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No More Strategy, No More Time Out

2 CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 2013OPINION

EDITORIAL DESKLOUD & CLEAR

S.K. Sinha

Manu Sharma

‘Al Nawaz ’, we are eager for your ‘Sharafat ’

Prophecy says, Love thy Neighbour, but does thy neighbour deserve the trouble. The vast land of India bled several times resulting in amputation of small fragments. The most stubborn among them is always busy with the wrong methods. As a neighbour we welcome a new order to manage their seat of affairs but as enemies to the core we watch them as always. The new head has the daunting task of creating peace within the country, and creat-ing faith in the eyes of the rest of the world. The premier of Pakistan has to decide whether to continue on the same lines as his predecessors or to work out solutions. The conditions on the border have not been so good as also the deaths in the jails have not helped either. Attempts of infiltrations are still unabated which can be curtailed very easily with a little political will. As a country our neighbours are often referred to as our poor cousins as development between the two are in stark contrast. Plagued by religious fundamentalism they have not been able to address the most important is-sues that underline the structure of a free nation.My! My! Why this train of free advice, when over six decades could not heal wounds. May be the land of Buddha and Maha rishi’s has hope against hopes. We still wish that the people who voted the new regime get the peace they desire for. As neighbours we should always work towards peaceful co-existence in both action and words.Is he, or is he just known as Sharif?

Jai Hind

Mood of the Nation

BCCI’s Son In Law

India desires change and it will vote out the current dispensation. This message has resonated deeply in the opinion poll surveys conducted by leading political research firms of the nation over the past week. UPA II when voted back to power was the darling of urban middle classes, it presided over the most prosper-ous times in the history of modern India. Indians countrywide believed UPA II to be their vehicle into the future. A future that encompassed fulfilment of their basic needs and absence of extreme deprivation.

Vindoo Dara Singh is singing like a canary under Mumbai police re-mand. One of the stanzas of his song include the name of Gurunath Meiyappan, the son in law of BCCI chairman N Srinivasan. To the un-initiated Mr Srinivasan is a scion of an illustrious business family of the South that controls the cement ma-jor India Cements and IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings. In a country where son in laws are feted and treated as a cut above, it is hardly surprising to see the importance at-tributed to Mr Meiyappan in the IPL

However the massive spurt of growth was used to mask an equally if not bigger scale loot of public re-sources under the watch of a Prime Minister keen on preserving his of-fice. Manmohan Singh failed to do justice to the expectations of the electorate. Alas, great expectations also result in great disappointments. The serial scams and scandals by UPA II took most of the sheen off their achievements in the social sec-tor. Further to that a weak kneed foreign and security policy resulted in diminishing of India’s influence

setup.Currently at centre of the spot fix-ing storm Mr Meiyappan hails from a reputed business house of Tamil Nadu. As per reports Mr Meiyappan was fond of high life and a regular fixture in matches to owing to his re-lations with team owners. Owing to his proximity to team management, BCCI chief and the players Mr Mei-yappan may turn out to be the ful-crum of the biggest ever sporting scandal in independent India. While the courts may decide upon techni-cal details of the case, the reputation

in its near neighbourhood, thus contributing to an already growing sense of gloom.Corruption, inflation and insecurity have sounded the proverbial bell for UPA II. The only debate is centred around the successor regime. As per the surveys if NDA is able to project Narendra Modi as the PM candidate then it will have a sound chance at the hustings. Otherwise India may have to settle for another round of United Front type conglomerates backed by either INC or the BJP as the next dispensation.

of IPL and several individuals asso-ciated with it lies in tatters.The story emerging from this imbro-glio is that of a murky network of shady players, bollywood insiders and crony capitalists colluding to-gether to dupe the fans in the name of sports. IPL has become a danger-ous trifecta of political corruption, crony capitalism and tinsel town greed. Given the amount of money involved and the greed of the rich, it would be hardly surprising to see even bigger names and heads tum-ble out as the probe progresses.

LETTER TO THE EDITORLetters may be emailed to the editoruconnect@gmail.com ,with full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.

Letter to the Editor

Chinese premier comes to India Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai was the slogan in Sixties that was on the lips of ev-ery India but the 1962 War between India and China really upset the pros-pects of Peace and Friendship between the two Countries. China brought under its control many areas of Indian Territory. As India and China had many Trade Pacts in the past but the Chinese Troops were despatched to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir for Infrastructure Development, the Indian Government resisted this move. Recently the China Troops incursion on the Line of Actual Control in the Indian Territory has put the Indian Mass-es in dilemma. The Indian Foreign Minister Mr Salman Khurshid visited China and now the Chinese Premier Mr Li Keqiang has visited India and signed many Pacts on commerce and trade , will China be sincere towards its commitments made to India? Will China resolve the Indo-China Bor-der Dispute ? Will China review the control of Indian Territory that it has brought under its control after 1962 war? Will the Slogan of Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai once again be on the lips of the Indian’s ? Or the visit of Chinese premier will prove a mere formality? It matters as both India and China at present are Great Powers of the Asian Sub Continent.

Rajat Kumar Jalandhar

India’s bleeding insurgencies: Lessons from Latin America

The tiny northeast Indian state of Tripura has turned into the second largest producer of natural rub-ber in the country largely because several hundred former militants of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) were rehabilitated a decade ago and allotted land.On the other side of the world, Lat-in America has been no stranger to violent insurrections over the past decades, most inspired by left-wing ideologues. They mobilised large numbers of rural and urban workers disenchanted with inegalitarian, ex-ploitative regimes seen as beholden to the United States and crony capi-talists.Colombia, around a third of the territory of India, continues to con-front the 50-year-old Revolution-ary Armed Forces of Colombia-People´s Army (FARC-EP). Large areas of the country have been off limits to business and travel for de-cades. FARC was even granted a safe haven of 42,000 sq km in the late 1990s by a gullible Colombian government. According to reliable reports, the guerrillas have collud-ed with the colossal and insidious narcotics industry which provided them funds in exchange for protec-tion.Alvaro Uribe - whose father had been assassinated by the FARC - was sworn in president in 2002 and swore to eliminate this menace. The United States (ostensibly act-ing against the drug trade) provided material and training worth an es-timated $500-600 million annually. By early 2012 FARC had lost its major leaders, considered leftist icons in the region. Their current strength is estimated at less than 9,000, operating in small groups. A smaller guerilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), accounts

for around 2,500 militants, who have also offered to talk. Both are resilient enough to continue with hit and run bombings, kidnappings and assassination attempts.The conflict changed the complex-ion of the Colombian establish-ment. With US backing, it built one of the most formidable militaries in the region, pumping $86 billion into its security apparatus during 2000-2010, according to the Stock-holm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Neighbouring countries, particularly Venezuela, Cuba and Ecuador, earlier accused of harbouring and even abetting these groups, today collaborate and ensure the guerrillas do not use their territory against Colombia.Success came at political cost, with allegations of brutality and wide-spread displacement of innocent civilians. In 2011, the government finally passed a law to oversee re-habilitation and compensation set-tlement.Uribe’s successor (and former de-fence minister) Juan Manuel Santos reached out to the FARC through the Cuban establishment. In Au-gust 2012, FARC opened talks with representatives of the Colombian government in Havana. Norway and Chile offered assistance, as did Venezuela. Preliminary talks on the agenda and other issues were held in Oslo in October 2012. Substan-tive discussions resumed in Havana in November 2012 and are ongo-ing.There are differences and similari-ties with the insurgent scenario in India. In Kashmir, beset with reli-gious fundamentalism and separat-ist demands, as in the northeast, the armed forces have been used exten-sively, some say indiscriminately. The Indian establishment has nev-ertheless been seeking political so-

lutions to these and other insurgen-cies. Naxalite/Maoist violence in 182 of 602 districts in seven Indian States has been confronted by the police forces. In West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, success has come through police action combined with a willingness to negotiate. Rehabilitation and resettlement schemes, such as those in Tripura, have contributed to pacifying some areas of belligerency.It appears that the Indian scenario is not unduly complicated by links between the narcotics industry and insurgent movements. There is, however, the ever-prevalent danger that insurgencies may collude with, or even spawn, organised crime.The colossal expenditure incurred by the state, the destruction and waste, not to mention the loss of economic opportunities in the af-fected regions, call for a compre-hensive approach. Colombia has realised this and, short of accept-ing the FARC demand to declare a ceasefire and overhaul the state´s economic model, is discussing fun-damental issues such as land re-forms, reconciliation and rehabili-tation, among other things.There are lessons we can learn from Colombia´s handling of the insur-gency. In the first place, political rapprochement and negotiation is indispensable. Secondly, the dam-age that has already been done to victims of the conflict needs to be attended and assuaged. Rehabilita-tion of the radicalised elements is essential if the insurgent situation is to be rectified in a conclusive man-ner.India has taken steps on all these fronts. Clandestine contacts were initiated with Nagaland´s Isaac Swu and T. Muivah in Thailand in the 1990s. The Tripura case cited above is an example of success.

We, nevertheless, have a long way to go. The central authorities need to be more envolved and engaged, as in the case of Colombia. Insur-gent situations go beyond the main-tenance of law and order.Finally, the most imortant lesson from the Colombian case is the centrality of collaboration with our neighbourhood. The FARC would not be negotiating without the good offices of Cuba and Venezuela, ear-lier seen as part of the problem.Quiet and effective diplomacy, most

importantly with Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, have helped. Intelligence sharing with Europe, the US, the Gulf region, perhaps some day with Pakistan and China, will also go a long way. Continu-ing efforts to bring about a Com-prehensive Convention on Interna-tional Terrorism - whose first draft was presented by India in the UN in 1996 - are crucial to military and political efforts to ensure lasting peace and insulate India from such threats without borders.

By Deepak Bhojwani

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 3

India at Cannes: Cola without the fizz?

MumbaiThe hoopla over Indian celebrities and films at Cannes overshadows the harsh reality that it has been 19 years since any Indian film has made it to the Palme d’Or or the Golden Palm section of the presti-gious film fest.Prominent filmmakers cite the race for clicking at the box office rather than aesthetics as the reason for the dismal performance by one of the most prolific film-produc-ing nations in the world. But there is hope that the new breed of film-makers will change the scenario and make global audiences con-nect with Indian celluloid stories.The last Indian film to compete for Golden Palm was Shaji N. Ka-run’s “Swaham” in 1994.India, whose $2 billion film indus-try churns out over 1,000 films a year, was the guest country at the ongoing 66th Cannes Internation-al Film Festival, but unfortunately not a single film was worth be-ing included in either Palme d’Or or Un Certain Regard, in which Ashim Ahluwalia’s “Miss Love-ly” participated last year.

er Subhash Ghai.“The cultural background of the country has become weak, which was once upon a time very strong. No state government has given importance to cultural develop-ment. They don’t fund; neither do they understand. Cinema is the cultural ambassador; so how can you expect it to compete in the world?” he wondered.Ghai, known for making films like “Saudagar” and “Ram Lakhan”, feels the way to go is to “have in-ternational sensibility to express your aesthetics and cultural sen-sibilities for international appeal”.

appeal to the international audi-ence. The international audiences are very different from Indian au-diences,” he said.International appeal is not the only element missing from Indian films.“Vicky Donor” director Shoojit Sircar feels that directors need to work on their screenplays.“We still need to master the tech-nique of screenplay. Satyajit Ray’s films have been there as he created that magic. Soon, the new generation directors will also reach there,” he said.Expressing confidence in the new crop of directors, he added: “We are not far and we will reach that point very soon. There is a lot of effort which has been put to reach that stage.”Bhatt feels acceptance at foreign festivals is not the sole measure for a movie’s success, adding: “Isn’t the population of 1.2 billion enough to tell us?

Ashim Ahluwalia’s “Miss Lovely”

The only ray of hope this year was Ritesh Batra’s “Dabba”, which won the Grand Rail d’Or award at the International Critics’ Week, a sidebar of the movie extravagan-za, known for appreciating and applauding cinematic excellence from around the globe.Indianised stories replete with the country’s values, cultural and im-proved screenplay techniques can guide Indian films in the competi-tion section, say filmmakers.A master storyteller, Mahesh Bhatt put it bluntly, saying: “If you go with folded hands to a film festival, they will show you the door.”“Indian cinema can reach there by proudly staying rooted to its own roots. The route to Cannes goes through our own country,” Bhatt, the director of films like “Saraansh”, “Arth” and “Naam”, told.The weak reced-ing culture is the main culprit, according to filmmak-

It’s quite possible.In 2010, director Vikramaditya Motwane’s debut film “Udaan”, a film made in Indian milieu but with international soul, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section and became the first film to represent India in a Cannes competition sec-tion in seven years.Agreeing with the two veteran filmmakers, trade analyst Komal Nahta pointed out that filmmakers are running after box-office glory and that is not enough to attract in-ternational attention.“I feel that international appeal is lacking today. Everyone looks for

success at the box office. But that does not appeal interna-

tionally. Filmmakers are happy to go to Cannes,

but that does not mean that they are

competing. We must make

f i l m s , w h i c h

IANS

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 2013NATIONAL NEWS4

Indian Catholic School Bans Turban and Excludes Sikh StudentsBaramullah, J&K, A 107 year old Catholic school in Jammu and Kashmir banned the turban and excluded some 40 Sikh students from classes for wearing the turban last week. The St Joseph’s Higher Secondary School in Baram-ullah, 50 km from the State Capital, Srinagar, which has about 300 Sikh students, imposed the ban saying that the turban is against the school’s uniform code. The principal of the school, Fr Sebastian Nagathunkal and to Rt. Rev. Peter Celestine, the Bishop of the Diocese of Jammu-Srinagar that runs the school, were unavailable to comment on the issue but other employees of the school said that the ban was still on and de-cision would be taken very soon. The affected students who were made to stand under the sun as punishment for

wearing the turban, have been turn-ing up at school wearing their tur-bans, accompanied by their parents. “We have also written to the Educa-

tion Minister of Jammu and Kashmir asking him to intervene to ensure that the ban is reversed unconditionally and without delay. There should be no reason to negotiate with parents as the school is wrong in the first place to impose the ban,” said Mejindarpal Kaur, of UNITED SIKHS.

“We fail to understand why the wear-ing of turbans by Sikh students is un-acceptable to the principal. Schools are a place of learning which requires

discipline and the wearing of the turban will enhance and not hinder a Sikh student’s discipline. We hope the School will resolve the issue without delay and support the prin-ciple of “Unity in Diversity” that is being preached all over India’, said Gurpreet Singh, Director of UNITED SIKHS- India. “The Chairpersons of the National Human Rights Commission and Na-tional Commission for Minorities have both been notified about this ban so that this issue is considered at a national level. We cannot have a school in India banning the turban ever again, either out of ignorance or wilfully,” he added.“Upon meeting with Principal of St Joseph School Baramullah when I asked why a ban has been imposed on Sikh students he was unable to give any reason, and gave his verdict School won’t allow students with turban, we the youth of the Kashmir valley condemn this act and we will fight for our rights,” said 25 year old Kulbeer Singh, a former student of St Joseph’s and a social activist.

It is interesting to note that even the head boy of the school is a Sikh and wears a turban.

Notice to centre, Delhi on high security number plates

PM, two others vie for two Rajya Sabha seats in Assam

New DelhiThe Delhi High Court has issued notice to central and state govern-ment on a PIL seking quashing of contract given to a private company to manufacture high security regis-tration plates (HSRP) on grounds they are defective.A division bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath also issued notices to Auto-motive Research Association of India, Utsav Safety Systems Pvt Ltd, Rosmerta Technologies Ltd and Rosmerta HSRP Ventures Pvt Ltd and sought their response by Aug 14.The court’s direction on Wednes-day came on a PIL filed by advo-cate Punam Singh, alleging that HSRPs supplied by the companies in the Delhi are defective.t added that supply of defective HSRP is “a serious violation of Rule 50 of Central Motor Vehicle Rules, which details the norms and specifications for registration plates”.The Delhi government made HSRP mandatory from May 1, 2012, for new vehicles in the city after a Su-preme Court directive. The apex court had ordered that no new ve-hicle will be allowed on roads with-out a secure registration plate.

HSRP have advanced security fea-tures, are tamper-proof, cannot be replaced and have an individual code number. All these features are expected to help in curbing vehicle thefts or misuse by anti-social ele-ments.The plea said that as per a Supreme Court order of 2005, there has to be a single entity controlling the entire operations including security fea-tures of the HSRP scheme.Here the operation has been split between different firms - while one firm manufactures the plates, an-other is a supplier and yet another firm is the concessionaire for af-fixing HSRP in Delhi, the petition stated.It added that Delhi in its zeal to im-plement the scheme had given the tender to a company who is already selling fake HSRPs in the region.The government had given the con-tract to Rosmerta Technologies Ltd, which has allegedly sub-contracted the work to Utsav Safety Systems Ltd.The PIL further alleged that fail-ure of the government to act shows their inefficiency and the conces-sion agreement executed in favour of Utsav Safety Systems Pvt Ltd is illegal, unconstitutional and against public interest.

56,700 Indians face deportation from Saudi Arabia: KhurshidNew DelhiAs many as 56,700 Indians face deportation from Saudi Arabia in the next one-and-half months and ten officials have been despatched to the king-dom to help the Indian mission prepare emergency certificates for their exit, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.“As of now, 56,700 Indians have registered with the Indian mission for getting exit permits as they have no valid passports or other travel documents,” Khurshid told a group of Urdu editors here. He said he is leaving on a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia to meet his counterpart Faisal Al Saud and other dignitaries and dis-cuss various bilateral matters includ-ing problems of Indian workers due to the “Nitaqat” policy under which all companies are required to provide 10 percent of jobs to Saudi youth.Khurshid said the 10 officials sent to the kingdom will help the mission to prepare no objection certificates for the Indian workers, adding it is a “cumbersome procedure as we are required to get details of the worker from the district authorities”.He said this time, more than 4,000 Indian volunteers are helping the mis-sion to complete formalities, while the mission is working round the clock and has also set up offices in various Saudi cities to facilitate work-ers to fill up form for the emergency certificates.The Saudi government has fixed July

6 as the deadline for all foreign illegal workers to leave the country.Earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sent Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi, Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahmed and his advisor T.K.A. Nair to the kingdom to sort out problems of Indi-ans who are there either without work permits or valid passports. The Saudi authorities have assured the Indian government that they will not harass Indian workers because of their good behaviour, and no one will be penalised or sent to jail for viola-tions of these norms if they leave country before the deadline.Khurshid said he is also going to take up issue of increase of Haj quota for Indian pilgrims with the Saudi au-thorities. At present, India sends more than 175,000 pilgrims every year.

GuwahatiPrime Minister Manmohan Singh and two others are in the contest for two Rajya Sabha seats from Assam, officials said here Thursday. The poll is slated for May 30.Officials said the prime minister’s four sets of nomination papers, which were endorsed by 40 legisla-tors, were found in order. Manmo-han Singh had filed a fresh affidavit two days before the scrutiny, cor-recting his age in his nomination papers as 80 years and not 82, of-ficials said.Santius Kujur, the Congress party’s second candidate, and All India United Democratic Front’s (AI-UDF’s) Aminul Islam are also in the fray, officials said.The prime minister will win the May 30 Rajya Sabha election, said

a Congress leader.The leader said the prime minister’s win is certain as he is the only con-testant for the first preference votes of 78 Congress legislators in the 126-member state assembly, while Kujur and Islam are hoping for the second seat on the second prefer-ence votes.The nomination papers of the three contestants were found valid on the day of scrutiny on May 21 and no nominations were withdrawn Thurs-day, the last day for withdrawal, of-ficials added.Polling will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 30. Votes would be counted the same day. The election process will be com-pleted before June 3 as per the Elec-tion Commission’s May 13 notifica-tion.

Indian sand artist wins Danish ‘grand prize’New DelhiIndian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has won the Danish ‘grand prize’ at the 2nd Copenhagen International Sand sculpture festival 2013 for his 15-foot coloured sand sculpture cre-ated on the “Go green, Save Earth” theme.Pattnaik got the award Monday at the prestigious festival being held in Den-mark’s capital city for his maiden co-loured sand sculpture on foreign land. It took him seven days to complete the art work.After winning the prize, the Odisha-based artist told IANS from Copenha-gen that he had chosen environment as a theme as global warming affects the whole world. Pattnaik, 36, who has been doing sand sculptures for 25 years, said he had always felt that people needed to ponder over “their treatment with the environment”. They should “find a proper way to have a balance with the nature”. Innovative art had always been a pas-sion and the sand provided ready in-spiration. “As my house is very close to the Puri sea beach in Odisha, I chose the beach as my canvas.”Pattnaik, who has recently won the Moscow Choice prize in Russia and jury prize last year in Copenhagen besides other international accolades, finds sand art to be a “unique medi-um” for awareness. There were 17 participant countries in the Copenhagen competition. While Ghana won the Jury prize, Italy won the Artist prize.

Pakistan releases 45 Indian fishermenIslamabadPakistan freed 45 India fishermen as a goodwill gesture, officials said.Pakistan caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso decided last week to release the Indian fishermen who have already served their sen-tence.The authorities released a group of 45 prisoners from a Karachi prison. They later boarded a bus that will bring them to the eastern city of Lahore where they will be handed over to the Indian authorities on the Wagah border, reported Xinhua. TV footage showed the freed prison-ers were happy at the Pakistani gov-ernment’s decision. Pakistan and India routinely arrest

fishermen after they cross the mari-time boundaries for fishing. Both countries have not succeeded in determining their water boundar-ies despite series of dialogue on the issue. At present, 482 Indian prisoners are in Pakistani jails whereas 496 Paki-stanis are in Indian jails. When the Pakistani prime minister ordered their release, he expressed the hope that the Indian government will reciprocate the gesture and re-lease Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails who have completed their sen-tence. The foreign ministry has initiated dialogue with India for the swap of prisoners, officials said.

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 NATIONAL NEWS 5

Sonia appeals to opposition to help pass key bills

Indian IT honcho Phaneesh Murthy sacked for undisclosed relationship

New DelhiCongress president Sonia Gandhi appealed to the opposition parties, including the BJP, to cooperate with the UPA government in passing the food security and land acquisition bills in the interest of the people.She expressed disappointment that parliament was not allowed to func-tion to enable the passage of the cru-cial legislations.“I make a plea to the National Demo-cratic Alliance and other opposition parties... Let us come together to ensure passage of the food security and the land acquisition bills and other important bills,” Gandhi said at a function here to mark the United Progressive Alliance governments nine years in office. “We are disappointed that we have not been able to get crucial legisla-tions enacted because of the obstruc-tionist approach. Parliament still has time, we still have time to fulfil our duties to people,” she said.“It is not a question of government versus the opposition. These bills affect the lives and livelihoods of millions whom we are committed to represent and benefit,” Gandhi said, adding these are not “partisan issues... These affect the lives of mil-lions who we are committed to rep-resent”.The Bharatiya Janata Party did not allow the passage of these two bills in the recent budget session, demand-ing that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh resign on alleged wrongdoings in the allocation of coal blocks.The UPA chairperson appreciated the performance of the government saying it is “an appropriate moment to celebrate. It is also an appropriate

Washington/BangaloreIndian tech honcho Phaneesh Murthy was Tuesday sacked as chief execu-tive of US-based software services company iGate Corporation “for not disclosing a relationship with a sub-ordinate”, over a decade after he was forced to quit Indian IT bellwether Infosys on similar charges of sexual misconduct.“The decision to terminate the em-ployment of president and chief ex-ecutive Phaneesh Murthy was made following an investigation into a relationship he had with a subordi-nate employee and a claim of sexual harassment,” the company said in a statement from Fremont in Califor-nia earlier in the day.The investigation was carried out by a third-party legal counsel engaged by the board after the company’s investor relations manager Araceli Roiz, a 31-year-old American, gave a written complaint of sexual harass-ment.The firm said it had investigated “a claim of sexual harassment” against Murthy and found that he had not vi-olated the firm’s harassment policy.“Murthy’s failure to report this rela-tionship violated iGATE’s policy, as well as Murthy’s employment con-tract,” the firm said.iGate co-founder and co-chairman Sunil Wadhwani in a statement said, “We recognise the significant contri-butions of Murthy over the past 10 years in helping to establish iGate

moment to reflect on what we have sought to do during the last nine years”.She said major initiatives have been taken for the welfare of the people.Listing the achievement of the UPA she said: “Never before the procure-ment prices for the farmers been in-creased as they have in the last nine years and this has led to a record pro-duction of food grains. Never before have so many of our children been in school and colleges, aspiring for a better future.”“The nation is closely connected to-day through rural roads and through a mobile telephone network which is the second largest in the world with the cheapest call rates.”Backing the prime minister, Gandhi said: “The prime minister is carrying out his responsibility with great dig-nity in the face of unrelenting hos-tility and abuse from the opposition. We respect him and we all stand by

as a leader in the IT industry. He has worked hard to im-prove the company’s value, and we great-ly appreciate his ef-forts. However, as a result of our policy, we asked Mr. Mur-thy to step down.” In a conference call from the US hours after the sack, Mur-thy denied the ha-rassment charge but admitted to having relationship with the subordinate em-ployee.“I do believe the charges are completely false. But it is pursuant to a relationship I had with her. Based on that, the company found it fit to believe that I had vio-lated company policy and terminat-ed my employment. I don’t believe I have violated company policy,” Murthy told reporters in his defence.Over a decade ago (2002), when Murthy was on the Infosys’ board as director and its global sales head, he was accused of sexual abuse by his former secretary Reka Maximovitch, a Bulgarian-American national.Infosys went for a $3-million out-of-court settlement with Maximovitch to withdraw the sex lawsuit against Murthy and the company, and sacked Murthy later for violating the compa-

him”.Gandhi said the world is going through a financial crisis, “yet our government has been able to navi-gate these turbulent times with confi-dence and has shown resilience.”Coming down heavily on the oppo-sition, she said, “...I do not hide my deep sense of disappointment at the way that parliament has been pre-vented by the principal opposition party from functioning and fulfill-ing both its constitutional role and its democratic obligations, and that too inside our government at all lev-els despite repeated offer for debates and discussion on all issues”.Touching on the topic of corruption, she said: “Corruption remains an is-sue as it concerns us. We have been uncompromising in our efforts to combat this scourge.” She, however, added: “We have nothing to hide we have nothing to feel defensive about.”

ny’s ethical standards and corporate governance.The Nasdaq-listed iGate appointed Gerhard Watzinger in place of Mur-thy as an interim president and chief executive with immediate effect.The company’s another co-founder, Ashok Trivedi, clarified that Mur-thy’s departure was not related in any way to the company’s operational or financial performance, both of which remain strong.“iGate will continue to focus on cre-ating value for our customers and shareholders, while upholding the highest ethical standards in every area of our business. We are fortu-nate to have Watzinger returning during this transition,” Trivedi noted.

New DelhiDetailing economic growth during the UPA regime, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the slowdown last year was “temporary” and a lon-ger term view would show that India has notched up an average “8 percent growth” in the past nine years.The prime minister, presenting the ruling United Progressive Alliance-II’s report card, said the economic situation was “turning around” and economic growth rate in 2013-14 could exceed 6 percent. This, he said, would set the stage to achieve the 12th Plan target of 8 percent for the next five years.He said the goal of 8 percent growth “will be difficult, but it is not impos-sible. We have done it before, and if we receive a mandate next year, we will certainly achieve it again”.He said the slowdown of last year was largely due to the global phe-nomenon, including of the eurozone GDP declining.“Last year the economy did slow down, but this slowdown is tempo-rary. Taking a longer term view, we see that the India was among the fast-est growing economies of the world with an average growth rate of 8 per-cent in the last nine years, including the years of slower growth,” he said. Manmohan Singh said, on the other hand, the National Democratic Alli-ance government had “delivered an average growth of only 5.7 percent during its six years in office”.He said some of the domestic rea-sons for slow economic growth were being addressed, including setting up large investment projects. “The economic situation is turning around. Inflation is coming under control. The fiscal deficit is being brought under control. The current account deficit is high, but we will bring it down gradually,” he said.

Nine years of UPA saw average 8 percent growth: PM

Rashtrapati Bhavan tours to cost Rs.25

New DelhiDaily public tours of Rashtrapati Bhavan, which began for the first time from Jan 1 this year at the ini-tiative of President Pranab Mukher-jee and have become very popular with tourists, will now cost Rs.25 per person.A Rashtrapati Bhavan press release said nominal registration charges of Rs.25 will be levied upon visitors to Rashtrapati Bhavan and Mughal Gardens from Aug 1, 2013. These charges are meant to enable Rashtrapati Bhavan maintain and improve services to public, the re-lease said.

MumbaiTwo elderly and ailing convicts in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case were respectively brought on a stretcher and a wheelchair to surrender before a TADA Special Court here Monday to serve their sentence.While Zaibunissa Kazi, 75, suffer-ing from multiple ailments including cancer, was brought on a wheelchair, Sharif ‘Dada’ Parkar, 80, was brought in an ambulance on a stretcher before Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) Special Judge G.A. Sanap in the afternoon.They came three days after the spe-cial court issued non-bailable arrest warrants against them for not adher-ing to the Supreme Court deadline to surrender and serve their remaining sentence awarded in the blasts case.Both Kazi and Parkar, who were slated to surrender May 17, could not come on the designated day ow-ing to ill-health and had sought an extension from the court which was not granted.Parkar was hospitalised last week for chest pain, while Kazi had to under-go certain medical tests.Shortly after their surrender, Special Judge Sanap directed police to take them into custody and send them to jail to serve their remaining sentence.Parkar’s involvement pertained to conspiracy and overseeing the land-ing of arms and RDX in Raigad in Maharashtra before the March 12, 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai.Kazi was found guilty and convicted for allowing another co-accused to store some weapons at her home, which were part of a bigger consign-ment.She came to the court on a wheel-chair accompanied by her daughter and gave herself up to the court.Soon after her arrival, Kazi was mobbed by media-persons and she broke down, pleading “mercy and forgiveness” from the government.“At my age and my present health condition, it is not possible for me to undergo this punishment... I have suffered enough... I urge the govern-ment to pardon me and save me from this predicament,” Kazi said.Kazi said she was suffering from hy-pertension, cholesterol and thyroid problems and had undergone a major kidney operation some time ago.“I simply cannot sit on the floor, how will I manage in the jail? At home my daughter looks after me, I don’t know what will happen in the jail,” she cried.Though she has claimed innocence, Kazi was convicted under the Arms Act and the TADA Act and sentenced to five years’ jail.In March, Kazi, through her daughter (who has declined to be identified), had appealed to Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju to take up her case with the Maharash-tra governor for a pardon.

1993 Mumbai blasts convict comes on wheelchair to surrender

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 20136 INTERNATIONAL

India, US to cooperate on law enforcement issuesWashingtonIndia and the US have agreed to work together institutionally to ensure the best possible outcomes within the laws of the two countries on issues relating to law enforcement, counter terrorism and judicial processes.Visiting Indian Home Minister Sush-ilkumar Shinde and Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to such coopera-tion between the Home Ministry and the US Department of Justice during an “excellent meeting” Tuesday, ac-cording to the Indian Embassy.Cooperation between the two de-partments would also address other pending issues relating to extradi-tion, execution of Letters Rogatory and Red Corner Notices.Shinde and Holder “recognized the compelling reasons for closer coop-eration between India and the US

based on the larger strategic objec-tive underlined by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmo-han Singh during Obama’sState Visit to India in November 2010,” the embassy said.In a separate meeting with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Di-rector Robert Muller, the two sides reviewed areas of cooperation and issues of interest, the embassy said.“The FBI and Indian agencies have remained in close contact, and it was agreed that the process of inter-agen-cy cooperation would be developed further, in this context.”Shinde and senior members of his delegation later left for a day long visit to Boston, where he is expected to have a detailed briefing on the suc-cessful investigation of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing.

UN global disasters forum opens with condolences for oklahoma city tornado victims WashingtonA United Nations forum dedicated to building resilience to disasters and making communities safer opened today in Geneva with expressions of sympathy for the people of Oklaho-ma City over the loss of life caused yesterday by a deadly tornado. “Our thoughts and hearts go to the people of Oklahoma and we hope that help will reach those in need soon,” Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told participants at the opening of the 4th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, which is on the theme: “Invest Today for a Safer Tomorrow.” The tornado, one of several over the past few days to hit various cities in the Midwestern United States, dam-aged schools and took many lives, including those of at least 20 school children. Separately, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced his sadness at the news of the death and destruction in Oklahoma City as a result of Mon-day’s tornado, and sent his deepest condolences to those who have lost loved ones and to everyone affected by the storm. Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement that the Secretary-Gen-eral has written to the Governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin, to express his solidarity and to offer the UN’s assistance, if requested, to help with the recovery efforts. “The impact of this disaster,” Mr. Eliasson noted in his remarks, “was evident for one of the world’s most economically developed countries. Think how much more danger-ous the situation is in places where people are poor and living in fragile homes with insufficient water and health services.” The Global Platform was established in 2007 as a biennial forum for in-formation exchange, discussion of latest development and knowledge and partnership-building across sec-tors, with the goal to improve imple-mentation of disaster risk reduction through better communication and coordination amongst stakeholders. The forum is organized by UNIS-DR, the UN’s office for disaster risk reduction and secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Some 4,800 participants have registered to attend this week’s event, including delegates from na-tional and local governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society, the private and public sec-

tors, international organizations, parliamentarians, scientists and aca-demics. The 2013 Global Platform will de-vote special attention to three critical areas: private sector investment in disaster risk management; the work of local communities, networks, and supporting policies in building resil-ience; and local and national efforts to implement the Hyogo Frame-work for Action, as well as on an action agenda for building disaster resilience in a post- 2015 successor agenda. Mr. Eliasson said that building resil-ience to disasters and making com-munities safer is “our collective and shared responsibility,” adding that his visit to Japan earlier this year was a lesson on the urgency of re-ducing the risks for disasters. In March 2011, Japan was struck by an earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 20,000 people in the eastern part of the country. The tsunami also slammed into the Fuku-shima Daiichi nuclear power station, located in Fukushima Prefecture, disabling cooling systems and lead-ing to fuel meltdowns in three of the six units. “Japan is leading a model of disas-ter risk reduction – but even in this advanced country, the deadly combi-nation of multiple hazards was over-whelming and catastrophic,” said

Mr. Eliasson. He noted that the risks are higher in poor countries and for poor people, but the strategies are the same. “Ev-erywhere on Earth, we reduce risks by identifying and addressing which factors drive the risks and what we can do about them.” In this effort, the Deputy Secretary-General stated, the private sector is crucial, adding that how they utilize and invest their resources can mean the difference between life and death. He added that disaster risk reduc-tion is essential to reach the anti-poverty targets known as the Millen-nium Development Goals (MDGs), which world leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015. “There can be no sustainable ac-cess to safe drinking water and basic sanitation if water sources and la-trines are vulnerable to natural haz-ards. Hospitals and other community structures must be resilient. It is not acceptable that so many people die in disasters because of shoddy build-ing standards. We have seen several such tragic disasters in recent times.” He urged participants to build on the achievements of the Hyogo Frame-work – a global blueprint for disas-ter risk reduction efforts that was ad-opted by Governments in 2005 and aims to substantially reduce disaster losses by 2015.

National Federation Party ready for 2014 Fiji elections

SydneyFiji’s National Federation Party (NFP), comprising mostly of Indian-origin members, says it is ready for the elections scheduled for 2014 in that south pacific island nation.Party president Raman Pratap said that there was no need for a change in the party’s executive line-up and a meeting will be held in June to dis-cuss the party’s election strategy.“All we have to do now is start with our campaigning,” Pratap was quot-ed as saying.“The main reason we are calling our meeting is to discuss our strategy and the next step we will be taking, now that we have resumed operations.”The NFP was founded in 1968 by Indian-origin politician A.D. Patel through a merger of the Federation Party and National Democratic Party.The country is currently being run

by a military-appointed government after an army coup in 2006.The 2014 elections are much antici-pated, with the country being sus-pended by the Pacific Islands Forum and the Commonwealth of Nations for lack of a democratically-elected government.“We will be ready when time comes and we will make sure that all our supporters will support us with con-fidence, come 2014,” Pratap said.The party meeting is likely to be held June 9 in Lautoka, Fiji’s second larg-est city located in the island of Viti Levu, according to the report.Ethnic Indians comprise 37 percent of Fiji’s total population of nearly 870,000. Most of them are descen-dants of indentured labourers who were brought in from India between 1879 and 1916 to work in the coun-try’s sugarcane plantations.

Governments failing to protect minorities, says USWashingtonUS Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed concern at global prob-lems of discrimination and violence against religious groups, including Baha’is, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs be-sides increasing use of blasphemy and apostasy laws.“In too many places, governments are also failing to protect minori-ties from social discrimination and violence,” he said Monday releasing an annual State Department survey of religious freedom in nearly 200 countries.“This report is a clear-eyed, objec-tive look at the state of religious freedom around the world,” Kerry said releasing the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.“And when necessary, yes, it does directly call out some of our close friends, as well as some countries with whom we seek stronger ties,”

he said.The report designates eight nations -- Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan -- as ‘countries of par-ticular concern’.Briefing reporters US Ambassador-at-large Suzan Johnson Cook said there were several countries where Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists were facing problems, but “we don’t want to highlight one particular one.”In response to a question, she said US was “certainly” concerned “about religious minorities, Hin-dus as well as others” in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Fiji.” “And so we press the governments - we urge the governments to allow religious free-dom for all.”In the case of India, report said, several educational institutions in Mangalore, Karnataka, reportedly banned Muslim girls from wearing headscarves.

Some state governments also en-forced “anticonversion” laws and authorities reportedly arrested peo-ple under these laws during the year, although there were no convictions, it said.The government at times failed to respond effectively to abuses com-mitted by state and local authorities and private citizens, the report said.Between January and October, there reportedly were 560 cases of com-munal violence in India, which led to 89 deaths and 1,846 injuries, it said.During several incidents in Karna-taka, local authorities either acted in coordination with, or failed to stop, members of a Hindu nationalist or-ganization, Hindu Jagarana Vedike (HJV), it said. The report cited alle-gations by NGOs that the state gov-ernment often failed to intervene in such attacks due to sympathy for the HJV’s aims

Rescuers dig for survivors after deadly us tornadoU.S. search and rescue crews are dig-ging for survivors in the area where a massive tornado leveled neighbor-hoods in the central state of Oklaho-ma, killing at least 24 people and in-juring nearly 240 others. The twister is the nation’s deadliest since a 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, killed more than 150 people.Monday’s tornado tore through the town of Moore, a suburb of the state capital, Oklahoma City, leaving a path of destruction up to three kilo-meters wide and 32 kilometers long.Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin called it one of the “most horrific” di-sasters the state has ever faced.“In many places, homes were abso-lutely destroyed, taken away. There’s just sticks and bricks basically,” said Fallin. “It’s hard to tell if there was a structure there or not. If you get into some of the major neighborhoods, you can’t tell where the streets were. The street signs are gone. And that’s been a big challenge for us, [...] be-ing able to determine which area of a community we might be in, because the streets are just gone, the signs are just gone.”The tornado ripped through the area around Oklahoma City with winds of up to 320 kilometers an hour. Among the flattened buildings was an el-ementary school, where children lost their lives.U.S. President Barack Obama de-clared a major disaster in Oklahoma

following the storm, ordering the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to provide assis-tance.FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said the agency’s job is to support lo-cal officials and first responders who have been working since the tornado struck. He said people outside of Oklahoma can help, too, by donating to volunteer organizations such as the Red Cross and The Salvation Army.“If you’re not in the area, the best way to help is to send your help through those organizations. And, that’s the lesson we’ve learned time and time again, that stuff isn’t as great as cash when it comes to the longer term needs for a lot of folks that have lost everything,” said Fugate.For now, the focus is on rescue and recovery - sifting through the debris and searching for survivors. The Moore fire department chief, Gary Bird, said crews will go through ev-ery damaged piece of property in the town at least three times before the process is finished.Tragically, this is not the first time Moore has confronted grave losses from a tornado. Another deadly twist-er hit the town in 1999 - one of more than 70 tornadoes to touch down across Oklahoma and Kansas in just 21 hours. Both states are located in an area of the United States commonly known as “Tornado Alley,” where most of the nation’s tornadoes occur.

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 7INTERNATIONAL

Putin calls for fast naval deliveriesMoscowPresident Vladimir Putin has criti-cised the state-owned United Ship-building Corporation (USC) for delay in delivery of warships to the Russian Navy and demanded the shipbuilders to improve efficiency.Established in 2007, the USC is the country’s largest shipbuilding and ship repair company. “Problems still remain with dead-lines and the quality of implemen-tation of orders, including defence projects. “In particular, the construction of a number of nuclear submarines and surface ships and their delivery to the navy has been unjustifiably de-layed,” Putin said at a meeting with USC officials.The president called on Russian shipbuilders to accelerate the deliv-

ery of ships to the customer without impairing their quality.“The corporation must work smooth-ly, producing warships. This is one of the key tasks facing the USC’s new management,” Putin said.The president ordered USC’s man-agement to submit a report by Oct 15 on measures to improve the situ-ation in the industry. The USC com-prises nine design bureaus and 39 shipyards. It currently accounts for 70 per cent of the domestic ship-building industry, according to its website. The corporation is wholly owned by the state.The Russian Navy is expected to receive 24 submarines and 54 war-ships of various classes by 2020, ac-cording to the defence ministry.

Indian student in Dubai ranked second in ISC examDubaiAn Indian student in a school here was ranked second in this year’s In-dian School Certificate (ISC) class 12 examination.Kartik Kolachina of Gems Modern Academy scored 98.75 percent to be ranked second in the science stream, the Khaleej Times reported Tuesday.He scored 98 each in physics and computer science, 99 in chemistry and 100 in mathematics.Other students of the school in other streams also fared well.While Suhmita Mukherjee topped the school in the commerce stream, Nada Parveen topped the humanities stream.In the Indian Certificate of Second-ary Education (ICSE) class 10 exam, Roshan Ganesh Bhaskar topped the school scoring 96.8 percent.

Bangladesh’s Shahbag movement still on, claim leaders, activistsDhakaDirected at channeling the “patriotic spirit” of youngsters in Bangladesh to create a “secular youth force”, the Shahbag movement, that peaked in February and March with tens of thou-sands of protesters and torchlight pro-cessions, is “not dead” and “lives on” sans the noise and the fury, its leaders and participating activists claim.Thousands of people, mostly youths, had been staging protests in the Shah-bag area of the Bangladesh capital from February 5 demanding capital punishment for Jamaat-e-Islami lead-er Abdul Quader Mollah and all others charged by the International Crimes Tribunal with committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against hu-manity during the 1971 Liberation War.Mollah was sentenced to life by the ICT.“Our agenda is to demand capital pun-ishment for the perpetrators of crimes during the 1971 war and a ban on the Jamaat. However we didn’t anticipate it would become so big. There are both good and bad sides to it.“The good side is that you will see that post-Mollah’s sentence, the other sentence was death sentence. But on the downside such a big movement has led to high expectations among

the supporters and this has led to frus-tration among them because of the absence of such large gatherings and other rumours. The movement is con-tinuing....,” Imran H. Sarker, a leader of the movement, told a visiting IANS correspondent.Khushi Kabir, a prominent social ac-tivist and a supporter of the revolu-tion, agreed.“The absence of mass gatherings doesn’t mean that the movement is dead...Shahbag is still on,” Kabir said.“Now the situation is that we do not have a specific programme of mass gatherings. There is no crisis as well. When we need them (the protesters), they will be there...that is how we are planning. The spirit of the movement will be carried on.you might not see the effect right away, but in 10 years it will have a pronounced effect,” added Imran, a staunch supporter of “capital punishment for Razakars (anti-libera-tion war militia)”.It all began when Mollah, secretary general of the Jamaat, smiled and gave a victory sign to waiting jour-nalists after the sentence was hand-ed down to him Feb 4, triggering a groundswell of anger among people who were hoping he would be hanged. He was convicted of beheading a poet, raping an 11-year-old girl and shoot-

ing 344 people during the 1971 Lib-eration War.Calling the punishment “mild”, peo-ple from all walks of life, including youth, children, musicians, artists and writers, joined in the movement de-manding the death penalty for Mollah and other war criminals.The anger spread online and quickly rallied thousands to Shahbag to de-mand death for Mollah and other Ja-maat members accused of war crimes.The Shahbag area - the epicentre of the protests - has been now christened “Projonmo Chottor” (Generation Cir-cle).The absence of large gatherings in the last few weeks has led to tension among the masses with reports of the protests fizzling out. Imran and other activists however assured that it has “achieved its primary goals” and is progressing to the “next step in a step-by-step manner”.“It’s a long-term movement. We want-ed to give the ownership of the move-ment to the masses.connect people...awaken them.instill an ideology of patriotism. That was our primary goal along with demanding capital punish-ment for Razakars. We have been suc-cessful in our primary goals,” Imran explained.Shrif M. Shafique of a group that calls

itself “Generation F” feels the move-ment might also blossom into a social or political revolution.“This is not a renaissance, but it can be a cultural movement to give direc-tion for social or political revolution,” said Shafique.For Imran and his friends, the next step is to “connect with people at the grassroot level in villages and dis-tricts”.“We have managed to reach out to schools, colleges, educators and academicians. We are preparing our workers in such a manner that there would be at least one representative in each village,” Imran explained.Assuaging the public’s fears, Imran said at the outset keeping up the rip-ple-effect of the initial hysteria was their target.“From the very beginning it was on our mind.how to sustain it...we were thinking about it. Because in such issue-based movements it’s possible that after the initial rise it may fizzle out later,” said Imran.“Its not that we just wanted our de-mands regarding the verdict to be fulfilled..it was meant for a general change. How can they (the people) carry it forward? They can carry for-ward the movement wherever they are,” Imran maintained.

61 killed in Iraq attacksBaghdadA series of car bombings and shoot-ings, mainly targeting Shia Muslim areas across Iraq, Monday killed at least 61 people, including Iranian pilgrims, and wounded around 200 others, officials said.The worst violence occurred in Baghdad, when eight car bombs and a roadside bomb ripped through bus stops, marketplaces and other crowd-ed areas in Shia neighbourhoods in the capital city, killing 12 people and wounding 109, Xinhua reported.In Iraq’s oil-rich city of Basra, 550 km south of Baghdad, 11 people were killed and 35 wounded when two car bombs went off almost si-multaneously.A roadside bomb went off near fight-ers of a government-backed paramil-itary group -- the Awakening Council -- in Samarra, 110 km north of Bagh-dad, killing two fighters and wound-ing 18, police told Xinhua.The fighters of the Sunni group had gathered near an army base to collect their salaries.In another incident, unidentified gun-men opened fire on another group of Sunni fighters when they were also

collecting their salaries in Yathrib, 85 km north of Baghdad. One Sun-ni fighter was killed and two were wounded.Meanwhile, a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden car at a checkpoint manned by members of another Sunni paramilitary group in Baiji, 220 km north of Baghdad, kill-ing two fighters and wounding five others.A car bomb parked on a main road near Balad, some 80 km north of Baghdad, went off near a bus car-rying Iranian pilgrims, killing eight pilgrims and wounding 19 others, in-cluding five women, police said.The Iranian pilgrims were on their way back to Baghdad after a visit to Shia shrines in Samarra.In the eastern province of Diyala, three people were killed and three wounded in two bomb attacks near the provincial capital of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad.In western Iraq, 12 kidnapped po-licemen were killed and four wound-ed during an overnight raid by Iraqi forces on an insurgents’ safe house in a desert area between Baghdad and Jordan in Anbar province.The province was the scene of anoth-er deadly attack against police late Sunday, when unidentified gunmen attacked a police station in Rawa, 260 km northwest of Baghdad, and killed 10 policemen before they fled the scene.

US senate panel approves immigration reformWashingtonImmigration reform that plans to le-galize some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US passed its first test as the Senate Judiciary Commit-tee voted 13-5 to approve a bipartisan bill to overhaul the system.The draft prepared by the “Gang of Eight” Republican and Democratic senators will next go to the full Senate for debate.The Tuesday vote was possible in part because Leahy at the last minute with-drew an amendment that would have allowed US citizens to sponsor their same-sex partners for green cards, “as a result of my conclusion that Repub-licans will kill this vital legislation if this anti-discrimination amendment is added”, he said.

The committee improved the bill in many ways, including strengthening the provisions for border security, ac-cording to Republican Sen. John Mc-Cain, a member of the Gang of Eight who acknowledged being “guardedly optimistic” about the success of the reform.Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met earlier in the Oval Office with seven immigrants, including several undocumented youths, who asked them to keep up the pressure so the reform bill passes.Another bipartisan Gang of Eight in the House of Representatives an-nounced last week an agreement in principle of the reform and plans to introduce it officially for debate the first week in June.

Australia looks into allowing Sikhs to wear turban at workSydneyAustralian Prime Minister Julia Gil-lard has said that she would look into the issue of allowing Sikhs in her country to wear the turban while at work and also while riding mo-torcycles.“We will work with your commu-nity to help make the necessary changes requested on cultural and religious grounds,” the Blacktown Sun quoted her as saying Thursday during a visit to Gurdwara Sahib in the Sydney suburb of Glenwood.She said this during a closed door meeting with office-bearers of the Australian Sikh Association.The Sikhs also asked Gillard to al-low members of their community to wear the six-inch sword, called the kirpan, to official government functions and to differentiate Sikh students from other students in schools.Gurdwara spokesman Balvinder Singh Chahal was quoted as draw-ing the attention of Gillard to the fact that countries like Canada and Britain already allow Sikh civil en-gineers to wear the turban instead of

the hard hat at work sites and while riding motorcycles. “I also would like to point out that the Punjabi language and Sikh reli-gion were the fastest growing lan-guage and faith group - at the rate of 205 percent from 2006 to 2011, ac-cording to recent census,” he said.He also sought the inclusion of Punjabi language and Sikh history in the curriculum of schools, espe-

cially in western Sydney.“We also request more liberal entry of international students especially from India to help the country (Aus-tralia) to meet its skilled and less skilled labour needs,” Chahal was quoted as telling Gillard.Gurdwara Sahib in Glenwood, Syd-ney, is said to be the largest gurd-wara not only in Australia but also in the entire southern hemisphere.

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 20138 POLITICS

Subramanian Swamy, Janata Party chief “The names of some UPA ministers will soon surface in the IPL spot fixing racket.There can be no scams and scandals without the blessings of the UPA government. They are in Coalgate, Common-wealth Games scandal and also the IPL scan-dal.”

Shahnawaz Hussain, BJP“BJP condemns spot-fixing in IPL matches. This is very unfor-tunate.Legal action should be taken against those found guilty. Spot-fixing is not good for the game of cricket or for the country.”

Shakeel Ahmed, Congress“People of the coun-try will lose interest in the game, if this creeps into their mind that the match is fixed. And then as a result, the sta-dium will go empty.”

Yashwant Sinha, BJP “IPL is nothing but a den of gambling. There is less cricket and more of gambling in the IPL. The spot fixing or match fixing does not appear to be confined to a few players or book-ies. It appears to be a widespread net.”

Sharad Yadav, JD-U Chief“Human beings (play-ers) are being auctioned. When one is auctioned, his values are also sold. IPL’s motive from the very beginning is only minting money and not encouraging games.”

Omar Abdullah, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister “It is a serious issue. The players (if found guilty) should not be suspended. They should be given strictest pun-ishment like life ban so that it act as deterrent for others.”

Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister “This league should be put to an end. IPL is not a sport but a mere `tamasha` (buffoonery) and fixing has put a blot on it.”

QUOTE FIRE

New Delhi The expenditure on minorities’ welfare has seen a ten-fold in-crease during the United Pro-gressive Alliance’s (UPA) tenure, says a handbook highlighting the achievements of the government.The government spending on cen-trally sponsored schemes for mi-norities went up from Rs.143.53 crore in 2006-07 to Rs.1,593.23 crore in 2012-13, it said, add-ing that 15 percent of all priority

sector lending from banks now reaches minorities to help them start and expand small businesses.The UPA’s report card further said that during 2012-13, more than 620 primary and upper pri-mary schools were constructed or opened, 25,465 additional classrooms were built and 6,207 teachers sanctioned in blocks and districts with substantial minority population.Plus, there are various scholarship

schemes under the prime minis-ter’s new 15-point programme and under the multi-sectoral develop-ment programme (MSDP), among other measures to help minority students, it said.The MSDP was implemented in 90 identified minority concentra-tion areas in 20 states and UTs during 2012-13, it said.Under the plan, construction of 3.15 lakh Indira Awas Yojana houses, 2,838 health centres,

29,480 anganwadi centres, 50,696 drinking water supply projects, 15,609 additional classrooms and 698 school buildings were sanc-tioned besides 113 industrial train-ing institutes and 44 polytechnics and 485 hostels for boys and girls were sanctioned, said the report.During the past one year, Rs.10 crore was released to train 36,950 minority women through 64 or-ganisations in 12 states, the report added.

Tenfold hike in minority welfare spending: UPAPOLITICAL CAMP NEWS

CAMP UPA

New DelhiWhile the UPA counted its achievements in the nine years of its rule, the BJP said the gov-ernment was “misleading” the people.“The government is mis-leading the people,” BJP spokes-person Meenakshi Lekhi told .“They are talking about achieve-ments which is actually portray-ing their failure. They talk about MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment

Guarantee Act) without mention-ing that the government has re-duced allocations for it and there is a Rs.120 crore scam,” Lekhi said.She also slammed Congress pres-ident Sonia Gandhi for calling the opposition “obstructionist”.“This is an insult of parliamen-tary procedure if they call the opposition obstructionist. They are blaming the opposition for not having the bills passed, but

who had the Rajya Sabha ad-journed when Lokpal bill had to be passed,” Lekhi said.“In the land acquisition bill, Lok Sabha leader of opposition Su-shma Swaraj made an extra effort so that it can be passed, but the government wants to run parlia-ment at its own conditions,” she said“As far as the food bill is con-cerned, many BJP-ruled states already have food security bill

which is better than central draft. They are suddenly remember-ing food security bill when their ministers are in trouble, when in 2010 the Supreme Court asked the government to distribute the rotting grains, they chose to give it out to the breweries, but not the people,” she added.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released a report on the achieve-ments of the UPA government on the fourth anniversary of UPA-II.

Government misleading people: BJPCAMP NDA

Kolkata West Bengal’s Left Front charged the Trinamool Congress govern-ment with destroying the process of development and participatory democracy in the state over the past two years it has been in power.“Before the 2011 assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress had cam-paigned across the state that it will usher in change and build a new Bengal. But instead of bringing any change, they are destroying

the development ushered in by the previous Left Front governments,” Left Front chairman Biman Bose told media persons after a meeting of the Front partners.“They are moving towards de-stroying the well-entrenched dem-ocratic system and the process of participatory democracy,” he said.Comparing the first two years of the erstwhile Left Front regime with the same period of the rule by the Trinamool, Bose said: “One

can easily find that the Left Front had done much better than what the current government has done”.He said seeing a huge demand for electricity, the LF had set up power plants, ushered in land reforms in the state, “but the new government has not set up a single power plant in these two years”.“The farmers in the villages defi-nitely did not commit suicide dur-ing the first two years of the Left Front government. But they are

doing so now,” he said.Expressing concern over the decrease in cultivated land, he claimed while food production in the first two years of the LF rule had an “ascending curve”, the graph was spiralling downward under the Trinamool regime.Bose also reiterated the Left Front’s demand for a Central Bu-reau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry under court’s supervision into the Saradha chit fund mess.

Trinamool destroying development, democratic systems

PanajiThe Goa government will complain to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about some Indian Administrative Services officers indulging in “poli-tics”, said Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar while accusing a central officer of trying to intimidate state bureaucracy.He was reacting to a question by

the media persons whether the state government has responded to an of-ficer of the union ministry for road, transport and highways who in a let-ter last week termed Goa’s imposi-tion of “entry fee” on other states’ vehicles as illegal and demanded its withdrawal.“I will write to the prime minister questioning the propriety of the of-

ficer. Since when have IAS officers started politicking?” Parrikar said, after the ministry’s Deputy Secretary Nandan Singh wrote to a senior bu-reaucrat in Goa last week, seeking withdrawal of the entry fee.“Is he (Nandan Singh) contesting the next Lok Sabha election?” Parri-kar said, adding that the official was ranked fourth in the central minis-

try’s order of heirarchy and had no right to issue the communique.Last month, the cash-strapped state government imposed an entry fee to the tune of Rs.500 to Rs.1,000 for light and heavy commercial vehicles entering Goa. The Goa government expects to net Rs.60 crore annually from the new toll booths which have been installed by the transport de-

partment on all entry points of the state.Parrikar, however, insisted other-wise.“The fee is charged for the use of state government’s bridges, roads, etc. If anyone is passing through Goa, using the National Highways, within four hours, they will not be charged any tax,”

IAS officers politicking, will complain to PM: Parrikar

Politicians Hit out at IPL

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 9POLITICS

“Report to the People 2012-13”

New DelhiMarking nine years of the UPA government, Prime Minister Man-mohan Singh promised to build “an economically resurgent and socially just India” and unveil a transparent regime to do away with corruption.Speaking at a function at his 7 Race Course Road residence, the prime minister was effusive in his praise of the Congress-led government since taking power in 2004 and sounded confident as he spoke of facing the Lok Sabha election due next year.With Congress president Sonia Gandhi crediting him with ruling the world’s largest democracy with “great dignity”, Manmohan Singh spoke frankly of the many problems of governance including allegations of corruption hurled at his govern-ment.Alluding to charges of “deliberate malfeasance” and impropriety, he said the United Progressive Alliance government had introduced “more transparent systems for the future” and pledged that “these problems will not arise in the future”.“The problems with past (coal and spectrum) allocations are being dealt with, as they should be, under the law,” the 80-year-old economist-turned-politician said, reading from a prepared text. “Allegations of impropriety are be-ing investigated and cases of wrong-doing will be punished.“But we can claim that the root cause of the problem, which was the per-ceived non-transparency in the man-ner of allocation, has been addressed and these problems will not arise in the future.”Manmohan Singh released the UPA government’s report card -- “Report to the People 2012-13” -- on the oc-casion, ceremonially handing over a

copy to Gandhi.Returning to the theme of corrup-tion, Manmohan Singh said good governance includes “freedom from delays and harassment which invari-ably breed graft and corruption and have to be got rid of.“Finally, it includes elimination of corruption in the procurement and allocation (and) decisions of govern-ment.”But more than Manmohan Singh, leaders from the Congress reacted more to Sonia Gandhi, who spoke next, as she hit out at the Bharati-ya Janata Party (BJP) and said the UPA government had nothing to be ashamed of.“This is an appropriate moment to celebrate,” she said in a charged tone, drawing the first of many rounds of applause from MPs, chief ministers and party veterans. She said that under Manmohan Singh’s leadership, governance was subject to “strict transparency and accountability.“But even as I say this,” she went on, “I cannot hide my deep sense of dis-appointment at the way parliament has been disrupted by the principal opposition party.”She accused the BJP of “obstruction-ist approach” and simultaneously made a “fervent appeal” to the oppo-sition to help pass the Food Security Bill and the Land Acquisition Bill.Besides Congress leaders such as P. Chidambaram, A.K. Antony and Ra-hul Gandhi, the dias was occupied by Sharad Pawar (NCP), Lalu Prasad (RJD), Ram Vilas Pasan (LJP), Fa-rooq Abdullah (NC) and Badruddin Ajmal (AIUDF). Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati, both of whom support the UPA, were absent.

Manmohan Singh asserted that nine years of UPA rule had led to better economic and inclusive growth, im-proved governance and good rela-tions with “a changing and challeng-ing world”.“We have journeyed many miles, though we know we have more miles ahead,” he said in his characteristic style.He admitted that the economy slowed down last year but said it was a temporary phenomenon. He blamed some of it on external fac-tors “over which we have no con-trol”.“Taking a longer term view, we see that India was among the fast-est growing economies of the world with an average growth rate of 8 percent in the last nine years, in-cluding the years of slower growth.”Unfortunately, he said, public de-bate “often focusses less on what has been achieved and more on whatever is still to be done”.Saying good governance includes assurance of safety and security to every citizen specially women, he warned that weaknesses “erode trust and faith in government”. “We can-not, as a people, afford such an out-come.”Manmohan Singh added that the civil society and free press “put pressure for early and decisive ac-tion”, at times leading to “impa-tience and hasty judgement”.He said the UPA government had helped India achieve a key place in international arena and that “we have been able to manage some very difficult challenges” in the country’s immediate neighbourhood.”The central message is that the UPA government is working to re-alise your dream of an economically resurgent and socially just India.”

Shashi Kant Sharma sworn-in as new CAG

New DelhiShashi Kant Sharma, a Bihar cadre Indian Administrative Ser-vice (IAS) officer, was Thursday sworn-in as the new Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the government’s official auditor.Sharma, 61, a former defence sec-retary, was sworn-in by President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony held in Rashtrapati Bhavan.Sharma succeeds Vinod Rai, who demitted office Wednesday on re-tirement. The new CAG will serve till Sep 24, 2017.The swearing-in ceremony was at-tended by Prime Minister Manmo-han Singh, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani, Infor-mation and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari and Congress lead-er Rajiv Shukla, among others.During Rai’s five-and-a-half year tenure, the audit body was virtual-ly involved in confrontations with the government.

Rai drew flak from the government and the rul-ing parties for holding press conferences and interacting with media over audit details.Sharma, who holds a masters in political sci-ence from the Univer-sity of York, has served as secretary in the de-partment of financial services and spent over 10 years in the defence ministry in various ca-pacities.The CAG is appointed for a term of six years or till the incumbent attains the age of 65.Sharma’s appointment comes at a time when the CAG has come un-der sharp attack from the

government for its assessment of Rs.1.76 lakh crore loss in alloca-tion of 2G telecom spectrum.Aam Aadmi Party leader and Su-preme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan flayed Sharma’s appoint-ment as the CAG, terming it ille-gal and unconstitutional.Bhushan’s main contention was that Sharma in the last 10 years held several sensitive positions in the defence ministry that dealt with procurements and his appointment as the CAG would mean a conflict of interest.A public suit has also been filed in the Supreme Court challeng-ing Sharma’s appointment as the CAG.The opposition BJP expressed reservations over Sharma’s ap-pointment, saying there could be a “conflict of interest” as he will be auditing defence deals in which he had a role as defence secretary.

‘Invisible forces’ trying to stall Kerala’s progress: KunhalkuttyThiruvananthapuramKerala Industries and Information Technology Minister P.K. Kunhali-kutty said some invisible forces were trying to stall the state’s progress on all fronts but refused to identify them.“Whenever any project, includ-ing even widening of roads, is an-nounced, there is stiff resistance from certain quarters... The opposition in our state is by and large supportive of most projects,” said Kunhalikutty.“I do not want to spark a controversy by naming these forces. What we can do is to launch an awareness cam-

paign to see that Kerala’s progress in not stalled,” said the minister.Speaking to reporters, he said proj-ects that faced opposition from the so-called invisible forces included the seaplane service which was ready for commissioning May 27.By using small aircraft that land on water bodies, the project aims to pro-vide an additional layer of transpor-tation by offering last-mile connec-tivity to tourist destinations.“Contrary to the fears raised by those who opposed the project, neither the environment nor any activity that is currently on (fishing) will have any

problems,” the minister said.“We assure that development will take place by protecting the environ-ment,” added Kunhalikutty.

Aam Aadmi Party criticises new CAG’s appointmentNew DelhiAam Aadmi Party (AAP) has criticized the appoint-ment of former defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma as the new Comp-troller and Auditor Gen-eral, accusing the United Progressive Alliance gov-ernment of accusing of weakening constitutional institutions.“Government is slowly but continuously appoint-ing persons who are weak and who don’t have spine to watchdog bodies like CAG, CVC (Central Vigi-lance Commission), CIC (Central Information Commission), Election Commission which keep an eye on the government,” party leader and lawyer Prashant Bhushan said.He contended that Sharma’s appoint-ment as CAG rakes up a debate of conflict of interest since he would be entrusted the task of auditing defence

deals between 2003-10 - the time during which he was in the defence ministry.“Interestingly, the whole process of selection of Vinod Rai’s successor took place in complete secrecy. Yet, none of the political parties raised this issue. Why?” he asked. Sharma will succeed Rai, who retires May 22.

JMM rules out pact for 2014 pollsRanchiThe Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) ruled out any pre-poll tie-up in the state assembly and Lok Sabha polls in 2014.“Our party will go alone in Lok sabha and assembly polls,” said Hemant Soren, former deputy chief minister and son of JMM chief Shibu Soren.

He was talking to reporters after the end of a two-day executive commit-tee meeting of the JMM in Bokaro.President’s rule was imposed in the state Jan 18 after the JMM withdrew its support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.The current assembly’s tenure ends in December 2014.

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201310 REGION

21 lawmakers back Chandigarh-born as top US judgeWashingtonAhead of an expected Senate vote on the nomination of Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary Sri-kanth ‘Sri’ Srinivasan to a top US court, 21 lawmakers have penned their support for him.Srinivasan, 46, currently principal deputy solicitor general of the US last week won unanimous approval from the Senate Judiciary Commit-tee for his nomination as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the American capital.“Sri Srinivasan would be an outstand-ing judge for the Court of Appeals,” wrote the lawmakers, including Ami Bera, the lone Indian-American House member, in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.If confirmed by the full Senate, which appears all but certain given unanimous support for him in the judicial panel, Srinivasan, who last August succeeded another Indian American, Neal Kumar Katyal, in his current job would the first South Asian judge on the powerful appeals court, often called the nation’s sec-ond-highest court.“He has worked in the US Solici-

tor General’s office three times - for both Republican and Democratic ad-ministrations - and argued 24 cases before the Supreme Court,” the law-makers wrote.“As members of Congress, we value the importance of having diversity on the court. Representation of In-dian Americans within our judicial system is overdue,” they added.Srinivasan was born in Chandigarh and grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. He received his BA with honours and distinction in 1989 from Stan-

ford University and his JD with dis-tinction in 1995 from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Or-der of the Coif and served as an edi-tor of the Stanford Law Review.He also holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Busi-ness, which he received along with his JD in 1995.He received the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Furthering US National Security in 2003 and the Office of the Secretary of Defence Award for Excellence in 2005.

LeT militant killed in Srinagar, three policemen injuredSrinagarSecurity forces killed a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant in a gunfight in the heart of Jammu and Kashmir capital Srinagar, police said.“Hilal Molvi of LeT was killed in an encounter with police in Narparistan (Fatah Kadal) area of old Srinagar city,” Syed Ashiq Bukhari, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Sri-nagar, told IANS.Three police officials -- one sub in-spector and two constables were in-jured in the gunfight, he said.The shootout started in the early hours of Thursday after police sur-rounded a residential house in the densely populated area on receiving specific information about the mili-tant’s presence there.“The militant started firing from his automatic weapon on our boys after he was asked to surrender.”“The fire was returned, in which Hi-lal Molvi was killed. He belonged to Palhalan (Pattan) town of Baramulla

district and had been active since last four to five years,” the SSP said.The Srinagar district police chief confirmed there was no collateral damage to civilian life or property during the gunfight.The presence of an LeT militant in Srinagar comes at a time when the state government has again raised its demand for partial revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Srinagar city and some other places.AFSPA gives sweeping powers to the army and the paramilitary forces operating in militancy-affected ar-eas, but the local police does not en-joy any immunity under the act.Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has been advocating the partial revoca-tion of the act, maintaining that se-curity responsibilities in cities and towns can now be taken over by the local police with the assistance of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

Mukherjee bats for vocational training, confers honorary degree on KarzaiJalandharPresident Pranab Mukherjee Mon-day called upon universities to lay emphasis on imparting vocational training to youth in the country while pointing out that by 2020, two-third of the workforce in the world would be from India.Addressing a gathering at the third convocation of the Lovely Profes-sional University (LPU) near here, Mukherjee, who conferred an hon-orary degree of the varsity on Af-ghanistan President Hamid Karzai, said that India is adding 1.2 crore workforce each year and it was the universities’ responsibility to convert this manpower into productive hands by imparting them vocational train-ing to enhance their employability.He said that at present only seven percent of the work force is getting skill-development or vocational training.Mukherjee and Karzai arrived at the LPU campus near this Punjab city, 150 km from Chandigarh, Monday afternoon. Karzai, who specially flew in here from Kabul via Chandi-garh, was conferred with a honorary doctorate of social sciences - the first honoris causa degree awarded by the LPU.With nearly 30,000 on-campus stu-dents, the LPU is one of the biggest private universities in the country.Calling upon all universities to set up one centre of excellence each, Mukherjee underlined the need for

inculcating quest for innovation and research for the overall development of the country.Expressing deep concern over the declining moral values in the recent past, the president urged upon the so-ciety to reset its social compass. He said that time had come “for the soci-ety to introspect how we can respect our women and move forward”.Mukherjee said that institutions like LPU are spreading higher education not only to the students of Punjab, but also to a large number of students from other states and neighbouring countries.Greeting the audience in Hindi and Punjabi, Karzai said that India and

Afghanistan had strong ties.“India has shared healthy relations with Afghanistan and has contribut-ed immensely to Afghan youth. India has given over 2,000 scholarships to Afghan students to study in India,” he said.He thanked LPU for conferring the honoris cause degree on him.LPU chancellor Ashok Mittal said that it was a rare occasion that the heads of two countries were present at the same event.Mittal said that Indian private uni-versities can make a significant mark in research and compete with foreign universities like Stanford and Har-vard.

Himachal minister ‘resigns’

ShimlaHimachal Pradesh Transport Minis-ter G.S. Bali submitted his resigna-

tion to senior Congress leaders as he was allegedly unhappy with his portfolio, party sources said. The minister himself refused to comment on the issue.Bali was allegedly upset with the style of functioning of the five-month-old Virbhadra Singh cabinet, they said, adding that Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was in Delhi.“No comment. I will talk to the me-dia on the issue tomorrow,” Bali told.The Chief Minister’s Office refused to say anything on the issue. “We

have no information,” an official said.Party sources said Bali submitted his resignation to Congress leaders Ahmad Patel and the state’s party in-charge Birender Chaudhary for con-sideration and forwarding to Con-gress president Sonia Gandhi.“Bali was unhappy with the portfo-lios allocated to him,” a party leader said.Besides transport, Bali holds civil supplies and technical education portfolios.

Japan to help raise institute of design in HaryanaChandigarhThe country’s second National Insti-tute of Design will come up in Hary-ana’s Kurukshetra district and Japan will provide technological assistance for the same, a min-ister said.Commerce and Industry Minis-ter Anand Sharma Wednesday laid the foundation stone of the NID to be set up in Urmi village of Kuruk-shetra district, 130 km from here. The first NID was set up in Ahmedabad in 1961.Sharma said that he had been to Ja-pan recently where he urged Japan to collaborate in the setting up of the NID in Kurukshetra. “It is a matter of happiness that Japan would provide technological assis-

tance to this institute,” he said while addressing the gathering at the foun-dation stone laying function. He said that in view of its national impor-tance, the NID has been declared as

a centre of excellence.Spread in over 20 acres, the new NID will have an investment of over Rs.160 crore. It will of-fer under-graduate and post-graduate courses to over 500 students.“This institute would provide world class design education and training to the profes-sionals in the field of animation, films, exhi-

bitions, graphics, products, Ceramic and Glass, lifestyle and furniture and interior design. The concerned de-partments of the ministry have been directed to complete all the relevant formalities so as to set up this insti-tute in a record time,” Sharma said.

Punjab orders probe into ‘vulgar’ school booksChandigarhThe Punjab government has initiated a probe into the distribution of text books containing allegedly vulgar and irrelevant content in government schools, a minister said .Bathinda District Education Officer Surjit Singh Khuram was put under suspension for laxity in this connec-tion.Punjab Education Minister S.S. Ma-luka inspected the books supplied to the schools in the state which have sparked a controversy due to the alleged vulgar content. He was ac-companied by officers of the school education department.Maluka said that the principal secre-tary of school education was asked to probe how the books with vulgar content were passed by education department.“The education minister found that the books dispatched to schools un-der the inspection of Director Gen-eral School Education Kahan Singh Pannu are of sub-standard quality having vulgar content, which may cause adverse effect on the minds of the children. He found that 70 per-

cent of the books were sub-standard and totally irrelevant,” said a spokes-man of the education department.Maluka directed the language de-partment to take utmost care in the future before finalising books for school students.“A show cause notice has been is-sued to the director language depart-ment and a clarification has also been sought within 15 days,” the spokes-man said. “Principal secretary, school educa-tion, has been deputed to inquire into the matter. An explanation has also been called from all the officers who were party to the decision of dis-patching these books,” the spokes-man said.

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 11CAMPUS

MOST MOTHERS PERFORMING ARTI TOGETHER

Jyoti R. Chindak (born January 17, 1969) of Belgaum, Karnataka, organized an event in which 300 mothers did aarti (a Hindu ritual) together, on May 20, 2013, at Shivganga Roller Skating club, Belgaum, Karnataka.

MOST HANDMADE ARTI PLATES ARRANGED IN A SINGLE LINE

Jyoti R. Chindak (born January 17, 1969) from Belgaum, Karnataka, had prepared 311 arti plates and arranged them altogether in a single line, on May 20, 2013, at Shivganga Roller Skating club, Belgaum, Karnataka.

MASS BIBLE READING

Gangte Christian Gospel Centenary Committee, Manipur, organized a mass bible reading event in which 7047 par-ticipants from Gangte tribe of Manipur, read the book of Romans (chapter 1-16) from the holy Bible continuously, in standing position, starting at 1:26 pm and concluding at 2:53 pm on Decem-ber 16, 2012 for a total duration of 1 hour and 27 minutes at Chiengkonpang, Churachandpur, Manipur.

BIGGEST PHOTO CAKE

Cake Point Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, Tamil Nadu, baked a photo cake,with a height 8 feet and width 12 feet at the closing ceremony of Tamil Nadu Book of Re-cords, on April 14, 2013, at the MGM resort, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

The records given below are verified by India Book of Re-cords as National Records, and has been published in India Book of Records 2013.All the photographs are copyright of India Book of Records.

New DelhiOnline fashion and lifestyle shopping portal Yebhi.com has launched 30 virtual stores across outlets of a cafe chain in two cities - Delhi and Bangalore.The portal has tied up with Cafe Coffee Day for the vir-tual stores, through which customers can view, choose and buy from a large range of products like apparel, shoes, accessories, mobiles and home products.The idea is to make shopping really simple, quick and easy.“We are always looking to make the shopping experi-ence easier and more convenient for our customers and the introduction of the virtual store is a great achieve-ment,” Manmohan Agarwal, founder and CEO, Yebhi.com, said.The virtual stores feature pictures of mer-chandise from the Yebhi.com website, with each having a corresponding QR or NFC Code - two latest technolo-gies. Customers can select any item by scanning the QR code or tapping on the NFC code via their smartphone and they will be taken to the Yebhi.com website, where they can buy the item which will then be delivered to their doorstep.What’s more? You can get an instant discount of Rs.200 if you buy from the virtual store.The initiative targets college-goers and working profes-sionals.“Today, Indians living in big metros are very busy and this initiative offers them an opportunity to shop while they chill. We settled on outlets near corporates and youth hangouts as customers who come here have time on their hands and money to shop,” said Nikhil Rungta, chief business officer, Yebhi.com.

Shopping Was Never So Easy Before

Finally, India gets its first defence varsityGurgaonThe prime minister, who laid the foundation stone of Indian National Defence University (INDU) at Binola village in Gurgaon district, said India faces the entire spectrum of security challenges as it lies in a dif-ficult neighbourhood.Binola is located on the na-tional highway to Jaipur. About 200 acres of land for the university was acquired by the Haryana government in Binola, Bilaspur villages and handed over to the De-fence Ministry in April.The prime minister said In-dia had today unprecedented access to high technology, capital and partnerships and had also sought to assume responsibility for stability in the Indian Ocean region.The prime minister said the university was meant to ensure that the country, the government and the armed forces benefit from the best military advise that is available.He said the students at the university would need to map the contours of

foreign conflicts and understand the relationship between defence and fi-nance, between external and internal

security and between defence and di-plomacy.The university, which would inject much-needed strategic culture in gov-ernance, is expected to adequately prepare national security leaders to look holistically at security chal-lenges and frame policies based on informed research.The function was attended among

others, by central ministers Salman Khurshid and Selja, National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, Indian

Army chief Gen. Bikram Singh, In-dian Navy chief Admiral D. K. Joshi, Haryana Governor Jagannath Pahadia and Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.The university, which was first moot-ed over four decades ago, will be in-stituted by an act of parliament with the defence minister as itschancellor.The university will be headed by a

president, who would be a three-star serving general or an equivalent offi-cer from the other two services.

Sixty-six percent of the stu-dents would be from the armed forces and 33 percent students would be drawn from among civilians, police and other government agen-cies.The present institutes of armed forces, including the National Defence College (NDC) in New Delhi, the De-fence Services Staff College (DSSC) Wellington, College of Defence Management (CDM) Secunderabad and the National Defence Acad-emy (NDA) Khadakwasla are

proposed to be brought under INDU’s ambit.The university’s constituent colleges would include the National College of Defence Studies (NCDS), Indian Institute of Defence Technology (IIDT), Indian Institute of Defence Management (IIDM) and Defence In-stitute of Distance & Open Learning (DIDOL).

Ye Lamhe

Ye Baatein

We believe that the years spent in college are the best, to be cherished all our lives

Be Ready for your turn

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CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201312 COVER STORY

IPLPressure mounts on Srinivasan to resign, Gurunath arrestedHyderabad/Mumbai/New DelhiThe clamour for Indian cricket board president Narayanswamy Srinivasan’s resignation got louder after his son-in-law Gurunath Mei-yappan, Chennai Super Kings chief executive, Friday was interrogated by Mumbai police in the IPL spot fixing scandal and later arrested.Chennai Super Kings, however, sought to distance itself from Mei-yappan, whose name cropped up during questioning of Bollywood actor Vindu Dara Singh Randhawa, the franchise saying Meiyappan was just an honorary member of the management committee.Vindu Dara Singh’s call records showed that he was in constant touch with the BCCI president’s son-in-law. Vindu was often seen at the VIP boxes, as an invitee of Meiyappan, during Super Kings matches in the IPL.Meiyappan, who was untraceable for the past two days, was spotted at Srinivasan’s farmhouse in the hill station of Kodaikanal, some 500 km from Chennai. He left for Mumbai by a chartered flight from Madurai and was met there by the Crime Branch officials, who whisked him away to their south Mumbai office for questioning.Questioned for over three hours, Meiyappan was confronted with the evidence against him and arrested around midnight. He is likely to be produced before a court Saturday.Srinivasan remained in the line of fire with Sahara Group chief Sub-rata Roy and former International Cricket Council (ICC) and BCCI president Sharad Pawar’s party

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) calling for his resignation as BCCI chief on moral grounds, though later the party seemed to distance itself from the demand made by a party spokesman.Sources in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said Srini-vasan, who was aspiring to be the next ICC president, was likely to step down if Mumbai police arrest-ed Meiyappan, who has been ac-cused of having links with bookies.Among other developments Friday, a court granted Mumbai police cus-tody of Vindu till May 28 besides of two others - hawala operator Alpesh Taneja and a bookie, Prem Taneja.The series of events led India Ce-ments, which owns the Super Kings, to issue a statement that Gurunath was not the team CEO and rather an honorary member of team manage-ment. However, Gurunath has intro-duced himself as Super Kings team principal on his Twitter account.In a statement issued, India Cements’ executive director T.S.Raghupathy said: “India Cements clarifies that Mr. Gurunath Meiyappan is neither the Owner, nor CEO/Team Prin-cipal of Chennai Super Kings. Mr. Gurunath is only one of the Mem-bers (Honorary) of the Management Team of Chennai Super Kings.”That clarification did not cut ice with Sharad Pawar’s party NCP, which initially demanded that Srini-vasan quit immediately “if he has any sense of morality and public ac-countability”.Sahara chief Subrata Roy fired an-other salvo, saying he would imme-diately stop sponsoring the Indian

team if Srinivasan continues to be the president of the BCCI. Roy said the BCCI’s style of functioning “is disgusting, irritating and frustrat-ing”.“Person like Srinivasan does not know how to run cricket. Sahara will not sponsor Team India till N. Srinivasan stays as its chief,” Roy was quoted as saying by a TV chan-nel.Following the dispute with the BCCI over franchise fee, which it wanted to be lowered, Sahara Group has already pulled out its Pune War-riors India franchise from the Indian Premier League, and decided not to sponsor Team India after the con-tract ends in December 2013.Earlier Friday, Delhi Police arrested

a bookie from the Hyderabad air-port. “One of the arrested bookies, Chandresh Patel, revealed Ahya’s name. We will be bringing him to Delhi,” a Delhi Police official said. Ahya, based in Mumbai, was arrest-ed by Delhi Police at the Rajiv Gan-dhi International Airport in Hyder-abad when he was about to board a flight to Dubai, police sources said. He had reached Hyderabad from Mumbai by road and was trying to flee the country.The IPL scam, which seems to be getting bigger by the day, came to light when Rajasthan Royals crick-eters S. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan were arrested on spot fixing charges last Wednes-day.

Spot fixing: Five accused sent to judicial custody

Another mobile phone recovered from Sreesanth’s female friend

New DelhiA Delhi court sent five spot fixing scam accused, including two former cricketers, to judicial custody till June 4.Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma sent to judi-cial custody three bookies -- Kiran Dole, Sunil Bhatia and Ramakant Aggarwal -- and two players - Man-ish Guddewar, a former Ranji player

New DelhiTainted cricketer S. Sreesanth’s in-terrogation led Delhi Police to an-other mobile phone which he had gifted to a female friend from the money he earned from spot fixing in this season’s Indian Premier League (IPL) matches, said a police official Friday.A Blackberry Bold mobile phone worth Rs.9,000 was recovered Fri-day from the woman’s house in Jai-pur, police said.Sreesanth came in contact with the woman this year after he was select-ed to play for IPL team Rajasthan Royals for this season.“This female friend is the second girl to whom Sreesanth gifted a mobile phone from the money he earned from spot fixing,” said the official.Before the recovery of the Black-berry Bold mobile phone, Delhi Po-lice had recovered a Blackberry Z10 mobile phone priced at Rs.40,000 from his girlfriend’s house in Jaipur Monday evening.The cricketer also went on a shop-ping spree with the money he earned from spot fixing, buying apparel worth Rs.1.95 lakh for himself.He wanted to quickly dispose of the cash which he got after fixing, said the official.

of Vidarbha, and Amit Kumar Singh, a former IPL player associated with the Rajasthan Royals franchise.The judge also pulled up Delhi Po-lice for misleading and hiding infor-mation from the court saying it was trying to seek extension of police custody of two (Dole and Bhatia) of the five accused without giving any reasonable grounds.

Caught & Bowled

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 13COVER STORY

IPL scam: Vindu, two others sent to police custody till May 28MumbaiA court Friday granted police the custody of Bollywood actor Vindu Dara Singh Randhawa and two others, allegedly involved in the IPL spot-fixing scam, till May 28.Vindu, along with hawala operator Alpesh Taneja and a bookie, Prem Taneja, were arrested by Mumbai police here last Tuesday (May 21).The trio was presented in Mag-istrate M. Salim’s court Friday afternoon after their three-day re-mand ended.Shortly after their arrest, Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Hi-manshu Roy had said that the trio is linked to the bookies already arrested by the Mumbai police and those who are wanted and ab-sconding. Police also recovered cash amounting to Rs.12.80 mil-lion from Taneja’s residence.Last week, Mumbai police nabbed six bookies - Ramesh Vyas, Pan-durang Kadam, Pravin Bera, Pan-kaj Shah, Ashok Vyas and Neeraj - in the same case.Police are now investigating whether any of the Pakistanis who were in touch with these bookies had links with mafia or terror out-fits.Besides the nine arrests so far, Mumbai police are on the lookout for two bookies from New Delhi, four bookies from Jaipur, two from Gujarat and one from Pune, besides others who work under different aliases.On May 16, Mumbai police raided the hotel rooms occupied by crick-eter S. Sreesanth and his relative-cum-bookie Jiju Janardhan, both of whom were nabbed a day earli-er by the New Delhi police, along with his Rajasthan Royals co-players Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan, for the IPL-6 spot-fixing scam.

Pride in Prejudice

Another bookie arrested for IPL spot fixing Hyderabad/New DelhiAnother bookie was arrested Friday in the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing scandal from Hyder-abad, Delhi Police sources said.Mohammad Ahya was arrested at the Hyderabad airport while trying to flee to Dubai, the sources said.“One of the arrested bookies, Chan-dresh Patel, revealed Ahya’s name. We will be bringing him to Delhi,” a Delhi Police official said. This takes the number of arrests in the IPL spot fixing case to 19.Ahya, based in Mumbai, was ar-rested by Delhi Police at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on the city’s outskirts when he was about to board a flight to Dubai, police

sources said.He had reached Hyderabad from Mumbai by road and was trying to flee the country. Sources said that a team of Delhi Police had taken him to the national capital.Ahya started his career as a spot boy on film sets in 1984 in Mumbai, an official said.“He was a conduit between book-ies and fixers for this season’s IPL matches,” the officer added. “Ahya contacted several players for fix-ing.”Rajasthan Royals’ cricketers S. Sreesanth and two others and actor Vindu Dara Singh are among those arrested on allegations of spot fix-ing in cricket.

Caught & Bowled

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201314 CELEB

Salman Khan is like Tom cruise of India: Lauren Gottlieb

Mumbai If international dancer-actress Lau-ren Gottlieb hopes to be seen in an action film soon a la Hollywood ac-tress Angelina Jolie, she also wants to team up with Bollywood super-star Salman Khan.“I am looking to stretch myself. To come across the world and take projects in different languages is a big challenge. I want to make sure that I am growing. I have been in India for five months and it has taught me so much. Project-wise, I want to take something which stretches me. I would love to be the Angelina Jolie of India,” Lauren told IANS.In terms of projects, if she is look-ing for action-based films, she also hopes to work with Hindi film su-perstar Salman.“I would want to be with Salman Khan. He is like the Tom cruise of India... I am waiting to see what happens,” she said.Meanwhile, she has put her dancing shoes on to participate in “Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa” and said that reality shows provide a great platform for artists like her.“’Jhalak...’ came at a perfect time. I am excited to see where this goes. I saw how ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ pushed my career and got Bollywood looking at me. I know what this platform (reality shows) can do for you,” she said.The actress revealed that “I have got a couple of offers for films, but I can’t speak about it now”.

Ankita Lokhande back in ‘Pavitra Rishta’, co-stars happyMumbaiActress Ankita Lokhande, who played Archana in popular show “Pavitra Rishta”, is returning to the show. Her co-stars in the show Hiten Tejwani and Usha Nadkarni, who play her husband and mother-in-law, respectively, are happy about it.Ankita had reportedly left the show midway when she was asked to play grandmother in it, but she was not comfortable with it. There was also news that actress Gautami Kapoor was going to replace her as Archana, but now Ankita is back for good.When asked what would have been his reaction had some new ‘Archana’ joined the show, Hiten said: “When-ever a new artist comes, it takes him and others a bit of time to adjust, to set his chemistry right with every-one, to know what is his nature, how he behaves.”“So, definitely it takes a bit of time to adjust but at the end everything sets well,” added Hiten here on the set of the show.Veteran actress Usha was nonchalant

about it and said: “I don’t care about it. I do my work sincerely and play my character sincerely. It does not matter who is there in front of me (who is working with me), I do my

work with sincerity.”The current track of the show shows Archana in coma, and how doctors are trying their best to bring her out of it.

Paris Hilton flaunts Indian designers’ creation

New DelhiSocialite Paris Hilton wore Indian designer duo Falguni and Shane Pea-cock’s creation at the amFar (The American Foundation for AIDS Re-search) Cinema Against AIDS Gala in Cannes.Paris was spotted wearing a customised baby pink coloured full-length gown with feather embellishments at the bot-tom.

“Paris has always loved our clothes and we have worked with her in the past. This is one of our signature styled gowns and she is looking gorgeous,” the designer duo said in a joint state-ment.Falguni and Shane Peacock have earlier designed for celebrities like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Fergie, Nicole Scherzinger, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian.

Sherlyn Chopra grooves in Indian attire at Cannes

MumbaiActress Sherlyn Chopra grabbed the paparazzi’s attention by grooving at the 66th Cannes International Film Festival wearing a white and gold In-dian lehenga choli. She is there to pro-mote her movie “Kamasutra 3D” with the team.

The film’s director Rupesh Paul told how Sherlyn was “very excited and she grooved for the paparazzi without any hesitation”.“It was the midnight screening of an Italian movie. Sherlyn was in a lehen-ga choli and the French media asked Sherlyn to pose. When the paparazzi encouraged her, she started dancing to my surprise,” said Paul.“It was one of the choreographed num-bers, which we trained her to shoot for ‘Kamasutra 3D’,” he added.Sherlyn, who last year became the first Indian actress to pose for adult film magazine Playboy, flaunted south Indi-an-style jewellery with the outfit, and donned minimal makeup.This was her second time at the red carpet this year.The film’s team is there since May 15, when the fest took off, to unveil the second trailer of their film.Before leaving for Cannes, Paul had told that they will also be revealing the name of the Hollywood actress who will be the lead in the movie’s sequel “Kamasutra 4D”, at the fest.

Kharar(Mohali): The management of Omega city township has challenged that anybody who visits their sites and finds any deficiency in the sample flat at the site or any deficiency in quality of construction will be awarded a discount of Rs. 25000 on a 2BHK Flat. This beautiful township is being developed by Omega city at a distance of just 1km from the bus stand Kharar on the Chandigarh Ludhiana Main Highway. Omega city offers a 3 BHK Flat at a price of Rs 34.50 Lakhs, a 2 BHK Flat at Rs 26 Lakh , a 2 Bedroom set Flat at Rs 14.75 Lakhs and a single bed studio Flat at Rs 8.25 Lakhs. These prices are most competitive in the market

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CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201314 CELEB

Salman Khan is like Tom cruise of India: Lauren Gottlieb

Mumbai If international dancer-actress Lau-ren Gottlieb hopes to be seen in an action film soon a la Hollywood ac-tress Angelina Jolie, she also wants to team up with Bollywood super-star Salman Khan.“I am looking to stretch myself. To come across the world and take projects in different languages is a big challenge. I want to make sure that I am growing. I have been in India for five months and it has taught me so much. Project-wise, I want to take something which stretches me. I would love to be the Angelina Jolie of India,” Lauren told IANS.In terms of projects, if she is look-ing for action-based films, she also hopes to work with Hindi film su-perstar Salman.“I would want to be with Salman Khan. He is like the Tom cruise of India... I am waiting to see what happens,” she said.Meanwhile, she has put her dancing shoes on to participate in “Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa” and said that reality shows provide a great platform for artists like her.“’Jhalak...’ came at a perfect time. I am excited to see where this goes. I saw how ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ pushed my career and got Bollywood looking at me. I know what this platform (reality shows) can do for you,” she said.The actress revealed that “I have got a couple of offers for films, but I can’t speak about it now”.

Ankita Lokhande back in ‘Pavitra Rishta’, co-stars happyMumbaiActress Ankita Lokhande, who played Archana in popular show “Pavitra Rishta”, is returning to the show. Her co-stars in the show Hiten Tejwani and Usha Nadkarni, who play her husband and mother-in-law, respectively, are happy about it.Ankita had reportedly left the show midway when she was asked to play grandmother in it, but she was not comfortable with it. There was also news that actress Gautami Kapoor was going to replace her as Archana, but now Ankita is back for good.When asked what would have been his reaction had some new ‘Archana’ joined the show, Hiten said: “When-ever a new artist comes, it takes him and others a bit of time to adjust, to set his chemistry right with every-one, to know what is his nature, how he behaves.”“So, definitely it takes a bit of time to adjust but at the end everything sets well,” added Hiten here on the set of the show.Veteran actress Usha was nonchalant

about it and said: “I don’t care about it. I do my work sincerely and play my character sincerely. It does not matter who is there in front of me (who is working with me), I do my

work with sincerity.”The current track of the show shows Archana in coma, and how doctors are trying their best to bring her out of it.

Paris Hilton flaunts Indian designers’ creation

New DelhiSocialite Paris Hilton wore Indian designer duo Falguni and Shane Pea-cock’s creation at the amFar (The American Foundation for AIDS Re-search) Cinema Against AIDS Gala in Cannes.Paris was spotted wearing a customised baby pink coloured full-length gown with feather embellishments at the bot-tom.

“Paris has always loved our clothes and we have worked with her in the past. This is one of our signature styled gowns and she is looking gorgeous,” the designer duo said in a joint state-ment.Falguni and Shane Peacock have earlier designed for celebrities like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Fergie, Nicole Scherzinger, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian.

Sherlyn Chopra grooves in Indian attire at Cannes

MumbaiActress Sherlyn Chopra grabbed the paparazzi’s attention by grooving at the 66th Cannes International Film Festival wearing a white and gold In-dian lehenga choli. She is there to pro-mote her movie “Kamasutra 3D” with the team.

The film’s director Rupesh Paul told how Sherlyn was “very excited and she grooved for the paparazzi without any hesitation”.“It was the midnight screening of an Italian movie. Sherlyn was in a lehen-ga choli and the French media asked Sherlyn to pose. When the paparazzi encouraged her, she started dancing to my surprise,” said Paul.“It was one of the choreographed num-bers, which we trained her to shoot for ‘Kamasutra 3D’,” he added.Sherlyn, who last year became the first Indian actress to pose for adult film magazine Playboy, flaunted south Indi-an-style jewellery with the outfit, and donned minimal makeup.This was her second time at the red carpet this year.The film’s team is there since May 15, when the fest took off, to unveil the second trailer of their film.Before leaving for Cannes, Paul had told that they will also be revealing the name of the Hollywood actress who will be the lead in the movie’s sequel “Kamasutra 4D”, at the fest.

Kharar(Mohali): The management of Omega city township has challenged that anybody who visits their sites and finds any deficiency in the sample flat at the site or any deficiency in quality of construction will be awarded a discount of Rs. 25000 on a 2BHK Flat. This beautiful township is being developed by Omega city at a distance of just 1km from the bus stand Kharar on the Chandigarh Ludhiana Main Highway. Omega city offers a 3 BHK Flat at a price of Rs 34.50 Lakhs, a 2 BHK Flat at Rs 26 Lakh , a 2 Bedroom set Flat at Rs 14.75 Lakhs and a single bed studio Flat at Rs 8.25 Lakhs. These prices are most competitive in the market

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Possession Within 1 Year (Construction Linked Payment Plan)

Pay Only 20%Balance in InstallmentsLoan From All Leading Banks.

Amrit Pal Singh (MD)

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CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 15CELEB

Shilpa Shukla’s father encouraged her to go bold in ‘B.A. Pass’MumbaiActress Shilpa Shukla, who has shot several bold scenes for “B.A. Pass”, says she was skeptical before signing the movie but her father encouraged her to go for it.“I was skeptical before going ahead with ‘B.A. Pass’ as it was an ex-tremely bold role. As an actor, I didn’t know how it’s going to be and at the back of my mind, I wanted to do this film. So, I asked my father about it, and he said, ‘You will have to go bold and take the risk’,” Shilpa told.“This was his last advice that I re-member. This film is dedicated to my father. He is not aware of the film in-dustry, but he said you cannot excel without taking risks,” she added.Shilpa lost her father N.K. Shukla in March 2012.In “B.A. Pass”, Shilpa plays a rich, married older woman who plays a sex guru to a young boy and teaches him the art of loveaking. It is her boldest role so far. The actress, who featured in “Chak De! India”, says her mother has watched the film and that she loved it.“My father couldn’t see the film, but my mother saw it and she loved it. As a mother she was concerned and she advised me to deal with things intel-ligently. It’s a path-breaking film,” said Shilpa. Based on Mohan Sikka’s short story “The Railway Aunty”, the movie has been screened at interna-tional film festivals.Directed by Ajay Bahl, “B.A. Pass”, releasing June 21, also features actor Shadab Kamal.

Rishi-Ranbir likely to do ‘Awara’ remake

Mumbai Rishi Kapoor and his actor son Ran-bir are getting ready to step into the former’s grandfather Prithiviraj Ka-poor and father Raj Kapoor’s roles in an “Awara” remake.And with the remake of “Awara”, the Kapoors’ illustrious home banner RK Films would be grandly revived.Before that Rishi and his talented wife Neetu would be seen on the screen for the first time with their son Ranbir in Abhinav Kashyap’s “Besharam”.Rishi let out the big secret plan for the great histrionic plan with Ranbir and said: “’Besharam’ was the test-ing ground for the two of us together on the screen. We would now like to do something deeper. A remake of my father’s ‘Awara’ is on our minds. And in all likelihood, we will be do-ing it for our banner RK Films.”Rishi won’t direct the neo-”Awara”. “No thanks. Direction is a thankless job. I don’t want to get into that space at all,” said Rishi, who went behind the camera for “Aa Ab Laut chalen”. “I am very comfortable and happy as an actor. I just want to act. I am at peace with myself. I don’t have to think about anything except acting. I am having a ball. I’ve received loads of messages for my performance in ‘Aurangzeb’. I can’t be happier. The best most touching message came from Mrs Pam Chopra. I’ll treasure

it forever,” said the 60-year-old.As far as “Besharam” is concerned, one now hears that Rishi-Neetu’s roles are being broadened so that the audiences don’t feel cheated by the playing-time featuring Ranbir with his parents.Said Rishi: “Both Neetu and I en-joyed working with Ranbir thor-oughly. I had fun working with my wife and son. But I still feel there should be more of Neetu and I in ‘Besharam’. My only grouse in this otherwise-enjoyable experience was the length of our roles and Ranbir knows it. So they’re trying to expand our roles. Neetu and I play cops. Our characters are seen off and on.”“The director is trying to increase Neetu and my roles. Of course, Ran-bir and I have scenes together in ‘Besharam’, including the climax of the plot. But they’re trying to create scenes where all three of us can be together,” said Rishi who gave hits like “Khel Khel Mein” and “Kabhi Kabhie” with Neetu.Rishi says his earlier misgivings that Ranbir may be uncomfortable shar-ing screen-space with him, were completely unfounded. “’Yeh aaj kal ke bachcha nahin baap hain’. In any case, ‘Besharam’ is not a film that requires great histrionics from either of us. It’s light, bubbly and frothy and a little dramatic,” he said.

Sports was clean during father’s time: Deepika PadukoneMumbaiBollywood actress Deepika Padu-kone, daughter of badminton icon Prakash Padukone, says sports was pure and clean during her father’s time. She rues how malpractices such as spot-fixing can give any sport a bad name.Following news of actor Vindu Dara Singh’s association in the re-cent spot-fixing scandal of the Indi-an Premier League (IPL), Deepika says it is sad how because of a few peple, several others come in the ambit of doubt.“It gives a bad name to the sport.

It is unfair just because of a few people following this malpractice, you start doubting everybody else. As a country if you want to shine or if you want to be on the same level economically or otherwise (with others), I think it’s important that sports people in our country do really well and this (spot-fixing) is not really helping that,” Deepika told reporters at an event.“It’s sad. I have grown up in a gen-eration where I have seen my fa-ther (play), and sport at that time was so pure and clean. So, to see it go down this route is very disap-

pointing,” she added.Calling the spot-fixing scan-dal “shameful”, Deepika’s “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani” co-star Ranbir Kapoor said: “IPL has be-come such a great entertaining platform for the world right now and when such things crop up - like people playing dirty, it’s unfortu-nate.”“There is no justification to it and I hope people who are concerned in this mischief should be punished. It is not fair to the people who are playing the sport with the right in-tention,” he added.

I live for Jolie, kids: Brad PittLos AngelesBrad Pitt says he was wasting his life on drugs before he met Angelina Jo-lie. The actor admits he now lives for his partner and their six children.“For a long time I thought I did too much damage - drug damage. I was a bit of a drifter and wanted to see things. But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportu-nity. This was about a decade ago. It was an epiphany - a decision not to squander my opportunities,” thesun.co.uk quoted Pitt as saying.“I have a handful of close friends and I have my family - and I haven’t known life to be any happier,” said Pitt.The actor also said he loves the may-hem that comes with having a large family. “I always thought that if I wanted to do a family, I wanted to do it big. I wanted there to be chaos in the house. There’s constant chatter in

our house, whether it’s giggling or screaming or crying or banging. I love it,” he added.

Heather Graham in no hurry to marryLos AngelesActress Heather Graham says she is in no hurry to walk the aisle because she wants to take her time to make the right choice about her life partner.The 43-year-old has dated celebri-ties like Adam Ant, James Wood and Stephen Hopkins in the past, and she does not wish to get married in haste, reports thesun.co.uk.“I want to make the right choice. I feel I have a happy, good life, so someone would have to make my life better,” Graham said. Her independence is a big asset for her.“We’re not economically dependent on men. We’re free. You can choose to be with someone or to be on your own and this is great,” she added.The actress will soon be seen in “The Hangover Part III”, which is the third franchise of “The Hangover” series.The latest movie is set to hit Indian screens May 31.

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201316 LEISURE

Panchang in Brief: Sun, Venus Mercury, Jupiter and Mars in Taurus, Moon in Scorpio, Ketu in Aries, Sani and Rahu in Libra. Nakshatra is Jyestha.

W E E K L Y H O R O S C O P E

Some mental strain in the beginning of week, which will ease as the week goes on. Finan-cial situation will im-prove and you might gain from more than one source. People in

authority will be supportive. Sun, Ju-piter and Venus and Mercury in your second house will provide all sorts of comforts. Remedies for Ketu and Rahu is suggested.

Avoid hastiness. Be cool while signing any new business deal and read the docu-ment carefully. Gain from inheritance is seen. Blocked mon-ey can be obtained

this week. Health will also improve, but overall mental strain is seen. Do not let emotions catch you. Be practi-cal. Do not eat outside. Remedies of Rahu and Ketu is suggested.

People in job can expect a good week. Rise in status is seen. Health of mother can cause worry. Busi-ness will be average. Some expenses on property cannot be ruled out. Gain from

speculation from stock market is indi-cated. People in teaching and beauty profession can expect good week. Worshiping of Sun and Remedies for Sani and Ketu is suggested.

Gain from business and property is seen. Overall happiness will prevail throughout this week. A visit to a holy place or a foreign jour-ney is on the cards. En-emies will be defeated.

Debt will decrease. People in hos-pitality field will do well this week. Your siblings can be rude towards you. Keep your calm. Remedy for Sani and Rahu is indicated.

R e l i g i o u s n e s s , Good health, good finances, and good business. Minor mental strain. Peo-ple in art and hospi-tality will have good week. Gain from

speculation. Children will bring in good news. You siblings will be happy this week. Beware of hidden enemies. Avoid litigation at all cost. Remedy for Ketu is suggested.

All good things are indi-cated this week i.e. good health, good business, and good income. En-emies will be defeated. Gain in litigation is seen. Your business and business partners will

flourish. If single, period of marriage. Success from Government and higher authorities is also seen. Relations with spouse will improve. Remedy for Sani and Rahu is suggested.

Though week starts with low income and some men-tal anxiety, but as the week goes by things will im-prove in every field. You income will risk, friends will be supportive. For-eign contacts and journey will be gainful. If single,

marriage proposal is on the cards. Do not let negativity surround you. A pil-grimage cannot be ruled out. Remedies for Sani and Rahu is suggested.

Set back in love affair can sadden your mood. But overall a good week with good health, good income. Be careful of your belongings as there is fear of stealing or loss indicated. Enhance-ment in education field

is also seen. Medical professionals can expect good week. Communication will yield the best possible results. Have less sugar. Strengthening of Jupiter and Rem-edies for Ketu is suggested.

ARIESMar 21-Apr 19

LEOJul 23 - Aug. 22 VIRGO

Aug. 23 - Sep 22TAURUSApr 20 - May 20

Finance may take a back seat. Avoid speculation. You might have a breakup in love affairs. For-eign contacts will be very beneficial. Ex-penses will be high.

Minor stomach upset is seen. Busi-ness will be average. Do not blind trust anyone. Strengthening of Jupi-ter and Mercury is suggested.

Political persons will be helpful this week in your undertakings. Some unexpected gains can cheer your mood. Things will be going your way from 1st June on-wards. Everything

you had been desiring till now will be achieved in the year beginning from June 1st. Gambling and liquor is dangerous for you. Strengthening of Jupiter will ward off all negativity.

You will be tempted to gamble and may lose your money. Relation with opposite sex will be average. Friends will be very supportive. A wish can come true. Income will improve and status will rise.

Some delay in property related matter can cause mental anxiety. People in gov-ernment service may expect a very good week. Health will be average. Remedies for Rahu and Ketu is suggested.

Success in specula-tion, love affairs, and business is seen. Overall a very good week, so make the most out of it. People in politics can expect a good week. Income

will be high. Medico professional can expect a very good week. Property relat-ed matter will need your attention. Trans-fer in job cannot be ruled out. Remedies for Ketu and Rahu is suggested.

GEMINIMay 21 - Jun 20

CANCERJun 21 - Jul 22

LIBRASep 23 - Oct 22

SCORPIOOct 23 - Nov 21

SAGITTARIUSNov 22 - Dec 21

CAPRICORNDec 22 - Jan 19

AQUARIUSJan 20 - Feb. 18

PISCESFeb 19 - Mar 20

V. Kumar (Scientific Horoscope Consultant) You can consult him with Appointment on: 9855150789; 9592095234

Sudoku Solution 19 May, 2013

Sudoku 26 MAY, 2013

DOWN1. And2. Appearance3. Headliner4. For5. Mouth part6. Highly skilled7. Roman fiddler8. Significant times9. Desire for food10. Espionage org.11. Poetic twilight16. Fatherly20. Florida city22. Lightly cooked23. Keats poems25. Finished26. Sassy27. Reach across28. Mideast bread29. Unlocked again30. No ifs, _____, or buts31. Stagger37. Possessed39. Slant40. Mythical giant42. Take apart43. Read rapidly44. Casino game45. Toddler46. Wonder48. ______wing and a prayer 49. Managed

ACROSS1. Capone and Roker 4. 747 , e.g.9. Air hero12. Batch13. Passenger14. Bakery offering15. Daytime drama ( 2 wds.)17. Frying _________18. Southern veggie19. Sheriff’s helpers21. Horse’s gait24. Above27. Butter or jam30. Reach a destination32. Fashion’s __________ Cardin33. Less messy34. Repents35. Gobi, for one36. Wine valley37. Norwegian capital38. Macaroni shape41. Elephant feature45. Hosiery shade47. Lack of knowledge50. Have debts51. Fight site52. Rather or Aykroyd53. Danson or Koppel54. Family car55. Lennon’s lady

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15 16 17

18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

32 33

24 35

36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52

53 54 55

Crossword Solution 19 May, 2013

1F

2D

3R

4P

5E

6P

7L

8A

9S

10S

11O

12R O E

13A R T

14A L L O W

15A L I

16T R A

17N S P O S E

18T E N

19N E S S E E

20p O D

21D E N

22A R

23E

24S

25W E E T

26E

27S T

28A

29D

30A

31M

32S H E D

33D I E

34S I L O

35W O R E

36I R R

37I T A T E

38D

39A B

40N E G

41A

42H

43A

44C L

45A

46S S R O

47O

48M

49D E L

50A R E N T A

51N N E

52D R O N E

53T E N

54A C E

55S E E D S

56E W E

57L E T

“A clear conscience is usually a sign of a bad memory.”

“People who think they’re perfect are very annoying to those of us who really are.”

“All good things in life are either immoral, fattening, or overpriced.”

“What can you expect from a day that starts with waking up?”

“Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie!’... till you can find a rock.”

“They say that your teen-

age years are the best years

of your life. I’m dreading

to see how the rest of my

life turns out.”

“Tell a man there are 900 billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you.

Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch it to be sure.”“Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.”

“There are two times I feel stress-- day and night.”

WITHIN QUOTES

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 17REVIEW

Music Directors: Sharib-ToshiSingers: Rahul Seth, Sanchita Bhattacharya, Sukhwinder Singh, Shankar Mahadevan, Mika Singh, Shreya Ghoshal, Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Diljit Dosanjh, Sachinn Gupta, Dharmendra, and Suzzanne D’Mello

If the theme of director Sangeeth Sivan’s forthcoming movie “Yamla Pagla Deewana 2” has a strong Pun-jabi flavour, its soundtrack is high on the same too. Keeping in sync with the theme, composer duo Sharib-Toshi has embellished the five tracks with loud beats and entertaining mu-sic.

“Yamla pagla deewana”- Rahul Seth’s rap is good, but it could’ve been better. The song is a rare com-bination of good music and apt lyr-ics with element of fun. Singers Sanchita Bhattacharya, Sukhwinder Singh and Shankar Mahadevan have put in their best. With dominating Punjabi flavour, the composition is different, but average.

“Changli hai changli hai” is an ideal example of ‘High on Punjabi flavor’ track defined by singer Mika Singh’s. Replete with fast beats and whistles, the Hinglish lyrics in the song are attention grabber. A typical “road side Romeo” kind of a song, it’s high on energy and beats.

“Suit tera lal rang da”- Sonu Ni-gam’s voice sounds very interesting when he goes behind the mike to sing typical Punjabi song Sunidhi joins him and she changes the tone and pace of the song in an impec-cable manner.

“Main taan aida hi nachda”- The surprise number with a tinge of western electro beats is interesting and refreshing. Singers Diljit Dosan-jh and Sachinn Gupta seem to have fun while singing it, and it shows in the song. With a lot of catchy and groovy music, it is the high point of the album. Dharmendra joins the singers towards the end.

“Jatt yamla pagla ho gaya” Sung by Mika and Suzzane D’Mello, it is similar to the title track. Repetition of the same kind of beats and music elements, make it boring! Although

‘Yamla Pagla Deewana 2’ High on Punjabi flavour

it starts off differently, but gradually adapts the beats replete with Punjabi tadka. Besides the above five tracks, the album also has “Saadi daru da pani (YPD version)”, “Jatt yamla pa-gla ho gaya (Version)” and “YPD2 Mashup”.Too much of anything is bad and it goes for “Yamla Pagla Deewana 2” soundtrack that has an overdose of Punjabi music. Although entertain-ing, it gets monotonous after first two songs. Having said that, it is an ideal album for those who love to dance on loud beats.

MUSIC MOVIE

Cast: Preity Zinta, Rhehan Malliek, and Isabelle Adjani; Director: Prem Raj

Director Prem Raj’s debut film “Main Aur Mrs Khanna” took a quaint ca-pricious look at love during times of adultery. On this occasion (‘Ishkq In

Paris’) he takes flight in a Parisian paradise where two strangers, both single attractive and commit-phobic, spend the night together.No, not doing what you think in your dirty minds. They roam the cobbled mysterious pleasurable lanes of Paris in pursuit of a good time and then de-cide “never” to meet again.If you’ve seen how Kareena Kapoor affects the sober, staid and repressed Shahid Kapoor in “Jab We Met”, you’d know that feminine exuber-ance is a hard aphrodisiac to resist, specially if you are a closet-romantic like Akaash (Rhehan Maliek) who in no time at all (first five minutes of this crisp and delightful slice of love-life comedy) is eating out of Ishkq’s lovely hands.Ah, Ishqk! She is that kind of a girl. Half-French and fully desi, Ishqk fills up the frames with an unbridled joie de vivre. I can’t think of a role better written for Preity Zinta. Miss-ing from the screen for a couple of years, she bounces back with a per-formance that derives its zing and sparkle from the actress’ inbuilt zest for life.Preity takes her character Ishqk be-yond her own personality. From Frame one we see Ishkq as a girl trapped in self-deceptions that leave her unnecessarily wary of relation-ships. Ishkq hides her real emotions in romantic nonchalance. This is not the first time Preity plays a repressed character. In Nikhil Advani’s “Kal Ho Naa Ho”, Preity had to make a ‘spectacle’ of her character Naina to bring out her commitment phobia in

the absence of a father, who aban-doned her when she was young.Preity brings out the highs and lows in her emotionally awash character without taking flamboyant leaps of on-camera conceit. It’s a beautifully written and directed part, replete wth restrained resonances that give the

actress a chance to show her skills in subtle ways.Rhehan as Preity’s ‘other’ gives the actress just the right cues. Confident and yet not cocky, Rhehan seems poised for a satisfactory innings in Hindi films.Looking at how well Rhehan part-ners the screen-filling Preity on the screen, one wonders if this big-heart-ed romantic-comedy would have worked with any other two actors! These two may not be mad for each other (at least, not until we leave them at the end of the film). But by Cupid, they are definitely made for each other!The exquisite camerawork by Ma-nush Nandan sweeps languorously through the neon-lit seductive night-life of Paris and the daytime bustle of the streetside cafes without getting into touristic awe.One shot where Preity treats Rhehan to the wondrous sight of all the lights coming alive in the Eiffel Tower stays with you. If only love could be cap-tured and frozen in its most majestic manifestations!Preity, Paris and Prem Raj whip up a souffle romance. Fresh, frothy feel good and, yes, look good, and with a solid undercurrent of emo-tional frisson to guide the love story to its heart-warming culmination “Ishkq In Paris” makes you thankful for that thing called love. The tone of narra-tion is umistakably European. This bubbly dimpled darling is ap-pealing as ever in her role as Ishq in Ishq in Paris. Go and watch this Preity Lady who will make you fall in love with her.

‘Ishkq In Paris’ Feels good and frothy

Author: Kishwar DesaiPublisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd

StoryGoa, south India. A beautiful holi-day hideaway where hippies and backpackers while away the hours. But beneath the clear blue skies lies a dirty secret.Simran Singh

is desperate for a break and some time away from her busy job as a social worker-come-crime investigator. And so the unspoilt idyll of Goa seems just the place - white beach-es, blue seas and no crime. But when a disturbing video ap-pears on her phone, featuring a young girl being attacked by a group of men, she realises that a darkness festers at the heart of this sup-posed paradise. And when she discovers out that the girl is Liza Kay, a British teenager who has gone missing, she knows she must act in order to save her. But first Simran must break through

the web of lies and dark connec-tions that flourish on these beaches. Everyone, it seems, knows what has happened to the girl but no one is prepared to say. And when more videos appear, and Simran herself is targeted in order to keep her quiet, the paradise soon becomes a living nightmare.

BOOK The Sea of Innocence

“breaks through the unsolved mysteries that develops on these beaches”

About the Author

Kishwar Desai is an Indian author and columnist. Her latest novel The Sea of Innocence has just been pub-lished in India .Her first novel, Wit-ness the Night won the Costa Book Award in 2010 for Best First Novel and has been translated into over 25 languages. It was also shortlisted for the Author’s Club First Novel Award and longlisted for the Man Asian Lit-erary Prize. Her critically acclaimed novel, Origins of Lovewas published in June 2012. Desai also has a bi-ography Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt to her credit.

The third installment of “The Hang-over” series will take the lead char-acters of the movie back to Las Ve-gas, where the plot of the first movie was sketched.Starring Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper, Justin Bartha and Zachary Galifi-

anakis, the film hits theatres in India May 31.Directed by Todd Phillips, the movie will take a two-year leap and the lead characters Stu, Phill, Doug and Alan will be seen visiting the sin city and promises fun, panic and confusion

The Hangover 3 Back Onto Screens

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201318 SCIENCE AND TECH

Microsoft unveils new all-in-one Xbox console

WashingtonMicrosoft unveiled a new Xbox con-sole that represents a major upgrade on the US-market-leading Xbox 360 model.The president of the IT giant’s Inter-active Entertainment Business, Don Mattrick, revealed the hi-tech Xbox One entertainment and gaming con-sole during an event at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, campus.The Xbox One was presented as an all-in-one system for gaming, watching televison and movies, browsing the Internet and carrying out Skype videoconferencing. The

console’s hi-tech features include voice recognition, which will allow users to navigate its menus, change channels and activate content using verbal commands.The Kinect motion sensor, rede-signed to respond better to users’ voice and gestures, will take on a bigger role with Xbox One although it will continue to be an independent device sold together with the con-sole.The traditional Xbox gamepad and the Xbox Live online platform also were upgraded.Xbox One will give users the op-

tion of making Skype video calls or browsing the Internet while watch-ing a movie.US videogame maker Electronic Arts, meanwhile, announced a new agreement with Microsoft to de-velop games for the new console, including FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, NBA Live 14 and UFC, which will be available within the next 12 months.Microsoft Studios confirmed that Xbox One will launch 15 games spe-cifically for the console in the year after the console hits the market later this year.

Indian girl invents device that can charge phone in 20 seconds

CaliforniaAn 18-year-old Indian-origin girl in the US has developed a potentially revolutionary device that can charge a mobile phone in just 20 seconds, a media report said.The charging device has been dubbed a supercapacitor by Esha Khare of Saratoga, California, the Daily Mail reported.Khare won $50,000 for her inven-tion at the Intel International Sci-ence and Engineering Fair, held in Phoenix.Khare has only used her superca-pacitor to power a light-emitting di-ode (LED), but says that one day her invention will power cell phones,

cars and any gadget that requires a rechargeable battery.Asked what inspired her to work on the technology, Khare said: “My cell phone battery always dies.”“It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense,” she was quoted as saying.The supercapacitor is flexible and tiny, and is able to handle 10,000 recharge cycles, more than normal batteries by a factor of 10.Khare is a student of nanochemistry, and is now heading to Harvard.Google has been in contact with Khare to explore how she plans to change the makeup of cell phone battery life, the report said.

Vitamin D from sun may treat asthmaLondonTime spent by asthma patients soaking up the sun may help in the treatment of the illness, a research has said.A team of scientists at King’s Col-lege London said vitamin D, which is made by the body in sunlight, calms an “over-active” part of the immune system in asthma, BBC reported.However, treating patients with vitamin D has not yet been tested.People with asthma find it hard to breathe when their airways be-come inflamed, swollen and nar-rowed.Most people are treated with ste-

roids, but the drugs do not work for everyone.“We know people with high levels of vitamin D are better able to con-trol their asthma - that connection is quite striking,” researcher Cath-erine Hawrylowicz told BBC.The group investigated the impact of the vitamin on a chemical in the body, interleukin-17.The chemical is a vital part of the immune system and helps to fight off infections.However, it can cause problems when levels get too high and has been strongly implicated in asth-ma.In the study published in the Jour-

Wind energy to light up Maoist-hit BastarJagdalpur If the efforts of the Chhattisgarh government produce results, the day is not far when wind energy would illuminate houses in the Maoist in-surgency-hit Bastar district, an offi-cial said.The Chhattisgarh State Renewable Energy Development Agency (CRE-DA) has identified two villages in Bastar-Raikot in Tokapal block and Burgum in Bastanar block -- suitable for setting up a wind energy power plant, a CREDA official said.The official added that the agency’s engineers have already surveyed the area in this connection, and that preparations were on to set up a wind mill farm on an experimental basis.After studying the viability of the project, the department would estab-lish a wind energy power plant in the area.

Researchers identify anti cancer amino acid fragmentLos AngelesScientists have identified an amino acid fragment that can be used to halt cancer spread, says a study.By studying proteins thrombos-pondin-1 and prosaposin, a trans-Atlantic research team has identi-fied a five-amino acid fragment of prosaposin that significantly reduces metastatic spread in mouse models of prostate, breast and lung cancer. The findings suggest that a prosa-posin-based drug could potentially block metastasis in a variety of can-cers, reports Science Daily.The research team, led by Randolph Watnick from Boston Children’s Hospital, Vivek Mittal from Weill Cornell Medical College, and Lars

Akslen from the University of Ber-gen, released their findings in the May issue of the journal Cancer Dis-covery.The main cause of cancer mortality is not the primary tumour itself, but rather its spread -- metastasis -- to other locations in the body and sub-sequent organ failure.Watnick believes the findings offer a window of therapeutic opportunity.“If we can trigger monocytes recruit-ed by pro-metastatic tumors to pro-duce thrombospondin-1 like those recruited by non-metastatic tumours, we will be able to hijack the mecha-nism by which tumours create me-tastasis-permissive sites to close the door on those sites,” Watnick said.

nal of Allergy and Clinical Immu-nology, vitamin D was able to low-er levels of interleukin-17 when it was added to blood samples taken from 28 patients.The team is now conducting clini-cal trials to see if giving the sun-shine vitamin to patients could ease their symptoms.They are looking at patients who do not respond to steroids as they produce seven times more inter-leukin-17 than other patients.Catherine Hawrylowicz said a culture of covering up in the sun and using sun cream may have in-creased asthma rates, but also said that “too much sun is bad for you”.

Russian rocket wreckage threatens Ecuador satelliteQuitoThe Ecuadorian Civil Space Agency issued an alert Wednesday about a possible collision of its Pegaso sat-ellite, launched last month, with the wreckage of a Russian rocket.“ALERT: Possible collision of NEE-01 PEGASO and remains of Russian rocket,” appeared Wednesday on the Twitter account of the space agency known as EXA.EXA’s director, astronaut Ronnie Nader, published a notice from the Joint Space Operations Center about the possibility of such a crash.“Official notification about a possible collision of PEGASO with remains of Russian rocket,” said Nader.Pegaso, launched into orbit April 26 and whose streaming video signal has been received since May 16, has successfully transmitted images of

Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.Besides streaming video images, the satellite also transmits sounds in Morse code that students can decode thanks to a program established by EXA in its fervour to awaken interest in all things aerospace.Pegaso, a cube-shaped apparatus that weighs just 2.1 kg, went into orbit aboard an LM2D rocket launched from the Jiuquan Space Launch Cen-ter in China’s Gansu province.The nanosatellite, which took a year to build, and its twin, Krysaor, whose launch is scheduled from Russia in August, cost EXA and several pri-vate companies $80,000.Ecuador’s government provided about $700,000 to cover launch, in-surance, logistics and certification costs for the two satellites.

Grapefruit nanoparticles can deliver anti-cancer drugWashingtonScientists have engineered nanopar-ticles derived from grapefruit lipids that could be used to deliver anti-cancer and other drugs to tumour cells, says a study.Grapefruit has long been known for its health benefits, and the subtropi-cal fruit may revolutionise how med-ical therapies like anti-cancer drugs are delivered to specific tumour cells, say researchers.The University of Louisville re-searchers have uncovered how to create nanoparticles using natural lipids derived from grapefruit, and have discovered how to use them as drug delivery vehicles, reports Sci-ence Daily.A team led by researchers Huang-Ge Zhang and Qilong Wang published their findings in Nature Communica-

tions.“These nanoparticles, which we’ve named grapefruit-derived nanovec-tors (GNVs), are derived from an edible plant, and we believe they are less toxic for patients, result in less biohazardous waste for the environ-ment, and are much cheaper to pro-duce at large scale than nanoparticles made from synthetic materials,” Zhang said.

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 19KIDS

Enjoy our funny tonguetwisters for kids and have fun trying to say some of

the most difficult sentences in the English language.

• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter

Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepperHow many

pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

• I thought a thought. But the thought I thought

wasn’t the thought I thought I thought.

• Wish i were what i was when i wished i were what i am

• I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.

Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.

• TractableMeaning- Easy to control or influ-enceExample- “The horses were very tractable, following every command of the riders.”

•UttermostMeaning-the greatest possible de-gree Example- “We knew she wore a grin of the uttermost wickedness.”

•VerityMeaning-A true principle or beliefExample- “In the film, he plays a spy whose mission is to confirm the verity of a secret military docu-ment.”

•WrangleMeaning-A long dispute or argu-mentExample-” My brother and sister always wrangle over whose turn it is to take out the trash.”

•YieldMeaning-Produce or provideExample-“It’s a rare kitchen that doesn’t yield the basic ingredients of eggs, milk, and flour.”

Put your knowledge to test and make our means of transport word scramble your next challenge. Can you solve the range of word problems related to the means of transports?

ICRAARTF RCA

RNTIAITXA

UKRCTEYCBLCI

PISH

It has become an essential piece of technology that we just couldn’t live without. It wasn’t always so, though. The world’s first computer mouse made by Douglas Engelbart in 1964 consisted of two gear-wheels posi-tioned perpendicular to each other -- allowing movement on one axis.” Just look at this amazing thing made of wood with great button placement. Douglas Engelbart was working at Stanford Research Institute at the time; devoting most of his energy to a project that he felt could help to ex-pand human brain. Engelbart and his lead engineer, Bill English, received a patent in 1970 for their “X-Y posi-tion indicator for a display system,” which was nicknamed a “mouse” because the tail coming out of the back resembled an actual mouse. But at the time, personal computers were still years away. The Stanford Research Institute licensed the in-vention to Apple for a small amount

(reportedly around $40,000) and En-gelbart never received any royalties for his invention. This mouse was first used with the Xerox Alto com-puter system in 1973. However, be-cause of its lack of success the first widely used mouse is credited to being the mouse found on the Apple Lisa computer. As can be seen by the picture, the mouse was much larger than today’s mouse, and had a small button in the top right corner.

Douglas EngelbartFather of the Mouse

It is hard to describe your emotions when you stumble upon a 12 meter high elephant. This robotic miracle was built in France as part of the Machines of the Isle of Nantes, an art and culture show full of dream and fantasy. The Giant Elephant Transporter, better known as ‘The Sultan of India’ was designed by two French designers Francois De-laroziere and Pierre Orefice. The 12 meter high x 8 meter wide mechani-cal elephant was paved together us-ing 45 tons of reclaimed wood and steel,weighing as much as 7 African elephants. Inspired by the Sultan’s Elephant, an interactive show featur-

ing a mechanized elephant, the mas-sive robot looks surprisingly lifelike aside from a few nuts and bolts and some joints at the trunk and legs showing. Dubbed the “Great Ele-phant,” it can carry up to 49 passen-gers at a time on a 45-minute walk. The only robotic things about the “Great Elephant” are its mechanical-ly articulated trunk and legs. And the later don’t even hold the elephant up resulting in a task that falls on three sets of wheels. The nozzle even blows out smoke for a more forceful illusion.

Why go to Summer Camp ?

The Great Artificial Elephant

In an ASSOCHAM recent survey on “Rising craze for summer camps in metros” conducted in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahemd-abad, Cochin, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Dehradun covering nearly 3,000 parents during a period of April 2013 clearly indicates that parents on an average are dishing out a minimum sum of Rs. 2,000-6,000 on their single child for this summer camp. Majority of the par-ents were interviewed, wanting their children to learn more activities like drawing, dancing, clay modeling, art& craft, culinary skills, cooking without fire, sports activities in view of the growing peer effects & also update their children to meet the challenges of current competition.

Students of the city are messed up with choices of extra activities be-ing offered during the summer break. From dance, music, personality de-velopment to communication skills, they have so many options available. Every summer, millions of children of all age groups attend summer camp. If your child has never been to camp, you may be wondering if your child is ready for camp? We have put together some of the benefits that will let your kid enjoy away from home this summer?

Try new thingsMost camps offer new games and activities that you probably can’t do in your backyard or even your neighbourhood. Children spend their day being physically active. Camp provides a wonderful opportunity to swim, jump, hike, and climb. Camp is full of action.

Keeps their minds sharpAll camps understand the critical role they play in helping young people learn and grow. Not all the things that kids do at camp are easy .Challenges

like trying new sports, learning new crafts and games, or pushing your-self to achieve something can be very rewarding

Encourages playAt camp, children are encouraged to be kids by playing in a safe and nur-turing environment. Play is a power-ful form of learning that contributes mightily to the child’s healthy physi-cal, emotional, social, and intellec-tual development

More HealthyAll the fun, games and physical ac-tivity included in camp are a great way to exercise in fresh air. Swim-ming, mountaineering, and playing sports are a much healthier option than hanging around at home all summer.

Feeling IndependentCamp is the perfect place for kids to make their own decisions without par-ents and teachers directing them .Kids are allowed at camp to take care of themselves, with guidance from camp counsellors. Time table are packed and children have to get themselves ready.

Develop social skillsCamp gives you a chance to be with people from different places. It’s a great way to make new friends and learn about different cultures. Build-ing these friendships over the summer also teaches them how to be more so-cially confident .

Disconnect From TechnologyCamps give kids a break from TV, cell phones, and the Internet and help them rediscover their creativity.

Here’s a refreshing and ultimate summer lemonade , wonderfully lightened with chilled water and fresh mint.

Ingredients

1/4 cup sugar for simple syrupIce cubes2/3 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice1 sliced lemon1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, plus leaves for garnish

Directions

•In a small saucepan, combine sug-ar and 1/4 cup water. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat. Let stand until completely cool.•In a large pitcher half-filled with ice, add 2 cups water, lemon juice and simple syrup.•Using a muddler or wooden spoon, gently muddle the mint leaves, be-ing careful not to tear them. Stir in the lemon juice and cold water. Add ice and the water. Garnish with lemon wheels and mint leaves.

Mint LemonadeCool beverage for

Hot summers

Answers to word scramble: Aircraft, Car, Train, Taxi, Truck, Bicycle, Ship

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201320 BUSINESS

India, China can take ties to new heights, says Li wooing Indian businessNew Delhi/MumbaiAssuring Indian business more ac-cess to Chinese markets and also to narrow the wide trade gap, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang Tuesday said China and India can take their ties to “new heights of strategic growth” as he interacted with Indian business leaders in Delhi and Mumbai on the last day of his India tour.Addressing an event organized by business house FICCI and the Indian Council of World Affairs in New Delhi Tuesday morning, Li pushed for greater economic integration between the two Asian giants and combining the strengths of their 2.5 billion people to make an impact on the global scene. He touched on the boundary ques-tion, saying both countries “have the wisdom” to find a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution” to the issue. “I am confident we have the ability to mitigate India’s trade imbalance,” he assured, adding that “dynamism in trade balance is sustainable”.Impressing his audience with his informal manner and interesting quotes, Li said though there are dif-ferences between the two nations, “their shared interests outweigh the differences”. Their bilateral ties had reached such maturity that “clouds cannot send out the brilliant sun of their relationship”. Li won over his elite audience with the traditional Indian greeting of ‘Namaste’ at the start of his address.Reiterating his philosophy of the handshake across the Himalayas, Li said India and China not only need to shake hands but “stand at a higher level (from the Himalayas) to get a bird’s eye view” of their ties.Stressing the need to combine the complementarities of their two mar-kets, Li said if every one of their 2.5 billion people purchases a mobile phone, “it would blow up the order list of the mobile companies”.During his meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee, Li assured that China sees India as a strategic part-

ner and believes there is great poten-tial for improved bilateral relations and Beijing would do nothing to harm India’s interests. In Mumbai, he visited the Tata Con-sultancy Services (TCS) global de-velopment centre in suburban Gore-gaon East and was hosted by Tata Group chairman Cyrus P. Mistry. TCS is the first Indian software com-pany to set up shop in China and is growing significantly there.“We are proud to be associated with the Tata Group which has a rich leg-acy with its visionary founder also having worked in Shanghai over a century ago,” said Li.Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithvi-raj Chavan who called on him said his state is willing to set up a special investment zone for Chinese compa-nies in the state.Chavan briefed Li about the immense investment opportunities across vari-ous sectors, including automobiles and textiles, in Maharashtra. Later, addressing a business sum-mit organised by CII, Assocham and FICCI, Li said both China and India “can make a new miracle”.

“As China and India grow, it will lead to a strong Asia, South Asia and the world. Although at present China is trade surplus, we want to have a bal-anced growth,” he told the audience, stresssing that both were committed to reach $100 bn bilateral trade. “I really wonder that despite one bil-lion population of each country and emerging markets, the combined trade is below $70 billion,” he re-marked and invited Indian compa-nies to China and vice versa.He mentioned the services of Dwarkanath Kotnis, a young Indian doctor who treated the wounded and plague-stricken Chinese soldiers dur-ing the Sino-Japanese war of 1930s and whose family he met earlier at the Taj hotel in Mumbai. “The market has the magical power and business people can make things happen,” he said, adding the key to increasing trade and investment be-tween the two countries lies with the business people.Li identified information technology, agriculture and pharmaceuticals as India’s strengths and added that Chi-na also has its own strengths.

Brazil’s Embraer to sell 40 jets to US airline

Rio de JaneiroBrazilian aircraft manufacturer Em-braer said Tuesday it reached a deal to sell 40 E175 passenger jets to US airline SkyWest for nearly $1.7 bil-lion.The planes have a seating capacity of up to 76 passengers.An additional 60 orders are subject to SkyWest being awarded contracts with major US airline partners, while the agreement also includes options for 100 other E175s, meaning the deal could eventually comprise up to 200 jets, Embraer said in a press release. “If all 100 firm orders are exercised, the order has an estimated value of $4.1 billion at current list prices, representing one of the most

significant orders in each company’s histories,” the press release said.SkyWest will operate the first 40 aircraft under a capacity purchase agreement with United Airlines.Embraer said this latest deal was in addition to a contract Embraer signed with United for 30 firm orders and 40 options for E175s.Utah-based SkyWest is the world’s largest regional airline group and the holding company for two passenger airlines: SkyWest Airlines and Ex-pressJet Airlines.The E175s, nearly 150 of which are currently in service by 12 airlines worldwide, have a 2,000-nautical-mile range and the ability to operate on short runways.

Karzai seeks more Indian investment in AfghanistanNew DelhiAfghan president Hamid Karzai called for Indian investment in criti-cal sectors such as healthcare, tele-com, agri-business and capacity building.In an interaction with a group of company chief executives, Karzai spoke about emerging business op-portunities in Afghanistan and asked the Indians to benefit from a business friendly regime and investment cli-mate.On a three-day visit, Karzai is set to hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pranab Mukherjee during which he is expected to ask for more economic and security assistance ahead of the withdrawal of Nato-led forces from Afghanistan in 2014. In November, New Delhi signed mining and development deals and pledged $2 billion in assistance to Kabul. Two years ago, the two countries signed a strategic agreement. A num-ber of Afghan army officers are be-ing trained at Indian institutions.At a Confederation of Indian Indus-try (CII) organised meeting, Karzai apprised the Indian industry of inter-national export potential for Afghan agricultural product.He invited Indian companies to im-

port dry fruits and fruits as India was a big market for Afghanistan.Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, Indian ambassador to Af-ghanistan Gautam Mukhopadhaya and Afghan ambassador to India Shaida M. Abdali were present at the meeting.Agriculture is a priority sector in Afghanistan. Besides providing the basic means of livelihood to 85 per-

and managing director of Bharti En-terprises highlighted the potential for collaboration in farming techniques and food processing.Karzai invited Indian hospitals to set up facilities in Afghanistan. He said Afghan patients, especially cardiac patients, have to travel to India for medical treatment. Malvinder Mohan Singh, chairman of CII Services Council and execu-tive chairman of Fortis Healthcare, briefed Karzai on the facilities of-fered by Indian hospitals.He offered to set up similar facilities in Afghanistan, enhance capacity for Afghan doctors and talent building in view of the shortage of trained doc-tors, practitioners and nurses in that country.CII director general Chandrajit Ba-nerjee told Karzai about the business association’s future plans in promot-ing Indian investment in Afghanistan through sending sectoral delegations, organising Investment promotion road shows and setting up an India-Afghan CEOs Forum for promoting investment and trade relations.Sudhir Kapur, CEO, Country Strat-egy Business Consultant Pvt Ltd, highlighted the opportunities in soft skills and vocational training and building institutions specific to the need of Afghanistan.

cent of the population, it generates 36 percent of the country’s gross do-mestic product. Karzai also spoke on the increased scope and collaboration in new farm-ing techniques, setting food process-ing units and agriculture machinery for improved agriculture produce in Afghanistan.Rakesh Bharti Mittal, chairman, CII Development Initiatives Council,

Srei Infra to raise Rs.1,500 crore by debenturesKolkataKolkata-based non-banking fi-nance company Srei Infrastruc-ture Finance Tuesday said its board has okayed to raise funds up to Rs.1,500 crore by public is-sue of debentures in one or more tranches this fiscal.“The board has approved to raise funds by way of a public issue of secured, redeemable, non-con-vertible debentures not exceeding Rs.15,000 million, in one or more tranches during the financial year 2013-14,” the company said in a filing to the BSE.Srei said its board has also ap-proved to raise up to Rs.500 crore in one or more tranches through issue of preference shares.“The board has approved the pro-posal to create, offer, issue and allot redeemable non-convertible preference shares upto an amount not exceeding Rs.500 crore in one or more tranches,” it said.

245 South Koreans have paper companiesSeoulA total of 245 South Koreans were confirmed to have established paper companies in safe havens in a bid to avoid tax payment, an independent South Korean media said Wednes-day.The Newstapa announced that it found 245 South Koreans set up paper companies in safe havens be-tween 1995 and 2009 after analyzing information related to paper com-panies jointly with the International Consortium of Investigative Journal-ism. A safe haven is a place where no or a very few tax is imposed on earnings and income, granting tax benefits to individuals and companies. The safe haven has been blamed for serving as a hotbed of tax evasion and money

laundering. The information came from the list of around 130,000 customers and about 122,000 paper company data held by Portculis TrustNet and Com-monwealth Trust Ltd that act as a proxy for the establishment of paper companies in safe havens.The 245 South Koreans included heads of conglomerates and their family members who can be recog-nized only by name, the non-govern-mental media said, noting the num-ber may increase after additional analysis. The Newstapa said it planned to make public the list of the 245 South Koreans gradually, once or twice a week, in a bid to meet the general public’s demand for their right-to-know.

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 21BUSINESS

SEBI, India’s capital market regulator, is 25New DelhiThe Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) celebrates its silver jubilee amid calls that the capital market regulator needs to follow global standards and improve mar-ket intelligence, technology and tal-ent pool to beef up the enforcement processes, protect investors and al-low the launch of more investment products.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidam-baram will grace the 25th anniver-sary celebrations in Mumbai.As the equity culture in the country took roots, the government realised that the capital market needed to be regulated by an independent regula-tor. Through an executive order in 1988, the government created SEBI. Four years later, the institution got statutory powers after the SEBI Act was passed by Parliament in 1992, the year in which the Rs.5,000-crore Harshad Mehta securities scam hit Indian stock markets.SEBI has three functions -- regula-tion-making powers, quasi-judicial or enforcement powers and policy freedom. Now it has been provided with more teeth and its board is fully powered under the Act to enact its own regulation in its jurisdiction ar-eas.“SEBI has recommended a single regulator for all deposit-taking ac-tivities, under whatever name those deposits are being taken. The mul-tiplicity of agencies is adding to the confusion and people are able to take advantage of that. Under the Income Tax Act and the Competition Com-mission of India Act, they have been given powers to recover. So, we have asked for similar powers,” Chairman U.K. Sinha said in a recent interview.“Second, we have asked for call data records to be made available to us. If two people are conversing on the phone, I don’t want to inter-cept and hear what they are talking about. However, at least the call data record should be given to me; glob-

ally, it is available. Third, we have said we should have the power to demand documents and material be produced.”In recent months, the regulator has been seeking to strengthen insider-trading norms, expand its presence through branch offices, work with police and local enforcement agen-cies, improve corporate governance norms and boost control over depos-it-taking firms.In its 25-year journey, SEBI has earned respect by trying to clean up India’s equity cash market, estab-lishing a modern equity derivatives market and transforming the primary market through better processes. Fi-nance Minister Chidambaram said in his budget speech this year: “I believe that India’s capital market is among the best regulated markets.”Here’s a look at some of the achieve-ments of the capital market regula-tor:Dematerialisation of shares: SEBI introduced dematerialised holding of shares and securities after the De-positories Act was passed in 1996. This Act did away with physical cer-tificates, which were prone to postal delays, theft and forgery.

Faster settlement process: It is cred-ited with quickly moving from a T+5 settlement cycle in 2001 to T+2 in 2003. This meant two days between the trade and shares being credited to the buyers’ account, down from five.Fostering mutual fund industry: SEBI has adopted many steps to in-crease the popularity of mutual fund products and prevent mis-selling of products. Some of the initiatives in-clude know your customer (KYC) norms for small investors. And by banning entry loads for mutual fund schemes in 2009, SEBI curbed mis-selling of mutual fund products as in-vestors would now only voluntarily pay the distributor for advisory ser-vice.Market analysts say although SEBI has the same statutory powers as the civil court has, it has not made much progress in enforcement. Some vio-lations even go unnoticed due to its limited access, insufficient resources or government intervention.They say the regulator should also establish self-regulatory organiza-tions (SROs), a better and transpar-ent consent order mechanism, and rules over market intermediaries to face key challenges in future.

Saudi company to hire 5,000 Nitaqat-hit IndiansDubaiA company in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province has said it will hire 5,000 Indian workers affect-ed by that country’s new labour policy.The Nasser S. Al-Hajri Corp (NSH) is holding a two-day re-cruiting drive in Riyadh Thurs-day and Friday, the Arab News reported.“We plan to recruit 27 categories of workers, ranging from tech-nicians to project managers,” a company spokesman was quoted as saying.He said it was a good opportuni-ty for Indian workers to legalise their residency status and change their sponsors after the Saudi government implemented the Ni-taqat or Saudisation policy, which makes it mandatory for all Saudi companies to reserve 10 percent of jobs for Saudis. Headquartered in the city of Al-Khobar, the NSH has projects in Yanbu, Jazan, Jubail and Ras and contracts with that Gulf nation’s oil company, Saudi Aramco.

Japanese economy has begun to recover: central bankTokyoJapan’s central bank said that it will continue pursuing its current stimu-lus program and that the country’s economy “has begun to recover” thanks to a reversal in the decline of exports, which account for 40 per-cent of Japanese GDP.“Domestic demand remains resil-ient due to the effects of the mon-etary relaxation measures” and the recently-approved stimulus poli-cies, the Bank of Japan said in a statement.After its monthly two-day meeting, the bank’s monetary policy board agreed to keep buying public debt and high-risk securities with an eye toward doubling the monetary base over the next two years to end the

deflation the country has been expe-riencing for almost 15 years.The BOJ warned that there still exists “a high level of uncertainty regarding the risks facing the Japa-nese economy” due to the eurozone debt crisis and the rate of growth in the United States and the emerging economies.However, the BOJ emphasized that business investment is stabilizing while “public investment has con-tinued to increase”.In addition, “private consumption, in turn, has shown greater solidity thanks to an improvement in con-sumer confidence, and industrial production has stopped weakening and is showing ever more evident signs of recovery”.

Agra’s industrial growth halts, labour migratesAgraIndustrial growth in the 10,000 sq. km. eco-sensitive Taj Trapezium Zone has come to a halt, forcing large-scale migration of rural labour to urban hubs.This is because of the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court on the expansion and opening of new industrial units in the districts of Agra, Mathura, Firozabad, Hath-ras and part of Aligarh, to contain air pollution, which was harming the Taj Mahal and other historical structures in the region, according to REDCO (an organisation of real estate developers and colonisers) president K C Jain.Disposing of a public litigation filed by eco-lawyer M.C. Mehta, the apex court had ordered shifting of pollut-ing industries, or switching over to natural gas.Jain said: “Of late, there has been an acute shortage of labour in all sec-tors as rural labour is now migrating to the NCR (National Capital Re-gion), where they get more facilities and higher wages.”Industries in Agra have been par-ticularly hit by the labour crisis and erratic power supply. The industrial-ists accuse the state industries de-partment of not being very helpful in solving the problems of the manu-facturing sector in the Nunihai and Foundry Nagar industrial estates.

Agra district magistrate Zuher Bin Sagir has now instructed the depart-ments concerned to explore how in-dustrial growth can gain momentum and absorb local educated youth. Sagir said in future, Udhyog Bandhu meetings will play a crucial role in sorting out the problems of indus-tries.The prospects of any significant ex-pansion, however, appear bleak, ac-cording to local industry chambers.Except for tourism, there has not been any growth in any sector, say officials of the Agra Iron Foundries Association.The industrial scene in Firozabad, Mathura and Aligarh is equally dis-mal, forcing the local youth to mi-grate to Delhi and other metros.“The Firozabad glass industry has not seen any major expansion or de-velopment and the existing units are facing all kinds of problems,” said a local glass unit owner, Bal Govind.Similarly, the Aligarh lock industry faces a grim future due to outdated technology, fierce competition and rising costs plus erratic power sup-ply.Industrial organisations affiliated to the CII, FICCI or Assocham have now collectively urged the state government to provide support and broad-base infrastructure to halt the slide.Manish Agarwal, president of the

National Chamber of Industries and Commerce, Agra, said “the state government doesn’t have any long-term plan of action, nor do the state government agencies appear con-cerned about the falling industrial production.”Rajiv Gupta of Assocham told IANS: “The officials in Lucknow are not the least bit concerned about industrial development of Agra. Af-ter the ban on polluting industries imposed by the apex court, they should have worked on promoting the IT or other service sectors, but they did nothing.”In the past Agra was a leading manu-facturing hub of iron foundries, glass industries, leather shoes, handicrafts and the petha sweetmeat, but of late, industrial growth has shrunk, forc-ing units to permanently down shut-ters to migrate to greener pastures.The industrial units that survive are also on the brink of collapse as scores of bottlenecks and pollution-related restrictions would not let them expand to their optimum level of performance.Lack of security and poor infrastruc-ture have hit the tourism industry with reports of cancellations of trips by tourists after the rape and attack on foreign visitors.The leather shoe industry has suf-fered from recessionary pressures and a steep decline in export orders,

according to the Shoe Manufactur-ers’ Association.The centuries-old iron foundries were the first target. The pulses and the edible oil industries were the next to fold up. It is now the turn of the generator industry which, de-spite the demand, finds production badly hit due to labour shortages and erratic power supplies, Assocham’s Rajiv Gupta said.“Due to MGNREGS (the centre’s flagship rural jobs scheme), labour-ers from the rural hinterland are not flocking to the city. The foundries are hit, the Firozabad glass indus-tries and the construction industry too are all handicapped due to the labour shortage. This has become particularly acute after the opening of the Yamuna Expressway,” Gupta told IANS.The National Chamber of Indus-tries and Commerce, the Agra Iron Foundries Association, the Genera-tor Manufacturers Association, the Factory Owners Association and various other bodies are engaged in intense discussions and interactions with government bodies to seek solutions to the problems the local industries face. However, the total focus of the state and the central governments is on tourism, which hardly employs 50,000 people out of a population of over four million in the district.

New DelhiAustralia and India signed a mem-orandum of understanding (MoU) to develop and strengthen coopera-tion in skills training in the agricul-ture sector, said a statement.“This partnership aims to achieve quality industry-led skills training standards in the agriculture sector. With India projected to add 12 to 15 million workers to its labour force every year over the coming decades, employability and pro-

ductivity gains will be inextricably linked to quality standards,” Aus-tralian High Commissioner Patrick Suckling said in the statement.He said the MoU results from the joint commitment of the prime ministers of the two countries in October 2012 to build bilateral partnerships between skills coun-cils in key industry areas, includ-ing telecommunications, retail, mining, media/entertainment and agriculture.

Australia, India sign MoU on agriculture cooperation

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201322 SPORTS

Dravid hints at retirement from domestic T20

New DelhiRajasthan Royals skipper Rahul Dravid hinted at retiring from the In-dian Premier League (IPL) after this season.After beating the Sunrisers Hyder-abad in the IPL Eliminator here at the Ferozeshah Kotla Wednesday, Drav-id told reporters that he is aware that they “need to start looking ahead and for younger players”. With the win, the Jaipur-based team also qualified for the Champions League to be held in India from Sep 17 to Oct 6.Asked whether he will play in the Champions League, Dravid said: “I

do not know. I have never envisaged that it would be my last campaign and there is no more cricket after this. With Champions League com-ing up, I really don’t know.”“Let me finish this tournament and then I will sit down with the franchise to talk about my future and what they want to do. I am also mindful of the fact that we need to start looking ahead and for younger players.”The 40-year-old joined the Royals from Royal Challengers Bangalore last year. The Dravid-led side play Mumbai Indians Friday in Qualifier 2 for a place in the final. Sunrisers can be proud of

their effort: White

New DelhiSunrisers Hyderabad came up short against Rajasthan Royals in the Eliminator here but their inaugural Indian Premier League campaign was a successful one, their captain Cameron White has said.Sunrisers won 10 out of their 16 league matches before losing the knock-out game against Rajasthan Royals at the Ferozeshah Kotla here. The team inherited a bulk of the players from the now defunct Dec-can Chargers. “It’s been a great effort from Sunris-ers this season. We won 10 games and made the play-offs. With a new franchise and new players coming together, I would call it a fantastic and successful campaign,” White told reporters after their four-wicket loss here. “With the new auction coming up, I don’t know who will remain with the team. There could be a new set of players, whatever the franchise decides on, we will be strong enough

next year,” said White, who shared the captaincy with Kumar Sangak-kara this season.While the Sunrisers’ bowling took them to the play-offs, their batting failed to deliver consistently.“Most of the times in Hyderabad, 130 was a pretty good score. Thanks to the bowlers, we were able to de-fend it. Having said that there is no doubt that the batsmen needed to do more,” said the Australian.White defended some of the young Indian players for not performing regularly. Referring to number three batsman Hanuma Vihari, who scored 241 runs in 17 games at a modest strike rate of 86.69, White said: “One of the great things about the IPL is that it exposes this young Indian talent and if they can come through in some high-pressure tournaments like this, it’s great for the future of the Indian cricket. I am sure Vihari will be a better player in the future,” he added.

Hockey India National championship in PunePuneThe third Hockey India (HI) Se-nior Men’s National Championship will be held at the Shiv Chhattra-pati sports complex here and Ma-jor Dhyan Chand Hockey stadium, Pimpri from May 28 to June 10.Speaking to reporters here Friday, organising secretary and also the Joint Secretary of HI Manoj Bhore said the championship, supported by the Maharashtra Olympic Asso-ciation and the Department of Youth Services, will see 38 teams in action and will be played on a league-cum-knock-out basis.The teams have been divided into eight pools for the preliminary

league. The toppers of each pool will make it to the quarterfinal.The pools:Pool A: Hockey Punjab, Hockey Delhi, Association of Indian Uni-versities, Hockey Arunachal.Pool B: Air India Sports Promotion Board, Madhya Pradesh Hockey Academy, Hockey Puducherry, Tri-pura Hockey, Chhattisgarh Hockey.Pool C: Hockey Karnataka, Ser-vices Sports Control Board, Hockey Bihar, Goan Hockey, Sports Author-ity of India.Pool D: Hockey Haryana, Uttar Pradesh Hockey, Hockey Maha-rashtra, Hockey Andaman & Nico-bar, Mumbai Hockey Association.

Pool E: Hockey Jharkhand, Hockey Odisha, Hockey Himachal Pradesh, Bengal Hockey Association, Comp-troller and Auditor General.Pool F: Railway Sports Promotion Board, Hockey Bhopal, Sashastra Seema Bal, Hockey Jammu and Kashmir, Namdhari XI.Pool G: Manipur Hockey, Hockey Andhra Pradesh, Hockey Uttara-khand, Hockey Kerala.Pool H : Hockey Unit of Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh Olympic As-sociation, Hockey Assam, Hockey Rajasthan.The event will also be telecast live on DD from the quarterfinals stage and will be played under floodlights.

Three-time summiteer wants another stab at EverestShillongAnshu Jamsenpa, the first Indian woman to scale Mount Everest thrice, wants to scale the world’s highest peak for the fourth time if the Nepalese government waives the royalty tax imposed on climbers, her husband Tsering Wange said.Anshu, a mother of two, became the first Indian woman to conquer the Mount Everest for a third time Sat-urday. She was among the 13 climb-ers of the first Northeast India Top of the World Mount Everest Expe-dition, 2013, which was flagged off by President Pranab Mukherjee from Rashtrapati Bhavan March 20.“Anshu is very keen to re-conquer Mount Everest for the fourth time, provided the Nepalese government waives their royalty tax for her fourth attempt,” Wange told IANS over phone from Arunachal Pradesh.“The Manipur Mountaineering and Trekking Association has submitted the names of the expedition team members, including Anshu Jamsen-pa, Bidyapati Devi, Puyamcha Mo-hon, Nameirakpam Chingkheingan-ba to the Nepal’s ministry of tourism and civil aviation. “The association has requested them to allow the four climbers to go ahead. But it has not yet received any reply from the Nepalese govern-ment,” Wange said.“We are elated with Anshu’s achieve-ment. It is a historic moment for Arunachal Pradesh and India. I’m not sure but she should be the first mother in the world to have made it to the world’s highest peak thrice,”

Wange said.During Anshu’s last expedition to the Mount Everest, Wange, who also heads Arunachal Mountaineering and Adventure Sports Association, said he had to pay a royalty fee of $25,000 and a liaison officer fee of $3,000 to the Nepalese government.Anshu along with other team mem-bers returned to the Everest Base Camp Monday. The Indian expedition team will trek back to Lukla from where they will take a flight to Kathmandu May 26. They will attend the 60th anniversary of the Everest conquest May 29 in the Nepalese capital.All successful Everest climbers will

be felicitated by the ministry of tour-ism and civil aviation of Nepal.Nameirakpam Chingkheinganba, who is also part of the first Northeast India Top of the World Mount Ever-est Expedition, 2013, became the youngest person from Manipur to conquer the peak. Chingkheinganba is said to be all of 16 years, seven months and 11 days.David Zohmangaiha (Mizoram), Wansuk Myrthong (Meghalaya), Ta-run Saikia (Assam), Anand Gurung (Sikkim), Nima Lama (Arunachal Pradesh) and N. Bidyapati (Manipur) have also made their states proud by becoming the first to scale Mount Everest.

British Open squash: Pallikal goes down fighting to World No.2Hull (England)India’s Dipika Pallikal fought hard before losing to local hope Laura Massaro in the pre-quarterfinals of the Allam British Open Squash Championships here.Fifteenth-ranked Pallikal squan-dered a great start to go down 11-7, 10-12, 9-11, 6-11 against the World No.2 amid cold and wet conditions surrounding the glass court at the KC Stadium here Thursday night.Her loss ended India’s challenge in the competition. Pallikal had lost to Egyptian Raneem El Weleily at the same stage in the 2012 edition of the world’s oldest tournament. In the men’s category, Saurav Gho-sal Wednesday fell short against Frenchman Gregory Gaultier in the round of 16. The 45-minute contest saw Pallikal taking control of the first two games

until her more experi-enced opponent staged a remarkable comeback. The Indian was 8-3 up in the second game and had four game balls before Massaro turned the con-test around.Talking about that game, Massaro said: “I wasn’t even thinking about the score, I didn’t realise I was that far behind in the second.”“It’s such tough conditions out there, I just had to con-centrate on each point, and it might have seemed a bit excessive but I needed to keep on geeing myself up and that was the only way to do it.”The English player takes on 14th seed Omneya Abdel Kawy of Egypt

in the quarterfinals.“Omneya and I came through ju-niors together so it should be an in-teresting match,” said Massaro.

CHANDIGARH SUNDAY 26 May 2013 23 SPORTS

India lose to Chinese Taipei, AFC Cup dream endsRamallahThe Indian women’s football team’s dream of qualifying for the AFC Cup fell by the wayside as they went down fighting 1-2 to Chinese Taipei, who notched their second consecu-tive win, in a group D encounter at the Faisal Al Huseni Stadium here.Yu Hsiu Chin and Lai Li Chin scored either side of a fine set-piece equalis-er from Sasmita Malik in the 53rd minute to secure the win for Taipei Thursday. Courtesy the result, they move to six points from two matches while India, in spite of spirited dis-plays, remain without a point.If the twice-SAFF Champions won the tactical battle in the first half, they were by far the better side in the second period. Head Coach Anadi Barua’s ploy of playing deep and attacking on the counter paid off as Taipei, who scored six against Pal-estine in their opening game, were bottled up in the final third by India’s defence.

The second half be-longed to India and Sasmita Malik whose classy free kick in the 53rd minute got her team back in the game.However, Li Chin’s goal nine minutes from time broke Indian hearts who all the while were enjoying ball possession and swift flank play.In the other match of the day, Myanmar blanked Palestine 9-0. Striker Yee Yee Oo found the back of the net seven times with six of them coming in the second half as Myanmar ran riot against a hapless Palestine outfit. Courtesy the win, Myanmar go to six points from two matches while the hosts are yet to open their account.

Sochi Olympics to see 2,500 doping tests

MoscowSochi Olympics organisers have said 2,500 doping tests would be conducted at the Winter Games next February, surpassing the total at the Vancouver Games four years ago.Alexei Slautin, the head of the So-chi 2014 doping control committee, told the Sports Ministry’s website

Thursday that 13 doping control sites will operate during the Games, with 10 stationed at various venues and three in the Olympic village.According to the International Olympic Committee, 2,149 doping tests were performed in Vancouver.Slautin also said 600 tests will be carried out at the Sochi Paralym-

pics.Last month, Russia’s sports min-istry said 570 trained “specialists” will collect blood and urine samples at the Sochi Games. In Vancouver, by comparison, there were 500 dop-ing personnel.The first Winter Olympics in Russia take place Feb 7-23, 2014.

Seven Cubans to participate in World Judo MastersHavanaFive female and two male Cuban judokas will participate in the 2013 World Judo Masters tournament, to be held in Russia’s Tuymen city.The team is led by Idalis Ortiz, 2012 Olympic champion in the over 78 kg category, as well as London 2012 silver medallists Yanet Bermoy (52 kg category) and Asley Gonzalez (90 kg), re-ports Xinhua.Ortiz is ranked world No.1 in her class, while Gonzales is second and Bermoy third in their respec-tive divisions.The team also includes Dayaris Mestre (women’s 48 kg), Heidy Abrey (women’s over-78 kg), Os-car Brayson (men’s over-100 kg) and Onix Cortex (men’s 70 kg).Tyumen 2013 World Judo Mas-ters, May 25-26, will be attended by the top 16 in the world rankings in each of the 14 divisions. The champions will obtain 700 points.

Berlin to host 2015 Champions League final

LondonBerlin’s Olympic Stadium will host the 2015 Champions League football final, European foot-ball’s governing body, UEFA, an-nounced.It also announced Thursday that the 2015 Europa League final will be held in Warsaw, reports Xinhua.Bayern Munich take on Bundes-liga rivals Borussia Dortmund

Saturday in an all-German Cham-pions League final at Wembley while the 2014 final will be hosted by Lisbon’s Estadio da Luz.The Berlin final will be the eighth time that a UEFA final has been held on German soil, the most re-cent being at Bayern Munich’s Al-lianz Arena when the hosts lost the 2012 Champions League final on penalties to Chelsea.

East Bengal beat Mohun Bagan 3-2, win Kolkata LeagueKolkataRiding on their Nigerian firepower, East Bengal made a hattrick of Kol-kata premier division soccer league titles with a 3-2 win over arch-rivals Mohun Bagan.Nigerian Edeh Chidi scored a dou-ble, while his compatriot Penn Orji netted once for the winners who lift-ed the coveted title for the 34th time.Okolie Odafa, another Nigerian, and Australian-Turkish player Tolgey Ozbey found the mark for Mohun Bagan before a large crowd at the Salt Lake stadium.

East Bengal led 2-1 at half time.The red and yellow brigade went ahead in the 23rd minute when Chidi latched on to a Penn pass, and scored on his second attempt after the first shot was deflected by Bagan goal-keeper Shilton Paul.East Bengal doubled the lead four minutes later through Penn but Mo-hun Bagan reduced the margin a little later.Crossing over, East Bengal got an insurance strike in the 71st minute, courtesy Odafa, before Tolgey made the scoreline 3-2 in injury time.

Russia to spend $8 billion on 2018 World Cup

TNTA to host ITF Futures events

MoscowRussia is expected to spend no more than $8 billion to fund the 2018 foot-ball World Cup, a steep fall from the previously estimated $16.6 billion, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shu-valov said.“All parameters that could have been cut have been cut. The last figure that (Sports Minister Vitaly) Mutko ... came to me with was 250 billion ru-bles ($7.94 billion),” Xinhua quoted Shuvalov as saying.The government would choose “op-timal” programme for infrastructure rather than the “maximal” one the

ChennaiThe Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) will be conducting three ITF Men’s Futures Hard Court ten-nis tournaments in Chennai and Co-imbatore.According to a TNTA press release here Friday, the first event, the MPTA ITF Men’s Futures Championship sponsored by the Match Point Ten-nis Academy will be conducted from May 27 to June 1 at the SDAT Tennis Stadium here. The qualifying rounds will be played May 25 and 26.The second leg, the BR Adityan-GNC ITF Futures tournament spon-sored by Malai Murasu, will be held from June 3 to 8 at the Gandhinagar Club, Chennai with the qualifying

sports ministry proposed in April.Shuvalov said the new budget was the “very minimum, with it they’ve squeezed out absolutely everything. There is nothing going to waste,” he added.The final figure is to be announced in June when President Vladimir Pu-tin signs off on the sports ministry’s World Cup preparations programme.Ten of Russia’s 12 World Cup arenas are being built from scratch, with Moscow’ Luzhniki Arena, which hosts the opening game, a semifinal and the final, undergoing an $800 million refurbishment.

rounds June 1 and 2.The third and final event sponsored by Lakshmi Machine Works will be conducted from June 10 to 16 in Co-imbatore, preceded by the qualify-ing rounds June 8 and 9, the release added.

Real Madrid sign CasemiroRio de JaneiroSpanish football club Real Ma-drid has exercised its option of signing Sao Paulo loanee Casemiro on a permanent deal.The 21-year-old joined the Spanish giants on loan in January and made his Liga debut in a 3-1 victory over Real Betis at the Santiago Bernabeu April 19, reports Xinhua.A series of im-pressive perfor-mances for Real Madrid Castilla in Spain’s second tier convinced club president Floren-tino Perez to make Casemiro’s move a permanent one.Real Madrid will pay 6.5 million euros for the player, with 80 percent going to SaoPaulo, 15 percent to his agent Julio Fressato and 5 percent to another unnamed representative.

Casemiro has been capped five times for Brazil since making his interna-tional debut under Mano Menezes in 2011.

CHANDIGARHSUNDAY 26 May 201324

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FLATS AT SUNNY HEIGHTS AND NRI RETREATS

Try tangy flavour to stay fresh A chilled drink with lemon in it is an ideal way to ward off unbearable heat during summer season.

Whether it is an iced tea or mojito, the citrus fruit can be included in your drink to refresh you.

Lemon watermelon ice teaTake watermelon chunks, blend them well. Add lemon juice to it and then mix it with the lemon fla-voured ice tea and drink it to quench the summer thirst. “Both fruits are re-freshing and light. These help to fight heat stroke,” said Vivek Harbhajanka, owner of Whitewaters Cafe.

Lemon mojitoWhen the temperature crosses the 40 degree mark this special one is the best potion, which is made by mixing mint leaves, sugar, lemon, sprite and crushed ice. All ingredients are per-fect to beat summer heat.

Lemon putu monkeyNikita Khattar, owner Bora Bora, suggests a drink that has lemon along with other hydrat-ing ingredients. “Lemon putu monkey is a blend of coconut water with pineapple and lemon chunks which will keep you hy-drated for sure,” she said.

Lemon pina coladaKhattar suggests one more drink for summer. “It is a mix of coconut syrup, lime juice syrup, coconut water and lemon chunks. It is healthy, refresh-ing, cold and perfect to beat the heat,” she explained.