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‘Hukamnama’ AMRITSAR, Mar 3: Choosing to ignore the ‘Hukamnama’(edict) of Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Puran Singh, the top hierarchy of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal led by party president and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal shared a common platform with excommunicated SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur at ........more CVC to draw complete NEW DELHI, Mar 3: Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) proposes to complete the list ......more
President accepts NEW DELHI, Mar 3: President K R Narayanan has accepted the resignation of.....more |
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10,000 AIDS cases in India NEW DELHI, Mar 3: About 10,000 cases of AIDS have been reported from different......more Hearing of Dara KARANJIA, (ORISSA) Mar 3: Hearing of three of the five criminal cases involving Dara Singh....more
History will see NEW DELHI, Mar 3: Industrialist Nusli Wadia has said that history will see his grandfather.......more Indo-Hungarian NEW DELHI, Mar 3: India and Hungary have entered into a two-year agreement on a......more 30,500 children NEW DELHI, Mar 3: Every day about 30,500 children under the age of five die of.....more |
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‘Hukamnama’
notwithstanding, Badal, Jagir AMRITSAR, Mar 3: Choosing to ignore the ‘Hukamnama’(edict) of Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Puran Singh, the top hierarchy of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal led by party president and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal shared a common platform with excommunicated SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur at the annual delegate session of the party today. The session, at Reja Singh Samundri hall inside the golden temple complex here, was attended by 425 delegates out of a total of 446. They unanimously re-electd Mr Badal as party president for another one-year term. The Jathedar’s January 25 ‘Hukamnama’, directs the entire Sikh ‘Panth’ (community) to socially boycott Bibi Jagir Kaur until she appears before the Akal Takht. The ‘Hukamnama had prohibited the Sikhs from sharing any platform with the SGPC chief, who told reporters after the session that she attended the meeting in her capacity as a delegate of the party. The name of Mr Badal for the President’s post was proposed by former Union Minister Surjit Singh Barnala and seconded by veteran Akali leader Jagdev Singh Talwandi and Cooperatives Minister Ranjit Singh Brahmpura. Union Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa was also present in the meeting. Bibi Jagir Kaur all through the meeting sat between Mr Badal and Mr Dhindsa. She did not address the delegates. The delegates empowered Mr Badal to choose the other office-beares of the party. Mr Badal was also authorised to nominate the 31 working committee members, 13 members to the powerful Political Affairs Committee (PAC) and also re-constitute the five-member disciplinary action committee. The session passed a number of resolutions, prominent being that all major regional political parties and State Goverments should be taken into confidence before finalising the working parameters of the Constitution Review Committee set up by the Vajpayee Government. While referring to de-centralisation of power from the centre to the states, the resolution pointed out that all-round development and progress could only be possible if a federal system of governance was adopted by the country. To end "exploitation" of states by the Centre, a federal system was the most appropriate, the resolution noted. Through another resolution, the delegates urged the central Government to take immediate steps for the fulfilment of the long-standing demand of Punjab which included transfer of Chandigarh, and the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal issue. The resolution held the Congress responsible for non-fulfillment of these demands. The resolution also demanded that all Punjabi-speaking areas in neighbouring states should be transferred to Punjab. (UNI) |
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CVC to draw complete list of corrupt official in 6 months NEW DELHI, Mar 3: Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) proposes to complete the list of corrupt officials in all Government departments and display them in its website by another six months, Chief Vigilance Commissioner N Vittal said here. The list will be complete in six months time and our department would bring out names of corrupt officials in all the 60 departments which are under the purview of CVC, Vittal told PTI last night. He said the department will also regularly keep updating the list of corrupt officials already on his website. Mine is an humble beginning to weed out corrpution from the society... And several people have complimented the department for its crusade against this menace, he said. Earlier, delivering a talk on transparent Government for our citizens: A necessity, Vittal defended his move to display names of corrupt officials on its website saying I have only used the modern way of information technology to convey this to the masses. He said a more transparent Government will lead to better administration. The ideal Government should be Small, Moral, Accountable, Responsible and Transparent (SMART), he said. Criticising the official Secrets Act, Vittal said this law has been subjected to gross misuse by the officials... The Government could be as transparent as it wants to be. Vittal said displaying the names of corrupt officials was to only make Vigilance Department more transparent. (PTI) |
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President accepts resignation of Nitish Kumar NEW DELHI, Mar 3: President K R Narayanan has accepted the resignation of Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar from the Council of Ministers. Bihar Chief Minister designate Mr Kumar had earlier in the day sent his resignation to Prime Minister A B Vajpayee after Bihar Governor Vinod Chandra Pandey invited him to form the new Government in the state. (UNI) |
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NEW DELHI, Mar 3: About 10,000 cases of AIDS have been reported from different parts of the country till December 31 last, Rajya Sabha was told today. National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) recorded 9966 AIDS cases till December 31, 1999, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, N T Shanmugham said in a written reply in the Upper House. Of the reported cases, 78.7 per cent were males and 21.3 per cent females, he said. NACO had estimated 3.5 million AIDS-causing Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections till mid-1998 in India. As per World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, 10.4 per cent of the total HIV infected people in the world lived in India, he added. Spurious drugs: Reported incidence of spurious drugs during 1997-98, based on laboratory testing, was only 0.5 per cent. During the period, 82 persons were convicted for manufacture and sale of fake drugs, Shanmugam said replying to another question. Malaria: Malaria incidence showed an increase during 1992-1997, according to a a CAG report on the national anti-malaria programme recently received by the Government, Shanmugham said. The report also found a shortfall in spraying operations, in treatment of malaria cases and staffing of laboratories, but the surveillance was satisfactory. Anemia: Preliminary analysis of data collected by the national health survey from 11 states in 1998-99 revealed that 41.5 per cent to 63.6 per cent of women in the age group of 15-49 years suffered from anemia, he said. CSIR: A total of 310 patents were filed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1998-99, of which 134 were granted, Minister of Science and Technology Murli Manohar Joshi told the House. (PTI) |
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History will see Jinnah differently, says Wadia NEW DELHI, Mar 3: Industrialist Nusli Wadia has said that history will see his grandfather Mohammad Ali Jinnah differently from the way they see him today. Wadia, Chairman of Bombay Dyeing, told Karan Thapar in an interview for BBC’s face to face programme to be telecast tomorrow night that neither the Indian view nor the Pakistani view of Jinnah were necessarily right. Maybe a hundred years from now history will see him differently from the way they see him today. And of course there are two views of him. There’s a view on this side of the border and another on the other side of the border. Neither of them are necessarily right, Wadia said. Asserting that his grandfather was not a hypocrite, wadia said Jinnah married outside his religion. He married a Parsi. He got into the habit of eating bacon and eggs when he lived in England so he ate bacon and eggs thereafter. And yes he drank. He had his scotch in the evenings. Asked whether Jinnah was a misunderstood man in India, Wadia spoke about him as a man with many aspects who had achieved a great deal in life apart from politics, according to a press release issued by BBC. (PTI) |
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Indo-Hungarian joint project on cosmic occurrences NEW DELHI, Mar 3: India and Hungary have entered into a two-year agreement on a joint research project on astronomy using a new technique which will provide important data about cosmic events including the origin of the universe. The research will enable scientists to study far-away stars and galaxies which is not possible with existing methods. The GEDEX (Geodesy Demonstration Experiment) project, supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), was started in January this year. Hungarian researchers from Fomi Satellite Geodetic Observatory (SGO) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai are participating in the project. Even the beacons emitted during the birth pangs of the universe can be studied by the new technique, according to Madav Kulkarni of IIT who is leading the Indian side. The system consists of two or more large dish antennas, which are very far apart, simultaneously observing the natural signals from extra-galatic stars or other celestial objects. By processing those signals, the sources being observed can be studied with great details, Kulkarni added. (PTI) |
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30,500 children succumb each day to preventable causes NEW DELHI, Mar 3: Every day about 30,500 children under the age of five die of many preventable causes around the world although the UN conventions on child rights, ratified by 191 countries, exists to protect them from such dangers. Every day nations fail to meet their moral and legal obligations to realise the rights of children. Thus 30,500 boys and girls under the age of five die of many preventable causes, says UNICEF in its annual report - the state of world’s children 2000. The report, which describes armed conflicts, AIDS and intense poverty as some of the problems which have reversed the gains in child welfare in developing countries, says an estimated two million children have been killed and six million injured or disabled in armed conflicts in the last decade and millions are still victims of human rights abuses. According to studies carried out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), at least 250 million children between ages of 5-14 are forced to work as labourers, 20 per cent of whom are trapped in extremely hazardous conditions, it says. More than 15 million children have been forced to leave their homes and countries as refugees and more than one million have been orphaned or separated from their families, the report says. The report also points out that about 130 million children around the world do not or cannot go to school, two-third of which are girls. Sexual exploitation was another major concern with about one million children being forced to work as child prostitutes which leads to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like aids, the UNICEF report says adding that about 250,000 children are getting infected by this fatal disease every month. The UNICEF report also censures Governments in developing countries for failing to provide basic social services and postponing full-scale campaigns needed to stop the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It however commends these countries for having accomplished major successes in the campaign against polio, improvement in other public health areas like safe drinking water, better sanitation facilities and in providing mass information. (PTI) |
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