Asia Africa Intelligence Wire articles from March 2004, page 9

Asia Africa Intelligence Wire archives from March 2004

Six-month jail for illegal constructions.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) NEW DELHI: Carrying out illegal construction without a sanctioned building plan from a civic agency? If you are the building owner, you may land in jail for six months. This is the punishment an owner was...

NDMC falters on projects.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Himanshi Dhawan NEW DELHI: The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has been caught napping after making grandiose announcements in last year's budget. None of the projects, including two...

Gangsters arrested in Vasant Kunj.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) NEW DELHI: Three gangsters were arrested by the crime branch after an encounter in Vasant Kunj on Friday. The three accused, Sandeep, Manoj and Satinder are allegedly involved in several cases of murder and...

Missing tourist's contact dies.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) NEW DELHI: The case of mysterious disappearance of 55-year-old British national, Angella Brown, has become murkier. Gurmukh Singh, a taxi driver, who was aware of Brown's contacts in Delhi died last month under...

A new course in cyber law on offer.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) NEW DELHI: Interested in pursuing an offbeat career? How do forensic science and cyber law sound? Perhaps urban management or nano-technology could prove to be your cup of tea. The Amity group has launched...

It's Rs 10 for 100-km ride on Ring Road.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Pallavi Majumdar NEW DELHI: A peculiar set of circumstances has made the 100-km stretch of the Outer Ring road, the cheapest bus route ever. You can travel the entire distance for a mere Rs 10. ...

Class XII boards over, it's party time now.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) NEW DELHI: For thousands of Class XII students, Thursday proved to be the perfect end to the month-long gruelling Board battle. The business studies exam passed off without any hiccups. "The paper was great!...

Pay less for power connections.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) NEW DELHI: The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has waived half of the development charges for new power connections for Delhi slums. Consumers will pay Rs 1,200 instead of the required Rs...

Fee hike proposed for schools.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Surabhi Upadhyay NEW DELHI: It's back to school time for thousands of students as the new academic session rolls out on April 1. However, it's also time for parents to gear up for loosening their...

DF's sugar subsidy makes Sena see red.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena plans to administer sugar as a bitter pill to the Congress-led Democratic Front government on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections. The DF government's recent decision to offer subsidy to...

SP will not contest against Sunil Dutt.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) MUMBAI: The Samajwadi Party (SP) has decided not to field its candidate in Mumbai north-west constitutency, where actor-MP Sunil Dutt is seeking reelection for the fifth time, and is pitted against Sanjay...

VJTI set to break free from Mumbai varsity.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Archana Sharma MUMBAI: Winds of change are blowing in the city's first engineering college. VJTI, which was the only technological institute under Mumbai University for 70 years until IIT was...

Rallies send cricket for a six.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: ASHLEY D'MELLO MUMBAI: Chowpatty's gain seems to be Azad Maidan's loss. So feel members of Mumbai's cricket fraternity, who are critical of the way in which Azad Maidan is being trampled underfoot by...

MoD strikes restaurant off Vikrant 'menu'.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Srinivas Laxman MUMBAI: After the intial uncertainty about its fate, the decommissioned aircraft carrier Vikrant is well on its way to becoming a maritime museum by 2006. However, there's a new,...

Does zarda plus supari equal gutkha?
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) MUMBAI: In August 2002, the Bombay high court had banned the sale of gutkha. But if anti-tobacco crusader and World Health Organisation award winner Vincent Nazareth is to be believed, the lethal product is...

I hope I just won't end up being a scapegoat: Madhu.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) SORABA (SHIMOGA): Until recently, he was known only as Madhu Bangarappa, connected with the film world. Pitchforked into the limelight as the BJP candidate from Soraba in Shimoga district, Madhu is now the...

Plush flats prove taxing for residents.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Nauzer Bharucha MUMBAI: If you have pooled in all your resources to purchase a flat worth over a crore or two in a new building in south Mumbai, don't think your financial worries are over. More...

Ananth, Sangliana don battle fatigues.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) BANGALORE: Traffic in parts of the city, especially in Majestic area and around the BCC head office, went haywire as both the BJP Lok Sabha candidates - for Bangalore South and North - filed their nomination...

Teachers' land lands in soup.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) BANGALORE: They bought sites in a private layout approved by the BDA two decades ago. Now, their lives have been shattered by a Government Order (GO) which has told the allottees to transfer the land to...

Flight returns to base after snag.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) BANGALORE: An Air Deccan flight on the Goa-Bangalore sector which took off from Goa at 5 pm returned to base within 10 minutes after take off after thick smoke emanated in the aircraft. The aircraft,...

Govt gives in, doctors call off strike.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) BANGALORE: An election-time crisis was averted with junior doctors calling off their proposed strike on Monday, after being assured that the government has initiated the process to pay them stipend. A...

Girl 'kidnapped', rescued.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) BANGALORE: The police went into a tizzy after a 19-year-old student was reported kidnapped from her college near Lalbagh on Monday. While the police went around in circles trying to trace the victim and the...

Get ready for escape to ecstasy with Enrique.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: PAAWANA POONACHA BANGALORE: Time to hear the Rhythm Divine, live! World's most successful Latino pop artiste Enrique Iglesias' first performance in India, at Palace Grounds in Bangalore on April 13,...

Television, music are stress-busters.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Anupama G.S. BANGALORE: Sleeping could be a form of relaxation for some. For others, watching mundane stuff on TV relaxes their mind and keeps them free of examination-related stress. It could be...

Reebok, Nike attack Bata's school turf.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: SUJIT JOHN BANGALORE: Don't fall off that chair if your child comes home tomorrow with a note from her school recommending a Reebok or Nike shoe, priced at Rs 600 or more, as regular schoolwear. ...

Kannada Nadu party manifesto shortly.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Aravind Gowda BANGALORE: Kannada Nadu party founder Vijay Sankeshwar on Tuesday claimed that his newly-launched outfit had the capacity to rout all national parties in the Assembly polls. "Our...

SREI and RUF Int demonstrates 'MONORAIL'.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KOLKATA: A city-based company in collaboration with a Danish firm today offered West Bengal government a dual mode Integrated Light Rail System for a pollution-free transport system for the metropolis. The...

CPI(M) to join secular govt if voted to power.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KOLKATA: The CPI(M) today said it would join a government of secular parties including Congress after the Lok Sabha elections if they were voted to power provided the Marxists were in a position to determine and...

CPI(M) accuses Pranab of double standards.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KOLKATA: Hinting at the WBPCC chief Pranab Mukherjee, CPI(M) today alleged that a top Congress leader from West Bengal was hand in glove with NDA ally Nationalist Trinamool Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls....

CPI welcomes CBI probe into Tagore medal heist.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KOLKATA: CPI said West Bengal government's recommendation for a CBI probe into the theft of Rabindranath Tagore's memorabilia from the Museum in Santiniketan was a correct decision as it was a matter of national...

IIT-Kharagpur devises pollution-reducing kit.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court today directed the Advocate-General of West Bengal to take instructions from the state government about the possibility of availability of CNG in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area...

CPI regrets for not having total of understanding.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KOLKATA: CPI regretted that total understanding and adjustments among all non-NDA secular parties ahead of the ensuing Lok Sabha election, was not possible mainly because of over-estimation of their strength by...

IIM-C may spring legal challenge on proxy votes.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey KOLKATA: The Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, faculty are gearing up for another fight with the HRD ministry. The faculty will soon meet on the campus to decide...

TERI willing to assist govt in containing pollution.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KOLKATA: In the face of the Calcutta High Court directive to West Bengal government on all vehicles running in the meteropolis to conform to the Bharat stage-II norm by April one, The Energy and Resources...

Police inspector wounded as revolver goes off.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PUNE: Police inspector (PI) Rajendra Bhamare of the Loni-Kalbhor police station suffered injuries when he accidentally fired his service revolver on Sunday night. The police said Bhamare took charge at the...

Playing messiah for women in times of distress.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: DHAVAL KULKARNI PUNE: Malati Shinde (23), married for only a year, had been thrown out of her house by her husband, who reportedly had an extra-marital affair. After the woman approached the...

Resolve Kalpavriksh case, NGO tells govt.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PUNE: The search for justice in the Kalpavriksh Marketing Private Limited cheating case continued on Monday with the Maharashtra Lokahakka Samiti appealing to the state government to speed up investigations....

City girl tops all-India test of scholastic skills.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PUNE: Hamsa Padmanabhan, a student of the Vikhe Patil memorial school, has won the gold medal at a prestigious all-India test for ninth standard students, conducted to assess conceptual and application skills....

Court clears PCB's vehicle-tax notice.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PUNE: The Mumbai high court on Monday ruled in favour of the Pune Cantonment Board in the controversy of its invitation of tenders for collection of vehicle-entry tax (VET). Speaking to TNN, PCB chief...

FTII radio plays a sad six-month song.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Neil Pate PUNE: Talk about the muchhyped and delayed captive community radio and television (CCRT) channel project of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and all you hear is the famous...

Gote proposes, court disposes.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PUNE: Special jugde S.M. Shembole on M o n d a y turned down an application by Anil Gote, MLA, under arrest in the multi-crore fake stamp paper scam, in which he had demanded that members of the special...

Murder charge filed in cricket death.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PUNE: The Vishrambaug police on Sunday night registered a case of murder in connection with the death of Abhijit Hinge alias Gotya (8), a resident of Lokmanyanagar, Dandekar bridge. The boy died after a game...

FTII radio plays a sad six month song.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Neil Pate PUNE: Talk about the much-hyped and delayed captive community radio and television (CCRT) channel project of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and all you hear is the famous...

MSRTC's waiting hall to lure bus passengers.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Neil Pate PUNE: In a bid to overcome huge loses and lure passengers, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) is opening its first air-conditioned (AC) waiting hall in the state at...

Election notification issued.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: MANJIRI MADHAV DAMLE PUNE: Notification for Lok Sabha elections for Pune district was is-sued by Pune district collector and returning officer Madhukat Kokate here which will come into effect from 10...

BJP demands collector Kokate's transfer.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: MANJIRI MADHAV DAMLE PUNE: Pune district unit of Bharatiya Janata Party has sent a memorandum to chief election commissioner T S Murthy demanding transfer of Pune district collector Madhukar Kokate....

Rly union to protest outside DRM's office.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Neil Pate PUNE: To draw government's attention toward their long pending demands, the National Railway Majdoor Union (NRMU) has decided to take out a huge demonstration (morcha) outside the Pune...

Doctors to woo electorate with stethoscopes.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Radha Sharma RAJKOT/AHMEDABAD: The trademark white jacket and stethoscope reserved for operation theatres and consulting rooms is being put to political use in Gujarat. In Rajkot, doctors have...

BJP, NCP candidates file papers.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) RAJKOT: As Balwant Manwar, the NCP candidate started approaching Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's statue with a garland, Dalpat Odhav Nimavat a quake-affected person stopped him from doing so. "All politicians are...

Vaghela tense as OBC heavyweight joins BJP.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) AHMEDABAD: The political calculations of Shankersinh Vaghela, who till now was confident of a win in the Kapadvanj parliamentary seat this time too, went haywire here on Sunday when a former legislator Budhaji...

Chaos at collectorate as 5 file papers.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) SURAT: Much fanfare dominated the collectorate street in the diamond city when political bigwigs, along with upbeat supporters, landed there to file their nominations. Union rural development minister...

101 in fray for 26 LS seats.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) AHMEDABAD: Deputy Prime minister L K Advani and state BJP president Rajendrasinh Rana were among the 65 candidates who filed nominations for Lok Sabha elections to 26 parliamentary seats in the state on Monday....

Makwana is Cong candidate in Dhandhuka.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) AHMEDABAD: Former state minister Yogendra Makwana has been nominated the Congress candidate for the Dhandhuka reserved seat even as the Congress declared four more names on Monday. Bharuch will be contested...

'I didn't want to be confined'.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) With the Lok Sabha polls just three weeks away, Congress Legislature Party leader Amarsinh Chaudhary has turned down the high command's wish to fight the Lok Sabha polls. He also believes the campaign...

2,500 copying cases set board thinking.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) AHMEDABAD/VADODARA: With the last exam over on Monday, it is time for some stock-taking for officials of the Gujarat secondary and higher secondary education board. Particularly, as some of the board's...

Candidate Advani takes a softer line.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Advani declared here on Monday that the second leg of the Bharat Uday Yatra, to start on Ramnavami at Porbandar on Tuesday, would focus only on development. Talking to newspersons soon after he filed his...

Advani has hit bull's eye each time.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Gaurav Panchal AHMEDABAD: One lost his first election in a vain attempt to make it to the Lok Sabha. Another has had a relatively easy time getting into Parliament House. Prime Minister Atal...

Pandya files nomination.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Leena Misra AHMEDABAD: In what is sure to be a thorn in deputy prime minister L K Advani's flesh, slain minister Haren Pandya's father Vitthal Pandya (76) filed his nomination papers as an...

Battle for Gandhinagar splits Pandya family.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) GANDHINAGAR: The battle for Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency has virtually split the family of former home minister Haren Pandya. In a clear message to the BJP, Pandya's widow, Jagruti, made an appearance...

Woman killed under mysterious circumstances.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Sourav Mukherjee AHMEDABAD: A 25-year-old woman, Sonal Patel, was found dead at her father's residence at Sarkhej in the wee hours of Tuesday. Sonal was sleeping alongside her husband, Bharat...

Unity Mission School: Ray of hope for poor.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Ikram Ali LUCKNOW: He would watch, almost in a trance, students doing their PT drill daily from the Unity College school gate. Even after the drill was over he would linger on for a while, yet...

Turn of fruits to be 'pricey'.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) LUCKNOW: No onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric or grains. That, and a lot more, is what the grind of the Navrat vrats (Navrat fasts) is all about. As Ramnavami nears, most devoted Hindus observe the nine-day...

Celebrating Lord Rama's coming.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) LUCKNOW: The ninth day of the bright half of Chaitra (April) - Ramnavami, ends the nine-daylong period of fasting for Hindus, as they celebrate the birth of Lord Rama. Lord Rama, the seventh reincarnation of...

LU committee scraps 42 self-financed seats.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) LUCKNOW: The admission committee of Lucknow University on Monday decided to scrap 42 self-financed seats in the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) course being run in the College of Fine Arts and Crafts. In an...

Tech breakthrough to help blind 'read' Hindi.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Nadeshda LUCKNOW: His is an amazing story. At the tender age of eight years, glaucoma pitched a scared Dinesh Kaushal's world into darkness. Twenty years later, Dinesh has helped develop the...

Banks balk at tax on lockers.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Aparna Singh LUCKNOW: Flouting Supreme Court directives, the Trade Tax (TT) department has issued notices to all banks, asking them to charge 5 per cent TT on safe-deposit lockers. The...

Bollywood Battlefield.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Sudip Talukdar Bollywood generates war flicks as a periodic gesture to patriotic sentiment, but well within bounds of box office demands. The latest in the line, LoC, veers slightly off the...

'Rahul won't make any impact'.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) LUCKNOW: Unruffled by Rahul Gandhi's presence in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP on Monday refused to take any cognisance of the Gandhi family's new entrant taking plunge into politics from Amethi, saying that "he is not...

LDA clarifies on GNExt scheme.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) LUCKNOW: Applicants for the Gomtinagar Extension (GNExt) scheme of the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) seem to encounter a peculiar situation pertaining to mode of payment, where they are being provided two...

Bhai BA: Varsity examiner ki vaat lag gayee.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) LUCKNOW: Lucknow University exams seem to be as much fun as 'partying' in jail was for Santosh Rai. A close aide of Amarmani Tripathi and co-accused in the Madhumita murder case, Rai has taken on a new alias...

Revised PGMEE-2004 results out.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) LUCKNOW: UP Post-Graduate Medical Entrance Examinations (UPPGMEE) 2004 results were "redeclared" by the King George's Medical University (KGMU) on Monday. Admitting that there were "some mistakes" in the...

Jal Nigam unmoved by Uttaranchal's blacklist.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Satyam Kohli LUCKNOW: The Construction and Design Services (C&DS) of the UP Jal Nigam has been blacklisted by the Uttaranchal government following detection of various technical and financial...

'UP bureaucracy divided in lobbies'.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Arvind Singh Bisht LUCKNOW: A bitter former chief secretary, DS Bagga is set to retire after 37 long years from the UP IAS cadre on March 31. Controversy dodges him towards the fag end of his...

Decisive role of 'votekatuwas'.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Dipak Mishra PATNA: "Votekatuwas" are coming out in the open to make a dent in the vote banks of RJD and NDA camps and sabotage the chances of their candidates' victory. These "saboteurs" are likely...

Cong legislators SP candidates.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Sachchidanand Jha PATNA: Samajwadi Party (SP) has not only refused to be part of the "secular front" led by Congress but has also started giving jolt to Congress in Bihar by luring its senior...

Laloo is a joker, says Mulayam.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PATNA: UP chief minister and Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday called RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav a "joker". Speaking to newsmen at Patna airport during his brief halt on way to...

Ex-Delhi police chief files papers from Aurangabad.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PATNA: Altogether 40 nominations were filed on Monday for 11 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats from Bihar, bringing the total number of nominations filed so far to 62. According to the office of chief electoral...

CII for CM's roadshows to woo industrialists.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PATNA: The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has suggested holding of "road shows" by Bihar chief minister or industries minister in places like Mumbai and Bangalore to encourage investment in Bihar. ...

Expelled BJP leader files nomination papers.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Abhijit Sen HAZARIBAG: The former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Hazaribag, Mahavir Lal Vishwakarma, who was recently expelled from the BJP, filed his nomination papers from Hazaribag...

HC fumes as DSP stays arrest warrant.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PATNA: The Patna High Court on Monday ordered former Tirhut DIG Shridhar Sharma and Sheohar DSP Gagandeo Ram to be present in the court on April 12 in connection with initiation of criminal procedure against...

One drug inspector for over 1,000 shops.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) Byline: Sachchidanand Jha PATNA: Despite the health department directive to all drug inspectors (DIs) to carry out inspection of at least 20 medicine shops under their respective jurisdiction every month,...

Another RJD minister revolts against party.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PATNA: Close on the heels of state civil supplies minister Poornamasi Ram threatening to contest LS polls as a rebel candidate from Bagaha, another RJD minister Chhedi Paswan on Monday revolted against the...

Laloo's nephew, others open fire, two injured.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) PATNA: RJD chief Laloo Yadav's nephew Nagendra Rai was on Monday allegedly involved in a case of firing in which two women sustained injuries at Machhli Gali in Salimpur Dumra locality under the Shastrinagar...

People will punish Cong by defeating them: Badal.
March 31, 2004... (From The Times of India) KHARAR:Shiromani Akali Dal chief Parkash Singh Badal, on Monday, said that the Congress governments in the Centre as well as Punjab had harmed the interests of Punjab and the people of the state will punish the...