Chinese hackers target India, Southeast Asia: FireEye

RNI No. GUJENG/2014/57876
GARVI GUJARAT
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GARVI GUJARAT
(Published Daily from Ahmedabad)
EDITOR: ASHVINKUMAR KESHAVLAL RAMI
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Volume-01
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Dt. 14-04-2015 Tuesday
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Demography, democracy and demand are attracting the world to India
Third attack
in 3 days: Naxals
kill BSF jawan in
Chhattisgarh
RAIPUR: Naxals attacked
a BSF team killing a jawan in
Chhattisgarh's insurgencyhit Kanker district, striking
for the third time since
Saturday.Maoists fired indiscriminately on security
personnel who were patrolling in the proximity of
Chhote Baithiya BSF camp
under Bande police station
area late on Sunday night,
Kanker Superintendent of
Police Jitendra Singh Meena
told PTI.A gunbattle erupted
between security forces and
ultras and the rebels soon
fled to the core forests, he
added."A BSF head constable succumbed to bullet
injuries, sustained during the
gunfight, while being taken
to a local hospital," the SP
said.Soon after the incident,
reinforcements were rushed
to the spot, he said adding
that a combing operation
has been launched in the
region to nab the
assailants.Seven STF personnel were killed and ten
others injured on Saturday
when Naxals ambushed
them in the forests of restive Pidmel village under
Polampalli, around 450 kms
from state capital Raipur.
Naxals yesterday allegedly
set ablaze at least 17 vehicles engaged in mining
work in Kanker district,
140 km from here. However, no one was injured.
Law equating
leprosy with
lunacy set to go
NEW DELHI: Though
leprosy is curable, laws still
equate people affected by
the disease with those suffering from lunacy. And under provisions of several
marriage acts and the Indian Divorce Act, it is a
legitimate ground for divorce. On a reference
made from the law ministry to review discrimination against leprosy-afflicted people, the Law
Commission has submitted a report along with a
draft bill that not only recommends repeal of the
Lepers Act, 1898 but seeks
special privileges that are
available for dalits and
other marginalized classes
of society. The law panel
has recommended the repeal of the provision that a
leprosy-affected person
cannot contest elections.
It has also urged that they
be given land rights and
other special privileges
similar to those awarded
to SC/ST and other communities for their uplift.
HANNOVER: India has a
huge potential to become a
global manufacturing hub,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
said on Monday as he invited
the whole world to partner
with the fastest growing
economy in this endeavour.
"The entire world is looking at
India. Demography, democracy and demand are attracting the world to India," Modi
said as he along with German
chancellor Angela Merkel inaugurated the 'India Pavilion'
at the Hannover Messe, the
world's largest industrial fair.
India is the partner country at
the fair. "Not only Germany,
the whole world is looking at
India," Modi said. "Low-cost
manufacturing, efficient governance and no-defect manufacturing makes India a global
engine in the manufacturing
centre," he said, adding there
is a huge potential of India
becoming a manufacturing
hub. The Prime Minister invited the whole world to come
to India and increase their
partnership with the country
and make use of the opportu-
nities India offer to scale new
heights of success. "All kinds
of rating agencies of the world
are saying India is the fastest
growing economy," he said.
Merkel said she was impressed
with what India is showcasing
at the fair. "India is a country
with a lot of young people,
people who want jobs, want
to see their country developed
and evolved," she said. "We
think India has a future when
you consider democracy, innovation capacity and prosperity. Your country (India) is
a very good example that this
is easily possible," the German leader said. Merkel said
Germany is trying to forge a
very close partnership with
India. "I think Hannover fair
would allow us to turn a new
chapter in our relationship.
Let me assure you that Germany stands ready to develop
this partnership," she said.
After inaugurating the India pavilion, the Prime Minister took a
tour of Indian stalls and the rest
of the venue. He also offered tea
and snacks to the German
Chancellor at the 'India Pavilion'.
NEW DELHI: Hackers, most
likely from China, have been
spying on governments and
businesses in Southeast Asia
and India uninterrupted for a
decade, researchers at
internet security company
FireEye said. In a report released on Monday, FireEye
said the cyber-espionage operations dated back to at least
2005 and "focused on targets
— government and commercial — who hold key political,
economic and military information about the region."
"Such a sustained, planned
development effort coupled
with the (hacking) group's regional targets and mission,
lead us to believe that this activity is state-sponsored —
most likely the Chinese government," the report's authors
said.Bryce Boland, chief technology officer for Asia Pacific
at FireEye and co-author of the
report, said the attack was still
ongoing, noting that the servers the attackers used were
still operational, and that
FireEye continued to see at-
NGT stays ban on old
diesel vehicles for 2 weeks
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi and the German Chancellor, Ms. Angela Merkel
at the Joint Inauguration of the India Pavilion and the Joint Walk-About Make in India, in
Hannover, Germany on April 13, 2015. The Minister of State for Commerce & Industry
(Independent Charge), Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman is also seen. (PIB)
NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal has
stayed for 2 weeks its order to impound diesel vehicles more than 10 years
old plying in the national
capital. "There shall be
no impounding of vehicles for two weeks. We
make it clear that we
are varying our order
only for two weeks," a
bench headed by NGT
Chairperson Justice
Swatanter
Kumar
said.The green tribunal
has sought suggestions
from Delhi government
on better implementation of its order by May 1.
The matter was mentioned
before the Tribunal by Advocate Zubeida Begum,
appearing for Delhi gov-
ernment, who told the
bench that the government was finding it really
difficult to implement the
ban order. Seeking more
time to implement the order, she contended that
essential services like vegetable supply and garbage
carrying trucks etc. are
being hit due to the order.
The National Green Tribunal had last week prohibited diesel vehicles that
are over 10 years old from
plying in the capital. A fivemember bench, headed by
NGT
chairperson
Swatanter Kumar, said
that while such vehicles
would be phased out in
Delhi, those coming from
other states would not be
allowed to enter the city.
Chinese hackers target India, Southeast Asia: FireEye
tacks against its customers,
who number among the targets. China has always denied
accusations that it uses the
internet to spy on governments, organisations and companies. Neither the Foreign
Ministry nor the Cyberspace
Administration of China, the
internet regulator, immediately responded to written requests for comment on the
FireEye report on Monday.
China has been accused before of targeting countries in
South and Southeast Asia. In
Ambedkar is a greater leader than
Karl Marx, Madras HC judge says
CHENNAI: Dr B R
Ambedkar is a leader greater
in stature than Karl Marx,
said a judge of the Madras
high court on Monday. Both
Ambedkar and Marx studied in London School of
Economics (LSE), which
still displayed their photographs, Justice S
Tamilvanan said, adding,
"but Ambedkar went on to
study law and bring about
social reforms and revolution, whereas Marx
specialised only in economics." Speaking at Dr
Ambedkar Memorial Lecture Programme in
Chennai,
Justice
Tamilvanan urged people
not to refer anyone as
dalit or downtrodden.
"There is no such term as
dalits, please do not use it,"
he said. Leaders like
Bharathiyar, Kamaraj and
Ambedkar have done a lot
for the society, and hence
they should not be confined
to any particular caste, he
said. Not just for one particular
community,
Ambedkar struggled for the
rights of women, labourers
and reservation benefits, he
said. "While equal property
rights for women has still
been facing hurdles in the
Parliament, Ambedkar quit
his minister post when the
Parliament created obstructions in 1956," he said.
Justice Tamilvanan was of
the view that Hinduism is
not a religion at all. Even
the Constitution says
that those who are all
not Muslims, Jains, Buddhism and Christian are
Hindus. This is akin to
saying a human is someone who is not a chair
or paper and pencil, he
said. He also released
two books -- Judging
Statutes and Independence of Judiciary: Myth
or Reality -- authored
by
advocate
A
Sirajudeen on the occasion. Responding to director of Legal Studies
N S Santhosh Kumar's
observation that Justice
Tamilvanan's judgments
reflected his concern for
dalits and downtrodden, the
judge said he wrote judgments for all and never for
dalits or downtrodden alone.
2011, researchers from
McAfee reported a campaign
dubbed Shady Rat which attacked Asian governments and
institutions, among other targets. Efforts by the 10-member Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) to build
cyberdefences have been sporadic. While ASEAN has long
acknowledged its importance,
"very little has come of this discourse," said Miguel Gomez, a
researcher at De La Salle University in the Philippines. The
problem is not new: Singapore
Fight for
net neutrality
unites
internet
NEW DELHI: For once,
the constant bickering on
the internet and social media has been put aside.
People of all beliefs and affiliations have come together
to unite on the net neutrality
issue, campaigning, persuading, and getting more
people involved. In a span of
24 hours, over 27,000 emails
have been sent to the
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) through
the
website
save
theinternet.in responding to
the regulator's call for public consultation. An online
petition on change.org has
nearly 150,000 supporters
petitioning Union minister for
communication and information technology, Ravi
Shankar Prasad, the department of telecom, and the
TRAI to act against the violation of net neutrality by
corporate interests. A visit
to the r/india forum Reddit
will show you backroom activities in coordinating online campaignsanddebatesonthesame.
has reported sophisticated
cyber-espionage attacks on
civil servants in several ministries dating back to 2004. The
campaign described by FireEye
differs from other such operations mostly in its scale and
longevity, Boland said. He said
the group appeared to include
at least two software developers. The report did not offer
other indications of the possible size of the group or where
it's based. The group remained
undetected for so long it was
able to re-use methods and
malware dating back to 2005,
and developed its own system
to manage and prioritize attacks, even organizing shifts
to cope with the workload and
different languages of its targets, Boland told Reuters. The
attackers focused not only on
governments, but on ASEAN
itself, as well as corporations
and journalists interested in
China. Other targets included
Indian or Southeast Asianbased companies in sectors
such as construction, energy,
transport, telecommunications
Muslims not doing
family planning:
Sakshi Maharaj
UNNAO: Bharatiya Janata
Party leader and Unnao MP
Sakshi Maharaj on Sunday
demanded a strong law for
population control and family
planning and suggested that
voting rights of those flouting
the law be revoked. He then
waded into controversy by
stating that while Hindus opted
for vasectomy and tubectomy,
Muslims avoided it. "This is
wrong as law should be same
for everyone," he said. When
asked about Shiv Sena leader
Sanjay Raut's article in party
mouthpiece 'Samana' that
suggested revocation of Muslims' voting rights if they do
not participate in family planning, the Unnao MP said, "Family planning is a Government
of India initiative to check population growth. But Muslims do
not adhere to it. At the time of
independence, country's population was only 30 crore. Today we are 130 crores. Who is
responsible for it." "Jab hum
char bachon ki baat karte hai
to aag lag jati hai par jab
Musalman char biwi aur chalis
bache karte hai toh koi aag
nahi lagti. Isliye main kehta hu
ki paksh aur vipaksh ko ek
niyam banana chaiye badti
aabadi ko rokne ki liye aur jo
na mane neeyam ko usko
matadhikar se vanchit kar dena
chaiye (Any suggestions to
Hindus to have four children
stokes a controversy but no
voice is raised when a Muslim
man marries four women and
has 40 children. So I suggest
a common law to check population. Anyone flouting the
norm would lose voting right),"
he said. Lamenting that politics of Muslim appeasement
had ruined the country, the
Unnao MP said that there was
no scope of appeasement in
Modi era."If a Hindu goes to a
temple he has to pay tax
whereas a particular community is offered subsidy to travel
outside the country," he said.
On reservation, he said governments would have to rethink on reservation as it cannot continue for long.
eventually affect power tariff
determination," said UPERC
secretary, AK Srivastava.
UPERC sources said that commission chairman, Desh
Deepak Verma decided to consider the formula following repeated complaints of consumers suggesting less metering
and more power theft in some
of the districts. Srivastava said
that managing directors and
chief engineers of all distribution
companies have now been
asked to provide district wise
break up of accumulate transmission and commercial
(AT&C) losses so that the data
could be computed to devise a
formula that could directly proportionate power supply with
the line losses. Already three
districts Bareilly, Faizabad and
Shahjahanpur — have come on
the radar of the regulator because of high AT&C losses. The
UPERC secretary said that at
present line losses account for
nearly 30% to 40% of the supply in the state. This includes
transmission, technical and
commer cial losses. In some of
the districts, the line losses may
be as staggering as 60% to
70%. "This needs to be checked",
said a senior UPERC official.
UP districts with high power
theft may get less power
The Foreign Minister of Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Mr. Ri Su Yong calling on
the Vice President, Shri Mohd. Hamid Ansari, in New Delhi on April 13, 2015. (PIB)
LUCKNOW: You may soon
be getting less power supply if
your district has high power
theft. In a move that is set to
generate much heat, the UP
Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) has mooted an
idea to link power supply with
the line losses. This means, the
districts which register more
line and commercial losses
(power theft and less metering)
would accordingly get lesser
supply. Noida, which registers
lowest line loss — around 8% —
would thus be at an advantage
in terms of power supply than
any other district of the state.
The move could ruffle the feathers of 'VIP' districts which get
comparatively more power but
have high line losses. With the
regulator deciding to go ahead
with the formula that seeks to put
in place a performancebased index,theUPPowerCorporationLimited (UPPCL) will be under obligation to lessen the power supply in
the such districts. "The idea is to
proportionate the revenue recovery with the supply. If the
areas get higher power supply
but lag in revenue generation,
there is no point in giving them
power. It would only increase
the revenue deficit and would
and aviation, FireEye says.Mostly
they sought to gain access by
sending so-called phishing emails
to targets purported to come from
colleaguesortrustedsources,and
containing documents relevant to
their interests.Boland said it
wasn't possible to gauge the damage done as it had taken place
over such a long period, but he
said the impact could be
"massive.""Without being able to
detect it, there's no way these
agencies can work out what
the impacts are. They don't
know what has been stolen."
World No. 1
Sania tweets
‘on top of
the world’
NEW DELHI: Sania Mirza
on Monday tweeted she
was 'on top of the world'
after she was officially
crowned world no. 1 in the
WTA ranking for women's
doubles that was released
on Monday. Earlier, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi led
an outpouring of praise for
Sania Mirza after she became the country's first tennis player to be ranked No.
1 in women's doubles. "An
excellent accomplishment
(at)MirzaSania! Congrats
on being World Number 1
in doubles," Modi wrote on
Twitter page after Mirza
won the Family Circle
doubles title in Charleston
on Sunday partnering Swiss
great Martina Hingis. The
28-year-old Mirza, who
decided to focus on doubles
in 2012 after a recurring
wrist injury, won a third
consecutive doubles title
partnering Hingis and her
25th overall on the WTA
Tour. Congress president
Sonia Gandhi also congratulated Sania and applauded
her commitment and determination. In her message, Gandhi said Mirza has
made the entire nation
proud. Cricket great Sachin
Tendulkar said Mirza was
an inspiration for upcoming
tennis players. "Congratulations to @MirzaSania on
being crowned World No. 1
in Doubles. Terrific achievement and will inspire more
to pursue the sport,"
Tendulkar tweeted. Women's
badminton player Saina
Nehwal, who hails from
Hyderabad and was briefly
ranked No. 1 in singles earlier this month, also congratulated Mirza. "Mirza
Sania World number 1 in
doubles congratulations huge
achievement. All the very best
for future,'' Nehwal tweeted.
2
Garvi Gujarat
Ahmedabad. Dt. 14-04-2015 Tuesday
2
Something
is
rotten
in
the
States
of...
Unacceptable decision
Editorial
The decision of the Lahore High Court to release Lashkare-Taiba commander Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi from detention
was not surprising considering that he had already been
granted bail by an anti-terrorism court in December. The
Pakistan state has, since the terror attacks in Peshawar in the
same period last year, sought to convey a sudden urge to
undo the earlier faux pas of granting Lakhvi bail, and
contested it. Yet prosecutors failed to mount a proper case,
arguing for Lakhvi’s detention only on the issue of “maintenance of public order”. Without a clear-cut case built by
prosecutors on charges of engaging in terrorism, it was
always a matter of when Lakhvi would be released rather
than if. The Indian authorities had marshalled pages of
evidence showing the role Lakhvi had played as a controller
of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26,
2008. Apart from audio tapes and transcripts showing his
involvement, the testimony of U.S. citizen David Headley who
had done reconnaissance in Mumbai before the attacks, and
confessions by the captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab were also
made available to Pakistan. That these were not properly
used to build a case against Lakhvi suggests the laxity and
hypocrisy of the Pakistani state. The poor prosecution effort
was compounded by witness and judge intimidation. The
still-unsolved assassination of special prosecutor Chaudhury
Zulfiqar Ali in May 2013 also affected it. Of late, Pakistan’s
state establishment has pursued a dual policy towards
jihadists operating from its soil. While the security establishment has taken on extremists belonging to the Tehreek-eTaliban in the country’s west, considering them “enemies of
the state”, and military courts have been set up to prosecute
them, the forces that had indulged in cross-border terrorism
in India have been protected and treated with kid gloves. The
duplicitous attitude towards terror has already hurt the
country as the Peshawar attacks revealed. For years, the
coziness between sections of the Pakistan security establishment and the jihadists had allowed a culture of impunity to
build up in the country, leading to the death of several
civilians, bomb attacks, and assassination of leaders. The
hope that the return to democracy since former President
and army chief Pervez Musharraf was deposed could help
change the status quo and bring about greater civilian control
over the security establishment, has been belied thus far.
The resumption of diplomatic engagement at the highest
levels has also failed to secure justice for the victims of
the 26/11 atrocities. It is inevitable that the current
approach toward the jihadists focussed on India
will also hurt the Pakistani nation-state in the long run.
Rafale and beyond
It seemed interesting that on the eve of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s departure for France, the Indian and French
governments issued similar statements on the prospects of
an agreement on the purchase of the Rafale aircraft: that no
single deal should be allowed to overshadow the Prime
Minister’s visit. Indeed, India-France relations are much
bigger than any one contract; they represent the cultural
affinity and historic relations between two vibrant democracies. The items on the Prime Minister’s agenda reflected the
range of commonalities — from the preservation of ancient
architecture to the development of Puducherry and Chandigarh
as smart cities; from the construction of semi-high-speed
railway lines to cooperation on a space mission to Mars; from
discussing anti-terror training to tackling climate change
through renewable technologies and a robust nuclear partnership. The economic aspect of the relationship has been
ignored for too long. Although more than a thousand French
companies have a total investment of about $20 billion in
India, bilateral trade is worth just $8 billion. While all this
deserved attention, it was disappointing that the Prime
Minister put the spotlight back on defence ties by making a
surprise announcement on the purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft
as the highlight of his talks with President François Hollande.
If the outright purchase was a crucial military necessity, it
could have been discussed a few weeks before or after the
visit, as a political push for the deal was secondary to the
technical specifications and delivery requirements. Moreover, the deal, which involves purchasing products off the
shelf abroad, detracts from Mr. Modi’s “Make in India”
initiative. The breakthrough on the Areva nuclear equipment
deal, on the other hand, shows the positive outcome of Mr.
Modi’s and Mr. Hollande’s political push, combined with a
“Make in India” twist. As in the case of Indo-U.S. nuclear
negotiations, Mr. Modi and Mr. Hollande decided to clear the
logjam by splitting the problem into different silos — allowing
for separate mechanisms for the pricing issues and for the
technical and legal aspects. The supplementary deal involving Areva and L&T producing heavy forging metal casing for
nuclear reactors is an important step in localising some of the
expensive parts. During his visit to Canada, where he hopes
to sign a deal for uranium supplies, Mr. Modi means to take
forward his plan to increase nuclear energy production.
Given this objective, it may be useful for him to round off the
visit by discussing his nuclear energy plans in Germany as
well, which is now winding down on nuclear power but is at
the cutting edge of nuclear safety research for the European
Pressurised Reactors that are being considered for India.
India’s minorities have
been self-confident cultures.
Many of them have punched
far above their numerical
weight, in terms of achievements versus their population.
They do not need certificates,
especially from the majority
Sometimes when you get up
in the morning and reach for
the newspaper wondering
what the world has in store,
you occasionally savour a
moment which is more heartwarming than having a cup of
coffee. I just read a report
about Maryam Asif Siddiqui, a
12-year-old school student in
Mumbai, having stood first in
the “Gita Champions League”
contest, where the participants
were tested on their knowledge and understanding of the
Bhagavad Gita. It was not the
fact that she is a Muslim but
her reverence for all religions
and the wisdom of religions
that warmed one’s heart. Such
news is a perfect counter to
the vitriol of Giriraj Singh, a
Union Minister, who was in
the limelight recently for his
controversial and racist remarks on Congress president
Sonia Gandhi. The contrast
between Singh and Siddiqui is
deep. One celebrates difference while the other seeks to
subjugate it. One throbs with
intelligence while the other
breathes mediocrity. Today,
Christians are being targeted
but if anyone is stereotyping
Hinduism, it is the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
and the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP). Their Hindutva is a sign
of envy, of a mediocrity that
wants to imitate the West.
People like Mr. Singh create
and leave behind a trail of
anxiety where the minorities
feel pressure on themselves
to realise their identity. This
became especially poignant in
two instances; the first, in an
essay/article by former police
officer and diplomat Julio
Ribeiro, and the second, in an
interview of Indian political
psychologist, social theorist,
and critic Ashis Nandy. Both
are Christians but what is interesting is that both are true
Indians, not in a nationalist
sense, but as a part of the
culture. Ribeiro is proud of
being a Christian and Indian
and his career as an officer. It
is his Christianity that has made
him a part of India and made
him aware that Christianity in
India is older than it is in the
West. But now he claims,
“communities were being targeted, a sense of siege affects
a peaceful people”. Both
Ribeiro and Nandy express the
confidence of a community
which does not see itself as a
minority. It feels it is a part of
India’s pluralistic culture,
where identities are many, and
affiliations open-ended.
Ribeiro wonders what his
Indianness means when his
The Nalgonda and Seshachalam ‘encounters’ remind us of the state excesses of the 1970s
This is an account given by
Penderel Moon, an Indian Civil
Service officer who served in
Punjab, of the violence during
Partition. Moon speaks of how
six schoolboys, suspected of
having participated in the disturbance, were flogged in
Bahawalpur sub-jail at the
magistrate’s instructions. India carries this colonial legacy
of treatment in custody even
today. Law and order enforcement is still defined by arbitrariness and impunity in executive action. The custodial
killing of five Muslim
undertrials who were on their
way to court in Nalgonda,
Telangana, on April 7, and the
extra judicial massacre of 20
woodcutters in Andhra
Pradesh brings grief to those
of us who have engaged long
and hard with questions of
civil liberties and the non-negotiability of total transparency and accountability where
the police and armed forces in
the country are concerned.
The undivided State of Andhra
Pradesh stood out in the huge
gains made by the movements
for civil liberties at an enormous cost and loss of life of
human rights defenders. The
two fledgling States have, in
trigger-happy manner, wiped
that history out without a trace.
We are back to where we
began in the early 1970s. It
may be too much to expect
any trace of remorse or a
sense of wrongdoing by the
two governments. Our own
sense of hopelessness is evident in our minimalist de-
mands: all we want is an impartial enquiry. There is dissent from Tamil Nadu, the
State that the woodcutters
belonged to. But what did
Tamil Nadu do with those accused of providing shelter and
support to forest brigand
Veerappan? In the Veerappan
chase, as in the Seshachalam
forest massacre, there was
evidence that officers at the
highest level were involved.
This evidence was painstakingly put out by human rights
defenders. “Some officers do
not understand that the right
to life is ‘non-derogable’ and
non-negotiable, and that the
authority to wield arms does
not come with the authority to
kill” While we mourn the custodial killing of the five Muslim
undertrials, can we afford to
ignore the startling ways in
which the incident reminds us
of the Hashimpura massacre
in 1987? The shock of those
acquittals, and the pain of
hearing the extremely forthright accounts of former police officer Vibhuti Narain Rai,
is still palpable, but its lessons
lie elsewhere — mass custodial killings carry the guarantee of impunity and immunity
from prosecution, the bloodshed of those killed and those
who defended them unto
death notwithstanding. Besides, while targets keep shifting,
the
continuing
communalisation of the police
force is a matter of very grave
concern in an increasingly intolerant social and political
environment. In his charac-
teristically unequivocal manner, the late civil liberties activist, K.G. Kannabiran, says in
the opening page of his book
Wages of Impunity, “[t]here is
an overwhelming play of vio-
ness this blatant and cruel
undoing of his arduous labour
in States that were both his
home as well as his battlefield. We have court rulings;
the battles have been in courts,
tiable, and that the authority
to wield arms does not come
with the authority to kill. We
know the identities of the victims. Why do we not know the
identities of the police person-
lence as power and power as
violence, sometimes in breach
of the law and sometimes as a
tool for its enforcement. If
violence in society is perceived
as a breach of the law, the law
itself is equally violent and in
fact has an even more debilitating effect because of its
systematic and thorough ruthlessness backed by official
sanction.” Today, I miss him
more than ever before, even
while I heave a sigh of relief
that he does not have to wit-
in the media, on the streets,
over the bodies of victims —
and yet there is a sense of
déjà vu. These are not the
same officers or the same
policemen; they are a generation far removed, one that
has come into consciousness
and gained an education that
included, importantly, the
meaning of human rights. Yet
they do not understand the
basic constitutional tenet that
the right to life is ‘nonderogable’ and non-nego-
nel involved in these massacres? While we know from
reports that the jail personnel
and other officers celebrated
the deaths of the “dreaded”
undertrials or narrowly escaped being scratched by the
stones pelted by the woodcutters, we only know who
the dead are. There is an
inversion of the threat with
the generic “police force”
being endangered by chained
undertrials and stone pelting woodcutters — and now
by angry families and defenders. Their disappearance into anonymity is not a
sharing of guilt or responsibility within the force, but a
sharing of impunity from the
very bottom to the very top.
The forests have stood witness to combing and encounters. In the declared fight
against mafias, it is the
adivasis and wage labourers,
the unarmed and vulnerable,
who die or are dispossessed.
Our cities bear witness to
the fact that increasingly it is
Muslim youths who are incarcerated or killed, irrespective of which party is in
power. “Terror” is the new
communal label. And we
have no count because the
poor are just an aggregate,
lives that do not matter either to a state born out of
struggle or to a state which
boasts of a forward looking
government. Our immediate
task is to push for prosecutions in both these incidents,
but we also have a larger
task on hand, a bigger challenge. How should we start
all over again to build momentum for a movement that
forces discipline and accountability on the state?
How do we force governments to take responsibility
for safeguarding the constitutional right to life and liberty of all citizens? Most importantly, how do we reschool ourselves and the
coming generations to drop
our thresholds of tolerance for
state impunity and state violence?
For a robust economy in Afghanistan
Located in the vicinity of rising economies China and
India, Afghanistan
has the leverage of
benefitting in areas
like investment,
technical expertise
and technology
transfer
ence, Kabul will ultimately
have to devise concrete plans
to reboot its economy. In fact,
at the core of its structural
weakness lies Afghanistan’s
overt reliance on foreign aid
deftly manoeuvred during the
Cold War when it played off
both super powers to receive
huge injections of aid. At
present, Afghanistan is banking on two factors to resuscitate its economy: its strategic
location and its natural re-
sources. Situated at the cusp
of three regions — South Asia,
the Persian Gulf, Central Asia
and at the intersection of the
East-West trade corridor — it
hopes to channel its location as
a hub of trade and transit activity by way of a land bridge
between these diverse, yet
immensely endowed, regions.
In this regard, it plans to revive
the ancient Silk Route. The U.S.
has already drawn up plans for
this opportunity in the form of
its New Silk Road Initiative as
has China with its proposed Silk
Route Economic Belt. “At the
core of its structural weakness
lies Afghanistan’s overt reliance on foreign aid deftly manoeuvred during the Cold War
whenitplayedoffbothsuperpowers to receive huge injections of
aid” Also on the anvil is the transportation of energy from the energy-rich Caspian region to energy-deficit South Asia through
a network of pipelines, especially the TAPI (Turkmenistan,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India)
pipeline and the TurkmenistanAfghanistan-China pipeline. Another energy project, CASA1000, envisages the transmission of hydroelectric power
from Central Asia to South
Asia via Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan also signed
the Afghanistan-Pakistan
Transit and Trade Agreement
in 2010 which is hoped to be
pegged onto to the
liberalisation of trade between
Pakistan and India, allowing for
a free movement of goods
across the region. Located in
the vicinity of rising economies
China and India, Afghanistan
also has the leverage of benefitting in areas such as investment, technical expertise and
technology transfer. The other
element of Afghanistan’s economic architecture is its natural resources. It has traditionally been rich in resources
such as coal, chromite and
marble and has been exporting gas to Russia since 1967.
Though some studies undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s
indicated the presence of vast
mineral and hydrocarbon resources, it was not until 2010
that the U.S. announced the
discovery of nearly $1 trillion in
untapped mineral deposits.
The previously unknown deposits included huge veins of
iron, copper, cobalt and gold,
and critical industrial metals
like lithium, so much so that Afghanistan was slated to become an important centre of
global mining. It has already
attracted considerable investment with China pledging $2.8
billion for the development of
the Aynak copper mines and a
consortium of Indian companies in partnership with Canadian companies announcing to
invest $14.6 billion for the development of the iron ore
mines in Hajigak. However,
these investments, like those of
the Silk Route land bridge, are
presently at a standstill due to
the precarious security scenario.
The infrastructure for both plans
is also missing and could take
years to develop. In addition, the
wealth of resources comes as
a double-edged sword and
could entail a vicious cycle of violence if not carefully handled.
So, while grand in design and
exhibiting huge promise, the enterprises are wrought with uncertainties and could take years
to reach fruition. Meanwhile, Afghanistan could focus on its
other strengths such as agriculture and livestock. Only 6 per
cent of its land is cultivated; it
could increase the yield to its full
potential and help switch over
from a predominantly opiumdriven sector to alternative
crops. This will address its issue
of food insecurity. It could also
harness its upper-riparian position and enter into water-sharing
agreements
with
neighbours, especially with Iran
and Pakistan. It could further
build on its expanding service
sector, undertake measures to
plug corruption, and try bring its
vast informal economy within
the formal tax net. Scams such
as the Kabul Bank fraud, one of
the worst in international banking history, should be
checked and an earnest effort to structurally reform the
sector should be undertaken.
Onlybyevolvingarobusteconomy
will it become a bulwark.
abroad than the resident Indian because the latter is capable of reworking identities
while the diaspora has limited
choices. Third, in the inclusive
vision, culture is all about the
availability of alternatives,
while for Hindutva , it is about
a space that needs to be policed. Deep down, the BJP has
only one monolithic and monotheistic god, the nation state .
Ribeiro makes this point subtly; that Hinduism is a belief,
while Hindutva is an ideology.
Belief, especially religious beliefs, are protean, while ideology is procrustean (enforcing
uniformity). Religion can be
syncretic while ideology is restrictive. This difference, he
Singh hated. UR recounts the
story of an Arab intellectual
being perplexed by noting that
his community has one language, one religion but 22
states, while India has dozens
of languages, myriad religions but is still united as a
single nation. It is our similarities, and not our differences, that have glued us
together. There is a difference in what I call the politics of anxiety and identity.
Ribeiro and Nandy are confident of their selves. Giriraj
Singh on the other hand uses
identity to complain about history. Mr Singh, in trying to
explain his comment on the
Congress president, reveals
when faced with majoritarian
violence and policing, there is
little to choose between
Bhagwati and the illiberal Mr.
Singh. Both seem to wish away
the violence of the time by
creating apologies for the government. In fact, the question
one must ask is what is it that
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
adds to Indians abroad that a
large part of the diaspora
treats him as the equivalent of
a cultural testosterone shot?
It is as if the nationalist bluster
of Mr. Modi compensates for
their sense of inferiority and
their embarrassment about
India’s deficiencies. Despite
their reading of the situation, Nandy and Ribeiro
make a fascinating pair.
What they find intriguing is
the fact that the majority
behaves like a minority even
now. In fact, one must comment on Union Transport
Minister Nitin Gadkari’s interesting response when he
said he felt “very sad” after
reading Ribeiro’s article
about his growing insecurity as a Christian in India.
Gadkari assures Ribeiro that
he is an icon and a role model
for the country. He is also
virtually telling Ribeiro that he
has passed the loyalty test,
adding that it is the Opposition
that is creating such
misperceptions. India’s minorities, especially Sikh, Christian
and Parsi, have been self-con-
fident cultures. As Ribeiro remarks, many of them have
punched far above their numerical weight, in achievements versus their population.
One does not have to create a
who’s who of those from these
cultures to create testimonials for them. Our religious
communities need no certificates. Many of them have a
confidence that many in the
majority lack. Nandy goes on
to claim that there is a Hindu
within him but which does not
make him less Christian. In
fact, his statement reminds
me of the Dalai Lama’s wisdom. Listening to U.S. President George Bush once, the
Dalai Lama commented: “He
brings out the Muslim in me.”
Beyond empathy for Islam,
what the Dalai Lama was claiming was that President Bush’s
behaviour, his treatment of
Islam and the Muslim was
unfair, untrue and almost barbaric. Similarly, listening to
Mr. Singh brings out the Christian, the Muslim and the Buddhist in me, without making
me less Hindu. That to me is
the beauty of India that no
Hindutva envy can destroy.
Being all and yet being one is
what makes me Indian. No
Bajrang Dal or Vishwa Hindu
Parishad can deprive me of
this confidence. I do not need
their Aadhar cards of identity
to testify to my Indianness,
and that is enough for me.
to a widening political and security vacuum. This vacuum, in
turn, provides leeway for extremist forces to move in, as
established by Sarah Chayes
(Carnegie Endowment) in her
comprehensive study drawing
linkages between governmental corruption and religious extremism, especially in the context of Afghanistan. For a de-
downward spiral, especially as
donor funding is beginning to
dry up. While the Strategic
Partnership Agreement with
the U.S. in 2012 provides it a
stopgap retrieve (including financial support for another
decade from 2015-2024),
along with the trickling in of
some donor pledges made
during the 2012 Tokyo confer-
The overarching focus in
Afghanistan on political stability and effectiveness of the security forces is understandable
given the nature of the immediate challenges confronting
the country. However, in the
long run, economic stability will
have to figure in as an intrinsic
driver towards sustainable
peace. While the previous dispensation was predominantly
security-driven, President
Ashraf Ghani, with his stint at
World Bank and as Finance
Minister previously, is expected
to underscore economic reconstruction as a key component of state-building. Beyond
providing fiscal cushioning, target-oriented economic interventions can help bridge the
governance gap and financial
deficits — hallmarks of the previous regime, which, as offshoots of a poorly managed
economic toolbox, contribute
cade since 2002, Afghanistan
witnessed an encouraging 9.5
per cent growth rate and single
digit inflation, but it was widely
sustained by the inflow of donor funds and developmental
aid. With the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
drawdown drawing close, the
growth rate began to dip in
2013 and reached 3.8 per cent
by early 2015. With little indigenous infrastructure or capacity, Afghanistan is set to face a
Christianity is being threatened. Earlier, being Christian
and Indian was never contradictory to each other. While
the BJP may have shattered
Ribeiro’s confidence, it still has
not dented Ashis Nandy’s. He
sees it as representing the
lowest common denominator
of democracy. Nandy is proud
of Kolkata and he knows that
his city will never harass Christians. He sees it in the logic of
its culture and his pride is not
so much in his ‘Christian Identity’ but in his syncretic
Calcuttan past which celebrates the multiverse called
the city. “ Being all and yet
being one is what makes me
Indian. No Bajrang Dal or VHP
erydayness of an Indian.
Watching Ribeiro, Nandy and
Maryam, one realises that
majoritarianism is a challenge
to democracy. The codes of
the two systems are different.
In one, citizenship is legal,
culture is syncretic and politics democratic. For example,
as a person, one celebrated
the greatness of one’s
neighbourhood of identities.
As a Hindu, I loved Christian
festivals and enjoyed Sikh
langars. My pluralism made
me more Hindu. Yet, by contrast, the BJP’s Hindutva now
makes our culture uniform,
politics, majoritarian and citizenship, a matter of loyalties.
Citizenship in Hindutva’s vi-
An Indianness that needs no Aadhar
can deprive me of this
confidence.”Nandy has an additional advantage. While
Ribeiro sees society within the
categories of law and order,
Nandy’s sensibilities tell him
that most Indians believe in a
panoply of disorderly things.
Hindus attend church services,
Muslims are custodians of
temples and our culture oozes
with this syncretism. From
Saadat Hasan Manto’s
Bombay Talkies to the
Bollywood of the 21st century,
a church was part of the ev-
sion is reduced to a conditional status. The former celebrates the politics of difference, the other can think only
in impoverished absolutes. Listening to these debates, I
realise that the BJP government suffers from a failure of
imagination at several levels.
First it speaks like corporate
companies. It speaks a language where one hears more
about the Adanis and the
Ambanis and little about rural
issues . Second, it shows a
preference for the Indian
realises, is vital as ordinary
Hindus celebrate his presence.
They see him as a first-rate
officer and honour him. For
Nandy, Hinduism is manifold,
while the RSS preaches about
one nation, one state, one
culture, one religion. It is a
formula for encouraging mediocrity. Nandy is equally clear
that Christianity does not need
conversion. This logic becomes clearer in a story recounted by writer and intellectual U.R. Ananthamurthy,
another icon who Mr. Giriraj
that he has no self-confidence.
Nandy and Ribeiro are happy
to be in India while Singh is
unhappy with ‘his India’. Even
his majoritarian confidence is
in fact a colonial one which
does not know how to deal
with someone who is of foreign origin. In fact, what is
ironic is the critique of Ribeiro’s
fears by Jagdish Bhagwati,
Professor at Columbia University in an article recently.
Bhagwati begins with a list of
the people who are close to
Christianity in his family. Yet,
Garvi Gujarat
3
Ahmedabad. Dt. 14-04-2015 Tuesday
3
What is net neutrality and why it is important?
The Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Shri Kalraj Mishra
visited the exhibition stalls, on the occasion of the 60 years of Customer
service celebration, in New Delhi on April 13, 2015. (PIB)
Narendra Modi to become the
brand ambassador of MakeMyTrip
New Delhi: Narendra Modi
has been on a travelling spree
ever since he became the
Prime Minister of India. He
has travelled to Japan, USA,
Bhutan and Nepal and is presently in France. Seeing him as
an avid traveller, famous travelling e-commerce portal
MakeMyTrip has decided to
rope him in as their brand
ambassador. "Narendra Modi
stays in foreign countries more
than he does in India. He is
someone who perfectly signifies the essence of our brand.
We want more and more
people to take up travelling
and I hope he can inspire
people to do that. We initially
wanted Pratibha Patil, who is
known to travel almost the
entire world during her regime as President; but seeing
Narendra Modi's massive
popularity we decided to go
with him," said a member of
the MakeMyTrip team. Both
Congress and AAP have
slammed Narendra Modi's foreign visits saying that the honeymoon period for the BJP
government is over and so
should the frequent visits to
other countries. He should stop
wasting taxpayer's hardearned money and focus on
bringing black money home,
Fair end, unfair game
The conviction of founder Ramalinga Raju and nine others
in the infamous Rs.7,123-crore Satyam fraud case that shook
the Indian corporate world in 2009 has set off a debate of a
different kind. Is the quantum of punishment adequate given
the nature of the crime and the method of its execution in a
collusive manner? This fresh debate, however, has conveniently cast aside the larger malice afflicting not just the
Indian enterprise but the society as a whole. Ironically, in this
instance, a fraud of a gigantic proportion happened in a
company which went by the name ‘Satyam!’ Can the end
justify the mean? Can’t businesses be run in a fair manner?
Is ethical business impossible? Can’t professionals be objective? Can enterprise make profit without cutting corners?
And, more importantly, can stakeholders perform dispassionately in an environment where relationships encounter
differing goals? An objective reflection will reveal how
enlightened self-interest without any modicum of concern for
larger public good often collectively leads up to a public bad of
gargantuan proportion. Satyam eminently fit into this category.
as he promised during his election campaign. The BJP has
retorted to these accusations,
saying, "The Congress should
not question Narendra Modi's
trips when their leader Rahul
Gandhi is himself vacationing
for the past two months and
nobody has a clue about his
whereabouts. As for the AAP,
Narendra Modi goes to other
countries because he is invited to take part in important
discussions and it is not our
fault that nobody invites Arvind
Kejriwal because they are
probably afraid that he will
stage a dharna in their
country and spread anarchy."
Adarsh scam: SC to
hear Ashok Chavan's
plea on April 24
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday
agreed to hear former
Maharashtra chief minister
Ashok Chavan's plea against
Bombay high court's order
in the Adarsh housing society scam case. The apex
court will hear his appeal
on April 24. The top court
has asked the Maharashtra
government to seek adjournment before the trial
court in the case. Bombay
high court had in March dismissed Chavan's appeal to
recall an earlier order refusing to delete his name from
the multi-crore scam case.
Lamborghini, Ferrari crash
in high-speed road race
BEIJING: A Lamborghini
and Ferrari crashed in a highspeed road race in Beijing as
the seventh stunt-filled "Fast
and the Furious" movie opened
in China, the latest luxury car
accident to provoke controversy on Monday.Pictures of
the mangled wreckage of a
lime green Lamborghini, a
damaged red Ferrari and other
high performance cars in a
tunnel in the Chinese capital
emerged online following
Saturday's crash, which police said left one person injured. A high-speed Ferrari
crash in the capital in March
2012 killed the son of Ling
Jihua, a close ally of thenpresident Hu Jintao. Two
women passengers, one of
them naked, were both injured. The incident added to
public perceptions in China of
corrupt and high-living officials, and Ling has since been
investigated for graft and dismissed from his post. "What
are their names? Who are
their fathers?" one poster
asked on Sina Weibo, China's
version of Twitter, after the
If you like the current state
of the internet, you should
know about net neutrality. If
you are not aware of it, don't
worry. Internet is built around
the idea of openness. It allows
people to connect and exchange information freely, if
the information or service is
not illegal. Much of this is because of the idea of net neutrality. If you like the current
state of the internet, you
should know about net neutrality. Many web users are
aware of it. But if you are not,
don't worry. We explain it
here: Net neutrality is an idea
derived from how telephone
lines have worked since the
beginning of the 20th century.
In case of a telephone line,
you can dial any number and
connect to it. It does not matter if you are calling from operator A to operator B. It
doesn't matter if you are calling a restaurant or a drug
dealer. The operators neither
block the access to a number
nor deliberately delay connection to a particular number,
unless forced by the law. Most
of the countries have rules
that ask telecom operators to
provide an unfiltered and unrestricted phone service.
When the internet started to
take off in 1980s and 1990s,
there were no specific rules
that asked that internet service providers (ISPs) should
follow the same principle. But,
mostly because telecom operators were also ISPs, they
adhered to the same prin-
ciple. This principle is known
as net neutrality. An ISP does
not control the traffic that
passes its servers. When a
web user connects to a website
or web service, he or she gets
the same speed. Data rate for
Youtube videos and Facebook
photos is theoretically same.
Users can access any legal
website or web service without any interference from an
ISP. Some countries have rules
that enforce net neutrality but
most don't. Instead, the principle is followed because that
is how it has always been. It is
more of a norm than a law.
How did net neutrality shape
the internet? Net neutrality has
shaped the internet in two
fundamental ways. One, web
users are free to connect to
whatever website or service they want. ISPs do not
bother with what kind of
content is flowing from their
servers. This has allowed
the internet to grow into a
truly global network and has
allowed people to freely express themselves. For example, you can criticize your
ISP on a blog post and the ISP
will not restrict access to that
post for its other subscribers
even though the post may
harm its business. But more
importantly, net neutrality has
enabled a level playing field
on the internet. To start a
website, you don't need lot of
money or connections. Just
host your website and you are
good to go. If your service is
good, it will find favour with
web users. Unlike the cable
TV where you have to forge
alliances with cable connection providers to make sure
that your channel reaches
viewers, on internet you don't
have to talk to ISPs to put your
website online. This has led to
creation Google, Facebook,
Twitter and countless other
services. All of these services
had very humble beginnings.
They started as a basic
websites with modest resources. But they succeeded
because net neutrality allowed
web users to access these
websites in an easy and unhindered way. If there is no
net neutrality, ISPs will have
the power (and inclination) to
shape internet traffic so that
they can derive extra benefit from it. For example,
several ISPs believe that
they should be allowed to
charge companies for services like YouTube and Netflix
because these services consume more bandwidth compared to a normal website.
Basically, these ISPs want a
share in the money that
YouTube or Netflix make. Without net neutrality, the internet
as we know it will not exist.
Instead of free access, there
could be "package plans" for
consumers. For example, if
you pay Rs 500, you will only
be able to access websites
based in India. To access international websites, you may
have to pay a more. Or maybe
there can be different connection speed for different type of
content, depending on how
much you are paying for the
service and what "add-on
package" you have bought.
Lack of net neutrality, will also
spell doom for innovation on
the web. It is possible that
ISPs will charge web companies to enable faster access to
their websites. Those who
don't pay may see that their
websites will open slowly. This
means bigger companies like
Google will be able to pay
more to make access to
Youtube or Google+ faster for
web users but a startup that
wants to create a different
and better video hosting site
may not be able to do that.
Instead of an open and free
internet, without net neutrality we are likely to get a
web that has silos in it and
to enter each silo, you will
have to pay some "tax" to
ISPs. What is the state of
net neutrality in India? Legally, the concept of net
neutrality doesn't exist in
India. Sunil Abraham, director of Centre for internet
and Society in Bangalore,
says that Trai, which regulates the telecom industry,
has tried to come up with
some rules regarding net
neutrality several times. For
example it invited comments
on the concept of net neutrality from industry bodies and
stakeholders in 2006. But no
formal rules have been
formed to uphold and enforce
net neutrality. However, despite lack of formal rules, ISPs
in India mostly adhere to the
principal of net neutrality.
There have been some incidents where Indian ISPs have
ignored net neutrality but
these are few and far between. Will the concept of net
neutrality survive? Net neutrality is sort of gentlemen's
agreement. It has survived so
far because few people realized the potential of internet
when it took off around 30
years ago. But now when the
internet is an integral part of
the society and incredibly important, ISPs across the world
are trying to get the power to
shape and control the traffic.
But there are ways to keep net
neutrality alive. Consumers
should demand that ISPs continue their hands-off approach
from the internet traffic. If
consumers see a violation of
net neutrality, they ought to
take a proactive approach and
register their displeasure with
the ISP. They should also reward ISPs that uphold the net
neutrality. At the same time,
as Abraham says, Trai needs
to come out with a set of clear
and precise rules that protect
the net neutrality. "We have
started seeing ISPs trying to
take control of the traffic that
flows from their servers but
Trai can regulate them. It can
keep the internet open and
consumer-friendly by forming
rules that protect net neutrality. These are early days so it
is easy to do. If ISPs manage
to change the system, it may
become too late," he says.
Synchrony occurs when
people interact together in
time. It is a fundamental prerequisite for activities. In an
example of how a physical
activity performed in
unison helps children
feel more positively
toward one another,
researchers have
found that even a
video game played together in sync on a
computer could increase their empathy.
The study showed that
eight-year-olds reported a greater sense
of similarity and closeness immediately after
playing the video game in
sync, those who played the
same game but not in a synchronous way did not report
the same increase in connection. “Synchrony is like a glue
that brings people together —
it is a magical connector for
people,” said lead author TalChen
Rabinowitch,
postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington. Synchrony occurs when people
ductive, but a few studies have
examined whether the same
is true among children. In the
experiment, Rabinowitch
tested 74 eight-year-old children in pairs of two
boys and two girls. The
children were made to
sit side by side in front
of a video screen. An
animated soccer ball
bounced on both
halves of the screen,
and the children
pressed a button
whenever the ball on
their side of the screen
hit the floor. For some
pairs of children, the
balls bounced in sync,
so their fingers tapped the
buttons simultaneously. Other
pairs of children had out-ofsync bouncing, so they had
asynchronous finger tapping.
Children in the synchronous
group reported a greater
sense of similarity and closeness. The findings, published
in the journal PLOS ONE, suggest that time-based
synchronised activities, including in music, dance and sports,
could be useful tools in bringing children closer together.
The DNA could be up to
1,70,000 years old and could
one day help form a clearer picture of the Neanderthal life, researchers said. Researchers
have stumbled upon the oldest
Neanderthal DNA sample. The
sample came from an ancient
skeleton still buried deep inside
a cave in Italy. The DNA could
be up to 1,70,000 years old and
could one day help form a
clearer picture of the Neanderthal life, researchers said. The
sample came from an extraordinarily intact skeleton of an ancient human scientists had
found amidst the stalactites and
stalagmites of the limestone
cave of Lamalunga, near
Altamura in southern Italy in
1993. “The Altamura man represents the most complete skeleton of a single non-modern
human ever found,” study coauthor Fabio Di Vincenzo, a
paleoanthropologist
at
Sapienza University of Rome,
was quoted as saying by Live
Science. “Almost all the bony
elements are preserved and
undamaged,” Di Vincenzo
added. The Altamura skeleton
bears a number of Neanderthal traits, particularly in the
face and the back of the skull.
But it also possesses features
that usually aren’t seen in Ne-
anderthals — for instance, its
brow ridges were even more
massive than those of Neanderthals. Now, new research
showed that DNA from a piece
of the skeleton’s right shoulder
blade suggests the Altamura
fossil was a Neanderthal. The
shape of this piece of bone also
looks Neanderthal, the researchers said. The scientists
dated the skeleton to about
1,30,000 to 1,70,000 years old.
While previous fragmentary fossils of different Neanderthals
provided a partial picture of the
Neanderthal life, the Altamura
skeleton could help paint a more
complete portrait of a Neanderthal, the researchers said. It
may reveal more details about
Neanderthals’
genetics,
anatomy, ecology and lifestyle,
they added. “We have a nearly
complete human fossil skeleton
to describe and study in detail.
It is a dream,” Di Vincenzo said.
“His morphology offers a rare
glimpse on the earliest phase
of the evolutionary history of
Neanderthals and on one of the
most crucial events in human
evolution. He can help us better
understand when — and, in
particular, how — Neanderthals
evolved,” Di Vincenzo explained.
The findings appeared online in
the Journal of Human Evolution.
Playing games in sync
Found: Oldest
raises empathy among kids Neanderthal DNA
interact together in time. It is
a fundamental prerequisite for
activities such as playing music, dancing and rowing. In
adults, synchrony has been
linked to increased cooperation and teamwork, making
work more efficient and pro-
Signs of alien life
will be found by 2025:
NASA scientists
Signs of alien life will be detected by 2025, while “definitive
evidence” of extra-terrestrial beings may be found within the
next 20 to 30 years, top NASA scientists say. “I think we’re going
to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade,
and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to
30 years,” NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said. He was
speaking at a panel discussion that focused on NASA’s efforts
to search for habitable worlds and extra-terrestrial life. “We
know where to look. We know how to look. In most cases we
have the technology, and we’re on a path to implementing it.
And so I think we’re definitely on the road,” the chief scientist
added. John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s
Science Mission Directorate, also predicted that signs of life will
be found relatively soon both in our own solar system and
beyond, ‘Space.com’ reported. “I think we’re one generation
away in our solar system, whether it’s on an icy moon or on
Mars, and one generation [away] on a planet around a nearby
star,” he said. According to Grunsfeld, recent discoveries
suggest that the solar system and broader Milky Way galaxy
teem with environments that could support life as we know it.
Oceans of liquid water, for example, slosh beneath the icy
shells of the Jupiter moons Europa and Ganymede, as well as
that of the Saturn satellite Enceladus. Researchers have found
that oceans covered much of Mars in the ancient past, and
seasonal dark streaks observed on the Red Planet’s
surface today may be caused by salty flowing water.
The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New and Renewable
Energy, Shri Piyush Goyal addressing at inauguration of the “Workshop on the India
Energy Outlook”, organised by the IEA, in New Delhi on April 13, 2015. The Minister of
State for Petroleum and Natural Gas (Independent Charge), Shri Dharmendra Pradhan
and other dignitaries are also seen. (PIB)
NRIs may vote from abroad in Bihar polls
latest crash. It happened at
about 10pm (1500 GMT), police said, during heavy rain,
two hours before "Furious 7"
broke the record for midnight
screenings on its launch in
China, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "Were they in
a hurry to watch Fast and
Furious 7?" one netizen said.
A report by news portal Sina
said at least one of the drivers
was a student and that residents had complained about
cars racing in the tunnel, which
is near Beijing's emblematic
Bird's Nest stadium. Beijing
police drew derision from Chinese netizens for referring to
the cars involved as a green
and red "small passenger-carrying vehicles". "These sure
are valuable vehicles," one
poster wrote. Lamborghinis
sell for around $800,000 in
China, and Ferraris for
around $500,000. A 21year-old driver crashed his
Ferrari at high speed in the
Chinese capital in February
last year, killing a passenger and injuring another.
NEW DELHI: Bihar polls,
due late this year, could create history irrespective of its
electoral outcome -if the government and poll panel were
to have their way, the state
will become the first to allow
non-resident Indians to cast
their vote in assembly elections from overseas. The Election Commission (EC) is working closely with the law ministry on a pilot project to facilitate nonresident Indian (NRI)
voting in the upcoming polls
through either proxy (read
nominee) or e-postal ballot.
According to sources privy to
the joint effort, the poll panel
is pushing the government to
effect necessary amendments
in the Representation of
People Act latest by the monsoon session of Parliament,
so that the pilot can be tested
in Bihar elections. The EC will
have to constitute a new assembly in Bihar before November 29. There are about
1,000 NRIs registered as voters in Bihar. The EC is yet to
decide whether the pilot will
cover the whole of Bihar or
will be limited to a few constituencies. "We can decide
that once the amendments
come through," said an official requesting anonymity . If
found successful here, the EC
will then scale up this experiment to other state elections
and finally cover the whole
country during the 2019 parliamentary elections. Currently, voters residing abroad
can only poll in their respective constituencies. This regulation is seen as restrictive as
only a few thousand Indians
living overseas have registered
as voters, the maximum being
from Kerala. Of these, barely
anyone has travelled to the
country to exercise his or her
franchise. Under the proxy
option, proposed by the EC
and subsequently accepted by
the law ministry, an NRI will
be able to cast vote through a
nominee residing in India. In
the second option, the poll
panel will upload the ballot
paper online, which can be
accessed by a registered NRI
voter through a secure password. Once downloaded and
printed, the NRI can then mark
his or her preferred candidate
on the ballot paper. The voter
will then have to self-attest
the ballot paper and send it
back to the returning officer
by snail mail within a stipulated period. The EC has constituted a technical committee
headed by Rajat Moona of CDAC, the government's research and development arm
in advanced computing, and
comprising other technical
experts, to develop a software that will allow the commission to dispatch the ballot
paper to NRI voters online.
The software, EC officials
told ET, is "almost ready"
and currently undergoing a
"security audit". This comes
in the wake of the Centre
accepting the poll panel's
recommendations on NRI
voting, which were submitted to the Supreme
Court early this year. According to rough estimates, there are about
one crore Indians settled
abroad, of which 60 lakh
could easily be of eligible
voting age.They could hold
considerable sway in election results, especially in
states such as Punjab,
Gujarat and Kerala, where
a number of expats hail from.
4
Ahmedabad. Dt. 14-04-2015 Tuesday
Gujarat hardens stand on
water sharing for Mumbai
Gandhinagar: Gujarat has
demanded that Maharashtra
should first agree to release
more water from Tapi if it
wants a bigger share of water
or the proposed Damangan
ga-Pinjal link that will supply
water to Mumbai. The decision comes in the wake of
events in the Maha rashtra
assembly two days ago when
the House had to be adjourned
after the opposi tion disrupted
proceedings over the agreement with Guj arat over water
sharing for DamangangaPinjal and Par Tapi-Narmada
link projects. B N Navalawala,
advisor to Gujarat chief minister on water resources development and former secretary
, water resources, central
govern ment, said that Gujarat
is ready to share water from
Da manganga and allow the
de velopment of Pinjal link.
“But this can be possible only
if Maharashtra agrees to share
equal quantity of water from
the Tapi basin that falls in
Maharashtra. There will be no
compromise on this issue. It
will be pure barter agreement,“ said Navalawala. He
further emphasized that
Maharashtra first has to sign
an agreement for this along
with an assurance from the
central government. “We have
already informed the central
government in writ ng,“ said
Navalawala.Incidentally,thedraft
report for he Damanganga-Pinjal
link and the Par-Tapi-Narmada
ink projects are ready but work
on neither project has begun so
far. In 2010, the two states
had signed a tripartite MoU for
water sharing in the presence
of then Prime Min ster
Manmohan Singh when
Narendra Modi was Gujarat
CM and Ashok Chavan was
CM of Maharashtra. Tapi has
its source in Sahyadri (in the
Vidarbha
region
of
Maharashtra). On the other
hand, Damanganga is n
Gujarat but its surplus wa er is
to be supplied to the proposed
link to river Pinjal which flows
in
Maharashtra.The
Damanganga- Pinjal link s vital for Maharashtra as on y
then will the state be able to
meet Mumbai's water needs.
The Damanganga-Pinjal ink
envisages transfer, to the
Pinjal reservoir, of surplus
water from the Damanganga
basin that would be available at the Bhugad and
Khargihill dams. This transfer will augment the supply
of water to Greater Mumbai.
Garvi Gujarat
Man held for smuggling
gold worth Rs 18.75L
Ahmedabad: The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of Customs
department on Sunday morning arrested a Mumbai-based
person for smuggling 700 grams of gold worth Rs 18.75 lakh
at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. Accused,
Salim Syed, was held with six gold bars which he had
concealed in his rectum. Interestingly, Syed was a domestic
passenger as he had flown in from Delhi. This is the third
incident of smuggling wherein a domestic passenger
has been caught in the past one week using the same
modus operandi and flight. Syed had arrived from Air
India's flight AI-019 from Delhi on Friday morning.“He
was a domestic passenger and had picked up the gold
bars from an international passenger in Delhi itself. The
exchange of gold bars happened in the international
terminal of Delhi airport,“ said a Customs official.
Mango, potato crops
hit across state
Rajkot: The wet spell has added to the worries of farmers
who are already staring at losses caused by rain in the last
month-and-a-half. The Kesar mango crop is likely to be hit if
such weather continues.Hundreds of Kesar orchards in Amreli
and Junagadh districts were badly hit due to rain and wind
last month. Mango culti vation in Amreli is spread over
67,250 hectares while in Junagadh it is on 31,000 hectares. Heaps of harvested wheat and potatoes have been
damaged in Deesa. “Strong winds have caused havoc,
blowing off mango fruits from the trees,“ said Dinesh
Padaliya, assistant horticulture officer of Surat and Bharuch.
4
Only synagogue in state
enshrined in heritage list
Ahmedabad: The only Jewish synagogue of Gujarat, the
81year-old Magen Abraham
Synagogue at Bukhara Mohulla
in Khamasa in the Walled City
, now has the state archaeological department's nod to be
included in the city's heritage
list.The list has been prepared
by heritage and conservation
committee and INTACH for the
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). In a letter written by the director of state
archaeology Y S Ravat, to the
heritage cell and the municipal commissioner, Ravat the
has suggested that synagogue
be included in the category of
heritage buildings. The letter
was in response to the representations made by the Bene
Israel Jewish community , highlighting issues related to encroachments at its entrance
and security of the small 139member Jewish community .
“During important state events
we have high profile guests of
gov ernment of Is rael coming
to this temple.Though there is
nity of Gujarat and was consecrated on September 2, 1934.
Before, it was built, there was
a small prayer hall near
a SRP point, the recent clutter
of resi dential apartment buildings around the synagogue
has raised security concerns
after the Mumbai 2611 attacks,“ says Sahitya akademi
award winner Esther David.
This synagogue belongs to the
Bene Israel Jewish commu-
Pankornaka in the Walled City
. This synagogue has an IndoJudaica architectural form and
old religious artefacts. It has
Grecian pillars, a triangular
roof, a high ceiling; artistic
grills, stained glass windows and chandeliers
which lend an ethereal glow.
Ahmedabad: The age gap
between a faculty member
and a student seems to be
closing at the Indian Institute
of Management, Ahmedabad
(IIM-A). In the 1980s, if you
walked into a packed class at
IIM-A, you would spot greyhaired, seemingly wise 60year-old professors, who had
enjoyed a busy corporate career for years and later took
to teaching. Today , with the
life-span of corporate jobs
shortening dramatically and
with teaching paying handsomely , it's a path several
are now taking. Recruitment
records from the business
school show that the average age of freshly recruited
faculty fell from the mid-50s
to 30s. At present, there are
about 30 faculty members at
IIM-A, who are yet to turn
40.In the last one year, IIMA has recruited four new faculty members below the age
of 40. “I became a professor
at the age of 23 at a university
in the US because I believe
that teaching is the best way
to contribute at the societal
level. At the same time, I have
the autonomy to set my schedule and the opportunities in
academics are galore now,“
said professor Dheeraj
Sharma, 38, a faculty in marketing and organizational behavior at IIM-A. Along with
age, the style of teaching has
also changed at IIM-A. A young
professor in early 30s, who
did not wish to be named said,
“Students find young faculty
approachable and connect at
a deeper level because we
are closer to their age.“ Faculty members address each
other by first name, regardless of their age and designation. “During meetings, I find
myself perfectly comfortable
expressing my opinion even
when my viewpoint differs
from another, more experienced faculty member. I know
that my input will be taken in
the right spirit. I believe this
can become a huge factor for
the younger generation when
it comes to joining the institute,“ said a 34-year-old professor Vaibhavi Kulkarni from
the communications department. The institute seems
happy with the interest it has
generated among young faculty members, most of whom
are armed with a PhD from
foreign universities. “It is kind
of a planned move as we
want to increase the number of faculty members. In
the last two years, we have
moved from 80 faculty
members to 93. We like
the fact that many young faculty members are looking at
beginning a career with IIMA as it gives them a sense of
ownership,“ said G Raghuram,
dean for faculty at IIM-A.
Ahmedabad:
The
invigilators of a government
exam caught two candidates a woman and a man -for using
digital devices for cheating. A
complaint has been registered
with Gujarat University (GU)
police in this connection. Police have seized two mobile
phones and a smart watch
from the duo. According to
police, Uttar Gujarat Vij Company Ltd (UGVCL) had organized an examination for the
posts of Vij Sahayak (electric-
ity technician) on Sunday on
GU premises from 11am to
12.30pm. During the period,
supervisors observed a youth
using a mobile phone for clicking pictures of the question
paper and sending it through
a messaging service, probably to get right answers. Officials also seized another
phone from the candidate who
had come from Sabarkantha
for the exam. A woman from
Mehsana was also caught for
cheating in perhaps first of its
kind case where she was found
using a smart watch. “The
supervisors first did not pay
attention as the candidates
were asked to keep the mobile phones outside the classroom. However, when the
examinee was seen operating
the watch more than twice,
they got suspicious and realized that it was internet-enabled smart watch.Both mobile phones and the watch
have been seized as evidences,“
said a GU police official.
Surat: Are kidnappers on
the prowl in the city? At least
this is what is feared considering that four complaints of
kidnapping were lodged at different police stations on Saturday alone. All the four victims are minors and one of
them a fivemonth-old son of
construction labourers, who
was abducted in Rander near
Meru Laksmi Mata temple. The
child was sleeping in open
with the father. None of the
kidnapped victims was rescued till Sunday evening. The
other three victims are girls
and police suspect that in some
cases, they might have fled
from home. On Friday, a nineyear-old girl went missing from
Amroli area. The family told
police that the girl was scolded
by her mother for getting
drinking water in an earthen
pot.“She brought the water
but left home immediately after that,“ said R S Patil, police
sub-inspector at Amroli police
station. The victim's fa ther is
a diamond polisher and the
family
belongs
to
Maharashtra. In Chowk Bazaar, a 17-yearold girl's parents lodged a complaint after
she went missing. Police suspect that the girl escaped from
home with her friend. Her last
location was traced in northern state of India and police
team has gone to search for
her. Another girl of 13 years
was kidnapped from Dindoli.
Her family told police that there
were no major issues at home.
“We are trying to get location
details of the girl from the
mobile phone she has,“ said K
G Limbachiya, police inspector, Dindoli police station.
Two cops held for having liquor
IIM-A getting younger profs
bottles planted at cyber cafe In scuffle over auto rent,
Ahmedabad: A team of B
Division ACP, probing a case
of planting two liquor bottles
at a cyber café, arrested two
policemen late on Saturday
night who were found involved
in the incident. The arrests
have taken place nine days
after arrest of a youth who
was seen planting the bottles
at the said spot in a CCTV
footage.The youth had
claimed that he was paid by
the constables. B U Jadeja,
assistant commissioner of
police, B Division, said that
they have arrested Lalji Desai
and Alpesh Desai, both constables with city police, in connection with the case.“Apart
from the statement of Alay
Modhwadia, the youth living in
Vejalpur who was caught on
April 3 for planting the bottles,
we have got call data records
(CDR) of the constables that
showed their involvement in
the case. Further probe is on,“
he said. The duo was working
with Gujarat University (GU)
police station when the incident had taken place on December 31. Lalji Desai was
later transferred to Kalupur
police station. Investigators
said that when they got to
know that their names have
cropped up, they were trying
for anticipatory bail. The duo
was caught from Ranip, said
investigators. On December
31, a team of GU police had
rounded up two employees of
Hard Rock, a cyber café near
Gujarat University, after two
liquor bottles were found on
the spot. As Manoj Naghera,
the owner, was named in violation of prohibition laws, he
cried foul and said that he was
being framed. In his application to senior police officials,
he submitted a CCTV footage
showing a youth, who had
come as a customer, leaving
two bottles behind. After finding truth in the claims, the
then DCP Zone I Virendrasinh
Yadav had ordered an inquiry
to B Division ACP. Naghera in
his application had mentioned
feud with a woman as the
reason for the `plant,' as after
the altercation, the woman
had claimed that she knows
influential policemen and
would create troubles for him.
Village school shreds
caste barriers
K a t a r i y a
(Surendranagar): A study
`Census on Untouchability'
done Navsarjan Trust revealed a damning details of
how 53.78% dalit children
studying in primary schools
in the state are discriminated
against in midday meals.
This was just one instance
of how deeply rooted was
the evil of untouchability in
Gandhiji's Gujarat. While the
situation may not have drastically changed over five
years, a school in a small
hamlet of Surendranagar has
surely raised hope for better
days for dalit students. The
residential upper primary
school
started
by
Navsarjan Trust, a voluntary organization that
works for dalit rights, has
24 non dalit children of
the total 59 who study and
live there. This phenomenon, according to activists, is not a small achievement,
especially
in
Surendranagar which is one
of the 11 districts in the state
that is sensitive in terms of
atrocities against dalits. “For
the first time since 2005 when
we started three residential
Ahmedabad:A
man
stabbed his son to death over
a scuffle for paying the rent of
the auto which the son was
plying at Ghodasar in Isanpur
on Saturday night. Police
identified the accused as
Ambalal Thakore and the
deceased as Mehul, 22. Police arrested Ambalal.
Ambalal also used to ply an
auto rickshaw. “He had
rented out one of his autos
to Mehul,“ said an official of
Isanpur police station. On
Saturday night Ambalal de-
manded rent from Mehul for
his auto.This led to an argument between the duo. During the scuffle, Ambalal took
out a knife. Seeing that,
Mehul challenged his father
to stab him if he could.
Ambalal stabbed Mehul on the
left side of his chest,“ added
the official. Ambalal too was
hurt in the scuffle.His wife
and younger son took him
to a nearby doctor. On
their return, they saw
Mehul lying in a pool of
blood. He had already died.
Ensure victory in local
polls: BJP to cadre
Gandhinagar: At the BJP's state executive meeting held at
Koba near Gandhinagar, the party asked its cadre not to allow
the Congress party to come back to power in the upcoming
statewide local body elections in six municipal corporations, 57
municipalities, 33 district panchayats and 220 taluka panchayats.
The BJP lauded the state government's efforts to bring the
Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organized Crime
(GUJCOTOC) Bill and criticized the Congress for opposing
it. Chief minister Anandiben Patel, ministers of her cabinet, party president R C Faldu and national leader V
Satish were among those who participated in the meeting.
City cops still gloating
over Goswami arrest
schools in Gujarat, dalit students have gained acceptance from those castes who
earlier shunned them due to
widely prevalent untouchability ,“ said Martin Macwan
of Navsarjan. Last year, two
children from Bharvad community enrolled in the school.
Bharvads belong to Other
Backward Communities
(OBC). “This year, the number has swelled to 24, which
is remarkable,“ he said, adding that the school is modelled on education for social
re-engineering. Parents of
non dalit families were ready
to send their children to our
school but were adamant on
not allowing them to stay
with dalit students in the
hostel. Gopal Mundhra, a
class V student from Bharvad
community , said, “There
may be untouchability in my
village but neither me nor
my parents believe in this. I
enjoy studying here.“ The
school has started a campaign “No Plastic No Caste'
to give out a message that
just like plastic even caste
system should be destroyed.
Two-yr-old crushed
to death by mini bus
Ahmedabad: A two-yearold girl Aarohi Shah was
crushed to death by a speeding mini bus near Shahibaug
underpass on Saturday night.
Police said the girl was with
her family who had gone to
attend a community function in their car on Saturday. “While returning, they
stopped the car to drop one
of the members and had to
take out little Aarohi to allow a member sitting on the
last seat to come out of the
car.Suddenly, Aarohi ran on
the road and was hit by the
mini bus of Vadinath Travels,“
said a police official. According to a complaint lodged by
Shantilal Shah, a resident of
Orchid Green society in
Girdharnagar, following a
man kills son in Isanpur
marital dispute with her husband, his sister Dimple stays
with them with her two-yearold daughter Aarohi. “On Saturday, Dimple's friend had
accompanied them to a community function at Narayani
Farm.While returning home,
they stopped their MUV on the
road near Shanidev temple to
drop Dimple's friend,“ said a
police official. Police said
Aarohi was sitting near the
window on the middle seat of
the MUV.“To allow Dimple's
friend, who was sitting on the
last seat to come out, Dimple
took out Aarohi to lift the seat
and made her stand on the
road till her friend comes out
of the car,“ said the official.
The little girl suddenly ran on
the road and was hit by the
mini bus. She was rushed to a
nearby private hospital where
she succumbed to her injuries. Meanwhile, the driver of
the mini bus fled away. “Enraged locals and some of the
commuters stoned the bus,
breaking its window
planes.We had to use
force to disperse the
crowd. We are hunting for
the driver,“ added the official.
Ahmedabad: In a crime
conference organized by city
police chief Shivanand Jha on
Monday, instead discussing
about the steps to be taken to
reduce the crime rate, the
cops are to pat their own backs
on the arrest of dreaded
gangster Vishal Goswami.
Police sources said the
crime branch has been categorically asked by the police commissioner's office
to prepare a list of offences
against the dreaded gangster.
“The crime branch is busy
preparing a presentation on
their dare devil acts which
led to the arrest of Goswami
and his brother Ajay from
Uttar Pradesh,“ said a police official. On the other
hand, Jha is also concerned
about the poor performance
of the only women police
station in the city.
New BPA pavilion to give
visitors taste of life in the dark
Ahmedabad: Six months
after inauguration of oneof-itskind project `Vision in the Dark'
to sensitize the `normal' visitors to the daily experiences
of a blind person, the citybased Blind People's Association (BPA) is adding third pavilion to the project. The village-themed pavilion will be
inaugurated on Monday morning at BPA premises. On October 3 last year, the project was
launched with a theatre and a
restaurant where the visitors
had to tread their path in a
pitch-black surrounding with
the help of blind volunteers
from BPA. For many , it was an
experience of lifetime to eat in
a complete darkness.BPA executive secretary Bhushan
Punani said that with the help
from two banks - Union Bank
of India and the Ahmedabad
Mercantile Cooperative Bank they have been able to expand
the project.“We have got a
rousing response for the initiative patronized by hundreds
every month since inauguration. It has given a different
perspective to many regarding sensory disability and has
made them more supportive,“
he said. The village-themed
pavilion will be inaugurated
at 11am at BPA premises.
2 booked for using digital
devices in exam for posts
4 minors reported
missing in Surat
Migrants cannot cast vote in
native place: EC to SC
New Delhi: People migrating from their native places
cease to residents of that place
and they cannot cast vote in
elections in that constituency
, the Election Commission has
told the Supreme Court. The
EC said a person would not
become a voter of his native
place just because of owning
a house there and migrants
must register themselves at
the place where they reside.
It opposed a PIL seeking a
direction to the commission to
make arrangements for migrant population so that they
could cast votes for election at
their native place. “Scheme of
the Representation of Peo ple
Act is that a person can be
enrolled only at the place
where he is ordinarily resident, the question of any person migrating to a different
place from his native place,
enrolling himself in the electoral roll of his native place
does not arise,“ the commission said in its affidavit. “Such
person has to get himself
enrolled in the electoral roll
of the new place where he is
ordinarily resident and he can
then vote in such new place,“
it said. It said a person who
migrates from his her constituency should get
himselfherself enrolled in the
electoral roll of the constituency where heshe is ordinarily resident after migration.
Three drown in lake near Pavagadh
Vadodara: Three youngsters drowned in Vadatalav near
Pavagadh in Panchmahal district on Sunday evening.
Maheshwar Jadhav (27), Lalit Wankar (23) and Bhagwan
Solanki (21) had gone to Jhand Hanuman temple at
Jambughoda on Sunday morning. They were returning to
Kalol from Jambughoda when they halted to take a dip in the
lake and the incident happened Their bodies were fished out
by Halol fire department after the locals reported the incident
at around 6.30 pm. Jadhav was a resident of Moti Tinghi
village, while Solanki and Wankar were from Kalol. The
three were colleagues in a private company at Kalol.
Ambedkar's dream
still eluding many
Ahmedabad: Right next to the statue of Dr BR Ambedkar on
Santram road in Nadiad town, a middle aged laborer was
instructed by his contractor to enter a manhole to manually
scavenge clogged soil. When the contractor was asked as to
why he let the laborer inside, there was no answer. This
incident comes close to the 125 th birth anniversary of Dr BR
Ambedkar. The labourer was on contract by the Nadiad
Nagarpalika. Niyati Utsav, prant officer, Kheda told TOI that, “I
have not received any complaint regarding such an incident. I
will investigate this matter. It is serious.“ The state government
will kick start its yearlong anniversary celebrations worth
the Rs 125 crore in memory of Dr B R Ambedkar on Tuesday.
RNI No. GUJENG/2014/57876 Printed, Published & Owned by AJAYKUMAR RAMANLAL PRAJAPATI and Printed at Vansh Corporation, A/8, Shayona Golden Estate, Shahibag, Ahmedabad - 380 004
and Published from 131, Dharmanagar Society, Highway Road, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad - 380 005. Editor : ASHVINKUMAR KESHAVLAL RAMI