National Archive

Balco power plant chimney collapse probe begins

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: NationalTags:

Raipur, Nov 3 – A single-member judicial commission Tuesday began its probe into the Sep 23 accident at the under-construction Balco power plant when a chimney collapsed, killing 41 contract workers.

Sandeep Bakhshi, the district and sessions court judge who is probing the tragedy, told reporters at Korba town – the site of the plant, some 250 km from here – that the commission was tasked to conduct its inquiry on six points and would submit its report to the government in a period of three months.

He said the commission will comprehensively probe the tragedy and will do its job in ‘transparent and fair manner’.

Vedanta Resources Plc-controlled Balco, in which the Indian government holds a 49 percent stake, had awarded a Chinese firm, Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (SEPCO), the task of constructing two thermal power plants of 600 MW each at Korba. Later, SEPCO outsourced the work of construction of a 257-metre chimney to Gannon Dunkerley and Company Ltd (GDCL).

Korba police registered a case against Balco soon after the accident and arrested GDCL project manager Manoj Sharma Oct 7 on charges of several lapses, including using sub-standard material for the chimney’s construction.

Police also interrogated about 20 Chinese engineers employed by SEPCO at Korba late last month but are yet to make any arrest.

Orissa boat tragedy: Two bodies recovered, 3 still missing

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: NationalTags:

Bhubaneswar, Nov 3 – Bodies of two of the five pilgrims who went missing when an overloaded boat capsized Monday in the Mahanadi river in Orissa’s Cuttack district Monday, were recovered Tuesday.

‘We have recovered two dead bodies so far from the spot. We will continue the search operation for the remaining three pilgrims for a few hours more, then we will see,’ said Arbind Agrawal, the sub-collector of Athagarh in Cuttack district, about 25 km from state capital Bhubaneswar.

According to the officials, the chances of survival of the missing pilgrims are grim.

The boat capsized at Mancheswar ghat while ferrying pilgrims to Dhabaleswar temple, where there was a heavy rush as it was Kartika Purnima (full moon of Kartika month of Hindu calendar). More than 20 people were rescued Monday buy five could not be traces

Earlier Tuesday, the district administration took the help of international scuba diver Shabir Bux and his team to help in the search. However, the search operation failed to trace out other pilgrims who had drowned.

Ben Kingsley to be guest of honour at IFFI

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, NationalTags:

Panaji, Nov 3 – Noted British actor and Academy award winner Sir Ben Kingsley will be the guest of honour at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which will be held later this month in Goa, state Chief Secretary Sanjiv Srivastava said Tuesday.

‘Sir Ben Kingsley will be coming. He will be our guest of honour at the inaugural ceremony of the 40th edition of the IFFI, which will be held in Panaji from Nov 23 onwards,’ Srivastava told reporters Tuesday evening, after attending a meeting of the governing council, which oversees the arrangements for the festival.

Sir Ben is well known for playing the role of Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s epic film ‘Gandhi’ in the early ’80s. The role earned the Yorkshire-born actor worldwide acclaim and an Oscar award for the best actor.

BAFTA, Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild award are other major motion picture awards won by Sir Ben.

‘Either Rajnikant himself, or a guest of his stature will inaugurate the festival,’ Srivastava added.

The chief secretary added that the programme for the IFFI was not finalized yet.

‘We are still working on it. The directorate of film festivals (DFF) has suggested some corrections and we are working on them. Since this is an international film festival, we are working to achieve the best standards,’ Srivastata said.

PM appeals to Vishva Bharti students to end stir

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: Education, National, PoliticsTags:

New Delhi, Nov 3 – Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday urged the agitating students of Vishva Bharati University to ‘desist from disrupting normal life’ and end their stir to protest the theft of a CD containing paintings and unpublished documents of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

The prime minister said he had been ‘deeply pained’ by the turn of events at the Vishva Bharati University during the last few days leading to the disruption of academic activities and normal life on the campus, according to a statement here.

The university is virtually closed since the last ten days as the staff and students joined hands in an agitation to demand a high-level inquiry into the alleged theft of a CD.

The prime minister appealed to the students to ‘desist from disrupting normal life and academic activities and withdraw the agitation’.

‘Thereafter, I will ensure that an impartial inquiry is conducted into the circumstances leading to the agitation and the allegations that have been levelled against the university authorities and other concerned entities,’ he added, according to the statement.

The protesters have also alleged rampant corruption in the university and also demanded that the institution’s vice-chancellor be sent on leave during the investigation to ensure a fair probe.

Ajay Chautala resigns from Rajya Sabha

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: National, PoliticsTags:

Chandigarh, Nov 3 – Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) secretary general Ajay Singh Chautala resigned his membership of the Rajya Sabha Tuesday.

Chautala, elder son of INLD leader and former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, was last month elected to the Haryana assembly from the Dabwali seat.

His term in the Rajya Sabha was to end in August 2010.

Chautala had earlier been Lok Sabha member from Bhiwani parliamentary constituency in Haryana.

The INLD won 31 seats in last month’s assembly election in Haryana. The Haryana assembly has 90 members.

Scheme to tackle malnutrition launched in Madhya Pradesh

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: Health, National, PoliticsTags:

Bhopal, Nov 3 – Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan Tuesday launched the ‘Sanjha Chulha’ (community kitchen) scheme, which he termed a ‘revolutionary step’ towards the challenge of eradicating malnutrition.

The scheme was launched in Parwalia Sadak village in Bhopal district.

Under the scheme, Anganwadi and school children will get freshly cooked food, prepared in same place as for the mid-day meal scheme by self-help groups. The scheme will be monitored in coordination with panchayats (village councils) and the community.

Chouhan said his endeavour is to ensure that all children get education and no one is left out.

‘Earlier, these schemes were being conducted separately due to which their monitoring and quality were affected on one hand and on the other, profits were pocketed by contractors. The community kitchen scheme is being jointly implemented by the two departments (women and child welfare and the school education department), so that their benefits can be received by both mothers and children,’ he said.

The new system of combined kitchen will not only facilitate proper monitoring and improve quality, but will also provide employment to women’s self-help groups, Chouhan added.

3 more in Orissa school found to have swine flu

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: Health, NationalTags:

Bhubaneswar, Nov 3 – Three more students tested positive swine flu in a residential girls’ school in Orissa’s Sundergarh district, officials said Tuesday. Two girls had already been detected to be infected Sunday.

‘Four swab samples had been sent to regional medical research center. Three of them were found to be positive,’ Gopinath Mahalik, director of health, told IANS.

He, however, said that there is no need to panic.

‘There is no need to panic. We have taken every precautionary measure. A team of doctors is already stationed at the school and treating the students. We have quarantined the students to prevent the spread of any contamination,’ he added.

Samples of two students of the Jampali Government Girls High School, sent to the regional medical research centre, turned out to be positive Sunday.

The health department was concerned after it found some of the students returned to their homes after they complained of fever last Saturday.

However, the officials say that the students have been traced and undergoing treatment.

‘We have traced ninety percent of the students who had gone to their homes after they complained of fever. We are treating them too,’ Mahalik added.

Congress clears 26 candidates for Jharkhand polls

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: National, PoliticsTags:

New Delhi, Nov 3 – The Congress Tuesday announced its first list of candidates for the coming elections to the Jharkhand assembly.

‘The central election committee (CEC) chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi Monday approved 26 names of the candidates for the phase one, two and three,’ a Congress leader here.

The list of the candidates was released by CEC in-charge Oscar Fernandes.

The five-phase Jharkhand poll begins Nov 25 and ends Dec 18. The votes will be counted Dec 23.

416 cases of dengue in Delhi

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: Health, NationalTags:

New Delhi, Nov 3 – The capital recorded 19 new cases of dengue Tuesday, taking the total number of cases of the vector-borne disease in New Delhi to 416, a health department official said.

‘There were 19 new, confirmed cases of dengue Tuesday,’ Chief Medical Officer of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) N.K. Yadav told IANS.

In the past few months, there have been two deaths recorded due to dengue – that of a 15-year-old boy and a nine-year-old boy.

Last year till Nov 1, a total of 1,070 cases of dengue were reported.

Besides the door-to-door checks, the MCD is also fumigating several places in the capital to curb mosquito breeding.

‘We are well-prepared to handle dengue, and our domestic breeding checkers have been taking rounds of their respective areas since May,’ Yadav said.

BJP struggles to solve Karnataka impasse

Published: November 3, 2009Posted in: National, PoliticsTags: ,

New Delhi/Bangalore, Nov 3 – The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday struggled to end the nine-day old crisis in Karnataka where rebel ministers insisted on removal of Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, ignoring party chief Rajnath Singh’s assertion that there would be no leadership change in the state.

Singh and senior leader Sushma Swaraj indicated, after day-long discussion in New Delhi, that solution to the turmoil was not in sight.

Singh appeared irritable when reporters asked him whether Yeddyurappa would continue as chief minister.

‘How many times the same question?’ he shot back as he got into his car.

When asked about leadership change and whether a solution has been found, Swaraj said: ‘Talks are on, not reached that stage’.

Yeddyurappa sent out contradictory signals while talking to reporters in Bellary, stronghold of state Tourism Minister G. Janardhana Reddy and his elder brother and Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy, who are leading the rebellion against him.

The Reddy brothers are mining barons in Bellary, which is rich in iron ore and is 400 km from Bangalore. Yeddyruappa hoped the crisis would be resolved in a day or two as the BJP leadership was talking to the Reddys.

He blamed assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar, propped up by the Reddy brothers and supporters as an alternative leader, for the crisis simply because he was not made a minister. Shettar holds Yeddyurappa responsible for depriving him of a political post.

Janardhana Reddy in New Delhi and Karunakara Reddy in Bangalore dismissed talk of the party favouring Yeddyurappa continuing as chief minister.

‘It is media creation,’ Karunakara Reddy said when asked whether there was any change in their stand since Rajnath Singh had said Yedyurappa would ‘definitely’ continue as the chief minister.

‘The central leadership has not given us any such indication,’ he asserted.

Janardhana Reddy also maintained the same stand after talking to senior leader Sushma Swaraj, considered close to the Reddy brothers as they joined the BJP just ahead of the 1999 Lok Sabha polls and canvassed for her when she took on Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Bellary.

Yeddyurappa continued to talk tough. ‘There is no need for me to get a certificate on the work I am doing,’ he said, clearly in response to Reddy brothers’ repeated statements that the state BJP needed ‘good leadership’ if it wanted to continue to be in power in Karnataka.

The chief minister said he would visit Delhi Nov 5-6 to meet party central leaders and also Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over central funds for the rehabilitation of the flood hit in north Karnataka.

While Yeddyurappa Tuesday toured north Karnataka and participated in foundation stone laying ceremonies at several places for relocation of flood-prone villages, Karunakara Reddy, as Revenue Minister, held a video conference in Bangalore with senior officials of 12 affected districts to review the rehab work.

In related developments, Energy Minister K.S. Eshwarappa, who has also been unhappy with Yeddyurappa, left for Delhi to meet central leaders.

‘There is problem in the party. We will impress on our central leaders the need for an early solution,’ he said at the airport. He is accompanied by party legislator and spokesperson C.T. Ravi.

A large number of legislators supporting the Reddy brothers and staying in a star hotel in Hyderabad for the last one week also plan to visit Delhi in the next two days if the crisis persists.

The two opposition parties, the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular, have stayed aloof though strongly attacking the ruling party for ignoring the plight of the flood hit and indulging in power games.

The Reddy brothers have sought Yeddyurappa’s removal on the ground that he is dictatorial, does not give them free hand to run the ministries, does not consult them on posting of officials, and allows his favourites to interfere in the functioning of others’ ministries.

The Reddy brothers are upset that their younger sibling G. Somashekara Reddy, a legislator, has been slapped with a case of kidnapping in mid-October. They want the case to be dropped.

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