Main Page                                                 Archives

Church, Clapton concert for tsunami relief

     London: Thousands of music fans danced along with the celebrities like singer Charlotte Church, rocker Eric Clapton, pianist Jools Holland and The Manic Street Preachers in a seven-hour charity concert at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. The biggest charity concert since the 1985 Live Aid concert has raised nearly 1.25 million pounds for the Asian tsunami relief fund. Fans packed the stadium for the concert featuring 20 British bands and solo artists. The lively crowd, brandishing inflatable daffodils and Welsh flags, delighted in the likes of Stereophonics lead singer Kelly Jones, The Manics, Feeder and mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, who opened the show with a moving rendition of Amazing Grace. The musical offerings were injected with tributes and comments from notable celebrities and politicians including the Prince of Wales, Bono, a notably boo-ed Gorddon Brown and Rhodri Morgan.

     At the end of the musical extravaganza, many of the artists joined Jools Holland and Eric Clapton for a rendition of Shake, Rattle and Roll as a giant screen flashed up the final 1,248,963 pounds figure raised by the event. Putting the success of the night down to bonding between the crowd and the performers, Stadium manager Paul Sergeant said that he was delighted with the total raised. "The money is still coming in. I think it's gone incredibly well. It's been almost faultless," femalefirst quoted him as saying. The concert was organized in just 20 days. All 60,000 tickets originally released for the show were sold out within three days, and a further 1,000 later put on sale went in just 20 minutes. The musicians were not being paid for performing, with all the money raised going toward relief efforts in tsunami-affected regions.

Bangladesh fast becoming a `Talibanised' state: NYT (Go To Top)

     Washington: If Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime was seen till a few years ago as the fount of radical Islamism, Bangladesh isn't too far behind if a New York Times Sunday feature report is to be believed. According to the Daily Times which quotes from the feature extensively, a former Bangladeshi Taliban fighter named "Bangla Bhai" is trying to turn his country into another Afghanistan under Taliban rule. According to the feature, Bangla Bhai aka Azizur Rehman is reportedly using his Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh group to coerce men into growing beards and women to wear burqas. The group is said to be both determined and violent about having its way and considers the Purbo Banglar Communist Party as his principal rival. According to the Daily Times, the Khaleda Zia Government has already ordered Bangla Bhai's arrest last May, but this radical fighter has eluded the law and refrains from public appearances.

      According to the New York Times, "In Bangla Bhai's patch of northwestern Bangladesh, poverty is so pervasive that for many children in the region, privately subsidised madrassas are the only educational option. For the past several years especially, money from Persian Gulf states has strengthened them even more. Most follow a form of the Deobandi Islam taught in the 1950s by the intellectual and activist Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, who was born in India in 1903 and defined Muslim politics in opposition to Indian nationalism. Taskforce against Torture, a Bangladeshi human rights organisation founded three years ago, has recorded more than 500 cases of people being intimidated and tortured by Bangla Bhai and his men. One man was quoted as saying that he was taken in front of a mosque and told to promise that he would keep his beard and pray five times a day, and to never tell anything about Bangla Bhai's camp.

Kamal Nath to lead Indian team to Davos (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Kamal Nath will lead an Indian team at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, to be held between January 26 and 30, 2005. Kapil Sibal, Minister for Science and Technology and Ocean Development, Government of India and Vasundhara Raje, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, are also a part of the senior Government leaders participating in the meeting. In addition, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will also have a 50- member strong delegation comprising of industry leaders, media leaders, academicians and social entrepreneurs in Davos. CII President Sunil Kant Munjal will lead the CII team which will include N. Srinivasan, Director General and Tarun Das, Chief Mentor.

     According to a CII release, the prominent industrialists attending the Davos meeting are Mr Rahul Bajaj, Chairman and Managing Director, Bajaj Auto Limited; Mr Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Industries; Mr J N Godrej, Chairman and Managing Director, Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Co Ltd; Mr Ajit Gulabchand, Chairman and Managing Director, Hindustan Construction Co Ltd; Mr B N Kalyani, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Forge Ltd; Mr K V Kamath, Managing Director and CEO, ICICI Limited; Dr Vijay Mallya, Group Chairman, The UB Group; Mr Pramod Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Ispat Industries; Mr Nandan Nilekani, Chief Executive Officer, Infosys Technologies; Mr Brian Tempest, Managing and CEO, Ranbaxy, Mr Rajendra Pawar, Chairman, NIIT Limited; Mr Ajay G Piramal, Chairman, Nicholas Piramal India Ltd; Mr Dhruv Sawhney, Chairman and Managing Director, Triveni Engineering Industries Ltd; Mr Lalit Modi, President and Mr Naresh Goyal, Chairman, Jet Airways (India) Ltd; Mr Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd; Mr Uday Kotak, Executive Chairman and Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited; Mr S Ramadorai, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Consulatancy Services Ltd, Mr Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, The Indian Express; Mr Aroon Purie, Chief Executive Officer, India Today, Mr Ravindra Kumar, Editor and Managing Director, the Statesman Ltd, Swami Sukhbodhananda, Founder, Prasanna Trust among others.

      Over the course of the five-day meeting, over 2,250 participants from 96 countries will convene in Davos, including more than 20 heads of state or government, 70 cabinet ministers, 26 religious leaders, 15 union leaders and more than 50 heads of non- governmental organizations. Around 50 percent of the participants are business leaders drawn principally from the Forum's members - 1,000 of the foremost companies from around the world and across all economic sectors.

Chidambaram launches Digital Signature certifying authority (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram launched the iCERT project, being the first receipient of the Digital Signature certificate from the certifying Authority, viz. the Directorate General of Systems in the Customs and Central Excise Department, here today. The iCERT will provide Digital Signature Certificates to the Trading Community, officers of CBEC, and the agencies directly concerned with E-governance in tax administration to render revenue transactions and related transmissions over internet secure. According to a press release, the iCERT will ensure that Importers, Exporters, Central Excise and Service tax assesses or their agents, who have obtained the Certificate, have the facility of electronically filling not only statutory returns but also any type of communications i.e., requests, grievances, refund claims, adjudication documents, payment advice to Banks etc. over the internet without any risk to security. The users of this facility need not come to the Customs or Central Excise offices but interact over the Internet with competent authorities without any risk of impersonation.