Monday, October 12, 1998

Now states want to
import onion
NEW DELHI, Oct 11— Concerned over the rising onion prices, various state governments have asked the Centre to permit them to import onion. But the Centre will consider the issue only after reviewing the supply situation fully, according to a top Civil Supplies Ministry official.

Transfer subjects to State List: Hegde
BANGALORE, Oct 11 — Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde today mooted transferring all subjects, except "three or four" from the Central and Concurrent list to states.

TRC functionary creates flutter
CHENNAI, Oct 11 — A functionary of the Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress created a flutter at Chennai airport’s domestic terminal late last night when he broke a glass door at the entry point after being denied permission to go in and receive Union Petroleum Minister Vazhapadi K. Ramamurthy, police said.

Sardar Patel’s letters of discord

NEW DELHI, Oct 11 (UNI) — Recently-published papers show that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the honeymoon years of Independence had developed serious differences with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and on more than one occasion had offered to quit the government.

The offer was made in letters to Mahatma Gandhi to whom Nehru had taken these differences. Nehru, too, had wanted to quit.

Overburdened with post-partition problems, Sardar Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister, was greatly disturbed over his differences with Nehru who was bypassing him even in matters which concerned his portfolio as minister in charge of states.

In one of his letters published in the 13th volume of the collected works of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel by noted historian P.N.Chopra, the “iron man of India” wrote to Nehru: “You seem to have decided not to want for a discussion with me. I have found that subjects with which I have been intimately concerned have been discussed in the Cabinet without giving me the opportunity to make my contribution.’’

In a letter to Mahatma Gandhi on January 13, 1948, Sardar Patel said: “The burden of work has become so heavy that I feel crushed under it. I now see that it would do no good to the country or myself to carry on like this any more. It might even do some harm.

“Jawahar is even more burdened than I. His heart is heavy with grief. Maybe I have deteriorated with age and am no more any good to stand as a comrade by him and lighten his burden. Maulana too is displeased with what I am doing and you have again and again to take up cudgels on my behalf which also is intolerable to me.

“In the circumstances, it will perhaps be good for me and the country if you now let me go. I cannot do otherwise than I am doing. And if thereby I become burdensome to my life-long colleagues and a source of distress to you and still I stick to my office it would mean at least that is how I would feel that I let the lust of power blind my eyes and so was unwilling to quit. You should quickly deliver me from this intolerable situation.’’

Independence had brought many problems in its wake. There were the communal riots, the problem of princely states, particularly Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh, the task of economic reconstruction and rehabilitation of refugees. According to Sardar Patel:’’ Our life’s mission has been fulfilled. We have won Independence...But how to prepare ourselves for reaping its fruits.’’

“The future of India depends on whether we step up production of food, cloth, iron and steel, cement and other articles both for civil population and defence needs. Today labour is at the crossroads. If they take the right road and contribute their energies for strengthening the country, India will have a glorious future.’’

As minister in charge of states, Sardar Patel took up the uphill task of consolidating 562 states and their accession to the Indian Union. Barring Hyderabad, Junagadh and Kashmir all the states which were contiguous to India acceded to the Indian Union.The very rapid pace of industrialisation seemed to be fantasy materialised. The Sardar gave full credit to the people and rulers of these states.’’

While the Junagadh problem was solved by the people of the state, Sardar Patel was critical of Pakistan for creating problems regarding the Kashmir issue and attempting to take over the state by force.’’ if Pakistan was bent upon to take Kashmir by force, we have no alternative but to reply with force. Even an inch of Kashmir will not be yielded.’’Sardar Patel was unhappy that Nehru did not allow him to tackle the Kashmir problem and dealt with it directly unlike other states.

Sardar Patel used to say that he would have tackled the Kashmir issue like Hyderabad. He was against referring the Kashmir issue to the UNO as he was of the opinion that the United Nation Security Council had not solved any problem, be it Palestine or Indonesia.

Sardar Patel quoted Mahatma Gandhi,the apostle of non-violence who, too, had come around to the view that it was essential to save Kashmir at any cost. The Mahatma observed that’’when I hear the noise of those airplanes I feel so proud.’’ the Mahatma was of the view, according to Sardar Patel, that he would like to defend with non-violence if possible but he would not like India to be degraded and helpless.

It will be an eye-opener to the readers that even Mahatma Gandhi was not against making an atom bomb. If the world was not going to disarm itself, India would not do it, Mahatma Gandhi observed.

Addressing a vast assemblage of men and women in Lucknow on January 6, 1948, Sardar Patel blamed the Muslim League for propagating the two-nation theory.’’ Today my mind turns back to those days when in this city of Lucknow, the foundation of the two-nation theory was laid. It was said that the Muslim culture and traditions were not akin to those of the Hindus. They were a separate nation. Muslims of this city played an important role in fanning this theory.A few nationalist Muslims protested against this.They made common cause with the Hindus because they were perturbed at the advocacy of such a theory and raised their voice against it. But my Muslim League friends made a strong plea for separation. They said they were not satisfied with separate electorate and the safeguard of minority rights. They only wanted separation and establishment of a separate state. Throughout the length and breadth of India, the Muslim League spread this doctrine of separation and a major part of the Muslim youth also came under their influence. They accepted it as the whole truth.’’

India makes detector for European lab

CALCUTTA, Oct 11 (PTI) —In a significant contribution to an international particle physics experiment, Indian scientists have developed a nuclear detector which will help recreate conditions of matter akin to what existed at the point of origin of universe.

Teams from two of the country’s premier nuclear research bodies — the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) and the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC) — have developed a nuclear detector, which will provide a plethora of information to get a feel of what happened right after the big bang, millions of years ago.

The detector fabricated at the VECC in collaboration with several universities and national institutes will be the first of its kind at the Geneva-based particle physics laboratory, Cern, which has embarked upon the construction of a huge new particle accelerator — the large hardon collidor (LHC).

Institute director and head of the Indian research team Bikash Sinha said the detector, to be fitted in the LHC, will pick up shining light particles out of a collision between two atomic nuclei.

“The collisions will be at tremendous speed, close to the velocity of light,” he said, adding that the detector would also find clues to fundamental constituents of matters — quarks and gluons — locked up inside protons and neutrons which make the atomic nuclei.

Considering that 95 per cent of matter in the universe is invisible, surviving quark blobs from primordial epoch may well explain what is commonly known as “dark matter”, Mr Sinha said.

India, through an interim memorandum of understanding has committed $ 25 million over the next decade with half the cost to be borne by the country to develop magnets for the LHC, detectors and other necessary equipment and software, Cern sources said.

The deputy leader of Cern’s information technology division, Dr David Jacobs, said the detector would be used to create hot and dense conditions of matter similar to what existed in the big bang scenario.

The LHC, to be completed in 2005, will be 27 km in circumference and produce proton-proton collisions at 15 trillion electron volts (TEV) and heavy ions at 5.5 TEV per nucleon.

Dr Jacobs said of the four experiments being planned at the four intersection points of particulate collisions, India was participating in the second and fourth.

“The second experiment will took for physics beyond the present standard model of elementary particles and also search for the enigmatic Higgs Boson (named after the Indian scientist S.N. Bose)”, he said.

The fourth experiment, being spearheaded by SINP and VECC scientists, will focus on heavy ion collisions in order to look for new states of matter such as the quark gluon plasma and to recreate big bang conditions.

“The beams travelling in opposite directions shall collide with each other at four points where these four experimental set-ups shall be located. The collisions shall take place every 25 nano-seconds (a thousand millionth of a second)”, Dr Jacobs explained.

Each collision inside the LHC, to be located in Geneva near the Franco-Swiss border, will generate a huge amount of debris that contains valuable information on the basic constituents of matter.

“The staggering volume and rate of data that is expected to be collected in these experiments shall stretch the technology of data acquisition, processing and retrieval to extreme limits”, he said.

India was currently developing magnets using superconducting technology for the ambitious project, Dr Jacobs said.

Now states want to import onion

NEW DELHI, Oct 11 (PTI) — Concerned over the rising onion prices, various state governments have asked the Centre to permit them to import onion.

But the Centre will consider the issue only after reviewing the supply situation fully, according to a top Civil Supplies Ministry official.

“The present onion situation is under review. After reviewing the supply situation and taking into consideration the new crop production, we will decide on demands from some state governments to import onion,” Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Secretary N.N. Mookherjee said.

Andhra Pradesh, among others, has sought import of 5,000 tonnes of onion.

Maharashtra, on the other hand, has asked the Centre to allocate 7,000 tonnes of the 10,000 tonnes onions being imported from Dubai and Iran.

The government on Thursday decided to import 10,000 tonnes of onion and banned export of the vegetable. It also allowed the Delhi Government to import another 3,000 tonnes.

These measures were taken at a meeting of top government officials to tackle the issue of high onion prices and the imported consignments are likely to arrive in Mumbai on October 15 with the landed costs likely to be Rs 16 per kg.

A fall in 1997-98 production and delay in the arrival of the new crop due to rains in Maharashtra had led the onion prices touching record high of Rs 50 a kg in retail outlets in many parts of the country.

Mr Mookherjee said if there was no further rainfall in the growing centres in Maharashtra and the weather held good, the new crop would arrive in the market next week.

Asked if there was any damage to the crop due to rains, he said some damage had been caused.

“Even after giving allowance for the damage caused by rains, the onion crop is expected to be better than that of last year,” he said.

During 1997-98, India’s onion production was 39 lakh tonnes against 44 lakh tonnes in 1996-97.

NTPC stops power supply from Farakka

NEW DELHI, Oct 11 (PTI) — The state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has stopped supplying power from its Farakka power station to the eastern region in view of mounting arrears of state electricity boards (SEBs) of West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

The outstanding dues from eastern region have accumulated to approximately Rs 3,000 crore, an NTPC press release said.

The NTPC has been constrained to curtail supplies from Farakka due to mounting arrears of SEBs in the eastern region and in the absence of any response from the SEB of West Bengal and the state government to repeated efforts of the NTPC to ameliorate the payment crisis created due to mounting outstanding dues, it said.

The NTPC had earlier issued notices to the Governments of Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar on August 24 for closure of its eastern region power stations — Farakka, Kahalgaon and Talcher — with effect from September 1.

On the basis of action taken by the Orissa Government and assurance of payment of dues in full, the NTPC has decided to maintain full generation of 460 MW at the Talcher thermal power station, which is fully dedicated to Orissa.

It has also decided to maintain adequate generation at its 1000-MW Talcher super thermal power station to meet the commitments for export to the southern and western regions.

Lanka ready for third-party mediation

CALCUTTA Oct 11 (PTI) — The Sri Lanka Government is ready for a third party mediation for negotiations with the LTTE and was ready to give regional autonomy to the Tamils in Jaffna and its neighbouring areas, said Mr Raja Collure, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, a partner in the coalition government.

"We look forward to a positive response from the LTTE," Mr Collure who came here to attend the 16th congress of the CPM, told PTI today.

Blaming the United National Party for complicating the ethnic issue during the 1980s, he said the present government having curbed the LTTE to a great extent was against any military solution to the problem. "We want a political solution and that too as early as possible," he said.

Insurgency was causing great harm to the economy, Mr Collure said with 28 per cent of the state revenue set aside for military expenditure and a 4.5 per cent defence levy was imposed on all goods and services to raise resources.

To a question, he said there was no concrete evidence with the government that any country was funding the LTTE. "According to our information Tamil refugees settled in the USA, Canada and Europe are providing money to the LTTE’’, he said.

Transfer subjects to State List: Hegde

BANGALORE, Oct 11 (PTI) — Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde today mooted transferring all subjects, except "three or four" from the Central and Concurrent list to states.

"Except in cases of secession, the Centre should not intervene in any matter in states. Let the states discharge their own responsibilities," the President of the Lok Shakti said at a seminar organised by the Rashtriya Nava Nirmana Vedike, an apolitical forum formed by him.

Mr Hegde, however, did not specify the areas he felt the Centre should limit its role. Flaying the misuse of Article 356 to dismiss a state government, he said: "It has not been used properly even once".

He reiterated his plea to switch over to the presidential system of government saying it would integrate the country and minimise the role of castes and communities.

Stating that the country had ‘blindly copied’ the British electoral system, he called for electoral reforms. He suggested the introduction of "the right to reject" option in elections to enable the voter to reject candidates if they were not found suitable.

TRC functionary creates flutter

CHENNAI, Oct 11 (PTI) — A functionary of the Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress (TRC) created a flutter at Chennai airport’s domestic terminal late last night when he broke a glass door at the entry point after being denied permission to go in and receive Union Petroleum Minister Vazhapadi K. Ramamurthy, police said.

The functionary, Rajasekharan, a police sub-inspector and an official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) were injured when glass splinters struck them.

The TRC functionary and 30 others had come to the airport to receive Mr Ramamurthy who arrived here by a flight from New Delhi.

The police said Rajasekharan got angry when the sub-inspector and the AAI official manning the entry gate told him that only a few persons would be allowed to go in and receive the Union Minister. He suddenly struck at the glass door, breaking it and entered the terminal along with the others, police said.

An airport official said Rajasekharan, who appeared to be in an inebriated state and some of his colleagues entered the segregation area and almost went up to the escalator on seeing Ramamurthy alighting from it.

Work on more N-power plants begins
TARAPUR (MAHARASHTRA): The Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS), the launch-pad of India’s nuclear power programme, has added yet another feather to its cap with the ground-breaking ceremony of TAPs units III and IV — which will produce 1000 MW electricity by the year 2007. These two power plants of 500 MW each of the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) costing over Rs 6,421 crore are the first nuclear power plants with such capacity based on the mainstay of the country’s nuclear power programme — pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR). — UNI

Notice to CBI on Dalai Lama
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has issued a show-cause notice to the CBI on a complaint against the Dalai Lama and six other for allegedly conspiring to work for dismemberment of Sikkim from India and aligning it with the Tibetan autonomous region of China. The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Mr Prem Kumar, directed the CBI to file a formal reply in the matter by October 26 after the agency submitted that a special leave petition on a similar matter was pending in the Supreme Court. — PTI

New method to breed fish
NEW DELHI: A method to artificially breed captive Asian seabrass, an economically important fish, has been developed for the first time by researchers at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) in Kerela. Seabrass ranks next to shrimp in demand both in India and abroad. The new technology will pave the way to enhance its export potential, especially in the interior coastal areas, a report from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) says. — PTI

Bodos gun down 5
GUWAHATI: Suspected National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) militants gunned down five persons and critically injured as many in Dafaligarh Tea Estate under Gohpur police station of Sonitpur district of Assam on Saturday night, official reports received here said. The injured were shifted to hospital. The reports said the militants fired indiscriminately from automatic weapons on a group of people in front of a shop in the garden. — UNI

Free Masons to shed garb of secrecy
MUMBAI: Reputed to be ultra secretive about their activities, the Free Masons now want to open up to the world so that people benefit from their philosophy of welfare. “The time has come for people to know us for what we do and stand for so as to dispel several misconceptions and suspicions”, the master of the Grand Lodge of India, Mr H.P. Mathur, said. — PTI

4 killed in jeep-truck collision
JAIPUR: Four persons, including a woman and a girl, were killed and two others injured in a jeep-truck collision about 10 km from Nokha, on the Nokha-Nagar road in Bikaner district on Saturday. — UNI