|
|
India
can ill-afford to vacillate From B L Kak
Govt steps to meet NEW DELHI, Feb 22: Government today announced series production of submarines in the country and going ahead with the aircraft carrier project to ......more
Maneka Gandhi for national disasters management policy NEW DELHI, Feb 22: Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Maneka Gandhi today called upon NGOs and other social welfare ...more NEW DELHI, Feb 22: About 84 million years ago the earth rolled like a ball, turning 15 to 20 degrees in a couple of million years, according to new .....more |
|
Budget session may be stormy as oppn braces for a showdown NEW DELHI, Feb 22: The budget session of Parliament beginning tomorrow promises to be stormy with the.........more
Assets of Chota Shakeel attached MUMBAI, Feb 22: A special court today attached ten movable properties seized from the residence of Chota Shakeel, Karachi-based don and prime ......more Moga Youth Cong leader killed in accident MOGA (PUNJAB), Feb 22: Youth Congress leader Narinder Singh Gill died in an accident when his car collided headon with a jeep coming from the opposite .....more WB Govt to provide all help to Mehta to do shooting of Water VARANASI, Feb 22: The West Bengal Government will provide full security to the director of controversial film, Water, Deepa Mehta if she intends to .....more |
 |
India
can ill-afford to vacillate From B L Kak NEW DELHI Feb 22: A message has just been received by the Government from Washington, clearly indicating the shape of events to come during the US President, Mr Bill Clinton’s visit to India next month. The US Secretary of State and the US Defence Secretary see Kashmir and non-proliferation as priority items on Mr Clinton’s agenda. The message has pointed out that if for the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, Kashmir is the fuse and the situation "highly dangerous" after Kargil and hijacking of Indian Airlines plane, the US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen has let it be known that the United States can play an "active" role in promoting regional stability and advancing the cause of peace. The message has clearly suggested that Kashmir and non-proliferation are going to be the key issues to figure during the US President’s talks with Indian leaders, particularly Prime Minister. The message, significantly, has arrived at a time when India’s reluctance to accept the good office of a third party to sort out the Kashmir problem was reiterated by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and his External Affairs Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh. Although Washington is not ignorant about the yawning gap between the perceptions of India and US on Kashmir, Mr Clinton is reported to be keen to break the ice during his visit to South Asia. What is likely to be achieved during Mr Clinton’s visit to India is difficult to say at this stage, considering the fact that scope for forward movement is, at present, severally limited due to a combination of factors and circumstances. A section of Pakistani military leadership has labelled Mr Clinton as the "lame-duck President". However, for Mr Clinton, according to US-watchers, even incremental progress on Kashmir is important as it has the potential of becoming transformed into a foreign policy triumph which might help offset the setback caused by the US Senate’s refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India, these watchers opine, has to be prepared to withstand the intense pressure likely to be generated to compel forward movement on Kashmir during the US President’s stay in New Delhi. They have an important point: As Mr Clinton is credited with success in bringing peace to West Asia and in Ireland to some extent, Kashmir is seen by his loyalists as the "next theatre" for burnishing his image as a peace-maker. As US President’s priorities are to be quite different, New Delhi should avoid thinking that the US President’s visit is intended to enhance economic cooperation. At a time when the Vajpayee Government-Prime Minister, to be precise-is working overtime to chalk out the strategy to take care of anticipated developments during Mr Clinton’s visit to India, a platform for "humanitarian intervention" seems to have been provided by a combination of factors, namely, the conviction of the US Secretary of State and the US Defence Secretary that this region is dangerously poised and likely to provide a nuclear conflict, the daily toll of incidents in Jammu and Kashmir and the role of Pakistan’s ISI plus cross-border terrorism. Some leaders of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) are learnt to have cautioned Mr Vajpayee to be "extra-careful" while handling the US President. Mr Vajpayee, in fact, has been told by them that if his Government become a supplicant in the court of US President, patiently explaining the extent of Pakistan’s perfidy, its role as a sponsor of terrorism and seeking succour from him, it will not then be able to avoid being drawn into the vortex of US arbitration moves in one form or the other. Close cooperation has existed between intelligence and security agencies of United States and India for many years now. The Joint Working Group (JWG) has been set up by the two countries. There has been wide acknowledgement by the US intelligence community about Pakistan’s role as a hub of Islamic terrorism. There has also been documented evidence of Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere. This notwithstanding, New Delhi and Washington have yet to forge a satisfactory relationship in this area. Advocating the need for New Delhi to do much more on the diplomatic front to convince the rest of the world about India’s concerns and vulnerabilities, some US-watchers have predicted that it is quite unlikely that there would be a shift in US positions vis-à-vis Pakistan during Mr Clinton’s visit to India. |
|
Govt steps to meet Naval requirements NEW DELHI, Feb 22: Government today announced series production of submarines in the country and going ahead with the aircraft carrier project to meet requirements of the Navy. Defence Minister George Fernandes said Government had approved a long term approach in this regard to help build submarines indigenously. The construction work of two submarines at the Mazagon docks was expected to start soon. The Defence Minister told the parliamentary consultative committee attached to his Ministry that an air-defence ship would be built at the Cochin Shipyard over seven years and outlined a major plan for indigenisation and modernisation of shipyards. The Government’s announcement is apparently aimed at not closing the submarines lines at Mazagon docks which have been lying idle for the past few years after India completed assembling of the two SSK class submarines for the navy. By keeping open the submarine construction lines, Government has also hinted that it may go ahead with the ambitious project to build nuclear powered submarines indigenously. The DRDO and Naval research authorities have already completed work on the design of a nuclear submarine and are now working on its configuration and hull structure. At the meeting, Fernandes unveiled a Rs 400 crore programme on the modernisation of country’s five shipyards in the next two to three years as he lauded the performance of these establishments saying that the indigenously constructed destroyers INS Delhi, INS Mysore had been widely acclaimed at home and abroad. The Minister also said steps were underway to boost defence exports and called for better work culture and higher productivity in defence production units. Participating in deliberations, a number of members of Parliament while appreciating the recent step of the Minister in announcing a sweeping probe into major defence deals since 1985-86 wanted that all the major service’s acquisitions should come under its purview. Members called for giving greater thrust on indigenisation and modernisation with the objective of meeting requirements of the armed forces. They also wanted defence PSU’s to help civil sectors and step up exports. Besides the Minister, those present in the meeting included Minister of State for Defence Harin Pathak, Secretary Defence Production Prabir Sengupta and Scientific Advisor V K Atri. (PTI) |
|
Maneka Gandhi for national disasters management policy NEW DELHI, Feb 22: Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Maneka Gandhi today called upon NGOs and other social welfare organisations to work together for a comprehensive disaster management policy at the national level to reduce the effect of natural calamities in the country. Regretting lack of response from voluntary oganisations to the Government’s call for an effective measure to deal with recurring disasters in their respective state, the Minister said emphasis should be on environment management to bring down the effects of nature’s fury. After the recent cyclone in Orissa, not a single NGO approached her Ministry with proposals to reduce the impact of any future calamity in the state, she said after releasing a report ‘India disasters report: Towards a policy initiative’. Elimination of mangrove forests in Orissa for the purpose of shrimp farming and removal of rocks to build roads were some of the reasons for the recurrence of floods in the state, she said. The disaster report, jointly presented by Oxford University Press and Oxfam, an international relief and development organisation, deals with various disaster management methods. The report, put together by an interdisciplinary team of over 100 contributors, from India and abroad, demands a standing parliamentary committee on disasters to facilitate a debate in Parliament. (PTI) |
|
|
NEW DELHI, Feb 22: About 84 million years ago the earth rolled like a ball, turning 15 to 20 degrees in a couple of million years, according to new research findings. This turning would be enough to rotate Washington DC into the tropical latitudes of the Caribbean today, a team of US researchers reported in the journal Science. So far, scientists had evidence of only shifting of land masses or continents. The new evidence by a team of geophysicists from Texas and M University and Scripps Institute of Oceanography at University of California at San Diego suggests that not just the land and sea, but the entire geographic poles of the earth shifted. Such a rapid entire-earth tumble is true polar wander as the geographic poles would have actually shifted across the globe, moving land and sea 10 times faster than continental drift ever has. It would also trigger climate shifts that seem to have come out of nowhere, the report says. Unusual turmoil deep within the interior on the earth could have caused this large-scale shift. The large and rapid shift is linked in time with major reorganisation of plates under the earth’s surface and magnetic field reversal, and may have been caused by a complete overturn of the earth’s mantle, the report says. (PTI) |
|
|
|
Assets of Chota Shakeel attached MUMBAI, Feb 22: A special court today attached ten movable properties seized from the residence of Chota Shakeel, Karachi-based don and prime accused in the shoot-out involving murderous attack on former city Mayor Milind Vaidya, even as the trial began amidst tight security. Police today furnished a list of ten household articles lying in a damaged condition at Shakeel’s house in Ruksana Manzil at Temkar Street in South Mumbai. The articles include wooden pieces of furniture, matresses, a gas furnace and books in Urdu. Significantly, electric supply in the flat was still on although the building owner had claimed that Chota Shakeel or his wife Najma had not been staying there since 1991. On a plea made by prosecution, designated Judge A P Bhangale had appointed senior Inspector of J J Marg police station to function as the court receiver and seize properties from the house of Chota Shakeel, who obtained on rental basis the premises in the name of his wife. The landlady, Ruksana Mohammed Aslam Supariwala, filed an affidavit saying that she had purchased the building in 1988 from one Mariambai. Najma already was holding a flat therein. Since May 1991, however, she had disappeared. No one stayed in the flat, she told the court. In a related development, Judge A P Bhangale extended the bailable warrant against Noorjahan Sharafatali Sayyed, sister of an absconding accused Mohammed Faheem Mohammed Sharif Khan. She was served with notice earlier to appear before the court but failed to do so, following which a warrant was issued. (PTI) |
|
Moga Youth Cong leader killed in accident MOGA (PUNJAB), Feb 22: Youth Congress leader Narinder Singh Gill died in an accident when his car collided headon with a jeep coming from the opposite direction on the Moga-Dharamkot road, about two km from here last night, police said today. The occupants of the jeep fled leaving their jeep, police said. The seriously injured Youth Congress leader, 42, was taken to a hospital but he succumbed to the injuries as he reached the hospital, police said. After post mortem, his body was handed over to his family this morning which was later cremated. A large number of people, including leaders of various political parties and Youth Congress workers, took part in the funeral procession and were present at the cremation ground. (PTI) |
|
WB Govt to provide all help to Mehta to do shooting of Water VARANASI, Feb 22: The West Bengal Government will provide full security to the director of controversial film, Water, Deepa Mehta if she intends to shoot the film in the state, deputy leader of the CPI-M in Lok Sabha Basudeb Acharya said today. The West Bengal Government will extend all help and security for the shooting of Water, Acharya told PTI here. Referring to the threats given by the Sangh Parivar outfits that they would not allow the shooting of the film anywhere in the country, he said "no one would be allowed to take the law in his hands in West Bengal." "They (Sangh activists) will be strictly dealt with if they try to disturb the law and order situation" in the state, he said. Condemning the recent vandalism over the filming of Water in Varanasi, he said it was an "attack on the freedom of expression and democracy." (PTI) |
|
||
|
| home | state | national | business| editorial | advertisement | sports | |
