Indians begin to buy tickets for Lahore bus
by Ravinder Singh Robin

   Amritsar: Sale of ticket for the first bus service between Amritsar and Lahore on January 24 has started. Mohammad Rizwan Farooq, a businessman from Punjab, became the first passenger to buy ticket for the historic bus service on Wednesday. Farooq, whose maternal folks have been residing in Lahore since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in August 1947, said Lahore bus was his dream come tru for him to be able to meet his grandparents in Lahore, which is a mere two hour drive from Amritsar. The Lahore bus service is due to begin from Lahore on Friday and will be followed by the Amritsar service next Tuesday. An agreement was signed at the conclusion of two-day technical- level talks in Lahore last month. Both the cities are 60 km apart. The Pakistani bus will travel to Amritsar every Friday and return on Saturday. The Indian Lahore bus will travel every Tuesday and return on Wednesday. Farooq raised the long pending demand of having a visa counter in Amritsar which will cut down on a passenger's travel time to Delhi. "It will be good for people to meet their relatives on the other side of the border. But the first thing they should have done is that visa should have been made available here in Amritsar itself. It is very difficult for us to get a visa from Delhi and we have to travel a lot also," said Farooq.

   On Tuesday, Union Home Secretary V K Duggal visited the Wagah Border post to review the security arrangements for the bus service. Duggal, who had also gone to take stock of the immigration arrangements, said the Lahore bus service would bring people from both sides closer. "I would say that the relationship is on upswing, definitely. The policy of the Government of India is very clear. It comes in the media day in and day out that where cross border terrorism is concerned that cannot be tolerated and has to be handled effectively and firmly," said Duggal. "But the Prime Minister and the Government of India is also very clear that people to people contact, improved trade relations and CBMs announced by the Centre and the joint declaration by Prime Minister and President Musharraf when he was here last time, must be pursued sincerely," he added.

    Transport links have been one of the most visible signs of slowly improving relations between neighbours which have fought three wars since 1947 and nearly went to war a fourth time in 2002. In April last year, the two sides had started a bus service across Kashmir, linking their parts of the divided region with a twice-a-month service. Despite more transport links and generally warmer ties since the nuclear-armed neighbours embarked on a tentative peace process two years ago, the two countries have made little progress on their main dispute, which is over Muslim- majority Kashmir. The two sides also agreed to start a bus service between Amritsar and the eastern Pakistani town of Nankana Sahib, a place of pilgrimage for Sikhs, many of whom live in northwestern India. Trial runs of that service will be held on January 27, with an Indian bus running from Amritsar to Nankana Sahib, and on January 29, when a Pakistani bus will go the other way. The two sides resumed a bus service between Lahore and New Delhi, in January 2004, shortly after they agreed to a cease-fire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir in November 2003.

Indian-American has key State Department posting (Go To Top)

     Washington: Ashley J Tellis, an Indian-American, who is currently working with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has been appointed as the senior adviser to Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R Nicholas Burns. Tellis' two-month assignment is linked to the forthcoming visit of President George Bush to India. His job profile would include various State Department activities relating to US-Indian relations. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that Tellis' leave was effective with immediate effect. Earlier, Tellis has served on the National Security Council staff as senior director for strategic planning and Southwest Asia, and as senior adviser to the US ambassador to India at the US Embassy in New Delhi. Carnegie President Jessica T Mathews asserted her support for the interim assignment, "The Carnegie Endowment recognises the great importance of President Bush's visit to South Asia and US relations with India and Pakistan, so we are glad to contribute to this end by making Ashley J Tellis' great talents available to the administration," the Daily Times quoted her as saying. Meanwhile, another Indian-American, Sumit Ganguly of Indiana University is believed to have been given two years leave of absence to join the National Intelligence Council as vice- president for South Asia.

Salem remanded to police custody in Dewani case (Go To Top)
by A.Sayeed

     Mumbai: A special court today remanded extradited gangster Abu Salem to police custody till February 2 in connection with the 2001 murder of Ajit Dewani, former secretary of Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala. Abu Salem was taken into a day's custody by the Mumbai Crime Branch on Wednesday to facilitate his production before Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Judge A M Thipsay. Though Abu Salem has denied his role in Dewani's murder, Judge Thipsay had said that there is no law that forces him to confess.

   The Ajit Dewani murder case is one of the two cases for which the Mumbai Police was allowed to prosecute Abu Salem as per the conditions set by the Portuguese Government to extradite the gangster. Dewani was allegedly killed by two of Abu Salem's henchmen outside his office in Oshiwara after he had failed to respond to an extortion demand by the gangster on June 30, 2001. Abu Salem has already been placed in police custody for his role in the 1995 murder of businessman Pradeep Jain. That custody was extended to January 31 after a hearing on Tuesday. The court also remanded the co-accused and Salem's aides Naeem Khan and Mehendi Hasan to judicial custody till January 31 in the same case. Another co-accused Virendra Kumar Jhamb, a city builder, is also in the judicial custody in the Jain murder case. Abu Salem was arrested by Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) on November 11, 2005 for the murder of builder Pradeep Jain. He allegedly ordered Jain's killing as the builder did not obey orders to part with a prime piece of land. A special TADA court is also to hear a case connected with the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case today in which Abu Salem was alllegedly involved.

Indian-American wins prize for clocking pulsars  (Go To Top)

    New York: An Indian-American -- Deepta Chakrabarty -- is among three scientists who will share this year's Bruno Rossi Prize for their pioneering work on understanding the exotic environment around fast-spinning neutron stars, where matter can whirl about at nearly light speed and where space itself is warped. Apart from Deepta Chakrabarty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the other two joint winners are Tod Strohmayer of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the United States and Rudy Wijnands of the University of Amsterdam. The prize is the top award given each year by the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Their work, done both independently and sometimes as collaborators, has been described as breakthrough in interpreting the complex signals emitted as X-ray light from millisecond pulsars. A millisecond pulsar is a type of fast-spinning neutron star in a binary system with an ordinary star. Gas pulled away from the surface of the companion star crashes onto the neutron star, spinning it up to rotation rates of hundreds of revolutions per second. These scientists have revealed that oscillations in the emitted X-ray light can be used to measure the pulsar's spin rate and other key parameters. Their observations were made with NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, which marks its tenth year in orbit this month. "Bruno Rossi was a giant at MIT; and as a MIT professor, I am humbled to receive an award named in his honor. The Rossi Explorer is a powerful tool to probe the environs of black holes and neutron stars. It has been thrilling to join my colleagues in so many discoveries," said Deepta Chakrabarty.

    Deepta Chakrabarty, an associate professor of physics at MIT and a researcher at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, is an expert on millisecond pulsars. He credits his MIT colleagues and collaborators, especially research scientist Edward Morgan, for making his discoveries possible. "This is an unexpected honor. This award really acknowledges the community who built, operates and interprets data from the Rossi Explorer. Without the dedication of many scientists and engineers, none of the observations that my co-winners and I have made would have been possible," said Strohmayer Strohmayer, an expert on thermonuclear X-ray bursts emitted from the surface of neutron stars, credits Jean Swank, the Rossi Explorer project scientist, also at NASA Goddard, for giving him the opportunity to join the Rossi team. Rudy Wijnands, a member of the University of Amsterdam's High- Energy Astrophysics Group, discovered the first accreting millisecond pulsar, in 1998. He is an expert in interpreting signals from X-ray pulsars called quasi-periodic oscillations, or QPOs, emitted from gas whipping around the pulsar at high speeds. "I am very happy and thrilled that I received this award and that the work of myself and of Deepta and Tod is recognized as being important. I feel honored to be among the list of scientists who have received this award," said Wijnands. The HEAD-AAS awards the Rossi Prize in recognition of significant contributions as well as recent and original work in high-energy astrophysics. Past awards have been given for work, both theoretical and observational, in the fields of neutrinos, cosmic rays, gamma rays and X-rays. The prize is in honor of Professor Bruno Rossi, an authority on cosmic-ray physics and a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy. Bruno Rossi died in 1993. The prize includes an engraved certificate and a 1,500 dollar award, which will be shared among the winners.

Food expired 20 years ago for Pak quake victims (Go To Top)

    Muzafarrabad: In a startling case that has come to light, tinned food that was produced in Iran and had expired 20 years ago, was distributed among the quake-hit victims in Pakistan. After consuming the food, including tuna fish and baked beans, the quake victims complained of skin allergies and stomach murmurs. Produced in 1983 in Iran, the food had arrived in a contingent from Tehran as a relief supplies for the quake-hit victims in Balakot. The expired stuff formed part of the second consignment sent by IRCS (Iranian Red Crescent Society) that weighed 34,100 kg in total, containing 2500 tins of beans and 1000 tins of tuna fish in addition to rice, tea, oil, sugar, tents, blankets and floor mats. The food was to be consumed within two years from the date of manufacture. The particulars written on top and bottoms of the tins clearly state their manufacture and expiry dates. Some heath officials from Frontier gave the expired stuff to patients at the leprosy hospital and their children, the Daily Times reported. According to the paper, the expired food was distributed directly without the knowledge of the district heath officer or the district health department. And, neither the World Health Organisation (WHO) nor the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) know about it. Prepared by the Varamin's Agro Industries of Iran, the tins were donated by the IRCS. They carry a caption outlining the fundamental principles of humanity - voluntary service, independence, impartiality, neutrality, unity and universality. According to the IRCS website, Tehran dispatched three consignments for quake survivors of Azad Kashmir and NWFP. This is the second instance when expired relief items were distributed among the quake hit victims of Pakistan. Earlier, a quarter-million doses of flu vaccine bought by US from UK, were found to have expired in 2004. The 256,000 doses were purchased in 2004 from British wholesaler Ecosse Hospital Products Limited amid a predicted US vaccine shortage. But, the US Food and Drug Administration barred the vaccine's import to Illinois, saying it could not guarantee its safety.

India's regret over arrest of Nepal leaders  (Go To Top)
by N.Bhadran Nair

     New Delhi: The Indian Government today expressed its regret over the latest political developments in Nepal, saying that it was now a matter of grave concern to the immediate neighbourhood, and warned that the kingdom's stability and peace could be comprised. Reacting to the arrest of over 200 political leaders across Nepal and to orders to curb political freedom, New Delhi said that it was keeping a close watch on the developing situation in Kathmandu. "We are receiving reports from Nepal about the arrest of leaders of political parties as well as human rights and civil society activists. We are also aware of the latest measures announced by His Majesty's Government of Nepal curbing political activity in Kathmandu and other cities," an official spokesman of the Indian Government said. "These actions of His Majesty's Government of Nepal are regrettable and a matter of grave concern to all those who wish to see the constitutional forces in Nepal working together to achieve peace and stability in the country," he added. In a major crackdown ahead of the planned anti-monarchy agitation by the pro-democracy alliance tomorrow, Nepal's Royal Government today arrested some 200 political party leaders and cut off mobile phone services. All top leaders of major political parties except Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koirala and Nepal Communist Party-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal were rounded up by security forces early today. Nepali Congress general secretary Ramchandra Poudyal, Nepali Congress (Democratic) acting President Gopalman Shrestha, Nepal Communist Party UML Politburo member Ishwor Pokharel, CPN-UML spokesman Pradip Nepal, Sujata Koirala (daughter of GP Koirala), were among the 200 arrested during overnight raids. Security is tight around residence of top political leaders and their telephones are also being tapped, party sources said. Meanwhile, authorities severed internet services, both landline and mobile telephone services today but later restored landlines and Internet communications.

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