Monday, July 12, 1999
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N A T I O N |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Indebted nation pays
gratitude Advani may not contest |
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Bihar flood toll rises to
32 Shabana, Mrinal Sen back Dilip
Kumar Political parties hail poll
announcement Hospital being used as gun-running
centre Treat all martyrs equal: PIL Common exam urged for practising
docs Male contraceptive: final trials
soon Spectre of drought over Rajasthan Panel set up to identify govt jobs
for disabled |
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"Shaurya Samman" for martyrs NEW DELHI, July 11 — The gratitude of an indebted nation and the spirit of nationalism came alive as a spell-bound audience at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here watched sobbing mothers, speechless widows, some of them holding babies in their arms, and proud fathers walking up to the podium to receive the ‘Shaurya Samman’ and financial assistance on behalf of Kargil martyrs. People from all walks of life, including a large number of schoolchildren, bowed their heads in honour of the martyrs to the tune of patriotic songs and poetry recitation at the function organised by Rashtriya Swabhiman and Gramin Swabhiman. The services of at least 100 martyrs belonging to Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi were recalled as "Vande Mataram" and nostalgic numbers, "Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon" and ‘Kat Gae Sar Hamare To Kuchh Gam Nahin ..." were sung. The martyrs’ family members, though pensive, were proud of the supreme sacrifices of their near and dear ones. Seventeen-year-old Praveen, son of sepoy Harsthal Singh of the 17 Jat Regiment, who had come all the way from Tiloke-Ka-Basi village in Jhunjhunu district, said: "I am proud of my father. I will also join the force". His mother, Sukhuni Devi, proudly approved of her son’s desire amidst her eyes moist with tears. Famous lines of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s poems, including the couplet "Ujre Lali Tumhe Bulaten Haen", were recited even as the poet Rajvir Singh Krantikari in his recitation called for crossing the Line of Control (LoC) to "teach Pakistan a befitting lesson for its misadventure". Two children below 10, Umer Khan and Subur Khan, rendered voice to another famous number "Aye Mere Pyare Watan Tujhpe Dil Qurban". Paying rich tributes to the martyrs, Election Commissioner G V G Krishnamurthy and former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma said the entire country was behind the martyrs' families. Mr Verma demanded that a separate portfolio of defence personnel welfare meant for war martyrs should be created both at the central and the state levels. Referring to famous Hindi poem "Pushpa ki Abhilasha", Mr Verma said "this is the only country in the world where even a flower would prefer to be stepped on by soldiers than to be put in a king’s crown". Celebrated Punjabi pop king Daler Mehandi exuded the confidence of victory at the ongoing conflict. The Punjab Minister of
State for Defence Services Welfare, Mr Janmeja Singh
Sekhon, said the state government had made several
beneficial schemes for the proper placement and economic
welfare of the families of the soldiers who had
sacrificed their lives in Operation Vijay. |
Advani may not contest NEW DELHI, July 11 — Union Home Minister L. K. Advani may not contest this time, opting to campaign for the party and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha poll scheduled to be held from September 4. Mr Advani, who will, thus, deny his former party colleague-turned-Congressman Shankarsingh Vaghela the pleasure of challenging him electorally at Gandhinagar in Gujarat, may opt for a berth in the Rajya Sabha, sources said, adding that the party’s Central Election Committee had already discussed the issue. The party’s spokesman, who briefed the media about the deliberations of the Central Election Committee meeting held in the capital yesterday, said issue of selecting the candidates for the two Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat had been left to Mr Kushabhau Thakre. The sources said that Mr Thakre might announce the name of Mr Advani for one of the seats from Gujarat in the next two days. The last date for filing the nominations is July 14. Mr Advani, who was the BJP President in the 1998 Lok Sabha poll, had been persuaded by his party colleagues that it would be good for the electoral health of the NDA if he was not involved in contesting Lok Sabha seat and had spare time for coordinating the election work. The party felt that it would require the skills of Mr Advani to negotiate with the alliance partners for seat sharing. The former BJP President, known for his strategic thinking and knowledge of workers, had reportedly agreed to represent the party in the Rajya Sabha with another objective too. The sources said that Mr Advani wanted that there should be no media speculation on his relationship with the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. Of late, the relations
between Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani had been correct, but
devoid of "warmth". Mr Advani, by not
contesting the Lok Sabha election, would remove all
doubts about his reported prime ministerial ambitions
which often became a source of unnecessary media
speculation. Media reports about a rift between him and
Mr Vajpayee had cause a lot of damage to the BJP’s
image. Mr Advani was keen on projecting a united image of
the party, the sources said. |
Bihar flood toll rises to 32 PATNA, July 11 (UNI) — Flood situation in Bihar worsened today as fresh areas in north Bihar were inundated taking the death toll to 32, official sources said. Two more deaths were reported from Sitamarhi district today. Flood control cell officials said all major rivers, including the Ganga, Kosi, Bagmati, Kamla Balan and Burhi Gandak, besides the Adhwara group of rivers, were maintaining their upward trend. A round-the-clock vigil was being maintained to tackle any eventuality. Sources said many villages under Udaikisunganj block of Madhepura district had been flooded by the Kosi river. People living in low-lying areas shifted to safer places as the river was swelling. A samastipur report said flood waters had entered some fresh areas of Shivajinagar block following the erosion in the embankment of the Kareh river. The report said embankments of the Burhi Gandak river had also been eroded by the gushing flood waters. Over two lakh people in 80 villages of Kalyanpur, Sindhiya, Bithan, Hasanpur and Shivaji Nagar blocks area were affected by the flood, the report added. Sources said standing crops spread over 1000 hectares of land had been washed away by flood waters. Sources of the Water Resource Department said the flooding rivers continued to exert pressure on their embankments. The heavy downpour in Nepal during the past 24 hours in the catchment area of the Gandak and its tributaries had posed a serious threat in north Bihar, they said. East Champaran, West Champaran, Siwan, Saran, Gopalganj, Muzaffarpur and Vaishali were likely to be badly affected in the coming days, they said. The sources said that
the Bagmati river was flowing above the danger mark at
Benibad and Hayaghat by 72 cm and 132 cm, respectively,
while the Kosi topped the danger mark at Baltara by 103
cm. |
Shabana, Mrinal Sen back Dilip Kumar NEW DELHI, July 11 (PTI) — Thespian Dilip Kumar may be a lonely star in Bollywood, but support for him has come from one of the doyens of Indian Cinema — Mrinal Sen. "This morning as I read his mind through his statements in the media, I hang down my head in shame. I learnt that there are very few among his colleagues in cinema or none at all who could have been around him in this extremely uncomfortable situation," the filmmaker, who is in the city, said. Dilip Kumar has been in the eye of a storm with the Shiv Sena demanding that he return the "Nishan-e-Imtiaz", Pakistan’s second most prestigious award, in the wake of Kargil developments. A "terribly offended" Sen said, "I as a humble worker of the cinema and as a true Indian, caring at all times for the welfare of the country, make an impassioned appeal to all in cinema and the other arts and in the larger context to all well-meaning people of the country to come forward and give our thespian a big and warm hand to convince him that he is not alone." "I was terribly outraged when I first read in a local Bengali daily in Calcutta that members of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad had marched to Dilip Kumar’s house and demanded that the award given to him with so much love and affection and gratitude be forthwith returned. I had issued a statement that time too". Javed Akhtar, yet another colossus striding the world of poetry and cinema, was vehement in his support to the thespian. "What should he return? he has not received a jagir or a gold crown or a diamond ring." "There are 28,000 persons in Kargil living in school buildings without utensils, medicines and clothes. The state and central governments have not done anything for them ... I will suggest to Mr Thackeray that instead of discussing this award, he should think about these displaced people and go to Kargil and Kashmir to meet them and our jawans and see what he can do for them". Buddhadeb Dasgupta, yet another internationally acclaimed filmmaker. said over telephone from Calcutta. "It is sad to doubt Dilip Kumar’s integrity only because he has not returned his award. "What Dilip Kumar decides solely depends on the thespian himself. Even visiting the Prime Minister to seek his advice on this is absolutely unnecessary," he said. Noted actress, social
activist and parliamentarian Shabana Aazmi too reacted
strongly to news in the media that the film fraternity
had failed to stand behind him. "All of us must hang
our heads in shame when an actor of the eminence and
calibre of Dilip Kumar feels so isolated. |
Political parties hail poll
announcement NEW DELHI, July 11 — Political parties have welcomed the election schedule announced by the Election Commission today. While the Congress said the announcement would clear the "uncertainty" prevailing in the country, the BJP, welcoming the decision, said it had failed to comprehend the rationale behind the early announcement of the schedule. The Congress said the announcement of schedule for the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll cleared the "uncertainty" prevailing in the country, particularly "in view of major policy decisions being taken by the caretaker Vajpayee government". BJP spokesman Venkaiya Naidu said the party was happy that the Election Commission had declared to conduct the poll in a phased manner in view of the prevailing situation in the country. He said it was also appropriate on the part of the Election Commission to conduct Assembly poll along with the Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Sikkim as it would save a lot of expenditure. The Congress was concerned with the manner in which the caretaker government was going about taking policy decisions, AICC general secretary and party spokesman Anil Shastri said. "This will now come
to a stop," he said in an apparent reference to the
coming into effect of the model code of conduct following
the announcement of the five-phase schedule for the 13th
Lok Sabha elections. |
Nation rises to support jawans NEW DELHI, July 11 (PTI) — As the battle to evict Pakistan-backed intruders from Kargil continues to rage, the nation of a billion people has risen as one man to back the jawan who “has gone to die for a stranger and that stranger is you.” The central and state governments, corporate houses, cricketers, film stars and the man on the street have all been generously contributing — both in cash and kind — towards the welfare of jawans and families of killed soldiers. But the moral support they have been receiving from the people is the most encouraging, says Major General P. Dutta, the Army’s Additional Director General, Ceremonials and Welfare. The Central Army Welfare Fund has already received about Rs 3 crore so far, he says. In Rajasthan, two students of class six, Akansha Sharma and Anu Mathur, moved from door to door and collected Rs 2,300 for the martyrs of Kargil which they handed over to the state Chief Minister. Moved by the sacrifices made by the brave soldiers, a newly-wed bride in Orissa, Sibani Mishra, donated all her bridal jewellery to the National Defence Fund. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi says the state this time expects to surpass the Rs 6 crore which it had raised in 1971 during the Bangladesh war — said to be highest by any state in the country then. The state government has set up a “Kargil Soldiers Relief Fund”, and by the end of last month, had already raised Rs 3.19 crore. Air Vice Marshal (retd) Denzil Keelor, who fought in the 1971 war against Pakistan, also agrees with the view. Rajasthan alone had lost 37 sons of the soil in the Kargil operation till last week. Therefore, the Rajasthan Medical Practitioners’ Association has collected about Rs 50 lakh for the cause which is to be contributed to the Kargil Relief Fund, says state’s first blood bank chairman, Dr S.S. Agarwal. According to the Chief Minister’s Press office in Jaipur, the government is providing a cash relief of Rs 1 lakh to the next of kin of the martyr. Besides this, the government has also promised to give land to the kin along the Indira Gandhi Canal project and job to one dependent. Ex-servicemen in the southern district town of Nimchi in tiny Sikkim collected about Rs 8,000 in a day-long drive for the families of killed soldiers. The state government has also appealed to all its 23,000 employees to donate one day’s salary to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. Educational institutions in Mizoram have also organised fund-raising programmes and local newspapers have formed a fund-raising committee to collect donations. In Maharashtra, all 48 ministers in the BJP-Shiv Sena government have decided to contribute a month’s salary for the martyrs and injured soldiers. In Calcutta, private organisations like the Ramakrishna Mission are collecting donations while the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce has announced the setting up of a fund for the Kargil martyrs. According to Maj-Gen Dutta, the Central Army Welfare Fund, with its limited resources, has worked out rehabilitation plans — education for the children of martyred soldiers, a two-room dwelling for every widow and compensation for the disabled. As a move of solidarity, some of India’s leading cartoonists will see off the Army jawans leaving for Kargil on Monday afternoon at the New Delhi railway station. The cartoonists will also draw caricatures of the jawans which will then be presented to them. BHIND (MP): Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has announced that the state government would give financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh to the widow of Sultan Singh Narvaria who laid down his life in the Kargil operation. CHIKMAGALUR: Sringeri Seer Jagadguru Bharathi Teertha Mahaswami has donated Rs 51 lakh to the Prime Minister’s Defence Fund to help victims of Kargil operations, a press release from the seer authorities said here today. PANAJI: Several educational institutions, students and other organisations in Goa donated a total sum of Rs 2 lakh for the fund for jawans, killed or injured while fighting Pak-backed intruders in Kargil. A Margao-based eductational institute handed over a cheque of Rs 25,000 raised through contributions by students’ pocket money to Chief Minister, Luizinho Faleiro yesterday. LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Government on Saturday decided to exempt entertainment tax on the charity shows of films held for the assistance of soldiers of Indian defence force fighting in Kargil. The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Kalyan Singh here. PATNA: The Bihar Government has decided to rename some schools after the soldiers who died in the Kargil operation. State Primary and Secondary Education Minister Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav said here on Saturday that the necessary instructions had been sent to the concerned officials in this regard. ITANAGAR: The
headquarters town Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh located at an
altitude of 5,000 feet joined the rest of the country in
expressing solidarity with martyrs who sacrificed their
lives fighting with Pakistani intruders in Kargil. Three
thousand people from all walks of life residing in the
plateau participated in the march yesterday, where the
effigy of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was burnt
by the marchers and a two-minute silence was observed in
memory of those who sacrificed their lives, it added. |
Hospital being used as gun-running centre AIZAWL July 11 (UNI) — A charitable hospital in the Bandarbari area of Bangladesh near the Indian border is allegedly being used as a major gun-running centre by an American citizen, according to sources in the Union Home Ministry. “The Al-Habina Medical Centre” in the neighbouring Cox Bazar, being run on a charitable basis by an American doctor, was actually a hub of gun-running operation in Bangladesh, sources said. The doctor running the institution was a mercenary providing arms to insurgent groups in the North-East, Bangladesh and Myanmar, sources said, adding the alleged gunrunner was an independent operator and not patronised by any intelligence agency. But a recent Defence Ministry report indicated that the medical centre was also being used as a covert Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) office to assist the rebel groups, the sources added. The report also said the centre had allegedly acquired six ambulances for ferrying leaders of the ultra groups in Bangladesh for organising anti-India rallies to indoctrinate local youths to join their fight. A high-frequency antenna had also been installed at the centre for coordinating the anti-India activities among various groups, the sources stated. The report feared that
the activation of an insurgent base close to the Indian
border might increase the infiltration and smuggling of
arms and explosives into the North East. |
Treat all martyrs equal: PIL NEW DELHI, July 11 — A human rights organisation has moved the Delhi High Court to seek the same compensation for the dependants of defence and paramilitary personnel killed in the counter-insurgency operations as being awarded to the Kargil martyrs. A public interest litigation (PIL) by the Rights International, a non-governmental organisation, said the personnel killed in the counter-insurgency operations since 1980 when terrorism surfaced for the first time in Punjab had not been “treated” at par with the “war martyrs” as far as the monetary benefits were concerned. The petition, likely to be taken up for hearing tomorrow, alleged that in some cases widows of defence personnel had not been paid any ex gratia till date and cited the example of Uma Nautial, widow of Maj Anurag Nautial, a Kirti Chakra awardee, who laid down his life in 1990 fighting terrorists at Tarn Taran in Punjab. Quoting newspaper reports about the “agony” of Uma Nautial, the petition moved by advocate Parmanand Katara said “she is running from pillar to post to get the ex gratia, but nothing has been paid so far.” It said in the eyes of law the value of sacrifice of a soldier — whether fighting in the counter-insurgency operations or against external aggression — was the same and deserved equal treatment. The petition said there should be no discrimination regarding providing benefits to the widows of soldiers as their “loss of love, bereavement, grief, agony and separation from husbands are equal in all cases.” Since the law did not distinguish between the loss of life of soldiers in either cases, “is not the discrimination arbitrary and illegal and violative of the human rights and Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution,” it said. Are the children of soldiers killed in counter-insurgency operations not orphans? Do they (soldiers) not require appreciation for their deed,” it asked. The petitioner also sought that the court should clarify whether the money donated for welfare of the families of the martyrs was a revenue earned by the state of a charity fund? And if it fell in the latter category, should it not go straight to the kin of the soldiers who laid down their lives. Seeking the court’s
intervention on the “sleeping attitude” of the
government, the petition said appropriate directions
should be issued to the Centre in accordance with the
facts and circumstances. |
Common exam urged for practising docs NEW DELHI, July 11 (PTI) — Indian doctors, both with postgraduate and postdoctoral degrees, should be made to sit for a common examination at the national level to make them eligible for practice, an expert has suggested. The proposed examination would eliminate existing variations in degree standards of Indian universities, which is a major reason why advanced nations like the USA and the UK do not recognise Indian P.G. and post-doc degrees, Mr A. Rajaskaran, President of Health Ministry’s National Board of Examination (NBE), told reporters here yesterday. Doctors in India need accreditation from the Medical Council of India (MCI) to practice but the MCI does not conduct any centralised examination of its own. Medical students, after clearing M.B.B.S examinations can register themselves with the MCI to start practice. Under the proposed examination to be conducted by the NBE, P.G. medical students would appear for a single national-level examination the result of which would be their eligibility criterion for practice. The examination would be
in lines of similar certification procedures being
practised in the USA and the UK. |
Male contraceptive: final trials soon NEW DELHI, July 11 (UNI) — While scientists the world over are still struggling to perfect an oral birth control pill for men sans side effects like toxicity, impotence and long-term infertility, an Indian scientist has pioneered the first reversible male injectible contraceptive. Dr Sujoy Kumar Guha, Professor of Bio-Medical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, says the third and final phase of trials on the reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance (RISUG) injection is shortly to be conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The final phase was cleared by the Drug Controller in April last year and it will officially begin after deliberations on it are taken up by the Indian Council of Medical Research on July 14, Dr Guha told UNI. The trials would involve 30 couples each from Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital, LNJP Hospital and Rural Hospital in South Delhi. The third hospital was selected because it caters to a large rural population, he said. Dr Guha clarified that the Drug Controller had cleared the contraceptive part of the trial, namely injecting of the drug styrene maleic anhydride directly into the vasa deferentia (sperm tubes) to block them and prevent pregnancy. Permission has been sought and is still awaited on the reversible aspect or to restore fertility, he said adding that till now, reversible studies had only been carried out on animals in Indian laboratories. The final trials aim to achieve the stage of azoospermia (sperm absence). Dr Guha has been working on this method along with several institutions, including the Lucknow-based Central Drug Research Institute since 1972 and is optimistic that it will become a parallel methodology along with non-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) in the family welfare programme. “I have the patents for this procedure in India, the USA, China, Bangladesh and Malaysia”, he said. Dr Guha says apart from his procedure there is only one other reversible male contraceptive method being tested presently in the West. This is a weekly injection of a hormonal compound being developed jointly by U.S. and Germany companies and supported by the World Health Organisation. But the Indian scientist dismisses the hormonal injection on grounds that it has side effects and takes at least two months for the effect to be manifested. The RISUG injection, on the other hand, manifests the stage of azoospermia almost at once and gives 100 per cent guarantee unlike the hormonal injection which has a success rate of 90 per cent, he points out. In this respect, RISUG
has an edge over the NSV method in which the total
no-sperm condition takes about three weeks to manifest.
In addition, men have to continue using condoms for at
least three months after undergoing NSV and this tends to
detract from the procedure’s popularity, says Dr
Ramachandra Murti Kaza, Principal Adviser, NSV,
Government of India. |
Spectre of drought over Rajasthan JAIPUR, July 11 (PTI) — Spectre of drought looms large over Rajasthan as monsoon has failed to set in over the desert state. Although the south-west monsoon entered the state earlier than its normal arrival time in the last week of June, it weakened within a few days, official sources said yesterday. The monsoon should have covered most of the state by this time but the delayed rains is threatening the early kharif sowings, they said. Drinking water scarcity in many parts of the state is giving sleepless nights to the administration as the main sources of water supply have started drying up. The Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), responsible for ensuring safe drinking water supply, has been forced to chalk out some immediate measures to meet the shortage of drinking water. The main source of
drinking water supply in Jaipur — Ramgarh Dam —
is almost dry and the capital city is being supported by
water obtained from underground sources which are also
fast depleting, the sources said. |
Panel set up to identify govt
jobs NEW DELHI, July 11 (UNI) — Three years after Parliament legislated 3 per cent reservation for disabled persons in all classes of government jobs, the Centre has set up an expert committee to identify the posts to be reserved for them. The committee was set up by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment earlier this month, official sources said. The expert committee,
consisting of 14 members, is to be headed by an
Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Social Justice
and Empowerment. |
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| Amorous father kills
family RISHIKESH (UP): An amorous father allegedly killed his son, daughter and wife in the town when they objected to his amorous habit of wooing women, the police said on Saturday. The father, 55, fell in love with a 24-year-old girl living in a neighbouring house. The victims objected to his relationship with the girl, the police said. The accused first made them to consume poison and then hacked them to death, the police said. — PTI Ayurveda
on Internet 17 killed as
truck overturns Emu on display Nilgiris’
number on the rise AIADMK Chairman
is 80 10 Tripura
ultras surrender WB police to
boost dog squad Arms seized from
B’deshi 2 gangsters
killed in encounter |
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