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Open 7 days week 9am-9pm bill will make India a knowledge hub’ SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER the idea was mooted, a bill aiming to provide free and compulsory education to children in the age group of six to 14 was introduced in the Lok Sabha with the larger target of making India a “knowledge hub” in the future.

“This was a matter of national importance for UPA (United Progressive Alliance). This bill is just not about taking children to school. This is a bill that speaks about quality education, it speaks about the physical infrastructure, teacher-pupil ratio, qualification of teachers,” Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said after introducing the bill.

“The bill is integrated with the future of the country. It will create intellectual assets. Creativity of mind leads to creation of intellectual assets.

“We are trying to make India a knowledge hub in 15-20 years. This bill is the first step in that direction,” Sibal said.

The minister said that the the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Bill, after becoming law, will provide “free education to students” and all states will compulsorily have to provide it.

“It means free for children and compulsory for states.”

Talking about the quality of education, the minister said an academic committee will be set up to evaluate the quality of teachers and if a teacher does not have adequate qualification, then he or she will have to acquire it within five years and failing to do so will mean losing the job.

If a school does not have adequate infrastructure, then it will have to develop it within three years. “Else, its recognition will be cancelled”.

“The child is entitled to get education. Now it is a constitutional right for the child. It is the obligation and compulsion of state governments and the central government to provide that education. As long as central and state governments do not walk together, the dream can not be fulfilled,” Sibal said.

“What kind of Hindustan (do) we want to build when 88 percent students don’t go to colleges. (Through this bill) we can get a critical mass of education to go to colleges,” he said adding that this would help bring reforms in higher education.

The minister said the idea of such a bill was mooted in 1993 and in 2001, the Constitution was amended to make education a fundamental right. But the amendment also had a rider that to make education free and compulsory, a separate bill has to be introduced. “So, technically, we have had to wait 16 years for this.”

The minister said once this bill becomes a law, it will ensure 25 percent reservation in private schools.

“All private schools will have to reserve 25 percent seats for disadvantaged students in Class 1. They have to give admission to economically weaker section students living in the neighbourhood of the school.

“This too will be decided by the state governments - they have to decide which of their community is educationally backward and need benefit.”

Talking about the investment, the minister said: “After the bill is passed, we will decide how much money the state governments will spend and how much will centre give. If we will feel that a state has some problem, then we have provision in the bill to take this in front of the finance commission.”

(The bill will) “provide them (children) foundation for quality education. We will move together with state governments. We want to see India rise. The world is looking at India with hope”, Sibal said.

• India gives fresh dossier to Pakistan, says enough proof against Saeed

INDIA HAS PROVIDED Pakistan an additional seven-page dossier of evidence relating to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and underlined that it has given Islamabad enough proof to prosecute Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the carnage.

The dossier was handed over the Pakistan high commission, the external affairs ministry said.

Intelligence sources told IANS the dossier also contains transcripts of wireless intercepts during the Mumbai attacks in which Saeed’s name keeps figuring.

The fresh evidence, prepared by the home ministry, has been given in response to a dossier given by Pakistan to the Indian high commision in Islamabad July 11.

The Pakistani dossier disclosed details of investigations conducted by Islamabad into the Mumbai attacks and the steps taken to punish the guilty.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cited this dossier in parliament Wednesday to explain his move at Sharm el-Sheikh last month to re-start the India-Pakistan engagement at the foreign secretary level.

The additional evidence given by India comes close on the heels of a debate in parliament during which the opposition accused the government of diluting its stand on countering cross-border terrorism.

In the face of Pakistan’s denials, Home Minister P. Chidambaram Saturday said there was enough evidence against Saeed and it was now up to Islamabad to act. “There is enough evidence to proceed against Saeed,” Chidambaram said at a press conference here to detail the activities of his ministry during July.

“The evidence provided in three dossiers is, in our view, sufficient to investigate role of Hafiz Saeed (in the Mumbai carnage),” the minister said, adding: “The investigations in Pakistan will also throw up enough evidence.”

Saeed, who had been placed under house arrest in December after the UN proscribed the JuD in the wake of the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attacks, was released by the Lahore High Court in June citing lack of evidence.

On July 28, a defiant Pakistan said it would not arrest Saeed till adequate proof was provided of his involvement in the Mumbai carnage.

“We cannot arrest him till adequate proof is provided. There is no proof,” Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik told a private TV news channel in an interview.

The latest flip-flop came 12 days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said July 16 his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani had informed him that “common consensus” was being evolved and that “action will have to be taken against him (Saeed)”.

Two days before that, on July 14, Pakistan’s Punjab provincial government had disassociated itself from the case against Saeed, saying the federal government had not furnished “solid evidence” to warrant his continued house arrest.

The Punjab government’s move came as a three-member Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was considering two identical petitions filed by the federal and provincial governments against Saeed’s release.

Punjab Advocate General Raza Farooq told the court that the provincial government had put Saeed under house arrest on the directive of the federal government.

Saeed is the founder of the Laskhar-eTaiba (LeT) terror group that New Delhi accuses of also staging the Dec 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. The LeT had morphed into the JuD after it was banned in the aftermath of the attack.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman captured alive during the Mumbai mayhem, has admitted to being a Pakistani national and to being trained by the LeT for the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attacks that claimed the lives of over 170 people, including 26 foreigners.

Pakistan has charged five men, including LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi with involvement in the Mumbai mayhem.

Last month, Pakistan had handed over a dossier to India admitting its nationals were involved in the attacks. The dossier came days before the July 16 Gilani-Manmohan Singh meeting on the sidelines of the NonAligned Summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Shaikh.

Speaking to reporters after the two-hourlong meeting, Manmohan Singh said he had raised the matter of Pakistan taking action against Saeed.

“The Pakistan prime minister told me that there is common consensus being evolved that action will have to be taken against him. The Punjab government, which is of the opposition party, is being persuaded,” he said.

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Nirupama Rao becomes India’s foreign secretary

NIRUPAMA RAO TOOK charge as India’s foreign secretary and stressed that she will focus on upgrading the foreign service to enable New Delhi to play “an even more prominent role in world affairs”.

“I have before me a complex and yet fascinating assignment,” Rao, the second woman to head India’s foreign service, told reporters after moving into her new office in South Block.

“Today, in a rapidly evolving world situation, the task is to further augment our diplomatic and professional capabilities as we are called upon to play an even more prominent role in world affairs...This will be an important area of focus in my new responsibilities,” she said.

Rao succeeded Shivshankar Menon at a brief ceremony in South Block. Chokila Iyer was the first woman to serve as India’s foreign secretary in 2001.

“Our foreign service counts among the best in the world,” Rao said while lauding the “professionalism and dedication” of Indian diplomats who are required to handle issues in a “focussed, mature and balanced” manner.

Outlining India’s foreign policy interest, which includes regional challenges and relations with neighbours, Rao underlined that “economic diplomacy and public diplomacy are also issues that demand increased attention”.

A topper of the 1973 Indian Foreign Service batch, Rao became the first woman spokesperson of the external affairs ministry in 2001. She then went on become the Indian envoy to Sri Lanka and then China before returning to New Delhi.

In her 36-year-long career, she has served also as ambassador in Peru and deputy chief of mission in Moscow.

Rao’s tenure as foreign secretary will end in December 2010, when she will retire from the foreign service.

Moily praises gay sex ruling, says government may amend section 377

The DeLhI high Court verdict decriminalising gay sex between consenting adults has been highly acclaimed by union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily as a “welldocumented and well-researched” ruling on a difficult subject that stands out “in the judicial annals of the country”.

Moily has indicated that if the apex court upholds the high court ruling, then the government may suitably amend the relevant penal provisions under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to make it a law.

“One thing must go to the credit of the Delhi High Court judgement -- it is welldocumented, well-researched. I must tell the judges -- the subject may be difficult, but at the same time this is one judgement which has really stood out in the judicial annals of this country,” Moily told journalist Karan Thapar in CNN-IBN’s “Devil’s Advocate” program.

The Supreme Court is adjudicating a bunch of lawsuits challenging the high court’s July 2 ruling.

Asked if the government would take any step to change the law and reverse the judgement, Moily said: “There are occasions and occasions where the government will not seek to reverse a judgement.”

Endorsing the legality of the judgement, the minister said that the verdict settles an important question of law on liberty and privacy and it would have been “preposterous” for the government to seek its suspension when it came up for hearing in the apex court July 21.

“It is an important question of law -particularly relating to the constitutional provision of liberty, privacy -- they have given a judgement. As against that, obtaining a stay may be sometimes preposterous, unless we have a final verdict from the Supreme Court,” said Moily, when asked why the government did not seek a stay on the ruling.

Moily also conceded that many laws contradict the Constitution and observed that this dichotomy should not continue. he attributed the anomaly to the fact that the Indian Constitution came into being only in 1950, while several laws of the land are from the time of the British rule -- often 100 years old or more. For example, the Indian Penal Code itself is of 1860 vintage.

Moily pointed out that either the Constitution will have to be amended to synchronize with these laws or they will have to be repealed so they no longer contradict the Constitution.

“We have a Constitution -- many a time the Constitution runs parallel to many many laws which were enacted earlier to the Constitution coming into force. This includes many of those provisions, including some of the sections under the IPC or the evidence Act. Many of these things if they are put to acid test of the Constitution, they may not stand up to the scrutiny of the Constitution,” said Moily.

“Maybe either the Constitution makers (should have seen this) or, thereafter, there should have been a proper review, so that either the laws are changed or the Constitution would have been changed, so that there would have been a proper synchronization of the laws of the land and also the Constitution,” he added.

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India’s private carriers will fly after Aug 18 after all

FACeD WITh stern action by the government and all-round resentment and anguish expressed by air travellers, private airlines in India have called off their proposal to suspend domestic operations from Aug 18.

In a communique issued in Mumbai, the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), a representative body of private carriers, said its secretary general Anil Baijal was able to “impress upon” the members to hold back their decision.

In the peculiarly worded statement, the federation said the decision was also taken in view of the government’s decision to hold a dialogue regarding the problems faced by the private carriers. The regulator had already warned them.

“In view of the agitated public sentiment and potential inconvenience to thousands of passengers on the one hand and government’s willingness to enter into dialogue on the other, Anil Baijal, the secretary general of the FIA, has been able to impress upon the private airlines, including IndiGo, to put on hold their decision to suspend flights on Aug 18,” said the statement. even as the federation was deciding on its next move, an official spokesperson said the state-run carrier Air India said will push more flights into service Aug 18 to minimise any inconvenience to passengers if the private carriers suspend their operations.

“The secretary general of the FIA hopes that constructive dialogue with the government will lead to redressal of the problems faced by the aviation industry,” it added.

These airlines had earlier issued a threat that they will not fly from Aug 18 if a bailout package is not announced by the government to help them tide over the ongoing crisis, which they claim has escalated their collective losses to over $2 billion.

Among the various demands from the federation are: Direction to state governments to cut the sales tax on aviation fuel, direction to oil retailers for reducing jet fuel prices and reduction in the airport charges, which they say have ballooned ever since private players were allowed into the field.

Apart from claiming accumulated losses of over $2 billion, the private carriers owe nearly $500 million towards fuel to oil companies. The civil aviation ministry, however, has ruled out any bailout package for the aviation industry.

The decision came a day after Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said the government was not in a position to help private airlines financially, even as the industry watchdog sought an explanation within 48 hours on the reason behind their move.

In the meanwhile, however, low-cost carrier IndiGo said it was withdrawing from the federation’s general decision to suspend operations and would prefer to hold a dialogue with the government to come out of the crisis.

“IndiGo appreciates the sentiments expressed by the ministry of civil aviation that it understands the problems faced by the Indian aviation industry and that we should all engage in a dialogue with the ministry,” said IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh.

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Rashtrapati Bhavan sets trend for eco-friendly township

The FIRST ThING one notices on entering Rashtrapati Bhavan through Gate 35 are the “energy efficient” lamp posts. Welcome to the model eco-township inside the president’s estate.

A year since it was implemented to make the Rashtrapati Bhavan a model urban township that cares for the environment, Roshni, as the project is called, has 13 projects in its ambit of which nine are implemented and the rest are still in process.

One can see vermicompost pits where women of self-help groups from inside the estate work tirelessly to produce manure, a rain water harvesting system, solar panels atop a building, a bio gas plant, a nature trail and a solid waste management system.

Amongst the various benefits is the amount of money saved which otherwise went on buying manure. According to Rashtrapati Bhavan officials, Rs.4-5 lakhs was earlier spent annually on buying manure that was not necessarily ecofriendly.

The vermicompost pits now save that much money.

To put the entire endeavour together, the President’s Estate Residents Welfare Association was created to converge all the residents’ efforts for Roshni’s success.

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The expertise of a number of institutes like Delhi University, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, environment department of the Delhi government, New Delhi Municipal Council and the likes were taken for the project’s implementation.

Among the projects in Roshni yet to be implemented is the sewage treatment plant which officials said will be functional in a year’s time. IIT Delhi is helping in the implementing this.

• Delhi switches off lights to save power HISTORICAL

MONUMENTS, several government buildings and many households turned dark on a Friday evening as Delhi voluntarily switched off the lights for an hour recently to save power and become environment friendly.

Exactly at 8.30 p.m., the Delhi secretariat, old secretariat, Humayun’s Tomb, the Archaeological Survey of India building and several other government offices went for a voluntary blackout, abiding a call from Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to save power.

The initiative comes on the lines of a global Earth Hour observed March 28 when Delhi managed to save a whopping 10,000 MW of power in an hour.

Taking a cue from the event, the Delhi government decided to observe Earth Hour quarterly - on the last working day of every third month.

The government had asked 2,000 residents welfare associations (RWAs), 2,000 students in school ecological clubs and market associations to join the campaign.

“Yes, we switched off the light to be a part of the green and meaningful campaign,” said Ravi Singh, a director of WWF-India.

“This is a great initiative by the state government and we will cooperate with them as much as possible,” he told IANS.

While calling for the voluntary blackout, Dikshit had said: “You did it for an hour in March, saved 1,000 MW, a world record. Let’s participate once again. Donate power during Earth Hour.”

The chief minister’s call to save electricity comes at a time when the national capital is reeling under a power crisis.

Though many residents joined the campaign as a matter of responsibility, there were some who did not.

“I am now sitting in the dark though many of my neighbours are enjoying their ACs. As a responsible citizen I did my bit,” said Kishore Mishra, a young scientist.

“My friends and I sent e-mail and text messages to relatives, friends and acquaintances asking them to switch off the lights during Earth Hour,” said Charu Gupta, a college student living in Malviya Nagar.

Uzzwal Madhab, who started the Earth Hour 2009 group on Facebook, said: “I welcome the Delhi government initiative and we have been asking people to join hands in saving power. We want people across India to take part in such campaigns for the welfare of mankind.”

According to the government, the quarterly affair could save up to 400 MW of power in a year.

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G-8 resolution not legally binding document: India

INDIA HAS SAID the G-8 resolution restricting the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology to countries outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty fold was “not a legally binding document” and hoped individual nations would implement civil nuclear pacts with India on a bilateral basis.

It was a “political statement and not a legally binding document”, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told the Rajya Sabha while responding to concerns over the recent G-8 resolution in the L’Aquila summit that seeks to curb transfer of ENR technology to non-NPT countries.

Krishna underlined that New Delhi will go by clean India-specific waiver granted by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in September last year. He also told parliament that the NSG has not taken any decision on the ENR issue.

“It is India’s expectation that our international partners in civil nuclear cooperation will implement the bilateral agreements that we have entered into,” he said during his reply to a debate in the Rajya Sabha on the working of the external affairs ministry.

Krishna also allayed concerns over the End User Monitoring (EUM) Agreement agreed between India and the US recently, saying it does not limit India’s “sovereign choice of whether, where and what weapons we choose to buy for our national defence”.

He said the India-US relations have been transformed in the recent years and signing of the civil nuclear deal last year was a major development in this regard. •

India developing Kargil as tourist destination

THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT is pumping in Rs.120 million into Kargil - the remote mountainous region in Jammu and Kashmir that got into Indian drawing rooms due to the 1999 conflict with Pakistan - to bring it on the tourism map.

The tourism ministry has sanctioned funds for the development of tourist facilities in Kargil, which is about 200 km from the state’s summer capital Srinagar.

“The tourism ministry extends central financial assistance under the scheme of Product Infrastructure Development for Destinations and Circuits for tourism projects based on the project proposals received from them, complete in all respects, subject to inter se priority and availability of funds,” Tourism Minister Kumari Selja told parliament.

The government has sanctioned around Rs.48.447 million for the development of tourist facilities in and around Kargil, Rs.24.17 million for the development of Drass-Panikhar and Rs.47.232 million for the development of Drass-Sankhoo as a destination.

Seeing the chequered past of the place, the government is also keeping in mind the safety aspect in developing Kargil as a tourist destination.

“In order to ensure the safety and security of tourists, the tourism ministry has advised all the state government and union territory administrations to deploy tourist police at tourist destinations and also circulated guidelines for formation of tourist security organisation comprising ex-servicemen,” Selja told parliament in a written reply.

Kargil and Drass shot into headlines in the summer of 1999 when armed intruders backed by Pakistan captured the frigid peaks on the Indian side of the Line of Control dividing Kashmir. This lead to a military skirmish and brought India and Pakistan on the brink of their fourth full scale war.

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Kargil hilltops lit up as India salutes war heroes

THE HILLS of Kargil came alive on the night of July 26 in a glow of yellow lights

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Continued from page 43 as India marked the 10th anniversary of its military victory against Pakistan by paying homage to the over 500 soldiers killed while recapturing the treacherous peaks.

In an unprecedented military ceremony of its kind, army officers and soldiers, family members of those killed in the MayJuly 1999 fighting as well as people of this Shia-dominated region along the border of Jammu and Kashmir paid moving tributes to the martyrs of Kargil.

The finale of the two-day ceremony was a musical show by military bands drawn from all over the country followed by a spectacular lighting of Tiger Hill and Tololing, two of the strategic peaks Pakistani Islamist insurgents and camouflaged troops quietly took over before being beaten back in two months of bloody and at times hand to hand fighting.

A candle light ceremony was also held at the War Memorial in Drass, now a throbbing town of 2,000 people that came under intense artillery fire from the Pakistanis in 1999 before the Indians hit back.

“It is an experience no soldier can ever forget,” said Lt. Gen. (Retd) Amar Nath Aul, who was a brigadier in 1999 and headed the Mountain Brigade that pushed back the intruders in the Drass sector.

“I salute the untiring commitment of my boys who fought against all odds and did not deter in laying down their lives when it came to protecting the country,” he added.

As officers and soldiers as well as families of many of the martyrs placed wreaths at the War Memorial early in the day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saluted those killed in the conflict.

Like in the better known Tiger Hill and Tololing, heavy fighting took place in 1999 for the hills off Drass, the second coldest inhabited place in the world located about 60 km from Kargil town.

The entire region falls in Kargil district, giving the 1999 military showdown the name of “Kargil war”.

The detection of Pakistan-backed Islamist insurgents and regular soldiers on the hills by nomads led to full-fledged fighting between Indian forces and the heavily armed infiltrators, almost triggering the fourth full-scale India-Pakistan war.

The battle for Drass was immortalised by the death of the young Captain Vikram Batra of 13 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles who took part in the capture of two peaks and then died fighting for Point 4,875. He came under attack while trying to rescue an injured officer. His final words, according to his colleagues, were “Jai Mata Di”!

July 26 is annually celebrated as ‘Kargil Diwas’ or Kargil Day. Some 200,000 Indian soldiers took part in the Kargil war, about 30,000 of them in the Kargil-Drass sector.

The intruders, who had come for a long haul, came as close as 300 metres to a key highway connecting Srinagar with Leh and the border town of Kargil.

Said another officer: “Many families are sure to leave the place with a heavy heart but they will have the satisfaction of knowing that the army has not forgotten their sons, brothers and husbands.”

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Indian scientists design yawn alert for dozing drivers

WE’VE ALL BEEN through the familiar experience of feeling sleepy while driving. But what if your car could nudge you when you started yawning and warn you to pull over and take a break?

That’s the aim of a new in-car yawndetection system being developed by an Indian-American and two other budding Indian scientists.

Aurobinda Mishra of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville and colleagues Mihir Mohanty of the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), Orissa and Aurobinda Routray of IIT Kharagpur have developed a computer programme that can tell when you are yawning and could prevent road traffic accidents.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that at least 100,000 road crashes are caused by driver fatigue each year.

The programme is based around an in-car camera hooked up to an image-processing software that captures a sequence of images of the driver’s face.

It then analyses changes in the face and accurately identifies yawning as distinct from other facial movements such as smiling, talking, and singing.

The yawn frequency is then correlated with fatigue behaviour and could then be hooked up to a warning system to alert drivers of the need to take a break.

The algorithm is effective at yawn detection regardless of image intensity and contrast, small head movements, viewing angle, spectacle wearing, and skin colour.