India Says

Nandigram has seen fresh incidents of violence on Saturday. The violent clash proved the claim wrong that was made the government for Nandigram that the situation here was gradually improving.

at least 20 policemen, including a sub-inspector Prabhat K Sarkar and one other people were reportedly injured in this violent clash. The quarrel exploded between the CPI(M) workers and Bhumi Ucched Protirodh Committee in Nandigram on Saturday morning that resulted in the violent clash.

The CPI(M) supporters were on the way for Sonachura crossing the Bhangabera bridge at 10:30 morning on Saturday. The BUPC supporters quarreled them that resultedl in a violent clash. The mob had reportedly snatched rifles from the Gokulnagar police camp and mob ransacked the police camp at the local Higher Secondary school.

The report further says that in this clash a sub-inspector of Nandigram police station was shot at and brought over to local hospital in serious condition. Raj Kanojia, IG (Law and Order), has confirmed the incidents and said that the security forces have been sounded alert to take care of any condition as soon as possible.
He said: There is considerable tension and if required, we will mobilize more forces.
The police administration later asked for additional security forces from the Kamalpur police camp that helped to bring the situation under control.

The state government had presented a status report before the Division bench� by saying that no major incident happened in Nandigram after May 16 and the ground situation was gradually improving. Now, this fresh incident has proved the state government’s claim wrong.

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The rivers are lifeline of Indian people. But the lifeline is in danger because of poor infrastructure across the cities located on the banks of the rivers. These rivers are in dying condition and the threat is coming from the continuous routine dumping of millions of tonnes of sewage across the country. Indian cities are lacking the basic infrastructure of sewage system and drainage system. These are the culprit factors behind the killing of India’s rivers.

New Delhi produces 3.6 billion litres of sewage per day and the poor sewage management is not able to treat half of the sewage produce in a day. All this going into the Yamuna River daily and making the river almost dead. This not the story of Yamuna only, the same thing is being happened with almost every river in India.

Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment, said that the industrial pollution is not the sole factor that is damaging the rivers. Sewage pollution is itself is a big problem that is playing a major role in river pollution. Sunita said that the Yamuna is dead; we just haven’t officially cremated it yet.

This is not the end of the story as India has also a badly structured and managed drainage system in ‘working’ condition. It needs a immediate repair but there is no one to take cars of the system 6that is making the lifeline itself dead. The climate change is another threat to India’s water supplies in north Indian rivers from the Himalayan glaciers.

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A restaurant in Ahmadabad has been opened by a group of HIV-positive Indians to win over hearts with good food and raise awareness about AIDS.

This first-of-its-kind service in India by Aadhar is operated by HIV positive people. It aims at service free meals to HIV-positive people� � HIV positive people cut vegetables to prepare food at Aadhar, a network of people living with HIV/AIDS in Ahmadabad.

After much political drama within UPA, finally Pratibha Patil’s name has come out as consensus choice in the ruling alliance. Pratibha Patil, 72, is now ready to become India’s first female president as the numbers favor UPA’s candidate in the presidential poll.

This was a great surprise and stratnge twist in the story as the Congress party has fielded a ‘Shekhawat’ against ‘Shekhawat’. Some political observers say that Pratibha has no personality of national stature. She is not known in the political circle outside her home state of Maharashtra.

Pratibha was a lawyer before entering into politics. She became MLA in 1962 and served the state as minister in severel state governments between 1962 and 1985. Later, she was elected as MP in following years. Now, she is the governor of Rajsthan.

Shekhawat’s plan for the presidential poll has received a big punch with UPA’s this move to field woman candidate afaingt him. Earlier, his plan was focused on Shivraj Patil as the main contender. Now, Shekhawat’s poll managers will have to re-draw their strategy. The NDA is not ready to make Pratibha a consensus candidate as Vajpayee had reportedly turned down Sonia’s call on Thursday by saying that it is too late.

Now, the theme of “first woman President” may block the way for Shekhawat who has an eye on cross voting during the poll. However, he has asked that where was UPA’s ideology of first woman president at the time of candidature of INA veteran Lakshmi Sehgal in last election.

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As per the national sample survey report 2002 reveals there are 8 million potential wheelchair users in India and majority of them finds it difficult to use wheelchairs due to inappropriate configuration resulting into pain and secondary injuries.

Considering this, a thought has turned into reality to make technology a regular part of the lives of persons with disabilities and others who need wheelchairs, crutches, walkers or other assistive devices to lead normal lives.

An electric wheelchair has been designed for the first time in country for Indian conditions is developed by the Department of Assistive Technology at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre in collaboration with the University of Pittsburg, USA. The power wheelchair has been designed by Jon Pearlman, a researcher at the Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL), US, after a research on 30 patients using normal wheelchair.�

His research focus was on understanding and improving assistive technology transfer to developing nations. He has developed a prototype of power wheelchair for India keeping in mind Indian environment.

“Assistive devices, although they look simple, are being customized across the globe according to individual requirements. In India, we need to put more emphasis on their selection and usage, as these devices invariably act as body parts and any trouble with them could mean trouble for the individual who is using them,” says Major HPS Ahluwalia, Chairman, Indian Spinal Injuries Centre.�

According to Jon Pearlman, wheelchairs in the country are not appropriate for the Indian environment; they are more suited for hospitals and not for the homes and worksites.

The patients were given cameras so that they can photograph the environment they move about in. A small data recorder was also attached to the wheels of their wheelchairs in order find out the distance covered by the patients each day and to study the usage pattern of wheelchairs in India.� �

The wheelchair has a steering which can be easily operated by the patient himself, or a joystick that can be located anywhere on the wheelchair according to patients needs. This low cost electric wheelchair comparative to other powered wheelchairs can climb a step or two and can easily work on rough terrain.

The features of this first research based electric wheelchair include centre drive wheelchair, manual steering, Light weight, high battery back-up, low cost (compared to other powered wheelchair), bigger wheels and compact and Innovative design.

It will work on the concept of “Patient Driven Approach” where a patient will be clinically evaluated for the appropriate assistive devices and based on that the quality device will be recommended as per his/her needs.

Every Indian is praying to God for the safe return of Sunita William with the other crew members to the earth. After spending six months in space, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis was preparing to come back to the earth on June 21 but a recent technical fault has caused worries among the scientists at NASA.

Earlier, a 10-cm tear in the thermal blanket of the shuttle Atlantis, which was created during lift off on June 8, had reported problems and now the failure of Russian computers that helps to control the international space station’s positioning has been listed as a new problem in the list. Because of this new technical fault, NASA managers have considered another extension for the space shuttle Atlantis’.

NASA managers have hoped that the computers would hopefully back up till the Atlantis and its seven crew members undock from the space station on next Tuesday. In case of any further problem, NASA will have no option but to extend the space shuttle’s stay a day or two more.

According to the report, Atlantis’ mission originally scheduled for the eleven days that was extended by two more days. It was done for the astronauts to go on a spacewalk to repair a thermal blanket covering an engine pod that peeled up during launch.

Sunita’s parents Deepak and Bonnie Pandya and her husband Michel Williams were looking composed and calm on the damage in the Atlantis. They are hopeful for the safe return of Sunita and other crewmembers. Indians everywhere is praying not to see the Columbia accident again, in which Kalpana Chawla and other Columbia crew members had died while entering into earth’s orbit.

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Seven deaths in seven days in Tihar jail, one of the safest jail in India. One death per day was the result of scorching heat since past seven days. Finally, the Delhi High Court and the National Human Rights Commission have taken note of the series of deaths in Tihar jail.� After six of the prisoners, a jail warden also died on Wednesday in Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital.

The Delhi High Court has taken note of the PIL filed for the deaths in Tihar and asked the Delhi government to file answer on the deaths by June 18. The Delhi government and the National Human Rights Commission both have ordered a probe.

After expressing concern over the deaths, the National Human Rights Commission has planned to send a team to inspect the conditions in the jail on Thursday and report within two weeks.

One of the major factors behind the deaths is over-crowding in Tihar. According to the report, the approved capacity of Tihar jail is 6,200 prisoners but there are around 13,726 prisoners, more than double, are lodged here.

B K Gupta, DG, Tihar said that the jail administration is giving prisoners lemon water at regular basis. On the long-term remedies, the government has built a jail in Rohini and a jail in east Delhi with a capacity of 3,500. It would ease the congestion problem in Tihar jail.

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It was nothing but a ’sister act’ when people saw Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP president Mayawati’s high profile dinner with Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday night. The dinner was resulted in the announcement of BSP’s 58,000 votes in the support of UPA’s presidential candidate in the coming polls.

Mayawati told media persons during a press conference in Delhi that Sonia Gandhi came over Monday night for dinner and she had a chat with Sonia on the candidate for the presidential polls. They discussed some names, and agreed on one person.

She, however, did not disclose the name and said that it will be better the name would be disclosed by Congress president. BSP’s support has given a relief to UPA because now the UPA candidate will have an upper hand over any other candidate in presidential poll.

On the other hand, AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa today said that the third front would meet in Chennai on June 18 and in that meeting the eight parties would decide whom to support in presidential candidate. At the same time, she also ruled out support for BJP’s Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who is contesting as an Independent.

At the same time, NDA is also trying to match the hectic activity of the UPA-Left camp. The top leaders of NDA had a meeting at the residence of Atal Bihari Vajpayee for taking a fresh count of the votes in the support of Shekhawat. BJP president Rajnath Singh said after the meeting that the NDA would meet on June 18 to discuss the issue again.

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More than 12,000 ground staffs of Indian airlines went off on indefinite strike since Tuesday morning demanding for a wage arrears and a review of their promotion process.

In the reaction, the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel strongly rejected the striking Indian employees’ demands and asked them to back on work. He said during a press conference that employees those are agitating will be suspended with immediate effect.

Just after his press conference, the government suspended 23 of the 12,000 striking staff for going off the work without giving any prior information.

Patel said later that the ministry would review the ground situation this evening. If the striking employees do not withdraw their illegal strike, the government would take strong action against them.

Because of the nationwide strike of Indian airlines employees, at least 40 per cent services of ‘Indian’ have been disordered. The airline management has called the strike illegal. The strike was not a sudden decision, as the members of the Airport Corporation Employees Union (ACEU) had planned to go on strike on May 17. Now, after the failure of talks between the management and employees union, the employees finally decided to observe indefinite strike since Tuesday night.

Passengers are facing troubles across the country. They are waiting for the clearance even after half an hour of landing the flights at the airports. They are unable to get their luggage back from the airplane. The domestic as well as International flights are being affected now because of the strike.

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Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, professor Ramchandra Gandhi, 70, has been found dead in India’s International Center in Delhi on Wednesday. He was inside the room no. 15 of the IIC. The room was locked from inside.

Delhi Police has sent the body for postmortem. The police officials have opted not to say anything in this matter. He lived at 24 Central Lane, Bengali Market, Delhi. The senior police official rushed to the IIC immediately when came to know the incident.

Professor Ramachandra Gandhi had doctoral degrees in philosophy from Delhi and Oxford and has taught philosophy in Britain, USA and at Hyderabad, Shantiniketan and Punjab in India. He had written and edited several books, including The Availability of Religious Ideas and Sita’s Kitchen: A testimony of faith and inquiry.

His recent book Svaraj: A Journey with Tyeb Mehta’s ‘Shantiniketan Triptych offers a meditation on selfhood and Indian history. He had also written and produced several plays and a film on his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi lived in Delhi where he is associated with the India International Centre since long.