| India
seeks Australia's explanation over racial attacks on its students New
Delhi: External Affairs Minister SM Krishna has said that India has sought
an explanation from Australia over attacks on its students there. Talking to reporters
here on Tuesday, the Minister said, "We are in close touch with the High Commissioner
and we are also in close touch with our High Commission there in Australia . We
should do everything possible to bring about certain normalcy in some of the cities
in Australia ." "I hope the Australian government would look into this," he added.
The attacks caused some diplomatic discomfort between the two countries and sparked
angry protests in India . Australia 's government condemned the attacks and has
launched an inquiry into them. Indian students believe that the attacks were acts
of racism and warned of "curry bashings" in Australia , where foreign students
over 12 billion dollars contribute. Ramesh
Pokhriyal to be new Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Top New
Delhi: Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank will be the New Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.
Senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu announced this after the meeting of the Uttarakhand
BJP legislative party in New Delhi. Naidu said that the outgoing Chief Minister
B C Khanduri proposed the name of Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, and was seconded by
Prakash Pant, Rawat and Chandan Ramdas. Besides Naidu, senior party leaders Thawar
Chand Gehlot, dissident leader Bhagat singh Koshiyari and state unit president
Bachchi Singh Rawat were present in the meeting. The 51-year-old journalist, poet-turned-politician
Pokhriyal was holding the Health portfolio in the out going Khanduri's cabinet.
Born on August 15, 1958 at Pinani in Pauri district,Ramesh Pokhriyal represents
the Thalisen constituency from Ghadwal region in the Assembly. He started his
career in active politics with the Ram Mandir Movement. In 1991 he was elected
to the Uttar Pradesh assembly from Karnaprayag and became the Hill development
minister in the Kalyan Singh Government. He retained Karnaprayag in 1993, and
1996 elections. When the first Uttaranchal Governement was formed, Pokhriyal revolted
against the then Chief Minister Nityanand Swami, after which he was accommodated
in the state cabinet as Finance Minister. Nishank lost the election from Thalisan
in 2002, but regained it in 2007 to become a Minister in Khanduri government.
Lt Gen (Rtd) B C Khanduri has resigned from Chief Minister's post owning moral
responsibility to the party's poor performance in Uttaranchal in the recently
concluded general elections. Mayawati
to unveil 40 statues, six of herself Top Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, will unveil 40 statues, including
six of her own, in the state on July 3. The statues will be unveiled along with
the Kanshi Ram Memorial and the Gautam Buddhasthals. Lucknow Development Authority
(LDA) will erect these statues at various places. According to LDA, the statues
are valued at Rs 6.68 crore. And, the 60 marble elephants at the Ambedkar memorial
cost Rs 52 crore. The Uttar Pradesh culture department's budget for 2008 had allocated
more than Rs 194 crore for building statues of great leaders. If the figures of
the cultural department are anything to go by, this is just one-third of the entire
budget. Met Department
predicts below normal rain for July Top New
Delhi: The Metrological Department predicted a below normal rainfall in the
month of July, expecting 93 % rainfall, as against 96% predicted earlier for this.
Addressing the media, Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj
Chavan Said the southwest monsoon is expected to be normal this year. Southwest
monsoon, which started a week earlier in May brought happiness among the farmers.But
it did not extend beyond Konkan in Maharashtra after the first week of June. Prithviraj
Chavan said the Union Agriculture Secretary T Nanda Kumar will hold discussions
with Agriculture Secretaries of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa,
Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, which are suffering due to failure of monsoon.
The Central government has asked the state government to come up with contingency
plans in case the monsoon gets further delayed. World's
second cloned buffalo calf 'Garima' born in Haryana Top Karnal:
A team of veterinary scientists of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI)
at Karnal in Haryana has successfully conceptualised the birth of the world's
second cloned buffalo calf. The scientists tried out a new and advanced mode known
as 'Hand-guided Cloning Technique'. The buffalo calf named Garima is a female
and it was born through caesarean operation. The weight of the baby calf was around
43 kilograms at the time of birth. According to the scientists, Garima is healthy
and having normal weight gain likes other naturally born calves. This cloning
technique developed at NDRI, Karnal, has the potential to create elite breed of
buffaloes of desired sex which will contribute in further increasing India 's
milk production. Dr. A.K. Srivastav headed the team of the scientists comprising
of Dr. S K Singla, Dr. R S Manik, Dr. M S Chauhan, Dr. P Palta, Dr. Shiv Parsad,
Dr. R S Shah and Dr. A George. Keeping in view the fact of shortage of outstanding
he-buffaloes, the 'Hand-guided Cloning' can decrease this gap and supply the bulls
in the shortest possible time. The world's first ever-cloned buffalo calf was
also born at NDRI on February 6, 2009 but it died within a week due to pneumonia.
Ansar Burney
to file fresh mercy petition for Sarabjit Top New
Delhi: Ansar Burney, the leading Pakistani Human Rights activist on Wednesday
said that he would file a fresh mercy petition to Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari on behalf of Sarabjit Singh on Thursday. "Now, I am going to file a fresh
Mercy petition before the President of Pakistan tomorrow, June 25, and from my
side I am confident that I will not allow Pakistan Government to hang an innocent
person only on the basis that he is Non-Muslim or Indian national," Ansar Burney
said. "How a court, if there is any justice in that court, can punish a person
to hang without providing him any lawyer and in a case where the prisoner already
spent 18 long years in a death cell that is more than a life sentence?" Burney
added. Earlier on Wednesday, Sarabjit Singh's petition to review his death sentence
was rejected by Pakistan's Supreme Court. Sarabjit has been on death row in Pakistan
since he was convicted for his alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in 1990
in different cities of Pakistan's Punjab that killed 14 people, but Sarabjit's
family insists that he was wrongly convicted. The civil rights activist condemned
the decision of the Supreme Court on the review petition.
Taliban, not India, is the real threat
to Pak: Zardari Top Brussels:
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that India is no longer a military
threat to Pakistan , rather it is the Taliban which is threatening peace in the
region as well as in the whole world. Talking to a private television channel
ahead of the first summit between the European Union (EU) and Pakistan here, Zardari
said both India and Pakistan do not have any ill-feelings against each other,
and both the countries have good intentions. "I do not consider India a military
threat.The question is that India has the capability. Capability is what matters.With
regard to intention I think we both have our good intentions. India is a reality,
Pakistan is a reality, but Taliban are a threat, an international threat, to our
way of life," The Daily Times quoted Zardari,as saying. Blaming former President
Pervez Musharraf for turning a blind eye towards breeding the menace of extremism
in the country, Zardari said he is monitoring the ongoing offensive against the
Taliban and is focused on the problem. "I'm focused on the Taliban. It's something
that has been going on for a long time and of course went unchecked under the
dictatorial rule of the last president," Zardari said. Referring to the EU's concern
over the madrassas in Pakistan 's tribal areas that have been accused of imparting
Talibani ideology, Zardari said Islamabad needed more financial support from the
international community to fight the influence of the madrassas. Commenting on
Pakistan 's nuclear arsenal, which is being feared to fall into the extremist
hands, Zardari claimed that the country's nukes were in safe custody. "Everybody
who needs to know in the world is aware that the assets are in safe hands," said
Zardari. Zardari, however, rejected reports about terror training camps operating
on Pakistani soil. Taliban
created by Govt, military as hedge against India: Pak experts Top Islamabad:
While Pakistan does not leave any stone unturned in blaming foreign countries,
including India and the US for the Taliban menace, Pakistan based experts have
refuted such notions saying that the insurgents are a local product. Speaking
at a conference, 'Countering Talibanisation: The Way Forward' here, several experts
blamed the government and the military for nurturing the Taliban and other extremist
organizations to use them against rival countries, particularly India . "If someone
calls Taliban agents of the US , I will not accept it. They are a local product,"
said Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, a famous analyst. Hoodbhoy stressed that Taliban was
neither the product of US nor Israel or India , as claimed by a certain fraternity;
rather, he said the extremists were produced at local seminaries. Speaking on
the occasion, the Awami National Party (ANP) Senator, Afrasiab Khattak opined
that Pakistan must stop nurturing terror against its neighbours, and learn to
live peacefully with Iran , China , Afghanistan and India . "There is no smoke
without fire," said Khattak. He blamed several former military generals for creating
the Taliban in their bid to gain strategic depth in the region, and in case of
an altercation with India . Khattak also charged the United States of providing
help and funding the extremists in the past to crush communism. "Thousands of
seminaries were set up to produce Taliban, who were described as Mujahideen lovingly
by the West. The West funded the Taliban to defeat communism and this derailed
Pakistan ," The News quoted Khattak, as saying. Chairman of the Parliament's Committee
on National Security, Raza Rabbani also highlighted that militants have been funded
by foreign powers over the last several years, and this practice which must be
stopped if Pakistan actually wants to alienate itself from the menace which has
now turned into a monster. "The problem of militancy is not so simple. It is multi-dimensional.
The world powers know it well from where it has been funded and nurtured. There
is a need to stop the outside funding," said Rabbani. |
