Patkar continues fast in hospital

      New Delhi: Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) pioneer Medha Patkar has refused to take food and continues her hunger- strike from her hospital bed. Doctors monitoring Patkar's health have affirmed that the 52-year old Patkar is stable and the different body parameters are responding well, in spite of the fact that her hunger strike entered tenth day today. Lying in the intensive care unit of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where she was forcibly admitted after her condition worsened on April 5, Patkar has refused intake of any solid food. She is being administered only fluids like lemon water and glucose.

    Meanwhile, motivated by their leader's refusal to take any food even in the hospital, NBA activists in Jantar Mantar continued their hunger strike with support pouring in from different quarters. Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University who have gathered in large numbers have vowed to support the NBA's cause. The ripple effect of Patkar's hunger strike is now being felt in different parts of the country as people from the states like Assam, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Maharasthra and Madhya Pradesh have begun observing fast for the cause of the people displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Project(SSP). Activist Bhagwatibai Patidar, who began her fast along with Patkar continued her hunger strike today in Jantar Mantar after a forced attempt by the police to break her fast proved futile. Acclaimed writer and Booker Prize awardee Arundhati Roy dismissed the three member team of Central Ministers visit to the villages affected by the SSP as a futile attempt and said that the Minister's going to the villages to take stock of the rehabilitation process only highlights the fact that the Government is out of touch from the ground realities.

Delhi traders go on hunger-strike (Go To Top)

      New Delhi: Intensifying their protest against the Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (MCD) sealing drive against shops in the residential areas of the city, the Delhi traders are sitting on a day-long hunger-strike at Jantar Mantar today. Traders have been demanding immediate promulgation of ordinance on the sealing of commercial establishments in residential areas and release of arrested trade leaders. "The sealing of shops in residential areas of the city has disturbed the peaceful and well settled life of lakhs of traders and their employees and their families and put at stake their sources of livelihood," a Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) release said. CAIT has also claimed that certain relevant provisions of law and facts were neither placed before the Delhi High Court nor were considered, including a circular dated March 2, 1968 issued by the co-ordination cell of the MCD in which ten categories of users were exempted. Besides, guidelines issued in 1990 providing for ad-hoc registration of commercial registration of commercial units in non-conforming areas and civic guide of the MCD published in 1995-96 were also not tabled before the court.

     For the past two months, Delhi has been under a virtual siege from the trading community as the MCD -- under court orders -- has unleashed workers and a fleet of bulldozers in a bid to restore order to chaotic, unplanned streets. The civic agency has sealed shops and commercial establishments in residential areas, many of them decades old and located in the heart of the city, though traders say they were fooled by corrupt civic authorities. Despite stiff opposition from traders the civic agency has continued with the sealing of shops and commercial establishments in residential areas. At several places, traders clashed with police and damaged public transport, as they resisted sealing of their shops by officials of civic agencies, helped by the police. According to the trade bodies, the closure order would affect over 500,000 people directly making a living through this. The Urban Development Ministry had issued a notification amending the 2001 Delhi Master Plan allowing small shops to continue commercial activities on ground floors in residential areas under what was to be mixed land use policy but the apex court has not accepted the changes so far.

BJP demands Mukherjee's scalp (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today demanded Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee's resignation over the naval war room leak case, and alleged that "Mukherjee had misled the nation by terming the information leaked out as mere commercial information". BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said: "The CBI raids in the case of War Room Leak have proved beyond doubt that the information leaked out from War Room is more serious than what meets the eye and that the Defence Minister has misled the Parliament and the nation by calling that the information leaked out was mere commercial information". "By doing this, the Defence Minister has forfeited his right to occupy the office he holds, and as such, we demand that he should resign forthwith", Javedkar added. Javedkar also pointed out to the interview given by Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Arun Prakash's nephew, Ravi Shankaran, in a weekly news magazine allegedly giving indications that Mukherjee had influenced the second draft by deleting many findings of Navy's Board of Inquiry in the War Room Leak. BJP raised few questions like why the Government was not taking action against the civilians involved in the war room leak case and not identifying the foreigners which were referred in the affidavit submitted by the Navy to a Delhi High Court. "Why government is not doing the money trail by ordering the inquiry in to the payments of rupees 225 crores by Thales Charitable Trust from Zurich account said to be of Abhishek Verma ( the alleged middleman in the Scorpene deal)", Javedkar asked. Thales is the French company with which the Indian Government signed the multi crores deal to purchase six Scorpene submarines. The CBI investigating the case recently carried nationwide raids in 17 places and has arrested five persons in this regard.

Bus falls into Chenab: 45 dead (Go To Top)

      Padar (J-K): Up to 45 people are feared to have died after a bus skidded off a mountainous road in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday and plunged into the Chenab river. The bus skidded off the road while negotiating a sharp bend and plunged 400 feet into the river at Padar, near Atholi, 170 kilometres east of Jammu, officials said. The bus was on its way to Jammu. Officials said 38 people were booked on the bus initially and more boarded it later. But police and local volunteers, who are struggling to locate bodies in the rapid Chenab waters, said they could only confirm that two people had died and three were injured. "Today morning about 8.00 am, we got a call that a bus, which was going from Padar to Jammu, has met with an accident. This place was about 20 kilometres from our headquarters. We immediately rushed to the site along with the police and at that time three survivors were rescued and we have sent them to the Atholi hospital nearby. Later one body of a female was recovered and after an hour another body has been recovered. They were sent to the Atholi headquarters," said Bishen Pal Mahajan, the Divisional Officer at Padar. Buses in Kashmir are overcrowded and accidents on narrow mountainous roads are common as highway safety is often neglected by drivers and poorly enforced by authorities. In January, an overcrowded bus plunged into a deep gorge killing 52 people, including five children.

Rajasthan's anti-conversion Bill opposed (Go To Top)

    New Delhi: Christian groups took to streets here today to protest against Rajasthan Government's proposal to ban religious conversions in the State. The protesters, holding placards and singing praises of Jesus Christ, said the proposed bill was aimed at harassing and attacking minorities in the State. Christians across the country have condemned the Rajasthan Government's move to come out with such a law. Sajan K George, a protester, said the bill could spell doom for all those Christian missions that are trying to give a new lease of life to the "Dalits" or people belonging to backward castes, in the State. "The purpose of bringing this bill is to attack Christians. They have done it earlier. Same type of bill was in Orissa and that was used against Christians mainly. Why they are targeting Emmanuel Mission and hope givers in Rajasthan is because they were trying to give a new life to 70 million Dalits who are struggling for new life in Rajasthan," he said. Hindu activists allege that Christian groups use money and other unfair incentives to lure members of tribal groups into religious conversions. On the other hand Christian groups say that the missionaries only work for charity. The state police recently had arrested two missionaries of Emmanuel Mission, for publishing a book, allegedly containing offensive remarks against Hindu gods. The government had also banned the publication.

Jesus asked Judas to betray him (Go To Top)

      London: Ever since he betrayed Jesus Christ to the Roman soldiers for 30 pieces of silver, Judas Iscariot's name has been synonymous with the word 'traitor'. However, a startling new discovery of Judas' 1,600-year old gospel shows that he was not only Christ's favourite disciple, but also that Jesus ordered Judas to betray him. The Gospel of Judas, a crumbling, papyrus document which has taken scholars five years to piece together and translate from Coptic, was discovered in the Egyptian desert in the late 1970s, but failed to come to light because dealers didn't recognise its value and stored it in a New York vault was recently launched in Washington by the National Geographic Society And though carbon-dating has shown that it was written in the 4th century AD, long after the New Testament gospels, experts are confident that it has been translated from a Greek test written in the 2nd century AD. The Gospel of Judas, which is sure to spark a religious debate, portrays him as Christ's confidante and friend, who turned him over to the authorities after Jesus asked him to. It also omits any reference to the Garden of Gethsemane, the 30 pieces of silver, but also the crucifixion or the Resurrection. In a key phrase Jesus tells Judas that he will exceed all his other disciples, for he will be the one who will sacrifice the man in him, so that he can take his place at his father's side in heaven. "But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me," the Telegraph quoted the Gospel of Judas, as saying.

    However, not all scholars believe that this is Judas' gospel, and consider it to be the work by a minor sect which had no links with the historical Jesus. Simon Gathercole, a New Testament expert from Aberdeen University, said that though the text was ancient, it was not old enough to dismiss any doubts that it was written by Judas. "It is certainly an ancient text, but not ancient enough to tell us anything new. It contains themes which are alien to the first- century world of Jesus and Judas, but which became popular later," he said.

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