Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time -Two Hundred Forty One
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
News results for Nuclear India
India hopes to expand civil nuclear cooperation during PM's Russia ... - 1 hour ago
The agreement to build these two civilian nuclear reactors in India was signed in December 2008 during a visit by the Russian president to New Delhi. ...Thaindian.com - 1214 related articles »
Canada close to nuclear deal with India - The Associated Press - 792 related articles »Nuclear India Archival Index
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Jump to Nuclear submarines: According to some accounts, India plans to have as many as 20 nuclear submarines capable of carrying missiles with nuclear ...
en.wikipedia.org/.../India_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction - Cached - Similar -India, Canada reach civil nuclear agreement - India - The Times of ...
29 Nov 2009 ... Harper said "increased collaboration with India's civil nuclear energy market will allow Canadian companies to benefit from greater access ...
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India has a vision of becoming a world leader in nuclear power technology due to its expertise in fast reactors and thorium nuclear fuel cycle.
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Site by the Embassy of India which provides statements and information regarding India's nuclear program and testing. Press releases on nuclear tests, ...
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A proposed groundbreaking nuclear deal between the United States and India is raising questions and concern in both countries.
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India's nuclear weapons program was started at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Trombay. In the mid-1950s India acquired dual-use technologies under the ...
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India, Canada clinch civil nuclear deal: Rediff.com India News
29 Nov 2009 ... According to the Canadian government, "India's civilian nuclear energy ... Canada's exports to India in the nuclear field "could range from ...
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India hopes to expand civil nuclear cooperation during PM's Russia ... - Daily Times India - 7 hours agoBook results for Nuclear India
US India Nuclear Cooperation: A Strategy for ... - by Michael A Levi, Charles D Ferguson, ... - 37 pagesIndia's Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between ... - by Ashley J Tellis, Project Air Force US, ... - 922 pages
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News results for Babri Mosque demolition
The HinduBabri masjid demolition anniversary: Security stepped up in TN - 6 hours ago
PTI Chennai: Ahead of the Babri mosque demolition anniversary tomorrow, police has stepped up security across Tamil Nadu, senior officials said. ...Daily News & Analysis - 158 related articles »
No regrets on Babri demolition, says RSS chief - IBNLive.com - 75 related articles »Babri Mosque demolition & Indian secularism - Pakistan Observer - 87 related articles »Babri Mosque - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to Demolition: The Liberhan report has pieced together a sequence of events as they happened on December 6, 1992, the day the Babri Masjid was ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babri_Mosque - Cached - Similar -Babri Mosque Demolition: Why On December 6? By Ashok Yadav
21 Feb 2009 ... Was it a mere coincidence that the Babri mosque was demolished on December 6? Of course, there are strong reasons to believe that the event ...
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4 Dec 2009 ... "We were waiting for the report on the Babri Masjid demolition and the ... Swayamsevak Sangh's plans to demolish the mosque structure. ...
in.news.yahoo.com/.../tnl-muslims-seek-action-against-those-re.html - Cached -Babri mosque demolition was not planned: Singhal - Yahoo! India News
5 Dec 2009 ... Chennai, Dec 5 (PTI) Rejecting the Liberhan Commission''s indictment of it in the Babri mosque demolition in 1992 in Ayodhya, the VHP today ...
in.news.yahoo.com/.../tnl-babri-mosque-demolition-was-not-plan.html - 6 hours ago -Image results for Babri Mosque demolition
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17 Oct 2007 ... The demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.Indian government allowed Hindu extremists to demolish the Babri ...
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Ayodhya Muslims recall horror of Babri mosque demolition - Ayodhya, Dec 5 : On the eve of the 17th anniversary of the demolition of Babri mosque in Ayodhya, ...
www.newkerala.com/news/fullnews-4751.html - 7 hours ago -Babri Mosque Demolition, Events - AndhraNews.Net Features
AndhraNews.net - News feature articles on Events - Babri Mosque Demolition.
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6 Dec 2006 ... "The demolition of the Babri Mosque was not only a serious blow to Indian secularism and the fundamental rights granted by the Indian ...
www.milligazette.com/.../949-CIM-Babri_masjid_ayodhya-6dec06.htm - Cached - Similar -Congress blames Rao for Babri mosque demolition | Deccan Chronicle
5 Dec 2009 ... New Delhi: On the eve of the Babri mosque demolition anniversary, the Congress said former prime minister P.V. Narsimha Rao should have ...
www.deccanchronicle.com/.../congress-blames-rao-babri-mosque-demolition-191 - 26 minutes ago -
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GLOBAL HINDUTVA IN 21ST CENTURY AND RASHTRIYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH
1996 on his global vision of Hinduism in 21st Century. While he emphasized the need to put forth the Hindutva concept before the World forcefully and in an ...
www.hvk.org/Publications/global.html - Cached - Similar -Hindutva - The Hindu Way of Life
Sri Guruji: A Guru for Global Hindutva | Shri Golwalkar Guruji
Sri Guruji: A Guru for Global Hindutva. - V Sundaram, IAS (Retd.) ------------------------------------------ Courtesy: Tattva Darsana, ...
www.golwalkarguruji.org/.../sri-guruji-a-drona-for-global-hindutva - Similar -Capitalism Alive boom Boom! Zionism, Global Hindutva, Fascism and ...
But Playboy magazine also showed men how to enjoy stylish clothing, good liquor, sports cars and other luxuries, and became a standard bearer for that ...
blog.onlinemagazinesources.com/capitalism-alive-boom-boom-zionism-global-hindutva-fascism-and/ - Cached -Project MUSE - The Global South - Hindutva Abroad: The California ...
Hindutva Abroad: The California Textbook Controversy. Purnima Bose. Return to Text. Figure 1. The RSS's global reach. The RSS's global reach. ...
muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_global_south/v002/2.1.bose_fig01.html - Similar -Bomb Blasts in Nepal: Global Dimensions of Hindutva Terror - South ...
15 Jun 2009 ... Fanatic Hindutva organisations have been able to make inroads in the sprawling diasporic community in the rest of the world, ...
www.sacw.net › Communalism Repository - Cached -Bomb Blasts in Nepal: Global Dimensions of Hindutva Terror « Kafila
15 Jun 2009 ... Definitely the story of the global dimensions of Hindutva terror does not end here. One needs to emphasise that much on the lines of ...
kafila.org/.../bomb-blasts-in-nepal-global-dimensions-of-hindutva-terror/ - Cached -Unmistakably Sangh: The National Hindu Students Council and its ...
17 Jan 2008 ... Uncovering the Global Sangh. New Report Points To Growing Sangh Student Network ... with no links to any Hindutva organization or movement. ...
hsctruthout.stopfundinghate.org/ - Cached - Similar -Bomb Blasts in Nepal: Global Dimensions of Hindutva Terror ...
I Churches in Nepal, the erstwhile Hindu Rashtra on the face of the earth, have maintained a unique tradition. They hold services on Saturdays (...)
www.mainstreamweekly.net › 2009 › 8) August 2009 - Cached -Hindutva News- Time for an Indo-American Military Alliance
An Indo-American alliance in the future global scenario, is critically ... (This Hindutva Site is managed by a Virtual Team of Webmasters across the globe. ...
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Farmers' suicides in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 2006, the state of Maharashtra, with 4453 farmers' suicides accounted for over a quarter of the all-India total of 17060, according to the National Crime ...
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FARMERS SUICIDE IN INDIA
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The suicide epidemic that has hit farmers of India in the early twenty first century is not confined to just one district, one state or one particular crop. ...
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Causes of Farmer Suicides - Final Final
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The All India Biodynamic and Organic Farming Association wrote to the Mumbai High. Court expressing concern over the suicides of farmers. The Hon. ...
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Farmer Suicide in India
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www.youtube.comMonsanto Indian Farmer Suicide
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www.youtube.comMass Farmer Suicide in India
17 Apr 2009 ... More than 1500 Indian farmers committed suicide after being pushed into debt through crop failures. The reason for the crop failures have ...
www.greenmuze.com/.../1036-mass-farmer-suicide-in-india.html - Cached - Similar -India Together: Farmer suicides in India: news reports, opinions ...
INDIA, TOGETHER. Mon 30 Nov 2009, The news in proportion. ... Cotton marketing fails farmers • Vidharbha: A suicides diary. Analysis essays ...
www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/suicides.htm - Cached - Similar -India Together: Agriculture - news articles, reports, opinions and ...
Across India, cotton growers make up the largest group of the over 180000 farmers who committed suicide between 1997 and 2007. ...
www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/ - Cached - Similar -Our Vision
According to me the economic constitution of India and for the matter of that of the world, should be such that no one under it should suffer from want of ...
www.navdanya.org/about-us/vision - Cached -One suicide every 8 hours - dnaindia.com
26 Aug 2006 ... Among the farmers who committed suicide in the past year, more than 50% were ... US favours significant role for India in Afghanistan ...
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Here, we provide a specific case study on the potential link between technological choices and farmer suicides in India. Although officially recognized for ...
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Bhopal tragedy, anti-Sikh riots: Just say sorry, and pay upTimes of India - - 9 hours ago It is just as well that 25 years on, Bhopal gas leak remains the world's largest industrial disaster. The pity is, India's policy on compensation is no less ... From Bhopal to CopenhagenGrist Magazine - - 14 hours ago The economic might and political influence of Union Carbide caused the thousands of deaths in India. In the wake of Bhopal, people in the United States ... An ever present past Hindustan Times In pictures: Bhopal gas leak disaster rememberedBBC News - Dec 3, 2009 Protest rallies have been held in Bhopal, central India, to mark 25 years since the city witnessed the world's worst industrial disaster. ... Bhopal survivors demand justice The Mercury (subscription) The difference between Bhopal and New York In Defense of Marxism Genes cause mental imbalanceTimes of India - - 20 hours ago "There has not been any study on deaths due to drug trials in the world and recent research has already indicated that Indian population is prone to sudden ... India and Pakistan relations 'better than feared'Times Online - - Nov 26, 2009 As this week's leaked report by the Justice Liberhan commission observes, the 1992 attack on the mosque by a Hindu mob, which led to the deaths of 2000 ... The people's poetIrish Times - - 14 hours ago But the books that came later – the poems about paintings, about the break-up of his marriage, about the deaths of his parents, about himself and his ... A green industrial revolution callsguardian.co.uk - Dec 3, 2009 Thorium is a very promising potential nuclear fuel, most of it is found in India. Fast Breeder Reactors are fine in theory, but a financial disaster in ... Has Canada become the new climate villain (yes, that's right, Canada)?Mongabay.com - - Dec 2, 2009 Others have written about the social impacts the trade has had on once sleepy Canadian towns, including high rates of suicide, injuries and deaths on the ... Copenhagen: No sense of urgency Real News Network Pak 'hosted' HeadleyExpress Buzz - Nov 17, 2009 Even as Headley's India network is being probed New Delhi has asked Canada to provide more inputs on Headley's accomplice Rana who is believed to have been ... AP News in BriefThe Associated Press - Nov 24, 2009 ___ Obama hails US-India ties amid talks with PM Singh, commits to go to India next year WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking firmer footing for US-India relations, ... | |
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Bhopal disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3787 deaths ... The Union Carbide India, Limited (UCIL) factory was established in 1969 near Bhopal. ..... 1986, the MP government invested in the Special Industrial Area Bhopal. ...
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Surveillance of mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) related ...
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which constitutes 54.1% of all CVD deaths in India by 2020. .... and the results of CVD related morbidity and mortality surveillance in the industrial ...
www.whoindia.org/.../NMH_Resources_burden_cvd__mortality.pdf - Similar - India: Deaths in West Bengal during protest against new industrial ...
India: Deaths in West Bengal during protest against new industrial project. As protests by farming communities fearing displacement from their land as a ...
asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA200042007?open&of... -Socialist Party Australia » India: Industrial deaths
India: Industrial deaths. India - In six months 25 workers die in ship's graveyard, the Ala ng ship-breaking yard in Gujarat [Times of India] 14 July ...
www.socialistpartyaustralia.org/archives/55 - Cached -More hazardous industries, more deaths - Express India
Fishy deaths | India Environment Portal
Fishy deaths. dead fish floated down two parallel canals, carrying water ... Everyone suspects untreated sewage and industrial effluents dumped into the ...
www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in › News - Cached -Three arrested in Vedanta plant deaths probe - India - Asia ...
17 Nov 2009 ... The disaster – one of the most serious industrial accidents in India in years – and this week's arrests are the latest setback in India for ...
m.ft.com/.../s/.../5576d494-d380-11de-9607-00144feabdc0.html?... - Cached -Chronology of Industrial Disasters
This is a list of major industrial disasters. The list does not include deaths and destruction due to dangerous workplaces and unsafe products. ...
www.endgame.org/industrial-disasters.html - Cached - Similar -Flipkart.com: International Yearbook Of Industrial Statistics 2009 ...
Buy International Yearbook Of Industrial Statistics 2009 in India. ... Popular at Flipkart.comDeath And Restoration | Schaum's Outline Of Theory And ...
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Business & Human Rights Resource Centre: India: Deaths in West Bengal due to police firing during protests against new industrial project ...
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Shashi Tharoor on India's 'soft power'
India is fast becoming a superpower, says Shashi Tharoor -- and not just through trade and politics, but through "soft power," its ability to share its culture with the world through food, music, technology, Bollywood. As he says, "In today's world, it's not the size of the army that wins. It's the country that tells a better story."
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/videoshow_ted/5284245.cms
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OUR ATOM STATE
- India's nuclear industry is neither profitable nor accountable
Politics and Play Ramachandra Guha
The most secretive institution in India is the Atomic Energy Commission. Although its power plants profess to produce goods for the benefit of the public, they are not judged by the standards of profitability and accountability that the market imposes on other industries. Nor, like other government-owned and managed firms, do they have to report to the parliamentary committee on public undertakings. In fact, by an act of Parliament they have been made exempt from the scrutiny of the Parliament itself.
No ordinary citizen can get anywhere near an atomic installation, and even the most well-connected historian cannot get anywhere near the records of the AEC or its associated bodies. But by a stroke of luck I once stumbled upon snatches of correspondence connected with this otherwise closed and inward-looking organization. When I found these documents, a decade ago, I xeroxed and filed them away. They bear exhuming today, since they speak directly to the controversy relating to the recent leak in the Kaiga nuclear plant.
The documents date to the year 1967, when the Congress had just won its fourth general elections in a row. Among the new entrants to the ministry was M.S. Gurupadaswamy, who was appointed the minister of state for atomic energy. Gurupadaswamy had previously been a member of the Praja Socialist Party, an organization known for cultivating both intelligence as well as independence of mind. In keeping with this tradition, he took his new job rather seriously.
He visited the plants then in operation, and spoke to a cross-section of scientists and staff. What he found was not altogether to his liking. He wrote to the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, that the work of the AEC "appears to be on [a] low keel"; that there were serious delays; and that there was a loss of morale among the staff. He recommended that a set of procedures "be evolved to achieve greater accountability [as] to the time-schedule, production, cost, technical performance, etc" of our nuclear power plants.
Having alerted the prime minister to the deficiencies within the AEC, the new minister of state then took up the matter with the chairman of the commission, the physicist, Vikram Sarabhai. He asked him to supply details of project costs, expenditure incurred over the past few years including the foreign exchange component, the reasons for delays, and the impediments faced in the execution of their work. These details were important in themselves, but Gurupadaswamy further added that they might be used in "a comparative study of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Railway Board, and the P&T Board". (That he thought of these comparisons is testimony to the minister's intelligence, for the railways and postal service were the two government agencies that provided tangible and mostly positive services to the citizens of India.)
These (very reasonable) suggestions provoked panic and paranoia in the AEC. The chairman wrote to the prime minister insisting that he report only to her, since there was "no provision in the constitution [of the AEC] for a Minister of State for Atomic Energy to concern himself with the formulation of policy or with the implementation of decisions". He believed that "it would be most unfortunate" if the "existing relations between the Commission, its Chairman and the Prime Minister" were to be altered "through the nature of information and consultation that is required at the Ministerial level and the frequency of reporting" that Gurupadaswamy had asked for.
In a handwritten note to her secretary (a copy of which I possess) Mrs Gandhi enclosed this correspondence with the comment: "Shri Gurupadaswamy is full of zeal. Dr Sarabhai thinks it is misplaced zeal!" Four decades on, I think that we can safely conclude that the zeal was in fact well directed. For studies by independent researchers strongly suggest that our atomic energy programme is an economic failure as well as an environmental disaster. Nor does the charge-sheet end here, for, by the very nature of its functioning, the AEC has undermined the democratic ideals of the nation.
Take the environmental question first. The construction of nuclear installations often involves the loss of green cover — in the case of Kaiga, the loss of some of the best rainforests in the Western Ghats. In the extraction of thorium and uranium, health hazards are imposed on the communities which live near the mines. In the normal operations of these plants further health costs are borne by surrounding communities. (A study by Sanghamitra and Surendra Gadekar demonstrates that those living near nuclear installations in India are exposed to very high levels of radiation.) Then there is the ever-present threat of nuclear accidents. Finally, there is the question of the disposal of the wastes, which remain radioactive for thousands of years.
On the economic side, work by the distinguished energy scientist, Amulya Reddy, has shown that nuclear power in India is more costly per unit than coal, hydel, solar or other available options (see http://www.amulya-reddy.org.in/Publ_427_E_NE.htm). Reddy based his calculations on official statistics, those contained in the annual reports of the AEC (the only information about the organization that ever becomes public). However, if one was to take into account the hidden subsidies that the commission enjoys, the comparison would be even more damaging to its interests. Remarkably, despite contributing a mere three per cent of the country's energy needs, more than 60 per cent of the total research budget on energy goes to this sector. How much better served would we and the nation be if the priorities were reversed, with clean technologies like solar and wind power provided the assistance that nuclear energy currently obtains?
Finally, nuclear energy is a technology that is inherently anti-democratic. It erects a wall of secrecy between itself and the ordinary citizen. It is not subject to the scrutiny of elected legislators. It refuses even to submit itself to the peer-review of the scientific community. In response to public pressure exerted over a number of years, the government set up an Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, only to staff it with former employees of the AEC. No credible or independent scientist serves on it. Naturally, the AERB sees its job as merely being to whitewash the errors of its paymasters.
To these very serious limitations has now been added a new and perhaps still more serious one — that the industry is peculiarly vulnerable to terror attacks. In seeking to deflect criticism of the recent accident at Kaiga, the chairman of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited told a television channel that this may have been sabotage by a "foreign hand". The claim only dropped more egg on his face, for if, despite all the secrecy and security, the AEC or NPCIL cannot prevent contamination of a single water tower, who is to say that they can ever thwart a suicide bomber or a plane flying low into one of their plants?
The Atomic Energy Commission in India is both a holy cow as well as a white elephant. Because it can, in theory, deliver atomic weapons to the State, successive prime ministers are loath to interfere with its workings. As a result, the taxpayer has been forced to sink billions of crores into an industry that has consistently under-performed, that after six decades of pampering still produces a niggardly proportion of our energy requirements, and this at a higher cost and at a far greater risk than the alternatives. It is past time that the industry and those who control it were made to answer for their actions. The Kaiga accident may yet help in reviving, albeit 42 years too late, M.S. Gurupadaswamy's public-spirited demand that we seek to "achieve greater accountability [as] to the time- schedule, production, cost, technical performance, etc" of our much cossetted and grossly overrated nuclear industry.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091205/jsp/opinion/story_11812462.jsp
High food prices may raise inflationary worries - RBI
A persistent rise in India's food prices may raise broader inflationary expectations and the central bank is looking to strike a balance between supporting growth and taming inflationary worries, a central banker said.Subir Gokarn, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), also said on Saturday the exit from easy monetary policy is a "graded" process and economic growth alone will not determine its pace.Data on Thursday showed food prices rose 17.47 percent in the 12 months to Nov. 21, after the weakest monsoon since 1972 followed by floods in parts of the country hurt farm output.While food inflation is politically sensitive, it is viewed as largely beyond the scope of interest rate policy.
"Persistently ... rising food prices may spill over into inflationary expectations. So, we cannot ignore that linkage," Gokarn told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference.
"And therefore, it is a factor that we will have to take into account."
On Monday, India reported economic growth of 7.9 percent in the quarter through September, its fastest rate in 18 months, beating expectations and adding pressure on the central bank to bring forward a rate rise to moderate mounting inflation.
MONETARY TIGHTENING
Indian federal bond yields in the week to Dec. 4 rose 29 basis points on fears of monetary tightening.
The 10-year benchmark bond yield closed on Friday at 7.48 percent, after touching 7.49 percent in late trade, its highest since Sept. 4 and just one basis point shy of a 13-month high.
But Gokarn downplayed market expectations of monetary tightening.
"The growth number is one input to do that. It is not the only one. There are other factors that we will consider."
The RBI cut its key lending rate by 425 basis points between October 2008 and April to revive growth in a slowing economy, hit harder than expected by the global downturn.
At its October policy review, it left its key rates steady, but began scaling back its monetary stimulus by removing some of the liquidity support measures implemented to help India weather the downturn.
"That was a signal that circumstances had changed and the exclusive focus on growth had now shifted to a more balanced approach between growth and inflation," he said.
"When you talk of exit, you should see it as a graded process ... Now how fast that process moves forward depends on conditions that we can see."
Rising capital inflows is seen as one of the factors that is acting as a restraint on the central bank's policy. Foreign investors have pumped about $16 billion into Indian equity markets this year after having been net sellers of $12 billion last year.
The RBI has said there is a risk that if it raised interest rates ahead of other central banks, it could attract more inflows and complicate policymaking.
"Yes, they (capital inflows) may as they did in an earlier period ... impose some kind of pressures, counter-pressures on liquidity management," Gokarn said.
The central bank may revise upwards its growth forecast of 6 percent with an upward bias for 2009/10 at its January policy review, he said, adding a sustained recovery would boost credit off-take as well.
(Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
Rajesh Kumar Singh
Reuter
My Newpaper hawker Tapanda is dead. He served us for full Nineteen years without any break except those EIGHT months last year while he was sturck by an AUTO Rickshaw, the vehicle of sustenace in Unemployment these days ironically and lied on bed with fractured leg. He would appear in the morning wany Raniy day or in Storm. He continued even during those days while he was involved in the last rituals of his mother. He has two daughters and wife behind him. The eldest daughter had to appear in higher secondary exams. Day before yesterday, while returning home distributing newspapers and periodicals, he suffered heart Attack. He was Hospitolised as I knew while I reached the station to enquire about him fetching my newspapers from the stand itself. Only this Morning I was awaken by an intense discussion between Sabita and a woman in the neighbourhood. tapanda used to help her daughter in Exam Preparation with the supply of books, periodicals and question papers. she was enquiring about Tapanda. Tapanda is popular in the area. My landlord in Amravati introduced the man way back in 1991. But non of us knows where he had his residence. sabita would never forgive me for this CRIME and calls me a hypocrite who even does not know about the man who was the source of all informations in Print.
Mamata to take up immigration clearance issue with Hasina as she was admitted in MATUA Mahasangh by Matua Mother BADOMA only today. But she has not raised the issue of Denied ctizenship to the Partition Victim black Untocuable refugees scatered all over the country and subjeted to Nationwide Deportation.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee today said she would take up with Bangaldesh Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is scheduled to visit India later this month, the issue of reducing the time taken for immigration clearance on both sides of Indo-Bangladesh border.on the other hand, Desperately trying to improve Bengal's work culture, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wants state government employees to reach Toffice on time. But his own cabinet ministers and fellow party leaders don't follow the clock, which left the chief minister "upset" on Friday. The Laft Front as well as Trinamul congress led by the Brahmins only and the Brahaminical Intelligentsia, civil society and toilet media are quite detached as far as the PLIGHT of Slumdog Dalit Bengali refugees are concerned but everyone overindulges in Crocodile tears to capture Refugee SC Votebank which has been key to success for the Left front till yesterday. Mamata Matua blessed by anti Ambedkar thakur Nagar matua Headquarter now has snatched the most of the CREAM! She is well assisted by Jyotyi Priya Mallick.
meanwhile, Union Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday criticised the Left Front in West Bengal for the "collapse" of rationing system in the state.
"In over 30 years, the ruling Front has failed to take steps to revive the rationing system which has collapsed with dealerships being returned to the government," Mukherjee told the 'chintan baithak' of the Congress in Krishannagar.He also asked Congress workers to inform people about steps taken by the UPA government against the price rise.
There was even police firing in the state over collapsing of rationing system, he said.
In a clear message to alliance partner Trinamool Congress, West Bengal Congress president Pranab Mukherjee said today the basics of coalition politics is to give a partner its due and the 'golden opportunity' of removing the ruling Left Front should not be frittered away.
"But in the name of coalition if it becomes a one-party affair, controversy and conflict are inevitable. We don't want this golden opportunity (of removing the LF) after 34 years squandered away," Mukherjee told the 'chintan baithak' of the state Congress here in Nadia district.
"Hasina is coming possibly on December 19 when the issue of inordinate delay taken at land customs on both of India-Bangladesh border will be taken up," Banerjee said
adding she had already spoken to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee about it.
Her statement came in the wake of complaints by passengers of Kolkata-Dhaka train about excessive delay in immigration clearance both at Petrapole on Indian side and at
Benapole in Bangladesh.
Banerjee was speaking at a function organised for laying the foundation of a new railway track between Bongaon, near here and Chandabazar which is close to India-Bangladesh border.
Turning to the shortage of rakes in both local, long distance and Metro rails, the Railway Minister said more rakes are likely to arrive in January and February.
She means business. And for the sake of industry in the state, she is ready to be magnanimous, even with the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government. She even seemed to convey a message that the so-called Centre-state and Trinamool Congress-Left Front differences would not matter. Mamata Banerjee proposed that the railways can set up even on a joint venture with the state government a coach manufacturing unit on 600 acres where the Tata Motors small-car factory was to come up. While this projects Mamata as a leader not ready to let her differences with the state government come in the way of development in Singur, it is a proposal the Left Front government would find difficult to accept.Earlier, the government's industrialization hopes received a huge blow when Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd turned down the state's proposal to set up a unit in Singur.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today took up cabinet colleague Mamata Banerjee's pet project — a Rs 22,000-crore freight corridor linking New Delhi with Dankuni — with visiting World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick.
The government wants the World Bank to bankroll the ambitious project, which will give Bengal's factories and ports faster access to raw materials from the north.
To begin with, the World Bank will lend up to $1.8 billion for a section of the eastern freight corridor linking the busy Mughalsarai freight junction with Khurja. However, the funds would start flowing only after July 2010, by when bank experts would have completed feasibility studies for the whole project.
Soon after his meeting with Singh, Zoellick said, "We discussed a partnership with the Indian government for its eastern railroad freight corridor."
World Bank officials said they were considering advancing substantial soft loans for the whole of the eastern dedicated freight corridor.
The Left parties are supporting the project but may find it difficult to accept the World Bank as the sponsor for the project. CPI leader D. Raja told The Telegraph, "These loans always come with conditions attached ... they are not good for the country."
Railway ministry officials, however, say World Bank funding has fewer, if any, strings attached compared with Japanese support, which include clauses that force India to appoint Japanese prime contractors and buy at least 30 per cent of equipment from Japan.
The Japanese government is funding the Rs 26,000-crore western freight corridor linking Delhi with Mumbai , work on which has already started.
However, the eastern project still remains on the Rail Bhawan's drawing boards. Which is possibly why Singh himself discussed the project with Zoellick, say officials.
The World Bank will also lend $400 million towards a rolling stock upgrade as part of plans to lend up to $7 billion this year to India for infrastructure projects.
The World Bank also wants the government to expand the country's own capital base. "We all look at India now as a rising global economic power," said Zoellick.
"The larger growth challenge for India is to look 15-20 years ahead ... the Indian government has been working with Japan on the western corridor, the eastern corridor will be another important future project," Zoellick said.
The two freight corridors together will be one of the most ambitious projects the railways has ever taken up. Once completed, they will meet the transport requirements of two busy trunk routes for the next 15 to 20 years.
The eastern corridor, the modalities for which are still being worked out, will stretch 1,806km from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni near Calcutta. It will be extended in future to serve a new deep sea port near Calcutta and will largely serve metal and mineral-based industries.
Meanwhile, Suspected Maoists set two trucks and a car afire on the national highway near Jhargram's Lodhasuli forest in West Bengal's Midnapore district on Friday.
The attack came on the fourth day of a Maoist-sponsored ongoing indefinite shutdown in the State's West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia districts.
The shutdown was called to support the Maoist demand for a withdrawal of joint paramilitary forces in Lalgarh.
The state government has withdrawn six companies of the joint paramilitary forces on Friday on the instructions from the Central Government.
Residents said the state government should find a quick solution to the issue."We want that peace should prevail and so that people can live safely. We are facing problems in moving and there might also be others like us," said Amit Kumar Sharma, a resident.
In another incident, suspected Maoists killed three persons at Simlipal under Belpahari police station.
All three were activists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Thousands have been killed during the Maoist insurgency, which began in the late 1960s, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist threat one of the gravest homegrown threats to India's internal security.
The rebels claim they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers.
India launches 'Operation Green Hunt' against Maoists!Obama's approval rating drops below 50%..Citing steps by India and China, Obama hopes for climate change accord!India will add a whopping 220 million to its workforce by 2030, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn said Saturday.Exchanges of fire between insurgents and para military forces were today reported from two places in Manipur's Ukhrul district, bordering Myanmar, but casualty was not yet known, officials said.The Guwahati Court on Saturday sent United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and three of his associates to 12 days police custody.Expressing concern over the spiralling political violence in Bengal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured Left parties and Trina-mool
Congress on Friday that he would look into their claims. This came even as the UPA ally climbed down from its demand for imposition of President's Rule (Article 356). With both sides seeking his time, Singh spoke with the Left parties and then with Trinamool. Left leaders presented the PM with evidence' of the Trinamool-Maoist nexus'.
Mamata Banerjee told Singh she was not for President's Rule but wanted army deployment in three Maoist-affected districts. Each side accused the other of being hand-in-glove with the Maoists.Her statement came a day after MPs disrupted House proceedings over the killings and the unsatisfactory' visit of a central team to Kolkata, which returned without going to the violence-hit rural areas.
On a rain-soaked September night in 2008, Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi had succeeded in bringing chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee in the same photo-frame. That was for Singur.
He might just again manage to get the two political adversaries on the same table this December 13, when he bids farewell to Bengal. The chief minister and the railway minister are among the select guests invited to tea on the Raj Bhavan lawns.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the end of the UN climate summit, joining dozens of leaders including US President Barack Obama, in the latest sign of growing momentum toward a new global accord.he Copenhagen papers submitted by the BASIC countries — Brazil, South Africa, India and China — have outlined the redlines and
the wishlist.
The CPI(M) today said India should not yield to any pressure on reduction in emission intensity when prime minister Manmohan Singh travels to Copenhagen to attend the climate change summit.
"If the prime minister's decision to go to Copenhagen is in response to the White House statement, then it does not augur well for the country," party leader Sitaram Yechury said here.
Yechury, who will be part of the Indian parliamentary delegation to the conference, referred to the White House statement which claimed that India and China had, for the first time, set targets to reduce their carbon footprint after meetings between their top leaders and the US president.
"This implies pressure and dilution of India's stand. We hope that the government will adhere to the commitments made to Parliament by the prime minister. No dilution of these commitments will be acceptable to us," Yechury said.
The White House statement said, "Following bilateral meetings with the president, and since the US announced an emissions reduction target that reflects the progress being made in Congress towards comprehensive energy legislation, China and India have, for the first time, set targets to reduce their carbon intensity."
In a statement, the CPI(M) Politburo demanded that the government should "categorically clarify what India's negotiating position will be" before the Indian delegation leaves for Copenhagen.
The party accused environment minister Jairam Ramesh of "deviating from India's position and even from the position that the prime minister has taken" on climate change.
Referring to the Ramesh's reply to a debate in Lok Sabha, it said Ramesh was "repeatedly introducing modifications and caveats to India's fundamental negotiating positions on climate change", especially on issues relating to financial and technology transfers from the rich countries.
Maintaining that the minister focussed more on technology development and not on transfer, and had downplayed the issue of Intellectual Property Rights, the CPI(M) said this was "unacceptable" as even the official documents spoke of technology transfer, along with development, application and diffusion.
On all these counts, "the minister is going against the officially stated negotiating positions of the government. This is clear from the documents regarding India's position that are available on the ministry's website itself".
economic times reports:
In what could restrict the elbow room for the developed world in the Copenhagen dialogue, the BASIC countries have said the process of negotiations has to be carried on within the parameters of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Action Plan.
Some developed countries like the US have been pushing for an "alternative" agreement, which for all practical purposes does away with the Kyoto Protocol. On this count, the four-nation draft makes it amply clear that the UNFCCC is the "fundamental legal framework for the global fight against climate change". It has reiterated that all climate-change action would have to conform to the principle of equity and common-but-differentiated responsibilities.
The draft also makes it clear that the four countries do not expect a legally binding agreement to be agreed upon in Copenhagen. It sets a date of June 2010 by which an agreement should be arrived at. Complete adherence to the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan is also enunciated in the manner in which these countries want the post-Copenhagen negotiations to be carried out. It suggests these negotiations should be in line with the mandate of the Bali Action Plan.
It has also reiterated the developing countries' position of allowing monitoring, reporting and verification for climate-change actions only for those supported and enabled by the developed countries. As for measures undertaken domestically, the draft not only rejects verification, but instead suggests that the developing countries will undertake "auditing, supervision and assessment" of these efforts on their own. The results of this exercise will be publicly available.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/BASIC-draft-clears-climate/articleshow/5303107.cms
Al-Qaida helping LeT to provoke India-Pak conflict, US tries to Convince us on the EVE of Babri Mosque Demolition Anniverasary and we, Indian people, the Cosumers of galaxy Free Market, most informed today with Cell Phones, Spectrums and Internet, the Post Modern generation Next believed to be ATHEIST and NON RELIGIOUS, do indulge ourselves with Hindu nationalism and AROUSE Patriotism for the Nuclear Super Power Hindu Rashtra, HINDU SWARAJ to make us Partner in the War of USA against Taliban and TERROR! NUCLEAR Armament is NON Stop as Combat Prepared ness is insufficient despite more than a quarter of the Budget diverted into the Defence budget. Indo US deal is never enough ,we have to deal with all the developed Nations and the Prime Minister has to fly to MOSCOW for EXTRA Reactors before obliging Barrack Obama who he has to join in COPENHAGEN! The Best way for GPD, Flagship Progrrammes and Poverty Eradiction, of course!So what if Security has been geared up on the eve of the 17th anniversary of the demolition of Babri Masjid and authorities have banned observance of the day by political parties through different functions to avert any law and order problem!Ahead of the discussion on the Liberhan report early next week, the Union Cabinet is learnt to have cleared the laws to deal with communal violence and fine-tune the restrictions on the powers of the police to arrest suspects in offences punishable with less than seven years.
Close on the heels of his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh heads for Moscow Sunday on a three-day trip with expansion of civil nuclear cooperation and an extended defence pact topping the agenda.
The agreement, expected to be inked during the annual summit talks between Manmohan Singh and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday, will ensure continuation of Moscow's support for the ongoing civil nuclear programme in India and will ensure any unforeseen disruption of fuel supply and technology from Russia for nuclear power projects in India.
Other highlights of the agreement are reprocessing consent rights for all future Russian reactors supplied to India. India will also be allowed to enrich Russian-supplied uranium up to 20 percent, according to the draft agreement.
The prime minister in an interview to Russian media Friday described the nuclear energy cooperation as 'a very important pillar of our cooperation with Russia'.
'We have identified new sites for collaboration with Russia for nuclear power projects,' Manmohan Singh said in the interview, the transcript of which was released by the Indian ministry of external affairs.
At a late evening meeting, the Cabinet is also understood to have cleared amendments to the Foreign Contribution Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Bill that has been pending for the last three years. Also, the Cabinet cleared a law to remove disparity in travel facilities between ministers and MPs.
The decision to pull the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill out of the deep freezer - it was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in December 2005 – comes close on the heels of the Liberhan Commission on Babri Masjid demolition recommending a law to prevent such violence.
Thus, the ground for Persecution of the converted communities violating the Manusmriti Apartheid rule is quite Ready!On the eve of the Babri Masjid demolition anniversary, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat said today that the Hindu group has "no regrets" about the razing of the mosque in Ayodhya 17 years ago.
Al-Qaida is providing Pakistan- based LeT with targeting information and helping them in plotting attacks in India, aimed at provokinga conflict between the two countries that would ultimately destabilise Pakistan, US defence secretary Robert Gates said.Thus, we should be justifying the Nuclear deal, Space Missions, Presence of CIA, MOSSAD, M16 and NGOs and the INFINITE shopping list in the Global weapon Market. We Should remain in COMBAT Mode against CHINA and Pakistan and the MOST violent Hatred campaign Conitnues as the best tool of Mind control beside Cricket, reality show and SHOBIZ Glittering to underplay Dubai connections!On the other hand, Acknowledging Pakistan as a "nuclear state", the Obama administration today said that the country has "enormous responsibilities"
within the community of nations that have such weapons. It is clear that Nuclear ARMS race is our Destiny living in the Nuclear state across the political border all over in the Divided bleeding geopolitics!
"Al-Qaida sees using the Taliban in Pakistan and groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba as ways to destabilise Pakistan and even try to provoke a conflict between India and Pakistan that would inevitably destabilise Pakistan," Gates said.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Gates said the US has evidence which suggest that the al-Qaida aims at destabilising Pakistan.
"We have evidence that al-Qaeda is helping them pick targets, do operational planning, helping them in their effort to try to destabilise the Pakistani government," Gates told lawmakers in response to a question.
"The other piece of this that does not include the Taliban or that -- apart from the Taliban is, we also know that al-Qaida is helping the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group that carried out the bombings in Mumbai," he said.
Earlier, appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gates said: "al-Qieda is providing them (LeT) with targeting information and helping them in their plotting in India, clearly with the idea of provoking a conflict between India and Pakistan that would destabilise Pakistan."
Pakistan today condemned the assassination attempt on moderate separatist leader Fazal Haq Qureshi, who was in a critical condition after being shot at in Kashmir.Senior Hurriyat Conference leader Fazal Haq Qureshi, a known Kashmir peacenik, was struggling for life in a Srinagar hospital on Saturday after a murderous attack on him by unidentified men, as life remained paralyzed in the Kashmir Valley in the wake of a separatist-called shutdown.Qureshi, a senior leader of the moderate Hurriyat group headed by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, favoured a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue and wanted a dialogue with New Delhi. However, New Delhi and the separatist conglomerate reaffirmed its commitment to the dialogue process, saying they won't be cowed down by such attempts to sabotage the peace process.It is still not clear whether Qureshi, who is stable but not out of danger, was shot at or attacked with a sharp edged-weapon.
However, New Delhi and the separatist conglomerate reaffirmed its commitment to the dialogue process, saying they won't be cowed down by such attempts to sabotage the peace process.
It is still not clear whether Qureshi, who is stable but not out of danger, was shot at or attacked with a sharp edged-weapon.
Ending a year-long wait, the first batch of MiG-29K naval fighter jets, purchased from Russia for the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, arrived in Goa last evening, three years ahead of the warship.These MiG-29Ks are part of the 16 ordered for USD 526 million in 2004 along with Gorshkov, which is expected to be delivered to the Indian Navy only by 2012-end.
"The first batch of the MiG-29K fighters'' parts have landed in INS Hansa, the naval air station in Goa, last evening," Navy spokesperson Commander P V S Satish said here today.
The aircraft parts, packed in containers in a knocked down condition, landed here by an AN-124 cargo aircraft, considered to be the biggest operational military aircraft of Russian-Ukrainian origin.Now, Navy''s aviation engineers would assemble the aircraft at the Goa air base, where it would be stationed and operated from land till the time Gorshkov enters service.They would also be test flown from Goa by Russian engineers before they are formally inducted into the Naval aviation wing. These aircraft had recently completed carrier flight deck testing and weapon trials in Russia.
Left leaders and organisations in West Bengal have lauded Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee for stalling the Pension Reforms Bill that was earlier stonewalled by the Left parties in the UPA -I regime but was reportedly reintroduced before the Cabinet on Friday.
Kali Ghosh, the West Bengal unit secretary of CPM's labour arm CITU, said her stand will eventually benefit employees and workers but wondered how long she will be able to maintain her resistance to the Bill. "If she has opposed the Bill, I must welcome her," said Ghosh.
The Bill, which aims to allow foreign capital into the financial sector, has been facing resistance at the Centre. Both the CPM and Trinamool Congress have promised their opposition to economic reforms agenda in their respective election manifesto. With Banerjee trying to build a Leftist image in the state to woo Left voters, she is bound to resist the Bill, Left leaders say. "She has promised not to allow disinvestment, pension reforms and other reforms agenda in her election manifesto. With all doubts, I should say she has followed the path shown by the Left parties," said Md Selim, CPM central committee member and former MP.
Mamata ally Somen bought land in Singur, then agitated, Indian Express reports.Trinamool candidate Somen Mitra purchased land in Singur at the time the Tata Nano factory was expected to come up there, and the region's economic prospects appeared bright. Mitra then joined Mamata Banerjee's agitation against the Tatas, which ultimately drove the Nano out of Bengal.
These facts — described by the CPM as a "perfect example of (Mitra's and Trinamool's) hypocrisy" — came to light on Friday after Mitra filed his nomination for the Diamond harbour Lok Sabha seat at the South 24-Parganas district magistrate's office.
The statement of his assets showed ownership of land worth about Rs 34 lakh in Singur. Split into several plots, the land was purchased at the end of 2006 — around the time the state government began the process of land acquisition for the Nano project.
According to Mitra's declaration, some plots are owned by him, the rest by his wife. Most of the land is understood to be very close to the factory site. "In his declaration, Somen Mitra has declared land in Singur," DM, South 24-Parganas, Khalil Ahmed, said.
Mitra, a veteran Bengal politician, spent many years in the Congress before breaking away in July 2008 to set up the Progressive Indira Congress, which later became part of the Trinamool-led front. He has substantial business interests, and owns a resort on the Kona Expressway about 25 km from Kolkata.
He told The Indian Express: "It is true that I have bought land in Singur. What is wrong in that? The issue was highlighted in CPI(M)'s mouthpiece Ganashakti a year back, when the movement was on, and I gave them my reply. Our agitation was against forcible land acquisition from farmers. I did not acquire the land forcibly."
Work to create National Population Register starts next year!Ahead of the India's gigantic 2011 census operation, data collection for creation of the National Population Register (NPR) along with house listing and housing census will be taken up in May next year, officials said here Saturday.
'In the first phase of Census 2011, collection and compilation of facts and figures, house listing and housing census is likely to be taken up May 15, 2010 across India,' senior census official Dilip Acherjee said.He told reporters: 'These statistical details would be incorporated to create the first ever NPR.'
Notwithstanding high marks for his just announced Af-Pak policy, the approval rating of the US President Barack Obama has dropped below the 50 per cent mark, the first time since he entered the White House.Showing a drop of seven points from a survey last month, the CNN/Opinion Research Corp national survey said only 48 per cent of the respondents approved the job of Obama as the US President; while 50 per cent disapproved it.
Citing steps by India and China and an emerging plan to help developing countries mitigate impacts with $10 billion a year, President Barack Obama has delayed his appearance in Copenhagen in the hope of hammering out an accord on global climate change.
Obama will now be at the climate change summit on its last day Dec 18, typically the time when last minute accords are worked out, as opposed to his original plan to be in Denmark next Wednesday on his way to Oslo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize.
From being paid a mere Rs 50 lakhs in his debut film, Ranbir Kapoor today demands a whopping Rs 12 crores for his latest film. Showbiz and cricket opens the floodgates of Dubai Connections while our people, the Black Untouchable negroids do starve as EJECTED from Production system and LIVELIHOOD, reduced to the status of Hawker and Salesman. Those who have no political patronage, have no option to be Victimised in Ethnic Cleansing, Displacement, EXODUS and Infinite DEATH Procession.India tightened their grip on the fourth day of the third and final test against Sri Lanka on Saturday despite an unbeaten century from visiting captain Kumar Sangakkara.Paceman Zaheer Khan struck twice in quick succession to help reduce Sri Lanka to 274 for six in their second innings, still needing 59 to wipe out the first innings deficit.
The pressures of being Amitabh Bachchan's son must be immense but in the ten years that Abhishek Bachchan has been a part of the Hindi film industry, he has never complained.
With his latest film "Paa", both the Bachchans bring the father-son relationship alive on screen, albeit with a twist.
The 33-year-old actor has slowly won his own place under the Bollywood sun, and spoke to Reuters about the time he thought he wouldn't make it as an actor, what director Mani Ratnam means to him, and of course "Paa".
Meanwhile, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today said there was no question of the Sangh regretting the demolition of Babri masjid and maintained that its full support to the Ram temple movement will continue. Addressing a meet-the-press programme here, Bhagwat said the pulling down of the structure was not any conspiracy, but a spontaneous reaction from the Kar Sewaks "whose sentiments and emotions had been hurt".On the other hand, The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) member Khalid Rasheed has said that Muslims would shortly petition the government seeking action against those responsible for the demolition of Babri mosque.Talking to reporters here on Thursday, Rasheed said that the organization would petition the government to take action against those named in the report.
India has launched a major offensive codenamed 'Operation Green Hunt' against Maoist rebels here on Thursday.The assault "Green Hunt" was launched against insurgents in Chhattisgarh-the epicentre of violence between Maoist fighters, security forces and pro-government militias since 2005.Officials said there was least resistance from some of the Maoist strongholds, which could be a ploy.
"We are handling the 'Operation Green Hunt' in a more decisive way. And as on today the operation is on in districts like Bijapur and Dantewada. According to the information that we have, the police are not facing any resistance in the interior areas of the Maoist strongholds. It maybe an operational tactics of Maoists; we are still discussing this issue with our officers," said S R P Killuri, Deputy Inspector General (Police).
Thousands have been killed during the Maoist insurgency, which began in the late 1960s, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist threat one of the gravest homegrown threats to India's internal security.
The rebels claim they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers.
"Whatever happened was connected with the movement for the construction of the Ram temple. The sentiments of the Kar Sewaks were hurt that also included many Muslims.
So the question for the RSS to regret does not arise," he said. Without naming anyone, he said, "afsos jinko karna chahiye woh karein" (those who ought to regret, should do so).
When asked to name any prominent Muslim leader who participated in the "Kar Sewa" on December 6, the day when the mosque was brought down, Bhagwat said, "there were many Muslims. Prominent names that I can remember include (senior BJP leader) Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and another leader from Mumbai, Muzaffar Hussain".
He stressed that the Sangh''s full support to the Ram temple movement, which was being run by ''sant mahatama'' (religious leaders), will continue as it had extended its support in the past. "The Sangh works as per their direction," he added.
"We were waiting for the report on the Babri Masjid demolition and the culprits behind it. We were thinking that it would include recommendations, legal proceedings against them. Gladly, the names emerged behind the heinous act but to my astonishment no legal action was taken against them. On the contrary, Muslim organizations were blamed, which was very painful," Rasheed added.
He said the AIMPLB would also ask all the devout to organise prayer meetings in mosques across the country on December 6.
The probe panel had earlier recorded the statements of senior BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh.
The Commission in its report observed that Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi should have been aware of decisions of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's plans to demolish the mosque structure.
The Liberhan Commission led by Justice M S Liberhan probed the circumstances that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
After a prolonged inquiry that lasted over 16 years, Justice Liberhan submitted his findings to the government on June 30 this year.
'Their absorption into the job market will pose a daunting challenge to policy makers as they try to align the forces of globalisation with the overarching objective of inclusive growth,' Gokarn said while addressing a forum of chief executives from the Asia Pacific region.
The 'ICC Regional CEO Forum' was organised by the International Chamber of Commerce.
The demographics in the South Asian and East Asian region will play out in such a manner that China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam will create an overwhelmingly large number of job seekers, Gokarn said.
'This, along with the likely shift from labour intensive activities to automation and relocation of industries to low-wage destinations, would put a huge pressure on national governments to raise their level of preparedness to meet the looming challenges,' he added.
The deputy governor said the government needed to act fast if it were to absorb this huge number into the job market.
The government should ensure flexible labour markets, skill development and develop infrastructure to facilitate the flow of investments, he said.
'India's record on the imperatives to deal with the inclusive growth in a globalising world was mixed. Infrastructure has not kept pace with the requirements, skill generation has lagged and safety nets have not been adequate,' Gokarn maintained.
Ahead of the India's gigantic 2011 census operation, data collection for creation of the National Population Register (NPR) along with house listing and housing census will be taken up in May next year, officials said here Saturday.
'In the first phase of Census 2011, collection and compilation of facts and figures, house listing and housing census is likely to be taken up May 15, 2010 across India,' senior census official Dilip Acherjee said.
He told reporters: 'These statistical details would be incorporated to create the first ever NPR.'
Manmohan Singh and Medvedev will also discuss supply of four more Russian reactors for the nuclear power station in Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and its Russian counterpart Atomstroyexport are currently collaborating for installation of two reactors in Koodankulam.
The agreement to build these two civilian nuclear reactors in India was signed in December 2008 during a visit by the Russian president to New Delhi.
India and the then Soviet Union had in 1988 inked the deal for the Koodankulam project, which was left in limbo for almost a decade due to the break-up of the USSR as well as objections by the US. The Dec 6-8 trip will see the two countries signing two major defence-related agreements including a 10-year deal on weapons, aircraft and maintenance contracts estimated at around $5 billion.
But the long-awaited deal for aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov is unlikely to be finalised. Though Manmohan Singh is likely to take up the issue during the talks with Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, defence officials in New Delhi do not expect any breakthrough in the impasse.
Defence Minister A.K. Antony last week said the Gorshkov deal 'is not going to be clinched' during the prime minister's visit. The price negotiations between Russian and Indian officials for Gorshkov have gone on for long, with both sides refusing to budge from their stand.
In November, a 40-member Russian delegation was in India to discuss the price hike for refurbishment of the $ 2.2-billion aircraft carrier. The hike has now touched $2.9 billion, instead of the $974 million that was originally contracted. India has asked Russia to bring down the price to $2.1 billion.
The two sides are also expected to increase bilateral trade from $7 billion to $20 billion by 2015.
The volatile situation in Afghanistan and terrorism are also likely to figure in the talks. Manmohan Singh will attend the closing ceremony of the 'Year of India in Russia' in the new hall of the historic Bolshoi Theatre Monday.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin was in New Delhi last month and Indian President Pratibha Patil paid a five-day visit to Moscow in September.
No split in ULFA; talks if sovereignty discussed: Paresh Barua
ULFA's self-styled commander-in-chief Paresh Barua on Saturday denied any split in the outfit and said there was no confusion in the minds of the ULFA cadres who want "sovereignty" for Assam to be discussed in any dialogue.
"We are ready for it (talks) provided sovereignty for Assam is discussed," Barua, who is known to be against talks, was quoted as saying in an e-mail to North East Television, adding there was no confusion in the minds of the ULFA cadres on this.
ULFA chairman sent to 12-day police custody
"There is no split," he said and asserted "we have full confidence in Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa."
He said "the question of difference of opinion does not arise and now it is up to the Indian government to show their sincerity by taking the process forward."
The ULFA leader said Rajkhowa and ULFA military deputy-in-chief Raju Barua had not surrendered, but were arrested as part of a "conspiracy" hatched by the government.
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Mamata unveils new plans for North 24-Pgns
Railway minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday laid the foundation of the superstructure of the new Jubilee Bridge at Naihati's Garifa in
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North 24-Parganas. This project, and some others planned by the railways, would generate employment in areas like Kanchrapara, Naihati and Halisahar in Barrackpore subdivision, the Trinamool Congress chief said.
"More development projects are planned in North 24-Parganas. We are determined to turn the fortunes of this region around with more job opportunities," Mamata promised Trinamool Congress chief said.
The new Jubilee bridge, with a span of 420 metres, will cost Rs 207 crore to build. The old one, constructed way back in 1887, had deteriorated over time and had become hazardous, say sources. The railways realized a new bridge had to be built. Though work on the new bridge started, it was halted some time ago due to some problems. Work resumed only recently.
Mamata said the bridge would help in the introduction of more train services within Barrackpore subdivision. An overbridge will be constructed on Barrackpore's rail gate no 15 and the number of ladies special coaches a hit since they were introduced after her recent railway budget will be increased.
A new coach factory would be set up at Kanchrapara railway workshop soon, Mamata announced. "Work on the Rs 900 crore project will start right away. Efforts are on to set up new coach factories in Burdwan, Nadia and other districts," she said.
She instructed Eastern Railway general manager Deepak Krishan to begin implementing the budget proposal of setting up 216 ideal railway stations' in the state. "Work on this proposal should start in a few months. After three months, I will personally check it has, and how far it has progressed," she said.
Mamata rolled out the goodies. The railways would build another stadium at Bangaon, she said, and lay new rail lines at Canning, Bakkhali and Nandigram. "We are also trying to extend the Metro rail network to Dakshineswar, Barrackpore and Barasat," she said.
US not cutting and running from Afghanistan: Hillary Clinton
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday said the Obama Administration is not "cutting and running" from Afghanistan.
"Absolutely not, I want to really stress that," Clinton told CNN in an interview when asked if the US was "cutting and running" from Afghanistan.
"Because our analysis of what happened in Afghanistan and Pakistan very clearly demonstrates that not only the US, but the international community sort of just said, 'Okay, job is done, Soviet Union is gone', and we walked away, leaving a very difficult and increasingly dangerous presence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, a drug trade that flourished during that time period. There were many problems that we had to take some responsibility for, but we did not," she said.
Clinton said that she wants to make clear to people of both Afghanistan and Pakistan that the US was looking for a long-term partnership.
Noting that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was within his rights to hold peace talks with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Clinton said she would be skeptical of such talks.
"I think it's the right of the president of a sovereign nation to talk with whomever he chooses to talk with. But we would be quite skeptical of the results of any such talks," Clinton said.
Vision document soon on making railways accident-free: Mamata
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said a vision document to make railways accident-free would soon be brought out and that the Railways was looking at installing anti-collision devices throughout the network.
"Whenever there is an accident we talk about anti-collision devices and other safety measures... But we do not have a long-term policy... We have decided this time that we have to go ahead in terms of short-term vision and long-term vision," she said in the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.
The minister said a "zero-tolerance" approach towards accidents would be accepted for the next ten years, adding, "If we plan for it now, we can certainly do it."
She said about Rs 13,000 crore would be required to install anti-collision devices throughout the rail network and sought funds from the Finance Ministry.
To a member's remark that thousands of people have died in accidents in last six months, the minister said the number of accidents had decreased.
Alarm chain-pulling system in trains could be a thing of past, Indian Express reports.The Indian Railways is considering a proposal to do away with the alarm chain-pulling system.
The Passenger Amenities Committee has not only recommended that the archaic system be scrapped, it is also pushing for a modern system to replace it. According to members of the committee, the system is more often than not misused by passengers and miscreants rather than be a utility service.
Interestingly, the idea first generated from former president A P J Abdul Kalam who at an RPF parade on May 22, 2006 spoke about replacing the system for the first time.
"After we sent the proposal for discontinuing the system, we are having talks with railway officials to put in place a modern communication system where passengers in any compartment can reach the driver in case of an emergency," said Suvaprasanna, chairman of the committee.
Minister Mamata extends a hand to the state govt, reports Indian Express.Railways ready for joint venture fir coach factory on Tata land
Trinamool Congress chief and Railway minister Mamata Banerjee once again raised the issue of the abandoned Tata Motors factory land on Sunday, calling the CPM-led state government for a joint venture in Singur.
Laying the foundation for a cold storage complex in Singur under the first project of Kisan Vision, Banerjee said Railways is ready for a joint venture with the state government to set up a railway coach factory on the abandoned Nano site.
Banerjee also allotted free shops near the cold storage facility to 16 family members of protesters who died during Singur agitation.
"I said we are ready for the coach factory in Singur if the state government gave us the land. I am ready for any kind of joint venture with the state government. Their equity will be land and we will make the factory. However, 400 acres (of land) will have to be returned to the farmers. We need land to set up a coach factory and this land will be perfect. We are setting up one in Majherhat and Noapara," said Banerjee during the ceremony near Singur station.
Mamta Banerjee renews offer for joint venture on Singur land
A day after Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) declined the West Bengal government's proposal for a power plant on the land abandoned by
the Tata Motors in Singur, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee Sunday renewed her offer for a rail coach factory in a joint venture there.
"We are ready to set up the coach factory on the land in Singur after leaving out 400 acres for farmers who did not willingly give their land for the Tata Nano project," Banerjee, also the chief of state's main opposition Trinamool Congress, said at a railway programme in Hooghly district, about 40 km from Kolkata.
"We are ready for a joint venture project with the state government. The state can give the land, we can set up the factory," Banerjee said at the function where she laid the foundation stone for a perishable cargo centre under the Kisan Vision project.
The 997.11 acre former site of the Tata Motors' small car Nano project has been the centrepiece of dramatic developments of late with the state's political parties vying with one another for bringing up an industrial venture on it.
Following a state government initiative, senior BHEL officials had Nov 12 inspected the land - still in possession of Tata Motors - to consider setting up a 1600 MW power generation plant.
Only a day later, Banerjee went to the media proposing to set up the "world's biggest" rail coach factory jointly with the state government on the plot, but after returning the 400 acres to "unwilling" farmers.
Upbeat after the BHEL officials' inspection, state Commerce and Industry Minister Nirupam Sen had said if the central PSU selected the land, the state government would acquire it from the auto major.
However, the state government's bid to rope in BHEL received a rude jolt Saturday when the power major turned down the proposal, describing the project as "not feasible" and "not viable" on technical, commercial and environmental grounds.
Following a sustained agitation spearheaded by Banerjee's Trinamool Congress for the return of 400 acres acquired for the project, Tata Motors had shifted the Nano car plant out of the state to Gujarat's Sanand last year.
India to grow 8-9 percent in next two years: World Bank
India's growth rate over the next couple of years will be 8-9 percent, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said in New Delhi Friday.
"India's growth rates could over the next one to two years see a return to the 8-9 percent envisaged in the country's 11th (Five-Year) Plan," Zoellick told reporters at the end of a four-day visit to India.
The government has been pegging the economy's growth rate for this fiscal around 6.5-7 percent.
"India has emerged from the economic crisis with a clear vision of what it will take to accelerate back to earlier growth rate and beyond," said Zoellick, who also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee during the visit.
"Its strong fiscal and monetary policies had helped counter the decline in exports and withstand some of the external shocks brought on by the multiple food, fuel and financial crisis."
According to Zoellick, India's crisis management measures and the sustained global demand from its $1.2-trillion economy is playing an important role in helping the world recover from the meltdown.
The World Bank has already delivered around $5.3 billion to India this fiscal with commitments to power, roads, banking, rural development and water.
Zoellick said future resources will be aimed at supporting India's urban development, additional infrastructure needs in transport and power, elementary and secondary education, and development in agriculture and the rural sector.
India became the largest portfolio last fiscal for International Finance Corp (IFC), the World Bank's private sector arm, at more than $3.4 billion.
Maintaining that his discussions with Indian ministers had revealed a dramatically increased demand from India for World Bank engagement, he said he hoped to respond with not just financing but also help India access global sources of knowledge.
Zoellick identified literacy rates, quality of education, nutrition and social service delivery as challenges for India.
He also raised concerns over the rise in food prices, saying: "I'm concerned about the food prices, the way they are going up. If you look at the pattern of the price rise in agriculture, it is growing up at alarming rate, especially in developing countries."
In the areas of agriculture and rural development in India, the World Bank plans to raise its commitment between 2009-12 to $5.3 billion, including $300 million from IFC.
This more than doubles the level of support in the past three years, and will help to support irrigated agriculture, sustainable watershed management and rain-fed agriculture as well as development of livelihood in the hinterland.
Gold strikes fresh high, peaks at Rs 18,550
Gold continued its rising spree on Thursday to set a fresh record at Rs 18,550 per ten gram in the bullion market today as dollar remained weak.
The precious metal gained Rs 90 from yesterday's level of Rs 18,460 as expectations of further rise in prices made the metal, the alternate investment option, more appealing to investors than risk-loaded equities.
Marketmen said the stage for rally in gold was set by the Reserve Bank of India's purchase of bullion from the IMF in October, fuelling speculation that other banks would follow suit.
"Gold rose on a bullish trend in overseas markets after dollar plunged and raised demand for the precious metal as safe hedge," said Mahesh Verma of Omsons Jeweller.
He said there was hardly any buying by retailers and actual users for the current marriage season.
Marketmen say fold is likely to continue its upward march in the coming days.
Gold might reach a peak of $1,300 an ounce next year as more investors purchase bullion to preserve wealth against a declining dollar, leading global bank - UBS said, and added that central banks buying also support a uptrend.
Silver ready too spurted further by Rs 50 to Rs 29,900 per kg while weekly-based delivery fell by 100 to Rs 29,450 per kg on reduced offtake by speculators.
BJP''s two-day sit-in against price-rise ends
The BJP today ended its two-day statewide sit-in against a host of problems including price-rise, holding both the Centre and the BSP government in the state responsible for it and seeking the President''s intervention in checking inflation. Party workers, led by local MP Lalji Tandon, staged a demonstration at the collectorate here against price-rise, shortage of fertilisers, problems of sugarcane growers and a dismal law and order situation, state BJP spokesman Hriday Narain Dixit told newspersons in Lucknow.
The cadres also raised slogans against the Centre and the BSP government in the state, demanding that spiralling prices be reined in immediately to ensure that people do not hit the streets and create law and order problems. Similar protest dharnas were also staged in different parts of the state with MPs Murli Manohar Joshi holding a sit-in at Varanasi, Ashtbhuja Shukla Durga Rai leading protesting party workers in Sant Kabirnagar and Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur, Dixit said.
In Lucknow, a BJP delegation also handed over a memorandum addressed to the President Pratibha Patil to the administration seeking her mediation in curbing inflation.
Chidambaram deeply distressed by attack on Hurriyat leader
Terming as "cowardly" the attack on Hurriyat leader Fazal Haq Qureshi, Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Saturday that the Centre was committed to finding a solution to the Kashmir issue through quiet talks with every shade of political opinion in the state.
Chidambaram said he was deeply distressed by the attack on Qureshi, who is now battling for his life in a hospital in Srinagar. The Hurriyat leader was seriously injured in an attack by militants on Friday.
Lambasting those behind the attack, he said in a statement here that, "These are the elements which, in the past, have pushed Jammu and Kashmir to the brink of a crisis. It is also clear that these elements act at the behest of forces that are inimical to India".
He said the attack was a cowardly attempt by those who do not wish that the problems of Jammu and Kashmir are resolved through talks.
The Home Minister said the correct response at this hour was not to be cowed down by these violent acts or allow fear to interrupt the process of quiet talks and diplomacy.
"I assure the people of Jammu and Kashmir that we remain committed to finding a solution through quiet talks with every shade of political opinion in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.
"My prayers as well as those of all peace loving people are with him (Qureshi) and his family, and we sincerely hope that he will recover," the Home Minister said.
Chidambaram said he was happy to read the statements of Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and others who have vowed to continue their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue through talks with the Centre.
'After months of diplomatic activity, there is progress being made towards a meaningful Copenhagen accord in which all countries pledge to take action against the global threat of climate change,' the White House said in a statement announcing the change.
'China and India have for the first time set targets to reduce their carbon intensity,' it said but noted 'There are still outstanding issues that must be negotiated for an agreement to be reached, but this decision reflects the president's commitment to doing all that he can to pursue a positive outcome.'
'Based on his conversations with other leaders and the progress that has already been made to give momentum to negotiations, the president believes that continued US leadership can be most productive through his participation at the end of the Copenhagen conference on December 18 rather than on December 9,' the White House said.
The development came a day after India said it would cut the ratio of greenhouse gas pollution to production by 20 to 25 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, but would not agree to hard limit on the amount of heat-trapping gases it could release. India's pledge, like the one made earlier by China, is a cut in carbon intensity.
Obama's initial plan to attend only the beginning of the conference was criticised by some, including the environmental activist group Greenpeace, which said it is more important that he be there at the end of the week.
The White House statement said the United States will have representation in Copenhagen from state department and cabinet officials throughout the negotiating process. The president has discussed the status of climate change negotiations with the leaders of Germany, France, Britain and Australia, it said.
'There appears to be an emerging consensus that a core element of the Copenhagen accord should be to mobilize $10 billion a year by 2012 to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable and least developed countries that could be destabilized by the impacts of climate change,' it said.
The White House has said that Obama is prepared to set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels over the next decade. It has also reiterated Obama's goal of reducing US emissions by 83 percent by 2050.
TRS calls 48 hour Telangana shut down from Monday
The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on Saturday called for a 48 hour shutdown from Monday in the region as its chief K Chandrashekhar Rao, who is on fast for the last six days was moved into the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) here.
According to the hospital sources, Rao was shifted to the ICU following deterioration in his condition.
Rao has turned down an appeal of Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) president K Chiranjeevi to end his indefinite fast.
Chiranjeevi also urged both the state and Central governments to take an appropriate decision on the Telangana cause.
The Joint Action Committee of Telangana Students Unions has also stepped up its stir for a separate state.
The TRS student's wing laid siege to the residences of Congress ministers, MPs and MLAs in various districts of Andhra Pradesh.
In another significant development state ministers hailing from the Telangana region held another meeting under the leadership of Home Minister P Sabita Indra Reddy and decided to write a letter to Conrgess president Sonia Gandhi explaining the prevailing situation in Telangana.
Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president D Srinivas said he would leave for New Delhi on Monday to appraise High Command about the ongoing struggle for Telangana and the need for taking prompt decision on the statehood demand.
Rajkhowa handed over to Indian authorities in Meghalaya
ULFA''s top leaders Arabinda Rajkhowa and Raju Barua surrendered to the Indian authorities early this morning raising hopes of a dialogue for peace in Assam but differences erupted in the banned militant outfit. Two days after he was reportedly detained in Bangladesh, ULFA Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa (53), and Deputy Chief of its military operations Raju Barua (43) were taken into custody by the Border Security Force after they were "seen" near Dawki outpost on the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya.
They were spotted around 1.15 am and when "challenged" by the BSF they offered to surrender, BSF Inspector General Prithviraj said. In New Delhi, Home Secretary G K Pillai said the ULFA leaders will have to face judicial process for cases pending against them while it is understood that heinous charges may not be pressed against them.
The arrival of ULFA leadership in India raised hopes of initiation of a peace talks with the outlawed group whose leadership had taken shelter in Bangladesh and directed violence mostly in Assam from there for the last 30 years. However, reflecting the differences in top ULFA leadership the elusive commander-in-chief Paresh Barua asked Rajkhowa not to fall into the "trap" of Indian government by holding a peace dialogue.
Suicide bombers kill 40 at Pakistan mosque
Three suicide bombers fired on worshipers then blew themselves up at a mosque near Pakistan's military headquarters after Friday prayers, killing 40 people, including many army officials, police said.
The mosque is frequented by military officials in the town of Rawalpindi, home to Pakistan's military establishment and only a 30-minute drive from the capital Islamabad.
The brazen attack in what should be one of the most secure areas of Pakistan was the latest challenge by militants against the writ of the state. A local television station said people were executed in cold blood.
Pakistan is fighting Taliban fighters blamed for bombings that have killed hundreds of people since an offensive was launched on their stronghold South Waziristan in October.
The nuclear-armed country faces mounting U.S. pressure to root out Islamist militants operating along forbidding border areas to help in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"They were three. They first opened fire and then blew themselves up," Rao Iqbal, Rawalpindi police chief, told Reuters.
Witnesses said earlier that attackers hurled grenades then opened fire on the mosque. A policeman said the militants arrived in a grey Toyota car.
The cleric had just finished his sermon with the phrase "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) when an explosion shook worshippers in the Parade Lane mosque.
"AMERICA'S WAR"
"As soon as we finished prayers. I heard a blast and firing. I saw some wounded laying in the courtyard of the mosque," said Bakhtawar Hussain.
The violence will pressure President Asif Ali Zardari to do more to neutralise the threat from the stubborn Taliban insurgency. But he is an increasingly unpopular figure who has been at odds with the all-powerful military, which sets national security policy.
"There is a possibility that some of them may still be hiding in the vicinity," said military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas.
It was the second brazen assault on the area since October, when suspected Taliban gunmen wearing army uniforms attacked the army compound, killing three hostages and two army commandos.
"Initial information indicates that they were two to three attackers who entered the mosque by scaling a wall," senior police official Aslam Tarin told Reuters of Friday's attack. He said 40 people were killed and 26 wounded.
A helicopter hovered over a wide avenue sealed off by security forces with G3 rifles, apparently searching for militants who may have fled after the attack.
In outlining his Afghanistan strategy in a speech on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama made a plea to Pakistan to fight the "cancer" of extremism and said Washington would not tolerate Pakistan allowing its territory to be a safe haven for militants.
That request may be unrealistic in a country where anti-U.S. feelings and suspicions run high. Many say Pakistan should not be fighting the United States' war against militants. Failure in Afghanistan could heavily damage Obama's presidency.
"This is not our war. This is America's war and as long as we continue to stay in the American bloc things will not change," said Rawalpindi resident Mujtaba Abbasi.
(For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
Russian nightclub explosion kills 102
A fire and explosion that broke out in a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm during the early hours of Saturday killed over 102 and injured 134.
"As of now, there are 102 dead and 134 injured," a government spokesman was quoted, as saying.
Two airplanes, equipped to transport people with burns and staffed with doctors, psychologists and rescuers, flew from Moscow to Perm early on Saturday.
Claiming that the mishap was caused by fireworks rocket gone wrong, police officials ruled out any terrorist hand behind the incident.
"The accident was due to a violation of instructions when launching fireworks. There is no chance it was a terrorist act, I can say that 100 percent," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted investigative committee's spokesman Vladimir Markin, as saying.
"There were fireworks launched at the scene, and one hit the plastic ceiling, setting all ablaze. People panicked and succumbed to burns, general crush and gas poisoning," the Perm region's public security minister Igor Orlov was quoted as saying.
So-called "cold fireworks", which give off less smoke and heat and so can be used indoors, were apparently the conflagration's cause, as they require careful planning and expert use, investigators said.
ISI under control of Pakistan government: Gilani
The ISI is fully under "government control" and no one can question its "credibility" in counter-terrorism efforts, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said.
Gilani, currently on a visit here also claimed that "India is increasing its role in Afghanistan." He did not elaborate.
"The ISI is our asset for the country and they are doing everything under the control of the government.
Therefore we cannot doubt their credibility. They are working under the constitution of Pakistan. They are performing a good job in counter-terrorism. There is no need (for the CIA)," Gilani was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
He claimed Pakistani forces had captured all the militant strongholds in South Waziristan. He said the operation in Swat, where 2 million refugees had been displaced, most of whom returned to their homes in a space of 10 weeks, was a world first.
But he warned military action alone would not crack the problem of the tribal areas which needed economic aid. He claimed that strikes by US drones had caused great concern in Pakistan.
Former Bangladesh ruler to visit ancestral home in Bengal
Students and teachers of Dinhata High School (Boys) in Dinhata village in West Bengal are geared up to recieve the institution's most famous alumni -- General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, Bangladesh's former military ruler.
Ershad, 81, will visit his ancestral home in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district Sunday and will also meet one of his ailing childhood friends, Asit Chakraborty. He last visited Dinhata sub-division in the district in 1975.
He would attend a programme at Dinhata High School (Boys) Tuesday from where he completed his matriculation in 1946 and migrated to the then East Pakistan in 1947.
'We're extremely happy that he (Ershad) is coming to our school after such a long time. We've arranged several cultural programmes. The National Cadet Corps (NCC) team of our school will present him a guard of honour during his visit,' the school's chemistry teacher, Jayanta Chakraborty, told IANS on the phone.
He said the entire school was wearing a festive look on the occasion of Ershad's visit.
'We've painted our century-old school buildings and have plans to showcase a few old photographs of Ershad. We came to know that he was a very good player of our school's football team and won several trophies in tournaments.
'We've preserved quite a few photographs of Ershad in our school achieves and will display them during his visit,' Chakraborty added.
Ershad, who seized power in a military coup in 1982, will come by road, crossing the Tangrabanda border check post from his home in Rangpur. He will come to his ancestral home with his only son Erich.
Ershad's father, Muhammad Maqbul Hussein, had migrated to the then East Paksitan and finally settled down in Rangpur, while his five brothers decided to stay back in India.
Ershad ruled Bangladesh till 1990, when he handed over power to a civilian government. He then floated the Jatiya Party and was elected an MP for two successive terms in 1991 and 1996.
05/12/2009
Biodiversity loss will unshackle deadlier infections
Washington: Extinction of plant and animal species is likely to unshackle deadlier and nastier infections, says new research.
Biodiversity loss will unshackle deadlier infections
Habitat destruction and biodiversity loss, driven by deforestation, global transportation, encroaching cities, among others, can burden humans with more infectious diseases, says University of Vermont-Michigan (UVM) biologist Joe Roman.
This is part of a global pattern, say Roman and Environment Protection Agency (EPA) scientist Montira Pongsiri, that links biodiversity loss with infectious diseases.
"Lots of new diseases are emerging and diseases were once local are now global," adds Roman, a wildlife expert. "Diseases like West Nile Virus have spread around the world very quickly."
This is not the first time humans have faced a raft of new diseases. About 10,000 years ago, humans invented farming.
This move from hunting to agriculture brought permanent settlements, domestication of animals, and changes in diet. It also brought new infectious diseases, in what scientists call an "epidemiologic transition".
Another of these transitions came with the Industrial Revolution. Infectious diseases decreased in many places while cancer, allergies and birth defects shot up.
Now, it seems, another epidemiologic transition is upon us. A host of new infectious diseases - like West Nile Virus - have appeared. And infectious diseases thought to be in decline - like malaria - have re-asserted themselves and spread.
"Ours is the first article to link the current epidemiological transition," says Pongsiri, an environmental health expert in EPA Office of the Science Advisor, "with biodiversity change, decline and extinction".
"People have been working on this in individual diseases but no one has put all the studies together to compare them," says Roman.
"We've reviewed all those studies and show that emergence or re-emergence of many diseases is related to loss of biodiversity," says Pongsiri, according to an UVM release.
Their study we December issue of Bioscience.
Source: IANS
* The week that was
A Christmas tree made of plastic waste, the world's most deadly industrial disaster - 25 years later and climate change activists running in underwear. A look at images that captured environmental events around the world.
* India to reduce emission intensity 20-25 percent by 2020
New Delhi: Four days ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit, India Thursday announced it will reduce its emission intensity by 20-25 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level.
* Indians more worried than Chinese, Americans on climate change
Washington: Just before world leaders assemble in Copenhagen to discuss climate change, a new global survey shows sharp differences among people in different countries about global warming.
* 'Dirty Kumars' to give sanitation lessons in Delhi
New Delhi: Mr. Thu-Thu Kumar (who spits), Mr. Su-Su Kumar (who pees in public) and Mr. Kuda Kumar (the litterbug) will soon be seen on bus kiosks, hoardings and even on television and radio trying to instil civic sense in Delhiites.
* Garbage dump goes high on fashion
A Manila based charity is helping turn garbage into fashion items that are proving a hit in London shops
* Make global warming top priority: Dalai Lama to world leaders
Dharamsala: Ahead of the Copenhagen summit, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama Monday asked world leaders to make finding a solution to climate change their number one priority.
* Zoos to be Earth's last sanctuaries if climate talks fail
London: Zoos and aquariums will become the last places on Earth to see species such as polar bears and coral if climate change negotiations fail at Copenhagen, the world's zoos warned Monday.
* India promises best-ever and first 'Green' Commonwealth Games
Port of Spain: Blending sports with climate change diplomacy, India Saturday said it will hold the first-ever Green Commonwealth Games in 2010 and the best-ever sporting show and underlined that the event will propel New Delhi to a world class city.
* Photofeature: The week that was
Yet another week goes by and we inch closer towards the Copenhagen Climate Summit. We take a look at moments that captured the human spirit for climate protection in the week that was...
* Tihar jail to go green soon
New Delhi: Tihar jail will soon go green. The jail will be turned into a model energy saving building - equipped with solar setup for hot water and cooking, and the waste will be processed for biogas, an official said Thursday.
* Two arrested in Varanasi for noise pollution
Varanasi: In the first such case in this ancient city, two people have been arrested for causing noise pollution. This come four years after the Supreme Court imposed strict norms on noise levels. Police admit they have been indifferent to the problem so far.
* Nepal's rhinos flourish under bodyguards
Kathmandu: After the president, prime minister and other ministers in Nepal, the Himalayan republic has added a new VIP entitled to have bodyguards - its rare one-horned rhinos.
* Fashionista! Models go green on the ramp
The Devil may wear Prada, but if you care about the environment here's what you could sport...
* Solar mission to start with 1,300 MW, reach 20,000 by 2022
New Delhi: India's solar mission will set up, in its first phase, 1,100 MW of solar power through the electricity grid and 200 MW off the grid, with the objective of making solar power as cheap as power from coal by the end of the mission, Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said here Monday.
* Brazilian beauty is Miss Earth 2009
Larissa Ramos was crowned Miss Earth 2009 in a gala coronation night event from among 80 beauties from around the world on Sunday.
* Green lessons for school kids - in lap of nature
Lucknow: Imagine riding through a lush green forest, soaking in lessons on the environment. That's what many school students in Uttar Pradesh are about to experience, thanks to the officials of a wildlife sanctuary.
* Miss Earth for a beautiful planet
Every year the Miss Earth Foundation crowns a beautiful young woman for the cause of promoting environmental awareness. The titleholders dedicate their year to promote climate projects and to address issues concerning the environment.
* The week that was
Once again, taking a look at events that highlighted the need for action on climate change and how it has affected mankind and this planet.
* India revises air quality norms after 15 years
New Delhi: With pollution levels rising across the country, India has revised the National Ambient Air Quality (NAAQS) standards after 15 years, bringing about uniform standards for residential and industrial areas.
* 'I own a tree' campaign to save Bangalore's greenery
Bangalore: A silent "green revolution" is in the making in India's tech hub Bangalore as citizens come together to sponsor trees to save the city's "green heritage" which has of late come under threat owing to development activities.
* India Inc getting over green rating blues
New Delhi: Green ratings were a no-no for most Indian companies till a few years earlier. But the ratings have now graduated from just being an initiative of non-government organisations to something both the government and industry would like to embrace fast.
* 40 percent Indian households still powerless: Greenpeace
New Delhi: Despite India's growing electricity generation and increasing carbon emissions around 40 percent of households -- a majority of which are in villages -- do not have electricity, says a Greenpeace report released here Tuesday.
* Sky gazers can expect celestial fireworks tonight
New Delhi: Sky gazers can look forward to an exhibition of celestial fireworks over the next two days as the night sky will be lit up by the Leonid meteor showers expected to peak Tuesday.
* Kerala backwaters in top 25 global destinations: NGC
Last week, MSN Green had listed some of the top eco-destinations in India and God's own country - Kerala - was in the list for its famous backwaters and one of the richest biodiversity in the world. Here's some more good news for the state. National Geographic has rated the Kerala backwaters as the world's 23rd best destination, giving the tourism sector a reason to smile.
* Business experts to discuss green jobs in India
New Delhi: Business experts from across the country will meet in the national capital Monday to discuss green job opportunities available in India.
* The world this week
Glimpses from the days gone by...
* Breathe easy, breathe clean during Commonwealth Games
New Delhi: Athletes and intending visitors can breathe easy about the 2010 Commonwealth Games. India has come up with technology for air quality management even as this city is working on reducing air pollution during the mega event.
* Kolkata facing brutal future in warmer world
New Delhi: Dhaka, Manila, Jakarta and Kolkata are topping a new list of major Asian cities vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Kolkata is the fourth most vulnerable Asian city but number three among those least prepared to adapt.
* Birds chirping more loudly to be heard above city noise
Sydney: Birds and frogs are raising the volume of their calls to be heard above urban noise, says a new study.
* Close calls with dolphins spur people to go green
Sydney: If you want people to care about the environment, give them a close call with a whale, turtle or dolphin.
* Ecosystems can absorb more carbon dioxide than thought earlier
London: Our ecosystems and oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb carbon dioxide than had previously been thought.
* Indian glaciers retreating, we don't know why: Ramesh
New Delhi: Most glaciers in the Indian Himalayas are retreating, but there is "no conclusive scientific evidence" to link this to global warming, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said here Monday.
* To save the Big cat
An auction of life-sized lion statues in Nirobi was held to raise funds for lion conservation. Here's a look...
* Jaipur air poisoned by oil depot fire: Pollution board
New Delhi: Air pollution in and around Jaipur was far above maximum permissible limits when the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) depot on the edge of the city was ablaze, but it had no significant effect in Delhi or Agra, the Central POllution Control Board (CPCB) reported Monday.
* Prince Philip joins British Hindus to fight climate change
London: Hindu leaders in Britain have teamed up with Prince Philip and the UN to launch a long-term action plan that will engage with the community worldwide in the fight against climate change, an Oxford University centre said.
* Two hot Goa night clubs to be demolished
Panaji: The Goa coastal zone management authority (GCZMA) has ordered the partial demolition of arguably the state's most popular night spots -- Club Tito's and Mambos -- for violating coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) norms.
* The world this week
A look at global environmental events and concerns in the week gone by...
* Beauties with a cause
Ninety of the most beautiful environment diplomats from all over of the world paraded for the 2009 Miss Earth Beauty Pageant press presentation in Manila. The contestants declared their personal environmental campaigns, with the theme for this year's competition focused on beauties for a cause. Here's a look...
* Sops for green power in Delhi climate plan
New Delhi: Encouraging use of solar power, increase in use of energy-saving lighting, setting up of an electronic waste facility, more CNG buses, promoting use of bio-fuel and shutting down coal-fired power plants form the highlights of the Delhi government's 65-point three-year agenda to fight climate change.
* IP rights critical to clean technologies and related jobs
Clean technologies can be a source of not just environmentally friendly energy needs but also help in creating millions of jobs provided a strong intellectual property system is in place to achieve this.
* Haryana saves Rs.9 lakh energy bill at governor, CM houses
Chandigarh: The palatial residences of Haryana's governor and chief minister in Chandigarh have been refurbished with new energy-efficient lighting worth nearly Rs.23 lakh that has brought down electricity bills at the two places by nearly Rs.900,000 annually.
* Tribals demand first right to forests, write to PM
New Delhi: Over 150 tribal villagers and forest dwellers Tuesday protested here against non-implementation of Forest Dwellers Act and submitted a memorandum to the prime minister demanding first right to forests.
* Merkels says no climate change plans without India, China
Washington: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a visit to the US, today said there can be no agreement on efforts to tackle climate change at the UN conference next month in Copenhagen without taking India and China on board.
* Indians very pessimistic about tackling climate change: report
London: Optimism that climate change can be managed has fallen more sharply in India than in any other major economy of the world, according to an annual index published Monday.
* Toyota plays God, develops new flower species
If cars were not enough, auto company Toyota has created two new flower species to offset the CO2 created by its Prius assembly operations.
* "Devastation unlimited"
Even as officials wait for the fire at Indian Oil Corporation's fuel depot on the outskirts of Jaipur to 'die on its own', the impact of the devastation is undeniable.
* Climate change: Tribals want free-hand to heal nature
New Delhi: To tackle the devastating impact of climate change, tribals in the country say if given a free hand they can correct and heal nature using traditional knowledge and expertise, they are privy to.
* Five chief ministers to sign declaration on environment
Shimla: Concerned over the impact of global warming, chief ministers of five Himalayan states will sign the Shimla Declaration Friday, the concluding day of a two-day meet on environment that began here Thursday.
* The world this week
Glimpses from environmental and climate change concerns across the globe in the week gone by.
* Delhi hailed for getting its 'Green' act together
New York: Twelve of the worst pollution problems in the developing world are being cleaned up, demonstrating that tens of thousands of others also could be improved, according to a report released on Wednesday.
* Chhattisgarh serves notice to 15 industries for pollution
Raipur: The Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board Wednesday served notices to 15 steel making units ion the state for defying pollution control norms.
* Jammu and Kashmir to introduce water conservation law
Alarmed by the disastrous effects of climate change such as receding glaciers and drying streams, the J&K government will bring a law to force water conservation
* Health centres have to manage waste effectively: Experts
Thiruvananthapuram: Efficient management of bio-medical waste by hospitals and health care institutions remains a matter of grave concern in the country, experts said at a seminar in this Kerala capital Monday.
* Activists form human chain against climate change
New Delhi: Students and activists from across the country and abroad gathered at Delhi's historic Red Fort Saturday and formed a human chain in the shape of a huge '5' to mark a global mobilisation programme against carbon emissions.
* Aviation sector wants tax sops to lessen carbon emissions
New Delhi: The International Air Transport Association (IATA), a global aviation industry lobby, Friday asked governments for more tax concessions to help carriers invest in fuel-efficient aircraft.
* Climate change bigger challenge than terrorism: Nasheed
New Delhi: With global warming threatening to render an estimated 300,000 people refugees every year, climate change is a far bigger challenge than international terrorism, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said today.
* China not curbing tiger parts trade: conservationists
New Delhi: Tiger skin from India is being clandestinely sold in Chinese markets, but Beijing is turning a blind eye despite repeated warnings, conservationists said here Thursday following an undercover operation carried out by them.
* No compromise on development, but India must control emissions: PM
New Delhi: Developing countries cannot and will not compromise on development. But India must do its bit to keep its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within levels that are sustainable and equitable, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here Thursday.
* 'Green food', the highlight of Gourmet Speciality week
New Delhi: With dishes rolling out from the kitchens of one of the leading cordon bleus of the capital and 'Green Food' as the special attraction, the 6th Gourmet Speciality week will be a delight for Delhiites.
* Bangaloreans to cycle for climate action
Bangalore: A group of environmentally conscious Bangaloreans will take to cycling Saturday to observe International Day of Climate Action.
* Bhutan to help restore Manas National Park
Guwahati: In a bid to remove the tag of 'world heritage site-in-danger' from the Manas National Park, the Centre and Assam government have approached Bhutan for help in revival of the picturesque animal reserve.
* Hyderabad strives to save its sparrows
Hyderabad: In a unique initiative to save the dwindling number of sparrows in the city, a group of environment activists here have launched a campaign to conserve and prevent the birds from the threat of extinction.
* Chandigarh records low pollution levels this Diwali
Chandigarh: The air pollution level during Diwali this year in Chandigarh, which is rated the greenest city in the country, was lower than last year, officials said Tuesday.
* UP to set up nursery of endangered plants
Lucknow: Kukrail, a forest reserve and picnic spot in this state capital, will soon have a nursery of endangered plants, particularly those having therapeutic properties and economic importance, an official said here Tuesday.
* Indian Army cleans 14-km stretch to Amarnath cave
Jammu: The Indian Army, in a major environmental drive, cleaned four tonnes of non-biodegradable waste on the 14 km stretch from Baltal to Amarnath cave shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, a senior official said Tuesday.
* Migratory birds start arriving at Orissa's Chilika Lake
Bhubaneswar: Birds that migrate from Yakut in Siberia during winters have started arriving at Chilika Lake in Orissa.
* Butterfly conservatory opened in Lodhi Gardens
New Delhi: A butterfly conservatory showcasing the metamorphosis and life history of the winged creatures was opened today at the Lodhi Gardens in the national capital.
* India to launch two satellites to study climate change
Bangalore: India will soon join a select space club by launching two dedicated satellites in polar orbit to study climate change through atmospheric research and detection of greenhouse gases, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair said Sunday.
* Experts slam Jairam after reports of climate policy turnaround
New Delhi: A change in India's stand on climate change policy would be against national consensus, members of the negotiating team at the climate talks and NGOs said Monday following reports of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh advocating a softening of the country's position.
* Green Games? Turning browns into greens is a tall order
New Delhi: Will Delhi be able to green itself in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games? With barely 11 months to go for the opening ceremony, there are no visible signs of the promised 'Green Games'.
* Fireworks sale norms tightened to make Diwali safer
New Delhi: Neighbourhoods in the national capital are being lit up and markets are buzzing with activity as Diwali nears. This year the authorities have tightened norms under which they licence fireworks sales to make it a safer festival, while they conduct anti-pollution campaigns to make it less of a health hazard.
* To beat stress, move into treetop meditation huts
Chandigarh: Chandigarh will soon set up treetop meditation huts in the serene environs of the Botanical Garden - a unique place for relaxation away from the busy city life - in this union territory.
* Indian climbs on top of British parliament to protest
London: Indian was among some 60 environmental campaigners who climbed on to the roof of the British parliament Sunday evening to urge rich nations to take the lead on climate change action.
* Oxygen content in Ladakh up 50 percent: Scientists
Leh (J&K): Anyone visiting Ladakh for the first time can be left gasping for breath due to low oxygen levels in the high altitude region. But a successful plantation drive has brought about environmental changes - driving up oxygen content by 50 percent and, most unusually, making it rain, say Indian scientists.
* World Bank releases report on development, climate change
Abu Dhabi: The developing countries can shift to a low-carbon path while promoting development, but this depends on financial and technical aid from developed nations, the World Bank said in a report released here Sunday.
* Apex court moved to stop idol immersion in rivers
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday refused to accord an urgent hearing to a plea for stopping the environment-harming immersion of idols of various deities in rivers and water bodies across India after Hindu festivals.
* Court allows limited mining in Aravali ranges
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday agreed to allow mining of building materials in 600 hectares of the Aravali ranges in Haryana, if the state government sets up a fool-proof mechanism to recuperate land degraded by the activity.
* Why she doesn't want to date a guy from a developed country
Tired of the way industrialised countries are dragging their feet on a global agreement to tackle global warming, young Indian climate activist Leela Raina has found a new way to express her frustration. She has written a blog with 11 reasons on why she will not date a man from a developed country.
* 160 tigers short, Uttar Pradesh blames census technique!
Lucknow: The number of tigers in Uttar Pradesh has plummeted from 273 to 109 in four years, but the state wildlife authorities are blaming a change in the census technique for the drastic decline.
* Tirupur industrialists fined Rs.55 crore for polluting river
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has imposed a steep Rs.556 million (Rs.55.6 crore) fine on industrialists engaged in dyeing and bleaching work in Tamil Nadu's Tirupur town, known for fine cotton T-shirts and hosiery, and polluting the Noyyal river.
* PM chairs first Ganga meeting, calls for quick clean-up
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday chaired the first meeting of the newly-formed Ganga River Basin Authority (GRBA) and called for accelerated steps to clean up the river, revered as sacred by many Indians.
* Environmentalists hail 'national' status to Ganga dolphin
Patna: Environmentalists in Bihar are overjoyed at the Ganga Dolphin being declared a national aquatic animal and say the move would not only save the freshwater species from extinction but an increase in their numbers would also indicate a cleaner Ganga river.
* Rich countries framing climate debate to suit themselves: India
Industrialised countries are unwilling to spell out to what extent they will commit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions after 2012
* Green racing car to debut in Formula 3 Championship
London, Oct 6: The world's first green racing car, fabricated from woven flax, recycled carbon fibre and carrot pulp, will be making its competitive debut in the Formula 3 Championship finals on Oct 17.
* After UN speech, Lucknow teen eyeing another green first
Lucknow: After becoming the first Indian teenager to address the United Nations General Assembly on global climate change recently, Lucknow girl Yugratna Srivastava aims to notch another first - plant one million trees in the country.
* WWF: Saving forests 20 percent of climate-change challenge
Bangkok, Sep 29: Saving the world's remaining native forests must be a big part of any new climate deal as about 20 percent of global carbon emissions are due to deforestation and forest degradation, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) said Tuesday.
* India makes big push to study Himalayan ecology
New Delhi, Sep 29: Urbanisation, irresponsible tourism, overuse of water, badly planned power and infrastructure projects and deforestation are all affecting the Himalayas, acknowledged a report released by the government here Tuesday.
* Climate-change adaptation to cost $75-90 bn: World Bank
Bangkok, Sep 30 (DPA) Climate-change adaptation is likely to cost developing countries $75-90 billion annually from 2010 to 2050, according to a study released Wednesday by the World Bank.
http://green.in.msn.com/greennews
Interview
'A Country That Can't Feed Itself Shouldn't Sell Off Land For Food Exports'
The President of International Fund for Agricultural Development stresses that access to funds for developing countries will help them make ethical decisions in the quest for food security.
Lola Nayar Interviews Kanayo Nwanze
http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?263102
Just days before the UN Climate Change summit at Copenhagen, Kanayo Nwanze, President of IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), stresses that access to funds for developing countries will help them make ethical decisions in the quest for food security. Nwanze was recently in India. Excerpts from an interview
In 2007 and 2008, several countries witnessed food crisis and even riots over food shortage. What are the learnings from these experiences?
I believe the multiple factors that resulted in the food crisis in 2007 and 2008 were wake up calls to national governments in the developing world and in the international community. This is clearly demonstrated by the response and reaction since then, culminating in the G8 summit holding a special session on food security for the first time ever and subsequently in the G20 summit at Pittsburgh and the World Food Summit in Rome. These clearly indicate that we have at least woken up to the reality of the importance of food security and people having enough food all over the world. The response demonstrates that the international community now realizes the centrality of agriculture. Whether we have learnt our lesson is another issue but at least we have woken up to the reality.
In spite of all the efforts there are many commodities whose prices are still higher than they were prior to 2007, so essentially not all countries have been able to take advantage of the food price hike. Along with hike in food prices there has been increase in cost of transportation and fuel. For the developing world, the commodity prices have been low so you have had fewer exports. Then there have also been extreme climate situations like in Bangladesh, India and the Horn of Africa. The financial crisis has also made things much worse, particularly for smallholdings farmers due to capital reversal, rise in borrowing rates, a collapsing global trade and commodity prices, a reduction in subsidies in some countries...
In the recent years we have seen a steep rise in prices of food commodities particularly whenever India enters the global market to import food grains. Do you see the days of high commodity prices persisting?
We have to understand that given the uncertainties in the financial markets anything can happen. It is not even possible to make projections six months down the road. India certainly has a very vibrant market -- not because of the population but due to the increasing proportion of middle-income population whose demand for better and high quality food products is rising. So there is going to be increased pressure arising from India. Once India enters the global market it is going to create increased pressure on prices.
As I have said one must applaud Indian government for the transformation in the last few decades not just in economy but also technology and agriculture. I believe we are now at a crossroads and need to re-look at the policies that brought us to this point and see if there are possibilities of our becoming highly import dependent...
Won't the rising food prices make it more difficult to meet the target for halving world poverty and hunger?
Not just rising prices, the impact of climate change is going to make it very difficult for us to meet the targets of Millennium Development Goal (MDG), particularly the first one of halving world poverty by 2015. But there are countries that will be able to meet the MDG-1 objective. China certainly may be able to meet the target. India has also not done too badly but there have been reversals due to extreme weather situations.
What are the reform measures that need to be introduced urgently to improve food security in countries like India?
Certainly India has made big strides. I remember in the 1970s, India was being described as a hopeless case. At that time India had severe food crisis, drought and famine. At that time there was no African country that was a net importer of food. But even before the 1990s, India had begun to export food. Today India is a powerhouse in the Asian sub continent. While many African countries have become net importers of food, India has made some progress. Now India faces new challenges of population growth and impact of climate change.
I have always believed that when we talk about agriculture development we should not limit ourselves to large industrialisation. The majority of farmers live in rural areas where the primary occupation is farming. We must invest in rural development and rural opportunities. About two thirds of India's one billion population lives in rural areas. Over 150 million of them are poor. Poverty is deepest among the scheduled caste and tribals. So you must invest in rural development, in financial inclusion, in building infrastructure, in primary education, capacity building -- a whole government approach.
How is IFAD proposing to help developing countries combat the climate challenge to improve agriculture productivity?
Clearly climate change is translating into decline in food production. We are worried as it is going to make it difficult to combat hunger -- what with price volatility and market dependence and, of course, conflicts.
Basically IFAD believes in helping farmers, particularly rural community to adapt to climate change with access to cutting edge crop technology, micro-finance services and weather insurance and helping them have access to markets. In India, IFAD also works with tribals, particularly in regional areas. India has the largest country programme of IFAD. Over the past 30 years, we have invested over $636 million in India in about 23 projects.
IFAD will remain the voice of the poor and the rural communities at discussions on climate change. I also believe providing access to financial assistance for developing countries, particularly India, which has been making great strides in these areas, will help them to make cautious and ethical decisions, and to be able to influence decisions when climate change discussions take place at the Copenhagen summit.
How is the global community gearing up to meet the food challenge and supplement efforts of developing countries to improve both agriculture output and rural incomes?
The international community has demonstrated its commitment by committing $20 billion (at the G8 summit at L'Aquila in Italy in July) for development of agriculture with focus on small landholders and women. We here in Rome -- the FAO and IFAD -- believe that our joint efforts through investments in agriculture in developing countries over the last few decades are certainly geared to helping them produce their own food.
The language that I have been hearing for the last several months is that all these programmes should be country-owned and country-led, and that international community must help developing countries to produce their own food. This is clearly a shift from food aid to sustainable agriculture production through long-term investment. This shift in language is a clear recognition of the linkage of food security with national security and political stability.
Is globalisation proving beneficial or posing a threat to efforts by developing countries to improve food security?
I don't think there is a simple yes or no answer. It depends on the context. Globalisation in many ways helps if it has the right environment for access to new technology, new products, new commodities and to knowledge. At the same time, it has its downside as globalisation works on competition. When you are competing on equal footing than somebody flourishes.
Globalisation means the developed countries should remove barriers to allow developing countries to be able compete. It also means that developing countries should be able to achieve a level of qualitative products that are able to compete in the international markets. So there are good side and downside to the whole controversy over globalisation. It creates opportunities for forging new global partnerships in all areas.
How serious is the problem of 'land grab' by overseas investors in agriculture? How is it affecting the host countries?
I would first like to say that the expression 'land grab' is a misrepresentation of facts. I would look at it more as a foreign investment into agriculture. From my knowledge I can say this practice is not new as it was been happening for decades with either sovereign nations or companies investing in agriculture in other countries.
There are many successful experiences in some parts of Africa -- tea plantations in Kenya and eastern Africa or cocoa in Western Africa or rubber in Liberia, for instance. Though owned mostly by foreign investments, they have been very good in bringing new technology and improving local lifestyles through infrastructure, schools, hospitals and healthcare. In many cases they are a source of income for the host government by creating export pathway.
What is happening in some cases is that companies are taking advantage of poorly negotiated terms or poor policy guidelines to exploit some of the developing countries. We together with the FAO and the World Bank are framing policy guidelines to ensure that these countries have the necessary framework to protect them against exploitation by foreign investments. As I see it, this can be a compliment to efforts to enhance food security globally…
When will the international code on farmland deals be ready, and what will its focus be?
We are aiming to have it ready by February 2010. In many ways it will follow the same pathway as the Kimberley framework for mining. At the end of the day, we hope it will help the international community play a vital role in developing an international code for investment in agriculture, which will provide both the developing countries and the investing countries or institution a win-win situation.
The local communities must not be deprived of their land or the benefits from investments in it - either for creating employment or infrastructure. We must ensure that a country that is not able to feed itself does not sell off land to produce food for exports when it is asking for food aid.
Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 50, November 28, 2009
Lalgarh and Jungle Mahal: Where are we Heading?
A Few Questions to Congress Party, Maoists and Marxists on their Worldviews
Saturday 28 November 2009, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh
The events in Lalgarh and Jungle Mahal portend a grim disaster. Even if it is temporarily suppressed by large concentration of security forces, the resentment will be smouldering. More powerful and more widespread protest movements will emerge later. Unless handled with deep understanding of the genesis of the unrest and profound concern for the people, it can lead to a countrywide adivasi revolt in the first phase, which can develop into peasant-lower middle class-student revolt—in a word, a full-fledged civil war. The Neroes in the State and in the federal government are fiddling while this adivasi region is burning.
The West Bengal Government's Chief Secretary has said "order will soon be restored". He seems to think that people have been unruly without any legitimate cause, that the Maoists have incited them and therefore the protests will disappear like a bubble under the weight of the combined armed forces.
The State's Chief Minister, too, has said: "The criminals shall not be freed." Who are the real criminals, Mr Chief Minister? Those who have condemned the adivasis to aeons-long exploitation, deprived them of the bases of their sustenance and now threaten to destroy their habitat by mining ores and setting up mammoth plants which will bring them no benefits but pollute their air and water, make their soil toxic—are they not the real culprits? Is it not the State which, by fostering the elitist culture of wood panelling and luxury wooden furniture, has been encouraging timber depredation, destroying their biodiversity, drying up their drinking water sources, robbing them of their food, exposing them to newer and newer diseases and at the same time withdrawing more and more from spending on social sectors, is the real criminal? Is not the ruling party in the State, which lets it party cadres fudge the BPL (below the poverty level) cards and divert the food meant for the poor, which lets it zonal leaders to build mansions by pocketing the moneys meant for local development projects, the real criminal? Without self-questioning, the State's rulers have been making statements like the Rumanian dictator, Ceausescu, before his fall.
Those who claim to be Communists ought to know that no power has ever been able to resist the people's protests against existential threats. The failure of the alleged Communists to distinguish between the oppressed adivasis and the Maoists is also deplorable. The true followers of Marx's humanism, breathing the spirit of Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, were in the best position of winning over the misguided Maoists if only they themselves could locate the sources of the alleged Maoists' ideological misconcepts. Unfortunately, they did not do the thinking for themselves. The Marxists and the Maoists have uncritically adopted certain aspects of Marx and Mao, while leaving other aspects out of consideration.
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Let us take the Maoists first because they are becoming instrumental in exploiting the people's spontaneous protest movements, warping these, and isolating the protesters from the rest of the Indian populace and getting them crushed. By indulging in ultra-Leftism, they are dissipating the people's energies and causing heavy losses of lives. This is not Maoism: this is Lin Biao-ism in its worst form.
During the Kuomintang regime and also afterwards, Mao sought to build the broadest possible democratic front. Cadres, inspired by his teachings, patiently organised the people "by democratic methods, by methods of discussion, criticism, persuasion and education, not by methods of coercion". India's so-called Maoists have only picked up his one dictum "power flows from the barrel of the gun", divorcing it from his other teachings to "be with the people, to learn from the people" and to "share people's lives". Our "Maoists" only excite the people to revolt and use the people as the shield for self-protection. They do this while consoling themselves that they are fighting for a classless society. They forget that this kind of gun culture means continuous division within one's own forces leading to self-destruction.
Mao, it must be noted, had also some major strands of thought which, on one plane, met Gandhi's thinking. Gandhi thought that if the Indian economy and Indian polity have to be restructured, it would be necessary to refashion the village communities as the ideal type and re-adapt these to the modern conditions of co-operation. Mao, too, encouraged mutual aid associations after having abolished landlordism, as the first step to cooperative agriculture. Gandhi was opposed to centralisation of the economy and of state power. Mao, too, expressed strong difference with the Soviet Union's centralised planning. Gandhi wanted self-reliant and as far as possible self-sufficient village republics. Mao, too, wanted self-supporting village communes. Before seizing power in China, he had sought to build up Yenan as a self-sufficient province. Our Maoists possibly think that constructive work needs be taken up only after they capture state power.
This is not to say that Mao did no wrong. Even though he correctly diagnosed that the state power holders tend to become, like large property holders, an exploiting class, he sought to guard against it by launching a "cultural revolution" without creating the ground through a countrywide and sustained educational campaign for instilling socialist consciousness. This defeated the cause and paved the ground for the Deng Xiaoping-led counter-culture.
Prakash Karat, the General Secretary of the CPI-M, has said that the Maoists' worldview is "warped, distorted and outmoded". No doubt this criticism is correct. But has the CPI-M analysed its own worldview?
Karat's party calls itself Marxist. Marx was no doubt an intellectual genius. However much his pro-capitalist critics might try to denigrate him, his conclusion—that the super-profit-driven capitalism will create a crisis of under-consumption of the masses and hence relative overproduction in the system and that this will lead to its fall under the people's determined actions—is now finding near-universal acceptance, even though implicitly. But Marx was a product of European culture. "Smashing, crushing" came to him naturally as a cure for an evil system. Oliver Goldsmith was perhaps a rare English author who gave the concept of "stooping to conquer". The soft approach as a cure hardly ever came to Marx. But it was in abundant measure in Mao and in the fullest measure in Gandhi, both products of Asiatic culture.
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Let us now turn to other aspects of Marx. In his thinking, feudalism would have to take the form of capitalism for the development of productive forces; the industrial economy is invariably superior to the agrarian economy; European type of large-scale industrialism is an essential stage for transition to socialism. How correct are these concepts of inevitabilities? Is dictatorship of the proletariat a necessary stage for building socialism? Once dictatorship is set up, supposedly for the exercise of power in the interest of the larger majority of the people, how would you do away with the ingrained authoritarian culture without another revolution? How valid is the concept of exclusive state ownership of the lands and large industries for socialist transformation? Should the vesting of ownership in the state mean vesting it in the apex organ of the state? Is there any scope for co-operative ownership of lands and factories under socialism? What is the quintessence of socialism?
Marx himself had recognised that under near-perfect conditions of bourgeois democracy, as existed in Britain in the nineteenth century, the transition to socialism might be possible without recourse to a blood-spilling revolution. Under the present condition of India, where formal democracy exists but the spirit of democracy has been hijacked by moneybags, goons and unscrupulous politicians, what should be the direction of people's movements to usher in a vibrant democracy where the grassroot people's democratic rights are honoured? Should we, or should we not, seek to build village communities as village republics, largely on the Gandhian model? What should be the people's orientation to urban growths?
Marx had recognised the crucial role that the genre of technology plays. Did he not say that handmills give rise to small-time proprietors while the steam-mill gives rise to capitalist entrepreneurs? What is the import of this statement? Today, it is recognised that there are two kinds of technologies—one is oriented to "conquering nature" and people-unfriendly; the other is nature-harmonic, eco-friendly, conducive to decentralisation, and people-friendly. Science paradigms, too, are of two kinds—one is reductionist; the other is holism-oriented. The latter kind of science paradigm and the latter genre of technology are potent enough to nurture to near-maturity such new productive forces within the womb of the exploitative society as would undermine its basis. What place should the political parties seeking egalitarian transformation, assign to these different kinds of science paradigms and these two different kinds of technologies? Have the Marxists, who talk of social transformation, given any space to these issues in their political programmes? Have such issues to be outside their worldview? In the context of global climate change which is threatening the very survival of life in this planet, which kinds of industries should be disallowed and which kinds allowed? And on which scale should the permitted industries be?
Marx had recognised the unique characteristics of ancient India's village communities, which did not conform to the categories of primitive communism and which definitely retained their vitality, all least till Marx's time. He said:
These small and extremely ancient Indian communities, some of which have continued down to this day, are based on possession in common of the land, on the blending of agriculture and handicrafts, and on an unalterable division of labour, which serves, whenever a new community is started as a plan and scheme ready cut and dried. Occupying areas from 100 up to several thousand acres, each community forms a compact whole producing all it requires. The chief part of the products is destined for direct use by the community itself, and does not take the form of a commodity. Hence, production here is independent of that division of labour brought about (later), in Indian society as a whole, by means of the exchange of commodities. It is the surplus alone that becomes a commodity.
……..Spinning and weaving are carried on in each family as subsidiary industries.
Since socialism is defined as planned production for use, were these not socialistic in essence? Can the remains of the traditional Indian village communities be taken as the basis and with the aid of the latest findings of life sciences and emergent nature-harmonic technologies, equitable communities radiating health and happiness be created? What kind of political restructuring/systemic change will be needed therefore?
If the CPM does not come out with answers to the above questions, the conclusion will be irresistible that it has not done its own thinking. While it accuses the Maoists of borrowing from China's ultra-Leftist sectarian policy that prevailed during its "cultural revolution", it itself has been borrowing from Deng Xiaoping's policy of building capitalism under the garb of socialism.
Karat has said:
The Maoists could establish foothold in the tribal areas due to problems of displacement and loss of livelihood due to government policy.
Is it the policy of the federal government alone? Is it not the policy of the CPM-led West Bengal Government, too? How has the latter government distanced itself from the former's policy? Does the CPM rule out mining or setting up mammoth industrial plants in tribal-inhabited forest areas? When humanity needs most the forests to absorb carbon dioxide (the largest in volume among the greenhouse gases), which side of the scale is more important for living creatures—forests or the mineral ores and their industrial products? There is no clear answer from the Marxists.
¨
The same kind of opacity, indecision, and hypocrisy permeate the Congress-led Union Government's thinking. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on November 4 last: "Systematic exploitation and social economic abuse of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated." "It cannot be said that we dealt sensitively with issues (affecting tribal lives) in the past. More could be done and more should be done."
It is not a question of "more should be done". It requires a complete upturning of the "development" paradigm. Our governments at the federal level have been aping the Western model, following a policy of aggregate national income (GNP) in total disregard of the GDBR (Gross Destruction of Basic Resource). These basic resources are the ecological resources, of which the forests are the foremost. Dr Manmohan Singh's predecessor governments, too, had built big dams and mammoth industrial plants, the "modern temples of India", by axing forests which are really the "most venerable temples" needed for the life and livelihood of all men and animals. Of course, the dams and industrial plants affected the tribals most.
Today also, whenever geologists find any ores in the forests, the government will rush to do the mining. Without learning lessons from the havocs that the big dams have been wreaking (by containing small floods but promoting bigger floods), it has not yet decided to drop plans for across-the-river dams and to build instead large numbers of check dams. The new big dams will continue to open up access to, and clear away, the forests. By building mega-thermal power plants, it will cause the forests to wither. Small-scale cogeneration power plants are not yet its priority. Solar programmes have not yet got the priority they deserve.
The kind of paradigm change that can do justice to the tribals and the common people demands a whole lot of changes in the concepts of architecture, transportation, energy generation and use, industrial planning etc. Utmost decentralisation of industrial plants, manufacture of better agricultural implements for higher productivity, and interweaving of industry with agriculture, sylviculture will be needed. Ecological resources, including the renewable energy forms, will have to be the main basis for the design of life, mineral resources playing a subordinate role to ecological concerns. A basic change in the concept of lifestyle and a ceiling as well as a floor for energy use in individual lives is the primary requirement for an egalitarian approach. In this age of climate change, learning from the tribals' conservation ethics is the key to mankind's survival.
Epilogue
After the above article was written, I got a copy of the Tehelka report on the press release issued by a 15-member fact finding team comprising members from the PUCL (Chhattisgarh), PUDR (Delhi), Vanavasi Chetana Ashram (Dantewada), Human Rights Legal Network (Chhattisgarh), Action Aid (Orissa), Manna Adhikar (Malkangiri), and Zila Adivasi Ekta Sangha (Malkangiri).
The documented stories about the atrocities by security forces are blood curdling. They have given names of the victims and the details of atrocities which can easily be verified. If these facts are correct, this country will find it difficult to hide its shame. It is strange that even though censorship has not been imposed, these horrendous atrocities have been blocked out by both the print and the electronic media. Our parliamentarians need to raise a demand for a statement from the Union Home Minister on the correctness or otherwise of the report. The Editors' Guild needs to send a separate fact-finding team and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha need to send a Joint All-Party Parliamentary Fact-finding Mission.
If these reports are correct, India has lost the right to be called a democratic country. It is strange that in a country whose President is a lady, whose ruling party's chairperson is a lady, whose Lok Sabha Speaker is a lady, such atrocities are happening stealthily. The perpetrators of such atrocities are the real breeders of terrorists.
Although by raising questions in my above article I have sought to appeal to our political parties to critically examine their own world-views and perspectives, I realise that they will take time to do a thorough examination. Meanwhile, the situation in the Jungle Mahal cannot be allowed to deteriorate further. For a turn-around, the government must withdraw all special armed forces, release all political prisoners of the affected area, order immediate ceasefire and begin the talks unconditionally because it is the rulers at different levels who have been the original sinners and the adivasis are the people sinned against. Justice demands that the original sinners retrace their steps first.
http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1801.html
Singur echo in land blow to Ambani | |
| OUR BUREAU | |
Dec. 4: Allahabad High Court today partly quashed the acquisition of 2,500 acres for Anil Ambani's jinxed Dadri power project, rekindling memories of the Singur dispute. A high court division bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Sudhir Agarwal quashed the land purchase by the Uttar Pradesh government in 2004 under emergency provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The court noted that the state government had failed to record the objections of the farmers who had been opposing the forcible buyout. Although the Singur land dispute did not make it to court, the similarity is hard to miss. The land had been acquired for a 7,480MW project, which the Anil Ambani group has flagged as the world's largest gas-fired power project at a single location, when Mulayam Singh of the Samajwadi Party was the chief minister. The verdict is being seen as a big victory for the late Prime Minister V.P. Singh who had rallied farmers in Ghaziabad in 2006 to protest against the land acquisition. The farmers had been paid about Rs 150 per square yard for fertile agricultural land. Now, the court has directed the collector of Ghaziabad to record the complaints of the affected farmers, investigate their allegations of land acquisition under duress and hand back the land to the farmers after recovering the compensation they had received. The judges said the land acquisition had become "impermissible" because the state government had invoked section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act which confers the right on the authorities to acquire land for a public purpose under emergency provisions. At Singur, land had been acquired under a similar act. They noted that the state had "never decided to acquire any land for a power project". The notifications for the acquisition of land were based on a proposal submitted by Reliance Delhi Power Pvt Ltd, an Anil Ambani group company. "Thus, the acquisition in question cannot be termed acquisition for public purpose," the court said. The Anil Ambani camp drew comfort from the fact that the court had permittedland acquisition under section 4 of the Act, which entails a public notification of the intention to acquire the land followed by an enquiry into objections, if any. Sources said only 500 farmers were opposing the land purchase while more than 5,000 had already received compensation, again a mirror image of Singur. They didn't expect the farmers who had already accepted payment to return the amount. They were emphatic that the court order would not mean that the project would have to start from scratch. "We are confident that the state government of Uttar Pradesh will take…requisite steps for land acquisition...to enable the implementation of the project," the company said in a terse statement. Supreme Court advocate K.T.S. Tulsi, who represented a section of the farmers, said: "We wanted to avoid a Singur-like situation as the farmers were willing to give up their life for the land. "The court has taken note of the argument that agricultural land is a precious resource and it is not advisable to divert it for non-agricultural purposes." The Dadri project is central to the battle between the Ambani brothers over the supply of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin. The latest setback for Anil Ambani comes at a time the Supreme Court is in the final stages of hearing the dispute over pricing the gas elder brother Mukesh's company is to supply. |
Farmers' suicides in India
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[edit] The Numbers
Farmers in India became the centre of considerable concern in the 1990s when the journalist P Sainath highlighted the large number of suicides among them. Official reports initially denied the farm suicides but as more and more information came to light the government began to accept that farmers in India were under considerable stress. On figures there was much debate since the issue was so emotive. The government tried to underplay the cases of farmer deaths, intellectual supporters of the farmers preferred to inflate them. More than 17,500 farmers a year killed themselves between 2002 and 2006, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics. [1]. Others traced the increase in farm suicides to the early 1990s..[2] It was said, a comprehensive all-India study is still awaited, that most suicides occurred in states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab.[3][4][5][6][7]. The situation was grim enough to force at least the Maharashtra government to set up a dedicated office to deal with farmers distress [2].
In 2006, the state of Maharashtra, with 4,453 farmers' suicides accounted for over a quarter of the all-India total of 17,060, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its report Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India, 2006, totaling to '36,428 farmers' suicides since 1995. According to another study by the Bureau, while the number of farm suicides increased since 2001, the number of farmers has fallen, as thousands abandoning agriculture in distress[8]. According to government data, over 5,000 farmers committed suicide in 2005-2009 in Maharashtra, while 1,313 cases reported by Andhra Pradesh between 2005 and 2007. In Karnataka the number stood at 1,003, since 2005-06 till August 2009. In the last four years, cases in Kerala were about 905, Gujarat 387, Punjab 75 and Tamil Nadu 26.[9].
[edit] History
In the 1990s India woke up to a spate of farmers suicides. One of the major reporters of these suicides was the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, P. Sainath. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh.[3] In the beginning it was believed that most of the suicides were happening among the cotton growers, especially those from Vidarbha.[4] A look at the figures given out by the State Crime Records Bureau, however, was sufficient to indicate that it was not just the cotton farmer but farmers as a professional category were suffering, irrespective of their holding size.[10] Moreover, it was not just the farmers from Vidarbha but all over Maharashtra who showed a significantly high suicide rate.[5].[11] The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers suicide and farm related distress in general. Subsequently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Vidarbha and promised a package of Rs. 11000 crores (110 billion) to be spent by the government in Vidarbha. The families of farmers who had committed suicide were also offered an ex gratia grant to the tune of Rs. 1 lakh (0.1 million)by the government. This figure kept on varying, depending on how much flak the government was facing from the media and the opposition parties for being uncaring towards the farmers' plight. Such a high figure was ironic considering that the net average income of a family of farmers in this region was approximately Rs. 2700 per acre per annum. The economic plight of the farmer might be illustrated with the fact that a farmer having as much as 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land, and hence considered a well-off farmer, had an income of just a little more than what he would have earned were he to merely get the legal minimum wage for all of the 365 days of the year. Little wonder that despite government efforts at pumping in more money into the suicide belt the suicide epidemic among farmers remained unabated through 2006-07. The problems of the farmers were quite comprehensive. There was little credit available. What was available was very costly. There was no advise on how best to conduct agriculture operations. Income through farming was not enough to meet even the minimum needs of a farming family. Support systems like free health facilities from the government were virtually non-existent. Traditionally support systems in the villages of India had been provided by the government. However, due to a variety of reasons the government had either withdrawn itself from its supportive role or plain simple misgovernance had allowed facilities in the villages to wither away.[12]
[edit] Causes
In the initial years when farmers distress came to attract public attention it was said that indebtedness and use of Bt Cotton were the main cause for farmers suicide. Here it is important to notice that in the context of Indian history [13] the moneylender is considered to be a particularly evil person and the farmer an unwitting subject of his machinations. Moreover, in recent times there has been a considerable ideologically driven movement against the use of Bt crops. As a result the initial causes indebtedness and Bt Cotton were easily accepted to be the causes of farm suicides. More detailed research by various investigators like Raj Patel [14], Nagraj.[6].[15], Meeta and Rajivlochan[16], identified a variety of causes that essentially boiled down to this: India was transforming rapidly into a primarily urban, industrial society with industry as its main source of income; the government and society had begun to be unconcerned about the condition of the countryside; moreover, a downturn in the urban economy was pushing a large number of distressed non-farmers to try their hand at cultivation; the farmer was also caught in a Scissors crisis; in the absence of any responsible counselling either from the government or society there were many farmers who did not know how to survive in the changing economy. Such stresses pushed many into a corner where suicide became an option for them [17] At least one study from the Punjab also pointed at the dramatic misuse of agricultural chemicals in farmer households in the absence of any guidance on how to correctly use these deadly chemicals and linked it to the rise in farm suicides wherever farm chemicals were in widespread use. [18]--upendra 00:28, 24 October 2009 (UTC)--upendra 00:32, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Responses to Farmers suicides
Vidarbha was in the media for a spate of farmer suicides in recent years ostensibly because of the falling Minimum Support Price for cotton. The problem is complex and root causes include lopsided policies of the World Trade Organisation and developed nations' subsidies to their cotton farmers which make Vidarbha's cotton uncompetitive in world markets. Consequently Vidarbha is plagued by high rates of school drop outs, penniless widows left in the wake of suicides, loan sharks and exploitation of the vulnerable groups.
The Indian government had promised to increase the minimum rate for cotton by approximately Rs 100 ($2) but reneged on its promise by reducing the Minimum Support Price further. This resulted in more suicides as farmers were ashamed to default on debt payments to loan sharks. "In 2006, 1,044 suicides were reported in Vidarbha alone - that's one suicide every eight hours."[19]
In April 2007 an NGO named Green Earth Social Development Consulting brought out a report after doing an audit of the state and central government relief packages in Vidarbha. The report's conclusions were:
- Farmers' demands were not taken into count while preparing the relief package. Neither were civil society organisations, local government bodies, panchayats etc consulted.
- The relief packages were mostly amalgamations of exiting schemes. Apart from the farmer helpline and the direct financial assistance, there was scarcely anything new being offered. Pumping extra funds into additional schemes shows that no new idea was applied to solve a situation where existing measures had obviously failed.
- The farmer helpline did not give any substantial help to farmers
- The basis for selection of beneficiaries under the assistance scheme was not well-defined. Also, type of assistance to be given led to problems like a farmer needing a pair of bullocks getting a pump set and vice versa (or a farmer who has no access to water sources being given pump sets)
- Awareness regarding the package was also fairly low.
The report concluded quite alarmingly that the loan burden of the farmers would double in 2008.
To attact attention a variety of catch phrases were coined such as 'SEZ' or (Farmers) 'Special Elimination Zone' states. [20].
The government set up a dedicated group to deal with farm distress in 2006 known as the Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission, based in Amravati [http:// http://www.vnss-mission.gov.in/]--upendra 00:28, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] In popular culture
"Summer 2007" by producer Atul Pandey, focused on the issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, as did the 2009 Bollywood film Kissan [21]. Prior to this "The Dying Fields", a documentary directed by Fred de Sam Lazaro was aired in August, 2007 on Wide Angle (TV series).
[edit] External links
- Debts and Drought Drive India's Farmers to Despair New York Times
- Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India International Food Policy Research Institute Discussion Paper October 2008 pdf
- (English) Photo report of ReMedAct on suicide of farmers in India
[edit] See also
- Battle in Seattle -The film quotes the indian suicide statistic in the end credits
- This is What Democracy Looks Like - Explains the role of genetically modified seeds, and corporate efforts to block seed saving, and how that causes indigenous local farmers to be driven out of business by higher prices, when they are obligated to purchase not only GM seed, but the chemical pesticides for those crops.
- The Corporation - Explains the impact of commodification and patenting life forms on independent farmers.
- P. Sainath, a journalist who covered the Covering farmers' suicides in India, later won the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award
[edit] References
- ^ Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved, Portobello Books, London, 2007
- ^ 1. Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune.
- ^ "Drought, debt lead to Indian farmers' suicides". Associated Press. Auhust 28, 2009. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jq82jfM_QGaQzSLMpsxrSd7CoCeQD9ABB7880.
- ^ "Spate of farmers' suicides in India worrying WHO". The Hindu. Oct 15, 2006. http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/15/stories/2006101514820800.htm.
- ^ "Debts and Drought Drive India's Farmers to Despair". New York Times. June 6, 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/world/debts-and-drought-drive-india-s-farmers-to-despair.html.
- ^ "India acts over suicide crisis on farms". The Independent. 2 July 2004. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-acts-over-suicide-crisis-on-farms-551762.html.
- ^ "No let up in India farm suicides". BBC News. 5 May 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7383662.stm.
- ^ "Farm suicides worse after 2001 — study". The Hindu. Nov 13, 2007. http://www.hindu.com/2007/11/13/stories/2007111352250900.htm. .
- ^ "Farmers' suicides in India not due to Bt cotton: IFFRI". Mint (newspaper). Nov 11 2008. http://www.livemint.com/2008/11/11144441/Farmers8217-suicides-in-Ind.html.
- ^ 1. Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune, pp. 11-13.
- ^ Nagraj, K. (2008) Farmers suicide in India: magnitudes, trends and spatial patterns
- ^ M Rajivlochan (2007) "Farmers and firefighters" in Indian Express, August 28, 2007, [1]
- ^ Dharma Kumar and Meghnad Desai ed. Bold textCambridge Economic History of IndiaBold text vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, 1983
- ^ Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved, Portobello Books, London, 2007
- ^ Nagraj, K. (2008) Farmers suicide in India: magnitudes, trends and spatial patterns
- ^ Meeta and Rajivlochan (2006) Farmers suicide: facts and possible policy interventions, Yashada, Pune, pp. 75-101.
- ^ Behere PB, Behere AP. Farmers' suicide in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state: A myth or reality?. Indian J Psychiatry [serial online] 2008 [cited 2009 Oct 23];50:124-7. Available from: http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/text.asp?2008/50/2/124/42401
- ^ Kaur, Raminderjeet, 2008. "Assessment of genetic damage in the workers occupationally exposed to various pesticides in selected districts of Punjab", unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Human Biology, Punjabi University, Patiala.
- ^ "The Dying Fields". Wide Angle (TV series). PBS. 2007.
- ^ "17,060 farm suicides in one year". The Hindu. Jan 31, 2008. http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/31/stories/2008013150240100.htm.
- ^ "Has Bollywood shut its eyes to movies on farmers?". The Economic Times. 29 Aug 2009. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Has-Bollywood-shut-its-eyes-to-movies-on-farmers/articleshow/4947601.cms.
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