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Shutdown, protest in Kerala against fuel price hike

     Thiruvananthapuram: Shops remained shut and vehicles stayed off roads in Kerala today to protest against nearly 7 percent hike in retail petrol and diesel prices. In the state capital, life came to a near standstill and hundreds of officer goers were stranded as the buses and vehicles refused to ply. "The price hike in the past has not been so sharp even when the international price of crude oil shot up. This time the price hike has been too steep and it has no justification," K. Raman Pillai, spokesman of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which had called for the shutdown, said. Protests also continued in national capital New Delhi. India imports 70 percent of its crude and retailers have been squeezed by higher global prices because they have been selling petrol, diesel, cooking gas and kerosene at the same level for seven months. But analysts say the rise in prices is unlikely to hit the rising energy demand in the country which is expected to post 7 percent growth in the year to March 2006 on the back of strong consumer demand. Public sector refining and retailing firms reported a combined cash loss of 10.83 billion rupees in April.

Berserk elephant kills two in Chattisgarh (Go To Top)

     Arsiya (Chattisgarh): An elephant, which went berserk here around 3 in the wee hours of this morning, killed two people and injured one child. Harisay Binjhwar and his wife were asleep when the elephant ran amok. The animal trampled the victims thus killing them on the spot. The elephant also injured a child Sone Lal was also sleeping at some distance. Villagers who came after hearing the screams could not do anything as the elephant was out of control. "I got this news around 12 that two people have been killed by elephants. So I came here with my staff and saw the dead body of one woman and one man. 15000 rupees have already been given to the family of the deceased and we have proposed amount of 1 lakh rupees to be given to them later," said P C Agrahari, Divisional Forest Officer, Katghora. "We were sleeping when the elephant came and it threw the other guy away and crushed me also," said Sone Lal, injured child. Sone Lal has been admitted to the district hospital in Ambikapur for treatment. The elephant also destroyed the roof of a house before going away. This is not the first incident of an elephant killing people in the area. Wild elephants have killed many people in Chhattisgarh over the past two years and damaged property and crop worth millions of rupees. Districts like Jashpur and Raigarh are the worst affected.

States told to end manual scavenging by August 2005 (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation, Kumari Selja on Wednesday urged state governments to make sincere efforts to end the problem of manual scavenging by the end of this year or atleast by the 2007 target set by the country's Planning Commission. Describing scavenging as a demeaning activity, Selja told a State Welfare Ministers Conference here that while the National Action Plan formulated by Planning Commission is aiming at total eradication of manual scavenging by 2007, all efforts needed to be made to ban this inhuman practice by August 2005. The Minister further went on to say that 17 states and seven Union Territories had adopted the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, but still desired results in this direction were wanting. She said that there are around seven lakh scavengers and so far only 58-60 percent have been rehabilitated. Kumari Selja also called for a total commitment from various departments to develop time bound action plans with thrust on awareness creation and proactive role for NGOs. She asked state governments to send new proposals and suggestions for implementing Integrated Low Cast Sanitation programme to convert existing dry latrines to low cost pour-flush latrines and said that state governments reluctance to give guarantee to loans is adversely affecting and delaying liberation of scavengers. Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar said that the continuation of manual scavenging has compounded the practice of untouchability and called for a coordinated effort to achieve the goal of eradicating this inhuman practice. She also announced that the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment is working on an Integrated Scheme for freeing Manual Scavengers through self employment by SKFDC.

PM to inaugurate Sethusamudram project work on July 2 (Go To Top)

     Madurai: Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the work on Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project (SSCP) on July 2. The Union Cabinet had recently cleared the ambitious project which would connect the country's west coastline with the East. Union Minister for Shipping and Surface Transport, T R Baalu, said that apart from the Prime Minister, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and all Union ministers from Tamil Nadu would also attend the function. In order to facilitate the problem free construction and maintenance of the Sethusamudram project, India would sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Suez Canal Corporation. "Very shortly we are going to sign a memorandum of understanding with the SUez Canal Corporation to facilitate the construction of the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project in India. The MoU will focus on management, precautionary measures, technical cooperation, problems in handling and training of the canal staff of the project. We are signing the MoU as they have expertise in handling such ship canals," said Balu. He also released a picturesque design of the SSCP project office to be set up at Mandapam on a 10,000 sq ft area, for which the state government has been approached for land.

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