Daily Times India

Lucknow, Dec 1 (IANS) Armed with sugarcane stems, thousands of farmers from various parts of Uttar Pradesh arrived here in jam-packed trains to demonstrate against the sugarcane pricing policy of the state government.

Led by Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) chief Mahendra Singh Tikait, farmers demanded that the state government must hold talks with them so they get an appropriate price for their produce.

“I just know that someone, senior officials or ministers should invite us for the talks to solve our problems,” BKU president Tikait told reporters here at the Charbagh railway station.

“If it doesn’t happen, we will continue to fight for our rights,” added Tikait, who will address farmers later in the day at a panchayat convened by the BKU.

The BKU has asked farmers to break barriers and send their crop to sugar mills in Uttarakhand, which have agreed to pay Rs.215-220 for one quintal of sugarcane.

“We are all set to divert our crops to the mills of Uttarakhand and Haryana, where the state farmers would get an adequate price for the produce. If the government today fails to take necessary steps, we will have no other option other than to sell the produce to other states,” BKU national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait told reporters.

Rejecting the state’s declared support price of sugarcane at Rs.165-170, sugarcane farmers across Uttar Pradesh have been on a warpath for two months, as they want at least Rs.220 per quintal for their produce.

On Nov 19, thousands of farmers from the state had gathered in the national capital to raise the issue. The issue has figured several times in parliament as well.

Hyderabad, Dec 1 (IANS) A day after abruptly ending his “fast unto death”, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K. Chandrasekhara Rao Tuesday claimed he was continuing the hunger strike at a hospital in Andhra Pradesh’s Khammam town.

Facing the ire of people fighting for a separate state of Telangana, Rao alleged that he was forcibly administered a saline drip at the government-run hospital and that he had not taken any thing since Monday night.

Confusion prevailed in TRS ranks as the party leader launched a damage control exercise by alleging that the jail staff and doctors broke his fast as part of a conspiracy .

KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, told reporters Tuesday at the hospital that he would continue the fast at any cost and would call it off only if the government agreed to carving out a separate state.

“I will continue the battle till the last drop of my blood,” he said appealing to people not to believe rumours.

KCR was shifted to hospital from the Khammam sub-jail Monday evening after his condition deteriorated. He had launched the fast Sunday soon after he was arrested near Karimnagar town.

The TRS leader was sent to jail for 14 days when he was heading to Siddipet in Medak district to launch the “fast unto death” .

His arrest sparked violent protests by TRS cadres, students and other pro-Telangana sections across the region, which comprises 10 districts including Hyderabad. The shutdown called by TRS Monday paralysed normal life in the region.

At least three people committed suicide while two others were battling for life after attempting self-immolation to protest KCR’s arrest. TRS leaders claimed that five people committed suicide.

KCR Monday evening broke his fast saying he was doing this to prevent further loss of lives. A doctor offered him fruit juice in the presence of some party leaders.

However, his move evoked angry reactions, especially amongst students who had been staging violent protests on the campuses of the Osmania University here and the Kakatiya University in Warangal.

They burnt his effigy and alleged that KCR betrayed the Telangana cause. Revolutionary balladeer Gaddar demanded that KCR apologise to the people of the region for the betrayal.

Kuala Lumpur, Dec 1 (IANS) Malaysia’s controversial opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was Tuesday ordered to stand trial for sodomy as a court turned down his bid to have the charges dismissed.

The trial will begin next month, said the Star Online, the website of the Star newspaper.

Ibrahim faces 20 years imprisonment if he is convicted of sodomising 24-year-old Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, who was an aide in his office, last year.

High court judge Zabidin Mohamad Diah rejected Ibrahim’s argument that two medical reports on his accuser showed no sodomy had taken place.

“The medical reports alone cannot be used to strike out the case until all witnesses give their evidence,” the judge said.

He said Ibrahim’s lawyers had failed to prove their allegations of conspiracy and bad faith on the part of Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail, who acted as a prosecutor in Anwar’s earlier sodomy and corruption trials that began in 1998.

Then the country’s deputy prime minister, he was dismissed and suffered six years of imprisonment till the sodomy charge as overturned.

“I’m worried and disturbed by the court’s decision,” Ibrahim said in his initial reaction.

“This is the first case in modern times where a court is ignoring medical reports which said there was no tear or penetration.”

“I think we are in for a tough battle but we will fight hard,” Ibrahim said about the trial ahead on charges he claims are a conspiracy aimed at ending his political career.

Zabidin set a date of Jan 25 for the sodomy trial, which has been delayed by a series of legal manoeuvres by the defence team, including a failed application to disqualify the prosecutors as biased.

Defence lawyers said they would lodge an appeal against the high court decision Wednesday and were also considering an application to halt the Jan 25 hearing.

The second sodomy charge against Ibrahim came last year even as he staged an impressive political comeback, rallying an opposition alliance that won 88 parliamentary seats and control of four states in the elections of March 2008.

However, Ibrahim has not made good his threats of capturing power for which he set specific dates last year.

Chicago, Dec 1 (IANS) The bond hearing for David Coleman Headley, one of the two Pakistani-born suspected terrorists arrested for allegedly plotting terror attacks against India, has been postponed indefinitely. Officials gave no specific reason for calling off the hearing that was scheduled for Friday.

The cancellation comes as Indian investigators are probing 49-year-old Headley’s suspected involvment in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that left more than 170 people dead.

Headley’s attorneys, John Theis and Robert Seeder, have declined to comment on reports that the Indian government is investigating his possible involvement, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The newspaper said federal prosecutors gave no reason Monday in announcing that Friday’s scheduled hearing for Headley had been cancelled. There is no new date and no further information available, the US Attorney’s Office in Illinois announced.

The attorney’s office said the detention hearing for Headley’s associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana – a Canadian citizen, arrested on similar terror charges -would proceed as per schedule Dec 2.

US national Headley and Rana, according to investigators, had travelled widely in India before and after the Mumbai terror attack. The two were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Chicago in October.

A high-level FBI team is expected in Delhi with new information to unravel the terror plot hatched by Headley and Rana and their links to the Mumbai carnage.

The decision of the FBI to come to India followed intensive discussions between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama in Washington last week.

Millions of us woke up on Sunday morning with front-page headlines that screamed “Online birth pangs dog CAT”, “CAT’s e-debacle leaves students foxed”, etc. But what was a matter of clever wordplay for newspapers spells uncertainty and unwarranted anxiety for 240,000 IIM aspirants and their parents.

As for the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) experimenting with the online entrance exam and Prometric, the company handling this system of testing , it is a time of big crisis. The stakes involved for all the stakeholders are too high. They involve the future of the IIM admission seekers, the image of haloed IIMs and, most importantly, the future of e-governance in the country.

It’s no easy task launching a mega computer-based testing operation of this scale that involves training, equipping and coordinating activities among a large number of dispersed players. A number of biometric and security devices built into the test system adds another layer of complexity. The risk of pranksters trying to sneak into the servers or infect them with viruses is equally real.

A variety of suggestions have been pouring in from academics, technical experts and test preparation companies. These range from extending pilot phase to building in redundancies in the computer systems to allow logging in by tens of thousands of aspirants simultaneously.

Some experts have blamed the current crisis on a complacent vendor with a failure record quoting examples of how the UK government body ended its five-year multimillion dollar contract with ETS, the parent company of Prometric, following serious troubles with the administration and marking of tests. The issue rocked the British parliament and continued to consume headlines day in and day out all through July and August 2008.

However, even as the directors of IIMs and the technical teams from Prometric work towards stabilizing the system, they also need to step up their communication with candidates. They need to issue statements, assuring candidates that they would find ways to accommodate all those who missed their tests.

Finally, instead of belittling the new system, it is in every one’s interest to let this new model succeed because a mega initiative like this has lessons not only for the IIMs but for the entire education system. If it succeeds, it could possibly lead to a transparent e-governance system emerging in the education system.

The decision of the IIMs to move from the traditional three-decade old paper and pencil method of selection of candidates for 3,000-odd seats to the computer-based method is revolutionary in more ways than one and it is important to give it a fair try.

The online CAT exam is the first baby step in application of IT beyond the private sector that will help overcome the oft-quoted risk of impersonation at the entrance exams and enable transparency. It will also help build a database of applicants, over years, and correlate the performance levels of successful applicants and their actual performance at IIMs.

An average Indian has benefited from e-governance initiatives that have brought some semblance of order to the earlier chaos. Two most successful examples that touch the lives of every Indian include the replacement of the old ballot system by electronic voting machines in elections. The second national success story is the railway reservation system adopted over two decades ago. The system has seamlessly moved on to internet-based booking of tickets over a period of time.

But can we say that these two high impact systems are with absolutely zero defect? Perhaps no. Because there are occasional failures, system breakdowns and outages due to a variety of reasons that render them dysfunctional for a few moments to a few hours.

The education system needs a full-fledged e-governance system that goes beyond handling online admissions, generating fee bills to recording attendance and posting results. The country needs to graduate to a seamless system of education that offers relevant and most up-to-date content and allows mobility of students across streams, across colleges and above all inclusion of those who have no access to education. We need to look ahead, and seek ways to building linkages with the unique identity systems being launched by the government under Nandan Nilekani.

(01.12.2009-Sanjiv Kataria is a strategic communications and PR counsel for the services industry. He can be reached at sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com)

New Delhi, Dec 1 (IANS) A thin fog and cold winds woke Delhiites Tuesday as the minimum temperature dipped a notch below average to 9.3 degrees Celsius, the met office said.

“There was shallow fog in the morning. During the day one can expect a partly cloudy sky. Visibility recorded at 7.30 a.m. was 600 metres,” an official at the India Meteorological Department told IANS.

The maximum is expected to hover around the 24 degrees Celsius mark, the official added.

Although the week began on a relatively warm note with the mercury recording a slight jump Monday, the met department said that temperatures would fall in the coming week.

On Monday Delhi recorded a minimum of 10.2 degrees Celsius and a maximum of 25.1 degrees Celsius.

The temperature had dropped to 7.9 degrees Celsius Saturday, the lowest for the season so far.

Mumbai, Dec 1 (IANS) A key Indian equities index rose smartly soon after the opening bell Tuesday and was ruling about 0.78 percent higher about ten minutes into trade.

The sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened the day at 16,947.46 points, against Monday’s close at 16,926.22. It soon rose to 17,058.27 points, up 0.78 percent or 132.05 points.

Around the same time, at the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was at 5,066.25 points, against the previous close at 5,032.7 points, a gain of 0.67 percent.

Broader market indices were also in the green with the BSE midcap index up 0.89 percent and the BSE small cap index ruling 1.24 percent higher.

Chandigarh, Dec 1 (IANS) Having been promised nearly five decades ago that the union territory (UT) of Chandigarh would ultimately be its state capital, Punjab is now refusing any move that could dilute its claim to the city.

Top Punjab leaders, including Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, have opposed a move by the central government to take back the charge of Chandigarh administrator from the Punjab governor and revert to the earlier system of letting a chief commissioner head the city administration.

“We will not allow the central government to take back the charge of UT administrator from the Punjab governor. The centre should not even think of doing so,” Badal said.

The charge of Chandigarh was given to the Punjab governor for the first time in 1988 to enable proper control over the city administration after president’s rule was imposed in the state during the heyday of Sikh terrorism. The 114-sq km city, designed and founded by French architect Le Corbusier in the 1950s, is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) even though it is the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.

The move to take back the charge from the Punjab governor started earlier this year after the office of the present incumbent, S.F. Rodrigues, got embroiled in several controversies, including questionable land deals and infighting at the top level of the administration.

Rodrigues, a former Indian Army chief, has been at the centre of these controversies, including his open fight with the city’s topmost bureaucrat, Pradip Mehra, as well as his serious differences with union Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who is also the city’s Lok Sabha MP.

“The charge of UT administrator was given for a particular administrative reason (terrorism in Punjab). This is being reviewed by the union government now,” Bansal said.

As the row over control of Chandigarh’s administrative control continues, leaders from neighbouring Haryana have also jumped in, demanding that the post of UT administrator be rotated between the governors of the two states for a fixed tenure.

“The post of UT administrator should be held rotationally by the governors of the two states,” Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said.

During Punjab’s reorganisation in 1966, when Haryana was created and the hill areas of Himachal Pradesh were also taken out of the state, it was agreed upon by law that Chandigarh would eventually become the capital of Punjab.

The city came close to be handed over to Punjab in January 1986 as part of the Rajiv-Longowal accord but the then central government withdrew from the decision at the last moment. The city administration is now run by bureaucrats, headed by a UT cadre IAS officer as adviser to the Chandigarh administrator. Other officers are taken on deputation from Punjab, Haryana and the centre’s UT cadre.

Punjab had last year also opposed a move by the central government to accord central university status to Panjab University located here. The university is the alma mater of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Punjab government, led by Badal, did a flip-flop on the issue of PU getting central university status. First it agreed with the move but backed out at the last moment saying if that happened, it would dilute Punjab’s claim over Chandigarh.

Currently PU has a unique status of neither being a central nor a state university. It gets funding in the 60:40 ratio from the central and Punjab governments. But in recent years, a debt-ridden Punjab government has stopped annual grants to the university running into millions of rupees, putting it in a financial spot.

PU is seeking central university status to tide over its financial worries since the central government will then fully fund the university.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)

Paris, Dec 1 (DPA) Barcelona striker Lionel Messi was named European Footballer of the Year early Tuesday by France Football, the Paris magazine announced on its website.

The 22-year-old Argentine won by the widest margin in the 54-year history of the prestigious Ballon d’Or, or Golden Ball.

The 96 voters — sports journalists from around the world — awarded Messi 473 of a possible 480 points toward the trophy, putting him 240 points ahead of runner-up Cristiano Ronaldo, who was last year’s winner.

Messi told France Football that it was a “great honour” to be named.

The prize will be handed over on Sunday in Paris.

Messi is the first Argentine to win the Golden Ball.

Ronaldo was second at 233 points, followed by Xavi at 170 points and Andres Iniesta with 149 points.

Toronto, Dec 1 (IANS) Canada, where a majority of new immigrants cannot find work in their chosen fields because of non-acceptance of their degrees, Monday announced to fast-track recognition of foreign credentials.

With the shortage of skilled professions in many professions looming, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Monday that foreign credentials in 14 fields will now be assessed within a year. In the first phase, which begins Dec 31 this year, foreign qualified engineers, architects, pharmacists, physiotherapists, nurses and accountants will know by December 2010 whether their credentials meet Canadian standards, Kenney said.

In the second phase, doctors, teachers and other professionals will be included in the one-year wait period starting December 2012.

Canada gets more than 250,000 new immigrants each year from around the world. Though most of these immigrants are better qualified than Canadians, they end up in low-paid jobs because of non-recognition of their foreign credentials.

At about 35,000, Indians are the second largest immigrant group to come here each year.

It is estimated that six in 10 immigrants cannot find work in their chosen profession, leading to doctors, engineers and scientists driving taxies and working in restaurants.

The immigration minister said, “We want newcomers to be able to use their skills and work to their full potential. It is good for them and good for the Canadian economy.’

Canadian Human Resources Minister Diane Finley, who was with the immigration minister at the time of Monday’s announcement, said, it was crucial that Canada attracted and retained qualified professionals for its economic future.

More than 40 percent new immigrants to Canada are estimated to be doing jobs for which they are overqualified. In fact, Toronto – Canada’s biggest city – has more qualified professionals driving cabs than any other city in the world.

Immigration experts have estimated that Canada loses more than $2 billion each year in economic terms for not using the skills of foreign qualified professionals.

Under the current exploitative, point-based immigration system, newcomers to Canada are supposed bring a minimum amount of money per person with them. Their money runs out as new immigrants search for jobs. Wherever they go, employers first ask them whether they have any Canadian work experience.

How can they have any Canadian experience when nobody offers them job? In frustration, some return to their home countries. Most resign themselves to a new life of hardship.