New Delhi, August 30
Initiating a fresh probe angle in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the CBI is now preparing a questionnaire for LTTE financier Kumaran Padmanathan on the basis of decade-old findings of the MDMA, which has been investigating the conspiracy behind the former Prime Minister's killing.

Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA), which has been granted another extension by the government despite noting for closure of this unit, has begun the work of preparing questions that would be sent to Sri Lanka where Padmanathan alias 'KP' is being questioned by the Lankan security, official sources said.

Padmanathan, the alleged financier and a key accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, was arrested in a Southeast Asian country and brought to Sri Lanka.

Declared as one of the most-wanted terrorists by Interpol, he is suspected to be a key person in LTTE's global network for procuring weapons and other equipment.

Jane's Defence Intelligence Review, the premier London-based defence magazine, had reported that the LTTE had two international wings — KP Department and Aiyanna Group — that were engaged in global terrorist activities.

The CBI had been on KP's trail for over a decade and its team had travelled to New Zealand in 2002. The agency questioned three Tamil nationals there after securing permission from authorities in that country.

The term of MDMA, which is headed by a CBI official and comprises officers from IB, RAW and Revenue Intelligence, ended on May 31 this year and was given a post-facto approval.

The Jain Commission, which went into Gandhi's killing, had come across various leads which included bank transactions of the LTTE's frontal outfits before and after the assassination and on movement of arms meant for LTTE during that period.

The MDMA has also been focusing on bank details of Padmanathan. India has taken up the matter with Germany to get the bank details of KP, who is alleged to be a major gun-runner for the terrorist group.

The investigators want to know the bank details of KP and some more people, including some Indians who were alleged to have hatched the conspiracy to kill Gandhi.

The former Prime Minister was assassinated on May 21, 1991 when an LTTE suicide bomber blew herself up at an election rally in Tamil Nadu. KP is believed to be 'the chief arms procurer' for the LTTE and also in-charge of collection of finances for the banned outfit outside Sri Lanka.

The CBI had approached nearly 23 countries with letters rogatory for Padmanathan along with its findings against the terrorist leader. — PTI

Jaipur, August 30
An alleged case of an HIV positive person donating blood to six children has rocked the Ganganagar district of the state.

Following a complaint registered with the Anoopgarh police station, the district police has arrested a pathology lab owner on the charge of collecting blood from donors without proper tests and supplying it to a nursing home in the district. The police has booked lab owner Hetram Goyal under Sections 420 (cheating) and 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the IPC.

The lab owner has been accused of transfusing HIV-infected blood to patients. The police has seized records from the lab and the nursing home to further investigate into the matter. Though the nursing home has been sealed, its owner, Bharat Bhushan, is still absconding.

“A man, who was reportedly donating his blood at the laboratory, tested positive for HIV few days back but has denied that he donated blood and submitted an affidavit to this effect,” an official of Medical and Health Department said, claiming that “the two children who were said to have received his blood three months ago have tested negative for the HIV”.

Meanwhile, the state government today ordered a probe into the matter by a committee of Joint Director, Medical and Health Department, Bikaner, and Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) of Ganganagar. The report is expected tomorrow. Director of Medical and Health Department OP Gupta said: “Based on both the reports (committee and SDM-CMHO), we will recommend the Rajasthan Medical Council to take action.”

Earlier, the SDM and Block Chief Medical and Health Officer) of Anoopgarh, during investigations, found several irregularities, including failure to check the blood for any infection at the time of donation and transfusion. “Statements of parents of the children, who are said to have received the blood, suggest that illegal transfusion has taken place,” said Anoopgarh SDM, Gaurav Chaturvedi.

“As the district is about 120 km away and there is no blood bank in Anoopgarh, blood for patients in critical condition used to be collected through the accused. Now, it is a matter of detailed investigation that how many patients received blood through illegal process,” he added.

Bangalore, August 30
The abrupt end of the moon mission Chandrayaan-I has temporarily buried India’s dream of bettering China in the field of moon exploration.

While the Indian mission was called off 10 months after it was launched and 14 months before its scheduled termination, the Chinese mission Chang’e 1 (launched on October 24, 2007), after having completed its original tenure of one year, was given a four months extension and was finally terminated on March 1, 2009. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which yesterday announced snapping of radio contact with the unmanned Chandrayaan-I, today said the mission had been formally called off.

ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters at Panaji today that the mission had been terminated. ISRO scientists accompanying Nair said the satellite, which was put on a lunar orbit 200 km above the moon, would eventually crash on the lunar surface. The gravitational pull of the moon being one-sixth of that of the earth, it would take a while for the 523 kg spacecraft to descend on the lunar surface, they said.

Reports from Panaji also quoted the ISRO scientists as having said that they were talking to US and Russian agencies for tracking the spacecraft. Having lost the radio contact, the ground segment of the mission in Bangalore is not receiving any data from the equipments aboard the spacecraft. The ground segment is also not able to send any command to spacecraft to control it. Importantly, Japan, the other Asian space faring nation, has also done well in the field of moon exploration. Kaguya, the Japanese probe launched on September 14, 2007, successfully orbited the moon for 20 months before it was made to crash on the lunar surface on June 10, 2009.

The Japanese satellite, which was the second lunar probe launched by the Island country, successfully accomplished the mission objectives of studying the evolution of moon, measuring the moon’s gravity field and collecting data about the lunar surface environment.

New Delhi, August 30
The first 100 days of the second innings of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government have been disappointing for the common man and its performance has been below par, say political parties.

“The performance has been pathetic. The government has failed to deliver both on the economic front and the issues of country's security,” GVL Narasimha Rao, member of BJP national executive, said. Rao said the government had not been able to handle the drought situation and price rise and the worst hit has been the common man, on whose welfare talk the Congress came to power.

The views are echoed by the CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta. According to Dasgupta, the performance of the UPA government has been “unsatisfactory and not up to the expectation of common man”.

Manmohan Singh government took oath on May 22 for the second consecutive time following a sweeping victory in the April-May Lok Sabha polls. The government's emphasis has been on infrastructure development, schemes for the poor like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, stimulus packages to pull the economy out of the global slowdown and deal with the drought situation and spiralling prices of essential commodities.

However, the CPM feels that the focus of the government has been the big corporate houses rather then the farmers and working class. “The government has been unable to control the rising prices of essential commodities, which are becoming unbearable for the common man, while concessions are given to big business houses,” CPM Politburo member MK Pandhe said.

Pandhe also said the major beneficiaries of the schemes of the present government has been the upper strata of the society rather then the common which has been further pushed to the periphery of the society.

Kamal Akhtar, Rajya Sabha MP of Samajwadi Party, which has extended parliamentary support to the government, said: “The government has failed to handle the problem of unemployment.”

Political parties are also critical of the government the way it has handled the issue of security. BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi accused the government of “surrendering the national interest” with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signing a joint statement with Pakistan in Egypt last month delinking terror from the composite dialogue with Islamabad and also included a controversial reference to trouble-hit Balochistan.

“On the issue of security, the government has taken mainly administrative steps without taking state governments into confidence and lacks people's participation without which it would be difficult to counter the problem of terrorism,” Pandhe explained.

However, according to historian Ramachandra Guha, 100 days could not be a yardstick to judge a government's performance. "I am not sure if we can evaluate the government on what they have achieved and what they have not. Many things have happened and policies have been framed. I will give them 50-50," Guha said.

The criticism notwithstanding, the government is flagging certain decisions, like setting aside a whopping Rs 391 billion ($8 billion) for the UPA's National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme.

Also, the government saw through a historic Right to Education Bill that ensures free and compulsory education to children aged between six and 14 years, ushered a revamped Companies Bill and unveiled a draft direct tax code that will replace the nearly five-decade-old Income Tax Act. — IANS 

Hyderabad, August 30
Ruling himself out of the race for the party president’s post, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu today rubbished media reports of an imminent change of guard in the saffron party.

“The media reports about succession plans in the BJP are baseless. Nothing has been decided yet. There is no vacancy for the party president post right now, for Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley or XYZ,” he told reporters here.

There has been a flurry of reports in the media suggesting that the crisis-ridden BJP is heading for a change in leadership and that the RSS has laid out a road map for revamping the party.

However, Naidu, who had served as the party president in the past, said the party would take up organisational elections in the coming days after which it would think of effecting any changes in the leadership.

He made it clear that he was not in the race for any post. “The party has given me enough already,” Naidu said.

Scoffing at speculations that LK Advani was being eased out, the BJP leader said Advani was still the party leader and he would continue to be the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha.

“Advani is a great leader and nobody can replace him. But we will leave the decision to Advani himself,” Naidu said.

Admitting that the party was now facing some internal problems, he, however, said it had all capacity to overcome the hurdles and emerge stronger.

Asked about the role of RSS in the BJP affairs, Naidu said the RSS does not interfere in the day-to-day functioning of the BJP, but the party does consult the RSS leadership on policy matters.

Making light of the critical remarks made by Jaswant Singh, he said: “Jaswant Singh is no longer a member of the BJP and hence, we will not take cognisance of the statements made by him.”

Udaipur (Tripura), August 30
The global economic recession, drought in large parts of India, the government's economic policies and the trade pact with ASEAN would lead to more suicides by farmers, a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader says.

The UPA government did not learn a lesson from the global economic slowdown and now, with 252 of the country's over 600 districts severely affected by drought, agricultural produce would decline by 20 per cent and farmers and agricultural labour would be the worst sufferers, said S. Ramachandran Pillai, a politburo member.

"Since 2004 when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came to power, over 2,00,000 have committed suicide in 12 states, mostly ruled by the Congress and the BJP," Pillai late Friday told a gathering of farmers in the south Tripura district town, 55 km south of Agartala.

The gathering was organised in connection with the 18th state conference of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), which Pillai heads.

Terming the India-ASEAN trade agreement "harmful", Pillai said that productivity of crops in the other ASEAN countries was higher and cost of production was less than India.

"The Indian farmers would suffer a great loss when the pact would become operational Jan 1 next year," he said, adding India would be in a deficit situation due to the free trade agreement, signed August 13 in Thailand by Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and his ASEAN counterparts.

Pillai demanded more government investment in agricultural and allied sectors, increased irrigation facilities, more remunerative price for the crops, lowering prices of farm inputs and strengthening agricultural infrastructure to make the sector a viable venture.

Addressing the meeting, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar charged the Congress with taking away even the "very little powers" given to the states by the constitution.

"Tripura would be self-reliant in various food production despite the centre's very limited support," said Sarkar. — IANS

Patna, August 30
With major rivers in spate, there is no let-up in the overall flood situation in Bihar where 1.5 million people continue to reel under the deluge in 11 north Bihar districts.

Rivers like Kosi, Mahananda, Bagmati, Kamala Balan and Adhwara have crossed the danger level at different places along their course, Central Water Commission sources said.

Altogether, 52 persons have so far lost their lives in the floods that have affected 11 districts -- West Champaran, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Purnia, Saharsa, Supaul, Kishanganj, Gopalganj and Katihar.

Standing crops and houses worth several crores of rupees have been destroyed in the floods, State Disaster Management department sources said. The state authorities have undertaken relief and rescue operations with the help of over 1,000 boats and National Disaster Response Force personnel.

Mostly foodgrains, candles, kerosene oil, polythene sheets and salt were being made available to the victims. "All embankments in Bihar are safe and flood-fighting continues at places where the rivers are putting pressure on the embankments," state Water Resources department officials said. — PTI

Jaipur, August 30
Known for its annual elephant festival and elephant safaris the world over, the city has lost three tuskers in a short span of five months. Over a hundred safaris operate in the Amber Fort area alone.

Wildlife lovers and animal experts don’t rule out the possibility of ill treatment meted out to this majestic animal. According to them, elephant owners are flouting norms that had been earlier enforced on them, and the tuskers are made to work for long hours under extreme conditions.

With the authorities doing away with the norm stipulating elephant rides only up to 10 am, the elephants are often made to do much more than the compulsory five rides a day. Also, despite their use being prohibited mahouts are employ iron rods, which can cause deep wounds, to keep the animals under check. Earlier, following intervention by some NGOs, these rods were replaced with wooden ones.

The latest elephant to become a casualty is 26-year-old Maina who used to ferry tourists at Amber Fort. It reportedly ran amok and ran towards the nearby hills. After all efforts to tame it proved futile the tusker collapsed to death after being reportedly tranquilized by forest officials last Monday. What raised many eyebrows is the fact that the forest department did not call in any vet during the animal’s post-mortem.

While many officials suggested the elephant had died due to shock, Elephant Owners’ Development Society chief Haji Abdul Rashid attributed its plight to extreme weather conditions. However, animal rights activists alleged the elephant was injected with an overdose of tranquilizer. They also claimed tuskers are routinely thrashed when they do not obey their mahouts. Maina too went berserk after her mahout poked her with an iron rod.

On the other hand, the elephant owners deny the charge of ill treatment. “We provide them green fodder and adequate water and don’t subject them to any cruelty. It’s the weather that has taken a toll on them this year,” said Rashid.

Maina’s owner, Mohammad Ibrahim averred, “We earn our livelihood from elephants. Earlier too we had lost a tusker and till date our plea for permission to use another elephant at Amber Fort is pending.”

Lhasa, August 30
There are 999 rooms and a sprawling cave in the awe-inspiring, centuries old Potala Palace in the centre of Lhasa Valley in Tibet. But there is not a single photograph of the exiled Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in the palace-turned-museum where he spent his teenage, was educated, held religious ceremonies and met government officials and envoys.

As China officially ended the renovation of the palace that was the seat of the god-kings of Tibet when it was an independent Buddhist kingdom, the erasure of the image of the 14th Dalai Lama, who lived there from his formal enthroning in November 1950 till his flight to India in 1959, was virtually total.

The 64-year-old Nobel laureate, who remains a constant thorn in China's flesh with his government-in-exile in India, is never mentioned by his name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso in any of the hundreds of labels describing the thousands of exhibits visitors are allowed to glimpse.

While the vice-premier from the central People's Government of China, who had an audience with the Dalai Lama in 1956 in Potala Palace, has his name preserved for posterity through an exhibit label, Tenzin Gyatso has been reduced to a faceless entity.

The position is the same at the Tibet Museum, showcased as Tibet's first comprehensive modern museum and a must-visit for tourists.

A key Chinese project for social development, the museum with over 30,000 exhibits is Beijing's endorsement of the annexation of Tibet.

The displays emphasise that since the founding of the Yuan dynasty in China in the 13th century, Tibet remained under the jurisdiction of China's central government which assigned the General Administration as responsible for the political affairs of Buddhist monks across the country as well as the inhabitants in Tibet.

The museum also highlights that the posts of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, the two topmost officials of theocratic Tibet, were formally assigned by the Qing government of China in 1653 and 1713, respectively.

A key exhibit is the 17-point agreement signed between the local government of Tibet and China May 23, 1951, accepting measures for the peaceful liberation of Tibet and formalising the merger of the Buddhist kingdom with the communist republic.

What it excludes though is that when the pact was signed, the Dalai Lama had already fled Lhasa to Yatung near the Indian border, readying to go into exile.

At Lhasa's oldest and most important temple, the Jokhang or House of the Buddha, built around 642, there is a photograph of the current Panchen Lama, the second-highest ranking lama after the Dalai Lama.

It is actually the photograph of Gyancain Norbu, the boy chosen by the Chinese government in a controversial move to replace the nominee of the Dalai Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who has since then vanished from public eye in Tibet.

In the bustling markets outside temples in Lhasa, there are no photographs of the Dalai Lama, unlike markets in Nepal and India where the Tibetan diaspora live. In their household shrines or prayer rooms, Tibetans abroad keep photographs of the Dalai Lama before which they burn incense, light butter lamps and make offerings.

But household shrines in Tibet are bereft of images of the popular red-robe-clad figure after China dubbed the Dalai Lama a separatist. The Government Information Office in Tibet issues booklets projecting China's view of the Dalai Lama and his rule. — IANS