822 crores. The estimates for plan assistance, which includes an amount of Rs.850 crores under the Prime Minister's Reconstruction Plan, has been kept at Rs.4,755 crores as against the revised estimates of Rs.3,921 crores for 2006-07.
"During 2007-08, it is proposed to mobilise additional resources of the order of Rs.150 crores through new fiscal and rationalization measures," he added.
Referring to state's own revenues, he said non-tax receipts did not indicate an encouraging trend. Against the last year's revised estimate of Rs.727 crores, the actual realisation was only Rs.536 crores. The receipts during the current financial year are also expected to be less by Rs.217 crores against the budgeted level of Rs.821 crores.
The principal reason is the shortfall in power revenue collection - down to Rs.407 crores from Rs.600 crores.
Ranchi, Jan 17 (IANS) The Jharkhand government will approach Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President A.P.J Abdul Kalam requesting them to appeal to the Delimitation Commission not to reduce the number of tribal seats in the assembly.
The Delimitation Commission has recommended that reserved tribal seats in the Jharkhand assembly be reduced to 21 from 28.
A meeting of the Tribal Advisory Committee (TAC) here Tuesday authorised Chief Minister Madhu Koda to take up the issue with the prime minister and president. Participants at the meeting demanded that Jharkhand be given the same status as Tripura where the number of reserved seats remain unchanged even if the tribal population reduces.
The issue has united leaders cutting across party lines.
Said the chief minister: "If the situation continues in future there will be no reserved seats for the tribal people."
Added Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former chief minister Babulal Marandi: "The recommendation of the Delimitation Commission is matter of serious concern. Laws should be framed to protect the reserved seats of tribal people."
Karachi, Jan 17 (IANS) The building that houses Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) celebrated its platinum jubilee Tuesday in the presence of Kolkata's Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya.
Both Karachi and Kolkata have registered parallel growth since their beginnings during the British colonial times. Bhattacharya pointed out that the civic bodies of the two metropolises had a common acronym - KMC. KMC also stands for Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
While Kolkata was the capital of British India before New Delhi was built, Karachi was Pakistan's capital until Islamabad was built.
Kolkata Mayor sang along singer Najam Shiraz and Nasreen Jalil, "this is the city of my love". Nasreen Jalil is the Naib Nazim of Karachi Municipal Corporation and manages the civic affairs of the KMC that is now defunct according to Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
Only the building that housed the civic body survives and Jalil lamented that there was no way the old records dumped around in the building could be salvaged and preserved.
Srinagar, Jan 17 (IANS) Normal life in the Kashmir valley came to a standstill Wednesday with a strike call given by the hardline faction of the separatist Hurriyat conference.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani has called for a shutdown to protest the Pakistan visit of the moderate faction of the Hurriyat led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
Shops, business establishments, government offices and banks in this summer capital were closed and public transport was mostly off the roads. Only a few private vehicles could be seen plying on the streets.
Reports from other towns in Kashmir said the strike was near total. Inter-district transport was also affected.
The moderate Hurriyat group leaves for Islamabad Wednesday for talks with the Pakistan leadership. It had opposed Wednesday's strike call saying, "The politics of shutdowns and hartals were over in Kashmir."
Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 17 (IANS) The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala has given a socialist spin to the draft of the IT policy, released Wednesday, which lays more emphasis on employee protection and advocates free software.
"Gone are the days when monopoly companies like Microsoft had complete dominance. We will promote free software in a big way and we will make Kerala the hub of free software," said Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who also handles the IT portfolio.
"Likewise, rights of employees working in the IT sector would be protected. Hitherto the employees were unable to open their mouths. They would have trade union rights as well," said the Leftist leader who belongs to the old school of Communists.
"This is quite different from the policy of the previous UDF (United Democratic Front) government. We will place this policy for discussion all across the state and soon we would come out with a full-fledged IT policy," Achuthanandan said.
He said that till now it was just Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi that were at the forefront of IT development, "but we will make even other cities IT destinations. Soon we are going to begin a new IT park in Kozhikode".
Another area the IT policy draft visualises is the opening of 'finishing schools' for the large number of engineers passing out of engineering colleges.
"After their course, they have to be given training in soft skills which is a must for the IT industry and we would address this issue," said Achuthanandan.
In reply to a question on the fate of the proposed Smart City to be developed by the Dubai Inter City, he said: "You wait for some more time and you will come to know the difference of Chandy's Smart City (referring to previous chief minister Oommen Chandy who had inked a pact in October 2005) and what we envisage."
By Imran Khan,
Patna, Jan 17 (IANS) Following the recovery in Bihar of bodies or skeletons of half a dozen abducted people in the last one week, several families whose kin have gone missing fear for the lives of their kidnapped relatives. What has scared people most is the recovery on Jan 11 of the skeleton of abducted schoolboy Dipak and the arrest of the abductors who confessed to having killed him.
Fourteen-year-old Dipak, a Class 8 student of Patna Central School, was abducted Nov 14 last year on his way to school.
"We are really disturbed by the new trend of kidnapped people being killed by abductors," said Arun Kumar, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) trooper now posted in neighbouring Jharkhand.
Kumar's son Mukesh was abducted from Gaya district Nov 24.
"The police have failed to trace him. There is no information about him," said a distraught Arun Kumar, who met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Monday. His only solace is that the chief minister directed the police to look into the case.
Nitish Kumar, on coming to power in November 2005, promised to turn Bihar into a crime-free state in three months. But police records suggest otherwise.
According to the authorities, 1,761 cases of kidnapping were reported during January-October last year.
"The news of the killing of Dipak and other abducted people in the last few days has created a panic. We are waiting for the safe recovery of my abducted daughter," said the mother of a 13-year-old who has been missing from Patna for over a month.
The mother, who did not wish to be identified, has threatened to commit suicide if the police fail to trace or recover her daughter soon.
Before the recovery of Dipak's skeleton, the police found the bodies of three abducted youths in Bhojpur district in recent days. The youths were among five youngsters who had been kidnapped on Dec 28 from Jagjiwanpur village. The recovery of the corpses has scared the families of the other two missing youths.
Earlier,on Jan 6, the police recovered the skeleton of a 19-year-old student, Pravesh Kumar, who was abducted from Patna on Sep 15 last year. The skeleton was found in a house in a village in Nalanda district. The boy had been killed after his family refused to pay the ransom demanded for his safe release.
On Dec 28, the police recovered the body of abducted schoolboy Divyakant Kishore, a Class 7 student of Adarsh Ucch Vidyalaya in Munger district. The police said that Kishore's body, with several injuries, was found 12 days after he had been kidnapped.
Similarly, Naresh Choudhary, a cashier of a construction company in Purnea, was killed. The police recovered his body Dec 15, nearly 10 days after his kidnapping.
There is gloom in the house of Sunaina Devi, whose husband has been missing since April 2006. Sunaina and her two children spent Diwali last year in darkness to protest against the police failure to locate her husband.
Sunaina approached top police officials and even the chief minister, but to no avail. She attempted suicide in August.
"I was shocked to learn that now abductors have started killing abducted people. We are only praying to god for my husband's safe return," she said.
Several families in Patna, Gaya, Aurangabad, Begusarai, Vaishali, Samastipur, Darbhanga, Chapra, Bhagalpur and other districts are also scared.
The Patna High Court Monday directed the Bihar government to trace 143 children and 581 women who have been missing since 2001. Kidnappers have killed 44 abducted children during the period.
The court, responding to pubic interest litigation, expressed serious concern over the police failure to recover the missing children and asked the government to submit a report within six weeks.
The government informed the court that 1,078 children had been kidnapped in the state since 2001.
Bihar has been witnessing a surge in kidnappings. Lawyers, doctors and wealthy businessmen have been the prime targets of extortionists. Hundreds of well-to-do professionals have migrated to bigger cities or sent their children to boarding schools outside the state.
Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 17 (IANS) Railway Minister Lalu Prasad has promised several sops to Kerala after he is said to have had a great New Year vacation with his family in Kovalam, the popular tourist destination in the state.
He has promised about the setting up of a bogey and parts manufacturing unit, an electric multiple unit (EMU), a product overhaul workshop (POW) and more funds for doubling of railway line forthcoming railway budget.
"The railways department would float a joint venture with Kerala for bogey and parts manufacturing unit, to be set up at Chertalai in Alappuzha district. They would take over Autocast, a state public sector undertaking (PSU). They will soon submit a report on this issue and we are willing to hand over a unit of Steel Industries Limited, another state PSU," Kerala state minister in charge of railways, M. Vijayakumar, told reporters here Wednesday.
These issues transpired at a discussion between the railway minister and his state counterpart in New Delhi Jan 14.
The EMU is to come up at the Kollam railway station while the POW would be based in Nemom, on the outskirts of state capital Thiruvananthapuram, in a 50-acre plot of land of the railways.
"The railway minister has promised more trains, sanctioning of railway over bridges, funds for completing double-track works and new routes," said Vijayakumar.
Currently there are five POWs in the country and one EMU in Palakkad in the state.
"Yadav said that a review of the existing POWs is being undertaken and assured that the next POW would be set up in Kerala," he said.
A meeting of all MPs from the state with railway officials would be held here next month to finalise these issues.
Bhopal, Jan 17 (IANS) Fearing attack from Naxalite extremists, senior police officials in Madhya Pradesh have removed nameplates from their residences and vehicles as a precaution and sounded a red alert across the state.
The police have been anticipating trouble since Jan 11 when they nabbed eight hardcore ultras having links with the outlawed People's War Group (PWG) and their counterparts in Nepal and unearthed a weapon factory here. This is for the first time that such an arms workshop has been found in the state.
Anant Kumar Singh, the Bhopal Superintendent of Police, said a red alert has been sounded across the state following revelations of the links of the accused with the Maoists.
Meanwhile, senior police officials from five states - Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh - and experts from the School of Weapons, Mhow, a cantonment town and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were interrogating the accused.
The accused, who have been living in Bhopal for three years, belonged to the banned CPI-Maoist that was formed about two years ago when the (PWG) and Maoist Communist Centre merged to form a single Naxalite group, the police said.
New Delhi/Srinagar, Jan 17 (IANS) A three-member delegation of the moderate All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) from Jammu and Kashmir leaves Thursday for a week-long trip to Pakistan where they will meet the top leadership and discuss the four-point formula of President Pervez Musharraf.
The delegation hoped for an invitation for informal talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the eve of their visit, but that may have to wait till their return.
Bilal Lone, representative of the People's Conference in the separatist Hurriyat Conference and son of the group's slain founder Abdul Gani Lone, said the group planned to raise the resolution of the Kashmir crisis in their substantive discussions with political leaders.
"One cannot afford to ignore the people of this region who are important in the peace process," Lone told IANS.
"Our visit is not going to be a photo opportunity. As representatives of the Kashmiris we will raise their problems. It is a good sign that India and Pakistan are engaged in a dialogue but please don't ignore Kashmir," maintained Lone.
Before their arrival here, APHC chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said he hoped to get something in black and white about the contours and contents of Musharraf's four-point formula on Kashmir and also about involving representatives of people of Jammu and Kashmir in the ongoing dialogue process.
Musharraf's proposals involve joint management of borders, self-governance, demilitarization and making the Line of Control (LoC) irrelevant.
The moderate Hurriyat Conference that is a strong votary of debate and discussion on the formula for resolving the Kashmir issue, has annoyed hardliners by its stand - the fundamentalist group headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and terrorist outfits opposed to President Musharraf in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Geelani's Tehrik-e-Hurriyat had called for a statewide shutdown Wednesday in protest against the APHC leaders' visit to Pakistan.
Shops, business establishments, government offices and banks in Srinagar were closed and public transport was mostly off the roads. Only a few private vehicles could be seen plying on the streets.
Reports from other towns in Kashmir said the strike was near total. Inter-district transport was also affected.
This will be the second visit of the Hurriyat to Pakistan in a year.
The moderate Hurriyat group opposed Wednesday's strike call saying, "The politics of shutdowns and hartals were over in Kashmir."
Jakarta, Jan 17 (DPA) Search teams have located 10 more bodies from an Indonesian ferry that sank in rough seas off Java Island late last month, but more than 300 people remained unaccounted for, a rescue official said Wednesday.
Lieutenant Priyono, an official at the National Search and Rescue Agency in Surabaya, capital of East Java province, told DPA that the evacuation process for the bodies spotted is still underway by two Indonesian Navy ships.
Priyono said fishermen spotted the bodies Tuesday night floating near the Makassar Strait, a staggering 770 kilometres away from where the ferry capsized off the northern coast of Central Java province on December 29.
He said the search area had been expanded for the missing persons, but they were primarily for recovery as officials doubted there were any survivors nearly three weeks after the disaster.
As of Wednesday, at least 235 survivors and 45 bodies had been found and more than 300 others remained missing.
The Senopati Nusantara, carrying 631 people, was sailing from the Central Kalimantan provincial port of Kumai on Borneo Island to Semarang harbour in Central Java when it sank just before midnight on December 29.
It was the latest in a series of sea disasters in Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands that depends on ocean transport. Indonesian passenger ferries and ships generally have poor safety records and also frequently exceed the number of passengers and cargo allowed on board.
The Jakarta government has come under intense criticism in recent days for not doing enough to ensure safety within the country's sea, land and air transport industries.
Kabul, Jan 17 (DPA) Taliban leader Mullah Omar is commanding rebel forces in Afghanistan from across the border under the protection of Pakistan's ISI, a spokesman for the Afghan secret service said Wednesday, citing a captured insurgent.
According to the testimony of the high-ranking rebel, Omar was operating from the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta and was being protected by the ISI, the spokesman said in Kabul.
Former ISI head Hamid Gul was supporting a training centre for Taliban suicide attackers in Peshawar on the Afghan border that had been disguised as a madrassa, he said.
The testimony is believed to have come from former Taliban spokesman Mohammed Hanif, who was arrested in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar Monday as he crossed the border from Pakistan.
"Hanif told us that without the help of the ISI, the Taliban would not be able to offer any resistance (to the international troops and the Afghan government) and that the ISI played a major role in arming and financing the Taliban," Afghan secret service spokesman Sayed Ansari said.
Omar went into hiding after the fall of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001.
The news came as Afghan and NATO troops captured another Taliban leader in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) did not release the name of the person detained but said he was placed into Afghan police custody and was being interrogated. He did not put up a fight, ISAF said Wednesday.
--DPA
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) Asking Indian industry to give top priority to ethical issues, Infosys Technologies Chief Mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy Wednesday said foreign companies have added value to India's corporate governance issues.
"Opening up of Indian economic borders in the 1990s allowed many multinational companies to operate from India, who have brought tremendous value addition to India's corporate governance," Murthy said at a seminar here.
"This has also had a positive impact on customer value," Murthy told the seminar on ethics and values as a corporate strategy, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Murthy also said India Inc must also give utmost importance to ethical behaviour and best corporate practices as the coming in of multinational corporations has also offered a plethora of choices to the customers today.
"We have to satisfy the aspirations of most stringent of customers and investors and we must remember that we also have to enhance the trust of our investors if we want to retain them," he said.
"Corporates should be accountable for any decision that they take for the sake of all stakeholders and discharge their responsibility without fear or favour," he said.
"Corporate leaders today are trusted least of all and that is because they have flouted ethics, fairness and accountability in their operation."
Murthy also emphasised that if any firm wants to be different from others, then it needed to follow a protocol of behaviour, which consists of ethics, fairness and accountability.
He also said business conglomerates today should stand up for the cause of those who are still below the poverty line and ignite the minds of people.
Kolkata Jan 17 (IANS) West Bengal's East Midnapore constituency was tense Wednesday after a trade union leader was killed Tuesday night in Nandigaram, where people have been resisting land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ). The Trinamool Congress claims the victim to be a party member.
The party called a 12-hour shutdown to protest the death of Arup Das who was killed with a hard object by some people, Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia said here Wednesday.
"He was a truck driver and a leader of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), the trade union arm of the Congress. He was not a Trinamool member. This incident is not related to land acquisition protests and it was a personal feud over money that led to the murder," Kanojia told IANS even as Trinamool Congress alleged that Das was allegedly killed by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) men.
Mukul Roy, general secretary of Trinamool Congress, said Das was a member of the INTTUC (Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress) and not INTUC as claimed by Kanojia.
"We are directly blaming Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya for the killing. It resulted after a meeting between the chief minister and CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose in their party office. The situation in Nandigram will worsen following this," Roy said.
With the chief minister and his party making a retreat from its aggressive stance, Nandigram was slowly returning to normal as a peace process had began in the disputed region where violence over land acquisition left several dead.
Alarmed by the spiralling violence, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on Jan 11 asked district authorities to "tear up" a land acquisition notification by the Haldia Development Authority (HDA) that had led to a violent backlash from Nandigram villagers.
Nandigram, about 150 km from here, flared up Jan 3 as word spread that a notification had come out to acquire land for a special economic zone (SEZ) nearby, to be developed by Indonesia's Salim Group.
Clashes between angry villagers and ruling CPI-M activists had claimed several lives.
By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu, Jan 17 (IANS) The first tussle over power sharing between Nepal's seven-party government and the Maoists since the rebels joined parliament was resolved Wednesday with both sides agreeing on a status quo.
Even as the guerrillas returned to parliament Monday, signifying a formal end to their decade-old armed uprising, fresh tension had started simmering between them and government over power sharing.
The three major parties in the government and the communist rebels remained deadlocked over the key parliamentary posts of Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
The current Speaker, Subhash Nembang, is from the second biggest party in the government, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML). He was appointed last year after a fierce tussle with deposed prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his Nepali Congress (Democratic) party, who had to settle for the post of Deputy Speaker.
"Everything will be changed," Maoist chief Prachanda told the media on the eve of his party joining parliament. "There will be a new Speaker and deputy."
Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who heads the Nepali Congress, the biggest party in the new house with 85 legislators, Wednesday held consultations with Prachanda with leaders of the other parties joining in afterwards.
Finally, the eight parties agreed to maintain status quo in the new parliament, deputy PM Amik Sherchan told the media after the meeting. While Nembang remains Speaker, Chitralekha Yadav keeps her post as Deputy Speaker.
A formal announcement to this effect will be made when Nepal's new interim legislature meets Wednesdfay afternoon.
However, Sherchan did not disclose whether the Maoists have been offered any plum ministerial berth in the cabinet to mollify them.
The Maoists are now the second biggest party in the interim legislature, along with the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), with both holding 83 seats each.
Reports say the Maoists want the post of deputy prime minister if they can't get the Speaker's post.
Currently, Nepal has two deputy PMs: K P Oli, a UML member who is also foreign minister, and Sherchan from People's Front Nepal, who is also health minister.
The media has already started speculating that Oli will be replaced by Mahara. Or else, the rebels will jockey for the home minister's portfolio.
However, Nepali Congress leaders said after Wednesday's meeting that the allocation of ministries will be divided only when the new government is formed.
Koirala, who was visited by US ambassador to Nepal James Moriarty Wednesday, assured the envoy that the Maoists will not be inducted in the government till the UN certifies that all their arms and soldiers have been locked up, Koirala's adviser Dr Suresh Chalise said.
By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu, Jan 17 (IANS) Fresh tensions erupted between Nepal's Maoists and the seven-party government over power sharing, hours after the guerrillas joined parliament, signifying a formal end to their decade-old armed uprising.
The three major parties in the government and the communist rebels are now deadlocked over the key posts in the new parliament as well as the new government that will be formed after the Maoist disarmament is complete.
Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who heads the Nepali Congress, the biggest party in the new house with 85 legislators, is scheduled to begin negotiations with Maoist supremo Prachanda and other senior leaders Wednesday.
The Maoists are now the second biggest party, along with the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), with both holding 83 seats each.
With the rebels' entry in the 330-seat house, deposed premier Sher Bahadur Deuba's Nepali Congress-Democratic has fallen to third place with 48 legislators.
The current Speaker Subhash Nembang is from the UML. His appointment came after a fierce tussle with Deuba's party last year who finally had to settle for the post of deputy speaker.
"Everything will be changed," Maoist chief Prachanda told the media on the eve of his party joining parliament. "There will be a new speaker and deputy."
The eight parties failed to reach an agreement on the two posts Monday, when the old house was dissolved and a new one convened. The tussle is likely to increase once the Maoists join the government.
"We have a verbal understanding that Koirala will remain prime minister in the new government but it is not irreversible," Krishna Bahadur Mahara, newly appointed chief of the Maoists' parliamentary party, said.
Reports say the Maoists want the post of deputy prime minister if they can't get the speaker's post.
Currently, Nepal has two deputy prime ministers - K.P. Oli, a UML member who is also foreign minister, and Amik Sherchan from People's Front Nepal, who is also health minister. It remains to be seen if the new government will have a third deputy prime minister or if one of the current ones will be axed.
The media has already started speculating that Oli will be replaced by Mahara. Or else, the rebels will jockey for the home minister's portfolio.
Besides the disagreement among the parties, there are intra-party disputes as well.
Media reports Wednesday said Koirala's influential nephew Dr Shekhar Koirala, dubbed the shadow prime minister because of his meteoric rise in the party, is fuming at not having been nominated to the new parliament.
Koirala's party sent 10 new MPs to the house Monday, including his daughter Sujata Koirala. However, the list did not include Shekhar Koirala or another party stalwart, former spokesperson Arjun Narsingh KC.
There is fresh dissent in Deuba's party as well over the nomination of new MPs. Some senior members are irked that the former premier was given a free hand to choose the legislators.
The new disagreements revive the memory of last year's discord when the seven-party alliance was at loggerheads over the naming of ministers, forcing Koirala to halt his cabinet expansion for several weeks.
By Prasun Sonwalkar,
London, Jan 17 (IANS) Who exactly is Gordon Brown?
Except for a few, not many in India may have heard of him, for the simple reason that he has never visited the country as Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, a key post he has held for a record time.
Yet, do a search on his pre-budget and other speeches in recent years and one of his most oft-mentioned words is 'India'. Brown has been among the earliest British politicians to recognize the opportunities and challenges presented by India's growing economy.
As Brown begins his belated passage to India on Wednesday, India and Britain appear set for a new phase in their relationship in which economy, trade and business will become the predominant buzzwords.
A political heavyweight in the Labour party, Brown, 56, is tipped to take over as the next prime minister after Tony Blair steps down later this year. And while the marketing of Brown has begun in full swing back home, he will not really have to exert much to win over Indian leaders, in particular, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Brown and Singh share a strong academic background in economics: both have doctorates in the subject, Brown from the Edinburgh University and Singh from Oxford. Singh served as India's finance minister before becoming the prime minister, while Brown is treading the same path.
Brown's Ph.D thesis was titled 'Labour's struggle to establish itself as the alternative to the Conservatives (in the early part of the 20th century)'. For a while, he lectured at the Edinburgh and Caledonian universities, and also had a brief stint as a journalist at Scottish TV in the early 1980s.
Brown, a Scot, was elected to parliament as a Labour MP for Dunfermline East in 1983, and became the opposition spokesman on Trade and Industry in 1985. He was the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1987 to 1989 and then Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, before becoming Shadow Chancellor in 1992.
After the sudden death of Labour leader John Smith in May 1994, Brown was one of those tipped as a potential party leader. It has long been rumoured that a deal was struck between Blair and Brown at the Granita restaurant in Islington, in which Blair promised to give Brown control of economic policy in return for Brown not standing against him in the leadership election.
Brown has headed the Treasury since 1997, and in June 2004, he became the UK's longest continuously serving Chancellor of the Exchequer since the 1820s, overtaking David Lloyd George who served for seven years and 43 days between 1908 and 1915.
With a professional façade as a workaholic, serious and sombre politician - many call him dull and boring - Brown's record in office has been hailed across party lines. Called the 'Iron Chancellor', Brown has won widespread praise for having secured the UK's economic stability.
However, in recent years, Brown has exerted to burnish his public image. People close to him say that gone are the days of Brown the bachelor, seemingly addicted to work, totally dedicated to his career and obsessed with keeping government spending under control.
Brown married Sarah Macaulay in 2000, grieved at the death of his daughter Jennifer in 2002, and later beamed across the media when his two sons, John (2003) and James Fraser (2006) were born.
Early this week, a relaxed and smiling Brown took another step towards shaking off his dour image as he set out his vision for a "long period" as the next prime minister.
During a frank and witty interaction at the left-wing think-tank Fabian Society, he invoked John F. Kennedy's idealism, and recounted a Mark Twain story while answering a question on whether he recognized that his personality was a problem.
Brown began by jokingly promising a new "fitness Video", and moved on to relate the story of Mark Twain's arrival in a frontier town in America where he was shocked to find drinking, gambling and prostitution. "I soon realised this is no place for a puritan," Twain wrote. "And I did not long remain one".
Brown has been a regular in meetings of the Labour Friends of India, a lobby within the Labour party comprising MPs, ministers and party leaders. At a recent meeting of the lobby group, he said: "I value my contacts with India and want to convey my thanks to Labour Friends of India for the constructive and positive role it plays in parliament.
"I am looking forward to visiting India with a view of understanding how our two countries can work even more closely than they already are. Our connections with India as a party go back many years and our relations are deep and so profound".
The Conservative party this week listed India as one of the countries Brown has never visited, while The Times exhorted him in an editorial to treat India on an equal footing with America as Britain's cousins.
The Times said: "Tony Blair has spent much of his time in office seeking to make Britain a 'bridge' between Europe and America. Under Mr Brown, Britain can also be, and should want to be, a bridge between India and America".
As Brown begins his discovery of India as the head of a 150-strong delegation, and travels across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, not a few among India's political and economic glitterati will be observing Britain's future prime minister closely.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) A government panel has recommended a probe into the macabre serial killings of children in suburban Noida be widened to include organ trade as the possible motive behind the gruesome crime.
In its report to Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chaudhary, the panel also rapped the Noida police and administration for their "callous and casual approach" to the complaints of missing children that had been lodged over the past two years.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is currently probing the killings, in which businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant Surendra are the prime suspects.
The panel, headed by ministry joint secretary Manjula Krishnan, said: "The modus operandi and the motive of the crimes are not still clear and there is need to investigate these crimes from different perspectives and angles which include organ trade, sexual exploitation and other forms of crimes against the children.
"As the CBI is discovering more new bodies spread over a larger area, involvement of other persons other than those accused as well as a larger geographical spread also needs to be investigated," the panel said.
Some 40 minor children and adult women were allegedly killed after being sexually abused in Pandher's palatial D-5 bungalow in Noida's Sector 31 and their bodies chopped up and dumped in an open drain outside.
"The report will be given to the CBI to aid its probe. It can use the findings of the committee in its probe," said minister Chaudhary.
The panel also stressed on the need for the CBI to gather further evidence to support the confessions of Pandher and Surendra Koli, on the basis of which the victims were identified.
Castigating the Noida authorities for their callous attitude over parents' complaints of their missing children, it observed: "It is surprising that even though the reports of a number of children missing came from just one locality, the police did not take sufficient action for recovering these children."
Recommending large-scale procedural changes in registering and investigating the reports of missing children all over the country, the panel stressed on the need to prioritise complaints of crimes against poor women and children.
Meanwhile, TV news channels Wednesday aired the accounts of two minor children describing how Surendra and Maya, another domestic aide of Pandher, had attempted to lure them into the businessman's house.
The CBI, however, took no cognisance of the children's statements, saying: "It's their (TV channel's) own investigation."
The CBI Wednesday continued scurrying Pandher's house and the area around it, including the adjacent drains for more evidence.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The Vienna-based Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will not hold an emergency meeting to check the falling prices of crude oil, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said here Wednesday.
"There is no reason for an emergency meeting. The fundamentals are significantly healthier than they were at the time of the Doha meeting in October," Al-Naimi told reporters on the margins of Petrotech 2007 conference.
"The market doesn't need to panic at all and there is the need to protect the interests of both the producers and the consumers. The market is in a healthy condition and moving in the right direction," he added.
The Saudi minister said production cuts already agreed by OPEC were working well and that there was no need to panic over oil prices that have fallen 14 percent since the beginning of 2007.
He said there was no need for a meeting of OPEC before the next one scheduled for March 15.
"We took measures in October in Doha and again measures at Abuja in December. I believe these measures are working well. Inventories in the fourth quarter have come down, which has put the market closer to balance," Naimi said.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) World leaders and Nobel laureates and eminent personalities from around the world will attend an international conference being organised Jan 29-30 to mark the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's historic Satyagraha (non-violent resistance) movement.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will inaugurate the conference, titled 'Peace, Non-violence and Empowerment - Gandhian philosophy in the 21st Century', that will be addressed by two Nobel laureates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mohammed Yunus of the Bangladesh Grameen Bank, among others.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address the concluding session of the meet being organised by the Congress party that heads the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
"It is to acknowledge the historical contribution made by Gandhi and the values espoused by him," Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told reporters here.
During the two-day conference, there would be discussions on the relevance in the 21st century of Mahatma Gandhi's methods that won India freedom and also empowered many marginalised communities around the world later.
South African minister Essop Pahad would initiate a discussion on "dialogue among peoples and cultures", while Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Fansesco Rutelli would be the keynote speaker for the discussion on the non-violent approach to conflict resolution and peace building.
Sharma said all the eminent personalities attending the function were "committed Gandhians".
"Persons like Rutelli have been practising Gandhian principles for the last 20 years," he said.
Other distinguished speakers include South African freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada, Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, intellectuals such as Lord Bhiku Parekh and C.K. Prahlad and Gandhian activists like A.T. Ariyaratne, Gene Sharp (of the Albert Einstein Institute) and Chaiwat Sathaanand from Thailand.
Berlin, Jan 17 (DPA) The six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programme could resume later this month, US chief negotiator Christopher R. Hill said Wednesday after meeting his North Korean counterpart in the German capital.
"We hope we can get (talks) going in January," said Hill who is US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
He said China would have to make a final decision on whether to back a new round of talks in the coming weeks.
The Berlin meeting marks the first time that US and North Korean envoys have met alone away from Beijing since the so-far fruitless negotiations over Pyongyang's nuclear programme began in 2003.
Hill told reporters he was "disappointed" that a meeting of the six countries involved in negotiations - North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and the US - had not made more progress last December.
He described a six-hour Berlin meeting on Tuesday with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, as "useful" and said further talks were being held Wednesday and Thursday.
Tensions have worsened since North Korea's test of a nuclear weapon last year and the Japanese and US foreign ministers have warned tougher sanctions against North Korea would have to be considered if the hardline country conducts a further test.
"It is important for North Korea to understand that they have come to a crossroads," said Hill, adding: "Do they want nuclear weapons? Or do they want to join the international community?"
The American envoy insisted that blocking North Korean access to funds held at a bank in the Chinese city of Macau was not hindering talks.
North Korean officials have said they would only resume negotiations if the funds were released. Some $24 million has been frozen at Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA).
Hill said he would brief US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who arrives in Berlin later Wednesday after a Middle East tour for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Guwahati, Jan 17 (IANS) One person was killed and 18 injured - most of them migrants - in a powerful explosion Wednesday in the heart of Assam's main city of Guwahati, a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed to fight terrorism firmly.
A police spokesman said the blast took place at the crowded vegetable market near Ganeshguri around 6.45 pm.
"One person was killed and at least five of the 18 injured were reported to be in critical," Rajen Singh, a senior police official, told IANS.
Police and witnesses said most of the victims were Hindi-speaking vendors.
There was another explosion in the western Assam town of Goalpara.
"The blast took place outside a government office although no one was injured," a police official said on telephone from Goalpara.
Authorities have blamed the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) for the two blasts. The group was earlier blamed for the killing of 61 Hindi-speaking migrant workers in a wave of attacks over Jan 5-8 in eastern Assam.
The prime minister Tuesday announced intensification of security offensives during a daylong visit to Assam and also reiterated the government's offer for peace talks with the ULFA if they shunned violence.
Meanwhile, two separatists were killed and 10 were captured with security forces overrunning two rebel bases in a major counter-insurgency operation in Assam and adjoining state of Arunachal Pradesh.
A police official said two ULFA militants were killed Wednesday in a shootout near a tea plantation in Doomdooma in Tinsukia district, about 540 km east of here.
"We have stepped up our operations in an adjoining forest close to the site where the two ULFA rebels were killed," an army commander said requesting not to be named.
In separate raids during the last 24 hours, police and army captured 10 ULFA rebels in Assam. "Two ULFA bases were also busted by army soldiers in a raid inside a reserved forest in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh," an army official said. Troops recovered medicines, clothes and essentials from the two camps.
"The rebels managed to escape," the official said.
More than 30,000 army, police, and paramilitary troopers are engaged in the offensive in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Bhubaneswar, Jan 17 (IANS) At least three land surveyors working for Tata Steel were beaten up Wednesday in Orissa's Jajpur district by angry villagers who fear the company's proposed steel plant in the region would displace them.
The incident took place at about 1.40 p.m. near Kalamatia village in Kalinganagar industrial complex, some 60 km from the district headquarters of Jajpur, when a team of GO Design, a private firm hired by the Tatas, was conducting contour surveys without informing the district administration, District Collector Arabinda Padhi told IANS.
At least 40 people of about three villages, Gadapur, Chandia and Baligotha, gathered at the site and attacked the surveyors and beat them up with sticks, he said.
There were about five surveyors though only three sustained injuries, the official said.
"I have strictly instructed Tata Steel not to send any of its employees or experts to the troublesome land after the Kalinga Nagar incident," he said.
"Although the situation is normal now, we have deployed police force in the area immediately after the incident," said Padhi who was camping at the spot.
At least 13 tribals were killed and several injured when police opened fired on hundreds of tribal agitators in the Kalinga Nagar industrial complex on Jan 2, 2006, located at a distance of about 100 km from state capital Bhubaneswar.
The tribals had clashed with police to protest against the construction of a boundary wall by Tata Steel.
They have blocked a highway since the day of the Kalinganagar firing. The police and district officials have failed in lifting the blockade despite several attempts.
Jammu, Jan 17 (IANS) Two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were injured in Jammu and Kashmir Wednesday when they were fired upon by Pakistani border guards while trying to foil an infiltration attempt near the India-Pakistan border.
The incident, which is the first violation of the ceasefire between India and Pakistan that was enforced November 2003, took place at 2.40 a.m. in Matkola near Akhnoor.
"There was an infiltration attempt at Matkola. Pakistani rangers also fired along with the infiltrators on Indian border guards, injuring two BSF men," a BSF official here said.
The two injured were Sub-Inspector Avinash Kumar and Constable Harish Chander. The official added that Avinash was in a serious condition.
The infiltrators, however, managed to escape back into Pakistani area, he said.
Dubai, Jan 17 (IANS) Despite missing the three-match Test series in South Africa, pacer Irfan Pathan has moved up two places in the official bowlers' rankings while Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble maintained their places in the top-10 lists.
Pathan, 22, is now ranked 14 with 631 rating points while leg-spinner Anil Kumble is the only Indian bowler in the top 10 at the third place with 731 points in the Test rankings of the International Cricket Council (ICC) released here Wednesday.
Captain Dravid, the only Indian batsman in top 10, retained his seventh position with 816 points while his Australian counterpart Ricky Ponting still leads the pack with 936 points.
Pathan, who was struggling with form, was sent back home during the second Test match against South Africa in Durban, is ranked fifth among the all-rounders with 254 points.
South African fast bowler Shaun Pollock moved up three places to be placed fourth with 726 points, his highest in two years. Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralidharan is the top bowler with 915 points and is followed by Pollock's teammate Makhaya Ntini in the second place with 863 points.
Pollock, who was named Man of the Series against India, collected four wickets in the Test win against Pakistan and that has been enough to lift him to fourth position in the bowling list.
South African left-handed batsman Ashwell Prince, who scored his sixth hundred against Inzamam-ul-Haq's side at Centurion in the first Test, is now within touching distance of a place in the top ten as he is placed 11th in the batsman's list with 756 points.
Pakistan middle-order batsman Mohammed Yousuf is in the second place in the batsmen's list with 924 and can easily topple Ponting from the top spot.
Yousuf broke Vivian Richards' 30-year old record for most Test runs in a calendar year as he collected 1,788 runs in 2006 and also claimed the record for most hundreds in the same timeframe by posting nine in only 19 innings.
England's Kevin Pietersen is in the third place with 870 points while Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara is fourth with 857 points.
South African Jacques Kallis is ranked tenth among the batsmen with 788 points but he is the top all-rounder with 439 points.
ICC Test Rankings
Batsmen
1. Ricky Ponting (Australia) 936 rating points
2. Mohammed Yousuf (Pakistan) 924
3. Kevin Pietersen (England) 870
4. Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) 857
5. Mike Hussey (Australia) 842
6. Matthew Hayden (Australia) 828
7. Rahul Dravid (India) 816
8. Brian Lara (West Indies) 801
9. Younis Khan (Pakistan) 792
10. Jacques Kallis (South Africa) 788
Bowlers
1. Muttiah Muralidaran (Sri Lanka) 913 rating points
2. Makhaya Ntini (South Africa) 829
3. Anil Kumble (India) 731
4. Shaun Pollock (South Africa) 726
5. Matthew Hoggard (England) 725
6. Shane Bond (New Zealand) 722
7. Stuart Clark (Australia) 720
8. Andrew Flintoff (England) 708
9. Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan) 693
10. Corey Collymore (West Indies) 690
All-rounders
1. Jacques Kallis (South Africa) 439
2. Andrew Flintoff (England) 416
3. Shaun Pollock (South Africa) 362
4. Daniel Vettori (New Zealand) 329
5. Irfan Pathan (India) 254
By Kul Bhushan
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) is the big NRI show. For just $250, the price of a family dinner in the US, NRIs can come real close to the top leaders of India. They can get to know their thoughts on NRIs and enjoy the compliments. They also voice their concerns and extract promises from the government to look into them. They come to say: "I love my India!" And PBD tells them: "India cares!"
Basking in the achievement of successfully lobbying for the Indo-US nuclear deal, the highest number among the 1,200 delegates came from the US. And among the 15 NRI Awards by the Indian government, the highest number also went to the US. The Indian Americans were heartily congratulated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his inaugural speech.
The four million Gulf NRIs had also something to cheer about. They send back almost half of all the $23 billion in remittances annually and so they need much more attention. Minister for Overseas Indian Vyalar Ravi, who hails from Kerala, the state that has sent a good number of its citizens to the Gulf, has given them the attention they have been clamouring for so long.
It was announced that a labour pact has been signed with the United Arab Emirates for the protection and welfare for Indian workers and similar pacts are expected with Kuwait, Bahrain and other Middle East countries besides Malaysia.
The labour pact will ease some major problems of NRI workers who go to the Gulf after paying hefty sums to recruiting 'agents'. On arrival, their sponsors, who obtain their visas, often take away their passports and they are told to sign some papers in Arabic that they cannot read. Now the NRIs are at the mercy of their sponsors for wages and salaries, living conditions, healthcare and leave. This pact will ease these hardships.
The other major problem of Gulf NRIs is the high airfares. When an NRI, his wife and two children come for a holiday in India, they spend a very big part of their earnings. With the current 'open skies' policies favoured by India, these airfares should come down significantly but they haven't. This demand is on the minister's priority list.
NRIs in Europe also benefited as India has signed a Social Security Agreement exempting Indians working in Belgium on a contract of up to 60 months from making contributions in the host country. Similar agreements are proposed for the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Norway. All of them have significant Indian population to ensure protection of their interests.
To help NRIs move up the ladder from unskilled and semi-skilled to qualified workers, the Central Council for Promotion of Overseas Employment was announced to promote overseas employment. From this year onwards, it would aim to train 50,000 workers in different trades every year who want to go abroad for employment. An NRI centre has been established in Dubai to work in tandem with the Indian missions. A similar centre called the Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre is due to be set up in New Delhi to cater for all NRIs.
The PBD saw a few benefits announced for the 90,000-odd NRIs who hold Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI). The three new benefits are: parity with Indians on inter-country adoption, parity in domestic air fares and parity in entry fees for national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. The Indian Government is also considering NRI doctors to practice in India and setting up a university for NRIs especially for engineering and management studies. India would amend laws to allow Indian passport holders living overseas the right to vote. Currently, only passport holders resident in India can vote.
NRIs want admissions for medicine, engineering and management courses. One solution is to provide more seats and to charge them higher fees than Indians but the NRIs cannot afford these high fees of up to Rs.3-4 million. So an NRI University has been proposed and accepted in principle by the Indian government. Now its location and other logistics are being worked out.
After PBD, many participants moved to their home states for local NRI meetings as in Gujarat and Bihar. When they return home, these delegates will talk about how they listened to almost all the top national leaders of India, interacted with top Indian CEOs and enjoyed cultural events by India's outstanding artistes. These face-to-face encounters become their fondest memories demonstrating that India does care.
(A media consultant to a UN Agency, Kul Bhushan previously worked abroad as a newspaper editor and has travelled to over 55 countries. He lives in New Delhi and can be contacted at kulbhushan2038@gmail.com)
The Earth Caare Foundation and India International Center invite you to a function on 27th January,2007 to remember and honor late Ms. Sarita and her colleague Shri Mahesh Pitti, who laid down their lives three years ago while working for the rural people of Gaya district in Bihar.
Sarita and Mahesh were brutally assassinated on 24th January 2004 near Sabdo village in Gaya as they were traveling from Sabdo to another village for their normal rural activities. They are best remembered in that area for being able to create a mass movement towards the revival of the age-old Ahar and Pyne system. They enthused people of 40 villages in the three bocks of Gaya district, to revive HADADWA AHAR AND PYNE SYSTEM. Today, there is no equally capable leadership available at the village level to keep the 40 villages together for the upkeep of the Hadadwa Ahar and Pyne system. The challenge before all of us is to see what we can do and how and to what extent make the Government machinery alive towards such live issues.
In their honor, the ECF has instituted the "Sarita Mahesh Social Entreprenuership Award" from 2006. During this function we will felicitate Shri Prafull Kadam of Sangola in Maharashtra, who received the award for the year 2006.
Shri.B.G.Verghese, senior journalist and author, will be the Chief Guest at the function.
Mr Sayeed Mirza
a well known film maker will be present to share his interaction with Sarita and Mahesh.
Shri. Varghese George
of the Indian Express, winner of this year’s "Ramnath Goenka Journalist of the Year Award", along with many other awards, who was in Bihar at the time of the tragedy, will also speak.
Dr. Dinesh Kumar Mishra of Jamshedpur
will deliver the first "Sarita-Mahesh memorial lecture" on the subject "Water – old systems, peoples knowledge and new Strategies".
We know that you care for healthy social development in our country. Here are the people who gave their lives for our shining tomorrow.
Please join us at India International Center Conference Room no 1 at 6 PM. We invite you to share a cup of tea at 5.15 PM onwards for general interaction, before the main event.
The detailed programme is enclosed for your kind perusal.
Yours sincerely,
Savita Gokhale
Secretary, Earth Caare Founadtion
See detail programme below
Remembering SARITA AND MAHESH
Minute by minute programme on 24thJanuary 2007at India International Center, Conference Room no1, conducted by Dr. Kumud Sharma.
1800 - Commence programme with lighting of the lamp
1810 - Welcome address by Mrs. Savita Gokhale, Secretary, EarthCaare Founation
1815 - showing documentary made by Action Aid with Sayeed Mirza
1830 - speech by Sayeed Mirza, noted filmmaker.
1840 - Speech by Varghese George, award winning journalist from Indian Express
1830 - Delivery of the first “ SARITA – MAHESH� Memorial lecture by
Dr. Dinesh Kumar Mishra on“ Water – Old Systems, Peoples Knowledge and new Strategies �
1930 - Presentation of the “ SARITA _MAHESH� Social entreprenuership award of
2006 to Shri Prafulla Kadam from Maharashtra
.Presentation of“ KAJORIMAI Puraskar� of 2005 to Shri Krishnakant and of 2006 to Shri. Dubeji
1945 - Address by Chief Guest Shri. B. G. Verghese
2000 - Vote of thanks by Shri Anant Dehadrai of Earth Caare Foundation.
Note – tea 0515PM before the programme.
Savita Gokhale
Secretary,
Earth Caare Foundation
CI/ 43, Bapa Nagar
New Delhi 110003
Tel: +91 11 23782991
Moscow, Jan 17 (RIA Novosti) Soviet war memorials in Estonia should remain where they are, Russia's foreign minister has said.
Estonia's parliament adopted a law paving the way for the dismantling of Soviet era war memorials and reburying of the remains of Soviet soldiers who died liberating the Baltic state from German invaders during World War II but who are themselves seen by many Estonians as having been occupiers.
The bill, passed in November 2006, resulted from a dispute over a monument to a Soviet liberator in downtown Tallinn, which authorities want to remove.
"Memorials should unite people. But this specific monument in this specific place divides society, and I am convinced it should not be there," Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the move was disgraceful and had nothing to do with preserving historical accuracy. "The task is to prevent a repetition of the lessons of World War II."
The Russian leadership has repeatedly sought the European Union's attention on this matter. Moscow has also harshly criticized Estonia's discriminatory policies with respect to ethnic Russians who moved to the republic following its annexation by the Soviet Union in 1940.
Many members of Estonia's Russian community are denied citizenship and employment rights and cannot receive an education in their native language.
Nagpur, Jan 17 (IANS) Allaying all apprehensions of injury, master blaster Sachin Tendulkar flexed muscles on day one of the warming up camp at the nets of the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) ground here Wednesday along with the other players of Team India.
The team members, who flew in here late Tuesday evening, descended on the VCA ground around 2.00 p.m. and went though the mandatory rigours in the right earnest for three hours before going back to The Pride Hotel where they are putting up.
While all players participated in the practice session monitored by team coach Greg Chappell, more diligent among them was the younger lot - Robin Utthappa wielding his willow and Zaheer Khan concentrating on his line and length among others.
Sachin betrayed no signs of injury or physical discomfiture while practising with his bat belying rumours making rounds in sections of the electronic media about his having sustained some injury while shooting for an ad film in Hyderabad earlier in the week.
A sizeable crowd of enthusiastic fans cheered the players with loud applause at each scintillating stroke and impressive delivery bowled during the practice session.
Captain Rahul Dravid told reporters in his first briefing after arrival in the city that he hoped the team would give good performance in the series against West Indies including the first one-day international match here Jan 21.
"As for myself, I have always done well on the VCA wicket and hope to live up to that record," said Rahul, the doted son-in-law of Nagpur, who looked determined about regaining his lost form here. He too scotched the rumours about Sachin's injury.
Vice captain or otherwise, Sachin is a great asset, not only on-field but also in the dressing room giving valuable advice, Rahul said, in response to a query on the former skipper's current role as number two.
A word of advice is always sought from senior players like Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and V.V.S. Laxman, he said.
As for Yuvraj Singh, who too participated in the practice session despite being left out of the team for the first two ODIs - apparently due to his injury - Rahul said he was getting back into the rhythm fast and stands good chance of being included soon.
"Almost all the younger players among the selected 15 have a chance of making it to the pack of 11 one by one though I can't guarantee it at right at this stage," he said.
Washington, Jan 17 (DPA) US President George W. Bush said the Iraqi government "fumbled" the execution of Saddam Hussein in what looked like a "revenge killing" that will make it harder for him to persuade Americans to support the government in Baghdad.
Bush Tuesday also criticised the hanging of two of Saddam's co-defendants. The former Iraqi president was sent to the gallows Dec 30 in an execution that drew worldwide condemnation after a videotape leak showed Saddam being taunted moments before the trap door opened.
In an interview with PBS television, Bush offered some of his harshest criticism yet on the process.
"I was pleased with the trials they got," Bush said. "I was disappointed and felt like they fumbled the - particularly the Saddam Hussein - execution."
"You conducted a trial and gave Saddam justice that he didn't give to others," Bush said. "But then, when it came to execute him, it looked like it was kind of a revenge killing."
Bush has been giving a series of interviews lately to get support from a sceptical public for his revised strategy for Iraq that includes sending 21,500 more troops.
The US public has largely turned against the war and is not convinced the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will follow through on steps aimed at ending sectarian tensions.
The executions make "it harder for me to make the case to the American people that this is a government that does want to unify the country and move forward.
"It reinforced doubts in people's minds that the Maliki government and the unity government of Iraq is a serious government," Bush said.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) Saudi Arbaia will provide all support to India's business community to forge closer partnership in trade and investment between the two countries, Saudi Commerce and Industry Minister Hashim Bin Abdullah bin Hashim Al-Yamani said here Wednesday.
"This is a great time for forging a true partnership between the two countries and our government will provide the business community all kind of support for this," Al-Yamani told the second meeting of the India-Saudi Arabia Joint Business Council.
"The relationship between the two countries is improving. There is a need to improve trade and investment flow by innovative initiatives," he said.
India and Saudi Arabia have had strong, historic ties in the past and they would certainly be continued, spearheaded by this joint business council, he added.
"India is renewing itself and becoming a model for others in the world. It is a good omen for Saudi-India business relationship," the Saudi minister said.
Addressing the meeting, Habil Khorakiwala, president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) said he saw future in collaborations with Saudi Arabia in education, health, processed plant equipment, petrochemicals, fertilisers, infrastructure, construction, machine tools, auto components and pharmaceuticals among other sectors.
He emphasised that India was now on a path to be among leaders in manufacturing and urged Saudi Arabia to leverage this growing opportunity.
"India is rapidly scripting its place in the global arena. It is already acclaimed as the second best destination for investment in the world by AT Kearney. We foresee India as not just a leader in IT; India will also have a broad bandwidth, cutting across the knowledge spectrum - biotechnology, nanotechnology, animation, gaming, chip designing and new molecular discoveries," Khorakiwala said.
Chennai, Jan 17 (IANS) After Goa and New Delhi, now Tamil Nadu has banned corporal punishment for school students.
From Wednesday, corporal punishment in the state's schools was pronounced illegal, with a rule that allowed teachers to beat students being deleted.
A government communiqué said that Rule 51, which "permits corporal punishment in respect of students caught lying or using obscene language", would be deleted forever.
In recent times, several parents and NGOs had pointed out that children were being excessively punished, the statement said. The media too reported many such incidents.
"In a fit of emotion, some boys and girls have gone to the extent of committing suicide," the statement pointed out.
The move comes more than three years after Ram Abhinav, a Class 10 student committed suicide in Chennai. It was a drastic reaction to being beaten by his teacher in front of his entire class for skipping school on his birthday.
Spurred by the media there was a public outcry after the incident and the State Human Rights Commission was seized of the matter. But the school authorities, along with some parents and students, alleged that the corporal punishment meted out to Abhinav and his subsequent suicide were two totally unconnected incidents.
Rule 51 makes interesting reading. It says, "corporal punishment shall not be inflicted, except in a case of moral delinquency such as deliberate lying, obscenity of word or act or flagrant insubordination, and it shall be limited to six cuts on the hand and administered only by or under the supervision of the headmaster."
Former director of school education A. Muthu Krishnan had suggested that Rule 51 be replaced by another rule, which would grant every child an opportunity to learn the error of his/her ways through `corrective' measures. Among other things an imposition and suspension from class were some of the corrective measures suggested.
A similar law was passed in Goa a few years ago and in December 2000, the Delhi High Court annulled Rule 37 of the Delhi School Education Rules that authorised corporal punishment.
Bangalore, Jan 17 (IANS) Portuguese President Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva Wednesday called upon rich and developing countries to design new policies for equitable distribution of resources and ending socio-economic disparities.
Delivering the keynote address at the 13th edition of the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) partnership summit here, Silva said economic policies should incorporate the poor in the growth process with proactive measures in education, training, health and infrastructure.
"With global output increasing, new policies have to be designed at the national and global levels to ensure fair distribution of benefits from the integration of national economies. We still have a long way to go in this area and the affected countries should have an effective voice," Siva told about 1,500 delegates participating in the three-day summit.
Lauding India as a major engine of the world economy, Silva said Portugal regarded India as a place where the future was being shaped, with bright people, new technologies, research, innovation and cutting-edge industries.
"Much of the current growth we are witnessing in the global economy comes from emerging markets and developing countries like India, which has kept a sustained high growth rate since the eighties along with China. In the next three decades, India is poised to overtake China as the world's most populous country, with a young population that will certainly be another driver of progress."
Highlighting the challenges posed by globalisation, Silva said the policies should aim at eliminating protectionism and isolated approach to development and growth.
"Most of the issues posed by globalisation can be seen as challenges for political leaders the world over to improve the quality of their domestic policies. With dissemination of information and knowledge leaving behind many people in poor or rural areas, it is imperative these leaders spread values and involve everybody in the learning process," Silva pointed out.
Listing out some of the benefits of globalisation, the former Portuguese prime minister and economics professor said the growing integration of national and regional economies had improved the global allocation of resources and increased the mobility of people, ideas, capital and goods, besides reducing political, cultural and commercial barriers.
"Though globalisation had a positive impact on the living standards of people, especially in the developing countries that have embraced the process, the under-privileged among them have been left out of the process due to politico-social factors," Silva lamented.
Referring to the economic and political integration of the European Union (EU) and how the unification process had led to the emergence of the largest economy in the world with 27 member countries and 500 million people, Silva said though the EU had just seven percent of the global population, the region accounted for fifth of global imports and exports.
"The EU is a major economy with a single market, where goods, services, capital and labour are totally free to move. As the single currency of 13 countries since 1999, the euro has emerged as the second most important international currency next only to the US dollar," Silva recalled.
Colombo, Jan 17 (Xinhua) At least six civilians, including a woman, were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Sri Lanka's northern town of Vavuniya, police said Wednesday.
The killings took place Tuesday night at around 8 p.m. (1430 GMT), police said.
Vavuniya witnessed violence throughout Tuesday as at least seven members of the security forces were killed in two separate attacks blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels.
The first claymore mine explosion caused the deaths of two policemen and five soldiers were killed in the second mine blast later in the day.
The clashes in Vavuniya came as the rebels and the government troops were engaged in heavy battles in the Eastern Province.
The Army said they killed at least 30 LTTE rebels but the rebels said they had lost only 12 of their cadre. The military said that they advanced well into the rebel territory and captured rebel camps.
According to official estimates, the violence since December 2005 has cost over 3,800 lives and has undermined the efforts of the Norwegian peace facilitators to try and broker an end to the island's over two-decade-old ethnic separatist conflict.
The LTTE rebels seek to set up a separate homeland for the Tamils in the north and eastern provinces. Over 64,000 people were killed in the conflict between the mid 1980s and 2002 when the stalled Norwegian peace facilitation began.
By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu, Jan 17 (IANS) Paralysed by a three-day shutdown enforced by former Maoist guerrillas till Monday, Nepal's southern Terai plains reeled under fresh disruptions with a non-political group calling yet another closure Tuesday.
The Nepal government had declared a public holiday on Tuesday in honour of the promulgation of the sixth constitution and the re-entry of Maoist guerrillas in parliament, signifying a formal end to the decade-old communist uprising.
Same day a little known group calling itself the Madhesi People's Rights Forum called a general strike in the plains. The Forum was protesting against the new constitution promulgated Monday, saying it overlooked the rights of Madhesis, people of Indian origin living in the southern plains.
The protest crippled transport in key towns in southeastern Nepal, shops and markets downed shutters and educational institutions remained closed. This is the third protest for the rights of the community since Christmas.
On Christmas Day, a party from the ruling alliance, the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi), called a Terai bandh to protest against the promulgation of the new constitution.
The protest snowballed into a riot between plains and hill communities with mobs attacking shops and establishments owned by Madhesis and the administration turning a blind eye in Nepalgunj town.
On this Saturday, a second group, the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha, called a three-day shutdown in eastern Nepal.
The Morcha is headed by Joy Krishna Goit, a former senior Maoist leader who broke away from the parent party about three years ago, alleging the Maoists were doing nothing to protect Madhesi rights.
Since then, the Morcha has split, with the splinter headed by Jwala Singh, who advocates more militancy and has been imposing blockades in the Terai region as well as carrying out abductions and killings.
Both the Morchas want a sovereign Terai state and the government and security posts in the region to be handed over to Madhesis.
When the Morcha-called strike ended Tuesday, the Terai region was hit again Tuesday by the general strike call given by the Madhesi People's Rights Forum.
The plains people's growing anger at their neglect by the state has been noted by Nepal's political leaders.
On Monday, when the new house was being convened in Kathmandu, Banshidhar Mishra, a legislator from the second largest party in the government, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, expressed serious concern.
"It has become a global trend for people to take up arms to have their demands met," Mishra, a leader from the plains, said.
It is also a reference to the Maoists' taking up arms in 1996 to force the government into heeding their demand for seeking a vote on monarchy.
Now though the Maoists have laid down arms, other groups, encouraged by their success, are trying to follow suit.
"The government should start talks with the Morcha immediately," says Rajendra Mahato, leader of NSP (Anandi). He warned, "Otherwise, there will be an armed Madhesi revolt in place of the Maoist revolution."
Though both prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala and home minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula have asked the Morchas to give up violence and start talks, no concrete step has been taken by either side to open negotiations so far.
The new unrest should be a matter of special concern for India, simmering as it is right across the border and involving people of Indian origin.
Patna, Jan 17 (IANS) Scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have been asked to help explore ruins in and around the ancient Nalanda University in Bihar.
P.K. Mishra, the superintending archaeologist of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Patna circle, said the radar mapping would help to explore the ruins for further excavation.
"A team of scientists from ISRO will visit Nalanda in February for the radar mapping work. We could plan the excavation after the results of the radar mapping," Mishra said.
"The radar photography has proved fruitful across the world for exploration of archaeological structures followed by excavation in the ruins of any historical site," he added.
For a long time, archaeologists were in a dilemma whether to start the excavation due to lack of proper scientific details.
Hieun Tsang, the famous Chinese scholar who visited Nalanda in the 7th century, stated in his account that the university was spread over 16 kilometres. However, till now hardly 1.6 square kilometres of the ruins of more than 2,500-year-old university was excavated.
Last year a two-member team of senior space scientists from Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Agency began fieldwork for satellite imagery exploration in and around the ruins of the site. They reportedly collected data on site settlements and water bodies around the ruins.
Tourism and Culture Minister Ambika Soni, during her visit to Nalanda in April 2006, had mooted a plan to use satellite imagery for exploration in the area.
Colombo, Jan 17 (IANS) Mahela Jayawardene will lead Sri Lanka in four one-day internationals in India next month in what will act as the final warm-up for both teams ahead of the World Cup in March-April.
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) announced that the selection committee met here Wednesday to pick the squad that will also have an eight-member support staff, including coach Tom Moody of Australia.
The series starts with a match in Pune Feb 8, and ends in Viskhapatnam Feb 17.
The only surprise selection is right-arm pacer Nuwan Kulasekara, who has been recalled after 10 months. The 24-year-old last played a one-day international against Pakistan in Colombo March 19.
When Sri Lanka last toured India in 2005, they received a 1-6 thrashing by the Rahul Dravid-led side.
But the Sri Lankan team has improved a lot since, mauling England 5-0 last summer and drawing with New Zealand 2-2 recently.
Squad: Mahela Jayawardene (captain), Kumar Sangakkara (wicket-keeper), Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Tharanga, Marvan Atapattu, Russel Arnold, T.M. Dilshan, Chamara Silva, Malinga Bandara, Upul Chandana, Farveez Maharoof, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Zoysa, Dilhara Fernando and Nuwan Kulasekara
Stand byes: Chamara Kapugedera, Akalanka Ganegama and Kaushal Lokuarachchi
Support staff: Tom Moody (coach), Michael Tissera (manager), Trevor Penney (assistant coach), Tommy Simsek (physiotherapist), C.J. Clark (trainer), Nalin De Alwis (computer analyst), Lal Thamel (masseur), Shabir Asgarally (selector on tour)
By K. Jayaraman,
Bangalore, Jan 17 (IANS) An international team of ophthalmologists has expressed grave concern over stem cell transplant procedures used by doctors in India and some other countries for preventing blindness.
In the last four years, surgeons at the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in Hyderabad have carried out this transplant on over 350 patients to repair their damaged cornea for restoring vision.
The feat was lauded by India's President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and earned LVPEI surgeon Virender Sangwan the coveted Bhatnagar prize for 2005.
Now a team of American and Australian ophthalmologists has thrown a bombshell.
In a report in the December issue of Archives of Ophthalmology published by the American Medical Association they warn that the currently used transplant procedures carry potential health risks not only to individuals but also to "the wider community" because they "rely on the use of materials from animal and human donors".
The use of such material can potentially induce "disease transmission through contamination with bacteria, viruses, or other infectious agents", such as those responsible for what is commonly known as "mad-cow disease", the report said.
"It is a slowly ticking time bomb," Ivan Schwab, professor of ophthalmology at the University of California at Davis and lead author of the report told this reporter in an email interview. "I am not saying that this work should not be done, on the contrary - but society must be careful with this technology."
Nigel Johnson and Damien Harkin of Australia's Queensland University of Technology and Queensland Eye Institute respectively are co-authors of the disquieting report.
Sangwan of LVPEI said that the report does "raise some important potential risk" but felt the risks have been hyped.
"All our patients are on regular follow up and we monitor carefully their progress." He admitted that 30-35 percent of transplants failed but said that no patient had lost eyesight due to transplantation per se.
Ironically, Schwab and Harkin had themselves used this procedure on their patients before they realised two years ago that the nascent technology needed refinement in order to be used routinely for repairing damaged cornea.
Cornea is the clear, dome-shaped surface that covers the front of the eye. In case of damage due to burns or injury, stem cells residing in its rim called "limbus" rally to support growth of new cornea. But if the limbus also gets damaged, the ready source of stem cells is gone and natural repair is not possible. Stem cell transplant helps such persons to grow new cornea.
To reconstruct corneas in such cases, doctors at LVPEI take out the limbal cells from the eye of a donor (or the healthy eye of the patient), grow them on a "carrier" material (usually human amniotic membrane) and surgically transfer the construct on to the patient's damaged cornea.
Schwab and coworkers set out to carefully examine the protocols used in the manufacture of the bio-engineered construct to assess the risks. They reviewed 20 published reports of human trials conducted between 1996 and 2005 - two from LVPEI and the rest from six other countries.
They are not happy about what they found.
Their review revealed that 95 percent of protocols used one or more animal-derived products including fetal calf serum (FCS) and an overlapping 95 percent used one or more donor human tissues including amniotic membrane.
Bovine products represents the potential for transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) infection (of the brain) or fatal allergic reactions, the authors said adding that the use of commercially available fibrin tissue "adds to the risk of microbial or prion contamination". Notable prion afflictions (of the brain) include Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, and mad cow disease.
They said that some of the protocols reviewed involved growing patient cells along with 3T3 cells (that come from mice) raising the spectre of "xenozoonosis", or animal-to-human disease transmission. "There have been a number of historical precedents for this," their report warned, adding that mice cells may contain "unrecognized and unknown" viral agents.
"Any xenozoonosis is potentially lethal to the recipient and a greater unknown risk to human community if the agent adapts to the human genome," they warned. "Such transmission could present devastating consequences to the individual recipient as well as the wider community."
Sangwan of LVPEI says has stopped using FCS. "The only donor tissue in our cultures is human amniotic membrane (HAM)," he said. But he could not comment on complications in his patients as "all the cases have not been analysed".
Graziella Pellegrini, chief of stem cell laboratory at Giovanni Paolo Hospital in Venice, Italy, who was the first to demonstrate the limbal stem cell transplant in 1997, says no therapy is "completely devoid" of risks. "Cataract surgery has high incidence of complications but nobody thinks of stopping it," she said in an email interview.
"The key point is not to stop everything but to press those countries, where laws in the field were not written, to do something in the directions of rules and good manufacturing practices," she said.
Indian ophthalmologists who do not want to be named say that in the case of LVPEI this would mean quality control of HAM and sourcing the bovine serum only from herds certified to be free of prion disease as is done in the US and Australia. Right now the amniotic membranes are made in-house at LVPEI using placenta discarded by maternity clinics. Sangwan cannot say where FCS comes from but "believes" it is "a standard source".
Aware of the drawbacks of the current transplant procedures, some eye institutes in India are taking precautionary action.
Instead of using HAM, doctors at Shankar Nethralaya in Chennai have successfully cultivated limbal stem cells in "Mebiol Gel", a biopolymer commercialized by a Japanese company. The transplantation is done as drops on the surface of damaged cornea avoiding any sutures.
"We have successfully used the technique on rabbits," H.N. Madhavan, who heads the team, told IANS. "We have applied for government permission to start human trials."
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The Supreme Court Wednesday began hearing the plea of cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, seeking stay on his conviction in a case of unintentional killing of a man in Patiala in a traffic brawl 18 years ago.
The hearing on Sidhu's plea, aimed at winning a chance to contest the forthcoming byelection for Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, remained inconclusive before a bench of judges G. P. Mathur and R. V. Raveendran. It will continue Thursday.
Appearing before the bench, Sidhu's counsel Harish Salve argued that his client deserves a stay on his conviction to contest the Lok Sabha by-election as he had resigned from Amritsar seat without waiting for the disqualification by the house.
On Jan 12, the court had granted bail to Sidhu and posted the hearing on his plea for Wednesday.
Salve said Sidhu's case totally stood on a different footing as at the time of the incident. He was not in public life and was an international cricketer and had not abused any public office.
Salve pleaded that though the execution of the sentence had been suspended, unless his conviction too was stayed, his client would not be able to contest the forthcoming Amritsar by-election, which was caused by his resignation.
He contended that unlike a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act, this was one in which the trial court had acquitted Sidhu.
The 43-year-old cricket commentator was sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment by the Punjab and Haryana High Court Dec 6 in a case of unintentional killing.
In his appeal to the apex court, Sidhu has contended that the high court erred in reversing his acquittal by the trial court.
He said the high court should have refrained from disturbing the finding of facts arrived at by the trial court unless the same "suffered from the vice of perversity or unreasonableness."
Sidhu's petition said that the high court failed to correctly apply the principles of law laid down by the apex court in considering cases against acquittal and thereby rendering the impugned judgment as completely unsustainable deserving to be set aside.
Colombo, Jan 17 (IANS) A leading Tamil politician has urged the Indian and Tamil Nadu governments to send an all-party delegation to Sri Lanka "to directly see what is happening in this country".
But Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) president V. Anandasangaree said in a statement that the Indian leaders should also visit areas held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), calling the Tiger territory an "iron curtain".
"I am strongly of the belief that Tamil Nadu will play a positive and constructive role in finding an acceptable solution for the ethnic problem within a united Sri Lanka and help restore democracy and peace in Sri Lanka and the Tamil areas in particular," Anandasangaree said in an open letter to the leaders and people of the Indian state.
"I urge Tamil Nadu to act without giving room for anybody to damage the Tamil cause and before the present enthusiasm of the people and of the international community disappears.
"The Tamils of Sri Lanka expect Tamil Nadu to agitate for powers to be devolved on various regions in Sri Lanka, to be equal to that of the powers presently enjoyed by the chief minister of Tamil Nadu," he added.
The TULF leader said more and more people in Sri Lanka were coming to accept that the Indian model of governance was best suited to the strife-torn island.
"My supporting the Indian model has been appreciated by many Sri Lankans from all walks of life, within and outside the country," he said. "It is being widely discussed at various levels as my proposal to solve the ethnic issue."
He added that it was "very unfortunate" that the word "federal" had become allergic to many Sinhalese leaders "due to fear and suspicion in their minds that federalism will lead to separation".
Anandasangaree, who bitterly opposes the LTTE, said the concerns the people and leaders of Tamil Nadu voice for Sri Lankan Tamils was understandable.
"That is why Tamil Nadu should act with care and caution in its dealings with the Sri Lankan ethnic problem and also should not get swayed by the emotional speeches made by some Tamil Nadu politicians who make speeches to incite the crowd, without bothering about the negative reflections in Sri Lanka."
The TULF leader was severely critical of the LTTE, accusing it of stifling freedom of expression in the areas it controls in the island's northeast and of killing stifling human rights.
Dubai, Jan 17 (IANS) Pakistan will not be able to displace England from the second place in the official Test team rakings even if Inzamam-ul-Haq's side rallies to defeat South Africa 2-1 in the three-match series.
At the start of the series, Pakistan, ranked third with 112 rating points, were required to beat South Africa 2-0 to move to the second spot, currently occupied by England with 114 points, according to the International Cricket Council (ICC) team rankings released Wednesday.
After losing the first Test Monday, Pakistan can hope only for a 2-1 series win over the Proteas, but that would only take them within one point of equalling England's tally.
Australia are still the top team with 135 points and are 21 points clear of second placed arch-rivals England.
India maintained their fourth place with 107 points.
South Africa, placed sixth with 98 points, still retain hopes of rising up the list. If they can beat Pakistan 2-0 they will swap places with Sri Lanka, placed fifth with 102 points.
Test teams' rankings:
1. Australia: 135 points
2. England: 114
3. Pakistan: 112
4. India: 107
5. Sri Lanka: 102
6. South Africa: 98
7. New Zealand: 93
8. West Indies: 72
9. Zimbabwe: 28
10. Bangladesh: 2
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The huge popularity of jazz in the capital came as a surprise to many as thousands stood for hours in a serpentine queue to gain entry to the concert by American music greats Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.
Getting to the Siri Fort Auditorium here, where the concert was held Tuesday evening, was itself a huge task for most with traffic snarls right in front of the venue. Reaching there was no relief as most were forced to join almost a kilometre-long line of jazz aficionados.
"We were waiting in our car for half-an-hour right in front of the auditorium and then were faced with a one-hour hour wait in the kilometre long line to get inside. I never thought jazz was so very popular in Delhi," said Shanta Nedungadi, a reader at Delhi University.
The demand for jazz took the American Center, which had organised the musical evening, aback too. The Center had obviously over-issued passes with many people having had to head back from the gates.
Several complained about the seating as well. "We were sitting right in the corner of the upper balcony. The musicians were like small specs from there. But we were lucky enough to get in and enjoy their music...so no hassles," said Gita Rastogi, a physiotherapist by profession.
Cut to the concert itself, it was truly a treat for the fortunate Delhites who managed to hear it. Hancock's solo performance on the piano and Shorter's piece on the saxophone were hugely applauded.
"It was a special evening to see a legend like Herbie Hancock in the flesh and performing too. Their entry was announced in a very entertaining manner by the woman who sang the Blues," said Kamini, another fan who stood for over two hours to get in.
There was also a surprise package in the evening with Hancock inviting Indian sitarist Anoushka Shankar, daughter of the legendary Ravi Shankar, to perform with them.
Though it was nice to see an Indian sharing the stage with the jazz giants, a few felt the stringed instrument didn't fit in with the other two.
"Anoushka was good but I don't think the sitar-saxophone combination worked too well," said Tania Dixit, a college student.
The concert was held to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and was dedicated to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi.
By Sanjay Sharma
Bhopal, Jan 17 (IANS) School is a happy proposition now for many children in Madhya Pradesh. No longer do they have to stay with parched throats or go without using toilets the whole day.
In Dhar district, where many children - particularly girls - had stopped going to school for want of drinking water and sanitation facilities, Unicef has helped install 'play pumps' in educational institutions.
The 'play pump' is a children's merry-go-round that pumps out clean, safe drinking water from a deep borehole every time it is spun.
"Since cavorting on a roundabout has always been fun for children, they enjoy doing it and clean borehole water is pumped into water storage tanks," explained Unicef communications officer Anil Gulati.
So Unicef, which has helped the district administration provide the play pumps, has not only solved the water problem but also brought in a means of entertainment for schoolchildren.
"Earlier I used to run away from school for want of water and bathrooms, but now I don't feel like going back home because we have this facility there and can play with it as well," said Kavita, a tribal girl studying in Class 8.
The children earlier used to go without drinking water during the day, with 90 percent of schools in Dhar having no potable water or sanitation facilities.
"The play pumps project was started on an experimental basis in March 2005. Since then several such pumps have been installed in districts like Dhar, Jhabua, Vidisha and Guna. There are plans to provide 40 such pumps in different parts of the state," said Samuel Godfrey, a Unicef official.
The water pumped into tanks - the process doesn't require electricity - is distributed among schools and communities in the area.
The device is thus a boon not only for schoolchildren but also for the people living in the surroundings, mainly women who have the responsibility of collecting water.
"Each morning the women used to set off to the nearest borehole to collect water. They used leaky and often contaminated hand-pumps to collect water and then carry it all back. It was exhausting and time-consuming work. Now they can spend the same time at home looking after their kids and teaching them," Gulati said.
The groundwater level in these districts is too low and whatever little water is available is highly contaminated with fluoride.
The water table has fallen from an average of 10 metres to 80 metres. This has led to higher concentration of contaminants like fluoride, arsenic and iron in groundwater. A total of 324 villages are affected with this problem in tribal-dominated Dhar district alone.
Unicef and the state's Public Health Engineering Department are promoting projects on water reuse, water safety and sanitation in 22 schools of Dhar and Jhabua.
Children participating in a convention on water security and sanitation here this week expressed their happiness by presenting the very songs they sing while playing with the pumps in their schools in Dhar.
They also performed plays on different themes, including re-using water, water safety, rainwater harvesting and sanitation.
"Such projects, aimed at promoting recycling of grey water for its reuse in improving sanitation, are being implemented in the tribal schools of Dhar. These also promote rain water harvesting and increase the focus on sanitation," said Unicef state representative Hamid El Bashir.
Berlin, Jan 17 (DPA) US and North Korean officials held informal discussions here on efforts to end the stalemate over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons activities.
Christopher Hill, the chief US negotiator in the six-party talks, met with North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan Tuesday.
The discussions were "positive" but no dates were set for the resumption of six-nation talks that have been taking place for years to persuade Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons, US State Department deputy spokesperson Tom Casey said in Washington.
"In terms of the meeting today, it was a good exchange of views that certainly was conducted in a positive atmosphere," he said.
China, Japan, Russia and South Korea are the other four nations that make up the negotiations.
The last meeting of the six-party talks was in Beijing in December. They were the first round of discussions since North Korea provoked international condemnation by testing a nuclear bomb on Oct 9.
--DPA
Attn Sports Editors: In 2008, the 29th Olympic Games will be held in Beijing. Already human rights groups are calling on the international sports community to use the Games to push for wide-ranging changes in China. They are also warning that Beijing will not allow the visiting media free access to all aspects of Chinese society. The case of China is not the first one in which politics and sports have been closely entwined. DPA will put out a special package on the world of sports and politics. This is the second of the stories.
Hamburg, Jan 17 (DPA) Although most people would agree that politics and sport should not be mixed, few would disagree with the statement that they do. Most sporting organisations jealously guard against any political interference and football's world controlling body FIFA, for instance, has time and again suspended members if any overtly political interference becomes known.
Only last year, Iran was briefly suspended by FIFA because of government interference in football structures there.
But despite the best efforts of sporting organisations, history is littered with incidents where political pressure has been applied through sports.
While Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympic Games to showcase Nazi Germany and his fascist ideology, after the Second World War sporting events were used more and more as a means of political protest, with the boycott the weapon of choice.
Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon boycotted the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in protest at the Suez war while Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands withdrew over the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Five years later, FIFA suspended South Africa over its apartheid policies. South Africa was banned from Olympic competition by the time of the 1964 Tokyo Games and six years later, the International Cricket Council followed suit.
In 1976, Tanzania led 22 African countries in a boycott of the 1976 Montreal edition because of the presence of New Zealand, which had sent a rugby team to tour South Africa.
Political boycotts now seemed to be on the verge of crippling the Olympic movement as the US, followed by West Germany and Japan, boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The Soviet bloc retaliated by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics four years later while North Korea, Cuba, Ethiopia and Nicaragua refused to send athletes to the 1988 Seoul Games.
While the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War seemed to mark the end of this particular boycott cycle, sporting events were still used to apply political pressure on certain countries.
The Olympic Council of Asia refused to allow Iraq to compete at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing because of its invasion of Kuwait while in 1994, Denmark became European champions by winning a final tournament they had not even qualified for.
The Scandinavians had finished second in their qualifying group behind Yugoslavia. However, shortly before the start of the finals the UN imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia and UEFA decided to bar them from the finals, inviting Denmark instead.
One person who believes sporting boycotts are a useful weapon in forcing countries to address political issues they would otherwise likely ignore is Joe Ebrahim, former president of the South African Council of Sport (SACOS), the major anti-apartheid sporting organisation in the country.
Ebrahim says that while the principle of political non-interference in sport is a correct one, the reality is different.
"I think one of the striking examples at the moment is Israel where you find that Israel is accepted internationally in the sports world and yet people don't recognise that Israel is actually in many ways an oppressor in terms of Palestine and the Palestinian people," he says.
The South African says that Israel might not be the only country where a sport boycott might be appropriate.
"There are other countries - if one goes around the world you are going to find situations where you can justify it on the basis that the countries are aggressors and that they are invading neighbouring countries.
"There are also examples where countries are acting oppressively in so far as the local population is concerned."
He concedes though that it makes little sense to use a sports boycott if the country is not prominent in sport. "Unless they are very prominent in sport than it does not have much effect.
"It wont achieve much is a country is ranked something like 180th in the world ranking in comparison to a country that is say in the top 50 of the rankings.
"A sports boycott will not work in all instances, that one also has to recognise, so you have to look at the circumstances, look at where that country is in terms of international sports contact."
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) Delhi High Court Wednesday reserved its verdict on an appeal by former Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma, facing death penalty for killing his wife Naina Sahni and partly burning her body in the oven of an upmarket open air restaurant near Connaught Place in 1995.
Sharma was awarded death sentence 2003 by a trial court.
The division bench of Justices R. S. Sodhi and P. K. Bhasin reserved the judgement on conclusion of arguments on the appeal by counsel for Sharma, K.K. Sud, and Delhi Standing Counsel Mukta Gupta for the prosecution.
Sud submitted that the case was investigated in a perfunctory manner and the trial in the lower court was conducted in a surcharged atmosphere under the media hype that affected his client adversely.
He argued that the police had planted the weapon of offence, revolver, and had obtained the forensic report about it fraudulently. Therefore, his accused deserved acquittal.
Countering his submission, Gupta supported the trial court judgement stating that the prosecution had proved the case beyond all reasonable doubt.
Naina Sahni, who Sushil Sharma had claimed to be his wife, was murdered at her rented house in Gole Market area. Delhi police alleged that after the murder, Sharma had cut his wife's body into pieces, stuffed them into a gunny bag and brought it to the restaurant for disposal in a tandoor (oven).
However, a vigilant beat constable of the city police had foiled his bid when he raised an alarm after spotting parts of the deceased's body beside the oven.
The constable immediately informed the police headquarters. The city police officials rushed to the spot and recovered the badly burnt body parts of Naina Sahni.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The Naseeruddin Shah starrer "Parzania" is set to hit the screens Jan 26 and the star actor says that the aim is to convey the trauma of a family who lost their son during the Gujarat riots and not to start any controversy.
"The last thing films like this needs is controversy. It would be an immense favour to us if the word controversy is used with a little responsibility because we do not want to fan flames. We want this film to stand on its own merit, if it has and if it doesn't, then we are content to accept the verdict.
"But the judgement of the people, who buy the tickets and go into the hall with open minds, will be more important. And I think if there is less talk of trouble it will be better for the film," said Shah at a press meet here Wednesday.
Naseeruddin also said that they didn't give much emphasis on acquiring accurate Parsi dialects or body language to play the roles.
"It is not important to play these characters as Parsis, which is why we didn't not think it right to meet Dara Modi and his wife. Because it would have made them feel like Ginny pigs that we have come to observe them and they were tormented enough anyway.
"It was more important to behave like an ordinary people because it was more crucial for the story. So, we didn't bother too much about Parsi dialect or body language. We decided to play them as ordinary human beings," he added.
Seasoned actress Sarika, who plays Naseeruddin's wife in the film, directed by NRI filmmaker Rahul Dholakia, says that there is huge responsibility on them to convey the story as convincingly as possible.
"The responsibility on all of us was to carry that story because we are into media and we can bring it out. Otherwise there are so many families who have bore more losses than this but nobody knows about it. Either scribes write it or TV shows it, all of us are just trying it to take it to the people," said Sarika.
For Dholakai it was a mammoth task to commercially release the film and now when the film is set to hit the screens he has no apprehensions in releasing in Gujarat.
"I don't see any problem. I genuinely believe that people in Gujarat really want to see the film. It happened there, the boy was lost there and most of all the family wants it to be seen. I think people are very matured to understand it."
By Murali Krishnan,
Islamabad, Jan 17 (IANS) With a packed agenda lined up for the next two months, the India-Pakistan dialogue process is poised to get a further stimulus following External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's two-day visit here and a leap forward on some central issues could perhaps set the stage for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's much-awaited trip to Pakistan.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri visits New Delhi next month for the fifth meeting of the India-Pakistan Joint Commission, followed by the first formal meeting in March of the recently constituted joint anti-terror mechanism and also the commencement of the fourth round of the composite dialogue.
Foreign ministry officials point out that several agreements would be finalized during Kasuri's trip including the speedy return of inadvertent line crossers, the prevention of incidents at sea, liberalising the visa regime and drawing up procedures for nuclear risk reduction.
Hydrographers and surveyors from Pakistan and India, who have already begun the joint survey of the disputed Sir Creek marshland, are expected to complete their assessment by the end of February.
This time around, officials from both sides are confident of chalking out a maritime boundary inwards on the basis of equidistance of the narrow strip of marshland separating Sindh in Pakistan and Gujarat in India.
In the midst of this gabfest, work would also have been started by the committee of the senior judiciary to visit jails in the two countries for quick release of prisoners who have completed their prison terms. Also on the anvil is a trip by a team of archaeologists from Pakistan's Punjab province that will visit various temples in India to get ideas for restoring the Katasraj temple, near Lahore.
"This is truly a crowded engagement but a good opportunity to build on the positives that have accrued in the last couple of years," a senior Indian diplomat here told IANS.
In fact soon after Mukherjee's visit, Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz pointed out in an interview that the atmospherics between the two countries had improved considerably in the last three years and even the trust gap had been bridged to an extent.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said more or less the same thing after
the meeting of the two foreign ministers and that the next step forward was to lay out a course for the immediate future.
While it may be premature to say that an agreement could be reached on the Siachen dispute, Manmohan Singh Monday indicated there were "hopeful features in the present dialogue" to fast-track a settlement.
"The two sides are among other things holding negotiations on authentication of the ground position (in Siachen). There are hopeful features in the present dialogue," Singh said while returning from Cebu, Philippines, where he attended the East Asia summit. "It is my effort to sustain the momentum."
It may still be a long way before Singh's vision of regional integration where one can have "breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul" takes place, but of immediate significance are the inputs required for such an output - confidence building, normalisation and, most importantly, conflict resolution.
Over the last year and, especially during Mukherjee's visit, warm rhetoric has already melted some ice in the years of frosty relations between both countries. The idea now, optimists on both sides agree, is to work towards the permanent thaw.
(Murali Krishnan can be reached at m.krish@ians.in)
Bangalore, Jan 17 (IANS) Wipro Ltd has posted net profit of Rs.7.65 billion ($172 million) for the third quarter (Oct-Dec) of the current fiscal (2006-07), registering year-on-year (YoY) growth of 41 percent.
In a notification to the stock exchanges here Wednesday, the company said its total revenues for the quarter under review (Q3) grew by 45 percent YoY to Rs.39.79 billion under Indian GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles).
Revenue from its global IT services and products division is Rs.28.76 billion ($640.5 billion), registering YoY growth of 35 percent.
Under the US GAAP, the net income grew by 40 percent YoY to $169 million and total revenues by 43 percent YoY to $899 million.
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has been approached to set up crude oil refineries in Yemen with a capacity of 100,000 barrels per day, the country's Oil and Minerals Minister Khalid Mahfoudh Dahah said Wednesday.
"We have approached ONGC to set up the refineries in our country with a minimum capacity of 100,000 barrels per day," the minister told the Petrotech conference on hydrocarbons sector here.
"They have shown interest but they want to acquire an oil block first," he said adding, while indicating that Yemen would be offering 5-10 offshore oil blocks for bidding by the second half of this year.
Dahah had a meeting with top officials of the state-run exploration major ONGC Tuesday, which, according to him, turned out to be "fruitful". He also urged ONGC to be more "aggressive" when it bids for oil blocks.
"We are ready to offer ONGC what it wants, but ONGC also has to offer something attractive to my country," he told reporters on the margins of the conference.
The minister also hinted at being approached by an Indian company for investing in a Yemen's petrochemical industry. He had said Tuesday that Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries was setting up an oil refinery in his country.
Some of the companies and business houses Dahah hopes to interact with during the Petrotech exposition include Essar, Indian Oil Corp, Oil India Ltd, Gujarat State Petroleum Corp and GAIL India.