Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time- Two Hundred SIXTY Two
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Indian ExpressFire Broke out in Slums in Kolkata - 1 day ago
The accident took place in a slum area of northeast Kolkata. All shelters & huts there have been fired. The fire flames were up to 15 feet long from the ...Daily Latest News (blog) - 43 related articles »
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The slums of Kolkata can be divided into three groups: the older ones, up to 150 years' old, in the heart of the city, are associated with early ...
www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/Global_Report/.../kolkata.htm - Cached - Similar -One of the slums in Kolkata, Calcutta, India
See a travel photo titled: One of the slums in Kolkata from Calcutta, India taken by TravelPod member anonimous_lady.
www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/anonimous.../tpod.html - Cached - Similar -The burden of cholera in the slums of Kolkata, India: data from a ...
by D Sur - 2005 - Cited by 13 - Related articles
The malaria and typhoid fever burden in the slums of Kolkata, India: data from a prospective community-based study. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. ...
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Service in the Slums of Kolkata
4 min 33 sec - 7 Aug 2007
www.youtube.comChildren from the slums of Kolkata given hope
6 min - 24 Apr 2009
www.youtube.comcrowded alley in slums - Kolkata India on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
a crowded alley in a slum, in Kolkata (Calcutta) India, March 2007 from the third issue of NEED : www.needmagazine.com/Issue03/kids01.html.
www.flickr.com/photos/maciejdakowicz/2239714579/ - Cached - Similar -A Report on the two days' tour of Kolkata
There is a need to identify many more slums in Kolkata. More than fifty per cent of Kolkata's population is living in slums. Every family comprised of a ...
www.un.org.in/JANSHALA/julsep01/kolkata.htm - Cached - Similar -CleanAirSIG: Reduction of Exposure to Indoor Air Pollutants In The ...
14 Oct 2008 ... Initially five slums of Kolkata, Howrah and 24 Parganas (South), West Bengal were identified for intervention. Most of these settlements are ...
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The major British govt funded Kolkata Urban Services Project (KUSP), aimed at poverty reduction and infrastructure provision in slums in the Kolkata ...
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Compared to that Delhi, Kolkata were heavens. First slums in Kolkata appeared in 1850-70 as a result of systematic destruction of textile industry in Bengal ...
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The malaria and typhoid fever burden in the slums of Kolkata, India: data from a ... community-based study in an impoverished urban site in Kolkata, India, ...
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Again, a pavement dweller occasionally promotes himself to the slums by dint of hard ... The Calcutta Chamars are among the city's 24 lac slum dwellers. ...
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Results 1 - 10 of about 269,000 for Refugee in West Bengal. (0.28 seconds)
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2,58000 migrants sought refuge in West Bengal, after Partition in 1947. This figure was catapulted to 5,90000 in 1948. Again 1,82000 refugees came in 1949. ...
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- 3 visits - 04/12/09Jump to Refugees settled in India: ... many ending up in close-by states like West Bengal, Assam, ... Many refugees overcame the trauma of poverty, ...
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Bangladeshi Nationals Deported from India in West Bengal (During 2000 to 2002). Registered Foreign Refugees Residing in West Bengal (As on 31.12.2001) ...
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The hungry tide Bengali Hindu refugees in the Subcontinent
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by R Roy - Related articles
refugees who sought shelter in Bangladesh seemed to have fared much better than the refugees in West Bengal, who were damned to a life of destitution and ...
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Infiltration and Undeclared Refugees – Idea of Secular and ...
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Illegal Migration and Undeclared Refugees – Idea of West Bengal at Stake – Mohit Ray. 1. Illegal Migration and Undeclared Refugees – Idea of West Bengal at ...
www.bengalgenocide.com/Paper_Bengal%20infiltration.pdf - Refugee Resettlement in Forest Reserves: West Bengal Policy ...
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to get rid of the refugees from their colonies" in West Bengal, and a "united ...... Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department, West Bengal. Government. ...
www.jstor.org/stable/2658391 -Arya-Brahmin Vengeance on Bengali-Tamil Dalits & Chakma Adivasi ...
- 2 visits - 15/10/097 Apr 2009 ... Arya-Brahminists riding the government of India instead of rehabilitating Bengali Dalit refugees in west Bengal demonically spread them in ...
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Print., West Bengal (Calcutta). cooch behar refugee District census handbook, series 22, West Bengal. India. Director of Census Operations, West Bengal. ...
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8185709742 This book examines the coming of the refugees in West Bengal in the ... Making Of A New Space: Refugees In West Bengal, Jhuma Sanyal, 8185709742 ...
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In the refugee camp at Patrapole on the West Bengal-East Pakistan border, a 16-year-old Bengali girl recalled how she and her parents were in bed "when we ...
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Results 1 - 10 of about 1,160,000 for Slums in India. (0.18 seconds)
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Urban slums - Slum population statistics in India
Distribution of Slum Population and Literate Slum Population by Ranges of Percentage of Slum Literate Population of Cities/Towns Reporting Slum in India ...
www.indiastat.com/urbanareas/31/slums/257/stats.aspx - Cached - Similar -POVERTY AND SLUMS IN INDIA – IMPACT OF CHANGING ECONOMIC LANDSCAPE
Poverty and slums in India are at the same level as they were in beginning of the twentieth century in America. Economic growth over fifty years eliminated ...
www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers18%5Cpaper1769.html - Cached - Similar -Slums | India Environment Portal
The Vice-Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Ashok Kumar, has identified the in-situ development of slums and the construction of houses for ...
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Unitech to Develop Mumbai Slums Into Luxury Housing - 17 hours ago
About 8 million people live in slums in India's financial capital and surrounding areas, more than the population of Switzerland. ...BusinessWeek - 14 related articles »
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- Report imagesThank you for the feedback. Report another imagePlease report the offensive image. CancelDoneSangam India - Introduction: Slums in India
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Urban Slums in India-the myths and the reality
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about what we know about "slums" in India and what the present day scenario in India is for people eking out their daily lives below ...
data.ashanet.org/files/Chapters/Seattle/.../Newsletter-2006Q1.pdf - Similar - The state of slums in India | WaterAid
The very definition of slums points at the acute drinking water and sanitation crisis for the slum dwellers. A slum in India is defined as 'a cluster inside ...
www.wateraid.org/india/what_we_do/7518.asp - Cached - Similar -Slums: The marginalized mass
30 Nov 2006 ... Slums symbolize the mess that urban life in India has become. ... Consider the status and living standards of slums of India. ...
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6 Jun 2009 ... The UPA government has decided to embark on a rather ambitious project for eradicating urban slums in India in the next 5 years. ...
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Slum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Slum in Mumbai, India. 55% of the population of Mumbai live in slums, .... The number of people living in slums in India has more than doubled in the past ...
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Demolishing Slums of India!
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Urbanization signature in the observed heavy rainfall climatology ...
climatology over urban regions of India during the monsoon season. .... the rate of urbanization after India became independent in 1947. ...
doi.wiley.com/10.1002/joc.2044 -URBANIZATION PATTERN IN INDIA: 1951–1961*
India. An examination of the literature in the field of urban geography would reveal ... study of urbanization between the states of. India and (c) it will ...
doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.0033-0124.1969.00308.x -India - India's Urban Challenges
Urbanization is not a side effect of economic growth; it is an integral part of the process. As in most countries, India 's urban areas make a major ...
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Urbanization in India and its impact on environment - International Business EnvironmentShort Case Studies - ICMR, The growing pollution levels in India ...
www.icmrindia.org/Casestudies/catalogue/.../CLIBE034.htm - Cached -Emerald: Article Request - The changing status of women in India ...
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As a result, development and urbanization led to very uneven results for different categories of women in India. While the poor women in rural India were ...
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Overview of Urbanisation in India
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During the last fifty years the population of India has grown two and half times, but Urban India has grown by nearly five times. ...
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THE NATURE OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA Y. B. Damlb In the case of ¡i ...
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It is not necessary to go into the history of urbanization in India, ... can give us a clue to the process and nature of urbanization in India. ...
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urbanization in India over a century with emphasis on level, ... structure of urban population in India. India's urbanization is often termed as over- ...
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urbanisation rate, as defined by the Census of India, remains one of the lowest in ... far as the statistical approach of the urbanization in India does not ...
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Slumdogs - helping to provide a childhood for homeless and street ...
Slumdog: Exploiting India
Piracy, controversy hounds Slumdog's India run
30 Jan 2009 ... For all the attention in Hollywood, Slumdog Millionaire has failed to set the box office alight in India where it is set, with piracy, ...
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- Report imagesThank you for the feedback. Report another imagePlease report the offensive image. CancelDoneYouTube - Slumdog Millionaire - Trailer
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With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIzbwV7on6Q - Related videos -India celebrates Slumdog Millionaire's eight-Oscar victory | Film ...
23 Feb 2009 ... After weeks of controversy over the film's depiction of life in Mumbai's slums and the paycheques of its child stars, the subcontinent has ...
www.guardian.co.uk/.../india-celebrates-slumdog-millionaire-oscars-victory - Cached - Similar -Is it the `Slumdog' reality? | The Jakarta Post
25 Feb 2009 ... Santosh Desai titled his op-ed essay, "The slum is not the other India." It's the real India. Slumdog Millionaire depicts India as it is ...
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Slum dog millionaire won Oscrar for many categories including for best director, best original song, best music director, and best sound mixing.
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23 Feb 2009 ... The eight Oscars awarded to Slumdog Millionaire will open plenty of Hollywood doors for India's film artists and technicians.
www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/.../gb20090223_810139.htm - Cached - Similar -'Slumdog Millionaire,' an Oscar Favorite, Is No Hit in India - TIME
26 Jan 2009 ... It swept the Golden Globes and is a front runner for the Oscars, but Danny Boyle's movie is too close to everyday reality to thrill Indian ...
www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1873926,00.html - Similar -Global Voices Online » India: Reactions to Slumdog Millionaire
26 Jan 2009 ... Unsurprisingly, the film's music track by AR Rahman has got a consistent thumbs-up in India. The reviews and feedback of Slumdog Millionarie ...
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Sydney Morning HeraldDream factory's magic music-maker - 4 hours ago
His visit comes amid a rift in relations between India and Australia following ... He says Slumdog Millionaire was his most unexpectedly rewarding project. ...The Australian - 12 related articles »
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Fire Broke out in Slums in KolkataDaily Latest News (blog) - Jan 12, 2010 The accident took place in a slum area of northeast Kolkata. All shelters & huts there have been fired. The fire flames were up to 15 feet long from the ... Channel 4's view of India is a clicheThe Guardian - 17 hours ago Welcome to Channel 4's Indian Winter season Indian visitors to the Kolkata book fair. Photograph: DESHAKALYAN CHOWDHURY/AFP If what follows smacks a little ... Tata Motors gets bus for Udayanindiablooms - Jan 12, 2010 James found a number of these families living in isolated slums, bound to each other only by their poverty, by their deprivation, and by the mutilated ... A coffee table book in aid of Bahadur Shah Zafar's descendantsBombay News - Jan 3, 2010 ... a semi-urban township, 80 km southwest of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal. When I came across her in 2008, the 56-year-old woman who lives in a slum ... Kolkata ragtimeDaily Pioneer - - Jan 2, 2010 ... lived in squalid slums and the upwardly mobile Bangali bhadralok in palatial houses in north Kolkata which was a world apart from central Kolkata. ... Christmas celebrated across IndiaXinhua - - Dec 25, 2009 In Mumbai and Kolkata, where a large number of slum dwellers are Catholics, cheerful celebration were held Thursday night and Friday in slums to mark the ... Real life slumdogs of IndiaHenley Standard - Dec 31, 2009 TWO women have seen first-hand the slums of India portrayed in the hit film Slumdog Millionaire. Lucy Montgomery and Alison Richardson work for the Hope ... The sky's the limitMalaysia Star - - Dec 18, 2009 "I started my flying in Kolkata and saw the nuns at work in the slums without any inhibitions despite the filth and the gut-wrenching surroundings. ... Get up to Rs6 lakh home loan, without documentsMoneylife Personal Finance Magazine - Dec 31, 2009 We intend to commence operations shortly in Bengaluru, Surat and Kolkata. We are also in discussions with various State governments for housing initiatives ... The Municipal Cooperation of Delhi (MCD) expects 1200 crore from slumCalcutta Tube (blog) - Jan 6, 2010 Com is the Entertainment News based website featuring Kolkata Tollywood, Hindi Bollywood and English Hollywood Movie reviews, Interviews, Music, ... Stay up to date on these results: |
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Unitech to Develop Mumbai Slums Into Luxury HousingBusinessWeek - - 17 hours ago About 8 million people live in slums in India's financial capital and surrounding areas, more than the population of Switzerland. ... Channel 4's view of India is a clicheThe Guardian - 17 hours ago Of the seven strands that make up the season, four are about slums and poverty. Nearly all focus on Mumbai. This is the "brutal reality" of modern India, ... Slum fire kills 4 children in IndiaCNN International - - Jan 5, 2010 New Delhi, India (CNN) -- Four children died early Wednesday in slum fire in New Delhi, officials said. The youngest victim was 3 ... Homing in on life in slumsHerald.ie - Jan 12, 2010 He has just come back from spending time in India's notorious Dharavi slum, which sprawls over Mumbai and was given the big screen treatment in Danny ... One fourth of urban Indians live in slumsMerinews - Jan 11, 2010 AROUND ONE fourth of India population living in 640 major cities and towns in the country is living in slums as per the Census data, which was enumerated in ... Slum Population Press Information Bureau (press release) Kevin McCloud takes Prince Charles to task over 'hopeful' view of Mumbai slums24dash - - 2 hours ago McCloud, who fronts Channel 4's Grand Designs, visited India's sprawling Dharavi dwellings in Mumbai for his latest television documentary, which begins ... London dentist stars in TV's Secret MillionaireDentistry.co.uk - Jan 11, 2010 Seema is staying in Dharavi, one of the largest slums in India, where more than one million people live crammed into less than one square mile. ... GSK, Nestle, Coca-Cola & Dabur top up effort to tap rural consumersEconomic Times - Jan 10, 2010 Ms Hegde said Nestle would provide nutrition education to the base of the pyramid and was launching its first such programme at Dharavi slums in Mumbai. ... Housing shortage in IndiaPress Information Bureau (press release) - 10 hours ago ... thus leading to a sizeable number of urban population resorting to squatting on government/municipal lands, leading to creation of slums. ... THE BODY BEAUTIFUL INDIAN RUNNER LIVE AND DIE SONG AND DANCEHerald.ie - 2 hours ago It follows an illiterate orphan (Dev Patel) from Mumbai's slums, who's on the verge of winning India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? ... | |
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Slum fire kills 4 children in India
January 6, 2010 -- Updated 0748 GMT (1548 HKT)
New Delhi, India (CNN) -- Four children died early Wednesday in slum fire in New Delhi, officials said.
The youngest victim was 3, and the oldest was older than 10, said fire officer A.K. Sharma.
Two shacks were gutted in the blaze, which occurred about 1:45 a.m. local time in a neighborhood in southern New Delhi, the capital, he added.
More than 20 percent of India's city population lives in slums, according to government statistics, which officials attribute to rapid urbanization.
One killed, 500 shanties destroyed in Kolkata fire
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Kolkata: One person was killed, about 500 shanties were destroyed and train services in Eastern Railway's Sealdah division disrupted as a major fire swept Ultadanga area in north eastern Kolkata on Tuesday. The fire, which broke out in a slum, spread rapidly, fire brigade and police officials said. A portion of the nearby Bidhannagar Road railway station was also damaged.
Fire in Kolkata slum
Image: Onlookers watch a cluster of shanties burning at Ultadanga slum area in Kolkata on January 12, 2010.
Slumdog Millionaire kids escape slum fire
ANI Tags : slumdog millionaire, fire, rubina ali, Azharuddin Ismail, mumbai Posted: Friday , Jun 19, 2009 at 1518 hrs London:
Slumdog millionaire
Azharuddin and Rubina narrowly escaped a massive fire that destroyed a section of their Mumbai slum.
'Slumdog Millionaire' child stars Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali narrowly escaped a massive fire that destroyed a section of their Mumbai slum.
More than 200 slum homes were gutted and 15 people injured in the blaze, which started at 4am local time on Thursday.
Azharuddin's home was about 30 metres when the blaze was brought under control.
It took atleast 100 firefighters and six hours to slow down the flames.
According to the residents, gas canisters used for home cooking exploded every few minutes in the intense heat, helping the fire spread and hampering rescue efforts.
"We were woken up very early in the morning to the sound of explosions," the Telegraph quoted Azharuddin, who played young Salim in the Oscar winning film, as saying.
"The fire was burning in the sky just behind our home over the other side of the storm drain.
BARC PKG
Budding scientist's dream blows up in BARC blaze
Kajal Iyer / CNN-IBN
TimePublished on Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 21:52 in India section
Twenty-three-year-old Umang Singh's dreams went up in smoke on Tuesday when one of the labs of BARC caught fire. From a one room tenement in the slums of Jogeshwari, to the country's premier nuclear institute BARC, Umang's rise was a rapid one. His dream of getting a doctorate and working in Germany was cut short in a lab fire in BARC that killed another scholar Partha Bag also. Umang's family is now demanding an inquiry into the matter.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/budding-scientists-dream-blows-up-in-barc-blaze/108048-3.html
Blaze in slum cluster claims two lives
Express News Service
Posted: Jun 23, 2009 at 0229 hrs IST
New Delhi Two persons, among them a three-year-old girl, were charred to death after a major fire broke out in a slum cluster in the Karkardooma area of Northeast Delhi on Monday.
A Fire officer said the incident took place around 3 pm. "At least 15 fire engines were rushed to the spot and it took almost two hours to bring the fire under control," the officer said.
The officer said the deceased have been identified as Muskan (3) and Shehzad (45). Around 50 shanties and 20 godowns were gutted in the fire.
Fire officials said the narrow lanes between the shanties made it difficult to fight the blaze. The shanties were unauthorised and the exact cause of the fire is yet to be established.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/blaze-in-slum-cluster-claims-two-lives/480105/
Sukhna Land scam: Army Chief calls for administrative action
ANI
Posted: Jan 12, 2010 at 1029 hrs IST
New Delhi Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor on Monday evening recommended to initiate administrative action against Military Secretary and other senior Generals who were indicted by the Court of Inquiry (COI) in the Sukhna Army Land Scam, said sources.
Military Secretary Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash was to retire from the service on January 31. The Defence Ministry will initiate action according to the Army Act.
Prakash was one of the eight principal staff officers (PSOs) at the Army Headquarters who acts as an advisor to the Army Chief.
Earlier, in December 2009, the Eastern Army Command chief, Lt. Gen. V.K. Singh, had recommended a summary dismissal for Prakash.
The report also recommended initiating proceedings against Lt. Gen. P.K. Rath, whose appointment as deputy chief of army staff has been scrapped by the Defence Ministry.
It was reportedly learnt that General Kapoor's action came after coming under severe pressure by the Defence Minister A K Antony.
The proceedings of the Court Martial will also be initiated against Lt. Gen P K Rath, and Maj. Gen P C Sen, who were also allegedly indicted by the CoI report.
According to top Defence Ministry Sources, "Army has been always forth coming in taking action against any wrong-doing in the services and Army Chief has recommended action against Generals implicated by Court of Inquiry."
Earlier also, Gen Kapoor earlier stated that tough actions would be initiated against any wrongdoings in the Army.
13/01/2010
Haiti earthquake becomes a tragedy for the UN
United Nations: The headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti has sustained "serious damage" in the 7.3-magnitude earthquake which shook the Caribbean nation and a large number of UN personnel are unaccounted for, according to the UN peacekeeping chief.
Hours after the devastating earthquake, which has flattened much of the capital Port-Au-Prince including the Presidential Palace, the UN officials do not know how many casualties the UN Peacekeeping force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has suffered.
The UN has 9,000 peacekeepers in the country which include over 7,000 soliders and 2,000 policemen. There are 200 Indians living in Haiti including 60-100 who work for the UN mission.
"We don't have any figures for the time being. But we know clearly it is a tragedy for Haiti, and a tragedy for the UN, and especially for the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti," said Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.
"We know there will be casualties. But we cannot give figures for the time being," he added.
The senior UN official reported that the main building that was the Headquarters of the UN forces, called the Hotel Christopher, has collapsed, and that Brazilian troops in the mission were trying to get people out of the building.
PTI
13/01/2010
India's economy to grow 7.75 per cent; inflation a worry: FM
New Delhi: The government today pegged economic growth for the current fiscal at 7.75 per cent, higher than all previous estimates, but said high food inflation remained a cause for concern.
In a pre-Budget interaction with states finance ministers, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee pointed out that there was enough wheat and rice stocks and proposed open market sale for offloading of these stocks to increase availability in the market, which would in turn ease prices.
"A major area of concern is high food inflation; WPI index increased by 19.79 per cent, therefore collaborative efforts of the central and state governments are required to tackle this problem... Offtake of surplus stock by the state governments are not satisfactory. Therefore, all the state governments may cooperate in this regard to lift these surplus stock alloted to them," Mukherjee said at the meeting.
He also called for efforts to increase farm productivity. Mukherjee said that economic recovery will be a collaborative effort of the centre and the states.
Economic growth stood at 7 per cent during the first half of the current fiscal, Mukherjee said, pegging GDP growth for the whole fiscal at around 7.75 per cent -- a number that exceeds the initial estimates of the government as well as the RBI.
The Union Finance Minister asked the state governments to utilise the cash surplus for development activities.
Source: PTI
13/01/2010
Infosys clientele base at 568
Mumbai: Software major Infosys Technologies today said it has added 32 new clients during the third quarter ended December 31, taking the total number to 568.
"32 clients were added during the quarter by Infosys and its subsidiaries," Infosys said in a statement.
"The contribution to our revenues from our top ten clients grew by 12.2 per cent during the quarter," Infosys Chief Operating Officer SD Shibulal said, adding that clients are now taking decisions much faster.
However, on a quarter-on-quarter basis the total number of clients have decreased marginally to 568 at the end of Q3, from 571 at the end of July-September quarter.
Besides, the number of 'million dollar clients' increased sequentially to 787 at the end of December quarter, from 776 in the previous quarter.
Infosys CEO and Managing Director S Gopalakrishnan said: "Even though IT budgets are expected to be flat in 2010, offshore outsourcing is expected to benefit from this recovery."
During the quarter the software exporter received repeat business orders from 97 per cent of its clients. Besides, top 10 clients accounted for 27.5 per cent of the total clientele of the company.
PTI
Rs 200-cr bounty for Sunderbans
Krishnendu Bandyopadhyay, TNN, 13 January 2010, 03:53am IST
BONNIE CAMP (SUNDERBANS): If Jairam Ramesh, Union minister of state for environment and forests has his way, there will be no dearth of funds for conservation activities in the Sunderbans.
During his maiden visit to the world's largest mangrove biosphere reserve on Tuesday, Ramesh announced a Rs 200 crore grant for the Sunderbans as part of the World Bank's Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project.
This money will be utilised in the next five years starting June 30, 2010. Ramesh also plans to set up a Sunderbans Eco-system Task Force to look into climate and environmental issues of the 'critically vulnerable coastal area'.
"I want one person in my ministry who will be responsible for all activities in the Sunderbans. At present, there are six to seven agencies working in the Sunderbans. Unfortunately, they do not talk to each other and there is no integration of initiatives. The effect of stand-alone initiatives are not felt," Ramesh said.
The minister also announced Rs 2 crore for rainwater harvesting in villages around the core area. There are nearly two lakh people living in the buffer zone.
"We will have to reduce their dependency on the forest. For this, alternative livelihoods will have to be developed. One crop lands will have to be turned into multi-crop ones. For this, rainwater has to be harvested. After Aila, most sweetwater ponds in the area turned saline. Ideally, the people living in the Sunderbans should be relocated. This is not possible as there is insufficient land in West Bengal," he said.
Ramesh will also set up an Indo-Bangla Sunderbans Eco-system Forum, the first meeting of which will be convened in March. "Nearly 60% of the Sunderbans falls in Bangladesh. Our neighbouring country is very keen to work with India for protection and conservation. Till now, there has been little interest from our side. I want to reverse this. I have already taken up the matter with the external affairs ministry. There is actually a lot that we can learn from Bangladesh," the minister added.
The forum will deal with issues such as tiger census, wildlife protection and migration, Ramesh said.
The World Bank grant of Rs 200 crore (US$ 50 million) will be used for plantation, wildlife protection and anti-trafficking activities. Ramesh plans to integrate the efforts of the forest department, irrigation department, the Botanical Survey of India, the Zoological survey of India, the department of Sunderbans affairs and agencies like the Border Security Guard and Coast Guard. An action plan will be drawn up soon.
Ramesh is clearly not happy with the way tiger census is carried out in the Sunderbans. According to him, a range of 50-250 Bengal tigers is too wide to understand the actual situation. While 50 means that the situation is extremely grim, 250 big cats would suggest that things have improved miraculously. He has urged the Wildlife Institute of India to give more accurate figures for the Sunderbans. This should be available by November.
Ramesh was present when the four-year-old tigress captured near a village on January 9 was released into the dense forests of Haldi Beat — near the estuary. The minister even stood near the tigress' cage and announced that it was his "moment of bravery". After being released, the tigress entered the water with a huge leap, gave a ferocious roar before swimming across into deep forest cover.
The tigress was first spotted near Petkulchand in Kultali on January 3. It took nearly a week to capture her. By this time, she had mauled a curious villager who got too close. Forest officials also released 65 deer raised at Dobanki to increase the forest's prey base, in Ramesh's presence.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Rs-200-cr-bounty-for-Sunderbans/articleshow/5438868.cms
50 tech firms vie for Rajarhat land
Suman Chakraborti, TNN, 11 January 2010, 02:23am IST
KOLKATA: With Wipro accepting West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco)'s offer of 50 acres in Rajarhat at Rs 1.5 crore per acre, at least 50 small IT companies are said to have lined up to get a share of the land pie.
Of the 300 acres earmarked for the IT sector, Hidco has already distributed 288 acres among different companies. In view of the growing demand for plots in New Town, Rajarhat, Hidco is now planning to allot more land to the IT sector to attract more investment to the state.
Hidco managing director Saurabh Das said they have received applications from 50 small IT firms, which are keen to get land in New Town. "While the requirement of these IT companies is less than an acre each, 288 acres of the 300 acres earmarked for the information technology sector have already been distributed among various firms. A decision may be taken after some time whether more land will be earmarked for IT in New Town," he added.
Besides Wipro, TCS is the other major IT company that has bought land in New Town measuring 40 acres at Rs 1.5 crore per acre.
Hidco has reserved around 10% of the total 3,779 hectares in New Town for commercial purposes and only 3.5 % for IT and IT-enabled services. Most of this land is in the planned central business district (CBD) of New Town.
The reason why IT companies are scouting for plots in New Town is that there is little space available in Sector V right now. Though around 300 cottahs comprising several small plots are still lying unutilized in Sector V, the urban development department has not been able to identify suitable land and start work on distribution of the same.
For now, Hidco has decided that no land will be handed over to any individual developer for real estate purposes. Commercial plots will be given only to joint venture companies tying up with Hidco. Officials said a policy is being framed on how to hand over commercial plots. "We are yet to start selling/distributing commercial plots on a regular basis. A policy is being framed on how these plots will be distributed," a Hidco official said.
The policy would also specify the type of commercial establishments that could be set up on the allotted land.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/50-tech-firms-vie-for-Rajarhat-land-/articleshow/5429118.cms
Flames SWALLOW Citizenship, Existence and Politics helps Realty Boom.
Nilekani have not to Spare the Slum dogs!
Is there any Link in Between New Delhi and Kolkata Blaze? Does Mumbai and Metro blazes Relate each Other? Does the Eviction Drive Differ in nature with the Military Option, AFPSA and Zero Intolerance against the Tribal People of India?
We may not establish any Link but the People directly Benefited by Such Incidents would not be DEPRIVED of Unique Identity Number, I am sure. The Government of India is much Concerned for the Voting Rights for the NRIs already granted dual Citizenship. The Day is not very far while the NRIS would take over Governance, legislation and Policy making. In fact, the have but the faces belong to Indian Politics and India Incs.We would love to see an NRI to become the President Of United states Of America and global Hindutva has aligned with zionists to Run the Triiblis Galaxy Order of Post Modern Manusmriti and Apartheid!
Colonel Barves called me this morning from Raipur and asked about the Slum Blaze in Kolkata. At the time I was in Keutia Village near Kankinara in 24 parganas on the Kalyani Highway. We missed the Birthday of DIKUon last 31st december, the youngest son of Niranjan, my nephew.The Kid was waiting for the toys and Cake from us. We had decided to visit the place in the afternoon. But the Fire broke on 1.30 PM last afternoon. We came to know about the incident browsing TV Channels. It was a Live Telecast round the clock. We had to wait until Train service resumed around 4.50. We reached Sodepur station on 5PM and could not Entrain as all Trains were running JAM Packed and none Detrained in Sodepur.We managed to sneak into Naihati Local around 6.15.We reached Cousin`s home on 8.30PM.The Victims are mostly the Unrehabilitated Bengali Refugee Colonies. The Place had been a Major Refugee camp during partition Holocaust. Most of the Bengali SC OBC refugees have been scattered out of Bengal who fight to establish their Identity. Many of the Bengali Refugees settled in West Bengal who did refuge to go out of Bengal have been disposed with Two to five Cutta piece of land. Ranagaht, Dhubulia and Triveni Camp refuges are in this Category. Sodepur has 121 refugee Colonies. dumdum and New Barrack pur have the most Bengali refugee colonies. Every Space is occupied by the partition victims for which Bengali Brahaminical hegemony did NOTHING and kept ON the INFLOW of Refugee Influx to sustain their Favourable Vote Bank. Thus they kept on adjusting and readjusting the Brahaminical Demography with majority OBC Population denying the Existence of SC and ST and Muslim Population. Thus they did invite SC Masses stranded in the refugee camps of Dandakaranya and Massacred in Marichjhanpi in 1979. Most of the Refugee Colonies are UNAUTHORISED as has been the SLUM Gutted in ULTADANGA. West Bengal remains a Cluster of such SLUM Population and Kolkata is reduced to the status of a Grand slum bigger than DHARAVI!
Morning Newspapers varied in counting the Victims. PTI already put it as SIXTY odd dwellers. The Morning CPIM mouthpiece Ganashakti and Hindustan Times, the number as 450 only. Ananadbazaar counted One Thousand households while The Telegraph, published from the same house published that NO Less than Two and halfd Thousand Families got their Homes Gutted. CPIM Supporting Bengali Daily reported Two Thousand shaties have been Gutted.
What is in a Number? But the variety in Projection of the Number exposes the LPG Mafia game Plan very well, we may not Overlook.
We land in Sealdah just after Bidhan Nagar. The Slum lies so close to the railway Plat farm Number Four. While we visit salt lake, we use the short Cut amidst the slums. There had been Thousands of homes owned by the Slum dog Underclasses. it had also islands of Effluence which had Pucca Buildings, Consumer durables including Gas, Freeze, TV and so on. The Slum lied beside the Bidhan Chandra Roy Market which had Hundreds of shops. The Rly Plat farm opens with a corridor of hotels roadside and stalls , they also number Hundreds. Any One may guess with the Live Clips of the Towering Inferno that the Blaze DEVASTATED Everything before the Fire Tenders could reach the area crossing the Political Blockade. It looked rather FISHY and LPG Mafia has overtaken the Marxist Ideology and Realty has always the last say. The Prime land in Burra Bazaar has the Peculiar history of Fire regularly evacuating old Occupants residents as well Business communities for ever. They are NEVER Rehabilitated and every time Multi storied Commercial Buildings create SKY Raisers. I was talking to Colonel Barves from Kalyani Highway which connects Kolkata to Kalayani.No land is spared all along the lifeline. All Production unites locked out due to Proactive Trade Unions have been handed over to the Builders and Promoters. Even You may not get a single INch of land to organise any meeting in and around Kolkata. The Ruling Hegemony and the Opposition , both work as the best agencies of Realty sector in the Marxist Ruled Brahaminical Hegemony Mother land captured from Indigenous Aboriginal Black Negroid Untouchables by the Indian Zionists!
My Cousin, the Folk Poet Nitai Pad Sarkar aged over 75 years has always been the admirer of Mamata Banerjee. he told me that the Blockade was UN TOLERABLE. Sabita has also a soft Corer for Mamata in her heart and she was wondering how Trinamul Congress may turn so Heartless. I talked the People Cross section until I write these lines, No bdy Understands the logic of the Political Rivalry Finishing the Underclasses and Underprivileged! My Cousin also questions the Constitutionality of this Rivalry UNDEMOCRATIC! They would not believe that the Political Rivalry is all about the Interests of the LPG Mafia Zionist as well as BRAHAMINICAL.
Barves and others whoever called me since the moment the Blaze overtook Kolkata environment, hinted on the Mystery of Blockade for the Fire Tenders by CPIM as TRINAMUL Congress.
We had been focusing on citizenship amendment Act and Unique Identity Number highlighting the Agenda of Mass Destruction as known as Econmomic Reforms.We had been Exposing the NGOs and Maoists who defend the Corporate Interest and in fact Help Chettiyar Chidambaram in his Corporate war against the People of India!We discussed the Issue in Bamcef national Convention held in Jaipur. Back to back, a Bengali Refugee All India convention held in Nagpur on 9th and 10th January last. The Government of India has to demolish all the Slums while the URBAN and Semi Urban population Countrywide consists of 50 to 52 percent Slum dog Population. They would not have Unique Identity Number nor the Tribal People or the Sc ST OBC Refugees partition Victims from Srilanka or East Bengal would have the Mandatory NUMBER to live in India.
The PANDURA has been Captured and the Aboriginal People associated with Nature have been Branded as Terrorists as well as Extremists as the Natural Resources have to be handed over to the Corporates, MNCs and India Incs.
Cabinet Ranked India Incs Man, the Chairman of Unique Identity Number authority has officially Clarified that he would be able to give only SIXTY Crore Numbers!
What about the others?
Kolakat Blaze replies solving the Number puzzle. The calamity Man Made has not only Destroyed their Hoe and Livelihood, It Also DESTROYED Their Identity as they could not save the Essential DOCUMENTS to get UID! It happens every time every where in Man Made or Natural calamities!
Dr. Subodh Biswas from Nagpur,Dr Vinoy Mandal from Kota Rajasthan, Nirmalendu Haldar,the grand son in Law of the Great Mukunda Bihari Mullick from Chandrapur,KL Biswas from Mumbai and Kolkata based Activist Kapil Krishna Thakur beside our friends all over the Country continue to feed back Information of Deportation and Persecution, displacement and Exodus. Dr Mandal called me from a Meeting of Rajsthan Bengali Refugees` Meeting held in Kota last night.I suggested them that the Bengali Refugees are Destined with Rest of Indian Citizens, the Black Untouchables selected for Ethnic Cleansing. We may not Survive in ALIENATOION! I also say same thing to OBC leaders, Muslims and tribal People. We MUST Stand United in resistance.
Meanwhile, Profeesor KHARAT, the editor of Mulnivasi Nayak had been attacked in Pune. Ploice framed Dozens of our activists in Jalgaon!
On Tuesday afternoon, Trina-mool Congress activists blocked traffic — including fire tenders — when an inferno was raging barely 500 metres away in Ultadanga. Auto drivers, owing allegiance to both Right and Left, who were on a wildcat strike since morning, had already clog-ged up traffic and delayed rescue teams. Local train services were disrupted when the blaze broke out today in a slum near Bidhanagar railway station here, a portion of which also caught fire, railway officials said.
The fire from the slum beside the railway tracks spread to Bidhanagar station, which led the railway authorities to suspend the rail service in Sealdah North Section, they said, adding that the fire at the railway station was brought under control.
The blaze, caused by a gas cylinder explosion, reduced 60 dwellings in the slum to ashes, however there was no casualty, fire brigade officials said.PTI reported the Official version.
The fire brigade arrived late at the accident site due to a road blockade by autorickshaw owners at Ultadanga to demand more LPG outlets for three-wheelers, the officials said.
The delay in the arrival of the fire brigade resulted in the blaze to spread to the station, they added.
A blaze in Ultadanga was devouring everything coming its way while fire tenders were held up by blockades on Tuesday afternoon.A fire broke out in Kolkata's Ultadanga slum on Tuesday razing the entire area, an official said. One person is reportedly dead.Wildcat bandhs and roadblocks are part of Kolkata's culture. You always knew that. But even if your life is at stake, don't expect any sympathy from politicians and their henchmen. That's what they call 'democratic right' in this part of the country. The 50-foot flames could not be missed in the smoke-filled horizon but the Trinamool brigade was undeterred. All the while, police kept 'requesting' the protesters to let the fire tenders pass. No officer was willing to take tough action even though lives were at risk. The auto blockade was broken only by the blaze, when the drivers ran off to save their homes.
Around 100 autorickshaw operators descended on the Ultadanga crossing at 10.20am to protest the lack of enough LPG stations in the city.Within minutes, queues of stranded vehicles stretching several kilometres fanned out in three directions from the crossing.
All approach roads to the intersection were also choked as auto operators put up blockades in Kankurgachhi, Phoolbagan, Beleghata and Lake Town and on Jessore Road.
The blockade at the Ultadanga crossing was lifted after 12.30pm, as the protesters rushed to the rescue of the fire victims in Number 4 Basanti Colony, adjacent to Bidhan Nagar Road station. But the snarls continued till 3pm.
Fire department officers said the first five fire tenders reached the spot "within minutes" of receiving the first call at 1.20pm. But even at 1.30pm, Metro spotted bumper-to-bumper traffic on the approach roads to the Ultadanga crossing.
Around 2pm, Trinamul Congress supporters blocked arterial roads and key crossings across the city, kicking off an hour-long protest against price rise and political violence in the state.
As a result, tenders from CR Avenue, Howrah, Free School Street, Cossipore and Lalbazar were delayed on their way to the blaze site.
Fire department sources said the tenders from the CR Avenue station took almost an hour to reach Ultadanga, a distance usually covered in 15 minutes.
Fire minister Pratim Chatterjee said: "The fire tenders were blocked by Trinamul supporters. Such an incident is unheard of in a civilised country."
Trinamul Youth Congress president Madan Mitra said Tuesday's disruptions were part of the party's week-long agitation against the Centre and the state government.
He, however, said the party had decided against blocking Ultadanga and VIP Road because of the "devastating fire".
Did he presume the tenders would fly to the spot bypassing the choked approach roads?
At least 35 fire engines were pressed into service to battle the blaze. The entire slum area was razed by the fire which broke out in three different places, the official added.
Train services in Eastern Railway's (ER) Sealdah division were affected as the power supply in the overhead wire was temporary cut off by the Railway authorities as a precautionary measure.
"We cut off power supply in the overhead wire to avert any big accident. This apart, many people also came on to the railway tracks as their shanties were gutted due to the fire," an ER spokesperson told IANS.
The fire also damaged a portion of the Bidhannagar railways station.
"Our officers are still there and they are looking into the situation," he said.
By the time the firemen arrived, over half of Basanti Colony was in ashes and one person killed.
There were at least five Trinamool blockades in a 2.5-km radius of the inferno. The pre-announced chakka jam started about 45 minutes after the flames broke out and went on for an hour — from 2 pm to 3 pm — when the fire was at its fiercest.
Fire services minister Pratim Chatterjee lashed out at Trina-mool Congress, saying: "How could they block fire tenders? This does not happen in a civilised society."
Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was greeted with protests from slum dwellers when he went to the site in the evening.
"It's a conspiracy against us. Our programme was a scheduled one," countered leader of opposition Partha Chattopadhyay. "The fire broke out at 1.05 pm. Our agitation started an hour later. There was enough time for fire tenders to reach the spot. We've never bloc-ked a public utility service. At so-me places, due to crowding, the vehicles might have been blocked."
The countdown to disaster started at 10.30 am, when auto drivers staged wildcat road blockades at several points, including Ultadanga-VIP Road Hudco crossing, EM Bypass-Beliaghata crossing and Kankurgachhi crossing, demanding better LPG supply. Within 15 minutes, traffic movement in central and eastern Kolkata collapsed. Cars, buses and two-wheelers were lined up on VIP Road up to Keshtopur, 2 km away, and Kankurgachhi, 4 km away. The city's lifeline, EM Bypass, was choked. Gradually, the gridlock extended to the entire city.
All efforts at persuading the autowallahs failed. Around 1 pm, when deputy commissioners Pallab Kanti Ghosh (eastern suburban division) and Dilip Banerjee (traffic) were still talking to the protesters, dense smoke was seen rising from Basanti Colony, barely 1 km from the site of the blockades. The auto drivers started running to save their homes. The blockade melted away but not the mess it created.
The Telegraph reports:
A blaze claimed one life and rendered around 2,500 dwellers homeless on Tuesday afternoon as it reduced a slum to rubble and severely damaged a market in Ultadanga.
Twenty-six fire tenders were called in to battle the blaze for two hours as the entire slum area in Number 4 Basanti Colony — adjacent to platform number four of Bidhan Nagar Road station — comprising over 500 shanties. The flames, leaping up to 35 feet, were checked just before they spread to the P&T Colony and the Reserve Bank of India quarters nearby.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100113/jsp/calcutta/story_11977948.jsp
2 Astra missiles successfully test fired
Balasore, Orissa Achieving a new milestone, India on Monday successfully test-fired two indigenously developed air-to-air missiles 'Astra' in quick succession from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Orissa.
The beyond visual range (BVR) missiles were test-fired from a ground launcher in the launch pad No. 2 of the ITR complex at about 9.45 am and 12.06 pm, defence sources said.
Describing both the trials as "successful", they said the data of the flight test was being thoroughly analysed. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientists said Astra was a futuristic missile and it could intercept targets at supersonic speeds between mach 1.2 to 1.4 (mach one is equivalent to 1236 kmph.)
"The tests on the missile's navigation, control, air frame, propulsion and other sub-system have been validated," they said.
The complex missile system would undergo some more trials before being made fully operational, they said. The single stage, solid fuel 'Astra' missile "is more advanced in its category than the contemporary BVR missiles and it is capable of engaging and destroying highly manoeuvrable supersonic aerial targets," defence sources said.
Though the exact range of today's trial was not disclosed, scientists are working to ensure that 'Astra' performs effectively at different altitudes - one, cruising at an altitude of 15 km with 90 to 110 km range, another at an altitude up to 30,000 ft having a range of 44 km and the third, at sea level with a range of 30 km. Astra had earlier been test-fired from the ITR at the ground level several times, the sources added.
Cold wave in northern India claims over 326 lives
New Delhi The cold wave continues to disrupt normal life across north India, and the death toll is now reported to be over 326.
Another 38 deaths were reported from Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll in the state to almost 300.
The fresh casualties were reported from Barabanki and Sitapur (5 each), Gonda and Varanasi (4 each), Etah and Orai (3 each), Lucknow, Muzaffarnagar, Kheri, Kushinagar, Balia and Chandauli (2 each) and Azamgarh and Basti (1 each), claimed official sources.
The dense fog has further added to the problems of the people in the region with Kanpur recording a temperature of 3.7 degree Celsius, the coldest place in the state, followed by Varani, where the temperarure was recorded to be 4 degree Celcius.
In Delhi, a foggy morning brought bad news for air travelers, as several flights were affected.
The Meteorological Department has predicted dense fog in the capital over the next couple of days.
The cold conditions worsened in Jammu and Ladakh regions with a fall in mercury level, though there was some improvement in night temperatures.
The night temperature in Jammu slipped to 2.7 degree Celcius with Banihal recording a temperature of minus 1.6 degree Celcius, the coldest place in the state.
In Leh, the night temperature dipped to minus 22 degree Celcius, while in Kargil it was minus 16.4 degree Celcius. Srinagar recorded a temperature of minus 3.6 degree Celcius, while the temperature recorded in Pahalgam was minimum of minus 5.5 degree Celcius.
The possibility of rains and thundershowers has been forecast in Punjab, Haryana and several parts of Himachal Pradesh in the next few days.
Slum life and politics collide in New Delhi neighborhood
AP Worldstream | May 10, 2004 | TIM SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer
TIM SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer
AP Worldstream
05-10-2004
Dateline: NEW DELHI
It's election day along the banks of the Yamuna River, where the chaos of shantytown poverty is being replaced by empty lots blanketed by dust storms of dirt and ash.
The national tourism minister has great plans for Yamuna Pushta, the riverbank area that is home to the worst New Delhi slums, and says his beautification project will bring grassy enclaves and upscale visitors.
First, though, tens of thousands of New Delhi's poorest residents must be cleared out.
Then there's the political hitch: that same tourism ...
India Inc still cautious on hiring: Survey
New Delhi Amid rising optimism for the future of their businesses, India Inc still remains cautious about hiring in the January-March period, a survey by leading staffing firm TeamLease Services said.
According to the quarterly report, hiring sentiment saw a marginal improvement with the employment outlook index for the January to March quarter standing at 47 index points, 1 per cent higher than the previous quarter.
On the other hand, indicating bullish expectations for the future of their businesses, the net business outlook index has shown an increase of 41 index points for Jan-March period.
"Hiring sentiments have marginally improved this quarter, in line with the Industry's positive outlook. Our estimates show that there would be a leap of faith during this current quarter and trends will not just hold out, they will be bolder and result in higher employment gains," TeamLease Services Vice-President Rajesh AR said.
"That said, employers are cautious and are placing stronger emphasis on skill-gap and employability. It must be noted that the intention to hire is still weak this time around. The jitters have been shaken off, however, and the numbers are now likely to ramp up steadily," he added.
There has been a rise in employment outlook index points of all cities except Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
Moreover, there has been a rise in hiring outlook across most of the sectors, except financial services and pharma.
According to the TeamLease 'Quarterly Employment Outlook' report, increase in hiring intentions has been the maximum for infrastructure sector, while telecom saw the least.
The index points of most sectors are on the increase except telecom and pharma. The IT Enabled services sector increased the most (by 31 points).
Besides, among cities the employment outlook index points of Pune rose the most (by 50 points), while it dropped the most for Delhi (by 24 points).
In terms of outlook for their businesses, there has been an increase in all cities except Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad.
The Business Outlook Index points of Pune increased the most by 63 points.
The report noted that there was a decrease in the intention to hire at all managerial levels, while there was an increase in intention to hire in marketing and customer service functions.
During the past three months as well as the last one year, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Delhi had the highest attrition rates compared to other cities.
Ahmedabad had the lowest attrition rate in both last 3 months as well as in last 1 year, the survey added.
Flat residents flee flames
A STAFF REPORTER
Pearly Mitra was taking a bath in her first-floor flat in the P&T colony on Ultadanga Main Road on Tuesday when what sounded like a bomb exploded nearby. She rushed to the balcony, only to find herself facing a wall of dark smoke.
The wall soon parted to reveal flames reaching for the sky: the slum the 23-year-old engineering student had seen since childhood was ablaze.
"The flames were almost licking our building. I knew we had to get out of the flat before it too caught fire," said Pearly, who ran outside with whatever she could grab from her home.
Her neighbours in the compound and the Reserve Bank of India quarters — only a 3m- wide road separates the estates from the slum — were doing the same.
"We moved the LPG cylinders from the flats because the kitchens face the slum," said Sharmila Mukherjee, a resident of the colony.
More than 80 families gathered on the grounds outside the flats and prayed that the flames did not engulf their homes. As hours passed, more and more slum dwellers took refuge there.
We continuously sprayed water on the walls of the adjacent buildings so that they did not catch fire, said divisional fire officer Bibhash Guha.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100113/jsp/calcutta/story_11977853.jsp
RBI flashes red signal at MLM companies
ENS Economic Bureau
Posted: Sep 17, 2009 at 0914 hrs IST
Mumbai The operations of shady multi-level marketing (MLM) companies — which operate what are popularly known as pyramid or ponzi schemes — have come under the regulatory scanner with shady MLM companies mushrooming across the country and duping investors. Many firms posing as MLM agencies for consumer goods and services have been actually mobilising large amounts of deposits from the public with promises of ridiculous returns of 120 per cent and repayment of prinicipal within a year.
In a circular, the Reserve Bank of India has alerted banks that in cases where accounts have already been opened in the names of the marketing agencies, retail traders and investment firms, the banks should undertake quick reviews. "Wherever large number of cheque books has been issued to such firms, the relative decision may be reviewed," it said.
With many MLM companies recently using the banking technology to dupe investors, the RBI said, "banks should be careful in opening accounts of the marketing/trading agencies etc. Especially, strict compliance with KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering) guidelines issued by the RBI should be ensured in the matter."
The banking regulator also named seven MLM companies (Fine India Sales Pvt Ltd, Lakshya Levels Marketing, Eve Industries, Trident Advertising & Trade Links Pvt. Ltd, Super Life Link Distributors, Lue Brain Education Society and Manya Mantra Marketing). "These firms and their agents had reportedly promised very high returns on deposits and lured common people to part with funds in the name of certain investment/deposit schemes," the RBI said.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/RBI-flashes-red-signal-at-MLM-companies/518020/
Indian stocks becoming less interesting
New Delhi Indian stocks are becoming "less interesting" as their valuation vis-a-vis other markets in the Asian region have declined considerably, Swiss banking major Credit Suisse said in a report.
"We believe India is becoming less interesting from valuation perspective," Credit Suisse Research Analysts Sakthi Siva and Kin Nang Chik said.
In March 2009, India traded at a 40 per cent discount to the region (Asia), while currently that discount is just 2 per cent. The consensus EPS (earnings per share) revisions in India are also lagging in the region, the report added.
Though India is currently trading at a 2 per cent discount, it still looks favourable for the stocks compared to the 20 per cent premium the country traded at during the strong growth years from 2005-07, the report said.
Credit Suisse has, however, maintained an "overweight" status on the Indian market.
The benchmark index Sensex, which opened at 9,647 points in 2009 closed the year almost double at 17,464, up 7,817.50 points (81 per cent) from the year ago level.
The Sensex witnessed a historic 81 per cent rally last year, boosted by the UPA victory in May 2009 on expectations that the new government would introduce measures to boost economic growth. Another reason for the rally was the sooner-than-expected economic recovery of the country.
The year 2009 also saw Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) flocking in and buying Indian equities worth a whopping over Rs 80,000 crore after their flight away from the market previous year (2008).
Credit Suisse further said," in March 2009, India was the third most undervalued market in the region after Indonesia and Thailand. Currently, it is the sixth most undervalued." Elaborating further, the report said the EPS estimates for Indian companies were raised 1 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 0.1 per cent in the last three months of 2009, while for other markets in the Asian region it was 3.4 per cent, 4.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent over the same period.
The sectors, which looks bullish in India include Information technology, steel and banks.
"Within India, our biggest overweight was IT. This was initially because of valuations and more recently as a play on a global capex recovery," Credit Suisse said.
RBI worried about special loan rates
fe Bureau
Posted: Jan 13, 2010 at 2243 hrs IST
Mumbai The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday expressed concerns over special loan rates offered by banks. RBI deputy governor Usha Thorat said, "The 'teaser rates' by banks are cause of concern," indicating central bank's discomfort with such offers, especially when bad loans were increasing day by day.
In a bid to woo customers, banks such as SBI, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank are offering home loans at special or fixed rates for the first two years, after which it would be charged on floating rate basis.
Such teaser rates offer a fixed lower initial interest rate for a specified period, followed by a floating rate. As and when interest rates begin to rise, the floating rate is expected to go up.
"In the housing loans segment, teaser rates are increasingly being offered which is a cause for concern. I hope banks are ensuring that borrowers are aware of the implications of such rates and the appraisal takes into account the repaying capacity of borrowers when rates become normal," Thorat said at the Bancon conference in Mumbai.
Banks should be sensitised to the issue. She added.
The RBI has slashed its key lending rate by 425 basis points between October 2008 and April 2009.
Thorat also expressed worries on huge investments by banks in mutual funds, which has led banks to go in for short-term debt. "This has led to significant risk exposure by banks that need to be addressed," she said.
Thorat said that a phenomenon that RBI has brought to attention of banks recently is the large investments by banks into debt oriented mutual funds.
"MFs have invested large amounts in bank CDs. Banks that have a significant part of their liabilities in form of CDs have to be sensitive to the rollover risk. Equally, banks that have large investments in MFs have to be sensitive to the liquidity risk in the event of the need for sudden redemption by large investors at the same time," she added.
In 2009, banks have raised Rs 2.06 trn by way of CDs. "This distortion-whereby MFs are apparently acting as intermediaries in what should otherwise have been intermediated in the interbank market - is something that needs to be addressed," said Thorat.
SBI chief comes to defence
Though RBI expressed its displeasure over special rates in retail segments, SBI chairman OP Bhatt has defended the bank's scheme.
Bhatt said special home loan rates have helped the bank revive the housing loan demand in the market. "We had done it when the credit offtake was almost nill. Hence, we were compelled to park our money with RBI at 3.25% interest rate. So, what is wrong if we are getting 8% interest rate on home loan," Bhatt said, adding that the 8% scheme had not put any pressure on his bank's margin rather the margins have improved since then. The chairman stressed that there was no pressure from the government to keep the rates lower.
Agreeing with Bhatt, Central Bank of India CMD R Sridhar said, "Home loan is for a longer period and not just for one year. So, many banks are offering this at 8% for only first one or two years. The point you must understand is the difference between the US and Indian market. While in the US, it is an asset-based financing, whereas, in India it is a cash-flow based financing. " However, Bank of Baroda CMD MD Mallya said, "What is required to be done is to study the repayment capacity of the borrower keeping in mind the change in the interest rate during later years."
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/RBI-worried-about-special-loan-rates/566605/
Gowda instigating farmers, alleges Yeddyurappa
Bangalore Stepping up his attack on former prime minister H D Deve Gowda for using abusive language against him, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Tuesday accused him of instigating farmers to create law and order problems in the state.
"What is your intention? Do you want to vitiate the law and order situation? You are creating confusion and hampering development. Why are you losing your balance? Please outline the reasons for your attack on my government?" Yeddyurappa said posing a series of questions to Gowda.
"I have not heard in post-independence era a former prime minister calling a chief minister a 'bloody bastard' and using other invectives. People of Karnataka are known for decent, dignified and courteous behaviour," Yeddyurappa told reporters here.
Flaying Gowda's remarks made on Sunday during a farmers' protest against land acquisition for the Bangalore-Mysore Express Highway project, he appealed to the people, particularly his party men, to end the three-day old protests against the JDS chief.
Asserting that his government had no role in allotment of land to Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) for the project, Yeddyurappa said the MoU was signed on February 20, 1995 when Gowda was the chief minister. The framework agreement was inked on April 3, 1997 by the then Janata Dal Government led by late J H Patel.
Yeddyurappa said it was the Janata Dal government which fixed Rs 10 as lease rent per acre of land and his government could not be blamed for it. The Outline Development Plan (ODP) was approved on December 12, 2004 when S M Krishna was the chief minister, he said.
As per the framework agreement so far 7,123.1 acres of land has been handed over to NICE, he said, adding that this included the release of 204 acres by H D Kumarswamy and 862 acres by Dharam Singh during their respective chief ministerships.
"We will not give one acre of land extra other than the 20,193 acres stipulated under the original agreement," he said.
Fire in Delhi slums claim seven lives
Agencies
Posted: Jan 06, 2008 at 0000 hrs IST
New Delhi, January 6: Seven persons were charred to death and about 300 shanties gutted when a major fire broke out in a slum cluster in north Delhi.
Thirty fire tenders worked for about three hours to douse the blaze, suspected to be caused by a fire lit by slum dwellers near Lahori gate to fight the chilly weather.
Seven people were charred to death and almost all the three hundred huts were completely gutted in the fire," R C Sharma, chief fire officer said.
Ten people were injured, some of them seriously, he said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) Devesh Shrivastava said the bodies of the seven persons were badly burnt and the process is on to ascertain the identity of the victims.
There are about 800 people living in the slum cluster.
The flames were reported at around 02:45 am and fire officials who rushed to the spot initially feared the blaze would spread to shops adjoining the slum clusters.
"Our first concern was to ensure that the fire does not spread through the adjoining shops and we managed to do it," a senior fire brigade officer said.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit, who visited the spot, announced a compensation of Rs one lakh to the family of an adult victim and Rs 50,000 to a minor victim.
Fire breaks out in Bandra slum
Shreyashi Srivastava, TNN, 27 October 2009, 03:17am IST
Shreyashi Srivastava, TNN, 27 October 2009, 03:17am IST
MUMBAI: A fire broke out at the Garib Nagar slums in Bandra east at around 11.50 pm on Sunday. Four huts were gutted and some people were injured. The police have been unable to determine what caused the fire.
People were asleep when the fire broke out, but immediately gathered to douse the flames, the police said. The fire brigade sent four fire engines and water tankers to contain the blaze. The fire spread quickly as the huts were close to each other, fire officials said.
Dr Sulabha Chirmule, medical superintendent, Bhabha Hospital, said, four people sustained injuries. Local resident Salim Qureshi (30) suffered minor burns as he helped douse the flames, while Mohammed Ansari (22) sustained bruises while trying to escape the fire. Inspecting officer Ghade said, "The fire started on the upper floor of one of the shanties, but we don't know how." A senior police official said that electric cables in the highly congested area increased the risk of fire.
This is the second fire to break out in this area in four months. On June 18, 200 shanties were burnt down and 15 people injured in a blaze.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Fire-breaks-out-in-Bandra-slum/articleshow/5166293.cms
13/01/2010
Govt allows duty free sugar imports till Dec end
New Delhi: The government today allowed import of refined sugar at zero duty up to December 31 this year in the wake of sweetener prices nearing Rs 50 a kg in the retail market.
The Cabinet Committee on Prices (CCP) also decided to permit UP mills to process imported raw sugar outside the state due to restrictions there.
Two-three million tonnes of wheat would be released in the open market in the next two months to check prices, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told reporters after the meeting. Import of white sugar was allowed till March 31 this year earlier.
Expecting states to play more active role in containing rising food prices, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will review the situation with the Chief Ministers later this month.
Food inflation has reached near 20 per cent while sugar is inching near Rs 50 a kg in the retail market. The Prime Minister would also review the implementation of the Essential Commodities Act for reining in the food prices, Pawar said.
The Mayawati government does not allow the mills to process the imported raw sugar in Uttar Pradesh despite repeated requests from the Centre.
Source: PTI
13/01/2010
Euro-III grade fuel sale to be delayed by six months
New Delhi: The government today said it is on track to supply cleaner Euro-IV grade petrol and diesel in 13 big cities from April 1 but sale of Euro-III fuel in rest of the country will be phased over six months.
Currently, Euro-III grade petrol and diesel is sold in 13 big cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad while Euro-II emission norm- compliant fuel is sold over rest of the country.
From April 1, the 13 cities have to upgrade to Euro-IV and the rest of the nation to Euro-III but lack of planning has ensured that the programme is being implemented in phases.
"We reviewed industry's preparedness (to begin cleaner fuel supplies). Euro-IV petrol and diesel will be for sure supplied in 13 cities (by both private and public sector firms) from April 1 but Euro-III will be launched in phases to cover the entire nation by October 1," Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada told reporters here.
He said since India is a vast country, Euro-III fuels cannot be supplied from day one at all the places, but industry watchers said the ministry should have begun rolling out the fuel from October 2009 so as to meet the Supreme Court mandated deadline of April 1, 2010.
The delay in Euro-III fuel supplies was because of some refineries have not upgraded their facilities in time, he said adding the implementation schedule would be drawn by the oil companies by February 15.
13/01/2010
Half of India's defence equipment is outdated
New Delhi: At least half of the country's defence equipment is obsolete and needs urgent upgrade, a report said on Wednesday, underlining gaps in its defence preparedness in a region roiled by Islamist militancy and military rivalries.
Only 15 percent of India's equipment is "state of the art", according to the first comprehensive report on the country's defence sector prepared by global consultancy firm KPMG and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
New Delhi changed its defence procurement policy last year to further open its defence sector to the world and local companies after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, in which 166 people were killed.
The attack revealed glaring holes in the country's security system.
The new report, released by Defence Minister A.K. Antony, says the country will have to focus on improving homeland security after the Mumbai attacks and the government needs to support private firms in manufacturing equipment locally.
The government says it is keen to upgrade its largely Soviet-era arsenal to counter potential threats from Pakistan and China with a series of acquisitions and by phasing out old weapons.
The country has lost nearly 200 Russian-made MiG series aircraft in crashes since 1990, blamed by the air force on manufacturing defects.
The country wants to increase its air force squadrons from 34 (612 fighters) to 42 (756 fighters) by 2020 with modern aircraft. The army also needs new weapons urgently, the report said.
Bofors Howitzers were the last major acquisition made by the Army way back in 1986, it said.
"The Kargil conflict of 1999 (with Pakistan-based militants in Kashmir) highlighted the shortcomings of equipment held by the armed forces, highlighting the need to modernise the equipment portfolio," the report says.
Since early 2000, India began to buy weapons from other countries like Israel and the United States to replace Russian-origin defence equipment and is now speeding up deals.
India is currently the 10th largest defence spender in the world with an estimated 2 percent share of global expenditure.
The United States, Britain, China, France and Japan are the leaders in global defence spending, each accounting for 3-5 percent of total global expenditure.
Last August, the country started field trials to buy 126 multi-role fighter jets, defence officials said, moving forward on a $10.4 billion deal, one of the the biggest in play.
India is also seeking heavy lift helicopters, submarines, ships and artillery for its army, valued at millions of dollars, the KPMG report says.
All deals are part of a $100 billion budgetary provision over the next 10 years, Indian officials say.
Source: Reuters
13/01/2010
Food prices will fall in 8-10 days: Pawar
NEW DELHI: The soaring prices of essential commodities will start coming down in 8-10 days, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday, adding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called a meeting of the chief ministers here on Jan 27 to discuss the issue.
"With the measures we have taken, the prices of essential commodities are expected to start coming down in eight to 10 days," he told reporters here after a meeting of the cabinet committee on prices chaired by Manmohan Singh.
Pawar said the prime minister would also discuss the implementation of the Essential Commodities Act with the chief ministers.
Pawar also said that state governments were not lifting the wheat and rice stocks made available to them by the central government.
"We have made sizeable allocations of wheat and rice to the states but sufficient ammounts have not been lifted," he pointed out, adding that of the two million tonnes of wheat that had been allocated, only 159,000 tonnes had been lifted, while only 209,000 tonnes of the one million tonnes of rice that had been allocated had been lifted.
"After assessing the situation, the prime minister felt there should be a meeting with the chief ministers where he would appeal to them to lift the stocks that had been allocated," Pawar said.
He added that states had been told to take stern action against hoarders of food. "This will also be reviewed in the conference of chief ministers."
Additionally, steps will be taken to check smuggling of sugarcane and sugar from India to Nepal, he said.
Pawar also announced a major relaxation of norms for the import of raw sugar, saying it could be refined anywhere in the country and not only by the mill that had imported it.
"To expedite the refining of raw sugar and improve availability in the market, the government has relaxed the central excise rules to enable its processing in mills in any state," he said.
"Today, the import (of raw sugar) at zero duty is done under the name of a particular mill. It is supposed to be processed only in that mill. If it is processed elsewhere, then duty has to be paid. This measure has been waived," Pawar said.
He said the waiver had been granted as "a number of sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh had imported raw sugar for processing. However, the bulk of the sugar is still lying in Kandla and Mundra ports in view of restrictions by the Uttar Pradesh government on the movement of raw sugar.
"We have repeatedly requested the state government to lift the restrictions but to no avail," Pawar pointed out.
The government has already permitted the import of raw sugar at zero duty up to Dec 31, 2010. This facility has now been extended for the import of refined sugar.
"In order to ensure continuous availability of sugar in the market, refined sugar will be allowed to be imported at zero duty up to Dec 31, 2010. There will be no quantitative cap on imports," Pawar said
Source: IANS
13/01/2010
1984 riots case: CBI chargesheets Sajjan Kumar
New Delhi: After receiving the go-ahead from the Delhi government to prosecute Sajjan Kumar, the Congress leader is in fresh trouble now as the Central Bureau of Investigation today filed a chargesheet against him for his role in the 1984 communal riots cases.
Earlier, Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna had given the nod to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) to prosecute Sajjan Kumar.
Former parliamentarian Sajjan Kumar is accused of instigating mobs that went on a rampage killing Sikhs in the national capital in the aftermath of the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
The move to prosecute him has left victims' families "upbeat and rejuvenated their hopes of justice after a prolonged delay", said Harvinder Singh Phoolka, lawyer of the families of riot victims.
"This was the biggest hurdle in our striving for justice," Phoolka, who has been battling for justice almost single handedly for the last 25 years, told IANS.
The lawyer said the CBI will now file fresh murder charges against Sajjan Kumar in four cases - "two registered in the Sultanpuri police station and one each registered in Mangolpuri and Delhi Cantonment.
"In these four cases, 11 witnesses have given their evidences, recorded their statements and identified Sajjan Kumar who was instigating people against Sikhs in these areas and spreading enmity between two communities."
The lawyer said: "Sajjan Kumar will be tried under sections 302 (murder) and 153(A) (spreading communal animosity). He has to apply for bail, and if denied he will be arrested.
"It is a great step in our struggle for justice. The CBI has been sitting over this case for the last four years after it completed its investigation."
Source: IANS
13/01/2010
139,000 arms licences issued in Pakistan in 21 months
Karachi: Even as Pakistan is engaged in battling the Taliban in the restive northwest, it emerges that a staggering 139,000 arms licences have been issued in the country in the 21 months since the present government came to power, generating a whopping Rs.20 billion for arms merchants.
Of these, 39,000 licences were issued for prohibited bore weapons such as Kalashnikovs, MP5s, G3s and Uzis, mostly on direct orders of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Minister of State for Interior Tasnim Ahmed Qureshi, The News said Wednesday.
"Most alarmingly, these licences were issued without any police verification or an official check on the background of the applicants," the newspaper said.
A whopping 100,000 licences of non-prohibited bore weapons, such as revolvers and pistols, were also issued without any police verification whatsoever from March 2008 onwards when the present government came to power.
The newspaper quoted sources in the arms dealers' community as estimating that these licences generated Rs.20 billion business for weapons dealers through the sale of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, in addition to massive earnings through the gray market sales of the licences".
"The situation has also raised serious questions about the exact source of weapons supplies to arms dealers," The News noted.
And, since only parliamentarians can recommend the issue of the licences, they can command a premium of up to Rs.200,000, it added.
Between March 2008 and June 2009, the prime minister ordered the issue of 22,541 licences of prohibited weapons, mostly making the orders on plain paper with certain names scribbled on them that were presented to him by various members of the two houses of parliament.
In two months after assuming office in April 2009, junior minister Qureshi issued a record 5,986 licences for prohibited weapons, including more than 100 licences that ended up with Inter Risk (Pvt) Ltd, the security company contracted by the US embassy in Pakistan.
"Inter Risk owners are now facing prosecution for possessing a large cache of illegal weapons," the newspaper said.
Qureshi's personal secretary Qadir Nawaz was arrested in the case, while the issue of 5,986 prohibited bore weapons licences in just two months on the direct orders of the minister of state "is still being probed by the relevant agencies", The News said.
"This incident caused an uproar in the government security services about the scale of corruption and security risks in the weapons licensing system. The prime minister, though, rejected allegations of ministerial level involvement in the weapons scam, announced a ban on issue of (prohibited bore) licences in June last year," it added.
However, as pressure mounted on him from parliamentarians, Gilani introduced a quota system last September under which each member of the National Assembly and the Senate could recommend the issue of 25 licences per year for prohibited bore weapons and 20 licences per month for non-prohibited bore weapons.
Gilani also extended the favour to members of the provincial assemblies, allotting them five prohibited bore licences per year.
Source: IANS
Glendora Press – Oct. 19, 1969
Slums of New York—Training
(Editor's Note: For several issues the Glendora Press has carried articles by Glendora High School teacher Dwayne Hunn in which he describes his impressions as a Peace Corps worker in India. He continues with other aspects of his Peace Corps experience and training.)
By DWAYNE HUNN
My placement in this Peace Corps training group was partially a bureaucratic blunder.
As a teenager, I had helped my uncle make a drawer or two and thus had written carpentry as one of my hobbies on the application. Consequently, I was placed in this Rural Community Construction group bound for Pakistan.
Though I loved the group and was starting to learn plan drawing and a few fundamentals of building and road laying, I decided that I would transfer to a group in education or community development and left with no little remorse.
In a month I had my choice of Thailand, Malaysia or India in the desired fields. I chose India because it was to be the first Urban Community Development group sent to Asia, and it seemed the bigger challenge.
UCDers often had no "real" job at their work sites. You were not there to specifically teach school, increase agricultural production, nurse the sick – but to develop a community. So the hope was that you would find an area that needed work and work into it. While you were, hopefully, doing this, you felt by living close to the general population and simultaneously observing the life styles of the city's rich – who usually were interested in making whites acquaintances – much frustrated.
Though you may have come from a lower middle class background your old life style was still closer to that of the rich than that of the masses. Your attempts at quickly finding a relatively rewarding job generally failed. If you accepted wining and dining invitations from the rich westerners or natives, and they asked what you were doing, and even if you were doing something they thought it was a terrible waste of time on your part; your frustrations continued to mount.
If you did not find that job, your American sense of speedy accomplishment and your exalted Peace Corps image of yourself plus the typical cultural differences, homesickness, physical sickness, etc., grated on you until you gave up. For these and other reasons UCD had the Peace Corps' highest dropout rate.
Training started in October at Columbia School of Social Work in New York. Our language training was inferior in the Pakistan groups; we spent too much time studying Hindu philosophy and history and not enough on learning Hindi. Our instructors, from the school of social work conducted great discussion groups, but their jobs were made easier due to our field work experience.
The worst slum in Asia is Calcutta and because of this and its violent Bengali temper the Peace Corps was leery about sending a group there. As a second choice they settled on Bombay. Peace Corps was then faced with the problem of how to train us for an Asian slum.
Rather than choose the coastal slums of Bombay for field training, they chose the coastal slums of Harlem, South Bronx, etc. From our 40 odd experiences in these areas, the 21/2 hour discussion groups were hardly enough to complain about the bureaucracy, argue job approaches, and relate experiences.
Some were humorous experiences. Fran, Jim, Dan, and two girls acted out one of these.
While walking through Central Park on the way to a meeting two Negroes came up behind them. With trench coats curled up and their hands sunk deeply into their pockets, the Negroes demanded that the five "Give all the money you got."
Jim was a six-footer and a good athlete. Dan was short, stocky, and quick tempered. Frank was roly-poly and liked to talk a lot. The girls were just girls. Four of these acted scared. Frank didn't. Frank told them to get lost and led the group on their walking way. The Negroes followed and raised their voices in repeating their demand. Frank led on.
This time one of the Negroes grabbed one of the group and stopped them in their tracks. With this the roly-poly one bounded forward, oblivious to the threats that the concealed hands were curled around guns. He threw up his hands and sprang into a stance to announce that he knew Karate and would they please step forward to take the money. The Negroes looked stunned. Frank turned the group to continue their trek. The Negroes remained.
The story was the talk of International House for weeks, and Frank, most of all, liked to tell it. Frank probably could punch his way out of a paper bag but not by, the unknown to him, art of Karate.
Some experiences, like the Christian Damascus Church of Christ, were startling. Doreen, a sweet and simple girl, Frank, and myself found the church down a back street, flanked by a Black Muslim organization and many barred windows, in South Bronx. Worn, musty, and crickey stairs led to a hall that passed a large room in which derelicts were sitting on some, old basic steel frame beds. I had seen derelicts on Skid Row in Cleveland, and though I had never seen a Salvation Army rest room during the depression, this is how I imagined might be.
About 10 feet past this room we entered a 15' ´ 25' office. Seated in the middle of the room was a pathetic figure, sobbing and heaving. He was saying something, but not making much sense. Most of his effort was going into his sobs and heaves. Sharing the room was a teenage Mexican girl and the Rev. Jerry Kaufman. We inquired into the man's condition and the reverent said he was coming off of a high.
The whole scene, this church, this neighborhood, this guy was too much for me to swallow at once. The reverend was ignoring the man, going about his paper work, counseling visitors, and wondering, we later found out, what to do with us. While he was doing this, I stood back to study the situation.
The next five hours were spent watching the pathos of the man sitting in the chair. I became a believer. I believed that dope addicts frequented the church, that the reverend had been an addict for 13 years, and that there were more pathetic looking people walking through the doors of that church than I had seen in 9,000 school days.
I did not believe that the church had saved hundreds, was more effective than Synanon or New York City Hospital, and that they were saved through Christ and the Bible alone. The young, part-time Mexican girl was their only clerical help and that, plus the lack of funds, accounted for their lack of records to substantiate the reverend's statistical claim. It would take the trip to their home, 60 miles north of New York, to make us consider those claims.
About four weeks into our work the reverend, a Catholic priest, an old, partially deranged ex-addict who acted as assistant around the church, and we three volunteers drove to the house. Talk was cordial and easy as we drove the open roads and passed through the tunnels of northern New York. The church, had, I believe particularly through a donation, acquired this house and made it part of their rehabilitation program. If an addict was sincere in trying to break the habit, and ex-addicts acting as judges of sincerity made those sent there a fairly sincere lot, the church sent him to the home for six months of spiritual rebirth.
The fresh air, the countryside, and the escape from the city crowd were purgative themselves. But the real purgative, as had been propagandized into our heads by now, though I still had not bought the story, was the Good Book.
It was brisk as we left the car and entered the 2½ story house. It was almost as brisk inside. Everyone wore jackets. The front room was one large wall to wall room, probably 50'-60'" long though not as deep. Total furnishings consisted of fold-away chairs and a lectern. We passed into the dining area. The ceiling joists connected to the posts so that the outside winter was clearly visible and coming inside. The cement and carpentry work was rough, yet they were proud of it. It. It was their own work.
Things were, stark, cold, gray -- few amenities, little furniture, and no color. The residents didn't try to cover this fact. They may not have even noticed it. The only extra they made a comment on was the Bible. "One's in every room," a resident beamed.
We returned to the front room to listen to the Catholic priest talk. The three of us sat in the back as the priest started slowly and then used our trip to convey his point.
He described our ride as easy, engulfed with free talk, pleasant scenery, and a radio which kept us in tune with the world. Then, he said, we came to a tunnel. We could no longer see the landscape roll by, nor clearly see what was ahead, nor be in touch with the world.
At this point Father was winding into high gear. He was talking to illiterate men, mostly Puerto Ricans and Negroes, and he knew from experience than evangelism, simplicity backed by flaming oratory, meant communication. His voice was loud, strong, and clear.
"You," he bellowed, "were like us." You were going down the road of life and things were,
all right. Then you lost touch with the world! Couldn't see clearly the path ahead and
couldn't hear what to do. Well, when we entered that tunnel we had to turn on our lights to help
us see. It we wanted to hear what was happening we had to raise our antenna, listen closely, and continue moving forward! This is what you must do!"
They followed his analogy. Father was hot.
"You must raise your antennas to Christ! Listen to him and He will show you the way! See
His word! Hear His word! And He will guide you through your dark tunnel and back into
stream of life!"
I sat more and more erect. My eyeballs craved from their corners.
Four or five were shouting,"Jesus save me!"
"Christ have mercy on me!" from the left and right.
"Help me God! I'm a sinner," echoed from the room.
Everywhere the men were falling to their knees, holding their heads in their hands, some were crying, most were issuing supplications to the Saviour. I wanted to hit Doris and Frank and say, "Do you see what I see?" I didn't bother. I guess I knew I might never see anything like this again. So I took in as much as I could.
Afterwards there was no embarrassment over the display that had just occurred. A few laments and moans were still m heard by those still sitting or kneeling. Those standing that we talked with were even more free in discussing their alcoholic or narcotic past.
They invited us for dinner, bread and potato soup, but we had to return to the city. In a handful of hours, we had made an acquaintance with many worn and misery etched faces, an acquaintance hard to forget.
http://www.worldservicecorps.us/slumsofnewyork%20101969.htm
AP
UK: big brother' show
Big Blaze At Mock Race
Shilpa's 'trauma' is the diaspora's. Past slights are now seeds for protest.
Sanjay Suri Odd, how the truth can wrap itself around some chicken stock cubes. The chicken stock cubes were all she had ordered, declared our Shilpa accusingly, to the three white women who have it in for her, as she wandered into the living room of the Big Brother house. A mistake on the face of it, provocation really. She could hardly not have known that she had ordered more than just chicken stock cubes in her grocery list.
As expected, Jade Goody pounced on her, spewing sewer-mouthed venom.
Viewers got an extended earful—and eyeful—of this ugliness, with suggestions that Shilpa Shetty should go back to the slums. She has been called a "dog" before, she has been accused of touching others' food with her hands ("you don't know where those hands have been"), taunted and provoked— "Shilpa wants to be white", she is "the Indian", and did she live in a house or a shack?
The nastiness on the show is all White, even if not everyone White on the show is nasty. The uglier the others get with her, the classier Shilpa looks. The nastier the clashes get, the more viewers it attracts, climbing currently by half a million or so a day. More viewers means more money for Shilpa, and puts her more in the news than she's been all her life. After this, as she must have figured out, she'll certainly pack in the viewers next time she's in a film or on TV—and be paid accordingly.
"I think one must take the rough with the smooth and one would expect her not to be too sensitive about some of the things. She volunteered for it, she must be prepared for it."
It's telling what Shilpa has not done: Big Brother has called her but she has not complained to him about racism, though she has to other inmates. And as Lord Parekh told Outlook, "If she did not like it, she was free to get out." Shilpa, apparently, has taken the take-shit-make-money option.
And yet what she has provoked, deliberately or just by letting the others watch her be herself, has shown up an ugly Britain—one that's never visible during the frequent tamashas when people in dinner jackets stand around and talk about Indo-British ties. The same dos which were sickeningly sweet to start with, and have now staled into boring cliches, brings to mind the sort of things PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown has been saying. Now the spat over chicken cubes has brought the nasty truth out of Big Brother's freezer.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?233760
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Viewers got an extended earful—and eyeful—of this ugliness, with suggestions that Shilpa Shetty should go back to the slums. She has been called a "dog" before, she has been accused of touching others' food with her hands ("you don't know where those hands have been"), taunted and provoked— "Shilpa wants to be white", she is "the Indian", and did she live in a house or a shack?
The nastiness on the show is all White, even if not everyone White on the show is nasty. The uglier the others get with her, the classier Shilpa looks. The nastier the clashes get, the more viewers it attracts, climbing currently by half a million or so a day. More viewers means more money for Shilpa, and puts her more in the news than she's been all her life. After this, as she must have figured out, she'll certainly pack in the viewers next time she's in a film or on TV—and be paid accordingly.
"She was paid handsomely to take part in the programme and she would certainly have known what was likely to happen—not every detail, but she would certainly have known that people might not take to her, might say a few things and so on," says Lord Bhikhu Parekh, ex-professor at Harvard and the London School of Economics, and former chair of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain set up by the British government.
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It's telling what Shilpa has not done: Big Brother has called her but she has not complained to him about racism, though she has to other inmates. And as Lord Parekh told Outlook, "If she did not like it, she was free to get out." Shilpa, apparently, has taken the take-shit-make-money option.
And yet what she has provoked, deliberately or just by letting the others watch her be herself, has shown up an ugly Britain—one that's never visible during the frequent tamashas when people in dinner jackets stand around and talk about Indo-British ties. The same dos which were sickeningly sweet to start with, and have now staled into boring cliches, brings to mind the sort of things PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown has been saying. Now the spat over chicken cubes has brought the nasty truth out of Big Brother's freezer.
Sly Big Brother. When you put a star like Shilpa Shetty in a closed house with a loud-mouthed harridan like Jade for this long, it was almost certain there would be eruptions of this kind to show viewers and bring in new ones. And the woman-to-woman viciousness (no amount of feminist flag-waving can wish that kind of stuff away) was bound to get colour-coded. When you get on someone's nerves long enough, then who you really are underneath the polite veneer begins to show—Jade was certain to claw into Shilpa, just as surely as Shilpa's sweet-as-jalebi ways would've got on any woman's nerves in fairly quick time.
The trouble has arisen with the spillover that has made Shilpa a Miss India and Jade a Miss England; Indians are now seeing parallels between their own experiences and Shilpa's, and writing to Channel 4 accordingly. They bring to their complaints views about the old—and new—racism hanging fire in Britain today.
"The remarks made to Shilpa bring back memories for first-generation Indians of what they had gone through when they first came to Britain. ..being called dogs, being dismissed for their accents," Prof Parekh says. "But partly there is also a feeling that India is on the move, it's a global player, and therefore what we'd have tolerated 20 years ago we will not today. The attitude to India and to Indians has been changing, largely in response to the fact that Indian children growing up in Britain are articulate, are high achievers, and are placed in important positions."
Shilpa's treatment on the show has fuelled Indian anger in Britain on a scale never seen before over anything on TV, or out on the street for that matter. It's like Shilpa is who they are or were; and in protesting over the abuse aimed at her, Indians are protesting really against abuse they have suffered themselves. The Indian audiences in Britain are stuck in a somewhat larger house, where too many of them have to take shit from White people who may or may not be called Jade. In response to this wave of Indian outrage, Carphone Warehouse, a leading mobile phones retailer, has even ended its 3-million pound sponsorship of the Celebrity Big Brother show "with immediate effect".
But it might be too late, a Pandora's box is now open. The programme might finally have ended up showing everyone an ugly face of Britain they needed to see, and that Britain may have wanted to hide. The show has X-rayed the cloak to show the daggers below. The letters of complaint might well have been thank-you notes. To edit out the ugly taunts aimed at Shilpa would have been to cover up what really happens out there. This is, after all a Reality TV Show, so why blame television for showing the reality?
That question has also opened up the divide between the way Indians in India and Indians in Britain view the whole Shilpa episode. India is looking at the racist face of Britain that Big Brother has shown; British Indians are angry that Channel 4 is showing it.... Shilpa is wily, but she is no guttermouth. This show is not India's problem, or any Indian's. It is Britain's. Feel sorry not for Shilpa but for those poor white Brits, because Jade and her like are legion in the country.
Photographer shows true face of slums - Radio Netherlands ...
Slums are on the increase. In 2008, it was calculated that, ... Jakarta (Indonesia), Nairobi (Kenya) and Mumbai (India). ... All of the shop's emergency exits were locked and the customers had no hope of escaping the blaze. ...
www.rnw.nl/currentaffairs/.../090203-slum-photographs-mc - CachedKarachi Inferno: 40 Die in Fire in North Karachi : ALL THINGS PAKISTAN
9 Jan 2009 ... More than half of the population live in slums. The blaze appeared ... from 1992-9 just because the Army cannot be bothered to fight India. ...
pakistaniat.com/2009/01/09/karachi-slum-fire/ - CachedRichard Bachman Books - The Regulators - Used Book, Richard ...
They all watched, from the sprawling polluted slums to the security-obsessed ... Once upon a time, a fellow named Richard Bachman wrote Blaze on an Olivetti ... Copyright © 1996-2009 Rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. ...
books.rediff.com/bookshop/buyersearch.jsp?Richard-Bachman... - CachedSlum fire kills 4 children in India - CNN.com
6 Jan 2010 ... Two shacks were gutted in the blaze, which occurred about 1:45 a.m. ... More than 20 percent of India's city population lives in slums, ...
www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/06/india.fire/index.html - CachedSangam India: Blog – news
15 Jun 2009 ... Introduction: Slums in India · Initiatives: At a Glance ... Residents tried to put out the blaze with water and sand, but the flames soon ...
blog.sangamindia.org/category/news - CachedFire razes slums in Mumbai :: Samay Live
18 Jun 2009 ... Read how Fire razes slums in Mumbai on Samay Live. ... and fire officials who rushed to the spot initially feared the blaze would spread to shops adjoining the slum clusters. ... Com , [ A Sahara India Pariwar Venture. ...
www.samaylive.com › Regional - Cachedlatestnews: Firefighters advanced of blaze crackers
10 Oct 2009 ... This Deepavali, 345 fire-tenders of the Tamilnadu Blaze and Accomplishment Service ... and a few places in arctic Chennai area there are a ample cardinal of slums. ... Police ambush casual baiter to Australia · India, ...
newsspecials.blogspot.com/.../firefighters-advanced-of-blaze-crackers.html - Cached
Kanchan Gupta
Sir Stuart Saunders Hogg didn't quite have native shoppers in mind when he built Kolkata's New Market in 1874. The Gothic red brick structure, which could have sat comfortably in the Empire's First City had it been built there instead of next to the Corporation Building on Lindsay Street off Esplanade in the Empire's Second City, housed shops stocked with everything that could tickle the fancy of the sahibs and memsahibs and their babalog.
The finest tableware, the best linen, fashionable dresses and dress material, fresh meat, fish and vegetables, confectionery and bread baked to suit the British palate, could all be purchased under one roof. There were jewellery shops to indulge the fancies of memsahibs and tobacconists that sold British cigarettes and Burmese cheroots, briar pipes and hand-rubbed tobacco — smoking was a fine art and not a criminal offence as it is today. There were bookshops that sold The Times (shipped from London) and had shelves crammed with illustrated books, often on gardening and other such distractions to relax over-worked minds that kept the wheels of the Raj moving. All that was fit for consumption by Kolkata's British elite was available at New Market.
Much later, New Market was renamed SS Hogg Market in memory of the visionary city planner whose concerns were, of course, guided by the interests of the burra log —the natives lived in squalid slums and the upwardly mobile Bangali bhadralok in palatial houses in north Kolkata which was a world apart from central Kolkata. A plaque still exists recalling the official name, but everybody calls it New Market; it's doubtful if Kolkata remembers Hogg sahib. But then, Kolkata has forgotten much of its past, not all of it glorious but a lot of it that made the Empire's Second City the envy of those who lived in what passed for cities in the rest of India, including Mumbai.
The sahib log left six decades ago when the Tricolour replaced the Union Jack. Their place was taken by brown sahibs and saree-clad memsahibs. The boxwallahs who were hired to manage Kolkata's once famous trading and manufacturing firms became the new clientele of New Market. But this phase did not last long. The turbulent 1960s and 1970s marked Kolkata's rapid decline and fall: The boxwallahs moved on to Mumbai; those who couldn't migrate in time were left to wallow in self-pity. Living the high life became a badge of dishonour as Kolkata lost its sheen and lustre.
Kolkata may have survived the ravages of the failed revolution which destroyed much of all that was good about West Bengal and its capital city, but it has not quite regained the glitter and glamour that once set it apart. Till 1962, Kolkata was way ahead of Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi; Chennai and Hyderabad were not even in the reckoning for a slot in the list of metropolitan cities. That was also the time when Bengalis could say with justifiable pride, 'What Bengal thinks today, the rest of India thinks tomorrow.' A half century later, it's the other way around: What the rest of India thinks today, Bengal thinks tomorrow — that is, if it thinks at all.
New Market encapsulates this decline and decay of the city Sir Stuart Saunders Hogg tried to fashion after London. The Christmas decorations that once made New Market look pretty now seem tacky. New Market never quite recovered from a devastating fire in the mid-1980s when nearly half the market was gutted. The new New Market is a PWD-built monstrosity with shanty shops that sell plastic table covers. The blaze spared the front portion of the market which still stands. The old New Market is now crowded in by cinemas converted into shopping complexes and eateries catering to the lowest common denominator. New Empire, Elite and Globe are now part of Kolkata's folklore.
Some of the shops are still around in New Market. Nahoum's, run by old man Nahoum, among the last of what was once a thriving Jewish community, looks run down but its almond rings remain as tasty as ever. Wading through the crowd at Nahoum's is a daunting task — it always was. The book shops seem to have disappeared, but the crockery stores are there, laden with cheap made-in-China products. Grotesque caricatures of Lalique are no tribute to the much-vaunted Chinese genius.
New Market, it seemed, had turned into a wholesale market for cut-price lingerie with every second shop displaying skimpy innerwear that I couldn't imagine the middleaged women gawking at them slipping into. But obviously sales are good or else there woudn't be so many shops selling size zero thongs. Middle class Kolkata continues to get its sum wrong.
After an hour's wandering in the byzantine passages teeming with bargain-hunters, we find the silver shop from where we had purchased jewellery and table ornaments in the past. The owner is as effusive as ever, although business, he tells us, has been bad. In his velvet-lined oldstyle display case we spot an antique silver comb with gold-plated birds for which he asks a fraction of the price it would have fetched in Mumbai, Bangalore or New Delhi. But then, Kolkata no longer competes with these cities and the shoppers at New Market are not looking for antique jewellery. We haggle over the price before buying the comb. Clutching a memento of Kolkata's past, we exit New Market to the strains of Una Paloma Blanca (When the sun shines on the mountains / And the night is on the run...). George Baker Selection was a big hit in the 1970s and Una Paloma Blanca topped the charts in 1975. That was possibly the last year New Market glittered at Christmas — sort of a marker setting apart the past from the present.
Outside New Market,what was once upon a time a tidy square now looks like a flea bazaar, no different from Chandni Chowk as we know it today. There's nothing charming about the place any more. New Market serves as a soot-darkened backdrop to the theatre of everyday life in Kolkata — the past fading into the distance as the present looms menacingly near. The cacophony of honking taxis, blaring bus horns and shouting hawkers is an instant recipe for a headache that lingers late into the night.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/226567/Kolkata-ragtime.html
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