tribuneindia...Spotlight

			Saturday, July 10, 1999
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Top Asians of century
NEW DELHI, July 9 (PTI) — Mahatma Gandhi, melody queen Lata Mangeshkar and Late Industrialist J.R.D. Tata have been nominated as ones among the top 20 influential Asians of the century in a poll being conducted by the American ‘Time’ magazine. Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, car maker Soichiro Honda and martial arts pioneer Bruce Lee are the leading nominees in the ‘Time’s’ online poll for the ‘top 20 Asians’ of the century, a time release said today.

MLAs boycott House
CALCUTTA, July 9 (PTI) — Opposition Congress members in West Bengal Assembly continued to boycott the House for the second day today demanding release of the 21 activists of the Chhatra Parishad, the students wing of the party, who were arrested yesterday for storming the Assembly. The Congress MLAs staged a dharna in the lobby of the Assembly and raised slogans against the ruling of the speaker Hasim Abdul Halim who sentenced the parishad activists to three days’ imprisonment for forcibly entering the House.

Car bomb blast
SRINAGAR, July 9 (PTI) — A car bomb exploded in the high security zone of Batwara outside Army Headquarters in Badami Bagh cantonment tonight, official sources said here. A Maruti car was completely damaged in the blast that took place around 9.30 p.m. adding there was no loss of life.

Editor held
KARACHI, July 9 (AFP) — The editor and a staffer of a Pakistani weekly magazine have been arrested in Karachi for publishing material likely to incite sectarian feuding, the police said today. The police ransacked the office of the Pakistan News, published in Urdu and Sindhi, yesterday and arrested its Editor, Naveed Shad Arain, and a computer operator, the magazine’s employees said.

Cong leader dead
ALLAHABAD, July 9 (PTI) — Senior Congress leader Jagat Pal Singh died at his residence in Tagore Town here yesterday after prolonged illness, family sources said here today. He was 75 and is survived by three sons and a daughter. A freedom fighter, he was a close associate of the first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Born at Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh he began his political career at Allahabad in the 1950s, but later, shifting his base to Madhya Pradesh.

Bihar flood situation
PATNA, July 9 (PTI) — Flood situation in Bihar continued to be grim today with major rivers including Ganga, Kosi, Budhi Gandak and Bagmati being in spate as the death toll in the current spell of floods mounted to 20. Official sources said here that nine peroins, including two girls, were drowned in two separate incidents as the boats in which they were sailing capsized in Kosi river while moving to safer places from their affected villages in Supaul district yesterday.

Art auction record
LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) — An auction of works of art looted by the Nazis from the Rothschild family has fetched 56.7 million pounds ($ 88.2 million), almost three times its estimated value. Yesterday’s sale of the collection belonging to the 19th century Barons Nathaniel and Albert Von Rothschild was the biggest ever in Europe, according to auctioneers Christie’s.

Zhu's warning
BEIJING, July 9 (AFP) — Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji today expressed concern about expanded Japan-US security ties warning that Tokyo and Washington must keep their distance from a dispute between China and Taiwan. Zhu met Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who arrived here on Thursday for his first visit to the country as Prime Minister.

Charles Conrad dead
LOS ANGELES, July 9 (AFP) — Astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad (69), the third man to walk on the moon, died in a motorcycle accident in California, NASA announced today. Charles, a veteran of four US space flights, died from internal injuries in hospital after his motorcycle ran off the road.