ICC World Cup Contract Row Ends, Treaty With France, New Centres For British Visa,

NEW DELHI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) executive board on Friday formally accepted the conditional contracts signed by Indian players for the World Cup, paving the way for the smooth participation of India's best cricketers in theCup. BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya said in Kolkata that he is happy about the development. According to the compromise, the players will be barred from advertising for rivals of official sponsors only during the Cup. And the contracts row will be resolved after the Cup through arbitration.

Security Tightened Along Indo-Nepal Border

LUCKNOW: Security has been tightened along the border with Nepal in Uttar Pradesh following intelligence inputs that Maoists and Islamic militants might launch attacks ahead of the Repubic Day celebrations. India celebrates its 54th Republic Day on Sunday. Officials of Special Service Bureau have begun thorough checking of all the vehicles and people passing through the sensitive border checkpost at Berhni since last week. Patrolling of no-man's land has also been intensified. Thousands of Nepalis cross over to India everyday for work and trade.

Landlocked Nepal, ringed by India on three sides and with the Himalayan mountains on the north, shares a 1,747 kilometre long border with its big neighbour. More than 7,000 people have been killed in Nepal since the Maoist revolt broke out in 1996. New Delhi accuses Inter Services Intelligence, Pakistan's intelligence agency, of using Nepal's porous border to infiltrate armed militants and fake currency into India. Nepal denies that its soil is being used for anti-India activities. Authorities also apprehend that Maoist guerrillas might slip into India to escape the wrath of Nepal's army which launched an operation to crush the rebellion.

Extradition Treaty With France Signed (Go To Top)

PARIS: India on Friday signed an extradition treaty with France that takes care of the European nation's sensitivity to not award death sentence to those extradited to India. The treaty was signed by Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and French justice minister Dominique Perben at the Justice ministry in Paris. Advani said the signing of the treaty would ensure security and well-being of nationals of both the countries.

The treaty is part of an active effort by the Government to strengthen its extradition agreements with several countries around the world. France has now become the third European country to sign an extradition treaty with India after United Kingdom and Spain.

In addition to discussing issues of bilateral concern and regional and international security, India and France have also discussed two crucial defence deals. While India is looking for a licence to manufacture Mirage 2000 fighter jets, France is keen to sell six Scorpene submarines to India.

New Centres for British Visa (Go To Top)

NEW DELHI: The British High Commission will open new visa offices at several places across the country to facilitate quick disposal of visa applications. New centres will start functioning in New Delhi, Jalandhar and Chandigarh shortly and within a month more centres will come up at other places too. According to a mission press release, applicants will have to submit their forms to the centre nearest to their place of residence. The facility will start functioning from February 3, 2003.

Two Deputy CMs for Rajasthan: Check on Gehlot (Go To Top)

NEW DELHI: The Congress High Command has decided to appoint two deputy chief ministers in Rajasthan with a view to checking the faction feud in the party. Dissidents have been raising the banner of revolt against chief minister Ashok Gehlot for quite sometime especially after the defeat of the party in the recent by-elections. Gehlot had been resisting appointment of a deputy but now he had to give way to the pro-changers. The package amounts to retaining the chief minister as well as State party president Girija Vyas in their offices. Kamala Beniwal, a Jat, and Banwarilal Bairawa, a Dalit, will be the two new deputy chief ministers. Some others are also likely to be inducted into the Cabinet. Party boss Sonia Gandhi has also constituted a co-ordination committee for streamlining party work. The State goes to the polls later this year.

New Maharashtra Cabinet Today; PCC Chief Adik in (Go To Top)

NEW DELHI: Maharashtra's new chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde's team of ministers will be sworn in on Saturday. The new ministers include State Pradesh Congress Committee president Govindrao Adik and Amrish Patel. Most of the members of ousted chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh ministry will be retained. One-time PCC chief Ranjit Deshmukh is the likely candidate for the PCC chief's post falling vacant on Adik becoming a minister.

Laos Minister Seeks to Step Up Military Ties (Go To Top)

NEW DELHI: Laos Defence Minister Major General Douangchay Phichith, who is on a four-day visit to India, was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour in New Delhi on Friday. Phichith later held talks with counterpart George Fernandes and the chiefs of the Army and the Navy and the vice-chief of the Air Force. Sources said the talks were centred around military cooperation between the two countries. Phichith, who is leading a 14-member delegation, will also visit the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun. He will be a guest at the Republic Day parade on Sunday.

India has been trying to improve its political and economic ties with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos last year. Laos is also the current country coordinator for India in the ASEAN in 2003; further it will host the India-ASEAN summit in 2004. Both countries have expressed willingness to boost cooperation in trade, investment, information technology and infrastructure.

Naxals Blow Up Police Picket in Bihar (Go To Top)

WARA (Bihar): An outlawed leftist group set off a bomb at a police picket in Bihar, killing one policeman and critically injuring two others, police said on Friday. N Three Killed in Mumbai Building Collapse. (Details)

MUMBAI: A major portion of a five-storeyed office-cum-residential building, Palkhiwala, in Fort, the heart of South Mumbai, collapsed early this morning killing three persons and injuring 40 others. Three more are still believed to be trapped under the debris. The building which is located near the GPO is said to be more than 80 years old. This is the second collapse within a fortnight. Earlier a portion of an 80-year-old building at Pydhonie had collapsed on January 7, killing one child and injuring six others.

Icy Death for Crocodiles in Lucknow Centre (Go To Top)

LUCKNOW: The month-long cold spell in northern India has hit hard a number of alligators and crocodiles at a rehabilitation centre in Lucknow who are now awaiting an icy death. The worst-affected are the young ones, especially those below two years. It is the young ones (of crocodiles), especially those that are less than two years old, that are the worst-affected by the cold spell.

Seeking warmth in vain, the alligators huddle together on the surface of the ponds. This again worsens their health as immobility makes them more vulnerable to cold. The authorities are trying to protect the young alligators by providing running water and putting on heaters in the night. A number of alligators and crocodiles have developed fungus infection in their mouth, which could lead to their death.

In Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring Bihar, night temperatures have plunged as low as 1.2 degrees Celsius. In Uttar Pradesh, another 45 people died overnight due to the cold, pushing the State's toll this winter to around 800. Although the sun was out for the first time in many days in some parts of northern India, cold winds kept temperatures low. Weather officials said the cold spell was likely to continue for another few days.

Pak Economy Looking Up (Go To Top)

KARACHI: Pakistan weathered the storm of war in neighbouring Afghanistan in late 2001, leading to an economic boom followed by resheduling of debts, foreign exchange reserves climbing the ladder and stock market position on meteoric rise in 2002. It posted economic growth in 2001/2002 of 3.6 per cent, and has forecast a rise to 4.5-4.6 per cent this fiscal year and to 6.0 per cent in 2003/4, despite spending the first half of 2002 locked in a military stand-off with India.

Foreign exchange reserves reached a high of more than 9 billion dollars with a cut in inflation and debt servicing. Foreign debts have dropped to around 36 billion dollars from 38.5 billion in the last three years, and estimated domestic debt is at around 1766 billion rupees. The stock market's boom in 2002 invested in brokers, financial institutions and other companies a sense of confidence in the economy, with the Karachi Stock Exchange index more than doubling to top world equities rankings.

Jobless Youths Turn to Singing Folk Songs in Kashmir (Go To Top)

SRINAGAR: Seeing the bleak future ahead of them, hundreds of youths of village Chakuo in Srinagar have taken to singing folk songs to earn their living. The Chakuo village is just 22 km from Srinagar in Ganderbal constituency with a population of over 2000. These youths try, through their folk songs, to spread an appeal to the people to shun violence and return to good old days.

They sing songs in marriages and festivals. Their choice of the profession was just out of frustration as all other options to get jobs were closed. "Earlier there were ample job opportunities here. But now the situation is very bad. The youths of this village are all unemployed. They don't have anything to do. They just sit at home. And this has resulted in misuse of their talent", said a folk music artist Abdullah.

The youths have formed a group of eight or ten persons who move from one place to another to entertain the villagers through their songs. There are around 200 to 250 such youths who have opted for such a profession before being trained by their head singer. This (Ganderbal) constituency has been represented traditionally by three generations of Sheikh Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah. Omar lost the election from this constituency with a humiliating defeat in the last Assembly elections. It was People's Democratic Party which wrested this constituency from National Conference.