New Delhi, August 31
Drought appears to have relegated the UPA government’s ambitious plan to enact a law on national food security - a major poll promise of the Congress party - to the cold storage, at least for a year.

The proposed Food Security Act, which was supposed to be presented in Parliament during the budget session, has in fact not even been drafted let alone put in the public domain for exchange of views. In a speech to a joint session of Parliament at the start of the session President Pratibha Patil had assured the draft bill would be introduced.

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has been reluctant to answer questions on the proposed legislation through which the government plans to reform the public distribution system. All he could say was that it was likely to be delayed. Admitting that giving shape to the Act was not such an easy task, he recently said: “We are drawing up the food security draft and it will take at least 12 months more to finalise it after consulting everyone”.

Pawar's statement also indicated the challenges the UPA might face in the exercise considering the commitment it will entail for the government year after year.

Interestingly, some experts find the extra time the government has managed, thanks to a failed monsoon, “a blessing in disguise.” Food policy analyst Devinder Sharma says, “The government now has ample time to work out a foolproof system to address widespread hunger prevalent in the country instead of pushing through a hastily drafted document, a mere extension of the PDS, within 100 days of the UPA-II”.

“By default it (the delay) is a good thing that has happened. Otherwise the government would have ended up legitimising the PDS by revamping and repackaging it as the Food Security Act within the 100-day limit it had set for itself. That PDS has not been successful to feed the hungry is a known fact. Which is why the deferment is a blessing in disguise for the people as now the government has the time to devise a better way to feed the hungry,” he said.

“The proposal to extend food security and the way it’s being worked on is fraught with problems”, says Sharma. “Even ministry officials admit several rounds of consultations are required to bring the law on the table”.

The government had proposed to legalise food security and provide 25 kg foodgrains per month to every ‘below the poverty line’ (BPL) family at Rs 3 per kg and 10-35 kg of grains to every family above the line. Rough estimates suggest it will have to ensure availability of nearly 20 million tonnes of foodgrains every year to ensure continuity of the scheme for BPL families alone. The drought this year has only added to the pressure. Last year the country posted a record foodgrain production, and economists feel a clear picture this year will become visible only after five to six months.

New Delhi, August 31
India and Namibia today signed key accords for cooperation in the field of defence and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, among other things.

New Delhi also announced its decision to offer to Namibia Lines of Credit of $100 million dollars over the next five years to be used in projects and supplies of products from India.

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, who is on a state visit to India, held talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders here today.

The two leaders discussed a wide range of issues, including bilateral ties as well as international developments.

Apart from the accords for cooperation in defence and energy field, the two countries inked MOUs/agreements on cooperation in the field of geology and mineral resources; establishing a Pan-African e-Network; and on waiver of visas for diplomatic and official passports.

Significance is being attached to the agreement on nuclear energy. After the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) allowed trade in nuclear technology and fuel with India, New Delhi has been looking for new sources to tap nuclear energy to meet its increasing electricity needs.

But with limited domestic uranium reserves, India has been looking abroad to get assured supplies. It has already signed an agreement with Kazakhstan.

After signing of the bilateral agreements, the Prime Minister said India was committed to help Namibia in all spheres. The Namibian President said he was fully satisfied with the talks that he had with the Indian leader.

Both countries were committed to the Non-Aligned Movement and wanted continuation of reform process of the United Nations, particularly democratisation of United Nations Security Council.

New Delhi, August 31
After sending conciliatory signals over the past few days, former Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje today gave a miss to a scheduled meeting with senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu to discuss the standoff in the party’s Rajasthan unit, citing ill-health.

Instead, Raje, who was to discuss her demands at the meeting before she accedes to party president Rajnath Singh’s order to resign as the leader of opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly, sent her son, Dushyant Singh, as her emissary to meet Naidu.

Dushyant, BJP MP from Jhalawar, spent over an hour with Naidu and is said to have put forth Raje’s demands.

Raje is understood to have sent in a word through her son that she was unwell and would not be able to attend the meeting. However, sources close to Raje, who arrived here last night, said she was likely to stay put in Delhi for a couple of days.

She was likely to meet Naidu once some progress was made to end the stalemate, they added.

According to BJP sources, Raje wants the next leader of opposition in the state assembly to be from her camp. She has also demanded general secretary’s post in the central leadership as well as revocation of the suspension of two of her loyal MLAs.

The party has asked her to resign from the post following the defeat in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the state. — PTI

New Delhi, August 31
Fuelling speculation that top BJP leaders LK Advani and Rajnath Singh may have to give up their posts, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today said they would themselves decide on their roles in the party.

“Rajnathji (BJP president Rajnath Singh), Advaniji and others will decide on their role (in the party),” he told reporters in Haridwar. “Everything will be fine in the BJP in future and all problems will be solved under their guidance,” he added.

While the BJP made it clear yesterday that Rajnath Singh would not get an extension as the party president after his three-year term ended in December, there was a speculation that Advani might step down as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha before the winter session of Parliament.

After Bhagwat’s two meetings with Advani, former RSS chief KS Sudarshan met the BJP leader over breakfast and was understood to have discussed the developments in the party and the road ahead.

For the record, Rajnath Singh insisted that the RSS had not shown any “path” to it and that the BJP would resolve its problems on its own.

“The RSS does not show any path (to the BJP). We are part of the sangh,” he said in Ghaziabad on being asked on whether the RSS was guiding the party to come out of the current mess.

The RSS had yesterday obtained a commitment from BJP’s warring leaders that they would stop infighting and put their house in order. — PTI

New Delhi, August 31
Admiral Nirmal Verma took over as the Chief of Navy Staff from Admiral Sureesh Mehta today. On the first day in office, he laid out his priority as “sustaining the growth of the Navy with due attention to indigenisation”.

He said the acquisition of aircraft carrier Vikramaditya (Gorshkov), new long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft P8I and under-construction Scorpene submarines was of utmost priority.

Talking about indigenisation, he highlighted the need to closely monitor development and production to ensure induction within planned time frame. Alternatives must be processed concurrently to ensure there was no void in combat capability, he said.

The Navy training was also being realigned to ensure that the technology-intensive force was manned correctly, he said.

He is the 20th CNS of Independent India and the 18th Indian to take command of the Indian Navy.

The change of command ceremonies included a function organised by the principal staff officers and other senior staff officers of the Navy to bid adieu to Admiral Sureesh Mehta.

Admiral Nirmal Verma is a specialist in communication and electronic warfare. He has an amalgamation of Indian and global experience.

New Delhi, August 31
Committing itself to the safety of Indian students under racial attacks in Australia, the visiting Australian Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said her country had zero tolerance for violence against the visiting Indian students and had cracked down on those that had caused the attacks.

“We are ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to justice. We have also recruited 120 additional police officers in the states of Victoria and New South Wales to enhance visible policing in these areas that are more prone to crimes,” said Gillard, the senior-most Australian minister to visit India post attacks that soured the relationship between the two countries.

Here to repair the damages done, the Oz deputy premiere began her visit to New Delhi on a reassuring note, saying her government wanted Indian students to be safe, get quality education and enjoy their visit in her country. She, however, denied any changes in the Australian position on India vis-à-vis nuclear non-proliferation and CTBT, and said Australia would sell uranium only to the signatories of nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Earlier she described “projection of Australia’s multiculturalism” as the principal aim of her visit that will culminate in a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tomorrow. Seeking to build strategic ties with India besides collaborating in the fields of education, trade, climate change and security, Australia today listed the measures it was taking to restore the confidence of Indian students, including several community-level measures taken to make Indians feel welcome and at home.

Gillard’s visit will set the tone for talks to be held later this year between the PM and his Australian counterpart.

On the first day of her visit today, Gillard made it a point to mention, “We enjoy our friendship with India and are keen to collaborate on education.” As minister for education and employment in Australia, she also met union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal today, and the two agreed to hold annual ministerial exchanges on education.

The visiting Oz minister, however, spent most of the time hammering the genuineness of Australia’s commitment to the welfare of Indian students. “We are changing the legislation covering vocational and technical education providers to ensure the international students get quality education. These providers would now have to reregister with us and undergo quality audits,” she told a press conference later.

Also, Australia has moved to strengthen existing laws that provide support to Indian and international students. “We have asked an MP to recommend ways of bettering the law,” Gillard said, admitting that her government was also changing the existing immigration laws in the wake of current recession to ensure that only persons with critical skills required in Oz gain entry there.

She denied any decline in the enrollment of Indian students in Australian universities, following recent attacks, and added that unemployment rate in her country was much less than in the US.

New Delhi, August 31
Buta Singh, Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, today informed the Delhi High Court about his willingness to be questioned by the CBI in connection with the bribery case involving his son.

Buta Singh, former Bihar Governor, agreed to do so after the CBI clarified that he was required to be questioned as a witness and not as an accused in the bribery case.

He said he would be available to the CBI on September 10 at 11 am at his office and the probe agency officials could come and question him.

Justice Geeta Mittal, after recording the statement given by Buta Singh’s counsel, disposed of the matter and asked the investigating agency to question Buta Singh on the dates given by him.

The high court had on August 26 sought response from the CBI on a petition filed by Buta Singh, who had accused the probe agency of illegally summoning him for interrogation in the bribery case.

He had contended that he held a post of Cabinet rank and the CBI could not question or interrogate him without taking sanction from the Centre.

On August 25, he approached the Delhi High Court challenging CBI’s notice to appear before it in connection with a bribery case registered  against his son.

His son was arrested on July 31 by the CBI for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 1 crore from a Nashik-based contractor to close an atrocity case against him pending before the commission headed by his father. — PTI

Mumbai, August 31
Commenting for the first time on the intra-party feud in the BJP, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has asked his party’s alliance partner in Maharashtra to clean up its act.

Likening the condition of the BJP to the proverbial parrot belonging to Emperor Akbar, Thackeray hoped it was only meditating and not dead. “Its eyes are closed, it does not eat or speak, does not breathe,” the editorial in party mouthpiece Saamna attributed to Thackeray said. “We hope it’s alive and will take flight soon,” Thackeray was quoted as saying.

“Even RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said the emperor’s parrot was not dead....but would rise from the ashes like a phoenix,” the Shiv Sena supremo said.

Drawing parallels to the ongoing swine flu epidemic, Thackeray wondered if the BJP was suffering from such serious illness.

Thackeray went on to quote Bhagwat and said the BJP needed to come out of the shock of defeat in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Hitting out at Advani, Thackeray said the ‘Loh Purush’ might be hurt that the people had accepted Manmohan Singh, the man he termed as a weak Prime Minister, instead of himself.

He further chided the BJP leadership for taking its allies for granted. “Things were different when Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the late Pramod Mahajan were there on the scene... there were at least telephone conversations,” Thackeray wrote. “But now, when I was ill, leaders like Advani and Rajnath Singh came down to see and that was about it,” Thackeray wrote.

Sounding a veiled note of warning to its ally, Thackeray noted the Shiv Sena was still growing while the BJP was falling apart. “We have the support of Shiv Sainiks and the sons of the soil are there with us,” Thackeray said. “We pray...that the dead parrot returns to life and soars with the garuda (Shiv Sena),” he added.

Thackeray further rubbed it in by saying that the Shiv Sena would not try to squeeze more seats out of the BJP during the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections. The Sena, he said, would contest 171 seats, leaving 117 seats to the BJP as before.

Jaipur, August 31
Serial blasts in Pink City, Gujjar unrest in state, Mumbai terror attack, recession and now H1N1 scare-the tourism industry in Rajasthan, one of the most popular destinations among foreigners, is possibly passing through its worst phase.

According to tourism industry sources, the influx of tourists in Rajasthan has plummeted by 33 per cent after the swine flu started spreading in various countries. The state has witnessed a drop in number of tourists from the US, the UK and France. As per an estimate, almost 60 per cent of the total tourists visiting the state come from these three countries and the economy of the big hotels is dependent on them. The economy hotels are dependent on tourists from Spain, Italy and China, besides local tourists. The already bleak scenario worsened when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the H1N1 virus as pandemic.

The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that many tour operators have started looking for optional sources of income to survive the lean patch.

“It has been well over a year now but it seems bad days for the tourism sector in the state are far from over. I somehow managed to earn my livelihood in the aftermath of the terror attack and during recession, but the situation is simply not looking up. Now, I’m giving a serious thought to switching over to some other trade,” said Suresh Kaushik, a city-based local tour operator. He said he even knew some people who were not renewing their licences just to save money for troubled times.

RK Khandelwal, another tour operator, said, “Due to the swine flu scare, around 10 to 15 per cent tourists have either postponed or cancelled their bookings with us.” He also felt that the media should not create a hype over the swine flu scenario as it adversely affects the tourist trade.

Tourist Guide Association chief Narendra Singh Rathore also lamented that the number of foreign tourists has gone down drastically after the outbreak of H1N1. “I have noticed that they are usually very sensitive about health-related matters and avoid taking a trip in such a situation,” he added. 

Bangalore, August 31
The performance of Chandrayaan-1, India’s maiden moon mission, which was terminated halfway through its run, will be reviewed in a meeting of international scientists here next week.

S Satish, ISRO spokesman, told the TNS that the important meeting would take place here on September 7. Representatives of the international space agencies, whose scientific instruments were carried aboard the unmanned mission, would participate in the meeting convened by the ISRO.

Out of 11 payloads aboard the mission, three were supplied by the European Space Agency (ESA), one by Bulgaria and two were from the United States. The remaining five payloads were designed and developed in India. The equipments supplied by ESA have been manufactured, respectively, by English, German and Swedish agencies.

The mission, after having launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on October 22 last year, was called off on August 29 after the ground segment lost radio communication with the moon orbiter. The spacecraft was originally slated to have a life of two years in the lunar orbit.

The meeting on next Monday will be held under closed doors and it is unlikely that what the International agencies say about the premature end of the mission will be immediately known.

According to ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, the foreign participants in the mission are quite happy with the results obtained by the Indian mission during the 312 days it orbited the moon and sent feedbacks to the ground segment. Nair said Chandrayaan - I could accomplish 95 per cent of its scientific objectives before its termination.

The International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), a public forum sponsored by the world's space agencies to support international cooperation towards formulating a world strategy for the exploration and utilization of the moon, earlier chose the Chandrayaan-1 team for giving the International Cooperation Award for accommodating foreign equipments in the Indian orbiter free of cost.

Guwahati, August 31
Apunba Lup, the organisation that spearheaded the mass movement against the alleged ‘fake encounter’ killing of a youth and a pregnant housewife on July 23 by Manipur Police commandos, has threatened to resort to social boycott against all legislators of the ruling Congress-led Secular Progressive Force (SPF) if they failed to replace the Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh by September 2 next. Apunba Lup stated that the state has lost numerous innocent lives, thanks to ‘state-sponsored terrorism’ since 2002 when Ibobi became the Chief Minister.

The July 23 incident was a glaring example of how the security forces under the Ibobi regime have been unleashing terror and killing people in fake encounters, the Lup said and called upon the powerful student community in Manipur to join forces with the agitation against ‘state terrorism’.

It asked all the 59 legislators in the Manipur assembly to confront the CM for the ‘misleading statement’ he had given on the floor of the House on July 23 last about the ‘fake encounter’ killing of the youth and the pregnant woman earlier on the same day.

BRIEFLY

Young woman beaten to death by mob
Hyderabad:In what could be termed as a shocking case of brazen mob justice, a 28-year-old woman, Radha, lost her life after she was brutally beaten up by a group of women for allegedly having an affair with a married man. The attack took place last week in Illanthakunta village in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. After battling for her life at a government hospital in Warangal for nearly a week she succumbed to internal injuries today. — TNS