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Britain hops onto a ‘green’ rickshawBy Rashmee Z AhmedTIMES NEWS NETWORK

London: The British capital mayhave just got aboard the greenestride of them all – the sleek, high-techrickshaw, which is advertising itsmuscle-powered, point-to-pointcruises in high-pedestrian areas asLondon’s newest, coolest and mosteco-friendly on the planet.

What’s more, routes and fares arenot fixed; the new, so-called Metro-bike is unlicensed; negotiation or In-dian-style haggling with the driver isallowed, possibly even encouraged,to spice up the ride.

And like the cliched coals to New-castle, the Metrobike’s original, six-year-old Teutonic avataar, theVelotaxi, may be heading straight forDelhi, Mumbai and Kolkata too in2005, its German creator Lugar Ma-tusewskei has told this paper.

Never before may the idea behindIndia’s humble cycle rickshaw havebeen so hip.

London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone,is understood to be keen on taking aride on the green side, in commonwith the authorities in Berlin andsix German cities, four other Euro-pean capitals, Tokyo and Kyoto.

Matusewski freely admits the debthe owes the rickshaw. On the phonefrom Amsterdam, where he is over-seeing the city’s enthusiastic conver-sion to the concept of pedal-poweredurban transport, he said: “There wasecological inspiration from the Indi-an rickshaw, the power-pedallingand the three wheels”.

But the unwieldy, often grotty In-

dian tricycles, he points out, arehardly a match for London’s new,telegenic, aerodynamically-shapedvehicles. “Our rickshaws are de-signed to function as mobile three-dimensional urban advertising bill-boards, unlike the Indian rickshaw.That is the main difference”.

Agrees Polly Stainbank, directorof Promobikes UK, which wants theMetrobike soon to colonise otherBritish cities: “Our vehicles haveloads of space for advertising.They’re built for that, unlike the Eu-ropean pedicab, which is like the In-dian rickshaw, and doesn’t look fu-turistic, clean or at all suitable foradvertisers”.

Actually, say experts, the clean de-sign of the Metrobike may still notmake it environmentally cleanerthan its uglier, more unwieldy Indi-an relation. Unlike the totally hu-man-powered rickshaw, the futuris-tic European vehicle possesses aweak cycle motor to help the driveron steep rides.

Bank strike today: Leading bankunions will go on a nationwide strikeon Friday protesting the govern-ment’s failure to meet their demandsincluding an early wage revision.

Militant strike in J&K: In thefourth strike in a week, a suicidethree-member squad of militantsmade an abortive bid to storm aBorder Security Force camp in Pulwama in J&K on Thursday night,triggering a gunbattle which left onemilitant dead, BSF sources said inSrinagar.

Sangh Parivar-Govt meet: Athree-day meet of Sangh Parivarleaders and representatives of theBJP and the government began inNew Delhi on Thursday. P7

Osama may be in Pak: Pak-istan’s President Musharraf said onThursday there were indications thatOsama bin Laden was alive, and hemight be hiding in tribal territory onthe Pakistani-Afghan border.

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IndiaJaya’s prescriptionfor SARS: Papayaand tulsi leaves

InternationalAmerican Life:Madonna’s new album is No.1Page 12

Rafique helpsBangladesh restrictSA in 2nd Test

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How is the AC? Good, send one moreTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Vinod Khatri: ‘‘To-morrow is the date in court...’’

Dharambir Khattar: ‘‘Sendme the samaan (bribe).’’

Vinod Khatri: ‘‘...I had sentthe samaan to you earlier but Ilearnt it has not reached theboss (Shamit Mukherjee)...hesaid ask DK to see me...’’

The transcript of this tapedconversation between masterfixer Khattar and property deal-er Khatri is in the CBI’s custody.It was read out to a packedcourtroom by the agency’slawyer, T P Singh, who contend-ed that former Delhi High Courtjudge Shamit Mukherjee, Khat-tar and Khatri were involved indubious deals.

Following this submission,special judge V K Jain declinedto grant Mukherjee immunityunder the Judge Protection Act,1985, and sent him to the CBI’scustody till May 7.

Jain said: ‘‘I have not beenable to convince myself that lawgives a judge immunity fromprosecution if he indulges incorrupt practices and misuseshis official position.’’

He did not concede the plea oflawyers, including Delhi HCBar Association president D CMathur, appearing on behalf ofMukherjee. About seven advo-cates argued for Mukherjee,claiming he could not be arrest-ed because he was protected un-der the Act.

Jain, however, said the sec-tion which the lawyers referredto gave protection to judgesagainst private action. The Cen-tral government, state govern-ments, Supreme Court or DelhiHC were empowered to prose-cute a judge, Jain said.

Senior advocates, including RK Anand, former president ofHC Bar Association, A S Chan-dioke, secretary of the associa-tion, D K Sharma and I U Khanwere present in Mukherjee’s de-fence. The court room waspacked to capacity. A large num-ber of lawyers from the HC werealso present in the court to wit-ness the proceedings.

Singh also read parts of thetaped conversation between

Mukherjee and Khattar.‘‘Khatri is absconding but we

will arrest him soon,’’ Singhtold the judge. On the perusal ofthe transcript, Jain commented:‘‘It is a serious matter.’’ He alsoread the six pages of an un-signed judgment which the CBI

recovered from Khattar’s Jang-pura office on March 26.

Singh told the court that thejudgment was of the case AzadSingh Vs the DDA.

‘‘In that case, Mukherjeeasked Khattar to get the DDA’sadvocate, Gita Mittal, changed

because she was presenting theauthority’s case strongly. Khat-tar informed Khatri who paidmoney to former DDA vice-chairman Subhash Sharma andgot Mittal removed from thecase,’’ Singh said.

India wary of Pak designs at UNTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: India will view any Pak-istani move to raise the Kashmir issuein the UN Security Council (UNSC) asa setback to the ongoing overtures offriendship, officials suggested, re-sponding to questions.

Pakistani ambassador to the UN Mu-nir Akram has said Pakistan, whichtakes over the rotating presidency ofthe UNSC for a month beginningThursday, would like a discussion onunresolved issues like Palestine andKashmir on May 13th.

Asked about this, the external af-fairs spokesperson said India had ex-tended a hand of friendship and it wasfor Pakistan to see whether raising theissue was compatible with that move.

On other comments emanating fromPakistan relating to confidence build-ing measures and offer of Jamali tovisit India, the spokesperson said Indiawould respond to proposals as andwhen they were made.

However, the spokesperson reiterat-ed India’s stand on cross-border terror-

ism in response to a question. Askedabout the US State Department’s reporton terrorism the spokesperson saidthat in so far as it spoke about infiltra-tion, this had been evident to India fora long time. Recognition of Pakistan’srole in this needed to be followed up, hesaid, adding that this was where the in-ternational community had failed.

He also dismissed the implicationsin the report of the responsibility ofnon-state actors saying India was well-aware of the nature of the groups andtheir backing.

He also refused to comment on theUS decision not to designate Pakistanas a terrorist state, saying the determi-nations were made by another govern-ment according to their processes.

US declares Hizb terrorist outfitBy Chidanand Rajghatta

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Washington: Ahead of a visit to SouthAsia by US Deputy Secretary RichardArmitage next week, the Bush admin-istration has addressed some funda-mental Indian concerns on terrorism,primarily by identifying the mainlineKashmiri insurgent group Hizb-ul-Mu-jahideen as a terrorist organisation.

Unlike other Pakistan-backed terror-ist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba andJaish-e-Mohammed, the Hizb is consid-ered an indigenous Kashmiri outfitand its inclusion in a list detailed in the2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism Re-

port released on Wednesday signals asharp uptick in Washington’s intoler-ance to violence, even by popular localgroups claiming greater legitimacy.

Three other groups promoting ter-rorism against India — Al Badr,Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (Bangladesh) — have alsobeen named in the report. The first twoare Pakistan-based and the naming ofthe last group endorses Indian chargesof terrorism emanating fromBangladesh.

The notification in the annexure tothe terrorism report does not consti-tute an immediate listing as a terrorist

group (which would attract punitiveaction), but it is considered a prelude toit as the administration begins to initi-ate internal legal steps to make such adeclaration. In other words, the groupsare first ‘‘identified’’ and then ‘‘listed’’.

The notifications came on a daywhen Pakistan busted an Al-Qaida ringin Karachi and netted a major suspectin the USS Cole bombing, earning ful-some praise from the Bush administra-tion, and Deputy Secretary Armitagedescribed as ‘‘truly frightening’’ thesituation between India and Pakistan.

New Delhi planning to sell missiles to friends

By Rajat PanditTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: To boost defence exports,India plans to sell missiles to ‘‘friend-ly countries’’ in the near future. Thesystems being earmarked for exportrange from cruise missiles to anti-tank guided missiles.

Defence sources, at the same time,stress that the missiles to be exportedwill in no way contravene interna-tional norms or exceed restrictionsimposed by the Missile TechnologyControl Regime (MTCR), even thoughIndia is not a signatory to it.

Established in 1987 by the US andother Western powers but with no sta-tus in international law, the MTCRbans export of missiles capable of de-livering a 500 kg payload over 300 km.

The Indian missile likely to have‘‘tremendous’’ export potential is‘‘BrahMos’’, the 290-km-range anti-ship supersonic cruise missile beingjointly developed with Russia.

India and Russia plan to begin theinduction of this air- breathing mis-sile — virtually all other anti-shipmissiles either fly at subsonic speedsor have a much shorter range — intotheir armed forces in the next six toseven months.

Thereafter, the export potential of‘‘BrahMos’’, which can fly at a veloci-ty of up to 2.8 Mach and can belaunched from a variety of platforms,will be actively explored.

There will be an estimated $10 bil-lion demand for such missiles in thecoming years.

Union health minister Sushma Swaraj and Delhi health minister A K Walia visitthe newly built special wards for SARS patients at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in New Delhi on Thursday. (Related reports on Page 10)

AFP

Maharashtra reactsHealth Services Deputy Director P P Doke said: ‘‘Look at the protests inKolkata. We fortunately do not have thesame attitude here.’’

Civic executive health officer added:‘‘The patient had no symptoms then andwas believed to be SARS negative.”

Sushmaspeak• Mumbai health authorities

released the city’s first SARS case, Bhaskar Murthy, before test reports were available

• Murthy now being treated in Delhi’s Infectious Diseases hospital

SARS blame game

Modi careNew Delhi: This is a recordof sorts. Gujarat CM Naren-dra Modi gave an IAS officera double promotion to makehim chief secretary. PravinLaheri was MD, GujaratTourism and principal secre-tary rural development tillWednesday morning. Then...

Dharambir Khattar & Vinod KhatriKhattar: ‘‘... I can provide the copy of theorder running into six pages. If you want to add or change something you cando that...’’Khatri: ‘‘ .. I will give you my fax number...... send me the order...’’Khattar: ‘‘It is not safe to send the orderthrough fax. I will call you up 10 minuteslater and read out the judgment to you.’’

Dharambir Khattar & Shameet MukherjeeKhattar: ‘‘How is the AC? Is itfine?’’Mukherjee: ‘‘Yes it is very good...but there is some problem.’’Khattar: ‘‘.. I will get it done tomorrow.’’Mukherjee: ‘‘Ask him to send one more two ton AC.’’ Mukherjee at Patiala House courts

• Pakistan, having taken over thepresidency of Security Council, isinsisting on a discussion on Kashmir

• India says this will be a setback to Indo-Pak ties and will not be inkeeping with its recent overtures of friendship

Freeze again?

Britain jolted over terror links: Page 13For more go to www.timesofindia.com

Max. 40.1oC/ Min. 26oCMoonset: Friday — 1947 hrs.Moonrise: Saturday — 0641 hrs.Sunset: Friday — 1857 hrs.Sunrise: Saturday — 0539 hrs.

Related report on Page 3

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D E L H I The Times of India, New Delhi2 Friday, May 2, 2003

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To chat on SMS send 'cchat' <your question> to 8888

Q. From wheredid you get the in-spiration ofsinging?- NatashaA: From music

and Kishore Kumar.Q. What do you have to sayabout the latest spate of vul-gar music videos beingmade. The Katan Laga songhas created quite a storm.Don’t you think that suchvideos actually demean thegreat songs?- VasuA: I agree with you totally.The most shameful act isthat they (companies) neveracknowledge the real musicdirectors and the singers.Can all the Bally Sagooscompose a single line of"Chura Liya" on their own?

Q. How different was RDBurman from other com-posers?- JimA: There is no comparisonat all. He was the only God.Rest all are his Bhakt.Q. Why don’t you want Pak-istani singers to perform inIndia?- DollA: We are banned from per-forming in Pakistan. And ourlegendary singers have beenhumiliated there. Our gov-ernment doesn’t play cricketwith them. But politiciansmake them sing at theirbungalows. Next morningthe Pakistani singers ask forcitizenships in India. Why isthere this dual policy?

“Can all the Bally Sagoos compose a single lineof ‘Chura Liya’ on their own?” — ABHIJEET, Singer

3 pm:Sadhak Shivaanand SaraswatiSpiritual Painter On self-awareness through spiritual paintings

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Poor facilities inhospitals despitehigh court order

By Bhadra Sinha andSachin Parashar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: It seems evenproviding treatment to pa-tients in the government hos-pitals is completely shorn ofaccountability.

The Ram Manohar Lohiaand Safdarjung hospitals areyet to act on the recommen-dations of a high power com-mittee, which was formed inOctober last year on the highcourt’s order, on the state ofaffairs in the two hospitals.The committee comprised di-rector-general health servic-es, health secretary andlawyers Meera Bhatia andAshok Aggarwal.

As per an action taken re-port on the recommenda-tions, there is no ventilatorin the RML hospital even af-ter the committee recom-mended it and the burnsward of Safdarjung hospitalis functioning without someof the most basic equipment.‘‘Ventilator is an absolute ne-cessity for any hospital,whether private or govern-ment. A hospital must ensurethat at least 10 per cent of itstotal number of surgery bedsare equipped with ventila-tors,” said Dr L C Gupta ofLal Bahadur hospital.

The high court on Wednes-day directed the Centre tocomply with the recommen-dations by August, 2003, stat-ing that non-compliancewould result in coercive ac-tion. ‘‘There’s a lot to be doneto achieve super speciality ofinternational standards inthe burns wards,’’ said Bha-tia, one of the members ofthe committee.

The burns department ofSafdarjung hospital is stillwithout anti-bed sore mat-tresses which had been asked

for by the committee.In fact, the burns ward of

the Safdarjung hospitalbears ample testimony togovernment apathy in updat-ing the facilities in these hos-pitals. There are only two aircurtains in the ward asagainst 15 required, andwhich is a norm in the devel-oped countries. The ward isalso yet to acquire a deepfreezer (-80 degree centi-grade) which is used for long-term graft storage. ‘‘We had adeep freezer but it didn’tfunction properly and was re-turned.

We are likely to have oneagain in July, 2003, ‘’said adoctor with the Safdarjunghospital.

Even the RML hospital hasjust one air curtain. The com-mittee had also expressedconcern about the non-avail-ability of burn specialistsand had suggested short in-tensive training for generalsurgeons, but the hospitalsare yet to start work on this.

TOI presents food awards TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: In a first-of-its-kind function countrywide,the Times Food Awardswere presented to selectrestaurants at the launch ofThe Times Food Guide Delhi2003, at a glittering ceremo-ny at The Taj Mahal Hotelon Thursday night.

Fifteen restaurants,recognised under differentcategories, were honouredon the occasion. The com-plete list of award-winnersreads: Best North IndianRestaurant: Bukhara; BestSouth Indian Restaurant:Sagar; Best KashmiriRestaurant: Chor Bizzare;Best Thai Restaurant: BaanThai; Best Korean Restau-rant: Kumgang; Best Japan-ese Restaurant: Sakura;Best Italian Restaurant: LaPiazza; Best EuropeanRestaurant: Orient Express;Best Chinese Restaurant:Taipan; Best Coffee Bar:Barista; Best Coffee Shop:Grand Cafe; BestChaat/Dahi Bhalla: NatrajDahi Bhalle Walla; BestChaat/Dahi Bhalla (on or-der): Chote Lall Chaat Wala;Best Sweet Shop: ChainaRam Sindhi Confectioners;Best Confectionery: Side-walk; Best Pub/Bar: Rick’s;Best-Looking Pub/Bar:Djinns; Best Pub/Bar (withdancing): Capitol.

Instituted by The Times ofIndia and covering variouscategories of cuisine to re-flect the diverse preferencesof the Delhi palate, theseawards were presented torestaurants, eateries, pubsand bars which were ac-corded the highest ratingsin their individual cate-gories by The Times FoodGuide Delhi 2003.

The launch of The TimesFood Guide Delhi 2003 andthe awards ceremony wasattended by leading lightsfrom the fields of business,

politics, law, academics,fashion and the entertain-ment industry. Sarod maestro Ustad Amjad AliKhan, along with wife Subhalakshmiand sons Amaanand Ayaan,artist Satish Gu-jral and model-turned actorMilind Somanwere amongthose present onthe occasion.

The TimesFood Guide Del-hi 2003, the mostcomprehensive,exhaustive anddefinitive guideto eating out inthe Capital, waslaunched by ac-tress Urmila Matondkar.

The occasion was alsomarked by a sit-down din-ner with an adjoining foodcourt, in which each of the15 awardees showcased, and

served to the 300 specialinvitees present, the cui-sine for which they werehonoured.

While complimenting theTOI on bringingout the definitivecompanion toeating out in thecity, the guestslauded the ideabehind institu-t i o n a l i s i n gawards for thehighest-rankedrestaurants inDelhi.

‘‘An event likethis is wonderfulas it acknowl-edges the impor-tance of food inour lives, fo-cussing on it as a

community event ratherthan a communal one. Foodmakes people come togetherin a feeling of communityand happiness,’’ said admanSuhel Seth.

Model, choreographerMarc Robinson was equallysupportive of the TimesFood Awards. He said TheTimes Food Guide Delhi 2003had taken the first edition ofThe Times Good EatingGuide, released a few yearsback, a step forward.‘‘Everybody likes food and abook like this is a must-haveto know where in the city you can get the best,’’he added.

The 300-plus page TheTimes Food Guide Delhi 2003is priced at Rs 100 and in-cludes more than 1,000 en-tries on eating out — inclu-sive of restaurants, eater-ies, caterers, takeaways,pubs and bars — and will beavailable at books hops inthe city by May 4. The earlybirds can place their ordersby calling 9604600600, orsms-ing FOOD GUIDE to8888, or logging on tow w w. f o o d g u i d e. i n d i a -times.com

Water situationlikely to improve

By Pradeep RanaTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The supply ofwater to south and east Delhimay improve, only marginal-ly though, on Saturday as thewater released from the upper Ganga canal at Harid-war is expected to reach theBhagirathi treatment planton Friday night.

The crunch could well con-tinue though as the water inthe canal has almost beenused up and the plant is de-pending solely on the excesssupply from Haryana.

Several areas in south Del-hi faced severe water crisison Thursday as the Bhagi-rathi plant stopped function-ing because of power failurefrom 7.10 pm to 10:55 pm.

‘‘Due to the power failure,about 14 mgd (million gallonper day) water could not betreated. This is about 15 percent of the total water treat-ed by the Bhagirathi plantevery day,’’ said Rakesh Seth,chief engineer (water works)of the Delhi Jal Board.

On Tuesday night, Ut-taranchal had opened thefloodgates of the canal which

had been closed on April 16for the ardh kumbh melapreparations at Haridwar.

According to sources, thecanal water had dried byApril 24. But DJB claims thecrunch felt in the city hadless to do with the closure ofthe canal and more with thelocal conditions.

‘‘Our plant at Bhagirathihad been running to maxi-mum capacity as Haryanahad released more water tous. But we need more raw wa-ter to meet the growing de-mands of the city,’’ DJB chiefP K Tripathi said.

He claimed arrangementshave been made to supply wa-ter through tankers in the af-fected areas. ‘‘These are,however, stop-gap arrange-ments. Delhi will get reliefonly when Sonia Vihar plantcomes into operation nextyear,’’ he said.

Seth said the DJB hadmade alternative arrange-ments to get water fromHaryana during the dry peri-od. ‘‘Haryana had agreed torelease more water into thewest Yamuna canal from its Tajewala headworks,’’Seth said.

• No portable bath facili-ty in Safdarjung burnsward

• Few dust-absorbingdoor mats and air cur-tains which are a must atthe entrances of ICUs

• Hospitals yet to speci-fy standard and maintaintemperature for eachward (National BurnsCentre in Singapore hasa ventilation systemwhere air is replaced 20times in an hour)

• Leakage of waterpipes and tangled wirescommon in hospitals

Problem areas

Alleged killersof eunuchsrefused bailNew Delhi: A local court onThursday rejected the bailapplications of two personsallegedly involved in themurder of eunuch Zarinaand a metropolitan magis-trate remanded the man,charged with shooting deadanother eunuch Neelam atTiz Hazari court complex, to14-day judicial custody.

Additional district andsessions judge Ved PrakashVaish dismissed the bail ap-plication of Dharampal anda eunuch Gita after theywere produced in his courton charges of shooting deadZarina on October 4, 2002.

The duo, along with ManjuSingh Solanki, allegedlyhatched a conspiracy to mur-der Neelam. Instead, Zarinawas allegedly murdered atRaghuvir Nagar in west Del-hi by Parvesh Kumar as acase of mistaken identity.

Dharampal, Gita, Solankiand Parvesh are currently inTihar jail.

Metropolitan magistrateRakesh Syal sent Mani Gopalto judicial custody till May15. Gopal allegedly gunneddown 38-year-old Neelam onApril 28.PTI

Man blinded in sinus surgeryBy Pallavi MajumdarTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A 43-year-oldman lost his right eye afterundergoing a nasal surgeryfor sinusitis in a private hos-pital in west Delhi.

The patient, NareshMehra, held his doctor re-sponsible for the loss. He haslodged a complaint with thePunjabi Bagh police stationand is also approaching theconsumer court.

Mehra, a photographer byprofession, was admitted toMaharaja Agrasen Hospitalin Punjabi Bagh on April 15for a sinus surgery. ‘‘The doctors told me it was a mi-nor operation and would be over in an hour,’’ he said.He was discharged the next day.

‘‘Since the day I was dis-charged, I had pain andswelling in my right eye. Ikept calling the doctor whosaid nothing could be doneuntil the gauze was re-moved,’’ Mehra said.

When he returned to thehospital on April 18, the doc-tor re-admitted him and puthim on a heavy dose of an-tibiotics for three days.

When his condition did notimprove, Mehra was sent infor a magnetic resonance im-aging (MRI) test. The test re-vealed that the infection had

spread to the eye.Subsequently, doctors from

Sir Ganga Ram Hospitalwere consulted and on April21, Dr S N Jha was called in todrain out the pus fromMehra’s eye. Mehra, howev-er, alleged that he had lost hiseye on April 15 itself, soon after the sinus surgery wascarried out.

According to Dr Jha,Mehra is suffering from or-bital cellulitis. ‘‘This compli-cation does arise in such sur-geries. The tests have shownpoor conductivity in the opticnerve and chances are highthat the patient will lose vi-sion,’’ Dr Jha said.

A clearer picture wouldemerge only after five-10days, he said. Mehra has al-

leged that he was not in-formed about the possibilityof such complications.

Dr P Sharma, who per-formed the nasal surgery,said: ‘‘This is a rare butknown complication. The pa-tient was put on heavy an-tibiotics to prevent the infec-tion from affecting the eye.Complications can happen inany surgery.’’

Safdarjung Hospital’s ENTdepartment head Dr A K Raisaid: ‘‘Such complications dohappen, but efforts should bemade to avoid them. The pa-tient too, needs to be in-formed about it. But this caseneeds to be examined ingreater detail before holdingthe doctor responsible,’’he said.

TOI

Naresh Mehra, who lost his right eye in a surgery in MaharajaAgrasen hospital in Punjabi Bagh with his family.

Manoj Kesharwani

Film actress Urmila Matondkar releasing The Times Food Guide Delhi 2003 at Taj MahalHotel on Thursday evening.

CMYK

D E L H IThe Times of India, New Delhi Friday, May 2, 2003 3

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IITian tops civil service examSix of top 20 successful candidates are Delhi students

By Anuradha MukherjeeTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: It’s tough to getthrough Ankur Garg’s (22)telephone number. He is acelebrity tonight. The Indi-an Institute of Technology(IIT), Delhi, graduate hastopped the civil services ex-amination this year.

A total of 1,57,486 candi-dates took the exam ofwhom 286 finally made it tothe civil services — IndianAdministrative Services(IAS), Indian Police Ser-vices (IPS) and Central Ser-vices Group A and B.

Garg has made it to theIAS in his maiden attempt.A graduate in electrical en-gineering, he chose chem-istry and physics as his op-tional subjects for the exam.

Speaking from his home-town Patiala, Garg soundedecstatic. ‘‘An engineer top-ping the civil services examshould serve as a fitting re-ply to those who think engi-neers should stay out of theIndian Administrative Ser-vices (IAS),’’ Garg said.

His thoughts were echoedby Noida-based AvantikaGautam (22), another engi-neering graduate from Ne-taji Subhash Institute ofTechnology, Dwarka. ‘‘It’stotally undemocratic to sug-gest that engineers shouldbe kept out. We need expert-ise in all fields in the servic-es,’’ said Gautam.

She, too, has qualified inthe first attempt and stood15th rank. For Gautam, anArmy Public School(Dhaula Kuan) alumna, thiswas the ultimate dream. ‘‘Idid not think I would getthrough and had alreadystarted preparing for thethe next exam. Every time Ifelt my confidence ebbing,my father buoyed me up,’’

she said. A graduate in in-strumentation and controlengineering, she chose ge-ography and psychology asher optionals despite neverhave studied Arts.

Baba Kharak Singh Margresident and 12th rank hold-er Siddharth Mahajan (27)says he was slightly takenaback by his rank. ‘‘I didn’texpect to do so well. This ismy third attempt,’’ he said.

But for Mahajan, already apart of the Indian Civil Ac-counts Services, it wasmerely an attempt at im-proving his cadre.

Of the top 20 candidates,at least six have a Delhi con-nection.

While 3rd rankerAswathy S from Thiru-vananthapuram is the na-tional topper amongwomen, Delhi topper and

7th ranker Swati Sharma isa Hindu College alumna.

Second ranker AvinashChampawat is a post-gradu-ate from JNU, while Sid-dhartha Mahajan is anSRCC and Campus LawCentre, DU, product. Six-teenth rank holder Ban-dana Preyashi is also a DUalumna and has done hergraduation from In-draprastha College.

Sanjay Sekhri

Anxious aspirants throng the UPSC Bhawan to check out their results on Thursday.

Village to get its first IAS officerTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Lokesh Ku-mar Singhcould bare-ly believehis eyes.‘ ‘ P l e a s eread thisname forme... which

rank is it?’’ he pleadedwith bystanders.

‘‘But who is thisSingh?’’ he was asked.‘‘Main hee hoon (I am),’’ hereplied. Singh is the 10thrank holder.

On regaining his bear-ings, Singh is careful tomention that he has stud-ied in the Hindi medium.

A researcher in Luc-know University, he hailsfrom a small village, SagarChuraman, in east Cham-

paran district of Bihar. Afarmer’s son, Singh is thefirst man from his villageto make it to the civil serv-ices.

‘‘Where I come from, noone has even become agazetted officer,’’ he said.

‘‘IAS was a missionwhile studying history inLucknow University. Fi-nally, the impossible hashappened.’’

Trader robbedof Rs 3 lakh

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Three armedmen robbed Rs three lakhfrom a factory in northwestDelhi on Thursday morning.

Deputy commissioner ofpolice (northwest), SanjaySingh, said three men brokein the factory of ChanderMohan Gupta in D-blockWazirpur Industrial Area at6 am on Thursday and tookaway Rs 3 lakh lying in thealmirahs.

The police said the factorymanager, Hitesh (24) and se-curity guard, Nek Ram (50)tried to stop the robbers, butthey threatened the two withknives and got away.

A case of robbery has beenregistered in Ashok Viharpolice station.

‘Don’t bardoctors fromcivil services’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Delhi statebranch of the Indian MedicalAssociation (IMA) on Thurs-day criticised a parliamen-tary panel’s recommendationto the government to disal-low professionals from join-ing civil services.

The association said thatinstead of awarding thesemedical graduates who excelin other streams, the govern-ment is trying to say thatsuch professionals are notqualified to become civil ser-vants.

The association pointedout that there are about 8,000to 10,000 qualified doctorswho are either underem-ployed or unemployed.

‘‘If they join the Indian Ad-ministrative Services, theywill actually be serving thecountry as they have the in-tellectual capability to excelin any field,’’ said Dr VijayMalhotra, IMA’s honorarystate secretary.

DTC to revamp workshopTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Delhi Trans-port Corporation (DTC)isplanning to convert its ram-shackle workshop into an in-spection and maintenanceunit to fix its new fleet ofCompressed Natural Gas-runbuses and private commer-cial vehicles.

‘‘The plan to build a newinspection and maintenanceworkshop stems from the

idea of checking vehicularpollution of existing vehi-cles,’’ state transport minis-ter Ajay Maken said.

The existing inspectionsystem at Burari is inade-quate to inspect the in-use ve-hicles.

The system is not onlyshort of proper equipment,but also unable to handle thelarge number of vehicles go-ing for annual inspection.

Judge passed orders in cases not hisBy Bhadra Sinha

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Former Delhihigh court judge ShameetMukherjee passed orders incases that were not beingheard by him, the CentralBureau of Investigation(CBI) has alleged. While pass-ing an order in the case ofAzad Singh versus Delhi De-velopment Authority,Mukherjee also passed an or-der with respect to four othercases filed to oppose thewidening of Aruna Asaf Aliroad.

‘‘Mukherjee wanted hisjudgement in one of the cas-es to be applied to all relatedpending cases. He also men-tioned their suit numbers inhis order,’’ a CBI officer said.

When DDA’s counsel in thehigh court Gita Mittal askedthe authority to file an appealbefore a division bench, shewas removed. ‘‘At Mukher-jee’s instance, the allegedmiddleman Dharambir Khat-

tar spoke to property dealerVinod Khatri who paid for-mer vice-chairman SubhashSharma to get Mittal re-moved,’’ the officer said.

‘‘We were surprised to geta note from chief legal advis-er S K Tandon, transferringthe case to Rakesh Munjal,’’ aDDA officer said.

According to a CBI officer,five cases were filed in thehigh court opposing thewidening of Aruna Asaf Ali

Road by the Public Works De-partment. While the caseswere filed by different per-sons, the CBI alleges thatthey were fronts for propertydealer Vinod Khatri.

In his order passed on Feb-ruary 17, 2003, Mukherjee al-lowed the petitioner’s per-mission to hold a sub-divi-sional magistrate’s inquiry.He dismissed the DDA’s re-quest to widen the road by 45metres and said it could bedone only by 20 metres.

Mittal was removed imme-diately after she asked theDDA to file an appeal againstthis order. On February 20, inthe order that was recoveredfrom Khattar’s Jangpura of-fice, the former judge hadasked the SDM to hold a fairinquiry and not behave like aDDA’s officer.

‘‘We had opposed the in-quiry because it was easy forthe residents to ma nipulatethe records,’’ the officer said.

Cameraman,lawyer injuredin scuffleNew Delhi: A lawyerand a private TV chan-nel’s cameraman wereinjured in a clash whenformer judge ShameetMukherjee was beingtaken out of the PatialaHouse courts.

Lawyer Narender Ku-mar Srivastava andcameraman D K Shar-ma were allegedly in-volved in a scfuffle aftersome lawyers preventedSharma from filmingMukherjee. While Sri-vastava received in-juries on the foreheadand forearm, Sharmacomplained of pain inthe neck. TNN

•Who made thechanges in the order

•Where was the orderfound from DharambirKhattar’s office typed

•How did the highcourt’s judicial files reachKhattar’s office

CBI yet to find

DDAGATE

CMYK

D E L H I The Times of India, New Delhi4 Friday, May 2, 2003

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BANGKOK/TOKYO: Thai Air 0010 (TG-316),A-I 0050 (IC-855) FRANKFURT: Lufthansa 0305 (LH-761) AMSTERDAM:KLM 0140 (KL-472) LONDON: British Air 0210 (BA-142) PARIS: Air France 0040 (AF-147),A-I 0205 (AI-159) SINGAPORE: Sin’pore Airlines 2315 (SQ-407),A-I 0050 (IC-855)DAHRAIN:A-I 0245 (AI-818)ROME/MANCHESTER:A-I 0300 (AI-139) HONG KONG/SEOUL:A-I 2340 (AI-310)

AHMEDABAD/MUMBAI:0010 (AI 127) MUMBAI: 2030 (AI 471)

WEATHERRain or thundershowers are likely to occur at a fewplaces in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Lakshadweep and atisolated places in Andaman and Nicobar islands,Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya, Nagaland,

Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, west Bengal and Sikkim, Orissa, Jhark-hand, Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh,Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, south Konkan and Goa,Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Max Min

INDIA

Guwahati 33 22 Dehradun 33 21Hyd’bad 38 26 Indore 42 25 Jaipur 40 27 Lucknow 36 23 Patna 33 21 Rajkot 43 24 Shimla 23 15 Srinagar 26 11

FLIGHTS OUTOF DELHI

Mumbai: I-A 0700,0800, 0900, 1200, 1300,1700, 1800, 1900, 2000,2300 Jet Air 0650,0800, 0935, 1400, 1725,1935, 2030, 2200,Sahara 1700, 0935,1520, 1800, 2025KOLKATA: I-A 0700,1600★★ ,1700,1945Jet Air 0600, 1720,Sahara 0620,1915CHENNAI: I-A0640,0955★★★1645,1900 Jet Air0645,1900BANGALORE:I-A 0650, 1645, 1900Jet Air 0635,1715,Sahara 0725, 1745HY’BAD:I-A 0630, 1745GOA: I-A 1200,Sahara 1200 KULU: Jagson 0630,0650, 1215 ★AHMEDABAD:I-A 0600,1700★★ 1845,Jet Air 0610 GUWAHATI—BAGDOGRA:I-A 0555★★ , 1010•★ Jet Air 1010

NATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL

AIR INDIA

Ph: I-A:140,142. ★ Mon, Wed,Fri, ★★ Tue, Thu, Sat, ★★★Mon-Fri, Sun, Jet Air: (City)6853700, (Airport) 25665404Sahara: (City) 2335901-9,(Airport) 25675234/875, (Tele-Checkin) 25662600. • Mon, Fri.

A-I: (City)23736446 /47/48(Air.)25652050, British Air:(Air.) 25652908, Lufthansa:23323310, Singapore Airlines23356286, Thai Air: 3323638

TRAIN RESERVATIONS

No. of passengers dealt on 30.04.2003 (Delhi Area): 67,112 (N. Rly. Area)2,54,426. It does not necessarily mean that reservation is available on allsubsequent dates. For further information regarding reservation: Ph: 131 forcomputerised PNR, for status enquiry contact 1330, 1335, 1345.

(Information supplied by Indian Railways)

Earliest date on which berth / seats were available at 2000 hrs. on01.05.2003 in important trains leaving various Delhi stations.

Train No. Train / Exp / Mail 1 ac 2 ac Ac 3t SlNORTH4033 Jammu Mail 03.05 07.05 24.05 07.054645 Shalimar Exp — 29.05 02.06 06.052403 Jammu Exp 07.05 21.05 27.05 26.05EAST2302 Kolkata Rajdhani 04.05 07.05 21.05 —2304 Poorva Exp 07.05 08.05 21.05 28.052382 Poorva Exp 02.05 05.05 20.05 02.062312 Kalka Mail N.A. 08.05 18.05 19.062392 Magadh Exp N.A. 19.05 19.05 22.052402 Shramjeevi Exp — 06.05 17.05 22.052418 Prayag Raj Exp 06.05 05.05 06.05 16.054056 Brahmputra Mail — N.A. 16.06 29.055622 North East Exp — 01.06 16.06 29.052554 Vaishali Exp 04.05 21.05 26.05 09.062816 Puri Exp — 03.05 05.06 22.052802 Purshottam Exp — 29.05 29.05 22.058476 Neelanchal Exp — 06.06 15.06 20.054230 Lucknow Mail 06.05 07.05 12.05 19.05WEST2904 Golden Temple Mail 05.05 07.05 11.06 13.062926 Paschim Exp 02.05 13.06 16.06 16.062952 Mumbai Rajdhani 02.05 05.06 09.06 —2954 AG Kranti Rajdhani 06.05 02.06 05.06 —2474 Sarvodaya Exp — 05.06 12.06 22.051078 Jhelum Exp — 13.06 22.05 07.062916 Ashram Exp 02.05 03.06 10.06 13.05SOUTH2616 G T Exp 07.05 02.06 09.06 22.052622 Tamil Nadu Exp 21.05 04.06 10.06 02.062432 Trivandrum Raj 24.06 29.06 24.06 —2626 Kerala Exp — 16.06 12.06 04.062618 Mangala Exp — 15.06 17.06 29.052628 Karnataka Exp — 04.06 07.06 20.052724 A P Exp 07.05 10.06 10.06 19.052430 Banglore Rajdhani 14.06 21.06 23.06 —7022 Dakshin Express — 29.05 — 04.05

Max MinDelhi 39 26 Mumbai 34 27 Chennai 35 26 Kolkata 36 22 Bangalore 32 22 Ahm’bad 44 27 T’puram 31 23 Bhopal 42 25 B’eshwar 38 23 Pune 40 25

WORLDMax Min

Amsterdam 16 08 Bahrain 28 23 Bangkok 35 27 Beijing 29 13 Chicago 17 08 Geneva 23 12 Hong Kong 30 24 London 18 10 Los Angeles 19 12 Moscow 13 08

No drinking waterin MCD schools

By Rahul ChhabraTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Thousands ofstudents in 35 municipal pri-mary schools have been sur-viving without drinking wa-ter with the taps running dryin the gruelling summerheat.

More than 31 schools havetubewells to provide waterfor drinking purposes, butthe students continue to suf-fer as the tubewells are out oforder.

A school in Hastsal, for in-stance, neither has a pipelinesupply nor a tanker serviceto cater to the students’needs.

The state of toilets inschools is also deplorable dueto the shortage of water.‘‘There is no water availablein the toilet blocks of 111 pri-mary schools,’’ said BJPchief and opposition leaderSubhash Arya.

A survey conducted by theMCD’s education depart-ment in the last week ofApril has come up withshocking details about thepoor state of civic amenitiesin schools.

The situation remains thesame despite the educationdepartment receiving thelargest budgetary allocationwhich is 18 per cent of the to-tal annual budget of Rs 2,268crore. More than 8 lakh stu-dents are enrolled in 1,300primary schools being run bythe MCD.

‘‘In 23 schools, even thoughwater is available throughpipe supply and taps, stu-dents are thirsty. The tanksfor storing water have beenrendered useless due tofaulty repair,’’ said Arya.

‘‘Nine schools out of theseare yet to get a regular tankersupply,’’ he said. Septic tanksin 62 schools have not beencleaned.

Burglaries plague VIP flatsBy Maneesh Pandey

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Residents ofgovernment flats on PandaraRoad have seen an alarmingincrease in thefts and burgla-ries in the past few months.Residents claim there were atleast seven thefts in the areain the last one month. The lo-cal police put the figure atfive this summer.

The presence of senior po-lice officials in the area hasfailed to act as a deterrent. Infact, recently, the house of anassistant commissioner ofpolice (ACP) was burgled.‘‘The burglars entered hishouse from the back door andmade away with severalitems,’’ a resident said.

‘‘There’s a deputy commis-sioner of police or an ACP atevery second block. Thereare police personnel postedoutside their houses. And yetwe have so many thefts

here,’’ the resident said.‘‘Most thefts take place in

the afternoon when housesare locked,’’ said RakeshBhatia, a programme officerin the health ministry. ‘‘Cou-ples are out working andchildren are in school till 2pm. If they can’t lay hands onanything else, the burglars

make away with our chil-dren’s cycles.’’

Bhatia said majority of thethefts were reported in B-block. His own house wasburgled last month.

Leela Sarkar, another resi-dent, was luckier. Last week,some burglars tried to breakinto her house. Some neigh-

bours noticed this and raisedan alarm.

The burglars escaped withsome brass locks.

‘‘Soon after the burglaryattempt at my house, anothertheft was reported from Bblock last week. In anothercase, a cycle was stolen froman enforcement official’shouse in the same block,’’Sarkar said.

Admitting that thefts hadrisen ‘‘marginally’’ in thearea, a senior police officialsaid frequent transfers ofgovernment officials was themain reason for the increasein crime.

‘‘There are so many peopleentering these flats on thepretext of knowing the offi-cer,’’ the officer said.

The police said both theTilak Marg and TughlakRoad police stations hadlaunched a drive against sus-pects in the area. They havedetained 30 people so far.

TOI

Security is a major concern for Pandara Road residents.

What are the symp-toms of SARS?Sudden onset of fever ac-companied by one or morerespiratory symptoms suchas dry cough, shortness ofbreath or difficulty inbreathing. In addition, theperson must have a historyof travel to one of the af-

fected countries or close contact with a SARS patient.

Can a SARS patient continue to spread the infection even after he has recoveredcompletely?Experts say once the patient recovers and all the symp-toms go away, there is no further transmission of the disease. However, a home quarantine upto 10 days is advised even after complete recovery.

What precautions can you take?Cover your nose and mouth while sneezing or coughing,avoid shaking hands if possible, wash hands frequently,avoid unnecessary travel to affected countries and if youhave any symptoms report to a health care facility immediately.

Facts on SARS

CMYK

D E L H IThe Times of India, New Delhi Friday, May 2, 2003 5

Agency to give alternate land for water bodyTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Delhi StateIndustrial Development Cor-poration (DSIDC) has agreedto give 4.5 acre of land as analternative site for the devel-opment of a water body inBawana. The land is in lieu ofthe site where the DSIDC isconstructing a common efflu-

ent treatment plant (CETP)to treat sewage before releas-ing it to Yamuna river.

The DSIDC counsel GitaMittal made this statementbefore the Delhi high courton Tuesday. Following thisassurance the high courtBench of Chief Justice B CPatel and Justice A K Sikrigave a go ahead to the DSIDC

to construct the CETP.The court had earlier

stayed the construction afteran advocate filed some photo-graphs stating that a CETPwas being constructed over awater body in Naraina.When the Public Works De-partment (PWD) was calledto the court, its officials saidthe DSIDC was filling up the

water body.After studying the area the

DSIDC on Tuesday told thecourt that the place was not awater body but a deep pitwhich got filled with waterduring the monsoon season.Mittal said the CETPs werebeing constructed in the cityaccording to the SupremeCourt directions.

Estate agentbeats upcouple, policefail to act

By Maneesh PandeyTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A couple resid-ing in the DDA flats in VasantEnclave, Vasant Vihar, whoprotested the illegal activi-ties of an estate agent havepaid a heavy price.

They have been physicallyassaulted five times in themonths of December andJanuary, and live under con-stant threat. The couple al-leged the local police hasturned a blind eye to theirplight.

Shankar Narayan, a char-tered accountant, and Vai-jayantimala Aiyer, a life in-surance advisor, have beenliving in 29-B, Janta Flats inVasant Enclave since 1993.Anil Kumar, a local real es-tate agent, had recentlybought the adjacent flat, 31-B.

Narayan said: ‘‘Now Ku-mar owns five flats aroundour building and has also en-croached on public land.’’

The couple objected whenKumar tried to build flatsnext to their own thus block-ing out sunlight and ventila-tion. The construction is stillon, they said.

A police complaint wasmade on November 30, 2002.On December 8, Kumar andhis family members alleged-ly entered Narayan’s houseand physically assaultedthem. Similar assaults weremade twice in December andtwice in January, 2003.

A complaint was alsolodged with ACP (Vasant Vi-har) office, but in vain.

Deputy commissioner ofpolice (southwest), TejinderLuthra, had even directedVasant Vihar police to takeappropriate actions againstKumar, but the couple al-leged that the police are nottaking appropriate action.

Police commissioner R SGupta has directed the localpolice to initiate appropriateactions against the guilty. ‘‘Inpersonnel and such indisci-pline in their conduct in pub-lic dealing will not be tolerat-ed,’’ he said.

Move to protectHimalayas

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Himalayas,the northern frontiers of In-dia for time immemorial,were the subject of a two-daymeeting held in the city re-cently. The first Parliamentof the Himalayan Culture,organised by the HimalayaParivar, discussed ‘‘thethreat to the security andidentity of these mightymountains.’’ The partici-pants spoke on both the caus-es of this threat as well aspossible solutions to protectthe Himalayas.

The meeting also dis-cussed the environmental,social and economic prob-lems of this area, arising outof thoughtless cutting oftrees throughout the fragileecosystem and constructionof big dams.

The consensus of the meet-ing was that these resourcesmust be tapped to spreadpeace, security and prosperi-ty. The focus, said the partici-pants, must be on how to pro-tect and increase the poten-tial of the natural energyavailable in the Himalayas.

Other sessions dealt withissues such as dealing withthe poverty of the people liv-ing in the Himalayan regionand exploring ways of ensur-ing sustainable livelihood.

Entrance test: Re-examina-tion for the math paper of theKerala Engineering EntranceTest, 2003 will be held on May7. Candidates who opted forDelhi as the exam centre canappear for the re-test at KeralaSchool, Canning Road.TNN

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Delhi government waits for its dueFor the past few years,the Delhi governmenthas not received fundsfrom the Centre, which itclaims is its due. Thisyear too, about Rs1,000 cr is yet to arrive,pending the PlanningCommission’s approval.We need the money fordevelopment work in thecity, says the Delhi government. ‘‘Every year,the Centre gives us asympathetic hearing butdoes nothing to releasethe funds,’’ chief minis-ter Sheila Dikshit said.

What the state government wantsRs 51 crore share from the VoluntaryDisclosure Income SchemeEvery state is entitled to a certain percentage of the amount collected by the Centre each year.

Rs 43 crore from the World Bank fundUnder a World Bank-fundedproject on technical educa-tion, the state governmenthas set up polytechnics and

technical institutes. The Centre is yet toreimburse the amount.

Rs 150 crore excess share in taxesDelhi gets Rs 325 crore as its sharefrom central taxes. Although the tax col-lection has gone up in the past threeyears, Delhi’s share has not.

Rs 100 crore for the Yamuna canalThe project cost Delhi Rs 380crore of which Rs 100 crorewas to be paid by the Centre.

The canal is ready but the money hasn’tarrived.

Rs 100 crore for relocatingand developing slumsFour million people live inslums in the city. The state

wants central funds for relocating themor developing the area.

Rs 200 crore to develop courtsTo develop courts in nine dis-tricts, the state needs aboutRs 500 crore. They want theCentre to contribute.

Rs 250 crore for hospitalsAbout 33 per cent of patientsvisiting Delhi hospitals arefrom other parts of the coun-try. Delhi govt wants money

to develop the city into a ‘health capital’.

Rs 200 crore for providing housing to the poor

Centre yet to release Rs 1,000 crore for development work

CMYK

The Times of India, New Delhi6 Friday, May 2, 2003

PROPERTY

BAZAAR

VEHICLES

RECRUITMENT

BUSINESSSERVICES

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TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The Indian Read-ership Survey’s findings for2002, released earlier thisweek, which noted a declineof two per cent in readers ofthe print media across lan-guages since 2001, has drawnflak. Media watchers point toa Hindustan Times article,which aims to rubbish IRS-2002, widely acknowledged asthe most dependable studyon media penetration.

The study clearly statesthat the world’s largest dailyEnglish newspaper, TheTimes of India, continues toretain the top slot amongEnglish publications with 61lakh readers.

TOI also retains the 10thslot across all languages with60.9 lakh readers. The bone ofcontention appears to havebeen the ninth slot in the lat-ter category, which the sur-vey erroneously mentionedas Hindustan Times, with

63.4 lakh readers, in a presshandout on Tuesday.

The release further saidthat ‘‘the two leading Englishpublications (TOI and HT)are neck-to-neck with eachother’’.

Media analysts said it wasthis mistake — which was al-most immediately rectified— that HT had played up inits article.

Members of the press, ad-vertisers and media plannerswho were present at the re-lease of the survey onWednesday by Media Re-search Users Council and theNFO-MBL (which undertake

the IRS survey) were clearlyinformed about the error,and told that the ninth slotshould actually read Hindus-tan, HT’s sister publicationin Hindi. The sentence allud-ing to the ‘‘neck-to-neckrace’’ was also to be deleted.The Media Research UsersCouncil subsequently issueda written corrigendum tothis effect.

That fact appears to havegone unnoticed by the HTcorrespondent in his article,media watchers noted. Theyadded that since the IRS-2002survey mentioned only thetop 10 dailies in the all India,

urban and rural category, HTdid not feature in it at all.

Hindustan, the Hindi dailyfrom that group’s stable, hadan urban plus rural reader-ship of 54.9 lakh, accordingto IRS-2001. The paper did notmerit a mention in the top 10last year since the 10th posi-tion had a readership base of61 lakh and Hindustan wasway down the ladder, said in-dustry sources.

The urban figure for Hin-dustan was 26.3 lakh in IRS-2001, again way below the10th slot, which was baggedby Anand Bazaar Patrikawith 37 lakh readers. Onceagain, the paper had there-fore not merited a mention inthe 2001 survey.

The rural readership ofHindustan was 28.6 lakh inIRS-2001 and 33 lakh in IRS-2002, again way below the top10 readership table. The IRSonly caters to the top 10dailies, which have made amark in their respective cate-

gories.The IRS-2002 is the only

readership survey based onCensus 2001, and is thelargest continuous mediasurvey monitoring demo-graphics, media habits andproduct\brand usage in In-dia. For IRS-2002, an annualsample size of 2.29 lakh wastaken and a total of 986 townsand 2,858 villages were sur-veyed.

CMYK

I N D I AThe Times of India, New Delhi Friday, May 2, 2003 7AP

Prime Minister Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani wait for the Vietnamese Communist Party chief at Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi on Thursday.

BJP, RSS meetto improve ties,plan for polls

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A high-profilethree-day meeting of SanghParivar leaders with the gov-ernment and BJP represen-tatives began on Thursday.The meeting’s underlyingagenda is improving rela-tions between the RSS andthe government.

Though RSS spokesmanRam Madhav described themeeting at the Chandiwalaestate in South Delhi as ‘‘rou-tine’’, the conclave of seniorleaders of the RSS, all its af-filiates and the governmentassumes significance as fourimportant north Indianstates go to polls in the nextsix months.

‘‘The meeting is aimed atbringing in better coordina-tion and understanding be-tween all the affiliates of theRSS and the government. Amessage of perfect under-standing between the govern-ment and the Parivar wouldgo out after such a meeting,’’said an RSS source.

Prime Minister Vajpayee,DPM L K Advani, HRD min-ister Murli Manohar Joshi,BJP president VenkaiahNaidu and general secre-taries attended the meeting.

The RSS was representedby sarsanghachalak K S Su-darshan, the joint generalsecretary in charge of BJP,Madandas Devi, H V Se-shadri, M G Vaidya and thespokesman Ram Madhav.Ashok Singhal of the VishwaHindhu Parishad (VHP), Mu-ralidhar Rao of the SwadeshiJagran Manch (SJM) werepresent along with represen-tatives of other affiliates like

the Bharatiya MazdoorSingh, the Vanvasi KalyanAshram, the VidyarthiParishad.

The forenoon session ofthe meeting was devoted toforge a consensus on variouscontentious issues. Internalsecurity and Kashmir werealso likely to figure in discus-sions. A greater understand-ing among all the affiliateswould become a pre-requisitefor a coordinated electioncampaign for the BJP.

According to PTI, Madan-das Devi was asked about theoutbursts against the govern-ment by parivar outfits in-cluding the VHP and theSJM. He admitted a ‘‘commu-nication gap’’ among its affil-iates and said, ‘‘all organisa-tions look at national inter-ests in their own way.

They are free to expresstheir thoughts in a democra-cy but that should be donewith civility and without bit-terness. All issues can besorted out through communi-cation.’’

The Ayodhya issue, theJ&K government’s ‘‘healingtouch’’ policy, the next WTOround in Mexico, religiousconversions and ban on cowslaughter are among the keyissues to be discussed duringthe three-day meet.

Excise loss ongutkha may leadto more masala

By Rajesh RamachandranTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Comptrol-ler and Auditor General’snote on the finance min-istry’s failure to tax gutkhain his report on Central ex-cise could provide the CBIwith the proverbial miss-ing link in the Flex Indus-tries scandal.

Flex industries CMDAshok Chaturvedi andchief excise commissionerSomeshwar Mishra werearrested by the CBI on No-vember 7, 2001. Mishraconfessed to the CBI thathe had picked up Jhark-hand governor PrabhatKumar’s entertainmentbills, when the latter hadbeen cabinet secretary. Ku-mar was forced to resignbut Yashwant Sinha, whowas finance minister atthe time, successfullyfought off the oppositioncharge that he had actedimproperly.

As the controversyraged on, it was widely re-ported that the CBI was in-vestigating Chaturvedi’salleged role as a conduitfor pan masala manufac-turer.

Now, the CAG has foundthat there was ‘‘a loss ofrevenue due to inordinatedelay in amendment in tar-iff ’’ for gutkha by the fi-nance ministry, thus caus-ing a loss of hundreds ofcrores to the exchequer.

Tobacco attracts addi-tional excise duty (AED),but it was not applicable to

gutkha till the SC on Janu-ary 25, 2000 ruled that itwas a tobacco product. TheSC said gutkha did notcome under the state salestax since such items are to-bacco products and duty isleviable by the Union gov-ernment.

Following this, variouscommissioners of Centralexcise issued show-causenotices to gutkha manu-facturers.

But the finance ministryand the CBEC slept overthe issue for a full year,amending the tariff basedon the Supreme Court or-der only on February 28,2001 in the Budget.

Later, the CBEC issuedinstructions on August 2,2001 that gutkha need notbe classified as tobacco tillthe 2001 Budget and thisled to the dropping of 44earlier show- cause no-tices, involving duties ofRs 51.3 crore made for AEDduring the period betweenthe SC ruling and the 2001Budget.

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•Greater understandinga prerequisite for coordi-nated election campaign

•Forging a consensuson various contentiousissues

Meeting agenda

•SC classified gutkhaas a tobacco productin 2000

•But the amended tariff order was imple-mented in 2001

•The CAG has as-sessed the loss at Rs 85 crores

Money matters

IRS-2002 findings accurate: Media watchers• Study clearly states that The Times of India retains thetop slot among English publications with 61 lakh readers

• The newspaper also retains the 10th slot across alllanguages with 60.9 lakh readers

• Hindustan Times does not figure in the top 10 dailies,urban and rural category

What the experts say

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Maharashtracuts tax onlive shows

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The Maharashtragovernment has decided tocut entertainment tax on liveshows by half. The tax in thestate was among the highestin the country.

Speaking to mediapersonsafter a cabinet meeting onTuesday, chief ministerSushilkumar Shinde said theentertainment tax of 39 percent plus 10 per cent sur-charge had now been re-duced to 25 per cent.

The decision was taken af-ter the government observedthat a large number of or-ganisers had shifted outsideMumbai, despite the city be-ing dubbed the ‘‘entertain-ment capital’’ of the country,he said.

The government nowhopes to mobilise Rs 3 croreannually, whereas the entirecollection last year was aboutRs 1 crore.

While such shows were nottaxed earlier, the governmentimposed a steep 50 per centtax in 2000 under revenueminister Ashok Chavan. Incomparison, Karnatakacharges 10 per cent enter-tainment tax and AndhraPradesh does not charge any-thing at all.

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George loyalists look for greener pasturesBy Anita Katyal

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: There is grow-ing apprehension amongsupporters of defence min-ister George Fernandes inthe Samata Party after he capitulated to his political rival, railway min-ister Nitish Kumar, and sus-pended three of his ownsupporters.

If his loyalists have notarticulated their frustrationvociferously, it is only be-cause Fernandes wrote tothem from China urgingthem not to rake up intra-party battles while he is

away on an important visit.Even the two Samata

MPs, Raghunath Jha andBrahmanand Mandal, whohad shot off an angry letter10 days ago calling for thedefence minister’s ousterfrom the Union cabinet,have been lying low.

Now that Fernandes isback, the two rival campsare getting restive and thecoming days could well wit-ness another protracted bat-tle in the faction-ridden party.

The diatribe against Fer-nandes has not gone downwell with the recently set-updisciplinary committee,

headed by party MP Prab-hunath Singh.

The committee is alsomandated to initiate actionagainst other Fernandesloyalists in Bihar, who havealready been suspended for

publicly criticising Nitish.Fernandes’ supporters

claim that though they havebeen left out in the cold, thedefence minister has en-sured his re-election fromNalanda by giving in to therailway minister.

He cannot win from hisKurmi-dominated con-stituency without the support of Kurmi leader Nitish.

They fear that in the com-ing months, they will be in-creasingly isolated withinthe party and could well bedenied the ticket in the com-ing general elections.

They are biding time and

will look for ‘‘avenues’’ out-side the Samata fold.

‘‘The party will notsplit...it will gradually disin-tegrate,’’ said a Fernandescamp follower.

Nitish’s supporters, how-ever, do not endorse talk ofFernandes loyalists leavingthe party.

They point out that onlyfive or six MPs and legisla-tors are unhappy with theparty leadership.

Dismissing all talk of dif-ferences between the twoleaders, they claim that Ni-tish and Fernandes have al-ways acted in tandem.

• With Fernandes back,the rival camps are getting restive

• The coming dayscould witness anotherprotracted battle

• Fernandes supportersfear they will be isolated

Rising discontent

AFP

Software professionals perform a popular number at a show in Bangalore on Thursday. Seven bands from top IT firms in the city shed their mundane code-writing jobs to belt outpopular tunes to a 600-plus audience.

‘Why is there nomoney for culture?’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The reduction inthe plan outlay for culturehas come in for criticismfrom Parliament’s standingcommittee on department oftourism and culture.

In its report to the RajyaSabha, the committee hasalso expressed displeasure atthe ‘‘lackadaisical approach’’Archaeological Survey of In-dia (ASI) in publishing itspending excavation reports.

Stating that its share of 0.2per cent of the total plan out-lay is ‘‘abysmally low’’, thecommittee has recommend-ed that the department be al-located more funds so it canfulfil its targets. ‘‘The gov-ernment should address thefinancial requirements morerealistically and allocate theamounts more judiciously,’’the report said.

The committee found thatthe amount earmarked for

capital works for the depart-ment is also reflected in thedemands for grants of the ur-ban development ministry.‘‘The committee took seriousnote of the reduction in theamount at the stage of re-vised estimates by the urbandevelopment ministry with-out taking the department ofculture into confidence,’’ thereport says.

The committee has recom-mended that the amount forcapital works should be allo-cated in the demand forgrants of the department ofculture and placed at its dis-posal to ensure better imple-mentation and control.

While criticising the ASIfor the delay in publishing itsreports, the committee alsofound that it has meagre re-sources which makes it diffi-cult for it to protect andmaintain all the 3,616 monu-ments/sites under its charge.

CMYK

Lankan talks: Key figures in theLankan peace process will havetalks with India’s top leadership inthe next few days. While the SriLankan Minister for Economic re-forms Milinda Moragoda andBernard Gunatilake, a senior official,both involved in the peace process,were to arrive on Thursday night, theJapanese special envoy and thenorwegian Deputy Foreign Ministerwill follow.TNN

Drainage scam: One of the sen-ior-most IAS officers in Punjab, Ra-jesh Chhabra, who is principal sec-retary, Medical Education and Re-search, has been named as an ac-cused in the Rs 300-crore drainagescam even as the investigating po-lice team questioned another seniorIAS officer Bikramjit Singh in thecase in Chandigarh on Tuesday. TNN

Indo-Bangla ties: India andBangladesh have agreed to revivethe joint boundary working groupsto work towards early resolution ofborder demarcation. A decision onthis was taken at the meeting of theforeign secretaries in Dhaka on April29-30. TNN

MEA on Afghanistan: The re-placement of ISAF forces inAfghanistan with NATO forces hasevoked no comment from India.Asked about the implications of thischange, the external affairsspokesperson said it was ‘‘too gen-eral’’ a question to answer. TNN

11 dead in Rajouri mishap: Atleast 11 persons were killed and 40injured, when a passenger bus fellinto a deep gorge in Rajouri districtof Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday.Rescue operation had beenlaunched and the injured have beenhospitalised in Rajouri, sources said.Five of the seriously injured wereflown to Government Medical Col-lege Hospital in Jammu. PTI

Rajesh Khanna receives the RajKapoor Award at the 40th MarathiFilm Awards night from chief min-ister Sushil Kumar Shinde on theeve of Maharashtra day in Mumbaion Wednesday.

PTI

INDIA DIGEST

I N D I AThe Times of India, New Delhi Friday, May 2, 2003 9

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Sanjay Sekhri

Actresses Urmila Matondkar, Sonali Bendre with former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar after they received the MaharashtraGaurav awards during Maharashtra Day celebrations in New Delhi on Thursday.

‘Chronic hunger not apriority for state Govts’

By Parul ChandraTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: ‘‘The elimination of chron-ic hunger does not get anything like thepriority it deserves in policy planningand Budget allocations. One symptom ofthis is routine violation of the SupremeCourt’s orders by the respondent gov-ernments.’’

The third report of the commissionerappointed by the SC, N C Saxena, tomonitor the implementation of severalschemes aimed at providing food securi-ty to the poor, says this and much more.

Saxena was appointed commissionerin the light of a writ petition filed by thePeople’s Union for Civil Liberties(PUCL), Rajasthan, in April 2001 askingthat the huge foodstocks in the countryshould be used to check hunger andstarvation.

While noting that the court’s inter-vention has resulted in states takingmeasures to provide food to the poor,‘‘there has been virtually no responsefrom state governments’’ in states likeBihar and Uttar Pradesh.

As an example, take the court’s orders

of November 28, 2001, asking states toprovide cooked mid-day meals in all pri-mary schools whether government-runor government-assisted within the nextsix months. Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand,Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have notimplemented the order even about 1.5years after it was passed.

The report says ‘‘there are many seri-ous concerns’’ regarding the targetedpublic distribution system (TPDS). Forone, the list of Below Poverty Line(BPL) families meant to benefit underthe TPDS is ‘‘highly unreliable’’ as theselection procedure was ‘‘defective andoften misused.’’ The result, says the re-port, is that many poor households don’thave BPL cards.

Curiously, even though foodgrains areprovided at subsidised rates to BPL fam-ilies, the off-take by states remains low,prompting Saxena to ask for ‘‘urgent in-vestigation and action’’.

The report also takes note of the di-version of foodgrains meant for the PDSpointing out how ‘‘a substantial part ofthe food listed from FCI godowns is ap-propriated by vested interests and neverreaches the intended households’’.

BPCL to go it aloneon Bina refinery

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Bharat Petrole-um Corporation Ltd (BPCL),which is to be disinvestedthrough public offering, willcomplete the proposed refin-ery at Bina in MadhyaPradesh on its own at a costof Rs 6,354 crore.

The Cabinet Committee onEconomic Affairs (CCEA) onTuesday night clearedBPCL’s proposal to raise itsequity in the six-milliontonne per annum refineryfrom from 26 per cent to 50per cent.

Oil minister Ram Naiksaid on Wednesday that themove would not have an im-pact on the disinvestmentprocess. ‘‘With the uncertain-ity removed, the share valuewill be pushed up in the longrun as it is a paying refinery

with a 16.3 per cent internalrate of return,’’ Naik said.

The completion of the re-finery had become a majordebating point between theoil and disinvestment min-istries. The latter wanted thecompletion of the refinery tobe left to the new owners. Butthe oil ministry wanted nosuch leeway, saying the coun-try needed the refinery inview of future demandgrowth.

BPCL will now raise its eq-uity contribution in the re-finery from Rs 549 crore to Rs1,271 crore, which is equal to50 per cent of the revised eq-uity requirement for execut-ing the project. Oman OilCompany will hold about two per cent equity, while the rest is to be garneredfrom financial institutionsand the public.

Arguments still on over Andaman oilBy Sanjay Dutta

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The defence min-istry’s opposition to allowingfirms from neighbouring coun-tries to hunt for oil and gas in theAndaman archipelago does nothold water as foreign naval ves-sels have operated in the area aspart of joint exercises with theIndian Navy since 1999.

At an official-level meetingwith the petroleum ministry lastweek, the defence ministrybacked down on its long opposi-tion to allowing firms from Chi-na, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pak-istan and West Asia to operate inthe area. But a final decision willbe taken in a few days when oilminister Ram Naik discusses theissue with defence ministerGeorge Fernandes.

What is certain though is thatthe government will include twohighly-prospective deepwater

blocks east of Port Blair in the 26blocks for which it will invitebids from exploration firms inthe first week of next month.

The defence ministry has al-ways been cagey about havingforeign survey ships with hi-techequipment sailing in the back-

yard of its unified command atPort Blair, which overlooks keyeast-west sea routes.

Defence analysts point to thepossibility of leakage of data onthe Andaman Sea’s peculiar lay-ers of salinity as a major con-cern for the defence ministry.‘‘The Andaman Sea has morevaried layers of salinity thanother seas. At particular salinitylevels and depths, submarinescan evade detection,’’ one ana-lyst said.

The analysts said the presenceof foreign survey vessels wouldnot substantially increase thethreat of electronic snooping.‘‘The Chinese are already run-ning a naval base in Myanmar’sCoco Island off the Andamancoast. You don’t need ships to spyon a country. There are othermeans like satellites.’’

Indeed, warships from SriLanka, Thailand, Indonesia and

Singapore visited Port Blair aspart of Milan, an Indian Navyexercise, in 1999.

Again in 2000, warships fromMalaysia, Thailand, France andJapan visited several Indianports, passing through the An-daman Sea. Indonesian navalvessels also visited Port Blair in2001.

Recently, during the Afghanoperations, US Navy warshipsregularly passed the MalaccaStrait under escort of the IndianNavy.

Both Naik and his officials re-fused to comment on the issue.‘‘Whatever decision we (withGeorge Fernandes) take, it willtake care of the country’s securi-ty concerns. The country’s secu-rity comes first and oil and gascomes later,’’ Naik had said dur-ing his visit last week to PortBlair to inaugurate IndianOil’sLPG bottling plant.

•Defence ministry does notwant foreign vessels near itsunified command at PortBlair

•But you don’t need shipsto spy on a country; thereare other means like satel-lites

•Final decision in a fewdays when oil minister RamNaik meets defence ministerGeorge Fernandes

Point-counterpoint

11-yr-old brewsliquor for a living

By Roli SrivastavaTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The job: Brew-ing hooch in a darubhatthi, making five kg ofpapad everyday, rollingagarbattis or carryingthree kg of bricks in theheat of a brick kiln. Work-ing hours: Seven days aweek, over 12 hours a day.The pay: Rs 5 to Rs 20 a day.The worker: The girl child.

These pitiful tales ofchild labour — whichcould be the stories ofaround 40 million girlchild workers in the coun-try — were shared by 30young girls (seven-to 14-year-olds) on the occasionof Anti-Child Labour Dayhere on Wednesday. Themeeting was organised bythe Campaign AgainstChild Labour (CACL).

The girls also met thechief minister to put forththeir demands and discusstheir problems with him.And, formal education wason top of their agenda.

The CACL has demand-ed that all forms of labour,especially girl child labour,

be included as hazardousunder the Child LabourProhibition and Regula-tion Act (CLPRA-1986).

The girls had movingtales to narrate. Mayafrom Nagpur, for instance,brews liquor all day in a daru bhatthi. She isbarely 11.

She carries huge drums,brews liquor on a highflame and has to inhale thesmoke all day. ‘‘My eyeshurt,’’ she said, addingthat for brewing one drumshe earns Rs 5. She brewsfour a day.

Not because she wantsto earn more, but becausethe employer cuts hersalary if she brews less.She is the only child whoworks in the bhatthi. Theadults who do the samework earn twice as much,she said.

Amravati’s Suman Cha-van begins her day by car-rying 10 bricks (almost 3kg) on her head. A brickless on her head is reasonenough for the kiln’s ownerto hit her or threaten to fireher from the job. The Rs 20she earns goes to her father.

AFP

Daily wage labourers Sitamma and her brother Laksh-manan leave a market in Bangalore on Thursday afterfailing to secure a job for the day.

A winner among winners

CMYK

I N D I A The Times of India, New Delhi10 Friday, May 2, 2003

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Papaya and tulsi leaves willkeep SARS away, says Jaya

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: Even as TamilNadu reported its first con-firmed case of SARS, thestate government sought toplay down the threat.

Chief minister J Jay-alalithaa, herself, has ad-vised that papaya and tulsileaves keep SARS away.

When the issue came upin the state assembly onWednesday, Jayalalithaasaid: ‘‘Take papaya and tul-si leaves every day. This

will strengthen your immu-nity and keep SARS at bay.’’Commenting on the statusof the SARS-affected case,Jayalalithaa said a privateTV channel had quoted adoctor as saying that all the15 relatives of the patient,Ezhumalai, were fine.

Earlier, state health min-ister S Semmalai an-nounced in the House thatall district hospitals hadbeen put on alert and ahigh-level committee wouldmonitor the disease.

The committee will com-prise representatives of theAirport Authority of India,Port Trust, Indian MedicalAssociation, National Insti-tute of Epidemiology, Na-tional Institute of Epidemi-ology, National Institute ofMedical Research, the statehealth department andnon-government organisa-tions (NGOs).

Two hospitals in Chen-nai and another in Vellorewill be equipped with spe-cial SARS wards.

AP

ZERO-CASE OF SARS: WHO representative to India Dr Salim J. Habayeb talks to mediapersons after a press briefing on SARS inNew Delhi on Thursday. Habayeb said there are no SARS cases in India and there never were.

Student group left in thelurch by Kuwait Airways

By K R SreenivasTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: It was a night-mare for a group of studentswho had confirmed tickets togo from Bangalore to Londonvia Mumbai by Kuwait Air-ways.

The airline informed themon April 30 that they cannotleave the country for theirtwo-week internship pro-gramme in the UK. The rea-son: They were getting pas-sengers from Air-India athigher fares. A-I had can-celled its flights due to thestrike by its pilots.

The 38 students and twofaculty members from theSchool of Management ofthe Indian Business Acade-my (IBA), Kanakpura Road,Bangalore, had to scurry to

find another airline.The students had been

booked on Kuwait Airways ata discounted fare of Rs 20,000plus taxes of Rs 4,900, thanksto corporate booking. But theairline just dumped them de-manding they pay Rs 26,000plus the taxes, when they gotthe A-I passengers.

IBA CEO Manish Jain toldTNN: ‘‘The Bangalore officeof Kuwait Airways had alsoconfirmed to my travel agentabout the tickets. It all hap-pened after getting the in-voice and the tickets. Thegroup had already landed inMumbai when we got themessage from the KuwaitAirways telling us that wehad to pay the higher fareand all hell broke loose.’’

The students included 11

girls and an elderly lady fac-ulty. ‘‘Also, most of the groupmembers had reached theMumbai airport and we hada tough time communicatingto them that they should re-turn to hotels or relatives un-til alternative arrangementswere made,’’ Manish said.

Finally, the students had toshell out Rs 3,500 more perpassenger to Royal JordanAirlines and the group left onThursday morning to Lon-don via Oman. ‘‘They had ap-pointments at the IndianHigh Commission in Londonand Mahendra British Tele-com, but they had to lose theappointment with the IndianHigh Commission. Somehow,Mahendra British Telecommanaged to give another ap-pointment,’’ Manish added.

A-I to hire 40 captains, first officersTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Air-Indiamanagement decided onThursday to recruit around40 captains and first officerson a one-year renewablecontract even as 15 morestriking pilots broke awayfrom the Indian Pilots Guild(IPG) and reported for duty.With this, 35 pilots have nowignored the IPG directiveand resumed duty.

Meanwhile, IPG officialspointed out that the guildhas initiated talks withUnion labour ministerSahib Singh Verma to re-solve the stand-off. Even asVerma stated that talks be-tween the government andthe striking pilots were pro-

gressing positively, civil avi-ation minister Syed Shah-nawaz Hussain reiteratedthat the airline manage-ment will not negotiate anyfurther with the IPG.

‘‘Neither the civil avia-tion ministry, nor the A-Imanagement proposes tohave any talks with leadersof the derecognised

union...While pilots are wel-come to rejoin duty, it isclarified that neither thegovernment nor the A-Imanagement has any inten-tion to revoke the derecog-nition of the IPG or the dis-ciplinary action, includingsuspension, taken againstthe agitating pilots,’’ hesaid.

An A-I official added thatthe airline’s flight scheduleswere also cruising back tonormalcy as more and morepilots were returning towork and were being ros-tered for duty.

The fresh recruitmentswould replace the 47 sus-pended pilots and help theairline operate normal serv-ices. The recruitments will

be done through walk-in in-terviews, a first in the histo-ry of any airline. The air-line also rewarded five pi-lots who had resumed dutyby promoting them to theexecutive cadre.

A-I has also initiated theprocess to recruit pilots laidoff by foreign airlines in anattempt to break the IPG ag-itation over SARS and getflight operations runningnormally.

The airline intends to re-cruit pilots of Indian originfrom Singapore Airlines,Thai Airways, Cathay Pacif-ic and Malaysian Airlines,which have made pilots re-dundant following theSARS outbreak in southeastAsia.

•15 more IPG pilots report for duty

•A-I said its scheduleswere coming back tonormal

•A-I will recruit pilotslaid off by foreign airlines

Flight fights

CMYK

Friday, May 2, 2003 11The Times of India, New Delhi

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The Times of India, New Delhi12 Friday, May 2, 2003

DUBYAMAILGreat work, fellas. Dubya and Atal lookreal cool. Work on the content a bit togive it a comical, hilarious finish.

— Akshay Kumar Raja

Bravo, it’s really a bold strip to makefun of the news makers. Great job done! Keep on continuing the goodwork for people like me who read thenewspaper for this strip only.

— Jitu

e-mail: dubya-man@indiatimes.com

Dial 999 for dinner: An angry husbandmade an emergency call to police — becausehis wife refused to cook him his dinner. Theman dialled 999 in a fury, demanding helpfrom officers because his wife was busy dec-orating, Avon and Somerset police in westernEngland said on Thursday. “My wife’s left mewith two salmon sandwiches which was leftover from last night, and I’m sat in the chairhere and she’s out there decorating,” the mantold the police operator. In another call, awoman phoned police to say she couldn’tfind her glasses and needed them to cookher potatoes. Reuters

Brothel shares go up: Australian in-vestors have plunged enthusiastically into theworld’s oldest profession as a Melbournecompany became the globe’s first listedbrothel. Shares of the bordello enterprise,which hired Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss tospice up its stock listing and touts itself as arecession-proof, five-star hotel, doubled ontheir first day of trading on Thursday. About1.4 million shares of the company — calledThe Daily Planet — changed hands. “Obvi-ously the price is going to go up. It’s sex...and everyone knows sex is a smart invest-ment,” Fleiss told reporters just before theshares started trading. Reuters

Spoof on US invasion: As France won-ders how Washington might punish it for op-posing the war in Iraq, a spoof Paris newspa-per has let its imagination run wild and re-ported a US-led invasion to topple PresidentJacques Chirac. The Monde, a satirical take-off on the daily Le Monde and a French-bash-er’s fantasy come true, hit newsstandsaround France with wacky tales of chaosamid a fictitious invasion that echoes the realwar just waged in Iraq. “American, British andMonaco forces land in France,” the front-page headline screams. “Chirac calls for re-sistance and disappears ... Pro-American up-rising on Left Bank in Paris.”Reuters

Harry’s hairdo wins hearts: Prince Harry

has nipped his older brother Prince Williamfor the title of favourite young British royalamong girls aged 10 to 14, according to asurvey. The poll, carried out by Mizz Maga-zine, found that seven out of ten of its read-ers fancied Harry, 18, over William, 20, whois second in line to the British throne aftertheir father Prince Charles. “Our readers loveHarry’s fun, devilish ways and his wackyhairdo,” Mizz editor Sharon Christal saidWednesday. “At last: a student royal whodoesn’t know what a hairbrush looks like anddoesn’t care.” AFP

Kidman puts on disguise again: NicoleKidman is at it again. Following in the foot-

steps of her Oscar-win-ning performance in TheHours, in which shewore a prosthetic noseto disguise her looks, thestunning Aussie actresssports sun-bleached hairunder a ragged scarf,tired bags under sunkeneyes and second-handclothes in her upcomingfilm, Dogville. In this1930s period film, Kid-

man plays Grace, a woman who arrives inDogville, an isolated American town in theRocky Mountains, on the run from gangsters,reports The Herald Sun. ANI

Ivory donates personal papers: Film-maker James Ivory, known for his lavish peri-od dramas and longtime cooperation withproducer Ismail Merchant, donated his per-sonal papers to the University of Oregon onWednesday. The 26 boxes of papers includeproduction files, screenplays, photographs,correspondence with actors and actresses,notebooks, press kits, movie reviews andcostume designs spanning 53 years andnearly 40 films. The documents include someof Ivory’s University of Oregon class papers,where he studied architecture hoping to be-come a movie set designer. AP

Thai beauty pageant finalists Jarupat Boonprasert (left) and Kamonluk Chaichana-jetjumnog at the 8th annual Jumbo Queen Contest in Nakhon Pathom on Thursday.

AROUND THE WORLDAP

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Scientists mapgenome of anthrax germNew York: Scientists saythey’ve found potential newtargets for drugs and vac-cines against the anthraxgerm by deciphering and an-alyzing the bacterium’s com-plete genetic makeup.

Studying the 5.2 million“letters” of the germ’s DNAcode, researchers identifiedseveral genes that might playkey roles in anthrax infec-tions. Such genes mightprove to be good leads for de-veloping new treatments.

The effort is especially cru-cial for anthrax, which canbe lethal, as it is a potentialweapon of future terrorism.

The analysis is presentedin Nature by scientists at theInstitute for Genomic Re-search in Rockville, Mary-land. The institute deci-phered the genome of an iso-late of the so-called “Ames”strain of Bacillus anthracis.Previous work had shownthis isolate resembles theone used in the fatal attack inFlorida in 2001.

The research provides a“much expanded list of po-tential virulence genes,” saidClaire Fraser, president ofthe genomic institute and anauthor of the paper. Thegenes were identified be-cause they resemble thosewhose functions are knownin other bacteria. AP

Fish, too, feel pain, says studyLondon: Scientists say thatafter years of debate, theynow have proof that fish feelpain. The research foundthat fish have receptors intheir heads and that subject-ing them to noxious sub-stances causes “adverse be-havioural and physiologicalchanges.”

“This fulfils the criteria foranimal pain,” said Dr LynneSneddon who headed the re-search, published by the Roy-al Society, the national acade-my of science.

The team from the RoslinInstitute and the Universityof Edinburgh found the fishhad polymodal nociceptors,receptors that respond to tis-sue-damaging stimuli, ontheir heads. Reuters

Anti-war Madonna a big hitLos Angeles: Pop starMadonna’s new album,American Life, opened at No.1 on this week’s US popcharts despite a critical de-bate about whether the Mate-rial Girl’s latest effort livesup to its hype.

American Life sold 241,000its first week in stores, a re-spectable debut by most stan-dards but far below the420,000 units tallied threeyears ago by her last release,Music, according album salestracker Nielsen SoundScan.

Madonna, whose 20-yearrecording career has oftenthrived from controversy, nodoubt gained a commercial

boost this time out from thestir she created with the orig-inal video accompanying thetitle track to American Life.

The video, featuring im-ages of Madonna tossing ahand grenade at a Bush look-alike, was pulled shortly af-ter its release earlier thismonth. The performer saidthat scene and other war-re-lated imagery was being mis-interpreted by some as criti-cal of the US and the Bushadministration while the na-tion was at war with Iraq.

The song itself, like muchof the album’s lyrical con-tent, is a critique of Ameri-ca’s consumer culture, mate-

rialism and the superficialtrappings of stardom, whichsome observers noted asironic coming from the Mate-rial Girl.

Her new album has drawndecidedly mixed reviews, in-cluding some of the mostscathing of her career. Oneparticularly harsh noticecalled it the “most wretched-ly empty thing she’s everdone.”

Entertainment Weekly,however, thought much ofthe music was, “refreshingly—hell, shockingly —earnest.”

“At its best, her new albumoffers blunt, questing, deci-

sive music at a chaotic time.At its weakest she soundslike a gal who’s grown con-tent with hubby and kids andthe hard-earned privilege ofhiring the help to keep her-self at tip-top tautness,” themagazine’s Ken Tuckerwrote.

Still, as the only new re-lease last week from a high-profile artist, American Lifecomfortably clinched the No.1 spot in the album charts.

Hard-core rapper 50 Centremained in the top rungs ofthe charts with two releases,rising three spots to No. 2with his debut album GetRich or Die Tryin’. Reuters

Reuters

For the seventh time, Halle Berry is on People magazine’s an-nual list of the ‘50 Most Beautiful People in the World’ — butmaking it there repeatedly, she says, isn’t easy. Julia Robertsis on the list for a record eighth time. Also appearing thisyear is Grammy winner Norah Jones.

Were Einstein,Newton autistic?London: Albert Einsteinand Isaac Newton were ge-niuses but scientists be-lieve they may have suf-fered from Asperger syn-drome —a form of autism.

The condition is a disor-der that causes deficien-cies in social and commu-nication skills and obses-sive interests. But it doesnot affect learning or intel-lect and many people withAS have exceptional tal-ents or skills.

Although it is impossi-ble to make a definitive di-agnosis in people who aredead, Simon Baron-Cohenof Cambridge Universityand Ioan James of OxfordUniversity studied the per-sonalities of Einstein andNewton to see if they hadsymptoms of AS.

“Newton seems a classiccase. He hardly spoke, wasso engrossed in his workthat he often forgot to eat,and was lukewarm or bad-tempered with the fewfriends he had,” New Sci-entist magazine said onWednesday.

Baron-Cohen said Ein-stein was also a loner andas a child he repeated sen-tences obsessively. Al-though Einstein madefriends and spoke out onpolitical issues, Baron-Co-hen suspects he showedsigns of Asperger syn-drome.

“Passion, falling in loveand standing up for justiceare all perfectly compati-ble with Asperger syn-drome,” he told the weeklyscience magazine. Reuters

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150 killed in Turkey quake Bingol, Turkey: A power-ful earthquake killed up to150 people in a mountainousregion of southeasternTurkey early on Thursday,demolishing a boardingschool and trapping 150small children under therubble.

Transport minister AliCoskun said 84 people wereconfirmed dead and 390 in-jured in the quake thatrocked the region at 3:27 amlocal time and flattenedmore than a dozen build-ings in Bingol city.

Housing Minister ZekiErgezen said unconfirmedreports put the estimateddeath toll as high as 150.Rescuers clambering overthe demolished primaryschool dormitory building,where many children sleptas the quake struck, saidthey could hear cries frombelow the masonry.

Bystanders cheered asrescue workers pulled onedazed boy from the col-lapsed building and carried

him to a nearby ambulance.‘‘Who knocked the build-

ing down?’’ Veysel Dagde-len, aged 12, asked after be-ing rescued from the ruins

of the school. Prime Minis-ter Tayyip Erdogan: ‘‘Thereare around 150 of our littleones there... May God pre-serve us from the worst.’’

A reporter on the scenesaid many buildings in thecentre of town were com-pletely destroyed by theforce of the tremor. Reuters

AP

More than 100 children were trapped when their school dormitory collapsed due to theearthquake in Bingol, Turkey on Thursday.

7 US soldiers hurtin grenade attackFallujah: Attackers lobbedtwo grenades over a wall andinto a compound of UStroops early Thursday in thetense city of Fallujah,wounding seven soldiers.

The attack came a half-dayafter US troops opened fireon anti-American demon-strators, killing two andwounding 18, according tohospital officials. AP

Pak assumes UNSC presidencyIslamabad: Pakistan onThursday assumed the Presi-dency of the UN SecurityCouncil for May.

In another development,US President George W. Bushpraised Pakistan on Wednes-day over its arrest of six al-Qaida suspects, but the statedepartment raised concernsabout a ‘‘terrorist threat’’posed to India by Pakistan-based Islamic militants.

Pakistan’s permanent rep-resentative in UN, MunirAkram, said that hiscountry wants to convene aspecial meeting of the Secu-rity Council on May 13 to dis-cuss UN’s role in pending dis-putes like Palestine andKashmir.

The US state departmentpraised Pakistan as a vitalally in the campaign againstglobal terrorism but noted

the impact of incursions byIslamic militants into Indian-ruled Kashmir.

US deputy secretary ofstate Richard Armitage willhave the infiltrations issue atthe top of his agenda whenhe makes a visit to SouthAsia between May 5 and 11.

On Thursday, Armitagesaid that the Indo-Pak situa-tion is ‘‘truly frightening’’.Agencies

Riots in Berlin,London tenseon May DayLondon/ Berlin: Germanriot police clashed with rock-throwing demonstrators inBerlin and violence was ex-pected in other Europeancapitals at rallies markingthe Labour Day holiday onThursday.

In London, radical anti-capitalist activists had a hit-list of more than 50 ‘‘compa-nies of mass destruction’’ intheir sights in protests thatpolice feared could turn vio-lent. Authorities in London,Berlin and some other capi-tals were ready for distur-bances after past proteststurned violent. Berlin policewere out in force, with some7,500 on city streets bracedfor battles with anarchists af-ter 27 police officers and anunknown number of as-sailants and bystanders wereinjured in three hours ofclashes overnight.

In London, anarchistgroups published the namesand addresses of the firms ontheir hit-list — oil compa-nies, arms manufacturers,banks and multinationals —on various Internet sites.

Police mobilised 4,000 offi-cers in the British capital toguard against violence. Or-ganisers hoped mass anti-war rallies earlier this yearwould give impetus to theMay Day events. Reuters

Israeli troopsin Gaza kill 6PalestiniansJerusalem: Israeli andPalestinian leaders are al-ready voicing conflicting in-terpretations of the long-awaited roadmap peace plan,the latest attempt by interna-tional mediators to end morethan 31 months of violence.

Just hours after the unveil-ing of the plan, more vio-lence broke out. Israelitroops killed six Palestini-ans, one of them a youngchild, during a raid Thurs-day on an eastern suburb ofGaza City, doctors said. TheIsraeli military said troopscame under heavy fire andsix soldiers were wounded.

The roadmap peace plan issupported by a rare globalconsensus that neither of thewarring sides wants to re-buff. ‘‘For the first time in avery long time, Israel and theinternational communityhave a partner to go back tothe table with,’’ UN envoyTerje Roed-Larsen said aftermeeting the new PalestinianPM Abbas. ‘‘We have, hope-fully, a peace process going.”

Palestinian foreign minis-ter Nabil Shaath called for‘‘implementing the roadmapimmediately’’. Eight Pales-tinians were killed in GazaCity during a heavy Israelimilitary raid into an easterndistrict. Agencies

China: 11 more deaths reported

11,000: People quarantined in Beijing

Beijing Zoo: Animalsgiven vitamins and Chinese medicine

May Day: Passes with a whimper in China as people tookheed of government advice to stay indoors

Singapore: Research firm is 3-4weeks away from developing a test kitthat can detect SARS

SARS Masks: Surgical-quality facemasks offer the bestprotection, according to the British medical weekly, The Lancet

Villages around Beijing put up barricades to blocktraffic from the capital

Beijing builds 1,000-bedSARS hospital in 8 days

People’sBank ofChina:Quarantinefor used banknotes for 24 hrs before putting themback into circulation

SARS tightens grip

Hong Kong: 12 patients who recovered suffered relapses. 5 more deadDoctors detect damagein the lungs of some recovered SARS patients

CMYK

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Like the United States, India facesa significant terrorist threat.

— US state department

By Jayant Narlikar

Greek myths talk about the sculptorPygmalion who crafted the statue of abeautiful woman as none of the womenaround him seemed attractive. He fell inlove with his creation. The modern Big Bangcosmologist is the present-day counterpartof Pygmalion, preferring his creation, theBig Bang model to the real universe.

According to the Big Bang model, theuniverse began in a gigantic explosionwith matter and radiation created out ofnothingness. In the early stages, the universewas extremely hot, dominated by radiation.Since then it has been expanding andbecause of that it cooled down. Theoristsexpected some relic radiation of that hotperiod to have survived today. With thediscovery in 1965 of smoothly distributed allpervasive microwave radiation, the Big Bangidea received a boost.

This made the cosmologists moreambitious in their efforts to know what theuniverse was like close to those traumaticmoments of creation. After three decades ofconcerted effort by the leading theoreticiansin the field backed by several spectacularobservations, today’s BigBang cosmologists are confi-dent that they know preciselywhat the universe is made ofand precisely how it hasevolved to that state.

Scientific traditions implythat a model so confidentlyclaimed to be precise is basedon well-founded physicaltheory with uniquely sup-portive evidence. Here iswhat a cosmologist will tellyou if you ask him how theuniverse started. Its early history up to theepoch when it was 10 million billion billionbillion billionth part of a second old, wasdetermined by an as yet unknown law ofgravitation that is supposed to describespaces of extremely small size.

After the explosion, the universe grew inage and size, and new basic laws came todetermine its behaviour. For example, atthe age of around a billion billion billionbillionth part of a second, the universeunderwent a very rapid phase of expansion,that lasted till the age of the universeincreased hundredfold. This fleeting stage,called inflation, is believed to haveprofoundly influenced the properties of theuniverse as seen today. The seeds of allthe galaxies and clusters of galaxies seentoday were sown at this early epoch.

On the basis of the recent findings ofthe satellite WMAP sent out by NASA thecosmologists confidently assert that theuniverse is 13.7 billion years old, that it has23 per cent strange kind of dark matter asopposed to four per cent of ordinary matterthat we are familiar with, that the bulk ofits contents are in the form of (as yetunknown) dark energy.

The Big Bang theory tells us that before

the universe was, say 100,000 years old, it wasso densely packed with scatterers of lightthat no coherent image can be seen ofanything prior to that epoch. Imagine thatyou are in a theatre trying to guess what lieson the stage behind a thick screen, whensomeone comes and tells you authoritativelywhat exists there. You are entitled to ask onwhat authority does he say what is going onbehind the screen, since like you he toocannot see beyond it.

Big Bang cosmologists are trying to guesswhat lay behind the thick screen of radiationfrom the wrinkles spotted on the screen byWMAP. Do they have a cast iron theory thatallows them to interpret so confidently whatlay behind the screen from its wrinkles?Have physicists verified that strange matterand dark energy exist? Alas, No!

Particle physicists who are concernedwith the pristine structure of matter arestill groping in the dark to figure out thesefundamental issues, and till these are wellsorted out, claims of having found what theuniverse was like so early after its creationmust be treated with considerable caution.In my childhood Hindi storybook I read

the episode of a motorcyclistgoing through a village inremote area at night. Noone saw the rider, but hiswheel-marks on the dustytrack were visible. What didthose marks represent? Thevillagers had never seen amotorcycle before and sowere completely foxed bythe marks.

They approached the onlywise man in the village whohad answers to all questions.

Having pondered over the query andinspected the marks that worthy replied:“These are the marks left by a rollingmillstone pulled by a cat”. Cosmologistshave learnt the art of confident assertionand have improved on the village pundit.

Is all astronomy so speculative? Justbecause the astronomer theorises aboutdistant stars and galaxies does not mean thathe is expecting to get away with theories thatno one can check. The study of interiorsof stars like the Sun, has been based onwell-tested physics, has clear predictionsthat have been observationally confirmed.Other examples where observations directlycheck theories include studies of inter-stellar dust, structures of radio sources,morphology of galaxies etc.

The essential feature of a scientificexperiment is that it is repeatable. If youcan explain the brightness of the Sun interms of its mass, so must your formulaapply to several other stars with differentmasses to see if it checks out.

The situation in cosmology is different.There is but one universe. It is not arepeatable experiment. So extra cautionis required in making claims about itsphysical properties.

Science & SpeculationBehind the Veil of Cosmology

Audit of TerrorIndia is the world’s worst victim of terror. And that’sofficial. Not according to New Delhi, but Washington. TheUS state department’s latest report “Patterns of GlobalTerrorism” recognises that India continues to be the worsthit by terrorism. India was subjected to 67 terrorist attacksin 2002, compared with nine in Israel, eight in Pakistanand seven on the West Bank. The report also notes that“extremist violence in Kashmir fuelled by infiltration fromPakistan across the Line of Control threatened to becomea flashpoint for a wider India-Pakistan conflict duringmost of the year”. However, having recorded these facts, thereport glosses over Pakistan’s role by referring to it asa “key ally” in Washington’s anti-terrorism campaign.Pakistan has been ranked third — after the US andSwitzerland — in its efforts to seize terrorist assets; it hasalso been lauded for handing over 500 suspected Al-Qaidaand Taliban terrorists to the US. In order to maintain itsmilitary and intelligence bases in Pakistan, Washingtonhas to be soft on that country’s leadership. However,this line does not fit in with the statement made by USambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell, warning Islamabadagainst turning into a platform for terrorism, a viewupheld by the US state department.

The Pakistani media has made no secret of the factthat banned terrorist outfits are functioning openly afterchanging their names. The leaders and most of the cadresearlier arrested have been released, and several have evenbeen elected to the national assembly. The Pakistanisupreme court has held that Al-Qaida is not a terroristorganisation, since it has not committed any terroristact in Pakistan violating Pakistani laws. After muchprevarication, General Musharraf finally conceded thatOsama bin Laden might have found a safe havenwithin Pakistan. To clear up such glaring contradictions,the US report should be enlarged to become an inter-national audit of terrorist activity. This would give the USstate department an unvarnished account of terroristorganisations, how they continue to function by changingtheir names, and how many of the cadres of bannedorganisations are still in custody and how many have beenreleased. Such a balance sheet would be more effective ingenerating pressure on the Pakistani leadership to cleanup its act. If Washington is truly serious about rooting outthe menace, in its own interests, it should initiate aregularly updated audit of terrorism.

Jaipur: Low-profile and soft-spoken,Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlottook everyone by surprise earlier thismonth when he decided to clamp downon Pravin Togadia of the VHP. Thefirebrand Hindutva leader was arrestedfor distributing trishuls and makinginflammatory speeches. In a conversationwith Neelabh Mishra, the chief ministerdefends his government’s action:

Though many civil society groups andindividuals have welcomed your actionagainst the trishul distribution ceremonies,the RSS-VHP-BJP combine has criticised itas a ban on religious activity and as anattempt to divert attention from your non-performance in an election year. What doyou have to say on this?

Let me first make it clear that theRajasthan government has not banned anyreligious symbol — much less Lord Shiva’strishul. Indeed, we’ve banned nothing. Wehave merely regulated, under the ArmsAct, the distribution and carrying of sharpweapons with more than one blade. Inthe name of distributing trishuls, theVHP was arming its cadres in thousandswith triple-blade sharp daggers thatcould kill or cause grave injury. With thisregulation in placenow, anyone procur-ing, carrying, dis-playing or distribut-ing such weaponswould have to obtaina licence from theappropriate authori-ty. Lord Shiva’s icon-ic trishuls, whichare traditionallyblunt in design, arenot covered by ournotification. Theywould, as before,continue to adorn temples, shrines andreligious ceremonies.

Let me also clarify that there is no restric-tion in the state against any religiousmeeting or dharma sabha. Action will onlybe taken in the case of public functions ormeetings where weapons covered by theArms Act are distributed or inflammatorycommunal speeches made. As far as electionsare concerned, we would fight them on thebasis of our performance.But why did your action against trishuldistribution come so late in the day andso suddenly?

It was not sudden. I had been, sinceOctober 2001, regularly writing to theprime minister and the home ministerabout this. Since the VHP was carryingout its trishul programme all over thecountry, I considered it a national problemand wanted the Central government tointervene. I also raised the matter at ameeting of the National Integration Councillast year, and with Union home ministerL K Advani at the chief ministers’conference earlier this year. Since noaction from the Centre was forthcomingand the law and order situation in Rajasthan

was increasingly threatened by the pheno-menal rise in the number of trishuldistribution programmes in the wake ofGujarat, we had no option but to act, whatwith the VHP talking of turning Rajasthaninto another Gujarat. We just couldn’tlet that happen.Mr Advani has been quoted in the pressas having told you at the chief ministers’conference that while the VHP’s trishul drivewas ‘thoughtless’, any action against it wouldbe ‘foolish’. He also said that you were beingselective with facts when you claimed thathe’d concurred with you on the design ofthe VHP trishul?

If I was selective with facts, why didn’tMr Advani contradict me when I made thestatement two months ago? As for his advicethat a ban on VHP’s trishul drive would befoolish — if he has been quoted correctly onthis — I want to go on record that he gave meno such advice. In fact, I never soughthis advice on any action the Rajasthangovernment intended to take. At the confer-ence, I had merely requested action fromthe Centre. As for my informal conversationwith Mr Advani, I don’t think it would beproper for me to divulge it unless theother side forces my hand.Was the arrest of Mr Togadia absolutely

necessary?Yes, he broke the

law of the land, in-flamed communalpassions and threat-ened the peace. Eversince the NDA gov-ernment assumedoffice, such peoplehave behaved asthough they areabove the law. Butno one is abovethe law.But was it correct to

charge him under Section 121(A) — conspi-racy to overawe the state with a show of force?

I can’t comment on that because it’s thejob of the local police to define a crime that iscommitted and book it under the appropriatelegal provisions. It’s the job of the judiciaryto pass a judgment on this.Senior VHP leaders have said thatMr Togadia was arrested at the behest ofSonia Gandhi.

She came to know about it through thepress as did everybody else outside theappropriate circles in the state government.Does your action signal a sort of policy forother Congress state governments as well?

Other state governments should decide onthe basis of the law and order situation onthe ground in their respective states.Are you fearful of a backlash?

By not responding to the VHP-BJPbandh call or the latter’s attempts toincite communal violence in the wake ofMr Togadia’s arrest, the people of Rajasthanhave shown that they don’t, by and large,approve of the politics of violence andcommunal hatred. Even Vasundhara RajeScindia’s parivartan yatra is not gettingmuch response in the state.

Trishul Tangle

If I was selective withfacts, why didn’tMr Advani contradictme when I made thestatement? As for hisadvice that a ban onVHP’s trishul drivewould be foolish, hegave me no such advice.

Q&A

Wannabe BabusProfessionals craving for a job in theadministrative services is a colonial legacythat we have been unable to outgrow evenafter more than 50 years of independence.It is naive to assume that people want tojoin the ranks of the bureaucracy to servesociety. There might be some who do, buttheir presence is microscopic. No doubtdoctors and engineers too have a right toalter their career prospects, but then theyshould do so at their own expense.

If those quitting the National DefenceAcademy midway are asked to returnthe amount spent on them by the govern-ment, why shouldn’t the same ruleapply to other professional courses aswell? At least this will prevent the ‘bestbrains-cum-wannabe babus’ from wastingfour precious years and blocking seatsfor those who are genuinely interested inthe profession.— Asit M Kaushik, Meerut

Political TriangleOne hopes that the ongoing talks betweenMaoist rebels and the Nepalese governmentwill help restore peace in the Himalayankingdom. Political parties have corneredthemselves into an overtly aggressive standregarding the solution to the current stand-off. Having gone to war on a platform ofconstitutional change, the Maoists now seekpeace with a compromise on an interimgovernment with their participation.

There exists a triangular political conflictin Nepal between the Maoists, the king andthe political parties. This combination hasmade Nepal politics rather tumultuousand inimical to democracy. That the restora-tion of the democratic process is primepriority for the king holds true. But for thishe must disentangle himself from the webof contradictory political demands.— Chiranjib Haldar, Kolkata

Wrongly Quoted‘A Thought for Today’ (Apr 19) attributes thequote — ‘‘There’s little likelihood of aspread... every precaution is being taken’’ —to me. I wish to make clear that neither didI say this, nor have I given any interview orwritten to any representative of TOI.My designation has also been wronglymentioned — I am not the director of theNational Institute of CommunicableDiseases (NICD).— Dr S K Satpathy, Addl Director (PH) &HOD (Epid), NICD, Delhi

CONVERSATIONS WITH READERS

Letters to this column should be addressed to Letters c/o Edit pageEditor, The Times of India, 7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, NewDelhi-110002. email:edit@timesgroup.com

Rally SeasonFirst Mayawati’s ‘pardafaash rally’,then Mulayam’s ‘cycle rally’ and nowLaloo’s ‘lathi maharaila’. These showwhere India as a nation stands in the21st century. What use are these lavishrallies except for boosting the egos oftheir organisers? They are a sheerwaste of time, money and energy. Everypolitical leader claims to be patrioticand nationalistic. It is time our leadersunderstand the true meaning of theseterms instead of reducing them tomeaningless slogans.

Tanveer Alam, via e-mail

From timesofindia.com

No. 104 Vol. 54. Air charge: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai ,Cochin, Chennai & viaRs.3, Indore and via 50 paise. National edition: No aircharge.Price in Nepal: NEP Rs 5, except Sunday: NEP Rs 7. RNI No. 508/57 MADE IN NEW DELHI REGD. NO. DL-25002/92. Published forthe proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., by Balraj Arora at Times House, 7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110 002 and printed by him at 13, Site IV Industrial Area,Sahibabad (UP),MNS Printers Pvt. Ltd., Industrial Area, Phase II, Panchkula, Haryana - 134109 and VasundharaPrinters Ltd., Tiwari Ganj, Faizabad Road, Chinhat, Lucknow. Regd. Office: Dr Dadabhai NaorojiRoad, Mumbai - 400 001. Editor (Delhi Market): Bachi Karkaria-responsible for selection of newsunder PRB Act. Executive Editor: Shekhar Bhatia. © All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole orin part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Postal Registration No.: TN/ChiefPMG/399/2002

Guru Arjan Dev Jayanti

I am at peace...The Guru has brought

me peace.I am free frompain and sin.

Daily I repeat theName of God.

All my ills havedisappeared. And I’ve

gained salvation.God’s greatnessis unfathomable.

It is in God’s companythat one findsdeliverance.

✥O Godmen! Know this

for certain in your mind:The True One solves

all your problems,He defeats all your

sworn enemies.He saves the honour of

His devotees.Kings and king’s kingsare all under His sway.

He drinks the greatdrink of nectar.

Remembering His NameI became fearless.In the company of

Godmen I gave awayeverything else.

I fell at the feet ofthe Omniscient.

Says Nanak, His protec-tion alone I have sought.

✥On merit I have no

chance of salvation,I commit faultsevery moment.

You are the forgiver; doforgive me. And cruise

Nanak across the ocean.I am an ungrateful

sinner,A stranger with

little understanding.He who has given me

life and comfort,I don’t seem to

know Him.In order to gain

riches and profitI look aroundeverywhere.

Not for a moment do Iremember the bountiful

God... Drunkards,thieves, and those who

talk ill of others,I live in their company.If you please, you mayforgive the false along

with the truthful.Says Nanak, if God

so desiresEven stones may sail

across the ocean.Guru Arjan Dev

Ud

aysh

anka

r

The Times of India, New Delhi14 Friday, May 2, 2003

The MinesweeperBy Saroj Kulshreshtha

It drives me crazy yet theeternal optimist in megoes on, hoping and play-ing. This game is all googlyand has no fine points.Welcome to the nasty worldof the Minesweeper. Ipersonally call it themindblaster.

A reasonably sensibleperson, one would think,would keep off dangerousthings like mines. Whatthen made me a devotedslave of this wastefulpastime? I thought that allcomputer games must betotally based on logic andwould be good exercisefor the mind.

I have been proved wrongbut the game has kept mehooked? Truly, it is akin to asoldier’s dangerous forayson the mine-laden battle-field. I am possessed by

some power that propelsme on. Click, click, click,usually followed by an ago-nised Oh! Smiley roundsup his lips in joyousanticipation each time Imake a move. The sillyicon goes by the name ofSmiley but those whoknow him will vouch forthe fact that soon he turnsto Wily and then plainMr Scrooge. He is myenemy No. 1 with whom Iam engaged in a losingbattle of wits.

This single-minded pur-suit has not improved mymemory as each time themined areas are different.It is not even logical. Theslot you click on hopingto derive maximum helpusually turns out to be amine. At times there is justone mine left and twosquares. The two slotsseem equally innocent or

sinister. Time is runningout and after a quick cross-ing of fingers I make mychoice. Smiley’s Law hasfloored me yet again. Ithas, however, done wondersto my patience.

The reason for my conti-nued dalliance with thiswretch is that I find itterribly humiliating to bebeaten by a mere computer.Also, one day I hope to comeout tops in three consecu-tive games. Once I score ahat-trick I will be able toquit as a winner.

Having achieved a mini-mum time of 21 secondsfor the game for beginnersI had moved on to theintermediate level. I havebeen able to completethe frame full of 40 minesonly twice. So frustrateddid I get that I have goneback to the easier game toimprove my play.

Parenting is difficult, espe-cially when dealing withchildren in their teens.Teenagers can be resistantand rebellious. The moreyou want to teach or advisethem, the more they revolt.The dilemma is: Should welet them do what they wantto do or force them to dowhat we want them to do?These questions cannot beanswered in a general orsweeping manner. Everyindividual is unique and noprinciple or set of rulescan be effective all the time.A man with six children saidthat before marriage hehad six theories of raisingchildren. Then he marriedand had six children. Nowhe has no theories.

When faced with a prob-lem — whether with refer-ence to parenting or anyother issue — we must re-member to keep cool. Thereis no use becom-ing over-anxiousor stressed. First,we need to calmdown and app-roach the issue ina relaxed manner.

We must knowthat the situationwe are facing isnot unique. Forexample, when adoctor sees a pa-tient with a spe-cific ailment, he does notget unduly excited — hedeals with patients every-day. But for the patient,his condition is unique. Hetherefore expects immediateattention.

Whenever you feel thatyour children are mis-behaving or going out ofcontrol, it would be helpful toremember your own teenageyears. While parenting wegenerally forget what we didas children. Not too manypeople can claim not tohave been rebellious whilegrowing up. Some peoplemay have rebelled only atthe mental level but someform of resistance musthave manifested at onetime or another.

On reflection, you will findthat your worries are notbecause children in generalare misbehaving. You areworried because your chil-dren are misbehaving. Also,the action of your child hasa direct impact on you and

your image. When you lookat it objectively, you willdiscover that what bothersyou more is your image.

Every jeeva belongs toGod. Parents only supply thematerial of the physical bodyfor the jeeva to live in. Theydo not give birth to the jeeva.Parents must play the roleof an instrument. SwamiChinmayananda used to saythat the parent’s role islike that of a farmer or agardener. We do not createthe seed or the soil. Thepotential power is already inthe seed. The role of a farmeror a gardener is to preparethe soil, sow the seeds at theright time and supply therequired amount of water,shade, and sunlight — inshort, provide a conduciveenvironment for the seedto grow.

If parents are cautiousfrom the very beginning,

children will notbe rebellious. Ifwe want them toimbibe the rightvalues, then wetoo have to followthe same rules.Sometimes par-ents ask me,“Swamiji, whenshould we startteaching our chil-dren values andculture? “I tell

them, “Before the child isborn.” Because, only if youhave these values in you, youcan help your child imbibethem. The process of learn-ing begins when the childis in the mother’s womb.

What is required is nota magical solution but aright way of looking atthings. In Sanskrit there is asmall verse that deals withparenting. It says, “Fondleyour children up to the age offive. The next ten years bestrict with them, disciplineand educate them and whenthey are 16 years old, treatthem like your friends.”Once they have been giventhe right vision and values,they will follow them to alarge extent. Finally, prayto the Lord to help yourchild make up his mind andto inspire him. If you prayand remain calm, things willchange — for the good.

(The writer is head, Chin-maya Mission worldwide)

Parents as TeachersAnd Facilitators

By Swami Tejomayananda

http://spirituality.indiatimes.com

THESPEAKING

TREE

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To Laloo Yadav’s legion of detractors, his lathirally must have come as a godsend. What better

opportunity to show up the man as the nation’s topclown? What better occasion to accuse him of blowingup the taxpayer’s hard-earned money? Indeed, whatbetter way to prove that he has done nothing for thepoor and the downtrodden except hold rallies in theirname? A few months ago, the same ire was directed atMayawati, when she, aglitter with diamonds andsapphires, cut a huge birthday cake. Writers of popu-lar columns wrote anguished commentaries on theobscenity of it all. Mayawati was accused of using herunderprivileged background as a justification forsquandering public funds. Make no mistake. Whatoffended sensibilities here was not that a chief minis-ter had flaunted her wealth, but that Mayawati haddone so. Honestly, is this the only time we have seen awoman holding high office wear diamonds in public?Have we never had Maharajas-turned-MPs host osten-tatious public ceremonies? Yet, when the latter hap-pens, the elite classes almost never protest. Instead,the celebration becomes a social occasion, a page-3 do.

Just why is it expected of the Laloos and Mayawatisthat they should always wallow in the misery of theirown wretched backgrounds? And yet, consider theimpact Laloo and Mayawati make on their respectivecommunities each time they make a symbolicassertion of their political power. Politics is as muchabout rhetoric and symbols as it is about governance.When Mayawati wears diamonds, that touches adeep chord in her community which sees it as an act ofdefiance, as sweet revenge for years of subjugation.The gesture is also a signal that if she can make it big,so can her community. For all his alleged sins, it is anear social revolution that Laloo has achieved inblighted Bihar. There is another irony here. Today,there is virtually no political opposition barring Lalooand Mayawati. If the former has emerged as theonly political leader with the courage to challengethe BJP, the latter is doing all she can to underminethe party while being in alliance with it.

VIEW

COUNTERVIEW

They’re Role ModelsFor the Have-nots

Laloo & Maya haveConned the Public

If rallies could substitute for reality, then dema-gogues will rule forever. Or such at least is the

fervent hope of Hindi heartland’s two great politicalicons of the last decade: Laloo Prasad Yadav andMayawati; the first a self-styled messiah of the poor,the second a real-life “Dalit ki beti”. Both Laloo andMayawati are, in their own charming ways, text-bookdemagogues. They love the sound of their ownvoice, believe that they are bigger than the cause theyrepresent, have a deep but barely disguised contemptfor those they claim to lead, and, finally, are blessedwith ambitions that are limitless in scope but purelypersonal in nature. For all these reasons and more,they have little patience for things like governance.Instead, they come into their own at spectacularpublic spectacles — from Mayawati’s dhikkar andpardafaash rallies in Lucknow to Laloo’s lathimaharaila in Patna on Wednesday — where theycan whip up mass frenzy and soak up the awe andadulation of their gullible followers.

Laloo was once quoted as saying that he didn’tbelieve in development. Not surprising that in thedozen or so years that he has presided over the destinyof Bihar, the state hasn’t seen any. No one knows forsure about Behenji’s views on development. But if heractions are anything to go by, it’s not about roti, kapdaand makaan but about extravagant parks and gardensand the occasional birthday bash, where she can mockher own by wearing huge diamonds and cut a birthdaycake the size of a small paddy field. Middle-classliberals, stricken with guilt, call this a great act ofvicarious or symbolic empowerment for the assem-bled multitude. In reality, it’s nothing more than ahuge but perverse ego trip which buys into rather thanchallenges the same dominant symbolic order thatthey otherwise claim to be fighting. Besides, liberationis in the ultimate analysis not just about symbols butalso substance. On any “objective” assessment of theirrule, it’s difficult to see how Laloo and Mayawati havebenefited anyone other than themselves and their nearand dear ones. True, the poor need their circuses. Butjust occasionally, they need some bread as well.

CMYK

IBM chairmanto visit IndiaOne more high-profile CEO’s name

will soon be added to Bangalore’svisitor’ book. Samuel J.

Palmisano, chairman & CEO of world’slargest computing company IBM Corpo-ration with revenues of $81 billion, willbe flying into Bangalore on May 5 on atwo-day visit. This will mark the first-ever visit by an IBM chairman to India.

During his two-day stay here, the 51-year-old Palmisano is expected to visitIBM units and meet employees and cus-tomers, in addition to an interaction withthe city’s corporate honchos. A 30-yearIBM veteran, Palmisano served previous-ly as IBM’s president and chief operatingofficer, after holding senior leadership po-sitions in virtually all of IBM’s businessunits. Interestingly, IBM is keeping thechairman’s Indian sojourn totally underwraps.

Since becoming CEO in March 2002, hehas had major initiatives to position thecompany for profitable growth path andindustry leadership. Among the key ini-tiatives are the acquisition of PriceWa-terhouseCoopers Consulting and severalsoftware companies, the pending sale ofthe hard disk drive business, a major re-alignment of the microelectronics unit,and the outsourcing of desktop manufac-turing. Palmisano took over as chairmanof IBM on January 1, 2003, succeedingLouis Gertsner.Bose plans India tech centre: Bose Cor-poration has decided to set up a wholly-owned technology centre in Hyderabad.The centre — Bose Technology CentrePrivate Limited — will be an extension ofthe research and development softwareengineering group located at the compa-ny’s headquarters in Massachusetts.

The company, founded by Amar GopalBose, has decided to commence recruit-ment of software engineering talent forits tech centre beginning this month, itsaid in a statement. The firm intends tohire 30 software engineers for the centreand expand operations in the country.

‘‘Software content in our audio prod-ucts is growing and will continue to doso,’’ says Bose president John Coleman.

The set-up phase for the technologycentre is underway. The first project isscheduled to start in September 2003. Thecentre in Hyderabad will initially focuson development and production of engi-neering software and continuous verifi-cation of production code related to a va-riety of Bose audio products.

‘‘A centre in India gives us access tosoftware engineering talent, enabling usto take advantage of skills sets from vari-ous parts of the world,’’ said company di-rector Rakesh Pandey.

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

TECHNOLOGYTRACKER

WLL cheaper,but still not a commonman’s mobile

By Sanjay AnandTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Despite a hike in WLL-M (mobilewireless in local loop) call charges, the servicemay still be a wee bit cheaper to use for local— and, in certain cases, STD — calls than cel-lular services.

At the same time, one thing is clear as day:From this month, WLL-M service will not beanywhere near the poor man’s mobile it wastouted to be, particularly with incoming callson cellphones being made free from Thursday.Besides, WLL-M call charges will be on perminute basis as opposed to a three-minute ba-sis earlier.

Not all experts agree that WLL-M is cheap-er. They cite high entry costs for the service.GSM cellular subscribers have benefits likeautomatic roaming and MMS. Besides, theysay, telecom regulator TRAI is yet to clear im-mensely popular SMS for WLL-M operators.

A first glance at the tariffs announced bysome phone companies like Reliance, Tata In-dicom and Hutch, indicates that ‘‘affordabili-ty’’ gap between WLL-M and GSM cellular hasreduced considerably. However, WLL-M mightstill have a touch of economy.

Since not all tariffs plans are yet public, in-cluding those of AirTel, the tariff landscapecontinues to be in flux.

For now, new tariff packages by Relianceand Indicom put the average local WLL-M tofixed calls from Re 1 to 0.65 paise a minute formonthly commitments ranging from Rs 295 to999, instead of Rs 1.20 for three minutes and Rs200 rental until Wednesday. The cost will behowever Rs 1.20 for 90 seconds for MTNL’sfixed phones to WLL-M phones.

Cellular outgoing calls still average aboutRs 2 per minute. Besides,companies are plan-ning to add 0.30-0.50 paise per minute to the ex-isting airtime rates, raising end user cost toabout Rs 2.40 per minute.

On the other hand, entry level WLL-M hand-sets are costlier than GSM ones. While WLL-Mcompatible Kyocera, LG or Samsung handsetcosts about Rs 6,500, on down payment, a GSMNokia handset is available for less than Rs5,000.

Besides, for those who want to enjoy a fullcolour of surfing the Net, a GPRS, MMS en-abled GSM compatible handset is available forabout Rs 9,000. Similar WLL-M handset costsat least Rs 15,000.

But as consumers go through the maze oftariff and service choices, WLL-M has movedecidedly away from being a part of fixedphone service (which it technically is) to beingcloser to a mobile service. Of course, the legalbattle between WLL-M and cellular servicesstill rages.

TRAI seeks clarificationon Reliance plan: Telecomregulator TRAI has soughtclarification from Reliance onits new tariffs, according tosources familiar with the de-velopment. It was not clearuntil late evening whether theissue had been resolved.Sources said the clarificationrelated to certain STD tariffsoffering WLL-M to WLL-Mcalls at Rs 0.40 per minutewithin a telecom circle, as an-nounced by Reliance onWednesday through a pressstatement.

Cosmo Films to closedown two subsidiaries:Cosmo Films Ltd has decidedto close down two of its sub-sidiary firms — Cosmo Plant-gene and Sterling Hitech —as part of a decision to focuson core competencies. WhileCosmo Plantgene was en-gaged in the business of pro-ducing hybrid seeds, Sterlingused to make potassium sili-cate for use in black-and-white TV picture tubes. “Wehad tried to sell them, butfailed. Now we intend to windup these arms,” company EDand CEO Sushil Mittal said.

Goodlass Nerolac sets90% dividend: Buoyed by a50 per cent growth in grossprofit, Goodlass NerolacPaints Ltd has announced a90 per cent dividend. Its2002-03 gross sales of Rs 791crore marked an increase of11.7 per cent year-on-year.Pre-tax profit stood at Rs56.09 crore, while net profitincreased 45.6 per cent to

Rs 39.84 crore up from Rs27.36 crore last year.

Reliability index forpower planned: Govern-ment proposes to introduce areliability index for power tocover major centres and capi-tals within the next sixmonths. Speaking at a semi-nar on transformers, powersecretary R V Shahi said the

index is targeted to be intro-duced at district level within ayear’s time. He said govern-ment was facing a dilemmaon the level at which such anindex, to measure the qualityof power, should be broughtin, namely 11kv, 33kv or distri-bution transformer level.

Govt reconstitutesCoffee Board: Governmenthas reconstituted CoffeeBoard for a period for threeyears as per the provisions ofthe Coffee Act, 1942 and Cof-fee Rules, 1955. The new 32-member board includes,among others, Hamid Ashraf,managing director, Tata Coffee, Gautam Darkar, com-mercial controller beverageand head, Hindustan Lever,Ravi Deol, managing directorof Barista and Ranjit Raj, executive vice president ofNestle India from industry.

Hero Honda unit rolls out5 millionth bike: HeroHonda has achieved anothermilestone with its Daruheraplant, in Haryana, becomingthe first Indian two-wheelerplant to produce 5 millionunits. The 5 millionth motorcy-cle was a Splendor, the lar-gest selling single motorcyclemodel across the globe.

The plant also produces otherbrands like CD100SS, Dawn, Splendor and CD-Dawn.

OBC revises interestrates for SSIs: OrientalBank of Commerce (OBC) hasrevised interest rates on ad-vances to small scale sector.Accounts with credit limitsabove Rs 2 lakh and upto Rs25 lakh would now becharged prime lending rate of11 per cent only against theearlier rate of PLR + 2 percent. The rate for credit limitsabove Rs 25 lakh and upto Rs50 lakh has been broughtdown to 13 per cent from13.5 per cent. Rates for limitsabove Rs 50 lakh will contin-ue at PLR + 3 per cent.

25 per cent dividend byPNB Gilts: PNB Gilts hasdeclared a 25 per cent divi-dend for 2002-03 against 24per cent in the previous year.It is inclusive of the 10 percent declared in the thirdquarter of 2002-03. It earneda net profit of Rs 92.51 crorefor the year ended March2003. Operating profit im-proved by 10 per cent to Rs186 crore. Profit before tax,however, shrunk to Rs 150.01crore from Rs 176.26 crore in2000-01.

E X E C U T I V E D I G E S T

NATIONAL

Toyota to build engineplant in China: Toyota Mo-tor Corp will build an engineplant in the northern Chinesecity of Changchun by 2005and its Hino Motors unit willstart producing trucks anddiesel engines in Shanghaifrom 2004, a Japanese news-paper said on Thursday. Ni-hon Keizai Shimbun said Toy-ota would launch a new com-

pany to produce engines withChina FAW Group Corp bythe end of this year. The fivebillion yen ($42 million) plantto be built in Changchun,where China FAW has itsheadquarters, will start pro-ducing 50,000 engines a yearin 2005, the paper said.

Ricoh posts record profit,sees growth slowing: Ri-coh Co Ltd, Japan’s second-largest office machine maker,posted another record profiton Thursday and forecastmore growth ahead as buyerssnap up its high-speedcopiers and colour printersdespite a dull economy. Butthe company, while turning inits ninth record result in a row,

said growth was set to slowto its lowest pace in five yearsas its markets become satu-rated or draw in competitors.Ricoh reported a consolidat-ed net profit of 72.51 billionyen ($610 million) for the busi-ness year that ended onMarch 31, up 17.7 per centfrom the year before.

Nasdaq Q1 profits fall 90per cent: The Nasdaq StockMarket Inc on Wednesdaysaid first-quarter earnings fellnearly 90 per cent from a yearearlier, as the No. 2 US stockmarket was hurt by slowertrading volumes, fewer listedcompanies and increasedcompetition. Nasdaq saidfirst-quarter earnings fell to

$1.9 million after payment ofpreferred dividends, or 2 centsper share, from $21.3 million,or 18 cents per share, a yearearlier. Revenue fell 21.5 percent in the quarter to $165.9million. In the first quarter, ex-penses fell 6.2 per cent froma year earlier to $161.6 million.

INTERNATIONAL

Today’s question:Do you understand the new

phone tariffs fully?

• The poll reflects the opinions of Net users who chose to participate, and not necessarily of

the general public.

Yesterday’s results: Will VAT ever be implemented

in India?

Yes 57% No 35%

ET INSTA POLL

Ajit

Nin

an

Fed chairman Alan Green-span during testimony be-fore the House financialservices committee inWashington, DC. He said theUS economy is poised for apost-war rebound, but theoutlook is blurry and busi-ness caution is an obstacle.

Alagh to step down as Britannia CEO: Sunil Alagh, the high-profile MD and CEO ofconfectionery major BritanniaIndustries, is planning to step down at the end of his current term, ending February2004.‘‘The matter would beconsidered by the board of directors meeting to be held in June,” the company said.

The Times of India, New Delhi, Friday, May 2, 2003

A business callAustralian financial servicesgroup AMP’s chief executiveAndrew Mohl said the firm issplitting its London-based operations and writing down itsvalue by $1.6 billion

Making a moveSony’s new 5-mega pixeldigital camera DSC-V1 has5.3 million pixels CCD andcosts $833. Moody’s may cutcredit rating of Sony as it is not likelyto make a swift return to strong profit

SARS no fearMalaysia’s AirAsia will notpull back its expansion plansdue to the SARS outbreak.The deadly disease is unlike-ly to hamper revenue orbusiness growth, it said

US-64 soars as trading gains paceBy Vinu Lal

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: As corporatesstart booking profits on theirUS-64 investments, tradingin the US-64 counter is gath-ering volumes. The unitprice touched a record highof Rs 10.40 on the BombayStock Exchange on Wednes-day. Market sources saidtraders are buying heavilyinto these units due to wide-spread optimism that the US-64 bonds will start trading ata substantial premium.

During the past month,

US-64 units reported averagetrading volumes of 60 lakhand 90 lakh units on the BSEand NSE, respectively.

On June 1, all US-64unitholders who have not re-deemed their units will be is-sued 5-year tax-free, tradablebonds guaranteed by the gov-ernment of India. A UTIspokesperson, commentingon the renewed interest inUS-64 units, said allunitholders holding the se-curity in demat form are en-titled to trade. UTI has saidthat all beneficial owners ofUS-64 units as on May 31 will

be issued bonds in lieu of theunits. Brokers said the mar-ket expects these bonds tostart trading at about Rs 104,as against their face value ofRs 100. This will work out toa yield of slightly less than 6

per cent while a profile gov-ernment security is current-ly trading at 5.60 per cent.

Trading in the US64-counter touched a recordhigh on April 9 amid vol-umes of 4.9 crore units. Theprice has been hovering inthe Rs 10.20-10.40 range. Infact, during the past month,US-64 recorded the secondlargest trading volumes afterSatyam Computer Services.

Brokers who are taking uphuge positions in the US-64counter said public sectorbanks have been active sell-ers, with quite a few block

deals reported on the ex-changes. ‘‘Banks are offload-ing US-64 units because theyhave to adjust the tax-freestatus of these bonds againsttheir cost of borrowings,’’ abroker said.

There are also a lot of in-vestors who have sold theirunits at a premium ratherthan opting for the tax-freebonds. Brokers who are ac-cumulating these units arebetting on substantial capi-tal gains by selling them toprovident funds and individ-ual clients at a later date,sources said.

•Widespread optimismover premium

•Brokers are taking uphuge positions

•In April, US-64 was 2ndlargest in trade volumes

Gathering steam

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‘We don’t realise how fit we’ve become’By Sunit Arora & N Vidyasagar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Mumbai’s favouritecorporate honcho is fast learninghow to navigate the hurly-burlythat is Delhi. And the new Confed-eration of Indian Industry (CII)president seems remarkably unruf-fled by the politics, the hectic trav-elling to come, and even Delhi’s no-torious traffic.

Just in from meeting the PrimeMinister, and an hour before he wasto head back to Mumbai to cele-brate his birthday on Labour Day,we caught up with the cool-as-cu-cumber head of Mahindra &Mahindra. ‘‘It’s difficult not to likethe PM. A statesman differentiateshimself by looking at what is theend goal in terms of quality oflife.’’

That seems to define Mahindratoo: a suave, quick-thinking ideasman who has been quietly groomedfor the high-profile CII job for threemonths now. If Mahindra has al-ready hit the ground running, hetakes that analogy further while de-scribing the state of corporate In-dia today. ‘‘When you are runningso hard, you sometimes don’t re-alise that you have become fitter.’’

Mahindra’s reflecting the feelingof buoyancy sweeping through ex-ports-driven manufacturing. CitingBharat Forge’s Baba Kalyani talk-ing about booming business (‘Idon’t have to market anymore, Idon’t make phone calls’), Mahin-dra’s upbeat: ‘‘The trigger hascome. Earlier it was fashionable tosay no one’s investing, let us down-size. Suddenly, you’re saying,‘Should I invest again?’’

He’s also mighty relieved thatthis has happened at the right time.

‘‘I’d rather be here now than whenthe airplane’s heading down-wards,’’ Mahindra smiles.

Mahindra insists that recent talkabout India emerging as a viable al-ternative to China isn’t SARS-driv-en. It’s just the tip of the iceberg,the action started as early as De-cember 2002, he says. ‘‘A recent re-port says 50 per cent of Indian busi-nessmen surveyed didn’t believethey would challenge China. In re-ality, India is going to be a lower-cost destination for a longer periodof time.’’ Talking about the con-tentious issue of corporate gover-nance, Mahindra said companies

should not be fixated by rules. ‘‘TheIndian mind is devious and bril-liant enough to bypass any regula-tion that you create.’’

However, he did say that CIIwould look at finding a process tosee how companies with poor com-pliance could be kept out of theforum.’’

Clearly waiting for the statutoryquestion on CII’s now-on, now-offrelationship with Gujarat chiefminister Narendra Modi, Mahin-dra deadpans: ‘‘You’re not going toget headlines from me on this.’’ TheCII, he said, will try and find a tem-plate to ‘reconcile’ differing inter-

ests. In other words, ‘‘a process bywhich speak now, align your inter-ests, come out with what your is-sues are — and then hold yourpeace.’’

As he rushed away, Mahindra —a contemporary of filmmaker MiraNair from his Harvard days — fireda parting shot: There would be a bigpush to the India brand at Canneslater this month.

Clearly, media and entertain-ment is one thing the Mumbai manwill bring to the table. To which,he’s quick on the draw: ‘‘Whereveryou are, the bottomline isthe same.’’

TOI

Mahindra & Mahindra’s Anand Mahindra delivers his first address after taking over as the new CII president.

CMYK

10 Friday, May 2, 2003 The Times of India, New Delhi

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Friday, May 2, 2003 17The Times of India, New Delhi

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B U S I N E S S T I M E S The Times of India, New Delhi18 Friday, May 2, 2003

After tobacco and banking, pharma comes under attackBig tobacco, big bank-

ing and now big phar-ma? It seems fanciful

to speculate during a weekin which Pfizer reportedprofits, for its latest quarter,of $4.7 billion, that Ameri-ca’s mighty pharmaceuti-cals giants might find them-selves vulnerable to the po-litical attacks that have tor-mented some of the coun-try’s other large industries.

The attack on the tobaccoindustry (worth $22 billionin settlement payments sofar to the states alone) fo-cused on smoking’s harmfuleffects, and made full use ofthe courts. The post-bubbleassault on investment bank-ing is highlighting sales andmarketing practices, and isusing the court of publicopinion as much as lawsuits.(New York’s attorney-gener-

al, Eliot Spitzer, won a $1.4billion settlement withoutever bringing formalcharges against banks, norhinting at what suchcharges might be.)

The campaign against BigPharma borrows some ofthese earlier tactics. Statessuch as Connecticut and (in-evitably) New York, thanksto Spitzer, are filing suitsagainst drug firms that chal-lenge sales and marketingpractices which the industrysays have gone on for years.Connecticut’s, for instance,claims that the state hasbeen scammed by drug com-panies seeking to make aprofit off our neediest citi-zens. But so far, these law-suits seem designed more toharass and distract thedrugs industry with badpublicity than to deliver a

knock-out punchthough thatmay change. The real battleinvolves state governors andtheir budget officers, andcentres on the vexed ques-tion of drug pricing.

America spends hugemoney on drugs ($149 billionin the year to February, ac-cording to IMS Health). Butprices in America are alsomuch higher. The markethas more freedom to setprices than governments al-low in Canada, Europe orJapan.

For the drugs companies,the politics of these arrange-ments have become toxic.One problem is that voterspersonally bear more andmore of the cost of expen-sive, branded drugs inAmerica and hence feelthose high prices directly.The lack of a comprehensive

prescription-drug benefit forthe elderly means that near-ly half of elderly Americanslack prescription-drug cov-erage at some point in theyear, according to AARP, alobby group. At the sametime, the Internet is makingmore Americans aware ofthe high prices they pay fordrugs compared with shop-pers in other countries.Some have begun to shop forcheaper drugs online fromCanadian Net pharmacieswhich have sprouted alongthe border.

The states, which face thebiggest hole in their budgetssince the second world war,are finding ways to harnessthis anger. Although they donot contribute to Medicare, afederally-financed health-care scheme for elderlyAmericans, the states pay a

large chunk of the costs ofMedicaid, which providescoverage for the poorest.

Some states are followingMichigan’s pioneering useof approved-drug lists towring discounts from drugsfirms. (Because exclusionfrom such lists means thatdoctors must obtain hard-to-win approval to prescribe adrug, the industry arguesthat such tactics amount toholding patients hostage.)Michigan now says it wantsthe same discount of up to 70per cent enjoyed by the Vet-erans Health Administra-tion, and is inviting otherstates to join hands.

The industry used tothwart such tactics by citingpatients’ access. But as thepolitics sour, the industry in-creasingly finds itself hav-ing to justify. The Economist

AP

An Enzo Ferrari is displayed at Korea Import Motor Show in Seoul. Under the theme “mobilityunlimited”, about 100 cars are on display by 17 leading foreign automakers.

Retailers win $3bn suit over debit cardsNew York: Thousands ofmajor US retailers includingWal-Mart and Sears have set-tled their anti-trust caseagainst Visa and MasterCardover debit cards, winning $ 3billion and lower transactionfees for use of the popularplastic. The deal was hailedby the retailers’ lawyer as a“major victory” for mer-chants and their customers.

“The world of debit isabout to change for the better,for merchants and for con-sumers,” said the retailers’lead attorney, Lloyd Constan-tine, after signing a deal withVisa USA on Wednesdaynight. “Five million mer-chants will now get relieffrom excess fees that wereforced down their throats.”

The Visa deal calls for thecompany to pay roughly $ 2billion to the retailers and re-

duce debit card fees, Con-stantine said. MasterCard In-ternational will pay $ 1 bil-lion and reduce fees.

The case against Visa hadbeen scheduled to go to trialthis week; MasterCard set-tled with the retailers onMonday. The card companiesfaced billions of dollars indamages if they lost at trial.

The retailers had claimedthat Visa and MasterCardtrapped them into payinghigh fees by demanding thatstores that accept their cred-it cards also accept their deb-it cards.

Visa US said in a statementthat it had reached “an im-portant agreement in princi-ple” with the plaintiffs andwould change its debit cardpolicies.

“We believe this settlementis a reasonable and responsi-

ble resolution that serves theinterests of consumers, mer-chants and our member fi-nancial institutions,” saidDaniel Tarman, a Visa vice-president.

MasterCard’s generalcounsel, Noah Hanft, said hiscompany was satisfied with

the outcome. “We’re pleasedthat we’re able to come to anunderstanding with the mer-chants community,” he said.“It’s good to be able to moveforward without litigatingthis case in the courts.”

The Visa deal announce-ment came after a federaljudge postponed openingstatements in the trial untilFriday, saying he hoped hewas offering “breathingroom” so the sides could set-tle. The judge must approvethe deals, which include im-mediate $ 25 million pay-ments.

Tarman, said Visa wouldmodify its “honour all cards”policy and that, beginning inJanuary, merchants can de-cide whether to continue toaccept Visa’s debit cards.

Visa and MasterCard saidthe “honour all cards” policy

was important so consumerscould have more choice. Re-tailers, who filed suit sevenyears ago, said the process ul-timately cost people moremoney.

Analysts said Visa waslikely feeling intense pres-sure to settle the case ratherthan face a trial that threat-ened to drag well into sum-mer a trial that could havebeen more difficult withoutMasterCard fighting along-side. If the merchants pre-vailed at trial, Visa wouldhave been liable for damagesrunning into the tens of bil-lions of dollars.

“It’s a terrific day for con-sumers,” David Balto, a for-mer FTC policy director,said. “Consumers will see thebenefits of lower prices,greater choice and safer deb-it card products.”AP

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•Visa will pay $2 billionto retailers and cut debitcard fees

•MasterCard will pay $1billion and reduce fees

•Retailers claimed thatVisa and MasterCardtrapped them and forcedto pay high fees

•Consumers to gainfrom the decision

Payback time

Online music tries a new tuneSince Napster arrived

in 1999 to pioneer theunfettered exchange

of music files over the In-ternet, the record industryhas responded with a 2-pronged strategy. It hasdone its best to stop illegalfile-swapping in the courts.And it has backed severalsubscription-based onlinemusic services, to provide alegal alternative to piracy.So far, neither approach hashad much impact. But theevents of the past few daysmay prove a turning pointfor online music, in thecourts and in the market.

On the face of it, the legalbattle is going just as badlyas ever. Napster is gone,having been killed last yearby a lawsuit launched by themusic industry’s ‘‘big five’’record companies. ButKaZaA, Grokster and otherfile-swapping services thathave sprung up in its placeare now even more popularthan Napster was in its hey-day, and are proving muchharder to shut down.

On April 25th, a Federaljudge in Los Angelesagreed, ruling that thefirms behind Grokster andMorpheus, two popular file-swapping programs, werenot guilty of contributoryinfringement, just as mak-ers of video recorders arenot responsible for the useof such machines for piracy.

This was a setback, butthe record companies are

having more luck trying tohit file-swapping networksin another way: By target-ing users directly.

The industry has beenquietly stepping up other ef-forts to pursue individualsby legal means — a strategythat could end up hardeningsome consumers already-re-sentful attitude towards therecord industry.

Despite industry backingfor several subscription-based online music servic-es, such as Rhapsody, press-play and MusicNet, re-sponse has been tepid.

Lee Black, an analyst atJupiter Research, estimatesthat such services havetopped out at around 350,000

subscribers, compared with tens of millions offile-swappers.

The appeal of subscrip-tion-based music services islimited for 2 reasons.Rather than buy music out-right, as they do on CD,users rent it for the dura-tion of subscriptions.Whereas a track on a CD (ordownloaded from a file-swapping service) can betransferred on to a portablemusic player or to a CD,such transfers are eitherprohibited by online musicservices, or cost more.

So the launch on April28th of a new online musicservice by Apple could be abig step forward. The new

service, called iTunes Mu-sic Store, rejects monthlysubscriptions for a simplermodel: Each track from its200,000-track library costs$0.99. Once purchased anddownloaded, a track can becopied on to as many asthree computers, burned onto CDs, and transferred onto Apple’s popular iPodportable music-players.There is no need to buy anentire album just for one ortwo tracks.

Apple boss Steve Jobshopes that because there isno subscription fee, pur-chasing a track will becomean ‘‘impulse buy’’. So far,the new service is availableonly in America The Economist

AFP

A customer browses through supplements next to empty shelves at a pharmacy in KualaLumpur. Malaysia has ordered a recall of all products manufactured by Australian pharmafirms Pan Pharmaceuticals.

IndianOil coins Rs 1,500 cr retail strategyBy Sanjay Dutta

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: IndianOil Corpo-ration plans to spend up to Rs1,500 crore in the next threeyears to create a shieldagainst poaching of dealersby private sector rivals andopen 1,000 new retail outlets.

‘‘We are looking at a situa-tion where 60 per cent of ouroutlets would be company-owned to avoid poaching by

our rivals,’’ IOC marketingdirector PK Agrawal said.

IOC now has 7,961 outletsacross the country and 60 percent of the market.

Only 5 per cent of these arecompany-owned companyoperated, while 45 per centare comapny-owned dealeroperated.

The remaining 50 per centare open to poaching by pri-vate players like Reliance, Es-sar and Shell who are in the

process of setting up theirown retail network. The ex-isting retail outlets are lucra-tive as these are located inprime spots in metros andkey towns.

Agarwal said IOC wouldadd 1,000 new retail outletsthis year. It is concentratingon the major highways, par-ticularly the Prime Minis-ter’s golden quadrilateralnetwork.

Private retailers are also

eyeing the maze of nationaland state highways as thesehave proven to be a big seg-ment for diesel and lubri-cants sales. Indeed, a chain ofhighway outlets criss-cross-ing the country forms thehub of Reliance’s marketingstrategy.

IOC also plans to revampand modernise some of itsmajor strategic petrol sta-tions before Reliance opensits first outlet next year.

Corporate mindset changing, says IFCTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: International Fi-nance Corporation’s (IFC’s)total exposure in India willsoon cross $1 billion markfrom its present level of $700million, said IFC chief PeterWoicke, who was here to signan MOU with Confederationof Indian Industry (CII) to ex-pedite sanction and disburse-ment of loans to mid-size In-dian corporates.

Woicke, who is also themanaging director of WorldBank, said that India had the

potential to achieve a GDPgrowth of 8.5 per cent per an-num. There was a clear shiftin the mindset of Indian cor-porates from the rent-seekingattitude a couple of yearsback to improving efficiencyand compete in the globalmarket, he said.

To achieve higher growth,he recommended speedy im-plementation of economic re-forms in the country. Forthis, he said, private entre-preneurs could play an im-portant role in allaying fearsin the minds of politicians

about shrinkage of job op-portunities in the country ifreform processes like privati-sation are expedited. IFC, hesaid, would like to play thecatalyst role to this effect.

IFC has recently sanc-tioned $200 million to HDFCLtd to increase the housingactivities in the country.Woicke said IFC would like totake exposure in the electric-ity and water distributioncompanies if they were pri-vatised. IFC would like to fi-nance ventures in segmentswhere private sector hesitate

to tread.Talking about Iraq, he said

that IFC would pursue theWorld Bank policy for its op-erations in Iraq. As WorldBank was not operating inIraq since 1971, IFC also hadno exposure in that country.But now, as the situation haschanged, he said.

The MoU with CII wouldenable CII and IFC to work to-gether, exchange views andshare experiences, partici-pate and host events to pro-mote sustainable private sec-tor development in India.

CMYK

By Bobilli Vijay KumarTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: There were nostretch limos, flashing bulbsor shrieking fans.

India’s top sports person-alities were quietly broughtinto the Indira Gandhi stadi-um in freshly-painted busesand hired cars; they lookedsheepishly at each other, ex-changed smiles with ques-tion marks on their faces(who could that be?) andquickly disappeared into thewomb of the stadium.

It was only when ShilpaShetty, Salman Khan andVivek Oberoi glided towardstheir seats (separately, onemust add) that a flutter racedacross the half-empty stadium(or half-full, depending whereyou are looking from); later,there was another flutterwhen Delhi CM Sheila Dixit

walked in, but that was creat-ed more by her entourage ofpolicemen and hangers-on.

Ladies and gentlemen,welcome to the inauguraledition of the Hero Indiasports awards function thatwas held on Wednesday.

The evening was graced bymost of the sports personali-ties who had memorabletrysts with the year 2002. Ma-hesh Bhupathi. Dhanraj Pil-lay. Bhaichung Bhutia. PullelaGopichand. Sourav Ganguly.B.C. Ramesh (Errr, all right ifyou can guess his field of ex-cellence you can win a freeticket to this year’s Oscars).

There were almost all for-mer greats too, right fromTiger Pataudi to SunilGavaskar to Jaideep Mukher-jea, P.K. Banerjee to P.T. Usha,Michael Ferreira to PargatSingh, to Mandira Bedi.

Yes, yes, Mandira Bedi.This time she was enactingthe role of the master of cere-mony, opposite SidharthBasu. One, however, deeply re-

grets to inform that the colourof her blouse, and more im-portantly its depth, cannot bereported (without confirma-tion from her, that is) as shehad cleverly hidden it behindher long, black saree.

It was a nice, full-lengthshow of fun (Dino Morea andMallaika Arora symbolisingthe perfect symphony be-tween sports and films), frolic(Sekhar Suman with hisSARS, lathi-charge and crick-et-bashing) and games (re-tired NBA stars actually giv-ing a display of slam-dunk).

The organisers must espe-cially be commended for get-ting so many accomplishedsportsmen and egos underthe same roof. And that too,on the same evening. If any-thing, one only hopes thatthey will remember to bringa couple of extra mikes

along the next time. If thereis a next time, that is.

The winners were, howev-er, proud and happy. Theywere actually rubbing shoul-ders with cricketing stars(like Yuvraj Singh andParthiv Patel) while top filmstars were performing forthem. The good news is thatSachin Tendulkar didn’tgrab all the awards; even thebest team of the year didn’tgo to the cricket team. Itwent to the women’s hockeyteam. And one could seewhy: they were all sitting ina huddle, giggling and laugh-ing all the time, even whenthey were not on the field.

For all those who are won-dering if Salman Khan andVivek Oberoi exchangedpleasantries, or anything else,the answer is a sad no. Theydidn’t even look at each other

An evening of fun, frolic and awards

Muralikrishnan wins: Former na-tional under-25 champion B T Mura-likrishnan of Railways emergedchampion with 7.5 points in the B CCochin All-India FIDE rated chesstournament in Kochi on Thursday.Though Aghyadip Das (GNCA)and top seed Himanshu Sharma ofHaryana also finished with 7.5 pointseach at the end of the ninth and finalround, Muralikrishnan emerged champion on better progressive score.Final position:1. B T Muralikrishanan 7.5 pts, 2.Arghyadip Das (GNCA) 7.5 pts, 3. Himanshu Sharma7.5 pts, 4. M B Muraleedharan (Ker) 7 pts, 5. MariaArul (TN) 7 pts, 6. Alex Thomas (Ker) 7 pts, 7. U CMohanan (Ker) 7 pts, 8. Ravikumar (Chattisgarh) 7pts, 9. E P Nirmal (B C Cochin) 7 pts, 10. MalleswaraRao (AP) 6.5 points.PTI

Kaif joins Derbyshire: India bats-man Mohammad Kaif signed a fourmonth contract with Derbyshire onWednesday. Kaif, 22, has been draft-ed in as cover for injured NewZealand batsman Nathan Astle asDerbyshire’s second overseas player,the other is Australian Michael DiVenuto. India middle-order stroke-player Kaif will come in for Astle’stemporary replacement Shahid Afridiwhen the Pakistan international’sspell with the English county comesto an end. Derbyshire hope that Kaif,who has previous English experiencewith Leicestershire, will make hiscounty debut in the second divisionCounty Championship match againstGlamorgan at Swansea on June 4. AFP

SL board goes to polls: Sri Lan-ka’s troubled cricket control board isset to hold elections in June after be-ing managed by government-ap-pointed committees for the past fouryears, officials said on Wednesday.The Board of Control for Cricket(BCCSL) ran into trouble following itslast election in March 1999 when in-cumbent chief Thilanga Sumathipaladefeated a close relative of PresidentChandrika Kumaratunga. AFP

World badminton called off:The world badminton championshipsdue to take place here next monthhave been called off because of fearsover the SARS virus, the sport’sworld governing body IBF an-nounced on Wednesday. Almost 350players from 48 countries were ex-pected to descend on England’ssecond city from May 12 to 18 butthe IBF decided to cancel the tour-nament. AFP

Former West Indies bowler Court-ney Walsh (L) stands with bowlerMervyn Dillon (C) and Sir GarfieldSobers during a team practice atthe Univeristy of the West Indies inBarbados on Wednesday.

AP

SPORTS DIGEST

I would like to play in the 2007 World Cup and then quit both forms of

the game after that

Sri Lankan offspinner Muttiah Muralitharan

FOOTBALLChampions League winner

Real Madrid 4/5 AC Milan 4/1

Inter Milan 9/2 Juventus 9/2

(as per ladbrokes.com)

BETTING METER

Ajit Ninan

AP

Hockey star Dhanraj Pillay and shooter Anjali Bhagwat (right) after receiving the awards forexcellence at the Hero Indian Sports Awards ceremony in New Delhi on Wednesday. Apartfrom being best shooter, Anjali also bagged the Sportswoman of the Year award.

AFP

South African batsman Mark Boucher (R) is clean bowled by Bangladeshi bowler Mohammad Rafique (not in picture) as field-er Mehrab Hossain (R) jumps in the air and wicktkeeper Mohammad Salim looks on during the first day of the second Test atBangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka on Thursday.

Aussies make a sedate start

Rafique puts skidsunder South Africa Dhaka: Bangladesh leg-spinner MohammadRafique delivered the best performance of his ca-reer to help restrict South Africa to 264 for six at theclose on day one of the second Test on Thursday.

Left-arm spinner Rafique took four for 59, thethird best Test figures by a Bangladeshi, afterSouth Africa won the toss and chose to bat insearch of their second win of the series.

The tourists’ batsmen struggled to come to termswith a bare pitch offering turn and inconsistentbounce until Jacques Rudolph and Mark Boucher,who each made 71, shared a fifth-wicket partner-ship of 107.

Both fell to rashshots, Rudolph los-ing his wicket forthe first time intests following hisunbeaten 222 on de-but in the openingmatch of the series,but their standpulled the SouthAfricans roundfrom the precariousposition of 63 forfour shortly afterlunch. Gibbs scored21 before drivingloose ball fromRafique. Reuters

Bridgetown: Sent in to bat, Aus-tralia were 151 for two against theWest Indies after 36 overs onThursday in their third Test.

Before a sellout crowd, JustinLanger made 78 before giving asimple catch to Chanderpaul offBanks. Skipper Ricky Ponting wasnot out on 45 while new batsmanDarren Lehmann was yet to openhis account on Barbados’ hard,true Kensington Oval pitch.Matthew Hayden had been caughtat first slip for 27 in VasbertDrakes’ first over.

Fortune favoured Langer, how-ever, as he was dropped by second

slip Ramnaresh Sarwan off thefirst ball of the day bowled by Jer-maine Lawson, who then muffed astraightforward return catchwhen the batsman had four.

The home team has made fivechanges to their side from the sec-ond Test in Trinidad.

Batsmen Chris Gayle and Shiv-narine Chanderpaul come in at theexpense of Wavell Hinds and Mar-lon Samuels, both of Jamaica.

The bowling department gets thebiggest shake up with Tino Bestand Omari Banks making their de-buts and Jermaine Lawson return-ing after recovering from chickenpox. All three are 21-years-old.

Best is a Barbadian pacer, whileBanks, an off-spinner, becomes thefirst player from the tiny Leewardisland of Anguilla to represent theWest Indies in Test cricket.

The experienced Mervyn Dillon,left-armer Pedro Collins and all-rounder David Bernard get the axfrom Trinidad.

Australia made just one adjust-ment to the lineup that easily wonthe first two Tests. Pace ace Glenn

McGrath, who had been in Aus-tralia caring for his wife who wasreceiving cancer treatment duringthe first two matches, returns inplace of left-arm wrist spinnerBrad Hogg.

Jacobs ruled out of thirdTest:West Indies wicketkeeper Ri-

dley Jacobs has been ruled out ofthe third Test against Australia af-ter failing a fitness test.

Jacobs has returned to his na-tive Antigua and will be replacedby Carlton Baugh, who made hisdebut in the second Test inTrinidad. Agencies

Rain may spoilKandy partyKandy (Sri Lanka): Persis-tent showers are threateningthe leadup to Sri Lanka’s sec-ond and final Test matchagainst New Zealand in thiscentral Sri Lankan citywhich starts on Saturday.

The arrival of the twoteams from Colombo onTuesday was met with heavyrain that washed out thepractice ses-sion. Localcricket offi-cials were worried at theprospects of the wet spell ru-ining Kandy’s first majorcricket match in a year.

The temple city of Kandyand its surrounding areashave seen heavy rain duringthe past week, and a forecastof further showers duringthe Test match has damp-ened the enthusiasm ofcricket lovers.

The first test match inColombo ended in a draw after

the two teams carried theirfirst innings into the final day.The defensive approach of thetwo teams and the rain-hitfourth day, when 1 1-2 sessionsof play were lost, spoiled anychance of a result.

A repeat show of unexcit-ing cricket in Kandy couldprove disastrous for the or-ganizers, who took a big risk

in schedul-ing the Testmatch in

Kandy during May, one of thewettest months for the re-gion. The options available tothe organizers were to playthe second Test in the south-ern coastal town of Galle orat another of Colombo’sthree Test grounds. Kandywas chosen for its coolerclimes, but the problems ofscheduling a series duringApril and May has returnedto haunt the Sri Lankanboard. AP

Streak pleads for trouble-free tourLondon: Zimbabwe captain HeathStreak pleaded on Thursday with oppo-nents of President Robert Mugabe’sregime to let his team’s cricket tour ofEngland go ahead without disruption.

A small group of no more than 10 pro-testers led by Stop the Tour organiserPeter Tatchell, who has tried to haveMugabe arrested for alleged humanrights violations, gathered outside theeast gate at Lord’s where Streak andZimbabwe officials were holding a me-dia conference.

They carried placards saying “Nocricket while Mugabe kills” and “Latestscore: Zimbabwe 3,409 tortured, 260killed”. Tatchell, whose group disrupt-ed an England and Wales Cricket Board(ECB) Lord’s media conference on Zim-babwe in January, has said his groupwill continue to demonstrate through-out the two-Test tour.

But fast bowler Streak urged themnot to do anything which would preventthe cricket from proceeding as scheduled.

“I hope they will respect our right togo on with our trade. We respect otherpeople’s views and we just hope our

views and our players can be respectedthe same.”

Political controversy has surrounded

the Zimbabwe cricket team since theWorld Cup earlier this year.

During the team’s opening match inFebruary, against Namibia in Harare,Zimbabwe players Andy Flower andHenry Olonga wore black armbandsand issued a statement lamenting the‘death of democracy’ in Zimbabwe un-der Mugabe.

Both Flower and Olonga, who arenow playing cricket in England, havesaid the tour should go ahead as ameans of focusing attention on Mu-gabe’s regime.

Streak admitted during the WorldCup the duo’s stance had created anawkward climate around the team andmade it hard for them to focus solely oncricket.

“It is always difficult to do that,”Streak said. “We’ve had it for a longtime now. Sports people have to try tofind a balance.”

However, Streak said he would haveno hesitation in leading his players offthe field if he felt it was unsafe for themto continue - something Australia skip-per Steve Waugh did during a one-dayinternational at Trent Bridge in 2001. AFP

Kabaddi: BC RameshWeightlifting: N. Kunjarani DeviShooting: Anjali BhagwatGolf: Jyoti RandhawaHockey: Dhanraj PillayFootball: Baichung BhutiaChess: Viswanathan AnandBadminton: P. GopichandTennis: Mahesh BhupathiCue Sports: Geet SethiCricket: Rahul DravidAthletics: Neelam J. SinghOther sports: Palwinder Cheema(wrestling)Male young achiever: Shiv Kapur(Golf)Female young achiever: KoneruHumpy (chess)Best team: Women’s hockey teamSportsman of the year: V AnandSportswoman of the year: AnjaliBhagwatLifetime achievement: Kapil Dev

...and the winners are

The Times of India, New Delhi, Friday, May 2, 2003

Olonga praises EnglandCricketer in exile, Henry Olonga haspraised the England team for refusingto play in Zimbabwe during the World Cup. His words are expectedto bolster protests planned duringZimbabwe’s tour of England

Montgomery eyes markIt will his first outdoor 100m race of theseason, but Tim Montgomery is alreadyupbeat. The 100m world record holdersays he can better his 9.78 sec mark atthis week’s meet in Mexico. He will beup against compatriot John Drummond

Hewitt, Venus pull outThe Italian Open has lost two of its big starseven before the start. Lleyton Hewitt andVenus Williams have pulled out of theevent in order to prepare for FrenchOpen. Venus, currently playing inWarsaw Cup, wants to rest

Anand and Anjali adjudged best sportspersons

SECOND TEST

South Africa (1st innings): G Smith c Ashraful b Baishya 15 H Gibbs c Baishya b Rafique 21 J Rudolph st Selim b Ashraful 71 B Dippenaar c Hossain b Rafique 1 N McKenzie lbw Rafique 7 M Boucher b Rafique 71 S Pollock batting 41 R Peterson batting 15 Extras: (6 b, 6 lb, 4 nb, 1 w, 5 pen) 22 Total: (For 6 wkts, in 90 overs) 264 Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-49, 3-51, 4-63, 5-170, 6-219.Bowling: Tapash Baishya 14-4-44-1 (1w), Mashrafee-bin-Murtaza 15-1-47-0(4 nb), Khaled Mahmud 10-5-22-0, Mo-hammad Rafique 29-6-59-4, Alok Ka-pali 11-2-33-0, Mohammad Ashraful 9-0-37-1, Mehrab Hossain 2-0-5-0.

SCOREBOARD

Australia:J Langer c Chanderpaul b Banks 78 M Hayden c Gayle b Drakes 27 R Ponting batting 45D Lehmann batting 0 Extra: (nb-1) 1Total: (For 2 wickets, after 36 overs) 151 Fall of wicket: 1-43, 2-151.Bowling: Lawson 6-0-31-0, Best 7-0-40-0(nb-1), Drakes 9-0-31-1, Banks 8-0-40-1,Gayle 6-2-9-0.

SCOREBOARD

Murali to pickand chooseColombo: Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitha-ran has said he would now beselective about the tourna-ments he plays in, so as to cutdown on injuries and keephimself fit for the 2007 WorldCup.

“I think I may have to con-sider playing just the majortournaments to prolong mycareer till World Cup 2007 sothat physical strain is less,”the spin wizard was quotedas saying on a website.

“I would like to play in the2007 World Cup and then quitboth forms of the game afterthat,” said Murali, who is setto become highest wicket tak-er in Test cricket.

He, however, said “planscan change but that is what Iam thinking now”.

The 30-year-old had beendogged by injuries through-out last year when he dislocated his shoulder dur-ing the Sharjah Cup andmissed the first few matchesof England tour.

He underwent a hernia op-eration in November andthen sustained a tornquadracep besides a nigglinggroin. PTI

Ganguly keen toplay 100 TestsKolkata: Indian skipperSourav Ganguly dreams toplay 100 Test matches for thecountry, wishing to reach themagic figure in a few moreyears.

“I wish I could carry on fora few more years. My goal isto turn out in 100 Test match-es,” Ganguly, who has played67 Test matches and scoredmore than 4,000 runs, said ata felicitation function here.

The informal function, a‘pleasant evening withSourav Ganguly’, was organ-ised by the Cricket Associa-tion of Bengal to honour theIndian skipper for the way heled the national squad to theWorld Cup final in SouthAfrica earlier this year.

Ganguly, visibly moved bythe presence of a large num-ber of present and formerBengal Ranji stars. PTI

Reuters

West Indies Jermaine Lawson during a practice session in Barbados onWednesday. Lawson returns in the squad after missing the second Test.

I tried to stopAndy: ChingokaLondon: Zimbabwe’s senior cricketadministrator on Thursday said hehad tried to stop leading batsmanAndy Flower from retiring from in-ternational cricket.

Zimbabwe Cricket Union chair-man Peter Chingoka, speaking at aLord’s media conference shortly af-ter the squad’s arrival in England,also insisted Flower had never beenthreatened with being dropped be-cause of his political protests.

“Even before the World Cup,Andy Flower had made up his mindhe was going to play for Essex,”Chingoka said. “We tried to hold onto Andy Flower. We offered him atwo or three-year contract. Thatshowed goodwill on our part.” AFP

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Van Lottum upset by Thai treatmentBy B Shrikant

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Thai Danai Udomchokeloves India. Conditions being similar,he feels at home in the Capital. He hashad good results here too — a Satellitetitle and a semi-final berth in a$25,000 Challenger event here wayback in 1999 (he lost to Leander Paes,who went on to beat Mahesh Bhu-pathi to win the title). He had reachedthe semifinal of the $50,000 event atVietnam but crashed out in the firstround at Bangalore.

A semifinal place has been his bestresult at the Challenger level thus faras he failed to cross the stage on fouroccasions. On Friday, he hopes to befifth-time lucky in the semifinals ofthe Indian Oil Servo $25,000 ATPChallenger tennis tournament at theDLTA Courts here.

In the quarterfinals on Thursday,

Udomchoke showed gumption to reg-ister an upset win over top seed Johnvan Lottum of the Netherlands. Thelanky Thai recovered from a one setdeficit to overcome van Lottum 3-6, 7-5, 6-0. He won eight games in a row toseal the issue.

Udomchoke lost the first set easily,van Lottum earning the lone break inthe eighth game. But the Thai, goingfor winners early,changed his tacticsand came back fighting in the secondset. After games went with serve hetook charge of the proceedings in the12th game to break his rivals’ serve.

Udomchoke unleashed a couple ofhard winners was also helped by twosilly mistakes by van Lottum. “Thatwas a crucial break. I had changedmy tactics and instead of going forwinners early, started hitting the balldeep and keeping it in play,” said

Udomchoke later. He held his serve towin the set 7-5.

That break turned the match on itshead and Udomchoke, now brim-ming with confidence, broke van Lot-tum’s serve in the second thanks totwo blistering shots through theflanks. That proved the last nail forVan Lottum as he wilted under pres-sure. He double faulted twice , lost

serve in the 4th gameand started throwingtantrums, yelling at

ball boys and linesmen. A bad loserindeed.

In the semis, Udomchoke will takeon Louis Vosloo of South Africa. whodefeated Frenchman Rodolphe Cadart6-4, 6-2 in the other quarterfinal.

Fellow Frenchman and winner ofthe Bangalore Challenger GregoryCarraz, the second seed here, takes onfifth seed Ivo Heuberger of Switzer-

land in the other semifinal.The in-form Carraz, who won his

maiden title at Bangalore, had aneasy time on Thursday as he endedthe run of Israeli qualifier JonathanErlich 6-1, 6-3. Erlich, who had to gothrough three sets in three matchesin the main draw, looked too exhaust-ed to put up a fight. Heuberger on theother hand had to use all his re-sources to down his fighting compa-triot Yves Allego 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4.

The Indian interest ended in dou-bles also as Harsh Mankad and VishalUppal went down tamely to the Israelipair of Jonathan Erlich and AndyRam 6-4, 6-3 in a quarterfinal match.Results: Singles (quarterfinals): 2-Gregory Carraz (Fra)bt Jonathan Erlich 6-1, 6-3; Danai Udomchoke bt 1-Johnvan Lottum 3-6, 7-5, 6-0; Louis Vosloo (RSA) bt RodolpheCadart (Fra) 6-4, 6-2; Ivo Heuberger (Sui) bt Yves Allegro(Sui) 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4.Doubles (semis): Lukaev (Bul)/Vlasov (Rus) btSchukin/Tereshchuk (Rus) 6-3, 7-6 (4). Quarterfinal:J Erlich/A Ram (Isr) bt H Mankad/V Uppal (Ind) 6-4, 6-3.

CMYK

T I M E S S P O R T The Times of India, New Delhi20 Friday, May 2, 2003

CAPITAL SPORTDelhi in semis: Delhi de-feated Jammu and Kashmir2-1 to advance to the semifi-nal of the North Zone qualifierfor the national U-21 M. DuttaRay trophy being played inBalia, UP. According to infor-mation received here,Kuldeep Thapliyal netted boththe goals for the winners. Del-hi will take on HimachalPradesh in the semifinal.

Inter-club transfers: TheDelhi Soccer Association’s(DSA) inter-club transfer willbe held at the Ambedkar Sta-dium from May 15-21.The in-ter-institutional league willstart at the same venue, therelease further disclosed. Theleague will kick-off from May15.

Dileep shines: In the BDMCup, BNCA defeated RPSD-CA by 5 wickets to advanceto the quarterfinals. Dileep TT,who scored a facile andbagged 3 for 24 44 was thechief architect of victory.BNCA: 185 for 9 in 40 overs: (Dileep TT3 for 24) EPSDCA: 186 for 5 in 33.5overs (Dileep TT 41).

Mrinal scintillates: MrinalSaini’s brilliant all-round per-formance helped Youngsters

Club beat South Delhi Clubby 2 wickets in the SheraPandit memorial tournament.Mrinal bagged 4 for 26 andthen chipped in a stubborn48 to help his team advanceto the last eight stage. South Delhi Club: 200 for 9 in 40 overs(Nischal Gaur 90, Raj Kapoor 63, MrinalSaini 4 for 26) Youngsters Club: 202 for8 in 39.3 overs (Mrinal Saini 43).

Deadly Hemant: RRGymkhana routed SubhaniaClub by 57 runs to move intothe semifinal of the U-19Prabhawati tournament. Bat-ting first, Preet Pal hit a hurri-cane 85 to help his team reg-ister 210 in their stipulated 40overs. In reply, Subhaniastumbled to Hemant Bansal’sdeadly spell. Bansal claimed4 for 25.RR Gymkhana: 210 for 8 in 40 overs(Preet Pal Singh 85) Subhania: 153 in35.3 overs (Gaurav 43, Hemant Bansal 4for 25).

Rishi excels: NajafgarhSports Club defeated MCCby 74 runs to move into thelast four of the 2nd RajdhaniCup. Rishi Bohar, who scoreda breezy 74 was declared theman of the match. NSC: 228 for 6 in 35 overs: (Rishi Bohar74) MCC: 153 for 3 in 28.3 overs (VijayMalik 49).

ATP CHALLENGER

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Eglevsky routesEaglecrest

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Eglevsky (PSChauhan atop) claimed theMartial Law Trophy at theMumbai races held on Thurs-day.Results: Exclusive Virtue Plate: Super Cop 1,Your The Lady 2, Island Pearl 3. Agni Plate: Mil-lennium King 1, Own Trumpet 2, Vishalakkshi 3.Martial Law Trophy: Eglevsky 1, Eaglecrest 2,Road Runner 3. River Haven Plate: Fraud 1,Storm To Glory 2, Thoughtful 3. Irish Boss Plate:Twist Afleet 1, Ride The Lightning 2, I’m Honoured3. Simply Superb Plate: Saphire Princess 1,Sonic Symphony 2, Secret Obsession 3. OdysseyPlate: Where Eagles Dare 1, Good Thinking 2, SoiDissant 3.

Saturday’s acceptances:Asset Plate: Cl V: 1,000m: 3.00pm: Moira

61, Riboletta 59, Tropic of Fear 54.5, Celestial Fan-tasy 53.5, Pride N Prejudice 53.5, Own Trumpet52.5, Priyanka 48. Regal Domain Trophy:1,200m: Dare To Dream 55, Lord of The Ring’s 55,Road Runner 55, Shining Star 55, Opium 53.5,Party Girl 53.5, Velocette 53.5. Shandaar Plate: ClIV: 1,000m: Elusive Charm 61, Bahudhana 59.5,Infamous 58, Demedicie 57.5, Royal Charmer56.5, Touch Wood 56.5, High Voltage 55.5, TioPepe 52. Prima Facie Plate: Cl IV: 1,400m:Rashomon 61, Quick Decision 59.5, Wine N Song58, Handsome Lad 57, Lord of Thunder 55.5, RightArrow 55, Berliet 52.5, Attia In Sunlight 51. StarContender Plate: Cl III: 1,200m: Silver Blue 60,Line of Control 58, Cats Whiskers 56.5, Gesund-heit 54.5, Latest News 54.5, Positano 54.5,Acharya 53, Ravissant 53, Stunning Force 53,Dillinger 52, Nothing Better 52, Tarascon 52, An-chors Aweigh 48. Haughty Run Plate: Cl V:1,200m: Tagged For Terror 60, Grand Finale 59.5,Cyvana 59, Living Logic 59, Tagamet 58.5, CastleBeauty 56, Sphinx 55.5, Always Be Mine 55, Bach-elor 54.5, Powell Power 53.5, God Bless 51, Thn-derball 50.5, Mesopatamia 49.5, Rodeo Romeo49.5, Speedster 47. Recardo Plate Cl II: 1,200m:Snow Star 60, Exploding Wonder 58.5, Royal Se-cret 56.5, High Handed 55, Code Red 54, CrownAffair 51.5, Mandalay Bay 51, Arabian Fighter49.5, Divine Elegance 48.5, Royal Standard 47.5.

Vengsarkarleads sweep atMCA elections

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The Bal Mahad-dalkar group retained powerwith a thumping majoritywinning 15 out the 16 postscontested in the biennialelections of the MumbaiCricket Association onWednesday. Sharad Pawarwas elected president, unop-posed. Former India skipperDilip Vengsarkar, who wasthe standard-bearer in thecampaigning for Mahad-dalkar group, not only polledthe highest votes (245).The following were elected: President: SharadPawar. Vice-presidents: Dilip Vengsarkar (245),Ravi Sawant (197). Joint secretaries: Prof Rat-nakar Shetty (230), Lalchand Rajput (174). Trea-surer: Ramesh Kosambia (204).

Managing committee: Dr P.V.Shetty (239), He-mant Waingankar (233), Milind Rege (229) , NitinDalal (203), Avi Sule (185), Sameer Bandekar(172), Madhu Patwardhan (164), Avinash Kadam(154), Laxman Chauhan (151), Ramesh Wajge(145) (all Mahaddalkar group) and Sanjay Patil 165(Barve-Halbe group).

AP

Libyan Football Federation’s vice-president Al-Saadi Gadhafi(L) and Argentina’s captain Juan Pablo Sorin cut a cake,bearing the logo of their teams during a reception after theexhibition match between Libya and Argentina in Tripoli onWednesday. Argentina beat Libya 3-1.

Book on cricket: Vice-presi-dent Bhairon Singh Shekhawaton Thursday said he appreciat-ed the game of cricket for earn-ing India recognition. He wasspeaking at a function, whereSunil Gavaskar presented him abook on cricket - ‘the portraitsof the game’ - authored by for-mer cricketer Shyam Bhatia. PTI

CMYK

T I M E S S P O R TThe Times of India, New Delhi Friday, May 2, 2003 21

THE SPORTING WORLD AT A GLANCE

FOOTBALLEuropean Championship (Qualifying):Group 1: Israel 2 Cyprus 0; Malta 1 Slove-nia 3. Group 4: Latvia 3 San Marino 0.Group 8: Andorra 0 Estonia 2. Group 10:Georgia 1 Russia 0.International friendly matches: Belgium3 Poland 1; Bulgaria 2 Albania 0; Czech Re-public 4 Turkey 0; Denmark 1 Ukraine 0;Finland 3 Iceland 0; France 5 Egypt 0; Ger-many 1 Serbia & Montenegro 0; Holland 1Portugal 1; Hungary 5 Luxembourg 1;Lithuania 0 Romania 1; Rep of Ireland 1Norway 0; Scotland 0 Austria 2; Slovakia 2Greece 2; Sweden 1 Croatia 2; Switzerland1 Italy 2; Libya 1 Argentina 3.

TENNISWTA J&S Cup, Warsaw: 2nd round: 4-Jelena Dokic (Yug) bt Myriam Casanova(Swi) 7-5 7-6(14/12); 7-Anna Pistolesi(Isr) bt Jill Craybas (USA) 6-0 7-5.WTA Croatia Open, Bol: 2nd round:Tathiana Garbin (Ita) bt EmmanuelleGagliardi (Swi) 5-7 6-4 7-5; Ludmila Cer-vanova (Svk) bt Angelika Roesch (Ger) 6-7(2/7) 6-3 6-1; Silvija Talaja (Cro) bt 2-Sil-via Farina Elia (Ita) 1-6 6-3 6-2.ATP Valencia Open, Valencia (2ndround): Flavio Saretta (Bra) bt FrantisekCermak (Cze) 7-6 (7/3) 6-4; AnthonyDupuis (Fra) bt Fernando Vicente (Spa) 7-6 (10/8) 1-6 6-0; Nicolas Massu (Chi) bt8-David Sanchez (Spa) 6-4 6-3.ATP BMW Open, Munich (2nd round):

3-Sjeng Schalken (Ned) bt Wayne Arthurs(Aus) 7-6 (7/4) 6-3; 5-Yevgeny Kafelnikov(Rus) bt Alexander Waske (Ger) 7-5 4-6 6-3; Radek Stepanek (Cze) bt 2-ParadornSrichaphan (Tha) 6-3 6-2; 8-JarkkoNieminen (Fin) bt Jean-Rene Lisnard (Fra)6-3 6-0.

BASKETBALLNBA Championships Play-offs: 1stround (best-of-seven): Indiana 93Boston 88 OT (Boston leads series 3-2);San Antonio 94 Phoenix 82 (San Antonioleads series 3-2); LA Lakers 120 Min-nesota 90 (Los Angeles leads series 3-2);New Jersey 89 Milwaukee 82 (New Jer-sey leads series 3-2).

SNOOKEREmbassy World Championship,Sheffield (Quarterfinal, best of 25frames): Mark Williams (Wal) bt StephenHendry (Sco) 13-7 (55-57 96-23 131{131break}-1 64-65 115{115}-5 0-76 89-177-64 28-75 64-34 5-71 72-39 1-111{111} 82-12 70-33 80-0 46-92 81-062-22 71-44). Ken Doherty (Irl) bt JohnHiggins (Sco) 13-8 (62-9 85-16107{107}-0 66-65 66-1 83-44 71-58100-7 64-9 112{112}-9 0-117{113} 24-78 12-74 52-64 57-67 57-62 31-69 68-56 75-7 8-94 71-1). Stephen Lee (Eng) btMarco Fu (Hkg) 13-7 (45-65 0-132 74-5746-60 76-15 122-20 83-25 4-119 86-2488-8 67-43 51-7 71-4 40-66 75-72 15-67 68-41 27-72 62-56 63-42).

Seniors have to provefitness, says RajinderBangalore:The Indianhockey teamhas begun itspreparationsfor theChampionsTrophy andA t h e n sOlympics inright earnestand nationalcoach Rajinder Singh be-lieves that the Asian style ofattacking hockey will be thekey to success. The Indianprobables kicked-off onThursday a month-longtraining camp for the doubleleg May 28 to June 8 invita-tional tournament, involvingIndia, Pakistan, Australia,Australia A at Perth and Syd-ney.

“My main aim (at thecamp) is to build a team forOlympics qualifying andOlympics,” Olympian Rajin-der Singh said.

He said senior players —Mukesh Kumar, Baljeet

S i n g hD h i l l o n ,Baljit SinghSaini andDhanraj Pil-lay — hadbeen calledto the campto see if theycould carryon till theO l y m p i c s .

The qualifiers would be heldin Madrid next March.

“I will observe the seniorsfor 15 to 20 days. I would likethem to play at least one in-ternational match to see howthey perform and also ob-serve their fitness level. Theirselection would be based onperformance and fitness. Agewill not be a consideration atall,” Singh added.

One area of concern forthe coach is the midfield,where he has only new play-ers to depend on. It is thisarea that he would like tostrengthen with seasonedcampaigner Baljit Saini.PTI

Reuters

Japanese women’s soccer national team forward MioOtani (L) fights for the ball with L-League (Ladies league)defender Yue Sasajima during a match at the NationalStadium in Tokyo on Thursday. National team won 2-0.

Turning up the heatTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: As it is the Tharbegins to sizzle at this time ofthe year, add a ‘Storm’ to itand things begin to get excit-ing. Come Saturday, theserenity of the desert will re-verberate to the MarutiSuzuki Desert Storm Rally.Traversing a distance of 500kms, 160 of them competi-tive, the rally will see 24 vehi-cles pitted against the hostilec o n d i t i o n s .The two-dayevent will cul-minate in Jaipur on Sundayevening.

A total of 10 competitivestages will test the mettle ofthe drivers. Competitors, whohave gone for a pre-event rec-ce reveal that Esteems are get-ting bogged down in somestages. The Desert Storm willbe primarily a four wheeldrive Gypsy dominated event.

An event of this stature isbeing organised in the Indiandesert after nearly a decadeand the present crop of rally-ists have no competitive expe-rience in sand-driving. The

podium places may well sur-prise. The rally will also makeunique demands on the ma-chines as well as the drivers.“Many cars have had addi-tional cooling systems in-stalled on their radiators. Dri-vers will have to be wary ofheatstroke,” says Jayesh De-sai of Northern Motorsports,the organisers of the event.

A total of 170 plus peoplemonitoring the route andseven ambulances along with

12 fast inter-vention vehi-cles form the

safety backup for the rally.

The event has been partial-ly affected by the truckersstrike earlier in the month.“We were planning to fieldsome cars, but the strike didnot allow us to plan our logis-tics,” said Tony Rodricks ofTeam MRF. It is learnt thatMaruti has been making ef-forts to get the two factions inIndian motorsport — MAIand FMSCI — to settle theirdifferences and it seems tohave made progress on thistricky front.

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DESERT STORM

Fighting fit: Pillay, Mukesh

CMYK

T I M E S S P O R T The Times of India, New Delhi22 Friday, May 2, 2003

Nouma picks up ban:Controversial French strikerPascal Nouma picked up aseven-month ban onWednesday from Turkey’sfootball authorities for caus-ing a furore by making an ob-scene gesture in a leaguegame while playing for Besik-tas - a gesture which had al-ready led to his sacking.Nouma caused a storm whenhe celebrated scoring a goalagainst Fenerbahce in a firstdivision match on April 20 byputting his hand down hisshorts and grabbing his testi-

cles. Besiktas president Ser-dar Bilgili told reporters.

Empty stadium awaitsEngland: England couldface playing their next Euro2004 qualifier in an emptystadium if a UEFA disciplinarypanel meeting on Thursdayimposes one of its toughestpenalties to punish racistabuse and pitch invasions byfans during last month’s cru-cial match against Turkey.The European governingbody’s disciplinary committeealso will discuss a case in-volving Manchester United

manager Alex Ferguson, ac-cused by UEFA of bringingsoccer into disrepute by sug-gesting the ChampionsLeague quarterfinal draw wasrigged. Ferguson was widelyquoted in English newspa-pers as suggesting UEFA hadconspired to force United tomeet defending championand favourite Real Madrid inthe quarterfinal round. “It wasa nice draw, wasn’t it,” Fergu-son was quoted saying in theNews of the World newspa-per. “I think they picked itthemselves.”

G R A F F I T I Paradorn bites dustMunich: Czech RadekStepanek bounced top ThaiParadorn Srichaphan fromthe second round of the400,000-Euro ATP tourna-ment here on Wednesday,scoring a 6-3, 6-2 upset overthe Asian ace.

Paradorn, seeded secondand fresh from a solid win onMonday, had it all to play foron the clay of the IphitosClub. But 2002surprise semi-f i n a l i s tStepanek had his own agen-da, which included pouncingon the increasing errors ofthe seeded player.

Russian veteran YevgenyKafelnikov moved into hisfourth quarterfinal of theyear as he won his fifthmatch from his last threetournaments on clay. Thefifth-seeded veteran ad-vanced in pain with a 7-5, 4-6,6-3 victory over GermanAlexander Waske, only his

second career win at the ven-ue. Finnish eight seed JarkkoNieminen, twice a clay final-ist last April, overcameFrance’s Jean-Rene Lisnard,winning 6-3, 6-0 as light be-gan to fade.Dokic struggles: In Warsaw,Jelena Dokic struggled intothe quarterfinals of the$700,000 WTA event onWednesday, battling back

from 1-4 in thefirst set andholding off

four set points in a dramaticsecond set tiebreak beforeovercoming Miriam Casano-va 7-5, 7-6 (14/12).

In a minor upset, 10thseeded Russian TatianaPanova was beaten 6-2, 6-1 bySandra Kleinova, but seventhseeded Anna Pistolesi sweptpast Jill Craybas 6-0, 7-5. ThePolish challenge flounderedas both Marta Domachowskaand Sakowicz failed to sur-vive the first round. Agencies

Big boys make merryParis: Mighty nationsFrance, Spain, Argentina,Germany and Italy all wonfriendlies on Wednesdaynight though, in a setback forthe former Asian champions,Saudi Arabia fell to tiny prin-cipality state Liechtenstein.

France thrashed Egypt 5-0at the Stade deFrance, Spainbeat Ecuador4-0, Argentina won 3-1 in anintriguing match in Libya,Germany beat Serbia andMontenegro 1-0 and Italy hada 2-1 success in Switzerland.

However the state ofLiechtenstein, tucked be-tween Switzerland and Aus-

tria and more known for pro-ducing skiers than football,won 1-0 against Saudi Arabiain Capital city Vaduz.

In other milestones,Patrick Kluivert equalledDennis Bergkamp’s record of37 goals for Holland in their 1-1 draw against Portugal in

E i n d h o v e n .B a r c e l o n astriker Kluiv-

ert could have reached themark much earlier had he notrefused to play for the nation-al team for some time. Thenext highest scorers for theDutch national side are FaasWilkes (35), Abe Lenstra (33)and Johan Cruyff (33). AFP

AFP

OOH LALALA: South African sports minister Nconde Balfour (L), singer Vicky Sampson (C)and finance minister Trevor Manuel rejoice after signing the South African 2010 SoccerWorld Cup Charter Bid prior to their friendly against Jamaica in Cape Town on Wednesday.

TENNIS ROUNDUP

SOCCER FRIENDLIES

AP

IT’S MINE: Brazilian Ronaldinho Gaucho (middle) fights for pos-session with Mexico’s Duilio Davino during a friendly at theJalisco Stadium on Wednesday.

Red Devils confident,Old Lady confusedLondon: After an amazing13-point turnaround, RedDevils Manchester Unitedcan recapture the league titlefrom Arsenal this weekend.Eight points behind eightweeks ago, the Reds go intoSaturday’s home gameagainst Charlton five aheadof the Gunners. If Alex Fer-guson’s team wins, then theGunners must beat Leeds onSunday or say goodbye totheir Premier League title.

Even if Arsene Wenger’splayers beat Leeds, theywould have to win their lasttwo games against Southamp-ton and Sunderland and hopeUnited loses its final match atEverton. “They must be get-ting more and more anxiousas the matches go by,” saidUnited winger Ryan Giggs. “Itwas a big psychological blowwhen we went top and the mo-mentum of firmly with us.We know from experiencethere is nothing worse thenbeing caught and then over-hauled in a championshiprace. The closer the team be-low you gets the more anxiousyou become. The boot is onthe other foot this season andI’m sure Arsenal are wonder-ing what happened to thecushion they had.”

“If we do manage to comeout on top, it will be an in-credible feat and one I wouldrate among our best achieve-ments,” the 61-year-old Scotsaid two months ago whenhis team was eight pointsadrift of the Gunners.

Meanwhile, in Rome, Ju-ventus coach Marcello Lippihas a vexing decision tomake: put his best squad for-ward and attempt to clinchthe Serie A title Saturday, orhold back slightly and re-main fresh for Tuesday’sChampions League semifinalat Real Madrid.

For the first time this sea-son, all of Lippi’s top playersare healthy, making the deci-sion even tougher. AlessandroDel Piero scored twice in TheOld Lady’s 2-1 win againstBrescia last Sunday, showinghe has recovered from a leginjury that kept him out forseveral weeks earlier thisyear. French striker DavidTrezeguet played the first 56minutes against Brescia andappears to be regaining hisform from a shoulder injury.Midfield virtuoso PavelNedved, who is being promot-ed by media for this season’sGolden Ball award in Europeis healthy as well. AFP

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