Bharatpur, June 10
The Gujjar Mahapanchayat called by firebrand community leader Kirori Singh Bainsla at Bayana in Bharatpur today failed to make an impact and concluded with an ultimatum to the state government to implement the five per cent quota for Gujjars, as proposed by the previous BJP regime, in the forthcoming Assembly session.

Bainsla warned the government that if it failed to implement the quota, the Gujjar community would launch a “historic peaceful agitation” in support of their long-pending demand. He also announced the formation of an 11-member core committee for holding talks with the government.

In another move apparently aimed at making up for his eroding support among the community, he said they will also seek the support of upper castes in favour of their demand. As expected, the Mahapanchayat didn’t witness heavy turnout - probably due to Bainsla’s affiliation with the BJP, a move following which his credibility dipped to an all-time low among the common Gujjars. Then, the fact that last year’s bloody agitation resulted in the death of 71 Gujjars and didn’t yield desired results, also went against Bainsla.

The previous BJP government had passed the Bill providing five per cent reservation to Gujjars and three other castes under the “special backward class” quota in July last. The Bill is currently pending with the Governor who had turned down BJP’s plea to clear it, contending that it would exceed 50 per cent reservation ceiling set by the Supreme Court. The state already has 21 per cent quota for OBC, 16 per cent for SC and 12 per cent for ST, thus making it a total of 49 per cent.

New Delhi, June 10
Sending out a warning against extra-marital affairs, the Supreme Court has upheld a three-year sentence awarded to a convict for driving a man to suicide by having an illicit relationship with the victim's wife.

Bench comprising Justices MK Sharma and BS Chauhan pointed out that the victim's wife had openly stayed with the convict in his house for four days and the suicide had taken place immediately after that.

Further, the convict had conveyed to the victim that he would continue the affair until the woman objected to it, the apex court pointed out.

“Therefore, there is definitely a proximity and nexus between the conduct and behaviour of accused no. 1 (Dammu Sreenu) and accused no. 2 (the wife of the victim) with that of the suicide,” the Bench ruled.

Also, the trial court and two Benches of the Andhra Pradesh High Court had cited “clear and unambiguous findings of fact” that had shown the petitioner-convict was guilty of the offence under Section 306 of the IPC. “Such findings do not call for any interference in our hand. This court also does not generally embark upon re-appreciation of evidence on facts which are found and held against the appellant.”

The trial court had sentenced the woman to three years, but the HC reduced the term to one year which she had completed by then. The incident had taken place in January 1996. The convict, who has been on bail, would have to serve out the remaining period of his sentence now.

Mumbai, June 10
Oscar-winning film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ child actor Azharuddin Ismail Shaikh Usman has finally got a flat of his own.

The ‘Jai Ho’ Trust said today that it had acquired a flat at Santa Cruz West in suburban Mumbai to house Azharuddin, his parents and siblings. It is also looking out for another flat for Rubina Rafiq Asghar Ali Qureshi, Azharuddin’s co-star in the film.

The flat acquired by the Trust is 250 sq ft in area, small even by Mumbai’s standards, but far better than the plywood and tarpaulin structure where Azharuddin lived earlier.

After his house was demolished last month, the boy has been forced to live in the open with his family. The flat will be in the name of the Trust till beneficiaries attain the age of 18 by which time the property would be transferred to them.

Some of the trustees are keen on ensuring that the children finish school as a precondition for taking the possession of the house. However, it is not clear if such a condition has been accepted by the Trust.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government has decided not to allot flats to the two children since they were being taken care of by the Trust.

The flats originally earmarked for the two children would be re-allotted to other needy persons, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kripashankar Singh told mediapersons today.

New Delhi, June 10
Delhi University is going out of its way to make life easy for disabled students. Serious efforts are being made by the Equal Opportunity Cell (EOC) to make the varsity’s vast campus disabled friendly. DU has around 1,500 seats for the disabled and from ramps to talking computers, the varsity is doing everything it can to make the differently abled students’ stay on the campus pleasant.

“We have taken many measures to make the campus disabled friendly. Apart from construction of ramps in many colleges, Braille copies of prescribed texts and talking computers with special software have been provided. There are also volunteers to help the disabled students,” informs Dr Nita Singh of EOC. The cell has been running programmes in many colleges to help the disabled. A special library has been constructed at Miranda House. In collges, railings along the stairs have been painted yellow or red colours which are visible to the blind. Theirs is also plan to put signs across the campus in Braille to help the visually impaired. The varsity also has a central Braille library with screen readers, magnifiers and special software.

Dr Niraj Kumar of Maharaja Agrasen College says audiovisual-aided classrooms are being provided to the students. A team of teachers and volunteers are assisting the differently abled students in the admission process.

The EOC provides certificate courses for disabled students in sign language interpretation, communicative English, information and communication techniques.

The cell is also planning to start courses in mass media, including news reading, anchoring and editing skills. Apart from that, a special three-month orientation programme has been designed for disabled students.

Patna, June 10
The anti-Bihari bias in Maharashtra is not restricted to people like Raj Thackeray and his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) alone. Some of the intellectuals and academicians of that state also seem to have similar mindset.

This became evident during the interview of some students from Bihar who had gone recently to Pune to seek admission in law schools after clearing the written test. They were asked irrelevant and embarassing questions about their native state during the interview. Some of the students, both boys and girls, who have just cleared their Class XII examinations from the prestigious schools of Patna, were asked absurd questions about Bihar and its political leaders.

Interestingly, even during the group discussion, where the topic was ‘Relevance of Gandhi Today’, they were asked irrelevant questions. The students concerned were not willing to be quoted as they fear of being denied admission to that institute. Their parents are equally worried over this development. But on anonymity some of the victim students narrated their woes to a section of media. Some of the sample questions that were asked from the students of Bihar are, “Do you agree that Bihar is the crime capital of India; people from Bihar come to Mumbai and Pune with the motive to commit crime; do you agree with MNS Chief Raj Thackeray’s opinion about Bihar; and does Lalu deserve to be a Union Minister? Even though they were baffled by such questions, some of the students mustered the courage to answer them.

When Chief Minister Nitish Kumar came to know that students from Bihar were subjected to humiliation and discriminated against on regional lines in a Pune-based law school, he took a very serious note of it.

Nitish immediately wrote a strong-worded letter to his counterpart in Maharashtra and also Union Home Minister P Chidmabaram saying that it was not only condemnable act but also ‘unpardonable’. Expressing his deep concern over the issue, Nitish has requested the Union Home Minister to keep a watch on such trends. Asking such questions to a student was not only ‘unethical’ but also ‘unpatriotic’, the letter says. Later answering queries of mediapersons on this issue, Nitish reacted and said, “Can the Government of Maharashtra furnish a detailed information about how many people from Bihar have figured in the criminal incidents in Mumbai or other parts of that state?”

New Delhi, June 10
With the law comes the violation. Leading gutka brands that have printed pictorial health warnings on their packets, as required under the government notification that rolled from May 31, have done so in the violation of the law.

Investigations reveal that some chewing tobacco products have appeared in the markets with new, watered-down, pictorial health warnings on the one side of the packages. These warnings have, however, been found to be covering much less area than required under the new packaging and labelling rules governing tobacco sales in India.

The undertaking, which the government gave to the Supreme Court in this regard on May 6, makes it compulsory for all tobacco packages to display pictorial warnings on 40 per cent of the total area on the one side of the packets.

The latest pictorial warnings, as seen on several of the gutka sachets, clearly make a mockery of the said rule as they barely get beyond 18.5 per cent. Some brands have sufficed to cover just 10.5 per cent of the area with health warnings that are, naturally, hard to catch and, hence, ineffective.

Shikhar Gutka has covered only about 10.6 per cent of the packaged area with a warning, followed by Rajshri gutka at 14.4 per cent, Bahar and Dilbag at 18.5 per cent each and Kuber gutka brand at the highest covered area of about 19.3 per cent.

Taking a cue from the government’s lack of firmness on the issue of tobacco warnings (these were greatly diluted as against the originally proposed warnings), companies have simply chosen to ignore a primary requirement of the new tobacco packaging law that has not even been in existence one full month.

If that was less, some brands like Shikhar and Dilbag gutka have displayed the warning only in one language - another infringement of the rule that says health warnings must be printed in English as also the language in which the brand name of the product has been written.

Besides, 10 days after the vital notification that seeks to discourage tobacco consumption in India, cigarette, bidi and many other gutka companies are yet to introduce new packets.

Bhavna Mukhopadhyay of the Voluntary Health Association of India, which has spearheaded the anti-tobacco movement, said, “Even before the law is in place, firms have found ways to bend it. The government’s commitment to tackle the tobacco menace will now be acid-tested. We are maintaining a close watch on how the warnings do.”

Hyderabad, June 10
With bandages still covering her body, Pranitha struggles to smile while accepting sweets from visitors thronging her house to congratulate on her unique achievement.

A victim of a deadly acid attack by a jilted lover six months ago, Pranitha, an engineering student at Warangal in Andhra Pradesh, displayed extraordinary grit, determination and perseverance to overcome personal trauma and clear the B.Tech final year examination with distinction.

What makes this 21-year-old girl’s achievement a special one is that after suffering 60 per cent burns in the attack and wrote the examination from the hospital bed with bandage covering her body.

A student of B Tech (Electrical and Electronics Engineering) from Kakatiya Institute of Technology and Science (KITS) at Warangal, about 145 km from the state capital, she secured fifth rank among meritorious students of her college.

Pranitha was attacked on December 10 when she and her friend Swapnika were on way to home on a scooter. While Swapnika succumbed to the burns, Pranitha, who was riding pillion, survived. However, she underwent trauma with frequent bouts of hospitalisation and numerous surgeries. The ordeal, however, did not diminish her determination to complete the studies.

“I was under so much pain that I could not even move my fingers. My mother used to turn the pages for me so that I could read and revise,” Pranitha recalled.

Encouraged by family members, friends and faculty, she sat for BTech final year examinations on March 14. A bright student from the very beginning, Pranitha is now overjoyed with the outcome. “I had expected a first class but the distinction had come as a pleasant surprise,” she says.

She attributed her success to the support of parents, friends, faculty, and also expressed her gratitude to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy for granting her free treatment in a corporate hospital.

The acid attack case had evoked widespread public outrage in the state. The main accused in the attack Srinivas Rao and his two friends, who were involved in the attack, were killed in a controversial police encounter near Warangal two days after the incident.

Chennai, June 10
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu seems to be gearing up for early Assembly elections, with or without the Congress alliance, in the face of incessant demands for sharing power by the ally, which is supporting the government from outside.

After winning 18 out of the 21 Parliament seats it contested and taking a lead in about 100 Assembly segments, the party is consolidating its position and increasing its strength by expediting the welfare measures and raising the state autonomy demand.

The DMK government had presented four budgets in the Assembly and its term ends by May 2011. But, the party is keeping its options open on the timing of elections and may go for the Assembly election next year itself, if the Congress puts more pressure for sharing power.

Senior DMK leader and State Minister N Veerasamy had more than once asked the cadre to be prepared to go it alone in all the 234 constituencies, indicating that the party wants to shed its reliance on the Congress. He had appealed to the workers to strengthen the party in all constituencies, as alliance with any party was not reliable.

The Dravidar Kazhagam, the parent body of the DMK, issued a public statement, criticising the stand of the Indian government, when a resolution seeking a probe on war crimes by the Sri Lankan government was debated at the UN Human Rights Council. DK president M K Veeramani condemned the Centre, for ignoring the plea of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi to vote against Sri Lanka and warned that the Congress leadership would face "the consequences" of ignoring the DMK's plea. Both Veerasamy and Veeramani cannot be expected to speak without the DMK leader's consent and it may be recalled that the two leaders started issuing statements against the PMK, before Karunanidhi officially severed ties with the PMK.

New Delhi, June 10
India today made it clear that it favoured exit screening of outbound passengers from countries affected by H1N1 virus. In a letter to External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad requested the Foreign Ministry to prevail upon the authorities in infected countries to screen passengers travelling to India.

The reference was made particularly to the US, whose universities are on summer vacations. “We expect a substantial inflow of our students returning from vacation from affected countries. In this view you are requested to take up the matter with the governments of affected countries to do screening of outbound passengers at their airports,” the communiqué stated. Azad has already asked states to be ready to deal with any situation.

With no new cases of Swine flu reported today (10 cases are under investigation and 11 have been confirmed so far), Union Cabinet Secretary held a high-level review of the preparedness plans. It was decided at the meeting that the existing prevention, diagnosis and treatment strategy be continued.

“There will be no strategic change yet in our approach to battle the virus because there is no change in the situation,” said a senior official who attended the meeting. Strength of 16 labs across the country is being enhanced to increase the scope of testing in case a greater viral load is encountered.

Health experts, however, ruled out all cause for worry, considering India had so far reported only two indigenous cases (Delhi and Hyderabad each; their contacts are on chemoprophylaxis), who got the infection from positive cases travelling from abroad. Besides, there have been only two cases of secondary transmission, indicating that Indian population already had certain immunity to the virus.

Speaking to The Tribune today, secretary, health research VM Katoch said, “So far over 16 lakh passengers have entered India from abroad; about six lakh of these have come from endemic nations. Yet, over one month we have encountered only 11 confirmed cases. The infection has not travelled at a speed we were expecting. This augurs very well for India. It means we have the ability to resist the virus, especially because we have seen only two indigenous cases and two of secondary transmission.”

Of the samples of 205 persons tested so far, 11 have been confirmed to be carrying Influenza A H1N1. Of these, 76 samples were taken through health screening at international airports and the rest were samples from persons who have reported the symptoms themselves.

Globally, WHO has reported 25,288 laboratory confirmed cases of the virus from 73 countries; there have been 139 deaths.

Guwahati, June 10
At least 40 houses were torched in Dimasa tribe inhabited Lodikachari village in the violence-affected North Cachar hill at southern Assam yesterday.

The police informed that suspected Naga rebels swooped down on the remote village at 8 am yesterday and set afire the houses even as villagers flee.

Senior police and Army officials rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation.

Earlier, on Monday 37 houses belonging to Dimasa tribe people were burnt to ashes at Lailing and Diduki villages where militants from Dimasa and Naga tribes have been attacking and counter attacking villages, rendering over 3,000 persons homeless.

New Delhi, June 10
Goolam E Vahanvati, the newly appointed Attorney General of India, is humble, firm and media friendly. Two recent incidents could be cited to attribute these qualities to him. The latest was just minutes after his appointment as AG yesterday.

Vahanvati, the first Muslim to occupy the top law officer’s post in the country, was appearing in a case before the vacation Bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and Aftab Alam. The Judges kept addressing him as Mr Solicitor, obviously unaware of the fact that Vahanvati has been elevated from being the Solicitor General to the post of AG, earlier held by Milon K Banerjee.

Vahanvati restrained himself from correcting the Bench, lest the Judges felt embarrassed. However, after some time the newly elected Supreme Court Bar Association president MN Krishnamani, who was arguing for the other side in the case, apprised the Bench of his promotion.

The Bench congratulated Vahanvati on his appointment and expressed its sentiment that it could have been informed of this at the first instance when it referred to him as Mr Solicitor.

Vahanvati’s other quality of firmness had come to the fore last month when he informed a three-judge Bench, headed by Justice Altamas Kabir, that he was not willing to appear in a case as the petitioners from Boss School of Music, Mumbai, had questioned his integrity. But the Bench did not agree, stating that his presence was a must at least that day. Left with no option, Vahanvati sat patiently as the Bench heard the petitioners for over two hours.

When his turn came, Vahanvati pleaded for the dismissal of the petitions, which had also cast aspersions on Judges of the apex court and the Bombay High Court. “The judiciary should stand up for its dignity and not doing so will amount to losing the battle…There is a limit to the judiciary’s patience and tolerance,” he said, pointing out that the petitioners' plea included closure of the HC until judicial reforms were carried out. Legal correspondents covering the SC would vouch for his third attribute of being media-savvy as Vahanvati seldom disappoints them and clears all their doubts despite having to rush from one court to another.

Hailing from Maharashtra, Vahanvati was Advocate General of the state from December 1999 to June 2004 and was SG since then until he was entrusted with the top post by the President. As Milon Banerjee rarely used to come to the SC, Vahanvati had to argue in government cases, covering among other things, the controversial Delhi demolition drive and Constitutional matters such as the quota for OBCs in educational institutions and Representation of People Act. The International Cricket Council had appointed him to inquire into the allegations of racism in Zimbabwe in 2004 and similar charges of racial abuse of South African cricketers during their tour of Australia in 2005.

Thiruvananthapuram, June 10
Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan today said the Governor’s nod to the CBI to prosecute party leader Pinarayi Vijayan in the Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) SNC Lavalin scam was “not surprising”. This comes as a departure from his party stance on the issue.

When asked about his opinion on Governor RS Gavai’s decision, Achuthanandan said: “Don't you know that there have been several instances in the past where Governors have taken such a stand”.

“The Governor’s decision is not surprising,” the Chief Minister told reporters after a Cabinet meeting here.

He clarified that no discussions were held on the issue at the Cabinet meet.

Gavai had called the head of the CBI office here on Sunday to his residence and handed over a 148-page report, giving his sanction to prosecute Vijayan. Vijayan is accused of wrongfully awarding a contract to Canadian company SNC Lavalin for renovation of two power plants when he was the state power minister in 1997.

This is the first time a CPM politburo member has been accused in a multi-million rupee scam and will face prosecution.

Achuthanandan's remarks contradict the stand taken by the CPM that has termed the Governor's decision as “unfortunate” and said it would fight the case “both politically and legally”.

Vijayan and Achuthanandan are known rivals and their relationship has been going from bad to worse ever since the latter was given the nod to contest Assembly polls in 2006, after first being denied a seat. He then took over the reins of the LDF government.

Vijayan, by virtue of a brute majority in 84-member state committee and 15-member secretariat, has made many attempts to unseat Achuthanandan.

The Congress-led UDF convenor PP Thankachen, meanwhile, welcomed Achuthanandan’s remarks. “His analysis of the situation and the manner in which he made his views is the correct decision. We welcome his statement,” he said. — IANS

Hyderabad, June 10
After wooing Christians with a subsidy scheme for pilgrimage to Israel, the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh has now decided to sponsor pilgrimage to Mansarovar, a holy place for Hindus.

The decision was taken by Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy at a high-level official meeting here. The proposal was made by Finance Minister K Rosaiah.

The move came against the backdrop of criticism that the government was only trying to appease minorities by sponsoring Haj pilgrimage and trip to holy places in Israel. The charge, made by BJP and other Sangh Parivar organistion, was particularly directed against the CM, who is a devout Christian.

The modalities for granting subsidy to Mansarovar pilgrimage would be worked out shortly. “Initially, we will make a budgetary provision of Rs 3 crore. We have formed a committee to work out criteria for selecting pilgrims and packaging the tour,” said Principal Secretary Lakshmi Parthasarathy.

A pilgrimage to Manasarovar is difficult due to the harsh weather and the arduous trek involved.

The pilgrims have to apply through central government and obtain prior permission from China and should take insurance policies.

Mumbai, June 10
On the tenth anniversary of its foundation, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founded by Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar and Purno Sangma to oppose the leadership of the foreign-born Sonia Gandhi suddenly looks bereft of its raison d'etre. The party is in alliance with Sonia’s Congress party at the Centre for the second-term of the Manmohan Singh government and the two allies are set to complete two terms in the Maharashtra assembly. Sonia Gandhi herself has declined the top job even as her son Rahul is completing his apprenticeship for the same under the incumbent Prime Minister.

Moreover, the NCP which draws its strength mainly from Pawar’s clout as the strongman of Maharashtra politics is yielding political space in its home ground to the Congress party. The recently concluded Lok Sabha polls has shown the Maratha chieftain’s diminishing hold over

his traditional bastions. Pawar, who virtually controlled Western Maharashtra for four decades due to his long association with the co-operative movement in the state, saw his party lose heavily here. Of the nine Lok Sabha seats the NCP contested here, the Madha and Baramati seats were bagged by Pawar himself and his daughter Supriya Sule.

The third seat went to a descendent Maratha hero Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj who said afterward that he would have won irrespective of the party he contested from. Overall, the NCP won eight Lok Sabha seats in the state instead of the nine it had after the 2004 polls. Even here the victory was bitter-sweet as Vilasrao Deshmukh, Pawar’s bete noire in the Congress party attributed NCP’s performance to the alliance it had with the grand old party. The Congress party, on the other hand, improved its tally from 13 to 17 thereby scuppering Pawar’s efforts to portray his own outfit as the more dominant of the two allies. Now that Pawar is down, the Congress party leadership in Maharashtra led by Deshmukh --- a fellow Maratha --- would love nothing more than an abject surrender by the former. Keen to cut Pawar down to size,

Deshmukh has been insisting that the Congress party go it alone in the forthcoming assembly elections despite the fact that such a move would only strengthen the opposition Shiv Sena-BJP alliance. On the surface, say observers, the Congress high command has let bygones be bygones and let Pawar save face. He managed to hold on to his position as Agriculture Minister while close colleague Praful Patel continued as Minister for Civil Aviation. Pawar’s own enemies in the Congress like Deshmukh have been shunted out to the Union Cabinet possibly to blunt any opposition to a grand homecoming by the Maratha warrior. Simultaneously through a series of deft moves, the Congress party has been slowly isolating Pawar in the weeks following the Lok

Sabha polls. His old crony Sangma has been co-opted by the Congress party after his daughter Agatha was inducted into the Manmohan Singh cabinet as the youngest member of the team. Her first public comments has been to debunk the foreign origin issue as something past its sell

by date. Even while Pawar squirms uncomfortably, the Congress has been pulling out chunks of the NCP’s edifice. This week the NCP’s party president of the Goa unit Dr Wilfred D’Souza and 12 executive committee members quit the outfit on the grounds that the foreign origin issue was no longer tenable. All of them are likely to join the Congress party.

Should Pawar refuse to bite the bait, the Congress party has shown that it could wield the big stick against Pawar.

New Delhi, June 10
A large number of students, who are seeking admission in undergraduate courses, have been opting for the BCom (Hons) programme that has become one of the most popular courses at Delhi University. The reason: It offers good job opportunities after its completion.

Principal of Khalsa College here Jasvinder Singh maintained that “there is a heavy rush of students who are opting for Commerce (Hons) and this by far is the most popular course option at DU. The admission to this course is based on the merit of class 12.

Another course that has become popular at DU is BA Economics (Hons). After completing this course, students have a wide variety of job opportunities.

However, Jasvinder Singh cautions eager students saying that, “I will not advise Economic (Hons) students to take up jobs in haste in the corporate sector till they have gone in for further training. Students will have a clear edge in the job market after doing an MBA or further training in economics.”

The syllabus for the course is well-planned and is “quite rigorous” and eligibility for the course includes +2 merit, detailed marksheet plus mathematics and economics marks.

The cut off percentage for the course tends to go extremely high. Nalini Misra, a student applying for both courses, says, “I have applied for Economics (Hons) and my first choice is for this course only. But I fear the cut off may go very high.”

Chennai, June 10
People of a village near the temple town of Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu have successfully began an afforestation programme without government support and cultivated trees in ten acres of land.

The model green village, Poonaithangal, lies 15 km from Kanchipuram and the villagers have spent their own money and worked hard for the afforestation project.

Two people, a retired teacher, Chandrasekar (60) and a panchayat councillor Kannan (34) began the initiative and told the other villagers about the harm caused by global warming and how it could be prevented by growing trees. Since, most of the afforestation projects supported by the government in the district did not meet with the desired results and beginning a scheme with government support involved time-consuming formalities, the villagers decided to carry out an afforestation project on their own.

The village panchayat identified and allocated ten acres of land for the purpose and the villagers contributed money for tree saplings, borewell facility, fencing and other expenses. Saplings of mango, tamarind and teak were bought and planted on the allotted land.

The villagers, including school boys and girls, spent their time and worked hard to water the saplings, protect them from animals and maintain them. The afforestation programme was a success with the co-operation and hard work of all the villagers.

Kannan who was involved in the project from the beginning said "I came to know about global warming and understood that deforestation is one of the major reasons for it. Hence, I decided to start an afforestation programme in my own village, which can be a model to others".

About 1700 tree saplings had been planted in ten acres of land, he said and appreciated the role of his teacher, who guided him in the initiative. The villagers had spent about Rs 2.75 lakh for the project and they had planned to start another afforestation programme in another five acres of land, Kannan said.

The trees would provide income for the village, he said and added that the money would be spent for the welfare of the village.

New Delhi, June 10
The number of new leprosy cases (1,37,000) identified in April this year has dipped from last year’s 1,40,000. The leprosy cases with grade II disabilities (complete impairment of any body part), which calls for a longer treatment, are still rampant remaining at two per cent per 100 leprosy cases in India.

“Grade II disabilities leprosy cases are being widely reported due to lack of awareness among people that leprosy is completely curable if detected at the initial stages,” says Dr PL Joshi, microbiologist and head of leprosy division of the Indian health Services.

While emphasising upon self-reporting and early diagnosis, Dr. Joshi states, “Grade II disability is caused when the mycobacterium leprae, the leprosy causing bacteria, damages the peripheral nerves completely, ruining the muscle power and leading to the deformity of the particular body part. But, if the patient reports at any health centre right at a beginning, he/she can be provided medication and be fully cured.” He suggests that if there is a white patch on skin, then on should at the outset head towards a government hospital or rural healthcare centre for check-up.

Depending upon the patch’s clinical manifestations, the diagnosis procedure is conducted to detect the nature and extent of nerve injury by sensory test. “If the infection is found to be of grade I disability with loss of sensation, and without any visible deformity than the patient is put under multi-drug therapy (MDT) till he/ she is cured of the disease. However, if the disease is detected to be that of type II, disability then after the application of MDT, the deformity is corrected by re-constructive surgery,” explains Joshi. Leprosy patients have anaesthetic feet and hence micro cellular rubber footwear is provided to them to avoid any injury due to lack of sensation in their feet, he adds. As per the National Leprosy Eradication Programme, the trajectory of prevalence rate (PR) of leprosy cases per 10,000 population has registered a downward trend with this year it being 0.8 vis-à-vis 0.9 of 2007.

On April 1 2008, the PRs in four states and 1 UT (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh and Dadar and Nagar Haveli) were positioned between one to two per 10,000 populace and Chattisgarh had a PR of 2.34/10,000 of the populace. But, this year, only Bihar, Chattisgarh and Dadar and Nagar Haveli have shown the PRs between one-two in every 10,000 population.

Joshi says, “It’s important to sustain the gains that the National Leprosy Eradication Programme has seen and that can be done by the reintroduction of examination policy by which we can reach out to more affected cases.”

Thus, the Indian government is all set to introduce wide-scale examination of the household contacts of all newly detected leprosy cases along with raising awareness about the fact that leprosy is not transmitted through touch or sharing of towel, but by droplets of infection. And this Joshi feels will definitely impact community behaviour by increasing the acceptance of leprosy patients.

BRIEFLY

11 cops die in landmine blast
JAMSHEDPUR: As many as 11 security personnel were killed and six others injured in a landmine blast triggered by Maoists in a Naxal-affected district in Jharkhand on Wednesday, the police said. The incident took place in Serengda-Aruanga village in West Singhbhum district when a joint team of CRPF and the police was returning in a mini truck after a two-day patrolling in the extremist-infested Saranda forest, Director General of Police (DGP) VD Ram said. He said the Maoists triggered the blast killing 11 policemen, including a CRPF Inspector. — PTI

CBI conducts nationwide raids
New Delhi: The CBI on Wednesday conducted raids across the country and registered 67 cases, an official said. The premier investigating agency registered 67 cases against officials of government departments, including the Income Tax Department, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Doordarshan and the Central Industrial Security Force. "CBI has unleashed a countrywide campaign to curb corruption. In this operation, searches are continuing in several places and a total of 67 cases have been registered so far," a CBI spokesman said. "We (will) try to conduct such raids every quarter to check and curb corruption. It has been also decided that a countrywide SMS campaign will be unleashed for a fortnight from now to elicit detailed information about these cases and to seek information on fresh cases," he said. He said during the drive in Delhi, Special Crime Zone registered eight cases related to forgery. — IANS

Pay hike for 6 lakh MP govt staff
BHOPAL: Around six lakh government employees in Madhya Pradesh will get fatter pay packets with the state Cabinet accepting recommendations of the State Pay Commission. A decision in this regard was taken at the meeting of the state Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, it was officially stated on Wednesday. The decision was taken on Tuesday in the light of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission and will be implemented with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, an official release said. — PTI

Dead snake found in mid-day meals
DHANBAD (JHARKHAND): A dead snake was found in mid-day meals served to students of a primary school in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district on Tuesday. Nearly 60 students of the Government Primary School in the Govindpur area of Dhanbad have fallen ill after eating the food given to them under the Centre’s programme. The students have been admitted to Patliputra Medical College. — ANI