300 illegal immigrants still missing off Andamans

Some bodies of illegal Bangladeshi and Myanmarese immigrants were washed ashore in the Andaman islands on Tuesday, even as the Indian Coast Guard and local police continue search and rescue operations for the 300 people missing in the seas off Andaman coast after they reportedly jumped from a rickety boat that had been drifting for 13 days and tried to swim to the Little Andaman island.

Speaking to The Indian Express from Port Blair, IG S P Sharma, Commander, Coast Guard (A&N Region), said so far 105 people had been rescued, and two confirmed dead. “The survivors include both Bangladesh and Myanmar nationals. As per their account, 412 of them were adrift for nearly 15 days on the high seas after leaving from Cox Bazaar in Bangladesh for Malaysia in mid-November. They were without food and potable water for nearly 12 days. Upon spotting a lighthouse on the Andaman coast, most of them dived into the sea in a bid to swim to the shore,” Sharma said.

He added the rescued immigrants were in a boat without an engine, cabin, sails or oars. “There was no way to steer the boat as the rudder and tiller were also broken. It appears to be of the type used for cargo,” said Sharma.

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Reluctant father Farooq gives in, clears the way for Omar as Chief Minister

When the National Conference and the Congress leadership formally sit down to discuss a coalition government for Jammu and Kashmir tomorrow, they will begin on a positive note: the young heir of Gandhi family Rahul Gandhi and scion of the Abdullah clan Omar Abdullah share an alliance of friendship and have been in constant touch since the fragmented verdict was out last evening.

Sources reveal that one main reason for the last-minute “generational shift” in the NC’s Chief Ministerial candidate — replacing Farooq Abdullah by son Omar — was to “smoothen” the coalition talks. With the Congress high command, Omar Abdullah is the preferred choice for more than one reason. Sources said the father Abdullah does not share a “comfortable relationship” with 10 Janpath while the sons and heirs of the two families are close.

Asked whether his friendship with Rahul will play a role in the NC-Congress coalition, Omar Abdullah told The Indian Express: “I will not use my friendship with Rahul or my equation with him to force a situation which otherwise will not arise.

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Arabs throughout Middle East protest Israel airstrikes

Angry demonstrations broke out across the Arab world on Saturday and diplomats in the region called for emergency measures in the aftermath of Israel’s deadly air attacks against Hamas security strongholds in the Gaza Strip.

But few expect the uproar to do more than reinforce regional trends: Pro-US Arab governments continue to alienate large portions of their populations despite statements of protest against Israel, analysts said, while Iran and Syria score propaganda points for their continuing patronage of Islamic militant groups such as Hamas that fight Israel.

“It will give Iran and Syria a boost,” said Sarkis Naoum, a columnist for the pro-Western Lebanese daily An Nahar. “They will use it to say to the Arab people, ‘Your regimes, presidents and kings won’t help. They turn a blind eye to what is happening.’

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Huge haul of animal parts in Assam

A joint raid conducted by the police and Sashastra Seema Bal(SSB)at Gossaigaon in Kokrajhar district in Western Assam on Wednesday yielded around 630 deer antlers, indicating the presence of a major racket dealing in animal parts in the region. Nearly 3,000 kg of red sanders was also recovered in the raid. No arrests, however, were made in this connection.

The raid was carried out in Brahma Industries, a saw mill that had closed down several years ago following a Supreme Court ban on tree-felling in the North eastern region in 1996.

Gossaigaon sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Dambaru Dhar Hazarika said the raid initially led to the recovery of a sackful of antlers, but the police soon found more antlers, some intact, mostly broken, hidden under saw dust within the saw mill compound.

The police also used SSB’s sniffer dogs to conduct the raid. “While we discovered about 630 pieces, big and small, of deer antler, we also hit upon a consignment of neatly-cut wood which initially looked like red sandalwood,

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100 foreign students deported from Pune

Since the Mumbai terror attacks, the Pune police have deported around 100 foreign students in the city for security reasons.

“We have deported around 100 foreign students of different nationalities during the drives conducted in the recent months for violating various norms like overstaying their visa limits, extending their student visa for years together, among other reasons,” confirmed Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh.

After the Mumbai terror attacks,the police had requested all colleges to send updated information of their foreign students.These included their addresses, attendance records, vehicle numbers and so on. Singh said that the police came across cases where many foreign students took admission into one institute, failed in that course and shifted to another institute or city. Several students also stayed back after their visas expired.

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Rumours spark polio vaccine panic in South

IT took just one false rumour for pandemonium to break out in parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Thousands of parents and their children protested outside hospitals in Bangalore on Sunday evening while more than 100 people were arrested in Coimbatore after a clash. Both incidents were related to reports that children had fallen sick after being given polio drops and that the medicine caused a child's death in Tamil Nadu's Erode district.

However, the Bangalore police said nobody had fallen ill from the vaccine and filed a complaint against a local TV station, saying it helped spread panic following the rumours of children contracting fever and vomiting. Refuting the rumours, Karnataka Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare, P N Sreenevasachary on Monday said that "no adverse effects" had been felt by any of the 60.87 lakh children in the state who had been administered the vaccine yesterday.

He clarified that the child who died had been suffering from a serious health condition and his death was in no way connected to the polio drops.

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United States, Europe offer India help with new anti-terror agency

With Parliament clearing the National Investigation Agency Bill, the Government is going to get help from friends in Europe and US in setting up the agency which will have sweeping powers to investigate terror attacks across the country.

It is learnt that the US and several European nations are willing to assist New Delhi in concretizing this new agency. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are among leaders who have already pledged support.

Areas of assistance would be as varied as “intelligence sharing” to “gathering and studying evidence” and even “handling difficulties in centre-state domain issues” — lessons learnt by the US after 9/11 and Britain after the 2005 London bombings.

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Army told to wait for Made-in-India night vision devices, Pakistan has the latest from United States

By the looks of it, the Army has an impressive Infantry, the second largest in the world, backed by a solid armoured thrust of over 3,000 tanks that can overwhelm the western front. But as soon as the sun goes down, the Army gets affected by a deadly case of night blindness.

For all practical purposes, the Army is fighting blind at night. Its soldiers face a glaring shortage of night vision devices, the ones in service are a generation behind what Pakistan already has and only 10 per cent of its tanks have a proven night-fighting capability.

In a modern scenario where most battles are fought under the cover of darkness, the inability to even see the enemy is crippling the war capabilities of the Army. While the top leadership is acutely aware of the shortcoming, efforts to procure new night vision devices for soldiers has been stuck in a tussle between the Army and the Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).

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Satyam investors lose Rs 4,600 crore

Saytam Computer’s dubious $1.6-billion takeover plan of two sister companies — Maytas Properties and Maytas Infrastructure — has cost the investors dearly. With the stock plunging by over 30 per cent even after the company called off the deal, market capitalisation — market value of its shares — fell by Rs 4,600 crore to Rs 10,650 crore on Wednesday. FIIs and mutual funds which hold around 65 per cent of the equity stake suffered the maximum loss.

Earlier, angry investors, negative media coverage and questions on corporate governance made the ideal recipe to upset the appetite of the Satyam board which had on Tuesday decided to have its mirror image on its plate — Maytas is actually Satyam written in reverse. The IT firm scrapped its plan to acquire Maytas Properties and Maytas Infra — companies promoted by the sons of Satyam chairman Ramalinga Raju — following a huge wave of protests from investors, fund managers and analysts. It faced stiff resistance from institutional investors such as Reliance Mutual Fund, SBI Mutual Fund, Templeton Mutual Fund and CLSA as they found the deal overvalued with little transparency and funds getting diverted to the promoters.

Markets indicated in the morning of what it thought of the proposed deal as Satyam shares lost around 30 per cent to Rs 158.05 on the domestic bourses and 55 per cent in the US market. The Satyam chairman said that he was surprised at the reaction in the markets. “

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NO DEFENCE PART 1 AIR FORCE - ‘Coercion? God forbid, if something happens...’

IN 2001, when India mobilised troops on its western border after the attack on Parliament, the biggest worry at Air Headquarters was numbers. With lack of replacements depleting the fighter squadron strength, Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy, who had just taken charge, was concerned that the fighter numbers were probably not adequate. All he wanted was to “keep the existing fleet going”.

Seven years down the line, as India again talks about coercive diplomacy after the Mumbai terror attacks, the situation has worsened, especially in the IAF which is grappling with delays in procurement, bureaucratic wrangles and bad planning.

“Where is this talk about coercion when you cannot defend? When your defences are weak, what are you going to coerce with?” asks Krishnaswamy.

The former Air Chief has reason to be angry. Consider this: the squadron strength of the IAF is at an all time low with only 32 fighter units operational. The only new acquisition since 2001 has been three squadrons of the Su-30 MKI. All other programmes, including a deal to purchase 126 fighters and the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme, will take at least five years to fructify before new aircraft enter service. While it has been argued that with the induction of multi-role fighters, numbers can be cut down by replacing older generation aircraft with technologically superior fighters, the IAF maintains there can be no replacement for sheer force levels.

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Obama will want ISI under civilian control: Kerry in Delhi

With barely a month left for US President-elect Barack Obama to officially enter White House, influential Democrat Senator and likely next head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry today made it clear that the Obama Administration will ask the Pakistan government to bring the ISI firmly under civilian control.

When it was pointed out that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari had to roll back an earlier decision to place the ISI under the Interior Minister, Kerry said this was a “young government” but was well intentioned and would make the change in the days ahead. The issue is being linked with the aid package being worked out for Pakistan.

Kerry, who hopes to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee tomorrow, will be briefing Obama once he returns from his trip that includes a stopover in Islamabad where he will hold talks with Zardari.

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Mastermind Lakhvi sent his son to J&K where he was killed last year

“SUPREME commander” of Lashkar-e-Toiba Zaki-urRehman Lakhvi, among the four men proscribed by the United Nations Security Council today in connection with the Mumbai attacks, sent his 20-year-old son to fight in Kashmir — and die.

Lakhvi’s son Mohammad Qasim was killed in a fierce gunbattle with the Army and J-K police last year. Sources have confirmed to The Indian Express that Qasim crossed over to the Valley in July 2006 and was based in Bandipore, considered the Lashkar headquar ters in Kashmir.

“He operated as an ordinary militant without any rank in the Lashkar here but we knew he was very important because of the way Lashkar would treat him,” a senior officer said. “Abu Wafa was the district commander in Bandipore and he would personally shadow Qasim like a bodyguard.” A J&K Police officer, involved in counter-insurgency operations in Bandipore, said that within months of Qasim’s arrival, he had become Lashkar’s most important man in Kashmir. “He (Qasim) came while Charlie One (Bilal alias Salahudin) was still here. And soon after he came, Charlie One left. In a way, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi had sent his own son to represent him”. 

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Terror gets local support, so no houses for Muslims: Surat real estate agents

CLAIMING terror strikes like in Mumbai cannot take place without local support or contacts, Surat real estate agents and brokers have decided not to rent or sell houses to Muslims.

This decision was taken at a meeting last Sunday which was attended by some 300 real estate agents, many of whom responded to SMS invites. They initiated moves to form an association, hoping to complete the process before the month ends.

The Mumbai attacks prompted this meeting in Surat which was rocked by the discovery of bombs across the city after the July 26 serial blasts in Ahmedabad. After the bombs were discovered, activists of Hindu hardline groups had forced Muslims to vacate shops in the Varachha area of Surat — in Ahmedabad and Vadodara, Muslims find it very difficult to rent or buy houses and this has been their experience ever since the 2002 riots.

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‘Nariman House terrorist wanted Kasab to be freed’

“Hum Bharat sarkar se baat karna chahate hain. Hamara ek banda aapke kabze mein hai, hamare saamne use pesh kar do (We want to speak to the Indian government, one of our men is in your custody, bring him before us).” This was what one of the terrorists inside Nariman House — he said his name was Imran and spoke in Urdu — told Professor P V Viswanath of Pace University, New York, who had agreed to be the interpreter as Rabbi Levi Shemtov, a Chabad emissary in Washington, opened a phone line to ensure the safety of the Jews taken hostage and find out if the terrorists had any demands.

Though the terrorist did not name the man they wanted back, it was clear that they were aware Ajmal Amir Kasab had been taken alive by the Mumbai police. This call was on November 27 morning by which time word was out that one of the terrorists had been captured.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Viswanath said: “We think he was asking for the release of Ajmal Amir Kasab who was caught alive by the police. After several attempts, we managed to get in touch with one of the police officers on location and get him into the conference call. But due to technical reasons, we could not contact Imran.” He said when he asked if the hostages were safe and whether they needed food, Imran said: “Hum yahaan khana khaane nahin aaye hain (We haven’t come here to eat).”

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Kandahar hijack: passengers to get compensation

Nine years after Indian Airlines flight IC-814 was hijacked to Kandahar, the Delhi Consumer Commission has directed the Indian Airlines to pay Rs 1 lakh each to all the flight’s passengers at that time. The Commission also awarded a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the family of Rupen Katyal, who was killed by the terrorists in the Delhi bound flight from Kathmandu.

“It is a fit case where every passenger, who was on board the ill-fated aircraft, is entitled to compensation under the Consumer Protection Act, as all the passengers had suffered the same injury and agony,” Commission president Justice J D Kapoor said.

The order has come on the plea of a couple, who were couple among the passengers. The had earlier sought compensation from the air lines for the “mental and physical trauma” undergone during the incident.

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Cyclone Nisha claims 180 lives, another one brewing

Nisha, a tropical cyclone formed off the coast of Tamil Nadu, was the first cyclone since 1971 to batter the state. This delay, however, was over-compensated since its landfall on November 27 left at least 180 dead till Thursday. The cyclone has displaced over 20 lakh people and affected nearly 40 lakh while damaging lakhs of hectares of crops and wrecking public infrastructure worth several hundred crores.

Now, another low pressure area has been reported off the coast, which, if strengthened, is expected to bring more rain and burden the already-stretched Government machinery that is yet to complete the rehabilitation work in the areas affected by Nisha.

The Cauvery delta and the coastal districts of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Cuddalore were the worst-hit. Incidentally, these districts had recorded less-than-normal rainfall in the last North East Monsoon.

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Attack part of larger ‘design’, says India, Rice for tough Pak action

AS US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made it clear today that Pakistan will have to take “direct and tough action” even if the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks were “non-state actors”, India went another step ahead, linking the Mumbai strikes to the blasts in Jaipur,Delhi, Bangalore and calling it a “design” to attack India.

Rice, who leaves for Islamabad tomorrow where she is expected to convey the same tough message, sought to underline US support and cooperation, asking the Indian establishment to work systematically through the investigations and assuring that Washington will do all it can to get Islamabad to extend help.

After her talks with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Rice said: “The fact is non-state actors perform from the confines of the state. There has to be direct and tough action (by Islamabad).” She made it clear that “non-state actors” were “still a matter of your (Pakistan) responsibility that somehow relates to your territory”.

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Tragedy’s face that went around the world

“He walked towards me, holding two children. They were covered in blood. He said Sahib, my wife is probably dead, I have to find her, please take my children to the hospital. The children were crying Mummy, Mummy.” Head Constable Suresh Salunkhe of the Government Railway Police at the CST station can never forget that sight — Vasai utensilseller Bharat Nevadiya, bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds in the shoulder and on the back, pleading with him to save three year old Anjali and one year old Viraj.

Salunkhe says he scooped up Viraj with one hand and held on to Anjali with the other. He stopped Bharat from heading towards a pile of bodies to look for wife Poonam. “I told him you can look for your wife later but come with me to the hospital first. You are bleeding, get yourself treated.” Salunkhe then ran for a stretcher.

At the hospital, as Bharat was wheeled into the operation theatre, the children kept “crying for Mummy”, scared by the sight of bodies and blood on the floor.

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R R Patil quits, Deshmukh offers to step down too

Union Ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde and Prithviraj Chavan are the front runners to replace Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh who offered to resign on Monday soon after accepting the resignation of his Deputy RR Patil.

While the Congress high command was said to be keen on Chavan, the NCP, the party’s coalition partner in the state has reservations about his candidature. These reservations do not reportedly extend to Shinde, a dalit leader who had replaced Deshmukh as CM in 2003.

Soon after Deshmukh announced his resignation, Shinde met Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who later held consultations stretching late into Monday night with her Political Secretary Ahmed Patel, Home Minister P Chidambaram, and Defence Minister and in charge of party affairs in Maharashtra A K Antony.

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10 Men accounted for but terror boat had jackets, blankets, toothbrushes for over 15

Sifting through the evidence left on board the Kuber, the Indian fishing trawler said to be hijacked by terrorists who took the sea route to attack Mumbai, Central and state agencies are following three leads in the investigation: the possibility of there being more than the 10 gunmen accounted for coordinates for Diu set on the trawler’s Global Positioning System and the Pak origin of several items found on board.

Officials so far have said that nine terrorists were killed — four in the Taj, two each in Oberoi and the Nariman House and one in Girgaum and one was captured alive. So what has perplexed investigators is the presence of over 15 blankets and the same number of “winter jackets” and toothbrushes on board Kuber. These jackets, sources said, are not the ones used by “regular fishermen.”

They have also found two engine covers and a second raft case on the trawler. This points to the possible presence of another raft that may have been used.

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