One killed, ten injured in accident

SRINAGAR, Nov 24: One person was killed and ten others injured in two different road accidents in south Kashmir district of Anantnag, official sources said.

They said a speedy vehicle hit one Haida nath at Bijbehara in Anantnag district today. He was shifted to hospital where he died.

At least ten persons were injured when a tractor in which they were travelling, skidded off the road and fell into a gorge at Anantnag. The injured were hospitalised. (UNI)

Backache chief cause for absences from work: Report

NEW DELHI, Nov 24: Backaches caused by rides on public transportation and long hours before computers coupled with smoking and drinking are the main reason for absences from work among urban Indian youth, a study has said.

Backaches are the chief reason for the absence of workers that accounts for losses of several million man-hours, the study commissioned by the makers of iodex, a pain relieving balm, and the NGO health India.

The report says backache, once thought to affect people at the age of 40 years, is now increasingly being reported among the youth.

"Public transport is the predominant cause for backache among working individuals in major metros along with sitting for long hours in front of the computer," said Dev Mehra, Executive Director of Health India, which surveyed work places in Mumbai and Delhi, covering over 100 people.

He said sudden jerks or movements during travel can result in back pain.

"The problem was considered to affect people after the age of 40, but now increasingly young people are complaining of back problems. Poor ergonomics at the workplace is one of the causes of the problem," he said.

Mehra said faulty posture remains the single biggest cause for back pain (60-70 per cent) while alcohol, smoking and high coffee intake are very high in the list of substances that cause bone calcium to deplete, thereby contributing to backaches.

The study said while two per cent of those surveyed avoided taking any sort of medication, 32 per cent of delhites took painkillers, while 24 per cent resorted to multiple medication to cure this problem.

Commuting, according to the study contributes to the problem in more ways than one. "The type of vehicle used, the quality of the roads and the average time of travel — all have a multiplier effect on the back," it said.

The study said, "in a country where half of the work force is young and a major chunk of the young workers are empolyed in software and BPO-releated jobs, the occurrence of the problem becomes obvious."

"This problem is ever increasing in our fast-paced life and is assuming alarming proportions," the report said.

According to Arvind Jaiswal, an orthopedic at AIIMS, back pain is one of the hardest things to treat. It is also one of the most difficult to diagnose. Psychological factors are, in some people, a very potent cause of backache. It is difficult to predict which patient is going to do well," he said.

"Our spine includes a number of muscles that may get pressurised due to bad postures. Women in general are more prone to this problem," he said.

"Our OPD experience has shown that an increasing number of young professionals are suffering from it, with people from the IT and the BPO sectors among the worst hit," he said.

According to the study, office workers had to suffer the double whammy of long hours being stuck in traffic as well as their offices. It recommended taking short breaks and periodically stretching and relaxing in between work to minimise back pain.

"Least invasive treatments like physical therapy, stretching, ointment massage and accupuncture must be first tried out before seeking surgery," it said.

The study concludes that a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits contribute to gaining excessive body weight which in turn tends to put strain on the muscles and joints, causing pain.

"It is very important to ensure a correct posture. An increased intake of junk food, excessive intake of beverages and reduced intake of milk can also lead to spinal disorders. Besides, lack of sufficient excercise and workspace weakens muscles of the spine and the stomach muscles," it said. (PTI)

Film bazaar to focus on Indian locales
for foreign filmmakers

PANAJI, Nov 24: A film bazaar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will have a regional bias and focus on showcasing Indian locales for foreign filmmakers.

"There is no international seller in the bazaar but we will have international buyers dropping in, which is important for us. This time we focused more on locations and regional cinema. We have a regional bias in the bazaar," said Bobby Bedi, Chairman of CII’s entertainment committee.

Briefing reporters after the formal inauguration of the four-day film bazaar that has 10 stalls, Bedi said there were teething problems for the bazaar that is three years old at the IFFI in Goa.

Selling India as a shooting destination, the bazaar has a special location lounge that highlights locations across the country.

"India is already a popular film shooting destination with movies shot in Mumbai, Goa, Rajasthan, Kerala and other destinations," Bedi said.

What has raised the spirits of the film bazaar is the fact that in past two years, the Indian entertainment industry has gained maximum acceptance overseas and broken the ice in hardcore markets like Germany, France, northern Europe, Taiwan and Korea. This has added to the already existing Rs 1,500 crore export market.

"It has extended its traditional overseas market in south Asia as non-traditional markets are opening up," Reliance entertainment chairman Amit Khanna told reporters.

"Different films have different markets. While Karan Johar’s `Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gaam’ is accepted abroad, films by Adoor Gopal Krishnan and Assamese Director Jahnu Barua are also appreciated in theatres," Khanna said. (PTI)

Govt approves Rs 7,651cr for development of capital cities

JAMMU, Nov 24: Jammu and Kashmir Government has approved Rs 7,651 crore for the development of capital cities, Jammu and Srinagar, under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

A high level meeting of the state Cabinet Ministers, MLAs and senior officials, chaired by J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad here on Wednesday, took the decision in this regard.

As per directions, officials said, both Jammu and Srinagar cities will be considered as "mission cities".

Augmentation of water resources, better treatment of water bodies, development of roads and bridges, including widening of narrow lanes and bye-lanes, are in the provisions, they said.

Proper sewerage facilities, water supply, better roads, efficient solid waste management, introduction of mass transportation, protection and development of heritage sites, shrines, temples and their vicinities are included as priority projects, they added.

Mr Azad, officials said, had also directed the concerned authorities to continuously monitor the clearance of projects so that work in both the cities could be started in March next year. (UNI)

Indian engineer invents device
for safer landings by aircraft

NEW DELHI, Nov 24: An Indian Aeronautical Engineer has invented a device that accurately measures the distance between an aircraft and the runway in adverse weather conditions, thus enabling pilots to make safer landings.

The instrument, built by Joseph Pichamuthu who was formerly with the National Aerospace Laboratories, helps a pilot make a safe landing even when the aircraft is directly facing the sun.

"As the visual range is not uniform when a pilot begins to make a landing while directly facing the sun, at times he suddenly sees the runway in front of him," Pichamuthu said.

Existing instruments use manual assessment of the Meteorological Optical Range (MOR) to deduce the distance between the aircraft and the runway.

Pichamuthu’s device incorporates the effects of anisotropic atmospheric brightness to quantify the reduction in visibilty of objects viewed in directions of high brightness.

"Minor modifications to existing instruments at airports would enable them to register true values of MOR and the runway visual range in a direction relevant to the pilot," he told PTI here.

The current practice of ignoring directional effects could result in reports of unduly high values of MOR and thus of runway visual range, which could prove dangerous for a pilot landing an aircraft, said Pichamuthu, now a Professor of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Sir M Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology in Bangalore.

The device would prove helpful to pilots particulary during exigencies, when they have little time to modify the aircraft’s flight path.

During research, Pichamuthu’s device was tested at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, which experiences foggy conditions and a high degree of sunlight frequently.

The MOR values were assessed with the manual method used at the airport and with Pichamuthu’s device, which was found to make more realistic assessments.

"The device can be fitted to runway visual range instruments and require minor modifications to the software," he said.

Pichamuthu, who has been honoured with the prestigious Vilho Vaisla Award by the world meteorological organisation, said, "I would not like to patent my invention as it is for greater common good." (PTI)

Airlines must give snacks to passgrs
if flight delayed: DGCA

NEW DELHI, Nov 23: Seeking to avoid inconvenience to air passengers due to delays on foggy winter mornings, the Government has instructed all airline operators to provide refreshments to travellers as they wait for their flights.

"We had a meeting with the airline operators on how to tackle the fog problem and we have issued guidelines to the airline operators asking them to make arramngements for passengers," Director General of Civil Aviation K Gohain told reporters here at the EU India Aviation Summit.

Among the measures, he said low cost carriers have been asked to provide food and other basic necessities if they could not fly out due to fog.

Those airlines, which do not have adequate Cat-II and III qualified pilots, have been asked to delay their departure from fog-prone cities and inform passengers in advance about their schedules, Gohain added.

Overall, he said, the preparedness of airlines to meet challenges posed by fog is better this year compared to last year.

He also said his office was evaluating the preparedness of the different low-cost carriers and the final picture was expected by the end of this month. (PTI)

Cinema of world section at Cannes to focus on India

PANAJI, Nov 24: The "cinema of the world" section of next year’s Cannes Film Festival will open with an Indian movie and the segment will focus on "young Indian cinema".

"Two days will be devoted to Indian cinema, one each for mainstream and art films," said Serge Sebczynski, in-charge of the "cinemas du monde" section of the Cannes Festival.

Sobczynski is on a special mission to the International Film Festival of India here to select Indian art and mainstream films for the section.

"We will select four Indian feature films and two to three mainstream films. There will be a session on Indian short films too," he said.

He will watch movies in IFFI’s Indian panorama section to shortlist films for the next Cannes festival.

Cannes may also have Indian documentaries in its list, provided they are original in form, style and artistically creative, Sobczynski said.

"We want to showcase young generation Indian films during the festival. Indian films are much appreciated in France. We want to hear the different Indian languages and that is why French audiences doesn’t encourage dubbed films. They prefer to watch them with subtitles," he explained.

Sobczynski, in a bid to further ties with India, will spend five days in Mumbai after IFFI concludes on December 3 and interact with Indian filmmakers.

"We are also interested in interacting with regional filmmakers and strengthening bonds with them," he said. (PTI)

ISRO to go for insurance cover of
satellites despite high cost: Nair

BANGALORE, Nov 24: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) would consider buying insurance cover for the future launches despite the high cost involved in it, ISRO Chairman G Madnavan Nair has said.

Speaking at the customers’ meet of national insurance company to commemorate its 100 years of existence here last night, he said the prevailing premium rates was too expensive, be it for Government or the private industry.

Insurance premium in space sector had gone up considerably. In the early 80s it was hardly about 10 per cent of the cost, but due to large failures encountered by many of the space craft manufacturers, either during the launch or in orbit, in the recent past the premium had gone up by 30 per cent. However, this year it had come down to 24 per cent.

He said ISRO was bombarded for the Rs 250 crore loss due to the recent GSLV failure for which we had no insurance. However, among all the launches made by ISRO during the last 10 years, there had been roughly 10 per cent failure which was comparable to international standards. Globally there had been 4000 odd launches and there had been 390 failures so far, he added.

ISRO, which had launched 40 satellites so far together costing 1300 million US dollars, it paid a insurance premium of 180 million dollars. "that’s huge amount," he said.

"Now the user community would like to have insurance covers as satellites now remain operational for a long time, up to 15 years. We will be having four to six more launches in the coming years. We can’t bank on the good luck we had in previous launches. So we will think of insurance cover. We will use it in a commercial manner," he added.

Lauding the efforts of NIC in getting iso 9001:2000 certification, Mr Nair said ISRO was also toying with the idea of getting the ISO certification. "Many of our processes are not directly amenable to it. But in some areas it could be implemented and this will help us to further improve our quality of work," he added.

NIC Chairman and Managing Director V Ramaswamy said the company as part of its centenary year celebrations would offer a health policy for elders between 60 to 85 years of age. The company had set a turnover target of Rs 3900 crore for the current year. Last year it had achieved Rs 3520 crore. So far this year it had a turnover of rs 2132 crore. The settlement ratio was at 75 per cent and it would be brought up to 85 per cent this year, he added.

He said that "with IRDA going ahead with de-trifling the insurance sector the companies would themselves decide the premium rates and NIC was ready for the challenge." (UNI)

SC stays judgement on the election of P C Thomas

NEW DELHI, Nov 24: The Supreme Court today stayed till further orders the judgement of the Kerala High Court setting aside the election of P C Thomas, former Minister of State for Law and Justice in the previous NDA Government from Muvattupuzha Parliamentary constituency in Kerala.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, Justices C K Thakker and R V Raveendran directed that Mr Thomas be permitted to participate in the Lok Sabha proceedings, but without the privilege of voting or drawing emoluments.

The court asked the counsel for the respondents, "give us one example during the last over 50 years where in an election petition, a defeated candidate has been declared elected by the court."

The High Court had set aside the election of Mr Thomas after he was accused of using the photographs of Pope John Paul during the elections and exhorting voters to support him on a religious basis.

The constituency comprises of a 75 per cent Catholic population. The local clergy had also allegedly asked voters to support Thomas as he was a Christian.

Senior counsel S F Nariman, appearing for the appellant, contended before the court that he was not a party to the distribution of pamphlets carrying his photograph with Pope John Paul nor did he permit his supporters or anyone else to distribute such pamphlets. He claimed the High Court’s judgement was based on wrong conclusions.

He also alleged that the direction of the High Court to declare defeated CPM candidate P M Ismail as elected was unprecendented and unheard of unless and until there were only two candidates in the fray.

It may be noted here that the High Court had granted one months time to Mr Thomas to enable him to file an appeal in the Supreme Court.

The Kerala High Court judgement came on October 31. (UNI)

Jet Airways grounds Shweta Singh

NEW DELHI, Nov 24: Shweta Singh, wife of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan’s son Rahul, has again caught media attention after she was taken off pilot duties by Jet Airways following a rough landing by her that could have caused a major accident.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had directed the private carrier to "de-roster" Shweta and the co-pilot of a flight from Delhi to Hyderabad on November 16 for applying speed brakes and improper wing flap position while landing.

The DGCA said the "accident value was perceived to be high during the incident", official sources said, adding that the her actions prima facie constituted violation of the standard operating procedures and safety norms.

When contacted, Jet Airways officials said shweta and the co-pilot had been de-rostered on November 19, soon after receipt of the DGCA directive to enable an investigation into the incident.

Earlier this week, there were reports that she had gone to her parent’s house in Dehradun after Rahul allegedly beat her up, a charge both of them have denied. (PTI)

Two aides of tiger held guilty in ’93 Mumbai blasts

MUMBAI, Nov 24: A TADA court today held two associates of prime accused Tiger Memon guilty of aiding and abetting 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.

Sardar Shahwali Khan was held guilty of helping tiger Memon in executing the bomb blasts that killed 257 people on March 12, 1993, while Altaf Ali sayed was convicted of arranging air passage of 13 co-accused to Pakistan for weapons training and possessing hand grenades.

While Sardar is a civil contractor, Altaf is a travel agent. Both face punishment ranging from five years to life imprisonment.

The court accepted the evidence implicating sardar of taking part in weapon training programme at Sandheri and Bhorghat villages in Raigad district and also attending meetings connected to the blasts conspiracy at the residence of co-accused Nasir Ahmed Shaikh and Mubina Baya Bhiwandiwala.

"It had been established that at the instance of Tiger Memon, Sardar had surveyed Municipal Corporation of greater Mumbai building as a potential target of terror attack in keeping with the plans chalked out in conspiracy meetings", TADA Judge P D Kode observed while delivering the verdict.

Sardar was also found guilty of participating in the conspiracy but he was acquitted of the charges of landing and transporting of arms smuggled by memon to strike terror in the city.

On the charge that he had filled RDX in vehicles in Memon’s garages, the court held that while Sardar’s presence had been established, it could not be proved that he had taken part in the exercise.

Altaf Ali Sayed, a travel agent, was found guilty under the provisions of TADA for keeping in his possession two suitcases containing hand grenades smuggled by Tiger Memon for the serial blasts.

However, he was acquitted of charges of making arrangements for air tickets of accused who went to Pakistan for arms training in pursuance to the conspiracy.

The court also absolved him of the charges of conspiracy.

The court further held that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges that Altaf was instructed by Tiger’s brother Yakub Memon to arrange air tickets of 13 accused for their journey to Pakistan for arms training.

With today’s convictions, the number of those held guilty has risen to 83. Twenty-two accused have been acquitted while 18 others, including film actor Sanjay Dutt, are awaiting the verdict.

The court is likely to declare the verdict on the alleged involvement of customs officers and Sanjay next week.

The judgement is being delivered 13 years after a chain of bomb blasts shattered the city, killing 257 people and injuring 713, besides damaging property worth Rs 27 crore. (PTI)

Ranthambhore tiger population increases to 36

JAIPUR, Nov 24: The total number of tigers in Ranthambhore sanctuary has shot up to 36, up from May 26 in May 2005 with the birth of three more cubs recently.

Three newborns were seen in the sanctuary yesterday. Seven cubs were born earlier in the forest in the last six months.

The birth of a total of 10 cubs in Ranthambhore recently is being considered a great achievement for the state and its Forest Department, which has been under constant criticism for the steadily depleting tiger population.

Confirming the increase, State Chief Wildlife Warden R N Mehrotra told ‘’the total number has increased to 36, mainly due to sustained effortd of Forest Department officials and a conducive environment for the birth of tigers.’’

"At least 100 camera traps have been placed in Ranthambhore alone to capture the movement of tigers and their cubs," he said.

About conducting a new census for tigers, Mr Mehrotra said a national high density census is already on for predators and co-predators in all sanctuaries under tiger project by the Wildlife Institute of India and tiger project and there is no need for a new census currently.

He said with the arrest of poachers and special security for the tigers including a permanent posting of team of Rajasthan Armed Constabulary (RAC) in the forest, the Forest Department has been able to arrest the tigers’ decline in numbers.

About reintroduction of tigers into Sariska Forest Reserve, which now has no big cats left, Mr Mehrotra said "there is a high density of tiger population in Ranthambhore now with territorial fights among the cats on. So we may reintroduce the dispersing tigers from Ranthambhore into Sariska and not just from the Panna sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh."

He, however, could not confirm the time frame of reintroduction of tigers into Sariska.

About Ramgarh Sanctuary being included into the tiger project, Mr Mehrotra said "Ramgarh Sanctuary is a highly prospective tiger corridor but there are no plans to include it under the tiger project right now". (UNI)