Saturday, January 4, 2003, Chandigarh, India
Updated at 3:00 am (IST)

Bihar in flames
Bus carrying BJP leaders set afire; trains cancelled

Patna, January 3 More than 100 persons, including the former Union Health Minister, Mr C.P. Thakur, the Leader of Opposition, Mr Shushil Modi, and two NDA legislators were injured and over 1,000 persons arrested during the Bihar bandh called by the NDA and other parties against the killing of three youths in a “fake encounter”.

Rioters set a bus on fire during a general strike in Patna on Friday. — AFP photo In video (28k, 56k)

Dual citizenship for NRIs, PIOs on cards New Delhi, January 3 Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is expected to make an announcement regarding dual citizenship for non-resident Indians (NRIs) and persons of Indian origin (PIOs) when the “Pravasi Bhartiya Divas” celebrations begin here from January 9.

TRIBUNE SPECIAL
US troops ‘may enter Pak’
New Delhi, January 3
The Washington-Islamabad relations have taken yet another downturn with the US military’s yesterday’s decision that its troops may pursue attackers into war-on-terror ally Pakistan from within Afghanistan if they come under fire from “hostile forces” along the border.

World page:
Protests over US war designs
Pak questions US cross-border raid rights

CM convenes all-party meeting
Chandigarh, January 3
The Punjab Chief Minister, Capt. Amarinder Singh, today convened an all-party meeting here for January 8 to discuss the SYL canal issue . Confirming this the Chief Secretary, Mr Y.S. Ratra, said the state was already in the process of filing curative and civil writs as replies, in the Supreme Court for which the Chief Minister has had discussions with leading lawyers.

Towards safe rail journey
Jalandhar, January 3
Accidents and collision between trains would soon be a thing of past thanks to the world’s first microprocessor based anti collision device (ACD), developed by the Konkan Railways Corporation, which has almost completed its exhaustive trials on the Jalandhar-Amritsar section.