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Now, Nitish takes a swipe at PC
Quota in Jobs |
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Border dispute won’t hit ties with China: Tharoor
Advani’s role on wane at BJP meets
Maoists kill two Trinamool workers
After Delhi leak, disposal of radioactive waste under scanner
Carbon neutral Games at Delhi
Tejas to be stationed at new IAF base in Rajasthan
Govt halts trials of anti-cancer vaccine
AMU prof’s kin seek probe into death
Indo-Australia education council to be set up
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Now, Nitish takes a swipe at PC
New Delhi, April 10 Suggesting that the Home Minister changes his “tone and tenor” with regard to the UPA government’s handling of Maoist violence, Nitish Kumar asked, “Is it necessary to talk so much?” He poked fun at the Home Minister for having tendered his resignation following the Dantewada massacre in Chhattisgarh knowing it would be rejected and took objection to Home Secretary GK Pillai’s comments on his “soft approach” towards Maoists, wondering if it was the job of a bureaucrat to make political statements. “The Centre and the states have to respect each other and work together,” he said, adding the federal structure of this country should be understood by all. Kumar made these comments during a two-hour interaction with members of the Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC) during which he answered questions on Naxal violence, his views on the Women’s Reservation Bill and the upcoming Assembly elections. Admitting that he had differences with Chidambaram over the handling of the Naxal problem, Kumar clarified that he was not against police operations, but felt simultaneous efforts should be made to ensure that the fruits of development reach the poorest of the poor. Kumar cited his government’s experiment in Jehanabad where they had struck at the roots of Naxalism by “saturating the place with development.” “You have to tackle the problem from both sides. You should go ahead with operations wherever required but through the state police. But we should also focus on development with justice,” he said. Regarding the reservation Bill, the Chief Minister admitted that he had “honest differences” with his party chief Sharad Yadav on this issue. Yadav had always pressed for a “quota within a quota” for OBC women, Kumar said, adding that he had also been of the same view but had changed his mind after he saw the positive impact of his government’s decision to reserve 50 per cent seats for women in Panchayats in Bihar. “Other issues can be discussed later but the time has come to pass this Bill,” he said, adding that that his party members had voted for the Bill in the Rajya Sabha. His parliamentary party members would take a view when the Bill comes up for passage in the Lok Sabha, Kumar said, though he had appealed to them to vote in its favour. Kumar also made it clear that controversial BJP leaders like Narendra Modi would not be welcome to campaign in the upcoming Bihar elections. “The BJP leaders in Bihar are quite capable of highlighting the achievements of the government,” he said, underlining that the coming polls will be based on his government’s performance. He also ruled out a joint manifesto with BJP, saying the two partners will continue to work on the basis of a National Agreement for Governance, if voted back to power. In a similar incident a few days ago, West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, too, spoke against Chidambaram on the Naxal issue.
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Quota in Jobs
Gudla (Karauli), April 10 Thousands of Gujjars from Dausa, Bharatpur, Dholpur and Sawai Madhopur areas converged here to decide the community’s future course of action over the issue. Addressing the gathering, Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla announced that they were converting the community assembly into a mass siege as the deadline given to the government to resolve the issue had expired. He said the siege would continue here tonight while they will march to Hindaun in Karauli district tomorrow morning. However, he didn’t say anything on their proposed march to Jaipur. Bainsla had suspended the community’s stir after the state government had assured him to hold back five per cent of the 80,000 government vacancies till the matter, which is stuck in a legal tangle, was resolved. He had given the state government an ultimatum of seven days to sign an agreement in this regard, but the government remained tightlipped over the issue despite his extending the deadline by another two days. He had warned the government that if they didn’t get the reservation before April 10, the state government “will be responsible for all consequences thereafter”.
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Border dispute won’t hit ties with China: Tharoor
Guwahati, April 10 “I don’t see any tension along the India-China border. The 21st century is for looking beyond the geographical barriers. We look forward for better economic ties with China,” he said in respect to the persisting ‘tension’ along the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh. He was interacting with the media after launching a new development concept in the form of a book titled ‘Naturenomics’ for facilitating economic growth in a low carbon environment. He said the unresolved boundary disputes with China dates back to the 1950s. He said India and China were having normal neighbourly relations, though the two sides were yet to have an agreement to settle the border dispute. Regarding issues India is planning to raise when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Brazil-Russia-India-China Summit scheduled for later this month, Tharoor said, “There are many areas where these countries can work together and have improved level of cooperation”. In this regard he cited the example of India-Africa ties that have scaled a new high in respect of the bi-lateral cooperation with India and the African Union Commission agreeing to work together in various fields.
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Advani’s role on wane at BJP meets
New Delhi, April 10 On April 8, Advani attended the first meeting of the BJP office-bearers and sat there for over three hours as a mute spectator, while party president Nitin Gadkari laid out his road map.
Advani’s protégés Leaders of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, both addressed the new office-bearers. At the end someone asked Advani if he would want to say anything, but he politely declined. Just two days before that the party celebrated its 30th Sthapna Divas (foundation day) where in a last minute decision a banner was put up in the background on the dais which had the smiling faces of both Vajpayee and Advani, but the former BJP chief did not attend the function. And it was not as if Advani was too busy or out of town. Event organisers admitted that Advani was very much in town and at home, but pleaded that this was a decision of the party high command. For years Advani’s word used to be the last in the party organisation. But the recent controversy around the re-entry of his former protégé Uma Bharti into the BJP has dispelled even that impression. Uma has been doing the rounds of Advani’s Prithviraj Road residence for close to a year now. Eventually Advani and Gadkari seemed to have made up their mind to take back Uma Bharti and they had the support from an unlikely quarter -- Arun Jaitley. Party leaders refused to admit that there was any conscious attempt to marginalise the octogenarian. But admitted that a generational change had taken place in the BJP and fresh blood was being given a free hand to conduct party affairs.
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Maoists kill two Trinamool workers
Midnapore/Jhargram, April 10 “They were missing since yesterday afternoon when they went to distribute electric bills to households in Rasua village. An inquiry is on,” District Magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam said. The police said Maoist posters were recovered from the spot claiming that Dutta and Mahato were the police informers. Union Minister of state for Rural Development and Trinamool Congress leader Sisir Adhikari said Mahato and Dutta were Trinamool workers. — PTI
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After Delhi leak, disposal of radioactive waste under scanner
New Delhi, April 10 With a Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) team yesterday tracing the radiation to Cobalt 60, possibility can’t be ruled out of RAWs being disposed of as junk in violation of Atomic Energy (Radiation Protection) Rules, 2004, which set strict disposal norms. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board of India enforces these rules which apply to institutions using ionising radiation for medical applications such as diagnosis or treatment of patients such as institutions with teletherapy and brachytherapy units, nuclear medicine labs, diagnostic X-ray installations, including dental X-ray, mammography and interventional radiology and CT scan. Also, bound by radiation surveillance norms are institutions using sealed radiation sources for carrying out industrial radiography. Though the probe is on to determine where Cobalt 60 in the scrap shop came from, top scientists yesterday told The Tribune that there could be three possible sources - hospital equipment using radioactive isotopes; radiography equipment used in industry or even the waste material which other countries are dumping in India. Meanwhile, health ministry officials were also disturbed yesterday by the news that takes the focus back to RAW disposal mechanism by hospitals among other institutes. Inquiries made by The Tribune revealed that hospitals using Cobalt 60 for cancer treatment are supposed to transport the radioactive waste in sealed lead caskets to BARC which disposes it as per rules. “In case of Cobalt 60, whose half life is five years, BARC sends the lead caskets which we pay for. Each such disposal costs the hospital around Rs 8 to 10 lakh,” an senior radiologist from AIIMS yesterday told TNS. The source cost of Cobalt 60 is more than Rs 65 lakh; this has to be borne every five years.
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Carbon neutral Games at Delhi
Guwahati, April 10 “India is in an advantageous position to redesign its economic development model in tune with growing global demand for facilitating development in a low carbon environment to save the planet Earth. Despite being home to 17 per cent of the total global population, India emits only 4 % of the total carbon emission recorded globally,” said Tharoor. “Some developing nations are denouncing urgency shown by developed nations --- which have been mostly responsible for high-level of carbon emission for centuries --- for having a low carbon environment all over the world. But that is not the way to look at the matter,” he added. The minister said the green and pollution-free environment in Assam and other parts of the North-East is in the most advantageous position within the country for initiating low carbon economic development process. “It has turned out to be blessings in disguise that some of our industrialists have failed to come to Assam so far,” he added.
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Tejas to be stationed at new IAF base in Rajasthan
New Delhi, April 10 Uniquely, the new air base that was inaugurated four days ago is the first forward-operating airbase to be commissioned by the IAF in more than two decades. The first lot of the LCA -- a squadron of 20 aircraft -- is scheduled to be handed over to the IAF in 11 months from now. The second squadron will follow a year later -- both are being built at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) unit at Bangalore. Once handed over to the IAF, the LCA’s first base, briefly, will be at a station in South India, from where the fighters will move in batches to Phalodi, the sources said. Moving planes in small batches is a normal IAF procedure. Phalodi has the capacity to handle other aircraft besides deep penetration radars. Defence Minister A K Antony had told Parliament last month that the first lot of the LCA would be delivered in March 2011. The Air Force is likely to accord ‘initial operational clearance’ by the end of this year. Phalodi is the sixth IAF base in Rajasthan. It is located almost equidistant from the three existing IAF bases at Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Nal (Bikaner). The IAF has two others bases in Rajasthan -- Suratgarh and Uttarlai (Barmer). Across the border opposite Phalodi are two major Pakistani military bases in Bahawalpur and Rahimyar Khan. In the past two decades, the IAF had not commissioned or operationalised a new base as it had focused on improving infrastructure in the existing bases across the country -- some 70 in number. In the past two years, the IAF has reopened defunct advanced landing grounds at Nyoma, Fukche and Daulet Beg Oldie -- all in Ladakh. The forces have a requirement for more than 200 LCA-type aircraft to replace the ageing lot of MiG 21 series of fighters. An additional $ 538.2 million (about Rs 2,500 crore) has been approved by the government for the LCA Phase-II programme. For this, the engines are to be selected soon.
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Govt halts trials of anti-cancer vaccine
New Delhi, April 10 Pharma majors GSK and Merck Sharp and Dohme have been marketing their versions of the HPV vaccine here, raising issues around its feasibility and period of efficacy among recipients. Concerned about reports of deaths among those on whom the vaccine was being tested - young unmarried girls aged 10 to 18 - the Health Ministry, in a directive to AIIMS today, said no further vaccine should be administered to girls unless the ongoing government inquiry being conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) established the cause of adolescent deaths reported from Andhra Pradesh. Some girls reportedly also took ill after the alleged administration of the vaccines in Gujarat and AP, where the ICMR, along with international NGO PATH was holding a feasibility study for HPV vaccine use in India. The Tribune had earlier reported how vaccines untested in Indian conditions were being sold over the counter. While the ICMR-PATH trial was blocked three days ago, the government today halted the only ongoing HPV vaccine trial in India -- the one being conducted by AIIMS and WHO’s International Association for Research in Cancer (IARC) to test whether two doses of Gadrasil vaccine of Merck were enough instead of the current three being administered. The entire vaccine dose costs around Rs 7,500. Dr Neerja Batla of AIIMS, who was part of the IARC trial project initiated in select districts of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra, Haryana, Sikkim and Mizoram for a five-year period, confirmed to TNS today that the Health Ministry had issued a directive saying no vaccination should be done unless the cause of reported mortality was established. Batla, however, said these deaths could not essentially be attributed to the vaccine. The halted AIIMS-IARC project was meant to generate information on the feasibility, safety and acceptability of the two-dose HPV vaccination regimens; provide decision-makers in India and other developing nations with safety data to enable them frame evidence-based HPV vaccination policy and invest in its wide-scale implementation. The government, however, clarified today that it was not even thinking of including the HPV vaccines in the national cancer control programme. Health Secretary Sujatha Rao told The Tribune, “These vaccines are not seen as an option in India. Experts are not enthused. In any case, our focus is cancer prevention,” she said, adding that she had no idea the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) had approved the vaccines for sale. DCGI Surinder Singh, when contacted, refused to tell if he had granted permission to pharma companies to market the said vaccines. “I am not authorised to speak to the Press. I will talk if my seniors tell me to,” he said.
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AMU prof’s kin seek probe into death
Aligarh, April 10 “Family members of Siras, including his wife, met us this afternoon and demanded an impartial inquiry in a written complaint. They have also requested us to ascertain whether Siras committed suicide or was poisoned,” said Superintendent of Police Maan Singh Chauhan. He said the viscera of Siras had been sent to Forensic Science Laboratory (FLS) in Agra to ascertain the exact cause of death. "We are trying to get the FSL report at the earliest. But as of now no conclusion can be drawn without having an expert report from Agra,” the SP said. Earlier, a case was lodged against seven persons -- four senior AMU officials and three mediapersons -- for allegedly intruding into the privacy of the professor and harassing him. The case was registered yesterday on an order by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, who was approached by Siras a day before his death on April 5. — PTI
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Indo-Australia education council to be set up
New Delhi, April 10 Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of Human Resource Development and Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Australia decided upon the council constitution at a meeting held yesterday in Melbourne. Sibal is touring Australia and New Zealand these days. Among other initiatives agreed upon between the two nations are-setting up a Joint Faculty Development Programme and organisation of bilateral Inter-University Convention of Vice Chancellors.
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Having been accused by the Centre for not cooperating in its fight against Maoists, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today took a swipe at Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Guwahati, April 10
New Delhi, April 10
He was speaking at the launch of a “Naturenomics”, a module that speaks of ways to achieve economic development goals in a low carbon environment. It has been prepared by an Assamese entrepreneur Ranjit Borthakur, who is also associated with the ‘Green Commonwealth Games Initiative’.