05 August 2006
Jaipur, Aug 5 (IANS) Rajasthan Congress president B.D. Kalla alleged Saturday that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has failed to control the rising crime rate in the state.
Speaking in a press conference, Kalla said: "The state government has failed on all fronts. The law and order situation has gone completely out of hands."
Basing his facts on the half-yearly report of the Rajasthan police, Kalla said that the crime rate has increased by 1.25 percent as compared to the corresponding period last year.
Murders have gone up by 4.8 percent, crime against women by 5.4 percent and incidents of looting are up by 11.35 percent. Similarly, dowry incidents have shot up by 10.4 percent and suicides by 8.4 percent.
"Under BJP rule, the Dalits, minorities and women have never felt secured," the state Congress president said. Land, tourism and liquor mafias are freely roaming around, he alleged.
Charging the state government as anti-labour and anti-farmer, Kalla alleged it is not concerned with the problems of the common people. A majority of villages in the state are facing drought-like situation and there are reports of corruption in drought relief works, he added.
Congress will launch "Janjagaran" campaign to inform the people about the failures of the Vasundhara Raje government, Kalla added.
New York, Aug 5 (DPA) "World Trade Centre", director Oliver Stone's gritty drama about the Sep 11 attacks on New York City, has premiered in the city to tears from survivors and rave reviews from the critics.
The movie, starring Nicolas Cage as a cop trapped in the rubble of the destroyed skyscrapers, premiered in Manhattan's historic Ziegfeld Theatre Thursday night.
The premiere did not feature a gala reception because of the sensitive subject matter and the invited audience was also asked to contribute the price of a theatre ticket to associated charities.
"I thought the movie was incredibly done," said retired Port Authority Police Lt. John McLoughlin, on whom Cage's character is based.
"It was accurate. They got the feel what was going on with us that day."
Leonard Crisci, 58, whose brother, firefighter John Crisci, died in the attacks, said the film was hard to watch.
"I was crying," Crisci said. "I just wished my brother had gotten out alive."
"It was a very powerful movie," agreed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also attended the screening.
"It's a story that needs to be told. It was the worst day in the history of the city - and the greatest day."
New York Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta also gave the movie his seal of approval. "I think it's very powerful," said Scoppetta.
Movie reviewers were equally enthusiastic. Oscar-pundit Tom O'Neill said the film was "the first great movie of 2006".
"Stone's film rendering is superb," O'Neill wrote. "It reflects a key time in history like other great Oscar champs as well, including ... Gandhi and The Deer Hunter.
"Stone has made an elegant, powerful, moving and genuinely personal document," said Fox News movie critic Roger Friedman.
But some family members also criticised Stone and production company Paramount for not screening public service announcements before the film, and for using the movie as a profit venture.
"The best tribute to my mom and the 2,971 others who died is to ask the people sitting in those darkened theatres to take action to make sure there's no such future tragedy," Carrie Lemack, co-founder of 'Families of September 11', wrote in The Boston Globe.
"World Trade Centre" will be released across the US and Canada on Aug 9. Paramount has said it will donate 10 percent of ticket sales from the first five days to the victims' families.
By contrast, Universal's "United 93", the first movie on the topic of Sep 11 that portrays the passengers who took back a hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on the day, donated a reported seven-figure sum to the families.
Beirut, Aug 5 IRNA, Israeli war planes heavily bombed a residential complex in Syria's Al-Qa'a border township with Lebanon, martyring some fifty innocent Syrian factory workers, including their family members.
Syria's Al-Qa'a township is located in a Shi'a region between Ba'albak and Harmal, in Syria's Boqa'a Province, near that country's eastern borders with Lebanon, and in addition to the fifty martyrs of the attack dozens of other Syrian factory workers and their family members are wounded in the attack.
The Al-Qa'a case is the second massive war crime of the racist Zionist regime in less than a week, after that fake regime's war planes bombed Qana in southern Lebanon, massacring 60 civilians, mostly women and including 37 very young children.
Some political analysts in Beirut believe the racist-Zionist regime's air attack against Syrian civilians in Al-Qa'a township is sign for that occupier entity's intention to expand the dimensions of the ongoing war in Lebanon to Syria, and other Islamic countries in the region later on.
Raipur, Aug 5 (IANS) The army began Saturday rescue and relief operations in flood-hit Chhattisgarh's southern Dantewada district to supply food to 100,000 tribals and airlift over 6,000 people to safer places.
Incessant rains for the past three days have submerged around 60 villages and the three rivers of the district - Indravati, Sabri and Sankhani - are in spate.
According to district authorities, thousands of people are stranded as rainwater has inundated villages and in some areas people climbed on to rooftops of government buildings and schools and were crying out for help. However, the administration could not launch rescue operations due to the continuous heavy rains. In the interior areas of the district, people took to climbing treetops to save themselves.
"Luckily, the army has reached with two planes from Uttar Pradesh and has begun relief and rescue operations Saturday morning. At least 100,000 people have been marooned in the district," Dantewada district collector K.R. Pisda told IANS via telephone.
Pisda said he did not have exact information about flood-related deaths but added: "Definitely dozens of people are missing but the exact loss to life and property would be known when officials would be able to reach the worst-hit interior areas."
The Indravati is in spate in the Bijapur and Bhopalpattanam areas where 32 villages have been submerged and the Jagdalpur-Bhopalpatnam National Highway 16 has been closed.
While in Konta block, which is close to the Andhra Pradesh and Orissa border, the Sabri has created havoc in 12 villages and flooded the Jagdalpur-Konta National Highway 221.
"Nearly 100,000 people of Dantewada district have been affected by the flash floods. The marooned people have not received any food and drinking water for past three days and the district received nine inches of rainfall on Friday alone," said a relief department official.
Chief Minister Raman Singh held a high-level emergency meeting of senior district officials and people's representatives late Friday to chalk out a plan for launching rescue and relief operations.
Dubai, Aug 5 (IANS) The Bahrain government has said no to a proposal to include Indian embassy officials in its labour camp inspection teams.
An official of Bahrain's Ministry of Labour has said that including the Indian officials would be against the country's labour laws, according to a report in the Bahrain Tribune newspaper.
"Although we are keen to cooperate with everybody, including embassies, labour inspection campaigns are the kingdom's internal affairs," undersecretary in the ministry Shaikh Abdulrahman was quoted as saying in the report.
He, however, added that the ministry was ready to provide statistics and information about the inspection drives in such camps housing foreign workers if the embassy so desires.
India's ambassador to Bahrain Balkrishna Shetty had broached the idea of including embassy officials in the inspection teams at a press conference recently.
Last Sunday, 17 Indians were killed and nine others were injured when a fire broke out in a labour camp in the Bahraini capital Manama housing around 200 workers of a Bahraini construction company.
Suva (Fiji), Aug 5 (IANS) A Fijian minister has called for a ban on the term Indo-Fijian to describe ethnic Indians in this country.
The call by Minister of State for National Planning Jone Navakamocea came in Fiji's parliament when a motion to introduce legislation covering the poor, handicapped and under-privileged was being rejected.
"We should use the word Indian to describe an Indian of Indian origin or ethnicity and Fijian for an indigenous Fijian," a report in the Fiji Times newspaper quoted Navakamocea as saying.
He added that the term Indo-Fijian was illegal and unacceptable.
Stating that he was not a racist, the minister said that the rights of indigenous Fijians were first and foremost and should be respected by minority races.
He alleged that the Indo-Fijian term was coined by Indian academics in Fiji to "Fijianise" their Indian ethnicity, according to the report.
Fiji has been witness to tensions between indigenous Fijians and ethnic Indians for a long time now. In 2000, a coup led to the ouster of then Indo-Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry after he had served just a year in office.
The constitution of this Pacific island nation describes 'Indian' as anybody who can trace, through either the male or the female line, his or her ancestry back to anywhere on the Indian subcontinent.
Indo-Fijians are descendants of Indians who were brought to Fiji by British colonial workers between 1879 and 1916 to work as indentured labourers in the country's sugarcane plantations. Later, the number of Indo-Fijians increased with the arrival of more Gujarati and Punjabi immigrants.
Today, Indo-Fijians comprise 44 percent of the country's population of around 900,000 and politically active.
Coming to the legislation, Navakamocea said that eradicating poverty was a misconception that needed a miracle and that disadvantaged groups - an obvious reference to Indo-Fijians - would continue to exist in varying magnitudes.
"The government can do everything and anything to alleviate poverty but the decision to walk out of poverty rests with the individual," he was quoted as saying.
Xinjiang (China), Aug 5 (Xinhua) China and central Asian countries have made a blueprint to jointly apply for listing of historical sites along the ancient Silk route in UNESCO's world cultural heritage list in the next three to five years.
Archeologists and cultural officials at an ongoing multinational application convention in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Friday reached the agreement titled "Action Plan for Multinational Application for Silk Road in UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List".
"The action plan will be the initial step of the multi-national application," said Gu Yucai, director of cultural relics protection department under the State Cultural Heritage Administration.
Under the plan, countries along the Silk route would take measures to protect cultural relics, improve the environment at sites and carry out promotional campaigns, said Gu.
The 2,000-year-old Silk route was mainly a trade route linking Asia and Europe. It extended from the city of Xi'an, capital of China's Shaanxi province, to Europe via south and central Asian countries. It was 7,000 km-long, more than half of which is in China.
Along this route, gunpowder, papermaking and printing technologies were sent to the West, while mathematics and medicine came to China.
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) India, China and Russia are expected to show strong economic growth, bucking the trend of slow growth in seven major nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) such as the US, Japan and Britain, a new study has forecast.
The forecast released Friday by Paris-based OECD says "slowing expansion lies ahead in the OECD area".
According to the latest composite leading indicators (CLIs), the June data shows "weakening performance in the CLI's six-month rate of change in the major seven economies", states OECD.
The OECD CLI is designed to provide early signals of turning points (peaks and troughs) between expansions and slowdowns of economic activity. The CLI is an instrument of analysis that is designed to provide qualitative information on short-term economic movements rather than quantitative measures.
The OECD uses the six-month rate of change of the CLI as its preferred pointer to possible turning points.
"The latest data for major OECD non-member economies point to continued strong expansion in China, India and Russia, while the CLI for Brazil signals a weaker outlook," the study points out.
Giving the breakup of data, the study states OECD CLI for China rose by a strong 3.5 points in June, and its six-month rate of change shows an upward trend since February 2005.
The CLI for India increased by 0.9 point in May and its six-month rate of change rose for the sixth consecutive month. Similarly, the CLI for Russia increased by 0.9 point in June and its six-month rate of change now shows an upward trend since March 2005.
In contrast, the CLI for the OECD area - covering 29 countries - decreased by 0.1 point in June to 109.7 from 109.8 in May, and its six-month rate of change was down for the third consecutive month.
Further break up shows the CLI for the United States fell by 0.2 point in June, and its six-month rate of change was down for the fourth consecutive month. In June, the CLI for Japan decreased by 0.9 point with its six-month rate of change showing a downward trend since March 2006.
Similarly, the CLI for Canada increased by 0.3 point in June, but its six-month rate of change shows a slight downward trend since February 2006.
The Euro area covering 12 countries: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, shows CLI increased by 0.2 point in June, but its six-month rate of change decreased for the first time since May 2005.
The CLI for Britain decreased in June by 0.3 point and its six-month rate of change has decreased for the last two months. For France the CLI decreased by 0.1 point in June, with its six-month rate of change decreasing for the second consecutive month.
The CLI for Germany rose by 0.1 point in June, but its six-month rate of change has decreased for the third consecutive month. For Italy, the CLI decreased by 0.2 point in June and its six-month rate of change also fell.
In case of Brazil also, the CLI in June fell by 0.4 point and its six-month rate of change was down for the fourth consecutive month.
Pondicherry, Aug 5 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Saturday demanded a ban on soft drinks in Pondicherry.
V. Perumal, the party's Pondicherry unit secretary, said the union territory "should take immediate steps to ban these soft drinks in the wake of the new findings that they contain high levels of pesticides".
A resolution passed at a meeting said the consumption of such hazardous soft drinks would pose a threat to the health of the people.
The Rajasthan government has banned soft drinks from schools in the wake of the report by the Centre for Science and Environment about pesticide content in them and the Delhi government too is contemplating the same.
The Supreme Court has asked the soft drink companies to explain.
Kolkata, Aug 5 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Saturday issued a whip asking its members not to comment on the victory of Jagmohan Dalmiya in the recent Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) elections and dubbed it a closed chapter.
"It is a closed chapter. No party member would make any comment on this issue anymore," CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose told reporters after the party's state level meeting where the issue was discussed.
"There may be a link between the party and the world of sports through sportspersons but the party has no role to play in games and sports," Bose clarified.
"Centring the CAB elections, our party leaders have made comments. But we put an end to the issue once and for all. We have come to the conclusion that no one will henceforth make any comment on this," he said.
Following the whip of the party, veteran leader Jyoti Basu, at whose insistence the issue was discussed at the meeting, refused to speak to the media and instead Biman Bose briefed reporters.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had termed the victory of Jagmohan Dalmiya in the CAB elections as a victory of evil over good, prompting a reaction from his predecessor Jyoti Basu who said Dalmiya had won democratically.
Dalmiya, who ignored the chief minister's "advice" to leave the CAB for the sake of Bengal cricket and Sourav Ganguly's future, won for the 15th time defeating Bhattacharya-backed City Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee 61-56 in the CAB annual elections July 31.
The battle lines were clearly drawn by Bhattacharya himself when he vowed to struggle to see Dalmiya out of the CAB.
"It is a victory of evil over good, over right thinking people. This happens at times," a visibly angry chief minister had said to which Basu reacted with disbelief, saying that the issue should be discussed in the CPI-M secretariat that represents the highest state-level body.
"Dalmiya won elections that were conducted in a democratic manner. (Prasun) Mukherjee can't be described as a Left Front candidate. He was just the chief minister's personal choice," Basu said.
West Bengal Sports Minister Subhas Chakraborty had earlier publicly supported Dalmiya and termed Sourav Ganguly an opportunist who backstabbed the former.
"One should accept defeat gracefully. This is a victory of the numerical majority and we have to accept that. I will never accept the chief minister's support to the police commissioner," he had said, stoking the fire further.
Kolkata, Aug 05: CPI-M state secretariat will hold a meeting in Kolkata. Party state secretary Biman Bose clarified yesterday that there was no differences in the CPI-M on the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) issue.
"Media has created the cab controversy. We will solve the issue internally in the party," Bose, party politburo member and also the Chairman of the Left Front said here.
The CPI-M state secretary said the party would demand a resolution disapproving certain aspects of the Indo-US nuclear deal in Parliament.
(SOURCE : ZEENEWS.COM)
New Delhi, Aug 5 IRNA, Five children succumbed to encephalitis in the eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh Friday, taking the toll in dreaded brain fever to 40 since April this year.
The children belonged to Mahrajganj, Kushinagar and Gorakhpur, Additional Director (Health) D P Mishra said adding, 11 new patients suffering from the disease have been admitted to the B R D Medical College in Gorakhpur, PTI report said here.
A total number of 56 patients died due to the disease since January 2006, he said.
Only 12 cases till now had been confirmed as Japanese
encephalitis, while the rest were viral encephalitis caused by an unknown virus, Mishra added.
He said 67 patients of the brain fever are still being treated in the B R D hospital.
Meanwhile, an expert team of doctors from Sanjay Gandhi PG Institute of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh will soon reach to Gorakhpur to study the type of virus behind the encephalitis outbreak.
Earlier in 2005, around 1000 people had been died due to the outbreak of encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh.
Pigs are the main carriers of encephalitis virus, which is transmitted to humans through mosquito bites.
The virus directly affects the brain of children, who have very little resistance.
The health department records show that in 1978, a total of 721 children had died of this disease in UP, 496 in 1980, 404 in 1985, 484 in 1989, 659 in 1991 and 230 in 1992.
After 1998, every year the disease has claimed the lives of more than 200 children during the rainy season.
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) Delhi may ban soft drinks in all schools from next week, government officials said Friday.
Plans are afoot to hold a meeting of the education advisory board to make the ban mandatory, said an official of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's office.
The decision was taken after a survey by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found high residues of pesticides in 11 brands of soft drinks across the country.
"No formal decision has been declared to ban colas following the CSE report but a government circular issued in 2003, asking schools not to serve or sell junk food, including soft drinks, will be enforced," the official said.
He said the meeting - to be attended by principals, education secretary and other education department officials - would decide on the ban.
Rajasthan Friday banned the sale and consumption of soft drinks in educational institutions in the state.
Three years after it shocked the nation with a report showing exceedingly large amounts of pesticide content in leading soft drink brands, CSE Wednesday came up with a more shocking report - the harmful content has only gone up since.
In its second study on pesticides in soft drinks, CSE found three to five immune-suppressive pesticides again in 11 brands. It also found that all the 11 brands of the Coke and Pepsi family had, on an average, 24 times more pesticide residues than that found in 2003.
New Delhi, Aug.5 IRNA, Bangladesh will write letters to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and other States having influence on Zionist Regime to immediately stop Tel Aviv's brutal carnage in Lebanon and Gaza, seen as a crime against humanity.
Announcing this Friday at a news conference on the outcome of the OIC emergency summit in Kuala Lumpur, Foreign Secretary Hemayetuddin said the letter would be sent soon, but it has not been decided yet whether the country will write the letter independently or with other OIC members collectively, UNI report said here.
He said the OIC meeting, chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, appealed to all the 56 member states to join the move for sending a `strong message' to the world community to force Israel to stop this wanton aggression.
Replying to a question, Hemayet agreed that although a bit late in initiating the move by OIC, it is better than doing nothing.
He said the presence of Bangladesh, having 140 million Muslim population, has created a `special impact' in the context of the Muslim ummah.
Quoting Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's statement at the summit, he said if Israeli violence does not stop, its continuation carries the danger of a spillover that will have disastrous consequences.
This will surely add to radicalisation in the Muslim world, he said, adding that Bangladesh strongly believes in tolerance and moderation, but if the aggression continues, radical elements will get an upper hand.
Asked why frontline OIC member states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and UAE had no Head of the State level participation in the meeting, the Foreign Secretary said the meeting dubbed as "friends of the chair" was convened hurriedly giving priority to those Muslim states having larger Muslim populations.
Karachi, Aug 5 (IANS) Four Gulf nations - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman - will collaborate with Karachi's civic authorities to build Pakistan's first seven-star luxury hotel in this port city.
Even as this project would be initiated on built, operate and transfer (BOT) basis, more such projects are in the pipeline, reports here said.
The hotel would be built along with a world class shopping plaza and multi-storey residential and commercial centres.
The construction work of these projects will start this year.
The MoU was inked by Fazlur Rehman for Karachi authority and consul generals of the four Gulf nations.
Taiyuan (China), Aug 5 (Xinhua) Eighteen miners were killed in a coal mine gas leak in China's Shanxi province.
A collapse in the mining area of Dahuiyao Coal Mine in Ningwu county on Friday caused a fire, producing large amount of harmful gas, said sources from Shanxi Provincial Bureau of Work Safety.
Altogether 34 miners were working beneath the shaft when the accident happened. Three of them escaped the site of the accident.
Rescuers later lifted 14 more miners out of the shaft, of whom, one died in hospital.
Later, the rescuers found the body of the 17 miners trapped in the mishap.
With vast coal reserves, Shanxi province, commonly known as "sea of coal", is the biggest coal producer in China.
However, fatal accidents in the mining industry have been occurring regularly in the province.
One recent accident with big fatalities in the same county was on July 7 when a blast caused by explosives illegally stored at villager's home killed 47 people, including schoolchildren, and injured 28 persons.
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) The government will table the Justice R.S. Pathak Committee report along with the action taken report (ATR) in parliament Monday, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said Saturday.
"This is for the first time that an ATR will be presented in 72 hours," Dasmunsi told reporters here on the sidelines of a function of All India Management Association.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led opposition, which stalled the parliamentary proceedings in both the houses Friday, demanded the government should immediately table the report that indicted former external affairs minister K. Natwar Singh for misusing his position in the party in securing contracts in Iraq's oil-for-food scam.
Pathak had submitted the report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday.
Official sources said Manmohan Singh had sent the report to Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to prepare the ATR. "The finance minister will prepare the ATR in two days," said a minister, requesting anonymity.
"The prime minister and the Congress party wanted to bring the report immediately to avoid further attack on (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi," he said.
The decision to table the report and the ATR in record time was taken after a meeting of Congress Core Group Friday night.
Although the report has indicted Natwar Singh, it has given a clean chit to the Congress.
Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani has alleged that the government had "managed" to exonerate Congress party and Gandhi in the report. Both houses of parliament Friday echoed with slogans alleging corruption against Gandhi.
Congress sources said the party leadership did not want the BJP to divert attention from the controversies around their senior leader Jaswant Singh.
The party, and particularly Singh, have been under attack for former foreign minister's controversial remarks that a 'mole' in the Prime Minister's Office during 1990s had leaked nuclear secrets to the US, and for the references to 1999 Kandahar hijacking crisis in his book "Call to Honour - In Service of Emergent India".
Guwahati, Aug 5 (IANS) An army soldier was killed and two critically wounded in a powerful grenade explosion in the northeastern state of Assam, the first rebel attack ahead of the Aug 15 Independence Day celebrations, an official said Saturday.
A police spokesman said militants suspected to be from the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) lobbed a grenade late Friday on an army convoy near Gelapukhuri village, about 520 km east of Guwahati.
"There were about a dozen army soldiers in one of the vehicles hit by the grenade and three suffered serious injuries of which one died on the way to the hospital," said Debojit Hazarika, a police official.
The army convoy was on it way back to its headquarters carrying essentials when the ambush took place.
No rebel group has so far claimed responsibility for the explosion.
"The area is dominated by the ULFA and the needle of suspicion points to them," Hazarika said.
The ULFA is a rebel group fighting for an independent Assamese homeland since 1979 with the outfit calling a 12-hour general strike Aug 15 to boycott India's Independence Day celebrations.
Militants in the insurgency-hit northeast have for years been boycotting India's Independence Day and Republic Day celebrations to protest New Delhi's rule over the vast region rich in oil, tea and timber.
The run-up to the event has always been violent, with rebels striking vital installations including crude oil pipelines, trains and road and rail bridges, besides targeting federal soldiers.
In 2004, ULFA triggered a powerful landmine at an Independence Day function in eastern Assam's Dhemaji town killing 13 people, including six schoolchildren.
"We are getting disturbing reports of militants, including some Islamist radical and terrorist groups trying to create violence ahead of Aug 15," Assam police chief Dipak Narayan Dutt said.
"We have placed security forces on high alert across the state to thwart any such plans." More than 30 rebel armies operate in the northeastern states, their demands ranging from secession to greater autonomy and the right to self-determination. More than 50,000 people have lost their lives in the insurgency in the northeast since India's independence in 1947.
Ahmedabad, Aug 5 (IANS) The Gujarat University Saturday banned the sale of carbonated drinks on its campus.
"We have today (Saturday) issued a circular to all the affiliated colleges and institutes ordering them to stop the sale of soft drinks in canteens and campuses with immediate effect," said vice chancellor Parimal Trivedi here.
With the ban on soft drinks by the university, around 250 colleges and several institutes will stop the sales.
A Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) report Wednesday on the presence of pesticides in aerated drinks has reduced the sales of Pepsi and Coke by 20 percent.
With the largest university of the state banning the sale of soft drinks, many other educational institutions are likely to follow suit.
Chandigarh, Aug 5 (IANS) Haryana Saturday announced that industrial training institutes (ITIs) across the state will provide driving training and will also be authorised to issue driving licences to trained drivers.
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who chaired a meeting of the state transport department here, said the move was aimed at decentralising the process of issuing driving licences to applicants.
The state government had Thursday said it was starting a training school for drivers of heavy vehicles to make roads safer. The school would be set up in Mahendergarh district in collaboration with automobile giants Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL) and Ashok Leyland.
Hooda said that reputed automobile manufacturers would be roped in for the scheme to provide driving training in all ITIs of the state.
The Hooda government has also decided to allow the driver training institute of the state transport - Haryana Roadways - to issue licences for heavy vehicles to drivers trained by them.
Two model driving training schools would be set up at Bahadurgarh and Kaithal towns of Haryana in the coming months, a transport department spokesman said here.
Chandigarh, Aug 5 (IANS) Haryana will honour two children along with two villagers on Aug 15 for their bravery in saving 23 children when a school bus fell into a canal, the state government announced here Saturday.
Amarjit and Babita, in their early teens, helped shocked children to escape from their school bus as it sank in Haryana's Sonepat district on Aug 1 killing six children.
The two villagers, Narinder of Ahulana village and another Narinder of Attapalaya village, seeing the children and the bus drowning, jumped into the western Yamuna canal.
A Haryana government spokesman said that all four had shown exemplary courage at the time of the mishap and helped save many lives.
The four will be honoured by the Haryana government at a state-level function in Jhajjar, adjoining Delhi, on Independence Day Aug 15.
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has announced a cash reward of Rs.31,000 each to the children and Rs.21,000 to the villagers.
By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) World Cup cricket CEO Chris Dehring is hoping the 2007 championship in the West Indies turns out to be a "Cinderella story" - or a tournament full of surprise results.
In the biggest ever cricket World Cup comprising 16 teams, qualifiers Holland, Scotland, Bermuda, Canada and Ireland will be up against the big boys Australia - the defending champions, runners-up India, England, Pakistan and others in the March-April competition.
"We will have to wait until the tournament evolves to see the performance of some of the teams. Clearly, it has made some of the opening round matches not as attractive to find," Dehring told IANS in an interview.
"But the reality is upsets make tournaments - the Cinderella story, the underdogs," said the man who wrote and presented the Caribbean's winning proposal to host the World Cup for the first time.
To support his argument, the 44-year-old Dehring, who was here for the Indian launch of the World Cup, pointed out minnows Kenya's dream run in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa where they reached the semi-finals against all odds.
"And they almost became fans' favourites because people wanted to see the Kenyans do well as they were underdogs. Similarly, in the 2006 football World Cup Trinidad and Tobago were very popular even though they did not win any game," stressed Dehring, who attended the tournament in Germany.
"I would like to see the underdogs or the less popular teams do well, but let's see how the tournament pans out to see whether 16 is the right number or not."
In South Africa, 14 teams took part and this time as many as five qualifiers have joined the 10 Test-playing nations and Kenya, who have a special one-day international status, at the March 11-April 28 tournament.
Another issue that concerns the tournament is accommodation. It is feared that hotels would hike up tariffs during the World Cup, making it inconvenient for thousands expected to descend on the Caribbean.
Dehring, however, said that fans should not worry because there were several options for them.
"We have a wide range of accommodation - from home stay programmes to villa programmes and bed-and-breakfast programmes and a number of cruise ships are available which are great value for money.
"When we talk about cruise ships, people tend to think of it as a solution of our problems. The reality is that it is a fantastic asset the Caribbean has. We have over 50 percent of the world's cruise ship market."
Dehring, a founding partner of one of Jamaica's most successful investment banks, Dehring Bunting & Golding Ltd., stressed that cruise accommodation was a fine way to see the enchanting Caribbean islands.
"We are inviting people to take advantage of it. There are a number of ships available that provide both accommodation and transportation. The Caribbean is a premier product, and we are not going to devalue it simply because there is a cricket World Cup."
When reminded of his recent reported remark that the organisers could not solve all accommodation problems, Dehring said that he was only emphasizing the point that there was always a heavy demand at every mega event.
"And if you are a successful global sporting event, you will have more demand than supply. For the 2006 football World Cup there were 100,000 English fans in Germany, but only 26,000 were able to get a ticket," he said of his first-hand experience.
"That's not a problem; that's simply a question of supply and demand. We in the Caribbean will certainly generate, like all other successful global events, more demand then supply," said the man who was a member of the International Cricket Council's negotiating team that secured the four-year, $550 million media rights deal with Rupert Murdoch's Global Cricket Corp.
By Subhash K. Jha, Mumbai, Aug 5 (IANS) Poet-lyricist Gulzar, who returns to scriptwriting after four years with Shoojit Sircar's new film, refuses to "fulfil expectations in expected ways".
"I know people expect another 'Kajrare' from me. Didn't people expect 'Chal chaiyyan chaiyyan' from me again after "Dil Se" and 'Chappa chappa' after "Maachis"? Everyone goes through that.
"After 'Hum Aapke Hain Kaun', everyone expected Sooraj Barjatya to keep making that film. There's no logic behind demands like 'just give one hit song'. I've been hearing it for 60 years," he said.
"Just like all eyes were on Vishal Bharadwaj. They expected 'Omkara' to be another 'Maqbool'. But we won't fulfil those expectations in expected ways," Gulzar told IANS.
He attributes the success of 'Kajrare' to Aishwarya Rai.
"A lot of songs become a success, but only a few become a rage. I know so many people who keep going back to 'Kajrare' because of Aishwarya's dance. Objectively speaking, the song was a success more because of Aishwarya's dance than my words.
"I'm doing an unusual love story with Shoojit. He makes visually interesting films. It started as help, now I am writing it completely. Let's see how far Shoojit and I walk together," he said.
Gulzar, who wrote the dialogues for Shaad Ali's "Saathiya", returns to screenwriting at a time when another renowned lyricist Javed Akhtar is doing the same.
Apart from Sircar's film, he is also penning a short film for Sanjay Gupta.
"Sanjay met me. We discussed a story idea. But we are yet to meet again. What I am happy about is that he has offered to produce a short story for Bosky (his daughter Meghna)," said Gulzar, who has just returned from a trip to the US.
"There was a Jagjit Singh concert (in the US) where I had to introduce him, not that he needed an introduction. I just went along as assistant chief guest," he quipped.
"The Bharat Vidya Bhavan had completed 25 years. And I was honoured to go for the celebration. I also took part in a mushaira (poetry session) where there were two Hindi and two Urdu poets.
"As usual I was stuck between the two languages. I love that kind of ambience, which is more creative than commercial. (India's Planning Commission Deputy Chairman) Montek Singh Ahluwalia was also there. Since Punjabi sardars (Sikhs) often know Urdu, they've a penchant for poetry. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh likes to recite shaayari (verse)," he added.
Gulzar is recording his first song for "Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom" with composer trio Shankar-Ehsan-Loy.
"It's the title song. Though I have used the phrase 'Jhoom baraabar jhoom' from Jaani Babu Qawwal's famous qawwali, our song isn't a qawwali. Ours is a melody. Shankar, Ehsan and Loy are very melodious. Like 'Bunty Aur Babli', the music will again be the highlight of 'Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom'," he said.
Currently, Gulzar is flooded with work.
"There's Meghna's film 'Honeymoon'. It's again a lively film. 'Kaise kaise ram milaye jodi' is the theme song. Then 'Sannate (silences) bhi dete hain kharrate (snores) bhi'. Those two words sannate and kharrate, I borrowed from Meghna's script," he said.
According to Gulzar, even the songs that he wrote for "Omkara" aren't serious.
"Let me tell you one thing - there is a complete change of scenario. The era of melody is gone. We're going through a new phase in film music. After action films, it's back to musicals.
"Ganon par ganen (songs after songs). Films have seven to eight songs. Films stretching up to three to four hours are chockful of music that they enjoy here and overseas. For me this is a phase where I'm learning a new style of expression. I'm going with the flow, but making sure that my aesthetics are in place," he said.
"I'm waiting to see if a new style emerges. I can't write lyrics like 'Roz akeli aaye' and 'Tum aa gaye ho noor aa gaya hai' any longer. That kind of romance is not happening in films any more. It's very difficult to hold on to my aesthetics. Not that it was ever easy. I had to struggle all along.
"Each time an artiste speaks a new language, he's shunned. But in the earlier generations there were filmmakers like Bimal Roy, Basu Bhattacharya and Hrishikesh Mukherjee who were likeminded. The last time I wrote some old-fashioned poetry, it was in Shaad's 'Saathiya'," Gulzar said.
"You could see the change in Shaad's 'Bunty Aur Babli'. And now you'll see more change in Shaad's 'Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom'. I'm glad I still have a rapport with today's generation of filmmakers whether it's my daughter Meghna, Vishal, Shaad or Shirish Kunder for whom I've written lyrics in 'Jaan-E-Man'.
"I'm grateful I can still walk and talk with these youngsters without a walking stick. Change is inevitable. One should keep smiling about it. For me every lyric is a new experience. I feel just as nervous writing for Shaad's 'Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom' and his mentor Mani Rathnam's 'Guru' as I did for my first film as lyricist - 'Bandini'," Gulzar added.
Islamabad, Aug 5 (IANS) Pakistan's cricketing legend-turned-politician Imran Khan has announced that he would boycott elections held under the regime of President Pervez Musharraf and has urged the rest of the opposition to do the same.
Khan, who is chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), said: "All the opposition parties should make it clear that no dialogue would be held with the Musharraf regime."
Using cricketing term, he added that they should stop "playing on two sides of the wicket".
Khan told a news conference in Hyderabad that since Musharraf had been offering 'concessions' to coalition partners of the government, this political set-up is detrimental to people's interest.
A member National Assembly from Mianwali, Khan said the law and order situation had worsened in Sindh and Punjab and regretted that there was no rule of law in the country.
He said the opposition should remain united for a movement against the military government and the no-confidence move against the prime minister was the first step towards the removal of this regime.
He said no elections would be acceptable under General Musharraf, as even international reports have indicated massive rigging during the last two elections held under his regime.
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) In a diplomatic tit for tat, India and Pakistan Saturday expelled each other's senior diplomats, adding fresh tensions to the bilateral relations that had dipped last month in the wake of Mumbai train bombings.
India expelled Syed Mohammed Rafiq Ahmed, a counsellor in the Pakistan High Commission here in retaliation to the arrest and expulsion of Deepak Kaul, visa counsellor in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.
Kaul was charged with carrying sensitive documents. Pakistan authorities claimed he was "caught red handed".
New Delhi expressed its indignation and summoned the Pakistan deputy high commissioner to the foreign office.
He was warned that no harm should come to Kaul or any other member of the Indian diplomatic staff posted in Pakistan.
Kaul was arrested around 7.30 a.m. IST when he was on his way from Islamabad to Wagah border to receive his family rejoining him on his posting. He was having tea at a kiosk on the Islamabad-Lahore highway, Indian officials here said.
The on-again-off-again India-Pakistan peace process took a nosedive when, in the wake of serial bombings in Mumbai July 11, India accused that terror groups based in Pakistan were involved.
Although a foreign secretary-level round of talks was called off, the two top officials did meet on the sidelines of a Saaarc conference in Dhaka last week.
Although fresh dates were not decided for an official meeting, it was decided the two sides would stay in touch.
The dialogue appeared to have been salvaged from the impasse after the Dhaka meeting. However, Saturday's events have added a new twist to the tense situation.
Mumbai, Aug 5 (IANS) Indian equities ended marginally higher during the trading week ended Friday, even as a key Indian stock market index managed to breach the 11,000-point mark for the first time in four months before sliding again.
During the week under review, the sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) closed Friday with a net gain of 186.28 points or 1.74 percent over the previous week's close.
This was the second consecutive week that the barometer index ended higher.
Looking ahead, analysts said trading was expected to be range-bound and that all eyes would be on the signals that emerge from events such as the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee in the US on interest rates.
"If the US Fed does not hike interest rates, which is extremely unlikely at this stage, it would be a positive sign for Indian markets and the Sensex could move up by a couple of hundred points," an analyst with a brokerage here said.
"However, if the interest rates are hiked - we expect this to be no more than 25 basis points - it could also bring the markets down. For a sustained rise, it is vital for Sensex to close above the 11,000-point mark for three-four days."
Trading during the week started on a positive note, with the 30-share Sensex ending Monday with a gain of 63.65 points or 0.60 percent at 10,743.88, and rising marginally Tuesday by another 7.78 points.
While Wednesday again saw the representative index gain 46.97 points or 0.43 percent at 10,923, on Thursday it breached the 11,000-point mark for the first time in four months, before settling lower at 10,923.
It still managed a gain of 46.97 points or 0.43 percent. But Friday saw the bellwether index slip on profit taking to end with a loss of 56.65 points or 0.52 percent at 10,866.51 points.
Even though the Sensex ended higher by 186.28 points or 1.74 percent over the previous week, a month-on-month comparison shows a fall of 53.13 points or 0.49 percent, data available with the stock exchange showed.
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers to the extent of $180.4 million but domestic funds were net sellers. While automobile and software counters made some handsome gains, fast moving consumer goods and energy shares lost ground.
Dubai, Aug 5 (IANS) An Indian MP from Kerala has called for the resumption of a shipping service between Bahrain and India for the benefit of low-paid Indian workers in that Gulf country.
Pannyan Ravindran of the Communist Party of India (CPI) has said that he will submit a petition signed by 20 MPs from Kerala to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking resumption of the services, according to a report in the Gulf Daily News newspaper.
Ravindran, according to the report, has said that the shipping services were necessary as the present airfares between India and Bahrain are almost the same as those on the India-Europe sector, which the low-paid workers cannot afford.
Though a passenger ferry service was launched between the Gulf and India in 2001 by a Bahraini firm, it had to be subsequently cancelled as the vessel could not get a sea-worthiness certificate from India's Mercantile and Marine Department.
According to the report, Ravindran's call comes close on the heels of a similar appeal by the Bahrain Malayalee Business Forum (BMBF) which had said that the fares charged by India's national carriers, Air India and Indian, were too steep.
However, some feel that such a service is not practical.
"A major drawback of the shipping service is that a person going on a month's leave to India will waste two weeks just for travel," Ram Manohar, travel and tours manager of the Bahrain Tourism Company, told the newspaper.
Another travel company executive was quoted as saying that if the purpose is to save on airfares of the Indian carriers, a ticket of Air Arabia would not be much different from that of a ticket paid to travel by ship.
In 2003, a feasibility study to resume the ferry service from Bahrain to Kerala was done by Bahrain's Centre for Marine Studies. But it was put on hold following the Iraq war and rise in fuel prices, the report said.
There are over 130,000 Indians in Bahrain, many of whom work as contract labourers.
Madrid, Aug 5, IRNA, Iran's deputy foreign minister, Manouchehr Mohammadi, warned on Friday that price of crude oil will exceed 200 dollars if the Untied Nations Security Council issues sanctions on Iran.
Speaking to reporters in Caracas, Venezuela, on Friday, Mohammadi said imposing sanctions on Iran will emanate negative consequences, the first of which will be higher price of crude oil.
He added Iran will not ignore its right to peaceful use of nuclear energy within framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
He noted that threats also cannot deprive Iran from its legal and inalienable right to nuclear energy.
"Iran is ready to confront with any kind of probable threat and sanctions," he assured.
The United Nations Security Council ratified a statement last week, urging Iran to stop its peaceful nuclear program by the end of August.
Beirut/Tel Aviv, Aug 5 (DPA) Israeli jets renewed their raids on Beirut and the port city of Tyre Saturday, Lebanese police said. An Israeli army spokesman said aircrafts had attacked around 70 targets overnight.
Loud explosions echoed throughout Beirut as Israel targeted a Hezbollah hotbed in the city.
The Israeli army said the planes had hit an underground Hezbollah operations room and a Hezbollah command post, as well as arms depots belonging to the organization.
Two missile launchers were also hit, the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, residents fear a wide-scale attack on Tyre after Israeli jets started targeting the port city and nearby areas.
Ground fighting close to the border in southern Lebanon, between Israeli troops and Hezbollah gunmen, was also continuing.
Amritsar, Aug 5 (IANS) Jet Airways Friday started its flights directly between Sikh holy city of Amritsar and London.
This is the first direct flight from here to London. Earlier, there was an Air India flight from Amritsar to Birmingham.
The flights from here are likely to help the Punjabi diaspora settled in Britain and other European countries. Earlier, they had to go to Delhi to take flights to Britain. The new flights would also attract tourists wanting to see the city's famous Sikh religious shrine - the Golden Temple.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh flagged off the inaugural flight. Jet officials said that three flights would operate between Amritsar's Rajasansi airport and London's Heathrow airport.
He said Amritsar had become an important international airport in the past couple of years with 82 flights being operated from here every week.
More airlines wanted to start flights from here due to heavy business of non-resident Indians and tourists, he said.
Jet Airways officials said they were planning more international flights from Amritsar. They said a Chandigarh-Amritsar flight was also being proposed.
August 5, (Khera Kyari village): The villagers of the Khera Kyari village of Jharkhand are waiting for their near and dear ones for the last four days.
Labourers from this village had gone to work in an illegal mine in Puralia district of West Bengal on August 1, but have not yet returned.
According to information, on that day, water entered these mines from the overflowing Damodar river, leaving these labourers trapped inside the mine.
"My husband is dead. He went for work and did not come back," said Kasuri Devi, victim's wife.
Illegal mining
Illegal mining in the coal fields situated on the West Bengal-Jharkhand borders has been on for years, thanks to the active coal mafias in the region.
After Tuesday's accident, a rescue team from West Bengal was rushed to the site, but was unable to carry out any rescue work, as the water level was too high.
According to Jharkhand officials, only 10-12 of the labourers trapped in the mine belong to the state while the rest are from West Bengal.
On being asked if this is a case of illegal mining, Baljeet Singh, Dhanbad SP, said, "We don't know as of now. But since it's in West Bengal, we have asked their police to check. But from what the villagers say, it does look like illegal mining."
Though it is believed that 25-30 people are trapped in the mine, villagers say that the number could be much higher.
With the clock ticking away, the anxious relatives are keeping their fingers crossed and praying for the water levels to recede quickly. (SOURCE : NDTV.COM)
New Delhi, Aug 5 IRNA, Sri Lanka's largest Muslim party accused Sri Lankan security forces of shelling Muslim civilians in embattled Muttur town, killing dozens of people and wounding scores more.
As Sri Lanka's military blamed the Tamil Tigers, TamilNet quoted Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader, Rauf Hakeem, as saying, "The people were killed in attacks carried out by the security forces." In the third day of pitched battles in Muttur town between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) units and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops, artillery shells hit schools where Muslim civilians had sought shelter, killing over twenty people and wounding forty others.
SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem Thursday accused the government of firing the shells that fell on the schools.
"The government must take responsibility for the killing of civilians", he said.
"Both sides must stop the attacks immediately and go back to the positions they had before the (2002) truce", he added.
The SLMC also called upon the LTTE and the government to declare mosques, temples, churches and schools as war free zones.
Hakeem said the government and the LTTE had made the 2002 ceasefire agreement a mockery as they were going ahead with their offensives.
By Manish Chand, New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) The Maldives, the Indian Ocean island nation known for its picturesque beaches and idyllic resorts, has sought India's expertise in food processing and packaging technologies to boost its tourism-oriented economy.
"Agriculture is going from one level to another. There are vast opportunities for cooperation in the field of food processing and packaging for our tourist market as well as the local market," said Maldives Minister for Fisheries, Agriculture and Marine Resources Abdulla Kamaaluddeen.
"In the field of quality control and distribution systems also, India can help Maldives," Kamaaluddeen told IANS.
He was here to attend a conference of ministers of health, agriculture/livestock on avian influenza control and pandemics in Asia. The conference was jointly organised by the Indian government and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Poultry industry is another area where the two countries can cooperate, he said.
Despite a huge requirement of eggs, the island nation has no major poultry industry. "One or two odd poultry farms we have produce only 10,000-20,000 eggs. Maldives needs around 200,000 eggs per day," he said.
Tourism and fisheries are two vital components of the Maldivian economy and earn huge foreign exchange for the country.
Kamaaluddeen conjured up a robust picture of economic ties between the two countries and rued that the huge potential for two-way trade and investment remained largely untapped. "India enjoys enormous goodwill in Maldives. The only foreigner allowed to do retail trading in Maldives is an Indian," he said.
India was one of the first few countries to help Maldives - home to 9,000 non-resident Indians (NRIs) - in the aftermath of the tsunami in 2004 that killed over 200,000 people in 11 countries.
India - the only country that has a defence relationship with the island nation - came to the rescue of the Maldives in 1988 when it sent troops to overthrow the mercenaries who had overpowered the anti-government forces at the request of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in 1988.
The Maldivian minister also rebutted reports in the international press about the danger of the low-lying Maldives sinking in the sea. "There is no evidence that the country is sinking. We have, however, become very cautious and are taking all steps to guard against such a possibility," the minister said.
Mohuya Chaudhuri/Gargi Rawat, August 5 (New Delhi): After the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) went to the press for the second time in three years accusing cola companies of selling soft drinks with exceedingly high levels of pesticides, the question everyone's asking is what has the government been doing all this while?
The CSE insists the health ministry is to blame for the delay in notifying new standards for cola companies but the health minister is clear that the companies can't pass the buck.
"The final onus does lie with the company. They are responsible for their product. They must ensure there are no unsafe levels of pesticides," said A Ramadoss, health minister.
But now NDTV has learnt what may actually be delaying the notification.
While standards for water were notified in 2004, norms for sugar, a major component in colas, are still to be defined. The reason is poor data.
23 varieties of pesticides are used by the sugarcane industry, at least 14 of them so old that it is not known what they contain.
Before these can be regulated, manufacturers have to provide information on them to the agriculture ministry which in turn will inform the health ministry which formulates finals standards.
Ministry reacts
Sources say it is only now that the agriculture ministry has reportedly asked pesticide manufacturers to provide data.
On Friday, protests against cola companies were held in Lucknow, Allahabad, Patna and Ahmedabad, reflecting consumer anger.
The Rajasthan government has banned Pepsi and Coke in all educational institutions across the state. The state education minister says the ban also applies to private schools.
The Delhi government has also reacted to the latest CSE report. It will verify the latest report brought out by CSE and hold a meeting early next week with all schools to build a consensus on the issue.
Two years ago the ministry had circulated an advisory to all Delhi schools against providing junk food and cold drinks on campus, while cold drinks were banned in government schools.
The Supreme Court has issued notices to Pepsi and Coke seeking their response on a petition filed by an NGO, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation asking for a ban on chemical agents in these drinks.
The NGO says it wants the companies to display its contents on bottles and a ban on all advertisement on TV channels. These companies have been given three weeks to reply.
But till the government sets standards, companies are under no pressure to provide safe soft drinks. (SOURCE : NDTV.COM)
New York, Aug 5 (IANS) A four-year-old girl in Georgia, who was kidnapped by a man earlier suspected to be an Indian American, has been found while the alleged kidnapper shot himself to death.
The girl was reportedly found in the Atlanta suburb of Norcross in Gwinnett County.
Gwinnett County Police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had earlier issued a Levi's Call for the girl who had gone missing after her 20-year-old mother was found murdered at Norcross Friday evening.
The Levi's Call is Georgia's equivalent of the AMBER (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert used in other states of the US when a child goes missing. It is named after a boy in Georgia who had gone missing.
According to a report in the WXIA TV website, a citizen called 911 when he spotted the red Ford Explorer, which the police had said the suspect was driving, on Buford Highway in Norcross.
The driver, the report said, shot himself to death early Saturday with a handgun when police gave him verbal commands to exit the vehicle after stopping it.
The girl was unharmed and reunited with her family.
Though the latest report did not give the ethnicity of the alleged kidnapper, earlier police reports had described the suspect as "south Asian Indian, age 49, with salt-and-pepper hair". The man, the reports suggested, was the boyfriend of the girl's mother.
Bhubaneswar, Aug 5 (IANS) Senior Congress leader and former Orissa chief minister Nandini Satapathy, who died Friday night, was cremated here Saturday with full state honours.
Amid chanting of religious hymns, her eldest son Nachiketa lit the pyre in the presence thousands of people from a cross section of society at Garabadu cremation ground.
A host of dignitaries, including state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and opposition leader and former chief minister J.B. Patnaik, were present.
Satapathy, known as the 'The Iron Lady of Orissa', was bed-ridden for almost two years. She died of cardiac arrest in a city hospital where she was admitted for treatment.
Earlier, the body was taken in a procession to her native town Dhenkanal, where people paid their last respects to her.
A similar procession was taken out at state capital Bhubaneswar.
Born on June 9, 1931, at Christian Sahi, Cuttack, Satapathy was the daughter of illustrious Oriya writer and poet Kalindi Charan Panigrahi. She joined the freedom movement against colonial rule at the age of 11.
Satapathy, who had a master's degree in Oriya literature, was married to well-known Oriya writer Devendra Satapathy when she was 20.
She was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Congress candidate in 1962 at the age of 31. She was re-elected for in 1968.
Satapathy served in the first Indira Gandhi government as deputy minister for information and broadcasting.
She ruled Orissa for three years in two spells - from 1972 to 1973 and from 1974 to 1976. Apart from land reforms, Satapathy also introduced old age pension. She is the first and only woman chief minister of the state.
Elected to the state assembly for seven consecutive terms, Satapathy was also known for her contribution to Oriya literature. Some of the books she has authored include "Ketoti Katha" and "Saptadasi".
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, expressing his condolences, said she would be remembered for her contribution to the development of the state. Former chief minister J.B Patnaik described Satapathy's death as irreparable.
The state Bharatiya Janata Party chief Jual Oram said Satapathy would be "remembered as one of the most dynamic leaders of Orissa".
By Arun Kumar, Washington, Aug 5 (IANS) Pakistan has acknowledged that a major new Pakistani plutonium nuclear reactor under construction at Khushab could be used for "military purposes", but claimed it will not lead to a massive increase in the country's nuclear arsenal.
This "first official acknowledgment that the heavy-water reactor will bring at least some increase in Pakistan's military nuclear capability at a time of heightened fears of a South Asia arms race with rival India" came from Pakistan's new ambassador in an interview with the Washington Times Friday.
"The plutonium may certainly be used for military purposes, but it is simply not the case that it will increase our capability X-fold," Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former top defence adviser to the Pakistani president and chairman of the country's military industrial complex for much of the 1990s, told the daily.
He declined to give production figures for the new plant, but said it would be far less powerful than the 1,000-megawatt estimate given last month by the Institute for Science and International Security. Pakistan's current reactor, located near the new one, is a 50-megawatt unit completed in 1998.
"I would love it to be 1,000 megawatts, because we certainly have the power needs," he joked dismissing the private Washington-based think tank's report as "grossly exaggerated". He denied the new plant could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to boost the country's production from an estimated two bombs a year to as many as 50.
Durrani's interview came just a day after the New York Times suggested that American officials are seeking to dispute the think tank's finding about Khushab's potential to make 50 nuclear warheads a year to mute criticism of a key ally.
The Khushab site has sparked international concerns as the US and India move to ratify a nuclear cooperation deal that critics warn could allow India to greatly accelerate its own military nuclear programme, the Washington Times noted.
Durrani said Pakistan had conveyed its "deep concerns" about the India-US nuclear accord to the Bush administration, but acknowledged it was unlikely the deal could be derailed.
"We know your administration is very keen for this deal, but we also don't want to see an imbalance with India that we would have to match," he said.
He frankly acknowledged that the case of Abdul Qader Khan - considered the father of Pakistan's atom bomb - who sold sensitive nuclear technology to rogue states such as Iran and North Korea before his smuggling ring was broken up in 2004, was "an absolute, total, unmitigated disaster for my country," raising doubts in Washington and other capitals about the reliability of Pakistan's non-proliferation controls.
"It pulled our image down very badly and it will take us time to get out of this mess," Durrani said hoping to end what he called the "yo-yo", up-and-down relationship his country has had with the US.
He rejected suggestions that the Pakistani army and intelligence services are less than fully committed to the war against Al Qaeda and global terrorism, saying the military "is perhaps the most liberal institution in the country today".
The army, Durrani noted, has suffered 600 deaths in the politically difficult campaign to flush out Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives in the country's tribal provinces on the border.
He said there were signs of rising Islamic fundamentalist activity in the region - a "blowback" from continuing insecurity across the border in Afghanistan - but said US and Pakistani officials are planning special reconstruction zones as part of a campaign to undercut the appeal of extremists.
The ambassador said there was "no sympathy" in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, but he added it was more likely bin Laden was holed up on the less-populous Afghan side of the border.
"I think if he were in Pakistan, he would be caught by now," he said.
Bhubaneswar, Aug 5 (IANS) Former Orissa chief minister and veteran Congress leader Nandini Satapathy, who passed away here Friday at age 75, was known as 'The Iron Lady of Orissa' for her contribution to the development of the state and her revolutionary land reforms.
Satapathy, who died of cardiac arrest Friday evening at a city hospital, had been bed-ridden for almost two years.
She is survived by two sons. Her eldest son Nachiketa works in a multinational firm in New Delhi, and younger son, Tathagata, is a Lok Saha MP and editor of the Oriya daily Dharitri.
Born on June 9, 1931, at Christian Sahi, Cuttack, Satapathy was the daughter of illustrious Oriya writer and poet Kalindi Charan Panigrahi. She joined the freedom movement against colonial rule at the age of 11 and joined the Quit India Movement while she was a student.
A masters in Oriya literature who studied in the state's leading Ravenshaw College, Satapathy was married to well-known Oriya writer Devendra Satapathy when she was 20.
She was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Congress candidate in 1962 at the age of 31. She was re-elected for a second term in 1968.
Satapathy served in the first Indira Gandhi government as deputy minister for information and broadcasting. She was the first and only woman chief minister of Orissa.
She ruled the state for three years in two spells - from 1972 to 1973 and from 1974 to 1976. Apart from land reforms, Satapathy also introduced old age pension.
Elected to the state assembly for seven consecutive terms, Satapathy was also well-known for her contribution to Oriya literature. Some of the books she has authored include "Ketoti Katha" and "Saptadasi".
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, expressing his condolences, said she would be remembered for her contribution to the development of the state. Former chief minister J.B Patnaik described Satapathy's death as irreparable.
The state Bharatiya Janata Party chief Jual Oram said Satapathy would be "remembered as one of the most dynamic leaders and chief minister of Orissa".
Her mortal remains will be cremated Saturday with state honours.
Hyderabad, Aug 05: At least 100 people were killed and thousands rendered homeless as heavy rains left a trail of destruction in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, will undertake an aerial survey of the affected districts on Saturday. He asked the officials to take up relief measures on war footing and assist the Railways in helping the stranded passengers at various places.
As torrential rains, triggered by deep depression in Bay of Bengal, threw normal life out of gear for the second day yesterday, the north coastal districts of Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam bore the brunt of nature's fury with severe disruptions in power supply, road and rail traffic and communications network.
Eighteen people died following landslides triggered by incessant rains -- 11 in Parvathipuram of Vizianagaram district and seven at Araku Valley in Visakhapatnam districts, officials said.
Three members of a family died when a tree fell on their house in East Godavari district while six others were killed in wall collapses and flash floods in Srikakulam district bordering Orissa.
Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, who reviewed the rain situation at a high-level meeting here yesterday, directed the officials to take the help of the Army and Navy, if necessary, to carry out relief operations.
Vizag airport flooded
The airport at Visakhapatnam was flooded following heavy rains, prompting the authorities to cancel about half-a-dozen flights for the second day yesterday. The runway was under one feet deep water while power supply to the airport was disrupted following incessant rains.
The cancellation of air services to and from the steel city brought back the memories of similar disruption when the airport was closed for 15 days in October last year.
State Information Minister Mohammad Ali Shabbir said 600 villages, most of them in coastal districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagarm and Visakhapatnam, East Godavari and West Godavari, were affected by heavy rains.
Director of the Hyderabad weather office M Satyakumar said heavy rains were likely to lash Telangana districts of Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar over the next two days while incessant rains in the city would continue for another day.
In Vijayawada, 60 of the 130 farmers marooned in four villages-- Poonavali, Kasarabala, Ganiathuru, Ramannapeta -- have been rescued and two boats have been pressed into service, District Collector Naveen Mittal said.
Power supply was affected in many villages in Srikakulam district where Vamsadhara and Nagavali rivers were in spate following heavy rains in the upper reaches in neighbouring Orissa. As many as 238 villages were affected in the district while 1,500 families had been shifted to safer places.
Many trains on Eastern Railway section were running behind schedule as rainwater inundated tracks near Palasa. Services on Kothavalasa-Kirandul were affected as boulders fell on the tracks, sources said.
With the authorities releasing excess water from Nagavali and Vamsadhara, 86 villages in Hiramandalam, Bhamini, Kothuru and Burja Mandals were inundated.
Road traffic was disrupted as flood water overflowed on the roads in Tekkali and Palakonda divisions.
Crops in over 50,000 acres were damaged. The flood discharge at Gotta barrage on Vamsadhara crossed 1.12 lakh cusecs and the river was still receiving heavy inflows.
In Vizianagaram, heavy discharges from Nagavali River at Thotapalli barrage inundated low-lying areas in Vizianagaram, Salur and Bobbili mandals.
The government announced an ex-gratia of Rs 50,000 each to the families of those killed in the rains. (SOURCE : ZEENEWS.COM)
Islamabad, Aug 5 IRNA, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday said that Pakistan would consider contributing troops to an international peacekeeping force in Lebanon, if such a request was made.
According to the "Daily Times", Talking to reporters after his speech in which he demanded immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and constitution of a UN force, he said, "Pakistan is the largest contributor to international peacekeeping operations and if requested, it will consider contributing troops for Lebanon." The prime minister said Pakistan desired a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the crisis and was strongly against the use of force.
No civil society can allow killings of its women and children, he said.
Aziz described the situation in Lebanon as a great human tragedy and said Pakistan fully supported the peacekeeping efforts.
He said the OIC could play an important role as it represented the Ummah.
He said an immediate cease ire was the quickest solution to the crisis.
Islamabad, Aug 5 IRNA, Pakistan has sought help from the United Nations to get incriminating evidence against religious
extremists groups banned as terrorist organizations to expedite prosecutions of members of these groups.
According to the "Daily Times," it is difficult to proceed in such cases (against members of banned militant groups), therefore, information is required from the UN and other countries to proceed in such cases, a source quoted Pakistani officials as telling US officials during a recent meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) in Washington.
The US has also been asked to provide any evidence it has of these groups involvement in acts of terrorism, the source said.
Sources said Pakistan has told the UN and US that though it has banned these organizations in line with the UN's listing of them as terrorist groups, it now needed incriminating evidence
against these religious groups, which have moved the courts challenging the government ban on them.
Islamabad, Aug 5 (IANS) Pakistan's information technology (IT) industry has registered exports worth $72 million in the financial year 2005-06, a record 56 percent annual increase over exports of $46 million in 2004-05.
Much of it is thanks to government's promotion, concessions and huge tax holidays.
Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) managing director Yusuf Hussain appreciated the efforts of the ministry of IT and telecom.
He also congratulated the growing industry on this achievement, giving due credit to all the stakeholders for the success and promised them continued support from the government through the PSEB, The News said.
The maximum contribution to these earnings had come from computer software export, accounting for 63 percent of the total exports, with an overall increase of 44 percent compared to computer software exports last year, it added.
"According to statistics released by the State Bank of Pakistan, the country's central bank, on July 24 to PSEB, there is an overall 56 percent annual increase in IT exports by Pakistani IT companies," it said quoting a PSEB statement issued in Karachi.
"The government of Pakistan has been proactively developing the IT sector for the last few years," it said.
"The top five companies that have contributed the maximum share to IT exports are Netsol Technologies, Ovex Technologies, TRG Private Ltd, Systems Private Ltd and Elixir Technologies," said the PSEB statement.
"The incentives include tax exemption till 2016, establishment of IT parks with low rent, foreign ownership of equity invested in IT and 100 per cent repatriation of profit allowed to IT companies."
Major spending had taken place in hardware consultancy services, software consultancy services, maintenance or repair of computers, export of computer software and other computer services.
Islamabad, Aug 5 (Xinhua) Two gas pipelines were damaged in explosions in Pakistan's Balochistan province early Saturday, disrupting gas supply to several cities in Punjab, the GEO television reported.
The explosion occurred near Doli check post in Sui, some 285-km south-west of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, the private television report stated.
Authorities have cordoned off the area, and a bomb disposal squad was called to ascertain the nature of the explosion, according to the report.
In Balochistan's Dera Bughti district and adjoining areas especially Sui, gas pipelines and electricity lines have been attacked by anti-government tribal militants, disrupting gas and power supply to the region.
London, Aug 5 IRNA, UK's peace campaigners are holding an emergency national demonstration in London on Saturday to protest against the Zionist regime's war crimes and urge an unconditional and immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza.
"George Bush and Tony Blair insist the carnage must continue. The rest of the world says it must stop," said Stop the War Coalition, the main organizer of the rally.
"Unconditional Ceasefire Now, Stop Israel's Attack on Lebanon and Gaza, End Blair's Support for Bush's War" read leaflets distributed before Saturday's demonstration.
"This demonstration is being called as the conflict that has exploded in the region reaches the conclusion of its third week, and the horror of Israel's disproportionate response to the capture of its two soldiers becomes apparent," the Islamic Human Right Commission said.
"The figure for Lebanese dead has reached near 900, with nearly half his number are children," the organizers added, "Approximately, a third of the injured 3,225 civilians are also children".
The protest is being supported by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, British Muslim Initiative, various Lebanese community organizations, Stop the War Coalition, CND, IHRC and the Muslim Council of Britain.
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) India's Sania Mirza crashed out of the singles event of the $1.3 million Acura Classic tennis tournament losing 2-6, 6-3, 3-6 to world No. 6 Elena Dementieva of Russia in the third round in San Diego, reports reaching here said.
It was Sania's third straight loss to the Russian in the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tour.
Dementieva, seeded fourth in the tournament, will now play fifth seed Patty Schnyder of Switzerland, who beat Argentine Paola Suarez 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, in the quarter-finals.
Sania, 19, staged a remarkable rally after losing the first set in a match that began three hours late because of rains. But Dementieva won the third set to win the match.
There was some consolation for Sania, however. She reached the doubles quarter-finals along with Liezel Huber of South Africa after defeating Anna Chakvetadze of Russia and Jill Craybas of the US 7-5, 6-2.
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) India's Sania Mirza and her South African partner Liezel Huber were bundled out of the doubles event of the Acura Classic as they lost to Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Meghann Shaughnessy in the quarterfinals.
Eighth seeds Sania and Liezel lost 2-6, 5-7 to the fourth seeded German-American pair in San Diego, California, according to the Women's Tennis Association website.
Groenefeld and Shaughnessy will now take on top seeds Lisa Raymond of the US and Samantha Stosur of Australia for a place in the final of the hard court tournament.
The winners had a bye in the first round and had an easy second round victory.
By Fakir Balaji, Bangalore, Aug 5 (IANS) Global consulting and IT services firm Satyam Computer Services Ltd will expand its China operations for providing engineering services to the large manufacturing sector and multinationals having presence in that country, a top company official has said.
"With China emerging as a global manufacturing hub, we consider it a strategic market to grow our engineering services' business, which accounts for about 10 percent of our top-line growth currently," Satyam chairman B. Ramalinga Raju told IANS.
"To grab the opportunities from its domestic manufacturers and MNCs present there, we plan to hire several thousands over the next few years. As a software hub, India can leverage its strengths by capitalising on what China offers in the services space, especially engineering services."
As one of the few Indian IT firms to enter China, Satyam has set up software development centres in Shanghai and Beijing to serve its global customers operating out of China, the local customers and also tap the Japanese and Korean markets in the Far East.
About 300 engineers, mostly local, are employed in the two Chinese centres.
Declining to go into specifics, in terms of investments or hiring, Raju said the company would also look for strategic acquisitions to ramp up its operations in China and expand its service offerings across verticals.
"Over the last decade, we have built domain expertise in engineering services, which is set to become the next growth wave in the Indian IT industry. We will certainly explore the acquisition route for synergies and inorganic growth if we find companies with strategic fit," Raju said.
The Hyderabad-based leading IT bellwether leverages its partnership-based engagements with innovation at various levels spanning products, services and competencies to create value for global customers in aerospace, automotive, consumer products, energy and utility, healthcare, heavy engineering, semiconductor, telecom and transportation.
"Our integrated engineering solutions help customers build world class products, by taking end-to-end ownership of product design activity, encompassing mechanical, electrical and electronic, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) domains. Our offerings include design and project development on evolving technologies and next generation products," Raju said.
A Nasscom-Booz Allen Hamilton study estimates $40-billion opportunity for the Indian IT industry by 2020 from off-shoring of engineering services alone out of a global spend of $150-225 billion.
"The global spend on engineering services was $750 billion in 2004, which was more than India's GDP two years ago. Of the global off-shored engineering services market, India's current share of it is about 12 percent ($2.2 billion).
"But with the demand for such specialised services growing exponentially, India is well positioned to take advantage of the opportunity as it has the talent pool and resources," Raju pointed out.
As the newly elected chairman of Nasscom (National Association of Software and service companies), the trade body of the Indian software services' firms, Raju said if the country had to double its market share in this niche segment to 25 percent, all stakeholders, including the industry and the government would have to get their act together for providing an eco-system to meet the future demand.
"Apart from providing world class infrastructure and creating favourable conditions to churn out thousands of high-quality engineers, there is a need to develop soft skills and address the IPR (intellectual property rights), besides flexible regulatory system for quick clearances and dispute settlements in the case of patents," Raju said.
Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said the opportunity could create about 250,000 jobs for Indian engineers, as global corporations would look at India for expanding their R&D pool beyond their respective countries, thanks to the value proposition the Indian tech industry offers.
"India offers a unique set of attributes that will translate a sustainable position as an off-shoring destination. Capabilities built through engineering services will enhance the country's strategic position, benefiting key sectors such as defence and aerospace," Karnik said.
By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) If Virender Sehwag continues his re-discovered batting form in the tri-series in Sri Lanka, credit will go in some measure to the trainees of his alma mater against whom he tested brand new bats that he will take along on the upcoming tour.
Sehwag tested six new willows in the nets against the bowling of youngsters at the Government Boys Senior Secondary School, Vikaspuri, in West Delhi, while he was in the capital between two preparatory camps at Bangalore for the Indian team.
Top batsmen choose their bats extremely carefully, and Sehwag, a hard-hitting batsman who rediscovered his form on the recent tour of the West Indies, says he has to be very careful about the willow that he picks for international matches.
"I look for the 'feel' in a bat, not so much the grains of the willow or other things," Sehwag told IANS.
Renowned batsmen also quickly discard their willow as soon it develops the first cracks. That is why batsmen carry enough bats to last them through a full overseas tour. Sehwag invariably carries six bats on his overseas tours.
He spent a few days at the nets here, probably more in order to test his new equipment for the tri-series in Sri Lanka beginning Aug 14 than to correct his technique.
"I always test bats at the nets," he said, feeling the grip of one of the four new blades - spotless without his trademark Britannia sticker - that he had placed behind the stumps.
During his 40-minute net stint at his Vikaspuri school, Sehwag played each of the bats equally to prove their worth and become a part of his kit bag in Sri Lanka.
After Sehwag hit the historic triple century in the Multan Test against Pakistan in 2004, B.D. Mahajan (BDM) & Sons, whose equipment he uses, launched a '309 series' of bats - aptly signifying his feat of becoming the first Indian to cross the 300-mark.
"The 309 series bats continue to be made," Sehwag said, as he play-tested four BDM 'Ton' blades. After his triple century with the 'Ton' brand, Sehwag seems to have a special liking for this brand.
During his practice here, Sehwag tried to play shots as straight as possible in the nets. The young cricketers at the school were being trained by his childhood coach, Amar Nath Sharma.
Sehwag was bowled a few times, and Sharma watched keenly from close range.
Pacer Ashwani was one of the trainees who bowled Sehwag once, prompting his school coach to ask the batsman to stretch his front foot more.
Each time Sharma, who is employed with the school where Sehwag learnt his first cricketing lessons, gave his tips, the Indian vice-captain listened attentively - but also gave his own viewpoint.
For instance, after being bowled by Ashwani, Sehwag told Sharma that he had failed to read the shine of the ball and felt that it would leave him after pitching. It came in and hit the stumps through the gate between bat and pad.
After the nets were over, the trainees lined up to get Sehwag's autograph on their bats, caps and paper while curious onlookers crowded outside the gate to get a glimpse of one of the most destructive batsman in world cricket.
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) Following a directive of the Patna High Court, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammad Shahabuddin was Saturday admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here for receiving treatment for his spinal problems.
"Shahabuddin has been admitted to the Neuroscience department under special supervision of a group of senior doctors," said Shakti Gupta, chief spokesman of AIIMS.
"He has been kept in a private ward and doctors from both neuroscience and orthopaedics departments are attending to him. As an MP he will get due regard but will receive treatment like any other patient of the hospital," Gupta, who is the chief medical officer of R.P. Centre of Ophthalmology, told IANS.
Commenting on the security arrangements for Shahabuddin, authorities said they have allowed two policemen to be posted outside his ward.
"All the police officers may stay in the campus but not near the ward. We don't want the security arrangement to affect our daily services," said an official.
Shahabuddin, who is in judicial custody, is involved in over 40 criminal cases, including murder, abduction and possession of illegal arms. An assistant jailor from Siwan and a group of policemen are accompanying him.
The court had Monday ordered his immediate treatment at AIIMS after the MP, who has been suffering from serious spinal problems, made an appeal for mercy killing saying the pain was unbearable and the state government was not inclined to send him outside for better treatment.
Kolkata, Aug 5 (IANS) Former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who is in the eye of a storm over his controversial email from England lending support to anti-Dalmiya camp in the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) elections, returned to the city, sans the usual media glare at the airport.
Ganguly arrived by a British Airways flight Friday morning, a Bengali TV channel reported.
He returned on a day when Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sharad Pawar said the apex cricket body would not intervene regarding Sourav Ganguly's inclusion in the team and it would depend only on the selectors.
Ganguly had an unimpressive county stint with Northamptonshire.
The CAB election, in which his former mentor Jagmohan Dalmiya won a difficult battle, sucked Ganguly into it. The former Indian skipper drew flak for writing an email indirectly attacking Dalmiya for alleged leaking of the infamous Greg Chappell mail that precipitated his downfall.
While West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya went all out to support Sourav and made attempts to remove Dalmiya from the CAB, state Sports Minister Subhas Chakraborty openly supported Dalmiya and called Ganguly an opportunist "who back-stabbed his mentor (Dalmiya)".
Colombo, Aug 5 (Xinhua) Around 15,000 refugees displaced due to the ongoing fighting between the Tamil Tigers and government troops in Sri Lanka have arrived in Kantalai, 218 km from here, the government relief officials said Saturday.
The refugees fled from Muttur, a Muslim dominated town south of Trincomalee, on Friday as fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and the government troops intensified.
"The people displaced are living in schools, mosques and Buddhist temples, some temporary huts are also being put up," W.D. Sirisena, a local aid worker, said over the telephone.
Kantalai, 80 km from Muttur, is a majority Sinhala dominated town in the area.
Meanwhile, the government said Saturday that fighting in Muttur had ceased and the government troops were in full control.
Brigadier Athula Jayawardena, the Director of Operations, said, "The LTTE has retreated after suffering heavily and Muttur is fully under troops' control."
The military said that some 152 rebels were killed when they attempted to attack the Muttur jetty on Friday.
However, the Tamil press sources here quoted S. Elilan, the Trincomalee district's LTTE political wing leader, as saying that the rebel organisation had withdrawn from Muttur Saturday morning having completed a limited operation.
Although no credible casualty figures are available, it is believed over 200 persons have been killed in the fighting.
The first open army advance into rebel-held territory since the Feb 2002 ceasefire was aimed at opening up an irrigation sluice gate shut down by the rebels since 20 July.
By M.R. Narayan Swamy, New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) Sri Lankan Tamils fleeing violence in their country continue to pour into India, and some Indian officials feel that the escalation in hostilities could shoot up their numbers.
The total arrival since January is sneaking up to 6,000, and officials say around 2,000 men, women and children are now camping in Sri Lanka's northwestern district of Mannar to sail to Tamil Nadu.
"The number reaching Tamil Nadu each day is less than a hundred but they continue to come non-stop," a senior official in Chennai told IANS on telephone. "At one time over 200 people came on a single day but that is not the case now."
The over 5,800 Tamils who have come in so far are drawn from 1,838 families. The total arrival during Aug 1-3 was 157.
Most of those now hitting the Indian shores are no more from Trincomalee in the island's east, from where the first wave of Tamil refugees came Jan 12 and where Sri Lankan troops are now locked in heavy fighting with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The more recent groups are mainly from Mannar, which lies closest to the Tamil Nadu shore.
"The people who are now coming are not from Trincomalee. This could be because they are not able to reach Mannar due to the (security) situation. Or maybe they are caught up somewhere," the official said.
Tamil Nadu, separated from Sri Lanka by a narrow strip of sea, has been a sanctuary for Tamils from the island since 1983 when anti-Tamil violence fuelled the very first inflow of refugees.
There are over 100 refugee centres in Tamil Nadu, which is home to thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils, many of whom live on their own without government doles.
But in contrast to the past, the refugee inflow is today strictly regulated. Indian security agencies photograph and fingerprint them and also question them at length to determine their possible links with the LTTE.
The latest refugees have the same grouse: that they are being harassed and threatened by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan security forces and they prefer India to getting caught in the crossfire or going into LTTE areas.
Because the Sri Lankan Navy has enforced a virtual night blockade of the sea to prevent refugees from making it to India, many journey at dawn, reaching Tamil Nadu during the day. The boatmen charge thousands of rupees for each passenger.
Indian authorities think the refugees - some of whom had lived in Tamil Nadu earlier but went back to Sri Lanka after the 2002 Norwegian-brokered ceasefire - will keep coming for weeks and probably months to come.
There is also a feeling that Tamils will flee in larger numbers from Trincomalee once the current spell of fighting between the military and the LTTE abates - if it does.
"Those displaced due to fighting in Mutur (in Trincomalee) are Muslims. They will not want to come to India. They will proceed to other areas in Sri Lanka itself," another central government official said. "But later, perhaps, more Tamils may flee Trincomalee."
The Tamil Nadu government has said it will take steps to improve the living conditions in the refugee camps. It has also increased the cash doles given away to the inmates.
"For most refugees living below the poverty line, especially women and children, families headed by single women and physically disadvantaged people, this hike is a great boon," said S.C. Chandrahasan of the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation, an NGO that for years has worked among Sri Lankan refugees.
By Farahanaaz Dastur, August 4 (Mumbai): Mumbai will host its first ever ATP Tournament later this year.
It will be an opportunity for the city to brand itself globally as well as give a clear message to the international community that Mumbai is back on its feet after last month's serial blasts.
The ATP Mumbai Open will give a much needed boost to men's tennis in India.
The $ 380,000 ATP Mumbai Open will be played this September. Five of the top twenty players have confirmed their participation in the draw, a crucial ingredient that will make this tournament a real sporting extravaganza.
"This is the biggest sporting event since the 1982 Asian Games. Millions of people would be watching this event across the globe, thousand media outlets following this and I think when an event on this scale happens people anywhere in India will follow it," said Anirban Das Blah, VP, Globosport India Pvt Ltd.
The event is filled with many 'firsts'; this is the first time that three of the top 10 players will be seen in the same tournament in South Asia.
Popular stars
World numbers seven, eight and nine, Tommy Robredo, Mario Ancic and Radek Stepanek would be participating. So would be world number 16 Fernando Gonsalez and Nicolas Kiefer who is currently ranked 18th in the draw.
Other popular stars will be former grand slam champion and world number one Carlos Moya and of course India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.
But perhaps most importantly the tournament will be a platform for men's tennis in India.
"I think what this event will do is give a chance to our players to compete with the best, understand what they do, how they prepare mentally and physically before and after the match and what goes into making the big bucks and getting to the top of the event," said Gaurav Natekar Tournament Director, ATP Mumbai Open.
The courts have been renovated and refurbished for the tournament. There are seven layers below the playing surface and there is a lot more bounce.
The courts are easier on the player's knees and feet too.
Over the next few weeks the Cricket Club of India will be making some more additions like stands and a market square for the sponsors so that the tournament can live up to what the organisers say it will be. (SOURCE : NDTV.COM)
Agra, Aug 5 (IANS) Thousands of Muslim pilgrims entered the Taj Mahal without tickets on the pretext of offering prayers, as security personnel and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) officials struggled to maintain order.
According to reliable sources, for close to three hours Friday there was total chaos at the historical monument here and all security arrangements came to a naught as pilgrims returning from Ajmer Urs entered in huge numbers.
The Taj Mahal, which is closed to visitors on Fridays, opens for about two hours in the afternoon to allow local Muslims to offer prayers at the mosque inside. ASI officials said that the government directive failed to distinguish between locals and outsiders, who took advantage of this ambiguity, resulting in utter chaos Friday.
While Central Industrial Security Force Commandant Khammo Singh confirmed that over 7,000 people had entered the Taj, she said there was no breakdown of security at the mausoleum. She, however, agreed that the directive was indeed confusing.
According to eyewitness accounts, over 10,000 people barged into the monument as security personnel found it tough to screen every one of them and one of them said: "Those who entered the Taj Friday were definitely not there just to offer prayers." This confusion is also said to have resulted in substantial revenue losses through the non-sale of tickets.
Meanwhile, the right-wing Shiv Sena announced they will perform a Maha Aarti (Hindu services) at the Taj Monday to reassert their claim of the mausoleum being built at the site of a Shiva temple. When asked how they would enter, a Sena official said: "This will be a guerrilla operation."
Shiv Sainiks believe that the Taj Mahal was originally a Rajput structure, which housed a Shiva temple. They have prepared a long list of evidence in support of their claim, which most historians do not accept.
According to sources, hundreds of Muslims have been forcibly entering the historical monument situated across the Taj Mahal called Etmauddaula, commonly known as 'Baby Taj' in the past few weeks. People come in on the pretext of saying prayers, but they all enjoy a picnic and leave.
Many foreign tourists who saw the scuffle between the crowds and police personnel chose to return.
Aahmednagar, Aug 05: Three persons were arrested for allegedly helping a suspected Pakistani spy who was nabbed recently from a railway station here, police said.
The three were arrested from Shrirampur Taluka yesterday. Police in Manmad confirmed the arrest of Aslam alias Banti Jahgirdar, Sarfaraz Shaikh and Om Pawade. However, they refused to divulge further details.
Police in Nasik had on August 2 arrested alleged Pakistani spy Arif Lakhani and recovered from him classified documents, photographs and maps of vital army installations, two mobile handsets and a Pakistani visa.
A police team from Nasik yesterday arrested the three persons based on information provided by Lakhani.
Lakhani, who owns a grocery shop in Shrirampur, was married to a Pakistani woman and his in-laws live in the neighbouring country.
The BJP, Shiv Sena and other organisations today staged a protest in front of Lakhani`s shop. (SOURCE : ZEENEWS.COM)
Guangzhou, Aug 5 (Xinhua) At least 31 people were confirmed dead and 14 more missing in South China's Guangdong province after Typhoon Prapiroon made landfall in the coastal region on Thursday.
Prapiroon brought along torrential rains in this southern Chinese province, with Taishan, Enping, and Yangchun being worst hit, affecting 3.72 million people.
Prapiroon, which means 'Rain God' in Thai, formed in the South China Sea and strengthened into a typhoon on Wednesday.
The direct economic losses are forecast at 2.4 billion yuan ($300 million).
Details of the damage are still under further investigation, said a spokesman from the Guangdong Provincial Office for Drought, Flood and Wind Control.
Typhoon Prapiroon made landfall at the coastal area between Yangxi county and Dianbai county in western Guangdong Thursday.
With a speed of 33 metres per second, the wind power reached 12 degrees on the Beaufort scale near its eye.
By Friday morning, Prapiroon's wind speed had dropped from typhoon level to tropical storm after it swirled into the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, just west of Guangdong, early Thursday morning and dumped rain in areas it swept through.
Tehran, Aug 5, IRNA, Secretary of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, criticized on Friday failure of the United Nations and its Security Council in issuing a statement against Israel.
Addressing weekly Friday prayers congregation at Tehran University on Friday, the substitute Friday prayers leader of Tehran added when it comes to Iran's access to peaceful nuclear power, the United Nations Security Council immediately issues a statement.
"Silence dominates the UNSC when it deals with the situation in Lebanon, Palestine and Israeli atrocities," he said.
Referring to the ongoing developments in Lebanon as hottest topic throughout the world, the cleric said the issues of Palestine and Lebanon revealed the real identity of supporters of human rights.
Jannati stressed that Muslims should spare no effort to help people in Lebanon and Palestine.
He said it is obligatory for every Muslim to demonstrate against Israel and extend financial and political support for the Lebanese and Palestinian oppressed nations.
By Arun Kumar, Washington, Aug 5 (IANS) The US government has imposed sanctions on two Indian and five other companies from Russia, North Korea and Cuba for allegedly supplying banned equipment and technology to Iran.
These include two chemical manufacturers from India - Balaji Amines Ltd. and Prachi Poly Products Ltd. But the announcement in the US Federal Register Friday, which lists all government actions, did not specify what items were involved.
Imposed for allegedly violating a law aimed at preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction to Tehran, the sanctions put a ban on US government procurement and stop American firms from working with affected companies.
Also sanctioned were Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi and Rosoboronexport, a state-controlled arms exporter, Korean Mining and Industrial Development Corporation and Korea Pugang Trading Corporation, both North Korean, and Cuba's Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.
The sanctions, however, apply only to the specific entities and their successors, sub-units or subsidiaries and not to their respective countries or governments.
Though listed Friday, the sanctions under the Iran Non-proliferation Act 2000 became effective July 28, a day after the US House of Representatives approved the India-US nuclear deal by an overwhelming 359-68 vote. The Senate has yet to approve the nuclear pact.
The Washington Post reported last week that the Bush administration had taken a "secret decision" to impose sanctions on the two Indian firms before the House vote, but chose not to inform either the US Congress or New Delhi to avoid criticism during the debate on the floor.
Washington, Aug 5 (Xinhua) US and China face similar energy challenges and their cooperation will serve interests of both countries, a senior US official said in a testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The US has a long and fruitful history of engagement with China on energy related cooperation since January 1979, and under the current administration the US has a robust engagement with China through bilateral and multilateral mechanisms, Katharine A. Fredriksen, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Department, said on Friday.
"While there are notable differences in our approaches, cooperation between our two countries will promote greater energy security in our respective countries, as well as in the world," she said at the two-day hearing.
The US engagement with China takes place in many bilateral mechanisms, including the US-China Energy Policy Dialogue, the US-China Oil and Gas Industry Forum, the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technologies Agreement, and the Joint Coordinating Committee on Science and Technology, said the official.
"The Dialogue emphasises that the US and China share many common challenges and opportunities as the two largest energy consumers in the world and aims to promote greater cooperation to address concerns," she said.
The US actively engages with China through multilateral forums and China is an active member in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation's Energy Working Group, said Katharine, adding the two countries also have been working together though international science and technology initiatives.
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was created in October 2000, to monitor, investigate and submit to the US Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship.
Washington, Aug 05: If you want to improve your memory drink apple juice, as a research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) indicates that apple juice consumption may actually increase the production in the brain of the essential neurotransmitter acetylcholine, resulting in improved memory.
Neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine are chemicals released from nerve cells that transmit messages to other nerve cells. Such communication between nerve cells is vital for good health, not just in the brain, but throughout the body.
"We anticipate that the day may come when foods like apples, apple juice and other apple products are recommended along with the most popular Alzheimer's medications," says Thomas Shea, Ph.D., director of the UML Center for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegeneration Research.
The role of acetylcholine in the brain is not a new area of research. Alzheimer's medication studies start with the premise that increasing the amount of acetylcholine in the brain can help to slow mental decline in people with Alzheimer's disease. Testing a similar hypothesis, the UML research team found that having animals consume antioxidant-rich apple juice had a comparable and beneficial effect.
Among those fed the apple juice-supplemented diet, the mice showed an increased production of acetylcholine in their brains. Also, after multiple assessments of memory and learning using traditional Y maze tests, researchers found that the mice who consumed the apple juice-supplemented diets performed significantly better on the maze tests.
"It was surprising how the animals on the apple-enhanced diets actually did a superior job on the maze tests than those not on the supplemented diet," remarks Dr. Shea.
(SOURCE : ZEENEWS.COM)
August 5, 2006 (Beirut): US Assistant Secretary of State David Welch will visit Beirut on Saturday for talks with Lebanese officials on ways to end the war with Israel.
The United States wants to put the final touches on a draft proposal that calls for the deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has insisted on an immediate ceasefire, as Israel continues to pound Lebanon with rockets.
Overnight air strikes into the northeastern border with Syria have killed at least 26 people and injured about 20 others.
Israeli planes also struck bridges in mainly Christian areas north of Beirut, while a raid in southern Lebanon killed seven people.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah fired 190 rockets into Israel, killing three civilians.
Strong protests
In cities across Turkey, Iraq and Iran, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets on Friday to protest against the Israeli bombing of Lebanon.
In Istanbul, thousands of worshippers gathered after Friday prayers to protest against Israel's offensive, carrying banners reading "Terrorist Israel".
In Baghdad, thousands of supporters of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr burnt the Israeli flag.
Hundreds of Iranians also took to the streets. The crowd chanted "Death to Britain" and "Death to Israel".
UN resolution
Meanwhile, the United States and France on Friday put finishing touches on a UN resolution calling for an end to fighting as the first step to a political settlement in the Israel-Lebanon conflict.
"We're working with a sense of urgency because we would like to present a resolution to the rest of the council, but there are limits to what we can agree to here," said John Bolton, US Ambassador to UN.
Once they reach an agreement, which may occur over the weekend, a UN Security Council vote could be held within 24 hours. (SOURCE : NDTV.COM)
By Arun Kumar, Washington, Aug 5 (IANS) The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is looking at ways to defend dozens of Indian and South Asian merchants after a judge in Atlanta rejected its argument that a drug sting unfairly targeted them while ignoring white-owned stores.
At hearings and in motions, ACLU reminded US District Judge Harold Murphy that 44 of the 49 retail clerks and convenience store owners in north-west Georgia indicted were South Asians, many sharing the last name Patel.
They also called to the stand John Edward Ross, who claimed he overheard an agent say he planned to close Indian stores down because the owners did not speak English, according to local media reports.
But Murphy refused to throw out the cases against them suggesting the defence lacks even basic evidence showing discrimination, citing a magistrate judge's earlier order that said allowing the group a chance to dig through more evidence would be authorising a "fishing expedition".
He also threw out Ross' testimony, along with the written statements of two other witnesses citing a previous ruling that "simply pointing out that most of the individual defendants are of Indian national origin is insufficient".
ACLU claims the operation was racially biased because 23 of the 24 stores targeted by the investigation are owned by those of Indian and other South Asian origin, while more than 80 percent of convenience stores in the area are owned by whites or other ethnic groups.
The sting operation targeted almost 20 percent of South Asian-owned stores but less than 0.2 percent of stores owned by whites or other ethnic groups, ACLU charged. That means South Asian stores were 100 times more likely to be targeted than other stores, it said.
Dubbed Meth Merchant, it began in early 2004 when 15 undercover agents were sent to small grocery stores, tobacco shops and delis in six north-west Georgia counties seeking to buy items such as cold medicine, cooking fuel, and matchbooks, all of which are legal products.
The informants would mention that they needed "to cook", which, according to authorities, was sufficient to indicate that South Asian clerks, many with limited English-language proficiency and none familiar with meth manufacturing slang, knew they were selling items to be used in cooking the popular stimulant, ACLU said.
Ahmedabad, Aug 5 (IANS) Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat Saturday alleged that the central government had spared the Reliance group from being probed by the Justice R.S. Pathak committee that was enquiring into alleged kickbacks in the Iraq oil-for-food scam.
"Despite our raising the issue in parliament on why Reliance, being the largest beneficiary in the dealings, the terms of reference of the Pathak committee doesn't include investigation against the Indian oil company," Karat told media persons here.
The Pathak committee report, which was submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday, reportedly indicts former external affairs minister K. Natwar Singh, stating that he had misused his position as the chairman of Congress party's external affairs cell during the UN programme.
Karat wondered why major political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress were silent on the role of Reliance in the oil-for-food scam as revealed by a UN report by Paul Volcker. It had named Natwar Singh and Congress party as non-contractual beneficiaries.
"I am not able to understand why Reliance's role in the deal was not probed when it was named as one of four beneficiary parties in the annexure of the Volcker Committee report," Karat asked.
"Reliance was the biggest beneficiary of the programme - it had paid more surcharge than the other 120 companies that dealt with Iraq and still no probe has been initiated to investigate its role," he charged.
However, he stated that the investigation by Pathak committee was impartial.
The CPI-M, which along with the other Left parties supports the government from outside, had Friday said that there was "no clarity" in the corruption charges against Natwar Singh.
Karat attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government for what he described as its unwillingness to pass a resolution on the Indo-US nuclear agreement.
"The US Congress is debating India's nuclear programme and our parliament is silent on the issue. This is an issue regarding the freedom of a country's nuclear programme and the government should at least show some concern," he said.
The BJP as well as the CPI-M have been demanding a resolution in parliament to state that India's interests would not be compromised in the nuclear agreement.
Karat also alleged that there has been no progress during three years in rehabilitating the victims of the 2001 communal riots in Gujarat.
"Today also the minority community is looked upon with suspicion. Provisions of the Indian Constitution allowing equal citizen's rights for every body should be implemented in Gujarat. The centre has failed to get the job done," he said.