Gamariah (Jharkhand), January 20
A student from Jharkhand doing his research at an engineering college in the US was found shot dead at an apartment complex.

This was a second incident of campus gun violence in five weeks in US, where Indian students became victims.

The body of Abhijeet Mahato (29), who was doing his PhD on computational mechanics at the Dukes Pratt School of Engineering in North Carolina, was found in the 1600 Block of Anderson Street by his friends and colleagues on Friday, the student’s grandfather and a former Jharkhand MLA, Dhananjoy Mahato, said today.

The crime was noticed at about 11:30 pm on Friday (local time) at the apartment complex. The Durham police was quoted as saying that it did not have a motive for the shooting by unidentified gunmen.

Dhananjoy said he would ask the government to make arrangements for bringing the body here after the post-mortem on Monday.

Abhijeet told his parents Sitaram and Aarti Mahato last Wednesday that he had been very busy as the examination was round the corner.

Two Indian doctoral students hailing from Andhra Pradesh were found shot dead on Louisiana State University campus at Baton Rouge on December 13.

Larry Moneta, Duke’s vice-president for student affairs, said the university had begun reaching out to Mahato’s friends and to his family in India, as well as to Indian and other international students on the campus.

It was offering counselling services and had begun considering appropriate ways of commemorating Mahato’s life.

“This is a tragic circumstance, and we are doing everything possible to assist those who may be affected by it,” Moneta was quoted in the university website.

At a meeting today, Mahato’s adviser, engineering Prof Tod Laursen, met with his lab team to talk about Mahato, whom he described as intellectually curious, kind and outgoing.

Guwahati, January 20
Densely populated urban areas in the country located in highly seismic zone V and IV are ‘not very safe’ in the event of occurrence of mega earthquakes.

The reason as attributed by the Union minister for science and technology, Kapil Sibal is that construction activities carried out on such Indian cities, including Delhi, are not guided by any study of prevailing local seismological conditions.

Sibal informed here on Friday that the Union ministry of science and technology would take up micro-level seismological study of 36 densely populated cities located on seismic zones V and IV to guide future urban planning in those areas, taking disaster mitigation into account.

He added the seismic microzonation, Delhi region, would be completed within the year. He said technologies were available in the country for carrying out seismic microzonation of densely populated cities in the country and the Union ministry would encourage public-private partnership in these projects.

Sibal released the report on seismic microzonation of Guwahati region that falls in highly seismic zone V of the country.

The report was prepared under a project sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, through multi-agencies participation.

The report is an outcome of four-year long efforts of team of experts pooled from IIT, Kharagpur, IIT, Roorkie, IIT, Guwahati, Geological Survey of India (GSI), Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), Jorhat.

The DST, in response to a request from the Assam government initiated the project in the year 2002 by constituting a national-level expert committee.

The areas of investigation included geology, geomorphology, bedrock profile, landslide hazard, seismicity, seismotectonics, land use distribution, site response, geotechnical studies involving 200 boreholes, strong motion acceleration analysis and synthesis, site classification and demographic distribution.

A scenario earthquake approach has been adopted in preparing the report with a seismic scenario recreated for the great Shillong earthquake of 1897 with a magnitude of 8.7 in the Richter scale.

The maps preparation and calibrations were done in the scale of 1:25,000 on geographical information system (GIS).

Sibal said the seismic microzonation report on Guwahati region should be integrated with the demographic distribution of population in the city to make it more effective guide for future urbanisasation planning with focus on disaster mitigation.

Hyderabad, January 20
Fissures surfaced in the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) over the raging issue of smaller states as its partners spoke in different voices, weighed down by their regional compulsions.

The differences came to the fore at a press conference addressed by the UNPA leaders, including its chairman Mulayam Singh Yadav and convener N. Chandrababu Naidu here today.

While Yadav waxed eloquent on the dangers of splitting the states into smaller units, Naidu squirmed in discomfort and treaded cautiously on the sensitive issue, saying “We have not discussed it.”

The Telugu Desam Party chief’s guarded response was obviously guided by political compulsions in the wake of the raging demand for separate Telangana state, an issue that is presently dominating the political scene in Andhra Pradesh.

The Samajwadi Party supremo, on the other hand, asserted that the UNPA was opposed to bifurcation of states anywhere in the country as it would be dangerous to national unity.

Citing the examples of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, where Naxalite activities have increased after the new states were carved out, Yadav, whose party is a formidable regional force in Uttar Pradesh, said big states would have a better grip over administration.

The creation of smaller states would give fillip to extremist activities, he said.“We are opposed to bifurcation of UP and AP,” Yadav said when asked about the UNPA’s stand on smaller states in view of the AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s support for creation of a separate Bundelkhand state out of UP.

Asked whether the opposition to bifurcation of states was his personal viewpoint or the combined stand of the UNPA, Yadav said, “We are all of the same view.”

However, Naidu quickly intervened to say that the issue was not discussed in the UNPA. “We want debate in party forums on this issue,” he said.

While the SP is strongly opposing further division of UP, the TDP, which has been traditionally opposed to bifurcation of the TDP, is coming under increasing pressure from a section of its party leaders to take a favourable stand on Telangana.

UP Chief Minister Mayawati and the Congress are in favour of carving out Bundelkhand state. “They are promising the new state only for political gains,” Yadav said.

Naidu has been maintaining a public stand that he would take an “appropriate decision at appropriate time” on Telangana issue.

Bhubaneswar, January 20
BSP national president Mayawati today appealed to her party cadres to involve the upper caste people with the party ideology and policy to capture power both at the Centre and in the state.

Addressing a rally of BSP workers here, Mayawati said the need to take the upper caste along was necessary as the party could not come to power at the Centre without their support.

Stating that the next Lok Sabha polls would be held this year, she said her party was not against the upper caste people and was for a “Sarbajan Bhatrubhav society”.

“I expect the next elections will be held in less than one year... I am launching the election campaign for the next general elections from Orissa’s capital today,” the BSP chief said.

She said many upper caste people were holding key posts in the party as well as in the Uttar Pradesh government.

She promised to provide reservations for the upper caste poor on the basis of their economic backwardness, if her party was voted to power.

She claimed that her government was the first to implement reservation for the upper caste poor in her state.

Mayawati further said her government had also provided reservation to the SC, ST and OBCs in the private sector and promised to implement the system in the country.

The BSP supremo held the ‘faulty’ policy of both state and the Central governments responsible for the spread of Naxalite movement and rise in violent terrorist incidents in the country. — PTI

New Delhi, January 20
Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar yesterday asked agricultural universities to bring out concrete proposals to transform agricultural research and education.

He said they must focus on vital and priority areas so that the required transformation took place and agriculture sector grew fast in the XI Plan and beyond.

Pawar was addressing a conference of vice-chancellors of agricultural universities. Besides VCs and other scientists, senior officers of other departments of the ministry of agriculture and ICAR are also participating in the two-day conference.

He said the government had decided to support schemes for expansion of teaching facilities and enhancing research capabilities of the agricultural universities under the recently launched Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY).

Focusing on reorienting research and education to meet the needs of agriculture as well as the new emerging areas such as IPR, phyto-sanitary and other quality standards and food processing, Pawar said the use of information and communication technology needed to be further enhanced for improving the standards of teaching.

He emphasised that agriculture universities needed to modernise their laboratories and farms, adding that not only would this help in improving the quality of research and education but by doing so the varsities would also be able to generate resources for themselves.

He also drew the attention of scientists to the likely impact of climate change on Indian agriculture.

He said the ICAR had already taken initiatives to quantify implications of climate change and mitigating the emission of greenhouse gases and exhorted it to further accelerate such studies and prepare Indian agriculture to withstand the negative effect of rise in atmospheric temperature and other changes in the climate.

ICAR DG Mangla Rai assured full support to agricultural universities and other research and educational centers, and asked them to pay greater attention to reaching new technologies to farmers using their vast network.

In the event, there was a breakthrough during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China. Not on the boundary question.

But in both Dr Singh and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao rising above bilateral issues and articulating a global agenda as Asian powers to be reckoned with.

The talks between the two were not as leaders of disputatious neighbours stuck in the issues of the past.

They were about a vision for a new regional and international order and the mapping of missions towards this.

The origins of the vision reflected in the joint statement released in Beijing can be traced to November 2004.

It started with Manmohan Singh’s address at the third India-ASEAN Summit in Laos where he outlined an Indian vision of a larger Asian Economic Community (AEC).

The momentous import of his call for breaking down North-South barriers and inequalities for the betterment of the Asian people was all the more stirring for the modesty and matter-of-fact clarity of his enunciation.

It roused the audience, including China and premier Wen Jiabao, to sit up and take note that here was an economist who meant political business with his focus on the potential of a new rising Asia.

This has gone beyond ‘Look East’. The East was looking to India with new expectation. The outbreak of enthusiasm was evident in the calls for India taking on a more dominant role in Asia. And, among those who applauded was premier Wen.

He was unabashed in his admiration for Dr Singh during their first high-level contact when they met for 40 minutes on the sidelines of the summit in Laos.

It was there that Wen told Singh, “the handshake between you and me will catch the attention of the whole world”.

More important, the two were united by a conviction that good relations between the two most populous countries had a wider regional and global significance.

The Chinese premier impressed on Dr Singh that he wanted to carry forward the latter’s ideas when he said that his visit to India (in April 2005) was “the most important event on my agenda”.

Since that eventful meeting, the two governments have been doggedly focused on the larger agenda while attending, on a lower key, to the unresolved boundary question.

A joint statement on the Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity during Wen’s visit to India was the first milestone on this road.

The ideas discussed were given substantive content when Chinese President Hu Jintao came calling in November 2006: the Joint Declaration of a 10-pronged strategy to intensify cooperation.

Singh and Wen kept up their dialogue when they met twice in January and November 2007 - on the sidelines of the second and third East Asia Summit at Cebu (the Philippines) and Singapore.

Singh had occasion to discuss ways of taking forward the strategic partnership also in June 2007 when he met President Hu Jintao on the margins of the G-8 Summit in Heiligendamm.

The joint Vision statement was worked upon intensively by both sides for months before the visit - and not only in New Delhi and Beijing - before its shape and content met with approval at the highest level in December last.

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and their Chinese counterparts persisted with shaping the vision document during their talks in New Delhi in February 2007, and on at least three other occasions after that when they met in Hamburg, Manila and Harbin.

The final touches were given in the third week of December when Menon went to Beijing to prepare the ground for the Prime Minister’s visit.

Yet, all interactions between New Delhi and Beijing were invested with the importance of the boundary question alone and benchmarked solely by progress, or the lack of it, on this issue.

Not a whiff of the larger agenda on which the two leaders had set their sights escaped South Block.

There was not the least scent of what was to come in Beijing though Menon was plodding away at the Singh-Wen Vision document for months before the visit.

In the weeks preceding the visit and even days before the PM’s departure for the Beijing summit, all speculative focus was on the boundary question.

There was no expectation or queries about anything bigger (than the boundary issue) on the PM’s agenda, economic ties and trade being too goody-goody to bite into.

Thus, the joint vision statement of Singh and Wen proclaiming the two countries’ arrival as a global power-partnership was such a surprise that few have recovered from its unexpectedness to probe when and how it all began, and what it means.

To the Prime Minster’s remarks about the “mindset” and his mission being an “essay in mutual comprehension” may be added ‘boundaries of perception’, too, for grasping the implications of a dialogue that has moved to a hitherto unforeseen level.

The region borders Assam and neighbouring Bangladesh. The ULFA uses this corridor to sneak in and out of the country due to its strategic location. — UNI

Guwahati, January 20
The barter system of trading that was prevalent in the medieval age is still in vogue at least on a ceremonial occasion around this time every year.

This takes place between tribes from plains and hills which are just over an hour’s drive to the east of Guwahati.

In this age of plastic money, tribes living in Assam’s Morigaon district and tribes from neighbouring Khasi hills in Meghalaya have shown tremendous grit and determination to preserve the tradition of barter trading for two days once in a year during Magh Bihu, the popular harvesting festival in the North East.

The event, unique for its traditional value and ethnic importance, take place in an open area near the Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC) town at Jagiroad about 45 km from here.

The traditional tribal fair is known as ‘Joonbeel mela’ in popular parlance. This year, the fair that ended yesterday was a huge crowd puller.

Every year during the third week of January, thousands of tribal people assemble to get a taste of the dying tradition of barter trade that was prevailing among tribes of the region before the advent of currency notes and coins.

Members of Khasi and Jaintia tribes come down from the neighbouring Meghalaya hills with their produce to barter their goods with those brought to the fair by Tiwas, a plain tribe living in Morigaon district of Assam, the erstwhile Tiwa kingdom.

“We still put much value to the tradition in this age of credit cards, ATM and debit cards,” said the ornamental Tiwa King Deepsing Deorajah.

He is now a king without a kingdom. He still commands tremendous respect among tribes living in the areas surrounding Jagiroad and up to Meghalaya hills.

The Khasi and Jaintia tribes come with ginger, turmeric, honey, betel nuts, brooms, corms and dry meat. They exchange their products with dry fish, salt, vegetables and clothes brought to the fair by Tiwa tribe.

The Tiwa tribe weavers known for their mastery to weave dream on clothes get a chance to showcase their handloom products in the fair that also attracts a large number of domestic and foreign tourists.

Tribal people from the neighbouring Khasi hills in Meghalaya come to the fair two days in advance and camp in an open area near Jagiroad as guests of the Tiwa King and his subjects who are in charge of the fair venue.

Besides trading activities, members of all tribes participate in feasts, traditional tribal games like cock fight and merry making.

One of the highlights of the fair is the community fishing where more than 2000 people take part.

Bangalore, January 20
Bollywood's evergreen star Dev Anand has been honoured with a lifetime achievement award here for his contributions to the Indian cinema.

Justice V S Malimath, former chief justice of the Karnataka and Kerala high courts, conferred the film icon with 'Anmol Ratan, Lifetime Achievement Award' at a function organised here last night by the Vintage Film-Music Lovers' Association.

"It is marvellous, it is prestigious.Thank you for your love and generosity which has made me fly all the way from Mumbai to be with you," the actor-director-producer, famous for his unique acting style, said after receiving the award.

"My heart goes out to you. I am totally overwhelmed. May be I'll come back here to make a film," said the heartthrob of the 50s and 60s, wiping away tears from his eyes.

Going down the memory lane, the 85-year-old movie veteran nostalgically recalled his trip to Mysore to "convince" writer R. K Narayan on making a film version of his novel "Guide". That trip is still "green in my memory", he said.

He exhorted Bangaloreans to keep their ambitions alive and march forward in the global arena. "Bangalore is referred to as the Silicon City of India, a leap forward in technology. Keep the ambition alive, keep ahead of every other state .... Keep going forward," said the Dada Saheb Phalke awardee in his sing-song voice. — PTI

Mumbai, January 20
Bollywood actress Rani Mukherjee would soon be moving the Bombay High Court against the Ahmednagar district collectorate’s order to cancel her ownership of a plot near Shirdi due to irregularities in the deal.

“After the final hearing earlier this month, the subdivisional officer (SDO), Srirampur, had passed an order to cancel the name of Rani Mukherjee from the land’s sale deed and took over its possession. We will move the High Court against the order,” Mukherjee’s lawyer Nanasaheb Chaudhry told PTI from Shirdi.

The actress is said to have paid Rs 33 lakh in December, 2005, for a non-
transferable farmland near Shirdi.

After the purchase, Rani had paid a stamp duty of Rs 1.32 lakh for registration. But the title of the land could not be transferred to her name as it belongs to a farmer.

“We disagree with the findings of the district administration. It has said it was an agricultural land hence it was ceiling it and required special permission from the government for transferring it to a non-farmer,” Mukherjee’s lawyer said.

“The land, however, was already a non-agriculture land hence ceiling was not applicable under Section 47 of Ceiling Act,” he further said, adding, “the issue of the said land, being ‘non-agricultural land’, was not challenged after the Tehsildar had declared it so in 1981.” — PTI

New Delhi, January 20
Slain Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto plunged into politics apparently to avenge her father's assassination and made her enemies pay by teaching them hard lessons.

But this 'revenge' hardly gave her anything solid to feel proud of, says a new book. "Benazir Bhutto had a long apprenticeship to power, studying under her own kinsmen and other leaders of Pakistan. She came to power apparently to avenge her father's (Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto) assassination and fulfil his wishes. She made her enemies pay, by teaching them hard lessons. But one wonders whether the revenge gave her anything solid to feel proud of, any sense of accomplishment for her to take pride in," writes mental coach Pavan Choudary in "When You are Sinking Become a Submarine".

The book describes how the path of goodness coupled with creativity and wisdom is the only way to an enduring victory. Choudary cites real-life examples to substantiate his views.

Unique insights are offered as to how to make one's ship a submarine when it is sinking and how to build a castle with bricks that others throw.

It explains how wisdom helps one succeed, sustain success and build enduring bases of power.The author, however, says an enemy at our heels sharpens our wits and keeps us alert.