india this week - may 10, 2013

INDIA THIS WEEK May 10, 2013

INDIA THIS WEEKA W e e k l y N e w s p a p e r F e a t u r i n g N e w s & Tr e n d s f r o m t h e I n d i a n S u b - C o n t i n e n t P u b l i s h e d f r o m t h e U S C a p i t a lVol. 20 No: 19 • WASHINGTON DC • Phone: 301-445-0200 /301-445-3543/301-917-4800 • email: [email protected] • May 10, 2013

Remember

Food Security, Land Acquisition Bills Stalled In Parliament

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): Accusing the Bharati-ya Janata Party (BJP) and other opposition parties of stalling the passage of key bills in Parliament, Congress Party spokesman Sandeep Dikshit on Tuesday warned that any further delay could affect the socio-economic welfare of the people of the country. Addressing a news conference here, Dikshit said that key bills like the Food Security Bill and the Land Acquisition Bill were pend-ing in Parliament for a long time, and added that there was nothing left to discuss in these bills. “The BJP is stop-ping these bills from being

passed, I criticise it. I want them to support the bills. Even the Left parties are supporting the BJP. I request them to come forward and support us to pass these bills. I ask that how can we neglect public welfare for our poli-tics,” asked Dikshit. “This is a common bill. If you are a respon-sible opposition, then come forward and let the bill be passed. We can always dis-cuss and sort out our political differences later and after the bills are passed,” he added. Dikshit’s views came hours after Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari had expressed confidence that the Food Security Bill

will be passed by Parlia-ment. “The Food Security Bill is a landmark legisla-tion to provide foodgrains to those 67 per cent of our countrymen who cannot af-ford to buy them. Once the Bill is enacted, the poor peo-ple will get food at the lowest imaginable prices,” he told mediapersons outside Parlia-ment. Tewari regretted the continuous logjam in Parlia-ment, and urged the Bharati-ya Janata Party (BJP) to let the Parliament function in the interest of the poor in the country. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha, however, said that the government was trying to divert the attention of the people from various scams in which it is embroiled. “Some people might

STALLED See Page 2

WHO Removes India From Polio Endemic Nations’ List

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): The World Health Organisation (WHO) has re-moved India from the list of countries with active endem-ic wild poliovirus transmis-sion. In written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury said Polio free is certified for WHO regions by the Region-al Certification Commission and not for individual coun-try. The South-East Asia

Regional Commission for Polio Eradication (SEA-RC-CPE) has examined the data of 31 states/Union Territories of India and has accepted the report of the Indian National Certification Committee for Polio Eradication and has concluded that the wild po-

lio virus is not circulating in these states. Each region can consider certification only when all countries in the area demonstrate the absence of wild poliovirus transmission for at least three consecutive years in the presence of cer-tification standard surveil-lance. In addition, all fa-cilities holding wild poliovi-rus infectious and potentially infectious materials must have implemented bio-con-

POLIO See Page 8

Congress Storms Back To Power In Karnataka

Parliament Adjourned Sine Die New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): Both Houses of Parliament adjourned sine die on Wednesday, two days before the scheduled end of the Budget Session. While the Lok Sabha adjourned around 12 15 p.m. after the oppo-sition led by the BJP re-fused to allow proceedings over a demand for the res-ignations of Prime Minis-ter Dr. Manmohan Singh, Law and Justice Minis-ter Ashwani Kumar and Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal for their al-

leged respective roles in the coal block allocation and Railway Board ap-pointment scams, the Ra-jya Sabha adjourned sine die after bidding farewell to eight of its members at around 1 p.m. Both Houses were adjourned after the recita-tion of Vande Mataram, the national song. Earlier, members belonging to the BJP, Shi-romani Akali Dal, Sama-jwadi Party, Left Parties and the AIADMK rushed into the well of the Lok

Sabha raising slogans and displaying placards. The Shiromani Akali Dal sought the re-opening of the 1984 Delhi riots case. In the Lok Sabha, Speaker Meira Kumar ad-journed proceedings, but not before raising an objec-tion to one member of the house leaving the premis-es while the national song was being sung. Proceedings in the Rajya Sabha were closed by its Chairman M.Hamid Ansari.

Karnataka Polls Results (223/224) Cong 121 BJP 40 JDS 40 KJP 6 Others 16

Bangalore, May 8 (ANI): The Congress Party on Wednesday returned to power in Karnataka with an absolute majority. The party has crossed the magic number, winning 121 seats in the 223 Member Assembly out. The BJP and JD(S) were in neck and neck race with both winning 40 seats each. Former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddy-urappa’s Karnataka Janatha Party won six seats, while the Independents and others have won 16 seats. Elections in one constituency - Periyapatna -- was deferred to May 28 due

to the death of the BJP candi-date. Prominent winners in the Assembly elections are: Congress leader Sidda-ramaiah, Chief Minister Jag-dish Shettar of BJP, Janata Dal Secular State President, H.D. Kumaraswamy, KJP leader Yeddyurappa, former Union Minister and Kannada Cine Star, M.H.Ambareesh of Congress, Deputy Chief Minister and BJP candidate, R. Ashoka, BSR Congress Party Chief and former Min-ister, B. Sriramulu, Con-gress candidate Dr. Ajay Dharam Singh, son of for-mer Chief Minister Dharam Singh, former Chief Minister

Julbilant party supporters waving Congress party flags celebrating the landslide victory

S.Bangarappa’s son Madhu Bangarappa of the JDS, Pri-yanka M. Kharge, daughter of Union Minister, Mal-likarjun Kharge of Congress and former Union Minister V.Srinivasa Prasad of Con-gress. Sitting JD(S) MP N. Chaluvaraya Swamy has won. The prominent losers were Deputy Chief Minister Eshwarappa of the BJP, KPCC President Dr. G. Parameshwara, former Union Minister C.M.Ibrahim and Anita Kumaraswamy. BJP Ministers - S.A.Ramadas, V.Somanna, B.N.Bache Gowda, A. Nara-yanasamy and Murgesh Mi-rani all lost in the polls. KJP leaders Shoba Kharand Laje and Renuka Acharya have also lost in the hustling. The Bharatiya Jana-ta Party (BJP) on Wednesday humbly accepted its defeat in Karnataka and attributed the loss to the spilt in votes.

CONGRESS See Page 18

“When one door closes another opens. But often

we look so long so regretfully upon the closed

door that we fail to see the one that has opened

for us.” Helen Keller

May 10, 2013 INDIA THIS WEEK

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remember that they had ad-opted the same approach dur-ing 1989 elections and there was chaos due to Bofors scam. They had introduced 73rd and 74th amendment and when it was not passed in Rajya Sabha, they said that the opposition obstructed the steps taken by them to strengthen democracy at the grass root level,” said Sinha. “They lost the elec-tions despite the claims made by them. The main issue to-day is corruption and there can be no compromise on it,” he added. The main opposition party has said that it will not allow the Congress-led UPA Government to push its im-portant bills in Parliament till the resignation Union Law and Justice Minister Ashwani Kumar and Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. Dikshit said: “ We are following what Manish Tewari said. It was never put to vote. Neither the speaker called for voting, nor was the minister called for vot-ing. Discussions is still go-ing on, but if you won’t let the parliament continue, then how can we discuss. The BJP politicising it. They are not letting us pass the bill.” “Both bills are more important than politics,” he said. Food and Public Distribution System Minis-ter Professor K V Thomas moved the National Food Security Bill 2011 in the Lok Sabha on May 2 amidst noisy scenes. The Bill was intro-duced in the Lok Sabha in December,2011. After be-ing examined by the Stand-ing Committee, it went back

Food Security, Land Acquisition Bills In Stalled In Parliament

STALLED From Page 2 to the Cabinet with fresh amendments and was tabled again in the lower house on March 22, the last day of the first part of the Budget ses-sion. The amendments in the Bill are mainly aimed at providing a simpler frame-work and more flexibility to the states besides lowering their financial burden. Implementation of the National Food Security Bill, aimed at providing legal entitlement to food to around 67 per cent of the population, is likely to cost the exchequer around Rs 1.23 lakh crore. The National Food Security Bill, 2011, consid-ered to be the world’’s largest experiment in ensuring food security to poor, has been a key project of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. It hopes to meet the food needs of 75 percent of rural house-holds and 50 percent of urban households. The bill classifies all entitled households as “general” and “priority”. At least 46 percent of rural households and 28 percent of urban households would be designated as “pri-ority”. Every person be-longing to a “priority house-hold” will be provided with seven kilograms of grain per month, comprising rice, wheat and coarse grain. Rice will be provided at Rs.3, wheat at Rs.2 and coarse grain at Rs. 1 per kg. Others belonging to the “general category” would be entitled to not less than three kilogram of grain per month at a rate not exceeding 50 percent of the minimum support price. Once passed, the food subsidy bill was expect-

ed to rise to Rs. 95,000 crore. Initial estimates pegged the increase in subsidy at nearly Rs. 28,000 crore, but this has been revised to between Rs. 21,000 crore to Rs. 23,000 crore. The bill’s financial memorandum estimates the total annual expenditure on food subsidy under the target-ed public distribution system at about Rs. 79,800 crore. Experts maintain that the annual increase would be to the tune of Rs. 27,500 crore. The total finan-cial liability to implement the law is expected to be Rs 3.5 lakh crore, with funds being required to raise agriculture production, create storage space and publicity. A sum of roughly Rs. 1,11,000 crore would be required to boost farm out-put with grain requirement increasing, on account of this intervention, from 55 million tonnes to 61 million tonnes annually. Thomas stressed that “this Rs. 1,10,600 crore is not an additional burden. We need to invest in agricul-ture to boost production any-way”. The proposed law entitles every pregnant woman and lactating mother to meal free of cost during pregnancy and six months af-ter childbirth. Cash benefits of Rs. 1,000 per month to meet increased food require-ments of pregnant women would be provided for the first six months of pregnancy. At Rs 1,000 per month and covering 2.25 crore women, an expenditure of nearly Rs. 13,500 crore has been esti-mated. This will be borne by the central government and the states.

CRPF Deployed In Naxal-affected States: R.P.N. Singh New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): Minister of State for Home R.P.N. Singh has in-formed that the Union Gov-ernment has deployed Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), including Central Reserve Po-lice Force (CRPF) in the LWE-affected states to assist the state police in conducting anti-naxal operations. “The deployment of CAPFs (including CRPF) is a dynamic process and is based on requirements projected by the State Governments, availability of Force and the

security situation in a particu-lar location. The deployment of CAPFs (including CRPF) keeps changing from time to time. However, at present a total number of 532 coys of CAPFs have been deployed in the LWE affected States,” said Singh in written reply to a question by R. Thamaraiselvan in the Lok Sabha today. Singh further said some of the LWE affected States including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha have demanded additional battalions of CAPFs, including CRPF.

“As stated above, the decision on deployment of ad-ditional battalion in the LWE affected States is taken on the basis of requirement of the State Governments, availabil-ity of Force and other ground realities. Recently, taking into consideration the requests of the State Governments, a deci-sion has been taken by the Min-istry of Home Affairs to pro-vide 10 additional battalions of CAPFs including 05 battalions of CRPF to Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar and Chhattisgarh,” he added.


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Tensions Still Exist Between India

And China: Pentagon Washington, May 7 (ANI): Throwing light on the Chinese incursion in Ladakh, the Pentagon to-day informed the U.S. Con-gress that tensions remain between India and China on their long border while noting that Beijing’s use of force in territorial disputes has varied throughout its history. Pentagon in its an-nual report told the Con-gress, “Despite increased political and economic rela-tions over the years between China and India, tensions remain along their shared 4,057 km border, most nota-bly over Arunachal Pradesh (which China asserts is part of Tibet, and therefore of China), and over the Aksai Chin region at the western end of the Tibetan Plateau.” While there was no direct reference to the re-cent incursion by China in Ladakh, the report said both countries in 2009 stepped up efforts to assert their claims. “China tried to block a USD 2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian De-velopment Bank, claiming

part of the loan would have been used for water projects in Arunachal Pradesh. This represented the first time China sought to influence this dispute through a mul-tilateral institution,” it also said. “The then-gover-nor of Arunachal Pradesh announced that India would deploy more troops and fighter jets to the area. An Indian newspaper reported that the number of Chinese border violations had risen from 180 in 2011 to more than 400 by September 2012,” the Pentagon report said. “China’s use of force in territorial disputes has varied throughout its history. Some disputes led to war, such as China’s bor-der conflicts with India in 1962 and Vietnam in 1979,” it said adding that, “a con-tested border with the for-mer Soviet Union during the 1960s even raised the possi-bility of nuclear war.” In more recent times, China has been will-ing to compromise with and even offer concessions to

its neighbours. Since 1998, China has settled 11 land-based territorial disputes with six of its neighbours, it said. But, several dis-putes continue over exclu-sive economic zones (EEZ) and ownership of poten-tially rich, off-shore oil and gas deposits.

SC Rejects Repatriation Of Sanaullah New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): The Supreme Court (SC) today said of repatriation of injured Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay does not arise as he has not completed his jail term. The Supreme Court also sought an explanation from the Centre, Jammu and Kashmir Government as to why adequate steps were not taken to prevent the assault on Sanaullah.

“The respondents shall explain as to why ad-equate steps were not taken in advance to avoid the physical assault on May 3 on prisoner Sanaullah, lodged in Kot Bal-wal Jail in Jammu,” an apex court bench headed by Justice RM Lodha said, while issuing notices to the Central and the state governments. The apex court also sought details about the action taken against the erring jail of-

ficials, besides asking the Cen-tre and the state government to ensure that such incidents do not recur. During the hearing, the bench, also comprising Jus-tice Kurian Joseph, expressed its anguish over the incident inside the Jammu jail, saying, “This is a very serious matter”. Sanaullah Rajan is a Pakistani prisoner in an In-dian jail who was thrashed by inmates in the wake of Sarabjit Singh’s death on April 26.

Supreme Court

Dismisses Plea Against

Commissioning Of

Kudankulam N-Plant New Delhi, May 6 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a plea seeking a stay on the commissioning of the Ku-dankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. A bench comprising Justices KS Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra had earlier reserved its verdict follow-ing marathon arguments in the last three months. A bunch of peti-tions was filed by anti-nu-clear activists challenging the project on the ground that safety measures recom-mended for the plant by an expert body have not been put in place. The Centre, the Tamil Nadu government and the Nuclear Power Corpora-tion of India, which oper-

ates the plant, have refuted all allegations on safety and security aspects. They told the court that the plant is completely safe and can withstand any kind of natural disaster and external terrorist attack Kudankulam Nu-clear Power Plant is a nucle-ar power station under con-struction in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli District. Construction has been delayed due to anti-nu-clear protests by the locals and People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy. Thousands of pro-testers, belonging to the vicinity of the plant, have used various means to pro-test against the plant fearing a 2011 Fukushima like di-saster.


E D I T O R I A L

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India Pakistan And Afghanistanby Anadi Naik In the last few weeks there have been several inci-dents on the Pakistan- Afghani-stan border. The exact number of soldiers killed is hard to pinpoint. But the fact is that soldiers from both sides have been killed. Everybody knows that the key to a peaceful Af-ghanistan rests in the hands of Pakistan. The Taliban forces, opposed to the Karzai Gov-ernment are sheltered there and operate in the full view to harm the existing government. In recent months some mem-bers of the Afghan Taliban have expressed willingness to cooperate with the Karzai gov-ernment. For many in Pakistan such a step has become anath-ema. Their reaction to this has not been pretty. The recent skirmish between the two countries points to a deep rooted, mutual suspicion. In Afghanistan, Pak-istan is perceived as partisan to the Taliban. Pakistan is looked as interested in creating an un-stable situation in Afghanistan so that the Taliban will have a better chance to come back. In the minds of the Pakistan’s ruling elite Afghanistan stands something less than equal. In spite of it being a sovereign country it is looked down upon as a country inhabited by vari-ous tribes lacking finesse. As a Muslim country it should fol-low the path of the Taliban. Such a thing is not happening. A deeply rooted frustration boils over in anger. In the international arena the behavior of a coun-try becomes almost like that of a person. So when an army invades its neighbor or rattles

sabers against the country next door, there exists a sense of frustration behind such an action just like that of an in-dividual. For example, the genesis of the German aggres-sion lay in the fact that unlike Britain or France or Belgium it did not have a colony. The red army tied under its belt places like Lithuania and Kyrgyzstan because expansion of a com-munist rule was necessary for the survival of the regime it-self. In the same way a border conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan is more than a physical conflict. Both history and geography of the area is in-volved. First of all, the border between the two countries has for centuries remained open and well-traveled. The British, while in control of the Indian subcontinent could not bring under control all the hills and mountains of Afghanistan. So they made a pact with its ruler who was always worried about a Russian design on his coun-try. In a way, for many years Afghanistan was a bone of con-tention between the British and the Russians. Since Afghani-stan became a “friendly” coun-try and India was its possession, the British drew a line between the two borders known as the Durant line. Pakistan says that this line is the defining line be-tween Pakistan and Afghani-stan. The other side disagrees. A similar situation also exists between India and China. In 1962 India and China went to war for a border dispute. If not solved, the existing situation between Pakistan and Afghani-stan could get out of hand. An armed conflict between the

two countries – no matter how small in scope – could be disas-trous. Yet, Pakistan needs such a conflict. First of all, in a con-flict between Pakistan and Af-ghanistan India will be forced to take the Afghan side. Should it remain neutral, Pakistan will run over Afghanistan. India’s friendship with the Afghan people will be weakened. Should India be drawn into a regional conflict, its standing in the international arena will suffer. All the good things it is trying to do would be on stand still. Therefore, the Chinese in-cursion into the Indian area at a time when the Af-Pak border is heating up is not an accidental affair. Former Defense Minis-ter Mulayam Singh Yadav has characterized the Chinese in-cursion into India as more dan-gerous than the Pakistani attack on India. He should know. India has no choice but to try to remain calm in the face of a nasty provoca-tion. For the sake of its own people, the country has to re-main focused on economic development. National Secu-rity advisor Shyam Saran has categorically said that should there be a small nuclear attack on India; India would give a devastating blow even if it would not do the “first strike”. Such a statement from India’s National Security advisor car-ries weight and many hidden meanings. As a silver line of hope, Pakistan is going to have a general election. The result may help strengthen the hands of its civilian leaders. They in turn may see that the good neighborly relation has more benefits than drawbacks.

Parliament Deadlock Continues:UPA’s Rotten Apples to Blame

The UPA govern-ment is in great turmoil, as BJP the main Opposition party continued to clamor for no lesser than the resignation of Prime Minister Manmo-han Singh, and Union min-isters Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar. Nonetheless, when there are even Congress lead-ers who are furious at Kumar who, they believe, should be sacked for shaming the Con-gress, it is pointless to blame the Opposition’s stalling of the Parliament business, and non-cooperation to passing of certain welfare-oriented bills. However, Sushama Swaraj has asserted that the BJP supports the people-friendly bills proposed by the Congress, provided the two tainted ministers resign. But Sushama Swaraj and Arun Jaitley (Opposition leaders in LS and RS respec-tively) have blamed the CBI for not disclosing the facts candidly, before the court and before the country. In-stead, they say, CBI are tell-ing the truth in installments, under the pressure of the Supreme Court. And the af-fidavit is couched in careful-ly framed language, which clearly shows interference on the part of the law minis-ter and officials in the PMO and the coal ministry. So in the current scenario, rather than accuse the BJP for non-cooperation, the government must thank them for their magnanim-ity. The BJP is even likely to soften their stance against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whose resignation they have been clamoring for. No corrupt politi-cians under any regime will normally do their murky dealings with the prime minister’s knowledge. Con-trariwise, miscreants would

do their best to blindfold the prime minister (whoever he maybe) rather than make him a party to it. So at the most, the prime minister could be accused for inefficiency. The BJP seems to be considerate about this, and that is why they have hinted at lending support for the dream bills of Congress Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, provided the government sack ministers Bansal and Ashwani, thus signaling that they are will-ing to spare Dr. Manmohan Singh. The prime minister must consider that the BJP’s demand for the resignation of Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and Railway Minister Pavan Bansal was powered by the CBI affidavit filed in the Supreme Court. And what is more, as though to add fuel to fire, on Tuesday 7th May, the CBI Director admitted before the Supreme Court that certain changes were made in the coalgate draft report on suggestions given by Ashwani Kumar and officials of the PMO. Thus, viewed from any angle, the Opposition’s demand for sacking the tainted ministers would seem quite decent and rea-sonable, and it would be rude for the government to retain these tainted men and then accuse the Opposition for disrupting Parliament procedures. Pushed against the wall, and with nothing to claim, the Con-gress was at their wit’s end, not knowing how to justify themselves. And hence UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had said on Monday that the government would not bow down to the principal Opposition party’s pressure tactics. Madam Gandhi! You would kindly consider that the Opposition is only doing their constitutional duty of “opposing” the mis-

deeds of the government and whistle-blowing when it is necessary. Soniaji would kindly recall that since 22nd April the day the second phase of the Budget session started, the Opposition has been repeatedly disrupting the Parliament. And even on Tuesday, 7th May 2013, the Parliament witnessed only cacophony and pande-monium. The issue before the uproarious Bharatiya Janata Party has been the ‘Coalgate’ and railway brib-ery case. These are matters the whole nation is aware of. The government must realize that unless and until corrective measures are ad-opted, the Opposition will not allow any smooth func-tioning of the Parliament, in which they do have the entire citizenry’s moral sup-port which will turn against the Congress at the fast ap-proaching Lok Sabha polls. Already caught in numerous scams and scan-dals, the Congress is very jittery and apprehensive about the forthcoming gen-eral elections. And hence they are desperately trying to get into people’s hearts, by many gimmicks. The government is eager to pass some important bills like the Food Security Bill, aimed at making a monthly provision of rice, wheat, and coarse grains at the rate of 3 rupees, 2 rupees and 1 rupee, per kg, respectively. This, certainly, is a great reform, as long as the government’s intention is good. One naturally won-ders why this government haven’t thought of all these nice things, all these nine years the UPA has been con-tinuously wielding power. Should the Con-gress make any gains in the forthcoming general elec-tions, they must trash the rotten apples. There is no other way.

No Deal Between India And China To

End Stand-off In Ladakh: Khurshid New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): External Affairs Minis-ter Salman Khurshid today said there was no deal between India and China for ending the 21-day stand-off between the armies of the two nations in Ladakh. Khurshid, who was asked to comment on visit to China starting tomorrow, said ‘both countries will discuss the future and the leadership is com-mitted towards that and the great things India and China can and must do together’. Khurshid will pay a two-day official visit to China beginning tomorrow at the invi-tation of his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. The two ministers will discuss bilateral, regional and

global issues of concern to both sides. They will also discuss the proposed visit to India of Chi-nese Premier Li Keqiang. The face off in La-dakh had cast a shadow over Khurshid’’s visit to China to prepare the ground for the new Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang’’s visit to India from May 20. The issue has now been resolved peacefully with the two sides agreeing to restore status quo along the Line of Ac-tual Control in the western sec-tor of the boundary, as it existed prior to April 15. Diplomacy between India and China yielded results as Beijing agreed to pull out its troops from the Daulat Beg Oldi

sector in Ladakh. The nearly three-week-old stand-off between India and China over the latter allowing its troops to enter and occupy 19 kilometers of Indian territory in the Daulat Beg Oldi sector near the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, ended last week, with both sides withdraw-ing their troops to previously agreed positions. India had earlier asked China to maintain status quo on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Daulat Beg Oldi, which is located in northern-most Ladakh, is a historic camp-site. It is located on an ancient trade route connecting Ladakh to Yarkand in Xinjiang, China.


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Towards Positive Engagement Between India And Pakistan By Jaibans Singh

New Delhi, May 7

(ANI): Pakistan is standing

on the threshold of a historic

transition. The process start-

ed with the Pakistan People’s

Party (PPP)-led government

completing its full term and

paving the way for a smooth

general election by handing

over power to a caretaker

government, and then, enter-

ing the electoral fray like any

other party.

This has become

the first instance of this na-

ture in the history of Paki-

stan.

The fundamental-

ist and militant forces that

hold great sway and power

in Pakistan have left no stone

unturned in attempting to

stifle the election process by

resort to violence and intimi-

dation. There has been sig-

nificant efforts to ensure that

these forces do not succeed

in their nefarious agenda.

The end result has been ter-

rible brutality by the funda-

mentalists in which many

political leaders, workers and

innocent people have lost

their lives and an unimagi-

nable amount of property

and infrastructure has been

destroyed.

This phenomenal

loss has not reduced the spir-

it of the political parties; they

have continued to campaign

under extremely dangerous

circumstances. The Election

Commission of Pakistan and

the interim government have

demonstrated a unique deter-

mination to see the poll pro-

cess through.

The army has ex-

tended all support and as

many as 70,000 army troops

are expected to be deployed

to ensure secure, free and fair

polling. The Pakistan Army

Chief has categorically stated

that the election process will

not be allowed to be hindered

under any circumstances.

The polling slated

for May, 11, is now around

the corner and the eyes of the

whole world are on Pakistan

to see if the final hurdle will

be crossed. The way things

are moving there is every

reason to be optimistic.

Successful instal-

lation of a second elected

government in Pakistan will

be welcomed by the global

community. If the new gov-

ernment can hold ground

and be mature and fair in its

dealings the country will find

itself on a progressive path.

It will be looked

upon as a nation on the mend

and international support will

flow. The next five years may

well witness a sea change in

Pakistan.

India’s relation with

Pakistan in the post election

scenario is something that is

on everyone’s mind. The mat-

ter has gained significance in

the light of the unfortunate

incidents of late. The death

in custody of the Indian na-

tional, Sarabjit Singh, and the

attack in a jail in Jammu by

some miscreants on, Sanaul-

lah, a Pakistani convicted

for terrorist activities, have

caused considerable tension

between the two countries.

The actual reper-

cussions of these unfortunate

incidents will come to the

fore only when the elected

government takes charge in

Pakistan, as will the overall

policy that the new dispensa-

tion will adopt with regard to

its most important neighbour

- India.

If one goes by the

election manifestoes of the

major political parties of

Pakistan it becomes evident

that building and maintain-

ing relations with countries

like the U.S., China, Russia,

European Union and even

Afghanistan is much high-

er up on their agenda than

building bridges with India.

In its election mani-

festo, the PPP has rooted for

“pursuit of an honest and sin-

cere dialogue for the resolu-

tion of all outstanding issues

with India, including the

core issue of Kashmir, the

normalization of trade rela-

tions and the easing of travel

restrictions.”

The PML-N has

covered India in a generic ref-

erence; it will, “seek resolu-

tion of differences by means

of peaceful negotiations with

the objective of establishing

cordial and cooperative ties

with all countries, especially

those that are our neigh-

bours.”

The Imran Khan-

led PTI wants “progressive

detente with India centred

around conflict resolution

and cooperation.” Other par-

ties have made only passing

references, if any, to India.

There may be dis-

tinct lack of interest so far as

India is concerned but Kash-

mir has found a special refer-

ence in all manifestoes. The

PPP wishes to, “maintain full

solidarity with and continued

moral, political and diplo-

matic support of the Kash-

miri people for realizing their

legitimate aspirations.”

The PML-N wants a resolu-

tion of the dispute “in accor-

dance with the provisions of

the relevant UN resolutions

and the 1999 Lahore Accord

and in consonance with the

aspirations of the people of

the territory for their inherent

right of self-determination.”

The PTI goes a step

further in describing, “reso-

lution of the Kashmir issue

as a core national interest.”

What is, however, significant

is that there is hardly a men-

tion of Kashmir, or anti India

rhetoric for that matter, in

the election speeches of the

senior leaders of the country.

The big reason be-

hind this could be a realisa-

tion that the people are now

more interested in what is

good for them rather than

their “brethren” across the

line of control.

Disinterest in a pos-

itive engagement with India

and rigid positions so far as

Kashmir is concerned does

not give a positive indication

about things moving for the

better once the new govern-

ment takes charge.

A logical deriva-

tive of the foregoing would

be that whosoever forms a

government in Pakistan will

keep Kashmir central to all

policies and will follow the

line dictated by the military

and the militants. In short,

the gains of a free and pro-

gressive Pakistan, in case

they come by, will not be en-

joyed by India.

With the US-NATO

forces poised to de-induct

from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s

importance to the western

world will diminish consid-

erably. Due to its geographic

proximity and vibrant econ-

omy India can do more for

Pakistan that any other coun-

try has ever done.

This would, there-

fore, be the right time for

Pakistan to reach out to In-

dia, resolve all differences

and embark on a mutually

beneficial relationship. India

on its part should welcome

the strengthening of democ-

racy in Pakistan and create

an atmosphere for a positive

engagement.

At the same time,

India needs to look at the

negative indicators emanat-

ing from Pakistan at the mo-

ment and strengthen its vigil

against a possible misadven-

ture, especially in Kashmir.

Be Glad Your Nose

Is On Your Face

Be glad your nose is on your face,

not pasted on some other place,

for if it were where it is not,

you might dislike your nose a lot.

Imagine if your precious nose

were sandwiched in between your toes,

that clearly would not be a treat,

for you’d be forced to smell your feet.

Your nose would be a source of dread

were it attached atop your head,

it soon would drive you to despair,

forever tickled by your hair.

Within your ear, your nose would be

an absolute catastrophe,

for when you were obliged to sneeze,

your brain would rattle from the breeze.

Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,

remains between your eyes and chin,

not pasted on some other place--

be glad your nose is on your face!

by Jack Prelutsky


Supreme Court Scathing, Critical Of Govt. Interference In CBI Probe

BJP demands Law Minister’s resignation New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday lashed out at the Congress-led UPA Government after the Supreme Court expressed concern over Centre’s inter-ference in CBI probe in coal scam and other cases, and demanded the resignation of Union Law and Justice Min-ister Ashwani Kumar. Senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu said the Law Minister has no moral right to continue. “The CBI affidavit clearly says that the Law Minster was involved. The Prime Minister also has no moral right to continue. This is a clear case of misuse of the CBI,” he said. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar was also critical of the government on the issue. “Culpability of the Law Ministry, this is our initial demand. After the order of the Supreme Court also, they played with the report. Even the Law Min-ister should resign. The Law Minister did it to save the

PM,” he said. Even as Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati defended himself before the Supreme Court on his alleged role in suggesting change to some portions of the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) report on the coal block alloca-tion scam, the apex court on Wednesday was scathingly critical of governmental in-terference in what was es-sentially an investigative matter. The Supreme Court bluntly said that the CBI’s job was to interrogate and not to interact with the gov-ernment or any of its func-tionaries, while examining the nine-page fresh affidavit of the CBI that details the changes that it alleged were made by Union Law and Justice Minister Ashwani Kumar and others to a draft of its report on the coal al-location investigation. The apex court firmly said the government has the right to ask for a sta-tus on a particular probe, but has no business to intrude or

interfere in an activity be-ing carried out by the CBI. It said the government could not apply external pressure on a probe through its of-ficials.Attorney General Vahanvati said that he was all for maintaining the inde-pendence of the CBI in con-ducting probes, and added that he had not seen the re-port or its contents. The CBI on Mon-day had told the Supreme Court that on March 6 this year, Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and Coal Minis-try officials and officers of the Prime Minister’s Of-fice, made three significant changes to a draft of a report on the agency’s investiga-tion into coal block alloca-tions that it submitted three days later in court. It said that these changes were made at three different meetings on that day. In one of those, it claims, coal ministry and PMO officials visited the CBI and asked that the in-vestigating agency delete from the report its finding that there was no weightage

or points system used when allocating coal blocks. Then, in a meeting at his office the same day, Kumar made two deletions in the draft report, the CBI has claimed. Kumar allegedly deleted a portion that found that a screening committee reviewing applications for coal blocks did not prepare charts and reports. The af-fidavit says Kumar also de-leted a sentence in the draft report on the agency’s scope of inquiry on the legality of coal bock allocations. In yet another meet-ing on that day, the CBI has said Attorney General GE Vahanvati, representing the Centre in the case, saw the draft and suggested “minor” changes. CBI Director Ran-jit Sinha has emphasised in his report that these changes “neither altered its central theme nor shifted the focus of inquiries in any manner.” He had also assured the court that no names of suspects or accused were removed from the status

report and also that no sus-pects or accused were let off in the process. BJP leader Arun Jaitley said on Monday that the three deletions that the CBI has mentioned dilutes the “culpability of the ac-cused”. He also said that the investigating report was shared with the “suspects” which is not “appropriate”. BJP president Ra-jnath Singh said Prime Min-ister Manmohan Singh and Kumar should quit on moral grounds. Coalgate concerns the government’s allocation of the nation’s coal depos-its to public sector entities (PSEs) and private com-panies by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a draft report issued in March 2012, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) of-fice accused the government of allocating coal blocks in an inefficient manner during the period 2004–2009. Over the Summer of 2012, the BJP lodged a complaint resulting in a

Central Bureau of Investiga-tion probe into whether the allocation of the coal blocks was in fact influenced by corruption. The essence of the CAG’s argument is that the government had the author-ity to allocate coal blocks by a process of competitive bidding, but chose not to. As a result both public sector enterprises (PSEs) and private firms paid less than they might have otherwise. In its draft report in March this year, the CAG estimated that the “wind-fall gain” to the allocatees was Rs.10673.03 billion (approximately USD 200 billion). The CAG Final Re-port tabled in Parliament put the figure at Rs.1855.91 bil-lion (approximately USD 34 billion) On August 27, 2012, Prime Minister Man-mohan Singh read a state-ment in Parliament rebut-ting the CAG’s report both in its reading of the law and the alleged cost of the gov-ernment’s policies.


WHO Removes India From Polio Endemic Nations’ List

tainment measures for labo-ratory containment of wild poliovirus. A task force for laboratory containment of wild polioviruses has been constituted. The first phase of laboratory containment started by surveying labora-tory to identify laboratory with wild poliovirus, infec-tious materials or potential wild poliovirus infectious materials and encourage them for destruction of all unneeded materials. All States/UTs have

been communicated about the successful interruption of wild poliovirus transmis-sion in India and the possible certification in 2014 and re-quested for political and ad-ministrative support required for completion of laboratory containment activities in their respective States. Support of WHOs National Polio Surveillance Project (NPSP) is also be-ing obtained to survey all laboratories in their database and provide information of the Laboratories to the Task Force. An inventory of

laboratories/Institutes of De-partment of Bio Technology (DBT) / Department of Sci-ence & Technology (DST), Council of Scientific & In-dustrial Research (CSIR) and Indian Institutes of Technol-ogy (IITS)/ National Institute of Information Technology (NIITs), databases of bio-medical laboratories in De-partment of Health Research (DHR), bio-tech laboratories in Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) database has been prepared for information on storage of potentially infec-tious material.

POLIO From Page 1

Badal Meets PM, Urges Re-investigation Of 1984 Sikh Riots

New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): Punjab Chief Min-ister, Parkash Singh Badal met Prime Minister Man-mohan Singh on Wednesday to ask for the formation of a special investigation team under the supervision of the Supreme Court to re-exam-ine the 1984 Sikh riots case. After meeting the Prime Minister in parlia-ment, Badal said he had pressed the demand for stringent action against the perpetrators of the 1984 ri-ots. Continuing further

Badal said, “Justice is yet to be delivered in this case. We want a special investigation team to be formed under the supervision of Supreme Court to re-examine the case. There are many police reports and chargesheets that are to be filed and the culprits are yet to be booked. So we want the law to get hold of them.” A Delhi court on April 30 acquitted Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and convicted five other accused of charges including rioting and murder.

The pronounce-ment of the judgment report-edly caused huge uproar in the court with an aggrieved Sikh in the court hall hurling a shoe at the judge who ac-quitted Kumar. Since then mem-bers of the Sikh community have been protesting in New Delhi, demanding the case be transferred to the high court. They protested out-side the residence of Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, Congress chief, Sonia Gan-dhi and the parliament.

West Bengal Govt. Asks Centre To Expedite President’s Assent To Bill

New Delhi, May 6 (ANI): West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday and asked him to expedite President Pranab Mukherjee’s assent on the new bill to protect the interests of depositors in the aftermath of the multi-crore ponzi scam in the state. Mitra met Dr. Singh and Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in Par-liament House,and report-edly asked both leaders to take steps to clear the state government’s bill which has been forwarded to the Fi-nance, Home and Law Min-istries. He said that clearance from these three ministries is necessary before President Mukherjeee can give his as-sent to make it into law. He claimed that the

Bill had “more teeth” as six-seven new provisions relating to search, seizure and attach-ment of properties of the cul-prits have been introduced, in addition to those in an earlier bill prepared by the former Left Front government and approved by the previous state assembly. “I have come to Delhi along with the Chief Secretary and the Finance Secretary to press for quick assent of the President (to the legislation),” he told report-ers. Maintaining that the Home Ministry was the nodal ministry in the matter, Mitra said Shinde had assured that he will do his very best. Mitra said he had also suggested to Shinde to hold a consultative meet-ing with Finance and Law

and Home (Ministries) and quickly review the bill before putting it up for Presidential assent. Mitra said West Ben-gal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had also spoken with President Mukherjee about the matter when he was in Kolkata on Sunday. Hundreds of small investors in West Bengal have been affected by the recent ponzi scheme scam, especially by the Saradha group of companies whose chief Sudipto Sen and several others have been arrested. The West Bengal Assembly had in a special session last week passed the West Bengal Protection of Interest of Depositors in Fi-nancial Establishment Bill, 2013, to protect investors in chit fund companies.

Beware of BeijingBy Sushil Vakil Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has said that the world was laughing at us because we have made a mockery of our democrat-ic system where opposition stalls functioning of Parlia-ment instead of debating con-tentious issues. The statement sounds illogical as there are other issues that would cheer up other countries to laugh at us, like China’s incursion into Indian territory without meeting any stiff resistance. The luke warm response has not only exposed the pusil-lanimity of Indian leaders in confronting Beijing but also launching a stiff military ini-tiative. India is in a pre-carious situation, unable to confront the mighty China in an open conflict. It believes that a breakout of hostilities could upset the already slow development process of the country, causing untold mis-eries to the poor multitudes. Strangely enough, before the intrusion, the new Chinese leadership had not only sent the right signals but also outlined Panchsheel type of policy principles in future relations with India. Among them was to “maintain strate-gic communications and keep bilateral relations between the two countries on track.” The others were to expand cooper-ation in infrastructure and in-vestment, strengthen cultural ties and people-to-people con-tact, increase collaboration in multi-lateral affairs to tackle global challenges, apart from accommodating each other’s core concerns and handling differences existing between the two countries. However, the recent DBO intrusion re-mains a Chinese puzzle. There is no denying the fact that China has time and again shown that it is not a country to be trusted. On the one hand, it is engaged in talks with India on Afghanistan and even proposing joint efforts to build up the war-torn nation, on the other, it is making re-peated incursions into our ter-ritory. Admittedly, the lat-est face-off between India and China in Ladakh appears to be the worst since the one in 1986. For the past fortnight, Chinese troops have stationed themselves 19 km deep in-side the Indian territory in the Daulat Beg Oldie sector of the

Ladakh region. The transgres-sion by the Chinese army is as deep as Pakistan’s 1999 Kargil incursion which led to a war between India and Paki-stan. It doesn’t preclude the possibility that China wants to repeat the 1962 epi-sode of transgression into the Indian territory which led to a war, just to show its military prowess in the region. There is no deny-ing that China’s provocating march into our territory, by erecting tents pose a grave threat to India’s sovereinghty. But it is unfortunate that de-spite the gravity of the threat Prime Minister manmohan Singh described it as a “lo-calised problem” . “We do have a plan. We don’t want to accenuate the situation. We do believe it is possible to resolve the problem. I think talks are going on”, he said to reporters at Rashtrapati Bhawan. Though on one side Beijing has been quick to re-spond to PM’s intiative by adding that its government is “ready to work with India” to resolve the differences but on the other it is yet to vacate the area falling on Indian side. It omniously points out that China is reluctant to retreat to its orginal position. It is ironical that after having a cordial meet-ing with our Prime Minister, such a provocative action on the Indo-China borders casts aspersions on the Chinese in-tentions to resolve the border issue. China is now asking for talks to resolve the issue. It is high time we scrapped such talks as these are nothing but sheer waste of time. Undoubtedly, New Delhi has been consistently following a policy of restraint with Bei-jing inspite of the latter’s pro-vocative anti-India postures and actions on many sensitive issues. But there is a limit to restraint and it shouldn’t be one sided. And at the same time it should not be at the cost of India’s sovereignity. New Delhi is in a catch-22 sit-uation, where it has to choose between military taking on the third largest country or live in denial about the expansionist designs of China. In the face of Chi-na’s rigid stand Indian Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh presented a “factual status report” on Chinese incursion to the Cabinet Committee on

Security headed by the Prime Minister on Wednsday. He suggested various options to the government on resolving the issue, including aggres-sive use of force. This report-edly includes options such as cutting off Chinese supply lines in the area. More importantly, the ministers and bureaucrats concerned should immedi-ately take stock of the situa-tion and resources to ensure proper vigil by the Army and the ITBP. We can’t let the Chinese have a field day at the border. Any logistic and operational support required to dominate China must be provided without delay. Be-sides, India should deploy additional troops in the area if it felt the Chinese were en-hancing their presence. All political parties cutting across party lines should sit together to evolve a consensus on the issue and chalk out a strategy for a lasting solution to the imbroglio. China, it seems, is out to grab Indian territories and take control of our vital installations on one pretext or other to serve its expansion-ist designs. We can call its bluff by moving our troops to advance positions keeping our international friends on board. Whatever be the con-text of the DBO intrusion, it is important that India makes the right moves. Though the terrain is extremely difficult, with temperatures dropping to minus 50 degrees Celsius, the ITBP is supposed to be fully equipped to dominate the as-signed stretch of the LAC. Moreover, our Jawans should remain prepared to deny any undue advances of our hostile neighbour. The sanctity of the LAC must be maintained. Lastly, India must not refrain from taking mili-tary action to thwart any Chinese provocative trans-gressions otherwise we may suffer another debacle at the hands of China. In the mean-while India must make the right moves on the Chinese intrusion, for its actions on this incident would set the tone for its dealings with the new Chinese leadership over the next decade. And it has to assert its national interests.

The views expressed are those of the author and does not represent the views of the pub-lication or any of its staff.


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Close Aide Of Bansal’s Nephew

Surrenders Before Delhi Court New Delhi, May 7 (ANI) A close aide of Rail-way Minister Pawan Ku-mar Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singla surrendered before a Delhi court on Tuesday in connection with the cash-for-jobs scam in the rail-ways. Ajay Garg was questioned earlier by the Central Bureau of Investi-gation (CBI) in Chandigarh before his surrender in the national capital. The court will pro-nounce an order on his sur-render application soon. Garg has been named in the case as one of the suspects present when the Rs.90 lakh bribe amount was exchanged.

Nine people have been arrested in the case so far. The CBI has pro-cured data from Bansal’s office and residence to zero in on how many times his nephew Vijay Singla or rail-way supplier Sandeep Goyal visited him. It will now verify from Bansal whether Singla was acting on his own or us-ing the minister’s name as a front as there is evidence that Singla was in touch with the Railway Ministry top brass. According to CNN-IBN, the CBI is also probing Bansal’s relatives’ roles in recent postings and transfers in the Railway Protection Force.

CBI sources say they are now probing a major jobs for sale nexus between RPF officers asso-ciation and middlemen, add-ing that the recent transfers, postings and promotions in RPF are not on merit. The CBI probe has widened after interrogation of Vijay Singla and Ajay Garg. The CBI investiga-tion that has been going on for the past one-and-a half-months, has also revealed that the suspended railway board member Mahesh Ku-mar’s deal was that he prom-ised two contractors to pay for him the amount of Rs 10 crore for the post of Member (Electrical) in exchange for future contracts.

BSP Ministers May Land Up In Jail: UP CM Lucknow, May 8 (ANI): Amidst reports of the state’s vigilance depart-ment seeking permission for further action against former BSP ministers, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Ya-dav said some more minis-ters of the previous regime could land in jail. “Some ministers of the Mayawati Government are in jail and some more can go there...action will be taken on some more ministers who are accused of wrongdo-ings,” Yadav said to queries over Vigilance department seeking permission for filing FIR against five and charge sheet against three others.

“How many minis-ters of the previous govern-ment will go to jail cannot be spelt out as of now,” he said in reply to another question. According to of-ficial sources, the vigilance department has sought per-mission from the govern-ment to file charge sheets against three former minis-ters of the BSP government - Rangnath Misra, Avadhpal and Badshah Singh - on vari-ous charges, including those under the Prevention of Cor-ruption Act. The department has also sought permission to lodge cases and conduct probe against five other

former ministers - Chandra Dev, Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Ramvir Upadhyay, Rakesh Dhar Tripathi and Babu Singh Kushwaha. The vigilance de-partment has already lodged a case against another for-mer minister Ram Achal Ra-jbhar. Lokayukta N K Mehrotra had investigated the charges against these ministers and found these prima facie correct. In his report to the chief minister, Mehrotra had recommended a formal in-vestigation by the vigilance department and other agen-cies.

States Asked To Remove Deficiencies

In Functioning Of TPDS New Delhi, May 6 (ANI): The Centre has asked the State Governments to take remedial measures to remove the deficiencies noticed in the functioning of Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distri-bution, Prof. K.V. Thomas, who gave this information in a writ-ten reply in Rajya Sabha today, said the functioning of TPDS, including the implementation of AAY, is being evaluated by different agencies from time to time which have revealed cer-tain deficiencies such as inclu-sion/exclusion errors, leakages/diversion of food grains, etc. Against the total ac-cepted number of 2.50 crore AAY families given to State/

UT Governments, upto March 2013, the States/UTs have re-ported issuance of AAY ration cards to 2.43 crore AAY fami-lies. Requests have been received from State Govern-ments and others for coverage of additional families under AAY and allocation of foodgrains to them in States such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karna-taka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odi-sha and Uttar Pradesh. As the State Govern-ments are required to identify AAY families within the ceil-ing of number of AAY families allocated to each State, the re-quests for coverage of addition-al families under AAY beyond the targeted number could not

be acceded to. State/UT Govern-ments are also advised from time to time to review the ex-isting list of AAY beneficiaries and remove the ineligible ben-eficiaries so as to include only the most eligible. This department has been getting the functioning of TPDS, including the imple-mentation of AAY, evaluated by different agencies from time to time. The latest evaluation study of TPDS was got con-ducted by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in respect of 12 States (reports submitted in 2007-09) and through Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) (reports submitted in 2010-11) in respect of 14 States.


South Asian Seventh-Day Adventist Church (SASDAC) Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Adventists claim, the Holy Bible is God’s infallible revelation of His will, the standard of character, the test of

experience, the revealer of doctrines, and the record of His role in human history. “I’d love Adventists to be

known as people who love each other,” said Franklin David, who pastored the church for a quarter century.

Sam Prasad Jillella

Special to India This Week

SILVER SPRING, MD. May 07— The South Asian Ad-ventist immigrants, began arriving in Metro Washing-ton, in the mid-1960s, after new immigration laws were passed. A good number of them arrived, for economic and educational opportuni-ties. The South Asian Adventists, in the nation’s capital, are predominantly first-generation American. Founded, in 1988, by a small group of enthu-siasts — Abraham Thomas, Joshi Victor, N. K. Samuel, K. Gopala Rao, Pastor Sun-dershanam Enjety, Lalthan-gliana Sailo, and Madhukar Ohal — the Southern Asian Seventh Day Adventist Church (SASDAC), with an initial membership of 24 people, has now swelled into an 850-member church. SASDAC will spiritually celebrate a quar-

ter-century of ministry, this Sabbath, May 10-11, Friday sunset till Saturday sunset. Some important Ad-ventist officials expected to participate in the celebration are: Dan Jackson, President of the North American Di-visions, Raj Kumar Attiken, President of Ohio Confer-ence, Ralph Martin, former President of the Potomac Conference, and Bill Miller, President of Potomac Con-ference. SASDAC has min-istered to children, youth, and the elderly. It has min-istered to the normal and the healthy, as well as, to the needy, the depressed, the sick, and the dying. In minis-tering to its flock, the church has done an exceptional job. SASDAC’s major ministries are: Prayer Minis-try, Youth Ministry, Women’s Ministry, Family Life Minis-try, Children’s Ministry, Mu-sic Ministry, Health Ministry, and Community Services. The anniversary

celebrations, besides other things, include a special Sabbath service, fellowship meal, a devotional music concert by Bollywood play-back singer Vijay Benedict, and a customary Saturday-evening social program. Take a look at what South Asian Adventists, in Metro Washington, are known for. Dr. Vijayan Charles, a practicing surgeon, educat-ed at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Del-hi, and at Adventist institu-tions in India and the US, has lived in Metro Washington for more than four decades. Charles, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Washington Adventist University, was a member of the Adventist General Conference Global Strategy Committee for 4 years, was President of the Medical Society of Prince George’s County, and was President of the medical staff of Doctor’s Hospital, in Lanham, MD.

A section of The members of SASDAC family

Pastor Franklin David, pastored SASDAC for 25 years.

Charles’ worldview is Adventist. He claims “Ad-ventism places a high prior-ity on education, self-dignity, clean life, freedom of con-science, and making respon-sible choices...Education is a route to realizing your self-worth.” In an interview with INDIA THIS WEEK and MyDosti.Com, Charles said: “Southern Asian Ad-ventists are good Christian people, and I hear more posi-tive things about them, than negative points. I think they not only ‘talk the talk,’ but, they also ‘walk the walk.’” Charles added, “Those in professional fields are people of great integrity, they are service oriented, people oriented, community oriented, hard-working, and dependable...Adventist youth face problems and challeng-es like other young people do, but the degree of those problems within the Adven-tist community is much less. The Adventist youth are less

lewd. They take education seriously. There is less drug addiction, less communal tension, more orientation for service. They make trips to foreign countries on commu-nity developmental projects. They belong to close-knit families...SASDAC has done a commendable job in men-toring its youth.” Adventists: Who

are they? What do they be-lieve? What is their lifestyle? Why are they important? The Christian Church consists of the Cath-olic, Orthodox, and the Prot-estant churches, which are again subdivided into several denominations and orders, and carry shared, as well as,

SASDAC see page 13


their own distinct beliefs.

The Adventist church,

though conservative Protestant,

stands distinct from a majority

of Protestant churches.

Adventism, a rela-

tively young religion, took

birth in America as an inter-

denominational movement,

whose most vocal leader was

William Miller.

In the 1840s, during

the Advent Awakening Move-

ment, about 100,000 people

in the United States supported

Miller’s predictions that Christ

would soon return. When that

didn’t happen, believers split

into groups, including one that

later became known as the Sev-

enth-day Adventist Church.

The founders of the

Adventist church are Joseph

Bates, James White, Ellen G.

White, and J. N. Andrews.

Adventists claim but one creed:

“The Bible, and the Bible

alone.” The teachings of the

Adventist Church, expressed in

its 28 Fundamental Beliefs, are

often considered evangelical.

“Seventh-day Adven-

tists” (SDA), known simply

as “Adventists,” indicate the

church’s two main distinctive

characteristics: (1) Sabbath

observance on the 7th day of

the week, Saturday. (2) An ex-

pectation that Christ will return

soon, at which time the world

will end.

The Fourth Com-

mandment of the Bible de-

clares, “Remember the Sabbath

day and keep it holy.” And,

“Sabbath” means “to cease.”

The SDA Church teaches that

Saturday is holy, and must be

kept holy, from Friday sun-set,

till Saturday sun-set.

Why are Adventists

important?

The fascinating 2010

PBS documentary, The Adven-

tists, begins with the 1863 re-

enactment of Ellen White’s di-

vine visions, whose prophecies

led to the founding of the Sev-

enth-day Adventist Church.

The film explores the

intersection of faith and mod-

ern medicine, and why studies

show Adventists live 5 to 10

years longer than the average

American.

Adventists combine a stead-

fast belief in the ‘second com-

ing’ of Christ with a focus on

a vegetarian diet, exercise, rest

and abstinence from tobacco

and alcohol. Today, the church

owns and operates 173 hospi-

tals, 132 nursing homes, and

the world-famous Loma Linda

University, in California.

Adventists believe

in the perpetuity of the Bibli-

cal Ten-Commandments, the

unconsciousness (sleep-state)

of man in death, conditional

immortality, atoning ministry

of Jesus Christ in the heavenly

sanctuary, and an investigative

judgment that commenced in

1844, in heaven.

Adventists are known

around the world for running

SASDAC from page 12

The Southern Asia Seventh-Day Adventist Chruch (SASDAC), on 2001 East Randolph Road, Silver Spring, MD, was built at an expense of $10 million.

meticulously organized educa-

tional institutions; healthcare,

wellness, medical, and human-

itarian institutions; spiritual,

social work, and human-devel-

opment institutions.

SASDAC plans to

start a satellite church in North-

ern Virginia, and build a 100-

room senior citizen residential

facility in the church campus.

In 2010, Ted

N.C.Wilson, the president of

the Adventist World Church

preached his Sabbath sermon

in Atlanta, Georgia, to nearly

70, 000, reaffirming Advent-

ism’s foundational doctrines,

and cautioning the congrega-

tion against unscriptural fads.

When asked, “What

is your message to SASDAC

on reaching the quarter-century

milestone?” Pr. Franklin David

answered: “Know Christ, and

make Him known.”

Karnataka Has Given Clear

Mandate To Congress: Moily Bangalore, May

8 (ANI): Expressing his

delight over the Congress

Party’s clear majority in the

Karnataka state assembly

elections, Union Petroleum

and Natural Gas Minister

Dr. M. Veerappa Moily on

Wednesday said the BJP had

got its just political desert by

being relegated to third po-

sition, and said talks about

Gujarat Chief Minister Nar-

endra Modi having a pan-In-

dia image have proved to be

a non starter.

Dr. Moily said the

Karnataka electoral result

is a victory of the Congress

Party and the people of Kar-

nataka.

“ A clear mandate

has been given to the Con-

gress Party to govern for

another five years. It is also

clear that they don’t want to

have a split polity, or they do

not want that there should be

a coalition arrangement. This

is the lesson, which the Kar-

nataka people have thrown to

the national scenario.

And, it is also clear

that by not allowing the Par-

liament to run, the BJP has

now come third. And, Mr.

Modi coming to the coastal

areas, that hundred percent

Congress swept. I think he

should have visited these

places more, we would have

then swept the polls in a bet-

ter way with better momen-

tum,” Dr. Moily told ANI

here.

“That means to

say, all that is said about Mr.

Narendra Modi that he has

a pan-India image is abso-

lutely false and may be that

because of his own certain

communal agenda, which he

has taken in Gujarat.

I don’t think his in-

fluence will go beyond the

frontiers of Gujarat. This is

very clear and Karnataka has

sent a very right message to

the BJP and also the people

of this country that a type of

leadership like Modi will not

run this country,” he added.

Dr. Moily lauded

the efforts put in by Congress

vice-president Rahul Gan-

dhi, Prime Minister Dr. Man-

mohan Singh and Congress

President Sonia Gandhi.

“And in fact Ra-

hul Gandhi, Dr. Manmohan

Singh our Prime Minis-

ter, and also Soniaji (Sonia

Gandhi), they have toured

around all those places, all

those places where they have

addressed the meetings we

have got the maximum votes

and maximum seats,” he

said.

Dr. Moily, however,

refused to throw light on the

Congress Party’s chief min-

isterial candidate in Karna-

taka.

“There is a process

and a system which is always

adopted by the Congress

formally. They make an as-

sessment of the ground situ-

ation and take the opinion of

the elected MLAs, then the

central observers will come,

they will take a sense of it,

and then the central leader-

ship will decide,” he said.

Dr. Moily also rub-

bished the comparison made

between Modi and Rahul

Gandhi as a potential prime

ministerial candidate ahead

of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

“That comparison

we have not done. It was BJP,

which has done. If they have

done it, they are defeated in

their own battle,” he said.


INTERNATIONAL NEWSINTERNATIONAL NEWS

Saudi Arabia Not To Extend Three-month Grace Period For Illegal Expatriates

New Jihadist Magazine Appeals To Muslims To Create Technology To Hack Drones

Islamabad, May 7 (ANI): A new magazine set up by militants in Afghani-stan and Pakistan has ap-pealed to Muslims around the world to come up with a new technology to hack or manipulate drones. The magazine has mentioned this as their most important priorities. According to the Ex-press Tribune, the first issue of the English-language on-line magazine, called ‘Azan’, was published on May 5, the SITE intelligence monitoring group said. It compared Azan to the ‘Inspire’ magazine, which has been set up by al

Qaeda in the Arabian Penin-sula (AQAP). The magazine said that drone strikes were af-fecting the war in the Wa-ziristan tribal areas of Paki-stan – where al Qaeda is based along with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Afghan Taliban fighters. Western officials have said drone strikes have been highly effective in dis-rupting the activities of al Qaeda and its allies in the tribal region bordering Af-ghanistan. According to the report, Azan magazine ac-cused the Pakistan Army of continuing to work with the

United States. ‘Azan’ covers many areas where al Qaeda is ac-tive, from Syria to Mali, and celebrates Afghanistan as the base for the start of global ji-had, its focus, however, is on Pakistan. One section in the magazine is devoted to criti-cising Malala Yousufzai, the schoolgirl who survived be-ing shot by the Pakistani Tal-iban last year after she spoke out for her right to an educa-tion. Another segment attacks the Pakistan Army for turning its back on traditional enemy India to fight in the tribal areas.

Manama, May 7 (ANI): Saudi Arabia’s in-terior ministry has asked foreigners staying illegally in the country to take ad-vantage of the three-month grace period to regularise their situation. The ministry in a statement said that there will be no extension of the grace period and there will be a zero-tolerance policy for those who fail to regularise their status. According to Gulf

News, the ministry said that expatriates who were staying illegally should get their sta-tus rectified from concerned authorities. Last month, King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz called for giving foreigners staying illegally in the coun-try a three-month grace pe-riod to regularise their situa-tion.Authorities in Saudi Ara-bia have launched a mas-sive campaign to deport thousands of foreigners

who have overstayed in the country working beyond the given permits or worked il-legally. According to the report, the nation-wide cam-paign is attributed to ambi-tious labour market reforms and boosting security levels. Around eight mil-lion expatriates work and live in the vast Saudi king-dom, mainly unskilled la-bourers and domestic help-ers from Asian countries, the report added.

Israel Says Attacks On Syria Not Tantamount To War London, May 7 (ANI): Israel sought to play down its attack on Syrian sol-diers during an air strike on re-search facilities and weapons shipments that were bound for the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s air strikes on a military complex outside of Damascus have killed 42 Syr-ian soldiers over the weekend, The Independent reports. While Syria claims these attacks as a ‘declaration of war’, Israel has not official-

ly confirmed its involvement in any attacks on Syria. Friday’s strike near the Lebanese border has hit three sites, according to the Syrian Foreign Ministry. While Israel has attempted several sooth-ing overtures to its northern neighbour, Tzachi Hanegbi, a confidante of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said these attacks were aimed at avoiding any increase in tension with Syria, by mak-

ing it clear that the activities are only against the Hezbollah and not against the Syrian re-gime. According to the report, Israel has claimed its reluctance in warmongering with Syria after they fought four wars between 1948 and 1982, but says it will act to prevent sophisticated weap-ons and technology falling into the hands of Hezbollah, with which it fought a war in 2006.

Russia, US Pledge To Resolve Syrian Conflict China Angered Over Pentagon’s Accusation Of ‘Cyber Espionage’

London, May 8 (ANI): China is enraged by a blunt report by the Penta-gon, accusing the country of cyber-espionage aimed at extracting US military se-crets. The accusation has prompted a war of words be-tween Washington and Bei-jing, with the latter angrily denying the accusations. The 83-page report contends that the cyber-in-trusions are a key part of Beijing’s military strategy as it jostles with Washing-ton for dominance in East Asia, reports The Indepen-dent. The computer se-curity firm Mandiant re-cently identified a single agency in the People’s Lib-eration Army, Unit 61398,

as responsible for over 140 such operations since 2006. Chinese authorities have dismissed the charges levelled in the Pentagon report, who termed them “groundless” and “hype” that would only harm bi-lateral cooperation and dia-logue. According to the Pentagon, China sees elec-tronic warfare as a way to “reduce or eliminate” US advantage. China’s military expansion has long been rattling nerves in the region. Beijing is embroiled in dis-putes with Japan, the Phil-ippines, Vietnam and other neighbours. With the Iraq war over and the Afghan conflict soon to join it, President

Barack Obama announced plans in November 2011 for an American “pivot to Asia” in part to assuage US allies in the region over China’s perceived expansionism. The shift is presented by Washington in the context of ‘partnership’ with Bei-jing. China however is vis-ibly less than convinced and, the Pentagon contends, has made cyber weaponry a centrepiece of its new strat-egy. The report stated that evidence can be found in two recent public state-ments - ‘Science of Strat-egy’ and ‘Science of Cam-paigns’. Both are said to identify cyber-spying as “integral to achieving in-formation superiority and countering a stronger foe”.

3 Killed, 53 Wounded In Serial Car Bombings In Iraq Beijing, May 8 (Xin-hua-ANI): At least three people were killed and 53 wounded when two suicide car bombers and a car bomb struck Kurdish security forces in Iraq’s north-ern city of Kirkuk on Wednes-day, medical and police sources told Xinhua. The attacks occurred in the morning when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car into the entrance of the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish party headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in central the city of

Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on con-dition of anonymity. Police report said that most of the wounded were Kurdish security guards, named Peshmerga, adding that the blast destroyed part of the office building, and a civil de-fense team are working at the site to look for more victims. Meanwhile, a car bomb detonated near a Kurd-ish security patrol in the south-western part of Kirkuk, leaving at least one security member

killed and six others wounded. Also in the morning, another suicide car bomber struck a checkpoint at the en-trance of a Kurdish security base near the town of Daquq, some 50 km south of Kirkuk, killing a Peshmerga member and wounding four others and a civilian, the source said. The ethnically mix province of Kirkuk and its capital Kirkuk City, some 250 km north of Baghdad, are part of the disputed areas between the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans.

London, May 8 (ANI): Russia and the United States have pledged to convene an international conference aimed at ending the civil war in Syria. The two countries hope to give the situation a new diplomatic push fol-lowing two years of blood-shed. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Ser-

gei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, announced the move at a midnight press conference in Moscow. According to the Guardian, the announcement of the joint initiative comes after months of stalled co-operation on Syria. Officials from both sides hope that representa-tives from the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the op-

position will attend the con-ference to end the deadlock. Russia, which is Assad’s staunchest ally, has consistently pushed for a diplomatic solution to the crisis while continuing to supply Assad with arms. Barack Obama is facing increasing calls for military intervention fol-lowing reports of chemical weapons use in Syria.

Libya Parliament Bans Gaddafi-era Officials From Holding Political Office

London, May 6 (ANI): Libya’s parliament has passed a law banning of-ficials from the Gaddafi era from holding political office. Under the new law, anyone who held a key of-ficial post between 1969 and 2011 is supposed to be excluded from government, reports the BBC. A special commis-sion will now be set up to implement the new law. It is not clear how long the exclu-sion will last. The vote in the General National Congress (GNC) came a week after

militias backing the law be-gan besieging the ministries of justice and foreign affairs. They had said they would not leave until the bill was passed. The law could af-fect senior members of the government, including Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and GNC speaker Mohamed Megaryef, both of who were diplomats before the revolu-tion. Human Rights Watch’s Sarah Leah Whit-son said in a statement that the law is far too vague - po-tentially barring anyone who

ever worked for the authori-ties during the four decades of Gaddafi’s rule. In a vote broadcast live on state TV, 164 MPs supported the measure in the 200-member chamber and just four voted against. It re-quired a two-thirds plus one majority to pass. Since Gaddafi’s death, Tripoli and other Lib-yan cities have been plagued by violence and infighting. The government has recently tried to dismantle militias that formed during and after the war that toppled the long-serving leader.


Japan Gears Up To Face Disasters In Post-Fukushima Period

Tokyo, May 7 (ANI): Life is back to nor-mal after two years of the devastating earthquake and Tsunami that hit East Japan on March 11, 2011, and this can be seen in the revival of several business enterprises. For example, Mini-stop Co. Ltd., a chain of convenience stores, whose 70 percent outlets out of 288 were damaged, is on the re-vival path. During the crisis, the company played a sig-nificant role in securing the supply of food, drinking wa-ter and beverages to the af-fected people. Despite its own losses, it had set-up logistic teams to supply fast-food items at the disaster sites. “On March 11, 2011 - just after the earthquake, we established a temporary office to connect with fran-chise chain shops and secure the safety of the employees. The next day, we decided to send our sales manager to Sendai City. We tried our best to collect information

by connecting to the on-site headquarter the and Tokyo office through video confer-encing,” said Akihiro Maeda, Director, Ministop Co. Ltd., Japan. The natural calam-ity turned more disastrous when a Tsunami disabled power supply and the cooling of three Fukushima reactors, causing a nuclear accident. About 160,000 resi-dents were evacuated to safe areas and 10,000 hectares of agricultural farm land was devastated. Now, the farms at Fukushima produce radia-tion-free food, which is safe for human consumption. Recently, HIS, a Japanese travel agency, con-ducted a study tour to Fuku-shima named “Never Forget Tour”. The visitors met some evacuees and resi-dents who have started the “Kaachan” power project, which essentially deals with edible and safe meals con-sisting of vegetables, rice and other ingredients produced in

Fukushima. “No Fukushima food. No Japanese Food. 44 countries refused to import our crops. Now, the Japanese government has set the safe-ty basis of radiation at under 100 Becquerel. The safety basis for food imports is 370 Becquerel,” said Wantanbe Tomiko, President, Mom’s Project. “I heard people from other countries want to learn from the nuclear acci-dent that happened in Fuku-shima. We accept those in-spections in the near future, “ said a tour planner. Efforts are on to improve technology to get advance information about natural calamities. As part of disaster management, a sem-inar titled “Networking for Observation Satellites” was recently held at the Ministry of Economy, Trading and In-dustry in Tokyo. It aimed at fighting disaster damage and peace-ful multi-use of satellites, and was attended by experts from Indonesia, Malaysia,

Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Pasco, a Japanese representative company of the Space Observation in-dustry, demonstrated the In-tegrated Mobile Ground Sta-tion, which was developed in cooperation with METI. When a disaster oc-curs this car moves to that place to get information through satellites and pro-vides data for analysis. “It’s really a good invention to help us, espe-cially when we have disas-ters in far areas. It is mobile and you can bring it nearest place. So you cannot depend on single station, you can move around. So it is very helpful,” said Esperanza O. Cayaman of Pagasa, Philip-pines. The system costs 1,000 million USD. Countries which are prone to natural disasters like typhoons, flood and earth-quake can take advantage of the Japanese technology and be better prepared to handle natural calamities.

China Supports Palestinian People: President Xi Jinping

Beijing, May 6 (Xinhua-ANI): Chinese President Xi Jinping here on Monday stressed that China firmly supports the just cause of the Palestinian people. Xi and visiting Pal-estinian President Mahmoud Abbas held official talks amidst Abbas’s state visit to China. The Palestine issue dominated the talks between Xi and Abbas, the first head of state from the Middle East region to visit China after Xi assumed the Chinese presi-dency in March. The Palestine issue is the core of the Middle East issue, Xi pointed out. “The issue, already lasting more than half a cen-tury, has brought deep suffer-ing to the Palestinian people and remains an important reason of extended turbu-lence in the Middle East re-gion,” he said. He stressed that the Palestinian issue “should not be neglected at anytime and must be put in an important and noteworthy position.” Xi reiterated that

Chinese people’s support to Palestinian people “is sincere and hearty.” China will, as al-ways, support the just cause of the Palestinian people, he said. “Despite turns and twists in peace talks between Palestine and Israel, we be-lieve that the dream of the Palestinian people to estab-lish an independent state can come true provided (you) hold the general direction of peace and make unremitting efforts (in your cause),” he told Abbas. The Palestinian president also stressed that a political solution “remains the best and only way out,” adding that his country sup-ported such an option. Palestine wants to address the issue through peaceful talks on the basis of a two-state solution, he said. Abbas also urged Is-rael to observe international pacts, halt settlement build-ing so as to create conditions for resumption of the peace talks. Palestine is also com-mitted to internal reconcilia-tion and solidarity, he said.


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Potential Deadly Domestic Terror

Strike In Minnesota Averted By FBI Washington, May 7 (ANI): A terror attack that was being planned in Minne-sota City has been disrupted by the FBI, which they be-lieve could have had a deadly domestic impact. Militia-linked Bu-ford Rogers was arrested after federal, state and lo-cal army officials raided his home and found Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and firearms, includ-ing a Romanian AK-M as-sault-style rifle, ABC News reports.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, Jeanne Cooney, said the authorities arrested Rogers in time before the at-tack could be carried out. The FBI stated that Roger’s arrest has saved the lives of ‘several local resi-dents’. Minnesota Police chief Adam Christopher fur-ther said that Rogers had started a group called the Black Snake Militia, an or-ganization having anti-gov-ernment tendencies.

However, Jeff Rog-ers said that his son is not guilty of any planned vio-lence, adding that he is un-aware of the pipe bombers, though they use ‘bunch of pipes’ for plumbing. Rogers had been convicted of felony burglary in 2011, where he pleaded guilty to stealing two rifles and tools from a garage in an area near the South Da-kota border, similar to a case where he was charged with reckless use of a weapon in 2009, the report added.

Delaware Becomes 11th U.S. State

To Legalise Same-sex Marriage

Washington, May. 8 (ANI): Delaware has be-come the 11th US state to legalize same-sex marriage after Governor Jack Markell signed the legislation into law immediately following a 12-9 vote. Prior to signing HB 75, Markell took to Twitter to congratulate those who

fought for marriage equality in his state. The Huffington Post quoted Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) as saying that it is “a truly historic day” for Dela-ware. He said the passage of HB 75 ushers in a new era of equality in the state and marks an important moment in the state’s history.

According to re-ports, the first same-sex cou-ples will be allowed to tie the knot on July 1. Opponents, includ-ing many Delaware religious leaders, argue same-sex mar-riage redefines and destroys a centuries-old institution that is a building block of so-ciety.

16% High School Students

Electronically Bullied In Past Year Washington, May 6 (ANI): One in six high school students (16.2 percent) re-ported being electronically bullied within the past 12 months, according to a new study. Girls were more than twice as likely to report being a victim of cyberbully-ing than boys (22.1 percent vs. 10.8 percent). Whites reported be-ing the victim of cyberbully-ing more than twice as fre-quently as blacks, the study found. Further, many of these students also spend three or more hours on an average school day playing video games or using a com-puter for something other than school work, the study revealed. “Electronic bully-ing of high school students threatens the self-esteem, emotional well-being and social standing of youth at a very vulnerable stage of their development,” said study au-thor Andrew Adesman, MD, FAAP, chief of Developmen-tal and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cohen Children`s Medical

Center of New York. “Although teenag-ers generally embrace being connected to the Web and each other 24/7, we must rec-ognize that these new tech-nologies carry with them the potential to traumatize youth in new and different ways,” he added. The researchers analyzed data from the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 15,425 public and private high school students. For the first time, the 2011 survey asked students whether they had been a vic-tim of electronic bullying in the past 12 months, including through email, chat rooms, in-stant messaging, websites and texting. They also were asked how many hours they play video or computer games or use a computer for something that is not school work. “Electronic bullying is a very real yet silent dan-ger that may be traumatizing children and teens without parental knowledge and has the potential to lead to dev-astating consequences,” said principal investigator Karen Ginsburg, also at Cohen

Children`s Medical Center of New York. “By identifying groups at higher risk for elec-tronic bullying, it is hoped that targeted awareness and prevention strategies can be put in place,” Ginsburg not-ed. Results regarding video game and recreational computer use showed: Thirty-one percent of high school students reported spending three or more hours daily playing video games or using a computer for some-thing other than school. Boys were more likely than girls to report playing for more than three hours a day (35.3 percent vs. 26.6 percent). “As technology continues to advance and computers become that much more accessible, cyberbully-ing will continue to grow as a hurtful weapon against kids and teens,” Dr. Adesman con-cluded. The results are to be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washing-ton, DC.


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BJP’s General Sec-retary and in-charge of Kar-nataka, Dharmendra Prad-han, said that the party in the initial stage had a fair hint about the consequences due to split in votes. “We humbly ac-cept the mandate given to us by the people of Karnataka. Prima-facie, the cause for the defeat of the party and the loss of mandate is due to the split in votes. The party had some inkling about the likely outcome of the polls,” he said. Former Chief Min-ister B.S. Yeddyurappa has effectively split the BJP’s vote, but has failed to con-vert that into gains for his newly-floated Karnataka Janata Party (KJP). Moreover, the BJP after five years of turbulent rule in Karnataka has fared poorly even in urban strong-holds like Bangalore, which has voted for the Congress. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Con-gress President Sonia Gan-dhi on Wednesday hailed the

Congress Storms Back To Power In Karnataka party’s showing in Karnataka polls, saying the result was a rejection of BJP’s ideol-ogy and suggested the same would be repeated in the Lok Sabha elections as well. Dr. Singh praised the efforts of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, say-ing he took a “leading role” in the campaigning for the polls held on Sunday last. “It is a clear result against the ideology of the BJP which has been ruling in the state of Karnataka,” Dr Singh told reporters outside Parliament House as results from Karnataka polls showed that Congress was well on its way towards achieving a majority. On the Lok Sabha elections, the Prime Minis-ter said, “The people of the country know what is what and they will reject the BJP ideology as the result in Kar-nataka shows.” He congrat-ulated Congress workers in Karnataka for the outcome. Sonia Gandhi, when asked to comment on the Karnataka result, said, “I am very happy with the vic-tory in Karnataka. It was a

joint effort.” After the Janata Dal-Secular emerged as the second biggest winner in the Karnataka elections, its leader and former state chief minister H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday said his party is ready to sit in the opposi-tion and protect the interests of the people of state. “We are going to sit in the opposition and work in the interest of the people,” Kumaraswamy told media here. “If people bless us to sit in the Opposition then we will do that... to safe-guard the interests of the people,” he added. Kumaraswamy fur-ther claimed that the media influenced voters to go in favour of the Congress. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednes-day expressed his delight with the Congress Party getting absolute majority in Karnataka, saying the state will now get a stable, pro-gressive and hard-working government for the next five years. “We are happy. I

Dalai Lama Brings Message of Peace, Compassion to Washington

have seen different numbers in different channels, but it appears that all channels are agreeing that Congress will have an absolute majority in the house. We are very hap-py that people of Karnataka have voted the Congress Party with an absolute ma-jority,” Chidambaram told mediapersons outside the Parliament here. “Voting the Con-gress party is one thing, but voting it with an absolute majority means that there will be a stable government for five years. And we can now promise the people of Karnataka that we will give a stable government, a pro-gressive government and a hard-working government for the next five years,” he added. Taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Chidambaram said there is a need to repair the financial position of the state. “The financial po-sition of Karnataka is quite bad that is the way they have left it. So, we need to repair the financial position of Kar-nataka,” he added. Chidambaram also played down the fact that Gujarat Chief Minister Nar-endra Modi was a factor in Karnataka. “I don’t think ever

Mr. Modi will say that he was a factor in Karnataka,” he said. Modi, touted by many to be the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate in 2014, campaigned for the party in Karnataka in an ef-fort that it is re-elected to power. Modi, who secured an electoral hat-trick in Gu-jarat, left no stone unturned in targetting the Gandhi fam-ily and the ruling Congress Party at the Centre during his election campaigns in Karnataka. The Finance Minis-ter further said result of the Karnataka polls gives a clear message to all political par-ties that the people watches very closely and very care-fully. “And we have to deliver. A government that does not deliver, lives on rhetoric is not going to be re-elected and the govern-ment in Karnataka was such a government. So, this is a lesson to whoever forms the government must deliver on the ground,” he added. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Wednesday gave credit to Prime Minister Dr Manmo-han Singh, Congress presi-dent Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi for

the party’s good showing in BJP-ruled Karnataka. “I would like to thank the people of Karna-taka for voting the Congress party to victory, and the credit for this should also be given to our leaders Dr Man-mohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, who led from the front to ensure the party’s victory in his BJP-ruled state,” Khurshid told media here Echoing similar sentiments, Union Minister of State in the Prime Min-ister’s Office V. Narayana-samy thanked Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul for the party’s comfortable victory here. “I am very grateful to people of Karnataka for voting in favour of Congress, which have always given top priority to the develop-ment unlike BJP which has misused power and indulged in corruption,” he added Parliamentary Af-fairs Minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday called the Congress Party’s resound-ing win in Karnataka an “in-nings defeat for the BJP”. “The match is over, BJP has had an innings de-feat, now they’ll blame the match, the ball and the pitch”, Nath told media here.

CONGRESS From Page 1

The Dalai Lama at the University of Maryland, on Tuesday, with Maryland Governor Mar-

tin O’ Malley at left. Photo courtesy: Ashwin Saboo

by Geeta Goindi With happiness writ large on his face, the 78-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader told a jam-packed crowd of 15,000 at the Comcast Cen-ter, in Maryland, on Tuesday, that “Peace must come from inner peace. The source is compassion, forgiveness. Once mutual respect is there, we can start mutual learn-ing”. The Dalai Lama delivered his address at the University of Maryland, as

part of the Anwar Sadat Lec-ture Series. It was by far the largest crowd, mostly stu-dents, in the 16-year history of the program. The Dalai Lama told the audience that while everyone plays a role in working toward world peace, it is the younger generation that has the greatest ability to carry on the work of creating a better world. “You have the op-portunity, the responsibil-ity to create a better world,

a happier world based on the oneness of humanity”, he said. “We can bridge the gaps between religions through mutual admiration and respect”. All people, he noted, want peace and hap-piness. Yet, “We spend too much emphasis on differenc-es between us and we forget the oneness of humanity”, he said. “If we think more about that oneness, our secondary differences will be easier to resolve”.

Save The Children Report: India Has Highest Number Of Infants Dying In A Day

New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): A new report released on Wednesday by “Save the Children” has revealed that India has the highest number of new-borns, dying on the first day from infections, low birth weight and asphyxia. The report showed that every year, 309,000 children die within 24 hours of be-ing born. Haseena, who lives in a slum in North Delhi gave birth to her baby boy at home took him to hospital when she realised he was unwell. But the hospital turned her and her baby away because of overcrowd-ing, she said. Her child died as she was try-ing to reach a second hospital. Veena Duvan is a doctor who pro-vides medical assistance to mothers and ba-bies in a mobile hospital or health care van. She said slums can be lethal for new-borns who can not cope with the type of illnesses adults can shun with the usual medical care. “In India, usually these people face diarrhoea and pneumonia. Diarrhoea be-cause these people don’t have proper water and the child doesn’t get proper food. Then the child gets diarrhoea. Due to diarrhoea the child may die in some time and the other

cause is pneumonia due to which the child dies,” said Duvan. Maruti Sinha, senior con-sultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at a government hospital in Delhi, said mothers are much better off if they give birth in hos-pitals. “Hospitals, they have a very good chance because we have round the clock emergency on call doctors and the facilities in most of the city hospitals, not just in Delhi or Bombay, but most of the city hospitals are very well equipped and the doctors are well trained. So they have a very good chance if they reach the hospital and the deliveries are done in the hospital,” said Sinha. Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of ‘Save the Children’, explained there are inexpensive solutions that could reduce the early deaths of new-borns by as much as 75 percent. ‘Save the Children’ hopes the report will help push for improved healthcare for mothers in India and more systematic ac-cess to hospitals for pregnant mothers as the hours, days and weeks of a child’s life are the most critical. The report added that 43 percent of the 7 million children under the age of five that die world-wide every year are less than one month old.


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DU Panel Approves New Course Structure For 28 Departments

New Delhi, May 8

(ANI): With admissions for

new four-year undergradu-

ate programmes set to begin

from next month, the Delhi

University’s Academic Co-

uncil has approved new

course structure for 28 de-

partments.

“The Academic

Council approved courses in

Discipline 1, Discipline 2 as

well as Application courses

of 28 departments in a mara-

thon meeting of 92 Council

members,” the university’s

Registrar, Alka Sharma,

said.

The syllabus for

the courses was passed with

86 votes in favour and six

against, she added.

The Academic

Council met to assess the

course syllabus recommend-

ed by the standing commit-

tee for subjects to be offered

as major, minor and applied

courses, besides the 11 foun-

dational courses, which will

be compulsory for all stu-

dents.

The meeting was

adjourned for Wednesday to

pass the remaining courses

and to discuss several issues

regarding the four-year un-

dergraduate programme.

Giving details

about the approved courses,

Academic Council member

and Director of South Cam-

pus Umesh Rai said most of

the courses of the Faculty

of Sciences and Arts were

passed.

“All the courses

which come under Faculty of

Interdisciplinary and Applied

Sciences like electronics, in-

strumentation, microbiology,

biochemistry were passed.

“Besides most of

the courses related to Fac-

ulty of Arts including Eng-

lish, Hindi, Hindi Journal-

ism, Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic,

Persian, Sanskrit, Philoso-

phy, Psychology also were

passed,” he said.

Although Sharma

did not give a clear picture

on the number of papers

and courses passed by the

Academic Council, Council

member Amitav Chakrobarty

claimed 1,013 papers and 89

courses have been passed.

“1,013 papers of 28

departments were passed.

Minor changes were made

in the meeting that were rec-

ommended by the Standing

Committee,” he said.

Some of the Aca-

demic Council members

raised objections regarding

the development of the four-

year programme’s structure

and gave a note of dissent on

it.

“Lot of discussion

happened. I have also giv-

en a note of dissent. If this

course will get implemented,

the workload of teachers will

be reduced for the first two

years. So due to this, some

of the ad hoc teachers might

be asked to leave,” said S K

Sagar, member of Academic

Council.

The syllabus for

biomedical science, botany,

zoology, home science was

also approved at the meet-

ing.

The four-year pro-

gramme with multiple de-

gree options will entail a shift

from the present 10+2+3

scheme to a four-year grad-

uation with multiple exit

points.

The new system,

which is being watched

closely by other universities,

seeks to introduce interdisci-

plinary pedagogy, enhance

the quality of education and

impart employable skills.

Agricultural Min. Approves 256 Cr For Drought-hit Maharasthra

New Delhi, May

8 (ANI): The Empow-

ered Group of Ministers on

Drought, headed by Agricul-

ture Minister Sharad Pawar,

on Wednesday approved an

additional assistance of Rs

256 crore for rejuvenation of

orchards in drought-hit Ma-

harasthra.

“The proposal on

providing additional assis-

tance of Rs 256 crore to pro-

tect orchards in drought-hit

districts of Maharashtra has

been approved,” Pawar said

after the meeting.

However, the deci-

sion on extension of duty-

free import of oilcakes to

boost fodder supply was

left to the Finance Ministry,

which will take a call after

assessing the demand and

supply situation.

The additional funds

will be over and above Rs 400

crore already released under

the National Horticulture

Mission through a special

scheme launched last month

for rejuvenation of orchards

in the drought-affected re-

gions of Maharashtra.

Under this scheme,

the Centre will bear 50 per

cent cost, while the rest will

come from the farmer.

The EGoM meet-

ing, attended by Finance

Minister P Chidambaram,

Home Minister Sushil Ku-

mar Shinde, Railway Minis-

ter Pawan Kumar Bansal and

Food Minister K V Thomas

among others, reviewed the

situation in drought-hit states

like Maharashtra, Karnataka,

Gujarat and Rajasthan.

It deliberated on

availability and price situa-

tion of fodder in drought-hit

areas and discussed the pro-

posal on extending the duty-

free import of oil cakes for

six months more to improve

fodder supply and curb price

rise.

When asked about

this proposal, Chidambaram

said, “This has to be decided

on file at Department level

after assessing the domestic

production and import lev-

el.”

Extending the duty-

waiver to other varieties of

oil cakes like copra cake,

palm kernel cake and rice

bran extraction will also be

decided on file and will be

communicated to the EGoM

Chair, he said.

The duty-free im-

port of oil cakes lapsed on

March 31, this year.

The EGoM was in-

formed the price of fodder

products like soya oil cakes

have started rising after the

lapse of duty-free import and

there was need to continue

duty-waiver to check price

rise and enhance domestic

supply.

The country has im-

ported 53,090 tonnes worth

Rs 84.52 crore oil cakes be-

tween September 2012 and

January 2013, against 18,769

tonnes worth Rs 21.27 crore

in the same period last year,

as per the official data.


SAD Leaders Meet Delhi Lt. Governor, Protest Sajjan Kumar Acquittal

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): Leaders of the Shi-romani Akali Dal (SAD) called on the Lt. Governor of Delhi, Tejinder Khanna, on Tuesday, and reiterated their objection and protest over a Delhi magisterial court’s verdict to acquit Congress Party leader Sajjan Kumar in connection with a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. Briefing media lat-er about their meeting with Lt. Governor Khanna, SAD leader Manjeet Singh GK said that Khanna has said that he will look into the matter. “Our demands and views have to be taken care off. This protest will only stop if the government takes prominent and strict action. Our leader Badalji (Pun-jab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal) will come and we will increase the level of protest,” he said. “We promise that in the next two days, we will not do anything major. The chargesheet of 1992 should be brought into the court. We will be meeting President Pranab Mukherjee. We are behind Narpreet Kaur and requesting her to call off her fast. If something happens to her, then Sajjan Kumar will go for a toss. Badalji himself is coming to ask Narpreet Kaur to call off her fast,” Manpreet Singh G K added.

Protests have been taking place in the national capital Delhi against the ac-quittal of Kumar for a week since the court verdict was announced. Sikh demonstra-tors are demanding stringent punishment for Kumar dur-ing their protests near Par-liament, as well as in other parts of the country. On Monday, around 500 protesters blocked the road around Vijay Chowk. On Sunday, the pro-testers had marched towards Prime Minister Dr. Manmo-han Singh’’s residence, but were stopped at Parliament Street as they left Jantar Mantar. A Delhi Court had last Tuesday acquitted Sajjan Kumar of all the charges in a case related to the killing of five men in a Delhi Canton-ment colony during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gan-dhi. Five others named as accused with Sajjan Ku-mar were convicted, three of murder and rioting and two of rioting. Kumar, a former Member of Parliament (MP) from outer Delhi, was fac-ing trial along with five oth-ers--former MLA Mahender Yadav, Krishan Khokhar,

former Councillor Balwan Khokhar, Captain Bhagmal and Girdhari Lal-- for alleg-edly conspiring and inciting a mob against the Sikh com-munity in Delhi Cantonment area during the riots that fol-lowed the October 31, 1984 assassination of Indira Gan-dhi. Inside the court, so deep was the resentment over Kumar’’s acquittal that a shoe was thrown at Dis-trict Judge J.R. Aryan after he pronounced his verdict. Angry over the verdict, All India Sikh Students Federa-tion President Karnail Singh hurled a shoe towards the Judge. He was immediately detained by the police. The case relates to the murder of five men--Ke-har Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Ranghuvender Singh, Na-render Pal Singh and Kul-deep Singh-in the Raj Nagar area of Delhi Cantonment on November 1-2, 1984 during attacks on Sikh homes and businesses following the as-sassination of Indira Gandhi. Complainant Jag-dish Kaur is the widow of Kehar Singh and mother of Gurpreet. The other three victims were her cousins. The CBI registered the case in 2005 following the recommendations of the Justice G T Nanavati Com-mission.

Allahabad High Court Sends UP Home Secretary Into Custody

Lucknow, May 7 (ANI): The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday sent Uttar Pradesh Principal Secretary (Home) R.M. Shrivastav into custody for three-and-a-half hours for not complying with its order to provide security to a former minister. A single bench of the high court comprising of Mr. Justice Satish Chandra ordered the custody of the top official from 10.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. after he failed to

give a satisfactory reply on why the state government had failed to give security to former Bahujan Samaj Party minister Ramvir Upadhaya. On the court’s or-ders, Central Reserve Police Force personnel cordoned off court number 7, where Shriv-astav was held in custody. According to the latest information, Shrivastva continues to remain in cus-tody even beyond 2 p.m. as the ruling Samajwadi Party government is yet to come

up with a proper response for the court. Upadhaya had ap-proached the court seeking adequate security from the government. The court had directed the government to provide the security in accor-dance with norms. The order, however, was not implement-ed. Upadhaya had then moved a contempt petition, following which the court fixed Tuesday for the hear-ing.

Militancy In Northeast Is Declining, Claims Home Ministry

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday said that militancy in the northeastern region is losing its grip and influence among the people due to consistent efforts made by the Centre and state govern-ments to counter and elimi-nate various ultra outfits. Joint Secretary (North East) in MHA, Shambhu Singh, said that militancy has reduced con-siderably in states such as Assam, Meghalaya and Ma-nipur. “The militant movement has reduced in north-eastern India. There have been concrete develop-ments in Manipur, Megha-laya and Assam, where the

militants are losing grip. Our efforts to counter mili-tancy will continue,” he said. Singh further said that the Central Govern-ment is ready to for parleys with the rebels, if they rep-resent themselves as a sin-gle group and not under the banner of unruly factions. “Our message to militants is very clear that we are ready for dialogue with one organisation rep-resenting rebels. We will not talk to every minor or disoriented group,” he said. Separatist move-ments have riddled India’s remote northeast region for decades and to avoid mili-tancy and attain peace, ef-forts are being made to ink

peace pacts. States in northeast-ern India are encouraging more and more misguided youths to abjure violence and join the mainstream of the society by initiating de-velopmental programmes. Assam has been a focus of separatist insur-gency for decades, but it has also recently suffered due to the bomb attacks that were allegedly undertaken by Islamist militants oper-ating from neighbouring Bangladesh. Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India’s strategically important northeast is home to more than 200 tribes and has been racked by separat-ist revolts.

Chit-fund Depositor Commits Suicide In West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas

Basirhat (West Ben-gal), May 8 (ANI): A chit-fund company agent who had consumed poison has died in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district taking the number of dead to nine. Mrinal Kanti Mondal (42) of Sangrampur village, an agent of a chit fund company was under se-vere pressure from depositors who were demanding that he should refund their money. Unable to repay the depositors Mondal consumed poison on Sunday night and died in hospital, the sources added. On Monday, Ja-gadish Roy, the 60-year-old father of a chit fund company agent Bidhan Roy, commit-ted suicide by hanging at his

home in Rishi Bankim Gar colony at Sodepur in North 24 Parganas distressed over his son’s inability to repay money to investors and also after he was publicly humili-ated by depositors. On May 3 Ranjit Pramanik (18) who had in-vested heavily in the col-lapsed Saradha Group had committed suicide by con-suming poison at Thakur-chawk in the Joynagar area of South 24-Parganas dis-trict. On April 20, 50-year-old Urmila Pramanik, a resident of Baruipur in South 24 Parganas District, who had invested Rs 30,000 in the Saradha Group, had set her-self on fire. She succumbed to her injuries the next day at

the Chittaranjan Hospital in Kolkata. Swapan Kumar Biswas (36), a money col-lection agent of the Saradha Group who had deposited Rs four lakh from his personal savings in the scam-ridden company, was found hanging from the ceiling of his house at Balrampur in Purulia dis-trict on April 27. Three agents of the Saradha Group also commit-ted suicide at Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour and Falta in South 24-Parganas Dis-trict after the company went bust. The unfolding chit fund scandal also drove the owner of such a company, a hotelier, to take his own life in South 24-Parganas district on May 2.

Time Bound Enquiry Into Attack On Pak Prisoner In Jammu Jail: Omar A.

Srinagar, May 6 (ANI): Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdul-lah on Monday said that the enquiry into the attack on Pakistani prisoner Sanaul-lah Ranjay in Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal Jail will be conduct-ed in a time bound manner. “It is going to be a time-bound enquiry,” Abdul-lah told reporters after open-ing the Civil Secretariat here as part of the Darbar Move practice. Abdullah was re-sponding to a question on the steps taken after the attack on Sanaullah at Kot Bhal-wal Jail in the Jammu region late last month by an inmate during an argument over the death of Sarabjit Singh.

“Certain steps have already been initiated. The jail superintendent and some other jail officials have been suspended (and) an enquiry has been ordered to be con-ducted by Principal Secre-tary Home,” Abdullah said. He described the in-cident as “extremely unfortu-nate” and added that it should not have happened in light of the advisory and instructions issued by the Minister of State for Home Affairs Sajad Ahmad Kitchloo to the Pris-ons Department. Refusing to share the initial findings of the probe into the attack on Sanaulla, he said, “While I have information available to me as to the circumstances

of this attack, I have learnt a valuable lesson of not shar-ing initial findings with you, because I paid a very heavy price for sharing initial find-ings of the (2009) Shopian alleged rape case. You took those initial findings as if they were final pronounce-ments on my part, which they were not,” he said. The chief minister said he will wait for the final report of the enquiry and take action based on the report. He said while the Pakistani prisoner has been shifted to PGI Chandigarh to provide him best possible care, the timely action by the medical staff in Jammu had helped in stabilising his con-dition.


Why Not Fight The Water War?By Pradeep Kumar Itanagar, May 8 (ANI): As water is going to be the most precious com-modity on earth in the com-ing decades, it is believed that a third world war could take place over the distribution of this live saving fluid. Even after over six decades of independence, the “untouchables or achut”, whom Mahatma Gandhi had rechristened as Harijan (Dalit) to give them equal status in the society, continue to suf-fer at the hands of upper caste people for a bucket of water in some parts of India. It is but natural for the people of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam to be deeply concerned at China’s three proposed major dams – Dagu (640 MW), 18 km upstream of Zangmu, Jiacha (320 MW) in middle reaches of Brahmaputra downstream Zangmu and Jiexu, 11 km upstream of Zangmu, listed in China’s State Council’s energy plan for the 12th Five Year Plan period (2011-15) released on January 23 last, besides the one on Zangmou building since 2010, without informing New Delhi and its proposal to divert Brahmapu-tra water. Hari Bhusan Jha of the Institute of Defence Stud-ies and Analyses in ‘Diversion of the Brahmaputra: Myth or Reality? (August 9, 2011)’ recorded: “China is planning to divert 200 billion cubic metres of the waters of the Brahmaputra from south to north to feed the Yellow river since 600 to 800 cities in north China have been experiencing water shortage, particularly Shaanxi, Hebel, Beijing and Tianjin. There are also reports that China has been using the manpower earlier involved in the Lhasa-Beijing railway for the construction of a 1.2 billion dollars hydro-pow-er/diversion project on the Brahmaputra. Estimates are that the project would gener-ate 40,000 MW of power and would be completed in a five to seven year time period.” “With the initiation of the diversion-cum-hydro-power production work on the Brahmaputra river, both India and Bangladesh have begun to face problems with respect to water-resources. Even more worrisome is the news that after 2014 China might build additional dams and divert water from all im-portant rivers originating in

the Tibetan plateau and which flow to neighbouring coun-tries in South Asia, including Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.” If New Delhi has won a temporary diplomatic war against Beijing on the contentious Sino-India bor-der row, it is time for India to hit the iron when it is hot. China’s deceptive policy is well known. That is why Beijing after consenting to share hydrological data (wa-ter level, discharge and rain-fall) on Tsangpo (known as Brahmaputra in India) river in the flood season under the current Expert Level Mecha-nism (ELM) has now turned down New Delhi’s request for a mechanism either a water commission or a inter–gov-ernmental dialogue or a treaty to deal with water issues. The ELM was agreed after the col-lapse of a hydropower dam in Tibet that had inundated cen-tury-old Pasighat town under 30-feet deep water during night claiming seven lives, numerous livestock and leav-ing a trail of devastation on 9 June 2000. Of Tsangpo’s (Brah-maputra) total 2888 km length, 1625 km lies within the Tibet Autonomous Re-gion of China, while only 918 km and 337 km stretches fall within India and Bangladesh, which gives China an advan-tage to exploiting the river for its own benefit. Its latest refusal for a new mechanism to tackle the water issue and insistence on the current one reflects Beijing’s adamant at-titude to not honour interna-tionally ratified obligations on river water exploitation. I remember when former Government of Arunachal Pradesh spokes-man Tako Dabii had expressed fears that the mighty Siang river (name of Tsangpo in Arunachal) was drying up and shrunk by a kilometre from its bank, and New Delhi took ex-ception to the view, and right from Governor J.J. Singh to Education Minister Bosiram Siram, quoting CWC data, tried to prove Dabii wrong. Quoting Dabii, Chi-nese foreign ministry spokes-man Hong Lei had allayed the fear after former External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna took up the matter through the diplomatic channel. I was happy that my story released on March 1, 2012, struck the right cord in Beijing. Why is the concern

being expressed in the media now? Why were then Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and his Arunachal counter-part Nabam Tuki concerned at China’s three big dam plan and decided to seek the in-tervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that the interests of the ripar-ian states are protected even if China builds dams? The data on China’s ambitious proposals to build massive dams is a mouse-click away, including the pic-ture on the ongoing dam over Zangmou. Its dam-construc-tion binge has been fuelled by its growing energy needs, the appeal of hydropower as a clean fuel, the need for flood control, as well as the inter-est in massive infrastructure projects by provincial govern-ments in order to boost their growth figures. The Brahmaputra feeds a great deal of both India and Bangladesh down-stream and is a major source of fresh river water for both nations. Brahmaputra is very important for its water wealth as it accounts for about 40% of the country’s total hydro-power generation potential. China feels it has the right to use the water resourc-es of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej rivers originat-ing from its territory without caring for international con-vention to have the first user right. But the water of these rivers should also benefit the downstream riparian coun-tries through which they flow. It is time for New Delhi to be extra cautious to pressurize China to yield for an effective new mechanism including joint team with members form the affected Indian states with the man-date to inspect and monitor ongoing and proposed project sites, as was suggested by an expert as highlighted by ANI after Arunachal Pradesh Wa-ter Resources Development Minister Newlai Tingkhatra and his Assam counterpart Rajib Lochan Pegu had an in-depth official discussion on the chronic flood prob-lem, and measures to tackle it, at Itanagar on Feb 9, 2013 . If China refuses, New Delhi should move the International Court of Justice to protect its interests. It is time for India to awake from deep slumber and act boldly to protect the inter-est of the nation without any delay.


Sanjay Dutt Launches New ‘Mobile

Mammography’ Van In Mumbai

Sanjay Dutt, along with his sister Priya, recently inaugurated and handed over a mobile mammography unit to a leading on-cologist Dr. Advani’s ‘Helping Hand’ Foun-dation on behalf of the Nargis Dutt Memorial Charitable Trust in Mumbai. Sanjay, who lost his mum and ac-tress Nargis 32 years ago due to cancer, feels grateful that he got a chance to help other pa-tients suffering from the disease. “I want to thank Dr. Advani and Mam for getting me here to inaugurate the van and I am really grateful. It has been 32 years since our mother passed away and she was battling with cancer. We took her to America and she fought with cancer there

and came back and passed away,” the actor said. Remembering his mother, Sanjay explained that when she lost the battle with cancer, his father felt that many families could not afford the expenses for the treatment and that laid that foundation for the ‘Nargis Dutt Trust’. “That’s the time my father thought about it and he said that if we could afford our family member out of the country imag-ine how many people in the country our suf-fering and he started this Nargis Dutt Foun-dation, what we do is we go and have dinners collect money and from those funds we get the equipments down into India so that our fellow Indians can be treated and I thought according to me it’s a very noble cause. So we as Mr. Dutt’s children carried it on and we will carry it on always,” he said. The ‘Munna bhai M.B.B.S’ star also advised the ladies to go for regular medical check ups and take good care of their health. “I just want to say that a lady in the house is the most important factor of the fam-ily and she is the pillar, so I request all the la-dies that please go and have regular medical check ups and be healthy and be safe, we all are with you.” Dutt added. With just a few days left for him to surrender, this was Sanjay’s first public event after conviction, where his fans warmly greeted him.

Could This Be Sallu’s Begum Ever since a tabloid broke the sto-ry of Salman Khan dating firang chick Iu-lia Vantur, gossip-mongers haven’t stopped speculating and even creating stories, that too with updates! If the report is to be believed, Salman’s marriage with Iulia is scheduled to take place this year....stop giggling, it’s quite possible! We came across a picture of Sallu’s ladylove sporting the yellow ‘Being Tiger’ T-shirt (it belongs to Khan’s Being Human franchise), which is quite a testament to the...err...bond between Salman and Iulia. Not only this, our Bandra-based khabroo has also spotted the Mental star hanging out with Ms Vantur at a product launch recently and tells us that she has been spending a lot of qual-ity time with the Khan khandaan lately. As per our loyal buddy, the imported kamariya is staying at the Taj Lands End for now and Sallu seems to be making sure he’s there for her whenever she needs anything...at all. In the recent past, the Mujhse Shadi Karogi actor has been linked with several B-town babes he has worked with and has also reportedly developed a soft corner for them, including firang chics like Zarine Khan, Claudia Ciesla, Marigold actor Ali Larter, the most significant candidate Katrina Kaif, who missed out on the shaadi ka opportunity (that’s what we think, anyway) and the latest, Iulia. It’s quite difficult to believe that Sallu will be marrying a firang; it could be just an-other round of his dating game, after all! We

wonder why the handsome hunk will settle down with someone who doesn’t belong to his motherland or follow his traditions. But Salman ke case mein kuch bhi ho sakta hain, feel people who have known the star for years now. Whatever the truth actually is, we are happy for our favourite star if he has fi-nally decided to settle down in matrimonial bliss... please don’t disappoint us this time, Sallu miyan!

Aamir And I Became 2am Friends

When We Started Dating: Kiran Rao Kiran Rao first met Aamir Khan during a recce on a bus to Bhuj when the actor came and introduced himself. Her first impression of Khan was that he was quite normal, Rao told the Calcutta Times in a candid inter-view on Wednesday. But she was nervous kept her distance until she met him again during Dil Chahta Hai. Khan divorced his first wife Reena in 2003 and soon after he started seeing someone else, Rao said. “We again connected on the set of an ad commercial that he was doing with Ashutosh Gowariker that I was assisting on. We hung out a lot together and became 2 am friends. We started seeing each other in 2004,” the Times quoted her as saying. Rao, who has a son by a surrogate with Khan said the actor was quite a grounded per-son. “We like each others

company and our friendship is still the basis of our relationship. I moved in with him and neither of us was hung up on marriage. After a year of living together, we decided to get married for two reasons,” she said. She said she wanted her parents to feel comfortable. Also being the celebrity he is it was easier to just be legally con-joined as it takes the greyness out of the picture, she told the Times. Rao said marriage was important since as a girl-friend “people did not know

how to treat me. For instance if you go to an event as a wife you are treated a certain way but as a partner, they don’t know what to do with you.” She was attracted to Khan’s sense of humour and his knowledge and the way he looks at things. “What most keeps us together is our value system,” she told the Times. Khan likes one-on-one company and can go hours without talking and helped his wife clarify her creative ideas, the report said.

‘Anumati’ Tops At NY Indian Film Festival New York: ‘Anuma-ti’ directed by Gajendra Ahire has won the Best Feature Film award at the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) with Vikram Gokhale getting the Best Actor award for his role as a desperate husband. The winners were chosen from 18 narrative, 10 documentaries (feature length or shorter) and 8 shorts from the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora featured at the festival, which ran April 30 - May 4. Director Hansal Mehta took home the Best

Director of a Feature Film award for his compelling film ‘Shahid’, which traces the true story of slain human rights activist lawyer Shahid Azmi. Suraj Negi was hon-oured as the Best Young Ac-tor in a Feature Film for his role as the titular character in ‘Hansa’. Deepti Naval was also honoured in her role as Leela Krishnamoorthy, a middle aged widow, in debut filmmaker Avinash Kumar Singh’s ‘Listen Amaya’. Malayalam cinema

filmmaker/writer Biju was awarded for Best Screenplay for his vision in ‘Kashathinte Niram’ (Colour of Sky), and the Best Documentary award went to ‘The Only Real Game’, directed by Mirra Bank. Best Short Film award went to ‘Khaana’, di-rected by Cary Sawhney. A new award for the one-minute cell phone Bolly-wood film short based on pop-ular Bollywood sound tracks went to ‘Bollywood Style’ di-rected by Yi Su, a New York University student.

I Want To Do An Indian Dance Soon

In One Of My Films: Sonam Kapoor Bollywood actress So-nam Kapoor, who will be seen dancing some Indian moves in her next film ‘Raanjhanaa’, says that she wants to do a full fledged Indian dance number in one of her films soon. “I guess our films lack good Indian dances. I want to do a Indian dance soon in one of my films,” the 27-year-old told IANS. Sonam also says that she hardly gets to see Indian dances in Bollywood films and the last one which she liked was Deepika Padukone’s perfor-

mance in ‘Om Shanti Om’ and Katrina Kaif in the song ‘Chikni chameli’. “The last one which I liked was Deepika’s dance in ‘Om shanti Om’ and Katrina in ‘Chikni Chameli’ song was also amazing...there is nothing which I remember after that,” she said. Talking about her background in dancing, Sonam said she is a trained classical dancer and has been studying dance for a while now. “I started studying classical dance when I was four-year-old. I have been studying it for a while,” she said.

Sonam has been busy shooting films for the last couple of years and has not been able to practice her dance. She hopes that she will get the chance to use her dance training someday in her work. “I want to do Indian dance in films. I have not been dancing at all for the last three- four years as I have been work-ing so much. But I love dancing and hopefully I will be able to start working for it again,” said Kapoor who has been a part of films like ‘Aisha’, ‘Delhi-6’, ‘Mausam’ among others.


Govt. To Issue A New SOP For

Kashmiri Militants Wishing

To Surrender To India

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): The Central Govern-ment will soon issue a new set of standard operating pro-cedures (SOPs) for Kashmiri militants, who want to return to India through the Nepal border to surrender under a special scheme. Union Home Secre-tary R.K. Singh has said that the Union Home Ministry has received comments of all stakeholders on the subject and the improved procedures will be out in a few days. He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of

a seminar at Manesar in Gur-gaon yesterday. The issue came to light following the arrest of suspected Hizbul militant Li-yaqat Shah by the Delhi Po-lice from Indo-Nepal border area. Singh said Jammu and Kashmir Police will now come and escort these mili-tants from the border to the state and they will also carry out background checks of these individuals. Over 260 ex-mili-tants have returned to Jammu and Kashmir via Nepal.

Pakistan Defends Posts Construction

Along Afghan Border Islamabad, May 6 (Xinhua-ANI): Pakistan on Monday defended construc-tion of security posts along its border with Afghanistan after Afghan officials re-ported fresh clashes between the border troops of the two countries. Pakistan Foreign Ministry said that the posts on Pakistan- Afghanistan border are serving the useful and mutually beneficial pur-pose of better border man-agement, which is crucial for interdicting cross-border undesirable activity. Officials of Afghan-istan said Pakistani forces have built posts on its side of the border and President Hamid Karzai said on Satur-day that he had instructed his forces to destroy Pakistani constructions on Afghan

soil. Last week one Af-ghan soldier was killed and two Pakistani border troops were injured in clashes that heightened tension between the uneasy neighbors. The Pakistani For-eign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry re-affirmed the need to use bi-lateral channels, including military- to-military contacts to resolve the issues relating to posts. “In several high level interactions in recent past, the leadership of Af-ghanistan and Pakistan have agreed on the imperatives of a mechanism for an effec-tive border management for the mutual benefit of the two countries,” he said in a state-ment. On President Kar-

zai’s remarks regarding Pak-istani posts on the border, the spokesperson recalled that Pakistani post in Gursal had come under attack from Afghan forces and there had been several threatening and provocative statements made by Afghan leadership in this regard. Responding to a query regarding President Karzai’s remarks that his country will never recognize Duran Line, which divides the two countries, the Paki-stani spokesperson said that Durand-line is a settled is-sue. “Opening dis-cussions on this issue is a distraction from the more pressing issues requiring the priority attention and coop-eration of Pakistan and Af-ghanistan,” he said.

Musharraf’s Lawyers Back Out

From Judges’ Detention Case After

Receiving Terror Threats Islamabad, May 6 (ANI): Three lawyers of Per-vez Musharraf have refused to represent the former Paki-stan president in the unlaw-ful detention of judges’ case due to threats. Lawyers Rizwan Abbasi, Advocate Ziaur Rehman, and Umer Farooq claimed to have received threats from banned terror-ist organisations and decided to disassociate themselves from the case for security reasons, reports The Express Tribune. An Anti-Terrorism Court had extended Mush-arraf’s judicial remand till May 18 in the judge’s deten-tion case on Saturday. This came after a request from Musharraf’s lawyer who claimed police were too busy in election duties to provide security to his client. Musharraf’s coun-sel informed the court that he had submitted an applica-tion to the Islamabad chief commissioner to start Mush-arraf’s trail at his farmhouse sub-jail due to security rea-sons. The Islamabad

High Court allowed Mush-arraf’s trial to be held at the sub-jail, also asking the chief commissioner to ensure the ATC judge’s and his staff’s security during the trial. Musharraf is also facing other legal cases, in-cluding treason charges for imposing emergency rule, the 2007 assassination of for-mer premier Benazir Bhutto

and the killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006. Musharraf returned to Pakistan on March 24 af-ter four years of self-imposed exile in London and Dubai to take part in the May 11 par-liamentary elections. But he was disqualified by the Elec-tion Commission of Pakistan for contesting the elections.

Imran Khan Says Won’t Be Able To

Cast Vote Following Accident Lahore, May 8 (ANI): Pakistan Tehrik-i-In-saaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan who was injured in a stage fall on Tuesday has said that although he was feeling bet-ter, he would not be able to cast his vote in his hometown of Mianwali. Khan sustained head and back injuries after falling from a lifter during a public meeting in Lahore, and received stitches on his head, reports The Dawn. PTI spokesman Shafqat Mehmood said Khan would not be able to continue his political campaign for the elections on the advice of the doctors. The campaign was scheduled to end on Thurs-day night prior to Saturday’s elections. Lying on his bed at the Shaukat Khanum Hos-pital, which he had built and named after his mother, Khan urged his supporters to ensure voting in big num-bers. Doctors who at-tended on him in the first hospital said Mr. Khan was out of danger and talking. He

had to be administered a few stitches in the head. Doctors maintained that the wounds were not serious. Television footage captured the tumble. Just before the fall, television cameras caught him holding on to his two guards perched on the rather shaky lifter. As a third guard tried to clamber on, the lifter tilted and all three fell. Mr. Khan momen-tarily lost consciousness and was carried to a car by aides. He was bleeding from the forehead and the back of his head, but doc-tors who treated him shortly afterwards said the bleeding

had stopped and he had re-gained consciousness. Khan, who won only one seat in 2002 and boycotted polls in 2008, has led an electric campaign, gal-vanising the middle class and young people in what he has called a “tsunami” of support that will propel him into of-fice. The 60-year-old, who has undertaken a pun-ishing schedule of daily ral-lies but who is known for his physical fitness, tumbled from a riser along with sev-eral of his staff, seemingly after one of them lost their balance.

Bangladesh Agrees To Improve

Worker Safety System After

Catastrophic Factory Collapse

London, May 6 (ANI): Bangladeshi au-thorities will be taking steps to improve worker safety in the wake of the recent factory collapse that killed more than 600 people. According to a statement in the Interna-tional Labour Organiza-tion, Bangladesh’s gov-ernment, employers and workers have agreed to a plan with the Interna-tional Labour Organiza-tion that would relocate unsafe factories, retrain workers injured in recent factory disasters, recruit more government inspec-tors and allow for collec-tive bargaining, among other provisions, reports the Huffington Post.

The country’s Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed said the proposals will be submit-ted to the Bangladeshi parliament in June and the government plans to coop-erate. The latest disas-ter, as well as others like it, including a deadly fac-tory fire late last year, ex-posed the flaws in a system where Western retailers pay to have clothes pro-duced abroad at bargain basement prices, but have little oversight over the factories where the clothes are made. Activists and pro-testers around the world have put increasing pres-sure on retailers to change their business practices in

response to the disasters and some have already taken steps to address the situation. Disney told its vendors in March -- before the deadly factory collapse -- to stop doing business in Bangladesh. Represen-tatives from Walmart, the Gap and other retailers met last week to come up with a plan to prevent future di-sasters. Some of those re-tailers have also put pres-sure on Bangladesh in the past to improve conditions for the country’s workers. H&M’s CEO asked Bangladesh’s prime minister to boost the mini-mum wage and establish annual wage reviews last year.


Pak Prisoner Sanaullah’s Family Members Arrive In India

Amritsar, May 7 (ANI): Two members of the family of Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay, who got critically injured in a scuf-fle with another inmate in a Jammu jail, arrived in Am-ritsar via the Wagah-Attari border. Ranjay’s relatives - brother-in-law Mohammed Sehzaad and nephew Mo-hammed Asif - are expected to reach Chandigarh by late afternoon. According to tele-vision reports, the relatives, who are on a 15 day visa, were received by the officials of Pakistan High Commis-sion at the Attari border. Till Monday eve-ning, Sanaullah continued to be “critically sick” and in “deep coma”, said a medical bulletin from Chandigarh’s Post-Graduate Institute of

Medical Education and Re-search (PGIMER). Pakistan High Com-missioner Salman Bashir vis-ited Sanaullah at the hospital yesterday and said his chanc-es of survival seemed bleak. Demanding an im-partial probe into the attack on Sanaullah, Bashir said, “We want him to be repatri-ated to Pakistan.” However, India on Monday said the Pakistani prisoner’s medical condition is such that it does not permit any movement. “My understanding is that the doctors had ex-amined the condition of the Pakistani prisoner Sanaul-lah Ranjay and they felt his condition is such that it does not permit any movement. So, medical condition is such that it precludes any move-ment of the prisoner,” MEA

official spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said. Sanaullah was in-jured during a scuffle with another inmate in Jammu jail earlier on Friday morn-ing where he was serving life term after being convicted under TADA provisions. He was arrested in 1999. A resident of Sialkot in Pakistan, Sanaullah was immediately shifted from the high-security Kot Bhalwal jail to Government Medical College Hospital, and later rushed to PGIMER in Chan-digarh in an air ambulance after doctors said his condi-tion was critical. The incident involv-ing Sanaullah came a day af-ter the death of Indian pris-oner Sarabjit Singh, who was brutally attacked on April 26 by six Pakistani inmates in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.

Pak Bomb Blast Victims’ Families Protest Against India Conferring

‘Hero’ Title To Sarabjit

Islamabad, May 6 (ANI): Family members and relatives of the victims of the bomb blast, said to have been carried out alleg-edly by Sarabjit Singh, have strongly condemned the act of the Indian government through which it honoured and called the murdered death-row convict a “hero”. Sarabjit was con-victed of alleged involve-ment in a string of bomb at-tacks in Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990. The demonstrators gathered at Bhatti Chowk where the bomb blast had

taken place, killing 27 Paki-stanis, to protest against the Indian government’s move, reports The Nation. The protestors called Sarabjit a terrorist who took the lives of inno-cent people. They accused the Indian government of supporting terrorism by hon-ouring and calling Sarabjit a hero. They further de-manded of the government to boycott the relations with India. Sarabjit, 49, died in the early hours of last Thurs-day from injuries suffered in

an attack on April 26. He sustained sever-al injuries, including a skull fracture, when six prisoners attacked him in Kot Lakhpat Jail. He was hit on the head with bricks and his neck and torso cut with sharp weap-ons. His mercy petitions were rejected by the courts and former president Pervez Musharraf. Sarabjit’s fam-ily says he is the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border in an inebriated state.

Pak Tell Afghanistan Durand-line Is Settled Border Between Two Countries

Islamabad, May 7 (ANI): Pakistan has said Du-rand-line was a settled issue and opening discussions on it was a distraction from Af-ghanistan. Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry said Durand Line was a settled issue and it should not be discussed any-more. According to the Na-tion, commenting on Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s re-

marks in which he urged Tal-iban to ‘turn and target and aim their weapons at Afghan-istan’s enemies’, Chaudhry stated that the continuing fight against terrorism warranted Pakistan and Afghanistan to work together in a spirit of co-operation and harmony. He recalled that Kar-zai had in the past asked Paki-stan to use its influence on the Taliban to enter into dialogue for reconciliation process, add-ing Pakistan had responded

positively to that call. He said that the posts on Pakistan-Afghanistan bor-der are serving the useful and mutually beneficial purpose of better border management, which is crucial for interdict-ing cross border undesirable activity, the report said. The Foreign Office spokesman reaffirmed the need to use bilateral channels, including military-to-military contacts, to resolve the issues relating to posts, it added.

Defeated Malaysian Opposition Leader Refuses To Accept Poll Results Over ‘Irregularities’

Kuala Lumpur, May 6 (ANI): Malaysia’s defeated opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has said Pak-atan Rakyat will not accept the results of the polls until the Election Commission (EC) explains the alleged instances of irregularities in the electoral process. On Sunday, the rul-ing National Front coalition won a simple majority in the country’s election, extending its 56-year rule. PM Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional coalition won 133 of the 222 in parlia-mentary seats. The opposition won 89 seats, up from 82, in Sun-day’s election. The Star quoted An-

war, as saying that it is unfair to expect from them to form a decision based primarily on the results of an election that is considered fraudulent. Anwar had earlier presented several instances of alleged fraud captured on camera, which he said was evidence of Barisan Nasion-al’s underhand tactics. He cited irregulari-ties with regards to advance and postal voters, presence of foreigners in the electoral roll, and delays by the EC in announcing the tally in Shah Alam, Permatang Pauh, Lembah Pantai and Kuantan. Anwar also said Pakatan would wait for an official response from the EC over the claims before

considering the next course of action. Barisan Nasional, while credited with bringing economic development and political stability, has also been tainted by allegations of corruption. In what was con-sidered a tight race, it had campaigned hard to shore up its base among poorer ethnic Malay neighbourhoods and in rural areas. Allegations of elec-tion fraud surfaced before the election. Some of those who voted in advance said that indelible ink on their hands - supposed to last for days and show they had already voted - had easily washed off.

Security Doubled For Foreign Inmates In Pak Jails Following Sarabjit Singh’s Murder

Lahore, May 6 (ANI): Following the mur-der of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Pakistan and the reciprocal assault on Pakistani convict Sanaul-lah in India, security in and around all cells housing foreign convicts, especially Indians, has been doubled across the Punjab province. The overall securi-ty at all 32 jails comprising a population of 50,792 pris-oners against the sanctioned strength of 21,527 has been further strengthened with round-the-clock patrolling by armed contingents, re-ports the Daily Times.

Inspector General of Prisons Punjab, Farooq Nazeer said that foolproof security arrangements have been fully ensured at all jails with the deployment of spe-cial contingents equipped with sophisticated weapons, on the special directive of caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab. He said modern network of metal detectors, screening machines and close circuit television sets had also been made func-tional to check the smug-gling of contraband articles. He said all jail su-perintendents have also been

directed to submit security inspection report daily to their respective DIG and IG, failing which strict ac-tion would be taken. He said that no visitors would be al-lowed to enter jail premises without their original iden-tity cards. Nazeer said in case of any security lapse, the Superintendent of Jail would be taken to task. He said he would also conduct surprise visits to different jails to monitor security arrangements be-sides checking the quality of food and condition of hospi-tals.

UPA Committed To Passage Of Food Security Bill: PM

New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, today said the UPA Government is committed to the passage of Food Security Bill. “The Food Secu-rity Bill is a very important legislation for the govern-ment. The UPA is commit-ted to make this law after considering all opinions,” he said. Meanwhile, Food Minister K.V. Thomas said he has to look into vari-ous angles before taking a call. “I am neither ruling in or ruling out. I have not thought of that. I have to study all these things. There

are so many options,” he told mediapersons outside the Parliament, when asked whether government could bring an ordinance to imple-ment the food security law The bill could not be passed as the budget session of Parliament ad-journed Sine die two days ahead of its schedule. The Food Bill aims at giving legal right over a uniform quantity of 5 kg foodgrains at a fixed price of Rs 1-3 per kg via ration shops to 67 percent of the population. The amendments to the Food Bill, which was originally introduced

in Parliament in December 2011, was moved in the Lok Sabha last week, but discus-sion could not take place due to disruption of pro-ceedings on several issues, including coalgate scam. The government had made three attempts in the Lok Sabha last week to get the bill passed. The main oppo-sition party has said that it will not allow the Con-gress-led UPA Government to push its important bills in Parliament till the resig-nations of Union Law and Justice Minister Ashwani Kumar and Railway Minis-ter Pawan Kumar Bansal.


Cabinet Approves Changes To National

Rural Livelihoods Mission (Aajeevika) New Delhi, May 6 (ANI): In a major boost to the roll out of the women’s self help group model across the country, the Union Cabinet has cleared important changes to the National Rural Liveli-hoods Mission (Aajeevika). “This is an ex-tremely welcome move. The changes will provide addition-al resources and additional flexibility to implement the NRLM (Aajeevika) in a more effective and accelerated man-ner across the country, creat-ing new livelihoods and em-powering women across rural India,” noted Rural Develop-ment Minister Jairam Ramesh, while welcoming the move. The key changes ap-proved are as follows:1. Improved targeting, by do-ing away with BPL criteria and instead identifying target groups through the Participa-tory Identification of Poor (PIP) process. Under the existing framework of implementation of N.R.L.M, only rural house-holds included in the official BPL list could be targeted under N.R.L.M. This list was prepared in 2002, has not been updated and has many defects. Since the entire N.R.L.M scheme depends on the forma-tion of affinity based groups of poor women with common bonding and synergistic func-tioning, which cannot be creat-ed by simply drawing persons from an externally prepared and incomplete BPL list, the Cabinet has now approved the that target groups under N.R.L.M will be determined by a well defined, transpar-ent and equitable process of Participatory Identification of Poor (PIP), at the level of the community. The P.I.P process has been extensively demon-strated to be very effectives

in states where women’s self-help-groups have succeeded. The list finalized through the P.I.P process will be vetted by the Gram Sabha and approved by the Gram Panchayat. The P.I.P process will also have a set of exclusion criteria, auto-matic inclusion criteria and a set of deprivation indicators for enabling poverty ranking in a participatory manner. This delinks N.R.L.M target group from the BPL list.2. Interest subvention and ad-ditional interest subvention in 150 districts. Pursuant to the an-nouncement made by the Fi-nance Minister in the Budget Speech for 2012-13, Cabinet has approved the provision of interest subvention to Women SHGs, enabling them to avail loans up to Rs. 3 lakh at an interest rate of 7 per cent per annum. Women SHGs that re-pay loans in time will get ad-ditional 3 per cent subvention, reducing the effective rate to 4 per cent. The initiative, in the first phase, would focus on 150 districts, including the 82 IAP districts, affected by Left Wing Extremism. The number of districts, state wise is given in Annexure-I. 3. Change in the pattern of fi-nancial assistance - replacing Capital subsidy with a Com-munity Investment Support fund. Financial assistance to the poor households was so far provided in the form of capital subsidy linked to bank credit. It was felt that this did not create a perpetual and viable capital base at the S.H.G level and was open to misuse. The Cabinet has thus approved to withdraw ‘capi-tal subsidy’ to S.H.Gs and in-stead provide financial sup-port S.H.G federations and livelihoods organizations of

the S.H.G members in the ‘intensive’ blocks through a grant called Community Investment Support fund, which will be used by the Federations to advance loans to S.H.Gs and to undertake common socio-economic ac-tivities. This will happen in a phased manner, since inten-sive blocks will be added in a phased manner. 4. Setting up of National Lev-el Society under N.R.L.M for more effective implementa-tion. The Cabinet also approved the setting up an ‘autonomous, adequately staffed, professionally man-aged and empowered agen-cy at the national level to implement the N.R.L.M’, called the National Rural Livelihoods Promotion So-ciety (N.R.L.P.S) under the Societies Registration Act. The NRLPS will act as the technical support unit of N.R.L.M. The setting up of such a Society is essential to implement the programme in a mission mode, as liveli-hoods programmes require a wide range of specialization and experience. The main objective of the Society is to continuously build capacities of the State rural livelihoods missions in planning, imple-menting and monitoring the programme. The Society structure would enable ac-cess to high quality profes-sional support, provide flex-ibility to create partnerships and facilitate innovations and would serve as a knowledge center for rural livelihoods for the state missions. Fur-ther it will provide an oppor-tunity for formally involving State Governments in deci-sion-making, by nominating them to the Executive Com-mittee of the Society.

New Sexually-transmitted Superbug

Could Be Deadlier Than AIDS Washington, May 6 (ANI): Doctors have warned about an “aggressive” new sexually-transmitted super-bug that could ultimately prove more deadly than AIDS. According to re-ports, the antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea HO41 was found in Japan two years ago in a 31-year-old female sex worker. Alan Christianson, a doctor of naturopathic

medicine, recently told CNBC that the superbug might be a lot worse than AIDS in the short run, as the bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people quickly, Fox News report-ed. He said that getting gonorrhea from this strain may put a person into septic shock and death in a matter of days; he claimed that the bug was very dangerous. William Smith, ex-

ecutive director of the Na-tional Coalition of STD Di-rectors, reportedly said that it is an emergency situation and as time moves on, the bug is getting more hazard-ous. Smith urged Con-gressional lawmakers as late as last week to allocate ad-ditional funding - 54 million dollars - to develop an an-tibiotic capable of fighting HO41 as well as to conduct a public awareness campaign.

Ex-police Officers Welcome SC

Stricture Against Govt., CBI New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): Former senior police officers on Wednesday by and large welcomed the Supreme Court’s strictures against the government and the Cen-tral Bureau of Investigation (CBI)in the coal block alloca-tion scam report/affidavit. Former CBI Direc-tor D.R.Karthikeyan said: “The (apex)court has taken a very serious view. The PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) and the law ministry had access to the report on coal. We should whit till the final verdict of the court.” “What the CBI did is wrong. The CBI should be liberated. Every country should have an independent agency. This happens in many other countries, and with some (police) reforms it can be done here also,” he added. Another former CBI Director Joginder Singh said that the Supreme court was absolutely right in telling the CBI not to behave like a “par-rot in a cage”, but behave like

a “free bird” and do its duty as the country’s premier in-vestigative agency. He seemed to sug-gest that Congress vice-presi-dent Rahul Gandhi may have also had an opportunity to look at the report, and added that the apex court’s stric-tures seemed to be primarily directed at the government rather than the CBI. “CBI won’t lie. The observation is on the gov-ernment. Equity and justice should be equal before doing some work. The CBI must be told that this should not hap-pen again,” said Singh. He also called on the parties involved in the coal block allocation to stop playing the name game. He refused to com-ment on the role of Union Law and Justice Minister Ashwani Kumar and Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati, as he was not present in their meetings. “Morality and politics are different things,”Joginder Singh said. Former senior IPS

officer Kiran Bedi agreed with the Supreme Court’s de-scription of the CBI being a parrot in a cage. “It is true. They have become a parrot The (apex) court has given them chance. A caged bird after some time fails to understand the freedom. Today, the court has told the CBI again that it is a free bird, Bedi said. “The fortune of this country will change the day CBI starts function properly. These massive scams won’t happen,” she added. Describing the Su-preme Court as the country’s last hope, Bedi said both the attorney general and the law ministry are lying about their respective roles in altering the report on the coal scam. She reiterated her view that the Lokpal Bill be-ing tabled by the government lacked teeth, and gave limited freedom to the CBI. “In the next session of the parliament, we hope to get a strong Lokpal bill,” Bedi said.

Pfizer To Sell Viagra Pills Online Legally Washington, May 7 (ANI): Men who are shy about needing help in the bed-room no longer have to go to the drugstore to buy that little blue pill anymore. In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. said that the drugmaker will begin sell-ing its popular erectile dys-function pill Viagra to patients on its website, ABC News re-ported. Men still will need a prescription to buy the blue, diamond-shaped pill on vi-agra.com, but they no longer have to face a pharmacist to get it filled.

And for those who are bothered by Viagra’s steep 25 dollar-a-pill price, Pfizer is offering three free pills with the first order and 30 percent off the second one. Pfizer’s bold move upends the drug industry’s distribution model. Drugmakers don’t sell medicines directly to pa-tients. Instead, they sell in bulk to wholesalers, who then distribute the drugs to phar-macies, hospitals and doctors’ offices. But the world’s sec-ond-largest drugmaker is try-ing a new strategy to tackle a

problem that plagues the in-dustry. Illegal online phar-macies increasingly offer pa-tients counterfeit versions of Viagra and other brand-name drugs for up to 95 percent off with no prescription needed. Patients don’t realize the drugs are most often fake or that legitimate pharmacies require a prescription. If it works, drug-makers could begin selling other medicines that are ram-pantly counterfeited and sold online, particularly treatments for non-urgent conditions seen as embarrassing.

Manmohan Singh’s Rajya Sabha Term

Expires On June 14 New Delhi, May 8 (ANI): Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s term as Member of Parliament (MP) expires on June 14 with the Election Commission today announcing the election for the two Rajya Sabha seats from Assam will be held on May 30. The election will be held to fill up the vacancies

due to the expiry of the term of Dr. Singh and AGP MP Kumar Deepak Das on June 14. The Prime Minister is a Rajya Sabha MP from As-sam. According to the schedule, notification for the election would be issued on May 13 and the last date of filing nominations would be May 20, an official release said

here. Nomination papers would be scrutinised on May 21. The last date of withdrawal of candidature is May 23. “Polling, if neces-sary, would be held on May 30 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Votes would be counted on May 30 at 5:00 pm and elec-tions should be completed be-fore June 3, 2013,” it said.


Finance Ministry For Immediate Action Against Staff

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): The Finance Ministry has asked public sector banks and the Life Insurance Corpo-ration (LIC) to take immedi-ate action against employees who “appear to be advising” customers on ways to violate regulatory norms, including the Know Your Customer (KYC)norm. “An inquiry must be initiated and completed expe-ditiously,” Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Takru asked heads of several state-owned banks and Life Insurance Cor-poration (LIC). Takru’s communica-tion has been sent to the State Bank of India and its associ-ate banks, the LIC, the Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baro-da, Canara Bank, Bank of In-dia, Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Central Bank of India, Dena

Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, UCO Bank, United Bank of India, Vijaya Bank, Indian Bank, Corporation Bank, Union Bank of India, IDBI Bank, Syndicate Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce. In its expose yester-day, web portal Cobrapost has named as many as 23 public and private sector banks and insurance companies for al-legedly “running a nation-wide money laundering rack-et, blatantly violating laws of the land.” They are alleged to have violated the Know Your Customer (KYC) and ‘Anti Money Laundering’ Guide-line. Takru asked the chairmen and managing direc-tors to place under suspension with immediate effect officers and employees “who clearly

appear to be advising poten-tial customers along lines that would be an infringement of the legal process/could facili-tate money laundering/could defeat the KYC norms or the norms of due diligence pre-scribed by RBI and the law”. The banks, the min-istry said, should also “initi-ate a detailed scrutiny of such officer’s work and institute a special audit, if necessary, for this purpose”. Takru has also asked the banks to disvest the offi-cials concerned of their cur-rent portfolio and advise them to proceed voluntarily on leave pending investigations. The Finance Min-istry has also sought detailed reports from the financial in-stitutions about names of err-ing employees, their designa-tions and action taken against them.

India, Australia Review Bilateral Co-operations During 14th JMC Meeting

New Delhi, May 6 (ANI): India and Australia have reviewed bilateral co-operations in sectors like agriculture, civil nuclear energy cooperation agree-ment and Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) during the 14th Joint Ministerial Commission (JMC) meet-ing that was held in New Delhi. The 14th India-Australia JMC meeting that was held in New Delhi on January 29 was co-chaired by Union Commerce, In-dustry and Textiles Minis-ter Anand Sharma and Dr. Craig Emerson MP, Aus-tralian Minister for Trade and Competitiveness and Minister assisting the Prime Minister on Asian Century Policy. The issues dis-cussed during JMC meeting were institutional frame-work for growth in bilateral trade and investment, ini-tiatives of India Australia CEO forum, Australia and

India’s mutual interests in the effectiveness of global and regional economic in-stitutions, launch of Re-gional Comprehensive Eco-nomic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations, strengthening of the East Asia Summit as a forum that incorporated all major economies in the India-Pacific region, G-20, WTO, IOR-ARC, Educa-tion and skill development, agriculture cooperation and food security, people-to-people links, etc. During the JMC, both sides also reviewed bi-lateral co-operations in sec-tors like Agriculture, Civil nuclear energy cooperation agreement and Comprehen-sive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) etc. In April 2008, a Joint Study Group (JSG) was constituted, inter alia, to examine the feasibility for establishing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Australia. Based on the recommendations of the JSG, India-Australia are

negotiating CECA cover-ing trade in goods, services, investment and IPR related issues. The 1st round of India-Australia CECA ne-gotiations was held during 28th-29th July, 2011. Four rounds of negotiations have been held so far as under: 2nd round--17-18th No-vember, 2011; 3rd Round---24-25th May 2012; 4th round--8-9th November, 2012. “Both sides are negotiating the CECA as stated above and the fifth round is likely to take place in Mid May, 2013. It is not feasible to indicate the time likely to be taken to com-plete the negotiations in a balanced manner bringing mutual benefit, and this was recognised by both leaders in JMC,” this information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Dr. D. Purandeswari, in a writ-ten reply in the Lok Sabha today.

Sensex Touches 20,000 Level MUMBAI, May 8 (PTI): The BSE bench-mark Sensex on Wednesday regained 20,000 level for the first time in over three months on sustained capital inflows and better earnings, but slipped to close a tad lower. After hitting 20,000 level, the Sensex closed 101.23 points, or 0.51 per cent, at 19,990.18, a level last seen on January 31. It had gained 313 points in last two sessions. The current upsurge was supported by stocks of FMCG, oil and gas and bank-ing sectors, besides a rally in HDFC Ltd and Lupin Ltd on better earnings. The broad-based

National Stock Exchange index Nifty rose by 25.75 points, or 0.43 per cent, to 6,069.30. MCX Stock Ex-change (MCX-SX) flag-ship index SX40 rose 65.53 points, 0.56 per cent, to close at 11,796.74 points on Wednesday. Brokers said the market remained in bullish mode ever since the Reserve Bank of India cut key inter-est rate to bolster economic growth last week and heavy foreign funds inflows. Foreign funds bought a net $ 171 million of Indian shares in the previous session, extending their net investment this year to $ 12 billion, a record for the pe-

riod. They said a firm-ing global trend as China’s exports topped estimates and European central bank cut-ting interest rates to revive economy, further fuelled the uptrend. In 30-BSE in-dex components, 14 stocks gained led by HDFC Ltd, HDFC Bank, ITC Ltd, Reli-ance Industries and Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services. The FMCG sector index gained the most by 1.43 per cent to 6,752.61 fol-lowed by oil and gas index by 0.11 per cent to 8,850.12. Banking index rose by 0.11 per cent to 14,453.21 and healthcare index by 0.08 per cent to 8,882.43.

‘Industrial Cities Under DMIC May Attract $100 billion Investment’

New Delhi, May 8 (PTI): Industrial cities to be developed as part of the DMIC project are expect-ed to attract investment of about USD 90-100 billion over the next thirty years, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. “It is expected that the development of indus-trial cities with world class infrastructure would in-volve/attract an estimated investment of around USD 90-100 billion over the next thirty years,” Minister of State for Commerce and Industry D Purandeswari said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. During the first phase of of Delhi-Mum-bai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project, the gov-ernment has approved fi-nancial assistance of Rs 17,500 crore at an average of Rs 2,500 crore per city

(subject to a ceiling of Rs 3,000 crore per city) for the development of seven industrial cities. The seven cities include Dadri-Noida-Gha-ziabad Investment Region, Manesar-Bawal Invest-ment Region, Khushkhera-Bhiwadi- Neemrana In-vestment Region and Ahmedabad-Dholera In-vestment Region. She also said the project would generate employment to about 2.8 crore people. “The employ-ment needed to create the estimated value of output as per perspective plan of DMIC is estimated to be 9.1 million in 2020, 17.5 million in 2030 and 28.7 million in 2040,” she add-ed. Further, the Minis-ter said the process of land acquisition is in progress in

the states of Haryana, Ra-jasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra and master planning has started in Uttar Pradesh. “The contribu-tion of the State Govern-ment will be in the form of land...The cities would be launched with the de-velopment of townships of 25-50 sq km which are envisaged to be completed by the end of 2019,” she said. Three airports - in Rajasthan and Gujarat- are also proposed under the DMIC project. DMIC is aimed at creating mega indus-trial infrastructure along the Delhi-Mumbai Rail Freight Corridor, which is under implementation. Ja-pan is giving financial and technical aid for the proj-ect, which will cover seven states totalling 1,483 km.

Responsibility To Check Money Laundering Rests With Government: RBI

New Delhi: Amid al-legations of money laundering against banks and insurance companies by an online portal, Reserve Bank of India governor D Subbarao today said it was the responsibility of the government and tax authorities to check such activities. “RBI is not directly involved... even banks are not directly responsible. They are not expected to inquire about the source of income. It is for government and tax authorities to check money laundering,” he

said while addressing students and academicians as part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of Jammu & Kashmir Bank. The RBI chief further said there was no conclusive evidence of money laundering in the expose of Cobrapost, the portal which has alleged wrong doing on the part of 23 public and private sector banks and in-surance companies. On challenges before the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), he said the biggest one was bringing down inflation with-

out hurting growth. The central bank has recently reduced short-term lending rate by 0.25 per cent to promote growth, but the industry was not satisfied. Mr Subbarao also said that the central bank was plan-ning to introduce plastic cur-rency notes soon. The RBI and govern-ment had earlier decided to in-troduce one billion pieces of Rs. 10 notes in polymer/plastic on a field trial basis in Kochi, My-sore, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar and Shimla.


India Gifts Dornier228 Aircraft To Seychelles

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): India has gifted a Dornier 228 aircraft to Seychelles for maritime surveillance. This is in response to a request from the Government of Seychelles. Giving this information in the Lok Sabha, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said India has gifted the aircraft to the Republic of Seychelles, located in the Indian Ocean, in view of the close relations between the two countries. The Dornier228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dorn-ier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. In 1983, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) bought a production licence and manufactures the 228 for the Asian market sphere. Approximately 270 Do 228 were built at Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and Kanpur, India.

Women Self Help Groups To Get Low Interest Loans

Planning Commission Approves Rs. 12,500 Crore Plan Outlay For Assam

Guwahati, May 8 (ANI): The Planning Com-mission approved an annual plan outlay of Rs 12,500 crore for Assam for the fi-nancial year 2013-14, which is 19 percent more than last fiscal’s Rs 10,500 crore. The plan size was finalized in a meeting be-tween Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi in New Delhi on Tuesday. “We had a very good discussion and very thorough review of state of Assam developmental per-formance. We have agreed on an annual plan of Rs 12,500 crore for the year 2013-14, it is a very big step up from the previous year. “We will do what-ever we can to make sure that the plan gets amply

implemented especially what the central government has to do both in clearances and also of course release of funds,” Ahluwalia said after the meeting. He said the eco-nomic performance of the state during last 4-5 years has been good. Performance in the social sectors, includ-ing health and education, was appreciable. He also appreciated the state government for pushing ambitious targets in the agriculture sector during 12th plan (2012-17). Ahluwalia said the improvement taking place in the state will be reflected in the outcomes in the next few years and the state has set a very ambitious target to reduce maternal and infant mortality rate. Expressing satis-faction about the Plan size,

Gogoi said the discussion was free and frank and there is a lot of scope for the state to speed up the developmen-tal process. Gogoi further said, “There is a lot of scope to speed our developmen-tal process in agriculture, health, power. Many more sectors we have to improve and we will speed up also. “The Planning Commission has been all along very helpful, in spite of all financial constraint. Planning Commission has agreed Rs 12,500 crore,” Gogoi said. He said the pro-jected growth rate of Assam in 2012-13 is 6.88 percent, which is better than the na-tional average; adding, pru-dent financial management has created required fiscal space to propel the growth to even higher levels.

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New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): The government has said that it will provide low interest loans to over 25 lakh women self help groups across the country under a central pro-gramme launched to wipe out absolute poverty from the vil-lages. The Union Cabinet approved the provision of in-terest subvention to women self help groups, operating un-der National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), enabling them to avail loans up to Rs.3

lakh at an interest rate of seven per cent per annum. Giving the details, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said the initia-tive, in the first phase, would focus on 150 backward dis-tricts, including the 82 Inte-grated Action Plan districts, affected by Naxal menace. “Today, they are get-ting loans at 11.5 to 14 per cent rate of interest. In 150 districts, all women SHGs which are now getting bank loans at 11.5 to 14 per cent rate of interest

will now get it at 7 per cent rate of interest,” he said. The Women SHGs that repay loans in time will get additional three per cent sub-vention, reducing the effective rate to four per cent, Ramesh said. In the 150 districts, the Central Government will bear the entire cost of the inter-est subvention from the market rate to seven percent. In 392 districts, a majority in north India, women SHGs will get loans at seven per cent rate of interest. “Rural Development Ministry will bear its 75 per cent cost and states will bear 25 per cent. The cost involved is Rs 560 crore,” Ramesh said. Dealing with 81 districts in four South Indian states-Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala-separately, Ramesh said, “here also, Central government will bear 75 per cent cost and state governments will bear 25 per cent.” He said a major chunk of bank lending for women SHGs goes to these four south Indian states.


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MAY 10Natyakrishti, Theater and Cultural Association of Greater Washington, pres-ents Utpal Dutta’s ‘Tiner Talowar’, a drama that calls for the freedom of human spirit by standing up against tyranny. It is in Bengali and directed by Jogabrata Majum-dar. Time is 8:00 p.m. Venue is the Rockville Civic Center Auditorium, 603 Edmonston Drive, Rockville, MD. For further information, please contact Mr. Steve Mukherjee at [email protected] . Note: The drama por-trays the socio-political en-vironment in the latter part of the 19th century. The last three decades of that cen-tury saw the emergence of a few daring drama personali-ties - Girish Chandra Ghose, Amritalal Bose, Motilal Sur, Ardhendu Mustafi, Mahen-dra Gupta, Upendranath Das - who used theater as a media and exposed the very charac-ters of the so-called “Raja”, “Maharaja”, “Rai Bahadur”, “Bachaspati-Siromoni” who always used to butter British government officials to fulfil their vested interests. These heroes were bold, coura-geous, desperate, fearless and were blessed by the Indian common people. They set the tone of India’s freedom move-ment by rattling the ‘Tiner Talowar’ which symbolized the launching of Indian the-atrical movement against the British empire. These men are the ones whose talents es-tablished the road map of the Bengali histrionic journey by transforming theater into the mirror of the nation to reflect the vivid picture of autocracy, thus proclaiming struggle against tyranny. This is one of a few highly acclaimed dramas that was presented on the Indian stage!

MAY 10 - 12Ceasar Productions is host-ing the DC South Asian Film Festival 2013. The event will be attended by some of the most reputed and popular art-ists who will be visiting from India like Farooque Sheikh, Sanjay Suri and Juhi Chawla. The theme is ‘Experience dif-ferent cultures through films’ and, as such, films will be screened from India, Paki-stan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. All films will have English subtitles. The Festi-val will feature full-length

films, short films, documen-taries, workshops and panel discussions. Highlights in-clude Opening Night Gala and Red Carpet, Tribute to Jagjit Singh, Meet and Greet with Stars, Awards and the Closing Night Celebration. Location is the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 3 Research Court, Rockville, MD. Enjoy a great line-up of films and meet visiting ar-tistes. For details, please con-tact Sikha at 301-502-0850 or e-mail [email protected] or visit the web-site at www.dcsaff.com . Stay tuned for a list of artists and movies!

MAY 10Do you have what it takes to be the First batch of Fiesta Asia Emerging Stars? If you think you have extraordinary talent and are between ages 5 to 17, bring it on at the Fi-esta Asia Street Fair, May 18, on Pennsylvania Avenue, between 3rd and 6th Street, NW, Washington, DC. Asia Heritage Foundation is look-ing for the next generation emerging star. All kinds of talents are welcome - singing, dancing, playing an instru-ment, comedy, acting, magic, martial arts, vaudeville acts and any other performing arts. Please fill up the form at http://asiaheritagefounda-tion.org/participate/fiestaas-iaemergingstars/ For more information, e-mail [email protected] The renowned Smithson-ian Institution is celebrat-ing Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The theme is ‘I Want the Wide American Earth’. Everyone is invited to celebrate the Smithsonian kick-off event with a two-day family festival, May 4-5, and the opening of the exhibition, ‘I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian American Story’, on May 1, at the Na-tional Museum of American History, third floor. The ban-ner exhibition explores and celebrates the history, culture and literary works of Asian Americans in the United States. Rich with compel-ling stories and images, this 30-banner exhibition takes a sweeping look at this his-tory, from the very first Asian immigrants centuries ago to the complex challenges fac-ing Asian Pacific American communities today. Enjoy the celebrations and join in watching and listening to

presentations by local writ-ers, a spoken word artiste, and participate in family ac-tivities such as arts and crafts, gallery tours, conversation with curators and a scavenger hunt. For more information, Readers can go to http://apa.si.edu

MAY 11Ceasar Productions presents a ‘Tribute to Padmabhushan Jagjit Singh’, a melodious eve-ning of ghazals by his disciple Poojaa Shah Talwar, accom-panied by Amarjeet Talwar on tabla, with mesmerizing ‘Shayari’ (poetry) recited by Bollywood actor Farooque Sheikh. Time is 7:00 p.m. Venue is the Crown Plaza Ho-tel, 3 Research Court, Rock-ville, MD. This program is part of the second annual DC South Asian Film Festival, a one-of-its-kind event in the Washington area. For more information, please contact Sikha at 301-502-0850 or e-mail [email protected] or go to www.dcsaff.com

MAY 11S.G. Theater Group is pre-senting ‘Ahimsa’, a thought-provoking new play, in Eng-lish. It is written and directed by Shree Iyengar. The play examines the question: Is the message of Ahimsa, promot-ed and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., relevant for the 21st century? A cast of 10 talented actors will depict the events and circumstances that affect the lives of two wounded war veterans and a mother who lost her son in the Afghan war and how these and other characters resolve the conflict posed by guilt and vengeance. The story is predicated on the messages of Gandhi and King. The play will be staged as follows: May 11 - 1:00 p.m., at Anne Arundel Com-munity College, 101 College Parkway, Arnold, MD; 7:00 p.m., at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Catonsville; May 18 - 8:00 p.m., at the Jewish Commu-nity Center, 6125 Montrose Road, Rockville, MD; and May 19 - 2:00 p.m., at Ernst Community Cultural Center, 8333 Little River Turnpike, Annandale, VA. For further information, please call Shree Iyengar at 410-551-4308, Latha Kannan at 301-493-0428, Mathew Thomas at 301-352-9641, Padmanab-

han at 703-339-7872 or go to www.sgtheater.org

MAY 11 - 12Culture comes alive at the ‘Star Heritage India Festival! This two-day extravaganza will be held at the Dulles Expo and Conference Center, South Hall, 4368 Chantilly Shopping Center, Chantilly, VA. Timings are as follows: Saturday - noon to 9:00 p.m.; and Sunday - noon to 7:00 p.m. At this award-winning Star Heritage India Festival, enjoy the sights, sounds, fra-grances and tastes of the best of South Asia, all under one roof! The event features: Live performances by Bolly-wood singers and bands. Tal-ented local and international artistes will render contem-porary Bollywood hits and golden oldies; face painting, henna and other great activi-ties for children; shopping - over 125 booths display-ing South Asian and western garments, jewelry, handi-crafts, housewares, paintings, books, Ayurvedic medicines and more; Cuisine from dif-ferent parts of India; and the popular Dance Masti Dance Competition. Over 50 local dance teams of all ages will compete for prizes and top honors; volunteers from the charitable organization Ex-press Care and its sub-project Cure Cancer Thru Compas-sion will be doing glittery face painting to raise money for children with cancer; and different types of teas at the Tea India booth, This is My Chai. For more information, e-mail [email protected] or call 703-459-5000 or go to www.hifestival.com

MAY 12Ekal Vidyalaya DC Chapter presents a musical evening with playback singer Sanje-evani and group. Time is 4:00 p.m. Location is the Laurel High School, 8000 Cherry Lane, Laurel, MD. Sanje-evani will be coming again after a very successful tour in 2010 for Ekal Vidyalaya. This time, she will revisit popular songs from yesteryears to bring back memories of Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, as well as take requests from the audience. Sanjeevani has rendered songs for AR Rah-man, Himesh Reshamiyya, Anu Malik and other music directors. For details, please contact Mrs. Shashi Shrivas-

tav at 301-424-0747, Ashwin Saboo at 240-421-8179, Kirit Udeshi at 703-989-9392, Vi-ral Patel at 202-247-7434 or [email protected] or e-mail [email protected] or go to www.ekal.org

MAY 12‘Fiesta Asia’, a great outdoor extravaganza is being held in the Washington area featur-ing: performances by dancers, singers, musicians, martial arts experts; a cultural parade; food and more). Mark your calendars for this festival as follows: May 12 - Fiesta Asia Planet Family at the Smith-sonian’s National Zoo; May 18 - Fiesta Asia Street Fair on Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC; and May 28 to 30 - Fiesta Asia Film Fest at West End Cinema. Now, in its eighth year, partake in the excitement and fun of this festival! For further informa-tion, check the web-site at www.asiaheritagefoundation.org

MAY 15Asia Heritage Foundation and Doonya Dance Company are co-presenting ‘Fiesta Asia-MOVES’ and inviting ev-eryone to join in the Bhangra Mania. All you have to do to participate is to learn the routine online through tutori-als and come out to perform on May 18, at 1:00 p.m. (Call time is 12:30 p.m. - wear or-ange/yellow wristbands), to the Fiesta Asia Street Fair, Pennsylvania Avenue and 3rd Street, NW, Washington, DC. Public lessons and rehears-als are scheduled for May 15, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., at Ar-lington Cultural Affairs, 3700 Four Mile Run S., Room 174, Arlington, VA. Please direct queries to 202-470-0899 or asiamoves@asiaheritagefoun

dation.org or go to http://asia-heritagefoundation.org/par-ticpate/bhangramania/

MAY 16Join the Bethesda Multicultur-al Committee as it celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The program will feature a special Bharatanatyam performance by students of the Natananjali School of Dance, founded and directed by supremely gifted Lakshmi Swaminathan. The event will be held from 11:30 to 12:30 p.m., in the Ameri-can Building, Atrium (piano area), Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 8901 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD. Enjoy samples of free food! For more information, please contact SFC Jason Zielske at 301-400-3542 or HMC Oluyinka Adefisan at 301-295-6482.

MAY 18 - 31The Gandhi Memorial Cen-ter, in collaboration with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Embassy of India, is presenting ‘An Ex-hibition on Sikh Heritage of India’. This is a photographic exhibition by Sandeep Shan-kar. Exhibit opening is at 4:00 p.m. with remarks by Indian Ambassador Mrs. Nirupama Rao and Dr. Manmohan Singh Kumar, IMF. Following the inauguration, the exhibit will be on display through May 31. It may be viewed on Fridays and Saturdays, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and by appointment. The Gandhi Memorial Center is located at 4748 Western Ave., Bethesda, MD. To attend the opening, please RSVP to [email protected] . For more information, Readers can call 301-320-6871 or go to www.gandhimemorialcenter.org .

Exhibition of high fashioned Suits, Anarkalis,Tunics, Embroided sarees &

Jewellery on Tuesday 14th and Wednes-day 15th May between 10AM and 8PM at Embassy Suites Tyson Corner,8517 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA 22182(tele


Why Not Fight The Water War?By Pradeep Kumar Itanagar, May 8 (ANI): As water is going to be the most precious com-modity on earth in the com-ing decades, it is believed that a third world war could take place over the distribution of this live saving fluid. Even after over six decades of independence, the “untouchables or achut”, whom Mahatma Gandhi had rechristened as Harijan (Dalit) to give them equal status in the society, continue to suf-fer at the hands of upper caste people for a bucket of water in some parts of India. It is but natural for the people of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam to be deeply concerned at China’s three proposed major dams – Dagu (640 MW), 18 km upstream of Zangmu, Jiacha (320 MW) in middle reaches of Brahmaputra downstream Zangmu and Jiexu, 11 km upstream of Zangmu, listed in China’s State Council’s energy plan for the 12th Five Year Plan period (2011-15) released on January 23 last, besides the one on Zangmou building since 2010, without informing New Delhi and its proposal to divert Brahmapu-tra water. Hari Bhusan Jha of the Institute of Defence Stud-ies and Analyses in ‘Diversion of the Brahmaputra: Myth or Reality? (August 9, 2011)’ recorded: “China is planning to divert 200 billion cubic metres of the waters of the Brahmaputra from south to north to feed the Yellow river since 600 to 800 cities in north China have been experiencing water shortage, particularly Shaanxi, Hebel, Beijing and Tianjin. There are also reports that China has been using the manpower earlier involved in the Lhasa-Beijing railway for the construction of a 1.2 billion dollars hydro-pow-er/diversion project on the Brahmaputra. Estimates are that the project would gener-ate 40,000 MW of power and would be completed in a five to seven year time period.” “With the initiation of the diversion-cum-hydro-power production work on the Brahmaputra river, both India and Bangladesh have begun to face problems with respect to water-resources. Even more worrisome is the news that after 2014 China might build additional dams and divert water from all im-portant rivers originating in

the Tibetan plateau and which flow to neighbouring coun-tries in South Asia, including Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.” If New Delhi has won a temporary diplomatic war against Beijing on the contentious Sino-India bor-der row, it is time for India to hit the iron when it is hot. China’s deceptive policy is well known. That is why Beijing after consenting to share hydrological data (wa-ter level, discharge and rain-fall) on Tsangpo (known as Brahmaputra in India) river in the flood season under the current Expert Level Mecha-nism (ELM) has now turned down New Delhi’s request for a mechanism either a water commission or a inter–gov-ernmental dialogue or a treaty to deal with water issues. The ELM was agreed after the col-lapse of a hydropower dam in Tibet that had inundated cen-tury-old Pasighat town under 30-feet deep water during night claiming seven lives, numerous livestock and leav-ing a trail of devastation on 9 June 2000. Of Tsangpo’s (Brah-maputra) total 2888 km length, 1625 km lies within the Tibet Autonomous Re-gion of China, while only 918 km and 337 km stretches fall within India and Bangladesh, which gives China an advan-tage to exploiting the river for its own benefit. Its latest refusal for a new mechanism to tackle the water issue and insistence on the current one reflects Beijing’s adamant at-titude to not honour interna-tionally ratified obligations on river water exploitation. I remember when former Government of Arunachal Pradesh spokes-man Tako Dabii had expressed fears that the mighty Siang river (name of Tsangpo in Arunachal) was drying up and shrunk by a kilometre from its bank, and New Delhi took ex-ception to the view, and right from Governor J.J. Singh to Education Minister Bosiram Siram, quoting CWC data, tried to prove Dabii wrong. Quoting Dabii, Chi-nese foreign ministry spokes-man Hong Lei had allayed the fear after former External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna took up the matter through the diplomatic channel. I was happy that my story released on March 1, 2012, struck the right cord in Beijing. Why is the concern

being expressed in the media now? Why were then Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and his Arunachal counter-part Nabam Tuki concerned at China’s three big dam plan and decided to seek the in-tervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that the interests of the ripar-ian states are protected even if China builds dams? The data on China’s ambitious proposals to build massive dams is a mouse-click away, including the pic-ture on the ongoing dam over Zangmou. Its dam-construc-tion binge has been fuelled by its growing energy needs, the appeal of hydropower as a clean fuel, the need for flood control, as well as the inter-est in massive infrastructure projects by provincial govern-ments in order to boost their growth figures. The Brahmaputra feeds a great deal of both India and Bangladesh down-stream and is a major source of fresh river water for both nations. Brahmaputra is very important for its water wealth as it accounts for about 40% of the country’s total hydro-power generation potential. China feels it has the right to use the water resourc-es of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej rivers originat-ing from its territory without caring for international con-vention to have the first user right. But the water of these rivers should also benefit the downstream riparian coun-tries through which they flow. It is time for New Delhi to be extra cautious to pressurize China to yield for an effective new mechanism including joint team with members form the affected Indian states with the man-date to inspect and monitor ongoing and proposed project sites, as was suggested by an expert as highlighted by ANI after Arunachal Pradesh Wa-ter Resources Development Minister Newlai Tingkhatra and his Assam counterpart Rajib Lochan Pegu had an in-depth official discussion on the chronic flood prob-lem, and measures to tackle it, at Itanagar on Feb 9, 2013 . If China refuses, New Delhi should move the International Court of Justice to protect its interests. It is time for India to awake from deep slumber and act boldly to protect the inter-est of the nation without any delay.

Karnataka Has Given Clear Mandate To Congress: Moily

Bangalore, May 8 (ANI): Expressing his delight over the Congress Party’s clear majority in the Karnataka state assembly elections, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dr. M. Veerappa Moily on Wednesday said the BJP had got its just political desert by being relegated to third po-sition, and said talks about Gujarat Chief Minister Nar-endra Modi having a pan-In-dia image have proved to be a non starter. Dr. Moily said the Karnataka electoral result is a victory of the Congress Party and the people of Kar-nataka. “ A clear mandate has been given to the Con-gress Party to govern for another five years. It is also clear that they don’t want to have a split polity, or they do not want that there should be a coalition arrangement. This is the lesson, which the Kar-nataka people have thrown to the national scenario. And, it is also clear that by not al-lowing the Parliament to run, the BJP has now come third.

And, Mr. Modi coming to the coastal areas, that hundred percent Congress swept. I think he should have visited these places more, we would have then swept the polls in a better way with better momentum,” Dr. Moily told ANI here. “That means to say, all that is said about Mr. Narendra Modi that he has a pan-India image is abso-lutely false and may be that because of his own certain communal agenda, which he has taken in Gujarat. I don’t think his influence will go beyond the frontiers of Gu-jarat. This is very clear and Karnataka has sent a very right message to the BJP and also the people of this coun-try that a type of leadership like Modi will not run this country,” he added. Dr. Moily lauded the efforts put in by Congress vice-president Rahul Gan-dhi, Prime Minister Dr. Man-mohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. “And in fact Ra-hul Gandhi, Dr. Manmohan Singh our Prime Minis-

ter, and also Soniaji (Sonia Gandhi), they have toured around all those places, all those places where they have addressed the meetings we have got the maximum votes and maximum seats,” he said. Dr. Moily, however, refused to throw light on the Congress Party’s chief min-isterial candidate in Karna-taka. “There is a process and a system which is always adopted by the Congress formally. They make an as-sessment of the ground situ-ation and take the opinion of the elected MLAs, then the central observers will come, they will take a sense of it, and then the central leader-ship will decide,” he said. Dr. Moily also rub-bished the comparison made between Modi and Rahul Gandhi as a potential prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. “That comparison we have not done. It was BJP, which has done. If they have done it, they are defeated in their own battle,” he said.

Raids Conducted In Sikkim’s Rose Valley Company Over Alleged Ponzi Fraud

Gangtok (Sikkim), May 6 (ANI): Police raided the offices of Rose Valley company in Gangtok over alleged fraud and seized several incriminating docu-ments and a computer. The Rose Valley Company launched a ponzi scheme, similar to the one that was launched by Saradha Group West Ben-gal. Police Superin-tendent Manoj Tiwari said they broke the lock of the office of the fraudulent firm. “We have obtained warrant from magistrate and in the presence of SDM (Sub-Divisional Magis-trate) Gangtok, SHO Sadar broke out the lock and he found a number of registers in the name of depositors,” said Tiwari. “Yes, we have seized a list of depositors, the contact number de-tails and the amount. The register maintained they

were collecting money on a regular basis daily 100 rupees or 200 rupees. Vari-ous agents use to collect them, they use to deposit this money to rose valley office,” Tiwari added. Chit funds are sav-ing schemes practiced in India by private financial firms. The latest fleecing of poor and middle-class investors brought in an es-timated 730 million dollars, according to media reports, though public interest liti-gation filed in the Calcutta High Court by one lawyer says the amount is as high as Rs. 300 billion. The Saradha Group had lured investors with promises of rich dividends from chit fund scheme. Tiwari said the company used to operate with the help of various agents. Officials suspect that the Gangtok offices had collected millions of

rupees by duping inves-tors. The company has already shut down several offices in the state. In recent past, bo-gus financial institutions such as the Saradha Group had duped investors of their money through the chit fund ponzi scheme. It was also learnt that Saradha Group had also shutdown several of its media organizations in-cluding newspapers and television channels that it had launched or acquired since 2010, and in the pro-cess left scores of journal-ists and hundreds of others in the lurch. As many as 73 of those were from West Bengal. Ten were Saradha Group accusations, leaving another 67 to tackle. With the time it took to figure out that anything was wrong, it seems like defrauding in-vestors may remain a safe bet for a while.


‘World Asthma Day’ Is Being Observed With A Message

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): World Asthma Day is being observed across the country today and the theme for this year is “You can con-trol your asthma.” According to World Health Organisation (WHO), estimates 235 million people suffer from asthma world-wide. Asthma is the most common chronic disease among children. It is not just a public health problem for high income countries: it oc-curs in all countries regard-less of level of development. Over 80% of asthma deaths occur in low and lower-mid-dle income countries. Asthma is under-diagnosed and under-treated, creating a substantial burden to individuals and families and possibly restricting indi-viduals’ activities for a life-time. The fundamen-tal causes of asthma are not

completely understood. The strongest risk factors for de-veloping asthma are a com-bination of genetic predis-position with environmental exposure to inhaled sub-stances and particles that may provoke allergic reactions or irritate the airways, such as:i) indoor allergens (for example house dust mites in bedding, carpets and stuffed furniture, pollution and pet dander)ii) outdoor allergens (such as pollens and moulds)iii) to-bacco smokeiv) chemical ir-ritants in the workplace and v) air pollution Other triggers can include cold air, extreme emotional arousal such as anger or fear, and physical exercise. Even certain medi-cations can trigger asthma: aspirin and other non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, and beta-blockers (which are used to treat high blood pres-sure, heart conditions and mi-graine).

Although asthma cannot be cured, appropriate management can control the disease and enable people to enjoy good quality of life. Short-term medi-cations are used to relieve symptoms. People with per-sistant symptoms must take long-term medication daily to control the underlying inflam-mation and prevent symptoms and exacerbations. Medication is not the only way to control asthma. It is also important to avoid asthma triggers - stimuli that irritate and inflame the air-ways. With medical support, each asthma patient must learn what triggers he or she should avoid. Although asthma does not kill on the scale of chronic obstructive pulmo-nary disease (COPD) or other chronic diseases, failure to use appropriate medications or to adhere to treatment can lead to death.

Functional 3D ‘Heart Patch’ Created Washington, May 7 (ANI): Making a breakthrough in cell-based therapies, Duke University biomedical engi-neers have grown three-dimen-sional human heart muscle that acts just like natural tissue. This advancement could be important in treating heart attack patients or in serv-ing as a platform for testing new heart disease medicines. The “heart patch” grown in the laboratory from human cells overcomes two ma-jor obstacles facing cell-based therapies – the patch conducts electricity at about the same speed as natural heart cells and it “squeezes” appropriately. Earlier attempts to create functional heart patches have largely been unable to overcome those obstacles. The source cells used by the Duke researchers were human embryonic stem cells. These cells are pluripotent, which means that when given the right chemical and physi-cal signals, they can be coaxed by scientists to become any kind of cell – in this case heart muscle cells, known as cardio-myocytes. “The structural and functional properties of these 3-D tissue patches surpass all previous reports for engineered human heart muscle,” said Ne-nad Bursac, associate professor of biomedical engineering at

Duke`s Pratt School of Engi-neering. “This is the closest man-made approximation of native human heart tissue to date,” Bursac stated. Bursac said this ap-proach does not involve ge-netic manipulation of cells. “In past studies, hu-man stem cell-derived car-diomyocytes were not able to both rapidly conduct electrical activity and strongly contract as well as normal cardiomyo-cytes. Through optimization of a three-dimensional environ-ment for cell growth, we were able to `push` cardiomyocytes to reach unprecedented levels of electrical and mechanical maturation,” Bursac said. The rate of functional maturation is an important ele-ment for the patch to become practical. In a developing hu-man embryo, it takes about nine months for a neonatal function-ing heart to develop and an ad-ditional few years to reach adult levels of function; however, advancing the functional prop-erties of these bioengineered patches took a little more than a month, Bursac said. As tech-nology advances, he said, the time should shorten. “Currently, it would take us about five to six weeks starting from pluripotent stem cells to grow a highly function-al heart patch,” Bursac said.

“When someone has a heart attack, a portion of the heart muscle dies,” Bur-sac said. “Our goal would be to implant a patch of new and functional heart tissue at the site of the injury as rapidly after heart attack as possible. Using a patient`s own cells to generate pluripotent stem cells would add further advantage in that there would likely be no immune system reaction, since the cells in the patch would be recognized by the body as self.” In addition to a pos-sible therapy for patients with heart disease, Bursac said that engineered heart tissues could also be used to effectively screen new drugs or therapies. The current experi-ments were conducted on one human pluripotent stem cell line. Bursac and his colleagues have reproduced their findings on two other cell lines and are testing additional lines. They are also planning to move to larger animal models to learn how the patch would become functionally integrated with its host and how the patch es-tablishes connections with the circulatory system. The results of Bursac`s research, which is supported by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, were published on-line in the journal Biomaterials.

People Who Gain Weight Likelier To Give In To Temptations

Washington, May 7 (ANI): A new study has found that significant chang-es in weight are associated with changes in our core personality traits. People who gain weight are more likely to give in to temptations but also are more thoughtful about their actions, the study concluded. To understand how fluctuations in body weight might relate to personal-ity changes, psychological scientist Angelina Sutin of the Florida State Univer-sity College of Medicine and colleagues at the Na-tional Institutes of Health (NIH) examined data from two large-scale longitudinal studies of Baltimore resi-dents. The studies, NIH’s Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) and the Baltimore Epidemiolog-ic Catchment Area (ECA) study, included more than 1,900 people in total, of all ages and socioeconomic lev-els. Data about partici-

pants’ personality traits and their body weight were col-lected at two time points sep-arated by nearly a decade. In one study, a clinician mea-sured participants’ weight at the two time points; in the other study, the participants reported their weight at baseline and had it measured by a clinician at follow-up. Sutin and col-leagues found that partici-pants who had at least a 10 percent increase in body weight showed an increase in impulsiveness — with a greater tendency to give in to temptations — compared to those whose weight was stable. The data don’t re-veal whether increased im-pulsiveness was a cause or an effect of gaining weight, but they do suggest an inti-mate relationship between a person’s physiology and his or her psychology. In a surprising twist, people who gained weight also reported an in-crease in deliberation, with a greater tendency to think through their decisions. De-

liberation tends to increase for everyone in adulthood, but the increase was almost double for participants who gained weight compared to those whose weight stayed the same. “If mind and body are intertwined, then if one changes the other should change too. That’s what our findings suggest,” Sutin said. Sutin and col-leagues speculate that this increase in deliberation could be the result of nega-tive feedback from family or friends — people are likely to think twice about grab-bing a second slice of cake if they feel that everyone is watching them take it. These findings sug-gest that even though people who gain weight are more conscious of their decision-making, they may still have difficulty resisting tempta-tions. The study was published in Psychological Science, a journal of the As-sociation for Psychological Science.

Physical Exercise Could Help Women Fight Osteoporosis

Washington, May 7 (ANI): A physical exercise programme that is based on a very basic, rudimentary ma-terials can significantly im-prove upper and lower limb strength as well as static and dynamic balance in women suffering from postmeno-pausal osteoporosis. Montserrat Otero, a PhD holder in Physical Ac-tivity and Sports Sciences of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country studied 68 women with postmeno-pausal osteoporosis of the age group 50 - 72, of whom 34 were randomly assigned to the Exercise Group and 34 to the Control Group. The participants in the Exercise Group followed a supervised programme of physical exercise involving strength and balance training, which lasted six months in which there were 72 sessions

each lasting 60 minutes, in which between 5 and 8 bal-ance exercises and between 8 and 12 strength exercises were done per session. The Control Group did not take part in the pro-gramme of physical exer-cise, although they did do the strength and balance tests beforehand and afterwards. At the start of the programme there were no significant differences in the two groups in any of the vari-ables. However, following the intervention, the strength of the upper and lower limbs of the groups was markedly different. Otero said that those in the Exercise Group improved their performance in muscular strength of the upper and lower limbs, while those in the Control Group worsened in both variables.

With respect to the balance variable, the Exer-cise Group had a significant improvement after the inter-vention. Otero concluded that a programme of physical exercise based on low-inten-sity strength exercises and exercises involving static and dynamic balance, carried out three days per week in one-hour sessions over a 6-month period, leads to significant improvements in muscular strength in the upper and lower limbs and in static and dynamic balance in women with postmenopausal osteo-porosis. Otero added that is why if there is no access to sophisticated equipment due to the economic cost in-volved, even without it, the risk factors of the main con-sequence of the disease can be reduced.


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Why People With Restless Legs Syndrome Have Difficulty Falling Asleep

Washington, May 8 (ANI): Johns Hopkins re-searchers believe they may have solved the mystery be-hind sleepless nights associ-ated with restless legs syn-drome (RLS), a symptom that persists even when the disruptive, overwhelming nocturnal urge to move the legs is treated successfully with medication. Neurologists have long believed RLS is re-lated to a dysfunction in the way the brain uses the neu-rotransmitter dopamine, a chemical used by brain cells to communicate and produce smooth, purposeful muscle activity and movement. Disruption of these neurochemical signals, characteristic of Parkinson`s disease, frequently results in involuntary movements. Drugs that increase dopa-mine levels are mainstay treatments for RLS, but studies have shown they don`t significantly improve sleep. The small new study, headed by Richard P. Allen, Ph.D., an associ-ate professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins Uni-versity School of Medicine, used MRI to image the brain and found glutamate — a neurotransmitter involved in arousal — in abnormally

high levels in people with RLS. The more glutamate the researchers found in the brains of those with RLS, the worse their sleep. “We may have solved the mystery of why getting rid of patients` urge to move their legs doesn`t improve their sleep. We may have been looking at the wrong thing all along, or we may find that both dopamine and glutamate pathways play a role in RLS,” Allen said. For the study, Al-len and his colleagues ex-amined MRI images and recorded glutamate activity in the thalamus, the part of the brain involved with the regulation of consciousness, sleep and alertness. They looked at im-ages of 28 people with RLS and 20 people without. The RLS patients included in the study had symptoms six to seven nights a week persist-ing for at least six months, with an average of 20 invol-untary movements a night or more. The researchers then conducted two-day sleep studies in the same individuals to measure how much rest each person was getting. In those with RLS, they found that the higher the glutamate level in the thalamus, the less sleep the

subject got. They found no such association in the con-trol group without RLS. Previous stud-ies have shown that even though RLS patients aver-age less than 5.5 hours of sleep per night, they rarely report problems with exces-sive daytime sleepiness. Al-len said the lack of daytime sleepiness is likely related to the role of glutamate, too much of which can put the brain in a state of hyper-arousal — day or night. If confirmed, the study`s results may change the way RLS is treated, Al-len said, potentially erasing the sleepless nights that are the worst side effect of the condition. D o p a m i n e - r e-lated drugs currently used in RLS do work, but many patients eventually lose the drug benefit and require ever higher doses. When the doses get too high, the medi-cation actually can make the symptoms much worse than before treatment. As more is under-stood about this neurobiol-ogy, the findings may not only apply to RLS, he said, but also to some forms of in-somnia. The findings are published in the May issue of the journal Neurology.

High Fat Intake Linked To Increased Daytime Sleepiness

Washington, May 8 (ANI): Your level of sleepi-ness or alertness during the day may be related to the type of food that you eat, a new study has suggested. Results show that higher fat consumption was associated with increased objective daytime sleepiness, while higher carbohydrate intake was associated with in-creased alertness. There was no re-lationship between protein consumption and sleepiness or alertness. These findings were independent of the sub-jects’ gender, age, and body mass index as well as the to-tal amount of sleep they were getting and their total caloric intake.

“Increased fat con-sumption has an acute ad-verse effect on alertness of otherwise healthy, non-obese adults,” said principal inves-tigator Alexandros Vgontzas, MD, professor of psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pa. The study group comprised 31 healthy, non-obese normal sleepers with-out sleep apnea, ranging in age from 18-65 years, who spent four consecutive nights in a sleep lab. On the fourth day objective sleepiness was assessed with the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT), and meals were provided five times to assess diet. According to the researchers, previous studies

had found that diet composi-tion affects subjective sleepi-ness. The current study adds to this body of research by showing a similar association between diet and objective sleepiness. “It appears that a diet high in fat decreases alertness acutely, and this may have an impact on an individual’s abil-ity to function and also public safety,” said Vgontzas. The research ab-stract was published recently in an online supplement of the journal SLEEP, and Vgont-zas will present the findings Tuesday, June 4, in Baltimore, Md., at SLEEP 2013, the 27th annual meeting of the Associ-ated Professional Sleep Soci-eties LLC.

Nutrition Plays Key Role In Oral Health Washington, May 6 (ANI): There is a strong connection between the food people eat and their oral health, a recently updated position paper of the Acade-my of Nutrition and Dietetics has stated. The Academy’s po-sition paper highlighted that nutrition is an integral com-ponent of oral health. The Academy sup-ports integration of oral health with nutrition servic-es, education and research. Collaboration between di-etetics practitioners and oral health care professionals is recommended for oral health promotion and disease pre-vention and intervention. According to the Academy’s position paper, dental caries – also known as tooth decay – “is the most prevalent, chronic, common

and transmissible infectious oral condition in humans.” In addition, a person’s overall health can be affected by tooth loss, since “declining periodontal health” can lead to dimin-ished dietary quality because of lack of essential nutrients in a person’s diet. The Academy’s po-sition paper emphasizes that oral health problems can be prevented by: Eating a healthy balanced diet of fruits, vege-tables, lean protein and low-fat dairy products and whole grains that provide essential nutrients for optimum oral health and overall health. Practicing good oral hygiene, such as brushing teeth with fluoridated tooth-paste twice a day; drinking fluoridated water; and seek-ing regular oral health care.

“As knowledge of the connection between oral and nutrition health increases, it highlights the importance of dietetics practitioners and oral health care professionals to provide screening, educa-tion and referrals as part of comprehensive client/patient care,” according to the au-thors of the Academy’s posi-tion paper. “Collaborative en-deavors between dietetics, dentistry, medicine and al-lied health professionals in research, education and de-lineation of practice roles are needed to ensure comprehen-sive health care,” they noted. The Academy’s po-sition paper was published in the May issue of the Journal of the Academy of Nutri-tion and Dietetics and can be found on the Academy’s website.

Fast-food Restaurant Menus Still Lack Nutritional Quality

Washington, May 8 (ANI): Results from a 14-year long study has indicat-ed that fast food restaurant menus have only modestly increased nutritious offer-ings, and much improvement is still needed. Known for menu items containing high amounts of fat, sugar, and salt, fast-food restaurants have contributed to increased risk of diet-related chronic diseases, like heart disease and diabetes. “Despite qualitative evidence that the fast-food industry is making improve-ments to the nutritional qual-ity of at least some of their menu items, a quantitative evaluation of trends in the nutritional quality of fast food available in the market-place was lacking,” said lead investigator Mary Hearst, PhD, MPH, Associate Pro-fessor of Public Health at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hearst and the study team set out to examine trends at eight fast-food restaurants using data from 1997/1998 to 2009/2010 culled from the University of Minnesota Nu-trition Coordinating Center Food and Nutrient Database, which houses menus from 22 fast-food restaurants. The investigators selected eight

restaurants: To evaluate nutri-tional quality, researchers relied on the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2005, a metric developed by the U.S. De-partment of Agriculture and used for quantifying nutri-tional quality. The team ex-pected index scores would fall below the score for the American food supply – 60 points of 100 – due to high fat and sugar and low fruit and vegetable content. It also expected to find an increase in HEI-2005 scores among these restaurants over the 14-year period. Across the eight restaurants, the HEI-2005 score increased over the 14-year period. However, the increase was modest, from 45 in 1997/1998 to 48 in 2009/2010. KFC showed the greatest improvement with a nine-point increase and Jack in the Box, the second greatest with a seven-point increase. Over the study pe-riod, scores did not change for fruit, whole fruit, total vegetables, dark green and orange vegetables, legumes, total grains, whole grains, and oils. However, scores improved for meat, saturated fat, and calories from solid fats and added sugars. Scores worsened for milk/dairy and

sodium. Six of the eight res-taurants improved nutritional quality consistent with pub-lic health recommendations, an important observation for reversing the rising rates of diet-related chronic disease in the U.S. KFC led the res-taurants in increasing veg-etables and total grains and decreasing saturated fats and solid fats and added sugars. The overall nutri-tional quality score associ-ated with these eight restau-rants, 48, fell below that of the average American diet in general, 55, which the USDA considers far from optimal. “Modest improve-ments in average nutritional quality of menu offerings across eight-fast-food restau-rant chains were observed, which is consistent with both legislative efforts (e.g., ban-ning trans fat) and the indus-try’s own statements about creating healthier menu op-tions. However, considering that fast food is ubiquitous in the U.S. diet, there is much room for improvement,” concluded Dr. Hearst. The study was fund-ed by the Robert Wood John-son Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research program and published in the Ameri-can Journal of Preventive Medicine.


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Statue Of Former Andhra CM N.T. Rama Rao Unveiled In Parliament

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar unveiled a stat-ue of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Founder of Telugu Desam Party N T Rama Rao in Parliament on Tuesday. Vice President and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Dr Manmo-han Singh and several Union Ministers and Members of Parliament participated in the function. The statue was do-nated by NTR’s daughter

and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Dr. D Purandeswari. Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao was born on May 28,1923 and died on January 18, 1996. He was popularly known as N. T. Rama Rao or NTR. He was a Indian film actor, director, producer, and politician who also served as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh for three terms. NTR made his de-but as an actor in a Telugu social film Mana Desam, directed by L. V. Prasad in

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and served three tumultu-ous terms as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh between 1983 and 1995. He was known as an advocate of Andhra Pradesh’s distinct cultural identity, distinguishing it from the erstwhile Madras State with which it was often associated. At the national level, he was instrumental in the formation of the Na-tional Front, a coalition of non-Congress parties which governed India from 1989 till 1990.


US Immigration Reform Bill May Harm Indian IT Firms Washington, May 8 (PTI): The bi-partisan group of eight US Senators has come out with eight killer provisions in its compre-hensive immigration reform bill, which if passed by the Congress, may prove to be detrimental to the interests of major Indian IT companies. The Senators, also known as the gang of eight, has put forward provisions in the bill, which when signed into law by the President, can harm the interests of Indian IT companies and profes-sionals. India’s Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao has already flagged the concerns of the Indian companies on the proposed immigration re-forms in her meeting with a top American Senator. “Highlighting the rapidly growing trade and economic engagement be-tween India and the US, Rao conveyed her deep appre-ciation to Senator (Robert) Menendez for his support for high-skilled immigra-tion, an issue of significant interest for Indian businesses in the US,” Indian Embassy spokesman M Sridharan said in a statement on April 24. The first killer pro-vision in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill is the ban on client site place-ment for H-1B Workers. Under this any H-

1B dependent employer (a company with more than 15 per cent of its workforce on H-1Bs), would be flatly prohibited from placing H-1B workers at client sites or contracting for the services of those workers. Secondly, the bill proposes new restrictions on client site placement for L-1 workers. As a result of this an Indian IT Company would not be able to place L-1 workers (whether specialised or managerial) at client sites (the US company) unless the company supervised and controlled those workers and the parent US company at-tests that for 90 days before and after the L-1 petition filing it had not laid off any employees in the same area performing similar job du-ties. Third, the bill plac-es limit on total percentage of H-1B and L-1 Workers. Under this the im-migration bill would impose a hard limit on the percent-age of H-1B and L-1 workers that could make up a compa-ny’s workforce in the US. Being enforced in three phases, the limits would be no more than 75 per cent from October 1, 2014 to Sep-tember 30, 2015; no more than 65 per cent from Oc-tober 1, 2015, to September 30, 2016, and no more than

50 per cent from October 1, 2016 onwards. The US India Busi-ness Council and Confedera-tion of Indian Industry have already opposed such a move and said that this is against the spirit of India-US strate-gic relationship. The fourth killer provision is said to be the proposed further increase in certain categories of H-1B visas that is targeting Indian IT companies. A company with more than 50 per cent H-1B or L-1 workers currently pays an additional fee of $2,250 for L-1 petitions and USD 2,000 for H-1B peti-tions. Under the com-prehensive immigration bill proposals, the additional fee would rise to $5,000 begin-ning in fiscal 2015 through 2024 for employers with more than 30 per cent and less than 50 per cent H-1B and L-1B workers. For fiscal year 2015 through 2017, there would be a $10,000 fee for employ-ers with more than 50 per cent and less than 75 per cent H-1B and L-1B workers. Analysts argue that this cost will be passed on or shared by the Indian compa-nies with US companies. ‘The Unworkable Intending Immigrants Ex-ception’ is said to be the fifth

killer provision of the bill. “Intending immi-grants,” is defined as those employees for whom the green card process had been started by the company, would count as US workers and would not count toward the H-1B or L-1 population for purposes of determining percentages. With a sufficient number of intending immi-grants, a global IT company could conceivably bring its population percentage low enough to avoid the addi-tional fees, and perhaps even low enough to avoid being H-1B dependent. However, the bill has an unworkable qualifier to this exception such that the intending im-migrants’ exception only applies if the company has filed I-140 immigrant peti-tions for at least 90 per cent of the employees for which a labor certification was filed in the last year. As a result, unless the Department of Labor processes labor certification applications very quickly, an Indian IT company could not rely on the intending im-migrants exception since an immigrant petition cannot be filed until Department of Labor (DOL) approves the labour certification applica-tion. The subsequent required wage increases is

considered to be the sixth killer provision of the bill. Under the propos-als H-1B dependent employ-ers would have to pay H-1B workers no less than the mean wage for the occupa-tion, even if the role is en-try-level. This would cause a spiraling effect on the rest of the wage scales, and the wage increases would be substantial, experts note. For example, the required wage for an entry level Systems Analyst would increase from about $59,000 per annum year to $92,000 per year. Seventh killer provi-sion is the H-1B recruitment and job offer requirements of the bill, under which prior to filing any H-1B petition, an Indian IT company would be required to recruit for US workers using industry stan-dard recruitment as well as posting on a DOL website, and it would be required to offer the job to any equally or better qualified US worker at the same rate it would have to pay the H-1B worker. Under this the US Department of Labor would have authority to review hir-ing decisions, and the Indian IT companies would need to be able to justify on an ap-plicant-by-applicant basis why individual US worker applicants were not equally or better qualified than a par-

ticular H-1B worker. Finally the signifi-cant expansion of govern-ment audits and enforcement authority is considered to be the eighth killer provisions under which the Department of Labor would be required to conduct annual compli-ance audits of all H-1B de-pendent employers. Not only this the Department of Homeland Security would be required to conduct annual audits of all companies with a work-force with more than 15 per cent of workers in L-1 sta-tus. The bill also sig-nificantly increases DOL’s enforcement authority in the H-1B programme and adds new Department of Home-land Security authority to investigate non-compliance in the L-1 programme. It would relax the requirements to commence an investigation and would give the government sub-stantially more authority to investigate any alleged vio-lations. In addition, the bill appears to permit initiation of investigations based on data mining by either De-partment of Homeland Se-curity or the Department of labor, rather than the current requirement that there must be a complaint to commence an investigation.

‘US Natural Gas Exports To India, A ‘Win-win’ Proposition’ Washington, May 8 (PTI): Energy-hungry India, which invested nearly USD 4 billion in US’ tight oil and shale gas sectors from 2008 to 2012, has strongly advo-cated the export of American natural gas to it, saying it presented a “win-win” co-operation opportunity for both nations. “As shale gas has become economically vi-able to produce, the US has emerged as one of the world’s most important gas producing countries,” In-dian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao said, while speaking at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington-based think-tank. “Growth in shale gas production in the com-ing years is now expected to substantially reduce, if not

eliminate, the need for the US to import natural gas, and companies are instead looking to reach new mar-kets beyond electric power, industrial and residential uses, both in the US and overseas,” she said.Rao strongly advocated the case for export of US natural gas to India. “The potential of exports of natural gas from the US, on account of its linkage to the Henry Hub (HH) prices, would imply considerable savings in terms of landed costs in a country like India. We estimate that these savings would be in the range of USD 4-5 per mil-lion metric British Thermal Units (mmbtu),” Rao said. She pointed out that according to the Energy In-formation Administration (EIA) of the US Department

of Energy, in a few years time, around 2020, the total production of natural gas in the US will exceed domestic consumption. “This scenario opens up the possibility of the export of liquefied natu-ral gas (LNG) cargoes from the US to other energy scarce countries, including India, where there is significant untapped potential for natu-ral gas demand in all end use segments,” she said. “This would result in cheaper electricity, lower subsidies on urea and other nitrogenous fertilizers, and a more economical fuel for a variety of industrial and con-sumptive gas usages. Thus, there is a clear and present benefit to India, if exports of US natural gas are permitted to India,” the Indian ambas-sador to the US said.

“The point that I would like to stress is that the advantage is mutual and that natural gas exports rep-resent a ‘win-win’ co-opera-tion opportunity,” Rao said. According to anoth-er EIA study, roughly 20 per-cent of the USD 133.7 billion invested in US tight oil and shale gas from 2008 to 2012 has come from abroad, with Indian companies account-ing for a total investment of nearly USD 4 billion so far. These investments represent more growth, jobs and progress for the US economy and should, in my view, be welcomed, Rao said. Meanwhile, influen-tial Congressman Joe Barton voiced support for export of natural gas to American al-lies, saying it would enhance US’ power and influence.

Siddaramaiah Confident Of Becoming Karnataka CM

Bangalore, May 8 (ANI): With the Congress making a spectacular come-back in Karnataka, senior party leader K. Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said he is con-fident that the national lead-ership would back him to become the state’s new chief minister. “Let us see, I am confident that national party will certainly back me,” said Siddaramaiah, when asked that the Congress has too many contenders for the cov-

eted post. “The question of management doesn’t arise at all. See. it is left to the legisla-tion party and the high com-mand. Let us see what the high command takes a deci-sion,” he added. Meanwhile, Karna-taka Janatha Party (KJP) lead-er Shobha Karandlaje said that her political outfit has taught the BJP a lesson despite not being able to make a mark in the state assembly election. “No it’s okay, ours is a new party, only four months old party. We will build our party. We are not disappointed because we know that it is very new, our symbol is very new, our persons are new, par-ty is new, that’s why we will fight it in future. BJP learnt a lesson; we wanted to teach a lesson to BJP, that we did,” said Karandlaje.


SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Dusty Wind, Not Water, Likely Formed Mound On Mars

Washington, May 7 (ANI): A new analysis has suggested that a roughly 3.5-mile high Martian mound that scientists suspect preserves evidence of a massive lake might actually have formed as a result of the Red Planet’s famously dusty atmosphere. If correct, the re-search could dilute expecta-tions that the mound holds evidence of a large body of water, which would have im-portant implications for un-derstanding Mars’ past habit-ability. Researchers based at Princeton University and the California Institute of Technology suggest that the mound, known as Mount Sharp, most likely emerged as strong winds carried dust and sand into the 96-mile-wide crater in which the mound sits. They reported that air likely rises out of the massive Gale Crater when the Martian surface warms during the day, then sweeps back down its steep walls at night. Though strong along the Gale Crater walls, these “slope winds” would have died down at the crater’s cen-ter where the fine dust in the

air settled and accumulated to eventually form Mount Sharp, which is close in size to Alaska’s Mt. McKinley. This dynamic coun-ters the prevailing theory that Mount Sharp formed from layers of lakebed silt — and could mean that the mound contains less evidence of a past, Earth-like Martian cli-mate than most scientists currently expect. Evidence that Gale Crater once contained a lake in part determined the land-ing site for the NASA Mars rover Curiosity. The rover touched down near Mount Sharp in August with the purpose of uncovering evi-dence of a habitable envi-ronment, and in December Curiosity found traces of clay, water molecules and or-ganic compounds. Determin-ing the origin of these ele-ments and how they relate to Mount Sharp will be a focus for Curiosity in the coming months. But the mound itself was likely never under water, though a body of water could have existed in the moat around the base of Mount Sharp, said study co-author Kevin Lewis, a Princeton as-

sociate research scholar in geosciences and a participat-ing scientist on the Curiosity rover mission, Mars Science Laboratory. The quest to deter-mine whether Mars could have at one time supported life might be better directed elsewhere, he said. “Our work doesn’t preclude the existence of lakes in Gale Crater, but sug-gests that the bulk of the ma-terial in Mount Sharp was de-posited largely by the wind,” said Lewis, who worked with first author Edwin Kite, a planetary science postdoc-toral scholar at Caltech; Mi-chael Lamb, an assistant pro-fessor of geology at Caltech; and Claire Newman and Mark Richardson of Califor-nia-based research company Ashima Research. Even if Mount Sharp were born of wind, it and similar mounds likely overflow with a valuable geological — if not biologi-cal — history of Mars that can help unravel the climate history of Mars and guide fu-ture missions, Lewis said. The paper was pub-lished in the May 2013 issue of the journal Geology.

ISRO To Launch Five Rockets In 2013 S r i h a r i k o t a (Andhra Pradesh), May 6 (ANI): Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) is planning launch five rockets in 2013 from its launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, around 80 km from here. This will in-clude a mission to Mars. Four of the launch-es are expected to happen between June and Decem-ber, including the launch of communication satellite G-Sat 14 using heavier rocket - Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) - powered with a domestic cryogenic engine. “Between June 10 and 15 we are planning to launch the first navigational satellite, Indian Regional Navigation Satellite Sys-tem-R1A (IRNSS-R1A) and it will be followed by the launch of G-Sat 14 some time in July,” a senior of-ficial at Indian Space Re-search Organisation (ISRO) said, preferring anonymity. According to offi-cials, the assembling of two rockets is going on at a good pace at the rocket launch

centre. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-XL (PSLV-XL) version that will carry the navigation satellite is being assembled at the first launch pad. “The assembling of the first stage/engine and the strap on motors has been completed. The second stage is under preparation. The satellite is expected soon from the satellite cen-tre in Bangalore,” officials said. The IRNSS-R1A satellite will be the first of seven satellites to be launched into earth orbit to provide real-time position, navigation and time services to multiple users. The space agency plans to launch the second navigation satellite three months after in-orbit tests of the first one and the remaining five satellites over a 14-month period by 2014-15. These two launches will be followed by the mis-sion to Mars later this year. The launch of one more re-mote sensing satellite is also being planned before the end of this year.

In February this year India launched the Indo-French Saral satellite and six other small foreign satellites using the PSLV rocket. India started putting into space third-party satel-lites for a fee in 1999 on its PSLV-C2 rocket. Since then India has been successful in launching medium-weight satellites for overseas agen-cies. Initially ISRO started carrying third-party satel-lites atop PSLV rockets as co-passengers of its own re-mote sensing/earth observa-tion satellites. In 2007 ISRO for the first time launched an Italian satellite - Agile - as a standalone for a fee. India has earned a revenue of $17.17 million and euro 32.28 million by launching 35 foreign satel-lites till date, parliament was told recently by V. Naraya-nasamy, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office. “Some customers paid in dollars and some in euros and hence we are giv-ing it separately,” an ISRO official said.

Experts Assess How To Save Earth From Possible Asteroid Hits In Future

Washington, May 8 (ANI): Experts have assessed what needs to be done when an asteroid approaches earth, like the one in February, when one slammed into our atmo-sphere and exploded high over Russia’s Ural region, injuring hundreds. Of the more than 600,000 known asteroids in our Solar System, almost 10,000 are classified as near-Earth objects, or NEOs, because their orbits bring them relatively close to Earth’s path. Dramatic proof that any of these can strike Earth came on 15 February, when an unknown object thought to be 17–20 m in diameter arrived at 66,000 km/h and exploded high above Chelyabinsk, Russia, with 20–30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The resulting shock wave caused widespread dam-age and injuries, making it the largest known natural object to have entered the atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event, which destroyed a remote for-

est area of Siberia. “It’s important that we become aware of the current and future position of NEOs, develop estimates on the likeli-hood of impacts and assess the possible consequences,” Detlef Koschny, Head of NEO activi-ties in the Agency’s Space Situ-ational Awareness (SSA) Pro-gramme Office said. “More importantly, we must consider whether and how warning, mitigation and possible deflection actions can be taken. It’s important not only for Europe, but for the rest of the planet, too,” Koschny said. One aspect of ESA’s four-year-old effort requires the development of an integrated system to scan the sky nightly for as-yet-undiscovered NEOs. Another important element is studying how mitiga-tion measures can be applied in the case of smaller NEOs, and how to deflect any larger ones that may seriously threaten our home planet. This week, Deimos Space, an industrial partner

working for ESA on SSA, has invited top researchers from universities, research institutes, national space agencies and in-dustry in Europe and the USA to discuss the state of the art in NEO impact effects and threat mitigation. The meeting is tak-ing place in Tres Cantos, Spain, near Madrid. “A great deal of work remains to be done, for exam-ple, in computer modelling of impact effects, how airbursts differ from ground strikes, ki-netic versus explosive deflec-tion strategies and much more,” Gerhard Drolshagen, of the SSA Programme Office said. “The aim is to develop plans that will guide us in cur-rent and future NEO research and development,” he said. Ultimately, ESA aims to develop the capability to inte-grate European current and new assets such as automated tele-scopes into a coordinated and more efficient NEO system that can provide nightly sky surveys and advanced warning.

Construction Of World’s Largest Radio Telescope To Begin In 2016

Washington, May 8 (ANI): Less than a year after the decision to site the revolu-tionary Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in both Southern Africa and Australia, the SKA Organi-sation has opened its new inter-national headquarters. In front of an invited audience of local and global dignitaries, scientists and en-gineers, the UK Minister for Universities and Science the Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP recently opened the building which will be home to the team managing the construction, de-sign and scientific output of this groundbreaking telescope. The SKA Organisa-tion headquarters, located near to, and with views of the iconic Lovell Telescope at the Uni-versity of Manchester`s Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK, will be the central control hub for a global team who, over the next decade, will be building the SKA- the largest telescope ever seen on Earth. “The Square Kilo-metre Array is set to be one of the world`s most exciting

international science projects, giving us new and unparalleled insights into the universe,” said the UK Minister for Universi-ties and Science the Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP. The elegant and mod-ern 3.34 million pounds build-ing, funded by the University of Manchester, is a state of the art facility that will eventually be home to upwards of 60 mem-bers of staff, including visiting scientists and engineers. Designed by archi-tects Fielden Clegg Bradley and built by John Turner Con-struction Group, the building uses numerous environmentally friendly engineering solutions by Capita Symonds to ensure a minimal environmental impact. The Square Kilome-tre Array is a radio telescope, which will be built in the re-mote and radio quiet deserts of Australia and Southern Africa. These seemingly harsh loca-tions have been carefully cho-sen for their remoteness from any possible man made radio interference. The SKA will comprise thousands of radio

telescopes, which will be locat-ed in these two desert locations, and will also have dishes and antennas spread over thousands of kilometers to create a single giant telescope. The SKA telescope will be attempting to unravel the most profound mysteries of humanity and will revolution-ize our understanding of the universe. The project is led by the SKA Organisation, a not-for-profit company, which includes multiple countries around the world including Australia, Canada, China, Ger-many, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and the UK. With India also as an associate member, the SKA Organisation is expected to embrace more countries over the coming years. With such a formidable scale, international collaboration is fundamental to this gigantic 21st Century proj-ect. Construction of the SKA is due to begin in 2016 us-ing a phased development ap-proach.

INDIA THIS WEEK May 10, 2013 INDIA THIS WEEK April 12, 2013 Page 37


Sachin Stars In Mumbai’s Win Against KKR Mumbai: Kolkata Knight Riders failed to breach the fortress of Mumbai Indi-ans at Wankhede stadium and lost badly by a margin of 65 runs here on Tuesday. Sachin Tendulkar played his master strokes to give his side a great start as he added 93 runs for the opening stand with Dwayne Smith. Tendulkar scored 48 runs off 28 balls whereas Smith scored 47 runs off 53 balls. Dinesh Karthik played a brilliant cameo of 34 runs off 18 balls and took his team to a stiff total of 170 in their 20 overs. The trio of Harbha-jan Singh, Pragyan Ojha and Mitchell Johnson once again turned the fortunes in Mum-bai’s favour as they picked up seven wickets amongst them. Chasing the target, Kolkata Knight Riders were off to a terrible start as they lost the wicket of Gautam Gambhir in very first over as Johnson got the inside edge

of his bat which allowed the ball to hit the stumps. Manvinder Bisla and Jacques Kallis tried their best to reconstruct the innings but after adding 38 runs for the second wicket, Bisla got stumped in the sev-enth over and from there on KKR lost their way. Yusuf Pathan and Jacques Kallis did show some aggressive intent before they got out for 24 runs and 13 runs respec-tively. Ojha dismissed Bisla and Pathan who could have been dangerous. Debabrata Das showed some fight from one end but lost partners at the other end and KKR finally winded up for just 105 runs in 18.2 overs. Das was caught and bowled by Harbhajan who also got Rajat Bhatia out in his next over and end-ed the spell with 3/27.Johnson came back to bowl his final over and got the wicket of Sunil Narine and ended his spell with 2/13. Earlier in the match, it was the Master-Blaster

who smashed Ryan McLaren for five consecutive fours and set up the tempo of the match. He kept dealing in boundaries and compensat-ed for the slow start in the best possible away. Though Dwayne struggled to clear the ropes but he did well to rotate the strike with the the Master Blaster. They added 93 runs for the opening stand as Tendulkar was dismissed after scoring 48 runs off just 28 balls and was followed by Dwayne who scored 47 runs in the 14th over. Mumbai lost the next four wickets for just 45 runs. Rohit Sharma departed after scoring 16 runs off 11 balls and Keiron Pollard turned out to be a disappoint-ment with the bat as he got out after scoring four runs. However Dinesh Karthik came to the res-cue as he played a brilliant cameo of 34 runs off 18 balls whereas Johnson scored 10 runs off 6 balls which took the MI total to 170 runs in their 20 overs.

Miller Power Kings XI Over RCB Mohali: David Miller played an outstanding innings for Kings XI Punjab as he scored 101 runs off just 38 balls to win this ex-citing match against Royal Challengers Bangalore at PCA Stadium on Monday. Miller helped Kings XI to chase down the target of 191 in just 18 overs which was unbelievable. He smacked eight fours and seven monstrous sixes on his way to the scintillating century that captivated the crowd. He had a partnership of 130 runs with R Sathish for the fifth wicket as the duo scored 99 runs from 14th to 18th over to take their side to a comfortable win. R Sathish contributed 27 runs off 18 balls and kept his cool under some serious pressure. Earlier, it was Man-preet Gony who picked up the wickets of Chris Gayle and Chetashwar Pujara who contributed 61 runs and 51 runs in RCB’s score of 190. Punjab was off to a terrible start as they lost their opening pair of Shaun

Marsh and Mandeep Singh at the score of 25 in just 4.2 overs. Gurkeerat Singh and David Hussey started to rebuild the innings but couldn’t really keep the mo-mentum going and lost their wickets to Murali Kartik and Punjab was reduced to 4/64 in 9.5 overs. When it looked it was all over for Punjab, David Miller once again rose to the occasion. Miller started smashing fours and sixes with ease which sim-ply changed the complexion of the game. He was dropped at the score of 41 runs by none other than Virat Kohli. Koh-li failed to cease the mo-ment and lost the occasion as Miller went onto to add 130 runs with R Sathish and took his side to a comfort-able win. This duo scored 99 runs in the last five overs of the innings and won the match with two overs to spare. Miller scored a ter-rific century off just 38 balls and was very well compli-mented by Sathish, who scored 27 runs off just 18 balls.

Earlier in the match, it was the opening duo of Pujara and Gayle who did the damage to Punjab’s bowling attack as they add-ed 102 runs for the opening stand. Gayle departed after contributing 61 runs off 33 balls. He scored six fours and three sixes in his knock whereas Pujara smashed eight fours in his 51 runs. Both the openers were sent back to pavilion by Manpre-et Gony who ended his spell with the figures of 2/41. AB de Villiers took the centre stage for RCB and started off slowly. Kohli departed after scoring run-a-ball 14 which brought Moi-ses Henriques to the crease. Piyush Chawla also bowled brilliantly as he gave away just 26 runs in his four overs. But Henriques and De Villiers knitted a bril-liant partnership of 46 runs for the fourth wicket and took the score to 190 runs. De Villiers played another crackling innings of 38 runs off just 19 balls whereas Henriques smashed 16 runs of seven balls that he faced.

Table Tennis:

Indian Men Enter Final,

Women Settle For Bronze New Delhi: The In-dian men, thanks to the hero-ics of Soumyajit Ghosh, de-feated a determined England 3-2 to earn a final meeting with Singapore in the 19th edition of the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships at the Thyagraj Stadium here today. Singapore, asserting their superiority in the cham-pionships, had earlier downed Scotland 3-1. The Indian women team, on the other hand, made hara-kiri of a good opportu-nity and went down 2-3 in the semifinals to England, who will take on Singapore in the final. The defending cham-pions, keeping their top bill-ing intact, simply disposed of Malaysia 3-0. Both India and Malaysia will be placed joint third and are entitled to the bronze medals. The two the semi-finals, involving the Indians, threw up more anxious mo-ments than any thrills as India began rather on a bad note. World No. 69 Achanta Sharath Kamal, who lost 10-12, 11-4, 10-12, 9-11, was very tenta-tive against Samuel Walker, ranked 545 in the world, and it was telling upon his game. After leading 7-4 and then 10-9 he allowed Walker to over-whelm him in the first game. Though he managed to win the next at 11-4, the Indian’s psyche was nowhere near his best and it allowed Walker to

walk away with the match. But Soumyajit Ghosh was on a different planet on the day. Unleash-ing his blistering forehands and mixing them with clever blocks, the national champion took complete control over Andrew Baggaley to win in straight games of 11-7, 11-8, 11-4. Ghosh kept raising his game as he went about pun-ishing the error-prone Baggal-ey who struggled to keep pace with the Indian. After losing the first two games, the top-ranked English player (145) here could not pull himself up as he lost the third game meekly, managing just four points. Harmeet Desai found the defensive Daniel Reed hard to contend with. Desai was patchy, to say the least, though some of his backhand strokes caught Reed on the wrong foot. Yet, his 2-3 loss brought back more pres-sure on the Indian camp as the onus was on Sharath to win his game against Baggaley to give India semblance of a chance. Sharath, who had never lost to Baggaley, did precisely that and won 3-0 to leave India’s fortunes in Ghosh’s hands. The national champion did not let the country down as he beat Walker 3-0. Though Walker extended Ghosh in the second game to 12-10, the re-sult was never in doubt. Even before the In-

dian women began their semi-final match, the team was low on confidence with India’s No. 1 player K. Shamini not mak-ing it to playing line-up. It ul-timately rubbed on the players and despite brave efforts from Neha Aggarwal, who has kept a clean slate so far, and Mou-ma Das India had to bow out with the bronze medal. “Shamini was lack-ing in confidence and was car-rying some niggles. She want-ed to play the third singles. Bur we couldn’t risk playing her,” explained coach Bha-wani Mukherjee. But asked why Madhurika was preferred over Neha as the second plyer, he said: “We thought a good defensive and offensive player would come in handy, but she could not come up to expecta-tions,” said the coach. Mouma, playing a see-saw match against Kelly Sibley, managed to extend her English rival but lost 3-2. Madhurika Patkar went down in straight games to Joanna Parker with the latter com-pletely outplaying her. How-ever, it was Neha who provid-ed India the little spark with a top-shot game to beat Hannah Hicks 3-2. Mouma, making amends for the initial loss, brought her experience to the fore to beat Joanna 3-0. But Madhurika, despite raising a vision of recovery by India, went down to a superior Kelly 11-4, 2-11, 9-11, 6-11.

Churchill Brothers Crowned

I-League Champions Vasco: Churchill Brothers Sports Club man-aged a 1-1 draw against Mo-hun Bagan to emerge I-League champions for the second time at the Tilak Maidan, Vasco, on Tuesday. The draw took Churchill’s points tally to an insurmountable 52 points with a match in hand. Pune FC is the only team which can have the same number of points but Churchill enjoy a better head-to-head record against Pune FC which made them the champions. CS Sabeeth had pro-vided Bagan with a super lead inside 17 minutes but India Captain Sunil Chhetri scored

the goal that mattered the most. Churchill Brothers seemed extremely nervous at the start and could not en-force their free-flowing game. With the prospect of winning the title possibly winning the title weighing heavily on their minds, Churchill were hesitant to move forward. Mohun Bagan, in sharp contrast, were relaxed and dominated the early parts of the match. Bagan surged ahead in the 27th minute when Quinton Jacobs snatched the ball from Brazilian midfielder Roberto Mendes da Silva and sent a long ball which Sabeeth

did well to control, then beat two markers and finish from an acute angle. It was this goal that silenced the crowd but was in tune with the proceedings on the field. Bagan was the far superior side and it showed till the end of the first half as Churchill Brothers rarely troubled the rival defence. In the second session, Bagan continued from where they had left. The visitors had a great chance to make it 2-0 and possibly kill Churchill’s resolve but Syed Rahim Nabi, shockingly, shot wide from very close range after Sandip Nandy had barely managed to parry the ball away.


Ronnie O’sullivan Wins Snooker WC Crown London, May 7 (ANI): English profes-sional snooker player Ron-nie O’Sullivan won his fifth World Championship crown and compiled a new record of six centuries in a Crucible final following a 18-12 vic-tory over fellow Englishman Barry Hawkins. According to the BBC, O’Sullivan is the third man to retain the title at the venue, adding that he is the fourth player, after Stephen Hendry (1997), John Hig-gins (1998) and Matthew

Stevens (2000), to make five tons in a Crucible final. H o w e v e r , O’Sullivan paid tribute to Hawkins, saying that the Kent left-hander had given him a ‘brilliant tournament’ and had forced him to apply his skills to the maximum, adding that he found it very difficult to defeat Hawkins. According to the report, O’Sullivan played some of his most fluent snooker of the tournament, making four century breaks to surpass seven-time world

champion Hendry’s previous record of 127 at the Crucible and take a 10-7 overnight lead. Praising O’Sullivan, Hawkins said that the easy way in which Hawkins plays is frightening for most play-ers, adding that he is glad that he made a game of it and pushed him a bit. According to Hawkins, although he is disappointed that he lost, he feels gratified by the fact that he lost against one of the best players in the world.

Nepal Crowned ICC World Cricket

League III Champions Bermuda (West Indies), May 6 (ANI): Ne-pal thrashed Uganda by five wickets in the finals of the ICC World Cricket league Di-vision III in a match played at the National Sports Stadium in Bermuda over the weekend, Two half centuries, one from opener Pradeep Airee (60) and and second by Sharad Vesawkar (50*) en-sured a favourable result for Nepal. Nepal and Uganda now advance to the ICC Crick-et World Cup Qualifier, which will be held in New Zealand in January 2014, nepalnews

reports. The two sides will compete with eight other lead-ing Associate and Affiliate sides for the final two posi-tions in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. Nepal captain Paras Khadka said the win felt un-believable. “We worked really hard for it. And, having lost the first couple of games, no one gave us an outright chance, but we still believed in ourselves and our ability. Everything worked in favour of us and, as they say, fortune favours the brave. I feel glad.

We have reached where we always wanted to, and now it is a matter of preparing our-selves even better. If we pre-pare really well, things are looking in good shape for us,” he said. Uganda captain Da-vis Arinaitwe was still proud of his side’s achievements. “Qualifying for the ICC Cricket World Cup Quali-fier was our primary objective when we got here, we first put our sights on trying to qualify for that tournament, so I felt that for us, that is an achieve-ment that we can take back home,” he said.

Pakistan Accuses New Zealand Of Sabotaging

Davis Cup Tie After Losing ITF Appeal

Sydney, May 8 (ANI): The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) has turned nasty over a re-sult reversal of last month’s Da-vis Cup Asia-Oceania Group-II tie against New Zealand. New Zealand got into a tie because the grass court surface in Myanmar had been touted as unplayable and dan-gerous by Sri Lankan referee, Ashita Ajigala, stuff.co.nz re-ports. Accusing New Zea-land players of sabotaging the court, the PTF has said that the

referee had a biased attitude towards New Zealand as it de-clined its players from toilet breaks and is responsible for the court’s bad state. The report said that security reasons prevented the tie from being played in Paki-stan but the country was respon-sible for correct court behaviour as it was the host country for the Davis Cup. According to the re-port, Ajigala had stopped the tie match midway to award New Zealand the winning title.

Pakistan’s appeal against the decision has been rejected by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), who has declined a match replay re-quest. While PTF president Kaleem Imam said that further appeals can be made to the ITF’s director till May 30, Ten-nis New Zealand chief execu-tive Steve Johns said they were preparing for the Kiwis’ Asia Oceania Group 2 final to be held in September, irrespective of Pakistan’s appeal.

Manchester United Manager Alex

Ferguson To Retire May 19, 2013 London: Alex Fer-guson is retiring at the end of the season, bringing close a trophy-filled career of more than 26 years at Manchester United that es-tablished him as the most successful coach in British football history. “The decision to

retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not tak-en lightly,” the 71-year-old Scotsman said in a state-ment on Wednesday. The club, which is owned by the American Glazer family and listed on the New York Stock

Exchange, did not immedi-ately announce a successor. Since taking charge at Old Trafford in 1986, Ferguson has won a total of 38 trophies, in-cluding 13 Premier League championships, two Cham-pions League titles and five FA Cups.

india this week - may 10, 2013

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