Hyderabad/New Delhi, Jan 5
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) today rejected a fresh appeal from Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to attend tomorrow's meeting of political parties on the Justice BN Srikrishna Committee report on Telangana, as Andhra Pradesh waited with bated breath to know its “roadmap” on the vexed statehood issue.

Anticipating trouble, particularly in Telangana, the government has deployed over 50 companies of paramilitary forces, a major chunk of them in and around Hyderabad, which is part of Telangana region.

Amid a boycott by TRS and BJP, Chidambaram will meet leaders of political parties from AP in the National Capital and present the contents of the report — after which it will be made public.

The meeting of eight recognised political parties in the state — Congress, TDP, PRP, TRS, MIM, CPI, CPM and BJP — was convened for discussions after the committee, which went into the demands for a separate Telangana state and keeping Andhra Pradesh united, submitted its 800-page voluminous report to the Centre.

In Hyderabad, TRS sources said the party was staying away as Chidambaram had not responded to their objections. “Chidambaram has sent a second letter. He did not answer to our objection that one party should not give divergent views. He (Chidambaram) said five parties had expressed a single opinion in a similar meeting held in January last. But the moot point is that three parties gave divergent views…. The Centre is deliberately encouraging the parties to give divergent views by inviting two representatives from each party," the sources said.

After TRS and BJP, the main opposition Telugu Desam Party also indicated that it might follow suit.

The Telangana protagonists across political spectrum view the meeting as part of delaying tactics by the UPA government . The Telangana leaders within the ruling Congress are also skeptical about the exercise. The opposition parties’ decision came against the backdrop of reports that Srikrishna committee may have suggested a “range of options” to the government instead of a firm recommendation in favour of separate Telangana state.

Meanwhile, AP Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi and is understood to have discussed the political situation. The panel submitted the two-volume report on December 30 in which it has given several options and the pros and cons to approach the statehood issue that has virtually divided major political parties on regional lines.

New Delhi, January 5
The spacious and sprawling bungalow at 07, Moti Lal Nehru Marg here is being touched up these days, as it gets ready to host Tourism, Housing and Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja.

Selja, the MP from Ambala, would be the first VVIP to occupy one of the 32 bungalows being constructed by the Central Public Works Department in Lutyen’s Delhi, a heritage zone, to meet the ever-rising demand of VVIP accommodation.

Official sources said their work was over and they were waiting for completion certificate from the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). Once they received the certificate, the minister would be the first to move in, they said. The four-bedroom bungalow has incurred a cost of nearly Rs 2 crore and is fitted with all modern amenities. “The construction and facilities available are more modern as compared to the old bungalows,” an official said.

Selja presently lives in Sunehri Marg and her house, one of the old bungalows, is not really in good shape. Most of these old bungalows are not really safe, requiring frequent investment to keep them livable. The newly designed bungalows would occupy much less space — around 1.5 acres as compared to 3-4 acres of the old ones — and meet the demands of the modern times, officials said. These type-VIII bungalows will have a long veranda, an office, waiting room with separate entry and servant quarters. They will also be greener, with rainwater harvesting facility.

New Delhi, January 5
Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi was questioned for over eight hours today at the CBI office here as the investigating agency grilled him on a host of questionable financial transactions the OC signed with several private bodies.

Kalmadi reached the CBI office at around 10 am and had to answer sleuths’ questions for almost the whole day. The CBI is presently investigating three cases it had registered in connection with the CWG scam. While the two are related to Queen’s Baton Relay, the third one pertains to a Rs 107-cr deal the OC had struck with a Swiss firm for supplying it an electronic scoreboard.

The CBI believes these all deals were overvalued and the OC flouted rules to award contracts to some select parties. Kalmadi was the key decision-maker and the final authority in clinching these deals. A CBI official said Kalmadi was evasive to their direct queries, which questioned his role and attempted to deflect blame from him. “He always said that there were different committees in the OC to take decisions. He seconded only their decisions and he could not be blamed if some officials were influenced to favour some particular committee or persons,” a source said.

The agency has also questioned several of his close aides, including Manoj Bhori, his political adviser, and PK Srivastava and AK Sinha, his assistants. The CBI had raided Kalmadi’s premises at New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune on December 24. Three former senior OC officials are behind bars for their suspect roles in these three cases.

New Delhi, January 5
The medical fitness norms for entry into the armed forces are soon going to be more flexible.

A comprehensive amendment to the medical fitness criteria for new entrants in the Army, Indian Air force and Navy is on cards to further standardise norms for the aspirants, said Lieutenant General Naresh Kumar, Commandant, Army Hospital Research and Referral. “We want to standardise our norms so that a lot of aspirants who were earlier considered medically unfit to serve the Indian armed forces can be declared fit now after undergoing correction procedures,” Kumar said.

Already people with slight disorders of the eye, arm or knee or with problems in gall bladder, liver and kidney are being allowed to join the armed forces after proper treatment.

Kumar said the changes in medical criteria for new entrants in all the three divisions of the armed forces are being done based on the past findings. “Aspirants, who have been found to have one or two spots in the liver or little calcification in the kidney, eye problem, gall bladder stone or defects in the foot or arms are also being recruited,” Major General Mandeep Singh, ADG, Medical Research, Armed Forces Medical Services, said.

“This is only after they have undergone corrections and their health condition does not come in the way of effectively performing their duties,” he said.

Many aspirants with gall bladder stone problem are doing well after undergoing surgery. Those with minor eye problems and who have undergone lasik surgery are observed for a year and then allowed to join the armed forces, Singh said.

“Our aim is that no one with trivial disability should be declared unfit for the armed forces. That is why this time it is a comprehensive observation of all types of ailments and their available medicinal or surgical cure. If treatment can help them perform well, then why stop them. At the end we want the best to be part of us,” Major General Mandeep Singh said. — PTI

New Delhi, January 5
Even as they gather in New Delhi again for the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) from January 7-9, NRIs may have to wait for some more time for a formal announcement by the government, granting them voting rights.

The government is in talks with the Election Commission to finalise the modalities to enable more than ten million NRIs spread across the globe to take part in the electoral process in India, Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi said today. Officials of the External Affairs Ministry and the Overseas Indian Affairs Ministry have already held two rounds of talks with representatives of the Election Commission on the issue, he said at a press conference to brief the media about the PBD beginning on Friday.

It was at the PBD function last year that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced that the government would bring changes in laws to enable NRIs to cast ballots in the country of their origin in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Since then, the Parliament has passed a bill amending the Representation of the People’s ACT (RPA), which has also been notified.

Ravi said he had also discussed the issue with Law Minister M Veerappa Moily. “Rules have to be framed in consultations with the Law Ministry and the Election Commission…I am sure we will complete all the formalities very soon.” Sources, meanwhile, said the Election Commission was insisting on physical verification of the NRIs wishing to get voting rights while the government feels that it would be virtually impossible to physically verify each and every NRI. This appears to have delayed the exercise.

Talking about the PBD, the minister said the annual gathering of people of Indian origin this time would have a special focus on the northeast and the youth among the large Indian diaspora. “We are expecting nearly 1,500 delegates from about 50 countries to take part in the three-day celebrations.”

He expressed satisfaction that the PBD had become an important event of the annual calendar, attracting important members of the Indian diaspora from around the world.

On the opening day on January 7, there would be important seminars on health and education. Prime Minister will officially inaugurate the event on January 8 at which New Zealand Governor-General Anand Satyanand will be the chief guest. President Pratibha Patil will deliver the valedictory address the next day and confer the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman awards at the closing session. Since the focus is on the northeast, the event is being held in partnership with the Ministry for Development of North Eastern Region and the state governments of the eight northeastern states. There will be a special plenary session on investment opportunities in the northeast, which will be addressed by the chief ministers of all the eight states in the region.

The delegates will be addressed by a number of important central ministers, including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Road Transport Minister Kamal Nath. The CMs of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Kerala and Haryana have also confirmed their participation in the event.

New Delhi, January 5
India’s edgy neighbour, China, is ready with a key strategic move that will cement its naval presence in Myanmar. For India, the move indicates the ever-increasing Chinese footprint in the Indian Ocean. China and Myanmar are going to set up a joint naval unit within the next three-four weeks. This will be at the Thilawa port, 25 km south of Yangoon, sources said while adding that Indian intelligence agencies have tipped off the government about the importance of the development and its long-term implications.

In August last year, Chinese warships made their first-ever call at a port in Myanmar. It was at the same Thilawa port. Two of its warships returning from “anti-piracy” duties in the Gulf of Aden, had stopped over at Myanmar. On the other hand, India has a strong relationship with the Myanmar Navy and both Navies have been conducting regular exercises at sea. Myanmar has enjoyed a military and economic partnership with China since the end of the 1980s with the Chinese having a major stake in exploration of natural gas.

Under the latest move, the globally “maligned” military rulers of Myanmar will provide China with a very firm foothold in the Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean region and that too at a very close range from India. The joint naval unit of the two nations will establish a communication network for the Myanmar Navy. This network would link all key naval bases in one giant communication grid that would connect all bases with the Myanmar Navy headquarters at Naypyitaw.

All this is bound to raise eyebrows in India, as this would be the first-ever Chinese presence on a Myanmar communication network. “It could allow the Chinese Navy to have first-hand monitoring of sea traffic very close to the India, especially the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” said a source. At Andamans is located the tri-service command and the areas straddles the vital sealanes of communication (SLOCs) through which China conducts its trade and imports crude oil.

Around two decades ago, a speculation about China’s military facilities in Myanmar’s Coco Island, the Bay of Bengal, had turned out to be untrue. Myanmar allowed India access to the facilities in the island where no Chinese “listening post” was found.

Dehradun, January 5
More than 22 persons, including seven children, were killed and more than 30 injured, some of them seriously, in a bus accident near Rajpur on the Dehradun- Mussoorie road today.

According to police officials, a private bus carrying mostly businessmen and their family members from Haridwar on a picnic to Mussoorie fell in a gorge five km from Kuthal gate police barrier near Rajpur.

The speeding bus, probably due to some technical snag, met with accident at around 8.30 pm. The 45-seater bus of Garhwal Motor Owners Union was on its way from Mussoorie to Haridwar.

Senior police and civil officials rushed to the spot and started rescue operations. Dehradun SSP GS Martoliya and District Magistrate Sachin Kurve supervised the rescue operations. The injured were rushed to Doon Hospital. Uttarakhand Tourism Minister Madan Kaushik also rushed to the accident site.

Meanwhile, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank visited the hospital to meet the injured. He instructed the hospital authorities to provide them best of the medical facilities.

New Delhi, January 5
The next time you pick a golden yellow or dazzling orange paint to jazz up your bedroom or living room walls, spare a thought for what might you be inhaling. Scientific analysis of several top brand enamel paints in India has revealed shocking levels of lethal lead in paints.

The study was initiated by the Quality Council of India (apex body under the Ministry of Commerce that monitors quality competitiveness of Indian products) after it found overwhelming evidence of severe health hazards of lead - miscarriages among women, infertility among men and low IQ, even retardation among children.

“We have evidence of 53.5 per cent of under-12 children in metros having blood lead levels above 10 microgram per decilitre due to lead exposure through painted school walls, buses and swings. That’s enough to reduce IQ by four to six units and cause developmental disorders.

Of the 50 samples (of 12 leading paint brands) tested for quality at the Bangalore Analytical and Research Centre, majority reported hazardous lead concentrations — much above the 1,000 parts per million (ppm) limit which the Bureau of Indian Standards has fixed for optional (not mandatory) adherence in India. The global norm recommended by the WHO is 90 ppm.

The study shows over 61.3 per cent samples had more than 5,000 ppm lead content.

Among the enamel paint samples found most hazardous by the study are: Berger deep orange (2,53,200 ppm); Berger golden yellow (1,33,000 ppm); ICI Dulux Orange (49,600 ppm); Primer Paint red (37,700 ppm); Primer Paint orange (17,700 ppm); Nippon Pylox golden yellow (26,000 ppm); and Alfa Coat Red (1,090 ppm).

About 38 per cent of all samples, including plastic, enamel and exterior types, contained lead levels above 600 ppm.

Prof N Sashidhara, principal adviser, National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India (NRCLP), Bangalore, which supported the study technically, said, “Lead levels in Indian paints are shockingly high; their effect on health is grave. A lead-safe law is urgently needed.”