special to the tribune
UK set to go ahead with controversial visa bond
* Scheme due to start in November
* Will affect some but not all visitors
Indian visitors to the UK could soon be asked to post a £3,000 (Rs 2.7 lakh) bond before they are granted a six- month visa to the UK. The pilot scheme, which is due to start this coming November, will affect some but not all visitors from India, Nigeria, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It aims at reducing pressure on the National Health Service which currently offers anyone in the UK free access to doctors and hospitals.

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OPINIONS PERSPECTIVE PEOPLE KALEIDOSCOPE

Polls a year away, Hooda turns on rural water sops
Chandigarh, July 27
With parliamentary and state Assembly elections due next year, the Hooda Government has decided to provide free water connection to all rural households. The decision to waive the water connection fee of Rs 500 till March 31, 2014, comes a few days ahead of the government’s decision to launch UPA’s flagship food security ordinance covering nearly 1.31 crore beneficiaries (more than half of Haryana’s population) from August 20.

Out to claim credit, Cong leaders want food plan named after Rajiv
New Delhi, July 27
Worried over the possibility of the food security programme being hijacked by ruling regimes in non-Congress states, party leaders want the scheme to be named after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The demand came from Bhupinder Singh, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader from Chhattisgarh — a BJP ruled state—at a meeting of state Congress chiefs with party vice president Rahul Gandhi.

Punjab has lowest poverty ratio in rural areas
Chandigarh, July 27
Even while Punjab’s GDP is growing at a slow pace compared to certain other big states and its agriculture sector, which is the lifeline of its economy, has been registering sluggish growth for the past few years, the state has got the distinction of having the lowest poverty ratio in its rural areas. As far as the lowest poverty ratio in the urban areas of the big states is concerned, Punjab figures above Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Himachal Pradesh in the list released by the Planning Commission of India recently.

120 shot dead by Egyptian security forces
Cairo, July 27
Egyptian security forces shot dead scores of supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi on Saturday, witnesses said, days after the army chief called for a popular mandate to wipe out "violence and terrorism". Men in helmets and black police fatigues fired on crowds gathered before dawn on the fringes of a round-the-clock sit-in near a mosque in northeast Cairo, Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood said. (Details on World page)

Pak pounds Poonch posts with grenades Jammu, July 27 Pakistan violated ceasefire for the fifth time this month, with its troops pounding Indian forward posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch with rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), mortars and heavy machine gun fire on Saturday. The Army said it gave a "calibrated" response to Pakistan's unprovoked act and both sides traded heavy fire for over five hours. "There has been a ceasefire violation by the Pakistani troops along the LoC in the Doda Battalion area of the Poonch Sector, without any provocation from the Indian side today," said Jammu-based officiating Defence PRO, SN Acharya.