Hindustan Times: October 2008

A wedding plan for China

In officially atheist China, it’s hard to imagine young Chinese couples tying the knot in a traditional Indian wedding ceremony But. India’s tourism office in Beijing thinks the idea is not far-fetched.

To entice the young Chinese to spend their wealth in India as the yuan rises and the dollar sinks, the India Tourism office will arrange mock marriages for Chinese couples in India’s biggest and almost untapped tourism market.

“We want to put India on China’s honeymoon itinerary,’’ India Tourism Director Shoeb Samad told the Hindustan Times in his six month-old Beijing office. “China, like India, has a major wedding industry We are networking to come in . as wedding managers.’’

The scheme planned for early next year, will include a sponsored bridal lehenga and a honeymoon photo clicked before the Taj Mahal. Couples will be chosen from contests and lucky draws held in Chinese wedding magazines.

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Labels: Beijing, china, Chinese couples, Chinese wedding magazines, India Tourism office, Indian wedding ceremony, lucky draws, mock marriages, Shoeb Samad, Taj Mahal

Pakistan rocked

A strong earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale jolted parts of the Balochistan province in Pakistan on Wednesday morning, leaving about 170 people dead in its wake, officials said.

“There is great destruction,” said Ziarat mayor Dilawar Kakar. “Not a single house is intact.” In the village of Sohi, a reporter saw the bodies of 17 people killed in one collapsed house and 12 from another. Distraught residents were digging a mass grave in which to bury them.

“We can't dig separate graves for each of them, as the number of deaths is high and still people are searching in the rubble of many other homes,” said Shamsullah Khan, a village elder.

Other survivors sat stunned in the open, with little more than the clothes in which they had been sleeping.

Hospitals in the nearby town of Kawas and the provincial capital Quetta, 50 miles (80 kilometers) away, were flooded with the dead and injured. One patient, Raz Mohammed, said he was awoken by the sound of his children crying before he felt a jolt.

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Labels: Balochistan province, collapsed house, destruction, earthquake, graves, Pakistan, Richter scale, survivors, Ziarat mayor Dilawar Kakar

Legal help on way for Pakistan boy

The legal process to send Pakistani teen Nasir Sultan home has begun.

An Indian lawyer-friend of Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday to secure his release. The two-country initiative comes after HT highlighted the plight of the boy, who crossed over to India chasing Bollywood dreams.

“My friend Ranjan Lakhan Pal has moved a writ (petition). This is a perfect case for compassion on humanitarian grounds,” Burney said.

Punjab DGP N.P.S. Aulakh said Nasir’s case would be taken up with the state government. “Since he violated the passport Act, we’ll have to examine what best can be done,” he said.

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Labels: Bollywood dreams, chasing, Haryana High Court, legal process, Pakistani rights, Pakistani teen Nasir Sultan, passport Act

Police say Pakistani teenager is innocent

Pakistani teenager Nasir Sultan had crossed the border and stepped into India innocently, the Punjab Police said on Sunday, a day after the Hindustan Times reported his detention.

Ferozepur district police chief Dinesh Partap Singh told HT that after Nasir’s interrogation, it was clear that the boy had unknowingly violated the Indian Passport Act.

The 15-year-old from the North-West Frontier Province, who crossed the border to make it big in Bollywood just like his idol Shah Rukh Khan, was picked up by the Border Security Force and put behind bars in a juvenile home in Faridkot 41 days ago.

A case was registered against Nasir for entering India illegally at the Sadar police station, Ferozepur on August 18. He has been facing trial in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate-cum-Juvenile Court Jatinder Singh Behniwal in Ferozepur.

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Labels: border, Border Security Force, Faridkot, Ferozepur district, India, Indian Passport Act, interrogation, Nasir Sultan, Pakistani teenager

Meltdown trickles down

In an indicator of how the shock from Wall Street is travelling to the heart of rural India, thousands of skilled workers in two small towns, one in Uttar Pradesh and one in Haryana, have been laid off after orders from their global markets — mostly in the US and Europe — dried up this month.

In Moradabad, 167 km from Delhi, artisans adept at the centuries-old art of crafting brassware for European and American showrooms are pulling cycle rickshaws and selling fruit as trade unions report a loss of 25,000 jobs.

Panipat, from where rugs, bedsheets, and other textiles wind up in US stores like WalMart or Sweden’s Ikea, has weavers migrating or working at jobs that now pay 1/18th of what they did.

Moradabad’s biggest exporter, C L Gupta Exports Ltd, is reporting no orders of any significance this month.

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Labels: American showrooms, brassware, Haryana, jobs, migrating, Moradabad, rickshaw, rural India, skilled workers, textiles, US stores, Uttar Pradesh, Wall Street, WalMart

ICICI Bank hikes home loan rates, quietly

ICICI Home Finance Co (I-HFC), the home-loan arm and subsidiary of ICICI Bank, has increased the interest rate on its new home loans by 1 percentage point .

The bank's floating rate loan has been raised from 12 per cent to 13 per cent, while its fixed rate loan stands at 16.5 per cent.

These rates are the highest in the industry, but will not be applicable to existing customers.

The country's largest home loans provider increased rates on October 10, without making any formal announcement. The rate hike was discovered by some customers who went to I-HFC to take a home loan.

"We were not sent any mail as the bank has not increased the benchmark prime lending rate but has increased the margin," said a direct sales associate (DSA) of ICICI Bank.

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Labels: American Express Bank, announcement, customers, DSA, home loans, ICICI, ICICI Home Finance Co, rate hike

Raj jailed, his men sack Mumbai

It's something Mumbai had not seen in eight years - a near-total shutdown.

As news of Raj Thackeray's arrest in Ratnagiri spread, taxis and autorickshaws went off the roads, schools declared a holiday and business establishments stayed shut. The last time Mumbai saw something like this was in July 2000, when Raj's uncle, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, was held for instigating a communal divide.

There was an anti-Raj sentiment across the country with Parliament witnessing unruly scenes, chief ministers seeking action against him and protests against the Maharashtra Naynirman Sena (MNS) chief turning violent in Bihar.

Raj was brought to Mumbai and got bail in a Bandra court, but he couldn't be taken to a Kalyan court before it shut. He was facing charges for the attacks against North Indian railway recruitment board candidates by the MNS on Sunday. He remained at Manpada police station for the night and will be produced in the Kalyan court by noon on Wednesday Over 1,000 MNS workers have decided to camp outside the police station through the night.

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Labels: arrest, autorickshaws, buses burnt, candidates, damaged, MNS, mob attacks, Mumbai, protests, Raj Thackeray, Raj's uncle, RRB, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, taxis

World champions stumble towards a mighty fall

The Second Test between India and Australia has produced scenes that would delight those envious of the seemingly unending domination of the world champions.

India are in sight of a famous victory as Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma reduced Australia to 141 for five at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium on Monday.

Australia's batting caved in on a surface where the Indians scored big at a good pace. The bowlers failed to capture or contain, there were frequent overthrows, the captain lost the plot and the team conceded the psychological game - even in defeat Australia have never looked so disjointed.

Matthew Hayden's wild batting in the second innings reflected the mental state of a team that had lost focus.

For everyone else losing is part of the game, but for Australia it's next to impossible. That's why they have won with amazing success in the last many years, when the stakes were high, even when the matches were inconsequential- showing no dearth of ruthlessness.

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Labels: Australia, Cricket Players, domination, harbhajan singh, India, Ishant Sharma, Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Ricky Pointing, second innings, Shane Watson, world champions

Metro Mishap

Massive concrete slabs being used in the construction of an overhead Metro rail stretch in east Delhi fell on a Blueline bus killing its driver and a construction worker early Sunday morning. Eleven people were injured.

The concrete pre-fabricated slabs called segments were being mounted between pillars that would eventually support tracks for the Metro trains to run in Laxmi Nagar when the accident happened.

Had it not been Sunday, the toll would have been much higher as the traffic on weekdays is extremely dense here, moving at a crawl most parts of the day.

Both the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and the Delhi government ordered separate inquiries. The Metro corporation also put on hold construction work across its network.

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Labels: accident, Blueline bus, concrete slabs, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, flyover Delhi government, injured, Laxmi Nagar, Metro Mishap, Metro rail, traffic

Jet Trackbacks

All the 1,900 employees sacked by Jet Airways over the last 48 hours will get their jobs back, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal announced in a dramatic, late night press conference on Thursday night.

"I want to see smiles on your faces," he said, after driving in to the Jet corporate office from the airport. "My management took this decision on the basis of certain economic condtions...As the head of the family, my conscience does not allow me to look at just economics."

"I want to see my family happy," said Goyal, 48 hours after scenes of weeping, protesting Jet employees played out on television screens across India.

Goyal, who was accompanied by his wife, looked tired, and his voice was laden with emotion on a day when politicians from the ruling alliance expressed their nervousness over the biggest job losses ever in India's struggling aviation sector ".

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Labels: announced, aviation sector, economics, India, Jet Airways, Jet corporate office, Jet employees, jobs, Naresh Goyal, political pressure, television screens

Mumbai-based writer is second-youngest Booker winner ever

Earlier this year, Salman Rushdie won the Booker of Bookers — a special prize set up to mark the award’s 40th anniversary — for Midnight’s Children, a book that defined India and Indian writing to a generation of readers across the world.

Rushdie’s latest cross-continental romp, The Enchantress of Florence, was left out of this year’s Man Booker shortlist, but it is exquisitely appropriate that another Indian writer — a 33-year-old whom not many had hitherto heard of — won English fiction’s most-hyped award by triumphing over strong competition (including fancied veteran Amitav Ghosh) with a story that is a riveting, trenchant portrait of contemporary India.

Aravind Adiga is £50,000 richer for the Man Booker Prize. But the real benefit of winning it will actually come in the rocketing international sales, the making of his reputation and (if he is lucky) a film deal, things that will buy Adiga — a full-time writer the time and comfort to write.

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Labels: Aravind Adiga, Booker of Bookers, English fiction, India, Indian writer, Indian writing, international sales, Man Booker Prize, Midnight’s Children, reputation, Salman Rushdie, winner

Board of Control for Cricket in India, Indian Cricket League ready to play ball

In a dramatic turnaround in policy, a Tuesday meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in Dubai saw the president of the all-powerful BCCI — it is estimated that 70 to 80 per cent of global cricket revenue either originates in India or is because of the India market — announce that it was ready to talk to the group it had banned, the Indian Cricket League (ICL).

The ban prevents players like Pakistan’s Imran Farhat and Rana Naved from turning out for their country Rohan Gavaskar and 90 other Indians cannot play for their state or country either.

Till now, the BCCI has been unwilling to have any dialogue with the ICL, banning its players, suspending pensions to former players and stopping ICL access to official cricket grounds.

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Labels: ban, BCCI, cricket grounds, former players, ICC, ICL, ICL access, ICL business head Himanshu Mody, India market, Pakistan Cricket Team, Pakistan’s Imran Farhat, Rana Naved, tournament

Clintons join Biden to back Obama

Hillary and Bill Clinton launched a campaign blitz of the blue-collar heartland that will decide the White House race, beseeching their supporters to make Barack Obama president.

The couple, making their first double-barrelled campaign appearance for Obama on Sunday, dominated Democratic politics for a generation, but now are supporting players, after reconciling Hillary Clinton's bitter nominating defeat.

"This election is too important to sit on the sidelines of history," said the former first lady, calling on her legions of working class and women voters to take up the banner of the man who beat her "It took a Democratic president to clean up after the last president George W. Bush, it's going to take a Democratic president to clean up after this President Bush," Clinton said in a working-class corner of swing-state Pennsylvania.

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Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, campaign, Democratic politics, dominate, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Pennsylvania, rally, Scranton, Supporters, White House race

Advani's letter comes to Abu Salem's rescue

Underworld don Abu Salem should thank senior BJP leader L.K. Advani. It is Advani's December 17, 2002 letter to the Portuguese Foreign Minister in his capacity as Deputy Prime Minister that has resulted in charges against Salem under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) being dropped by a Mumbai court.

In his letter, Advani had assured Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs Antonio Martins Da Cruz that "if extradited by Portugal for trial in India, Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari and Monica Bedi would not be visited by the death penalty or imprisonment for a term beyond 25 years". Portugal's extradition order is based on this assurance.

According to Section 3 (1) of MCOCA, whoever commits an offence of organised crime shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life if such offence has resulted in the death of any person. The Maharashtra government has been forced to withdraw the charges against Salem under this law in connection with the Ajit Diwani murder case. Diwani, a former secretary to actress Manisha Koirala, was shot dead outside his office in Mumbai on June 30, 2001.

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Labels: Abu Salem, BJP leader, L.K. Advani, letter, MCOCA, Mumbai court, Portuguese Foreign Minister, rescue, thank, underworld don

Schools seek huge hike in tuition fee

Teachers of Delhi's private schools can look forward to a big raise in line with a recommendation of the Sixth Central Pay Commission. Parents are dreading it, fearing they will be made to foot the bill.

Representatives of the National Progressive Schools' conference, an umbrella body of 100 private schools from Delhi, met Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday to seek government approval.

They were told a committee would be set up to look into this demand and it will have a month to submit its report. The pay commission has recommended a 100 per cent raise in teachers' salaries.

"The private schools will meet the Delhi education director on October 16," said Jyoti Bose, principal Springdales (Dhaula Kuan) and a member of the schools' conference.

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Labels: Delhi education, Delhi's private Schools, hikes, schools, teachers, tuition fee

Indian in Los Angeles kills family, self

An unemployed Indian-American financial adviser killed his wife, three children and mother-in-law before shooting himself in his home in an upscale gated community in Los Angeles, the police said on Monday.

The body of 45-year-old Karthik Rajaram, a gun clutched in one hand, was found by police officers who were called by worried neighbours. They followed a trail of carnage through the home in the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley Most of his victims had been shot in their beds.

"Absolute devastation," Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Michel Moore told reporters outside the home. Investigators found two suicide letters and a will.

Rajaram, who held an MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles, once worked for a major accounting firm and was at least the part-owner of a financial holding company, officers said.

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Labels: gun clutched, Indian-American financial adviser, Karthik Rajaram, killed, Los Angeles, police officers, Porter Ranch area, San Fernando Valley, unemployed, University of California, victims

Booster Shot

Fears of the United States-led financial crisis cascading to other countries, particularly Europe, combined with apprehensions that the $700 billion bailout package, history's biggest, may not be enough, turned markets on both sides of the sub-continent in spots of red.

Long before the Indian markets opened and long after the benchmark BSE Sensex fell 725 points or 5.8 per cent, markets from Australia and Asia to Europe and the Americas thudded to touch new bottoms.

As the Sensex closed below 12,000 to touch a two-year low, the Dow in the US fell 4.1 per cent, reeling below the 10,000 mark, after four years.

In a surprise move to bring some liquidity into the Indian banking system, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a 50 basis point (100 basis points make 1 percentage point) cut in its cash reserve ratio (CRR) to 8.5 per cent.

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Labels: Asia, Australia, bailout package, basis point, BSE, cascading, cash reserve ratio, cut, Europe, fears, financial crisis, markets, RBI, Sensex fell, sub-continent, United States

Caged to Die

The ALL India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is excellent as a hospital. As a premier research institute, how level: it may have disregarded rules in its treatment of animals kept for testing.

Sixty eight monkeys, 90 rabbits, several sheep and ever multiplying guinea pigs and rats, most are believed to be sick and dying in small cages at AIIMS's central animal facility.

Fifty of the 90 rabbits are suffering from an infectious skin disease, and several including a few guinea pigs have gone blind.

Physical trauma apart, after years of captivity and lack of fresh air many monkeys and rats have gone over the edge: they spend their day going around in circles in their cages - called "nervous breakdown".

All this information and a video were provided to Hindustan Times by a person who says he/she was allowed unrestricted access to the facility for several days recently The video was surreptitiously shot with a mobile phone hanging from the neck. (Watch it at www.hindustantimes.com).

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Labels: AIIMS, animals, blind, guinea pigs, Monkey, nervous breakdown, rabbits, rats, skin disease, testing, treatment

Shame in Orissa

A Christian soldier who fought in the 1999 Kargil war against Pakistan is in a refugee camp today after he and his family were driven out from their native village by Hindu mobs.

Motilal Pradhan of the 244 Medium Artillery regiment lost one of his brothers when his house in the riot-ravaged Kandhamal district was set on fire on August 24.

"I have fought against ULFA (the Assam militant group), served in insurgency-infested Baramulla region and fought in Drass sector during the Kargil War. We were called Drass Devils," he told HT as he stood in the middle of the government-run refugee center - one of the two such centers - in Bhubaneswar. There are around 500 others like him at the center.

"But now," Motilal said, "I cannot return to my own village." Motila1and several others have got a message from his village: reconvert to Hinduism and then think of returning to Gadragaon.

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Labels: 244 Medium Artillery regiment, Bhubaneswar, Christian soldier, Drass sector, Hindu mobs, Kandhamal district, Kargil war, Motilal Pradhan, Pakistan, refugee camp, shame. Orissa, ULFA

Black bands mark a sombre Eid

Azamgarh is angry and in mourning. This Eid, black bands have replaced new clothes and grim faces of men, and even children, replaced joyous greetings and hugs.

Women in this Uttar Pradesh town - known for its alleged links to mafia dons and now terrorists - are not pleasantly busy this year, preparing sewaiyan and biryani and kebabs. For, friends won't come visiting this year.

The townsmen declared earlier that Eid would not be celebrated this year in protest against the killing of two local boys Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid by Delhi Police in Jamia Nagar on September 19 and arrests of several others as suspected activists of the Indian Mujahideen, which claimed responsibility for the recent serial blasts, including the one in Delhi.

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Labels: Azamgarh, biryani, black bands, Celebration, Eid, Indian Mujahideen, Jamia Nagar, kebabs, sewaiyan, Uttar Pradesh

Tragedy at Jodhpur temple

Devotees slipping on water from smashed coconuts offered to a deity may be one of the causes of Rajasthan’s worst-ever stampede, in which at least 150 people died on Tuesday morning.

As the devotees slipped, believed to have been pushed by a group of reckless young men, it had a cascading effect on the thousands behind, who had gathered at the 500-year-old Chamunda Devi Temple in the Mehrangarh Fort of Jodhpur since 2 am to offer Navratra prayers.

A senior government official, who did not want to be named, said the devotees in the men’s queue fell on one another, leading to a stampede on the ramp that leads to the hilltop shrine.

Chief Secretary D.C. Samant said: “Rumours about a wall collapse or bomb scare are baseless.”

About 20,000 worshippers had gathered at the temple, about 330 km from Jaipur.

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Labels: Chamunda Devi Temple, Devotees, Devotees slipping, hilltop shrine, injured, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Mehrangarh Fort, Navratra prayers, Rajasthan, smashed coconuts, stampede, water, worshippers

Hindustan Times

Friday, October 31, 2008

A wedding plan for China

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Pakistan rocked

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Legal help on way for Pakistan boy

Monday, October 27, 2008

Police say Pakistani teenager is innocent

Friday, October 24, 2008

Meltdown trickles down

Thursday, October 23, 2008

ICICI Bank hikes home loan rates, quietly

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Raj jailed, his men sack Mumbai

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

World champions stumble towards a mighty fall

Monday, October 20, 2008

Metro Mishap

Friday, October 17, 2008

Jet Trackbacks

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Mumbai-based writer is second-youngest Booker winner ever

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Board of Control for Cricket in India, Indian Cricket League ready to play ball

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Clintons join Biden to back Obama

Monday, October 13, 2008

Advani's letter comes to Abu Salem's rescue

Friday, October 10, 2008

Schools seek huge hike in tuition fee

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Indian in Los Angeles kills family, self

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Booster Shot

Monday, October 6, 2008

Caged to Die

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Shame in Orissa

Friday, October 3, 2008

Black bands mark a sombre Eid

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Tragedy at Jodhpur temple

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