EU still awaiting Iran's positive response to 5+1 package

Paris, July 13, IRNA ,French Foreign Minister Filippe Douste lazie, reading out the closing communique of Paris Talks to the press reporters, said here on Wednesday evening, "We are still waiting for Iran's positive response to our package of proposals."
According to IRNA's correspondent in France, the French foreign inister who was reading out the communique among his counterparts and the media reporters, added, "The Iranians have still presented no serious response to our proposal."
He added, "We express our deep sorrow over the emerged situation." Blazie said, "If Iran would yield to the IAEA and the UNSC decisions and enter negotiations, the 5+1 countries would refrain from taking further steps against Tehran at the Security Council." The French FM emphasized, "We once again ask Iran to respond positively to the constructive, basic proposal we presented it last month."
The ministers of foreign affairs of France, Russia, Britain, the United States and Germany, as well as a Chinese deputy FM held a three hour talk surveying the outcome of the West's 5+1 package of proposals to Iran in which they have asked Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment.

The EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, too, during the meeting presented a report on his meeting with the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani.

When is violence 'terror' and when is it not?

By M.R. Narayan Swamy

It is easy to denounce the vicious train bombings in Mumbai for what it is: plain terrorism. But in the politics of hatred planted in India from the 1980s, one question begs an answer: are some types of violence perhaps justified?

The Shiv Sena will surely answer in the affirmative. Two days before high-velocity bombs ripped through first class compartments of Mumbai suburban trains Tuesday evening, the Shiv Sena - which acts perennially as if it is above the law - masterminded violent attacks all over Maharashtra. Buses and cars were burnt, policemen attacked, roads and highways blocked and markets shut, causing huge economic losses. The reason? Mud was found splashed on a statue of party chief Bal Thackeray's wife!

As could only have been expected, Bal Thackeray justified the needless violence. His son Uddhav, still trying to put his stamp on the party, gave an added religious twist: "If derogatory cartoons in a newspaper in far off Denmark can have repercussions in India, this incident is bound to provoke reactions from Shiv Sainiks." Even Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, whose job it must be to roundly denounce any violence, did a wrong to Mumbai by calling the Shiv Sena-inspired destruction an "emotional reaction".

If hurt caused by mud flung at a statue can justify mayhem, what about the fury in a community's heart that sees innocent law abiding hundreds - a former MP included - horribly put to death just because some mad elements torched a train car and killed 59 Hindus?

No one can justify any killing, be it in Mumbai or Delhi or Coimbatore or Godhra. But the politics of polarizing people on religious lines, robbing them of their shared national identity, has given birth to a mindset where even people who should know better brand terrorism as terror but seem to think that violence by rightwing Hindu groups is somehow justified. It is not.

Those of us who witnessed the horror of 1984 on the streets of Delhi vividly remember the lies trotted out to justify the brutal killings of innocent Sikhs. We were told it was 'natural reaction' to the slaying of Indira Gandhi. There was nothing 'natural' about the slaughter of Sikhs.

And there was nothing 'natural' about Gujarat 2002.

An elderly, wrinkled Muslim man I interviewed in Ayodhya town shed tears as he related how a mob set upon his modest house after razing the Babri mosque, dragged out his teenage son (while he and other members of the family fled) and repeatedly stabbed him - and then threw the body into a well, all the while shouting Hindu religious slogans. "Sir, I am a poor man. What sin did I commit to see my own son murdered for no fault of his?" he asked in sorrow.

On a desolate street of Mumbai in 1993, when I spoke to a group of frightened Muslim men running scared of Shiv Sena mobs, one of them took out his visiting card that revealed him as a sub-divisional magistrate. "Sir, what use is this identity today?" he asked, staring at me. "Why did I remain in India after the 1947 partition?"

These were two despairing members of India's largest religious minority. The younger ones today are not asking any questions. They are simply taking revenge, for real and perceived injustice done to their community.

Those associated with security agencies warn that the radicalization of young Muslims poses one of the gravest dangers to the Indian state. And this has not happened in a vacuum.

I hold no brief for fanatic Muslims, and there are, without doubt, many in that genre in this country. But fanaticism cannot be fought with fanaticism. If we are to remain a nation state, no chief minister should be allowed to justify mass killings with a glib "every action has a reaction" comment. The Babri mosque razing was a grave wound to the Muslim psyche besides the Indian secular state; Gujarat 2002 may have given birth to Islamic terrorism in India.

_____________________________________________________________________
(M.R. Narayan Swamy is Deputy Editor of IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on narayan.swamy@ians.in)

$ 24 million agribusiness support fund launched in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, July 13 (IMI) The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Pakistan have launched a $24 million Agribusiness Support Fund (ASF) to develop agribusiness in Pakistan. Signing the agreement for the fund was Peter Fedon, ADB Country Director in Pakistan, and Hashim Khan Hoti on behalf of the Government.

ASF will provide farmers with technical and managerial services on a grant basis to improve their productivity and competitiveness in horticulture, livestock, dairy production, processing, and marketing. “Improved agribusiness is essential to maintain and expand export markets for agricultural products and it will certainly contribute to increased economic growth and rural employment," Mr. Fedon says.

The agreement is part of an ADB Agribusiness Development Project, which focuses on increased agricultural productivity and improved marketing for the agriculture sector. The project will corporatize the agriculture sector and also help formulate a national agribusiness policy and provincial horticulture policies to meet international agricultural product standards.

ASF is a not for profit company under the project, which is being executed by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock. It is a public-private partnership that is primarily financed by ADB. The fund will be based in Lahore and expects to commence grant funding by September 2006.

The project covers all areas of Pakistan with about 2,000 agro-enterprises in both the formal and informal sectors expected to benefit over five years.

ASF will help increase access to agribusiness finance and revise and update the agribusiness regulatory framework, upgrade testing and certification facilities for seeds, nurseries, and crops and strengthen technical training.

Further, as a result of technical assistance provided, some financial institutions are expected to develop dedicated agribusiness finance functions. These could benefit an additional 10,000 agro-enterprises, including up to 12,500 farmer entrepreneurs, by improving access to finance, and providing significant jobs and income generating opportunities, conservatively estimated at 100,000 person-years of permanent employment.

Agribusiness enterprises range from micro-scale village based operations to large-scale nationally recognized companies. Small and medium-scale agribased enterprises in the informal sector employ an estimated 1.5 million people. As the smaller enterprises are labour-intensive and generally located in or close to rural areas, the potential for direct and indirect (through linkages to farms) growth and job generation is much greater than for large firms.

'How far can India be pushed?'

By Arun Kumar,
Washington, July 13 (IANS) The awful rush-hour bombings of trains in Mumbai raise an important and ominous question: How far can India be pushed?

This question was asked by a former director for South Asia at the US National Security Council, Xenia Dormandy, Wednesday as the United States - from President George Bush to the mainstream American media - joined the rest of the world in condemning the terror attacks in India.

Pakistan needs to respond to militants, she herself answered in an article in the Washington Post, noting that in December 2001 India and Pakistan almost went to war when a group of militants, based on Pakistani-controlled territory, attacked the Indian parliament, killing nine people.

But -- and here's the crux of the matter -- how long can India, Indians and the Manmohan Singh government withstand the constant pressure from militant groups before they have to react? Dormandy, now executive director for research with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, asked.

By any measure of international diplomacy, they've already been extraordinarily patient and now is a moment when Pakistan really needs to respond, she said.

Islamabad wants to be taken seriously as an important player on the international scene. It has repeatedly asked the United States for a nuclear energy deal similar to the one US is working on with India, Dormandy noted.

But until Pakistan gets serious about shutting down, arresting and otherwise dismantling the militant groups that operate from its territory, it cannot expect to be treated as a responsible player in the region. Pakistan is working on it, but it could do so much more.

In a similar vein, Washington Times in an editorial on "Terror in Bombay" said the attack must not be allowed to ratchet up tensions between India and Pakistan, which many Indians accuse of secret support for the terrorists.

Pakistan must help India identify and apprehend the terrorists. It might even take a cue from Europe. "We are all Americans now," some said after the Sept 11 attacks. Today, we are all Indians, it said

The Los Angeles Times in an editorial titled "India: Bombed but Unbowed", said Tuesday's attack displayed the skilful planning that is a hallmark of Kashmiri terrorist groups, which India accuses Pakistan of backing or at least condoning.

But even if such a group is responsible, India and Pakistan should maintain confidence-building measures, such as cross-border bus routes, and avoid unnecessary military escalation, as they largely have since 2002, it said.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's quick condemnation of the attacks was a welcome sign that the bombs, devastating though they were, need not change the region's positive course, the Los Angeles Times said.

In an op-ed piece in The New York Times, Naresh Fernandes, editor of Time Out Mumbai, described the city as "India's Indestructible Heart".

Despite the long history of sporadic violence, Mumbai has always picked itself up by its bootstraps and marched off to work as soon as the trains started working again, thanks to what the Indian press calls the 'spirit of Bombay', he said.

"Perhaps the newspapers have it right after all. An anguished night has fallen over Mumbai, but when the city eventually sleeps it will do so secure in the knowledge that its spirit is unbroken, that it is, exactly like the myth has it, indomitable and undying," Fernandes concluded.

The Forbes.com cited the Indian ambassador to the US Ronen Sen as saying in an interview that Mumbai's recovery is due to the resilience of its people and the attacks will not affect its role as a global financial centre.

"Indeed, in trading today, India's principal stock index, the Sensex, followed through on Sen's assertion, ending the day sharply higher with a gain of about 3 percent. The Indian tech giant Infosys' positive first-quarter results was a key reason for the rise," it noted.

The Indian envoy said there has been a method to the madness of terror groups, to undermine democracy, as they did through the attack on the Indian parliament in 2000 and to damage the economy by repeatedly striking Mumbai. He hoped this would also signal to the world at large that terrorism is a menace that has to be handled globally.

Meanwhile, several US based Indian American organisations including National Federation of Indian American Associations, the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), the American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin and the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) condemned the attacks.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Islamic advocacy group in United States, has also condemned the attacks.

19 militants killed in Afghan fighting

Kabul, July 13 (Xinhua) Gun battles and air raids by security forces left 19 suspected militants dead in Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province, an official said Thursday.

"A large number of Taliban insurgents stormed Nazad district on Wednesday at 10 a.m. (0530 GMT). During the gun battle with police, seven militants were killed and two police were wounded," said Hajii Mohiudin Khan, an official.

In retaliation, the coalition forces conducted air strikes, killing 12 militants on the spot, Khan said.

However, a parliamentarian from Helmand, Hajji Dad Mohammad Khan, claimed that the air strikes left 80 militants and civilians dead. The coalition has rejected the report.

"Coalition air attacks on a bazaar in Nawzad district yesterday left 80 Taliban and locals dead," said Dad Mohammad Khan.

Some 2,000 families from the nearby villages left to safer places, he added.

More than 1,000 people, mostly militants, have been killed in Taliban-linked insurgency since January this year.

27 killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon

Beirut, July 13 (DPA) Twenty-seven Lebanese civilians, including 10 children, were killed early Thursday in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon, Lebanese police said.

In retaliation, Hezbollah guerrillas fired 10 katyusha rockets on the northern Israeli settlement of Naharaya, Hezbollah sources said.

Hezbollah television also said that the rockets hit the runway of Kirat Shemona in northern Israel

4 Pakistanis arrested in Nepal after Mumbai blasts

By Sudeshna Sarkar, Kathmandu, July 13 (IANS) Within hours of the terror blasts in India's business capital Mumbai, Nepal police here arrested four Pakistanis who, according to initial reports, could be the same men arrested five years ago with deadly explosives.

Though there was no official word from the government, there is speculation that there could be a link between the arrests and the seven explosions in local trains and a subway in Mumbai Tuesday in which nearly 200 people were killed.

Ghulam Hussain, also known as Cheema, and Aftab Mahaddin Siddiqui apparently ran the four-member gang while the other two, yet to be named by police, were underlings.

Hussain could be the same man involved in a diplomatic scandal in April 2001, involving a first secretary at the Pakistani Embassy here, Mohammad Arshad Cheema.

The diplomat was arrested from the office-cum-residence of a Pakistani engineering firm in Kathmandu, Sachel Engineering Works (Private) Limited, registered in the name of Ghulam Hussain.

Nepal's media Thursday said both Hussain and Siddiqui had fled Nepal in 2001 but the report could not be immediately confirmed.

Nepal police remained tight-lipped about the arrests.

Though the four Pakistanis were reportedly arrested Tuesday from two different parts of the capital, their arrest came to light Thursday morning when a local publication, Kathmandu Today, reported it.

Hussain and Siddiqui had checked into the capital's upmarket Everest Hotel July 8 and checked out July 11.

"They paid their bills and we had no reason to suspect there was anything untoward about them," the hotel told IANS.

The other two men reportedly stayed in a cheaper hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist hub.

Meanwhile, senior security officials of Nepal and India are holding a two-day meeting here beginning Monday.

Aboard empty first-class coaches: worries, glances and questions

By Probir Pramanik

Mumbai, July 13 (IANS) Two days after the serial bomb blasts ripped apart seven first-class coaches of local trains in Mumbai, many of them seemed eerily empty at peak hours Thursday. A handful of psychologically battered Mumbaikars aboard seem to be questioning the faces of their fellow travellers and any new commuter who stepped in the coach is met with guarded suspicion.

Gone is the routine jostling in rush-hour sardine-packed compartments to get an elusive seat or just a foothold.

For those who did venture out for a journey aboard the suburban train, the paramount question in their mind was: "Will I reach home safely tonight?"

As this correspondent boarded a Virar-bound local train at Bandra station, one of the blast sites, some 10-odd commuters in the coach gave a quick look-over from head to toe.

While most commuters preferred to evade questions, one passenger said he was associated with the diamond trade.

After the train crossed Andheri, usually a bustling station that looked uncharacteristically quiet Thursday, the diamond trader finally opened up for further talk.

"A majority of the diamond traders in Mumbai commute in the first-class compartments of local trains. Fortunately for me, on Tuesday I missed the 5.57 p.m. local that I usually take on my way back home. Some pending work delayed me," the trader, who gave his name as Gauravbhai, told IANS.

"I was lucky for I lost two of my colleagues on that ill-fated train. The first-class compartment in which they were travelling was ripped apart by the blast at Matunga station just 20 minutes after they had boarded the train at Charni," he said.

"Both my colleagues were from Surat and had shifted to Mumbai only a couple of years back.

"But today I am jittery. Fear still stalks me and I am not sure if I will reach home safely tonight," the 35-year-old diamond trader said.

"As you see I am back on the train, but yes I am travelling early today. Though rattled by the blasts, I have plucked enough courage to resume my travel on this train after taking a break yesterday when I stayed home recovering from the shock and harrowing time to reach home Tuesday night," he said.

"It is almost like a Russian roulette - one does not know when will the next blast take place," he added.

Mumbai's diamond market remained closed Wednesday to mourn the colleagues who died in the serial blast.

"Six diamond traders from Surat have lost their lives in the tragedy and eight others are believed to be missing," said Nitinbhai Dholakiya, a member of the Surat Diamond Association.

"It is a tragic incident. A majority of the diamond workers were there in the first-class compartments at the time when the explosions took place," he said.

"Somehow it seems that the perpetrators of the blasts had targeted the diamond traders and corporate executives who usually commute in the first-class coaches," Dholakiya said.

"The terrorists may have been successful in striking terror, but they have been able to break neither us nor our spirits," he said.

On Tuesday, seven bombs went off in succession along Mumbai's commuter train network, killing about 200 people and injuring at least 740.

Arab League calls for joint international action against terror

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) The Arab League and heads of missions of Arab states have strongly condemned "cowardly terrorist acts" that killed over 200 people in serial blasts in Mumbai and Srinagar Tuesday and called for "coordinated actions by the international community" to combat terrorism.

"The Arab League strongly condemns such cowardly terrorist acts that unjustifiably harvest the lives of innocent civilians, victims of the crime of terrorism," said Amre Mousa, secretary general of the Arab League in his condolence message to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"These outrageous acts certainly confirm the urgency of coordinated actions by the international community to combat this perilous phenomenon," Mousa stressed.

India's over 4-million strong diaspora lives in the Middle East region.

The serial blasts in commuter trains in Mumbai Tuesday killed nearly 200 and severely injured hundreds of people. Eight tourists were killed in a separate series of terror attacks in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

The blasts have sparked outrage across the world with country after country condemning the blasts in unequivocal terms.

The League of Arab States mission and heads of missions of Arab States, in separate letters to Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance chair Sonia Gandhi, Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed condemned the "barbaric blasts" that claimed the lives of innocent people and expressed solidarity with the victims and the Indian government.

"We express our profound condolences to those who were injured, to the families of the victims and to the people and the government of India," said the letter signed by Rebhi M. Altari, chief representative of Arab States Mission here.

Berlin eyes 2016 Olympics after World Cup success

Berlin, July 13 (DPA) Buoyed by Germany's success in hosting the World Cup this summer, the nation's capital now seems certain to press ahead with a bid for the 2016 Olympics.

Berlin's Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the city's best chance of winning the Games would probably be in 2020, but it was likely to "throw its hat into the ring" four years earlier to let the world know it is a "serious Olympic Games contender".

The city's success in hosting Sunday's football World Cup final between Italy and France at the Olympic Stadium, and its staging of earlier key matches was proof, said Wowereit, that it could also be "a magnificent Olympic Games venue".

Wowereit said that competition was always tough to win the Games, but it would be no shame for a city to be rebuffed first time round. Other Olympic cities had suffered that experience but had then tried again with success at a later date, he added.

The German capital was a "mature and fitting" city in which to hold the Games, he insisted. The last time Berlin staged a summer Olympics was in 1936, when Adolf Hitler ruthlessly used the event to glorify National Socialism.

News that Berlin was seriously considering a bid came at the same time that Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni announced that the Italian capital had decided to pull out of the race for the 2016 Games.

"Conditions are not right for Rome's candidacy," said Veltroni, hinting the massive cost of hosting the event might "split" Italy's centre-left government, which currently rules with a thin majority.

However, Giannio Petrucci, president of Italy's National Olympic Committee (CONI), appeared to contradict Veltroni's statement, saying he "still believed Rome could end up presenting a bid in the near future".

But Berlin could find itself in opposition to its northern city rival Hamburg, one of the dozen venues selected by FIFA for the World Cup in Germany.

Hamburg Mayor Ole von Beust said the city planned to put together a "very attractive concept" for the 2016 Games, which will follow the 2008 edition in Beijing and the 2112 Olympics in London.

Germany had to take advantage of the admiration abroad for its "trouble-free staging of the World Cup", said Von Beust.

Some 13 years ago, Berlin's efforts to get the 2000 Olympics ended in humiliation when it came last among half-a-dozen competing countries.

Said Wowereit: "Berlin has since then made great strides, developing new sports facilities and infrastructure and reincarnating the city. Berlin deserves another chance."

--DPA

Blair wants India, China to join G8

London, July 13 (IANS): Key global issues such as climate change, trade and Iran could only be resolved by the inclusion in G8 of countries such as India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico, according to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Blair told the Guardian Thursday that multilateral deals can only be secured by allowing these countries to join the G8 as full members.

Blair said he was keen to press for work to be accelerated on a successor to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, a process he believes would be greatly enhanced by the inclusion of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.

He said: "There is no way we can deal with climate change unless we get an agreement that binds in the US, China and India. We have got to get an agreement with a binding framework - of that I am in no doubt at all."

"There is no point in thinking Congress is going to enter a binding commitment to change the structure of the US economy without China and India being part of the deal."

Leaders of the five developing countries will attend the forthcoming summit at St Petersburg for an "outreach session", but Blair is pressing for the arrangement to be made more formal.

The newspaper noted that Brazil and India were key players in the trade talks, and added that a crisis meeting had been planned in St Petersburg this weekend in an attempt to give the talks a political push.

"The leaders need to say to the negotiators: 'Here is the outline of a deal, now go away and sort out the details'," the prime minister said.

Bush calls Manmohan, offers sympathy and support

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) In a demonstration of solidarity with India, US President George W. Bush rang up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday morning and offered his country's support in New Delhi's battle against terrorism.

In a telephone call that lasted three minutes, he also expressed his condolences and sympathy to the victims of Tuesday's terror attacks in Mumbai and Srinagar, said sources in the Prime Minister's Office.

Bush rang up in the morning minutes before Manmohan Singh went for a cabinet meeting to discuss the aftermath of the terror blasts and other pressing issues facing the country.

"The United States stands with the people and the government of India and condemns in the strongest terms these atrocities, which were committed against innocent people as they went about their daily lives," Bush had said in his statement condemning the savage blasts that ripped apart commuter trains in Mumbai Tuesday killing 200 people and injuring hundreds.

"Such acts only strengthen the resolve of the international community to stand united against terrorism and to declare unequivocally that there is no justification for the vicious murder of innocent people," he had said.

Indo-Asian News Service

First open-air funeral in 70 years conducted in Britain

By Prasun Sonwalkar, London, July 13 (IANS) For the first time in over 70 years, a dead man was given an open-air funeral in Britain according to Hindu-Sikh rites, sparking a row on whether such cremations were legal under British law.

The funeral pyre was lit on Wednesday in a remote field in Northumberland by Davender Ghai, president of the Newcastle-based Anglo-Asian Friendship Society (AAFS). The organisation has been campaigning for permission for open-air funerals for British Hindus and Sikhs.

Open-air funerals in Britain have been illegal since 1930.

A spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs said: "The plain fact is that any funeral pyre is illegal and to burn human remains in the open air is against the law. The 1930 Cremation Act prohibits the cremation of human remains anywhere except in a crematorium."

However, the AAFS insisted that no offence had been committed. In a statement, it said: "After reasoned statutory interpretation and an exhaustive review of case law, we are absolutely certain that funeral pyres are legal.

"The Cremation Act exists only to maintain standards in the day-to-day running of local authority crematoria.

"We are aware that some organisations and civil servants claim otherwise but should we rely on their legal interpretation or the legal interpretation of the courts and most renowned academics and jurists of their generation?"

The body cremated on Wednesday was that of Rajpal Mehat, 31, an illegal immigrant Sikh, who had drowned in a canal in Southall in December last year. For months he could not be identified as there were no papers on him.

Ghai's number was found on Mehat's mobile number, who later helped track his family in India. He then arranged for his mother and sister to attend the cremation on Wednesday.

Before the funeral, the Northumbria police had been alerted but allowed it to go ahead after checking the coroner's report and other documentation. According to the AAFS, the police were satisfied that all due processes had been adhered to.

However, on Wednesday evening, after the funeral ceremony conducted according to traditional Sikh rites, the police said that offences may have been committed even though it had earlier allowed the event to take place.

Superintendent Graham Smith said: "In respecting the values and beliefs of all faiths we did not wish to cause any additional upset to a grieving family. This meant all our inquiries were carried out in an extremely sensitive manner before the service got under way.

"Following further investigation, we believe offences may have been committed under the Cremation Act in relation to where human remains can legally be cremated. We are now discussing the matter further with the community, our partners and the local authorities."

The spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs said that prosecuting anyone who broke the law was a matter for the police, as the department was not a prosecuting authority.

A spokeswoman for the Environment Agency said it would not be investigating the open-air funeral pyre. "As far as we are concerned there is no environmental impact. It is no different to scattering an urn of ashes on the ground," she said.

According to the AAFS, many Hindus and Sikhs in Britain are deeply offended by the use of gas-powered furnaces and many even take their relative's bodies to India for cremation. At its office in Newcastle, nearly 80 people have reportedly put their name on a list requesting an open pyre after their death.

Five killed in Maoist violence

Raipur, July 13 (IANS) Five people, including three Maoist rebels, were killed in two separate incidents in Chhattisgarh's violence-wracked Dantewada district Thursday, police said.

Two tribals were shot dead in a forested belt of Dornapal on Sukma-Konta area near national highway 221 while Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers gunned down three guerrillas under Mirtur police station locality, 510 km south of here.

"We have two civilian casualties while three Maoist rebels were killed in a CRPF and police raid in Dantewada," Bastar range inspector general T.J. Longkumer said.

Dantewada district that forms the 40,000 sq km forested but mineral rich Bastar region along with Kanker and Bastar districts, has witnessed surge in Maoist violence during the past one year.

Maoists, who claim to fight for the landless labourers and poor peasants, have killed more than 180 civilians in the state mainly in Dantewada district this year.

House panel defers hearing on F-16 deal with Pakistan

By Arun Kumar

Washington, July 13 (IANS) A key panel of the US House of Representatives has postponed a hearing to review the $5.1 billion arms package, including F-16 aircraft and weapons systems, offered to Pakistan for America's global war on terror.

The 50-member House Committee on International Relations, headed by Republican chairman Henry Hyde, was due to hear John Hillen, the State Department's Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs, Thursday on the deal notified by the Pentagon on June 28.

Unless stopped by Congress within 30 days, Pakistan will get 36 new F-16C/D fighter aircraft, 200 sidewinder missiles, 200 air-to-air missiles, 500 kits for ground-attack satellite-guided bombs and 36 advanced pilot helmets that can display targeting information on the visor.

No reason was given for the postponement of the House panel hearing "until further notice" and there is no word yet about when the 18-member Senate Foreign Relations Committee would meet to review the deal.

But reports suggest that some lawmakers have raised objections to the Bush administration's bid to push America's largest arms deal with Islamabad without due consultations with the US Congress.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri himself told the media during his just concluded visit that the administration had apprised him of objections raised by some Congressman, but it had also assured that this would not pose a major hurdle in its eventual approval.

Among other things, legislators are concerned about how Pakistan intends to ensure that its long-time ally China will not have access to advanced US technology and whether there has been any diversion of such technology already in Pakistani hands.

Also complicating the matter is a new report by Congressional Research Service, Congress's analytical arm, that the single-engine Block 50/52 Falcon being sold to Pakistan is the most modern F-16 flown by the United States and may be better suited to air-to-air combat against India than fighting terrorists.

Joseph Crowley, a Democratic member of the House panel from New York, for one has expressed deep concern "about the process or the lack thereof" that the administration used to inform Congress about the F-16 deal with Pakistan.

He is also concerned that Pakistan has not moved forward with promises of democracy, fighting its internal extremists, enforcing human rights, or respecting minorities. It has also not let US interrogators to question the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Abdul Qader Khan, accused of running a private nuclear Wal-Mart.

Kasuri told reporters in Washington on Tuesday that it was not easy to "get hold of this man", considered a national hero in Pakistan, who even nurtured presidential ambitions.

But Khan had been made to confess his sins of nuclear proliferation in public. He had been humiliated and disgraced in what the opposition called under US pressure. "And you say he has been let off with just a rap on the knuckles!" Kasuri told a questioner.

Islamabad was also providing all the information sought by US. It was also cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) though it was not required to do so as a non-signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The administration may still win approval for the deal as claimed by Kasuri, but a public debate over the sale could prove awkward for the administration and Pakistan. A previous F-16 sale was halted in 1990 because of concerns over Pakistan's nuclear programme.

India deploys air marshals after terror attacks

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) Air marshals have been deployed on selected flights in India for passenger safety following threat reports from intelligence agencies after Tuesday's terror attacks in Mumbai and Srinagar, officials said Thursday.

"We have deployed air marshals today. Some more security systems are already in place," Civil Aviation Secretary Ajay Prasad told reporters here, adding that intelligence reports warn of threats at some tourist destinations in India.

While Prasad refused to divulge the routes on which marshals have been deployed, sources said while most flights to Kashmir and certain sectors in the northeast will have these commandoes, others destinations will be picked at random.

The ministry had also decided to set up some new security procedures at airports and instructions issued to the concerned agencies, he said after a meeting here between officials of the ministries of civil aviation and home.

Officials of GMR, which has been mandated to modernise the Delhi airport, and Airports Authority of India also attended the meeting.

Around 200 people were killed and nearly 500 injured in serial bomb blasts in Mumbai's suburban trains and stations in the evening rush hour Tuesday, which followed a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar that morning that left nine dead.

"There would be significant changes in security measures at airports. We have deployed dog and bomb disposal squads. Emphasis will be on using more equipment and technology rather than manual searching," Prasad said.

"The measures are being taken up because some reports have been received by the security agencies that some important airports and tourist destinations in the country are under threat," he said.

A second layer of checking passengers and baggage would also be done for certain international and domestic flights, Prasad said. Visitors have been denied access to the arrival and departure terminals till further orders.

"We have decided to carry out checks at aerobridges and step ladders before a passenger gets on the plane. Passengers would also have to go through personal body search before getting on the flight."

Prasad said there were, indeed, some flight delays due to the stringent security measures, since it took time to check all baggage and passengers manually. "But Thursday was the first day of the new procedures. Delays will be reduced soon."

According to officials, another reason for delays Thursday was congestion at for baggage clearance, since an x-ray machine at Terminal 1B of the Delhi airport had started to malfunction.

India describes POK elections as lacking in credibility

New Delhi, July 13, IRNA,India has said the elections held in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) showed lack of credibility.

The situation in Gilgit-Baltistan, the other part of POK, was even worse as it had never even had a "semblance of representative institutions."
Elections have never been held in those areas and its residents have never enjoyed the basic political right to vote, said Navtej Sarna, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs in a press briefing here Wednesday evening.

"Once again the entire exercise shows the lack of credibility in the electoral process" in POK, the spokesman said, adding that real power was in the hands of the officials of Pakistan and the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs in Islamabad.

He pointed out that nominations made earlier for 30 out of 31 candidates of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front--Amanullah Khan (JKLF) had been rejected after they refused to sign the declaration of Kashmir's accession to Pakistan.

The `Azad Jammu and Kashmir' (AJK) Election Commission also rejected 30 nominations of the All Party National Alliance, a coalition of other pro-independence parties of Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Besides disqualifying all political parties and candidates who failed to meet the condition of declaring their allegiance to the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan from contesting the elections, Pakistan had also not allowed international observers to monitor the election process, the spokesman said.

The elections could therefore, neither be called free and fair nor an exercise in self-governance, he added.

He said the 14-member AJK Council, the upper house of the AJK Parliament, is headed by the Pakistani prime minister as chairman and the AJK president as vice-chairman.

Islamabad nominates five members to the council from members of the Pakistan National Assembly and it has three ex-officio members.

The chairman, along with the federal nominees, gives the government of Pakistan a majority in the council as out of the 14 members there are only six members elected through the AJK Assembly.

"Real power thus rests with the officials of Pakistan and the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs in Islamabad," the spokesman concluded.

India suspects LeT behind blasts

Islamabad, July 13, IRNA ,The well-coordinated bomb attacks on Mumbai's rail network that left almost 200 dead and more than 700 injured bore the hallmarks of the Islamic militant group Lashkar- e-Toiba, a senior officer said on Wednesday.

According to the daily Times, police however said they were still awaiting test results from evidence gathered at the scene of the blasts including several commonly used timing devices believed to have set off the seven blasts within about 10 minutes apart.

Police had known for some months now that Mumbai was a target after a series of raids on suspected Islamic militants netted explosives and weaponry in Maharashtra state, said state police chief PS Pasricha.

The modus operandi appears to be similar to Lashkar-e-Toiba, Pasricha told reporters.

"I cannot categorically say that it was them as those (forensic) reports have yet to come in."
The anti-terrorism force has taken over the inquiry and visited addresses across the city on Wednesday but had not yet arrested anyone, a senior officer told news agencies.

It seems pencil timers were used to carry out the blasts one after the other, a top official from Maharashtra's Home Department said.

We have collected some vital clues in this regard and the Central Forensic Laboratory has been requested to examine them without any delay, he added.

Officials said they had not yet identified any group behind the outrage, but Pasricha did not rule out smaller regional groups operating in concert with a bigger outfit.

Newspaper reports claimed police were investigating growing ties between the Islamic militant group and smaller outfits.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blasts.

Senior Mumbai police officer Arup Patnaik said officers were out on the streets on Tuesday night but there was no sign of increased communal tensions in the city, which has a Muslim minority.

Lashkar-e-Toiba denied any involvement in the train bombings.

"We strongly condemn the train blasts in Mumbai and deny our group's involvement," Lashkar-e-Toiba spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi said in Srinagar.

"Our jihad is only against the Indian troops in Kashmir," he added.

Hizbul Mujahedin and Jamaatud Dawa also condemned the attacks.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed terrorists for the bombs, but declined to speculate on who might be responsible.

Iftikhar Gilani said from New Delhi that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday hailed the people of Mumbai and Srinagar for their speedy return to normal life just a day after the serial bomb blasts.

Reiterating the government's resolve to win the war against terror, Singh told the nation in a televised address that nothing will break the nation's resolve.

Indian health ministry bags US award

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) The American Cancer Society has conferred its Luther L. Terry Award on the Indian health and family welfare ministry for its "unrelenting stance on health promotion and tobacco control".

Minister of Health and Family Welfare Anbumani Ramadoss, who has left for the US, will receive the award at a ceremony during the World Conference on Tobacco in Washington Friday, a ministry statement said.

The award has been conferred on the ministry for the "progressive enthusiasm" it showed since 1990 in enacting national tobacco control legislation and for unwavering leadership provided by the Indian delegation at the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), said the statement.

According to the website of the American Cancer Society, the ministry "is a model to which other nations may aspire".

"The ministry has demonstrated its unrelenting stance on health promotion and tobacco control through its support of a comprehensive national tobacco control policy and an effective FCTC.

"The ministry's vision for tobacco control extends beyond legislation, however, and its programmatic and financial support for non-governmental organisations engaged in tobacco control proves its commitment to, and innovation in, the tobacco control movement," adds the website.

Ramadoss has been keen on banning smoking in the Indian film industry. He is also focusing his efforts for a ban on 'gutka' and 'pan masala'.

In an interaction with IANS recently, the minister had said school children were into smoking inspired by their heroes. "It is my duty to stop them from smoking," he said.

"I have no animosity towards any one in the film industry and my job is to think about the collective health of the country. Effort on banning on-screen smoking is only a step in that direction," he added.

Recently, the minister also appealed to Bollywood actors Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Aishwarya Rai to stop promoting soft drinks.

Indian space agency readies for next launch

By Fakir Balaji, Bangalore, July 13 (IANS) Undeterred by the failure of Monday's satellite launch, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will go ahead with its next scheduled launch later this year and also carry on with its space programmes as planned.

"There is no change in our future launch programmes. As scheduled, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will be launched by this year-end to deploy Cartosat-2, an Indonesian remote-sensing satellite and a space recovery capsule in lower orbits," a top ISRO official told IANS here.

Unlike Monday's aborted Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) mission, the PSLV will take off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, off the Andhra coast.

Preparations are under way to assemble the 295-tonne PSLV to carry the three payloads, weighing about 1.3 tonnes collectively.

The second launch pad, from where the GSLV-F02 was launched Monday to carry the INSAT-4C communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit but veered off-course and exploded 60 seconds after lift-off, will be used only for heavier satellites in the two-tonne and four-tonne class for communications and broadcasting services.

"We are planning to launch the PSLV between October and December this year. The launch schedule will be decided once we receive the payloads and integrate them with the 44-metre rocket," said the official, whose organisation's rules do not permit his being identified.

"While the 610-kg space recovery capsule will be built at Sriharikota and the 660-kg Cartosat-2 at our satellite centre in Bangalore, the 56-kg Indonesian mini-satellite, christened Lapan TubSat, will be shipped from Jakarta," he said.

The space recovery capsule will perform micro-gravity experiments in space and descend into the earth's atmosphere after 10-20 days in orbit to plunge into the Bay of Bengal for recovery by the Indian Navy. The experiments will enable the Indian space agency to master the re-entry technology and re-useable rockets.

Cartosat-2 is an advanced remote-sensing satellite with a resolution of one metre for imageries and a swath of about 10 km. Its cameras can provide scene-specific spot imageries for cartographic and a host of other applications.

"Our plans to launch INSAT-4B, the second satellite in the INSAT-4 series, from Kourou in French Guiana on board the Ariane vehicle during February or March 2007 also remain unchanged," the official said.

As per ISRO's contract with Ariane Space, a Paris-based consortium of the European Space Agency, INSAT-4B will be the last of the satellites to be launched outside the country.

Like INSAT-4A, launched by Ariane from Kourou in December 2005, the three-tonne INSAT-4B will also have 24 transponders, including 12 in Ku band and 12 in C band for communication and broadcasting services, especially the direct-to-home service.

Iran nukes, North Korea missiles, energy top G8 summit

Brussels, July 13 (DPA) Leaders of the G8 industrial countries meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, from Saturday face a tough agenda of global challenges ranging from Iran's nuclear ambitions to North Korea's recent missile launches and the worsening Middle East violence.

The July 15-17 summit, hosted for the first time by Russia which joined the elite club in 1998, will also try to defuse tensions over access to secure energy supplies and revive faltering talks on liberalising world trade.

Leaders from China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa have been invited for a now-traditional "outreach session" on Monday, the last day of the meeting, for talks on combating poverty and boosting global development.

G8 members are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

The summit in St Petersburg's luxurious 18th century Konstantin Palace - renovated for a reported $300 million donated by state companies - gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a glittering stage to spotlight Moscow's growing self-confidence as an assertive world player.

But unlike previous G8 summit hosts, Putin can expect tough questioning on the state of Russia's democracy, policies towards former Soviet allies and its conduct as a huge world supplier of oil and gas.

G8 "sherpas" - the experts who organise the summit - have been struggling since early this year to hammer out joint statements on key agenda items including energy security, nuclear proliferation, education and the fight against infectious diseases.

However, the formal declarations look set to be overshadowed by alarm over North Korea's missile tests and Western demands that Iran respond swiftly to an international package of incentives designed to ensure a suspension of its uranium enrichment activities.

Russia has so far resisted calls for threatening tougher sanctions on Tehran.

The recent upsurge of Middle East violence following the standoff between Israel and the new Palestinian government led by Hamas is also expected to dominate discussions.

President Putin wants to keep talks focused on energy security, his key theme for the summit. Few expect the debate to be trouble-free, however.

With oil prices at a record high and China and India emerging as hungry consumers of energy, diversification of oil and gas supplies is the name of the game for all G8 governments - with the exception of Russia which wants to ensure its key role as Europe's supplier.

European Union governments are especially anxious given that Russia provides 25 percent of the 25-nation bloc's gas requirements.

"I think right round Europe and the rest of the world people want diverse sources of energy to give us a balanced energy mix and allow us to make sure that we have energy security in a world of rising prices," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said recently.

Summit participants will be asked to endorse "common principles" to ensure the transparency and openness of world oil markets. But whether these will amount to anything more than a list of good intentions is far from clear.

Moscow has so far refused to ratify the so-called Energy Charter, an international treaty designed to promote market transparency and free energy transit.

European officials make no secret of concerns that Moscow - which briefly cut off gas supplies to Ukraine last January, triggering energy short-falls in western Europe - is not playing by market rules.

European governments are also demanding a reform of Russia's gas sector and say Russian gas giant Gazprom's moves to buy European energy assets must be mirrored by easier reciprocal European access to Russia's still-sheltered state energy sector.

The summit is expected to discuss the future of nuclear power to meet expanding global energy demand.

But G8 members are sharply divided over nuclear power. Italy has closed all its nuclear plants and Germany plans to do so by 2021. In contrast, France produces 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear plants and Paris is planning its next atomic generation. Nuclear revivals are also underway in Britain and the US.

G8 leaders will attempt to revive flagging global trade talks following the recent failure by World Trade Organization members to clinch a deal on liberalising farm trade and curbing costly agriculture subsidies.

In a letter to the summit, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz warned that "time was running out" for a new anti-protectionist trade deal which could generate $300 billion a year in additional global economic production.

Israel strikes Beirut airport, suburbs; over 40 killed

Beirut/Tel Aviv, July 13 (DPA) Israel Thursday launched the heaviest air strikes on Lebanon in 24 years while the militant Hezbollah movement fired a "unprecedented" barrage of rockets at northern Israeli towns and villages, prompting fears of another Middle East war.

More than 40 Lebanese civilians were killed and dozens wounded, as Israeli jets fired missiles at more than 170 targets in southern Lebanon by the late Thursday afternoon since the abduction of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others by Hezbollah Wednesday.

Hezbollah retaliated for the Israeli strikes by firing more than 80 rockets at Israel, killing two people and wounding at least 90.

For the first time, the Lebanese guerrilla group fired missiles with longer ranges than before, some of them landing some 20 to 25 km from the border and reaching as far south as the Israeli city of Safed.

Israelis throughout the north of the country were ordered into bomb shelters and many residents of the coastal resort Nahariya, the hardest hit, were seen leaving the town.

Israel's highest-profile target in its attacks was Beirut International Airport, two of whose runways were struck by at least four missiles.

The strike caused no injuries, but sent black clouds of smoke to drift over the capital's southern outskirts, forcing all incoming flights to be diverted to Cyprus and elsewhere and leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Four large craters could be seen on the airport tarmac.

The Israeli army said the airport was targeted because the Lebanese government allowed Hezbollah unhindered use of it for the transportation of weapons of its armed wing.

A Hezbollah television station in southern Beirut was also targeted and in the afternoon Israel struck at a Lebanese Air Force base in east Lebanon, firing two missiles at one of the runways.

A senior army officer called the Israeli aerial offensive in Lebanon the widest since the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war. An army spokesman also spoke of an "unprecedented attack" by Hezbollah in terms of the number of Israeli villages hit and the depth of the missile strikes.

Israel clamped an "air, maritime and land blockade" on Lebanon, Lebanese military sources said, with Israeli warships entering Lebanese waters to enforce the blockade from the sea.

The Israeli Army only confirmed it imposed a blockade from the sea, saying the aim was to prevent the transfer of militants and the transportation of weapons to Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet approved "Operation Appropriate Wage" overnight, hours after the two soldiers were snatched by Hezbollah fighters as they were on patrol along the border.

Its aim was to force Hezbollah to withdraw from the Israel-Lebanon border, Israeli media reported.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel would not relent until it received guarantees that the Lebanese army would replace Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

"We will no longer allow Hezbollah's forces to sit on the border with Israel," he told reporters at his Tel Aviv office.

After Israel's May 200 withdrawal from a self-proclaimed "security zone" in southern Lebanon, the United Nations called for the disarmament of Hezbollah and for the Lebanese government to assert its authority and sovereignty over south Lebanon, which has been a stronghold of the Islamic fundamentalist militia since it was founded in the 1980s.

Israel has said it holds the Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah forms part, responsible for the soldiers' abductions which Olmert denounced as an "act of war" by Lebanon against Israel.

Speaking hours after the abduction of the two soldiers in northern Israel, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah demanded a prisoner swap through indirect negotiations.

Hezbollah threatened to bomb the Israeli coastal city of Haifa if Israel attacked Beirut or its southern suburbs, considered a Hezbollah hotbed where many of the movement's leaders reside.

Israeli planes fire on Beirut airport runway

Beirut, July 13 (DPA) Two Israeli planes Thursday fired at least five rockets into the runway of the Beirut International Airport as part of overnight attacks on targets in Lebanon in response to the abduction of two Israeli soldiers.

The planes attacking the airport were confronted by anti-aircraft machine guns belonging to the Lebanese army.

There were no immediate word on casualties, but black smoke blew over the area where the airport is located, which is on the outskirts of the capital and near Beirut's southern suburbs, a hotbed of the militant Hezbollah organisation.

The planes were still flying over Beirut, and Lebanese army troops closed roads leading to the capital.

An Israeli army spokesman said about 50 targets had been hit overnight in addition to 100 Wednesday, including bridges, roads, Hezbollah positions, outposts and arms warehouses.

The fresh air strikes came after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet, shortly before midnight, approved a massive aerial campaign against Lebanon, codenamed Appropriate Wage, which sought to strike "mostly at Hezbollah positions but also at some government infrastructure", Israeli media reported.

Israel has said it holds the Lebanese government responsible for the abduction Wednesday morning of the two soldiers by Hezbollah. Eight Israelis soldiers and two civilians have been killed since then.

The Israeli army said it had attacked a string of targets in southern Lebanon from the ground, sea and air in a bid to retrieve the two servicemen. The targets included five bridges as well as a string of Hezbollah positions and headquarters.

Among the targets hit were a bridge in the coastal town of Damour, about 15 km south of Beirut, and the Awali bridge, north of the main southern port city of Sidon, the Lebanese military and police said.

Wednesday's violence marked the deadliest day on the border since Israel ended its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon six years ago.

Israeli warplanes strike Palestinian office building

Gaza, July 13 (DPA) Israeli army F16 warplanes fired rockets at the Hamas-led Palestinian foreign ministry building in Gaza City in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, wounding 10 people and causing severe destruction.

Israeli pilotless drones and F16 warplanes flew over Gaza City, and three rockets were suddenly fired at the southern neighbourhood of Remal in Gaza City, a DPA reporter observed.

The flashes lit up the darkened area for a few seconds, followed by huge explosions that shook most of the buildings in the neighbourhood. Dust and smoke then settled on the area.

Palestinian security sources said that the six-storey building that was targetted belonged to the foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority ministries. The fifth and sixth floors were badly damaged.

The office of Mahmoud al-Zahhar, the Palestinian foreign minister, is on the fifth floor.

Flames of fire and smoke came out from the two top floors in the building, where ambulances and firefighters arrived immediately.

Joma'a al-Saqqa, chief of public relations at Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City, said that 10 residents were injured, most of them children under the age of 12.

A few days ago, Israeli warplanes destroyed the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and interior minister Said Siam. Haniya, al-Zahhar and Siam are also senior Hamas leaders.

Kasuri not linking blasts to Kashmir dispute: Pakistan

Islamabad, July 13, IRNA,Pakistan's Foreign Office on Wednesday hastened to clarify reported remarks of Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri on the Mumbai bomb blasts that evoked a caustic reaction from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) earlier in the day.

According to the daily `Dawn', a statement issued by the Foreign Office's spokesperson said the foreign minister had not drawn any link between the Mumbai bomb blasts and the Kashmir dispute in an interview with a foreign news agency.

At no stage during the interview did the foreign minister talk about a connection between the Mumbai terrorist attack and the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, the Foreign Office spokesperson said, adding that the foreign minister's remarks had been misreported.

The foreign minister had emphatically and unequivocally condemned the terrorist attack in Mumbai yesterday, the spokesperson said.

According to the spokesperson, the foreign minister was speaking in another context by referring to the Indo-Pakistan peace process which, he said, has led to a number of confidence-building measures being put in place and improved the atmosphere surrounding the two countries.

According to the spokesperson, the message the foreign minister wanted to convey was that latest developments, in the backdrop of all issues facing the two countries, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, suggested the time was ripe for resolving these issues.

Rejecting Indian allegations the infrastructure of terrorism was firmly on Pakistani soil and in Azad Kashmir as "baseless," the spokesperson asserted taht Pakistan does not tolerate terrorism and is in the forefront of international efforts to fight this menace.

Larijani says Iran can provide Europe with energy security

Brussels, July 13, IRNA ,Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani said Wednesday that Iran is ready to take steps needed to continue with negotiations and constructive interaction with the EU.

"If any country feels ambiguous about our nuclear programme we are ready to help them clarify everything" he told Euronews TV in an interview broadcast Wednesday night.

Larijani held talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Brussels Tuesday on Iran's nuclear issue.

"The direction of the negotiations have to be the removal of the obstacles so that we can agree on the (EU) proposals. We accept the principle of problem-solving through negotiations."
He said there are some countries in the EU which were taking a more logical approach towards Iran's nuclear programme.

Iran can provide energy security for Europe which could lead to greater cooperation between the two sides, said Larijani.

"We can work together more constructively," he stressed Replying to a question on the US, he called Washington to change its policies.

"Why do they have to speak with the language of force all the time in the region. They can use diplomacy."
Radical policies can lead to rise in oil price and increase tensions in the region, he added.

Multiculturalism in Britain is dead, says new research

By Prasun Sonwalkar,
London, July 13 (IANS) Multiculturalism as a way of social integration in Britain is dead, concludes a unique University of Leicester study after the July 7, 2005, blasts in London.

It should instead be replaced by the idea of inter-culturalism, says the report published after the conclusion of the one-year research. The findings have significant bearing on Britain's policies towards Asian and Afro-Caribbean minorities.

Inter-culturalism is defined as a sharing of cultural experiences with people from a different culture. It contrasts with multiculturalism that celebrates diversity.

The report, titled "Engagement With Cultures: From Diversity to Inter-culturalism", is authored by researchers Bill Law, Tim Haq and Asaf Hussain, who carried out their research in Leicester, a town in the east Midlands with a large minority of Asian and Afro-Caribbean origin.

The authors state: "We believe multiculturalism has failed. It was a concept and a social re-engineering policy with the best of intentions, but with little debate at the grassroots. It failed to recognise or ignored the dangers of religious fundamentalism with deadly consequences.

"It was yesterday's message conveyed by yesterday's men and women.

"Multicultural policies saved no lives in London. The ones who died and were injured through the terrorist actions of British born terrorists in July 2005 came from all countries, cultures and religions.

"Our message is simple. Britain's population has to become integrated."

Key conclusions of the report are:

* Cities with immigrants directly from South Asia face greater challenges than those whose South Asian immigrants came from Africa.
* Inter-cultural bridging has no value if it is a middleclass exercise. It has to occur at grassroots to have any impact.
* Funding of cultural organisations must change.
Funding should be conditional on engaging with other cultures.
* Ensure citizenship is part of the education agenda.
* Remove the link between religion and nationality, for example British Muslim, as this is mutually contradictory (one refers to a nationality and the other to a faith). Instead, this should be replaced with, for example, British Indian or British Pakistani.

The report adds: "The term 'British' should be given specific meaning in terms of values of the adopted land in which such persons are settled."

According to the authors, "The term British should mean values of British society. It suggests respect for the monarchy; loyalty to the state (elected government); internalise values of democracy ie to express difference through democratic process, not violence; respect and abide by the law; accept plural society."

Mumbai cops draw up sketches of four suspects

Mumbai, July 13 (IANS) Mumbai Police has pieced together sketches of four suspects based on witnesses accounts of the serial trains blasts that at latest count has left 198 dead and 714 injured.

Claiming a major headway in investigations, police have also detained more than 150 people for questioning.

Besides, over Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) that been assigned the task of investigating the blasts has conducted a series of raids in several parts of Mumbai and different parts of Maharashtra.

"We have detained some people for questioning and raids are being conducted in many places. However, no one has been formally arrested so far," Maharashtra Director General of Police P.S. Pasricha said.

"Sketches of four suspects seen at some of the bomb sites have been prepared and we are working on several leads," Mumbai Police Commissioner A.N. Roy told IANS.

He said that there had been widespread search operations and many people been detained from several pockets of the city and its suburbs.

He said he was not in a position to disclose anything about the investigation at the moment.

The sketches will be distributed among the entire crime branch unit and the ATS.

To bolster its investigation, the Maharashtra police has asked former crime branch officers, who had investigated the 1993 Mumbai blast that killed 250 people, to join in.

Police and security agencies are banking on the joint expertise of the ATS and the city crime branch.

"Besides the ATS, the crime branch, which has in-house expertise in tackling the city underworld, will conduct individual probe," said an officer.

"We are sure that the perpetrators of the blast have at some stage taken the aid of the underworld and this could be vital clue in the probe," he added.

Mumbai Police focus on SIMI, which pleads innocence

Mumbai, July 13 (IANS) Hundreds of suspects were detained in and around Mumbai as investigators relentlessly hunted for terrorists who bombed the city's trains two days ago killing almost 200 people in India's financial capital.

Police officers said they strongly suspected the involvement of members of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) along with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group that is being widely blamed for the carnage.

But SIMI, an indigenous group with alleged dubious links worldwide, vehemently denied that it had anything to do with the outrageous seven serial bombings that ripped through train carriages or railway stations.

A SIMI spokesman told reporters: "SIMI is being unnecessarily dragged into the incident. We have no hand in the blasts and we strongly condemn the blasts."

But Mumbai Police sources said they thought otherwise. Confirming that hundreds had been detained for questioning, investigators of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), tasked with probing the terror attacks, said they had begun to gather evidence.

Investigation so far, they said, revealed that newly set up terror module had helped LeT to carry out the deadly bombings, the worst in Mumbai since the 1993 serial bomb attacks that killed some 270 people.

Investigators said the module might have been made up of "sleepers" with no previous criminal records.

"Interrogation of several suspected SIMI activists has revealed that LeT has set up a new terror module in Mumbai comprising of sleepers who have no criminal records," said a senior ATS officer.

"SIMI activists had provided logistic support to LeT during the 2002 blasts, and the possibility cannot be ruled out that they may have assisted LeT this time too," the officer told IANS.

"Though ATS is shortlisting suspected SIMI activists in Mumbai, it will focus on both who have past criminal records and those who don't.

"We are also probing the activities of known SIMI sympathisers and those known to be covertly helping SIMI.

"Search and combing operations were carried out in hotels, railway stations and lodges across the city and several parts of Maharashtra though Wednesday night and Thursday. Several people have been detained for questioning," said ATS chief and Mumbai Police Joint Commissioner Krish Pal Raghuvanshi.

"The search and combing operations are being carried jointly by the Mumbai Crime Branch and ATS units," he added.

"Those detained include several suspected activists of SIMI who were picked up from their homes. Nobody has been formally arrested or charged," Raghuvanshi said.

"It seems a new group is involved in this case and we are treating it as a challenge."

The ATS is waiting for forensic reports to know the exact nature of the explosives used in the Tuesday blasts.

No one can make India kneel: Manmohan Singh

New Delhi, July 13, IRNA ,Declaring that ''no one can make India kneel,'' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that this had been testified by the people of Mumbai and Srinagar by returning to normal life within hours of the serial blasts.

''I salute the people of Mumbai and Srinagar for the speed with which they have returned to normal life today. This is living proof of our contempt for terrorism,'' Dr Singh said in an address to the nation on Doordarshan.

Assuring the victims that the government would do anything possible to assist each one of them, he said, ''Mumbai stands tall once again as the symbol of a united India, an inclusive India.

The people of Mumbai and Srinagar once again endured the trauma of terrorism, yesterday. The nation stands by them in this hour of grief.

"I pay tribute to all those who showed courage and humanism in responding to the cowardice of terrorists. Their resilience and resolve will triumph over the evil designs of the merchants of death and destruction, Singh said.

This is not the first time that the enemies of our nation have tried to undermine our peace and prosperity.

These elements have not yet understood that we Indians can stand united. That we will stand united. They have not yet understood that we will never let them win.

He commended the good work done by the police, the security forces, railway staff, firemen, medical personnel, government officials and others in responding to the tragedy.

"Mumbai stands tall once again as the symbol of a united India.

An inclusive India.

No one can make India kneel. No one can come in the path of our progress. The wheels of our economy will move on. India will continue to walk tall, and with confidence", he said.

Prime Minister assured that the Government will do whatever is required to deal with the challenge at hand. We will win this war against terror. Nothing will break our resolve.

He urged to remain calm. Do not be provoked by rumours. Do not let anyone divide us. Our strength lies in our unity. Let us stand together as one people, as one nation.

Now, premium Italian designer wear for Indian cricketers

By Qaiser Mohammad Ali,

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) Indian cricketers are set look "100 percent more smart" as they would be travelling in designer suits made by world famous Italian fashion house Canali.

The 72-year-old company, based in Sovico near Milan and which specialises in fine menswear and sportswear, has offered to dress up the senior Indian team, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) would take a decision on it this month.

BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah confirmed that the Italian fashion house, which produces 1,400 suits and 1,600 pairs of trousers everyday, has offered to provide the Indian team travelling suits and accessories.

"Yes, Canali has offered to provide regular travelling clothes for the players," Shah told IANS.

"They make world class clothing, and their suits cost anything up to Rs. 70,000. Our cricketers would look 100 percent more smart in Canali suits," he said.

If the BCCI accepts Canali's proposal, the first time that the Indian team would wear these designer Italian suits would be during the Champions Trophy at home in October-November.

"There are good chances of the proposal being accepted," averred Shah, and pointed out that the working committee would finally have to approve the marketing committee's decision.

So far, the BCCI has been getting the travelling attire of its various teams stitched on a contract basis.

As per its proposal, Canali would be providing jackets, trousers, shirts, ties and accessories, including shoes etc.

"The Australian and English teams also wear some big clothing brands, so the Indian team would only be joining them," he pointed out.

Shah, however, clarified that the proposal is only for the senior team, and not for the India 'A' or other junior teams.

He also said that Canali would not have to pay anything to the board as they would be providing expensive clothes to its cricketers.

Products of Canali, which was launched in 1934 by brothers Giovanni and Giacomo, are available at 1,000 locations around the world. These include including specialty stores with over 50 exclusive shops and the flagship stores in Mumbai, Milan, Paris, London, Amsterdam and Dubai.

Every day, Canali's 1,500 employees produce some 1,400 suits and 1,600 pairs of trousers to serve a clientele in more than 80 countries. The range of Canali products include Canali Proposta and Canali Exclusive lines, as well as accessories collection of shirts, ties, belts, shoes and the distinctive line of Canali Sportswear.

Each garment is tailored made and 100 percent produced at one of the seven production centres in Italy.

Occupation of bungalows: court issues notice

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) The Supreme Court Thursday issued notice to the secretary generals of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha seeking explanation as to how some former ministers were unauthorisedly occupying official bungalows above their entitlement.

A bench of judges B.N. Agrawal and P.P. Naolekar issued the notice after Additional Solicitor General Amarendra Saran informed the court that "sitting MPs, upon ceasing to be ministers, do not vacate the 'general pool' houses allotted to them when they were ministers.

"As an MP they are entitled to accommodation only from the respective 'house pools' and not from the general pool."

Saran said 36 MPs were in occupation of such houses from the general pool above their entitlement. Of them, five had been allotted the same accommodation with the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation (CCA) and one MP had vacated his bungalow.

It was in this context the bench sought details from the secretary generals. The bench also asked the government to explain under what circumstances and authority of law it had regularised the accommodation of higher type/category to five MPs, whether under the 'discretionary quota', if so to state whether it was permissible under the rules.

Saran informed the court that out of the 497 bungalows/houses, which were unauthorisedly occupied, 349 had been vacated.

He said 60 cases were pending in the Delhi High Court and 16 in the lower court.

The high court had vacated stay against eviction of 19 journalists, who were included in the list of unauthorised occupants of government accommodation and their eviction was under process.

Saran said 25 eminent artistes had exceeded their stay but the ministry of culture had stated that it would take up the matter with the CCA for extension of the allotment period. The remaining cases were pending before the estate officers at various stages.

Recording these submissions, the bench asked the government to explain whether the vacant houses had been re-allotted, and if so, to whom and were they entitled to such allotments.

The bench also asked the government to file an affidavit giving details about the pending cases and also state the defences being taken by the unauthorised occupants in these proceedings.

The court asked the ministry of culture and tourism to explain why it recommended to the CCA to allow the 25 artistes to continue with the possession of government accommodation despite their allotment period having expired.

Enlarging the scope of enquiry to other states, the bench asked the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh to file a status report in four weeks giving details of unauthorised occupation by VVIPs.

Pakistan being 'dragged' into Indian disaster: media

Islamabad, July 13 (IANS) Insisting that India was "unnecessarily dragging in" Pakistan into the Mumbai serial blasts, the Pakistani media generally agreed that the scheduled July 20 talks on the composite dialogue may be jeopardised and the incident may slow down the progress of the peace process.

The News said in a front-page report that even before the investigations into the Mumbai blasts were completed, "Pakistan is being forcibly dragged into the train disaster."

"It is now very clear from the reaction from New Delhi that the composite dialogue is now likely to be derailed as they found a scapegoat in (Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood) Kasuri's statement, which was "merely a press report which Pakistan says was not really what the foreign minister really said."

"Kashmir is not a new issue for either of the two countries and even if one gave the benefit of doubt to Kasuri, he certainly did not say anything new," the newspaper said, adding: "But New Delhi has a problem with the timing of the statement."

"...it appears that for internal consumption at least, the focus of a huge intelligence lapse is now being directed at Islamabad," the newspaper held forth.

In an editorial, entitled "Terrible Tuesday", the newspaper at one stage praised as "laudable" the "restraint" shown by the Indian leadership, but criticised "sections of the government" and 'hawks' for blaming Pakistan.

"Regrettably, large sections of the Indian media tend to be more hawkish than South Block itself and are often quick to see Pakistan behind everything horrible that happens in India. This does not help, not least because an investigation into Mumbai's blasts is currently under way, and especially when a peace dialogue is under way between the two countries," the editorial observed.

The Pakistan foreign office had termed the Indian reaction "baseless" and said Kasuri had been "misreported" by the international news agency that quoted him as linking the Mumbai serial blasts to the need for resolving the "disputes" between the two countries.

"At no stage during the interview did the foreign minister talk about a connection between Mumbai terrorist attack and the Jammu and Kashmir dispute," the foreign office statement said.

Spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said "the foreign minister's remarks have been misreported," and pointed out that he had emphatically and unequivocally condemned the terrorist attack in Mumbai.

A Reuters report from the US had quoted Kasuri as saying that while the Mumbai blasts were certainly condemnable, they pointed to the urgent need for resolving outstanding disputes between India and Pakistan.

The Pakistan foreign office spokesperson said Kasuri, while speaking about the peace process between Pakistan and India, in another context, stated that a number of confidence-building measures were in place and the atmosphere between the two countries had improved.

Pakistan to get third Agosta class submarine

Islamabad, July 13 (IANS) The Pakistan Navy will induct its third Agosta-90-B Class submarine PNS Hamza next month, placing it for a trial run before commissioning it.

The French-designed submarine is the first to be built at home under a transfer of technology agreement with the French firm DCN International, The News said.

Both PNS Khalid (commissioned in 1999) and PNS Saad (2003) were built in France.

Pakistan acquired its first submarine PNS Ghazi from the US in 1964. It sank off the Visakhapatnam coast in India during the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

Subsequently, it acquired two Daphne class submarines in 1975 and acquired the Agosta-70 from France in 1980-81.

The submarine being launched is the most advanced version of the Agosta design. It is 76 metres long and weighs around 2,000 tonnes. Its range is 10,000 nautical miles and it can remain at sea for 60 continuous days.

Commodore Shahid Saeed, managing director of the Submarine Construction Project, said Hamza would have 50 officers and men. It is equipped with state-of-the-art combat system Subtics (submarine tactical integrated combat system), which is capable of firing SM-39 Exocet missile and wire guided torpedoes.

The unique feature of this submarine is its air independent propulsion system, MESMA, making it capable of achieving greater underwater endurance and long range.

Saeed told journalists that Pakistan was the first country to use the on board combat ready submarine. Submarine Construction in Pakistan Navy is a continuation of naval construction efforts that started in 1971 "for self-reliance and indigenisation".

Police take control of sect complex after violence

Rohtak, July 13 (IANS) The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Thursday took control of the Satlok Ashram, headquarters of a religious sect, in a Haryana village after violence there left one person dead and dozens injured.

The sect's head Rampal has been arrested along with 50 disciples. They have been booked for murder, attempt to murder and keeping arms illegally inside the sect complex.

A government spokesman confirmed that the controversial sect headquarters at village Karontha in this district was taken over at 4 a.m. Thursday.

Disciples and volunteers of the sect had fired indiscriminately at people from adjoining areas Wednesday after the complex was surrounded by the people.

The firing had left a youth dead and over 50 people injured.

The CRPF was rushed to the scene even as the firing continued for over three hours.

All members of the sect had been asked to leave the premises and the whole complex had been vacated.

Residents in the neighbourhood of the ashram were opposed to activities of the sect members inside and outside the complex and tension had prevailed between the two sides for the last few weeks.

Villagers alleged that some ashram inmates were luring young girl and women from villages in the area and exploited them.

The protesting villagers set a couple of shops near the sect campus and two vehicles on fire Wednesday.

The district administration had imposed restriction orders around the sect campus and was not allowing assembly of five or more people in its vicinity.

Police officials here said that the situation was under control now.

Post-menopause weight gain could increase cancer risk

New York, July 13 (IANS) Gaining even a moderate amount of weight after menopause could increase the risk of breast cancer, says a study.

Researchers led by Heather Ellassen, Brigham, and Women's Hospital studied over 87,000 women, aged 30 to 55 years for up to 26 years. Their weight at age 18 was recorded and noted how it had changed since, reported the online edition of BBC News.

Around 50,000 of the women who went through menopause during the course of the study were also assessed for weight change.

It was found that women who gained about 55lb (25 kg) or more after the age of 18 had a 45 percent increased risk of developing breast cancer compared with those who maintained their weight, the researchers said.

They said that 15 percent of the study's breast cancer cases could be attributed to weight gain of 4.4lb (2 kg) or more since the age 18.

Putting on 22lbs (9.9 kg) increased a woman's risk of developing the disease by 18 percent, the US team writing in the Journal of the American Association said.

But those who had lost the same amount cut the risk by 57 percent, they said.

The researchers said weight loss after menopause lowers levels of oestrogen hormones which are linked to breast cancer, cutting the risk of the disease.

Railways to beef up security, install CCTVs

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) Sniffer dogs, security equipment and more security personnel would be deployed on trains and at railway stations in the wake of the Mumbai train blasts, it was announced here Thursday.

"The railways have unfortunately become a soft target as there are several entry points at stations that make security measures tough," Railway Minister Lalu Prasad told reporters here.

"Besides, a person can get into a train from a small station and travel anywhere," he added.

According to him, security was being stepped up at all the big stations, where close circuit televisions (CCTVs) would be installed in greater numbers, besides deployment of Government Railway Police Force (GRPF) personnel.

In addition, more Railway Protection Force (RPF) would be deployed on trains to ensure passenger safety, he added.

Stating that there were no financial constraints, the minister emphasised that the prime effort would be to ensure passenger safety both at railway stations and on trains.

"We have decided to deploy more sniffer dogs and metal detectors at the major stations to ensure greater safety," he said.

These measures would be put into effect within next few days, official sources said.

Smoking increases visual impairment risk

New York, July 13 (IANS) Smoking increases the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease that causes blindness and visual impairment for people over 60, says a study.

Medical research has earlier found that smoking is a major contributing factor to many health problems, especially lung cancer, emphysema, cardiovascular disease and other disorders.

A study led by Johanna M. Seddon, director of the epidemiology unit, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in the US, studied 681 male twins and sought answers on their eating habits and whether or not they smoked.

According to the health portal Medical News Today, the scientists also studied other risk factors such as any prior diagnosis of AMD.

The researchers found that people, particularly male smokers, may have a significantly higher risk of developing age-related macular degeneration later in life than a person who does not smoke.

As the human population in most of the world is getting older, the prevalence of this blinding disease is expected to rise, said Seddon.

Sophisticated devices lead police to smell 'bigger plot'

By Murali Krishnan and Probir Pramanik, New Delhi/Mumbai, July 13 (IANS) The discovery of timers hidden in pencils, the use of remote control devices and the high-intensity explosives used are indicators to a "bigger conspiracy" behind the terror blasts in Mumbai, investigators who have rummaged through burnt out coaches say.

Police sleuths have rounded up over 150 people in Mumbai and prepared identikits of suspects based on eyewitness accounts of passengers behaving strangely before the explosions. They have also recovered timers hidden in pencils in at least three of the seven blast sites.

Mumbai Police have pieced together sketches of four suspects based on eyewitness accounts of the serial train blasts that at latest count have left 198 dead and 714 injured.

The blasts in Mumbai Tuesday were preceded a series of five explosions in Srinagar where nine people were killed.

"Both the strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and Mumbai subsequently have been coordinated. We have some pinpointed information of some modules leading to the bigger plot but it will be premature to disclose it at this juncture," highly-placed intelligence sources told IANS.

"However, we are confident that this conspiracy will be cracked shortly. An operation of this magnitude leaves behind certain footprints," said an investigator refusing to disclose the vital clues that had been obtained.

The meticulousness of the operation, the explosives used and the use of remote control devices have raised the possibility of the Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) being involved, perhaps in collaboration with local groups.

Despite the LeT's stout denial, security agencies believe that only this organisation has the wherewithal to organise such an attack because of its widespread network of fund managers who are able to organise money and explosives.

Just this year alone, police in Delhi were able to thwart several attempts to smuggle in arms and explosives.

"We have intercepts in the past to show where terror has been outsourced. This is a clever strategy to reveal that responsibility does not lie with one single organisation," said one investigator in Mumbai.

According to investigators, the nature of the explosions in the trains suggest that over 50 kg of RDX would have been used for assembling the bombs.

Investigators confirmed that most of the bombs were placed in the overhead luggage racks in the first class compartments of the trains. This seemed to concur with reports from the city's hospitals that victims suffered head and chest injuries, probably caused by blasts above them.

Though the needle of suspicion points to the LeT, the several investigating teams formed after the blasts are also looking at the possibility of the involvement of a cadre of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), being trained up outlawed outfits in Bangladesh.

After the March 7 twin explosions in Varanasi, it was discovered that the militants who engineered the attack were reportedly trained by the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jijad-i-Islami (HUJI).

Similarly, central security agencies established links between the mastermind of the Dec 28 attack on Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science and the LeT. Three persons detained - two in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad - were found to have links with the Al-Hadees group based in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.

"The LeT has cells in both countries," said an intelligence official.

In fact, five months ago, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had prepared a position paper of the camps in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia that were providing support to terror outfits operating in India.

But without the aid of video surveillance footage, which helped the British police identify suspects after the 7/7 attacks in London last year, the job of the Mumbai police force and the intelligence agencies may not be that easy.

Over Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) conducted a series of raids in several parts of Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra.

"We have detained some people for questioning and raids are being conducted in many places. However, no one has been formally arrested," Maharashtra Director General of Police P.S. Pasricha said.

To bolster its investigation, the Maharashtra police has asked former crime branch officers who investigated the 1993 Mumbai blasts that killed at least 270 people to join in.

Tableeghi Jamaat members arrested in Tripura

Agartala, July 13 (IndianMuslims.info) Close on the heels of the Mumbai train blasts, 11 youths from Maharashtra who belong to Tableeghi Jamaat, a conservative Islamic missionary group were Thursday arrested in Tripura on suspicion of having terror links, police said.

The youths, members of Tablighi Jamat, were arrested from a mosque at Malaya village in Dhalai district along the Bangladesh border. They had arrived in the state via Guwahati June 23.

Police said the group includes an 18-year-old fruit seller and a 33-year-old electronics engineer who was educated in the US.

"We have strong reasons to suspect that they were here with some sinister designs. With their background, present occupation and activities, we cannot rule out that they might have been engaged in assessing and evaluating Muslim youths in the border areas to create a network for far greater terror operations," Tripura police chief G.M. Srivastava said.

"We are looking into whether the youths are involved with any militant outfit. We have also contacted Maharashtra Police to verify their claims."

Tableeghi Jamaat, started in 1920s from Bangle Wali Masjid in Basti Nizamuddin, Delhi has branches all over the wolrd and encourage Muslims to go out in the path of Allah. A group of members called jamaat visit Muslims in different parts of the world and inviting them to return to the true path of Islam.

The arrest of Tableeghi Jamaat members is either a witch-hunt or ignorance on the part of the Tripura police.

Link:

Tablighi Jamaat : at wikipedia
Tripura Police: official site

Terror, energy to top Manmohan's agenda at St. Petersburg

By Arvind Padmanabhan,

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) Against the backdrop of Tuesday's terror strikes in two Indian cities, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will tell the G8 leaders at St. Petersburg that the war on global terror can be won only when all its sources and sanctuaries are identified and made ineffective.

Without referring to Pakistan, Manmohan Singh - who is going there for only a day Monday as a special invitee to the summit of leaders of industrialised nations - is bound to raise the issue of cross-border terror that India is subjected to time and again and the need for the international community to step in strongly.

A year after the historic civil nuclear deal with the US was agreed upon, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush will get a chance to review its progress on the margins of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg July 15-17, officials sources here said.

Manmohan Singh is also expected to vociferously raise the issue of terrorism and energy cooperation not just at the main summit but also at the first trilateral meeting with Russia and China to deepen cooperation that was proposed by Moscow, officials added.

Besides the Indian prime minister - who leaves for the picturesque Russian city Sunday - the trilateral meeting will be attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Global energy security - this year's summit theme - will also figure prominently at prime minister's talks with the leadership of several of the G8 members that includes the US, Russia, Britain, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and Canada.

"The main session is on Monday, when the G8 leaders and invitees like India will discuss global energy security - issues such as the role of nuclear energy and cross-border oil and gas pipelines," a senior Indian official said.

"The two-hour meeting will be followed by a working lunch where the discussions will continue on these issues. But prior to that, the special invitees to the summit will hold informal discussions Sunday evening."

Besides India, the invitees to the St. Petersburg Summit are China, Kazakhstan, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Congo, besides officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), officials added.

Another important engagement on the margins of the summit will be a meeting of what has been called the "Strategic Outreach Partners" of the G8 Summit, which includes South Africa, India, Brazil, Mexico and China.

This outreach meeting Monday evening - where South-South cooperation is also a topic of discussion - would also be attended by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and invitees from the IAEA, the World Bank and World Health Organization, officials added.

On the bilateral front, an important meeting lined up for Manmnohan Singh is one with President Bush to mainly take stock of the civilian nuclear deal between the two countries on July 18 last year.

The talks will be held in the backdrop of the US House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee giving their consent to the proposal for nuclear supplies to Indian reactors.

"With the global trade talks deadlocked over the refusal of developed nations to relent any further on farm subsidies, the two leaders are also likely to discuss ways to put the negotiations back on track," an official said.

WTO Director General Pascal Lamy is also scheduled to attend the G8 Summit as an invitee, and has sought time for talks with key leaders, including the US, European Union, India and Brazil to push the Doha round forward, officials added.

Terrorist threat at American embassy

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) Security has been beefed up around the American embassy and other US institutions in the Indian capital following intelligence warnings that they could be possible terror targets.

"We have received specific inputs from the intelligence agencies that terrorists could target the American embassy in Delhi," said a senior official of Delhi Police who is handling the security arrangements at the embassy.

The official added that there are no similar threats received for other embassies located in the capital.

He added that a company of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and a quick reaction team of the India Reserve Battalion have been posted around the embassy.

"We have also set up additional barricades around the embassy so that we can keep a check on all the vehicles that are passing by," said the officer. He added that temporary pickets have also been made so that sharpshooters could man the area better.

Terrorists failed again in Mumbai

12 July, (Indianmuslims.Info) Recently there have been attempts to inflame the communal passion but restrain shown by both communities are exemplary. The strong bonding shown from both sides foils those attempts of disturbances by anti social elements.

There was a report in Hindustan Times regarding the communal harmony among Muslim brothers and Hindu brothers in Mumbai. This inspiring and rare show took place at the blood bank at Siddarth Hospital near Jogeshwari Station.

Muslims queued for hours on Wednesday to give blood to their Hindu neighbors wounded in the Mumbai train bombings, in a rare show of harmony in a city with a long history of rioting between the two communities.

“We don’t care whether it’s a Hindu or a Muslim who gets our blood as long as we can save them.� Said Abdul Khan, one of dozens of Muslim men waiting in line at the blood bank at Siddarth Hospital, near one blast site at Jogeshwari station. Many see Tuesday’s deadly strikes that killed more than 180 people and wounded more than 700 as the latest in a campaign of violence by Islamist militants fighting Indian rule in disputed region of Kashmir.

This has long fomented suspicious between Mumbai’s Hindu and the minority Muslim population, and often triggered violent rioting.

Mumbai, a metropolis of 17 million people, has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the past one and half decades, the worst a series of explosions in 1993 that killed more than 260 people.

Past attacks were usually blamed on Muslims groups trying to avenge Muslim deaths in widespread religious rioting after Hindu zealots demolished a 16th century mosque in northern India.

But such thoughts were far from Pasha Mian Sheikh’s mind when he threw open the doors of the Islamia Arabia Mosque, meters from tracks near the suburb of Jogeshwari, to offer shelter, food and water to the walking wounded. “People are trying to break our harmony but they have failed,� he said of the bombers. “Hundreds of Muslims yesterday showed a lot of courage and harmony when they helped out their Hindu brothers. Hindus and Muslims are together in Mumbai.�

Leaders of India’s hardline Hindu Shiv Sena party said they had been overwhelmed by the Muslim response.

Picture: Manoj Nair

Toddlers' delayed speech not due to parenting faults

London, July 13 (IANS) Late speech in toddlers should not be blamed on family environment, mother's education, income or parenting style, says a study that would come as a reassurance to many parents.

Professor Mabel Rice at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Australia, in partnership with Curtin University of Technology and other researchers analysed the speech development of 1,766 children in Western Australia.

The studied children were from infancy to seven years of age, with particular focus on environmental, neuro-developmental and genetic risk factors. It is the first study to look at predictors of late language.

The research found that 13 percent of children at two years of age were late talkers, reported science portal EurekAlert.

Boys were three times more likely to have delayed speech development, while a child with siblings was at double the risk, as were children with a family history of late talkers.

The study found that family environment does not contribute for such development. They also found that mother's education, income, parenting style or mental health have no impact on a child's likelihood of being a late talker.

"Some people have wrongly believed that delayed language development could be due to a child not being spoken to enough or because of some other inadequacy in the family environment," a researcher said.

"This is clearly not the case and I hope these findings will reassure many parents that delayed language is not a reflection on their parenting or the child's intelligence.

"What we also know from this study is that most children who are late talkers do in fact fall into the normal range of language development by the time they are seven years old," said study coordinator associate professor Kate Taylor.

However, she said that it is important that children who are delayed in their language development by 2 years of age are professionally evaluated by a speech pathologist and have their hearing checked.

By 24 months, children will usually have a vocabulary of around 50 words and have begun combining those words in two or three word sentences.

TV reporter catches Overseas Indian Affairs Minister off guard

By Ashok Easwaran, Schaumburg (Illinois), July 13 (IANS) A television reporter caught India's Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi off guard when she asked him what the Indian government had done to prevent NRI husbands from being harassed by their wives.

The question came when Ravi, on a visit to Chicago, was explaining to Indian Americans that the Indian government was considering a law to curb fraudulent marriages and the harassment and abandonment of brides by non-resident Indian grooms.

"What are you doing to protect the rights of husbands?" asked Vandana Jhingran, the Chicago reporter for Indian television channel TV Asia.

The aggressive questioning took the minister by surprise. He said most cases reported were of harassment by husbands.

"Are you telling me that there are no cases of wives abusing their NRI husbands?" asked Jhingran.

Ravi explained that the law was proposed following the recommendations of the National Commission on Women that favoured comprehensive legislation to protect brides in NRI marriages. "Husbands have recourse to the judicial process," he said.

Jhingran's questions provoked applause from the male members of the audience, some of whom were later seen thanking her for "speaking on behalf of men".

She said she had been told of several cases of wives harassing Indian American men.

"In one recent case, the bride and her relatives got an NRI husband fraudulently arrested under Section 498 A of the Indian Penal Code (the harassment for dowry law). He was in jail and could not even attend the last rites of his father. I am saying this as a woman - someone should stand up for victimised husbands too," Jhingran told IANS.

Earlier, the minister told Indian Americans that the question of voting rights for overseas Indians would have to be considered by a parliamentary standing committee.

"There is some precedent that if you have an Indian citizenship, you cannot become a US citizen at the same time," he said. "But the overseas citizen of India (OCI) card could be considered the equivalent of Indian citizenship. It is more like the green card in the US."

Two Muslim teachers in Belgium dismissed for wearing a head scarf

Brussels, July 12, IRNA ,Two Muslim women working as a teacher in Brussels have been dismissed for wearing a head scarf.

Both women were teaching Islam at two Brussels primary schools, one in the district of Etterbeek and the other in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, "Flandernews" website reported Wednesday.

According to internal rules imposed by both schools, it is not allowed for pupils or teachers to wear or display any eye-catching religious symbols.

The two women are said to have accepted the school rules last September, but started wearing a head scarf four months later.

They received several warnings before being fired. Both teachers have launched an appeal against their dismissal.

260/1771

UN asks world to help India combat terrorism

By Arun Kumar, United Nations, July 13 (IANS) The UN Security Council Wednesday condemned "in the strongest terms" the July 11 bomb attacks in Mumbai and other parts of India and urged all countries to cooperate with the Indian government in bringing those responsible to justice.

"The Security Council reaffirms that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security," the 15-member body said through a consensus statement read out by its president for July, Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière of France.

The council statement underlined the need to bring the perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of those "reprehensible" acts of terrorism to justice and urged all nations to cooperate actively with the Indian authorities in that regard.

It reaffirmed the need to combat by all means threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts and reminded nations that any measures they take to combat terrorism should comply with their obligations under international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law.

"The Security Council condemns in the strongest terms the series of bomb attacks that occurred in different parts of India, including Mumbai, on July 11, 2006, causing numerous deaths and injuries, and expresses its deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims of these heinous acts of terrorism and their families, and to the people and the Government of India," it said.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a separate statement, condemned "this horrific slaughter" in India and said such acts cannot possibly be excused by any grievance.

Annan believes that such acts serve only to reaffirm that terrorism constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security and to increase the urgency of coordinated action by all countries to defeat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, whenever, wherever and for whatever purpose, it said.

UN World Food Programme's Chechnya operation is running out of money

New York, July 13 (IMI)Already forced because of lack of funding to reduce assistance to displaced people from war-torn Chechnya, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned it would have to halt its operation in the devastated republic entirely in three months unless fresh pledges are made soon.

“From October, we will have absolutely nothing left to distribute,� said Koryun Alaverdyan, WFP’s Deputy Country Director in the Russian Federation. “The people we seek to assist are the poorest survivors of the Chechen conflict.�

The UN agency, which also because of lack of funding has had to cut back on the number of Chechens it can support, has mobilized only 28 per cent of the $22 million it needs to feed 250,000 people this year. These include 130,000 primary school children in Chechnya and 27,000 Chechens displaced by the conflict, living in the neighbouring Republic of Ingushetia.

Since the beginning of the year WFP has been able to provide only wheat flour, rather than the standard ration that also includes vegetable oil, sugar and salt, and in May insufficient donations forced the agency to cut the number of displaced Chechens being assisted in Ingushetia from 27,000 to 16,000.

“Without outside help, these people will have to fend for themselves, which means resorting to measures such as selling what meagre assets they have left,� said Mr. Alaverdyan. “That would make it even more difficult for them to start rebuilding their lives.�

The conflict in Chechnya, which began in September 1999, forced many people to flee into neighbouring regions, and a still-precarious security situation has prevented many from returning home, WFP said. Of the 39,000 who have returned since 2004, many live in dire conditions, struggling to survive amidst the devastation, high unemployment and escalating poverty.

WFP provides food aid through soup kitchens for orphans, the disabled and the elderly in Grozny, the Chechen capital. It also supports food-for-work projects, allowing participants to be paid in food to rehabilitate agricultural and other infrastructure. Activities also include food-for-training schemes and food-for-education programmes for primary school children.

Donors to WFP’s current operation include Canada, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and multilateral funds.

US coaches to popularise baseball in India

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) Baseball coaches from the US will hold a series of clinics and camps for trainers and players in five Indian cities from Nov 4 to Dec 8, the organisers said Thursday.

As part of its 'envoy programme', Major League Baseball International (MLBI) will send coaches to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Imphal.

The programme, developed by MLBI in 1991, utilises top high school, college, and professional baseball coaches selected on the basis of their experience, expertise and passion for teaching the game of baseball to culturally diverse audiences in countries throughout the world.

First Pitch, a New York and Imphal-based organisation created to develop baseball in Manipur, and the US embassy in India will co-host this programme to upgrade the level of coaching in Manipur as well as conduct introductory coaching programmes in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

"With its enormous reach and ability to influence, the programme is vital to the long-term growth of the game and is an integral part of our overall mission to internationalise baseball," said Paul Archey, senior vice president of MLB, in a statement.

Lauding this initiative, US Ambassador in India David Mulford said: "Baseball is to America what cricket is to India. As sports enthusiasts, the Indian people may one day embrace baseball as they have cricket and other sports."

Said Muriel Peters, chair of First Pitch: "There are currently over 25 sports clubs with baseball players and teams in Imphal. Although Manipuris have been playing the game for decades, there is little infrastructure and no formal instruction, equipment or uniforms.

"What these people do have is great joy in the game and tremendous athletic ability. It is this enthusiasm in such a remote corner of India that gave us the impetus to create First Pitch," Peters said.

Uttar Pradesh gives clean chit to SIMI, WB to crackdown

Lucknow, July 13 (IANS) Even as the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is widely suspected to be behind Tuesday's serial blasts in Mumbai, the Uttar Pradesh government Thursday gave the organisation a clean chit. At the same time West Bengal promised to crackdown on SIMI in Bengal.

While declining to comment on the prevailing ban on SIMI, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav told reporters: "Well, there have been two major terrorist strikes in Uttar Pradesh ever since we formed the government and be it Ayodhya or the Varanasi blasts, SIMI was not even remotely involved."

Mulayam's younger brother Shivpal Yadav, who is the minister for public works and agriculture marketing, asserted that SIMI was not a terrorist organisation.

"Let the centre first ban all terrorist organisations, then talk about SIMI," Shivlal Yadav pointed out.

"Let me tell you, even I was once accused of being a SIMI agent," he quipped.

On June 23, the chief minister's office in "larger public interest" had issued directives for withdrawal of serious criminal cases against at least a dozen SIMI activists, facing trial for inciting communal riots in Kanpur in 2001.

The violence had left 16 dead, including a senior district official.

Significantly, the recommendation for withdrawal of cases against the SIMI activists was made by a ruling Samajwadi Party leader Surendra Mohan Agarwal, who as chairman of a public undertaking, enjoys the status of a cabinet minister.

On being asked to comment, Agarwal said: "You know, about 700 people were hauled up in connection with the 2001 riots and some of them were surely innocent. So I wrote to the chief minister only to ensure that no innocent got nailed."

While state police chief Bua Singh declined to speak on the subject, Principal Home Secretary Satish Kumar Agarwal said: "The ban on SIMI was imposed by the central government under the provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 and we are monitoring it very closely."

Contrary to the government stand, the home secretary said: "We have even carried out raids at certain places to ensure effective imposition of the ban."

He refuted some media reports that a SIMI module from Kanpur forwarded the lethal RDX used in the Mumbai blasts that killed around 200 people.

Meanwhile The West Bengal government Thursday said it would launch a drive against the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

"SIMI is a banned organisation. It has no overground office here, but we will have a crackdown on them," West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy told reporters here.

SIMI is alleged to have a well-knit network in West Bengal, which shares a 2,216-km porous border with Bangladesh.

Five people, including two SIMI activists, were arrested for the removal of railway sleeper clips from the tracks in the Kumardubi-Barakar section in West Bengal in September 2003.

SIMI activist Hasib Raja was arrested for possessing 500 gm RDX in Kolkata on Mar 18, 2002. He was allegedly planning to blow up the Howrah Bridge.

We will not be intimidated, says film fraternity

By Subhash K. Jha, Mumbai, July 13 (IANS) Bollywood, India's high-profile film industry, has reacted with anger and shock to the serial bombings that killed nearly 200 people in the country's entertainment capital with many saying that these acts won't intimidate the city or kill its spirit.

Everybody - old timers like Shabana Azmi and Hema Malini or younger actors like Randeep Hooda and Sammir Dattani - says it is time to strike back to save the city from further attacks.

Shabana Azmi & Javed Akhtar: Acts of terror are acts of cowardice. Terror in any form needs to be condemned. Mumbai will respond with strong condemnation. Let's resolve to fight terror. We need to give our full empathy and compassion to the victims.

Hema Malini: What happened in Mumbai is very shocking and saddening. To watch all those innocent people die helplessly, I cannot get over it. I do have a voice because I am in politics. But how do I use that voice to avert such calamities?

These situations are made unnecessarily complicated by politics. Miraculously, Mumbai bounced back the very next day. Esha (Hema's daughter) left for the shooting of her new Ram Gopal Varma film. I am leaving for "Baabul". But this shouldn't mean that we should forget what happened. It can happen again. And it must not.

Randeep Hooda: This latest attack shouldn't and won't intimidate Mumbai. We should carry on with our lives and send up a prayer for those who have suffered irretrievable losses. Panic is exactly what these criminals want from us. Please don't let them have the pleasure of watching us fall into their trap. We won't give in. Mumbai's human spirit is indomitable.

Sammir Dattani: A friend of mine was out in the evening of the blasts. She travels back home by train. Only her family and her close friends know what we have gone through while we waited for her to return home after Mumbai went blank.

The phones jammed, the roads got clogged and there was panic everywhere. I was caught in a traffic jam with no way to help my missing friend. Is this what the terrorists hoped to achieve? Then they have succeeded, I guess.

R. Madhavan: I don't know what the perpetrators of this heinous crime have achieved. Whatever it is, I hope they are happy and that they were able to sleep peacefully on Tuesday night.

But I wonder what those innocent people packed like sardines in trains on their way home after a normal gruelling day had done to come to such a gruesome end? Why do innocent people die in terrorist attacks?

Anyway, Mumbai is no more Mr. Nice Guy. It is time to get seriously tough on terrorism. Otherwise, it will only get worse.

Sajid Khan: Mumbai won't be intimidated by such acts. It's not the rudest, but the toughest city in the world. Every Mumbaikar is a soldier. And if the need arises we'll get seriously rude against our enemies.

Rakeysh Mehra: 11/7 isn't only about Mumbai. It is about an internal attack on India. It's a global issue. We need to undertake a war against terrorism more intensely. Instead of intellectualising or politicising the issue, we should mount a counter-attack against terrorism and wipe it out, whatever the cost.

Raveena Tandon: "Malnutrition, encroachments, no security, no infrastructure, no planning and no vision. The city is running by itself. But Mumbai has remained and will remain a lion-hearted city. And this time Mumbaikars will have to protest on a large scale. The city has taken enough natural and manmade disasters. No more!

The authorities should start functioning for the city instead of being mute spectators, and please give back the services that the city deserves after the kind of taxes that we pay. Stop filling up the politicians' pockets and get cracking before the city cracks.

Iqbal Khan (TV star): Mumbai is the best city in the world and what makes it the best is the people. The city has seen enough problems be it natural or man-made. Maybe other people feel this attack to be drastic. I don't. I am from Kashmir. I have seen first-hand what militancy can do. They don't scare me.

Rajiv Khandelwal: I feel the average Mumbaikar goes through too much to get cowed down by this attack. Such cowardly acts don't make an iota of difference in the attitude and strength of the people. The culprits should realise that Mumbai is getting very angry. It's time for terrorists to run for cover.

Dino Morea: No way should we get frightened by this attack. In fact, we should join hands to fight these pathetic people who do such things to get noticed. It is sad that a city as powerful as Mumbai cannot keep these elements out.

Aftab Shivdasani: Mumbai is a tough city. People here have the heart and strength to fight any calamity that comes their way. Even though at times we seem to be not equipped for the fight we'll eventually emerge a winner.

Ananth Mahadevan: The chronology of terrorist attacks in the country particularly Mumbai has become alarming. It's all very well to say we aren't intimidated just to keep our spirits high. But that won't deter these dastardly acts by missionaries of mayhem who strike the innocent in the name of religion and freedom.

Unless one is as mercenary as the killers, one needs to adopt a hard George Bush-like stance against terrorism before it's too late. We cannot have such periodic calamities with the security services caught napping each time.

Mani Shankar (has just completed a film on terrorism "Mukhbir"): A terrorist attack happens only because it wasn't detected and stopped. So we need to ask -- why weren't these terrorist outfits penetrated by informers? The problem is, we return to normal double-quick and forget what happened. We need to take serious action.

Smriti Malhotra Irani: Citizens are as usual coming forward to deal with an act of cowardice with patience love and respect for human life. Seeing Mumbai getting back on its feet so fast, I can only say, zindagi jeeti khauf haara.

K.K. Menon: A word of caution for all those terrorists who want to intimidate Mumbaikars -- don't try to punch your hand or bang your head into the tenacious steely spirit of Mumbai, you'll end up with a broken hand or a damaged brain. You can't make even a small dent in our spirit.

Zidane says