February 2007
01 February 2007
Srinagar, Feb 1 (IANS) The body of Abdul Rehman Paddar, earlier assumed to be missing but allegedly killed in a fake police shootout, was exhumed Thursday from a Kashmir graveyard and identified by his father and other relatives.
The exhumation was carried out at the Batmohalla graveyard in Sumbal tehsil of Baramulla district of north Kashmir in the presence of a two-member team of the forensic experts from the Chandigarh-based National Forensic Lab that arrived here earlier in the day.
"The body was exhumed from the grave today. Gulam Rasool Paddar, the father, and some other relatives of Abdul Rehman Paddar identified the body. A post-mortem was carried out at the graveyard itself," said Farooq Ahmad, deputy inspector general of police (central Kashmir) who is supervising the investigations into the disappearance and killing of Rehman.
"Samples were taken for DNA mapping etc by the forensic experts on the spot and the body was later handed over to the relatives," the official added.
A member of the forensic experts' team told reporters at the graveyard that they would take 45 days to complete the DNA matching.
The Batmohalla graveyard, where the victim of the alleged police shootout of Dec 9 was buried, had been guarded by police since the matter came to light last week.
While the family had assumed Paddar, a village carpenter, to be missing, his mobile phone was found from a police official associated with the Special Operations Group (SOG) that claimed to have killed a foreign militant in a shootout.
It has been alleged that the SOG framed Paddar and killed him, claiming the incident to be that of a shootout with a militant.
The Jammu and Kashmir government Wednesday ordered a judicial probe into Paddar's disappearance and subsequent killing as well as similar disappearances of civilians.
A sitting judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court would conduct the probe to be completed within three months.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Even as 9,000 Indian soldiers and paramilitary personnel serve on UN peacekeeping missions in Africa and Asia, over 4,000 army officers and troops are headed for the Congo and Sudan to relieve an equal number serving there.
Of them, 2,770 will go to Congo, where they will be deployed in the restive Katanga province, while 1,660 will travel to Sudan for deployment in the Malakal sector of the Darfur region. Apart from these hotspots, the Indian "blue berets" as the peacekeepers are termed, also serve in Ethiopia/Eritrea, in Lebanon, and on the Golan Heights.
While the current deployment has been termed a "routine turnaround", this is the first time such a large number of soldiers are being rotated at one go. And, in a unique gesture, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the supreme commander of the armed forces, will be addressing them here Monday.
"Since the numbers are so large, both of us (army headquarters and the president's secretariat) felt it would be appropriate for the president to address the troops to wish them Godspeed," Major General R.P.S. Malhan, Additional Director General (Staff Duties) at Army Headquarters, who handles UN deployments, told reporters Thursday.
India's involvement in UN peacekeeping operations began in the mid-1950s when a brigade (3,000 personnel) was deployed to enforce an armistice on the Korean peninsula. Since then, it has contributed 85,000 soldiers for 43 missions worldwide, but the current deployment is the largest at any given time.
Of the 9,000 serving under the UN flag, 8,265, including 26 women, are from the Indian Army, 500 from the Indian Air Force and 125 women troopers of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force.
Of the army troops, 3,707 serve in the Congo, 2,385 in Sudan, 971 in Ethiopia/Eritrea, 835 in Lebanon, and 172 on the Golan Heights. This apart, the army has also deployed 169 officers and observers at different UN missions.
The air force contingent, which includes about a dozen Mi-17 and Mi35 attack helicopters, has been deployed with the Indian troops in the Congo. The women troopers have been deployed in Liberia.
Of all these missions, the one in the Congo is perhaps the most taxing as the troops serve under chapter seven of the UN charter, which means they are permitted to launch a first strike. All the other missions are under chapter six of the charter, meaning the troops can only fire back in self-defence.
The Congo contingent had won accolades during two rounds of presidential elections last year and also when it fought off a rebel threat in November to two towns, including one housing its headquarters.
"The Indian brigade responsible for this volatile region of Congo launched operations for countering the intent of the rebels and ensuring the safety of the two towns," Malhan pointed out.
The contingent in Lebanon also won praise from the UN for standing fast during the month-long bitter fighting between Israeli forces and Hizbollah in July-August last year.
For this, the fourth battalion of the Sikh regiment that was posted in the area at the time and has just returned home, was presented the UNIFIL (UN Interim Force In Lebanon) Unit Citation. Additionally, 73 personnel of the unit were awarded the UNIFIL Force Commander's Special Commendation for outstanding performance during the conflict.
Then UN secretary general Kofi Annan and UN Under Secretary General Jean Marie Guehenno separately visited the battalion after the conflict ended.
"This Indian battalion of UNIFIL has once again, in the most challenging circumstances, shown that the Indian Army will always be a strong pillar for UN peacekeeping," he wrote in the visitors' book.
New Delhi, Feb 1, IRNA ,
Five top poll officials in Bangladesh resigned Thursday to pave the way for impartial and credible general elections under a re-constituted election commission.
Acting Chief Election Commissioner Mahfuzur Rahman and his four deputies tendered their resignation after meeting President Iajuddin Ahmed at the Bangabhaban Presidential Palace in Dhaka, a PTI report said here quoting officials.
The resignations came amid mounting pressure from the country's interim government, led by chief advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed, who wanted the election officials to quit "voluntarily."
The interim government said the re-constitution of the election commission was its "top priority" to pave the way for fresh elections.
Their resignations came nearly four weeks after former chief election commissioner M A Aziz, who was on a three-month leave, offered his resignation, which was accepted.
Aziz and another EC member, S M Zakaria, went on a long leave at the request of President Ahmed amidst protracted street campaigns by Sheikh Hasina Wajed's Awami League-led 18-party alliance which demanded removal of the "controversial" election commission members.
The alliance also demanded publication of a flawless electoral roll scrapping the one "rigged" in favor of former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party combine.
The EC had formally cancelled the Jan 22 elections in line with a decision of the interim government under Fakhruddin Ahmed, who was installed after Iajuddin Ahmed stepped down as chief advisor after proclaiming a state of emergency on January 11.
Abu Dhabi, Feb 1 (NNN-WAM) -- The world's leading experts, innovators, scientists, and venture capitalists in the field of future energy are set to converge on Abu Dhabi in January 2008 for the First World Future Energy Summit (WFES).
To be held at the new Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, under the patronage of General Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and Deputy Supreme Commander of UAE Armed Forces.
Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC) signed an agreement with Turret Middle East to appoint them as the summit organizers.
WFES will host about 150 of the world's most renowned speakers, innovators, and experts in clean energy, alongside a 14,000 square meter exhibition showcasing the present and future state of alternative energy technologies in what is expected to be the largest dedicated gathering of its kind in the world.
Masdar is a unique initiative in that it adopts a comprehensive multi-faceted approach to alternative energy. This approach encompasses education, funding, and technology development as complementary contributors to the creation of clean energy initiatives and applications.
Supported by the world's leading energy concerns, including Shell, BP, Occidental Petroleum, Total, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, GE, Rolls Royce, RWTH Aachen, and the Imperial College of London, the initiative is creating a globally supported regional hub for the development of sustainable energy.
The initiative is further supported by Abu Dhabi's leading government and non-government agencies, such as ADNOC, ADWEA and the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi.
On announcement of the Summit, ADFEC CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said: 'When HH General Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan launched Masdar last April, we wanted to create an environment that spearheads the development of alternative energy technologies.
The Summit will feature some of the world's leading experts and drivers of future energies in an exhibition and conference forum that includes innovations, venture capital and finance, education and enterprise development in the areas of solar energy, carbon dioxide capture and storage, sustainable desalination, and energy efficiency in buildings and industry.
Masdar has launched a $250 million Clean Technology Fund - one of the largest in the world - and established the Masdar Research Network, a collaboration framework with six internationally renowned education institutions.
ADFEC is a private joint-stock company incorporated in Abu Dhabi and wholly-owned by Mubadala Development Company. ADFEC is mandated to drive the Masdar Initiative, Abu Dhabi's landmark program to leverage Abu Dhabi's energy expertise and financial resources into innovative global solutions for cleaner, more sustainable energy.
Turret Middle East is a leading international events organizer that has managed some of Abu Dhabi's largest energy shows, including ADIPEC and Gastech. A foundation partner at the new Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, Turret is actively contributing to the establishment of iconic global events in Abu Dhabi. -- NNN-WAM
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) The state-run HMT Machine Tools Ltd will finally get a dose of investment for revival with a $160 million package, it was announced Thursday.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs Thursday approved cash infusion of Rs.7.23 billion ($160 million) into the beleaguered company, including preferential shares worth Rs.4.43 billion and equity worth Rs.180 million.
"The balance sheet will be restructured and the debt equity will improve," said an official statement issued after the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Monies have been specifically set aside for voluntary retirement scheme, as also the repayment of long-term loans and liabilities towards interest, training of staff, capital expenditure and technology acquisition.
HMT Machine Tools has manufacturing units at five locations, each specialising in a particular family of machine tools.
New York, Feb 1 (IANS) People exposed to fine-particulate air pollution caused primarily by vehicle exhausts, coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources could face the risk of developing heart disease, says a study.
The study by Joel Kaufman of the University of Washington and other researchers found that air pollution is a much bigger factor in deaths from heart ailments or strokes than has previously been recognised, reported an online edition of health magazine WebMD.
Researchers followed 66,000 women - aged 50-79 - living in 36 cities. All the women were enrolled in an ongoing health study, the Women's Health Initiative.
After adjusting for other risk factors for heart disease and stroke, the researchers in their study said that each 10-unit increase in air levels of fine particulate matter was associated with a 76 percent increase in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
Particulate matter is the general term used for a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air. It includes aerosols, smoke, fumes, dust, ash and pollen.
The composition of particulate matter varies with place, season and weather conditions. Fine particulate matter is 2.5 microns in diameter and less.
It is also known as PM2.5 or 'respirable' particles because it penetrates the respiratory system further than larger particles.
Earlier scientific studies have linked particulate matter, especially fine particles, with a series of significant health problems, including premature death, respiratory disorder, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function.
Brussels, Feb 1, IRNA ,
Alcohol related harm kills almost 200,000 people a year, more than 10,000 deaths a year are due to
alcohol-related road accidents while 40% of all homicide cases are related to alcohol consumption in the European Union.
Markos Kyprianou, EU Commissioner for Health, told a seminar hosted by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament Wednesday that "this human suffering and especially the harm done to children living in families with alcohol problems, is totally unacceptable." He noted that the European Commission adopted in October last year a report on a European strategy to support EU Member States in reducing alcohol related harm.
The report recognizes alcohol-related harm as a major public health, social and economic concern across the EU, and underlines the need for action at European level.
The Commission is expected to establish the Alcohol and Health Forum which should have its first meeting in June.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) As External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee travels to Iran next week to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue and the multi-billion dollar tri-nation pipeline, the US Thursday reminded India that there was a US law that penalised any foreign company which invested above $20 million annually in Tehran's energy sector.
"We have drawn attention to concerned ministries in India on the US legislation regarding doing business with Iran. It was done by me long time ago. The law is there," US ambassador to India David C. Mulford told reporters.
The envoy, however, qualified this by saying that the legislation had not been used before and it applied only to companies and not governments.
"India has a relationship with Iran. We have accepted it. India has been supportive of sanctions against Iran," he added.
The official, however, didn't respond when asked what would be the US reaction if India, Pakistan and Iran went ahead with the ambitious pipeline project costing over $7 billion.
The US has imposed various sanctions against Iran since 1979, following the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran on November 4 of that year. In August 1996, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) was passed unanimously by the US Congress and signed into law which requires the government to impose sanctions on foreign companies that invest more than $20 million a year in Iran's energy sector.
The pricing of gas through a $7 billion tri-nation pipeline facilitating the supply of Iranian gas via Pakistan to India will figure prominently in discussions Mukherjee will have with Iranian leaders.
The three countries are said to have agreed on a pricing formula of the Iranian gas - a subject of intense negotiations for the past few months - at a meeting in Tehran last month.
Mukherjee's visit will be closely watched in the US that enacted a law last month to open the doors of global nuclear commerce with India in return for New Delhi placing 14 of its 22 nuclear reactors under international safeguards and cooperating with Washington on isolating and dissuading Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
The US law has a non-binding section that links continued nuclear cooperation with India with New Delhi's cooperation with Washington in isolating Tehran and containing the Iranian nuclear programme, suspected of developing nuclear weapons.
India and the US are currently engaged in negotiations on a bilateral 123 agreement that will govern terms of nuclear commerce between the two. Prime Minister's special envoy on the India-US civil nuclear deal Shyam Saran is currently in Washington and will be discussing the 123 agreement with Nicholas Burns, the US' chief interlocutor on the nuclear deal.
This will be the first visit by Mukherjee to a country outside India's immediate neighbourhood and the first by a senior Indian functionary since New Delhi voted against the Iranian nuclear programme twice at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over the last 18 months.
K. Natwar Singh was the last Indian foreign minister to visit Tehran in September 2005.
Besides the trans-national pipeline, Mukherjee will also discuss with his counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki the precarious security situation in Afghanistan in whose stability both countries have significant stakes.
Significantly, Mukherjee's trip to Tehran takes place weeks after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Iranian issue and agreed to cooperate to find "an effective solution" to the Iranian nuclear standoff through "political and diplomatic efforts."
India has backed Iran's peaceful use of nuclear energy but has defended the vote against the Iranian nuclear programme, arguing that a nuclear- weapon Iran is not in its national interests.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Ashok Chaturvedi, an Indian Police Service officer of the 1970 batch, Thursday took over as the new chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's external intelligence agency. He succeeds P.K. Hormis Tharakan, who retired a day earlier.
The decision to elevate Chaturvedi, Special Secretary, as the next RAW chief was taken as the government did not want to name an outsider for the top job.
Two other officers including Amber Sen, another RAW special secretary, and Delhi police commissioner K.K. Paul were in the running for the top post.
Chaturvedi will get a two-year tenure at RAW, which has been through much churning over the past few years.
By Sid Astbury
Sydney, Feb 1 (DPA) After 30 years of believing that multiculturalism had the power to hold their settler society together, Australians are losing faith in what was always a tangled concept and are returning to the simpler formula of integration.
"We have moved from scepticism to disenchantment," said ruling Liberal Party luminary Peter Coleman. "It has now sunk in that some immigrants and their children, many of whom know us well enough, profoundly despise our way of life and even consider themselves at war with it."
As if on cue, 150 Serb and Croat youths provided further grounds for disenchantment by getting themselves thrown out of the tennis open in Melbourne for fighting each other in a reprise of the 1990s Balkan Wars.
And then up popped a YouTube video made by Lebanese Muslim youngsters in their suburban Sydney heartland, glorifying notorious gang rapist Bilal Skaf and predicting that Australia would one day be a Muslim country.
Multiculturalism, the doctrine that immigrants be encouraged to retain their culture, language and religion, is officially an orphan. Prime Minister John Howard now has a department of immigration and citizenship, formerly the department of immigration and multicultural affairs.
The opposition Labor Party has also shifted ground. What the main rivals at a general election later this year have to say on the integration is now virtually identical.
"People are understandably going to retain a place in their heart for their home culture and we don't discourage that in any way," Howard said when announcing the ministry name change. "But the premium must be upon...the integration of people into the Australian family."
That policy statement was echoed by Labor's spokesman on immigration, Tony Burke, who said that "Labor wants new immigrants to be integrating into Australia from day one."
The fall from grace of multiculturalism as a concept has been mirrored by a raft of policy initiatives intended to promote unity rather than diversity.
Immigrants now have to wait four years - double the previous waiting period - to become citizens. By the end of the year, a tough new citizenship test will be in place to assess proficiency in English, knowledge of Australian history and the applicant's grasp of civic responsibilities.
The change in rhetoric is quite profound. This week Howard laid out the new deal for intending settlers, telling them that the path was "you come to this country, you embrace its customs, its values, its language, you become a citizen".
The most important change is the reaffirmation that Australia has a mainstream culture and that newcomers must swim with it rather than against it. As Howard has stated: "Cultural diversity should never come at the expense of a clear strong compelling national identity."
Paris, Feb 1 (DPA) Anyone caught smoking in a French school, hospital, metro station, office or sports hall on Thursday was liable for the first time to a stiff fine as the first stage of a two-step measure to ban smoking in all public places went into effect.
The ban covers schools, offices, shops, hospitals and doctors' offices, sports halls, train stations, airports, all theatres and all public transport.
In 11 months, on Jan 1, 2008, the ban will then affect those public places now exempt: cafes, restaurants, hotels, casinos and discotheques.
The ban was enacted on Nov 15, 2006, by government decree rather than parliamentary vote. Polls have shown that a great majority of the French, and especially those who still smoked, were in favour of the ban.
A fine of 68 euros ($88) will be imposed on smokers caught breaking the no-smoking law. The fine for businesses who permit smoking in the workplace runs to 135 euros.
Some 175,000 agents will be deployed throughout France to survey the public areas and offices affected by the ban.
--DPA
Madrid, Feb 1 (DPA) Barcelona were beaten 0-1 at home by Zaragoza in the first leg of a Spanish cup quarter-final tie.
Barcelona turned in another dull display Wednesday, in front of a poor crowd of only around 25,000 in the Camp Nou.
Zaragoza, who knocked Barcelona out of the cup twice in the last three years, won thanks to some solid defending and a late goal from Uruguayan defender Carlos Diogo.
In the 77th minute, Diogo rose to head in a well-worked corner and silence the crowd.
Zaragoza could have gone ahead just before the interval when striker Sergio Garcia hit the Barcelona post.
Barcelona improved in the second half, but lacked the wit to break down a well-ordered defence.
The second leg will be played in Zaragoza Feb 28.
Barca has not won the King's Cup, as it is known, since 1998. Zaragoza, in contrast, has won it four times in the last 20 years - and reached the final last season.
In Wednesday's other cup matches, Deportivo Coruna thrashed second division Valladolid 4-1 and Getafe beat Osasuna 3-0.
Dhaka, Feb 1 (IANS) Bangladesh has awarded a $189 million power project to India's Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and said it may import power from neighbouring West Bengal to tide over a shortage.
This is the first deal signed by the caretaker government after it took office and began taking much-delayed decisions on key economic projects.
The government of former prime minister Khaleda Zia (2001-06) had kept on hold many decisions including $3 billion worth of investment proposals by the Tatas that some called "politically sensitive" as the group is an Indian enterprise.
BHEL will build a power plant in Siddhirganj, with two units of 120 MW each. The firm will install the plant by December 2008.
The Harbin Power Engineering of China also participated in the tender bid.
"Although it was the lowest bidder, Harbin allegedly manipulated the price and at one stage of the bid evaluation it withdrew from the race, leaving behind BHEL as the lone bidder. Both companies had been engaged in heavy lobbying to bag the job," the New Age newspaper reported Thursday.
The government accepted BHEL's offer under heavy pressure from the Asian Development Bank after KEMA International, a Netherlands-based consultancy firm commissioned by ADB, recommended BHEL, the daily added.
The Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh (EGCB), a newly created corporate subsidiary of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), will implement the project. ADB will provide almost $110 million for the project.
BHEL executive director Rabindra K. Belapukar and EGCB secretary Kazi Nazrul Islam signed the deal on behalf of their respective sides.
Power and energy advisor Tapan Chowdhury and Indian high commissioner in Dhaka Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, besides ADB representative Stefan Ekelund, were present at the signing ceremony.
According to The Daily Star, the government is also mulling over a proposal to import electricity from West Bengal to cut down the country's perennial power shortage.
The caretaker government has formed an expert committee to review the proposal in order to overhaul the power sector to reduce load shedding during the upcoming summer.
Caracas, Feb 1 (DPA) Venezuela's National Assembly granted President Hugo Chavez unprecedented power to rule by decree, increasing his authority to move forward on his leftist agenda - from the oil industry to telecommunications to banking.
Chavez was given the special powers for 18 months Wednesday by a legislature fully controlled by his party and a handful of allies on.
The legislators took their celebratory vote under the open air and tropical blue skies of Caracas's main square, Plaza Bolivar, where ordinary Venezuelans also gathered.
National Assembly speaker Cilia Flores asked for a show of hands from dozens of government supporters congregated below the statue of Venezuelan and Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
"Approved unanimously, with the vote of the people," she said.
Chavez did not attend the ceremony, and was represented by Vice President Jorge Rodriguez, who joked about criticism from home and abroad that the move has turned Chavez into a dictator.
"See how dictatorial, to make power in the hands of the state go directly to the people, and to legislate so that it goes directly to the people," Rodriguez said, referring to the show of hands in the plaza.
"A dictatorship is what we had before, the dictatorship of a few. We want to insure the dictatorship of true democracy," he added.
With his new powers, Chavez will be capable of enacting sweeping changes to government institutions, local elections, finance and taxes, banking, national defence, and the energy field as he attempts to establish a socialist system.
The country's opposition boycotted the last legislative election in 2005. Opposition parties have criticised the latest move as a step toward totalitarianism in the fifth-largest oil exporter in the world.
Protestors were scant in sight on Wednesday. But last weekend, they demonstrated against another of Chavez's moves to lift the television license held by the critical broadcaster RCTV, holding up signs depicting Chavez holding a rifle.
The controversial left-wing populist Chavez - who also was given special powers in 2001 - earlier this month announced plans to nationalise the country's largest electricity and telecommunications firms and end the autonomy of the Central Bank. Last week, he expropriated the Charallave private airport outside of Caracas.
He also wants to remove presidential term limits from the constitution, raising the spectre of a leader with the ambition to hold on to the reins of power as did his political idol, Cuba's Fidel Castro, who has reigned for 47 years.
Chavez's tenure has raised concerns in the US that he has marginalised democracy. Relations between the two countries have grown increasingly sour in recent years. The US intelligence czar, John Negroponte, Tuesday warned that Chavez was a threat to democratic governance in the region.
US President George Bush on Wednesday said Chavez's nationalisation plans "will make it harder for the Venezuelan people to be lifted out of poverty (and) will make it harder for the people to realise their full potential."
"I'm concerned about the Venezuelan people," Bush said in an interview with Fox News Channel. "And I'm worried about the diminution of democratic institutions."
Beijing, Feb 1 (Xinhua) The National Museum of China here has been closed for a three-year overhaul that will make it the world's largest arts and history museum.
The museum's floor space will be expanded from the current 65,000 sq metres to 192,000 sq metres, turning it into the world's most spacious, said a source at the museum.
"It does not have enough display and storage space, and some exhibition halls are becoming less safe due to old age," the source said, adding that the museum can't ensure the safe keeping of its relics as standards are below that of a top-level state museum.
"When it reopens, its displays, security measures and services will all be equal to a world-class museum," the source said.
The National Museum, which was formerly the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, was built in 1959. It houses hundreds of thousands of cultural relics from different periods of China's 5,000-year history. It is home to millions of scrolls and other cultural relics.
The source said most of the precious relics would be stored at a special site during the renovations.
Some of relics will be displayed at the Capital Museum of China during the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the source said. Construction work is slated to start in April.
By Arun Kumar,
Washington, Feb 1 (IANS) President George Bush wants America to reduce its dependence on oil as it made the US economy vulnerable to extraneous factors like increase in demand in India or China.
"We can make our economy more flexible and dynamic by diversifying our energy supply," he said delivering a report on the state of America's economy in New York Wednesday.
"Energy is vital to businesses and farmers and families all across our nation. Yet, we have a fundamental problem: We're too dependent on oil. That creates vulnerabilities," Bush said outlining the challenges US faces in keeping the economy growing.
"When demand for oil goes up in China or India, it affects the price of gasoline here in America. If a terrorist were to attack oil infrastructure, it affects the supply of energy here in America," he said asking the Democratic Congress move forward with initiatives proposed by him.
"The idea is to diversify our energy supply, keep our air clean and help create new jobs through new industries that will meet the demand for alternative sources of energy," said Bush, now famous for his phrase that America was 'addicted' to oil.
With the new Democratic majority seeking to renegotiate several pending free-trade agreements and progress being made to resurrect long-stalled global trade negotiations, Bush also asked Congress to renew trade promotion authority (TPA), otherwise known as fast track.
The existing authority, which expires July 1, allows the president to negotiate trade agreements and then send them to Congress for an up-or-down vote without amendment and on a strict timetable.
The administration would have to submit any agreement covered by the existing TPA grant by Apr 2. "Presidents of both parties have considered this authority essential to completing good trade agreements," Bush said "I ask Congress to renew it."
"I know there's going to be a vigorous debate on trade. ... But walling off America from world trade would be a disaster for our economy," Bush said. "Congress needs to reject protectionism and to keep this economy open to the tremendous opportunities that the world has to offer."
Without TPA, foreign trade officials would be reluctant to negotiate any trade deal with the United States, whether it be a free-trade agreement or a global trade accord, for fear that Congress would be able to alter the agreement.
Congressional Democrats have said they are unlikely to approve pending free-trade agreements with Peru, Panama and Colombia, or any future ones, until the administration includes provisions in them requiring countries to strengthen rules on labour rights and environmental protection.
But Republican lawmakers and US business representatives will be lobbying hard for TPA, which they say is critical to gaining greater access to foreign markets.
Guwahati, Feb 1 (IANS) A Congress party worker was shot dead Thursday by suspected militants of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the latest in a string of targeted attacks on ruling party leaders in Assam.
A police spokesman said 53-year-old Abdul Basar, a Congress leader, was attacked at Kacharipam village in eastern Assam's Golaghat district, about 280 km from here.
"Two cycle-borne militants shot at Basar from close range with automatic weapons killing him on the spot," a police official said.
This is the fifth Congress leader to be killed in two weeks.
Authorities have blamed the attacks on the ULFA, fighting for an independent homeland since 1979. The rebels had earlier asked migrant labourers to leave Assam and also threatened to attack Congress leaders if New Delhi did not stop a counter-insurgency offensive against the outfit immediately.
There was a wave of separatist attacks in Assam last month in which 90 people were killed in separate incidents of bombings and shootouts.
The bombings were preceded by the slaughter Jan 5-8 in eastern Assam by separatist guerrillas of 73 people, 61 of them being migrants.
The targeted attacks on politicians have made scores of lower-rung Congress workers and leaders quitting the party. Many are being provided security.
Indo-Asian News Service
Brussels, Feb 1, IRNA,
The European Parliament adopted Thursday a joint resolution with 591 votes in favour, 45 against and 31 abstentions in favour of a universal moratorium on the death penalty.
The resolution calls for a worldwide moratorium on executions to be established "immediately and unconditionally" through a relevant resolution of the current United Nations General Assembly, The EP resolution voices deep concern that national laws still exist, or have been reintroduced, in dozens of countries around the world, providing for the death penalty and the execution of thousands of human beings each year.
The EP condemned the execution of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the media's exploitation of his hanging and deplored the way it was carried out.
Munich, Feb 1 (DPA) German prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 13 people believed to have been working for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in connection with the 2003 abduction of a German citizen suspected of being a terrorist.
The 13 suspects were crew and passengers on an aircraft that flew Khaled el-Masri from Macedonia to Afghanistan.
Germany's NDR television said Wednesday that 11 men and two women were listed in the arrest warrant. Prosecutors suspect most of the names are CIA aliases. Among those listed are Kirk James Bird, James Ohale, James Fairing, Jane Payne and Patricia Riloy.
Prosecutors are attempting to determine the real names of the 13 people who are accused of false imprisonment and torture.
In Washington, US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US was awaiting more details about the arrest warrants.
"These warrants have been issued, I understand, by a local prosecutor, so it is not the typical bilateral-to-bilateral exchange that you might have with the federal government," he said. The CIA declined to comment on the case.
German officials say they expect little help from the US and the 13 are unlikely to be detained unless they return to a European Union country.
El-Masri's lawyer hailed the move.
"German authorities will not accept the criminal activities of CIA agents against a German citizen," Manfred Gnijdic said.
El-Masri was detained on the Macedonian-Serbian border in December 2003 and was then reportedly flown to Kabul in a plane that arrived from the Spanish airport at Palma de Mallorca.
A Muslim of Lebanese origin who lives in southern Germany, el-Masri says he was imprisoned by US agents in Macedonia and tortured in Afghanistan, then released. He said the Americans accused him of being a terrorist.
A parliamentary inquiry into the case has been told that then US ambassador to Germany, Daniel Coats, informed Berlin officials on May 31, 2004 that el-Masri had been mistakenly detained, then freed.
Washington, Feb 1 (DPA) Google Inc, owner of the world's busiest internet search engine, announced a near tripling of profit for the fourth quarter over the same period last year, thanks to more foreign advertising and overall increased use.
Net income rose to $1.03 billion from $372.2 million, Google said in a statement Wednesday. Sales, excluding the revenue passed on to partners, rose to $2.23 billion.
International sales were 44 percent of revenue, compared with 38 percent last year. Google controls more than 70 percent of the search market in France, Germany and Britain, according to ComScore Networks Inc, quoted by Bloomberg financial news service.
In the US, Google claimed 47 percent of US searches, up from 40 percent in fourth quarter 2005, outstripping its nearest rivals. Yahoo's share fell to 28 percent from 29 percent and Microsoft Corp fell to 11 percent from 14 percent.
For all of 2006, Google doubled profits to $3.1 billion from $1.5 billion in 2005.
Despite the strong reports, Google shares fell on Wall Street because analysts had expected even more.
"This is a classic high expectations, highly anticipated earnings with a whisper number above expectations," Timothy Ghriskey of Solaris Asset Management in Bedford Hills, New York, was quoted as saying.
"Revenues were in line, and that may be a cause for some traders to sell," he added.
Srinagar, Feb 1 (IANS) Guerrillas chucked a grenade inside the headquarters of Jammu and Kashmir's moderate Hurriyat Conference, hours before the faction's chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq arrives here Thursday after his Pakistan visit.
No one was injured in the explosion Wednesday night in the Hurriyat headquarters in Rajbagh locality, said a senior police officer.
Mirwaiz and another Hurriyat leader Bilal Gani Lone arrive here Thursday afternoon to a grand welcome at the airport by hundreds of supporters, ready to escort them into town in a procession.
Last month, guerrillas had fired a rifle grenade, which exploded in the backyard of the Mirwaiz's home in Nageen here.
The Mirwaiz faction of the Hurriyat ended a nine-day visit to Pakistan Sunday during which they met President Pervez Musharraf twice.
New Delhi, Feb 1, IRNA ,
Notwithstanding a grenade attack on its office in Srinagar, the Hurriyat Conference Thursday said it would continue its efforts to bring peace to Jammu and Kashmir.
Such attacks by vested interests only strengthen our resolve to work harder, Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told PTI here.
Without naming anyone, Mirwaiz said last night's attack was the handiwork of elements who are against peace for India and Pakistan.
His comments came a day after suspected militants hurled a grenade at the Hurriyat office at Rajbagh locality in Srinagar, damaging some nearby vehicles and smashing window panes of the building.
Mirwaiz made it clear that the Hurriyat would not be cowered by such dastardly acts and the amalgam would continue to bring India and Pakistan closer.
"These attacks, which are aimed at scaring us, will do no good to the Kashmir issue," he said.
The attack came close on the heels of threats by various pro- Pakistan militant groups, including the Hizbul Mujaheedin, following recent statements by Mirwaiz during his visit to Pakistan.
He had then said the Kashmir issue would be solved through dialogue and not through violence.
The Jammu and Kashmir government has again reviewed security measures for Hurriyat leaders and taken all necessary precautions to protect them.
Militants had earlier hurled a grenade at the residence of the Mirwaiz. No one was hurt in the attack, but it sparked off angry protests against the Jamat-e-Islami and hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Reliance Communications' chairman Anil Ambani Thursday said the Hutch-Essar acquisition deal would be decided in the next few weeks "barring unforeseen circumstances".
"We expect, barring unforeseen circumstances, the Hutch-Essar opportunity to be decided over the next few weeks," Ambani told a teleconference with analysts from his office in Mumbai.
"We will take a conservative stand in the Hutch-Essar deal keeping in mind sustainable valuation and profit creation," he added.
Ambani also said he is monitoring the developments related to the deal closely and participating in the due-diligence process that is currently on.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) A protocol with the UAE to remove ambiguities in the existing pact on the avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion was given a go ahead by the Indian cabinet Thursday.
"The protocol will stimulate the flows of investment, technology and personnel from India to the UAE and vice versa," said a statement issued after a meeting of the cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here.
"It will also provide tax stability and facilitate mutual economic cooperation."
According to tax experts, the enforcement and applicability of the existing tax treaty between India and the UAE on resident individuals in the emirates has been a matter of much debate in the past several years.
New Delhi, Feb 1, IRNA ,
Indian President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam has conferred the prestigious `Gandhi Peace Prize for 2005' on Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a South African cleric and activist, at a glittering function at the Presidential House here Wednesday evening.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, several of his cabinet colleagues, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and other distinguished guests were present on the occasion.
The president, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, in his address said the life, work and action of Archbishop Desmond Tutu will remain an inspiration not only for the people of Africa but also for people of other nations who are fighting for their genuine rights.
He said that after participating in the intensive fight against the apartheid system for decades, the African leader is now busy forging equality in South Africa through dialogue and tolerance as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi.
Speaking on the occasion, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said that by conferring the Gandhi Peace Prize India is only adding its voice to the global recognition of Bishop Tutu's Gandhism.
He said India and South Africa are both multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-religious democracies that will show the world the way to deal with challenges of the 21st century.
Born on October 7, 1931, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a South African cleric and activist, the first black person to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
He rose to worldwide fame as an opponent of apartheid. He consistently worked for reconciliation among all parties involved in apartheid through his writings and lectures at home and abroad.
For his role as a unifying figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1984. After the fall of apartheid, he headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for which he was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999.
He has strongly advocated human rights and democracy in Palestine and Indonesia. His championship of democratic rights and criticism of human rights abuses has been consistent and a great moral support to the oppressed everywhere.
The government of India launched the Gandhi Peace Prize in 1995 on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The award is given for outstanding work and contribution to social, economic and political transformation through non-violence and other Gandhian methods.
The award carries an amount of Rs 1 crore or its equivalent in foreign currency and a citation.
Earlier winners of the Gandhi Peace Prize are former Tanzanian President Dr Julius Nyerere, Sarvodaya Movement's Founder/President Dr A T Ariyaratne of Sri Lanka, Dr Gerhard Fischer of Germany, the Ramakrishna Mission, India, Baba Amte (Murlidhar Devidas Amte), India, former South African president Dr Nelson Mandela, Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, John Hume of Ireland and former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel.
By Arun Kumar,
Washington, Feb 1 (IANS) India is emerging as the new destination for American business after China with several states planning to send trade missions to take advantage of its "fast-growing market".
Governors from Virginia and Iowa have been there, and Minnesota, California and Utah are lining up gubernatorial visits for this year, according to Michael Taylor of the US-India Business Alliance that helped organise the earlier missions.
"There is sort of a stampede thing. India is very much on everyone's radar scope now," said Taylor, the alliance's executive vice president, who has been in contact with at least a dozen states about possible trips.
"It's just a question of when they decide to go and how they decide to go. I think they feel a necessity to do it. The China mission was something you had to tick off. India has now become that."
Minnesota's Republican governor Tim Pawlenty is planning to lead a 30-member trade mission to India Oct 20-27 with stops in New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai.
"We view this as a tremendous opportunity to better acquaint Minnesota with India and better acquaint India with Minnesota," said Pawlenty announcing the trip to a country that now makes up a tiny fraction of Minnesota's roughly $14 billion in annual manufactured exports.
The agenda will include market and industry presentations, networking events, business roundtable discussions, customised one-on-one business matchmaking meetings, and other similar events.
In a message to Minnesota business leaders about the trade mission to the fast-growing market of India, Pawlenty said, "I invite you to take a closer look at business opportunities in India, and I encourage you to consider applying to join the delegation."
There are many compelling reasons for all types of Minnesota companies to expand trade in India, he said and outlined "just a few":
* Fast-growing market. With a population of more than one billion, India is the world's fastest growing, free-market democracy. India's GDP is growing at about nine percent annually. US manufactured exports to India reached $6.8 billion in 2005 - an increase of 111 percent since 2000. Minnesota manufactured exports over the same period rose 208 percent to $85 million.
* Major infrastructure improvements. Over the next several years, India's transportation, energy, environmental, health care, high-tech, and defence sectors are expected to undergo major overhaul, which will create greater demand for products and services.
* Tremendous consumer demand. India's middle class (200 million people and growing) has increasing purchasing power and increasing consumer demand.
* Pro-American environment. With an overwhelmingly favourable impression of the United States, India is one of the most pro-American countries in the world and is eager to work with American businesses.
* Youth power. More than 58 percent of the Indian population is under age 20. That's more than 564 million people - nearly twice the total population of the United States. This younger population has an increasing desire for high-tech products and services.
London, Feb 1 (IANS) India Inc is establishing an international presence and has the potential to tilt scales in global mergers and takeovers, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said Thursday, a day after the Tatas won the battle to buy Anglo-Dutch steel-maker Corus Group for $12 billion.
"Indian companies seeking to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) do not make headlines any longer," Kamal Nath said in a lecture on "Doing Business with India: Achieving Success in Fast-Growing Economy" here.
"From technology intensive domains such as telecom to traditional sectors such as education and healthcare, global benchmarking has become a new way of life," the minister said at the lecture, organised by The Economist magazine.
"From a Hyderabad-branded Cyberabad for its technology-focussed growth, to rural communities hooked onto e-kiosks for the latest price and product statistics, technology is spreading its presence in the country."
Meanwhile, the world continues to invest in the Indian canvas, the minister said. He emphasised that the intrinsic worth of India's macro-economic fundamentals was being recognised by international investors.
"India has begun to invest in the global canvas. From a tentative mindset that questioned our entrepreneurial capability to survive against global competition, Indian businesses and people are embracing globalisation," he said.
Underlining that the real challenge was to ensure inclusive growth, Kamal Nath stressed this was not just for domestic industry, but equally important for the foreign investor as well.
Such an approach would make for a reassuringly stable social environment and expand the market potential of the country, he added.
Hyderabad, Feb 1 (AINS) President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Thursday said India should achieve energy independence by 2030 through hydel capacity, nuclear power and non-conventional energy sources like solar and wind power besides thermal power.
Delivering the convocation address at the 77th annual convocation of Osmania University here, he said that based on the progress visualised for the nation during the next two decades, the power generating capacity has to increase to 400,000 Megawatts (MW) by 2030 from the existing 130,000 MW.
"In 2030, the hydel capacity is expected to contribute 80,000 MW. Large-scale solar energy farms could contribute around 55,000 MW and wind energy can contribute 64,000 MW. The nuclear power plants should have a target of 50,000 MW. The balance 15,000 MW will be generated through use of solid bio mass and municipal waste," he said.
He spoke of the scientific research and development challenges towards realising the mission of energy independence and asked Osmania University to take up the challenge.
Explaining why energy independence was essential, Kalam, on a two-day visit to Andhra Pradesh, said it was estimated that the available resource of fossil fuels would get exhausted in the next 50 to 100 years.
On nuclear power, Kalam said the capacity of 16 reactors, which at present is 3,900 MW, is expected to go up to 7,400 MW by 2010 with the completion of nine reactors. As per the present plan of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and Nuclear Power Corp, the capacity is expected to increase to 24,000 MW by 2020.
"There is a need to plan right from now to increase this capacity to 50,000 MW by 2030," he said.
"To meet the increased needs of nuclear power generation, it is essential to pursue the development of nuclear power using thorium, reserves of which are high in the country," he added.
He called for increasing the power generated through renewable energy sources from the existing 5 percent to 25.
Noting that India is importing around 100 million tonnes of crude oil with a foreign exchange outflow of Rs.1.5 trillion per annum (nearly $34 billion), he said by 2030 the country may have to import 300 million tonnes.
"To reduce the import content, apart from locating the embedded oil resources in the country, we have to work on producing ethanol and bio-diesel in a cost effective manner which can be blended with petrol and diesel."
India will require production of 60 million tonnes each of bio-diesel and ethanol per annum by 2030.
On wind energy, he said there was a need to earmark sufficient efforts and resources for research into potential windy areas, on optimal plant design and cost effectiveness to realise generating capacity of 64,000 MW.
Bangalore, Feb 1 (IANS) IBM, the world's largest IT major, Thursday said its growth in India was the fastest globally, clocking a revenue growth of 37 percent year-on-year (YoY) in 2006.
"India continues to be our fastest growing country globally in 2006, with domestic market leadership in servers and storage and an increasing market share in software and services," IBM India managing director Shanker Annaswamy told reporters here.
As a company policy, the Indian subsidiary did not disclose the revenue generated in the 12-month period last year or the quantum of business contributed by each of its multiple divisions in percentage or revenue terms.
On the 19 percent decline in growth YoY to 37 percent from a high of 55 percent YoY in 2005, Annaswamy attributed the huge difference in growth numbers to the widening of the base from the previous year.
"As against the average industry growth of 14-15 percent in the subcontinent, we have grown by 37 percent last year and maintained YoY growth of over 30 percent during the last four years," Annaswamy added.
In its disclosures to the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), the $90-billion listed firm mentioned that its revenue from India was $510 million in 2005.
In the emerging markets among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries, the 2005 revenue growth in India was, however, way behind China and Brazil where the company posted $1.5 billion in the respective countries, while it was $250 million in Russia.
Claiming phenomenal growth in the subcontinent, Annaswamy said with the addition of 10 global delivery centres, India became IBM's largest global delivery location, taking the number of technology and delivery centres to 35.
"During the last six months, we have ramped up the headcount by 10,000 to have a total of 53,000 employees by 2006-end, making us the only multinational firm to have the largest workforce in India and outside the US," Annaswamy said.
With 2,500 business partners and presence in 200 towns and cities across India, the subsidiary plans to enhance partnerships with the central and state governments on e-governance and other projects to bridge the digital divide, strengthen a services science curriculum with universities and strengthen the IT eco-system in 2007.
"We will also continue to expand industry-specific business services through the use of service oriented architecture (SoA) and drive business-centric innovations. Investments in education will remain a key focus in 2007," Annaswamy added.
IBM chairman Samuel Palmisano, during his visit to India last year, had announced that the company would invest a whopping $6 billion over the next three years in India for expanding its offerings and consolidate its operations.
The subsidiary also trained about 80,000 students in 745 colleges in open standard based technologies last year.
New Delhi, Feb 1, IRNA ,
India has agreed to step up its naval surveillance of common waters with Sri Lanka to check activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), newly appointed Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said.
Bogollagama, who held talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee Wednesday, said his government was ready to give the LTTE a stake in the governmental processes if it shunned violence, but asserted that terrorism by the rebel group will be met with force, said a PTI report here.
"There is need for greater supervision and surveillance of the waters around Sri Lanka. India is our immediate neighbor and shares waters with us. It is imperative that we have cooperation on the naval front," said Bogollagama, who undertook a day-long visit here within 72 hours of becoming foreign minister.
"That (cooperation in naval surveillance) is getting further enhanced," he told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the situation in the island nation.
Highlighting the fact that he had chosen India as the first country he visited after getting the new assignment, he said it reflected the importance accorded to this country by his government.
He said he had come here to convey a message of "clarity" regarding Sri Lanka's standpoint and looked forward to greater cooperation between the two countries in the months to come.
Bogollagama said Sri Lanka looked forward to enhanced cooperation with India in various fields, including trade, commerce, railways and power, while underlining the need for a time-bound and "business-like" approach to their partnership.
He said he had discussed the issue of Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Singh and talks on it were expected to be launched by the middle of this year.
The NTPC has been hauled in to set up a coal-based power plant in Sri Lanka and cooperation in the field of railways was also being looked upon, he said.
Turning to Sunday's reshuffle, he said that in view of the development "LTTE will get signals to be part of the (peace) process rather than be out of it."
The Sri Lankan minister also rejected allegations of human rights violations, saying there was a lot of misrepresentation of facts.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) India has the potential to realise $60 billion in exports in IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors by 2010 if the industry focuses on excelling in operations, says an industry report.
India's IT industry is growing at a rate of about 31 percent, but the greatest challenge is that of maintaining leadership and growth, said a report compiled by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) and McKinsey & Company released here Thursday.
"This year, the way it is going, the industry is expected to reach 31 percent growth. We are right on our target to reach $60 billion mark in exports by 2010. However, the main challenge that remains is how to maintain leadership and how can we do better," NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik told a press conference.
"By focussing on operational excellence, we as the next frontier in offshoring can realise our aspiration of achieving $60 billion in exports," Karnik added.
Exports in the IT industry is expected to grow from $23.9 billion in 2005-06 to $31.9 billion in 2006-07, stated the report that was prepared after surveying 10 IT and 20 BPO companies over a 12-month period.
Other findings of the report stated that customers in the IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) industry are incredibly satisfied about what they achieved in India and the sector is growing exponentially because of its people.
"While the study validates that customers are highly satisfied with remote centres and as a result are ramping up their operations in India, it is also clear that their expectations are rising," said B. Ramalinga Raju, founder and chairman, Satyam Computer.
According to the report, data operations are generally performing better than voice operations and third party BPOs usually outperform captive BPOs due to operational excellence.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) India and Japan Thursday formally launched negotiations for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, covering areas like trade in goods and services as well as investment.
The negotiations are a follow up of recommendations made by a joint working group set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his then Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi here in Apr 2005.
The agenda includes a framework agreement and its scope and modalities in areas like trade in merchandise goods and services, besides bilateral investment.
While Commerce Secretary G.K. Pillai leads the Indian side at the talks, the Japanese Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs is heading his country's team.
Both sides are also keen to push up bilateral trade. India's exports to Japan in 2005-06 were $2.4 billion and imports $3.5 billion.
Major Indian exports are gems and jewellery, iron ore and marine products while major imports from Japan include machinery, electronic goods and iron and steel.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) India and Russia will exchange artists, reading materials and audiovisual programmes and cooperate in the education sector as part of a deal signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit.
The Cultural Exchange Programme agreement signed by Tourism Minister Ambika Soni and her Russian counterpart Alexander Sokolov last week covers folklore, music, theatre, ballet and circus too.
According to an official note released by the tourism ministry here, Russian libraries, including the Russian State Library, will exchange publications and other reading materials of mutual interest with the National Library of Kolkata.
"Both countries will exchange visits of curators and conservators of the museums for a period not exceeding 10 days."
India and Russia have also vowed to continue assistance to experts from both countries for joint studies of the heritage of the Roerich family - the famous Russian painter Nicholas Roerich died in Punjab and his son Svetoslav, also an eminent artist, made India his home.
While India will observe 2008 as 'Year of Russia', Russia will celebrate 'Year of India' in 2009.
Apart from encouraging cooperation for radio and television programmes, the two countries will also exchange textbooks, publication and audiovisual materials for high-school students.
The cooperation in the education sector includes joint exhibitions, seminars, research programmes and publications, training programmes for educational administrators and teachers.
There will also be promotional programmes of Hindi in Russia and vice versa. The cooperation will be extended to scientific information, social sciences and youth exchange programmes as well.
London, Feb 1 (IANS) A senior Indian bank manager with Barclays has been jailed for three years for defrauding the bank of more than 500,000 pounds.
Rajesh Patel, a qualified chartered accountant, felt he was not being paid enough despite earning 200,000 pounds annually and siphoned the money over four years. He also spent 161,000 pounds on his company credit card.
The 36-year old head of finance control at Barclays spent most of the money on a 750,000-pound house in Westminster, the Metro newspaper reported.
His crime was discovered in June 2006 when a 101,000 pound cheque was returned from a property company and Barclays found Patel had inserted the figure '10' before a payment of 1,000 pound.
"It is sad to see a man of your previously good reputation and skills here. The motive, to put it bluntly, was greed," the judge said Wednesday.
"You have lost your job, ruined your career, lost your home and good reputation. You only have yourself to blame for this," the judge added.
Patel pleaded guilty to charges of misusing the company credit card, deception and false accounting of expenses.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Indians wishing to travel to the US can expect an easier ride with the American embassy expecting to issue 800,000 visas this year - a feat that will make India the country from where the US issues the largest number of visas after neighbour Mexico.
This projected increase from 500,000 visas last year has been spurred by the focussed efforts of the US missions in India to reduce the waiting time for those seeking visa appointments.
One can now get a US visa appointment in six days at the click of a mouse by visiting the embassy's website www.vfs-usa.co.in.
"We have mastered the backlog in visas. We expect to issue 800,000 visas from India. This will make India only next to Mexico in terms of the number of US visas issued," US ambassador to India David C. Mulford told reporters here Thursday.
"And we don't even share a border with India," Mulford added in a lighter vein.
The envoy, however, admitted that getting visas takes slighter longer in Mumbai due to a lack of adequate personnel. In the same breath, he added that all efforts were being made, including deploying extra personnel, to correct this and fast-track issuance of visas.
As India and the US focus on expanding business bonds between them, especially after the civil nuclear deal last year, the US embassy here has made it its mission to cut down on delays in granting visas to Indians wishing to go the US.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Anil Ambani's power distribution company (distcom) BSES Yamuna Power Ltd has challenged a government panel decision exposing its functioning in the capital to public scrutiny under the Right to Information Act.
The Central Information Commission (CIC) had declared that the three private power distribution companies here - New Delhi Power Ltd (NDPL), BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL) and BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL) - were public entities.
But in a petition, BSES Yamuna Power has sought the direction of the high court staying the operation of CIC's Nov 30 decision in this regard.
Justice S.K. Kaul has issued notice to CIC and Delhi government to file their replies to the petition and ordered for stay in the execution of the impugned order till March 28, the next date of hearing.
"CIC failed to deal with and take note of the material on record, including the fact that distcoms had been duly incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, as limited companies on July 4, 2001 and could not be under the purview of the RTI Act," said the petition filed by advocate Amit Kapur.
The CIC had pronounced its decision in response to an application filed by Sarabjit Roy, a power consumer, who had sought information about the functioning and financial position of the distcoms.
Acting on the order of the CIC, the Delhi government had directed the distcoms to appoint public information officers and appellate authorities in their respective organisations as required under the RTI Act.
The distcoms said they did not fall under the purview of the act because they were not substantially financed by the central or the Delhi government.
Besides, none of the three distcoms were notified in the schedules to the Delhi RTI Act as was done in the case of the power department of the state government, DERC (Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission), Genco and Transco.
The issue before the court was what would be the measure to determine "control" and "substantially financed" in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act which came into effect Oct 12, 2005.
They said "control" would mean majority on the board of directors to influence the policies and working of the company and "substantially financed" would mean working capital apart from equity flowing in to sustain the firm's activities.
The petition also contended that the working capital and revenue did not flow from Delhi Power Supply Co Ltd or the state government.
The distcoms are mere joint ventures with majority stake with private operators, said the petition.
Tel Aviv, Feb 1 (DPA) Around 40 Israeli members of Knesset (parliament) called for the removal from office of President Moshe Katsav, who is being investigated on several charges including rape, local media reported Wednesday.
Israel's Knesset House Committee only recently approved a request by Katsav to take leave of absence, after the attorney general recommended he be indicted.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) As many as 29 people, witnesses to the 1999 murder of Delhi model Jessica Lall, were Thursday asked by the Delhi High Court to explain why they had retracted their original statements to police.
While issuing notices to these hostile witnesses, a division bench of judges R.S. Sodhi and P.K. Bhasin asked them to file separate affidavits within two weeks, detailing their respective reasons for turning hostile, and adjourned the matter till Feb 19.
While sentencing former Haryana minister and Congress leader Venod Sharma's son Manu Sharma with life imprisonment on Dec 20 for killing Jessica Lall in April 1999, the bench had summoned all the 32 hostile witnesses.
However, 29 of them, including model-turned-actor Shayn Munshi, appeared before the court in the morning and accepted the notice.
For their failure to turn up in time, the court promptly issued non-bailable arrest warrants against Viren Shah and Mukesh Saini and Narayan Singh. They, however, approached the court by afternoon and sought quashing of the arrest warrants against them.
Three other witnesses - Karan Rajput, Parikshit Sagar and Rupinder Singh - had died during the trial.
The bench directed prosecution counsel Mukta Gupta to provide the hostile witnesses within two days copies of the their statement recorded by police and the investigating officers' testimony.
Shyan, Shiv Dass Yadav, an electrician at Tamarind Court Café where the model was shot dead, and Jagannath Jha were among those eyewitnesses who had turned hostile during the trial.
Those served notices include Andaleeb Sehgal, ballistic expert Prem Sagar Minocha and Shankar Mukhia, an employee at Manu Sharma's farmhouse at Sambhalkha in Haryana, Abhijit Ghosal and Kulwinder Singh (known to another accused Yograj Singh, father of cricketer Yuvraj Singh).
Apart from sentencing Manu to life imprisonment, the court handed out four years' jail to Vikas Yadav and Amardeep Singh Gill for destruction of evidence.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) India's junior cricket selectors only go by players' batting and bowling, which is leading to talent being ignored, senior selection committee chairman Dilip Vengsarkar alleged.
"Now nobody knows where the talent is. The selectors at junior level now go by the aggregates and numbers," Vengsarkar said when asked about the dearth of talented spinners.
This is Vengsarkar's second harsh criticism on talent in India. The former India captain had a few months ago famously said that "there was no talent" in the country.
Vengsarkar was till recently head of the Talent, Research and Development Wing (TRDW), which was disbanded by the Sharad Pawar-led dispensation of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
As TRDW chief Vengsarkar travelled around the country, watching mostly junior age-group matches.
Vengsarkar is concerned about the dearth of talented spinners in a country that boasted of names like Bishan Singh Bedi, Bhagwat Chandresekhar and Erapalli Prasanna, who ruled the roost in the 70s and 80s. He wondered who would replace Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.
"We are obviously worried that apart from Harbhajan and Ramesh Powar, we don't have anybody ready for international cricket," he said in an interview to Cricinfo Magazine in the February issue.
Vengsarkar said that not only is the pool of talent depressingly small but it is also being further eroded by young spinners emerging with flawed bowling actions.
He also expressed dissatisfaction on the working of the National Cricket Academy's spin wing and the Chennai-based M.A.C Spin Academy.
"The actions of the bowlers at the junior level need to be sorted out. When I was the Talent Research Development Officer I had pointed out a few suspect actions, but nothing was done about it," he disclosed.
"As a result they continued playing until they were reported at big events such as the under-19 World Cup (in Sri Lanka in 2006)."
Gujarat's Mohnish Parmar never really knew he was doing something wrong until he was reported at the under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka in 2006 and sent for rehabilitation at the age of 18.
Rajesh Sharma was recently barred from playing for Punjab while Amal Kokje, the Madhya Pradesh off-spinner, faced similar destiny.
India's spin drought is akin to the decline of fast bowling in the Caribbean in the 90s, after Malcolm Marshall, Micheal Holding, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose dominated the scene.
Former India leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani, who retired from first-class cricket last season, said: "We always tend to neglect what we have in abundance. We run after other things. We have been concentrating on fast bowlers and now we are getting good fast bowlers, but we haven't focused enough on the spinners."
Hirwani felt that every team should employ a specialist spin bowling coach.
"To encourage spinners, every team should have a bowling coach. If you have specialist fast-bowling coaches and fielding coaches, why not have a spin coach, especially considering that India are losing out on spin resources?"
Another former leggie V.V. Kumar said that spinners should be given exposure at a young age.
"Blood them in whenever the opportunity arrives. Play them against Bangladesh. Anybody who is bowling in the Ranji Trophy should be ready, but he has to be given the confidence and focus," he said.
LONDON, Feb 1 (NNN-KUNA) -- British forensic officers spent last night searching 12 properties in Birmingham, central England, in connection with an alleged plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier, police said Thursday.
The police are continuing to question nine men arrested over what security sources say was a plan to film the soldier being executed and post it on the web.
A Muslim serviceman who had served in Afghanistan and was on home leave was thought to be the target of the plot, according to press reports here.
Police said the investigation was likely to take "days, if not weeks".
Officers sealed off roads across the city and are continuing to search homes and commercial premises.
A large Moslem community lives in Birmingham.
All nine were arrested under the UK Terrorism Act, meaning police have a maximum of 28 days to hold them.
They are being held at police stations in central England.
Meanwhile, the BBC said the British Ministry of Defence is worried such alleged plots could hinder efforts to recruit more Muslims.
There are currently 248 Muslims in the British armed forces, out of a total of 100,000 personnel.
Yesterdays arrests, orchestrated by police and the domestic British intelligence service known as "MI5" followed many months of activity.
Police swooped on 12 addresses in Birmingham in the early hours of yesterday morning and made eight arrests.
Among them were two houses, a general food store and the "Maktabah" book store.
Less than 12 hours later, police announced in a press conference they had arrested a ninth person in the Birmingham area.
Assistant Chief Constable David Shaw told reporters "That illustrates to you that this remains a dynamic, fluid operation and this is by no means finished." He described being at "the foothills" of "a very, very major investigation".
British security sources said a terror plot which was not aimed at mass casualties, would mark "a different approach" to UK terrorism.
And Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former chairman of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee, said kidnappings in the UK would be "much nearer a form of psychological warfare that we've seen obviously elsewhere".
Mumbai, Feb 1 (IANS) Brisk polling was under way Thursday for India's richest civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), and nine other corporations in Maharashtra.
More than 8.4 million voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to select from among 2,376 candidates to fill up BMC's 227 seats.
As polling began at 7.30 a.m., voters queued up at all 13,616 polling booths spread over Mumbai and elsewhere. Mumbai, India's financial and movie capital, has 6,951 polling stations.
This is the first time electronic voting machines are being used in the civic polls.
Riot police and the State Reserve Police personnel were deployed at strategic locations in Mumbai, which last year saw a terrible terrorist attack on its busy rail network.
All eyes are on the key players: the Shiv Sena of Bal Thackeray, his estranged nephew Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Shiv Sena ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress.
The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance is in power in Mumbai and controls three of the nine other corporations (Thane, Nasik and Akola).
The Congress is in command in the Nagpur, Amravati, Pune and Solapur corporations while NCP runs the Pimpri-Chinchwad and Ulhasnagar corporations.Voting will end at 5.30 p.m. and results declared at 4 p.m. Friday.
Mumbai, Feb 1 (IANS) Well over 50 percent of the voters in 10 municipal corporations in Maharashtra cast their votes in the crucial civic elections Thursday amid stray incidents of violence, poll malpractices and goof-ups.
Voting that began a 8.30 a.m. ended at 5.30 a.m. Counting of votes will be taken up Friday and the results will be declared the same evening.
The elections were held to elect 1,158 ward representatives from among 9,247 candidates at 13,616 polling stations in the state's 10 bigger cities including Mumbai.
The civic bodies apart from the one in the country's commercial capital that went to poll using electronic voting machines (EVMs) were Nagpur, Pune, Thane, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Solapur, Ulhasnagar, Akola and Amravati.
While the polling percentage crossed the 60 percent mark in Nashik and ranged between 50 and 60 elsewhere, it remained below 40 in Mumbai where much enthusiasm was witnessed for the major part of the day.
A galaxy of film personalities including Sanjay Dutt, Aamir Khan, Preity Zinta, Hema Malini, Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Gulzar, Yash Chopra, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Kunal Kohli exercised their franchise and gave sound bytes to TV channels expressing their concern about lack of civic amenities in the metropolis.
Clashes involving activists of Shiv Sena, Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena (MNS) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) were reported from central Mumbai, Kamathipura in south Mumbai, Andheri, Thane, Nashik, Ulhasnagar, Akola and Nagpur.
While polling was called off at a booth in Ulhasnagar for some time following its ransacking by some activists allegedly belonging to the NCP, a case of bogus voting was detected in Mumbra under the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC).
In Ambewadi area of Andheri, some voters who had recently shifted to Manukhurd alleged that they were manhandled by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers when they came to cast their votes because their names existed on the rolls there.
The stray incidents mercifully belied fears of large-scale violence in view of the fierce rivalry witnessed between the activists of the Shiv Sena on the one hand and between those of the Congress and NCP on the other.
As many as 343 out of 6,951 polling stations in Mumbai with a voter strength of over eight million were declared sensitive. The number of sensitive booths in the neighbouring Thane was even more - 344 and that in the state's second capital Nagpur 263.
As polling began on a brisk note in Mumbai, expectations of a high vote percentage rose among political workers and observers only to reconcile to the reality that it ultimately remained where it normally does in the metropolis - below 40 per cent.
The earlier pessimism of a drop in the polling average too was proved wrong. Some pollsters had predicted the drop because of a chaotic election scene marked by the presence of a myriad of loosely held groupings and independents, apart from major political parties.
While the Congress, having five out of six MPs, 17 out of 34 legislators and 63 out of 227 ward members on its side in Mumbai, made an all-out bid to wrest the 227-member BMC from the ruling saffron alliance on its own steam, the NCP having grown in strength spectacularly in the last two years is expected to take a quantum jump from 14 to 40 in the civic body.
In the face of such a fierce onslaught from the Congress and NCP and a considerable challenge posed by Raj Thackeray's MNS, the 139-strong Sena-BJP alliance is fighting with its back to the wall to retain its control over the country's largest civic body which has an annual budget of Rs.120 billion.
A close finish is on the cards in Thane, Pune and its satellite township of Pimpri-Chinchwad with NCP appearing to have an edge and in Nashik, Solapur and Nagpur. In Amravati and Akola in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, a Congress victory is being considered a certainty.
The Congress is ruling in four of the 10 municipal corporations (Nagpur, Amravati, Pune and Solapur), NCP in two (Pimpri-Chinchwad and Ulhasnagar) and Shiv Sena-BJP in the remaining four, that is Brihanmumbai, Thane, Nashik (Sena in the lead) and Akola (BJP in the lead).
Leading the party campaign for the civic polls like a man possessed, the Mumbai unit president of the Congress, Gurudas Kamat expressed confidence Wednesday about his party winning 120 seats in the BMC, that is a good six over and above the majority mark though the most liberal among a myriad pre-poll surveys have given the party no more than 85 seats.
On the other hand, BJP state unit secretary Vinod Tawde asserted that the saffron alliance would win eight of the civic bodies that went to poll.
A number of pre-poll surveys conducted for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) towards the end of the election run-up have given between 70-85 seats to Congress (present strength 63), 60-75 seats to Shiv Sena (present strength 104), 35-40 seats to its ally BJP (present strength 35) and about 30 seats to NCP (present strength 14).
Mumbai, Feb 1 (IANS) Governor S.M. Krishna, the first citizen of Maharashtra, was unable to cast his vote Thursday for the capital's civic polls as his name was missing from the voter's list.
The civic polls are Krishna's first since he become governor in December 2004. He was surprised to find his name was not in the voter's list for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, Raj Bhavan sources said.
While, the sources put the blame on the State Election Commission for what it described as an "oversight" in not carrying out the formalities for including Krishna's name, the commission maintained it was the "duty of every citizen to register himself as a voter".
"Certain formalities by the concerned authorities had not been completed, and as a result the governor will not be able to vote for the civic polls," a Raj Bhavan spokesman said.
"Generally, the concerned authorities contact the Raj Bhavan to register the governor's name in the voter's list, but this was not done."
A state Election Commission official countered: "We do not approach anyone to register with the commission. It is the duty of every citizen to register himself or herself as a voter."
"The governor's name should have been on the voter's list. He is after all the first citizen of the state," a Raj Bhavan official said.
Dhenkanal (Orissa), Feb 1 (IANS) Maoists Thursday shot dead three forest officials and kidnapped two others in Orissa's Dhenkanal district, officials here said.
A group of Maoists entered the Kandar forest office, 70 km from Dhenkanal town, and killed the officials, said divisional forest officer M.M. Panigrahi.
The victims were identified as Ghanashyam Behera, Nilamani Mallick and Kumud Sama.
After killing them, the Maoists kidnapped two officials, Prasant Nayak and Bishnu Sethi. "After confining them for a few hours, the two were released," Panigrahi told IANS.
London, Feb 1, IRNA ,
Britain's Stop The War Coalition (STWC) is launching a new Muslim network to help strengthen the country's anti-war campaign at a time of intensifying Islamophobic attacks against the 1.8 million community.
From the outset, Muslims have played a very important role in building the anti-war movement but as the attacks on the community increase the "need for Muslims to fight back will increase further," STWC said.
"The anti-war coalition has shown all of us what uniting and working together can achieve. The coalition in Britain could not have been so successful if it was not for the conscious decision to reach out to different groups," it said.
The new Muslim network was launched in the northwestern English city of Manchester Saturday. A further launch meeting is to be held in London on February 11.
Muslim organizations have been an integral part of the STWC since it was established following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. It has grown to become Britain's biggest campaign group with the Iraq war, organizing the largest-ever peace demonstrations seen in London.
The umbrella organization has also taken up such issues as the plight of the Palestinians and the threats being made against Iran and has also been challenging the growth of Islamophobia in the UK.
STWC said that Prime Minister Tony Blair's disastrous foreign policy was unraveling with the chaos and increasing fatalities in Iraq and that he was "looking for people to blame."
The new Muslim network said it was "our religion that gives us our inspiration to oppose imperialism and oppression" and that much support for the anti-war movement had been built up through local mosques.
The initiative was said not to be about working in isolation but "in organizing so that we are better able to unite ourselves and unite with non-Muslims alike."
Bhopal, Feb 1 (IANS) A two-day national e-governance conference kicks off here Friday that will deliberate on various subjects including community participation in e-governance and also have an exhibition showcasing IT enabled services and e-governance initiatives of states.
The theme of the event, titled 'Enabling government to accelerate transformation', is being attended by principal secretaries of different states, IT advisors and representatives of several IT firms.
It has been organised under the auspices of the central IT ministry, department of administrative reforms and public grievances and the Madhya Pradesh IT department.
"The conference will be quite unique as instead of just technical deliberation sessions and lectures, there will be exchange of views through interactive sessions," said state IT and Power Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya.
The event will be presided over by central Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions Suresh Pachauri. It will feature discussions on subjects including, change in government processes, purchase of hardware and software and setting up of computer kiosks in rural areas. Pachauri will release 'e-Readiness Report 2005' on the occasion.
National awards for e-governance initiatives and best paper for the compendium will also be presented.
Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), Feb 1 (IANS) The Gorakhpur administration Thursday invoked the National Security Act (NSA) against four people for fuelling communal violence four days ago that left two dead.
Meanwhile, curfew continued for the fourth day in the riot-hit town.
"Of the 350 persons rounded up in the city so far, four have been booked under NSA for their direct involvement in inciting and fuelling violence and arson," Senior Superintendent of Police S.K. Bhagat told IANS. "Of the others, many were arrested only as a preventive measure," he added.
"Though the situation was well under control and no untoward incident was reported over the past 48 hours, we propose to let the curfew continue for at least another day, because we cannot take any chances," Bhagat added.
However, the administration was maintaining supply of essential goods in the riot-affected areas through state-run mobile vans.
On Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Yogi Adityanath's arrest triggered fresh violence that surfaced again Monday with his followers coming out on streets hurling stones at policemen, attacking public and private property.
However, the administration disallowed entry of leaders of different political parties to the town.
A scuffle between two individuals Saturday night accidentally led to a person in a Muharram procession being shot, triggering large-scale arson.
On Monday night, a youth was shot dead by unidentified miscreants when curfew was relaxed.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) The Union Cabinet Thursday decided to promulgate an ordinance to make it mandatory for private telecasters and broadcasters, owning exclusive rights to cover sports events of national importance, to share their clean live signals with public broadcaster Prasar Bharati.
The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi.
The government decided promulgate an ordinance within days of Delhi High Court restraining it from compelling Nimbus Communication Ltd to share their exclusive live video feeds of the just concluded one-day series between India and the West Indies.
As per the court directions, the government-run Doordarshan had to be content with a seven-minute delayed video feeds from Nimbus, though the All India Radio (AIR) were granted access to Nimbus' live audio signals of the match commentary.
The ordinance, The Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) Ordinance 2007, will become law after President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gives his assent.
The government would introduce a bill during the coming Budget session of Parliament to replace the ordinance, said Dashmunshi.
"The ordnance will make it mandatory for every content right owner and television and radio broadcasting service provider to share the live telecast without its advertisement for various sporting events of national importance," he added.
The minister said it would also have a provision for constitution of a committee comprising officials from the ministry of sports and youth affairs and various other relevant sporting bodies like the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and others to decide what sporting event is of national importance.
The audio visual content provider for telecasting or broadcasting will have to provide signal for all sporting events in which India is participating irrespective of whether it is being held within the country or abroad, said Dasmunshi.
The minister said in case of one-day cricket matches involving India, the content provider will have to share their live feeds with Doordarshan and AIR for the full match, irrespective of where it is being held.
In the case of Test matches with India participating in it within the country, the content provider will have to share the signals of the entire match, Dasmunshi added.
However, in the case of India playing a Test abroad, the content provider will have to give only highlights of the match, he said.
In all cases, the content providers will have to share their clean signal free of their advertisements, Dasmunshi said, adding that the decision to promulgate the ordinance was taken to enable the country's viewers to witness all national sporting events on free-to-air basis on Doordashan.
He said the government does not want the content providers to end up suffering financial losses in the process of sharing their live feeds with Doordarshan owing to "stealing of their signals during uplinking or downlinking process by local cable operators."
For this, the government would constitute a committee of telecasting engineers and experts to examine the feasibility of preventing such unauthorized poaching of signals, Dasmunshi said, adding that the government would act on the recommendation of the committee.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee travels to Iran on a crucial two-day visit next week that will underscore close bilateral ties despite India's vote against the Iranian nuclear programme.
This will be the first visit by Mukherjee to a country outside India's immediate neighbourhood and the first visit by a senior Indian functionary since New Delhi voted against the Iranian nuclear programme twice at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over the last 18 months.
K. Natwar Singh was the last Indian foreign minister to visit Tehran in September 2005.
Mukherjee's visit will be closely watched in the US that enacted a law last month to open the doors of global nuclear commerce with India in return for New Delhi placing 14 of its 22 nuclear reactors under international safeguards and cooperating with Washington on isolating and dissuading Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
The pricing of gas through a $7 billion tri-nation pipeline facilitating the supply of Iranian gas via Pakistan to India will figure prominently in discussions. The three countries are said to have agreed on a pricing formula of the Iranian gas - a subject of intense negotiations for the past few months - at a meeting in Tehran last month.
Besides the trans-national pipeline, Mukherjee will also discuss with his counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki the precarious security situation in Afghanistan in whose stability both countries have significant stakes.
Significantly, Mukherjee's trip to Tehran takes place weeks after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Iranian issue and agreed to cooperate to find "an effective solution" to the Iranian nuclear standoff through "political and diplomatic efforts."
India has backed Iran's peaceful use of nuclear energy but has defended the vote against the Iranian nuclear programme, arguing that a nuclear-weapon Iran is not in its national interests.
Mukherjee's visit has domestic dimension as well with some political observers pointing out that the visit is aimed at winning support of the sizeable Shia population in Uttar Pradesh that goes to polls in a few months.
The Iranian nuclear issue will figure prominently in a trilateral meeting of Indian, Russian and Chinese foreign ministers later this month here after Mukherjee returns from Tehran.
Jaipur, Feb 1 (IANS) The Rajasthan government has begun the move to relocate abutting villages at the Sariska tiger reserve. The move is expected to help curb poaching, which had led to the entire tiger population being wiped out.
"We have started the process of rehabilitation of two of the villages in the tiger reserve," Forest Minister L.N. Dave told IANS.
Authorities are removing juliflora trees, better known as babool in northern India, from land where the families are to be shifted. "We are confident of completing this in two months," he said.
Dave said that initially over 150 families living in Bhagani and Kankarwari villages would be rehabilitated in Barod Rundh village near Behror in Alwar district.
"The work to open bank accounts for these families has started and maps of their houses have been made," he added. Later, two more villages, Umari and Kirisana, will be moved.
The shifting of the four villages is part of the project to rehabilitate tigers in Sariska. The government plans to relocate all the 15 villages situated inside the reserve in a bid to save the dwindling tiger population.
The government has identified 22,267 hectares in Barod Rundh village to provide new homes to the villagers.
Earlier, the forest department and the government had faced criticism over the disappearance of tigers from Sariska.
A report in March 2005 by the Wildlife Institute of India confirmed that there were indeed no tigers left in the Sariska reserve.
The reserve was established in 1978, having once been a hunting preserve for the royalty.
At present it covers an area of 881 sq km of undulating plateaus and wide valleys, with a vegetation mostly of dry deciduous forest. Poachers have also targeted other animals such as leopards.
Jakarta, Feb 1 (DPA) A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck the southern part of Indonesia's Java Island early Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
The trembler occurred about 3:31 a.m. (2031 GMT Wednesday) and was centred in the Indian Ocean, 147 km southeast of Sukabumi district in West Java, said Aprilyanto, an official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Jakarta.
The quake struck at a depth of 59 km beneath the seabed, he said, and was felt along a wide stretch of the southern coast of West Java, but there were no reports of injuries or damage.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, is prone to earthquakes because the country sits on Asia's so-called 'Ring of Fire' where continental plates collide and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common.
Mumbai, Feb 1 (IANS) Defying predictions of a low turnout, voters in 10 Maharashtra municipal corporations Thursday queued up in large numbers to choose 1,158 ward representatives in an election polarised between the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance and the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Amongst the 10 corporations going to the polls is the 227-member Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mumbai's civic body that is the richest in India. The others are Nagpur, Amravati, Pune, Solapur, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Nashik and Akola. In the fray are 9,247 candidates.
Over 16.7 million voters are registered to cast their franchise using 19,580 polling machines installed at 13,616 polling stations.
No major incident of violence or electoral malpractice was reported from anywhere, with fairly long queues seen at several polling stations, particularly in slums near this metropolis.
Observers have already begun revising their predictions of a low turnout in the multicornered election.
But Mumbai seemed to reverse the trend with pollsters expecting voter turnout to drop from the average 40 percent because of a chaotic election scene with myriad loosely held groupings and independents apart from the four key players - the Congress, NCP, Shiv Sena, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the newly formed Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena (MNS).
The anticipated low voter turnout was expected to benefit the ruling Sena-BJP alliance with traditional voters trusted to support them in any case. An above average turnout would mean a harvest of new voters reaped by the others, particularly MNS, started by Bal Thackeray's estranged nephew Raj who broke away from the Shiv Sena.
"Voter turnout reached 20 percent in Mumbai and 24 percent in Pune by 1 p.m.," State Election Commission official Suryavanshi told IANS. "Though polling was brisk in the morning it slowed down as the day progressed."
Political leaders, however, are confident that the percentage will increase towards close of polling.
"We are confident the voter turnout will increase by the time polling ends. A high voter turnout will go in favour of the Shiv Sena," said senior Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi.
MNS leader Raj Thackeray, for whom this election is a crucial testing ground, was also confident a bigger turnout would go in their favour.
Narayan Rane, who also left the Shiv Sena but to join the Congress, was equally confident that his party would wrest BMC from the Sena-BJP.
"It is no longer a Shiv Sena stronghold. Since Narayan Rane has joined the Congress, it is a Congress stronghold. Congress candidates will win in Mumbai or even all of Maharashtra," Rane told a television channel Thursday.
Whatever be the final results, it is clear that the 139-strong Sena-BJP alliance is fighting with its back to the wall to retain control of the country's largest civic body that has an annual budget outlay of Rs.120 billion.
A close finish is also on the cards in Thane, Pune and its satellite township of Pimpri-Chinchwad. In Amravati and Akola in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, a Congress victory is being considered a certainty.
While the Congress rules in four of the 10 municipal corporations (Nagpur, Amravati, Pune and Solapur), NCP dominates in two (Pimpri-Chinchwad and Ulhasnagar) and Sena-BJP in Brihanmumbai, Thane, Nashik and Akola.
As many as 343 out of 6,951 polling stations in Mumbai with a voter strength of over eight million have been declared sensitive. The number of sensitive booths in the neighbouring Thane is even more at 344. In Nagpur, the state's second capital, there are 263 sensitive booths.
This is the first time electronic voting machines are being used in the civic polls.
Moscow, Feb 1, IRNA,
Russian President Vladimir Putin here on Thursday stressed Iranians' right to acquire advanced nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
He made the remarks at a news conference in Kremlin where he underlined the need for finding a way to ensure Iran's right to access civilian nuclear technology and to remove any concerns in this respect.
Pointing to the enhanced cooperation between Iran and Russia in all arenas including military and technical fields, he added that Moscow will continue negotiations with the Western parties to settle Tehran's nuclear problem.
Referring to the Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov's recent visit of Tehran, Putin noted that the event will help the parties involved to adopt close stance on the issue.
Iran should try to settle the dispute over its nuclear program by continuing cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said.
He expressed hope that given the all parties' cooperation and considering IAEA Director General Mohamed Elbaradei's suggestion, Iran's nuclear dossier would be settled through diplomatic manners.
By Sangzuala Hmar,
Aizawl, Feb 1 (IANS) Several incidents of burnt Bibles, vandalised churches and defiled cemeteries in Mizoram in the past year have fuelled suspicion that Satan worship is on the rise in the northeastern state.
In July 2006, the Kawnpui Hmar Veng Presbyterian Church was vandalised by suspected Satan worshippers. The church's altar was desecrated, Bibles were torn into pieces and burnt, and one church elder even claimed that drops of blood had been found.
Two months later, the Kolasib Presbyterian Church seemed to have been targeted, with burnt Bibles and a desecrated altar.
In November, five youths were caught filming semi-nude inside a non-functional United Pentecostal Church (UPC) on the outskirts of Aizawl. They told a church elder that they were shooting a satanic scene for an anti-Satan film.
A month later, two churches in Lunglei, known as the second capital of Mizoram, were found desecrated and vandalised. Police nabbed two people who apparently confessed to their crime saying they had acted according to their beliefs.
Psychologists and church workers say the influence of Western movies could be fuelling such heinous acts.
Rev. Vanlalchhuanawma, vice principal of the Aizawl Theological College, said it could be an outcome of parents neglecting their children.
"The rotten seed we sowed bore us nothing but rotten fruits, it's high time we practiced family values at home and took good care of our children," he said.
In December 2006, a local weekly conducted a survey on Satanism in the state and said there could be more than hundred Satan worshippers.
It was reported that the Council for World Mission had also asked the Presbyterian Church of Mizoram if Satan worship had grown rapidly, as was written in The Washington Times.
A seven-page report earlier prepared by the faculty of Aizawl Theological College said that Satanic rituals made it mandatory to practice illicit, even unnatural sex, incest and the use of psychotropic drugs. The powerful Presbyterian Church authorised the research by the college.
The report, submitted to the Aizawl district Superintendent of Police, quoted some boys and girls involved in the rituals as saying: "We sat silently during devotional meetings in our home and worshipped Lucifer."
Dubai, Feb 1 (IANS) Inspite of a 3-1 series win over the West Indies in the four match one-day series India could not improve their rankings and are still lying sixth in the International Cricket Council (ICC) one-day international team rankings.
But with another four match-series lined up against Sri Lanka starting Feb 8, India will have plenty of scope to move up in the rankings.
In fact, with 10 of the 11 sides in action over the next few weeks - the West Indies is the exception - the chances are that there will be significant changes in the standings before the World Cup starts March 13.
Indeed, by the time tournament begins, India could still be in sixth place in the table or perhaps as high as third.
Australia is the still top team with 135 points and are followed by second placed South Africa, who have 126 points. Pakistan is third with 112 points.
ODI Teams' Rankings
1. Australia 135 points
2. South Africa 126
3. Pakistan 112
4. New Zealand 110
5. Sri Lanka 109
6. India 108
7. West Indies 101
8. England 97
9. Bangladesh 41
10. Zimbabwe 23
11. Kenya 0
By Arvind Padmanabhan,
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) The deal struck by the Tatas in acquiring Corus for some $12 billion is not only a part of the ongoing consolidation in the global steel business but also an icing on India's emergence as an important player in overseas investment deals. And it is only befitting that the mega deal happened in the 100th year of Tata Steel, a company founded in 1907.
Analysts may debate on the feasibility of the price paid for acquiring Corus. They, nevertheless, do believe that the move will catapult Tatas - India's largest private sector conglomerate with 96 companies in its fold and a collective market capitalisation of $49 billion - from 56th position in global steel production to ninth, giving them the much needed manoeuvering space in securing raw material supplies and delivering finished products.
But is the price really that high, even forcing rating agencies like Standard and Poor's to put the Tats on credit watch for revising the bid price by almost 40 percent? There are several benchmarks. Using the price paid by Lakshmi Niwas Mittal for Arcelor in terms of the steel production capacity of the acquired company as a benchmark, the 608 pence per Corus share does not appear that high. While Mittal paid $720 per tonne, the acquisition price amounts to $620 per tonne for the Tatas.
Critics also argue that the price of $12 billion is also high at nine times the earnings of Corus before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, but the Tatas maintain it would have taken years for them to build a greenfield steel project in Europe from scratch, while in Corus they have a company that not only has the right capacity but with similar management style.
More importantly, the acquisition gives the Tatas to emerge as a major player globally as the top 15 producers account for a third of global production estimated at 1.2 billion tones.
The challenge ahead will be to integrate the operations of the two steel producers, which may be long and arduous, even though the fact Corus executives approached the Tatas for the takeover will assist matters. Even though Tata Steel is itself a low-cost producer of steel, it will also have a lot to learn from Corus - its plant in The Netherlands is among the lowest-cost producers of the commodity in Europe, the market the Tatas are targeting with the acquisition. The Tatas will have to contend with the highly cyclical operations of Corus that has seen it reap robust profits for a few years only to be driven to the verge of bankruptcy few years later.
The integration will mean that together with Corus, the Tatas would account for some 25 million tonnes or two percent of the global steel output. The Arcelor-Mittal combine entity with 115 million tonnes has a 10 percent market share. The Tatas also feel that integrated operations in terms of raw material procurement, production and distribution will help the combined entity save some $300 million annually.
The Tatas also will not sit idle post-Corus deal. Having acquired two steel producers in East Asia over the past two years for $421 million - Singapore's NatSteel and Thailand's Millennium Steel - the Tatas had already joined the global consolidation game in the steel space.
Globally, from Australia to the US and from Europe to South America, producers are seeking to integrate and consolidate their operations through a mix of mergers and strategic alliances with other steel mills for better product mix and economies of scale. They are also integrating with raw material providers to secure supplies and with distributors for keeping the order books packed.
In fact, recent weeks have seen Russia's Everaz Group acquire Oregan Steel of the US for $2.3 billion to form a 17 million tonne entity. Baosteel of China has bought a 70 percent stake in Bayi Iron and Steel, ans Gerdau Ameristeel have hiked their stakes in Siderperu of Peru and proposes a similar strategy with Sidenor of Spain.
On a more macro canvas, what does the Tata-Corus deal mean for India? As far as steel production is concerned, India has still a long way to go as it currently tanks seventh in production with 44 million tonnes, ahead of Ukraine's 40.9 million, Brazil's 30.9 million and Turkey's 20.3 million. In contrast, China with 418 million tonnes is the largest producer, followed by EU's 198 million, Japan's 116 million and US' 98.5 million.
But for corporate India, in general, the deal is the biggest-ever overseas acquisition by a home-grown company and is more than the $7 billion or so that the country expects as inward flow of foreign capital in the current fiscal. It also shows that the outbound mergers by Indian companies are getting more dispersed across industries and not restricted to software and pharmaceuticals alone.
It also demonstrates that size does not matter for acquisitions and global financiers are ready to fund Indian companies that are now seen as having professional managements and the skills to successfully clinch global deals.
For Ratan Tata, the 69-year-old chairperson of the Tata group, the deal may be a moment of great fulfillment. But for corporate India it reflects the strength of the nation's economy, which many predict will become the third largest in a decade.
Jammu, Feb 1 (IANS) An Indian solider was Thursday arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir police in mountainous Poonch district on a charge of having links with militants.
Shamim, a soldier of the 12 battalion of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JAKLI) posted here, was taken into custody from his hometown Mendhar, 210 km northwest of Jammu. He was visiting the town on leave.
"We had received inputs from intelligence that the soldier has links with militants," a senior police official said.
Police officials in Mendhar were interrogating the soldier and his mobile phone calls record was also verified "to see if he has received or made calls to militants".
"The interrogation is still on and we will be able to say anything only after the question of the soldier is done," the official said.
Last year, two soldiers and a police constable were arrested in Poonch district for their alleged links and providing support to militants.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Congress President Sonia Gandhi Thursday participated in a tribal dance at the Surajkund crafts fair in Haryana and enthusiastically went around the stalls put up by various Indian states.
Gandhi, looking smart in a blue silk sari and navy blue coat, put her arms around the shoulders of Haryana Tourism Minister Kiran Chowdhury and a young tribal woman dancer as she stepped in tandem to the beatings of drums.
The United Progressive Alliance chairperson, known for her passion for arts and crafts, inaugurated the 15-day-long 21st Surajkund Crafts Mela, in which over 350 craftspeople, including those from South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, will showcase their skills.
The theme state for this year's fair is Andhra Pradesh.
Tourism Minister Ambika Soni, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Andhra Pradesh Tourism Minister J. Geeta Reddy attended the inaugural function.
Artistes and craftspeople from Thailand, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are participating in the fair.
Organised by Haryana Tourism and the central tourism and textiles ministries, the festival will also have a kite flying competition, a painting competition to commemorate the 2,550th year of Lord Buddha's Mahaparnirvana (enlightenment), designer workshops, folk dances and theatre performances.
The annual crafts fair, which began in 1981, has some of the finest handlooms and handicrafts of the country on exhibition.
Baghdad, Feb 1 (NNN-KUNA) A suicidal bomber detonated his bomb inside a public bus in the Iraqi capital on Thursday causing death of six people and wounding 12 others, a police source said.
The explosion, that occurred near a hospital in Al-Karradah area, central Baghdad, damaged scores of shops and cars, the source said.(end) ahh.
Firing, explosion in Pakistani tribal area kill five people
By Arun Kumar,
Washington, Feb 1 (IANS) Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams and International Space Station commander Mike Lopez-Alegria went on a seven-hour, 55-minute space walk in the first of an unprecedented three outings in nine days.
The duo returned to their home in space through the Quest airlock at 4:39 a.m. IST Thursday after working on the reconfiguration of the station's power and cooling systems, US space agency NASA said. They are scheduled to take their second space walk Feb 4 and the third Feb 8.
While flight engineer Williams - wearing an all-white suit - reconfigured electrical connections, Lopez-Alegria - in the lead in a suit with red stripes - worked at the "rats' nest", an area near the base of the Z1 Truss with numerous fluid and electrical connections.
As the space walkers stood by, the ground control retracted the starboard radiator of the P6 Truss. After retraction, they installed six cable cinches and two winch bars to secure the radiator and then installed a shroud over it.
Williams and Lopez-Alegria then moved to the Early Ammonia Servicer on the P6 Truss. It provided a contingency supply of ammonia for the temporary Early Ammonia System. With the permanent cooling system working, it is no longer needed.
The space walkers removed one of two fluid lines from the servicer, which will be jettisoned this summer. Because of time constraints, the second will be removed on a subsequent space walk.
About 25 minutes of the space walk was spent in a "bakeout" after crewmembers had re-entered the airlock. It was done as a precaution to prevent any possibility of ammonia from the fluid lines the space walkers had worked with entering the station.
The three space walks from the Quest airlock in US spacesuits and a Russian space walk scheduled for Feb 22 are the most ever done by station crew members during a single month.
They also will bring to 10 the total number of space walks by Lopez-Alegria, an astronaut record. Williams will have a total of four, the most ever by a woman.
Starting from scratch, it takes about 100 crewmember hours to prepare for a space walk. By doing space walks a few days apart, considerable crew time can be saved by not having to repeat some of those preparatory steps.
Already spanning an acre in orbit, the International Space Station this year will grow faster in size, power, volume and mass than ever before, significantly expanding its capabilities and setting new records for humans in orbit.
"This will be a challenging, but rewarding year for the station programme," said Kirk Shireman, the deputy programme manager for the ISS.
"The station's operations will grow both in orbit and on earth. As we launch new international components this year, we also will begin new flight control operations from facilities around the world."
In addition to control centres in the US, Russia and Canada, control centres for the station also will be activated in France, Germany and Japan, allowing NASA's partners to oversee their contributions to the station.
In 2007, NASA and Russia plan to conduct as many as 24 space walks, more than has ever been done in a single year.
This also will be a year of unparalleled robotic operations. For the first time, the station's robotic arm will be used to assemble large, pressurized components without a shuttle present.
As the station breaks new ground in its use of robotics, its robotics system will also grow with the arrival of the Canadian Space Agency's Dextre robotic system. An almost human-shaped two-armed system, it will enable the robotics to perform even more intricate maintenance and servicing tasks, which previously would have required space walks.
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Civic authorities in the national capital did not carry out any drive against commercial establishments running illegally in residential areas Thursday even as the Supreme Court is set to decide the future of traders Friday.
"Baring our routine drive, we did not carry out any special drive against shops running in residential areas. The apex court will hear the case Friday and after that we will take appropriate action," said a Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) official.
Jan 31 was the last day for the city traders to submit affidavits appealing the apex court to spare them from the sealing drive. In November last year, the court had granted them temporary relief till Jan 31.
The MCD official, however, said that they took action against 64 establishments for encroaching upon the government land Thursday.
A court-appointed monitoring committee said that they had furnished all their reports to the apex court and it will give appropriate direction Friday.
The three-member committee, headed by retired bureaucrat K.J. Rao, was entrusted with the job of looking after the sealing of commercial establishments running in residential areas.
"As per the direction, we have been submitting weekly reports in the court and the judiciary will give us further direction tomorrow," Rao told IANS.
He, however, said that they have not received any report from the MCD on the number of affidavits submitted by traders before the Jan 31 deadline. "We expect the report to reach us by Friday morning."
According the MCD, 44,675 traders from all the 12 zones have submitted their affidavit during the last extension of the deadline.
Meanwhile, anxious city traders said they were expecting a favourable order from the court.
"Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy has assured us that there would be no sealing till Feb 7, before which date the government will implement the new master plan for Delhi (MPD). We hope the court will take note of our concern and help us to sustain our livelihood," said Praveen Khandel