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Monday,
May 28, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Minister of cash-strapped UP on foreign jaunts Cyclone loses intensity Rajasthan cops on Prabhakar’s trail 16 killed as storm hits UP |
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It’ll take time to normalise ties: Gujral India doesn’t rule out conventional war
Mamata-led delegation to meet President Blaming should stop: Cong Living together not illegal: HC Kant to attend G-15 summit Normal monsoon predicted Abducted girls freed; headmaster arrested Joint naval command on cards GSAT I loses link with ISRO Water situation in Mussoorie grim
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Minister of cash-strapped UP on foreign jaunts Lucknow, May 27 Some go to the United States of America ostensibly to study the power situation there, one took off for New York to understand its law and order machinery, while a third was keen on studying agricultural development schemes in Europe and Arab countries. According to officials, ministers and senior bureaucrats have consumed nearly Rs 50 million over the past year in innumerable foreign visits mostly classified as study tours. The trips continue despite orders by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee restricting foreign travel by ministers and asking them to seek permission from the Prime Minister’s office in case a journey seems vital. Yet Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and ruled by Mr Vajpayee’s own Bharatiya Janata Party, complains it does not have enough cash to pay salary to its 1.6 million employees, and has often sought overdraft from the Reserve Bank of India. But when it comes to foreign jaunts by ministers and officials, it readily doles out its largesse. A government official said: “None of these trips are of any use to Uttar Pradesh, which faces unending shortage of drinking water, very poor sanitation, irrigation and health facilities, and high illiteracy.” Energy Minister Naresh Agarwal and Agriculture Minister Diwakar Vikram Singh appear to be most eager to go abroad. Mr Agarwal has virtually toured the globe to study the power systems and to find ways and means to replicate these for Uttar Pradesh, where power outages are an endemic problem. No one knows what came out of his three much-publicised visits to the U.S.A., Canada, Japan and some other countries, but sure enough the state’s coffers were less down by a couple of hundred thousand rupees each time Mr Agarwal went on a “study tour”. The latest one to undertake a ‘study tour’ is Mr Diwakar Vikram Singh, who has gone on a 15-day trip to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Cairo and Dubai. Mr Singh’s delegation includes two administrative officers, a departmental official and, to top it, his son. An aide said the son had accompanied the father on his personal expense. But other sources maintain the young man was included in the delegation as a representative of an NGO. The trip has raised many eyebrows. Samajwadi Party state chief Ram Saran Das wants to know what the minister was going to study in these places. “It is sheer vandalism of the state exchequer.” Chief Minister Rajnath Singh could not be reached for comment. Most government officials are not ready to speak on record. This was the Agriculture Minister’s second foreign visit. Barely 18 months back, he went to the USA, South Africa, the Netherlands, Israel and Egypt. Several senior officials had accompanied him then too. Only the ministry’s secretary, Keshav Desh Raju, was left behind, allegedly because the minister did not like his “forthright” and “defiant” ways. “The trip cost the state exchequer about Rs.4.3 million,” an official said. “Nothing worthwhile came out of it for the agriculture sector. Indeed, not even a report was prepared after the tour.”
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Cyclone loses intensity Ahmedabad, May 27 The storm, churning in the Arabian Sea, is now located 450 km southwest of the port town of Porbandar in Gujarat and is expected to hit the state coast by tomorrow evening between Veraval and Nalia, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said. Earlier, the cyclone showed signs of recurve and headed a little away from Gujarat but latest observations showed it was again moving towards the Gujarat coast, IMD Director A.B. Mazumdar told PTI in Pune. He said though the cyclone had weakened from “very severe” to “severe”, its intensity was very high and it had now picked up momentum after remaining stationary for more than 24 hours. Government offices in Saurashtra, Kutch and the state capital were opened today as the Gujarat Government braced itself to meet any eventuality. Over 8,000 persons from low-lying areas were shifted to safer places and fishermen advised not to venture out to the sea, official sources said. Army and other paramilitary forces were kept standby in coastal districts, they said, adding that the entry of people into port areas, including Kandla which was devastated by a cyclone in 1998, had been banned.
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Rajasthan cops on Prabhakar’s trail New Delhi, May 27 The police went on a look-out for Prabhakar after a court in Haldwani (Nainital) issued non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against him for defrauding general public of crores of rupees and asked the police to execute these at the earliest. The Uttaranchal police subsequently sent a team of officers to Delhi, where the cricketer resides, to arrest him. The team, however, returned empty-handed as Prabhakar was not in the Capital. Later, the police came to know that he had gone to Rajasthan capital to participate in some “seminar”. Uttaranchal Director-General of Police A.K. Sharan said on phone from Dehra Dun, “Now that we know that Prabhakar is in Jaipur, we are intimating the Rajasthan police about the NBWs and have requested it to arrest him. If necessary, we will also sent our teams.” Prabhakar is scheduled to return to his home in a couple of days. But the police suspects that once he comes to know about the issuance of the NBWs, he may delay his arrival to the Capital or may move to some “safer” place. UNI |
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16 killed as storm hits UP Lucknow, May 27 Nine workers of a distillery unit in the Mangalwara area were killed when its godown building collapsed after a storm hit Unnao district near Kanpur last night. The SP, Unnao, Mr Anant Swarup, told PTI that four others died in Thathipur tehsil and one in the Azgain police station area of the district while two died in Bareilly district. The high velocity thunderstorm caused widespread damage snapping telephone and power lines in Lucknow, Kanpur and the adjoining areas and uprooting trees, reports said. Isolated rains, however, brought down the mercury to below normal, the Met office said. Allahabad and Kanpur were the hottest places recording a maximum of 43°C temperature during the last 24 hours while Lucknow today recorded 37.2°C, four degrees below normal. PTI
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Naidu for more power to states Visakhapatnam, May 27 Mr Naidu, while inaugurating the three-day plenum of the TDP said concerted efforts were needed by both Centre and the states to protect the country’s interests in the wake of the second generation reforms and the removal of quantitative restrictions. He also called for the removal of all Centrally sponsored schemes so that the states shouldered more responsibility. Lashing out at the vilification campaign against reforms by the Congress, Mr Naidu said the latter, though responsible for mooting reforms in 1991, was now putting impediments in the path of their execution to slow down progress. He added that the Congress had “adopted double standards in the non-Congress states for political expediency”. He cited the example of the party disrupting the proceedings in Parliament and also the state Assembly following the Tehelka expose and blocking efforts for passing the Panchayati Raj Bill in Parliament, which could ensure more
decentralisation. UNI |
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Verdict on Wah India today New Delhi, May 27 The five-member special Bench headed by Chief Justice Arijit Pasayat will pronounce the judgement at 1030 hours on May 7, the court had asked magazine’s Editor Madhu Trehan and her colleagues to modify their apologies. The Bench comprising Mr Justice D.K. Jain, Mr Justice Arun Kumar, Mr Justice Anil Dev Singh and Mr Justice O.P. Dwivedi had said it was considering the acceptability of an unconditional and unqualified apology tendered by the magazine staffers. In its criminal contempt petition, the Bar Council of Delhi had said the article titled “Judge Out was written, edited and printed with mala fide intention to malign the offices of the judiciary and judges. Wah India had clarified in its write-up that the survey published in its April 16-30 issue reflected opinion of at least 50 lawyers and was by no means an attempt to cast any aspersion on the competence of the judiciary, but was a small and humble attempt to hold a mirror on it. The magazine said the survey should be an eye-opener to some of the judges to learn what lawyers, who appeared before them every day, thought of them. The court said the write-up did not gave a representative view of the bar which had over 4,000 members. Also, there was no certification to find out whether there was any truth in the opinion of lawyers interviewed. In an affidavit filed before the court on May 2, Mrs Trehan said: “I hereby tender an unconditional and unqualified apology and express my deep regret for the article. It was published on the lines of similar articles published abroad and was not meant to cast any aspersions on the institution or any judge of the High Court.” Wah India’s counsel Ashok Desai admitted that there was no double-checking after conducting the survey to verify facts.
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It’ll take time to normalise ties: Gujral New Delhi, May 27 Cautioning against being euphoric about it, Mr Gujral said normalising relations between the two nations would be a slow process and not an event. ‘’All previous governments have been trying to establish friendly ties with Pakistan. But its response was not good. Some military elements have been creating problems. A visit of General Musharraf will show if there is any qualitative shift in Islamabad’s thinking,’’ Mr Gujral said in an interview. Civil societies in both countries want peace but fundamentalist elements in Pakistan had so far an upper hand. ‘’Their internal instablity eliminated the democratic process and made the voice of fundamentalist forces stronger.’’ General Musharraf will be the first head of government from Islamabad to make an official visit to India since Gen Zia-ul-Haq who visited New Delhi in 1987. Deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had come in May 1991 to attend Rajiv Gandhi’s funeral. Within India, Mr Gujral said, the Vajpayee government should now tranquilise the situation in Jammu and Kashmir so that our external position could be controlled. Mr Gujral expressed satisfaction over the initiative of Central Government’s negotiator K.C. Pant to open a dialogue with Kashmiri leaders. There were certain shortcomings in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly resolution on autonomy over which the Pant initiative must evolve a common platform with the Kashmiri leaders, he said. However, the government should have launched the pant peace process right after declaration of a unilateral ceasefire in November last year, said the author of the Gujral doctrine who was an External Affairs Minister in the Deve Gowda government. Mr Gujral had eased visa restrictions during his tenure and held four rounds of talks with Mr Sharif. He said India should emphasise that the secular character of Kashmir had to be preserved. There could be no bifurcation or trifurcation as had been suggested by some elements, he said. The talks between India and Pakistan come nearly 19 months after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee undertook the famous bus journey to Lahore. Mr Gujral said New Delhi should not limit the forthcoming talks to Pakistan’s interference in Kashmir but extend it to a composite dialogue process (CDP). The CDP, agreed upon between Mr Vajpayee and Mr Sharif in
New York in September 1998, includes an eight-point agenda. Mr Gujral denounced the Hurriyat Conference for claiming to be a true and sole representative of the Kashmiri people. ‘’What are their basic credentials? They did not win even a municipality election. Self-recognition means nothing. International talks are held between two countries,’’ he said, suggesting they keep their views within the Pant peace process. He also said India must urge European countries to withdraw hidden subsidies on agricultural products and speed up the removal of import quotas on Indian goods. ‘’Powerful nations have cheated us in agriculture,’’ he said. ‘’They asked us to withdraw subsidies but continue to provide the same to their farmers through backdoor. India must ensure that subsidies on European agricultural goods are genuinely removed.’’
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India doesn’t rule out conventional war New Delhi, May 27 In such an eventuality, the battlefield will be the integrated command, control, communications, computer, intelligence and information (c-4, i-2) assets, target acquisition, highly lethal precision weapon systems and a non-linear battlefield with real-time surveillance. According to an official report, the future battlefield is likely to be more digitised and transparent and would experience an exponential increase in the deployment of electronic devices signalling the growing primacy of the electro-magnetic spectrum. The future conflicts would be dominated by a wide variety of platforms and delivery systems with increased ranges and accuracy as well as terminally-guided and precision-guided munitions. According to the report of the high-profile Group of Ministers on National Security, while India needs to ensure a credible nuclear deterrence to prevent the possibility of a nuclear misadventure by its potential adversaries, it has to simultaneously maintain adequate and duly-modernised conventional forces which are properly managed, led and equipped to take advantage of the revolution in military affairs and which can take care of any possible conventional conflicts. The report says that Pakistan would continue to pose a threat to India’s security in future also. Its traditional hostility and single-minded aim of destabilising India were not focused just on Kashmir “but on a search of parity.’’ “This arises out of the two-nation theory coupled with a desire to exact revenge for the 1971 humiliation over the separation of Bangladesh. This has been accentuated by the Kargil war of 1999.” Pakistan posed a threat not only to India but to the stability of the region as well through its nexus with the Taliban and “Jehadi” elements as well as its involvement in religious extremism, international terrorism and the narcotics trade. Pakistan’s military regime may act “irrationally”, particularly in view of its propensity to function through terrorist outfits, as a result of its political and economic instability. In the belief that nuclear weapons could compensate for conventional military inferiority, Pakistani leaders had not concealed their desire to use nuclear weapons against India. “General Musharraf’s proclaimed desire to talk to India rings hollow against the backdrop of continuing Pakistani support for militants and its unremitting obsession with Kashmir. Pakistan is following the policy of bleeding India through a thousand cuts.’’ Expressing concern over Pakistan’s weapons acquisition from the West and China and its close collaboration with China and North Korea on nuclear and missile matters, the report says that Pakistan would continue to seek further enhancement in the quality of its weapons to attempt to offset its conventional quantitative military inferiority vis-a-vis India. It points out that destabilising India through actively sponsored terrorism was a matter of state policy of Pakistan and there were numerous training centres in Pakistan, PoK and Afghanistan where potential extremists were being trained. Since the Kargil war and the military coup of October 12, 1999, Pakistan’s support to cross-border terrorism had intensified and was expected to continue in the future. The rapid growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan was also of serious concern to India. The increase in cross-border interference by one state in the internal environment of another, arising out of territorial, religious, cultural and ethnic factors and the easy availability of sophisticated weaponry in international markets, would continue at least in short and medium terms, the report says. In Punjab, the situation needed to be kept under close watch. Many pro-Khalistan militants continued to enjoy shelter in Pakistan and there were reports of plans to revive terrorism in Punjab. Subversive propaganda was being aired from Pakistani Punjab province. The appointment of a former head of the ISI as Chairman (a Muslim) of the Sikh
Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee in Pakistan was an indicator of Pakistan’s mala fide intentions.
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Nation
pays tributes to Nehru New Delhi, May 27 The dignitaries offered floral tributes at Shantivan, the samadhi of the architect of modern India. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh also paid homage at the samadhi. President K.R. Narayanan, who was scheduled to visit Shantivan, cancelled the visit at the last moment because of bad weather.
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Breach Candy spruced up for PM Mumbai, May 27 Some city-based specialists are likely to assist Dr Ranawat and his team members. All 13 rooms on the seventh floor and two on the sixth floor of the hospital are being spruced up with a fresh coat of paint, according to hospital sources. More than 12 personnel of the PM’s SPG guards have surveyed the surrounding buildings under the guidance of a senior police official along with the Director (Administration), Dr A.H. Bhatkande. While Dr Ranawat will arrive here on June 5, Mr Vajpayee is slated to land on June 6. The operation will be performed on June 7. New York-based Dr Ranawat, who is of Indian origin, visits the hospital every year to perform total knee replacement operations. He will bring his team of doctors along with a set of special medical equipment for the VIP patient as last time in October when he operated upon Mr Vajpayee’s left knee.
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‘Panchjanya’ Editor flays govt for ignoring BMS New Delhi, May 27 squarely blaming the government for not initiating a dialogue with the BMS over the proposed labour law reforms and disinvestment, he warned that the BMS could not be taken for granted. Mr Vijay, considered close to RSS chief K. Sudarshan, vent his ire on the differences between the government and the BMS over the proposed economic reforms in an interview to SAB TV programme “Line of Fire”. “I think the whole issue deals with the arrogance of power. Some of the BJP ministers who are in power think that they know everything and they can do whatever they think is right and they just don’t have to ask anyone else,” he said. Asked who he was referring to, he said “I am talking about Mr Sinha. If he takes decisions of this kind, it simply shows his arrogance of power.” Mr Vijay said the BMS was the largest labour union of the country and it knew what was happening in the labour sector. But some minister “thinks that he can take any decision without consulting the millions and millions of people,” represented by the union.
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Mamata-led delegation to meet President Kolkata, May 27 The delegation includes Mr Sudip Bandopadhyya, MP, and Mr Pankaj Banerjee, MLA and the party’s leader in the Assembly. The leaders will carry with them a detailed report on how the police the elections machinery and the CPM cadres “jointly” worked in rigging the elections that led to the defeat to the Trinamool Congress candidates. This will be Ms Banerjee’s first visit to the Delhi after her resignation from the Vajpayee government and the party’s debacle in the elections. During her visit to the Capital, she may meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi, but not Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee or any other NDA leader. She will not meet the Lok Sabha Speaker to formally inform him about their decision to withdraw support from the NDA. Ms Banerjee said besides lodging a complaint with the President, they would move the court. All candidates who had lost to the CPM by a margin of 10,000 to 15,000 votes would file a suit individually and constituency-wise against the CPM with an appeal for reholding the
elections. The TC contested in 228 seats of the total 294 and won in 62. But in 20 seats, its candidates lost by a margin of 10,000 votes. The Congress which was allowed to contest in only 59 seats, however, won in 28. The BJP which fought in 294 seats, including 10 by NDA partners, failed to gain any seat. Though both Congress and BJP raised allegations against the way the elections were held, they did not formally lodge any complaint with the Election Commission. The Congress which fought jointly with the TC on a seat-sharing arrangement will not accompany Ms Banerjee to the President. Mr Somen Mitra and Mr Pradip Bhattacharyya met Ms Sonia Gandhi on Friday in New Delhi and formally submitted a report to her on the party’s performances in the elections. The leaders tried to convince her that the Congress could have done better if it had not made any seat adjustment pact with the TC and fielded candidates in a larger number of seats. They also suggested that the State Congress should be revamped and rejuvenated. Ms Gandhi, however, advised them to continue to work under the present setup and keep a close contact with the TC. |
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Blaming should stop: Cong Kolkata, May 27 “We should stop blaming each other and it is time for introspection,” state Congress Vice-President Pradip Bhattacharya said after his meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi in Delhi recently. He said Mrs Gandhi, too, was in favour of continuance of the Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance, despite its failures “which can be attributed to
CPI (M)’s electoral malpractices and our inability to percolate the alliance’s messages to the grassroots level of the voters”. Mr Bhattacharya, who was accompanied by former PCC chief Somen Mitra during the meeting with Sonia Gandhi, said the alliance should sustain in the interest of the people of the state and this “is the wish of Sonia Gandhi”. “We in the Congress strongly feel that there should be direct interaction between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress at the leaders’ level to remove all misconceptions about each other on the electoral failures because we feel that the alliance will have to sustain,” Mr Bhattacharya said. Mr Bhattacharya said “it is imperative that the alliance is to continue in the people’s interests, particularly when the panchayat elections in the state are due in 2003”.
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Living together not illegal: HC Allahabad, May 27 “This may be regarded as immoral by society but it is not illegal. There is a difference between law and morality,” a Division Bench comprising Mr Justice M. Katju and Mr Justice R.B. Mishra observed while directing the authorities to set petitioner Payal Sharma free and allow her to go anywhere and live with anyone as per her wish. The petitioner, a resident of Kannauj district in Uttar Pradesh, produced documentary evidence, including her High School
certificate, to prove that she was 21-year-old and a major. On the basis of the evidence, the court directed the authorities to set her free. The court also directed the police to provide security to Payal following perceived threat to her life as claimed by her in the petition. The girl had moved the Allahabad High Court praying to be left on her own will after being forced to live in a nari niketan at Agra following her arrest along with Ramendra Singh with whom she was living. The Agra police had arrested her and Ramendra Singh on the basis an FIR lodged by her father. In the FIR, the girl’s father had alleged Ramendra Singh, a married man, had kidnapped her daughter on October 30 last. |
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Kant to attend G-15 summit New Delhi, May 27 The summit meeting assumes significance in view of the coming WTO meet in September. A coordinated perspective of developing countries is likely to be given shape at the G-15 summit. After attending the three-day G-15 summit, the Vice-President will visit Cambodia from June 2-5. Mr R.S. Kalha, Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, will be the Prime Minister’s personal representative at the summit. The focus of the discussions at the summit will be on trade and development, new global economy, potential of digital era for development, future directions on finance, trade and development and energising interaction between G-15 and G-8. The G-15, a grouping of 19 developing countries, was established in Belgrade in 1989. So far 10 meetings have been held. The last meeting was held in Cairo in 2000. The 19 countries that will attend the summit, besides India and host Indonesia, are Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Egypt, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The G-15 took the initiative of establishing a dialogue with G-8 on international economic issues including early and balanced development of the Uruguay round.
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Normal monsoon predicted New Delhi, May 27 “The country would experience normal monsoon this year. This would be the 13th consecutive normal monsoon since 1989”, the Director-General of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Dr R.R. Kelkar said. Asked to clarify how the country could experience “normal” monsoon when drought was staring in the face of several districts, Dr Kelkar said the monsoon normalcy was calculated on the basis of national average rainfall in the season. Normal rainfall is defined as rainfall within 10 per cent positive or negative of what meteorologists call long period average (LPA). Dr Kelkar said the rainfall for the current south-west monsoon spread across four months between June and September, was likely to be 98 per cent of its LPA. Over the three broad homogenous regions of India, rainfall from the South-west monsoon season was likely to be 100 per cent of its long period average (LPA) over north-west India, 96 per cent of the LPA over the Peninsula and 100 per cent of the LPA over north-east India with an estimated model error of 8 per cent, Dr Kelkar said. On the
possibility of rainfall in deficient areas where a drought-like situation was prevailing, he said that even in a normal monsoon for the country as a whole, some areas received deficient rainfall. Three meteorological subdivisions - West Rajasthan, Saurashtra and Kutch and the Gujarat region - and 71 districts of the country had received deficient rainfall in the last two successive monsoons of 1999 and 2000. “While it is not yet possible to make long-range predictions over small areas, probabilistic inferences indicate the probability of deficient rainfall over a third successive monsoon is generally very low”, Dr Kelkar said. |
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Abducted girls freed; headmaster arrested Muzaffarnagar, May 27 Muzaffarnagar district police chief Ashutosh Pandey said the students of Shishu Shiksha Niketan were kidnapped by school headmaster and manager Ravindra Kumar yesterday. The police swung into action soon after the parents of the girls reported that their children did not return home from the school and were missing. Ravindra Kumar took the girls by a taxi to Bijnor and then proceeded to Bareilly on way to Nepal, the Pandey said adding they succeeded in zeroing in on the kidnapper after interrogating the taxi driver who had driven him up to Bijnor. Ravindra Kumar was arrested and the girls were rescued when they were on their way to the Indo-Nepal border. Ravindra Kumar was being brought here for interrogation, Mr Pandey said, adding that the exact motive behind the kidnapping would be ascertained after interrogation of Ravindra Kumar. The abducted girls, students of classes IV and V, were identified as Sarita, Anita, Savita, Sumita, Gulshan and Parul and belong to Alipur and Karher villages of the district.
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Joint naval command on cards New Delhi, May 27 The Group of Ministers’ (GoM) report on “Reforming the national security system” had recommended the replacement of the Fortress Commander, Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Fortan), who is from the Navy, and have a Joint Andaman and Nicobar Command which will control the assets of the three services and the Coast Guard. The proposal is being processed by the Ministry of Defence. The GoM had recommended that the Commander of this joint command would report to the proposed Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). Official sources said as many of the islands were uninhabited, it had become a safe waterway for gunrunners and poachers. India’s economic interests were also jeopardised if the region was ignored. In fact, there was a proposal a few years back to have a Far East Naval Command but the plan was put in cold storage for various reasons. Concerned by the frequent intrusions, the Navy has been increasing the deployment of fast attack craft in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. While two have been deployed, two more are being built. A recent development has been the presence of Pakistani fishermen poaching in the Andaman waters, a trend that has caused added concern to the already present threats. The proposal to set up a Joint Andaman and Nicobar Command comes in the wake of several threats, including from China, the LTTE, around the islands which are almost 800 nautical miles from India’s mainland. Chinese activities on the strategically located Coco island, at a distance of only 30 nautical miles from the Andaman chain of islands, is of particular concern to India. In 1993, some 70 Chinese naval and technical personnel were believed to have arrived on the island to install new radar equipment. This could enable Chinese military personnel to monitor Indian naval communications in the area, and possibly even India’s ballistic missile tests off its eastern coast. According to reports, in the past five years, China has also provided Myanmar with over $ 1.6 billion worth of arms. Since “Operation Leech” in February, 1998, when arms meant from Myanmarese rebels were intercepted by the Navy, there have been several skirmishes with foreign vessels, including Thai boats. Gunrunning, drug trafficking and encroachments on islands in the Andaman region have assumed menacing proportions. Tensions have been linked to the fact that sea-lanes of communication in the Indian Ocean are used to transport most of the world’s petroleum supplies and extra-regional powers have been increasingly focusing their attention on the region.
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GSAT I loses link with ISRO Bangalore, May 27 The satellite, successfully put into Geosynchronous transfer orbit by the first developmental flight of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from Sriharikota on April 18, was on a drift orbit having failed to reach its space home of 48 degree east longitude. The satellite, which was drifting at the rate of 13 degrees a day, would now be monitored by the MCF through other stations across the world. The satellite’s payloads-C S band transponders were successfully switched on and tested by the scientists at MCF since they regained direct control on May 16.
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Water situation in Mussoorie grim Dhanolti
(Uttaranchal) The Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam has a hotel here but the acute shortage of water and electricity deters tourists from prolonging their stay. The state government and the local administration is not making enough efforts to promote tourism here it seems. Far superior in splendour to Mussoorie and Nainital, Dhanolti, if developed, would be able to take off tourist pressure from these two popular hill stations of Uttaranchal. The water situation in Mussoorie is also grim. The proposed schemes by the government to augment the water supply seem inadequate. The Supreme Court Monitoring Committee which was formed by the apex court to monitor the ecological degradation of this hill resort in its recent report has projected a grim scenario regarding the availability of water in the years to come. Construction activity has also led to the drying up of some of the water resources. Most of the pumps and pipes are in bad shape and the chlorination of water takes place in tanks. Most of the hotel owners, including five star and three stars, use their own water
tanks which bring untreated water directly from below the dhobhi ghat and the Kairkuli springs, exposing people to water-born diseases. According to the report, 90 lakh litres of water was available last summer but the demand was more than 150 lakh litres. This year the situation is even more grim. Most of the springs and brooklets have dried up. The proposal of the government to build three overhead tanks at different places with a total capacity of 90 lakh litres has already run into rough weather. |
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Samata MLA arrested Gopalganj (Bihar), May 27 The police said here today that acting on a court directive, Mr Singh was admitted to the local Sadar hospital after he fell sick. The MLA from Meerganj constituency in the district and his supporters had reportedly forced BDO- cum-Returning Officer of Bhore Kishori Paswan to issue a victory certificate in favour of a Mukhiya candidate. When he refused to oblige, they misbehaved with him at his office on May 22. The BDO had filed an FIR with Bhore police station in this connection.
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Subhash Ghai insured for 18 cr Mumbai, May 27 This has made him the largest sum assured policy holder of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the Bollywood showman noted yesterday while accepting the policy of Rs 18 crore from the LIC Chairman, Mr G.N. Bajpai, here. The insurance has been granted to Ghai as the “keyman’’ of his company, “Mukta Arts”, and has been taken out under the “Jeevan Shree’’ plan of the LIC. An LIC press note stated that keyman was the insurance taken out by a company on the life of a key person who was crucial for its efficient and profitable functioning. This indemnified the company against financial loss in the case of premature demise of the keyman, the press note explained.
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DMK leader’s brother held Chennai, May 27 According to the police, Devaraj demanded money from a Bangalore-based businessman on a consignment of metal scrap being moved from a factory in Madras export processing zone to Bangalore. Mr Veerasami, in a statement, denied the charge and alleged that the police had foisted the case against his brother as
the AIADMK Government wanted to settle scores with him.
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Engineer dies in freak mishap Chennai, May 27 The engineer, Arumugham (42), was taken to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, Air-India sources said.
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CM ducks attack
by cow at puja Kanpur, May 27 Mr Rajnath Singh was applying ‘tilak’ on the cow which suddenly ran amok and pushed the Chief Minister away at a cow protection home. The man holding the rope of the cow lost control and the animal ran amok forcing people who had assembled to run helter-skelter.
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New Delhi, May 27
