Ex-minister’s son sells newspapers for a living

MUZAFFARPUR, Jan 28: Unbelievable but true. The son of a Bihar minister sells newspapers for a living because he could not find another job despite successfully completing a motor mechanic course.

Uday Prakash Gupta, son of Mohanlal Gupta, who was a member in the erstwhile Karpoori Thakur cabinet, pedals off to sell newspapers everyday.

50-plus Uday starts his day at 4.30 am when he leaves his Nayatola house in the town with newspaper bundles padded up in his bi-cycle and delivers them at the doorsteps of customers’ houses.

Thereafter, he goes to the main market here and resumes his job with him shouting "Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar" (today’s hot news...).

But Uday says, he is happy with the job.

Uday, who has successfully done motor mechanic course, could not get a job as his father, who believed in principles and values, never sought any favour for his son and other family members.

Back in the late 1960s, he applied and tried to be get employed with the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (BSRTC), when his father was the Food and Civil supplies minister in the Bihar Government led by veteran socialist leader late Karpoori Thakur.

"My father refused to do pairvi (request) and the BSRTC authorities would take in only those who paid them bribe," Uday claimed.

Wearing a smile on his face, Uday said: "as I could not afford to pay the babus Rs 20,000, that was the rate for a motor mechanic’s job in BSRTC at that time, I could not get the job."

Uday’s father first entered the Bihar legislative assembly after the 1967 mid-term poll. He was re-elected in 1969 from Muzaffarpur on a Congress ticket and later he switched over to the Socialist party led by Karpoori Thakur.

Uday recalled the moments when former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and some other Congressmen, including several freedom fighters had visited his ancestral Nayatola house for lunch in 1950. (PTI)

Honest Metro official returns bag
containing Rs 2 lakh cash

NEW DELHI, Jan 28: In a rare display of honesty, a Delhi Metro official returned to the owner a briefcase containing more than Rs two lakh in cash and some valuable documents.

A Delhi Metro spokesperson said operator Pravin Kumar found a black briefcase in the train as it was about to leave the Vishwavidyalaya station for the Central Secretariat.

He immediately informed the Station Controller after which public announcements were made.

"When nobody came forward to claim the briefcase, it was opened and Rs 2,42,300 in cash found inside the bag," he added.

The spokesperson said the owner was traced through the contact number retrieved from the briefcase.

Neeraj Jain, a resident of Ashok Nagar, was immediately telephoned and informed about his lost briefcase.

The briefcase along with the money was later returned to Mr Jain. (UNI)

Jethmalani for dismissal of appeal against Lalu

PATNA, Jan 28: Lawyer Ram Jethmalani today pleaded before the Patna High Cort for the dismissal of Bihar Government’s appeal against acquittal of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi in a disproportionate assets case.

Arguing on behalf of the couple in the DA case, an off-shoot of the multi-crore rupees fodder scam, Jethmalani described the State’s Government’s appeal against their acquittal as having arisen "unquestionably out of political vendetta."

The income tax appellate tribunal’s order exonerating the couple formed the basis of the CBI court’s order acquitting them of the charge of amassing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Jethmalani said even the informant in the case, CBI Dy SP R K Kharagwal, on whose statement the FIR was registered on August 18, 1998, had during the course of cross examination said he did not know why his name figured in the investigation and that he did not know any fact in the case.

The appeal should be dismissed, Jethmalani said.

Bihar Government’s counsel Akhileshwar Prasad Singh pleaded for fixing any date after February 14 to enable the state to present its reply which was granted by Justice Ramesh Kumar Dutta.

The CBI’s counsel and Prasad and Rabri Devi’s lawyer, had during the hearing of the special leave petition in the Supreme Court, contested the Bihar Government’s right to challenge their acquittal by the trial court.

Since the CBI, which is a Central Government agency, had probed the fodder scam cases, the investigative agency or the union government alone and not the State Government was competent to challenge the acquittal, they had argued.

However, the Supreme Court had not given any relief to the couple saying it could hear the SLP only after the State Government’s appeal was admitted.

Earlier during the resumed hearing in the Patna High Court on the admission of Bihar Government’s appeal, its lawyer Surendra Singh had on January 24 argued that the CBI had grossly erred in calculating the household expenses of Lalu Prasad and his wife.

He said the trial court had taken Rs 1.5 lakh as household expenses and so the expenditure on a family member per day would come to just Rs 5.30 which was quite unreasonable given the status of the accused.

Singh contended that the CBI court had completely ignored the evidences brought on record by the prosecution against the couple and decreased the value of their assets by Rs 20 lakh and enhanced their income by Rs 18 lakh.

The Bihar Goverment had on February 19 last year moved the Patna High Court against the acquittal by the CBI judge on December 18, 2006. The court on September 20 held the state’s appeal as maintainable.

The DA case charged Lalu Prasad with amassing assets worth over Rs 46 lakh beyond his known sources of income when he was chief minister between 1990 and 1996. Rabri Devi was made a co-accused for abetting the offence. (PTI)

BSF, BDR meet from Feb 11

SHILLONG, Jan 28: Senior Border Security Force (BSF) officials would meet their Bangladeshi counterparts Bangladesh Rifles here on February 11 to discuss issues pertaining to the Indo-Bangla border, BSF sources said today.

The BDR delegation will be led by Deputy Director General M A Bari, while the BSF team will be headed by IG (Mizoram-Cachar Frontier) Himmat Singh. A host of issues like infiltration, cross-border crime and mutual coordination and cooperation would be discussed during the meeting, they said.

During the last biennial conference between both the forces in October, the BSF handed over list of 141 camps of Indian insurgent groups operating in Bangladesh while the BDR handed over a list of 1,591 criminals hiding in different arts of India to BSF.

However, prior to the conference, the BDR reportedly destroyed two camps of an unidentified Indian rebel group in its territory, categorically admitting for the first time about the presence of Indian insurgents in its territory.

Meanwhile, 25 wards of BSF personnel on Sunday left for Bangladesh on a goodwill visit.

The children, belonging to the five frontiers of the BSF, will participate in cultural programmes, sports activites and meet senior officials during the tour, which will end on January 31.

The children diplomacy will continue as the BSF would play host to a similar students’ batch from Bangladesh some time later.

For the last two years, the two border forces have embarked on sundry confidence building measures for bettering relationship between both the neighbours. (PTI)

SC adjourns hearing on Nandigram firing case

NEW DELHI, Jan 28: The Supreme Court today adjourned by six weeks the hearing on the petition filed by West Bengal Government challenging the Kolkata High Court order, directing the State Government to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of those killed in police firing in Nandigram in March last year.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices Tarun Chatterjee and R V Raveendran adjourned the hearing as the service to the respondents was not complete.

The farmers of Nandigram have been protesting against forcible acquisition of their land by the State Government for setting up of SEZ (Special Economic Zones) by TATA’s and about 1,000 acres of land is been acquired by the West Bengal Government for handing over the same to the TATA’s.

The CPM goons had reportedly forced the land owner to flee from Nandigram. Large number of people were killed in police firing and women were subjected to rape to curb the protestors.

Later, Left Front Government in the state came under heavy fire from all quarters and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee assured the farmers of Nandigram that their land would not be acquired against their will.(UNI)

I never knew French people also
knew me: Shah Rukh Khan

MUMBAI, Jan 28: Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, who was conferred the ‘Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters’ title by the French government yesterday, admitted that he did not know he was popular in France.

"I came to know that people in UK knew me after I travelled there. But I never knew people in France also knew about me," Shah Rukh Khan said, prior to the function in a suburban hotel where he was awarded the title last night.

"I am proud we have taken our culture and identity to France through the medium of our films," the superstar said.

The title was conferred to Khan by Jerome Bonnafont, French Ambassador in India, at the inaugural ceremony of a four-day French film festival.

Admitting to having a French connection, Khan said he used to go to the French Cultural Centre in Delhi to watch their movies since he was told it was the best cinema. "But I also used to watch it for the lovemaking scenes," he quipped.

The star also said he had not thought about acting in foreign films as he had not been offered any yet.

The actor, who had a good year in 2007 with runaway hits ‘Chak De! India’ and his home-production ‘Om Shanti Om’, was conferred the award in recognition of his 15-year-long career in the Hindi film industry.

The ‘Order of Arts et Lettres’ is one of the four Ministerial Honours of the French republic and was established

In 1957 to reward artists who gained fame for their works in the field of arts and literature and have promoted these fields. (PTI)

Steps to contain snakebite mortality rate

KOLKATA, Jan 28: Faced with the highest snakebite mortality rate in the country with 18,000 cases of serpent bite annually, the West Bengal Government has launched a drive to provide timely treatment to people.

Hospitals in West Bengal record 18,000 snakebite cases annually with a mortality rate of five per cent, resulting in 900 deaths, state Health Minister Surjya Kanta Mishra said quoting the latest statistics.

"Since West Bengal is considered a high snakebite mortality state, we are taking steps to ensure that people are given the best available treatment," he said.

A year-long sample study was done in the Midnapore Medical College alone on the issue after the National Snakebite Conference at Kochi in July 2006, which in association with WHO developed the National Snakebite Treatment Protocol for India.

Mishra said once the uniform snakebite treatment protocol was in force, the high incidence of snakebite cases in the state, recorded in Government hospitals, can be averted thus saving expenses worth Rs 12.67 crore of the State Government.

In a rural-based country like India with poor healthcare delivery system at the grass-root level, the best way to save a huge number of snakebite victims was to impart training on uniform snakebite protocol to the physicians at every level, an international snakebite expert and member of the West Bengal Snakebite Task force Ian D. Simpson said.

The task force was set up at Midnapore Medical College in September 2006 to examine snakebite treatment management, particularly the high usage of anti-snake venom.

The result of the sample study at Midnapore college revealed the reduction of snakebite mortality rate by 35 per cent in one year period from August 2006 to July 2007, as compared to the previous corresponding time, in East/West Midnapore districts with the two reporting the highest snakebite cases in the state.

The draft of the findings in the study, placed before the Centre on August 2, 2007, facilitated the acceptance of the National Snakebite Protocol under the National Rural Health Mission.

Simpson said this protocol contained four key elements vital for anti-venom use.

Firstly, it needs clear grounds on what constitutes an envenomation and how to diagnose envenomation with simple bedside tests as many victims are given anti-venom when they do not actually need it.

There should also be clear dosage guidelines based on average amount of venom injected by the snakes, guidelines when additional anti-venom was needed and guidelines about when to stop anti-venom therapy, he said.

The study said 20,000 less vials of anti-venom had been used during the one-year period despite higher number of patients being treated as they were spending lesser time in hospitals.

"The ASV requirement per victim admitted dropped by 66 per cent leading to a saving of nearly Rs 59 lakh", the study report said.

Those who succumbed had actually arrived very late, the study pointed out stressing on the need for victims to report to the hospital at the earliest.

To ensure the effective use of anti-venom and reduce snakebite mortality in the state, a day’s workshop was held in Midnapore Medical College recently to train doctors of the West Bengal Health Services on the best methods of snakebite management.

The workshop was attended by over hundred doctors from different districts. (PTI)

BJP adopts resolution seeking
one-third of posts to women

NEW DELHI, Jan 28: The BJP today became the second major party after the Congress to reserve one-third of the posts in the organisational structure for women, noting that it was the "first leap" towards women’s quota in legislatures.

An amendment in the party Constitution in this regard was today adopted at the BJP National Council meeting here, amid showering of flowers and euphoric women leaders rushing to dais to garland senior leaders L K Advani and Rajnath Singh.

"This will be implemented in three-months time from now but the all powerful Parliamentary Board is exempted from the quota for women," senior leader Sushma Swaraj told reporters.

Once implemented, the 81-member National Executive of the party will have 27 women leaders in it compared to the present 13.

The national women cell chief will now be a member of the Central Election Committee while state presidents will be part of their respective state election committees.

Introducing the measure at the meeting, Swaraj said this would be recorded in the Indian political history as "the first leap towards women’s reservation".

"Whenever one would talk of women’s reservation the contribution of BJP would be recorded undisputedly," she said.

In Gujarat Narendra Modi Government got four per cent increase in women’s vote share. "So by introducing this reservation the party will ensure that the women vote for the party surges ahead many fold," she said.

As per the resolution, passed by the National Executive in Bhopal in September last year, the saffron party will from now on have one-third representation of women from its ‘mandal’ (lowest unit of the party) level to all levels. (PTI)