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THE TRIBUNE EARTHQUAKE RELIEF FUND

Manmohan’s New Year resolutions
Thrust on jobs, infrastructure
New Delhi, January 2
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh got down to the business of implementing various ambitious schemes encompassing the employment guarantee scheme and focussing on the direly needed infrastructure in the country’s outbacks to maintain a growth rate of 7 per cent to 8 per cent and ensure that the New Year leads to generation of employment opportunities.

Business page: FM’s New Year wish: Over 7 pc growth
Opinions page: Some New Year resolutions

Rs 700 crore rice scandal in Punjab
FCI blacklists 166 mills, chargesheets 164 officials
Chandigarh, January 2
As many as 166 rice mills, which were involved in supplying substandard rice to the Central pool with the connivance of certain officials of the Food Corporation of India (FCI), have been blacklisted by the FCI authorities. Besides, the FCI has identified 30 centres notorious for supplying substandard rice with the alleged convince of officials. Special flying squads had been set up to keep watch on these centres in Punjab.

India: The Tasks Ahead
   SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

125TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS,
INAUGURAL SESSION

Jammu, January 2 At least 500 persons were stranded on the Jammu-Srinagar highway today following the season’s first snowfall that blocked the traffic at several places. To make matters worse, landslides were also triggered due to a downpour. Weather page: Snow, rain in Himachal ON DUTY DESPITE SNOWFALL: A jawan on patrol duty near an Army camp in Srinagar on Monday. — Tribune photo by Amin War

Panel allows release of three former militants
Chandigarh, January 2
A high-level committee of the Punjab Government has allowed the release of three former militants, paving the way for their return to the mainstream of society.

Left opposes move to disinvest in four PSUs
New Delhi, January 2
With elections to Communist bastions only months away, Left parties today donned the hardliner mask by opposing the disinvestment of government stakes in four PSUs, saying no to pension Bill and chalking out plans to protest during the visit of US President George W. Bush to India this year. Talking to newspersons after a 90-minute meet, CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat said, “Disinvestment of shares of profitable PSUs is not the proper way to raise resources.”

CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat (left) and CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury at a meeting to discuss the government’s proposal of disinvestment in certain profit-making PSUs in New Delhi on Monday. — PTI photo

BSP MP moves SC against expulsion
New Delhi, January 2
BSP MP Raja Ram, expelled from the Lok Sabha for his “involvement” in the “cash for query” scam and subsequently suspended from the party, today moved the Supreme Court to challenge his expulsion from the House.

Bomb scare in Capital
New Delhi, January 2
A massive scare was created this afternoon at the highly sensitive ‘Fleet Street’ on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg after an abandoned suitcase was found opposite Doll Museum in the ITO area of Central Delhi.

Gudiya dead Lucknow, January 2 Twentytwo-year-old Gudiya died at the Military Hospital in Delhi today. She had remained in the media’s eye for weeks in 2004 after her first husband, war hero Arif, returned from a Pakistani prison to reclaim her from her second husband Taufeeq, whose child she was then expecting.