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India offers red carpet, not red tape: Modi in Japan

Prime i\foiister Narendra Modi hard sold India co Japanese investors, saying that his country offers only a red carpet and nor red tap e, while dubbing his 6ve-day trip to J apan in lace August-e arly September as "very successful".

"I've come to assure you there is no red tape but o nly red carper that awaits you in India," he said while delivering the keynote address in a seminar at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, co - hosted by Japan External Trade Organi sation Gecro).

Modi said India was also the only p lace where the Japanese .in dustry would pl easan tly find a.I.I the th ree 'Ds'democracy; demography and demand.

"I have come here to assure yo u tl1at if you have to look an ywhere outs ide Japan, you do not need to look here or there," he said. "We particularly want to e ncomage and invite small and medium enterpri ses, as also small-scale industries".

The prime minister said India now has a government that is wo r king o n development and wams to step up manufacmring. He said he wished for India what he himself e.xperienced when h e was young when he did not have to think twice if a product said "Made in Japan".

According to the organisers, as many as 4,000 people had evinced intere st in anending the event at a ve n ue that could accommodate only 2,000.

Lacer, s peaking at a reception hosted by th e Japan- lndia Association and che JapanIndia Parliamentary Friendship League , the prime minister said India and Japan were now working as "spe cial strategi c and g lobal" partners.

Mod.i s uggested expanding links between people's representatives by creating a Young Parliamentary Associatio n and a Women 's Parliamentary Association.

Tbe pr ime minister said there was an un written spiritual counectioo b et,veen the two countries, adding chat t here was growing interest among tl1e Japanese to learn Hindi and yoga

Ea rlier, inaugurating a Vivekananda Cultural Centre in the Japanese capita.I, he cold the India community that had gathe red for the event that lnd.ia and Japan's friendship wou ld d etermine the course of the 21st century.

"There is no do u bt that the 2 1sr century belongs co Asia. But India and Japan's friendship w ill determine bow ir will actually look like," Mocli sai d. "The state and direction of the 2 1st cen tury will depend on the direction in wh ich Japan and India try to take the world"

There are around 23,000 Indians in Japan.

Terniing his J apan v isit as "ver y successful", Modi said it was fo r the 6rsr rime that the word trillion was in news.

"So far we would hear o n ly abour millions and billions Now we are hearing about a·ill.ions," ivfodi s aid, hinting at Japan's offer of investme n t of 3.5 trillion ye n (Rs.2 03 trillion) co India in the next h\'e years

Modi also vis ited rhe University of the Sacr ed Heart where he said that India was committed ro peace and d1is cornm.ianem has "significance far above any international treaties or processes".

"Commitment to peace and nonv iolence is ingrained in the D A of the lnd.ian soci ety This commianent co peace t hat was in trinsic to Ind ia n society, has significance far above any internation al treaties ot processes," Modi said while responding to a question on how lndia could enhance the confidence of the internatio n al community as a non -1 PT (Non- Proliferation Treacy) state.

The PM also called o n Japanese Emperor Akihico and presented him with a copy of che Gita.

Modi also kicked off a new initiative on trai ning for Japanese yourh started by Tata Consultancy Services (fCS) at i ts various facilities in India, asking them to remrn to Japan as India's an1bassadors

''You are going as employees of TCS

Bur I want you to come back to Japan as ambassadors of India," Modi cold the first batch of 48 trainees who wi ll proceed co India to undergo training for six- eight weeks ar v arious TCS offices.

Whe n Modi a r rived in Kyoto o n the first leg of hi s J apan ,-risir, the J apanese Prime Minister Prime Minister Sh iJ1 zo Abe came down co Japan's former cap.i tal to personally receive his Indian counterpart.

The two leaders signed the To kyo Declaration in which they pledged to advance peace, stability and prosperity in As ia and rhe world , and elevate the IndiaJapan relationsh ip to a spec ial strategic and global partnership

Unveil plan to clean Ganga, court tells government

The Supreme Court has asked the govern m e n t not ro give a bureaucratic an swer abo ut its p lan co clean up the Ganga and instead unvei l a stage -b y- stage timeline for effective mo11itoring.

" D o n 't g ive us a v ision plan, an artist's view. Ir may rake 200 years to implem ent," said a benc h of Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice R. Banumathi.

"Can you indicate the stages through which this p lan has to move and the time invo lved in each stage?" asked Justice Thakur as Solicitor Genera.I Ranjit Kumar starred reading from a 29-page affidavit starting with the 1985 first Ganga Action Pl an.

The court wanted to be enlightened by "so meone wh o has a comprehensive view of how Ganga would be made pollution free, niny-gritry of the plan, and how the milestones can be achi eved".

The 2,525- km long Ganga, which origin ates in t he T-Lima.layas, i s considered the holiest of r ivers by Hindus.

Telling Kumar char th e government had g iven a "very bmeaucratic answer" to i ts query, the court said ir wanted co know how much will be achieved in the five years this goverun1ent will be in office.

During the last hearing Aug 13, the court had sought the status report on t he government's action plan to clean tbe Ganga alon g w ith a roadmap.

T he court had also sought a report on what t he government was doing to clean the river fro m Gangoa·i up ro Haridwar in d1e Ii rst phase.

Justice Thakur observed: "But for na nue, it (Ganga) would have been worse Ir is nature that i s doing a lot of t he cleaning"

T he courc told the solicitor genera.I if polluting industries needed co be relocated, t he cour t could ass ist the govern m ent with legal process

1,000- year - old monastery

to have Buddhist studies centre

Tabo, an ancient seat of Buddhi st religi o n and culture in p.icmre sq ue Spiti Vall ey in Him achal Pradesh in n orthern India, will now have an inter national learning centre.

Baudh Darshan, which will help preserve t he ancienc sear of Buddhist smdies, will be set up ar Tabo with a funding o f R s.45 crore by the ce n tral government. Founded in 996 AD, Tabo, known for a more than 1,000 -year -o ld cave Buddhist monastery, is located at an altitude of 3,050 metres and 375 km from Shim.l a. le is al so called d1e 'Ajanta of th e Hin1alayas'.

Cb.ief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who took up the issue witl1 former prime mini ster Manmohan Si n gh, said d1e proposed centre would help preserve and expand Buddhists smdies He said around 30 acres of land at Mohal Dhaang Chummi has been approved for the centre. Necessary clearances from the sta te forest department are expected to follow.

" Th e lan d will soon be tran sferred to the rniion ministry of culmre for building d1e in stitute. The entire project cost of Rs.45 crore w iU be borne by the lndian government," Virb had ra Singh to ld JANS. ''The institute will attract n ot only sc ho la rs from India bur from ac ross the globe".

Protected by the Archaeological Survey of India, Tabo is one of the largest monastic complexes in India, with several caves and contemporary structures.

It attracts d1ousands of scholars and researchers from all over the world. le is d1e second most visited tourist place in the Buddhist circui t in lndia after Bodh G;iya, the birthplace of Buddhism where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment over 2,500 years ago.

Spiti Valley, where d1e Tabo monastery is located, is a co ld desert dotted by tiny helmets spread over the Himalayan peaks. It adjo ins Tibet. A century ago, Rudyard Kipling in his nove l Kim described Spiri as "a world within a world" and a "place where god lives". Things have harclly changed there.

Not access ib le by road throughout the year, the Spiri Valley remains cm off from the worl d for more than four months a year due to heavy snowfall. 1t reopens once the snow starts thawing after mid-Api:il

Perched at 3 ,370 metres, Dhankar, 24 km from Kaza, the headquarters of Spici., and some 320 km from Shinua, is another repository of the ancient Buddhist culmre. It was once the castle of Spiti's ruler - d1e Nono.

Another centuries- old Buddhist shrine, the Key monastery, is located 12 km from Kaza and at an altitude of 4,116 m. The monastery has rare collections of thangkhas, or Tibetan paintings, and ancient mus ical instruments like rnuupets, cymbals and drums. lrs library bolds the manuscripts of the Tangyur texts.

Geu, a village on the lndo-Tibetan border in the Spiti Valley, is known for a 550-year-old mummified body of a monk. The mw11my was found by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) after an earthquake tha t h ie the region in 1975. It was discovered from one of die eight stupas. Even the teeth, nails and hair on the skull are intact.

Tiberan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama often says in his addresses that more than 1,000 years ago Buddhism was introduced to Tibet from India. Buddhism became rooted in Tibet from the seventh co the 11th century, thus deepl y inAuencing Tibetan worldview.

There 's a cattle, donkey or some livestock for every 2nd Indian lndia has the largest livestock population in die world so much so tliat mere is almost one such farm animal for every second Indian, as per the latest Census released by the Ministry of Agriculture, the 19d, in the series.

India's total livestock population comprising cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pigs, yaks, ponies, horses, mules, donkeys, camels and mithun was 512 million in 2012 - a margina l decrease of around 3.33 percent over the previous Livestock Census of 2007

For the record, India's human population is estimated at 1.2 billion.

A P lanning Commission report says livestock in India is distributed over more than l 00 million households in approximately 600,000 villages, with Indian farmers stocking even little known animals like } ' ak and midiun in the seemingly insignificam backya rd.

The country, a few years ago, was ranked first in cattle and buffalo population, second in respect of goat and d1ird in respect of sheep. ln face, the country is said to have 57 percent of die wodd's buffalo and 16 percent of the global cattle population.

Despite the drnp at the national level, some states saw an increase in livestock

It increased substantially b y 15.36 percent in Gujarat, 14 percent in Uttar Pradesh , 10.7 percent in Assam , 9.6 percent in PLmjab, 8.6 percent in B ihar, 7.9 percent in Sikkim, 7.4 percent in l\,feghalaya and 4.3 percent in Chhattisgarh (4.34 percent)

"The number of milch animals (both in- milk and dry), cows and buffaloes, has increased from 111.09 million to 118.59 million an increase of 6.75 percent," said die Census report.

Interestingl y, the exotic, crossbred milch cartle increased from 14.4 million to 19.42 million, up 34.78 percent, while for indigenous milch cattle, die i ncrease was rather nominal at U.17 percent at 48.1 million.

"Livestock contributes 25 percent of gross value-added in the agriculture sector and provides self- emplo yment to about 21 million peop le ," says ongo ing 12th Five Year Plan document.

1n face, die contribution of livestock to the countr y's gross domestic product is also significant at armmd 5 percent.

Heart harvested in Bangalore, transplanted in Chennai

A 37 -year-old dead woman's heart, harvested in a Bangalore hospital, now beats in a man after it was Aown to Chennai for a live transp lant in a record rime on 3 Sept mis year.

"Tbe operation has been successful, as a team of eight cardiologists raced against time to transplant tl, e live heart into our patient within four hours," Fortis Malar Hospi tal director Harish told reporters in Chennai

The day- long dramatic development m1fo lded at the private - run BGS mu lrispecialC)' hospital in Bangalore when its doctors harvested the heart from rbe woman who died in early hours of 3 Sept due to brain injury in a road accident.

The heart was rushed in an ambul ance to die Bangalore airport, covering 45 km in a record 40 minutes and Aown in a special Air India aircraft to Fortis in Chennai.

"As a harvested heart has to be transplanted &om a do n or co a receiver with in six hours, we a re grateful co d1e traffic police in Bangalore and Chennai for creating a green corridor berween the two hospitals through airports and bringing it (bean) for the operation in rime," Harisb said.

Fortis Aew a team of its doctors to Bangalore earlier in the clay to collect di e woman's heart after her family consented to donate the organ and rush back to save the life of its patient.

"\.'{Then we got a call from Fortis earlier in die day for a cadaver heart to save a patient in its hospital, we took the belp of local traffic p~Jlice to clear die way for d1e ambulance car rying the heart in a special box to reach the city airport in rime for the Aighr to Chennai ," BGS Hospital vice president N.K. Veokataramana told lANS in Bangalore.

In Cheru1ai, rbe heart was rushed to Porris in Adyar suburb in 10 minutes after a 35- minute Aight through a green corridor its cit)' traffic police facilitated through d1e 12- km route.

A human heart can be preserved for up to six hours witl, he lp of a solution for transplanration to save the life of a needy patient.

" Though ttansp~Jrtation of o rgans d1rough green corrido rs for transplant wid1in the golden hour is common in developed countries, I d1ink this is the first time we were able ro do it w ith the help of cit)' police and cooperation of citizens here and in Chennai," Venkacaramana said.

A donor's heart can extend can save the life of its receiver for about 20 years if transplantation is successful.

Classes begin in Nalanda University- after over 800 years

Classes open ed on l Sept this year at d1e Nalaoda Universil:)1 , an ancient international cenu·e for learning in B ihar, after a break of over 800 years w ith 15 students, its vice chancellor said.

"We have formally started the academic session of Nalanda UciversiC)' Monday morning in tl,e International Convention Centre at the Buddhist pilgrim town of Rajgir," Vice Chancellor Gopa Sabhrawal told lA S. Rajgir is about 100 km from Patna.

Sabhrawal said the ancient Nalanda UniversiC)' functioned from 413 AD - 1193 AD.

Classes for d1e Schoo l of Historical Sciences and the School of Environment and Eco logy have started for tl,e first session 2014- 15.

She said tl1ere was an introduction sess ion fqr students as ,veil as faculty membe rs as it was the fuse day of tl1e c lasses, revived after over eight centuries.

"We have comp leted tbe first s tep cowards a big mission for revival of anciem Nalanda university. Now more hard work has to be done for it," she said.

Sabhrawal said that die launch of rbe academic session of the univers ity was a low ke y affair because the formal inauguration would take place in mid-September after forrnal opening b y external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who will be chief guest, and university will also im,ite ambassadors of die East As ian countries.

She said that riU now 15 students have been enrolled in d1e university and more will be enrolled in coming days as the process of their application scrutin y and interview is still on.

"\'(/e strongly hope that more foreign students wiU join the mliv ers iC)• because our tlu:ust is research along witl, study," Sabhrawal said.

She said the univ ersity has attracted over 1,000 applications from armmd the world.

Univers iC)• Dean Anjana Sharma said eight faculty members have joined the university so far and many more would join this month and in October.

Sharma said Upinder Kaur, daughter of former prime minister Manmobau Singh , will be a visiting faculty at die university. Kaur is teaching histor y at Delhi UniversiC)'

The nniversicy will come up in Rajgir, 12 km from where the anc ient Nala.nda University stood till the l 2tb century, when it was razed by an invading Turkish army.

The formal inauguration is expected in 1nid-September, Sabhrawal said.

The full y-residential U11iversi ty, to be completed b y 2020, will eventually have seven school s, all for post-graduate and doctoral students, offering courses in science, philosophy and spirituality , and social sc iences. IANS

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