Chennai to get NSG hub
New Delhi Dec. 22: Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata have been identified as the four cities where the elite National Security Guard hubs will be established. The NSG, headquartered in the national capital, was pressed into action during the November 26 Mumbai terror strikes. The Mumbai terror attacks came as a wake-up call to the government which then decided to decentralise the force to extend similar security cover to all major cities. NSG director-general J.K. Dutt met home secretary Madhukar Gupta on Monday to discuss measures required to enhance the strength and security apparatus given to the force.
“Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai are the four places that have been identified to establish the new NSG hubs. These hubs will be manned by the existing force of NSG as of now,” Mr Dutt told reporters The strength of the force will also be enhanced, Mr Dutt said but did not specify the number of new recruitments or when it will take place. The DG also said that steps are being taken to speed up procurement of new arms and ammunition. Source : Deccan
US offers to help set up the NIA
NEW DELHI Dec. 22: A top US intelligence official on Monday met home minister P. Chidambaram and other senior Indian intelligence officials offering assistance in the setting-up of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), besides sharing critical inputs gathered by the FBI and Indian intelligence agencies during the month-long probe in the November 26 strikes.
US director of national intelligence John Michel McConnell, who flew into the city, held a half-an-hour meeting with Mr Chidambaram in North Block on Monday morning. US ambassador David C. Mulford was also present in the meeting. Mr McConnell is later believed to have met National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan and India’s intelligence chiefs to discuss the evidence gathered in the Mumbai attack probe. Though there was no official word about the FBI team’s return to the US, a senior home ministry official said that the month-long probe into the Mumbai attacks in nearing its final stage. Officers from the FBI have been camping in Mumbai for almost one month and have already questioned Ajmal Amir Kasab to ascertain his identity as a Pakistan citizen and those of his handlers in Pakistan. Source : Deccan
Maya mania in state
Chennai Dec. 22: Dravidian political stalwarts of Tamil Nadu may have got a jolt seeing the ‘Blue Elephant’ of the BSP all over Chennai, on thousands of fluttering party flags and on posters that welcomed Behenji Mayawati, the UP chief minister. With several minor politicians and a few noted bureaucrats lining up to join her bid to capture some southern turf, it appeared that the Tamil capital was in a spell of ‘Maya mania’ on Monday.
Though her Hindi was hard to sell among the pre-dominantly dalit audience at the brotherhood confe-rence she came to address, the self-proclaimed champion of the downtrodden drew applause repeatedly from her audience, who appreciated her inimitable style of pitching her rhe-toric — inclusion of upper castes among the Dalit masses. “BSP is not a caste based party meant for a particular community,” she declared.
In fact, her successful integration of brahmins and dalits dubbed as “social engineering’’ proved a minor hit in Tamil Nadu even at the onset as former AIADMK MP and a brahmin, Sreedh-aran, along with former DGP and dalit Kalimuthu joined the party in the same podium, apparently, setting the tone for Mayawati’s trip down south. Unlike last December’s maiden conference, Mayawati made waves this time in the company of senior bureaucrats and seasoned Tamil politicians who were suffering estranged ties with their party high commands. Source : Deccan
AP: School meals sicken 1,800
New Delhi, Dec. 22: The government on Monday admitted that 4,620 children had fallen ill after eating mid-day-meals in the last few years, contrary to the claims that children were getting hot and hygienic food under the scheme. Among the states, Andhra Pradesh has suffered the most where 1,839 students of primary level had fallen ill followed by Karnataka (1,241 students had fallen ill), minister of state for human resource development M.A.A. Fatmi informed the Rajya Sabha. Besides the above two states, 612 students in Uttar Pradesh, 208 in Maharashtra, 267 in Rajasthan, 145 in West Bengal, 77 in Tamil Nadu and 85 in Orissa have fallen ill after taking mid-day meals.
The national capital too has reported four such students falling ill due to the school food. Bihar and the Andamans have reported one case each of this nature. The government aims at providing cooked food to students in the primary level to retain and attract students, thus reducing the dropout rate. The other aim is to provide thousands of needy students required calories in school so that their growth does not get hampered.
“As and when any complaint was brought to the notice of the government, the concerned state government and Union Territories’ administration was asked to conduct suitable enquiry and to take appropriate action against the responsible person(s) and initiate corrective measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents in future,” Fatmi said. The minister, however, did not mention what kind of action had been taken against the culprits or what type of illnesses these students suffered from due to the bad quality food intake.
The HRD ministry too informed the upper house that India has entered into an agreement with the World Bank for assistance worth Rs 24 billion for the period 2007-10 as partial funding towards unversalisation of education known as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme. Source : Deccan
8 cases against TV9 channel
Bengaluru Dec. 22: The city police booked eight cases against Kannada news channel, TV 9, for allegedly spreading a rumour that some children fell ill after being administered the pulse polio vaccine on Sunday. Cases were also booked against people who indulged in vandalism in and around the hospitals on Sunday night. Chief medical officer and the doctor on duty at Bowring hospital have lodged complaints with the Bowring hospital police outpost. In his complaint, Dr Radhakrishna has stated that a mob misbehaved with duty doctors and hurled stones at windowpanes.
In a suo motu action, the city police registered separate cases in Hennur, Bharatinagar, Shivajinagar, K.R. Puram, Banashankari and Victoria hospital police outposts against the TV channel for sparking rumours leading to vandalism. Police said people panicked after the channel aired the news that a few children fell ill after taking the polio vaccine. Two cases were filed in Bharatinagar station itself. It said panic-stricken parents were not in a position to listen to advice from police officers. People reportedly said that a channel had aired news about the ill effects of the vaccination drive. Source : Deccan
Centre may cut fuel prices
New Delhi, Dec. 22: The government may further reduce petrol, diesel and domestic LPG prices just before the General Elections are announced in February, a senior official said. “To my mind, the government will wait till February before making another round of price cuts,” a senior petroleum ministry official said. Earlier this month, the government reduced petrol price by Rs 5 a litre and diesel by Rs 2 per litre as international crude oil prices dipped from an all-time high of $147 a barrel in July to under $ 45 a barrel.
“This period (till February) will be used to monitor the movements in international prices. There is no point in cutting fuel prices just now and then having to raise it again if oil makes a retreat,” the official said. Even after this month price cut, public sector oil firms were making a profit of Rs 9.98 on the sale of every litre of petrol and Rs 1.03 per litre on diesel.
The further softening in global oil prices has seen these profits widen to Rs 11.48 per litre on petrol and Rs 2.92 a litre on diesel, he said. Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are together projected to lose Rs 1,10,381 crore in revenues this fiscal on fuel sales, the official said, adding the oil firms can use the period till the next price cut to make up part of the losses they have incurred on fuel sales this fiscal. Source : Deccan
Tata to inject ‘tens of millions’ into JLR
London Dec. 22: While, the Labour government, led by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown planned to bail out Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover within days, the Tatas have managed to secure enough cash to postpone the bailout until after Christmas. Meanwhile, the planned government bailout, which was described by The Times newspaper as worth tens of millions of pounds, would have helped keep the luxury carmaker stay afloat.
The imminent bailout also has helped the Tata Group to secure last-minute funding to prevent a cash flow crisis. The UK government will negotiate a loan package, worth hundreds of millions of pounds, with JLR and the government officials were working out the details of the package over the weekend. Mr Brown and the chancellor of exchequer Alistair Darling have already privately agreed that short-term assistance for JLR was almost certainly necessary, the report said.
However, the Tata Group found the cash for JLR because its banks were convinced that the UK government would prevent a collapse, the report quoted a source as saying.
Tata Motors has agreed to inject “tens of millions” of pounds into Jaguar Land Rover to prevent an immediate cash flow crisis, according to the Financial Times. The Tata Group, which bought the luxury carmaker earlier this year for $2.3 billion from Ford Motor, has already provided “hundreds of millions” of working capital to the British firm, the report said. The UK government has publicly been lukewarm to the idea of a bailout for the carmaker, which directly employs 15,000 people in UK. The business secretary Lord Peter Mandelson said on Sunday that the Indian owners of Jaguar Land Rover must “look to their own resources”. On Friday, Mr Brown had confirmed the stance taken by his ministers—Lord Mandelson and Mr Alastair Darling — and made it clear that this government had made “no promise of support” for Jaguar Land Rover. Source : Deccan
Shampoos no cure for dandruff: Scientists
Chennai Dec. 22: Scientists have pooh-poohed advertised claims that shampoos, most of them endorsed by celebrities, could get rid of dandruff. Insisting that dandruff is not curable, they cite a Chennai study involving 250 persons, selected randomly, to say that men are more vulnerable to the disease. “Our study has found that people with O and AB blood groups are more susceptible to dandruff though people with other blood groups are not free from it,” said Dr S. Gokul Shankar, who led the team of researchers.
“Also, people in the 16-45 age group are more prone to dandruff. We also found that dandruff is more common in males than females,” said Dr Shankar. Shampoos are no solution to dandruff, said Dr Ranjith Mehenderkar, School of Medicine, AIMST University, Malaysia. “So long as you use a shampoo, dandruff will be under control. But the moment you discontinue it, dandruff returns with more vigour,” said Dr Mehenderkar, another member of the research team.
Prof Jaykar Thomas, former head of the dermatology, department of Thanjavur Medical College, said that some of the findings of the Chennai team would be of big use to dermatologists. “The findings on blood groups are interesting and they have to be studied in detail,” said Dr Thomas. According to Dr Shankar, advanced research is needed to find out why only certain individuals are affected. “The million dollar question is why Pityrosporum Ovale, the dandruff causing organism grows out of control in certain individuals,” he said. Prof AJA Ranjith Singh, who supervised the research, said testosterone could be the reason for males getting more dandruff than females. Source : Deccan
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