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Centre should bring BHUBANESWAR, Nov 13: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh today.....more
Cyclone drives elephants BHUBANESWAR, Nov 13: With hunger gnawing.....more
Jethmalani questions NEW DELHI, Nov 13: Law Minister Ram Jethmalani....more |
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Kartik cultural festival from November 15 CHANDIGARH, Nov 13: Haryana Governor Mahabir Prasad will inaugurate the fourth Kartik cultural festival being organised at the historic Nahar Singh Palace at Ballabgarh (Faridabad) from November 15 to 21..........more No policy difference MADURAI, Nov 13: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said the NDA partners had only expressed their personal opinion regarding clemency for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins who were sentenced to death and it could not be construed as ‘policy differences’ in the NDA..........more Padatik felicitates CALCUTTA, Nov 13: Mrs Usha Ganguly, Sangeet Natak Academy Award winner for the year 1998 was felicitated yesterday by Padatik in a show of solidarity of theatrical brotherhood in West Bengal. ....more Trial courts in very bad NEW DELHI, Nov 13: Trial courts in the country are in a very bad shape and something needs to be done urgently to improve the situation, former Chief Justice of India Justice M N Venkatachalliah said here today....more NCBC asks Govt to NEW DELHI, Nov 13: National Commission for Backward Classes....more |
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Centre
should bring supplimentary budget to BHUBANESWAR, Nov 13: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh today urged the Centre to draw money from the contingency fund to tackle the large-scale devastation wrought by the super cyclone in the Orissa Coast. Mr Singh, who came here to hold discussion with Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang and other senior officials about the possible assistance provided by his Government, told newspersons that since there was no fund left with the National Calamity Fund for Relief (NCFR), the Centre should bring a supplimentary budget for the NCFR to help the cyclone victims. Mr Singh, also a member of the National Calamity Fund for Relief, said the Prime Minister, instead of the formalities, should declare the disaster as national calamity to enable Orissa get assistance from international organisations, including the World Bank, to undertake reconstruction and rehabilitation measures. He described the super cyclone as the biggest national calamity of the 20th century in the world. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister said considering the gravity of the situation, all political parties should put their might together to restore the affected areas as soon as possible. Mr Singh said the types of devastation caused by the cyclone required hundreds of crores of rupees in the long run. The number of human casualty is also likely to go up. He said the devastation was so rampant and visible on a vast stretch that there was no point in sending a central team to assess the situation to relase funds. Mr Singh said in the past the Centre had also declared the Latur and Jabalpur earthquakes as national calamity so also in case of the floods in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. In Latur, Mr Singh said the Union Government managed to receive a grant of Rs 1100 crores and also soft loan within a few days of the earthquake adding that Orissa could also similarly receive huge grants from international agencies like the World Bank once the Government formally declared it a national calamity of rare severity. As such the type of calamity had never taken place anywhere in the country, he said and called upon all political parties to help the cyclone victims on humanitarian ground. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister said his state being the neighbour, would always stand by the people of Orissa and go out of its way to help the lakhs of victims. He said till now the Government had donated Rs one crore to the Chief Minister’s relief fund while the State Government employees have decided to donate Rs 9 crore. Mr Singh said he had appealed to all the people in his state to help generously. The Chief Minister said his Government would soon depute about 1500 state armed forces and homeguards to the worst hit Jagatsinghpur district, particularly Erasama, to dispose of the bodies and animal carcasses. Besides, Mukti Sradhanjalai, a Non Governmental Organisation, was also working for the disposal of bodies. Mr Singh said as per Mr Gamang’s suggestion the Madhya Pradesh Government had adopted the affected Jajpur district where the Government would reconstruct school buildings, hospitals, roads and bridges and fund for these work would be placed at the disposal of the District Collector. (UNI) |
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Cyclone drives elephants away from sanctuary BHUBANESWAR, Nov 13: With hunger gnawing at their belly, the elephants of the Chandaka elephant sanctuary, driven away from their confines following the super cyclone, are letting loose a reign of panic among the villagers. The people on the periphery were in the grip of utter panic fearing invasion of the pachyderms in search of food. The super cyclone, which hit the state capital and stayed for more than 36 hours with gale reaching over 250 kmph, had destroyed the 189 sq km reserve and protected forest close to the city uprooting all bamboo trees inside the sanctuary, the first of its kind in Asia. Finding their habitat and corridor totally battered, the elephants numbering about 80, including five tuskers, had come out of the sanctuary and unleashed a reign of terror among the villagers in the nearby areas. Even wildlife officials apprehended that these elephants would force their entry into the villages in search of food as their staple food inside the sanctuary had been destroyed. The elephants would either die or wreak havoc in the adjoining areas, they remarked. It was totally a degraded forest when the idea to conceive the elephant sanctuary was mooted in the 1980s, and with the protection the sanctuary turned into a dense forest in a decade so much so that it was described as the lungs of the future growth of the capital city. But now the same dense forest stood a testimony to the fury of the killer cyclone. It was the nature, which converted the degraded forest into a dense forest and now the same nature destroyed it. What had worried the wildlife officials that in the absence of food inside the sanctuary and the destruction of the habitat, the elephants would have no other option but to migrate to nearby villages to eke out their living. The reports of elephant herd entering the nearby villages and destroying the paddy crops started pouring in from as many as ten villages located within the five km of the sanctuary. Villagers of Mendhasal, Giringaput, Jamujhari, Malipada, Daspur, Kuji Mahal and Gangpatna had alleged that the herd was moving in their villages ever since the cyclone hit the city and destroyed the Standing Paddy Crop. The forest officials pleaded helplessness saying they could only chase the pachyderms to return to their original abode but could not force them to be confined inside the sanctuary. The villagers residing around the sanctuary were very much used to the frequent visits of the elephants from the sanctuary into their areas in search of food, but this time they had become panicky as the elephants were moving in a herd and could cause extensive damages to their crops and houses. When contacted a senior forest official said the wildlife officials made an attempt to chase the elephants to push them into the sanctuary, but instead they went to the nearby Bharatpur reserve forest, also battered in the cyclone. They feel that the elephants would further migrate to the nearby human settlement in search of food as Bharatpur reserve forest would not be conducive to them to stay for a longer period. The wildlife officials were now keeping a close watch on their movement so also the villagers. The sanctuary was in fact conceived as a permanent measure to end poaching of the elephants and check the rampaging wild tuskers in the neighbouring villages. The super cyclone, a forest official said, had defeated the very purpose for which the sanctuary was set up. Now anything could happen to these hapless elephants. They would be chased by the violent villagers and followed by the poachers. The villagers alleged that the herd had destroyed about 100 acre of crop land during the last couple of days. Last week about 200 villagers gheraoed the Chandaka division demanding adequate protection from the rampage elephants. The wildlife officials, however, did not dare to go to the villages to console the villagers as despite repeated pleas they had failed in their attempt to prevent the sanctuary elephants from entering the villages. The 70-km-long wire fencing around the sanctuary had been snapped at many places making it easier for the elephants to move out of the sanctuary. It also helped the poachers and the timber mafia to operate inside the sanctuary. Sources said hundreds of teakwood had been taken away by the timber mafias and the anti-socials taking advantage of the massive destruction of the sanctuary in the cyclone. According to environmentalist Radhamohan, Bhubaneswar is the second city in the world after Moscow, having its vicinity a vast naturally protected forest. And now with 80 per cent of the forest destroyed by the super cyclone, bad days are ahead for both the elephants and the people of this capital city in the coming summer. (UNI) |
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Jethmalani questions
Panchsheel’s non NEW DELHI, Nov 13: Law Minister Ram Jethmalani today said the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other country, incorporated in Panchsheel (five principles)’ of co-existence by India, was against the basic rights of refugees uprooted from their homes by hostile regimes. In his introductory address to a judicial symposium on ‘Refugees protection’ organised for the first time in India, Jethmalani said, you cannot remain silent when democracy and freedom of people are eroded and human rights are violated. Stating that there was a need to evolve specific laws to deal with the problems of refugees, he said right to asylum should be recognised legally by India. Refugees have human rights like any other citizen. They have the right to asylum and it must be incorporated in the domestic laws by the country, he said, assuring the organisers of appropriate follow-up action in this regard on any suggestions given by the symposium. The two-day symposium has been organised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Supreme Court Bar Association to discuss refugees’ problems in South Asia. Criticising the previous Governments for voting against the proposal of setting up international criminal court in the UN to deal with crime against humanity, Jethmalani said this seems to be done in an absent minded way. If you want to stop influx of people from one country to another, a mechanism has to be evolved and international criminal court is the only remedy, he added. (PTI) |
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Kartik cultural festival from November 15 CHANDIGARH, Nov 13: Haryana Governor Mahabir Prasad will inaugurate the fourth Kartik cultural festival being organised at the historic Nahar Singh Palace at Ballabgarh (Faridabad) from November 15 to 21. Stating this here yesterday, the Commissioner and Secretary, Tourism, Dr Harbaksh Singh said this festival would help in giving a new life to the dying folk arts. He said the festival had been planned to celebrate culture, fort theme and ambience under plan to promote cultural tourism. The closing ceremony would be made by Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala on November 21. The Minister of State for Tourism Om Parkash Jain would preside over the function on November 15, he added. He said the Kartik cultural festival was the result of consolidated efforts of Haryana tourism working with a number of allied agencies including Union Ministry of Tourism and Department of Culture, Department of Youth Affairs and Sports of the Union Government, Department of Cultural Affairs, Haryana, Development Commissioners, Handlooms and Handicrafts, North Zone Cultural Centre, North Central Cultural Centre, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and Ballabgarh Development and Beautification Society. Dr Singh said the festival being an annual feature was becoming popular among domestic as well as foreign tourists. The festival will highlight fort architecture, martial arts, instrumental music dances and vocal recitals in classical mustic traditions of the country. (UNI) |
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Trial courts in very bad shape, says former CJI NEW DELHI, Nov 13: Trial courts in the country are in a very bad shape and something needs to be done urgently to improve the situation, former Chief Justice of India Justice M N Venkatachalliah said here today. No development can take place in the absence of effective administration of justice. Pendency of cases and inordinate delays, particularly in the trial courts, have crossed acceptable limits, he said. The trial courts, Venkatachalliah said, were in a very bad shape and urgently something needs to be done. The issue needs to be looked into by the higher judiciary. The former Chief Justice was addressing a session on ‘judicial governance’ at the national conference on governance organised here by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Attorney General Soli Sorabjee said like the military, the judiciary too cannot assume governance. The Supreme Court should concern itself with the interpretation of the constitution, its implementation and enforcement of the rule of law. The courts can give meaning and substance to fundamental rights through their creative interpretation, he said. Sorabjee, however, lamented that Public Interest Litigations were increasingly being abused more as personal, political and publicity interest litigation. Noted constitutional expert F S Nariman said Judges were not fragile flowers’ and should gracefully accept well-directed criticism. (PTI) |
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NCBC asks Govt to ban all forms of child labour NEW DELHI, Nov 13: National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) today asked the Government to ban all forms of child labour In the country, saying the existing laws on prevention of child labour were in a much diluted form and ought to be strengthened. The present act is in diluted form. I have written earlier also that if you cannot have a proper law then better scrap it, NCBC Jhairman Justice P K Shyamsunder said at a function organised here by ‘Deepalaya’, a child rights organisation. The existing laws on the prevention of child labour were diluted and did not seek abolition of the menace, he said, adding, we must ensure that all children up to the age of 15 are in schools. ‘The Hindu’ correspondent Ms Ramya Kannan was presented the ‘Deepalaya award for child rights’ for writings on the children’s rights at the function by Justice Shyamsunder. Speaking on the occasion bureaucrat-turned-author Pawan Kumar Varma complimenting Kannan for her sincerity for focussing on issues concerning children lamented that media attention on these core subjects was far from satisfactory. In spite of the magnitude of the problems and hardships the country is facing in illiteracy and primary health, our newspapers don’t reflect the reality, Varma remarked. He said instead the media is circumscribed with matters relating to the elite and urban middle class. (PTI) |
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