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Inaction against Saeed Centre begins talks with Naga rebels
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Govt lifts ban on public sector vaccine makers
Chandrayaan-1 finds ice on moon
Mastermind of EFR camp attack held
Article an attempt to malign me: Taslima
Aviation extravaganza takes off today
Bharat Ratna dream of every Indian: Sachin
SC rejects RTI plea on Justice Dinakaran
NIA-chargesheeted top militant goes missing
Visa delay troubles Pak minorities
India hails steps taken by Oz to protect Indians
CBSE exams begin today
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Inaction against Saeed New Delhi, March 2 “We are very clear about the role of Saeed (in the Mumbai carnage). It is a role that deserves to be investigated. Based on the information we have given, any responsible government will investigate it,” the Home Minister said at a press conference here today. Far from investigating Saeed’s role in the Mumbai attacks, Islamabad was permitting him to make anti-India speeches. It was “highly regrettable”. The Home Minister said India expected Pakistan to act on the dossiers that had been handed over to Islamabad by India. A total of 10 dossiers have been given to Pakistan so far, linking elements in the neighbouring country with anti-India terror acts. Presenting the report of his ministry for the month of February, Chidambaram acknowledged that a peaceful 14-month period was rudely interrupted by a bomb blast in Pune. Investigations into the blast were on the right track. On the Naga talks, he said Thuingaleng Muivah, general secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and him. The Naga leaders would now hold talks with the Central government’s interlocutor and former Petroleum Secretary RS Pandey. “It is my earnest desire that the talks will to an honourable negotiated settlement.’’ Regarding the violence in Karnataka following the publication of an article of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen in Kannada in a local daily, Chidambaram said the translation of the article was “mischievous”. There was no provocation for publishing the article - written by Taslima in 2007 on an important Muslim religious day. Asked how the government looked at MF Husain’s decision to accept the citizenship of Qatar, Chidambaram said India would be happy if he returned home. He stated that Husain has been assured full security in India. The Home Minister said tripartite talks on the Gorkhaland issue would be held on March 18 between the Centre, the West Bengal government and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.
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Centre begins talks with Naga rebels
New Delhi, March 2 Naga leaders also called on Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to discuss the issue of autonomy issue. According to sources, the Government has a proposal to counter the Naga demands, which would include a Naga body without territorial jurisdiction, but with a constitutional sanction. There are reports that the general secretary of the banned National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), Thuingaleng Muivah was unhappy with the interlocutor RS Pandey, who led the discussions at the peace dialogue. The banned National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) - Isak Muivah faction chairman Isak Chisi Swu along with Thuingaleng Muivah arrived here for talks with the Centre in a bid to take the vexed Naga peace process forward. Isak and Muivah, who are now based in Amsterdam, have come to India after nearly three years. Muivah has set the tone for the talks by saying the rebel outfit will not withdraw its demand for a Greater Nagaland. Union Home Secretary GK Pillai said on Saturday, “Muivah accepted the invitation from the Centre communicated through the new Interlocutor RS Pandey to resume the peace dialogue”. Ahead of meetings with political leadership, the Naga leaders will hold talks with Pandey on March two and three, they said. The two leaders were also expected to visit Nagaland besides addressing the issue of clashes between the cadres of NSCN-IM and its rival NSCN (Khaplang), which led to unrest in the recent past. The sources said they would try and iron out differences with the NSCN-IM, which has proposed a federal relationship in the Indian Union.
— ANI
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Govt lifts ban on public sector vaccine makers
New Delhi, March 2 The Health Ministry order applies to the heritage Central Research Institute,
Kasauli; Pasteur Institute of India, Coonoor; and BCG Vaccine Laboratory,
Chennai, that were until January 2008 producing BCG, DT, TT and DPT for the
UIP. Manufacturing licences of these PSUs were revoked by former Health Minister Anbumani
Ramadoss, who cited lack of compliance with good manufacturing practices
(GMPs) for the move that followed a WHO assessment. The licence suspension is currently under investigation with a Health Ministry panel looking into the circumstances that led to it. The suspension had paralysed India’s UIP that faced an estimated shortage of 11.22 crore vaccines last year and 17 crore this year. Besides, the vaccine cost doubled as their public sector manufacturing was stalled. The decision comes 13 months after a parliamentary standing committee on health sought revocation of production licences to
PSUs. In a meek first response, the Health Ministry said in its action taken report on the committee observations that the said institutes had no capacity to
modernise. But the panel had again stressed the revocation of licences, citing spiralling vaccine costs. Data reveal that from 2004 to 2007, prices of
BCG, DPT, DT and TT remained stable. However, in 2008-09 and 2009-10, the prices doubled with the cost of BCG rising from Rs 13 per vial of 10 doses in 2007-08 to Rs 27.85 this
year. DPT vaccine, earlier procured at Rs 13.50 per vial of 10 doses, now costs about Rs 23.59. DT vaccine cost rose from Rs 9.14 per vial of 10 doses in 2007-08 to Rs 13.85 last year. For TT vaccine, the price per vial of 10 doses was Rs 6.20 in 2007-08 but is now Rs 17.69. It reasoned that for stabilising vaccine prices, there was no alternative but revoking the suspension of the manufacturing license to the
PSUs.
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Chandrayaan-1 finds ice on moon
Bangalore, March 2 “Analysis of data obtained by the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini-SAR) aboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has provided evidence for the presence of ice deposits near the moon’s north pole. The Mini-SAR instrument found more than 40 small craters (two to 15 km in diameter) with sub-surface water ice located at their base,” an ISRO release said here today. The interior of these craters are permanently shadowed and thus, oblivious to the extreme solar heat found on the moon. Earlier, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, another NASA instrument aboard the Indian mission, discovered water molecules in the moon’s polar region. The two pioneering discoveries made by payloads aboard the Chandrayaan-1 have arguably made the Indian mission the most successful lunar expedition after the Apollo 11 manned mission to the moon in 1969. The Mini-SAR mapped the moon’s permanently shadowed polar craters using the polarisation properties of reflected radio waves to characterise surface properties. Results from the mapping showed deposits having radar characteristics similar to ice. The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the Moon Mineralogy Mapper and Mini-SAR on Chandrayaan-1 and similar instruments on NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon. Though the amount of ice depends on its thickness in each crater, it is estimated that there could be at least 600 million metric tonne of water, ice on the moon. “The new discoveries show that the moon is an even more interesting scientific, exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought,” the release quoted Prof Paul Spudis, Principal Investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment, as having said.
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Mastermind of EFR camp attack held Kolkata, March 2 ADGP, CID, Raj Kanojia said 40-year-old Reddy, alias Telugu Dipak, was arrested from Sarshuna on the southern fringes of the city. Dipak, a close aide of Maoist Politburo member Kishanji, alias Koteswar Rao, is a member of the state military commission (West Bengal chapter) and is in charge of armed operations in Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand, CID sources said. The state military commission of the Maoists is responsible for detailed planning, operational method and process of execution of an armed operation, sources said. An expert in explosives, Dipak was behind all major strikes in West Bengal in recent times as also the attack on Andhra Pradesh police’s elite anti-Naxal force Greyhound in Balimela reservoir in Orissa’s Malkangiri district killing 38 cops. Dipak’s arrest was the biggest catch after the arrest of Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy, sources added. Dipak, who holds a mechanical engineering degree, was also the mastermind of Maoist strikes in Silda, Sankrail, Gidhni and the Rajdhani siege incident in West Midnapore district of West Bengal since last year, sources said. Hailing from Prakasham district of Andhra Pradesh, Dipak, who came to West Bengal in 1995, had been an active member of the Peoples War Group (PWG) in Guntur district. Later, when the PWG and the Maoist Communist Centre merged to form the CPI (Maoist) in 2000, he became a state committee member, sources said. He became a member of the State Military Commission two years later. Dipak, who had been underground for the past 20 years, faces about 50 criminal cases most of which are in Andhra Pradesh. — PTI
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Article an attempt to malign me: Taslima
New Delhi, March 2 “The incident that occurred in Karnataka on Monday shocked me. I learned that it was provoked by an article written by me that appeared in a Karnataka newspaper. But I have never written any article for any Karnataka newspaper in my life,” she said. She stated that “The appearance of the article is atrocious. In any of my writings I have never mentioned that Prophet Muhammad was against burkha. Therefore this is a distorted story”. The author said, “I suspect that it is a deliberate attempt to malign me and to misuse my writings to create disturbance in the society. I wish peace will prevail”. The violence in Shimoga, the home town of Karnataka CM BS Yeddyurappa, left two persons dead, one of them in police firing on Sunday. Nasreen, staying in an undisclosed destination due to security reasons since her return to India last month, had her visa extended recently by six months till August this year and said she would not like to say anything other than the statement issued by her. Meanwhile, normalcy has returned to the two towns, Yeddyurappa told the Assembly today. “Those who take the law into their hands will be strictly dealt with,” he said, adding that no untoward incident has taken place in the two cities since last night. Yeddyurappa said cases have been booked against the daily and 103 people had been taken into custody in the two cities, where 33 persons and 25 policemen were injured in the violence in which 74 shops and 50 vehicles were damaged. Yeddyurappa said steps would be taken to give compensation to the affected, based on a fact-finding report on assessment of loss of property. He said a company of the CRPF has been deployed in Shimoga and another was on its way to Hassan and blamed “selfish elements” for the violence, saying otherwise it would not have taken place on such a large-scale. — PTI
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Aviation extravaganza takes off today
Hyderabad, March 2 Being jointly organised by the Civil Aviation Ministry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the event will witness participation by 200 companies from 20 countries. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel will inaugurate the conference, while Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah will be the chief guest, along with Nicolas Forissier, MP and president of the India Friendship, France. France is the partner country at this year’s exposition, the second since 2008, which is expected to attract over 500 delegates from all over the world. Global aviation giants like Airbus, Boeing, Cessna, Bell and Bombardier will display their products and services during the event. About 75 Indian companies, including service providers, airport infrastructure developers and aircraft manufacturer, will participate in the biennial event being held at the old Begumpet airport here. Exhibition of the latest global aerospace technologies, signing of MoUs between aviation companies, conferences on civil aviation industry, CEOs Forum, flying display and customer demonstration flights would be among the highlights of the event. Over 40 aircraft would provide static and flying display at the show, while Antonov UAC Russia would display its AN-148 passenger aircraft, FICCI Regional Director Vivek Kodikal said. The conference would present a big opportunity for India to attract investment in airport infrastructure, the organisers said. The Airport Authority of India (AAI) has plans to spend of Rs 4,662 crore to modernise 35 non-metro airports to world-class standards. As many as 80 airports are targeted for upgrading while 10 green-field airports are also planned. In-flight catering firms, infrastructure majors, airlines and flight simulation firms are also participating at the show. In view of the ongoing Telangana agitation, tight security arrangements have been put in place for the event. About 60 CCTV cameras have been installed at the venue and a control room has been set up at the airport’s main building for round-the-clock monitoring. India’s aviation sector is ranked ninth in the world, valued at $5.6 billion in 2008. The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation has predicted 25 to 30 per cent rise in domestic traffic and 15 per cent rise in international traffic in 2010.
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Bharat Ratna dream of every Indian: Sachin
Mumbai, March 2 Speaking to mediapersons at an event here today, Tendulkar said every Indian dreamt of being honoured with the Bharat Ratna. “Whoever have won this prestigious award are not only my heroes but country’s heroes too. Everyone wants to make it to this list. But...I am just concentrating on my game right now,” Tendulkar said. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and Deputy Chief Minister Chagan Bhujbal have both mooted conferring the award on Tendulkar who became the first man to score 200 runs in ODI history at Gwalior against South Africa last month. Senior cricketers like Kapil Dev and Ajit Wadekar have also joined in the chorus for conferring the Bharat Ratna on the star batsman. Once again comparisons have been drawn between Tendulkar and Sir Don Bradman. However, Tendulkar said today that it would be unfair to compare batsman of different eras. “It is unfair to make comparisons. I have never believed in comparisons, because I respect every individual. That is how I looked at life, not only in cricket but off the field as well. Every individual has his own identity and I am not only talking about Sir Don but all other players who have played for a long time at the international level..... I feel we should appreciate what everyone has done and respect them because that is the way I would prefer to look at it,” Tendulkar said. He further hoped that it would be an Indian who broke his record for the maximum runs in a one-day cricket match. “The 200 just happened. Even I didn’t know that I would achieve the landmark when I started that innings. I hope that whenever it happens it is an Indian breaking the record, so the record stays with us, with our country. Even today I would not say it is my record; so as long as it is India’s record, I will be very happy,” Tendulkar said. Looking back at his two-decade-old career in international cricket said apart from the match against South Africa, the wins against Pakistan at the World Cups, the series at Sharjah in 1998 and the 2008 Test win against Australia at Perth were among the most remarkable moments of his career. “I am always happy whenever India wins, not only in cricket but in all walks of life. It is always greater satisfaction when you have done well,” Tendulkar said. Congratulating the Indian hockey team, Tendulkar said the victory over Pakistan was very special.
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SC rejects RTI plea on Justice Dinakaran
New Delhi, March 2 Agrawal had filed the RTI plea seeking to know whether the Collegium consulted apex court Judges Markandey Katju, VS Sirpurkar and AK Ganguly, who had worked with Justice Dinakaran in the Madras High Court, before sending its recommendation to the
government. The query had been made despite the fact that the Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, subsequently asked the government to put on hold the elevation of Justice Dinakaran in the light of the allegations of land grabbing and judicial misconduct
that have resulted in a move for his removal through impeachment in Parliament. In the RTI plea, the applicant had pointed out that, under the 1993 recommendation of a nine-member Bench of the SC Bench, the Collegium was expected to consult apex court judges “conversant with the affairs of the concerned High Court.” In the February 23 reply, the Central Public Information Officer of the apex court refused to answer the queries, maintaining that these were “confidential.” Further, the information was not held by
or under the control of the CPIO.
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NIA-chargesheeted top militant goes missing
Guwahati, March 2 The self-styled commander-in-chief of Dimasa tribe militant group, Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel Garlosa faction) or Black Widow, Niranjan
Hojai, had surrendered along with 359 other members of the outfit before Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on October 2 last at Haflong in North Cachar Hill district. Though as per laid down norms, surrendered militants were supposed to stay in designated truce-time camps run by government, Niranjan Hojai has incidentally gone out of the radar of Assam police, hence creating ripples in the state. Chief Minister Tarun
Gogoi, who also holds the home portfolio, today admitted that the Black Widow commander-in-chief had gone missing and said efforts were on to re-arrest him. Notably, Hojai was one of the 14 persons named in the chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that had probed diversion of development funds meant for North Cachar Hills Autonomous District Council
(NCHADC) to Black Widow outfit and involvement of bureaucrats and politicians of the hill district in it.
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Visa delay troubles Pak minorities
Sriganganagar, March 2 Abduction and beheading of two young Sikhs in the restive border region along with Afghanistan, says Ishwar Dass Harlalani, the president of Pakistan Hindu
Displaced Persons’ Committee (Rajasthan), has prompted a fresh surge among the minority community to cross over to India. Around 2,000 families want to move to India, but Indian officials have been raising “unnecessary visa hurdles and virtually sitting on applications,” he claims. Minorities in Pakistan, particularly the Hindus and Sikhs, find themselves at the receiving end of the Taliban and other fundamentalist outfits, he says. Harlalani, who claims that at least a hundred of his own relatives were trapped in Pakistan, says Hindu women were unable to venture out of their homes due to constant fear of abduction. Looting of Sikh and Hindu properties, too, was increasing by the day, he says. Now, the committee plans to submit a representation to the Union government so that rules for granting Indian citizenship to Pakistani Sikh and Hindu families were relaxed.
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India hails steps taken by Oz to protect Indians New Delhi, March 2 Briefing the media on Smith’s visit, MEA spokesman Vishnu Prakash recalled that the two Foreign Ministers had met in London on the margins of a meet on Afghanistan towards January-end and discussed the issue threadbare. Since then, Australia has taken a slew of measures to protect the Indian community, which New Delhi appreciated, the spokesman added. Smith, who arrived here this morning, told mediapersons that he was looking forward to his meeting with Krishna at which he would extensively brief his Indian counterpart on the steps that the Australian Government was taking to end the attacks on members of the Indian community, particularly students. Talking to the media briefly outside the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium this afternoon, Smith said: “I will brief the Indian government on the actions taken by authorities to create a safe and rewarding study environment for Indian students in Australia.”
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CBSE exams begin today
New Delhi, March 2 A CBSE spokesperson said the number of registered candidates have increased from 1462016 in 2009 to 1601646 in 2010, adding that only subject-wise grades shall be shown in the ''statement of subject-wise performance'' to be issued to all candidates.
— ANI
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Hindustan belongs to all: Asha Bhonsle Bus-truck collision kills 15
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