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Arjun for quality, affordable higher education
Students petition Kalam
against reservation
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Raju to call on Mongolian President
Tumultuous path ahead in Nepal: Yechury
‘Nepal to see major political changes’
Funds for Taj withheld
Indian envoy meets Koirala
Cong revival in UP topmost on Sonia’s agenda PM seeks mandate for DPA
742 held for rioting after Raj Kumar’s death
Chemical usage affecting reproductive health: study
Work on IT park in Patna to begin soon
Bengal to seek loans from ADB
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Arjun for quality, affordable higher education
New Delhi, May 4 The minister, who has maintained a stoic silence on the issue of reservation following the ruckus that ensued his utterances on quota for OBCs, has called upon stakeholders in the education sector to ensure that “ no eligible youth in the country is denied the opportunity of stepping into the portals of colleges and universities or other institutions of higher learning”. His concern stems from the fact that despite approximately 350 universities and equivalent institutions and over 17,000 colleges, less than 10 per cent of youth have access to higher education. This figure, he said, does not convincingly tell us about the deprivation of those who are marginalised. Speaking at the inaugurating the two-day national conference on “Deemed to be universities: role and responsibilities”, the minister said the process of enrolling all “should be done without compromising with the quality of teaching and education”. Mr Arjun Singh pointed out that there were concerns about issues of access, quality, equity and relevance in the education sector and deemed universities had an important role to play in this regard. Referring to the issues to be discussed during the deliberations, the minister said issues of governance of institutions were as relevant as the issues of achieving academic excellence. Autonomy in institutions in relation to the government was as critical as autonomy of academics in relation to the governance structures within institutions, he said. He noted that the ultimate objective that must drive managements is that of delivering high-quality education, which is accessible and affordable to all, on a par with the best anywhere. The Chairman of the University Grants Commission, Prof Sukhdeo Thorat, called on the participants to deliberate on the subjects threadbare, as higher education was a powerful tool to build knowledge base society of the 21st century. The two-day conference is being attended by about 200 Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors/Directors of the institutions declared as deemed universities.
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Students petition Kalam
against reservation
New Delhi, May 4 “We submitted a 21-point memorandum to the President during the meeting here today. He agreed with our view on primary education and the need to study the reservation system to see whether it has really helped the deprived sections,” said Aaditya Dar, who was part of the five-member delegation that met Dr Kalam. In the petition, the students have sought the President’s intervention on, “the issue of extending reservations to yet another section of society not based on economic parameters but on considerations of caste and which is exercising the entire student community all over the country”. The delegation, which also included Gursimran Khamba, Aditya Raj Kaul, Devika Malik, and Dhruv Suri put forth the need to reassess the reservation policy to ascertain whether it holds relevance in the present times. They pointed out, “Our final argument against the recommendations of the Mandal Commission is this: a report of recommendations based on a situation analysis of 1978 and thereabouts can by no reasonable accounts be taken to represent the realities of the India of 2006 and thereafter”. “Our contentions are that the system of quota extensions is bad on fundamentals of equity knowing well that the notion of equality can be a question of original circumstances. However, the direction of every advancing human being is to seek equity not emanating from an unjust mechanism, but a potentially just mechanism,” the students said. Referring to the issue of reservation and the reaction that it has drawn, they said, “We assure you that the educated middle-class populations of this country see this as an assault on their individual efforts of pulling themselves up to become world citizens by a political class that is only focussed on short-term electoral gains”. The President was also presented 1,71,000 signatures of people opposed to reservation, including many who belong to the communities that this bill expects to serve. |
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Medha approaches NHRC
New Delhi, May 4 An NBA delegation, led by Ms Patkar, submitted a memorandum to Justice Anand, urging him to form a special group, comprising members of the Commission as well as representatives of civil society, to look into relief and rehabilitation of Sardar Sarovar Dam-affected people. Accusing the Commission of “turning a blind eye” towards their struggle, Ms Patkar along with displaced persons, NBA activists from the valley and supporters in the Capital also staged a sit-in in front of the NHRC office in New Delhi. She said the NBA had earlier also approached the Commission. “We cannot allow the statutory bodies not to play their role,” she added. “The NHRC,” she said, “should have taken cognizance of the issue when even the Supreme Court order of 2000, passed by Justice Anand, to rehabilitate the affected persons has been ignored.” Talking to The Tribune later, the NBA leader said Justice Anand assured the delegation that he would put the entire matter for consultation before other members of the Commission within the framework of the Human Right Act. “Though he did not give any specific time-frame we told him that if he did not act now, he would just be doing a post-mortem,” said Ms Patkar, adding that those displaced by the dam had not only been denied their right to livelihood, but also health and education. She said the delegation told the NHRC chairman that all development projects in the country resulted in displacement of poor people, which was an issue of gross violation of human rights. “People are being displaced whether due to the Sardar Sarovar Dam, the Tehri Dam, the demolitions on banks of the Yamuna or removal of slums in Mumbai,” Ms Patkar said. Questioning the relevance of the three-member committee set up by Dr Manmohan Singh to supervise relief and rehabilitation of families displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Dam, Ms Patkar also criticised the Prime Minister on setting up the committee without consulting them. She said the committee has been given work of post-mortem as the members had to complete the work of survey between May 19 and June 19 and rehabilitate 35,000 families by June 30. “It is impossible to rehabilitate such a large number of families in 11 days between June 19 and June 30,” she said. “We hope the Prime Minister would apply his own unbiased mind with utmost urgency and take the right decision and use his authority as per the Supreme Court’s judgement of 2000 and suspend the work till rehabilitation is complete.” Meanwhile, the NBA also presented written submissions in the Apex court too prove its stand that resettlement and relief was incomplete. “Letters dated before December 31, 2005, offering house plots to displaced persons were sent in April and now officials are going from village to village threatening people to accept compensation by telling them that after May 8, it would be too late for them,” she said. She dismissed allegations that the NBA was interfering with resettlement and rehabilitation work as “absolutely false, ill-intending and malicious”.
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Include NBA nominees in panel: Medha
New Delhi, May 4 Asking Dr Manmohan Singh to include three NBA nominees to “members appointed by the officials to make it a democratic process”, she has urged the Prime Minister to “apply his own unbiased mind with utmost urgency and take the right decision”. “A committee without suspension of dam construction may not be a solution to the very basic problem but prove to be only post-mortem in bringing post-facto realisation when serious injustice would have already occurred,” she said. Dr Manmohan Singh announced the three-member Sardar Sarovar Project Relief and Rehabilitation Oversight Group, comprising Mr V.K. Shungulu, former Comptroller and Auditor General, Prof G.K. Chadha, former VC, JNU, and Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, Convener, Loksatta, to report on the status of rehabilitation in Madhya Pradesh of the project affected families (PAFs). Contending that by the time the committee concludes anything and “which may even include the fact that R&R of thousands of families is not completed as per the Tribunal Award”, Ms Patkar has urged the Prime Minister to “use his authority as per the Supreme Court’s judgement of 2000 and suspend the work till rehabilitation is complete”.
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Raju to call on Mongolian President
New Delhi, May 4 The minister is slated to call on Mongolian President Natsagiyn Bagabandi tomorrow. Mr Raju arrived in Ulaanbaatar earlier today from Seoul at the end of a three-day official visit to South Korea, where he held discussions on bilateral cooperation and joint collaboration in the Defence officials here said India and Mongolia shared many common values and traditions and the age-old friendship between the two countries had been reinforced in recent years with India's active participation in Mongolia's reconst- Bilateral defence relations were cemented with the visit of former Mongolian Minister of Defence Ts Sharavdorj to India in last December, when he witnessed the second India-Mongolia joint military exercises. India has responded positively to the invitation by Mongolia to participate in the multilateral military exercise `Khanquest-06' to be held in Mongolia this year in autumn.
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Tumultuous path ahead in Nepal: Yechury
New Delhi, May 4 The CPM Politburo member, who had won laurels for his role in mediating between the seven party alliance and Maoists to come to a 12-point agreement that resulted in the restoration of Parliament in Nepal, laid out the steps the Girja Prasad Koirala government should take in the coming days. Stating that the restoration of Parliament as the first journey on this road, he said: “There are bound to be many potholes, many ups and downs that the interim government must carefully overcome.” The Maoists, on their part, have declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire to help facilitate the implementation of this understanding. Now that the road has been laid, the journey has begun to reach the destination of electing the constituent assembly, he wrote in the party’s mouthpiece, “People’s Democracy”. The alliance and the Maoists must, at the earliest, come to an agreement on this issue and set in motion the process of conducting elections on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Another connected issue concerns the participation of the Maoists in these elections. This is crucially dependent on the connected issue of the disarming of the Maoists before the elections, he observed. |
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‘Nepal to see major political changes’
New Delhi, May 4 “The recent developments in Nepal are encouraging and we welcome these. Resumption of political process and the forming of a Constituent Assembly is yet to start. Right now what has happened is that the immediate crisis has been averted. But this is not the end of the story,” Sir Michael said in an exclusive interview with this correspondent. He said the more significant step that Nepal was yet to take was formation of a Constituent Assembly. “The Constituent Assembly is required to rewrite Constitution. I expect that the role of the King can change. I expect some significant change,” Sir Michael said. The envoy was convinced that it was a matter of time before the King parts with more of his powers and the people are empowered and so is the political process at the expense of the royalty. Sir Michael Arthur said Great Britain was very keen to see the Maoists cohabiting with the political parties and shedding violent methods. He said the world history was replete with instances where terrorist and violent outfits had renounced violence and joined the national mainstream. The British envoy said his country was considering defreezing the substantial British aid to Nepal, lying frozen since the February 1, 2005, royal coup in Nepal. The British government concluded that the context for development had worsened and aid could not be increased as anticipated. The British envoy described the situation in Sri Lanka as “very worrying”. He said his government wanted the ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to hold and hoped that the crisis would blow over. |
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Funds for Taj withheld
New Delhi, May 4 The Ministry of Environment and Forests has asked the Uttar Pradesh Government to provide the status of implementation of the projects to the institute. The Planning Commission had approved Rs 600 crore on a 50:50 sharing basis with the government for the projects. |
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Indian envoy meets Koirala
New Delhi, May 4 Mr Mukherjee also conveyed to Mr Koirala good wishes for his health and wished him a speedy recovery, the Foreign Office spokesman here said. Mr Mukherjee also called on Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs K.P. Sharma Oli, Home Minister K.P. Sitaula, Minister for Finance R.S. Mahat and Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives Mahant Thakur, and discussed with them the current situation in Nepal. He reiterated India's readiness to contribute to lasting peace, stability and prosperity in Nepal to the best of its ability and resources. |
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Cong revival in UP topmost on Sonia’s agenda
New Delhi, May 4 All work in the party has come to a virtual standstill for over a month as the Congress president and other leaders have been busy campaigning for the five Assembly elections. Party insiders said once she is free from this round of polls, Mrs Gandhi will focus on organisational matters and begin planning for next year’s electoral battle for Uttar Pradesh. Congress strategists are well aware that the party is a marginal force in Uttar Pradesh, having lost ground to the BJP and regional outfits like the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Its traditional base comprising upper castes,minorities and Dalits has eroded while the party organisation is virtually non-existent in large parts of the state. The Congress has drawn up numerous plans over the past decade for the party’s revival in UP but all these efforts have failed to deliver. This time round, the Congress is hoping that the enthusiasmn generated by Mrs Gandhi’s victory in Rae Barelli will set the pace for the preparations for next year’s Assembly polls. It is also banking on the greater involvement of the party’s heir-apparent and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi which, they believe, will enthuse the cadres, build a new leadership in the state and help the party to reach out to the youth. Although Rahul’s future plans are a constant source of speculation, the party believes he is prepared to play a larger role in UP, judging from the manner in which he handled his mother’s election campaign in Rae Barelli. Congress sources said Rahul has been acquainting himself with the functioning of the state unit and has been holding periodic meetings with UP party workers at his residence for the past several months now. Congress insiders maintain it was Rahul’s decision to carve the state into eight zones and entrust the responsinbilty of organisational work in each to a party functionary. “The purpose of this exercise is to give focused attention to each district in the state,” explained a Congress leader. However, party strategists also admit that they have a tough task on hand and that they would have to go in for electoral understanding with smaller outfits |
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Sonia ends
Rae Bareli election tour
Rae Bareli, May 4 Addressing two major public meetings on the concluding day of her two-day election tour, Ms Gandhi said she was now leaving with the satisfaction that the people of Rae Bareli would take her crusade for principles forward. Narrating the sequence of events leading to her resignation from the Lok Sabha on March 23, Ms Gandhi said her decision to resign and seek a fresh mandate from her electorate was to send a clear signal to those who were opposing her that she was not ready to give up. Elaborating her view of politics, she said for her it was not only to have access to power and position. She said politics for her provided opportunities to serve the people and win their love and affection in return. Continuing her attack on the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh, she said it was trying to divide the society on caste lines. Before addressing the first public meeting at Shankarpur in Dalmau Assembly constituency area, Ms Gandhi visited a 100-year-old historic Durga temple. |
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PM seeks mandate for DPA
Chennai, May 4 He said the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA) was best placed to fulfil all requirements of the state. He said the Centre had responded promptly to the December 2004 tsunami that struck the coast of Tamil Nadu, sanctioned Rs. 6,000 crore for relief and a further package of relief and support when the state was affected by floods. Praising Union Ministers from Tamil Nadu, he said: “Just imagine, how much better things would be, if the same alliance were in power in both the state and the Centre.” “Under our management, the Indian economy is doing extremely well, growing at eight per cent per annum. We are aiming at better growth. If this is what we can do in New Delhi, we can do this much and more in Tamil Nadu.” Dr Manmohan Singh’s speech, longer, more detailed and interesting than the lackluster speech by United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi in Madurai about 10 days ago, was structured to rebut frequent adverse criticism by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa of the performance of Union Ministers from Tamil Nadu. The Prime Minister chose to name Union Ministers P. Chidambaram, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Dayanidhi Maran, T.R. Baalu, A. Raja, Anbumani Ramadoss and E.V.K.S. Elangovan, most of whom have been assailed at some point or other by Ms Jayalalithaa as those who worked against the interests of Tamil Nadu by obstructing major projects.
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742 held for rioting after Raj Kumar’s death
Bangalore, May 4 These arrests are in addition to the preventive arrests made earlier by the police a day before a public function was to be held to pay homage to the matinee idol, according to City Police Commissioner Ajai Kumar Singh yesterday. Mr Singh, when asked to elaborate a statement by the Chief Minister that the rioting had been instigated while apparently referring to the Congress, said emotional reasons alone were not responsible for the violence which took place on April 12 and 13, and that there were other reasons as well. He, however, refused to elaborate on the issue but said the police had used video footage of the violent incidents to identify the miscreants. Two of the arrested persons have been accused of murder and are being held responsible for lynching a trainee police constable. The Commissioner said some of those arrested had a criminal record. He said as many as 306 persons were still in judicial custody and the police was investigating whether they had organised lumpen elements to stage the rioting. Mr Singh also disclosed that an interim report into the rioting incidents had been prepared and submitted to the Director General of Police. He said a complete report into the incident would take some more time.
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Chemical usage affecting reproductive health: study
New Delhi, May 4 A Greenpeace report, “Fragile: Our reproductive health and chemical exposure” collates the findings of a number of peer-reviewed scientific studies of recent years. Together, the studies have shown, for the first time, the comprehensive picture of an increase in reproductive health disorders, mirroring the rising presence in our lives of man-made chemicals, says the Greenpeace report. Sperm counts have fallen by 50 per cent in 50 years, infertility among couples has more than doubled in industrialised countries since the 1960s, while testicular cancer has become increasingly common. The male-female birth ratio has changed dramatically in some areas and birth defects of the reproductive system are increasingly noted in baby boys, reveals the report, released yesterday. Many of the disorders that have been increasingly in incidence are thought to originate in the developing stages of a child’s life in the womb or shortly after birth. At the same time, tests have also shown that exposure to some commonly used chemicals, which may affect fertility, take effect almost from the moment a child is conceived.
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Work on IT park in Patna to begin soon
Patna, May 4 Science and Technology Minister Anil Kumar Sinha said the STPI would be built at a cost of Rs 300 million on a 3-acre land. The park, expected to boost the nascent software industry in the state, would be fully functional in a year and is expected to offer high-speed Internet connection besides state-of-the-art equipment. The Science and Technology Department is also working out various plans to promote research and development in state-sponsored universities. — TNS |
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Bengal to seek loans from ADB
Hyderabad, May 4 Even as Left parties and their affiliated bodies staged demonstrations in the city against the anti-people policies of the bank, the West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta told its annual general meeting here that his government was planning to seek loans from the ADB for various development projects. He said West Bengal needed an investment of Rs 5,830 crore in various spheres like irrigation, drainage, roads, bridges, industrial estates and technical education over the next five years. “We intend to propose this for ADB loan assistance on conditions which are mutually agreeable,” he told a seminar on Advantage India organised as part of the ongoing 39th annual general meeting of the ADB. “When you are investing in West Bengal, you are investing in a place which is a major hub of development and a gateway to South East and Far East Asia,” Dasgupta told the gathering. |
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