Security
forces step up vigil to ensure peaceful poll
KOHIMA,
Feb 23:
With barely two weeks to go for the assembly
elections in Nagaland, security forces have been
put on high alert and underground cadres asked to
stay inside their designated camps.
Columns of Assam
Rifles personnel were on the move since last week
both on vehicles and on foot to all assembly
constituencies and polling stations for area
familiarisation, a release from the office of
Inspector General of Assam Rifles (IGAR) said
here.
The paramilitary
forces have identified the vantage points and
sensitive areas were kept under surveillance, the
release said, adding the liaison with civil
administration were made both at micro and macro
levels across the state.
AR troops also
commenced round the clock patrolling and were
frisking off suspected vehicles, besides the two
sectors under its command in Nagaland were to
step up vigils to check movements of underground
cadre with arms.
It also asked the
underground cadre of all groups to stay inside
their respective designated camps as per the
agreed cease-fire ground rules.
Although AR are
not directly involved in election duty, the
paramilitary force with its 11 battalions in
Nagaland would provide environmental security.
Official sources
said during the recent meeting of ceasefire
monitoring group (CFMG), IGAR Maj Gen S N Sethi
had told NSCN(I-M) representatives to abide by
the truce ground rules to ensure free, fair and
peaceful election in the state.
Both NSCN(I-M) and
NSCN(K) have said they have nothing to do with
the polls in Nagaland and asked their cadre not
to involve themselves in the process.
In addition to
existing police and paramilitary forces, 168
companies of central police forces will be
deployed for the polls in Nagaland, the sources
said.
They would arrive
in the state after completing poll duty in
Tripura, where elections are being held today.
Nagaland has
around 20,000 police personnel, the sources
added. (PTI)
3
child activists shortlisted for
World’s
Children’s Prize
NEW
DELHI, Feb 23: Josefina Condori of Peru
fought for 15 years for girls working as maids in
the town of Cusco in her country, often in
slave-like conditions.
Wrenched from her
family that struggled to eke out a survival,
Condori had herself become a maid at the age of
seven.
Agnes Stevens, of
the US, has fought for homeless children in her
country for 20 years. There are one million
homeless children in the US. Agnes runs
‘School on Wheels’ for thousands of
homeless children, with the help of hundreds of
volunteer teachers.
Cambodia’s
Somaly Mam has been waging a spirited campaign
for the past 12 years to save girls who are sold
as slaves to brothels. Somaly was herself a sex
slave as a child. Her struggle has earned her
many enemies and death threats. Her own 14
year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and sold
to a brothel.
The three children
rights activists are the finalists for this
year’s World’s Children’s Prize
for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC), with prize
money totalling SEK one million (USD 140,000).
The WCPRC was
founded by the Swedish organisation
Children’s World, and is a Swedish National
Millennium Project. Its patrons include Queen
Silvia of Sweden, Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela
and Joseph Stiglitz and former Executive Director
of UNICEF Carol Bellamy.
Hailed as the
world’s largest educational initiative on
democracy and children’s rights, the WCPRC
empowers children and young people all over the
world so that they can make their voices heard
and demand respect for their rights in accordance
with the UN Child Convention.
During the WCPRC
period, January 14-April 14, the students work
with the prize magazine ‘The Globe’ and
www.Childrensworld.Org
<http://www.Childrensworld.Org>, both now available in ten
languages.
The students learn
about the rights of the child and about the prize
candidates work for those rights, before they
organise the schools Global Vote Day.
Around 16 million
students at 35,000 schools in 87 countries
participate in the WCPRC, and 5.2 million of them
participated in the Global Vote to determine the
winners of the Global Friends Award 2007.
More than six
million children, including 1.5 million students
in 6,000 Indian schools, are expected to vote in
2008. The participating children include abused
girls and former child soldiers from Kongo
Kinshasa’s war-torn Kivu province, orphaned
children of Rwanda’s genocide, former debt
slaves in Pakistan’s Singh province and also
children orphaned by AIDS in Kenya.
An international
child jury, consisting of children who are
experts on the rights of the child through their
own experiences as soldiers, refugees, street
children or slaves, chooses the recipient of the
other major award, the World’s
Children’s Prize.
Rakesh Kumar, 13,
from India is a jury member and represents
children in hazardous labour, slave children and
children who ‘don’t exist’ because
their births were never registered.
The prize money is
to be used in the recipients work for the rights
of the child and will help some of the
world’s most vulnerable children. It is
supported by Abraxis BioScience, AstraZeneca, ABN
AMRO Bank and Banco Fonder.
This year_s prize
ceremony will be held on April 18 at Gripsholm
Castle in Mariefred, Sweden where the three final
candidates will be honoured. Queen Silvia will
help the children to give away the prizes. (UNI)
Delimitation
should not be a ground
to postpone Karna polls
COIMBATORE,
Feb 23: BJP
today said the delimitation exercise in Karnataka
should not be made a ground for postponement of
assembly elections in that state or elsewhere in
the country.
"We are happy
that president has notified the delimitation but
unhappy at the delay (in notification), which
could have been done in November 2007,"
party’s senior leader, Yashwant Sinha told
reporters here.
It might have been
done keeping in mind the impending Karnataka
assembly polls, to be held before May 29, Sinha
said.
The delay in the
notification of delimitation exercise has put a
question mark on the elections in the state,
Sinha said, adding the party, however, has urged
the Election Commission to hold it before May 29.
He claimed that
the BJP has a bright chance of winning majority
on its own in Karnataka and alleged that the
Congress somehow wanted to delay the happening
under the pretext of delimitation.
Asked whether he
expected early elections to the Lok Sabha, Sinha
said it could happen somewhere in October or
November, considering the polls due in some state
assemblies.
BJP has already
announced L K Advani as its Prime Ministerial
candidate. "We are not sure on who is the
candidate of the Congress. Whether Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh would continue or someone else is
eyeing the post," he said.
On the nuclear
deal, Sinha said there was difference between
BJP’s opposition to the deal and that of
Left Parties.
"They oppose,
because they totally oppose USA. But BJP opposes
the deal as it would halt and finally eliminate
all the nuclear projects in India," Sinha
said.
Turning to the
coming Union Budget, the BJP leader said the UPA
Government was unlikely to take any hard decision
in view of ensuing Lok Sabha polls.
It might be a
"please all budget", he said.
"To overcome
the slowdown in economy witnessed in the past
four years, the UPA Government and the Finance
Minister have to take hard decisions.
"But being an
election year, any such measure is
unlikely," Sinha said.
The situation was
worsening as the Indian economic vehicle was
running all these years by the fuel provided by
the NDA Government, he said.
Financial experts
have predicted severe challenges for the Indian
economy in coming years due to policies pursued
by the UPA, he said.
"There are
economic discrepancies and rural areas are in
distress as farmers are committing suicides. The
Government has failed to stem the rot,"
Sinha said. (PTI)
Human
trafficking racket cracked; three arrested
NEW
DELHI, Feb 23: Cracking yet another human
trafficking racket, Delhi Police have arrested
three persons in the national capital for
allegedly sending over 100 people to the United
States by using forged documents.
The arrests were
made on February 20 following a tip off from in
front of American embassy in Chanakyapuri and
Prashant Vihar locality in the national capital,
Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch)
Satyendra Garg said.
Ajay Shukla, who
runs his office from Safdarjung hospital staff
quarters, and his associates Pawan Mishra and
Gursahat Singh were caught by a special team of
Delhi Police’s Crime Branch, he said.
Shukla allegedly
used to charge Rs two to five lakh from
prospective people who wished to travel to the US
and used forged PAN cards, income tax returns and
bank statements to procure visas.
His modus operandi
was to apply for 10 to 12 visas in the US embassy
every month and Shukla managed to procure three
to four visas every month, Garg said.
During
interrogation, he said, the trio told police that
they had sent more than 100 people to the US by
using forged documents.
This is one of the
three biggest human trafficking racket cracked in
the national capital in the last one year.
In April last
year, the arrest of the BJP MP Babubhai Katara
blew the lid off a major human trafficking racket
and threw up the names of at least four
lawmakers-Ramswarup Koli (BJP) and Mitrasen
Yadav, Mohammad Tahir Khan and Ashok Rawat (all
BSP).
Katara was caught
while allegedly trying to smuggle out a woman and
a teenager on the passports of his wife and son.
Police failed to
make much headway in the case although they
arrested some travel agents from various parts of
the country and interrogated the lawmakers in
question.
Another
trafficking racket was busted when 32 people, who
approached the US embassy for visa claiming they
were part of a music troupe, were arrested in
October last year after it was found that their
documents were forged.
A former contract
employee of the US mission was arrested in this
connection later. (PTI)
SC asks
Kerala Govt to maintain quality
of anti-rabbies vaccine
NEW
DELHI, Feb 23: The Supreme Court has told the
Kerala Government to take adequate measures to
ensure that the quality of the anti-rabbies
vaccine is maintained.
A bench comprising
Justices S B Sinha and Harjit Singh Bedi while
dismissing an appeal against the judgement of
Kerala high court noted, "We, however,
dismiss the appeal with the observations that the
state Government shall take adequate measures to
ensure that the quality of anti-rabbies vaccine,
which is the only preventive in a case of a bite
fron a rabbied animal, is maintained."
The state of
Kerala had purchased anti-rabbies vaccine for
various Government hospitals in the state in
2002-03 from ‘M/S Human Biological
Institute’ at the rate of Rs 148 per vial.
Some Government
hospitals reported that the vaccine was causing
reaction in patients and one of the died on
December 9, 2002.
The Director,
Health Service Kerala directed the purchase
officer to freeze the utilisation of the vaccine
until further orders.
The drug
controller also sent a sample of the vaccine for
analysis to the Central Research Institute,
Kasauli for examination after the death of
Ramachandran who was administered the vaccine.
The enquiry
revealed that the reactions were caused because
the vaccine was not stored in a proper way.
The State
Government continued to purchase the vaccine from
the same company.
A writ petition
was filed in the High Court under the garb of PIL
which was dismissed.
The apex court
also dismissed the appeal of MP Ayyappan Kutty.
The apex court,
however, took note of the fact that subsequent
inquiries that identified death of Ramachandran
was on account of clinical rabbies and not
because of the adverse reaction of the vaccine.
The central
government also supported the decision of the
Kerala Government. (UNI)
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