Couples held mass
wedding to mark
long marriages

TAIPEI, Oct 25:
In Western gowns and Tuxedos, 137 elderly couples have held a mass "wedding" ceremony to celebrate their marriages of 50 years ..more

Jiang to meet Dalai Lama a
Buddhist site ?

BEIJING, Oct 25:

China and the Dalai Lama are close to announcing plans to enter dialogue to resolve the Tibet issue with a first-ever meeting proposed between Chinese President Jiang Zemin.... more

Wasia Accord gets mixed
reception in Middle East

DUBAI, Oct 25:

The land for peace agreement signed between Palestine and Israel was debunked by the hardline Palestinian groups, Iran and Syria while the other countries.....more

Despite tougher health regulatory measures by the European countries to stone-wall the import of ayurveda medicine, the Indian medicines have gained popularity and acceptance over the years with some NRI’s venturing out to manufacture them on European mainland by getting up a number of ayurveda units.

Brij Mohan Gupta and his wife Rajni, one of the pioneers of ayurveda medicines in United Kingdom started their company ‘multilinks’ from a scratch in 1996, and in less then two years, their diabetes control ‘Charantia Karela Capsules’ have become a runway success, finding space in leading medical superstars such as moss and lloyds.

We started with a little loan from bank and today, in just under two years, we are maintaining a client base in 13 countries across all continents. Multilinks turnover is approaching half million sterling mark, no mean feat with only a flagship product of Charantia Capsules, Brij Mohan said. We had to work hard to convince the health regulators here, who are very strict. We set up state of art plants using fresh vegetables and spices to make these products, Gupta said adding in space of two years, the capsules had found inclusion in British diabetic association’s guidance leaflets.

The reasons our capsules found acceptance was because they are 100 per cent natural. We use no added chemicals. No colorings, no additives and no added oil. Even the shell of the capsules are made from pure vegetables rather than gelatin or meat based sources, multilinks Managing Director claimed.

Gupta’s success has driven him on and he has gone on to launch a number of the ayurveda products including garlic capsules, ginger capsules and live tonic for liver preventive diseases.

We now plan to introduce a range of healthy asian snack foods and set up ayurvedic medical centres in cities across United Kingdom, he said.

Roger stanton, 39, a Britisher said he had begun showing early signs of high blood glucose levels in 1995 and two years later i almost became insulin dependent. My national health scheme doctors could not subscribe any allopathic medicine for sugar control till somebody pointed out to me the Karela Capsules. Today my blood sugar is under control. (PTI)

Mr Manop, 35, fended off 34 rivals to win the canine copycat contest by barking and whining for judges in the Sida sub-district of Nakhon Ratchasima province, the Bangkok Post reported yesterday.

The man was the unanimous choice of the judges of the event, which was held to publicise an anti-rabies campaign, the post said.

His ability to mimic man’s best friend in a variety of moods, including belligerence and amorousness, was honed by 15 days of intense observation of neighbourhood dogs, the paper said. (AP)

In an interview to UNI, French ambassador Claude Blanchemaison said a positive step in this direction was the visit of Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha to Paris early next month where he will address French businessmen. The investors there are keen to know from Mr Sinha the conditions and the situation in India.

The other purpose of Mr Sinha’s visit is to attend a meeting organised by the World Bank on infrastructure. Given the fact that investment requirements for building infrastructure are huge in India, the Finance Minister’s participation in the meeting is significant.

During the course of the interview, Mr Blanchemaison dealt with a wide range of economic issues pertaining to the promise that the European integration hold for India, potentialities and prospects of Indo-French trade and investment and the almost favourable stand that france had taken in the comity of nations in the post Pokhran situation. France is open to providing transfer of technology to India."The French industry is very competitive and France has advanced technologies in sectors like telecommunications, aeronautics, energy including power and agro-foods", Mr Blanchemaison said.

He said the 120-odd French companies and establishments in India and the few hundred trading with the Indian market through local agents was grossly inadequate given the potential of cooperation. The investors range from industry, equipment goods, banking and financial sectors and provide employment to more than 25,000 people in the country.

The ambassador, however, pointed out that the decision to invest is in the hands of the private sector. The French authorities cannot substitute for the private sector. For this, India has to create confidence in future and ensure profitability of investments.

" It is the market law which prevails. The private sector will invest if they have enough confidence. The two governments can create a positive cordial atmosphere but the real decision to invest rests with the private sector", he added.

Referring to educational opportunities for Indian students in France, he said his country was desirous of having more students from India. They could get training in high technology areas and managment besides economics, politics and public administration. Mr Blanchemaison regretted that there were only 150 students studying in French universities at present. "This is not because the two countries have different languages. There are 2,000 Chinese students in France. This is on account of the lack of knowledge the two countries have of each other".

He said the advantage France has in training more students is that French scholars get exposed to different currents of thought and would know more about Indian civilisation. "It is important to trigger off that kind of exchange", he added.

"I think that across the political spectrum in France, it is broadly agreed to have good cooperation with India and that the Indo-French dialogue should continue. There is also consensus that there should be cooperation between India and the European Union (EU)".

In the post Pokhran situation, France, as a matter of principle, advocated dialogue with India and was against imposing sanctions, he said. In this context, he said it was decided during the visit of Prime Minister A B Vajpayee to France three weeks ago that each country would designate to cover substantative dialogue on issues of common interest.

France was the only other declared Nuclear Weapon State (NWS), apart from Russia, that had reiterated support for India. This is in contrast to the US and Japan who moved swiftly to cut off aid and cooperation. France chose to sustain the special relationship initiated last January with President Jacques Chirac’s visit. The ambassador’s comments gave the impression that the spirit of cooperation created by President Chirac’s visit continues in the post Pokhran situation and that France wants to establish a new, more ambitious and broader economic relationship with India.

Asked about the concrete results achieved since the visit of President Chirac, Mr Blanchemaison said "it takes time to bring bilateral relations to the standard they should be". Mr Vajpayee’s visit was a step forward. Other talks have to take place. For example, technical ministers have to make a programme.

"We appreciate that India is a democratic country and has a stable regime. Nobody criticises the rules of the game", he added.

The Troika of the European Union (EU) will have regular meetings with India where all sorts of things will be discussed. Austria is the current head of the Troika. The French ambassador described as a major step in European integration, the coming to existence of the Euro from January 1, 1999 when eleven member states of the 15-member eu join hands in a monetary union.

Mr Blanchemaison said the emergence of a strong Euro will be beneficial to Indian exporters as this will enlarge their exports and facilitate transactions in a single currency. The French ambassador said the opening up of the French economy to other countries is now an irrefutable reality. One Frenchman in four today works for the export market.

The earlier image of France being a protectionist country must go. Every country at some stage of development, resorts to protection for its domestic industry as did France in its earlier stage of industrialisation, he added.

Meanwhile, analysts said that the French businessmen attribute low investments in India to an overburdened bureaucracy and slow implementation of projects. Mr Vajpayee had given a personal commitment to upgrade Indo-French relations and speed up implementation of projects.

Some French investors point out that the size of the Indian market, which is often projected as an important reason to invest in the country, is not as large as is made out to be. Different economists arrive at different figures in this regard.

The purchasing power in the hands of the people is skewed. For example, the size of people who will buy cars is different from that for consumer durable or food items. What is however, agreed is that india is a potential future market, that is, as and when the incomes grow. Following economic growth, the size of the market will keep getting larger and larger.

Marketmen say that in case India wants to attract larger foreign investment from France, then it must market itself more aggressively as what it has to offer as was being done by the other countries. There was little knowledge among small and medium enterprises about what India had to offer.

France is the second biggest exporter in the world of services and agricultural produce and lies in the fourth position for manufactured products. Economists explain that at the beginning of the 1960s, France had little or no export ambitions. Long oriented towards its former colonies in Africa and Asia, which formed a captive market, its foreign trade with the industrialised grew only gradually.

With this decolonisation and the setting up of the European common market led to elimination of protection. But this was not without problems. Overall, the 1980s were for France, years of declining competitiveness. French trade had to be reoriented towards the developed countries of the organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and it had to move away from state subsidised exports to developing countries, then victims of debt crisis. (UNI)

The captives, who were not keeping in good health, were released yesterday through the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC). They were handed over to the ICRC at the LTTE controlled Mallavi in Northern Vanni and later brought to the nearby Army held Vavuniya town, ICRC sources said here today.

This was perhaps for the first time that the LTTE has released captured Army men and Sinhalese sailors of the ships captured or destroyed by its guerrillas. Despite speculation that the rebels were holding a few hundred soldiers as captives, the LTTE has never acknowledged the number of troops in their custody.

In half a dozen instances, the rebels have released the foreign, Tamil and Muslim crew members of the ships it captured but kept their Sanhalese counterpart in custody. (PTI)

The mass wedding, presided over by Mayor Wu Dun-Yih of Southern Kaohsiung City, was held yesterday to celebrate the ancestor homage festival that falls on Wednesday.

Some of the women were excited about getting dressed up because many had been too poor when they married to afford a wedding gown.

With the well wishes of their children and grandchildren, the couples held hands as they walked the aisle at a convention hall filled with balloons.

The longest married couple were Mr Kung Chen-Wang, 89, and Mr Huang Pan, 84, who have been married for 70 years, officials said. (AP)

The Dalai Lama is preparing to issue a statement on Tibet’s political status that could pave the way for his first visit to the mainland in 40 years and enter fresh talks with Beijing, the South China morning post said, quoting Tibetan sources.

We are in a pre-negotiation mode. This is a critical initial period, said Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, the Dalai Lama’s chief representative in the United States.

Beijing wants the Dalai Lama to acknowledge that Tibet is an inalienable part of China.

The Tibetans are proposing that the Dalai Lama meet Jiang during a pilgrimage to Mount Wutai, a sacred Buddhist peak in Northwest China’s Shanxi province, the daily said.

His holiness has desired this for a long period. It would be a pilgrimage by a Buddhist monk in his private capacity, Gyari, who is also president of the international campaign for Tibet, said. (PTI)

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