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Homage to Jawaharlal Nehru

      New Delhi: India on Saturday paid homage to the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on his 42nd death anniversary. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with Congress Party president and Nehru's grand daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi arrived at Nehru's memorial "Shantivan" in the national capital early in the morning to pay floral tributes. Senior dignitaries including Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and other cabinet ministers also paid tribute to the leader. They also joined in interfaith prayers beside Nehru's samadhi at the Shantivan. An audio tape of one of Nehru's speeches was also played after the prayers. Throughout the day, people from all walks of life visited Shantivan to pay respects to he leader Nehru, who died at his New Delhi home at the age of 74 after leading the country for 17 years since independence. Born in 1889, Nehru joined the freedom struggle at a very early age. A close associate of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, he was imprisoned several times for political activity. Hailed as founder of modern India, Nehru was Prime Minister from 1947 to 1964. Under Nehru, an advocate of scientific method and modern technology, India made industrial and social progress. An ardent democrat and an internationalist, Nehru, along with President Nasser of Egypt and President Tito of undivided Yugoslavia, founded the Non-Aligned Movement.

Tehri water, power for Delhi in June  (Go To Top)
by Ashish Goel

      Dehradun: Hopes are being pinned on the Tehri Dam to solve the water and electricity problems of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh when its goes critical next month. The Tehri Dam is being expected to go critical between June 15 and June 25 when it will finally start generating electricity. Delhi, which is facing an acute shortage of water, is expected to get 300 cusecs of drinking water while Uttar Pradesh will get 200 cusecs. During his recent visit to the dam, Union Power Secretary B S Shahi had announced that the dam would go critical next month. Principal Secretary Power, N Ravishankar has reportedly said that the dam is expected to start generating 250 megawatts (MW) of electricity in June and would be upgraded by a similar amount till September.

    Thus the dam is expected to supply 1000 MW of electricity to the Northern grid by September this year. However, the full capacity of 2400 MW would only be available by 2010, he had added. The reports have said that the Tehri Hydro-Development Corporation is at present synchronizing its machines with the Northern grid which is expected to take another 15 days to complete. Locally, the dam has been a sticky affair, affecting nearly 8.5 lakh residents of the neighbouring towns and villages in 12 assembly segments - Tehri, Pratap Nagar, Dhaulti, Vilangana and Dev Prayag in Tehri District, Gangotri and Yamunotri in Uttarkashi District, Doiwala, Rishikesh, Mussoorie and Lakshman Chowk in Dehradun district and Laldhang in the Hardwar district. Moreover, although a survey of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee has revealed that none of the villages would be affected by the dam, there is a feeling in 50 villages of Tehri district that they are endangered by the dam. Meanwhile, the issue of rehabilitation still persists.

Malayalam character actor dead (Go To Top)

      Kozhikode: Popular Malayalam character actor Oduvil Unnikrishnan (62) passed away on Saturday morning at a private hospital here. Oduvil, who started his career in the theatre as a tabla player, portrayed many memorable roles in more than 400 Malayalam movies. Lovingly called 'Unniettan' by the Kerala film fraternity, Oduvil is survived by his wife and two children. He will be cremated Sunday at his hometown near Palakkad. His last film 'Rasathanthram', starring superstar Mohanlal and directed by his close friend Satyan Anthikad, is currently running to packed houses in the state. Oduvil started his theatre and film career in the late 1960s. He was known for his versatile and subtle acting. He was awarded the Kerala state award for his brilliant portrayal of the character 'Kaliappan' in director Adoor Gopalakrishnan's award winning film 'Nizhalkuthu'' in 2002.

Petrol, diesel prices to go up: Deora (Go To Top)

       Mumbai: Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said here today that the government was likely to hike petrol and diesel price by early next week in view of the unprecedented rise in the crude oil prices in the international market. "The government will soon come out with a small increase in the prices of petrol and diesel by next week, which everybody will have to bear with," Deora told reporters after inaugurating Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd's (BPCL) Lube Oil Base Stocks (LOBS) project at Mehul Refinery here. He said that the government was very concerned over the hits taken by four public sector oil companies which run around Rs 160 crore losses per day. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and IBP are currently selling petrol at a loss of Rs 10.55 a litre, diesel at Rs 9.88 per litre, LPG at Rs 120 per cylinder and kerosene at a loss of Rs 16.28 per litre. "In the given situation a small increase in the prices of petrol and diesel is inevitable," said Deora. However, he said that the efforts would be made to ensure that the lower strata of the society were not disturbed by the price hike. "The price hike will be as minimal as possible and will be specific to petrol and diesel and will not touch products consumed by lower strata of the society," he added. Deora and Finance Minister P Chidambaram are likely to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the next few days, possibly on Monday, on the issue.

Girls outshine boys in CBSE class X results (Go To Top)

      New Delhi: Once again girls outshine the boys in CBSE class X exams, as 77.7 percent girls passed the exam while the boys had a pass percentage of 76.77. Talking to media, CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly said that the pass percentage of 77.16 percent is an increase of 2.56 percent in comparison to 2005. Among the regions, Chennai closely followed by Ajmer with a pass percentage of 88.24 percent while Chandigarh scores 82.4 percent, Allahabad 80.17 percent, Guwahati scored 49.1 percent. Delhi with 68.11 percentage earned fifth position. Navodaya Vidyalayas had the best results among the schools with a pass percentage of 91.1 percent followed by Kendriya Vidayalas with 90.63 percent, independent private schools with 85.94 percent followed by the government schools with 54.01 percent. A total of 6, 46,387 students - 3, 77,448 boys and 2, 68,939 girls - had appeared for the Class X examinations.

     The exams were conducted across the country as well as overseas in March. Nearly 9,568 overseas students had also appeared for the examinations, had a pass percentage of 93.6 percent. Of this, students appearing from Gulf countries had a pass percentage of 94.2 per cent. This year, 21,002 stunts secured more than 90 percent marks while 1617 students got more than 95 percent. The CBSE results are available on the website www.cbse.nic.in, www.cyberesult.nic.in, www.cbse.gov.in and www.results.nic.in. Apart from this, the results are available at respective schools and also accessible through SMS on mobile phones, Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) on phones as well. To provide the students with post-result counseling, the board has also launched a helpline which will also be operational in Dubai, Kuwait and Doha in Qatar and will be functional till June 6. This year an extra 15 minutes of "cool off" time was given to the students for the first time to allow them to read the question paper and plan the answers before they started writing. The board had also redesigned three papers for Class 10 - mathematics, social science and science - to help students complete the exam in two-and-a-half hours.

Indonesia quake toll rises to over 2200 (Go To Top)

      Jakarta: Over 2,200 people have been killed and thousands more injured by a strong earthquake that struck the Indonesian island of Java, officials have said. The quake, measuring 6.2, flattened buildings in a densely- populated area near the city of Yogyakarta on the southern coast of Java. Witnesses said people fled as their homes collapsed around them, after the quake struck early in the morning. Electricity and communications across the city were also down, the BBC quoted the police as saying. At least 2,900 people have been injured, and many more are still thought to be trapped under rubble and collapsed buildings. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the military to help evacuate victims, and plans to visit the area later on Saturday. Yogyakarta is near the Mount Merapi volcano, which threatened to erupt earlier this month, forcing thousands of people to be evacuated. The earthquake is not thought to be caused by the volcano, but there are reports of heightened activity in its vicinity. The quake occured at 5.54 a.m. local time, around 25km south of Yogyakarta, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. Yogyakarta, Indonesia's ancient royal capital and one of its biggest cities, is about 440km south-east of Jakarta. Indonesia is in a zone known as the Pacific "ring of fire", which is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity. In December 2004, a huge earthquake off Indonesia's coast killed hundreds of thousands of people by triggering a tsunami.

Myanmar extends Suu Kyi's house arrest (Go To Top)

      Yangon: Myanmar's military rulers have extended the house arrest of the country's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. Government officials confirmed the news, saying, "It has been extended," but declined to say for how long. The Nobel peace laureate's detention was last extended by six months in November. Her current detention began on May 30, 2003, after her convoy was ambushed while she was on a political tour in northern Myanmar. The extension came as her National League for Democracy was marking the 16th anniversary of its landslide victory in 1990 elections, which the junta has never recognised. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made a direct appeal yesterday to junta leader General Than Shwe, urging him to free Aung Suu Kyi when her detention came under review this weekend. News of the extension was apparently delivered to her just hours after Annan's appeal, when a police officer made a 10-minute visit to her home on Friday evening.

Pak Muslims, Christians unite on Da Vinci ban

     Karachi: Muslims and Christians in Pakistan have united to protest against the screening of the controversial fim - The Da Vinci Code. In Karachi, the Jamaat-e-Islami and various Christian groups have taken up the cause of having the movie banned internationally and a code be adopted against insulting religious personages. There have also been calls to ban the book, which has been a bestseller in Pakistan with several thousand copies sold through booksellers. Thousands of pirated copies of the book have also been sold in the past two years. On Friday, according to The News, the Christian Joint Action Forum (CJAF) demanded that the government should not display the Hollywood movie as they said it contained blasphemous material. Some booksellers have removed the copy of this Dan Brown bestseller from their shelves as a precautionary measure. However, the sale of the pirated edition of both the book and the movie seems to have gone up as the controversy that has been generated caused interest. Though the protest in Pakistan against the film have so far been in a low key, but both Christians and Muslim groups have threatened to stage street demonstrations and even to shut down cinema halls screening it.

Pak No to more Indian films (Go To Top)

      Islamabad: Pakistan's Culture Minister Dr G G Jamal has ruled out the possibility of screening any more Indian movies in Pakistani theatres. The Culture Ministry has not received any fresh proposals to allow more Indian films in Pakistan, the Daily Times quoted Jamal, as saying. Two Indian movies 'Mughale Azam' and 'Taj Mahal' have already been screened in Pakistani theatres. Jamal said a national film conference would be held soon to resolve problems faced by the Pakistani film industry.