India plans media campaign on girl child

A cute, chubby animated character called Chamki will reach out to people across the country, spreading the message to let a girl child live in and outside the womb and get her education so that she could chase her dreams.

Chamki, a mascot conceived to create awareness on the subject of girl child, is part of a series of promotionals Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury launched on Wednesday.

Another innovative campaign of her Ministry is against domestic violence, telling people to break their silence and come out in the open to stop a man from harassing or torturing his wife, reports IANS.

Chowdhury said Chamki will also talk about female foeticide. "There is a skewed sex ratio in the country as girls are being killed even before being born. Female foeticide is found more among urban educated people as compared to rural," she said.

The Minister said the media campaign would be on national and regional television channels, on radio, in cinema halls, print advertisements and field publicity throughout the country.

In the first phase of the year-long campaign, the thrust would be on the issue of girl child and then it would shift to nutrition. In November 2008, empowerment of women would be the focus, Chowdhury said.

"We need to change the mindset and it cannot happen in a week. We plan to continue a sustained campaign by distributing leaflets, posters and showing these in railways so the masses get to see the message," she said.

Chowdhury said religious leaders like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Mata Amritanandamayi Devi will also promote the women and child related issues.

Court summons former Haryana CM in teacher's scam

A city court on Wednesday issued fresh summons to former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala after taking cognizance of a charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against him in a teachers' recruitment scam of 2003.

The charge sheet also names his son and former parliamentarian Ajay Chautala, two Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officers and 56 others who were granted bail by the court, reports IANS.

According to CBI, the accused persons used forged documents to appoint 3,206 junior basic trained teachers after taking hefty amounts from them, which could collectively run into millions of rupees.

CBI Special Judge RK Yadav issued summons for September 5 for the former Chief Minister, who failed to appear before it on Wednesday.

However, it allowed the plea of Ajay Chautala, who has gone abroad, and another accused Daya Saini seeking exemption from personal appearance in the case.

The court, however, issued bailable warrant against another accused who did not appear despite being served with the court's summons.

Sanjiv Kumar, a self-proclaimed whistle-blower who was then the Director of Primary Education Department, and Chautala's former officer on special duty Vidya Dhar are the two IAS officers named in the charge sheet, which was filed on June 6.

The CBI alleged that the appointments were made on the basis of a second set of final interview list prepared at the behest of Om Prakash Chautala, leader of the Indian National Lok Dal, his son Ajay Chautala, Vidya Dhar, political advisor Sher Singh Badsami and Sanjiv Kumar, who had played an active role in the process.

The case was registered on the basis of the Supreme Court's order of November 2003. Originally, a preliminary inquiry was registered by the investigating agency, which was later converted into a regular case in May 2004.

The CBI subsequently also registered a case of acquiring assets disproportionate to known sources of income against Chautala and conducted searches at a number of places in Delhi and Haryana.

New UNFPA initiative to boost midwifery

New York: The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) have launched a new initiative to tackle the severe lack of midwives in developing countries.

The new UNFPA-ICM midwifery programme will increase the number of births attended by professional midwifery providers and develop the foundations for a sustainable midwifery workforce in selected developing countries.

It will focus on training midwives and strengthening midwifery education, developing practice standards and developing and strengthening national midwifery associations.

Every year half a million women die in pregnancy or childbirth and 10-15 million women suffer serious or long-lasting illnesses or injuries. In addition, three million newborns die during the first week of life and another three million are stillborn.

Many of these deaths and disabilities could be prevented if all births were attended by midwives, the UNFPA said in a statement.

"By investing in midwives and universal access to reproductive health, millions of lives can be saved and we can reach Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, to improve maternal health," UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said.

There is a need for an additional 3.34 lakh midwives, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It is estimated that skilled attendance at delivery, backed up by emergency obstetric care, could reduce the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth by about 75 per cent.

"We need some strong advocates who can call on governments to invest in much needed midwives," ICM President Bridget Lynch said. "But we also need to work with governments to ensure the scaling up and quality of midwifery services. They need to take ownership," Lynch said.

The US $9-million initiative will start in 11 of the hardest-hit countries with the highest levels of maternal deaths and disability and the lowest rates of births attended by skilled workers—Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia.

It will then expand to include 30 countries and—if funding permits—even more.

The three-year project is funded by the Netherlands and Sweden and will be implemented by ICM and UNFPA offices in the selected countries.

No Stumbling Blocks Accepted

"If one of these little children believes in me, and another
person causes that child to sin, then it will be very bad for
that person. It would be better for that person to have a
millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the sea."

-- Mark 9:42 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
So often in our passion to preserve the purity of the faith, we begin
to exclude others. While purity in our faith is important, Jesus
reminds us of the other side of the equation: woe to us if we exclude
someone who Jesus sees as belonging or do anything to cause another to
lose faith. New Christians, weak believers, and children are all
precious to God. He doesn't want a single one to lose faith because of
the hard-headedness, hard-heartedness, or arrogance of another
believer.


TODAY'S PRAYER:
God, please help me be more careful in what I say and how I act. I
don't want to discourage a single believer from following you. Help my
life and my actions be an encouragement rather than a discouragement to
your people. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Madhya Pradesh teachers' pay system to go online

In an effort to smoothen the disbursement of salary of all the teachers and staff working in the Madhya Pradesh Education Department, the state government has decided to disburse their salaries online.

"With this the principals of higher secondary schools who had been doing salary related work in the capacity of disbursal officers would be relieved and be able to pay more attention towards the works related to academics in their respective schools," Madhya Pradesh Rajya Shiksha Kendra Commissioner Manoj Jhalani said.

A total of 3,125 principals of higher secondary schools had been doing salary-related work manually for 10 to 12 days a month, reports IANS quoting Jhalani.

Now with the salary system being computerised, grievances about delays and difficulties in the disbursement of salary would also come to an end, he said.

Jhalani also pointed out that under the new arrangement, pay bills would be prepared online, eliminating the tedious exercise of preparing employees' pay bills afresh every month.

Besides, the staff including teachers, principals and clerks would be able to surf details about their salary, pay slip and annual emoluments whenever they wish to.

Another benefit of the online facility, the Commissioner said, would be that the department would also have access to school-wise data of posts, budget and expenditure.

This online information would be available all the time at district, division and state levels.

Jhalani said that computerisation of teachers' service book would be taken up in the next phase and the seniority list of the department too would be made available on the web site.

K'taka invokes Goonda Act against church attackers

Bangalore: The Government of Karnataka on Monday decided to treat those attacking places of worship as 'goondas' (thugs) and prosecute them under a tough law popularly known as 'Goonda Act'.

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting called to consider steps to end the continuing attacks on Christian places of worship in the state that began in coastal Karnataka September 14 and spread to Bangalore on Saturday night, reports IANS.

"All those attacking places of worship will be arrested and prosecuted under the Goonda Act," Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa said.

The 1987 act provides for preventive detention for three months, extendable by three months at a time and imposes stringent conditions for bail.

The act is officially called 'The Karnataka Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Gamblers, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders and Slum Grabbers Act'.

The cabinet also decided to provide round-the-clock security at places of worship, Yeddyurappa said.

The Chief Minister is under intense pressure from the central government, besides Christian community leaders and opposition parties, to check the attacks.

The central government, in a rare development, sent two advisories in two days to the state government expressing concern over the attacks and suggesting that all efforts be made to end them.

The Chief Minister announced that the police have been directed to keep a close watch on the activities of HT Sangliana, a former Bangalore city Police Commissioner and expelled BJP Lok Sabha MP from Bangalore, as well as VM Samuel, head of New Life Fellowship Trust.

The Trust is accused by Hindu groups like Bajrang Dal of involvement in converting Hindus and distributing literature insulting Hindu gods. Samuel has denied the charges.

"The two have been issuing inflammatory statements and indulging in conversion activity," Yeddyurappa said.

He said five people have been arrested in Kodagu district on Sunday on charges of persuading Hindus to embrace Christianity. A church in the area was damaged in stone throwing Saturday night.

Himachal plans online system for public grievances

Shimla: The Government of Himachal Pradesh is planning to evolve an online system of public grievances monitoring, which would connect the office of the Chief Minister to the common man at grass root level.

Announcing this at the review meeting of the Department of Redressal of Public Grievances here on Monday, the Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said that the new system would help to speed up the grievances redressal process besides ensuring transparency in the functioning of the government.

Under the proposed system, any person could register his complaint through cyber cafe, personal computer or even in the Deputy Commissioner Office, the Chief Minister said.

The grievances would be monitored at the levels of secretaries, head of the departments and even the Chief Minister himself, who could issue directions to the concerned officers immediately keeping in view the seriousness of the matter.

All the ministers and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) would also have access to the grievance monitoring system, the Chief Minister said, adding that the complainant would be provided latest information regarding the status of the complaint.

"With the adoption of this new system, complete transparency would be ensured from the highest office to grass root level besides accountability of the officers towards the public," Dhumal said.

He directed all the departments to provide master data on priority so that the mechanism could be developed at the earliest which would benefit the people of the state.

Banks to get Rs 250 bn to meet farm loan waiver

New Delhi: The Government of India will give Rs 25,000 crore to banks to help them make up the loss incurred on account of farm loan waiver, said a senior official on Wednesday.

"Rs 25,000 crore will be released to the lending institutions (against the debt waiver) when Parliament meets to approve the supplementary budget," Finance Secretary Arun Ramanathan said.

Ramanathan, who briefed the media after Finance Minister P Chidambaram reviewed the performance of regional rural banks (RRBs), said that the government was yet to take a decision on the suggestion by the banks that payment be made against interest from March 1.

About Chidambaram's brief to the RRBs, Ramanathan said he emphasised the need for computerisation of RRB branches and providing better training to the employees.

"The Finance Minister was satisfied with the performance of the RRBs," Ramanathan said.

The number of RRBs would come down to 79 from the existing 88 after 12 RRBs were merged and reduced to five, reports IANS quoting Ramanathan.

A Cup of Water

"I tell you the truth. If a person helps you by giving you a
drink of water because you belong to the Christ, then that
person will truly get his reward."

-- Mark 9:41 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
The kindness Jesus expects and rewards in his followers is very simple.
God doesn't forget kindness that is demonstrated with actions that are
simple and real. When we are kind to other believers or they are kind
to us, God sees, remembers, and rewards! Of course Jesus didn't want us
to limit our kindness to other believers and he also wanted his
followers to give unbelievers an opportunity to share their kindness
with them as well. Simple acts of kindness by Jesus' followers may be
simple, but they are also a genuine reflection of their Lord's kindness
and compassion that were shared with all sorts of people.


TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father, thank you for sending Jesus who makes your way of life so
simple and clear. Thank you for remembering acts of kindness. Thank you
for those who have demonstrated that kindness to me and to your Son
through their kindness to me. Please bless them. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Spanco bags Rs 70 Cr Orissa Swan contract

Telecom systems integration and IT services provider Spanco Telesystems and Solutions has bagged a Rs 70 crore contract for the roll out of a state wide area network (Swan) to connect over 300 districts and talukas in the eastern coastal Indian state Orissa.

Under the five-year project based on the build, own, operate and transfer (Boot) model, Spanco in tandem with ITI will provide connectivity to government offices from the state headquarters at Mantralaya down to 30 district collector offices and 284 Taluka and Tehsil offices in the state.

As part of the planned National e-Governance Action Plan (NeGAP), this network would serve as the core backbone of the state for its various e-Governance applications, citizenship initiatives and diverse IT activities too.

The Swan project aims at providing a reliable, integrated and robust telecommunications infrastructure catering to high speed and high capacity delivery of voice, data and video transmissions.

Besides improving the service delivery and response time to the citizens of Orissa, it will enable citizens to make various forms of payments and obtain facilities information as well as business-to-consumer (B-2-C) services from a single location using state-of-the-art technologies.

The implementation and operation of this network will warrant deployment of over 200 people, most of whom will be locally sourced.

Commenting on the selection, Spanco Telesystems and Solutions Chairman Kapil Puri said, "We are honoured to partner with the Orissa government and strongly believe that this initiative will contribute significantly to its progress as a state."

The company was confident that the Orissa Swan will increase efficiencies and response times significantly, drive down communication costs for the state government and provide a major impetus to the state's developmental plans and programmes, he said.

"Spanco will play a significant role in continuously addressing the larger IT and technology infrastructure needs of the state, not only in the e-governance space but also in the power and transport segments," he added.

The company will mitigate losses accruing to the state exchequer due to inefficient manual systems prevalent here and to leverage IT to stem this problem, Puri said.

Commenting on the partnership, Orissa IT Commissioner and Secretary Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said, "Our government is deeply committed to building a robust IT infrastructure in the state, to introduce diverse e-Governance initiatives and empower the common people of Orissa."

NGN must connect, empower rural India: Scindia

New Delhi: India's Minister of State for Communications and IT Jyotiraditya Scindia has asked telecom service providers to make use of the next generation carriers for providing affordable voice, data and triple play service in rural and remotest part of the country.

Opening a Seminar on "Next Generation Carrier Systems: Trends and Technologies" in New Delhi, Scindia said, next generation network (NGN) should become a catalyst to connect and empower every Indian and to provide affordable services and wider penetration of telecom network.

"In order to reap the benefits of NGN services, attention needs to be paid towards creating an enabling competitive environment and creating conditions of massive adoption of this technology," the Minister said.

In the seminar organised by Pacific Telecom Council India Foundation, the Minister pointed out that the better services to citizens will depend on the strength of the carrier services.

Stating that the country needs upgrade its telecom infrastructure with the latest technology, Scindia said that world class telecommunications infrastructure is the key to the rapid economic and social development.

Next generation carrier systems enable a wide range of services with savings in cost and maintenance effort while providing bandwidth on demand and flexibility in service provisioning.

With ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive accessibility, NGN was expected to bring an extensive range of innovative services, greater control, personalisation and ease of migration between services, he said.

Use of NGNs that converge multiple networks into one by converting voice, video and data into tiny packets over a single high-speed network is also expected to bring down ILD call rates as well as enhance data connectivity.

"NGNs will also help in providing the ICT infrastructure that would deliver the next wave of services and applications to our citizens," the Minister said.

Plan to modernise Maharashtra check posts cleared

Mumbai: Additional revenue to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore per annum was expected in the government exchequer by a new proposal approved by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) to modernise, computerise and integrate 22 inter-state border check posts.

"Among other benefits, the project will help curb leakages of revenue and arrest illegal transport activities," Public Works Department-Public Undertakings Minister Anil Deshmukh said.

The project, estimated to cost Rs 1,200 crore, is being implemented on a build, operate, transfer (BOT) basis by the Transport, Excise and Sales Tax Departments, reports IANS.

The work will start from October this year and will be completed by March 2010.

Presently, the revenue netted from the check posts, bordering six states—Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa—stands at around Rs 25,000 crore per annum, Deshmukh said.

MSRDC has appointed SK Integrated Consultants for planning the project, while it will be operated on BOT basis by a consortium of Sadbhav Engg-SREI and SREI-Sahaj, a Ministry official said.

The modernised check posts would also ensure that overloading of vehicles is stopped to increase the life of roads, contribute to safety on highways, and prohibit transport of inflammable and objectionable goods.

The facilities provided at all these check posts would include concrete roads, office and residential premises for the staff manning these check posts, rest rooms, eateries, medical stores, water supply, sewerage disposal, electrification, landscaping and general services for vehicles.

Connected to the central control room in Mumbai, each check post would have CCTVs for security purposes and electronic weigh bridges. Complete data on all vehicles passing through the check posts would also be maintained.

Deshmukh said that he had written to several chief ministers offering technical know-how and expertise to implement similar projects to boost revenue earnings of their respective states.

In Kerala, a third kid in family will invite fine

Thiruvananthapuram: A new population-control bill drafted by the Law Reforms Commission of India's southern state Kerala has proposed several harsh measures to punish large families.

The Commission, headed by Justice VR Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court, has recommended a fine of Rs 10,000 and the exclusion of free education and health care for families that have a third child, as well as other state aid regarding housing and work.

"No person or institution shall use religion, region, sect, caste, cult or other inducements for production of more children than permitted," Article 7 of the new proposed law said.

Any person or a public organisation or institution associated with or carrying on the work of family planning and birth control can take to court those who violate the law, the draft said.

The Catholic Church in India has spoken out against this proposal, which it says reflects the ideologies of the "Marxist" government currently in power in Kerala.

"The Catholic Church will oppose to the end the state dictatorship of the Marxist government of Kerala," Indian Catholic Bishops' Conference President Cardinal Varkery Vithayathil said.

"In Kerala, there are two different ideologies, the ideology of supremacy of the state, and the other ideology being freedom, respect, and the dignity of the human person," the Cardinal said.

The draft legislation is being proposed at a time when leaders of the Catholic Church in Kerela—the Indian state with the largest Catholic population—have been urging the faithful to be generous in having more children.

The ratio of Christians in Kerela has been declining steadily in recent decades—from 25 per cent to 19 per cent of the state's 35 million people.

Kerala underwent a dramatic demographic transition in the last century. The 1911 census put the region, which then lay divided into two princely states, Travancore and Cochin, and the Malabar district of the Madras presidency, at 7.15 million. The decennial growth rate was 11.76 per cent.

At the time of independence, the region's population was around 12.5 million. The decennial growth rate hovered above 20 per cent. That set alarm bells ringing.

The 1971 census put the population at 21.3 million. The decennial growth was now 26.3 per cent, the highest in the country. Then the tide turned.

The population continued to grow, but the growth rate fell to 19.2 per cent in 1981 and 14.3 per cent in 1991. By 2001, it fell further to 9.4 per cent, the lowest in the country. The national growth rate at that stage was 21.3 per cent.

Clearly, the family planning programme, which the country took up in 1952, has been a roaring success in the state. However, to understand the miracle fully, one has to go back to the social reform movements that swept the region in the early part of the last century.

The reformers held out education as the key to progress. As literacy and education spread, the agrarian society started cracking. So did the extended family system, which had prospered in the feudal era.

As the revolution of rising expectations swirled up the emergent middle class, families voluntarily limited their size in order to improve their circumstances.

Gradually, the small family, happy family message percolated down to the masses as well. The poor, too, started restricting family size with a view to giving children better education and ensuring that they could lead better lives than they themselves did.

The sharp fall in the infant mortality rate, brought about by improvement in public health standards, helped the process. The inducements that the government offered to encourage the people to take to family planning helped, too.

Significantly, there was no use of force. There was no compulsory sterilisation programme of the kind that some northern states witnessed during the Emergency (1975-77).

The Church's well-known opposition to contraception did not discourage members of the large Christian minority from practising family planning, although they were slow in taking to it. Muslims were even slower.

The differential growth rate of the various religious groups has resulted in changes in the composition of the population. In 1991, Hindus were 57.4 per cent of the population. In 2001, they were 56.2 per cent.

There was a slight fall in the Christian population also during this period-from 19.3 per cent to 19 per cent. However, the Muslim population rose from 23.3 per cent to 24.7 per cent.

When these figures became available, some Hindu outfits raised a scare about the minorities wiping out the majority's small numerical advantage. The campaign, motivated by political and communal considerations, did not evoke much sympathy.

After all, the people who went in for small families had done so on their own, and not under compulsion.

Those with an understanding of demographic realities have pointed out that the growth rate among Muslims, too, is coming down, and there is little chance of their overtaking the Hindu majority.

In 1991, the total fertility rate (which indicates children born per woman) among Muslims was 2.97. In 2001, it was only 2.28.

There is a correlation between demographic changes and socio-economic conditions. A commission that inquired into the representation of the backward classes in the state services found that more than 7,000 posts reserved for Muslims were lying vacant.

In the matter of higher education, Muslims lag behind the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

According to the findings of a survey conducted by the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad, a reputed NGO, only 8.1 per cent of Muslims are pursuing higher education, as against 10.3 per cent among the Dalits and 11.8 per cent among the tribals.

The Catholic Church in India has spoken out against this proposal, which it says reflects the ideologies of the "Marxist" government currently in power in Kerala.

Cardinal Varkery Vithayathil, president of the Indian Catholic bishops' conference, said that the Catholic Church will oppose to the end the state dictatorship of the Marxist government of Kerala.

"In Kerala, there are two different ideologies, the ideology of supremacy of the state, and the other ideology being freedom, respect, and the dignity of the human person," the Cardinal said.

The draft legislation is being proposed at a time when leaders of the Catholic Church in Kerela—the Indian state with the largest Catholic population—have been urging the faithful to be generous in having more children.

The ratio of Christians in Kerela has been declining steadily in recent decades—from 25 per cent to 19 per cent of the state's 35 million people.

Manipur groups protest anti-terror law

Rights groups in India's northeastern state Manipur have renewed their pledge to launch a movement for repealing a controversial anti-terror law enacted 50 years ago that gives sweeping powers to the security forces deployed in the region.

The demand for scrapping the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) currently enforced in four of the seven northeastern states of Assam, Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland comes 50 years after the law came into force August 18, 1958 to quell insurgency in the region.

The 1958 act provides unlimited powers to the security forces to shoot on sight and arrest anybody without a warrant, reports IANS.

Human Rights Watch, a leading international rights group in a report from New York, 'Getting Away With Murder: 50 years of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act', describes how the AFSPA has become a tool of state abuse, oppression and discrimination.

"The law grants the military wide powers to arrest without warrant, shoot-to-kill and destroy property in so-called disturbed areas. It also protects military personnel responsible for serious crimes from prosecution, creating a pervasive culture of impunity," the report said.

Local rights leaders also describe the act as draconian and want it repealed. "The AFSPA was enacted by parliament with a view to quelling the Naga insurgency in 1958. But after that there were so many insurgencies in the northeast and despite the act in force in all the insurgency-hit states, yet militancy is thriving. In other words, the AFSPA had miserably failed," a rights leader Babloo Loitongbam said here.

Manipur was in turmoil in 2004 after a 35-year-old woman was allegedly raped and killed by security forces while in custody. Authorities said the woman, an alleged militant, was shot dead while she tried to flee from custody.

The custodial death triggered a wave of violence and protests, one agitator died after setting himself on fire and a group of women drew international attention to the cause by demonstrating naked outside a military camp.

"I am not going to withdraw my fast until this black act is repealed in its totality from Manipur," Irom Sharmila, a young Manipuri woman rights activist staging a fast for the last 10 years, said. Sharmila is in a hospital here.

"If timely action is not taken to repeal the act, the northeast would be in turmoil," P Singh, a rights activist from Manipur, warned.

New Delhi maintains the anti-terror law was required in Manipur where more than 19-odd rebel armies operate with demands from secession to greater autonomy and the right to self-determination.

More than 10,000 people have lost their lives to insurgency in Manipur during the past two decades

"The person that is not against us is with us."

Not Against Us!

-- Mark 9:40 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Christianity faces enough opposition in the world without its own
proponents fighting and devouring each other because they fancy each
other as enemies. Jesus' words here are powerfully universal and clear
-- notice the use of the words "the person (or "anyone" in other
translations) is general. If people don't oppose us, they aren't the
enemy! In fact, Jesus says even more than that: they are working to
benefit the cause of Jesus and his followers.


TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father, I pray that those of us who seek to honor you will quit
treating each other as enemies. In Jesus' name. Amen.

PM panel seeks for separate manufacturing policy

New Delhi: A top panel set up by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has sought a separate policy for the manufacturing sector, currently growing sluggishly.

The panel, which submitted the report on Saturday, has justified the need for a manufacturing policy, saying it will accelerate industrial growth.

"The policy will ensure focussed attention by the government to various aspects to achieve the goals of manufacturing and employment generation," said a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

India's manufacturing sector logged 7.5 per cent growth in July this year as compared to 8.8 per cent in the corresponding month last year, reports IANS quoting the report.

The panel headed by National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) Chairman V Krishnamurthy has set a manufacturing growth target of 12 to 14 per cent for the economy in the short to medium term adding the growth should be nine to 10 per cent in the long term.

"The growth of the manufacturing sector has been stagnating at an average of around seven to 7.5 per cent for the past 20 years," the panel has said in the report.

The manufacturing sector contributed only 5.6 per cent to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth in April-June of the current fiscal as against 10.9 per cent in the last corresponding period.

"In order to achieve an average economic growth rate of nine to 10 per cent in the medium to long term, the manufacturing sector needs to grow at about 12 to 14 per cent," the panel has recommended, according to an official press communiqué from the PMO.

The panel has also recommended creating a continuing mechanism suitably empowered to monitor the developments in the manufacturing sector on a regular basis.

Overact lands RTI activist in trouble

Agra: Asking too many questions under the Right to Information (RTI) Act could land you into trouble. This was learnt the hard way by an activist here, who was told by the police that he was interfering in government work as he persisted with queries in the case of a woman kept in a protection home for seven years without being charged.

RTI activist Naresh Paras of Amnesty International was hauled up by an official at the Etmauddaula police station for asking too many questions and "harassing the superintendent of the Women's Protection Home by persistently pressing for information". This, according to the police, constitutes interference in government work.

About six months ago, IANS highlighted the plight of Munni, 22, who had been detained in the protection home for apparently no reason. She had neither been charged with any crime nor declared insane.

For over seven years she stayed in the home. Under pressure from human rights activists, she was sent to Kanpur two months ago.

Paras had wanted some specific information about her case. The questions were not answered and Munni's file was tossed from one department to another department.

On Saturday, Paras was summoned by the officer in charge of the Etmauddaula police station after a complaint was filed by the Protection Home Superintendent Geeta Rakesh.

She denied lodging any written complaint, but admitted to having orally complained to the police official.

Rakesh said that she had never refused to give information, but the RTI activist was never satisfied.

"Some of the questions he asked were irrelevant, like who is responsible for Munni's 'Barbadi' (depredation)? How can I name any official?" Rakesh said.

Paras on Tuesday submitted memorandums to police and administrative officials asking for protection as he perceived a threat to his life.

UP mid-day meal to get regional taste

The Government of Uttar Pradesh will now give a regional taste to the lunch provided to students under the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme sponsored by the central government.

For this, the state would be divided into four regions—east, west, central and Bundelkhand—and the students there will be provided with delicacies of their respective region, they added.

"As per the new menu of MDM, Bati Chokha, Rajma, Kheer and other delicacies will be offered to the students taking regional taste into account," a senior official associated with MDM said.

"Initially, we have to introduce this as a pilot project," Lucknow's Basic Shiksha Adhikari Rakesh Kumar said.

The pilot project will be launched next month, reports IANS.

"Depending upon the acceptance of the new scheme amongst the students, we would go ahead. The feedback from the students will also be sent to the central government," he added.

At present Khichri and Tehri (a dish made from rice and vegetable) are provided under MDM, officials said.

In Uttar Pradesh, MDM covers about 1.5 lakh schools, under which lunch is provided to students till class 8, they added.

Andhra CM to release disaster management rules

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekahra Reddy on September 24 will release the book entitled 'National Disaster Management Guidelines for Management of Cyclones'.

It will provide institutional and coordination mechanisms for effective disaster management at the national, state and the district levels in the backdrop of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

In a meeting reviewing the disaster management preparedness of the state administration, the Chief Minister said that under the mandate of the Act, a multi-tiered institutional system has been created up to the district level to promote a relief-centric approach to a more pro-active, holistic and integrated approach of strengthening disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response.

The book compiled by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) highlighted the need for an integrated and well-coordinated strategy to reach relief and rehabilitation initiatives even to the last person affected by cyclones, heavy rains and stormy tides.

Briefing the CM about the book, Disaster Management Commissioner Dinesh Kumar said that the guidelines recommend for early warning systems of cyclones; structural measures for preparedness and mitigation; cyclone shelters, buildings, road links; and communication and power transmission network.

These also recommend management of coastal zones; awareness generation related to cyclone disaster management; disaster risk management issues, analysis, studies of various types; hazard-zonation mapping and data generation; and use of GIS tools, the Commissioner said.

The guidelines were aimed at enhancing national, state and local scale advocacy partnerships and knowledge management for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction and standardising hazard risk management tools, methodologies and practices.

These guidelines call for a participatory approach to strengthen the national vision of moving towards a more pro-active pre-disaster preparedness and mitigation-centric approach.

These contain all the details that are required and will help in preparation of plans by the state.

Don't Stop Him!

Then John said, "Teacher, we saw a man using your name to
force demons out of a person. He is not one of us. So we told
him to stop, because he does not belong to our group." Jesus
said, "Don't stop him. Any person that uses my name to do
powerful things will not soon say bad things about me."

-- Mark 9:38-39 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Good deeds done in the name of Jesus are a blessing no matter which
group or which person is doing them. Our goal should be for people to
be blessed and Jesus to be praised!


TODAY'S PRAYER:
LORD God, my Abba Father, may your name be praised and lost people be
reached, through the work of others I don't yet know. Help my heart
rejoice in that work and those who do it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

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Don't Stop Him! -- Mark 9:38-39

Are Himalayan foothills haven to drug smugglers?

Shimla: The idyllic, pastoral setting of the Himalayan foothills that draws an increasing number of backpackers is now also becoming a base for a multimillion dollar narcotics trade involving foreign settlers, local peddlers and international drug smugglers.

Police officials say that foreign smugglers, working in collusion with addicts, are virtually ruling the roost in Mandi, Kullu and Chamba districts that have a serious problem of drug cultivation, trafficking and use.

The conviction of two Italians—Anglo Falcone and Nobli Simone—along with two Indians under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act by a Mandi court last Friday is proof that an international drug mafia has gained a foothold in the hill state, senior police officials said here.

Kullu Superintendent of Police Jagat Ram said, "Forty-eight people have been booked under the NDPS Act this year. Last year, 29 people had been booked."

In the past 10 years, 208 foreigners have been arrested in the state and 757 cases registered under the NDPS Act. However, only 74 people have been convicted. Among the arrested foreigners are many Israelis, Italians, French and Japanese.

According to a police officer who did not want to be identified, a large number of foreigners settled in various villages in these districts have been actively involved in smuggling narcotics in connivance with local peddlers.

The foreigners were even providing high-yield variety cannabis seeds imported from Holland and Russia to farmers for planting in various high-altitude areas like Malana, Bhelang, Melandar, Magic and Kutlah in the Kullu valley as well as the Chauhar and Seraj valleys in Mandi district, the officer said.

In Chamba district, the plantation of cannabis is confined to remote areas of Kehar, Tissa and Bharmour.

"We are aware of the problem and it has to be curbed,” Himachal Pradesh Director General of Police GS Gill said.

"We're launching a special month-long drive from September 1 in Kullu, Mandi and Chamba districts. This is the time the poppy crop is ready for harvest," he added.

Gill said special police teams would be deployed to locate cannabis and opium plantations and destroy them before the crop is harvested.

Additional Director General of Police DS Manhas said, "During the drive we're taking the help of 18 sniffer dogs to detect houses in villages where hashish and opium have been stored."

According to estimates of India's Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), more than 6,000 acres in the state is under cannabis cultivation.

Easy availability of cheap drugs in McLeodganj—the abode of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama—and its surrounding areas of Dharamkot, Naddi and Bhagsunag has turned the area into an addicts' haven, say the police.

The demand for the cannabis cultivated in the Kullu valley has increased across the world, with Malana hashish adjudged the best at the Cannabis Cup organised in Amsterdam earlier this year.

A former Kullu Superintendent of Police AP Singh said, “The demand for the cannabis cultivated in the Kullu valley is high in Holland, where smoking hashish is legal."

Malana, a village in the Kullu valley, has long been notorious for cultivation of high-quality cannabis there.

A former NCB Superintendent OP Sharma said, "People involved in this clandestine trade are spreading their wings by luring more villagers into this multi-billion dollar trade. Alternative farming is the only way to control cannabis cultivation."

Indo-Pak cross LoC trade model finalised

New Delhi: Modalities of cross LoC trade between India and Pakistan were finalised today at a meeting of the Joint Working Group on Cross LOC Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) here.

"The agreement was for starting commerce on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalkot routes," Pakistan's Additional Secretary (South Asia) in the Foreign Ministry Aijaz Ahmed Chowdhury said.

The trade will begin after it gets clearance from the legislatures of the two nations, he added.

The Indian delegation was led by TCA Raghavan, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs and the Pakistan delegation by Choudhury.

In July, foreign secretaries of the two countries had exchanged lists of commodities with zero tariff regime. Each side had agreed to indicate the items they were willing to receive.

A formal announcement is likely to be made this week after a meeting of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the UN General Assembly session in New York.

The two countries have already opened a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in April 2005.

Kerala district on way to become tobacco free

Thiruvananthapuram: Kottayam in Kerala will be the first region in the country to be declared a tobacco free district, a top official said on Tuesday.

This would be declared in the next few days, before the ban on smoking becomes effective October 2 in all public places, Kerala Health Secretary Vishwas Mehta said.

The district, having a population of 2.8 million people, had also created history in the eighties when it was declared a 100 per cent literate area, reports IANS.

"We have taken help of school children in this campaign and it will take time before the new rules become effective. We just can't enforce this by using the police alone. There has to be a sustained campaign from the society," Mehta said.

He said authorised officials would impose fine on people who violate the law. Mehta had inaugurated a meeting on new tobacco control legislation in the state in the wake of the new rules that the central government has framed on banning smoking in public places.

Making Kottayam district a tobacco free area does not mean that no tobacco products would be sold or none will smoke in the district, Kottayam District Medical Officer Benjamin George said.

"To make this effective, we have been working for the past 18 months and the district administration has by now issued three different sets of orders to all government and private establishments that none should smoke in public," he said.

George said a school helpline has also been set up to enable any student or teacher to call and report against those using tobacco products in public. Action would be taken against the guilty, he added.

RTI Commission slams UP Chief Secretary

Uttar Pradesh's RTI Commission has come down heavily on the northern Indian state's Chief Secretary for not implementing the Right to Information Act in its true spirit even three years after its enactment.

This happened after a petitioner filed a plea before the Uttar Pradesh State Information Commission (UPSIC) complaining that information he had sought from the Chief Secretary's office (CSO) had not been provided to him.

Petitioner Paras Nath Verma had sought to know from the CSO why he was not appointed as an assistant teacher and what action had been taken on various applications he had filed at various levels.

At a hearing on this before the UPSIC in Lucknow on July 18, the CSO had contended that the Chief Secretary was the controlling officer of the state secretariat but his office did not come under the definition of public authority, and was thus not bound to provide information under the RTI Act.

The UPSIC had initially reserved judgement on this. In an order on August 4, the commission's acting Chief Gyanendra Sharma, declared that the CSO was a public authority and directed it to name its Public Information Officer (PIO) and first appellate authority within 15 days of receiving the order.

The CSO was also directed to make public the name, address and telephone numbers of the PIO and the appellate authority.

Sharma also directed the Chief Secretary to trace out a letter that had been sent from his office along with Verma's query to the state's Basic Education Secretary and to inform him when this had reached the officer concerned.

He also asked the Chief Secretary to explain why Verma was not informed about his letter being transferred from one officer to another.

The Chief Secretary was also asked to respond to these two issues within one month.

The commission also termed as laughable the Chief Secretary's contention that his office did not have a website of his own to respond to queries from the public as the UPSIC's Chief also did not have one.

"The reasons given by Chief Secretary are not only irrelevant but unnecessary too. The submission that because the UPSIC Chief doesn't have its own website for supporting his argument of not having his own website is laughable," the commission said.

"Does he have to be told that the country's Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary of the central government also have own websites," the commission added.

"The central government's cabinet secretariat, which is the nodal agency for coordination amongst various ministries, has its own website. Thus, is it not important for the office of the Chief Secretary to have its own website, appoint a PIO and disclose information under various sections of RTI Act?" the commission asked.

Acting commission Chief Sharma said that the sole purpose and intent was to hold someone responsible in the Chief Secretary's office under the RTI Act.

"I have only asked them to appoint a PIO and an appellate authority and make their details public, which should have been a suo motu disclosure under the act. As far as the website is concerned, I have left this decision to the Chief Secretary," Sharma said.

Website on girls' issue to be launched tomorrow

New Delhi: Child Relief and You (CRY), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) will launch a microsite on the eve of the Girl Child Day on September 24.

The microsite will provide an interactive platform to people, which, besides providing information on skewed sex ratio and various campaigns, will allow one to express his or her opinion on the issue, reports IANS.

With videos, opinion polls, articles, volunteer activities, campaign material downloads, e-newsletter and blogs, the site will help one explore the not often talked about reasons which give rise to such practices as female foeticide.

"We believe the girl is a child first and that gender is merely descriptive. Yet statistics show that girls have not fared well so far, and this is not due to their lack of capability, but because people around incapacitate them," Meenakshi Kohli of CRY said.

This platform will help people express their opinion on the whole issue and initiate movements to turn around this negative trend, she added.

GSI to set up seismic observatories in northeast

Agartala: The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has decided to install sophisticated seismic observatory laboratories in different parts of the northeast to facilitate the prediction of high intensity earthquakes in the region.

The seven northeastern states—Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur—considered by seismologists as the sixth major earthquake prone belt in the world, experienced India's worst jolt, measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale, which killed 1,600 people in 1987.

Besides the northeastern states, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and parts of north Bihar lie in seismic Zone-V, vulnerable to earthquakes, reports IANS.

"GSI Director General PM Tejale last week visited the northeast to review the progress of installation of sophisticated seismic observatory machineries in the region," a GSI official said.

Quoting the GSI Chief, the official said, "The observatory lab would provide early detection of landslides as well as earthquakes."

The GSI has also initiated a process to prepare a seismic micro-zonation map for hilly parts of the vulnerable northeastern region.

The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences has plans to set up a research institute to study seismic activity in the northeast. The proposal is awaiting clearance from the Union Finance Ministry.

"Following the proposal of various state governments of the region, the Earth Sciences Ministry initiated the move of setting up an exclusive centre to conduct survey of the seismic activities in the region," the official added.

Not One of Us! -- Mark 9:38

Not One of Us!

Then John said, "Teacher, we saw a man using your name to
force demons out of a person. He is not one of us. So we told
him to stop, because he does not belong to our group."

-- Mark 9:38 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Isn't it amazing how quickly we can split up into our own little groups
and begin to arrogantly do as a group what Jesus had just challenged
his disciples not to do as individuals when he told them that the
greatest must be a servant to all? (Mark 9:30-37) We all want to
picture ourselves as "insiders" in the Kingdom of God -- those who are
righteously superior and correct. When others appear to be doing God's
good work, we feel threatened rather than delighted. How shallow, how
petty, and how unlike Jesus such arrogance is! God forgive us and
change us from our petty ways.


TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father in heaven, I love you. However, I have to admit that I frustrate
myself with my own selfish and petty loyalties and pride. Even though I
hate that trait in others, I need your help, Father, to hate it in
myself and remove from my own heart. Please help me be more open just
as your Son was while on the earth. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Bamboo houses for Bihar flood victims from Assam

Guwahati: As over 30 lakh flood victims of Bihar struggle to get back a roof over their head, a group of experts from the Guwahati-based Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC) has designed an innovative home for them.

A month after the floods, triggered by a course change in the Kosi river, the victims are starting to think of rebuilding their homes, instead of languishing in ill-equipped relief camps.

With support from the North Eastern Council (NEC), CBTC has designed a model bamboo shelter, which is affordable, permanent, eco-friendly and can be constructed in a day.

"Time has come to seriously think about the permanent rehabilitation of the flood survivors of Bihar. Thus we have developed a hut for the victims that is simple, economical and affordable, flood-resilient and climate friendly," CBTC Director Kamesh Salam said.

"The standard building materials like cement, steel, brick and primary timber and standard housing techniques may not be appropriate now in view of the urgency to rehabilitate them and the high cost involved. Thus the solution lies in making best use of bamboo technology," he added.

The experts at CBTC and NEC believe that use of green building materials derived from bamboo technology for construction of houses is best as it is derived from renewal source materials, consumes less energy, is non-polluting, cost effective and environmentally sustainable.

The centre, which has designed the shelter, displayed it at the recently concluded Northeast Business Summit here.

The model house, built in an area of 230 square feet, consists of two rooms, a kitchen and a toilet. Each hut will be a pre-fabricated structure made of treated bamboo.

"Each hut can be erected in a day. The cost of each house comes around Rs 30,000. The house will be permanent, with coating of cement or mud on the splitted bamboo panels," Salam said.

The idea was not only to provide homes for the poor flood victims but also to train them in building the houses on their own in a short span of time and thus provide to them economic opportunities and livelihood security, Member of NEC and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) P P Shrivastava said.

"NEC and CBTC through NDMA have sent the proposal to the Bihar government and are waiting for their response. As soon as we get a green signal from them, we will send a team of experts from CBTC to Bihar to train the flood victims in making the huts," Shrivastava added.

While CBTC and NEC will provide the expertise to build the huts, infrastructure will be provided by the Bihar government and NDMA.

Experts working in the field of bamboo technology feel bamboo has got immense use but unfortunately that has not been explored fully.

Bamboo processing technology has now developed to such an extent that processed bamboo has become an ideal material for housing construction. Processed bamboo can now replace timber, steel, wood and aluminium, because of its high tensile strength and very good weight to strength ratio.

The strength-weight ratio of bamboo also supports its use as a highly resilient material against forces created by high velocity winds and earthquakes.

Above all, bamboo is renewable raw resource from agro-forestry and if properly treated and industrially processed, components made by bamboo can have a reasonable life of 30 to 40 years, Shrivastava said.

CBTC and NEC have also suggested that the Bihar government import bamboo from northeast India, as 28 per cent of the total bamboo area of the country is located in the region.

Bamboo, also known as green gold because of its immense use, has been used in the region for building materials, agricultural implements, furniture, musical instruments, food items, handicrafts, large bamboo-based industries.

"In line with the national mission on Bamboo, through our model bamboo hut, we will be encouraging and guiding the unemployed flood victims of Bihar to take up its construction and start earning once again," Shrivastava said.

According to an official estimate, people from 2,451 villages in 17 districts have been affected by the floods in Bihar. Although the official death toll is 50, locals fear many more bodies will be found once the floodwaters recede.

Scientific panel formed to check mysterious fever

Lucknow: A panel of scientists, including experts from National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, has been formed to contain a mysterious fever that has claimed over 120 lives in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur division in the last three weeks.

"The scientific panel will be headed by MM Gore of NIV. At present, Gore is associated with NIV's field station in Gorakhpur district (of Uttar Pradesh)," an NIV scientist said from Pune.

Gore's field of specialisation is anti-viral immunology, reports IANS quoting the NIV scientist.

Besides NIV experts, scientists and doctors from Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science, Lucknow, BRD Medical College Gorakhpur and other hospitals are also the members of the panel, sources said.

Director General (Medical and Health) IS Srivastava confirmed that the scientific panel has been constituted to counter the mysterious fever.

The unofficial count of the deaths due to the mysterious disease in six districts of Kanpur division is 160.

The worst hit by the mystery disease is Akbarpur district, where 100 people have died, said a district administration official.

Several villages of the district including Akorhi, Satti, Naseerpur and Chataina are badly affected, he added.

Even as experts fear the disease can spread to adjoining districts of Kanpur division, health officials refused to comment.

The mysterious disease, which is afflicting about 8-10 people daily, is marked by high fever, an official said. Symptoms of the mystery disease are similar to that of malaria and jaundice, he added.

A team of officials from the union health ministry arrived in Kanpur rural district and collected patients' blood samples.

India lags in primary health, lacks specialists

New Delhi: About 50 per cent of sanctioned posts of specialists at various community health centres (CHCs) throughout India are vacant, which shows that the primary health still remains the lowest priority of state governments including union territories, reveals an industry lobby report.

According to the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industries (Assocham) Paper 'Role of Health Insurance in Medical Care in India', 59.2 per cent of posts of surgeons, 46.4 per cent of obstetricians and gynaecologists, 56.6 per cent of physicians and 51.9 per cent of pediatricians are vacant in the 4,500 CHCs in the country.

Releasing the paper, Assocham President Sajjan Jindal said that 2,525 CHCs should have been added to current operational community health centres that number around 5,000 by end of 2007-08 which did not happen at all, speaks of utter apathy that state governments observed towards them.

The CHCs are supposed to provide specialised medical care in the form of facilities of surgeons, obstetricians and gynaecologists, physicians and paediatricians throughout the country to promote rural health.

Even out of the sanctioned posts, a significant percentage of posts are vacant at other levels. For instance, about 8.8 per cent of the sanctioned posts of female health worker are vacant as compared to about 32 per cent of the male health worker.

At primary health centres (PHCs), about 13.8 per cent of the sanctioned posts of female health assistant and 22.1 per cent of male health assistant are vacant.

At the sub centre level, the extent of existing manpower can be assessed from the fact that about five per cent of the sub centres were without a female health worker, about 37.2 per cent sub centres were without a male health worker and about 4.7 per cent sub centres were without both female health worker as well as male health worker.

This indicates a large shortfall in male health workers, resulting in poor male participation in family welfare and other health programmes, the Assocham paper said.

About 5.6 per cent of the PHCs were without a doctor, about 40 per cent were without a lab technician and about 17 per cent were without a pharmacist.

The chamber has, therefore, recommended that states who manage these centres should attach equal priority to their well being just as they take up issues of creating infrastructure such as roads, ports and aviation.

First S&T Park in Delhi soon

New Delhi: Soon Delhi would become a major destination for advanced research in information technology (IT), science and technology. The Delhi government on Monday gave its nod to set up first science and technology (S&T) park in the capital.

The project proposed by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) will be established by the Delhi government at the Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology (NSIT) campus in Dwarka.

The park will cover over 30 acres with a built up area of over two million sq ft and will be in close proximity to the international airport.

The detailed project report (DPR) for the S&T Pak was prepared by Nasscom with assistance from PricewaterhouseCoopers through a consultative process involving detailed interactions with industry firms involved in R&D activities, academicians and research institutions.

"We see the S&T Park at NSIT as a strategic initiative to position Delhi as a pre-eminent R&D cluster for the knowledge industries which are today looking at undertaking advanced scientific research across various fields," Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said while announcing the approval.

The strong presence of industry, academia and other resources in and around Delhi enables high end R&D and innovation and this initiative is an attempt by us to create that opportunity, she added.

"This initiative is a key milestone to establish Delhi as a global innovation hub and serve as a platform for holistic and sustainable industry and academia partnership, thereby attracting to the national capital and retaining high-quality talent," the Chief Minister said.

The areas identified for research at the park are information and communication technology, biotechnology and life-sciences, automotive technologies, nanotechnology, photonics, environmental sciences and micro engineering among others.

While the S&T Park will predominantly focus on research and development in emerging technologies, it will also include an incubator to promote entrepreneurship in technology innovations and plug-n-play facilities for use for young start-up firms.

Nasscom President Som Mittal said, "The Nasscom BCG Innovation Report 2007 highlighted that the lack of sustainable linkages between the ecosystem constituents, academia, user industry, R&D institutes and IT industry, is a key reason for the weakness of the Indian innovation ecosystem."

Mittal further said that the S&T Park at NSIT can play the role of a catalyst in the development of an innovation cluster in the NCT region and thereby making it an important initiative towards the overall development of the Indian innovation ecosystem.

"Through this initiative we also aim to step up industry and academia interactions for capacity building in emerging technologies at both faculty and student levels," the Nasscom President said.

Area-wise, 60 per cent of the park will be occupied by R&D Centre, 10 per cent each by incubator and business amenities, while Plug-n-Play Facility will occupy the rest of the area.

Act soon to bring transparency in Bihar ULBs

All the 122 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Bihar will soon have a transparent umbrella through which their assets, liabilities and obligation could be vividly viewed by common men.

The first state in the country to enact the Model Municipal Act ensuring all-round development of municipal areas, Bihar has moved further towards people's empowerment by introducing Bihar Urban Local Bodies Disclosure Bill, 2008.

The Bill already passed by the state Legislature during the monsoon session is awaiting Governor's nod to become an Act.

"As a matter of fact, section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005 has made it obligatory on part of all the Public Authorities, to publish within 120 days from the date enactment of the RTI Act, all relevant details, assets, liabilities, obligations, duties and functions," an official said.

This Bill was in pursuance to this provision, he added.

The Act aims to bring about a transparency in the working of these ULBs. Even after passage of Bihar Municipal Act 2007, the local bodies failed to deliver the goods to the common men.

The state has yet to prepare a statement of its urban policy or strategy. Without such a unified policy document, urban sector works have been fragmentary and have been undertaken by different agencies without close alignment of resources, resulting in grossly inadequate and inefficient urban development.

Despite the breakthrough Bihar Municipal Act introduced by the state in 2007, fully empowering the ULBs to provide all urban services and recover costs, non-municipal agencies like Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) and Bihar Rajya Jal Parshad (BRJP) retain control of typical municipal functions such as the creation of water supply and sewerage systems.

Besides, the ULBs have very low technical, financial and institutional and management capacity and need extensive strengthening, along with immediate financial reforms, to fulfil their mandate under the Municipal Act.

According to the 2001 census, Bihar had an urban population of only 86.8 lakh, or 10.46 per cent of the total population, versus the national average of 28 per cent.

About 60 per cent of this urban population is in the southern part of the state, with a significant concentration in Patna, and more than 50 per cent is in class I towns (towns with a population of more than one lakh; Bihar had 19 of these in the 2001 census), thus putting concentrated pressure on those towns.

Bihar's new land policy on anvil

Patna: Taking a cue from the Singur and Nandigram incidents in the Left-led state of West Bengal, the Bihar government has drafted a comprehensive land policy to streamline the land and revenue administration in the state.

"The Bihar Land Policy, 2008 is ready awaiting cabinet's nod. After getting the approval of the cabinet; it will come into force. It will have a land owner-friendly look," a government official involved in drafting of the policy said.

The proposed policy has dealt in depth over land acquisition, re-settlement and rehabilitation, ceiling and land management aspects and has abolished many rules and regulations framed in the existing policy made by British.

Lands are acquired under the provisions of Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (Act 1 of 1894), which is a Central Act. As this Act has been enacted by the erstwhile British rulers, many provisions of it are not land-owners friendly and are not congruent with the changing socio-economic and political milieu.

Legal experts have also opined that this law is biased against the land owners and farmers. In fact, this biasness is the crux of all such problems which are being experienced in many areas including Singur and Nandigram, official said.

This proposed policy seeks to provide solution to all such problems by framing Ground Rules for acquisition. Instead of awarding monetary compensation, the land losers would be rehabilitated by re-settling lands in freely surrendered urban and semi-urban areas.

The amounts of compensation and 'solacium' money have already been enhanced in The Bihar Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Re-settlement Policy, 2007.

"This Policy seeks to 'institutionalise' it and make it further investment and rehabilitation friendly," official pointed out.

Besides, section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 has also been amended to give the District Collectors more discretionary powers in matters of awarding compensations. Idea is to give human face to whole gamut of land acquisition and land management process.

The Ground Rules are to be framed for re-settlement and rehabilitation to the affected persons. The policy also seeks to provide livelihood to the land losers and agricultural labours by way of creating jobs in the vicinity of the projects.

The policy seeks to constitute a Grievance Redressal Mechanism so that the grievances are disposed off more quickly and amicably. It also seeks to make Social Impact Assessment of the entire acquisition process and take suitable steps accordingly.

People will continue to enjoy some of the rights like fishing and grazing even after their land is acquired.

This policy also seeks to make some exemptions in land ceiling laws in districts like Kisanganj, which is becoming an attractive destination for tea cultivators.

But surprisingly, it does not say anything about the other districts. The Land Ceiling Act, 1961 has hopelessly failed in this state and there are numerous instances where people are fighting legal battles for the land given to them under this Act in 1970s itself.

The policy seeks to introduce modern technology in land management. It also aims at making a data base of the land records and seeks to update it by way of application of ICT.

Tulip bags Rs 95 Cr MPSWAN project

September: Data telecom service provider Tulip Telecom (Tulip) has been awarded the Madhya Pradesh State Wide Area Network (MPSWAN) project at a cost of Rs 95 crore.

Tulip Telecom has signed an agreement between MP State Electronics Development Corporation (MPSEDC) to establish the network based on the Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (Boot) model.

The company will deploy, manage and operate the entire network for a period of five years as per the agreement.

The network supports data, voice and video, and will enable the state to implement various e-Governance initiatives. With this project, Madhya Pradesh aims to strengthen its position under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Government of India.

The total Internet Protocol (IP) network based on open standards having scalability and high capacity would meet the present and future requirements of the state government.

On completion of this project, the state government will have an integrated backbone for common citizen services, online monitoring of performance of various promotional schemes, integration of data bases of various government departments and unified communication.

"Tulip is delighted to be a part of the prestigious NeGP and look forward to extend expertise for the successful deployment of the MPSWAN," Tulip Telecom CMD HS Bedi said.

MPSEDC Managing Director Anurag Shrivastava stated, "The SWAN will enable the state government to deliver various e-Governance services to the citizens of MP and will allow transparent and quick decision making within the state."

Welcome the Child -- Mark 9:36-37

Welcome the Child


Then Jesus took a small child. Jesus stood the child before
the followers. Jesus held the child in his arms and said, "If
a person accepts children like these in my name, then that
person is also accepting me. And if a person accepts me, then
that person is also accepting the One (God) that sent me."

-- Mark 9:36-37 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
How we treat those from whom we can receive no status determines our
heart. In Jesus' day, children were not held to be overly important in
the social pecking order. In many ways, that is still true today --
notice how day-care workers and teachers are still among the lowest
paid professional workers in many modern countries. So Jesus reminds
his followers that the way they welcome, treat, and value children
reveals a great deal about their hearts. What does it say about our
own?


TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father, thank you for challenging me to value people whom others
neglect, devalue, and overlook. Help me follow through on my conviction
to love all people, especially those from whom I can receive no
monetary, status, or power benefit. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

$1.2 bn WFP aid for global food crisis

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it is rolling out an additional US $1.2 billion in food assistance to help tens of millions of people in more than 60 nations hardest hit by the urgent food crisis.

“With soaring food and fuel prices, hunger is on the march and we must act now,” United Nations World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran said at the International Summit on Food Security in Rome.

Sheeran said that if we do not act quickly, the bottom billion will become the bottom two billion virtually overnight as their purchasing power is cut in half due to a doubling in food and fuel prices.

The Executive Director also said that the agency is helping the world to tackle the crisis by tripling the number of people who receive food in Haiti, doubling those who will receive food in Afghanistan, and delivering more critical food assistance to people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

“We have mobilised our 10,000 employees and every dollar and euro given to us, to reach as many hungry people as we can at this critical time,” Sheeran said.

She noted that the international community has made great progress over the past four decades in reducing the percentage of hungry worldwide, from 37 per cent to 17 per cent in 2002.

“High food and fuel prices now threaten to short-circuit this potential and undue many of these hard earned gains. Only by pulling together in the spirit of global interdependence, can we respond strategically to this challenge,” Sheeran said.

UN WFP also warned that record high food and fuel prices threaten to unwind hard-earned gains and increase human suffering.

Countries most affected by high food prices—Haiti, Liberia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Yemen, Senegal, Burundi, Central African Republic and Sierra Leone—are provided support in the form of food, medication, resources and financial help by the UN agency.

Sheeran said that more action is needed to help individuals, families and communities hold the line against hunger, and to create space for UN partners and others to work on medium and longer term solutions to boost agricultural production.

“Here is our opportunity – and our human dilemma. We simply cannot solve this challenge divided. The situation we face presents an opportunity for the global community to demonstrate concerted leadership as never before”.

Internet-based wildlife racket busted in UP

New Delhi: A gang using the Orkut and other popular networking sites for illegal wildlife trade was busted in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut town, and threatened wildlife, including a rare albino civet, were seized alive.

Two gang members were arrested from the Lalkurti locality of the town and many threatened wildlife, including peacocks, parakeets and a rare albino civet cat were seized alive, officials said on Tuesday.

This may be the first case in the country linked with Internet wildlife trade, reports IANS.

Officials said members of the gang used the Orkut networking site for meeting new customers as well as to close deals with existing clients in the Middle East and Europe.

A team of Uttar Pradesh's special task force and the Forest Department conducted the raid, after Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), a non governmental organisation (NGO), alerted the officials.

"The accused was in the process of settling a deal on the civet cat for Rs 3 lakh with a customer in Dubai, but we surprised him with the raid," a WTI official said.

The civet cat may be the first albino common Indian civet ever recorded—a very rare species, he said.

Mahesh Chandra, wildlife warden of Meerut, said the accused have been sent to jail on Tuesday afternoon after being charged under the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972. The birds would be released after permission from the magistrate.

WTI Vice-chairman Ashok Kumar said, "The crackdown has exposed a huge illegal market for birds on the Internet. But there is more evidence now to further this investigation."

He said that NGOs in India as well as abroad have been urging their governments for implementing strict measures to stop the online wildlife trade.

International NGOs in the past even exposed websites where illegal ivory products had been displayed for sale, Kumar, adding the latest arrest may be the first case involving the Internet wildlife trade in the country.

Drip irrigation boosts farm products in Rajasthan

Chomu (Rajasthan): Farmers in this vegetable-growing oasis amid Rajasthan's semi-desert scrubland are improving yields from their farms, thanks to drip irrigation and financial help from the state government.

Young and old, the farmers keep thronging the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK, agriculture science centre) at sub-divisional headquarters town Chomu, 40 km from state capital Jaipur, to learn new tricks to grow more and better vegetables.

Their interest is vital, for Chomu sub-division grows about 95 per cent of the vegetables grown in Jaipur district, which in turn accounts for about 90 per cent of the vegetables grown in Rajasthan, KVK Scientist NK Gupta said. The farmers of Chomu even export their produce to the Middle East.

Chomu may be an oasis because it sits on an aquifer, but rapid evaporation in the desert heat means water scarcity remains the biggest challenge to the farmers here. Add to that overdrawing from the aquifer, and the farmers are looking at disaster without better water management.

That is exactly what they are being taught at the KVK, where at any time no fewer than 30 farmers—both young and experienced—can be seen upgrading their know-how.

The use of sprinkle and drip irrigation techniques—where water is sprinkled or dripped to the plants' roots instead being wasted by flooding the fields—is the most important part of the education.

The state government gives 70 per cent financial support for putting in place a drip irrigation system—a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and outlets.

Now beverage major Coca-Cola India is chipping in with financial aid. The company has helped 15 farmers install drip or sprinkle irrigation facilities.

"Meticulous use of water, and how to preserve the nature's most precious gift is a thrust area for us," Coca-Cola India Public Affairs and Communications Vice President Deepak Jolly said.

"It is our corporate social responsibility to help farmers to opt for drip irrigation, and ensure optimum utilisation of water," he added.

The KVK has so far trained over 125 young farmers from the surrounding villages how to improve for quality vegetable cultivation.

"We have a year-long training programme for young farmers. We enrol 25 applicants in each batch, and make them undergo a total training programme," Gupta said.

Farmers from around 100 villages are being covered by the KVK, and they grow vegetables in an area of over 1,000 hectares, he said.

Infant deaths: HR notice to AIIMS, health official

New Delhi: Taking note of the deaths of 49 infants during clinical trials, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the Indian Health Ministry and the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS).

"This is a show-cause notice and we have sought comments from the Secretary of the Health Ministry and the AIIMS Director on a complaint filed with the NHRC," a Commission official said.

The Commission has sought replies within four weeks.

The notices were served following a petition by Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) Uday Foundation to the NHRC, bringing the matter to its notice and alleging violation of the right to life under Article 21 of the constitution, reports IANS.

"We are seeking the NHRC's intervention because we have no faith in any internal inquiry by the institute," an official of the NGO said.

In reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query, the AIIMS earlier this month admitted 49 babies had died during clinical trials over the past two and a half years.

The AIIMS Paediatrics Department conducted 42 sets of trials on 4,142 babies—2,728 of them below the age of one—since January 1, 2006.

AIIMS authorities said the deaths were not due to medicines used in the clinical trials but because of the diseases that the children were suffering from.

"We want to clarify that none of the deaths was due to the medication or interventions used in clinical trials," Paediatrics Department Head VK Paul had said.

Clinical research is the mandate of the AIIMS clinicians. Novel therapies are examined keeping in mind the utmost safety for all patients, he added.

"The research protocol undergoes intense scrutiny by the internationally recognised Institute Ethics Committee. Written informed consent is taken from parents and guardians," Paul said.

"Most of the 42 clinical trials have reported no deaths. The deaths are mainly due to inherent diseases and not due to medicines used," Paul said.

Pilot study: good response to female prophylactic in TN

http://www.hindu.com/seta/2008/08/28/stories/2008082850071500.htm

Pilot study: good response to female prophylactic in TN

R. PRASAD

The scaled-up project to provide female condoms to sex workers will begin in October

15 lakh pieces will be distributed to the target group in the four States in the scaled-up project
Countrywide coverage will happen depending on the success of the scaled-up project

The pilot project, where female condoms were provided to female sex workers (FSW) to help keep HIV infection at bay and undertaken at 11 sites across five States in the country, has met with a good response. The initiative was started on a pilot scale in March last year. Plans are now to scale it up. The scaled-up project will begin in October.
Tamil Nadu was one of the five States where the pilot project was undertaken. The other States were Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
Good experience

“The overall experience has been good,” said Ms. K. Sujatha Rao, the Director-General of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), Delhi. “We will soon scale up the programme.”
The scaled-up programme will be restricted to four States — Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra — where the response was better than that in Karnataka.
“If there is a good response [in the four States], then we may scale it up even further [to cover the entire country],” said Ms. Rao. Such a countrywide coverage may happen during the current financial year.
Best response

According to Mr. Manoj Gopalakrishna, the response was the best in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Gopalakrishna is the Chief Executive Officer of Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust, Delhi. The Trust provides NACO the technical support for the condom programme.
“The response was the best in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, in terms of product usage and repeat buying. The second best were West Bengal and Maharashtra,” said Mr. Gopalakrishna.
“About 90 per cent who bought the product have actually used them. And of the 90 per cent, about 65 per cent used them consistently,” Mr. Gopalakrishna said.
If 5 lakh female condoms were distributed to 64,000 sex workers in the five States in the pilot project, the scaled-up programme in the four States, which may start in October, will see 15 lakh condoms being distributed to the target group.
According to Ms. Supriya Sahu, Project Director of the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS), female condoms will become a part of the strategy in the scaled up programme wherever the project is taken up with sex workers.
The pilot project in Tamil Nadu was taken up in six districts — Chennai, Madurai, Salem, Vellore, Trichy and Kanyakumari. The scaled-up programme will cover all the districts.
“We sold more than 80,000 condoms in six months’ time. About 12,000 FSWs were covered under the programme,” Ms. Sahu said.
A female prophylactic greatly empowers women especially when males refuse to use condoms.
Only choice

And when no medicines are available to cure HIV and no vaccines to prevent infection, the only way to remain uninfected is by not indulging in risky behaviour or by using a prophylactic every time one indulges in such acts.
But for female sex workers, a prophylactic is the only recourse.
“Using a female condom is an ideal choice when men refuse to use condoms,” said Dr. R. Lakshmi Bai, Project Director of TAI-VHS, Chennai.
According to Dr. Bai, the sex workers had to be trained to use it correctly and educated on the need to use them. Motivating them and sending a powerful empowerment message were equally important, especially when the condoms were not provided free of cost.
TAI-VHS had sold 30,000 pieces to NGOs in two districts (Salem and Vellore) over a period of one year. The total number of FSWs covered was 4,200 in the two districts.
Unlike the male condoms, the female prophylactic is not given free of cost. Individuals have to pay Rs.5 a piece. The good response, when the price paid is factored in, makes it all the more encouraging.
The response may be better during the scaled up programme as the cost of the prophylactic will be Rs.3 a piece. “That is because they we will manufacture them in India and not import them from London,” said Mr. Gopalakrishna.
When manufactured in India, the actual cost will be Rs.23 as against Rs.45 when they are imported. And what will be manufactured in India will be the newer second generation ones.

Bihar to take e-policing route

Bihar police will now take the hi-tech route to register first information reports (FIRs). It will implement a new software Cipa (Crime Investigation Police Application) for paperless operations across eastern Indian state's police stations.

Now, the complainants will not have to file written complaints, instead their complaints will be lodged just with a click of mouse.

The new software, developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), will help the policemen deputed at the police station register cases through email and send the same to their seniors.

"With the introduction of this new technology, policemen can provide you any information at the click of a mouse," state Additional Director General of Police RR Verma said.

With the police stations to go online now, the state government has
planned to impart adequate training to the cops to enable them to lodge
FIRs without any problem.

In the first phase, 4,000 cops right from constable to deputy superintendent of police (DSP) will be provided training on how to open a file and entry data. Thereafter, they will learn how to analyse the data and use the new software.

The Bihar Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development (Bipard) has been assigned the task to train the cops and make them computer literate.

"This is a big challenge for us to train the cops. We have to make them know how to open files and make entry of data but we hope to overcome this problem soon," Bipard e-Governance In-charge Sanjay Pandey said.

He claimed that all the cops would be properly trained within a year.

Pandey said the programme would help in developing professional skill of policemen and encourage them to use more and more technology in carrying out their investigation.

Additional Director General (Law and Order) Anil Sinha said the state government has already provided computers to important police stations of the state.

But, the computers are not regularly used at the police station level as the policemen do not know how to operate them, he said.

Earlier, a trainer was sent to a police station for a period of six months to impart training to the policemen. But, now it has been decided to impart training in group, Sinha added.

Two death certificates for one woman

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/18/stories/2008091860500600.htm


Two death certificates for one woman

Staff Reporter

TIRUNELVELI: Even before the allegations levelled by a group of councillors against the Executive Officer of Alangulam Town Panchayat Samuel Durairaj and the controversy pertaining to the issue of three different death certificates to a same person are yet to subside, the issuance of two death certificates to same person with different age has triggered disputes here.
After 49-year old A. Bhagavathi of Jothi Nagar in Alangulam died on last June 4, her husband Arulanandam applied to the Alangulam town panchayat for the death certificate, which was issued to him on last June 18. As per the first certificate, the age of the deceased is 45.
“When Mr. Arulanandam applied for the insurance claim along with this death certificate, the company refused to accept the claim saying that the age mentioned in the certificate was wrong since Bhagavathi’s actual age was 49. He submitted fresh application for the death certificate again and got it on last July 25 with adjusted age of 49,” said M. Palani Sankar, ward I councillor of Alangulam Town Panchayat, who has forwarded a complaint with copies of the death certificates to Collector G. Prakash. When one S. Manickavasagam of Jothi Nagar in Alangulam died at Chennai Kaliappa Hospital on June 14, 2007, the hospital administration gave a certificate stating that the end came at the hospital itself owing to cardio – respiratory arrest.
However, two different death certificates issued by Alangulam town panchayat claimed that Mr. Manickavasagam died only at Alangulam on two different dates – i.e. on June 14, 2007 and June 15, 2007 but both the certificates bore same registration number of 73 / 2007 / 01. After the issue of death certificates appeared in the media, Mr. Prakash appointed a committee to probe the issue. “Unfortunately, the three members of the committee are the contemporaries of Mr. Samuel Durairaj and hence, a new committee should investigate”

Biomedical waste carted to CTFs

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/18/stories/2008091859080300.htm


Biomedical waste carted to CTFs

Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI: On Tuesday, all biomedical wastes generated in 90 per cent of public health care institutions in Tamil Nadu found their way to private common treatment facilities (CTF).
The wastes of all the 15 medical colleges in the State, 270 government hospitals and over 100 30-bed PHCs were picked up from a single collection point at each of these centres by representatives from private CTFs who carted it off for appropriate disposal.
So far, the hospitals were disposing of their own wastes in deep pits within the campus or handing them over to the local civic authority for disposal. “With this, we have fallen in line with the Central Bio Medical Waste Rules. We have conformed to all quality requirements,” said PWC Davidar, project director, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project (TNHSP). The TNHSP has worked out a system of payment for the entire State with nine private common treatment facilities who won through a competitive bidding process. They will be paid per kg of weight they remove to treat, instead of the existing per-bed rate. The rates vary between Rs. 20 to Rs. 40 per kg, the cost getting higher with remote locations.
The final “handover” has taken place only after a series of preparatory measures were rolled out to ensure that the transition would be smooth, he added. This included training over 41,000 hospital staff all over the State, circulating training manuals and providing colour-coded bins to all hospitals.
Discussions were also held with the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Programme and hospitals implementing the Revised National Tuberculosis Programme before evolving a standardised method of waste disposal. “We have also clarified the rules and ensured that there is no grey area in implementation,” he added.
The process was clearly outlined for the hospital workers. Biomedical waste would have to be segregated and disposed of in colour-coded bins provided to them. These bins would then be collected from all units in the hospital and moved to a central point from where it would then be removed by the CTF personnel.
J.Mohanasundaram, Dean, Stanley Medical College, said the formal handover was effected in the hospital on Tuesday when representatives from Tamil Nadu Waste Management took over from Chennai Corporation the job of disposing of medical wastes of the hospital.
Mr.Davidar said, “We are waiting to see how this works out for the first year before we roll it out in centres that have low volume of medical wastes. So far, we are not sure if it will work out to be profitable for the government and/or the private agencies.”

Food scheme at PHCs inaugurated

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/18/stories/2008091860470600.htm


                  Food scheme at PHCs inaugurated

Special Correspondent

For health: U.Mathivanan, Dairy Development Minister serving food at Adiyakkamangalam PHC.

TIRUVARUR: Adiyakkamangalam Primary Health Centre in Tiruvarur district will be upgraded into a 30-bed hospital at a cost of Rs. 51 lakh, said U. Mathivanan, Dairy Development Minister, at Adiyakkamangalam on Tuesday.
He inaugurated the food scheme for pregnant women and those who delivered children or underwent operations at the PHCs at Adiyakkamangalam.
He said that it was only in Tamil Nadu that the PHCs functioned as 24-hour-delivery centres. Pregnant women will be provided food on the day she comes for checkup at the PHCs. Those who delivered children and those who underwent surgery will be provided food for three days.
Collector M. Chandrasekaran, said that there are 39 PHCs in Tiruvarur district, all of which are functioning as delivery centres from Tuesday.

Minister inaugurates free meal scheme for pregnant women

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/18/stories/2008091853610300.htm


Minister inaugurates free meal scheme for pregnant women

— Photo: K. Ganesan

Healthy measure: Free meal scheme in progress at Samayanalur primary health centre in Madurai district.

ARUPPUKOTTAI: The Minister for School Education, Thangam Thennarasu, inaugurated free nutritional meal scheme for antenatal mothers, who come to the primary health centres (PHCs) for the weekly antenatal check-up, at the Mallankinaru PHC on Wednesday.
He also launched the free food scheme for women who come for deliveries. Mr. Thennarasu distributed assistance worth Rs. 10.20 lakh to 171 beneficiaries under the Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy maternity assistance scheme.
He also witnessed ‘valaikappu’ conducted for 405 antenatal mothers at the PHCs where the traditional seven-variety rice were served to them. The pregnant women were also given saris, bangles and turmeric.
The Deputy Director (Health), Virudhunagar, P. Vadivelan and the Block Development Officer, P. Mahesh Kumar, the Chairman of Mallankinaru Town Panchayat, S. Nagaiah, were among those present.
Madurai

The Minister for Adi Dravidar Welfare, A. Tamilarasi, on Tuesday launched the scheme at Samayanallur Primary Health Centre near here on Tuesday. Such a scheme had no parallel in the country, Ms. Tamilarasi said. Also, when the pregnant women came for delivery, they would be provided with meals thrice a day for three days. This would ensure they received adequate care, she said.
A. Palanichamy, Deputy Director of Health Services, said that women coming for family planning surgery were also covered under the scheme. During their stay at the PHC, he said, they would not have to go out for meals.
All the 42 PHCs in the district had been functioning round-the-clock. One doctor and three nurses would be present at all times.
Collector S.S. Jawahar said that deliveries in PHCs had more than doubled to 780 a month from around 350 about a year back. “Institutional deliveries of babies are around 99 per cent. We want to ensure no woman dies during delivery.”
All the 13 blocks in the district had one PHC with scanning facility. They also had sophisticated equipment to conduct medical tests expeditiously, he said.
All these medical facilities were aimed at ensuring the baby’s weight at three kg at the time of birth, the benchmark for a healthy baby. The physical growth of the brain occurred from three months at the womb to three years after birth. In this period, the child should receive adequate nutritional care, he added.

First

Jesus sat down and called the twelve apostles to him. Jesus
said, "If any person wants to be the most important, then he
must make all other people more important than himself. That
person must serve all other people."

-- Mark 9:35 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Jesus' life is a demonstration of what he teaches. This is nowhere more
evident than in his teaching about greatness. As followers of Jesus, we
are never greater than when we surrender our rights and our position
and serve others. No one demonstrated this better than the Lord Jesus
Christ, our Lord and teacher.

TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father, help me to aspire to greatness as defined by your Son's words
and life. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

World Alzheimer’s Day - 2008 (21st September 2008)

'No Time to Lose, Care for the Caregivers’

World Alzheimer’s Day falls on September 21st, 2008. The theme for this year ‘No Time to Lose’ recognizes the role of caregivers as the backbone of care, support and management of Alzheimer’s disease.

For all those 25 million sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease in the world, there are as many caregivers whose contribution is indispensable in the management of the disease. It is about time to realize that caregivers also need care and support to carry out one of the most difficult tasks of supporting loved ones in the throes of this debilitating mental condition.

It is worth pondering about how caregivers can expect to mete out care for victims, if they do not take good care of themselves!

Lethal Blow

Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating disease of the nervous system that leads to progressive degeneration of brain cells. What may begin as seemingly innocuous lapses of memory, progresses gradually into stark decline of mental abilities.

Victims show marked changes in behavior, mood, thinking and intellectual tasks. Memory, judgment and systematic thought processing takes a beating and normal life is badly affected. The progression of the disease differs with patients, though detecting the disease early can be crucial to effective management of the condition.

As the disease takes a toll on the mental abilities of the patients, they are completely dependent on their care givers to carry out daily tasks. The onus on caregivers is huge who need abundant physical and emotional energy to face the challenges ahead.

Caregiver Stress

At the end of the day, caregivers are human. While the disease plays havoc with its victims, it can also completely upset the life of caregivers.

Most of the caregivers who are closely related to victims lose their zest for life, seeing their loved ones ‘lose’ themselves to the disease. Helplessness and hopelessness coupled by ceaseless tasks of managing victims, drains them out physically and emotionally.

Caregiver stress is an accepted fallout of extending long term care for those afflicted by Alzheimer’s. Most of them get home bound and tied down, it’s a long haul without a break in sight. Depression, anxiety, anger, irritability, denial, social withdrawal, sleeplessness, inability to concentrate, are some of the signs of caregiver stress.

Care for the Caregivers

There are innumerable support groups and organizations equipped to ease the struggle for caregivers.

When caregivers accept help, they have that much more time and energy to spend with their loved ones. The benefits of seeking help from agencies which offer personal care services (help with bathing, dressing, feeding and routine chores of the patient), home care services (help with household chores) are manifold. Respite care services are also available giving caregivers an opportunity to take a break with short-term assistance while they are away.

Further, availing the help of support groups, approaching counselors and reaching out to other caregivers to share experiences helps them recharge and approach disease management in a more positive manner.

The emotional doldrums that many caregivers find them in was best elaborated by Dr. Dan Gottlieb, a psychotherapist, when he addressed the dementia caregiver conference way back in 2005.

He said to the caregivers, "You do not suffer because of them (person with a dementia). They have a disease, a neurological illness, that's a fact. But that's not why you suffer. You suffer because you love. If you did not love, you would not suffer. Love is learning to live with your helplessness in the face of your loved one's suffering."

Care giving for Alzheimer’s victims is a labor of love. Let’s make the journey for caregivers easier, by recognizing their undying effort and offering our love, support and concern in abundance.

Source-Medindia
SAVITHA/S

WFP, Unilever to help Pakistan combat child hunger

New York: A new programme to provide expertise in nutrition and health as well as financial support to combat child hunger in Pakistan has been launched jointly by UN World Food Programme (WFP) and foods, home care and personnel care manufacturer Unilever.

Under the joint venture programme, 'employee payroll programme', employees of industrial giant Unilever will donate a percentage of their pay to help the country in combating child hunger.

Both the organisation, under a three-year partnership deal, will support Pakistan in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as well as achieving universal primary education.

Some 600 Unilever staff have committed to the initiative contributing around 2.5 million Pakistan rupees (about US $33,000) a year. The money raised will go to around 3,000 WFP-assisted government girls' primary schools in rural areas.

"I am grateful for the commitment of Unilever employees providing financial support. This contribution will help WFP feed more schoolchildren in areas where literacy is particularly low and most families are below the poverty line," the WFP Country Representative Wolfgang Herbinger said.

The WFP provides assistance to over four million people struggling for food in Pakistan, including nearly half a million girls under the school feeding programme.

Delhi becoming e-waste dumping yard

Delhi, which is already reeling under high pollution, has now to deal with another environmental challenge—e-wastes. Over 2,000 trucks dump around 12,000 tonnes of e-waste in the city per day, according to an industry lobby's estimate.

"Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka generate over 25,000 tonnes of e-waste per day through various industrial activities and dump around 50 per cent of it at different places in Delhi, particularly at Turkeman Gate, Shastri Park, Loni, Seelampur and Mandavali," the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) President Sajjan Jindal said here on Monday.

The e-waste sent to Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore mostly makes its way to Delhi as there is a ready market for glass and plastic in the National Capital Region (NCR), reports IANS quoting Jindal.

"In fact, wastes from Mumbai constitute a bulk of the 60-70 tonnes of discarded electronics that land in Delhi's scrap yards everyday," the Assocahm President said.

Estimates also reveal that Delhi alone gets 25 per cent of the total e-waste generated in the developed world, which comes through cheaper imports.

Nearly 30,000 people are working in the city's various scrap yards and unauthorised recycling units.

As a result of continuous inflow of e-waste, the Delhi government has found it difficult to plant and grow saplings in the waste land, the industry forum said.

According to the Assocham, each state should develop its own scrap yards in the respective cities so that the environmental hazards would be minimised in Delhi.

It added that Delhi and the NCR have over 40,000 industrial and medical units, which are responsible for generating electronics and bio-medical waste.

The chamber has sent a proposal to the Delhi government, urging it to impose a ban on e-waste dumping in and around the NCR.

The Assocham has also suggested that the Delhi government plant more than two million saplings annually near the industrial centres to minimise the environmental hazards arising out of e-wastes.

The chamber has urged the state government to bring out effective legislation to prevent child labour in the recycling sector.

Over 6,000 children, of the 10-15 age group, are engaged in various e-waste activities, without adequate protection and safeguards in Delhi's various yards and recycling workshops, it said.

Besides global warming, e-waste is the most threatening environmental problem in the world today. In India, the total e-waste generation is approximately 3.8 lakh tonnes annually. And in the world, it is more than 20 million tonnes per year.

Sixty-five cities in India generate more than 60 per cent of the total e-waste generated in the country while 10 states generate 70 per cent of the total e-waste.

Punjab & Haryana HC judges to work longer hours

The judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court have offered to work longer hours and even on weekends to clear pending cases.



Speaking on the occasion 62nd Indian Independence Day at the Punjab and Haryana High Court complex here, the Court's Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur, who took over last week, said he had discussed the backlog of cases with other judges.



“I discussed the problem with other brother judges and they have assured me that they will work long hours and even on Saturdays to clear the backlog,” Thakur said.



The high court here has over 260,000 pending cases, reports IANS.



Thakur asked judicial officers working in the field to show the same enthusiasm as the high court judges in disposing off pending cases. He said that Independence Day was a day for introspection as well as celebration.

Intel initiative to connect a billion Indians

New Delhi: Intel India on Thursday launched an industry-wide movement 'Connected Indians' where all stakeholders have come together to accelerate broadband adoption, launch a series of public outreach activities and more affordable devices for the consumer.

The multi-year movement, 'Connected Indians', is joined by governments, industry associations and private enterprises for the common cause of connecting a billion Indians, Intel said in a statement.

The 'Connected Indians' programme is intended to mobilise people, resources and infrastructure to connect citizens to information, ideas, people, capital and services leading to overall development and future success.

Speaking on the occasion, Intel South Asia's Sales and Marketing Group Managing Director R Sivakumar said, "Through the 'Connected Indians' movement we hope to achieve precisely that. This movement is privileged to be supported by the government, ecosystem partners as well as numerous other industry stalwarts.”

Sivakumar said that this coupled with the slew of affordable computing devices now available will go a long way in driving connectivity.

"We expect to see the momentum for this initiative building up rapidly," he said.

Lauding Intel's efforts, the Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology A Raja said that the 'Connected Indians' movement will spur effective broadband deployment which in turn will directly contribute to the country's competitiveness.

"This rapid technological change will ensure India's future success. I therefore congratulate Intel for having facilitated the unique 'Connected Indians' movement with significant contribution from key industry partners and support from the government," Raja said.

BSNL has committed its efforts to accelerate broadband Internet in India to help bridge the digital divide by signing a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Intel.

They will jointly propagate broadband Internet across the country along with wireless solutions such as WiMax to enable inclusive economic growth in India.

Intel is working with a number of industry partners to make this dream a reality. A website has also been launched where people can log on and support the movement.

Various industry bodies such as The Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (Mait), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and the WiMax Forum have endorsed this movement.

NIIT will lend support to this movement through its reach to proliferate the benefits of Internet education to citizens through a special course on Internet education and PC fundamentals which will be made accessible at NIIT centres throughout the country, Intel said.

Tata Communications and Tata Teleservices will also collaborate with Intel in a strategic co-marketing programme to make broadband and Internet solutions pervasive.

Moreover, Google, Reliance Communications, Croma and Tata Indicom have also pledged their support to this cause.

New look for rural post offices in India

The Department of Posts in India has launched a series of fully upgraded and completely new look post offices for the rural people.




Called 'Project Arrow', the launch aims to re-vitalise the post office network and enable it to play a larger role in socio-economic transformation of the country.



These new age post offices would serve as a window to the world for the common man—'Aam Aadmi'—by focusing on their needs, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said.



Under the project, the Department of Posts has identified 50 post offices in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, North East, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand covering 10 Postal Circles.



By the end of the current year, 500 such post offices will get operational in the country.



These post offices are being given a thorough make over both in terms of physical look and feel and upgrading service delivery through IT enabled procedures.



The major features of the project include identity branding (a new logo and a new slogan), designing of exteriors and interiors, upgradation of computer hardware and software, improvement in delivery of services and upgradation in connectivity.



The post office in rural areas will henceforth be a single window facility for banking, money remittance, transmission and delivery of information.



Besides providing traditional services in a modern, more efficient and technology based mode, the post offices will also form an indispensable part of all social and civic initiatives such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and National Old Age Pension Scheme.



Moreover, the stress is on creating a conducive and friendly work environment for both staff and customers.



It would transform India Posts into a vibrant and responsive organisation, besides bringing a visible and positive difference in postal operations to benefit the customers.



With nearly 89 per cent of the network of India Post in rural areas, the project is expected to bring the rural populace in direct communication with the outside world and bring benefits of development to their doorsteps.



Project Arrow is being seen as a significant step towards realisation of India Post's motto—Dak Seva-Jan Seva.



It will provide the necessary impetus to other post offices to ensure that the formidable network of the Department of Posts becomes a seamless technology driven India-wide network, the Ministry said.



A Steering Committee and a Core Team have been put in place in the Ministry of Communications and IT to monitor implementation of the project at all stages.

Compensation bill for acid attack victims on anvil

New Delhi: The Government of India will soon finalise a bill to provide monetary compensation to the victims of acid attack for their treatment and rehabilitation.

Addressing the workshop convened by National Commission of Women to discuss amendments in Dowry Prohibition Act and issue of acid attacks on women, Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury said that the bill will also ensure exemplary punishment to the person indulged in such a heinous crime.

"Provisions should be made to held the accuse liable to bear all liabilities towards treatment and rehabilitation of the victim," Chowdhury said.

Expressing concern over reported lack of employment opportunities for such victims, the Minister said her Ministry would approach Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and other industrial organisations to consider appointment of such victims on priority basis as a part of their social responsibility.

Highlighting the initiatives recently taken by the Ministry of Women and Child Development for the welfare of women, Chowdhury said that a bill to check sexual harassment at the workplace was also being finalised and would soon be placed in Parliament.

The Minister said that her Ministry was also in touch with the External Affairs and the Ministry of NRI Affairs to ensure protection of women in the case of overseas employment and NRI marriages.

Stressing the need of empowerment of women, she said that her Ministry would take up with all concerned Ministries the issue of mandatory mention of mother's name along with father in all official forms where parent's signatures are required.

Chandigarh to install CCTV cameras soon

Chandigarh: Chandigarh police have decided to install close circuit television (CCTV) security cameras at all strategic locations in the city after taking cognizance of the recent blasts in Delhi on September 13.

"Very soon, we will finalise this project of installing CCTV cameras worth Rs 50 lakh in Chandigarh. We have identified various places in the cities that required utmost scrutiny and these cameras will help the police in keeping an eye on such places at all times," Chandigarh Senior Suprintendent of Police SS Srivastava said on Wednesday.

"As such, we have not got any threat of bomb explosion so far from anywhere, but if it can happen in Delhi, then it can happen anywhere," Srivastava said.

CCTV cameras will be installed with a continuous recording facility of at least for five days, reports IANS quoting Srivastava.

He added, CCTV cameras will also be installed at multiplexes, shopping complexes and hotels as visuals are always helpful in recognising the culprits behind any untoward incident.

"With the advent of winters, migration from Jammu and Kashmir region increases. Police will keep an eye on these migrants and verify the details of tenants and people shifting to Chandigarh during this time," the SSP said.

Foreign news magazines can have Indian editions

New Delhi: In a further liberalisation of its media policy, the Indian government on Thursday allowed foreign news magazines to have Indian editions.

The cabinet notification said that such editions would be granted only to those Indian companies registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956.

The publishers of such editions would be eligible for 26 per cent foreign direct investment, reports IANS.

The notification said the decision would provide Indian readers access to foreign magazines at cheaper rates in comparison to the same magazines imported at much higher rates.

Besides, the Indian readers would be benefited immensely as they would be able to keep abreast with the latest events and happenings on the global scale.

Outlining the broad parameters for granting such permission, it said the Indian companies would be allowed to enter into financial arrangements with the owners of the foreign magazines.

Permission would be conditional on at least three-fourth of the directors on the Board of Directors of the applicant Indian company and all key executives and editorial staff being resident Indians.

The title of the magazine should be verified and subsequently registered by the Indian company from the Registrar of Newspapers for India.

The content would be allowed to be up to 100 per cent identical to the foreign magazine concerned and the India publisher would be free to add local content and insert local advertisements.

Permission would be granted for publication of only such magazines being published in the country of their origin, the cabinet notification said.

In addition, they should have been published continuously for a period of at least five years, and the publication must have a circulation of at least 10,000 paid copies for the last financial year in the country of its origin.

The Fall Revisited

Jesus and his followers went to Capernaum. They went into a
house. Then Jesus said to his followers, "I heard you arguing
on the road today. What were you arguing about?" But the
followers did not answer, because their argument on the road
was about which one of them was the greatest.

-- Mark 9:33-34 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Sin entered the world because human beings wanted to be as important as
God. So often, our sins still center around our desire to be our own
little gods. Maybe we don't want to be in charge of the whole universe,
but we do want to be the most important and significant person in our
own sphere of existence. We want to be the greatest in our own world.
This is where inviting Jesus into our presence and being honest with
him about our desires are crucial. We can't invite the one who left
heaven to serve earthlings into our presence without falling under
conviction that our desires for greatness are selfish arrogance and not
a desire for excellence. In fact, Jesus personifies excellence and
redefines what a Christ-follower's life of excellence is all about --
self-sacrificing service to others, as the next verses show.


TODAY'S PRAYER:
O Father, please gently humble me. Remove the dross of my character.
Purge out the arrogance and selfishness of my heart so that I can serve
you, and others, with Christ-like love and care. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Quality Council of India QCI proposal to make medical insurance claim tough

New Delhi: To claim medical insurance benefits, people will now have to avail medical treatment at accredited hospitals only, a new proposal of the Quality Council of India (QCI) said.

"The council will ask the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) to permit only accredited hospitals for providing medical facilities to people covered under medical insurance schemes," QCI Secretary General Gridhar J Gyani said.

The council is going to officially forward a detailed proposal to IRDA, making it mandatory for all insurance companies that medical reimbursement benefits be extended to all patients that have taken treatment from accredited hospitals, Gyani said.

"We hope that in next 18-20 months time, the IRDA would be able to formalise new guidelines to this effect," he said at a conference on health insurance organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

Currently, only 19 hospitals have been granted accreditation by the QCI and nearly 55 are in the pipeline.

Renowned cardiologist Naresh Trehan lamented that health insurance had not picked up in India in the past couple of years. Less than eight percent of Indians have health insurance.

Pilot passport project in two Indian cities soon

A pilot project for the ambitious Passport Seva Project will be launched by software services provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The project, a public-private initiative, would improve passport services in two cities soon.




The Ministry of External Affairs in India on July 23 had issued the letter of intent to TCS after it was adjudged the "best value bidder" for the project, which is speculated to be worth Rs 1,000-1,500 crore.



According to the official, while the formal contract was yet to be signed, work has already begun on the ambitious e-Governance project, which aims, among other objectives, to issue a new passport within three days and shorten queue time.



Currently, it takes more than 30 days to issue a new passport—sometimes it takes anything between six to nine months.



"We are planning to first implement a pilot project in a couple of locations," the official said.



The pilot project is expected to run for about eight months. "Tentatively, we have chosen Bangalore and Chandigarh for the pilot project," he said.



After eight months of implementation, there will be three months of testing to evaluate the system. The entire system has to be operational within 19 months of the contract being signed.



Both the External Affairs Ministry and TCS have kept a low profile, with neither publicising the decision of the committee overseeing the bids.



The two are currently vetting the contract agreement, which may be signed in the next few weeks.



A TCS spokesperson declined to speak on the issue, saying: "We do not want to make any announcements now."



There was also no response from the ministry's consular, passport and visa division that oversees the network of regional passport offices across the country.



It has been a rough road for the project—with the principal opposition coming from the passport employee's union and intelligence agencies, who argue that bringing in a private player could have serious implications for national security.



The government says only front-end and non-sensitive activities would be done by TCS, while all sensitive aspects from verification, approval and handling of blank passport booklets will remain with government employees.



The union also claims that despite a cap on new recruitment, passport employees were able to cope with the sharp rise in passport applications every year, and that there was no need for private operators.



The Passport Seva Project began as one of the 27 Mission Mode Projects listed in the National e-Governance Plan.



The Union Cabinet approved the seven point plan last September, which included turning the current 36 regional passport offices into back-end offices and a private service provider setting up 68 facilitation offices.



It also envisages floating a special purpose vehicle for management, supervision and monitoring of the project.



The tender for the project was floated last October on the basis of a report by the Hyderabad-based National Institute for Smart Government—a non-profit organisation to spread e-Governance in India.



In return for better services, the private service provider (TCS) will charge a fee of about Rs 200 for each transaction.



Within eight years, the number of passports issued will be tripled from 2.2 million in 2000 to six million in 2008.



There had been several rounds of negotiations over the past nine months between the employees' union and senior Ministry officials.



A union leader said a representation has already been given to the Ministry.



"We are waiting for the announcement of the contract to decide the next step," he said.



He denied any deal had been reached to allow the project to go ahead.

Blocked Understanding

Then Jesus and his followers left there and went through
Galilee. Jesus did not want the people to know where they
were. He wanted to teach his followers alone. He said to
them, "The Son of Man* will be handed over to the control of
other men, who will kill him. After three days, he will rise
from death." But the followers did not understand what he
meant, and they were afraid to ask him.

-- Mark 9:30-32 (ERV)


KEY THOUGHT:
Despite some of Jesus' own personal teaching, the disciples are having
a very difficult time understanding that he must die and be raised from
the dead. From their understanding and because of their expectations,
the Messiah should be a conquering redeemer. With all the powerful
displays they had seen from Jesus, we can understand that it must have
been hard for them to even imagine anyone having the power of Jesus.
Sometimes our understanding about Jesus' truth is blocked because of
our expectations of him. Let's ask God to remove the blindness from our
own eyes!


TODAY'S PRAYER:
O Father, I confess that what I want from Jesus sometimes blinds me to
what I need from him and what he longs to teach me. Please remove my
blindness and gently correct me so that I can know and live your truth.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Rs 1,000 Cr aid for Bihar's national calamity

New Delhi: Describing the floods in Bihar as a national calamity, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday announced an immediate assistance of Rs 1,000 crore for rescue and relief operations as well as 125,000 tonnes of food grains.

The Prime Minister announced the aid after an aerial survey along with Congress President Sonia Gandhi of the four most-seriously-hit districts—Supaul, Saharsa, Araria and Madhepura.

Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced by the flood waters of the river Kosi after it changed its course due to a breach in its embankment upstream in Nepal, reports IANS.

Expressing his deep anguish at the havoc caused by the floods, Singh directed that all steps should be taken to help the people.

He said the central government would extend all possible help to the Bihar government.

An amount of Rs 1 lakh would be given from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund to the next of kin of those killed in the floods.

"The central government will provide necessary material and technical assistance to the state government to prevent further deterioration in the embankments and protective structures," a statement issued here said.

The Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asked the Prime Minister to find a permanent solution to the problem of floods in consultation with Nepal.

Singh said a high-level team would be set up to coordinate matters with the Government of Nepal.

The central government has said it will procure and supply tarpaulin tents and GI sheets for the flood affected.

Special Indian Air Force sorties would be arranged to provide packaged drinking water and high capacity helicopters would be deployed for evacuation of people, the statement said.

Teams of doctors and paramedics would be kept on standby.

The Ministry of Home Affairs and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will jointly provide 100 additional motorised boats for rescue operations, while the Department of Animal Husbandry will provide assistance for the livestock affected by the floods.

The Chief Minister, who met Singh a day earlier in New Delhi, said over 55 people had died in the current floods and over 2.5 million people in 15 districts have been affected.

Karnataka PCOs to turn into info kiosks

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) will convert its public call offices (PCOs) in the south Indian state Karnataka into electronic information and transaction kiosks with free broadband connectivity (e-PCOs).




"The e-PCOs will have a full-fledged information system with a PC, a webcam, a broadband link and a printer to provide a host of online services in English and Indian languages," BSNL Karnataka Circle Chief General Manager TS Kuppuswamy told reporters at the e-initiative launch by state IT minister Katta Subarmanya Naidu here on Monday.



In collaboration with the world's largest chip-maker Intel, multipurpose pre-paid card firm ItzCash Card and Karnataka PCO Owners Association, the e-PCOs will provide voice, data and video-conferencing facilities to the common man in semi-urban and rural areas.



In addition to a landline with STD and ISD facility for voice calls, the e-PCO will enable customers to access information through the Internet, browse the web, chat, e-mail and conduct video-conferencing.



"With a multiple pre-paid card from ItzCash, even customers who are not computer-literate can buy bus, railway and airline tickets at a nominal service fee from any e-PCO, with the help of its owner and franchise who will be trained by Intel to operate the system," Kuppuswamy said.



In the first phase on pilot basis, one e-PCO will be set up in each of the 29 districts across the state. Existing PCO operators having BSNL connection will be given a rental-free broadband link to convert their booths into e-kiosks.



Intel and ItzCash personnel will train them to install the IT systems and operate the e-PCO.



"For every e-transaction, the operator will get a commission. The operator can generate additional revenue by charging for accessing any information through Internet, browsing, chatting and e-mailing on minutes and hourly basis. He will also be able to levy a nominal charge for print-outs," Kuppuswamy pointed out.



Moreover, e-PCOs will be permitted to transact utility payments for water, electricity and telephone. They will also be equipped to re-charge mobiles, sell insurance and banking products and offer online transactions for cinema tickets, cable subscriptions and video communication.



As part of its corporate social responsibility and commitment to usher in low-cost technology solutions to the masses, Intel India will structure the rollout of e-PCOs and provide course material to train PCO owners free of cost.



"India has the opportunity to use low-cost technology solutions for the masses. The e-initiative is in line with our objective to extend industry support to accelerating broadband connectivity in rural India as an economic growth driver," Intel South Asia Sales Director R Ravichandran said.



Lauding the public-private initiative, Naidu said e-PCOs will not only bridge the digital divide with the latest technologies, but also generate self-employment to thousands of educated youth in semi-urban and rural areas of Karnataka with increasing IT adoption.



Karnataka PCO Owners Association president SV Rajendra said the e-initiative would prevent the closure of PCOs, whose numbers have been dwindling over the years due to the rapid penetration of mobile connectivity in the state.



As against 10 lakh PCOs with BSNL phones across the state a decade ago, only about four lakh are operating currently as revenues have come down sharply, he said.



With Rs 10,000 upfront investment in hardware and software and about Rs 35,000 for setting up a new e-PCO or scaling up the present one, PCO owners can revive their fortunes and play a vital role in bridging the digital divide.

Kalaignar inaugurates emergency services

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/16/stories/2008091654370400.htm

Dial toll-free number 108 in the event of any emergency
On receiving call, emergency response centre will send ambulance

Ambulance staff will provide free pre-hospital care while transporting victim to nearest hospital

CHENNAI: Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Monday inaugurated the ‘108’ emergency services in the State at the Secretariat.

Like the 911 emergency response system in the United States, anyone can dial 108, the toll-free number, and access emergency services. It is being operated on a public-private partnership model.

On receipt of information, the emergency response centre will send an ambulance (in the event of a medical emergency) or convey the information to the Fire Department or the police (in case of other emergencies).

The emergency response centre physicians and the emergency medical technicians in the ambulance will provide free pre-hospital care while transporting the victim to the nearest hospital of the patient’s choice. The system will be run by Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), set up with initial funding from Satyam Computer Services founder and chairman B. Ramalinga Raju. The State government and the EMRI signed a Memorandum of Understanding in May. In four months, the system was made operational.

The Chief Minister flagged off the first 20 ambulances. It will provide a total of 198 ambulances. By 2010, the Sate will have a fleet of 600 state-of-the-art ambulances, equipped with emergency equipment ranging from defibrillators and ventilators, to extrication tools to handle any emergency. The ambulances will also have GPS and GIS equipment.

Pointing out that the West had ambulance-helicopters and advanced equipment to handle emergencies, Mr. Karunanidhi said the services were of utmost importance to save lives. EMRI had taken the initiative here, he said and commended those who had worked to set up the services in the State. Special Secretary, Health, P.W.C. Davidar, said that emergency treatment would be provided free for the first 24 hours to the victim. As many as 105 hospitals had signed up for this in Chennai. Five hospitals in Coimbatore and 50 in Madurai had signed up, too.

EMRI CEO Venkat Changavalli thanked Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology A. Raja for agreeing to make ‘108’ toll-free.

ELCOT plans to take laptops to rural students

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/16/stories/2008091654630500.htm

CHENNAI: Taking laptops to students in rural areas, giving a big push to information technology parks in secondary cities and procuring colour television sets at economical rates are some of the priorities of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), Managing Director Santhosh Babu said.

Having started the work on the IT/ITES Special Economic Zones in Coimbatore, Madurai, Tirunelveli and Tiruchi, the ELCOT is planning to give a big push to the Salem and Hosur parks, inviting IT firms to set up shops there.

A formal notification has been issued for the Salem park. The ELCOT is scouting for suitable land for the Vellore park.

“Since everyone can’t afford to spend Rs. 50,000 on laptop, we are planning to offer a simple laptop without any killer application. Initially, we will target students and might ask some schools and colleges to sponsor it. Through this method, we can take the laptops to rural areas, increase the number and bring down the price,” Dr. Babu told The Hindu on Monday.

Tender for TV sets

Last week, the ELCOT floated a global tender for buying 40 lakh colour television sets. The tenders will be opened on October 15. So far during the current phase ending December, the ELCOT has procured 37.5 lakh television sets and distributed 25 lakh sets.

Anti-smoking Act: health officers gear up

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/16/stories/2008091660060700.htm

MADURAI: The Health Department is gearing up for the implementation of the Act that bans smoking in public places from October 2.

As a first step, it has instructed health officers to make sure smoking is prohibited in government healthcare institutions, 1,421 primary health centres and 8,700 health sub-centres.

Director of Public Health S. Elango told The Hindu here on Sunday that the Standing Committee on Tobacco Control would meet in Chennai on September 17 to work out procedures for strict implementation.

The Health Secretary will chair the meeting, which will be attended by officials of the Police and Education Departments. Revised rules for prohibition of smoking in public places have been notified by the Centre, and those found smoking in a public place will be fined Rs.200.

“In the Health Department, we have identified the enforcing officers, and health inspectors have been asked to swing into action,” Dr. Elango said. The offices of Deputy Directors of Health Services in all districts will be free of smoking.

He said the officers would inspect the public places from October 2 to ensure they were smoke-free. The list of public places includes shopping malls, cinema halls, public/private workplaces, hotels, airport lounges and railway stations.

Alliance to integrate IT education in India

New Delhi: Intel, Dell, Acer and Educomp have come together to drive integration of technology into classroom teaching and learning in schools across India.

The alliance partners will jointly undertake a high decibel pan-India awareness campaign to reach over seven thousand schools across 140 cities by holding ‘Next-Gen School Seminars' over the next six months.

These seminars will seek to update schools leaders with latest technology innovations in class room teaching across the globe.

These educator seminars by alliance partners will showcase to the school community the latest technology that is changing the way teachers teach and students learn across the globe and also offer a rare opportunity to schools to witness a brand new paradigm in digital learning globally.

"The India education sector is one of the largest in the world with over a million schools yet less than five per cent of classrooms are digitally enabled. This technology shift is urgently required to prepare young Indians for the knowledge economy of the future," Educomp Solutions Managing Director Shantanu Prakash said.

He added that this alliance will aim to accelerate the pace of adoption of technology aided learning in Indian classrooms further enabling better learning outcomes among students.

Alliance in the first phase will especially target schools in smaller town and tier 2 and 3 cities, including Guntur, Kullu, Bhatinda, Moga, Jhansi, Haldwani, Dhanbad, Una, Nellore, Siliguri, Durgapur and Kakinada.

Speaking on the occasion, Intel South Asia Director Sales and Marketing Sandeep Aurora said, "There is tremendous potential for technology to transform lives and we believe that connectivity will be a driver and education will be the enabler in this transformation."

Under Intel's World Ahead Program, the company was working to improve the overall quality of education, by providing schools access to technology through PCs, and preparing teachers on effective use of technology in education, he added.

"This is also in line with a collaborative movement Intel recently facilitated, called 'Connected Indian', where government, industry associations and private enterprise have come together for the common cause of connecting a billion Indians," Aurora said.

"We are pleased to partner with Educomp in their endeavour to reach out to schools across the country. We look forward to empowering aspiring students with the best in technology," Acer India Chief Customer Support Officer Sudipto Ghosh said.

Referring to the alliance, Educomp Solutions President Abhinav Dhar said that the need of the hour was to supplement traditional methods of learning in classrooms with innovative IT and multimedia applications to enhance a child's educational experience.

"IT can empower the teachers by providing them with many more resources and methods within the classroom. The objective of our campaign would be to communicate to the schools Principals and Educators the latest developments and innovations in this space," Dhar said.

The initiative would bring large number of Indian schools into the digital learning age where students are able to learn in a multi sensory mode and thus achieve higher academic performance.

India's GDP to dip in fiscals 2008, 2009: ADB

Manila: India's economy will experience a marked slowdown in the 2008 and 2009 financial years, ending its run of five consecutive years of very high growth, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Tuesday.

In its latest report 'The Asian Development Outlook 2008 Update', ADB forecasted that India's growth rate will decrease to 7.4 per cent in fiscal 2008 and decelerate further to seven per cent in FY 2009.

The new figures are down on ADB's April forecasts of eight per cent and 8.5 per cent, respectively, and much less than the impressive nine per cent growth posted in the last fiscal year ending March 2008.

The report further noted that current developments are challenging India's strong growth performance of recent years.

Emerging capacity constraints, continued rapid expansion in credit, and an increase in global commodity prices have combined to trigger a spike in domestic inflation.

The report warned that global commodity prices and domestic demand growth supported by price subsidies will continue to place upward pressure on prices.

Further, the government's attempts to rein in inflation through monetary policy tightening combined with ad hoc interventions, including reduction in customs duties and bans on export of essential commodities, are having limited impact, the ADB said.

Real interest rates have actually fallen and the projections for the inflation rate, based on the wholesale price index, have been adjusted upward to 11.5 per cent in FY 2008 and 7.5 per cent in FY 2009.

"The Indian economy is now at a critical juncture where policies to contain inflation and ensure macroeconomic stabilization have taken center stage," ADB Chief Economist Ifzal Ali said.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, at 7.9 per cent in the first quarter of FY 2008 (April-June), saw the slowest expansion in three and a half years.

The most pronounced slide was in industry, dragged down by a halving in the manufacturing growth rate, the report said.

Higher interest rates and a weakening global and domestic outlook have caused companies to scale back investment.

Growth in investment will continue to be limited by faltering business confidence, fewer options for foreign financing owing to a drop in risk appetite by foreign financial institutions, growing difficulties in securing domestic bank financing, and the need to maintain tight monetary conditions and high interest rates to bring down inflation, according to the ADB report.

The trade and current account deficits have grown wider in recent years, reflecting the impact of escalating oil prices and the expansion in non-oil imports, led by rapid growth in consumer and investment demand.

Net capital inflows are much lower than a year ago as foreign exchange reserves have fallen by US $13 billion in the first five months of FY 2008 (April-August). Nevertheless, the accumulated reserves of over 20 per cent of the fiscal year's estimated GDP provide a very generous cushion against external vulnerabilities.

The report noted that the escalation in oil, fertiliser and food subsidies, as well as other off-budget liabilities has created large fiscal imbalances.

"Cutting the subsidies is a daunting task, but maintaining them would imperil any return to the high-growth path of recent years," Ali said.

The report says that India faces a serious dilemma in macroeconomic stabilisation.

On the one hand, further monetary tightening could threaten growth objectives. On the other hand, financing the current level of subsidies will increase the pressure for rapid credit expansion which, unless checked, will lead to higher inflation.

Additional tightening in policy, raising both nominal and real interest rates, will be likely required, the ADB report said.

"Dealing with rising prices and a worsening fiscal situation, as well as the need to adopt structural reforms to fulfill the country's enormous economic potential present a difficult task for the country's economic managers," the ADB Chief Economist said.

New NXP security chip to boost e-Gov transactions

Eindhoven (Netherlands): NXP Semiconductors has announced its latest SmartMX security chip, the P5CD081, the high performance contactless IC for e-passport and electronic identification applications.

The P5CD081 processes transactions twice as fast as the current industry standard for contactless smart card chips, and offers the highest security level with an EAL5+ level Common Criteria certification, the company claimed.

The new SmartMX is also the first smart card controller to feature Secure Fetch technology, which significantly enhances the chip hardware security.

This unique security technology from NXP offers increased protection against attack scenarios with light and lasers (so-called fault attacks), thereby greatly facilitating the development of highly secure software applications for customers, the company said.

NXP Semiconductors e-Government General Manager Günter Schlatte said, “Our new SmartMX chip offers a flexible solution for high-security, high-speed governmental applications such as e-passports, e-ID cards, electronic health cards and drivers licenses.”

The P5CD081 dual interface smart card controller addresses the needs of advanced e-Government applications requiring enhanced security, more data and faster transmission rates.

The strong computing capabilities of the new SmartMX chip double the speed of authentication, significantly accelerating e-passport transaction times at border control.

Due to its fast performance, the chip is also specifically suited for sophisticated eID applications, such as secure electronic signatures for transactions via the Internet.

Sacking govt easier than removing judges in India

From http://www.igovernment.in/site/Sacking-govt-easier-than-removing-judges-in-India/

Sacking govt easier than removing judges in India
Transparency International in its 2007 report said Judiciary in India was the third most corrupt institutions. Recent instances seem proving it

Published on 9/16/2008 3:33:35 PM
By Sarita Yadav

The letter written by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to the Prime Minister seeking his intervention in initiating impeachment proceedings against a sitting Judge of Calcutta High Court, has triggered a debate again regarding corruption in higher Judiciary and its impunities.

We have seen removal of governments and Prime Ministers so many times, but removal of High Court and Supreme Court judges has not been so far heard after the Constitution of India came into force in 1950.

Independent India has, however, witnessed one impeachment, when Justice Shiv Prasad Sinha of Allahabad High Court was removed by the then Governor General of India, C Rajagopalachari in 1949 on the recommendation of the Federal Court.

The Chief Justice has given detailed information about Justice Sen's misconduct when he was appointed receiver by Justice AN Roy in Steel Authority of India versus Shipping Corporation of India case in 1993.

The three-Judge panel comprising Madras High Court Chief Justice AP Shah, MP High Court Chief Justice AK Patnaik and Rajasthan High Court Chief Justice RM Lodha inquired into the charges levelled against Justice Sen and found them true.

The panel submitted its report in February, 2008. On March 16, the Collegiums of the apex court comprising of Chief Justice BN Agarwal and Justice Asok Bhan asked Justice Sen either to resign or to opt for voluntary retirement, but the unrelenting Judge refused to comply with, which forced Chief Justice to resort to this unprecedented move.

The move is unprecedented, because neither there is any provision in the constitution about such recommendation nor before this, any Chief Justice has taken such 'extreme step'.

In fact Article 124(4) of Indian Constitution provides for removal of High Court and Supreme Court Judges.

This Article says, “A Judge of Supreme Court shall not be removed from his office except by an order of the President passed after an address by each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total number of membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present and voting has been presented to the President in the same session for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.”

There is no separate provision for removal of High Court judges and Article 217(1)(b) provides for this and says, “A Judge may be removed from his office by the President in the manner provided in clause(4) of Article 124 for the removal of a Judge of the Supreme Court.”

The processes of removal of High Court and Supreme Court judges are the same. The above Article of the Constitution provides for impeachment, whereas; Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968 determines the process of impeachment.

According to this Act, the impeachment of a Judge can be done only by Parliament and impeachment can be initiated after a motion addressed to the President of India is signed by at least 100 members of the Lok sabha or 50 members of Rajya Sabha.

Such is the process and such is the impunity. Such Judicial impunity has been conferred on Judiciary for the sake of its independence.

The above provision is similar to the rule prevailing in England, since the Act of Settlement, 1701, to the effect that though Judges of the Superior Courts are appointed by the Crown, they do not hold office during his pleasure, but hold their office on good behaviour and the Crown may remove them only upon a joint address from both Houses of Parliament.

Any way the credit must be given to Chief Justice, who could take such extra-ordinary step, because after all, extra-ordinary situation demands extra-ordinary steps.

But unfortunately, the government was sitting over it as it was written two months ago and could only be known to public through media.

Before any debate on this issue, it should be clearly borne in mind that above cumbersome procedure of impeachment and other judicial impunities have been enshrined in the Constitution for making Judiciary independent.

Independence of Judiciary: The independence is guaranteed in our Constitution and the concept has been borrowed from the US Constitution. Article III of US Constitution guarantees Independence and Supremacy of Judiciary in the US.

Independence of Judiciary is the tenet of democracy and therefore, even Russian Constitution of 1993 (Chapter-7 Section 120-122) also guarantees independence of Judiciary in the country.

In fact section 124 of the Russian Constitution says, “Judges shall posses immunity and criminal proceedings may not be brought against a Judge except as provided for by federal law.”

In India, this independence and limited Judicial Supremacy are enshrined in the Constitution and are expressed in (a) Methods of appointment of Judges (b) process of impeachment and (c) power of judicial review.

Now, if all these provisions of the Constitution are analysed, inference can easily be drawn that the problems lay here themselves and so do solutions.

Appointment: Articles 124 and 217 provide for appointment of Judges of Supreme Court and High Court respectively. They clearly stipulate that the appointments have to be made by the President in consultation with Chief Justice.

The word 'consultation' has been always a matter of dissent and controversy. In fact, when AN Ray was appointed as Chief Justice after superseding three senior Judges namely Hegde, Grover and Shelat, there was uproar in Judicial community including the Bar council of the apex court.

They argued that judges have been superseded owing to their judgement in Keshavanand case (AIR 1973 Supreme Court) which went against the government.

Gradually the direction of Executive in matters of appointment of judges started diminishing. In 1993, a land mark judgment came from Supreme Court in 'Advocates on record versus Union of India' case.

The apex court ruled that the recommendations for appointment of Judges in High Court and Supreme Court will be made by collegiums of three Judges and shall be in a way binding on the government.

After a 'presidential reference', the number in the collegiums was increased from three to five.

This judgment was a landmark because it took virtually all discretionary powers of the Executive in matters of appointment of judges in higher judiciary. Thus, the word 'consultation' became 'concurrence'.

Some people in legal domain argue that it was a dangerous development and was against the principles of the Constitution itself. How can a person or a group of persons appoint themselves which goes against the ideas enshrined in Article 311?

They opine that there must be a transparent and justifiable procedure for such appointments. There are instances where persons from one family are becoming Judges for two to three generations.

The judicial community of higher Judiciary is becoming an elite club of few 'privileged families'. Candidly, it is not what 'independence' meant for.

The opinions expressed in this article are of the writer and not those of iGovernment or Reflections

Preparing His Disciples

Then Jesus and his followers left that place. They went
through Galilee. Jesus did not want the people to know where
they were. Jesus wanted to teach his followers alone. Jesus
said to them, "The Son of Man will be given to people that
will kill him. After three days, he will rise from death."

-- Mark 9:30-31 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Jesus' time is short. He knows he must invest his time wisely. He knows
he must prepare his key followers for what lies ahead. He must
reproduce his influence, teaching, and ministry. So he withdraws to
teach the closest followers, his key followers, personally.


TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father, give me wisdom to know best how to invest my time and in whom I
should invest it. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Better healthcare through your cell phone possible

Washington: University of California researchers have developed a lens-free imaging technique small enough to fit in a mobile phone, which can be a boon in developing countries where healthcare is non-existent.

The study outlines improvements in a technique known as Lucas, or 'lensless ultra-wide-field cell monitoring array,' platform based on shadow imaging, reports IANS.

Lucas technique demonstrated a method for quickly and accurately counting targeted cell types in a homogenous cell solution. Removing lens from the imaging process allows Lucas to be scaled down for integration into a cellphone.

Samples could be loaded into a specially equipped phone using a disposable microfluidic chip.

University of California, Los Angeles researchers have further refined Lucas technique to be able to classify a significantly larger sample volume—up to 5 ml, up from a tenth of one ml—representing a major step toward portable medical diagnostic applications.

The research team, led by Aydogan Ozcan, assistant professor of electrical engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, includes postdoctoral scholar Sungkyu Seo, doctoral student Ting-Wei Su, master's student Derek Tseng and undergraduate Anthony Erlinger.

Ozcan envisions people one day being able to draw a blood sample into a chip the size of a quarter, which could then be inserted into a LUCAS-equipped cell phone that would quickly identify and count the cells within the sample. The read-out could be sent wirelessly to a hospital for further analysis.

These findings will be published in the quarterly Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering and is currently available online.

Court slams Naco for faulty HIV kits

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday came down heavily on the National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco) for suppressing a World Bank report on faulty HIV kits being used in India.

The court issued a notice to Naco asking it to explain by October 22 as to why it suppressed the World Bank findings that poor quality HIV kits were being used in India, reports IANS.

Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S Murlidhar asked Naco why it had made false claims that the US Centre for Disease Control had verified that the HIV kits used during the second national AIDS control project (NACP-II) in Indian hospitals and blood banks were of standard quality.

The court was hearing a public interest petition filed by Kunal Shah, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the use of defective HIV kits.

Shah said he was a member of the World Bank team that investigated complaints of spurious HIV kits in India in 2007.

He has sought equitable justice for all victims who were infected with the AIDS virus as a result of flawed HIV kits manufactured by Monozyme India.

Crime detection in Jharkhand to go hi-tech

Ranchi: Crime detection in Jharkhand is set to go high-tech. The state police will now utilise a state-of-the-art forensic science laboratory (FSL), which started its operation in Ranchi from Thursday last.

The FSL, first of its quality and feature in the entire eastern region, has also tied up with the Central Institute Psychiatry (CIP), Kanke, for conducting brain mapping and narco analysis test on hardcore criminals and Naxalites, who usually don't break before the police.

Announcing the launch, Jharkhand Director General of Police (DGP) Vishny Dayal Ram said that the state had a small unit of the FSL but that did not support all the needs of the investigation.

"Now we have a highly sophisticated FSL that has almost all the requirements including DNA testing, brain mapping and many other facilities," he said.

Ram said that this will help us investigate crime and gather proof to make our point stronger in the court of law.

The new FSL has been set up in the old jail compound in Ranchi at the cost of Rs 10 crore and is equipped with most of the latest gadgets needed for crime investigation.

"The experts from Hyderabad FSL visited the lab and claimed that it is one of the best lab that exists in the country. We have equipments that support almost all kind of investigation," Police spokesman and IG SN Pradhan said.

"Besides, we also have started working and have already examined around 1,000 exhibits; moreover, the pending cases till now is nil,” he said.

Pradhan said that the FSL would rope in psychiatrists from CIP, one of the premier institutes of mental health in the country, to conduct brain mapping.

"Besides, we are having talks with the Government of India to get the legal clearance for the same," he added.

The IG said that the cyber crime lab would also be established soon.

"We in association with the Cyber forensic and National Anti-Hacker Group CEO Vineet Kumar would be detecting cyber crime too,'' he said.

The police department has also received a proposal from the Jharkhand High Court for its participation in FSL, the spokesman added.

"The judges and that too of the lower courts are not very much aware of the forensic proofs. We need to educate them for the same and the Jharkhand High Court has taken the first step in this direction," Pradhan added.

UP to constitute anti-child labour panel

Lucknow: Alarmed by the fact that Uttar Pradesh has almost two million child labourers, the highest in India, the government of the most populous Indian state has decided to constitute of a commission to protect child rights.

"The Anti-Child Labour Commission would be formed within a month as the exercise of selecting representatives of the board has already begun. Now it is high time to adopt every means to check child labour in the state," Social Welfare Commissioner RK Mittal said.

He said problems pertaining to child education, health, protection and others would be addressed by the commission.

The upcoming commission will work similarly on the lines of women commission, reports IANS quoting Mittal.

An annual study, jointly prepared by the Ministry of Labour Department in India, Department of Labour in Uttar Pradesh and Institute of Management Development in UP, has found that the state has 1.93 million child labourers, the highest in the country.

The findings of the study, which were revealed in an ongoing seminar organised here by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, have become a topic of debate, an official said.

India may set up federal agency to battle terror

New Delhi: India will soon unveil more focused and dramatic measures to battle terrorism by setting up a federal investigating agency or by restructuring the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a senior minister said on Monday.

"In a few weeks we expect to come out with more focused and dramatic measures," Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Prithviraj Chavan said.

"Terrorism is a growing concern for the government. There is serious thinking on creating a separate Federal Investigating Agency dedicated to combating terrorism," he said.

"Position papers on this have been circulated. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too has had a look at it. We have to get a consensus across the states for creating this new agency. The Prime Minister may keep it under his charge or it could be with the Home Ministry," he said.

Another idea being actively considered is restructuring the CBI to enable it to have three separate wings, Chavan stated.

"One will focus only on intelligence gathering in the context of terrorism and take appropriate preventive action; another will concentrate on economic crimes like money laundering, counterfeit currency and anti-corruption; while the third wing will be on the request of states to investigate and look into crimes beyond the capacity of the local police force," he said.

Chavan's comments came after five bombs went off in three shopping districts in New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least 21 people and injuring 100 people.

The Minister insisted that bringing back the anti-terrorist legislation Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) would not solve the problem of terrorism as many innocents of a particular religion and community were persecuted under Pota.

"So we do not think it was the right approach to fighting terrorism. The existing laws were adequate to fight terrorism," the Minister said, adding that without a doubt India has to reinforce its intelligence set-up and adopt modern technologies to penetrate the terrorist outfits.

Chandigarh police goes hi-tech to deal cyber crime

A machine to recover deleted SMSes and another to scan through any suspected hard disk, these are among the latest gadgets acquired by the Chandigarh police to tackle cyber crime.



The Crime Branch and Cyber Crime Cell of the Chandigarh police are now using advanced technology of Cell Dek and portable forensic lab (PFL) machine to combat rising crime, police officials said here.



"The Cell Dek machine can retrieve the call details of dialled numbers, received and missed calls from a mobile. Even the sent and received messages can be retrieved in three to six minutes depending on the data," Deputy Superintendent of Police KIP Singh said.



If an accused deletes the records from the mobile memory, Cell Dek can easily recover all the details, reports IANS quoting Singh.



The police have a new gadget called Faraday Bag. If a mobile is put in the bag, then the number becomes unreachable for all networks, the official added.



The police also have a PFL machine that can retrieve the data from any suspected drives and hard disks.



"Reports of these machines are authenticated in the courts all over the world and no one can challenge their results," a senior crime branch official said.



"These machines are of great help and will certainly streamline our working. Now we are well equipped to face the challenges of burgeoning cyber crime in the vicinity. Earlier we were dependent on other agencies and laboratories but now we are self-sufficient," Chandigarh Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) SS Srivastava said.



Both PFL and Cell Dek machines come in handy bags and are easy to carry. These machines have been imported from the US by a Delhi-based distributor in May this year.

1.48 lakh villages to get broadband by March 2009

New Delhi: State owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) in a major expansion spree is planning to provide broadband coverage to 1.48 lakh villages in the next six months compared to only 30,000 villages now.

At present, it has covered about 95 per cent of the district headquarters and about 44 per cent of the blocks. Its broadband already covers 3,261 cities, which will be further expanded to 5,000 cities by March next year.

The Communications and IT Minister A Raja announced that the Government of India will initially connect 5,000 blocks by wireless broadband soon after the allocation of the spectrum, with support from the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund.

He further stated that villages coming within a radius of 10 km of the block headquarter will be covered by such connectivity.

This will benefit many institutional users like schools, public health centers, village Panchayats and the community service centers (CSCs) meant to provide e-Governance and data services to the rural areas.

In order to promote expansion of rural wire line and wire line based broadband services, the government has recently decided to waive off the license fees for rural wire line.

In order to boost telephony in rural areas, BSNL recently introduced a tariff plan called 'Gramin 75', under which fixed monthly charges have been reduced from Rs 110 to Rs 75.

The Plan applies to exchange systems having capacity between 1,000 and 29,999 lines. Fixed monthly charges of Sulabh Plan under fixed and wireless in local loop (WLL) service in exchange system of more than 29,999 lines have also been reduced from Rs 120 to Rs 99.

GPS-based system soon for seamless navigation

New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) in India has given its nod for implementation of Rs 774 crore global positioning system (GPS) aided geo augmented navigation (Gagan) project for seamless navigation over Indian airspace.

The project, which involves development of indigenous technology in frontier areas, will boost the aviation sector and would enable aircraft to navigate on a straight path and route instead of navigating in zig-zag path over land based stations.

This system would also enable multiple approach capability, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said.

With the help of Gagan, it would be possible to provide coverage of oceanic areas, improve airport and airspace access in all weather conditions and enhance reliability and reduce delays.

The new system, once deployed, would provide uniform and accurate navigation performance over the entire airspace and provide fuel efficient air corridors and CAT-I approach without ground element support, the Ministry said.

The project would result in fuel savings and efficiency for airlines, besides enabling higher air traffic within the limited airspace.

Tamil Nadu gets hi-tech ambulance service

Chennai: Tamil Nadu will have a fleet of modern and sophisticated ambulances for handling emergency situations, which can be availed dialling 108.

And as a step towards that Chief Minister M Karunanidhi flagged off here on Monday the Emergency Management and Research Institute's (EMRI) ambulance service.

The service was launched by the state government that had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with EMRI in May. The MoU is for 198 ambulances to be provided by the government to EMRI, reports IANS.

By 2010, the state will have a fleet of 600 state-of-the-art ambulances, equipped with equipment like defibrillators and ventilators and extrication tools to handle almost any emergency situation.

The ambulances will be equipped with the geographical information system (GIS) and the geographical positioning systems (GPS) to quickly locate the scene of an emergency, EMRI CEO Venkat Changavalli said.

The comprehensive emergency response services (ERS) covering police, fire and medical services in the state will be introduced in a phased manner.

New secure land registration system in India soon

New Delhi: The Government of India has decided to introduce a new system of land registration that will help check fraudulent dealings in the country.

The 'Conclusive Title' system to be introduced under National Land Records Modernisation Programme (NLRMP) will provide a guarantee certificate to land owners about land propriety.

"The Registration Act, 1908 provides for registration of deeds and documents but not registration of titles (ownership). The titles to property are merely presumptive. This leads to a lot fraudulent land dealing," Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said here on Wednesday.

"Once introduced, an ownership guarantee certificate will be provided and none other than the owner can possess it," Singh said.

The activities proposed under NLRMP include computerisation of land records, digitisation of maps and integration of textual and spatial data in the country, reports IANS.

The total cost of the programme is Rs 5,650 crore and it is likely to be completed by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017).

The system will be of great benefit to people as land records will be always up to date, tamperproof and easily accessible since they will be placed on website with proper security codes, Singh said.

"The time taken for obtaining copies of land records will be drastically reduced; automatic and automated mutilations will reduce the scope of fraudulent property deals and also litigation," he added.

Several other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Switzerland, Sweden and even developing countries like Kenya and Thailand have switched over to this system.

TN seeks more control over deemed varsities

The Government of Tamil Nadu has sought additional powers from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in India to enable it exercise control over deemed universities in the state.



Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, in a letter sent to the MHRD, said the state needed powers to exercise control over these universities and supervision of admissions and fixing fee structure.



Earlier this month, the Ministry granted deemed university status to the private Chettinad Medical College without the recommendation of the state government, reports IANS.



Such self-financing professional colleges, after securing the deemed university status, could take students and fix the fee structure.



Moreover, these institutions were now not required to surrender seats to the government under the new quota guidelines, the official said, adding that this has deprived the state of 83 seats under the government quota.



Till now, private players needed to take mandatory clearance from the state's Health Department for establishing self-financing medical colleges. Only after completing the process would the Medical Council of India gave them permission to run medical colleges.

Bihar commercial taxes goes online

New Delhi: In a major initiative aimed at improving the ease of doing business and widening the commercial taxes net, the Government of Bihar has rolled out an information management system for value added tax (VAT) in the state.

The Value Added Tax Management Information System (VAT-MIS) being implemented by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has also integrated the investigation and enforcement functions of the state Commercial Taxes Department (CTD).

"This will not only help the department put a check on tax evasion and increase compliance by companies in the state, the solution will also make the entire commercial taxes mechanism more transparent and efficient," state Information Technology Secretary Alok V Chaturvedi said.

He further informed that the VAT-MIS application has been fully integrated with the newly launched CTD website to enable online registration and filing of returns for VAT and Central Sales Tax (SCT) by the business community across the state.

The rollout plan includes the e-payment facility that has been implemented using the State Bank of India (SBI) payment gateway on a pilot basis for the state capital Patna.

"Presently, only dealers at Patna having SBI account with electronic banking facility can make payment for VAT and CST," Chaturvedi said, adding that the e-service would be soon extended to rest of the state.

According to TCS Government Industry Solutions Unit Global Head (Pre-sales) R Srinivasan, while the state government has already rolled out e-services for VAT and CST through the CTD website, the same for other taxes-Entry Tax, Luxury Tax, Advertisement Tax, Entertainment Tax and Electricity Duty-would also be integrated into the system.

The Rs 30-crore project will also link up all 50 VAT offices in the state. According to Srinivasan, while the first phase (seven locations) and the second phase (15 locations) have been completed, work is in progress to link up the remaining 28 centres.

The VAT-MIS has been rolled out using BSNL connectivity for CTD offices, while the Commercial Tax Department portal has been hosted on Internet and is available throughout.

Talking about the initiative by the Bihar Government TCS Vice President and Global Government Industry Group Head Tanmoy Chakrabarty said that the state is an excellent example of a holistic, outcome based information technology deployment by the company.

"With the holistic deployment of an array of solutions ranging from treasury automation, workflow automation, taxation, to citizen service delivery portal and the deployment of a State Wide Area Network (Swan), Bihar is poised to rapidly move up in terms of e-Governance readiness among Indian states," he added.

Madhya Pradesh doctors' protection bill passed

Doctors in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh can now feel more equal than others.



The state government on Tuesday passed the Doctor's Protection Bill that aims at providing security to doctors and other medical personnel who have increasingly come under attack from patients' relatives.



The bill—Madhya Pradesh Chikitsak Tatha Chikitsa Seva Se Sambadh Vyaktiyon Ki Suraksha Vidheyak, 2008—makes any act of violence or threat to medical personnel a cognizable and non-bailable offence.



The law provides protection to doctors, nurses, paramedical staff, ward boys, attendants, clerks and other staff working in hospitals and diagnostic centres besides medical, nursing and paramedical students.



It envisages punishment of up to three months imprisonment or fine of Rs 10,000 or both to those found guilty.



The Bill covers both state and central government hospitals and dispensaries as also those run by public sector undertakings and private hospitals and diagnostic centres.



Doctors in the state often come under attack when they are unable to save a patient's life, officials said.



The bill was passed without any debate as most of the opposition members were around the speaker's podium, demanding Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's resignation and a judicial enquiry into the communal riots in Indore over the Amarnath land row that killed seven people.

Rs 3,300 Cr power dues from Karnataka farmers

Bangalore: Karnataka farmers owe state-owned electricity supply companies a staggering Rs 3,346 crore and the state government wants them to pay up to get free power supply for their irrigation pumpsets of up to 10 horse power capacity.

"Farmers in the state owe Rs 2,682 crore and another Rs 664 crore in interest on it to the six electricity supply companies," state Rural Development Minister Shobha Karandlaje said.

"The government is ready to write off the interest on the dues if the farmers paid the principal in eight instalments over a period of two years," she told reporters after a cabinet meeting that decided on several conditions for farmers to get free power supply.

Only those farmers who pay the dues will get free power supply. These farmers should also agree to install metres to monitor power consumption, reports IANS quoting Karandlaje.

As a sop to farmers who are opposed to installing the metres, the cabinet decided that the government would bear the metre installation cost, she said.

Free power supply to farmers with irrigation pumpsets of up to 10 horse power capacity was one of the election promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party that came to power in Karnataka for the first time in May this year.

The cabinet decided to exclude from the free power supply scheme farmers who pay income tax, professional tax and those employed in the state and central governments, state-aided institutions, boards and corporations.

Karandlaje said the free power scheme will benefit 1.6 million farmers

Sponsors to improve Muslims’ civil services score

Abysmally low representation of Indian Muslims in the civil services has prompted sponsors and government to help the minority community improve their stake.

Their lower presence is due to a much smaller number of candidates appearing for the civil services examination. But the success rate of Muslims and other candidates was found to be the same.

According to the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee report, Muslims accounted for only four per cent in the Indian Police Service (IPS), three per cent in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) and 1.8 per cent in the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).

While the Minority Affairs Ministry has started giving grants for coaching Muslim students, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are preparing the ground so that more candidates from the minority community get to join Indian civil services.

In New Delhi, the Hamdard Study Circle has been giving Muslim civil service aspirants necessary guidance since 1992, providing them hostel rooms, an excellent library and guest lecturers.

The India Islamic Cultural Centre (IICC) has launched a project, which was a part of programmes that voluntary groups have initiated targeting poor Muslim students, to make them write the civil services examination by providing financial help and motivation.

The Ministry had launched a free coaching and allied assistance revised scheme in 2007. The eligible candidates had to have an annual family income less than Rs 2.5 lakh.

It had released Rs 30 million to over 30 coaching institutes, some of which provided facilities for aspirants to union and state civil services in places like Jaipur, Srinagar and Ranchi.

Like IICC, some organisations prefer to rely on private funds. Last year the New Delhi-based Zakat Foundation India (ZFI) chose 13 candidates from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir and West Bengal to appear for the preliminary examinations.

Now it is searching for a second batch of candidates who will be selected after written tests and interviews by July.

“We know there is already a heavy rush for coaching centres, so we asked the applicants to block seats. We will reimburse it later,” said a ZFI official.

Commotion over promotion in national air carrier

New Delhi: Does Air India fly higher than Indian? The recent appointment of 24 executive directors from a pool of 59 general managers of the integrated National Aviation Company of India (Nacil) seems to prove exactly that.

airindia.gifThe merger of Air India and Indian to form Nacil has not only brought integration headaches but large-scale employee resentment as well.

All norms in promoting general managers to the posts of executive directors (ED) were allegedly flouted to maintain the superiority of the erstwhile Air India in the merged office.

While 18 officers from the erstwhile Air India cadre were promoted to the post of EDs, only six from the erstwhile Indian were lucky to make it to the post.

The merger of the two national carriers seems to have also merged the generic and cadre posts of the two premier government carriers, resulting in widespread resentment among the officials.

The aggrieved general managers in a representation submitted to the Nacil Chairman-cum- Managing Director (CMD) said the move clearly violates the directives issued via notification number 05 of 2008 (amendment).

The notification clearly said that the post of ED Ground Operations was a cadre based post under the Ground Support Cadre.

"It was surprising to find Rohita Jaidka being appointed as ED (ground operations) despite her coming from the commercial cadre," a senior official of the erstwhile Indian said on condition of anonymity.

"This is clear case of violation of the instructions issued under the above said notification as there is no provision for interchangeability of cadre based and generic posts," the official alleged.

What has also surprised the agitated senior officials of erstwhile Indian was the fact that the recent round of promotion has seen the Nacil promote four general managers as EDs in the generic cadre, as against the notification of three vacancies for ED procurement, eastern region and related business.

"Rohita was accommodated as ED (ground operations) at the fourth position," the letter contended.

Surprisingly, those selected for the four posts were at seniority number 17 (Vijay Paul), 22 (A K Sondhi), 40 (P Senthil Kumar) and 41(Rohita Jaidka).

"It implies that some of the most senior persons above them have been found unsuitable for appointment to the post of ED from the generic cadre," the letter said.

Anomalies have also surfaced in case of promotions to Captain R Anand and Captain A S Soman to the post of EDs. The two were yet to be confirmed as General Managers and hence did not even qualify for being shortlisted for the interview, the representation said.

As per instructions of Clause 8 and Clause 9 of notification number 06 of 2008, only the five General Manager from operations, who were confirmed in their grade, were eligible for the post.

"The appointment of Capt R Anand as ED (operations-II) and Capt A K Soman as ED (flight safety) is against all norms of promotion and seniority," the representation alleged adding that while the post of ED (operations-II) was not even notified, the notified post of ED (training) was not filled up by Nacil.

The other bone of contention is the promotion of T K Palit as ED (alliance management and international relations), a commercial cadre post that the petition alleges was again done in gross violation of the norms contained in notification number 05/06/ of 2008, the representation said.

"As per this notification Palit was to be considered for the generic cadre post of Executive Director (fleet and network planning) only," it said.

In notification number 06 of 2008, it was also stated that a policy has been formulated as a one-time exercise, which would attempt to balance the opportunities for advancement and foreign postings in both the erstwhile companies.

The selection process has very blatantly created further imbalance both in terms of promotions and foreign postings, it alleged.

"Executives from erstwhile Air India have been favored by not only by out-of-turn promotions, but also in that all the four foreign regional executive directors' positions have been awarded to erstwhile Air India Executives, in spite of their multiple foreign postings earlier," the representation alleged.

According to a senior officer from erstwhile Indian, while most of the senior officials from Indian have foreign experience, many of them have also been involved in setting up foreign base and operations, something that most of the second generation senior Air India officials lack.

Sources in the Civil Aviation Ministry said the all such discrepancies in transfers and promotions were rooted during the tenure of outgoing CMD V Thulasidas hours before retiring from the post on March 31.

As many as 50 people, at the Executive Director, General Manager and DGM levels, had been either promoted or asked to assume officiating charge of certain key positions by Thulasidas.

The outgoing CMD allegedly signed promotion orders for 30 people to operate as officiating general managers, another 25 officers were promoted to the DGM level and the remaining were promoted to the Executive Director level.

Not ready to give up on their rights, over 100 pilots and general managers of the erstwhile Indian have given separate representations demanding a review of the irregularities in promotion.

The commercial pilots association and general managers are also actively deliberating on setting up a joint action group and taking legal recourse if the management fails to address their woes.

HCL, Echelon to bring smart metering in India

HCL Infosystems has announced a tie up with Echelon Corporation of the US to bring Echelon's Networked Energy Services (NES) advanced metering systems to India for improving electricity supply and reducing energy theft.



The new metering infrastructures will make the energy grid more efficient by enabling utilities to implement direct load control and demand and response programmes, limit maximum energy consumption during peak hours and detect and reduce meter tampering and energy theft.



Under the partnership, HCL plans to market the solution to utilities looking to improve power delivery while reducing operation costs, and to provide revenue recovery and protection.



The new systems will help the government's ambitious objective to provide electricity to every household by 2012, at an investment of over US $100 billion in new generation, transmission, distribution and rural electric infrastructure.



“Modernising the electricity grid is an essential component of this plan, given daily electricity shortfalls during peak hours is projected to grow unless steps are taken,” HCL Infosystems Executive VP George Paul said.



He said that HCL has chosen Echelon because its NES system is the most advanced smart metering solution available and provides a platform for growth into the future.



Paul added that the system can bring many benefits to both grid operators and end-users, making it an ideal solution for the fast-changing needs of India.



The NES advanced metering infrastructure from Echelon consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a web services based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure.



The system provides an open, bi-directional, and extensible infrastructure that enables a comprehensive range of utility applications that can bring benefits to every aspect of a utility's operation, from metering, to customer services, to distribution operations, to value-added services.



Multiple NES meters can share a single IP connection through the use of Echelon's proven standards-based power line networking technology, driving down the per-point connection cost and enabling the system to easily and cost-effectively incorporate new wide area networking technologies over time.



“India is in position to make substantial changes to its infrastructure in the coming years and by partnering with HCL we look to play an important role in the market,” Echelon's Utility Solutions Senior VP Frits Bruggink said.

Improve toilet facilities for women in Delhi: High Court

New Delhi: Women in Delhi have very limited public convenience facilities forcing them to defecate sometimes even in the open, a survey revealed.

The report prepared by a Delhi University student Shahana Sheikh as part of her summer internship with a Delhi-based research organisation has compelled the Delhi High Court to direct civic bodies to provide better public conveniences.

A division bench comprising of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S Muralidhar on Wednesday asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to take note of Sheikh's recommendations and compile a detailed report within four weeks.

Shahana, a final year student of Economics at Lady Sri Ram (LSR) College, undertook a tour of slums and the outskirts of Delhi from May to July 2008.

According to Sheikh, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), in its 2007 report, claims that there are 3,192 public conveniences in the national capital but she found only 1,534 toilets during her survey.

In her report titled "Public Toilets in Delhi—An emphasis on the Facilities for Women in Slum Areas", Sheikh said only 132 urinals are available for women and most of them are in a dilapidated state.

"A man has options but a woman can't urinate in the open as that is deemed 'uncultured'. The issue of public toilets affects women the most, especially poor women," Sheikh said.

"People talk about feminism all the time but nobody thinks of a need as basic as a toilet for them despite the fact that our Chief Minister and Mayor of Delhi are both women," she added.

According to the survey, there are only 14-16 toilets for 40,000 people in Sanjay Colony near Okhla. In Kusumpur in the Vasant Vihar area, there are only 30 toilets for a population of 30,000.

Similarly, Rajiv Camp in the Trans Yamuna area has 15 toilets for a population of 3,000 people and Madanpur Khadar has 302 for 1.5 lakh people.

"Officials from the slum department of the MCD said the norm in slum areas is one latrine seat for 150 people and a 20-20 (20 latrine seats for men and 20 latrine seats for women) for a plot meant for 500 households," the report stated.

Sheikh has recommended that the MCD should make it mandatory for companies, who show interest in constructing, repairing and maintaining toilets on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis in lucrative areas, to also do the same in slum and resettlement areas.

"Pay-and-use toilet facilities for women can work as a policy for slum areas. Every adult can make a one-time deposit of Rs 100 towards the maintenance fund for the constructed public toilet," she added.

GPS, the latest tool for Tajikistan farmers

Farmers in Tajikistan will use global positioning satellite (GPS) technology system to determine the exact size of their land plots, the latitude, longitude, evenness of their fields and precise location as well as land altitudes and elevation.




To this effect, the International Finance Corporation has launched a new initiative to help farmers in Southern Tajikistan improve land measuring practices.



The easy to implement technology will allow farmers to stake out the corners of a field, transmit data and receive the precise size and layout of the field, besides enabling them to improve the implementation of agro techniques.



Having the precise size of land in hectares will allow farmers to use their funds more efficiently to purchase inputs, including seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. The new technology will also help improve water supply and field irrigation.



The GPS system will overcome the problems of limited agricultural knowledge and weak management skills, which restrict farmers in making efficient use of their land. It would also help farmers in fetching loans from banks as the banks require precise land sizes.



This technology was introduced and tested in May 2008 by the IFC Southern Tajikistan Cotton Lending Project, which is funded by the Canadian International Agency for Development.



The project works in collaboration with two banks, TojikSoridotBonk and First Microfinance Bank, to expand access to finance for cotton farmers in Southern Tajikistan.



The agricultural sector, particularly cotton production, is the largest employer in Southern Tajikistan and critical to the local economy.



Tajikistan's ongoing land reforms aimed at decentralising agriculture have helped create some 30,000 privatised farms covering about 75 per cent of arable land.



“I am now able to calculate the exact agricultural needs of my farm. This will also help me implement agro technical activities more successfully and contribute to better yield and more income,” Dekhan Farm Boboi Muso Chairman Ikromjon Nazarov said.

Smart cards to replace ration cards in Haryana

Chandigarh: The Government of Haryana has decided to replace nearly 5.2 million ration cards in the state with smart cards. It has earmarked an amount of Rs 153 crore for the project.

Once implemented, Haryana will become the first state in the country to have smart cards for the public distribution system, state government officials here said.

The state is awaiting the nod of the central government to implement the scheme. The cards would be made by the Haryana State Electronic Development Corporation (Hartron), reports IANS.

The smart cards will even carry details of the monthly entitlement of each poor family when they buy things at subsidised rates from fair price shops.

Finger print templates of the members would also be stored in the card to ensure that the transaction happens only in the presence of the beneficiary, a state government spokesperson said here.

How dare you kiss in Chennai?

Honestly, I could not understand the parody. Am I too old

http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/oct/03sw.htm

Chennai, the city of auto majors Ford, Hyundai, BMW [Images], Ashok Leyland [Get Quote]. Chennai, the city of software majors TCS [Get Quote], Wipro [Get Quote], Infosys [Get Quote], Xansa.

Chennai, the city of several engineering colleges and thousands of engineering students.

Chennai, the city where the country's first six-lane information technology expressway is under construction.

Chennai, the city of the Big Brother.

Scene One

A park in Chennai. A young teenage boy and a girl are sitting on a bench munching peanuts. The distance between them slowly reduces, and the boy puts his hand on the girl's shoulder and draws her close to him. They are still talking and munching peanuts. No, they are not about to kiss, but their physical proximity is such that they can. That is, if Big Brother does not turn up. And he does.

The terrified kids jump up.

"What are you two doing here?" asks Big Brother.

"Nothing�" the boy stammers.

"Nothing? What nothing? You are doing something," Big Brother thunders.

"We were talking and eating peanuts," the boy's voice is barely audible.

"What? Can't you talk loudly?" Big Bother's voice is so loud that the two young things clasp hands in fright.

"Take your hands off her." Big Brother whacks the boy with his baton so hard that his eyes fill with tears. The girl has already started crying.

"No tears. No crying. Don't you know boys and girls are not supposed to sit so close to each other and hold hands in a public place?"

The boy wants to ask 'What's wrong in us sitting close and holding hands?'

"Don't say she's your girl friend?"

The boy nods.

"Girlfriend and boyfriend? What is this world coming to? Come on, get into the jeep. I am taking you two into custody."

Moral of the story: If you are in Chennai, never sit on a park bench with your girlfriend or boyfriend. And, most importantly, never hold hands. It is not part of the great Chennai Culture.

Scene 2

A party in the discotheque of a luxury hotel. Loud chatter, louder music. Couples dancing merrily on the floor. The music gets louder and the dancers more passionate. Bodies intertwine. Soon, some lips lock.

Enter Big Brother on the dance floor.

"Stop!" his voice booms, but the music is too loud. He keeps shouting, but no one can hear him. He rushes towards the DJ console and terrorises the DJ into stopping the music.

The romantic world of the couples shatters.

Big Brother jumps onto a chair and shouts, "What's this? What's going on here? Don't you have any respect for this great city, and its great culture?"

"What's he saying?" A woman whispers as she comes out of the trance.

"You people better listen to me. This is a great city..."

"How many times will he say that?" Another woman laughs.

"The culture of the city is so great that here, no woman and man should hug each other in public, nobody should dance like mad people. You should learn to dance Bharata Natyam. That's our culture, and not this. Here, no man and woman kiss each other in a public place."

"This is not a public place. This is a hotel, and this is a dance floor," an angry young man shouts back.

"I will arrest you for insulting our great culture. No man and woman should kiss in a hotel even if they are husband and wife. You will be arrested if you do that. Today, I, the Big Brother, forgive you," he jumps off the chair and walks away.

Moral of the story: In Chennai, you should not go to a dance party unless it is Bharata Natyam. You should not kiss your spouse even if you are dancing the Bharata Natyam. You should respect the great culture and traditions of the city.

Scene 3

An engineering college campus. Three students are summoned to the principal's room to appear before a panel of five teachers whose duty is to question 'immoral' students and punish them. The students' fault; they are wearing short, sleeveless tops and tight jeans, and they were caught talking to boys.

"What kind of dress are you wearing? Were you seducing the boys when we caught you? Don't come crying to us if you get raped. If you dress like this, anything can happen. Remember, this kind of indecent dress is not allowed in this city and in this college, understand? Now, go home and get Rs 500 as fine for wearing sleeveless top and tight jeans. If you want good jobs in good companies, you should learn to dress properly, and also learn not to flirt with boys," The teachers shout at the girls.

Once the girls are done with, five boys are called in. They also undergo a dressing down for 'wearing dark coloured shirts,' 'talking to girls' and 'flirting with them'.

"You people will never see even the gates of an IT company," the jury declares.

Moral of the story: If you are an engineering student in Chennai, you should dress 'decently' and never talk to the opposite sex. That is, if you want a good job in a good company.

Scene 4

Angry women demonstrating -- with brooms and flip flops -- in front of a movie actress' house. The women shout unprintable abuses, spit on the gate, burn her effigy.

In an interview, the actress had advised people of the city to have safe sex. She had pooh poohed the idea of pre-marital virginity as an essential virtue.

"You dirty woman, you insulted our great culture. How dare you live here? We will banish you to the Andamans," roars the mob.

Moral of the story: If you are a woman living in Chennai, a city that has Big Brothers who flaunt their several wives/mistresses as proof of their wealth and social status, never talk about sex, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, AIDS, condoms or virginity.

Scene 5

The bedroom of a newlywed couple. It is an unusually cool night, and passion is running high. As they are about to kiss, the voice of Big Brother booms.

"Stop!"

They stop in mid-kiss. "But why? We are husband and wife. We are not in a park. We are not on the dance floor of a hotel. We are in our bedroom. Can't we have some privacy in here too?"

"No, Big Brother is watching you. You should abstain from sex today."

"But why?" The couple dare to question the Big Brother.

"Today is Thursday, the day of abstinence." Big Brother announces.

"Can we have at least one kiss?" they plead.

"No kiss today. You can kiss on Mondays and Wednesdays and can have sex on Fridays and Sundays. This is Big Brother's order. Remember, Big Brother is watching."

****

No, this is not an adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. This is 2005, and the city is Chennai.

Yes, Chennai, the city that has blah blah blah.

Maldives, Geoinformatic to take digital pictures

The Planning Ministry in Maldives has signed an agreement with Geoinformatic International to digitally capture all areas of the country for establishing a geographic information system and monitoring environmental changes.



As per the agreement, Geoinformatic will utilise the pictures for amending the Map of Maldives, besides establishing a geographic information system, special planning of Maldives and also to prepare Regional and Urban Plan.



Further the pictures will also be utilised by other government agencies in their projects, the Ministry said.



The Ministry added that the digital pictures will also be used to monitor reefs, vegetations beach erosion as well as other environmental changes.



It further said that the pictures will prove useful in preparation of environment impact assessment reports of large infrastructure projects.



“As per the agreement, all areas of the country will be digitally covered for a fee of US $4.8 lakh payable in four instalments,” the Ministry informed.

Low-cost soln to provide arsenic-free water

London: A solution to arsenic contamination of underground water resources, linked to rising cancer rates in Southern Asia, has been developed by Queen's University researchers in Belfast.

The technology is based on recharging a part of the groundwater, after aeration, into a subterranean aquifer (permeable rock) able to hold water. Increased levels of oxygen in the groundwater slow down the arsenic release from the soil, reports IANS.

At higher dissolved oxygen levels, soil micro organisms, as well as iron and manganese, reduce the dissolved arsenic level significantly.

Over 70 million people in eastern India and Bangladesh are estimated to experience involuntary arsenic exposure from consuming water and rice; the main staple food in the region. This includes farmers who have to use contaminated groundwater from minor irrigation schemes.

Arsenic poisoning is behind many instances of ill-health in Southern Asia, including a rising number of cancer cases. Developing a low cost method of decontaminating ground water that is laced with high levels of arsenic is a key challenge for sustainable agriculture there.

"While there are some techniques available for treating relatively small quantities of water, there has, until now, been no viable technology available for decontaminating groundwater on a large scale that can ensure safe irrigation and potable water supply," the project co-ordinator from Queen's University Bhaskar Sengupta said.

"This project developed by Queen's is the only method which is eco-friendly, easy to use and deliverable to the rural community user at an affordable cost," he added.

For every random sample of 100 people in the Bengal Delta, at least one person will be near death as a result of arsenic poisoning, while five in 100 will be experiencing other symptoms.

The research team has also developed a trial plant in Kasimpore, near Kolkata, which offers chemical-free groundwater treatment technology to rural communities for all their drinking and farming needs.

The project is part of the EU-funded Asia Pro Eco Programme which is dedicated to the improvement of environmental performance in Asian economic sectors.

Sengupta further said that right from its inception the project has got vital support of India-based stakeholders such as village councils and local financial institutions.

"This has been vital as they are the authorities who monitor the water supply and distribution in rural areas and provide micro-credit to the local farmers," he said, adding that, "With their help, we now have a solution which is transferable to many areas in need across Asia."

The new plant will be maintained and operated by local village technicians. World Bank has given a grant of US $200,000 for setting up six more subterranean water treatment plants in the Gangetic plains of West Bengal.

DRDO to soon hire scientists on contract

India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) may finally get it right. Hit by a massive exodus of key scientists, organisation is now planning to hire scientists on contract.



According to the sources, the country's Defence Ministry has already given DRDO the go ahead to hire scientists on contract.



The step is expected to cut down the gestation period of many of its projects.



The organisation has severely been hit by a talent crunch with a large number of scientists leaving for plum packages in the corporate world.



"The ministry has given the green signal to contractual appointments so that bright scientists can be hired. Their accountability will be fixed and they will be required to deliver within a stipulated time frame," DRDO Chief Controller for Research and Development W Selvamurthy said.



Such scientists will be paid a fixed remuneration based on the quality of their work and their experience, he added.



A number of DRDO projects have been plagued by cost and time overruns, forcing the armed forces to resort to the import route.



Among the major DRDO projects that have suffered huge time and cost overruns are the development of the Arjun main battle tank (MBT) and the Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA).



DRDO has, however, been instrumental in developing a series of tactical and strategic missile systems like the Prithvi and the Agni, some of which have been inducted into the armed forces.



The defence research organisation that celebrates its golden jubilee this year has lost around 1,100 scientists between 2003 and 2007; on an average DRDO has been losing one person every two days.



Selvamurthy said that the Defence Ministry has also agreed to the DRDO demand for enhancing the professional update allowance for its scientists from Rs 5,000 to a maximum of Rs 30,000.



"Earlier, there was a flat annual allowance of Rs 5,000 per annum for professional update that allowed scientists to become members of various scientific society or subscribe to magazines," Selvamurthy said.



According to him, the new scheme approved by the Ministry will allow differential professional update allowance based on seniority.



As per the new rules, based on their experience and rank scientists will now be able to get an annual allowance in three categories—Rs 10,000, Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000.



The attrition rate in DRDO, which has 7,000 scientists, is about 6.3 per cent. Worse, the organisation is able to fill up only 60-70 per cent of its vacancies.



DRDO scientists are in great demand in the private sector and find jobs in areas like aeronautics, armaments, combat vehicles, electronics, instrumentation engineering systems, missiles, materials, naval systems, advance computing, simulation and life sciences.



In a bid to check the exodus, DRDO has sought financial incentives for scientists who obtain patents and whose research work gets published in high-profile journals.



"Annually DRDO scientists get around 50-60 patents. We are hopeful that the demand will be granted," Selvamurthy said.



Another demand aimed at retaining bright minds in DRDO is that the government share the royalty earned by commercialising a technology with its inventor.



"The payment given to DRDO scientists cannot equal that given by the private sector, but incentives like sharing the revenue generated by commercialisation of technology can be a performance booster," Selvamurthy added.

Astrological Analysis of Sachin's Recent and Near Future Performances

Question Received in Mail

When is Sachin Tendulkar's retirement?
How will he perform against Australia in the four test series in October November?
Will he make some good scores or will he fade away.
Also the reason for Sachin's failure in the recent test series against Sri Lanka
Requesting you with all humility to publish an article in your reputed web site

My Reply

Thanks for the mail.
You can see http://bruno.penandscale.com/2007/10/sachin-back-in-form-reason-attributed.html (i wrote last year at a time when sachin was the leading run scorer in england and other places few people were even telling that he will be made test captain again - instead kumble was made captain)

Good Observation.. Also for the past 2 and half years, Saturn was at Cancer (கடகம்), which is the eighth house of Sagittarius (தனுசு)... Thus Sachin was running அஷ்டமசனி..... Once Saturn has moved to the ninth spot, Sachin has been the leading Run Scorer in all the tournaments (Future Cup, Natwest, and the present Australian Series).... In fact he was the leading run scorer among both teams in the Future Cup

Will this continue.... Doubtful as Jupiter is poised to move into Sagittarius next month, which is start the period of ஜன்ம்குரு..... Remember that Jupiter in the is usually an unfavourable position at the first house (the house in which moon was placed at birth time)

Jupiter at 2nd, 5th, 7th and 9th houses give favourable results for the person. Jupiter at 1st house (Moon is placed in Sagitarrius in Sachin's horoscope) is generally unfavourable. it is equivalent to loosing one crown. (he slipped from the number one position)

So his excellent period will start after Jupiter moves to Capricorn that will be around this year (2008) end

From then till next year end (2009 end) will be an excellent period for Sachin. He will regain his Number one spot in Test Cricket. After that, his favourable period as per his Dasa-bhukthi end. So he will retire. Before that he will score a 200 in an ODI and may also overcome Brian Lara's 400 runs in a test innings.

Have Mercy!

So the followers brought the boy to Jesus. When the {evil}
spirit saw Jesus, the spirit attacked the boy. The boy fell
down and rolled on the ground. He was foaming from his mouth.
Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has this been
happening to the boy?" The father answered, "Since he was
very young. The spirit often throws him into a fire or into
water to kill him. If you can do anything for him, please
have pity on us and help us."

-- Mark 9:20-22 (ERV)

KEY THOUGHT:
Have mercy on us! Isn't that our real place before God? Don't we need
to come into the holy and awesome presence of God with the cry, "Have
mercy on me, O God!" Of course God loves to share mercy and touch us
with his grace. He is waiting for us to recognize our need for these.
He longs for us to acknowledge that without his grace, we have no
right, no power, and no place in his presence. Then, when grace and
mercy come to us, we can be assured that they are ours because of God's
love for us.

TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father in heaven, I love you. I thank you. I praise you. There are many
reasons why you are worthy of my love, thanks, and praise. One of the
foremost reasons, however, is that you have treated me with mercy and
welcomed me with love and dealt with my sins graciously. Thank you. In
Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Another municipal chief recalled in Chhattisgarh

Raipur: After three municipality chiefs were recalled for the first time in Chhattisgarh by voters for non-performance in mid-June, one more municipality president has lost his post in a recall vote, an official said on Friday.

Chhattisgarh Election Commissioner Sushil Trivedi said that Kusmi Nagar panchayat Chief Bahadur Ram of Congress was recalled as 1,207 voters cast their ballots for recall against 766 voters favouring his continuation.

The voters of the Kusmi Nagar Panchayat had only two symbols on their ballot papers—an empty chair and an occupied one—to decide whether the elected chief be recalled or not, reports IANS.

The recall vote in the state's extreme north was held on August 26 along with by-polls for Nagar Panchayat chiefs of Nawagarh in Durg district and Rajpur in Surguja where the presidents were forced to step down in a historic recall in mid-June.

Despite the poll schedule being announced, the by-poll for president's post of the Gundardehi Nagar Panchayat in Durg district was not held on August 26 as two voters moved court against alleged irregularities in the voters' list. The court stayed the election process.

Trivedi said the Nawagarh chief's post went to Tilak Ram of the state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while Congress candidate Manbatia Singh won the Rajpur chief's post by nine votes.

Rural India can fatten insurance cos by Rs 10 bn

Rural investors were still not tapped to its potential by the insurance companies in the country.

Around 200 million such investors can add about Rs 1,000 crore to the net worth of the companies if these come out with innovative schemes at affordable premium, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

A Paper on ‘Rural India and Its New Investors' by the Assocham, however, added that insurance companies can lure these investors lot even for agriculture, housing, personal, education and auto loans after these have insured them under its new schemes.

Currently, the rural folk relies more on post offices and various extension counters and branches of commercial banks to save their surpluses in the absence of other suitable savings channels, the Chamber said.

Releasing the paper, the Assocham Chief Sajjan Jindal said that the rural investors are looking for other safer savings channels for higher returns on their investments and insurance companies could prove to be the best and viable option for them.

According to Assocham estimates, over 700 million rural population lived in India's villages out of which approximately 200 million rural populace have reasonable per capita income due to their double income from agriculture and non-agriculture sources.

Currently, only eight per cent to 10 per cent rural households are covered under life insurance schemes and remaining 90 per cent can be targeted for new innovative insurance schemes.

Rural investments is stuck to only post offices and a few limited commercial banks rural extension counters as they have no access to other popular savings instruments.

A good number of rural investors are also aspiring to become self reliant but lack avenues for credit in areas for food processing, better horticultural and agricultural facilities, training for skill development to process their milk etc, the paper said.

According to Assocham, rural India's income has risen due to shifting of its occupation from agriculture to non-farm agricultural income and it has become an important facet of rural India.

This income mainly comes from dairy, food processing and packaging, commodity trading and infrastructure development income.

The non-agriculture base of rural occupation and income has been growing in rural GDP figures that are estimated at 45 per cent.

The paper recommended that disbursement of agri loan would work as a magic and insurance schemes would provide rural youth safety net to protect their investments.

The public and private insurance companies can also introduce affordable insurance schemes with their premium keeping at Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per month, the Assocham said.

With this premium, the companies can design schemes that can cover rural youth for at least Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh for a period of minimum 10 years.

Assocham felt that this is the opportune time for the public and private insurance companies to enter into rural India in a big way by introducing easy premium schemes in life insurance and for agri insurance and auto insurance

To reach the rural investors, the Assocham suggested that the insurance companies should interact with local government and development agencies, as well as Panchayats and identify various products for the preparation of the Service Area Credit Plans.

The companies should focus on rich farmers, who have benefited from agriculture, farming, dairy processing and other sectors are using tractors, jeeps and tempo for Auto loans.

Nearly 20 per cent of all farmers in rural India own a Kissan Credit cards. The 25-30 million credit cards offer a huge data base and opportunity for insurance companies, the Assocham said.

The paper found that the rural markets are still virgin territories to a great extent and offer exciting opportunities for insurance companies, if these companies can measure the requirements of the people correctly and offer a scheme that they would be able to afford.

Unable to Meet the Need

Jesus asked, "What are you arguing with the teachers of the
law about?" A man answered, "Teacher, I brought my son to
you. My son has a spirit {from the devil} inside him. This
spirit stops my son from talking. The spirit attacks my son
and throws him on the ground. My son foams from his mouth,
grinds his teeth, and becomes very stiff. I asked your
followers to force the evil spirit out, but they could not."
-- Mark 9:16-18 (ERV)
KEY THOUGHT:
Does this sound familiar to you? "They couldn't do it!" So often we
don't find out what is truly possible until we reach the end of our
abilities and admit that for us it is impossible unless God works
through us.

TODAY'S PRAYER:
Father, forgive me for my arrogance and thinking that I am somehow
necessary in your work. I recognize that my only sufficiency for
ministry comes from my weakness being offered to your service and
empowered by your grace. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

TCS develops pension record keeping system

Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has developed a new record keeping system for India's largest financial depository firm National Securities Depository (NSDL).

The new system will be the central record keeping agency for the central government's New Pension System (NPS), TCS said.

"In partnership with NSDL, we have built a pension record system in just six months that is capable of scaling up to meet the needs of this fast-growing economy," TCS CEO and Managing Director S Ramadorai said.

Referring to the new system, NSDL CEO Gagan Rai said that the new central records system for pensions was technologically advanced and will be able to meet the needs of users optimally.

TCS has undertaken the entire responsibility of the project as an end-to-end systems integrator, from conceptualisation of the solution to the development, implementation, deployment and administration of hardware and system software.

The company will also continue to support and maintain the central record keeping system as well as provide enhancements and ensure scalability as the number of records increases.

The new system has been built to ensure high availability with disaster recovery.

Security has been given primary importance in the system with role based access controls and public-key infrastructure-based solutions, TCS said.

“BSNL is set for a qualitative, competitive jump”, SD Saxena

Unassuming yet perky, demure yet skittish, reticent yet eloquent—the Director (Finance) of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) SD Saxena needs such paradoxical references for a suitable introduction.

The BSNL has achieved new heights since Saxena assumed charge of the Director (Finance) six years back. The sixth largest Telecom company in the world, BSNL has achieved a total capital outlay close to two billion dollars per annum during his stint.

Having worked with industry stalwarts like Sam Pitroda and GB Meemansi in C-DoT, Saxena who before joining BSNL taught Physics in Rajasthan University is credited with introducing Electronic Switching System in India.

A member of the Rakesh Mohan Infrastructure Committee, which made significant recommendations for the growth and development of Indian infrastructure sector, Saxena also worked as Senior Financial Expert at International Telecom Union (ITU) at Geneva.

In an exclusive interview with Pravin Prashant from iGovernment, SD Saxena talks about BSNL's performance, future plans and mobile infrastructure sharing. Excerpts:

How has BSNL performed in FY 2007-08?
In terms of numbers, BSNL's performance is not encouraging. In FY 2007-08, BSNL's revenue is around Rs 37,000 crore (provisional) vis-Ã -vis Rs 39,715 crore in FY 2006-07. Profit after tax (PAT) has also dropped from Rs 7,806 crore in FY 2006-07 to Rs 4,500 crore (provisional) in FY 2007-08.

The negative growth in revenue is attributed to the churn in fixed line numbers, drop in cellular growth due to limited expansion in GSM lines and also drop in fixed line tariffs. All these factors cumulatively resulted in drop in overall revenue for BSNL.

How you plan to translate BSNL's vision 2010?
On the mobile front, the equipment from Ericsson, Motorola, Nortel and ITI have started arriving and would be installed soon. We have also floated a tender for 90 million GSM (2G and 3G) lines across all the regions-north, south, west and east. The company has also floated an expression of interest for providing WiMax-based services on franchisee basis. Once these infrastructures become operational we will have no problem adding three million mobile connections and 0.5 million broadband connections per month.

Areas where BSNL is focusing in FY 2008-09?
We are looking at new schemes, infrastructure sharing, mobile services and broadband services for increasing our revenue for FY 2008-09. We have also aggressive plans both for mobile as well as broadband services.

Are you planning to share mobile towers with others?
We presently have around 50,000 towers and we are working on it. In a month times we are coming out with an infrastructure sharing policy which will focus on renting towers to new greenfield and existing operators. The policy will talk in detail about mobile tower sharing with other operators as we have large number of towers in rural areas.

Kerala to recruit more women as police officers

The southern Indian state of Kerala will now depend more on its women police force for maintenance of law and order situation in the God's own country.




The state government has decided to induct more women in the police force has already initiated measures to increase number of women police officers, reports IANS.



Announcing this in the state legislative assembly on Wednesday, Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that the Kerala Police Act would be amended soon to enable the public service commission (PSC) to invite applications from women for the posts of sub-inspectors.



At present women are not recruited directly as sub-inspectors.



In a written reply during question hour, Kodiyeri said the police department feels a shortage of women police officers.



The state police force at present has 74 women sub-inspectors, 21 circle inspectors, one deputy superintendent, one superintendent of police and three women IPS officers.



The women police constables in the state are just about 2,000 in the 50,000-strong general branch of the force.



Welcoming the minister's announcement, Inspector General of Police B Sandhya said that it would be really good if there were more women police officers in the state police.



"The general and executive branches of the police want a sizeable number of women police officials. Today the job of the Station House Officer (SHO) is done by men. The presence of a woman officer, especially in a police station, would be nice," she said.



The written test for the sub-inspector's post would be common for both men and women. However, the women would not be asked to compete with men in the physical test.