Life has a way of hoodwinking death. Mani Naik shows how. Admitted to the maternity ward of the community health centre in G Udaygiri block, the 20-year-old has just delivered a girl child — her first — in the face of terrible odds.

When labour pangs started around dawn on August 30, Mani was still in the forest, in hiding, some 40 km from the town. She and her husband Baliyath had fled the village on August 24 to escape the mob fury. Barely had they recovered from the shock that another hardship stared them in the face. This was, by far, their worst.

“I did not know what to do. We had the news that the rioters were waiting to strike lest any Christian should escape their wrath. Moreover, there was no way Mani could have walked to the town. She was very weak from hunger, and was still in trauma,” recalls Baliyath, who decided to take the biggest chance of his life.

What came to his rescue was a bamboo basket he had picked up in haste before leaving the house. “I had picked it up to store my wife’s clothes. She was nine-months pregnant and was expecting any time. I never knew this would be her time to deliver,” says Baliyath, still shivering from the memory of that moment.

It was in this bamboo basket that the man finally transported his wife to the safety of the nearest hospital in G Udaygiri block. He was escorted by two of his friends from Adascupa village, where the radicals had burnt some 60 houses.

Within moments of their arrival at the hospital, Mani delivered a beautiful baby girl; she weighed 3 kg, exceptional weight for a newborn. Even the doctor on duty was surprised at the health indicators of the child. But the child’s mother was not surprised. She was just too happy to feel anything else.

“I had never thought my child would live. It was a desperate situation. But I held on to my nerves and kept praying to God. He watched our way as we travelled from the forest to the hospital. Otherwise we had heard of people leaving the forest and never coming back,” says Mani, who has now been requested by the hospital authorities to find a place in the G Udaygiri relief camp.

“We need the maternity ward. There are six delivery cases at hand. All of them involve women seeking refuge at G Udaygiri camp, the largest relief camp for the Christians in Kandhamal,” the doctor on duty told this correspondent.

As for Mani, she is happy to move on, now that she has the company of her child. The couple has named her Lotus, after the lotus ponds of Kandhamal.

New Delhi, September 10
With floods in river Kosi causing havoc in Bihar, India is expected to take up the issue of proper implementation of the bilateral water treaty when Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda arrives here on Sunday. This would be his first official visit to India after he assumed office last month.

India is also expected to seek proper security for engineers working on detailed project reports on the construction of Saptakosi and Sunkosi dam projects in upstream Nepal, which are facing threats from Maoists.

Official sources said Prachanda would hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian leaders on a whole range of bilateral issues as well as international developments during his visit.

The issue of Kosi river water-sharing is expected to figure prominently in the discussions in the backdrop of recent floods that caused havoc in Bihar after the embankments on the river breached in Nepal. The two sides are expected to discuss ways to properly implement the 1954 Kosi River Water Treaty so that such calamities are averted.

Nepal’s foreign minister Upendra Yadav, during a visit to New Delhi last month, had blamed India for the floods by saying that it was the country’s responsibility to manage embankments of the river.

Soon after he assumed office last month, Prachanda had visited Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese government to attend the closing ceremony of the Olympics and stirred a controversy, as every Nepalese Prime Minister has traditionally undertaken his first official visit to New Delhi.

On his return from China, he sought to put the matter straight, saying his first political visit abroad would be to New Delhi, as is the tradition.

New Delhi, September 10
The Election Commission (EC) today consulted the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on the security arrangements for conducting the polls in Jammu and Kashmir. The MHA is said to have told the EC that adequate force was available in the valley, however, a detailed proposal on its assessment would be made in the next couple of days.

A few days ago the EC had consulted the political parties on the feasibility of October-November assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir. Union home secretary Madhukar Gupta led the team of the MHA. A spokesperson of the MHA tonight denied reports that the MHA had suggested postponement of the polls.

The full commission of the EC headed by CEC N. Gopalaswami, held another meeting with state chief secretary S.S. Kapoor and director-general of police Kuldeep Khoda. Earlier the BJP and the Left parties demanded that elections be held on schedule by November end, the NCP and the Panthers Party wanted delimitation to be done first before finalising the date.

The Congress, had, however, steered clear of the issue leaving it to the EC to decide the timing. The National Conference and the PDP disfavoured holding of assembly polls later this year claiming that the situation in the state after widespread violence in the wake of the Amarnath issue was not conducive for the exercise.

The tenure of the assembly was to expire on November 20. However, the assembly was dissolved and the Governor's rule imposed following a political crisis in the wake of the Amarnath land row, which triggered violence in the Jammu region and the Kashmir Valley resulting in imposition of curfew for prolonged periods.

New Delhi, September 10
With India securing the NSG waiver for undertaking nuclear commerce, France has decided to step up cooperation with New Delhi in the energy sector.

The two countries will sign an agreement for collaboration in promoting energy-efficient projects during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to France later this month.

As part of the agreement, the French Development Agency (FDA) will start its operations in India with a focus on promoting clean technologies, chief executive officer of the agency Jean-Michel Severino told media persons, here today.

“We plan to support the Government of India on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) terms in several areas,” he said. The areas would be selected by New Delhi.

He said he had already held meetings with senior officials in the department of economic affairs, Planning Commission, and the bureau of energy efficiency. “We want to finalise the agreement before the PM visit takes place,” he said.

Michel Severino said: “We have been present in Asia for many years and have extended our presence to China, Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan.” He said no country in the world could depend upon only one source of energy and India would also have to go for different energy sources to sustain its growth.

Observing that climate change and economic growth of a country were directly proportional to each other, he said the nations that do not help control global warming will have their economic growth slowed down.

New Delhi, September 10
The BJP and its Prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, the proverbial “yatri” of the “Yatra” party is setting out on many more yatras, on his journey to the next general elections, after which he hopes to occupy the seat of Prime Minister of India. But this time he will have to share the bouquets and laurels of his “Vijay Sanklap Yatras” with his party president Rajnath Singh.

BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said here today, “The party has decided to hold Vijay Sankalp Yatras in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand.” He said both Advani and Rajnath Singh will lead the yatras sometime jointly and at times separately.

The details of these Vijay Sankalp yatras would be finalised at the three-day national executive of the BJP beginning in Bangalore on September 12, Naqvi said. The meet will specially focus expanding the party’s support base in southern India, crucial for returning to power in the next general elections. Unveileing the BJP programme of holding a series of public rallies in different parts of the country, Naqvi disclosed that the first of these series will be addressed by Advani in Bangalore on September 13.

More than 200 delegates attending this session will include members of the executive, national and state levels office-bearers of the party, who will review the party's preparedness for impending elections in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, J&K and Mizoram aand also the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The executive would also take stock of the socio-politico- geographical situation developing due to fresh delimitation of constituencies and discuss prospects of alliances in varioius states and better co-ordination with the allied parties.

Notwithstanding the fact that the BJP has not moved ahead in persuading many parties to joining the larger NDA, the BJP vice president asserted that the NDA's base was widening and “more parties were shortly going to join the NDA, which would be announced at an appropriate time,” he said.

The three-day session will commence with Rajnath Singh’s presidential address and conclude on September 14 with Advani valedictory address. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who is suffering from poor health may yet again give a miss to the party’s decision-making session. As for issues, the focus will mainly be terrorist appeasement by the UPA government, leading to a general atmosphere of insecurity in the country, inflation, Indo-US nuclear deal.

Mumbai, September 10
The world’s most powerful physics experiment that completed its first major test today in Europe breathes an Indian link with 30 scientists from India, including a couple, also behind the attempt to replicate the “Big Bang” that created the Universe 13.7 billion years ago.

The Indian flag flew high when the world’s largest particle collider successfully fired a beam of protons all the way around a 27-km tunnel on the France-Switzerland border near Geneva in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the universe and study its formation.

Around 200 of the 2,000 scientists involved in the $ 10 billion multi-nation “mother of all experiments” are of Indian origin.

India has made a major scientific and technological contribution to this new atom smasher also called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), according to scientists of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). The LHC is expected to answer several facts of fundamental nature of the universe that remains a mystery after the World’s costliest experiment.

Indian laboratories, led by the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT) at Indore, have contributed substantially toward the construction of the accelerator (LHC) itself, with many components being fabricated by Indian industry and supplied to the CERN, Prof Atul Gurtu, senior scientist, Department of High Energy Physics, TIFR, told PTI.

On the scientific side, two Indian teams are involved in different experiments. They included a scientist couple -- Sudhir Raniwala and his wife Rashmi — from Jaipur. They are associate professors.

Sudhir Ranawala allayed safety fears about the high-speed collisions in the tunnel. “Cosmic rays in the universe send particles with much greater energies than those being achieved in the lab. So there is nothing to worry about,” he said.

Sudhir Raniwala said the “Big Bang experiment is a great technological advance”. “No matter what the results are, either it confirms certain things that we believe today or it refutes certain things that we believe today.” “It is an intellectual stimulation that goes on that we try to unravel what the nature had unfolded for us,” he said.

Prof Raghav Verma of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, representing Indian scientists, carried an Indian flag, IIT sources said.

Asked about the role of Indian scientists, Gurtu said they had been active in this field and had collaborations with their counterparts at the CERN and Fermilab.

However, it is for the first time that a concerted, coordinated and comprehensive contribution had been made by India toward such a huge international scientific program, he said.

One Indian team is participating in the CMS experiment with the TIFR as the nodal institution and includes scientists from the BARC, Delhi, Punjab and Vishwa Bharati universities.

The other team is in the ALICE experiment with VECC/SINP (Kolkata) as the nodal institutions and IOP, IITB, Jammu, Rajasthan, Aligarh and Panjab universities. — PTI 

Mumbai, September 10
The premiere of the movie, 'The Last Lear', starring Amitabh Bachchan, was cancelled after suspected activists of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists today attacked the cinema where the event was to take place.

The premiere was to be held this evening in the presence of a number of Bollywood personalities. In a statement here today, the producers of Planman Motion Pictures said the premiere of the movie would now be held in Delhi.

Raj Thackeray had earlier stated that no movies featuring Amitabh, Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai would be allowed to be screened in Mumbai. The warning came after Jaya Bachchan at an event earlier this week made a controversial statement that being from UP she would speak only in Hindi.

Earlier today, a number of hoardings of the Idea Mobile Phone service featuring Abhishek Bachchan were disfigured. However so far the company has not decided to pull out the actor from its brand-building exercise.

Apart from the movie Drona, at whose release Jaya made the controversial remarks, the 'Last Lear' featuring the senior Bachchan are to be released on Friday.

With the controversy snowballing, Amitabh Bachchan made a public apology and sought "forgiveness" from the Marathi people for the remarks made by his wife. "Everything that we possess today has come to us from this great state and city. We have never and can never look at Maharashtra with disrespect. If inadvertently this is what has been construed, then we apologise and are sorry and seek forgiveness for any sentiments that have been hurt," Bachchan said in his statement.

Guwahati, September 10
Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party Bhim Singh said here today that it would be “prudent and practical” on part of India to accept the existing Line of Control (LoC) as border with Pakistan, as it was not possible for India to get back the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). He also demanded early Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

Bhim Singh said, “We have to accept the existing situation and international reality by accepting the LoC as border with Pakistan.”

He demanded early Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir to quell political uncertainty precipitated by the recent turmoil over the issue of land transfer to the Amarnath Shrine Board.

He was here to meet Sankaracharrya of Puri, who is camping in the city, and drew a parallel between the trouble-torn northeast, including Assam, and Jammu and Kashmir saying both regions had been subjected to gross human rights violation by the rulers in New Delhi. He blamed successive Congress governments at the Centre for the continuing troubles in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast.

Guwahati, September 10
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has called for the formulation of state-specific children policy by all Northeastern states where conflict situation poses serious threat to the security of children .

A five-member team of the NCPCR led by its chairperson Dr Shantha Sinha, which has toured Assam, Tripura and Manipur during the last few days to take stock of child rights protection, has recommended for the appointment of a nodal officer under the state social welfare department specifically to look after affairs of children rights.

“We have decided to recommend for state-specific children policy with focus on health, education and nutrition, and issue guidelines to the state governments in the Northeast, detailing on what they have to do. The states are required to appoint a nodal officer or officer incharge on children affairs. We will also ask for an action-taken report on our recommendations within 40 days,” Dr Sinha informed.

The NCPCR teams visited six refugee camps in Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon districts of Assam where people displaced during the 1996 ethnic violence are being lodged.

There are lots of children born and brought up in those camps occupied by refugees belonging to Adivasi and Bengali-speaking Muslim communities who were evicted during the ethnic flare up that left over 2.25 lakh people including about 76,000 children homeless.

Chandigarh, September 10
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court has held that there should be parity in the pension of Army officers retiring on different dates. Upholding an earlier decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the apex court has ruled that Major-Generals retiring prior to January 1, 1996, should be granted a pension at par with those retiring after this date.

Major-Generals who had retired prior to January 1, 1996, the date of implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission, were getting pension that was lower to that of a Brigadier, while those retiring after January 1996 were getting a higher pension.

This had happened since the start of the pay scale of Major Generals (Rs 18,400) was less than the starting pay of Brigadiers (Rs 19,100, including rank pay of Rs 2,400). The pension of a pre-1996 retired Major General was fixed at Rs 9,200 where as that of a Brigadier, who is one rank lower, was fixed at Rs 9,550.

To cater to this anomaly, the government had stepped up the pension of pre-1996 Major Generals to the Brigadier level, thereby leaving them at a loss as compared to post-1996 Major-General retirees.

The High Court had allowed the writ petition and had directed equal treatment for pre and post-1996 retirees. The orders of the high court were challenged by the government in the Supreme Court, but apex court, through a detailed order passed yesterday, has upheld the high court directions.

“The larger issue involved is whether there could be a disparity in payment of pension to officers of the same rank, who had retired prior to the introduction of the revised-pay scales, with those who retired thereafter,” the apex court observed.

The apex court observed that a Constitution Bench in the case of D.S. Nakara (supra) held in no uncertain terms that the date of retirement of an employee could not form a valid criterion for classification, for if that was the criterion those who retired by the end of the month would form a class by themselves.

“The division which classified pensioners into two classes was held to be artificial and arbitrary and not based on any rational principle and whatever principle, if there was any, had not only no nexus to the objects sought to be achieved by amending the pension rules, but was counter productive and ran counter to the very object of the pension scheme. It was ultimately held that the classification did not satisfy the test of Article 14 of the Constitution,” the Supreme Court observed.

BRIEFLY

ALLAHABAD
Special sensors for protecting endangered species: In tune with the growing interest in protecting wildlife across the world, a new development in the field of information technology promises to make the fight to preserve endangered species more effectively.“We are working on developing smart dust sensors which would be capable of keeping track of endangered species,” director of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, M.D. Tiwari said. — PTI

AHMEDABAD
9 pilgrims killed in mishap: Nine pilgrims were killed and over 20 injured in a road accident in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district on Wednesday morning, the police said.The incident occurred when a speeding truck rammed into a stationary tractor carrying the pilgrims, who were returning after visiting Ambaji temple, it said. — PTI

BANGALORE
Digital accupuncture scanner: The digital acupuncture scanner developed by a city-based engineer is set to become a big boon in providing effective healthcare services with great ease and few visits. Dr R.Ramesh, a mechanical engineer, said he developed the instrument two years ago taking a cue from earlier developments and conducted experiments on more than 500 patients with a good feedback in diagnosing their health problems with accuracy. — UNI

LUCKNOW
4 killed in mishaps in UP: Four persons, including a teenage girl, were killed in three separate accidents in the city, the police said on Wednesday. According to the police, Sabia (13) was killed in the Chinhat area on Tuesday after being hit by a speeding truck.In another incident, two persons died in a collision between a bus and a truck. Meanwhile, a 40-year-old woman was killed by a speeding truck here. CUTTACK

CUTTACK
Rape accused marries victim: Thanks to judicial intervention and initiative by social workers, unwed mother Pratima Mallick got the legal status of a wife and her 20-day-old baby the identity of a father at an Orissa village. Pratima’s marriage with Maheswar Naik, who had been arrested last year on charges of raping her, took place at Jaripada village in Cuttack district, where both of them live, and solemnised at Shiridi Sai temple on Monday. — PTI

New Delhi
Kumawat tipped to be  next BSF chief: Special secretary (internal security) in the home ministry M.L. Kumawat is tipped to be the next director-general of the Border Security Force (BSF). The current incumbent, A.K. Mitra, retires on September 30, home ministry sources said on Wednesday. The post is likely to be taken over by Kumawat, a 1972-batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS officer. Kumawat has served the BSF as its ADG before his appointment in the home ministry. — PTI