The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Saturday, April 7, 2001,
Chandigarh, India

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Jaswant invites Bush to India

Washington, April 6
In a significant development, the External Affairs Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, today had an unscheduled meeting with the US President Mr George W. Bush, at the White House as Washington declared that it would engage New Delhi at “every level.”

The Bush-Singh meeting lasted for 15 minutes during which the US President was invited to visit India, White House sources said adding that Mr Bush had accepted the invitation.

The meeting with Mr Bush was followed by Mr Jaswant Singh’s scheduled talks with the US National Security Adviser Ms Condolezza Rice and the Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, in the first high-level contact between the two countries since the change of guard in Washington this January.

Emerging from the luncheon meeting with Mr Singh, Powell told reporters that the meeting covered a wide range of issues, including the nuclear non-proliferation, economic and trade cooperation and regional issues.

Mr Powell said he assured Mr Singh “the Bush administration would engage India at every level.”

“We had a very fine meeting and it was indicative of the importance the USA attaches to its relations with India,” he said.

Mr Singh, who is also the Defence Minister, will also hold talks with his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld.

The Bush-Singh meeting, according to sources, set the tone and parameters of the Indian Minister’s interactions with Rice and Powell in what is widely seen to be a “getting-to-know you” excercise. Ms Rice, unlike the hawks in the Republican administration who see India from a Cold War perspective, is keen on building relations with India as a counter to Asian regional power China.

The current stand-off between Washington and Beijing over the release of the spy plane crew provides an ideal setting for talks between the two leaders exploring the possibility of strategic cooperation between the countries notwithstanding Washington’s nuclear proliferation concerns. PTI/UNI

CMO, others down with jaundice
Chander Parkash
Tribune News Service

Malout, April 6
The Chief Medical Officer (CMO), local Civil Hospital, Dr Balkar Singh, has been lying in bed suffering from jaundice and liquid glucose is being injected into his veins at his house here.

Dr Balkar Singh is the sixth employee of local Civil Hospital who has been afflicted with jaundice in the past few weeks. Earlier, hundreds of people had been afflicted with jaundice in this town and even pharmacists and members of the paramedical staff of the local Civil Hospital remained under treatment for jaundice for days together.

Though the district health authorities claimed that after the distribution of chlorination tablets and organisation of health education camp in the town, the number of jaundice patients was on the decline, five cases of jaundice had been reported in the Civil Hospital till today.

During the last month, 42 patients of jaundice reported at the Civil Hospital for treatment while a major section of the residents of the town, where jaundice seemed to have acquired an epidemic dimension and had reportedly claimed one life, got treatment at private hospitals.

Information gathered by The Tribune revealed that after the press started reporting about the spread of jaundice in the town the authorities concerned swung into action and started taking preventive measures.

However, the authorities concerned allegedly dispatched expired chlorine tablets to the local health authorities for distribution among the residents to purify their drinking water.

Dr Balkar Singh, when contacted, said expired chlorine tablets were not accepted by the local staff members and were returned to the doctor who had brought these. He added that fresh chlorine tablets were sent for distribution among the people.

He claimed that the number of jaundice patients was on the decline.

However, The Tribune gathered that cases of jaundice were still present in Patel Nagar, Guru Nanak Nagar, Dr Pritpal Singh Wali Gali, Makkar area, Sacha Sauda Road, Ajit Singh Nagar, Ekta Nagar and Purani Mandi Hajiram Wali area.

The report of chemical examination of water samples, which were taken about four weeks after cases of jaundice started breaking out in the town, could not be known from the authorities concerned.