London, May 24
A British broadcaster at the centre of a racism row involving Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty has been found guilty of “serious editorial misjudgements” over its handling of the issue and ordered to make a series of apologies.

TV watchdog Ofcom found that Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother 2007 show was guilty of “serious editorial misjudgements”.

The show was dogged by accusations of racism after Shetty faced a tirade of abuse from fellow contestants, including Jade Goody.

The media regulator found Channel 4 guilty of breaching the broadcasting code and ordered it to make a series of apologies during the new series of Big Brother next week.

Ofcom also confirmed that unseen footage of racist behaviour inside the Big Brother house did exist.

The show was heavily criticised for the alleged racist bullying of the Indian actress by fellow contestants Jo O'Meara and Danielle Lloyd, besides Goody.

In its long-awaited report, Ofcom singled out three occasions on which Channel 4 had failed to handle the situation appropriately making “serious editorial judgements.” They were: Jade Goody referring to Shetty as “Shilpa Poppadom”, Lloyd saying that the actress should “go home” and argument over Shetty cooking chicken, which ended with Lloyd and O'Meara making derogatory comments about Indian eating habits.

“Ofcom takes allegations of racist abuse and bullying on television extremely seriously,” the watchdog said in a statement today.

NRI Labour MP Keith Vaz, former minister for foreign and Commonwealth office, who led protests in Parliament over the issue and introduced Shetty to Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a tour of Westminster, called for Channel 4 Chief Executive Andy Duncan to resign.

He said “I welcome the adjudication by Ofcom. This is a vindication of our position. Channel 4 has behaved in an arrogant way which has shown contempt for the code of broadcasting. It is only right that they should be punished by having to broadcast, for the first time, an on-air apology.”

"Andy Duncan should now apologise to Shilpa Shetty and realise that the contempt that was shown by them during the episode, in my view and that of many of the viewers who complained, now merits his resignation."

Duncan said "We accept Ofcom’s judgement that on the occasions in question, we did not ensure that Big Brother intervened with the necessary promptness or strength.” — PTI

London, May 24
Junior doctors in the UK, including NRIs, have lost their high court battle to get a controversial job application system scrapped and declared an “abuse of power”. However, justice Goldring admitted that the premature introduction of the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) by the government had “disastrous consequences” for junior doctors.

The introduction of the system allocating specialist training posts had sparked angry protests from doctors and led to calls for health secretary Patricia Hewitt to resign.

Justice Goldring said, “The fact that the claimant has failed in what was accepted to be an unprecedented application does not mean that many junior doctors do not have an entirely justifiable sense of grievance”. Indicating that the system was flawed, the judge said junior doctors could have good grounds to appeal regarding the jobs that were allocated to them - or to take their cases before an employment tribunal.

The dispute over the MTAS is focused on the failure of a computer-based system, which is now abandoned, to produce fair and appropriate lists of applicants for training posts. More than 34,000 doctors are competing for 18,500 posts, leading to anger over apparent injustice. — PTI

Islamabad, May 24
Two policemen, held hostage by the radical clerics of a mosque in the Pakistani capital, have been released.

Senior members of the Lal Masjid administration, Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said the two policemen had been released on humanitarian grounds, the private Geo TV reported today.

The decision to release the policemen, who were abducted in retaliation to the arrest of some radical students by the police here, followed assertions by the government that it would not negotiate with the clerics and thousands of militant girls and boys studying in the two madrassas affiliated to the Lal Masjid.

Media reports here also said that the police has released most of the students, who were picked up for attacking a music shop in the capital.

The police has, meanwhile, registered 19 cases against the clerics of the mosque under the Anti-Terrorism Act and other laws. Aziz, Ghazi and three other prominent figures in the mosque administration have been made accused in 17 of these cases. — PTI

Islamabad, May 24
Debunking President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's contention that he had installed army personnel on senior civil jobs because civilians have probed to be incompetent, members of a panel of the National Assembly said all the state entities headed by serving or retired military officials have sunk into corruption and incompetence.

Several members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) took exception rejected the notion that institutions and organisations headed by army officers are immune from oversight by the Assembly.

"There is no sacred cow under the Constitution", senior PAC member Qurban Ali Shah observed. He said cabinet ministers and generals have no right to drive in bullet proof cars.

Author Aesha Siddiqa observes that Pakistan military enjoys complete autonomy from all civilian stockholders when it comes to its numerous commercial ventures with the result that the more the military's economic power increases, the weaker civil society becomes, says a new book.