 |
|
New Delhi, May 9 (ANI): Speaker-designate of the Lok Sabha called on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani on Thursday. Joshi, who held the portfolio of Heavy industries in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), handed over his resignation to Vajpayee. Joshi's election on Friday is almost certain as opposition parties have decided against putting up their candidates against him. Joshi said his meeting with both the leaders was fruitful. "I have told both the leaders (Vajpayee and Advani) that when I am working I will carry my duties without favours to any single person or party. They have also said that I should do my work without favouring anybody," Joshi told reporters after his meetings. Joshi, who belongs to Shiv Sena, was chosen over Oil Minister Ram Naik and Tourism Minister Jagmohan earlier on Wednesday. Shiv Sena is one of the 19 members of the BJP-led coalition. The speaker's post fell vacant in March this year after the death of Ganti Balayogi in a helicopter crash. Balayogi was a lawmaker from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the largest partner of the federal coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. But the TDP rejected the post after his death in what was seen as an attempt to distance itself from the BJP following the widespread religious violence in the BJP-ruled Gujarat. The TDP was the most vocal among the BJP's partners to criticise it over the riots in which 945 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Critics of the BJP have accused it of not doing enough to prevent the killing of Muslims in Gujarat.(ANI) Pilot dies in IAF jet crash
Go
to top Dhulkot (Haryana), May 9 (ANI): An Indian Air Force fighter jet crashed in Haryana on Thursday killing the pilot, in a second air force accident in less than a week. The British-made Jaguar plane was taking off from Ambala airbase, 200 km north of New Delhi when it crashed. Eyewitnesses in Dhulkot village, where the crash occurred, said the aircraft burst into flames soon after taking off. "At around 8.30 a.m (local time) we heard the blast and then we came to know that a plane had crashed and caught fire. When we came here we saw people standing around the plane which was burning. We came to know that the pilot died in this," said Mangat Ram, an eyewitness. Sewa Ram, another eyewitness, said: "As the plane has a high speed during take off maybe due to some problem all of a sudden it caught fire and crashed." Seven people were killed last Friday when a Russian-made MiG- 21 smashed into a bank and an adjacent shop in Jalandhar. The pilot ejected safely before the crash. Rajesh Dhingra, air force spokesman, said it would not be proper to link the two accidents. "The aircraft was on a routine training flight. It would be very difficult, it would not be right to speculate. Like I said, it was at its take off stage, which means very early stage of the flight. Since the pilot has been killed in the accident we will have to wait for the enquiry as to establish what went wrong," said Dhingra. The Defence Ministry said last month that more than 100 MiG-21s had been lost in accidents over the past decade. Indian armed forces are on alert along the entire stretch of the border with Pakistan since December when suspected Pakistan-based militants attacked Parliament.(ANI)
Large cache of arms seized in Kupwara Go to top Panchagm (J and K), May 9 (ANI): The army seized on Thursday a large cache of arms and ammunition in Panchgam, a village near the Line of Control in Kupwara district, in Jammu and Kashmir. The seizure includes 264 grenades, 33 electronic detonators and seven rocket propelled grenades. Army suspects the arms belong to Kashmiri militant outfits. The soldiers of the Gorkha regiment of the army came across the site when they noticed some dug up earth, and acted upon prior information that weapons and ammunition had been hidden in the area. "There are three major tanzims which are operating, the Al-Badr, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) in this area. Basically ours is the area where HM and HUM both are operating in this area. So I have a definite idea from the IDs and the explosives which are here that these are either the HM or HUM tanzeems." said Colonel A.S. Chitchot who discovered the arms dump.(ANI)
Rohtang Pass cleared of snow, open for six months
Go to top Simla, May 9 (ANI): The Border Road Organization has cleared the treacherous Rohtang Pass, one of the highest motorable roads in the world, in northern Himachal Pradesh and declared it open on Wednesday for the annual May-to-October period. The strategically important Pass, located at a height of 13,500 feet open on Wednesday, runs close to the India-Tibet border across dizzy Himalayan heights. With the help of ploughers and bulldozers, the BRO moved 18,000 tonnes of snow in two months. At some points, the deposits were as high as 60 feet, and sometimes it would take days just to clear a few meters. The Rohtang Pass literally means the "mound of dead" because of the extreme climatic conditions which have claimed innumerable lives. The weather changes unpredictably, and temperatures dip to as low as minus 40 degrees Celcius. The working conditions are harsh and the danger of an avalanche is always the round the corner. The Manali-Keylong highway, located 51 kilometers from Manali, has also posed a threat to BRO personnel as Kashmiri guerrillas have often tried to disrupt work. "In my experience this is one of the toughest areas that I have come across. Very often we encounter terrorists also. This work is tougher than what we do in Leh-Ladakh," said Jai Kumar, a BRO personnel. The quick clearing of the pass by the BRO proved decisive in India's border skirmish at Kargil in May 1999 when Indian troops evicted Kashmiri guerrillas occupying the mountain heights. The Srinagar-Kargil-Leh and Shimla-Manali-Leh roads are the only two links with the northern tip region of Ladakh bordering Pakistan and Tibet. "We are capable of carrying out all challenging tasks. We don't face any difficulty. We have all the resources, expert officers and the staff, and the people working on the roads, and we are set for that challenge in this area. The telling task is the snow clearance," said P.K. Mahajan, Commander, 38 Task Force, BRO. The BRO, established as an arm of the Indian Army on May 7, 1960, is responsible for constructing and maintenance of vital border highways across the entire Himalayan range. It has also undertaken fencing of India's porous borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. (ANI)
Punjab cops, CRPF men and Black Cat commandos for Gujarat
Go to
top New Delhi, May 9 (ANI): Anti-riot troopers are soon going to descend on blood-splattered Gujarat to help KPS Gill root out communal violence. Those who figure in the despatch list are 1,000 policemen from Punjab, 2,000 Central Reserve Police Force personnel from various parts of the country and about 200 Black Cat commandos, according to officials on Thursday. Gill, termed as the supercop, is credited with quelling a Sikh separatist campaign by Khalistanis in Punjab that claimed 50,000 lives in the 1980s. The Centre last week appointed him as security advisor to Chief Minister Narendra Modi for bringing about normalcy in the state. Meanwhile, most shops and commercial outfits remained closed in Ahmedabad on Thursday following a three-day curfew in the city's mainly Hindu-dominated areas. Residents said there was no sense of security. Army and para-military forces, armed with AK-47s, patrolled the deserted streets as summer temperatures soared to 45 degrees Celsius. (ANI)
Flouride in drinking water drowns Sirohi villagers in distress
Go to
top Sirohi (Rajasthan), May 9 (ANI): The water that the residents of over a hundred villages in the state's Sirohi district drink contain excessive fluoride and this is why every second person, children as well as adults, are suffering from various physical disabilities like deformed limbs, cataract in the eyes and premature ageing. "My legs have been deformed for the past 10 years due to consumption of contaminated water in the area," said 13-year-old Lakshami. And village elders point to the social problems that arise as a result. "We can't find grooms for the girls in our village. Who will marry them if their legs are deformed? It is all due to this contaminated water in the area," said Netiram, member of the village committee of Khakarwada village. Very few villages have proper drinking water supplies, while hand-pumped ground water in the area is found to contain alarming levels of fluroide. Excessive fluoride has also affected water pipes, bursting and rusting them, in a few villages including Khakarwada. Fluorides are compounds containing the element fluorine, its common forms including sodium fluoride and calcium fluoride. Fluorine is the most reactive non-metallic element. It can cause mottling or discolouration of teeth and weakens bone structures. U.M. Lodha, Senior Engineer, Department of Water Supply, Sirohi, said they are taking preventive measures but the problem is grave. "In Sirohi district it has been found that there are 41 such villages where fluoride content is 3 ppm. Earlier, there were kits installed on handpumps and one could have defluorinated water. But they were not very effective. Now, at 1,000 such areas, we are installing defluorination domestic kits," Lodha said. According to international standards, the level of fluoride in potable water should be 1.5 ppm. However, Rajasthan government has relaxed this limit to 3 ppm due to the excess of fluoride in water but even this limit is grossly flouted. (ANI)
SC orders panel to probe CNG price hike
Go
to top New Delhi, May 9 (ANI): The Supreme Court has asked the Bhure Lal Committee to find out how the Indraprastha Gas Limited, the sole supplier of compressed natural gas for vehicles in the city, hiked its price by nearly 30 per cent from Rs. 13.11 to Rs. 16.83 per kg. While giving this directive on Thursday, the three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice B N Kirpal, refused to make any change in its earlier order of imposing fines on the running of diesel buses on the capital's roads. The Bench, which also had Justice Viren Khare and Justice Ashok Bhan, argued that if the table of price for 9.5 lakh kgs of CNG, supplied by the IGL per day in Delhi, was taken into consideration, the company would be earning Rs. 1 crore per day in excess of the cost on compressing the gas. It directed the panel to submit a report indicating if the government had done any investigation into the actual cost of natural gas supplied to IGL by the Gas Authority of India Ltd and the extra charges on compression before it allowed the price hike. On diesel bus operators' application seeking exemption from paying the fine of Rs 1,000 a day and allow them to convert their buses into CNG mode, the apex court delcined to pass any order on it. It had earlier declined to extend the January 31 deadline for converting the buses into CNG mode. The court, had on April 5 imposed a fine of Rs 500 per day on each diesel bus for continuing to ply in the city for initial one month and Rs 1,000 thereafter. (ANI)
Fernandes ready for full debate on casket issue
Go
to top New Delhi, May 9, (ANI): Defence Minister George Fernandes asserted in the Lok Sabha on Thursday that he was prepared to have a full-fledged discussion on the coffin case as the treasury and opposition benches were engaged in heated exchanges. Said Fernandes: "I am prepared to have a full debate on the coffin issue." This was during zero hour after CPI-M member Basudeb Acharia wanted to know from the Chair aboutthe fate of his notice of breach of privilege against the minister. Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed replied that the notice was under his consideration. Acharia referred to a newspaper report which said the government had purchased the caskets at double the rates from an American firm. (ANI)
|