Lankan troops killed
19 militants

COLOMBO, Mar 23: Sri Lankan forces captured a huge land..more

Nawaz Sharif

Pak vows to support Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination

ISLAMABAD, Mar 23: President Muhammad Rafiq Tarar.....more

75 mn children will be deprived of basic
education in 2015: Survey

WASHINGTON, Mar 23: In 1990, world leaders promised ‘education....more

RNAC pilots on
agitational path

KATHMANDU, Mar 23: Striking pilots of the Royal Nepal...more

Quelle plan to outsource more products from India

FUERTH (GERMANY), Mar 23: Quelle Schickedanz AG of Germany, which is.more

India to be most populated country by 2050: Report

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 23: India is poised to become world’s most populated country within the next fifty years, a UN estimate has ..more

US warned of breaking pledge on missile non-proliferation

BEIJING, Mar 23: China today warned the United States of breaking promise not to engage in missile proliferation if Washington went ...more

Pak includes Kashmir
tableau in national
day parade

ISLAMABAD, Mar 23: Pakistan today for the first time included a tableau showing Kashmir as a part...more

Lankan troops killed 19 militants

COLOMBO, Mar 23: Sri Lankan forces captured a huge land area in the North from the LTTE control, killing 19 rebels and wounding four others in a major offensive against the militant outfit, the Defence Ministry said today.

The troops captured about 325 square kilometre, comprising 14 villages, in Wanni area during the operation Ranagosa II launched on March 19.

One camouflaged double-cab and a canter truck used by the rebels were destroyed in the offensive. The troops also recovered nine T-56 weapons and a communication radio set.

The four-day operation was jointly conducted by the Sri Lankan artillery and the air force, a release from the operational headquarters of the Defence Ministry said today.

By last evening, a line joining Mundimurippu, Palampiddy, Madhu Camp, Madhu Road junction with Poovarasankulam was captured by the troops.

The area captured is located west of Irani Illuppakulam-Poovasankulam and comprises 14 villages belonging to eleven grama sevaka divisions of which ten are from mannar and the rest from Vavuniya districts.

The area population is about 20,000, half of which has taken refuge in Madhu and Palampiddy camps.

The Ministry claims more people from LTTE strongholds were now returning to the areas taken from the rebel control.

While the Defence Ministry reported no casualties during the combat, AP says one government soldier was killed during the operation.

Earlier, during operation rangosa I, troops captured about 535 square kilometre area that comprised 24 villages. (UNI)

Pak vows to support Kashmiris’
struggle for self-determination

ISLAMABAD, Mar 23: President Muhammad Rafiq Tarar renewed Pakistan’s resolve to support the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination on the occasion of the country’s national day today even while seeking peaceful ties with India.

The Kashmiri people have come out for their right of self-determination and we are fully with them in their struggle...Kashmir is the question of security for Pakistan, Tarar said at a military parade here marked by a awesome display of the country’s military might.

Pakistan would continue to extend full moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people until they succeed in achieving their goal, Tarar told the huge gathering that included Premier Nawaz Sharif and the three service chiefs.

Pakistan’s much vaunted Ghauri long range missile, capable of hitting targets deep in Indian territory, and the medium range Shaheen missile were on display for the first time at the function to commemorate the 1940 Lahore resolution demanding a separate homeland for Muslims of the sub-continent.

Tarar, however, reaffirmed his country’s desire or a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue and friendly ties with all its neighbours but warned against interpreting this as a sign of weakness, in an obvious reference to India.

Pakistan wants friendly ties with all its neighbours...But our desire for peace should not be construed as our weakness, he said adding the armed forces were capable of thwarting any threat, specially after the May tests.

Tarar also complimented Pakistani scientists and armed forces for the tests and praised Sharif for initiating a number of measures to arrest the declining law and order situation in the country.

Later in the evening he will confer various civilian and military awards for achievements in different fields. (PTI)

75 mn children will be deprived of
basic education in 2015: Survey

WASHINGTON, Mar 23: In 1990, world leaders promised ‘education for all by the year 2000’. "They failed," according to a blunt new assessment by the Non-Governmental Organisation, Oxfam International.

The aid community, international financial institutions and Governments of developing countries all must share the blame for that failure, Oxfam says in report released yesterday.

So dire is the situation that even the revised goal of universal primary education by 2015 - embraced as it became clear the original deadline never could be met - now is in Peril.

"On current trends, even this less ambitious target will be completely unattainable," Oxfam warns. "If the world’s Governments fail to act now, 75 million children will be deprived of basic education in 2015."

"The facts speak for themselves," Oxfam says. "A decade after the rallying cry of education for all, there are still 125 million children who never attend school."

"Another 150 million children of primary age start school but drop out before they can read or write," adds the report titled, ‘education now: Break the cycle of poverty’.

Problems are most acute for girls and in sub-Saharan Africa. Two out of every three children not in school are girls and Governments are not keeping promises to close the ‘gender gap’ in schooling, Oxfam says.

The report singles out Pakistan as a particularly troubling case: The proportion of girls in school fell by 10 per cent in the first half of this decade, further even than the proportion in neighbouring, strife-torn Afghanistan.

"Many in the West would assume that the crisis in girls’ education is worse in Islamic countries, but they would be wrong," says the report. It notes improvements in girls’ enrolment in Arab states and "spectacular advances" in Bangladesh.

Pakistan’s troubles at least in part stem from the spending priorities of successive Governments. The South Asian nation of some 150 million people "spends six times more on defence than on primary education," Oxfam notes.

"Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for one-third of the total out-of-school population," the report notes. "On current trends, it will account for three-quarters of the total in 2015." Enrolment rates actually are falling in 16 countries. Yet, "the world’s poorest region spends as much on arms as it does on its primary schools."

School children must vie for resources not only with soldiers but also the overseas banks, multilateral agencies, and Governments from which their leaders borrow money.

"Funding universal primary education in Africa would require an additional three billion dollars per annum," according to Oxfam. "The region currently spends over twelve billion dollars to service its debts."

"Every woman, man and child in ethiopia owes more than 85 dollars to the rich world," the report says. "The figure is 700 dollars for every Zambian and 1,000 dollars for every Nicaraguan" - more than twice the average annual income in each of the two countries.

Oxfam wants debt-burdened nations to receive greater and faster debt relief than is provided under the multi-lender ‘Heavily Indebted Poor Countries’ (HIPC) debt initiative. It also wants the programme tuned more closely to education and other social needs.

Debt relief is Central to Oxfam’s call for a ‘global action plan’ for basic education. This also would include increased aid, private funding and technical support for Governments committed to the 2015 target - and especially for Sub-Saharan African nations.

Wealthy nations belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - authors of the scaled-down 2015 goal - should scrape together an additional four billion dollars in aid for basic education, Oxfam argues.

"On average, rich Governments are allocating 1.4 per cent of their aid to basic education, compared with around 25 per cent for transport and industry," it notes.

"The bottom line is that basic education, one of the most important requirements for human development and poverty reduction, is being neglected."

The advocacy group wants donors to make it easier to track funds earmarked for basic education and to gauge their effectiveness. It urges the World Bank to increase funding for basic education in Africa with soft loans from the International Development Association.

Oxfam’s report also reminds the bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) of the world declaration on education for all, forged in 1990 at a conference convened by UN agencies and the World Bank. The document states: "Structural adjustment policies should protect appropriate funding levels for education."

Oxfam adds: "Despite recent efforts to introduce safeguards, structural adjustment programmes have often led to cuts in Government spending on basic education, to economic recession and increased poverty."

"For poor countries, the IMF has influence far beyond the level of its loans," the report stresses. "When a country is in severe economic crisis, it needs to get the IMF seal of approval before it receives aid and help from elsewhere...

"That seal of approval usually means a short, sharp shock. In an attempt to contain inflation, the IMF will insist that a Government curtails its spending, even if it runs up against plans to reach the target of education for all."

That approach is self-defeating in the long run, Oxfam argues. In Africa and South Asia, primary school increases farmers’ productivity by eight per cent. Evidence from the roadside Kiosks of Latin America’s ‘informal’ economy shows that each additional year of education increases workers’ income by 5-10 per cent.

"Universal primary education would be costly but it is affordable," the report asserts. ‘Best estimates’ put the total bill at an extra eight billion dollars per year - about as much as four days’ worth of global military spending or seven days’ worth of currency speculation in international markets. (IPS)

RNAC pilots on agitational path

KATHMANDU, Mar 23: Striking pilots of the Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC) force grounded the entire fleet of the Nepali national carrier here for the ninth consecutive day today even as they came under a virulent attack from the tourism sector the for foreign exchange earner for the Himalayan Kingdom.

Various tourism related organisations jointly accused the agitating RNAC pilots of tyring to closedown the forty year old Nepali flag carrier through their impetuous action of resorting to the strike and not settling for a compromise on their demand.

On March fifteen the 87 odd pilots of the RNAC refused to join duty demanding that the corporation management rescind immediately an aircraft wet leasing agreement with a Chinese Airline the China South West Airlines and instead go in in for lease purchase of a wide bodied jet aircraft.

Since 1994, the corporation has been lease hiring aircraft from various organisations worlwide for short durations to meet its international operations requirments and in each deal it has been alleged, the erstwhile managements have creamed off huge commissions at the cost of he ailing ever in the red RNAC

and now when yet another wet lease was signed the pilots began their agitation putting hundreds of valued foreign tourists to immense hardships besides affecting adversely air services domestically where still vast areas remain unconnected by roads and rnac provides the only access. The tourism-related organisations, which include the Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN), Travel Agents Association of Nepal (TAAN), Nepal Association of Travel Agencies (NATA) and Nepal Association of Rafting Agents (NARA), terming the issue as one commanding national importance urged both the government and the agitating employees to immediately open negotiations to resolve the conflict.

They suggested that the pilots allow the fresh wet-lease for yet another three months during which the rnac management could finalise lease-purchasing of another aircraft. The RNAC presently owns two aircraft and for the past six years has been lease-hiring a third to maintain its international air-services to the far-east, India, West Asia and Europe.

Foreign airlines operating into Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, Nepal’s only international airport, include Indian Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Thai Airways International, Singapore Airlines, Gulf Air and Qatar Airways. And passengers stranded following the RNAC strike have had to face immense handships making their flight-connections.

Meanwhile, non-RNAC international air-services into Kathmandu have also been adversely affected-but by adverse climatic conditions.

With an unusually dry winter followed by yet another long spell without rains, the bowl-shaped Kathmandu Valley has for the past more than one week been covered by a dense haze which shows no immediate signs of lifting.

And with visibility at mid-day, normally the peak flight-time down to a bare two kms, most incoming airservices have had to either divert to another destination or completely cancel the flights. Most severely affected have been the Indian Airlines services to Kathmandu from New Delhi, Calcutta and Varanasi. (UNI)

Quelle plan to outsource more products from India

FUERTH (GERMANY), Mar 23: Quelle Schickedanz AG of Germany, which is Europe’s largest mail order company, said India has tremendous potential to export textiles, readymade garments, carpets and leather products.

Quelle’s company organisation, the Sehickedanz Group of Companies, recently acquired Karstadt, another major mail order company with business interests across Europe. The combined annual turnover of both companies now exceeds 40 billion Deutch Marks (about Rs 96,000 crore).

"India is a good market for us to buy several products, " said Mr Thomas Thiel, head of Quelle’s import service division. "But there is plenty of scope for expanding the current business volume."

In cleander 1998, the company imported a variety of goods worth 160 million DM (about Rs 384 crore) from India. The figure could go up by ten per cent in the current year, Mr Thiel said.

Nearly 80 per cent of Quelle’s courcing from India comprises of textiles including readymade garments, curtains, bed linens, home furnishings and related items, shoes and other leather products, gift items and furniture constitute the rest.

"The customer demands in europe are rising and we are facing a tough competition in these recessionary times," Mr Thiel said. " Indian exporters must have a better knowledge of global trends to increase their business. They have to know what buyers are looking for."

On internet, Quelle products worth 30 million DM (about Rs 72 crore) were sold last year. The company offers 80,000 items through is catalogues to one crore customers in Germany alone. Nearly 30 per cent of its buying is conducted in the far east, including India.

Besides it supplies a wild variety of products including household electrical goods to 12 other european countries. Quele has over 10,000 sales outlets across Europe with 170 stores, 7,000 franchisees and 1,300 photo shops in Germany.

Quelle also maintains 31 purchasing offices worldwide has marketing representatives in 15 countries and exports to a total of 60 countries.

Mr Thiel said Indian exporters must focus on short lead times, reliable delivery schedules and global quality standards. At the same time the Government must simplify so that foreign companies can have open accounts with India importers.

"Quelle’ acquisition of Karstadt globally will have impact on Indian operations as well. We hope to synergise the strengths of both outfits in rest of the year."

Mr Thiel said the competition for Indian fashion and light weight clothing is growing from Turkey and Indonesia. For basic garments, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are fast emerging as formidable competitors. For leather goods, the Chinese and Turkish could soon surpass Indian exporters. (UNI)