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Mysterious disease claims six lives in MP village

        Pathrota (MP): At least six people have died in a village in Madhya Pradesh of a mysterious disease. Villagers in Pathrota have complained of symptoms similar to brain fever or encephalitis, caused by viral infection of the brain transmitted by mosquitoes that breed during summer and rainy seasons. Though curable if detected early, unhygienic living conditions coupled with the lack of proper medical care in the region have led to the spread of the disease. "We are keeping a close check on health of the people here. Our teams are coming here and examining the patients," said Mahesh Ranjan, a doctor at the government hospital. According to official reports, at least 200 people are affected with the disease. Villagers say the disease keeps recurring due to unhygenic conditions. "The disease keeps recurring after people eat uncooked food. It has been for the last month and a half. Several children have died. They get fever and they die," said Shanti Devi, a village woman. The deadly encephalitis virus follows a particular pattern by striking every alternate year. The patients run the risk of slipping into coma. Vaccination is supposed to be the only guard against the disease. The vaccine which has two strains -- Chinese and Japanese -- has been effective in eradicating encephalitis from around 25 countries in the world.

Heavy rains lash Chennai (Go To Top)

       Chennai: Heavy rains in the last 24 hours have disrupted normal life in Chennai. Several low-lying areas have been water logged due to heavy downpour, resulting in long traffic jams. Most of the schools have been closed. But there were some who welcomed the unseasonal rains. " I feel very happy to receive such amount of rainfall I know that the people are affected but it is very good to solve water crisis in Madras," said Kithandram, a local. Several parts of Tamil Nadu have been hit by the rains. Nagapattam has recorded maximum rainfall of sixteen centimetres. Meteorological department said the low pressure in the South West bay of Tamil Nadu is likely to intensify and bring more rains. "Because of the trough, Tamil Nadu has been receiving rainfall in many areas.Yesterday also there has been heavy rainfall." said S.V Ramanana, Director of Madras city meteorological department.

Curfew continues in Sriganganagar (Go To Top)

       Sriganganagar: Indefinite curfew continued in Rajasthan's Sriganganagar District for the second consecutive day on Friday as law enforcement authorities said that tension was still high after Wednesday's police firing led to the death of four farmers. Police fired at an agitated mob of farmers who had set a number of government buildings afire and then taken to the streets demanding the release of more water for irrigational purposes. Rajinder Singh Rathore, a state cabinet minister said a probe has been ordered into the incident. "The entire incident will be probed, inlcuding the cane charge and then the firing, which lead to the death of four farmers. The government has decided to give a compensation of 500,000 rupees to the kin of the dead and 100,000 each to seriously injured in the incident," said Rathore. Farmers in the region have been on tenterhooks since neighbouring Punjab unilaterally scrapped its water agreement with Rajasthan and Haryana. Faced with a drought condition, the farmers have been protesting for the past one month.

Uzbek FM meets Natwar, seeks to improve bilateral ties (Go To Top)

       New Delhi: Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Sadik S Safeyev, arrived here on Friday on a two-day visit and met External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh. A wide range of issues of bilateral cooperation, regional and international interest is reported to have come up during their meeting and is likely to be further discussed on Saturday. Safeyev will also call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and holds talks on various issues of mutual interest. Sadik will also call on Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. India and Uzbekistan enjoy friendly and cordial relations and the two-way trade last year was 108.6 million dollars. India's main exports to Uzbekistan include pharmaceuticals, tea, surgical items, plant and machinery. Imports from Uzbekistan cover cotton, raw wool, non-ferrous metals and machinery items.Safayev, who is coming to India at the invitation of Natwar Singh, is making first official visit to the country as the foreign affairs minister of his country. India's main exports to Uzbekistan include pharmaceuticals, tea, surgical items, plant and machinery, while imports from Uzbekistan include cotton, raw wool, non-ferrous metals and machinery items. Defence ties between the two sides have also grown in recent years, and India has purchased six Il-78 air-to-air refuelling aircraft from Uzbekistan, making the Indian Air Force only the sixth air force in the world to have such a capability.

US invasion led to over 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq (Go To Top)

       Washington: A new survey conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Columbia University School of Nursing and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad suggests that civilian deaths have risen dramatically in Iraq since the country was invaded in March 2003. Excluding information from Falluja, it is estimated that 100,000 more Iraqis died than would have been expected had the invasion not occurred. Eighty-four percent of the deaths were reported to be caused by the actions of Coalition forces and 95 percent of those deaths were due to air strikes and artillery. "Our findings need to be independently verified with a larger sample group. However, I think our survey demonstrates the importance of collecting civilian casualty information during a war and that it can be done," said lead author Les Roberts.

       The survey was conducted in September 2004 as a part of which 33 neighborhoods of 30 homes from across Iraq were selected at random. The residents were interviewed about the number and ages of the people living in each home and 7,800 Iraqis were included. Residents were questioned about the number of births and deaths that occurred in the household since January 2002. Information was also collected about the causes and circumstances of each death that were verified with a death certificate or other documentation. The researchers compared the mortality rate among civilians in Iraq during the 14.6 months prior to the invasion with the 17.8 month period following it. The sample group reported 46 deaths prior to the invasion and 142 deaths after it. The results were calculated twice, both with and without information from the city of Falluja. "There is a real necessity for accurate monitoring of civilian deaths during combat situations. Otherwise it is impossible to know the extent of the problems civilians may be facing or how to protect them," said study co-author Gilbert Burnham.

India to open up banking sector to foreign banks (Go To Top)

        Mumbai: Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said on Friday that the UPA government planned to open up the banking sector further to foreign banks and would encourage consolidation in the sector. He told a gathering of bankers in Mumbai that foreign banks will be allowed to acquire up to 10 percent a year in private banks. "The standing committee had already recommended that the 10 per cent cap on voting rights should be removed and that econmoic ownership must be reflect in voting rights. Bill was drafted and introduced. We will have to re introduce that Bill. We will hold consultations with all the coaliion partners and taken appropiate action," said Chidambaram. Some shares in private banks jumped after Chidambaram's comments, which point to looser restrictions on private bank ownership than what the central bank had initially proposed. UTI Bank Ltd., in which HSBC already has a near-15-percent stake, rose 6 percent to 152 rupees while IndusInd bank rose 5 percent to 38.40 rupees. Chidambaram's comments came as investors await a second draft of the Reserve Bank of India's guidelines on private bank ownership, which the RBI said this week would be issued soon. A first draft in July had proposed that no entity or related group could own more than 10 percent of a private bank. Under the first draft, foreign banks already in India would not be able to hold more than 5 percent in a private bank and private banks could not hold more than 5 percent in each other.

       Currently, the government allows foreigners portfolio and direct investors to own up to 74 percent of an Indian private bank. But no investor, foreign or domestic, is allowed more than 10 percent of the voting rights in a private bank. Chidambaram said state-run banks would continue to retain their public sector status. Current laws require the government to hold a minimum stake of 51 percent in state-owned banks. The previous government, voted out of power earlier this year, had planned to amend laws to lower this floor to 33 percent. But the current government, which depends on comunists to stay in power, is deemed less likely to follow this course. India's crowded banking sector has nearly 100 public sector, private and foreign banks, besides some 200 regional rural banks. This includes 19 public sector banks in which the government owns a majority stake, the State Bank of India (SBI) and seven associate banks, around 30 privately managed banks and a clutch of foreign banks. The RBI owns almost 60 percent of SBI, which handles a fifth of all bank deposits and loans. Together the SBI group and public sector banks account for 70 percent of all loans and deposits. Chidambaram said the government would encourage public sector banks to tap the market to raise funds, though the scope for government stake sales was limited, he added. Banks are the second-largest employer in India's organised sector, after Indian Railways, with over 800,000 people on the payrolls.

India is exploring the possibility of investment by NRI's (Go To Top)

        Washington: India is exploring the possibility of investment by Non-Resident Indians (NRI's) in some infrastructure projects of the country, official sources said here today. The investment envisaged from various sources for these projects is 150 billion dollars, S.K. Krishna Kumar, the Secretary in the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, told reporters today. "There is a very large and successful non-governmental sector in India. Some of the overseas Indians have already taken the initiative in this regard. Some of the overseas Indians have already been involved in such activities in India for many years," he said. "We should also have some kind of internship programme or organization like an India Corps or something of that nature. We can set up a counterpart institution in India," he added.

Terminator aspires to be the US prez (Go To Top)

       New York: The Terminator could be the US President one day ,if Arnold Schwarzenegger has his way. In a recent interview, the California governor revealed his desire to get to the top post though right now he is ineligible to run for the country's highest office as he was born in Austria. Schwarzenegger said that he would certainly support any amendment to change the rules and allow foreign-born citizens to make a bid for the White House. "Yes, absolutely [I would like to be eligible to run for president]," E-online quotedSchwarzenegger as saying during his interview in 60 Minutes' Morley Safer. "Why not? With my way of thinking, you always shoot for the top," he added. However, he added that he has much to do in California before he takes a plunge in the Prediential run whenever it becomes a possibility. "There are so many things I have to do in California and my promise was to straighten out the mess in California," Schwarzenegger said.

Robert De Niro voted the world's greatest living actor (Go To Top)

        London: Legendary actor Robert De Niro, best known for his roles in movies like the 'Godfather II' and 'Taxi Driver' has been voted the world's greatest living actor, in a poll compiled by Empire magazine. De Niro pipped a number of other heavy weights including actors Al Pachino and Jack Nicholson, who came in at the second and third place, respectively. While a number of expected actors like Paul Newman and Marlon Brando, who was still alive when the poll took place, also made it to the list of the greatest living actors, the only woman to feature in the top ten was 'Aliens' actress Sigourney Weaver.

        The twenty greatest living actors were: 1. Robert De Niro 2. Al Pacino 3. Jack Nicholson 4. Paul Newman 5. Marlon Brando 6. Anthony Hopkins 7. Morgan Freeman 8. Dustin Hoffman 9. Clint Eastwood 10.Sigourney Weaver 11.Gene Hackman 12.Harrison Ford 13.Sean Connery 14.Meryl Streep 15.Ian McKellen 16.Christopher Lee 17.Sidney Poitier 18.Robert Redford 19.Alan Rickman 20.Judi Dench.