Month: December 2012

Edwina Mountbatten enjoyed a close and warm relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru but it was spiritual and intellectual, not a sexual one, says the lady’s daughter Pamela Hicks.

Excerpts from her just released book “Daughter of Empire” published in Friday’s Daily Mail say Lord Mountbatten was aware of his wife’s fondness for Nehru but did not interfere.

Edwina, wife of undivided India’s last viceroy, fell madly in love with the country and with Pandit Nehru, the first prime minister after independence, says Pamela Hicks, now 83.

After the formal commissioning of a rail coach factory at Raebareli, Railways has firmed up plans to set up another plant, a wheel factory, in the Congress president’s constituency.

“We are finalising the proposal to set up a wheel factory at Raebareli. The plant will be a joint venture with Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL),” a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the project said.

The proposed Rs 500 crore wheel factory is expected to be announced in the 2013-14 Rail Budget by Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.

Standing by his party’s demand that memorial of the late Bal Thackeray be constructed at Shivaji Park here, Uddhav Thackeray, the son of late Shiv Sena supremo, said that the controversy over the issue is not required.

The Maharashtra Congress is against the idea of constructing any ‘other memorial at the sprawling ground in central Mumbai’. “Shivaji Maharaj is a god for people of Maharashtra. His memorial is already there at Shivaji Park,” MPCC chief Manikrao Thakre had said.

At least eight people were killed and 36 injured when a bus overturned in Bolivia, the EJU TV reported Sunday.

The accident occurred Saturday on a highway linking Bolivia’s official capital Sucre with Potosi city.

The bus carrying 50 passengers skidded off the road 27 km from the capital and overturned. Speeding is seen as the most likely cause of the tragedy.

Seven people died immediately. The eighth victim later succumbed to his injuries in intensive care.

A total of 36 passengers, including three children, were taken to the Santa Barbara hospital in Sucre.

At least four people were killed and three injured in Pakistan after a a US drone struck their house in South Waziristan, Geo News reported Saturday.

Sources said four people were killed while three others sustained injuries when the US drone fired missiles targeting a house in Wana area.

–PTI

Ahmed Patel, Congress leader from Gujarat and political secretary to the party president Sonia Gandhi, on Saturday said Chief Minister Narendra Modi was talking like a “dejected and frustrated” person.

Modi had yesterday said the Congress should declare Patel as the Chief Ministerial candidate.

“I was never a contender for the post of CM, and will never be. I have always remained away from power politics,” a statement released by the Congress here quoted him as saying.

“Ahmed Patel dubbed the comment of the Chief Minister as one made by a dejected and a frustrated person,” it added.

At least five Taliban militants wearing suicide vests Sunday stormed a main NATO base in Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, Xinhua reported.

Two explosions rocked the city, 120 km east of Kabul, around 6 a.m.

“Initially there was a car bomb attack hitting the main gate of the base at 6 a.m. and there might be casualties,” police said.

There were no reports available about the casualties.

Government troops immediately cordoned off the area.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack.

—IANS

Like any other well informed deejay, Paris Hilton knew what’s needed to get the crowd swinging and swaying. The socialite and entrepreneur chose the popular Korean song “Gangnam Style” and peppered the hit number with the words, “We will rock this night Goa” to begin her performance at the Sandkastle Music Festival of India Resort Fashion Week (IRFW).

The woman Collector of Krishnagiri district was injured today in an accident that left her assistant dead at Namasparai town, police said. Collector Pooja Kulkarni, along with Deputy Tahsildar Jaishankar, her assistant and the driver were on their way to Dharmapuri in her car when it rammed into a bus near a bus stand at Namasparai near Krishnagiri, they said.

Cochin International Airport is set to become the first airport in the country to use solar power for running its utility grid system. A Kolkata-based solar module manufacturing company, Vikram Solar, would be installing a 100 kWp solar power facility at the airport situated at Nedumbassery in Cochin. Giving details of the system, a senior company official said Vikram Solar would design, install and commission the solar photo-voltaic (PV) power system consisting of mounted solar panels.

Artists and the general audience at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2012 will hear Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam, M.I.A as she is popularly known, perform for the first time in India Dec 11 at the event’s inauguration.

A British artist-musician of Tamil descent, M.I.A’s name is the acronym for “Missing in Action” (in a conflict). She named herself in memory of a cousin who died in Sri Lanka during the ethnic violence in that island nation.

Kazakhstan celebrated the Day of the First President here to mark President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule of the Central Asian country.

Its embassy in India Saturday also honoured former Indian envoy Ashok Sajjanhar for his contribution to boosting ties between the two countries.

Ambassador Doulat Kuanyshev presented the honour to Sajjanhar, who was ambassador of Kazakhstan from 2007-2010, for his “invaluable contribution to the fruitful development of Kazakh-Indian friendly ties”.

This year also marks 20 years of ties between the two countries.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has requested US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to expedite the extradition of Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Headley and his accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana to India, official sources said.

They said Khurshid has written to Clinton for extradition of Headley and Rana before their expected sentencing in January 2013.

The UAE-Pakistan Assistance Project has produced a documentary film entitled “Spirit of Solidarity”.

The film will be broadcast on UAE’s 41st national day anniversary, it was announced Saturday. The film highlights the work of the assistance programme launched by the UAE to assist Pakistan.

Humanitarian programmes were carried out in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, South Waziristan and Bajour regions of Pakistan as part of the project. The film will be in Arabic and English languages.

—IANS

Sixteen miners remained trapped underground after a coal mine in China was flooded, authorities said Sunday.

The accident around 11.30 p.m Saturday in Heilongjiang province. Twenty-two miners were working at Furuixiang coal mine in Qitaihe city. Six miners managed to escape.

Rescuers were laying conduits to pump water out of the pit.

—-IANS

A plot to make an undertrial escape from court complex here was today foiled by the police with the arrest of two persons.

Undertrial Onkar Singh Bajwa was lodged in Modern Central jail at Kapurthala and was brought here for a hearing in local civil court.

“When Bajwa was being taken into the court, his three acquaintances assaulted Havalidar Surjit Singh in an attempt

Two youths were killed after assailants opened fire on them when they were getting down from an auto-rickshaw in Chhalesar of the district.

One person was also injured in the shootout incident that took place late last night, police said.

The three were working at a slaughter house on the Agra-Etmadpur road.

The victims Asif (22) and Imran (19) were declared brought dead by the doctors at the local S N Hospital while
20-year-old Sajid is undergoing treatment for his bullet injuries, said ASP (Rural) Ashfaq Ahmed.

Delhi Government today launched a massive drive to check compliance of the blanket ban on use of
plastic bags across the city.

Twenty-three teams of environment department and Delhi Pollution Control Committee visited 44 shopping malls and 19
five-star hotels as part of the drive.

Officials said the teams carried out checks in 468 shops in the malls and 46 shops in hotels and found violation of the ban in 152 outlets. The violators were let off with verbal warning of not to repeat the offence.

Claiming that there is a 24 per cent global decline in new HIV infections among children, UNICEF today said that more positive pregnant women should receive anti-retroviral treatment to decrease the risk of the diseases getting transmitted to their babies.

In India, the agency said, “Over 14,000 children got infected in 2011, with a 13 per cent decline from 2009.”

Applauding the global commitment against HIV, it said, “The world has seen a 24 per cent reduction in new HIV infections in children–from 4,30,000 in 2009 to 3,30,000 in 2011.”

A survey has revealed that West Bengal is gradually moving towards becoming a medium prevalence HIV state from low prevalence one, a scientist said here Saturday on World AIDS Day.

“Bengal was a low prevalence HIV state but gradually it’s going towards medium prevalence state as per studies,” said Kamalesh Sarkar, deputy director of the Division of Epidemiology (HIV/AIDS), National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases.

“HIV prevalence is very high in certain pockets. Unless we control it, it will continue to rise,” Sarkar told IANS.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is due home from New York to a hero’s welcome tomorrow, after the United Nations voted to recognise Palestine as a non-member state.

The main official event will be a celebratory rally and a speech by Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters, starting at
midday (1000 GMT).

He landed in Amman today and is scheduled to spend the night in Jordan, returning to the Israeli-occupied West Bank
tomorrow morning.

On Thursday, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backed a resolution recognising Palestine within the 1967
borders as a non-member observer state.

Resolving world problems by force as the US is trying to do does not work, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday.

In his opening speech to the 20th session of the Foreign and Defence Policy Council, Lavrov said: “The line of conducting democracy by iron and blood does not work.”

This is clear in the case of Iraq and other states, he added.

“No-one knows in the end what will happen in the Middle East,” including Syria, the Russian minister said.

Supporters of Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party were allegedly roughed up by police Saturday while they were protesting police’s refusal to register a complaint on a minor’s rape in the capital.

A four-year-old girl was raped Nov 25 in the J.J. colony of Bawana in Delhi. But police allegedly refused to register a first information report (FIR) in the case, an Aam Adami Party activist said.

The girl’s family members said that she was raped by a 50-year-old neighbour, who was caught red-handed committing the crime, but managed to escape.

Kuwaitis cast ballots today for a second general election in 10 months, but turnout was low after a boycott call by the opposition which argues the parliament has lost all its legitimacy.

The vote comes nearly two months after Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved a pro-government parliament
following its reinstatement in June by a court ruling that also annulled an assembly elected in February.

BJP leader Sushma Swaraj Saturday said that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had the capability to be prime minister, triggering speculation about him taking a more central role in the party after the December state assembly elections.

The BJP did not have a line on a prime ministerial candidate but Modi was fit to be prime minister, she told reporters in Vadodara.

“He is capable, there are no two views about it,” said Sushma Swaraj, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha.