Lucknow Archive

IIM-Lucknow celebrates silver jubilee

Published: October 25, 2009Posted in: Business, Education, NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 25 – Top business leaders gathered at the Indian Institute of Management-Lucknow Sunday to celebrate the silver jubilee of one of the country’s premier business school and asked the students to espouse the corporate social responsibility cause.

‘We have human infrastructure in abundance. Besides earning for our self, we should also think for the betterment of our country and participate in nation building. We should also make efforts to establish a constructive and virtuous political party from which all of us can profit,’ Meera Sanyal, country head of ABN AMRO bank, said.

Founder and CEO of Rediff.com Ajit Balakrishnan said: ‘As far as I can project, the technological infrastructure of the country will soon change it into an emerged economy rather than an emerging economy.’

‘India is providing glorious services to the world in the field of health care, automotive and other fields, and I am sure we are progressing at a good pace to become world leaders in many professional fields.’

Chairman of NASSCOM Pramod Bhasin highlighted on the ‘digital divide’ exsiting in the country.

‘As compared to 250 million broadband users in China, we have only 5 million subscribers. This is causing a digital divide between the rural and the urban population,’ he noted.

‘Another shocking fact – rural India is buying more mobiles than the urban population. Such a gap in the market exists because our decision-makers leave the economy entirely to the market. They think that the market and industry will perform and improve on its own’, Pramod said.

Nagendra S., spokesperson of the media relations committee, said: ‘We, as a part of our 25th year of existence, have organised various programmes and the Samvit 09 – The leaders’ conclave, is a part of it.’

Non-payment to health workers could derail polio drive in Uttar Pradesh

Published: October 25, 2009Posted in: Health, NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 25 – Simmering discontent among thousands of basic health workers over non-payment of dues is likely to derail the November pulse polio round in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state that has the highest incidence of the disease.

Basic health workers serving as vaccinators and supervisors, who are entitled to a daily allowance of Rs.75 and Rs.150 respectively, have not received any payment for the September and October rounds, according to the UP Basic Health Workers Association (UPBHWA).

They are also seeking a raise of Rs.25 and Rs.50 in daily allowances.

Teams of vaccinators and supervisors are required to go from house to house to immunise children, often working long hours over seven or eight days of the polio programme every month in scorching heat and humid conditions.

Significantly, until 2008, such allowances were disbursed to them either in advance of the pulse polio round or on the second or third day of the programme as an incentive to fulfil targets.

But payment for this August round materialised much later. From September on, daily allowances remain unpaid to the polio teams all over the state, according to UPBHWA sources.

Reportedly, vaccinators’ daily allowances are even less than the minimum wages fixed for unskilled labour at Rs.100 per day under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

S.D. Sharma, a UPBHWA office-bearer, told IANS from Meerut that several representations by the association to the principal secretary, health and family welfare, and the minister concerned about unpaid allowances have failed to elicit any response.

Sharma alleged that a large part of the funds is being siphoned off by district and primary health centre officials even as polio teams working under harsh conditions remain unpaid.

Sources at the National Polio Surveillance Project unit here said the matter had already been brought to the notice of Raja Ram Bharti, the director general of health.

Bharti said the state unit of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), which funds polio, leprosy and tuberculosis programmes, has been formally requested to release money for pending allowances.

He said the money should have been released on time. Such delays, he admitted, would only hamper the steady progress made by these time-bound programmes.

S.K. Singh, NRHM general manager (administration) for Uttar Pradesh, refused to comment.

Polio, which is passed on through the faecal-oral route, affects children up to five years of age. It causes paralysis of the limbs and can be fatal in severe cases.

In India 498 polio cases were reported till Oct 23 this year. The highest 397 cases of polio were reported from parts of Uttar Pradesh till Oct 23, officials said.

Bihar comes second with 90, followed by Delhi with four cases, Uttarakhand and Punjab with three each and Rajasthan with one.

The national polio eradication projects are being funded by Rotary International, besides the World Bank, Unicef, the USAID and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kilometre-long invite for Obama – from Uttar Pradesh

Published: October 25, 2009Posted in: NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 25 – Barack Obama has mail – from a place in Uttar Pradesh state in India that he would never have heard of.

And how! Measuring over one kilometre, the letter has been put together by more than 11,000 people over eight months and carries a simple message for the US president – ‘Come and inspire hope: lots of love from Basti district, Uttar Pradesh’.

Many of the two million-odd residents of Uttar Pradesh’s Basti district, some 300 km from state capital Lucknow, have collaborated to prepare the one-km long invitation letter for President Obama. They want the US president to visit the district and address them.

‘His speeches are known for inspiring hope and cooperation. We too want to hear him and therefore we have prepared this letter,’ Alok Kumar Mishra, a native of Basti and former post-doctoral fellow in psychology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), who conceptualised the letter, told IANS on phone.

‘The letter has been prepared mainly by joining fax paper rolls end to end,’ added Mishra, also a member of the Juvenile Justice Board, Delhi.

According to locals, the invitation letter contains text in different languages, carries photographs of the US president and also has decorative designs.

‘People have used the language in which they felt comfortable to express themselves. While some have used English, others have written their ideas in Hindi, Awadhi and even Urdu,’ said Maneesh Kumar, a local, who is pursuing his B.Sc. from a college in Basti.

‘In the invitation, I have urged the US president to guide youth and motivate them to join politics as I feel, particularly in India, politics is believed to be a profession of corrupt people,’ he added.

Asked how the letter was written, Mishra replied: ‘Initially, after purchasing the paper rolls, they were cut into smaller sizes and distributed amongst the locals. After individuals had expressed their thoughts, the papers were collected and glued together.’

Locals say they started writing the letter in February.

‘Initially, when we planned to undertake the exercise, only a handful of people were willing to join us. However, after seeing our project turning into a reality, more and more people came forward to assist us,’ said Kaushal Kishore, a student of Class 12.

For dispatching the letter to the US president, Mishra has approached the district authorities, asking them to hold talks with officials in the external affairs ministry.

‘The letter needs to be handled with care…even slight carelessness can damage it. We have asked the district administration to talk with officials of the government of India for delivering the letter,’ Mishra said.

(Asit Srivastava can be contacted at asit.s@ians.in)

Corruption case: Amar Singh gets reprieve from high court

Published: October 24, 2009Posted in: National, PoliticsTags:

Lucknow, Oct 24 – The Allahabad High Court Saturday turned down a plea for initiating criminal proceedings against Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh.

The petition was moved by lawyer Shiv Kant Tripathi, who had earlier this week lodged a first information report (FIR) in a Kanpur police station accusing Amar Singh of committing fraud through his alleged money laundering operations during his stint as chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Development Council when Mulayam Singh Yadav was chief minister of the state.

Tripathi had accused Amar Singh of siphoning off black money in the name of three dozen companies floated by him under his own name and that of his wife Pankaja Kumari Singh.

Among the company’s beneficiaries was Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

However, Justice Sunil Ambwani declined to entertain the petition on the ground that it was ‘premature’. The court was of the view that since the FIR was still pending before the police, the court’s intervention at this juncture was unwarranted.

The Uttar Pradesh government Thursday chose to forward the FIR to the Kolkata Police on the plea that all the companies mentioned in the complaint were registered there.

Kolkata Police, however, said that the cases could not be registered in Kolkata as the cause of action arose here.

Tripathi sought the intervention of the Allahabad High Court to initiate necessary legal proceedings.

He is stated to have attached evidence running into about 1,700 pages in support of his accusations.

Uttar Pradesh official fined Rs.50,000

Published: October 24, 2009Posted in: NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 24 – The Allahabad High Court Saturday fined an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer in Uttar Pradesh Rs.50,000 for non-compliance of its order for payment of due interest to a government employee’s widow.

Justice D.P. Singh Friday held M.A.A. Khan, posted as secretary (irrigation), guilty of contempt of court for not giving relief to the widow whose pension was delayed inordinately, despite court’s orders.

The judge also charged the officer with filing false affidavits before the court, with the obvious intent of misguiding the judicial office.

Earlier on Friday, the judge had ordered the officer to be sent to judicial custody.

However, following an appeal by state advocate general Jyotindra Misra, the judge deferred the pronouncement of his verdict to Saturday.

‘Low cane output won’t affect sugar production in Uttar Pradesh’

Published: October 24, 2009Posted in: Business, NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 24 – The likelihood of a relatively low sugarcane yield this year would not affect sugar production in Uttar Pradesh, a government official said Saturday.

‘This year’s sugarcane yield was estimated to be 15 percent less than last year’s output of 1,100 lakh tonnes,’ the sugarcane and sugar industries department official told IANS here.

‘But that is unlikely to affect sugar production that could go marginally higher than last year’s count of 40.64 lakh tonnes,’ he added.

Uttar Pradesh is one of the leading sugarcane producing states in the country.

The official attributed the optimism to an appreciable rise in the sugar recovery rate that stood at 8.9 percent during the last crushing season.

‘While cane production got adversely affected on account of a prolonged dry spell, what came as a blessing in disguise were the delayed rains that gave better maturity of the standing sugarcane crop, thereby ensuring higher sugar recovery of about 9.5 percent during the forthcoming crushing season commencing early November,’ he said.

According to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to talk to the media, it were these factors that led the Sugarcane Price Advisory Committee headed by Chief Secretary Atul Kumar Gupta to recommend an unprecedented hike of Rs.25 per quintal in the State Advised Price (SAP) of sugarcane.

‘The price was far higher than the central government’s recommended Statutory Minimum Price (SMP) of Rs.107.50 per quintal,’ he said.

But while the state government is talking about its ‘unprecedented’ hike in sugarcane price, sugar mill owners as well as sugarcane growers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the official announcement.

‘The state government appears to have played into the hands of the affluent sugar lobby. After all, the SAP will hardly cover the farmer’s cost input,’ remarked Sudhir Kumar, president of Kisan Jagriti Manch, a body of sugarcane growers.

On the other hand, a representative of the sugar mill owners told IANS that such a ‘steep hike in SAP will only lead to increase in the market price of sugar that is already selling at around Rs.35 a kilogram’.

BSP lawmaker in Uttar Pradesh booked for assaulting Dalits

Published: October 24, 2009Posted in: NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 24 – In Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-ruled Uttar Pradesh, which claims to champion Dalits’ welfare, a party legislator and 20 of his supporters have been booked for arson and violence against Dalits in Sant Kabir Nagar district, the police said Saturday.

A criminal case has been slapped against legislator Tabish Khan, who along with his supporters allegedly assaulted members of a Dalit family over a land dispute in Rajediha village in Sant Kabir Nagar, some 250 km from Lucknow.

‘The complainant Hariram, a resident of Rajediha village, has alleged that Khan and his supporters, who were armed with guns and sticks, barged into his house and assaulted him and his family members,’ Additional Superintendent of Police Arvind Bhushan Pandey told IANS on phone.

‘The victim approached us Friday evening and showed us the injury marks. He told police that the legislator and his supporters assaulted him and family members over a land dispute, and also set fire to his belongings before leaving the place,’ he added.

According to police, Khan, who has also been booked under the SC/ST (Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes) Act, is absconding along with his supporters.

Khan is the legislator from Khesrala assembly constituency of Sant Kabir Nagar.

Raids are being carried out to nab the legislator and his aides, police said.

The legislator has been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (Insult intended to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation).

Now, a complaint against Amar Singh, in Lucknow

Published: October 23, 2009Posted in: NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 23 – Shivakant Tripathi, who had earlier filed a police complaint against Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh alleging financial fraud of about Rs.500 crore, Friday accused him of making public his mobile phone call records in connivance with the some employees of the service provider.

Tripathi made the charge here Friday and filed another police complaint against Amar Singh at the Ashiana police station of the state capital.

‘Tripathi, who is a resident of Sector K in our police circle has lodged a complaint stating that Amar Singh and some employees of Vodafone mobile company have divulged his call details to the media in order to defame him,’ Inspector Kalyan Singh Sagar of Ashiana police station told IANS.

The complaint is being investigated, Sagar added.

Earlier on Oct 15, Tripathi lodged an first information report (FIR) at the Babupurwa police station of Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur District against Amar Singh, his wife Pankaja Kumari Singh and film star Amitabh Bachchan claiming that all three had been involved in a financial fraud amounting to about Rs.500 crore.

The companies named in the FIR included Energy Development Company Limited, EDCL Power Limited, Pankaja Art and Credit Limited, Sarvottam Cap Limited, EDCL Infrastructure Limited and Eastern India Company, all owned or run by the Singh couple.

Additonal Director General of Police (Law and Order) Brijlal said that 25 companies have been amalgamated into Sarvottam Cap Limited.

‘The FIR has been lodged under various sections of IPC (Indian Penal Code), Prevention of Corruption Act and Prevention of Laundering Act,’ he said.

Amar Singh Friday filed a police complaint against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in Kolkata alleging she had hatched a ‘political conspiracy’ against him.

Amar Singh’s complaint, lodged at the Ballygunge police station in the southern part of the city, also names six others including Tripathi.

Amitabh in fresh trouble over Uttar Pradesh farmland

Published: October 23, 2009Posted in: Entertainment, National, PoliticsTags:

Lucknow, Oct 23 – Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan seems headed for fresh trouble over a controversial plot of farmland in Daulatpur village of Barabanki district that he purchased last year.

The 1.383 hectare plot in Daulatpur, about 40 km from here, has been gifted to a proposed college named after his actress daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai.

Amitabh had last year gifted two parts of the land to the local ‘gram sabha’ or village council after he found himself in the thick of a major controversy and court battles on account of ownership of the land.

However, it was reported Friday that Amitabh had ‘gifted’ the entire piece of land to the college.

A local village head, Raj Kumari Singh, has decided to challenge Amitabh’s giving away the land to the college.

She said: ‘A land once gifted to a gram sabha cannot be gifted to anybody else.’

Singh termed the latest land gift, executed through the superstar’s local power of attorney in Barabanki Friday, as ‘illegal’. She said, ‘I will file a formal objection against the move, which is violative of Uttar Pradesh land laws.’

The Bachchan family laid the foundation stone of the college on Jan 27, 2008, at a high-profile bash in the village where they also flew in prominent politicians like Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, his Man Friday Amar Singh, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and former Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah.

Uttar Pradesh raises sugarcane price by Rs.25 a quintal

Published: October 23, 2009Posted in: Business, NationalTags:

Lucknow, Oct 23 – The Uttar Pradesh government Friday hiked by Rs.25 a quintal the state advised price (SAP) of sugarcane in the state for the forthcoming crushing season, commencing early November.

According to a decision taken by the Mayawati-led state cabinet, the prevailing per quintal SAP of Rs.140 has been raised to Rs.165 for the general variety of sugarcane which forms about 80 percent of the state’s produce.

For the ‘early’ yielding variety that forms about 20 percent of the produce, the price goes up from the existing Rs.145 to Rs.170 per quintal.

Even for the ‘currently rejected’ variety which was barely 5 percent of the overall sugarcane grown in the state, the price was raised from Rs. 137.50 to Rs.162.50 per quintal.

‘This has been done in the larger interest of farmers who failed to discontinue growing certain varieties that were removed from the list of varieties approved by the state,’ a senior government spokesman told reporters here Friday evening.

He added: ‘The flat hike of Rs.25 per quintal was not only unprecedented in the history of the state, but was also far ahead of what agriculturally rich states like Haryana and Punjab had announced.’

While Haryana declared a hike of Rs.10 per quintal, the increase in Punjab was of the order of Rs.20 per quintal, he said.

The decision follows a detailed study by a high level committee constituted by Chief Minister Mayawati under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Atul Kumar Gupta, who submitted his report after hearing out representatives of sugarcane growers as well as sugar mill owners.

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