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Security tightened in J and K for PM visit

          Srinagar, Apr 16: Unprecedented security arrangements are being made as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is to visit the Valley two days from now. Police and paramilitary forces are sanitising the venues where Vajpayee would visit. Random checking of vehicles, frisking of pedestrians and house searches are being carried out. Security forces are concentrating on two km radius of the venues which Vajpayee would be visiting. The prime minister is slated to attend the convocation of Kashmir University and inaugurate the first railway station in the Valley at Qazigund in Anantnag district. He is also scheduled to address a public gathering at Sher-e- Kashmir Cricket Stadium at Sonawar here besides holding a press conference. This will be the first time in 15 years that a prime minister would address a public meeting here.

Truckers' strike continues, prices keep rising

          New Delhi, Apr 16: The truckers' strike entered its third day on Wednesday, threatening supplies of basic commodities and raising their prices. In New Delhi, the prices of vegetables and fruits rose by 15 to 20 per cent. Similar was the experience in Mumbai. Shortage of goods pushed up the prices. In Bangalore city traders were stranded in the markets unable to find any customers who were equally harassed by the unavailability of any means of transport to carry the goods.

          Meanwhile, Asia's largest coal depot in UP's Chandasi town has suffered badly, since nearly 700 trucks transport about 7,000 tonnes of coal daily. Chandasi supplies over 60 per cent of coal all over India. Truckers began the strike on Monday to demand an end to increases in diesel prices, their exclusion from a planned consumption tax due to take effect on June 1, repeal of an order to scrap 15-year old trucks and the setting of minimum freight rates. According to them, more than 2.7 million trucks were losing business worth Rs 15 billion a day.

Former Iraqi secret agency chief in Syria, claims US (Go To Top)

          Washington, Apr 16: Former chief of the Iraqi secret agency Mukhabir was in Syria, a US TV channel reported on Wednesday. The US authorities alleged that Farooq Hijazi had planned assassination of the father of President Bush in 1993. Farooq Hijazi was Iraqi ambassador in Tunis when America invaded Iraq.

Sanjay Dutt exempted from court appearance (Go To Top)

          Mumbai, Apr 16: Filmstar Sanjay Dutt and 86 other accused in the 1993 Bombay serial bomb blasts case were on Wednesday exempted from personal appearance till April 28. But the accused have been told not to leave the city without the court's permission. They were also directed not to establish any contact with the absconding accused in the case, and ensure that they are duly represented by their lawyers in the court during this period.

           Meanwhile, Sanjay Dutt moved an application seeking court's permission to visit Hyderabad for a film-shooting. The court will decide on his plea on Thursday. The actor is facing trial since his arrest in April 1993. He was granted bail in October 1995 by the Supreme Court. Sanjay is facing charge of possessing an AK-56 rifle under TADA. He was also accused of destroying evidence (disposing of the rifle). The actor had denied all the charges.

Below normal monsoon this year (Go To Top)

          New Delhi, Apr 16: India's weather office forecast on Wednesday a below normal monsoon this year but said a repeat of last year's bad drought that hurt economic growth was unlikely. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said it had revised its categories for forecasting monsoons in a bid to make them more accurate after it initially predicted that last year's rains would be normal.

           IMD director-general RR Kelkar told a news conference that the monsoon was expected to be 96 per cent of the long- period average which falls into the below normal category. He said the forecast model for the 2003 southwest monsoon season that runs from June to September had an error range of plus or minus five per cent. The El Nino weather phenomenon caused a drought last year in many parts of the country and this year its effect is almost over. A good monsoon is vital to the economy as agriculture contributes around 25 percent to GDP.

          Last year, India suffered its worst drought in 15 years, a factor that pushed economic growth down in 2002/03 (April-March) to 4.4 per cent from 5.6 per cent the previous year. Monsoon rainfall in 2002 was 19 per cent below normal, resulting in drought-like conditions in 29 per cent of the country.

New central London outlet for Indian books inaugurated (Go To Top)
-by Trevor Barnard

          London, Apr 16: Anyone who wants to buy a book published in India can now get it within two weeks of its publication date at a bookshop in central London. This service is provided by Indian Book Shelf (IBS), the first retail outlet of its kind in Britain, which was inaugurated by High Commissioner Ronen Sen this week. IBS is an enterprise of Star Publications, but enjoys the aegis of the Federation of Indian Publishers and is supported by more than 300 Indian publishers. It has more than 10,000 titles on display and its widespread support among Indian publishers enables it to follow a practice of automatically receiving new publications within two weeks.

           India publishes more than 50,000 new titles every year; only the US and UK are more prolific. Amar Varma, who is chairman and managing director of both Star Publications and IBS, explains that he will not be importing as many as 50,000 titles a year, only those on subjects that are likely to be of interest to UK readers. Varma's target clientele is not the Asian community, which is adequately served by local Indian bookshops, but the wider British public, particularly libraries and universities, who find it convenient to deal with a central London outlet.

US economy needs 550 billion dollar tax cuts to grow: Bush (Go To Top)

          Washington, Apr 16: President George W Bush has urged Congress to pass at least 550 billion dollars in tax cuts as he turned his attention from Iraq war to the struggling US economy. Bush called for urgent measures to return to growth in response to Congress' moves to cutback his planned 726 billion tax cuts over the next decade.

          The war, economic recession and the aftermath of the September 11 attacks compelled the United States into deficit, Bush said in a speech to owners of small businesses. "We need tax relief of at least 550 billion dollars to make sure our economy grows," he said, arguing that the bigger tax cut, he first proposed in January, would create 1.4 million jobs by the end of 2004. The "best and fairest way" to restart the economy is by encouraging US consumers to spend more, Bush said and the fastest way to do that is to "grant them immediate tax relief," he said.

'Blair must distance himself from Bush' (Go To Top)

          London, Apr 16: Robin Cook, a former foreign secretary and respected Labour veteran, wrote in an article that Blair must distance himself from Bush if he wants Britain to remain a major power in the European Union, a press report said on Wednesday. He said Blair had made a strategic error in trying to follow up his close relationship with former US President Bill Clinton with similarly warm ties to Bush.

           The prime minister had far more in common politically with Clinton than he does with the conservative Bush. If the prime minister wants to restore Britain's status as a major European player, he must now accept that moving closer to Europe requires, by definition, putting more distance between Britain and Bush, Cook said.