Bill Gates praises Bihar’s success at global forum – ToI –18.5.11

‘Bihar Is Still One Of The Poorest In World, But No Longer One Of The Least Vaccinated’

Kounteya Sinha | TNN

New Delhi: For many, Bihar isn't a formidable example of change. However, the much-maligned state was the beacon of hope at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva on Tuesday.
    Bill Gates, IT czar-turned-philanthropist, went gaga over Bihar's extraordinary turnaround in the healthcare sector. He showcased the state's success to hundreds of world's top health administrators, heads of states and diplomats at WHA. He singularly praised Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.
    "I was struck by the chief minister's popularity. People are hungry for visionary leaders, who not only promise a better future but also deliver upon that promise," he said.
    He urged politicians across the world to emulate Kumar. "Leading a health ministry is a hard job. You face a multitude of complicated choices. The stakes are always life and death. And, you never have enough resources," he said.
    Gates explained, "But, you all have access to one key resource: your own leadership. And leadership can be decisive. The best immunization systems work because leaders hold themselves accountable for results. They diagnose problems, innovate to solve them and spread the best ideas."
    He cited Bihar while elaborating on turnaround in healthcare sector. "Just a few years ago, the Indian state of Bihar was vaccinating about 30% of its children. Then, a new chief minister, Nitish Kumar, was elected. He made it clear that he expected significant improvement. Bihar is still one of the poorest places in the world, but its no longer one of the least vaccinated. Under Kumar, the vaccination rate has more than doubled, and it's still climbing," he said.
    He added, "I visited with chief minister Kumar two months ago, and his mastery of the immunization situation in his state was impressive. He understood the innovations that were being tested. He knew what was working, what wasn't and why. Nitish Kumar has demonstrated that the best leaders can overcome the worst circumstances." "SII has broken the mould for the low-cost manufacture of vaccines. They developed the meningitis vaccine, they are the world's largest producer of the measles vaccines, and they provide the pentavalent vaccine to GAVI at a lower price than any other manufacturer in the world," Gates said.
    "Let me describe the future I see. Early in this decade, we will eradicate polio. By the end of the decade, five or six new vaccines will be available to all countries at prices they can afford to pay. And, crucially, every country in the world will have built a system to deliver vaccines to every last child," he signed off.

27 killed in bomb attacks in north Iraq --- The Pioneer -- 20.5.11

AFP | Kirkuk (Iraq)

A spate of bomb attacks against police in the disputed northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Thursday killed at least 27 people, the worst violence to hit Iraq in nearly two months.

A further 89 people were wounded in the three attacks, with months to go before US forces, who participate in confidence-building tripartite patrols and checkpoints with central government forces and Kurdish security officers in Kirkuk and across north Iraq, must withdraw from the country.

Three explosions -- two car bombs and a magnetic “sticky bomb” attached to a car -- occurred around one hour apart in the oil-rich city.

BSP MLA, 2 others get life for murder -- The Pioneer – 18.5.11

Pioneer News Service | Faizabad

Within a fortnight of the pronouncement of life imprisonment to ruling party MLA Shekhar Tewari in the PWD engineer Manoj Gupta murder-case, another BSP legislator and former Minister Anand Sen and two others were sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court on Tuesday for their involvement in abduction and murder of a Dalit girl - Shashi - in 2007.

Pronouncing the verdict in a Faizabad court, Special Judge (SC/ST) Matamber Singh also imposed a penalty of `20,000 each on Anand Sen and his driver Vijay Sen and `15,000 on Seema Azad, an aide of the former Minister, under different Sections of IPC. The dalit girl Shashi, a third year law student in Faizabad, went missing on October 22, 2007.

The court had convicted the three accused on Tuesday and had decided to pronounce the quantum of punishment on Wednesday but on the appeal of Sen's counsel, the verdict was delivered on Tuesday itself.

Earlier, Seema Azad, who had been out on bail, was taken into custody on court's order, while the other two accused- Anand Sen and his driver Vijay Sen - are already in jail.

Anand Sen is BSP MLA from Milkipur Assembly constituency in Faizabad. Vijay Sen is already serving life imprisonment in another murder case.

The verdict in the case has come after a trial of three years during which 32 witnesses, including two journalists, testified before the special court in Faizabad.

Anand Sen (48), son of Samajwadi Party leader Mitrasen Yadav, had to resign from his post as State Minister for Food Processing in November 2007 after his role in the case came to the fore. After the recovery of Shashi's wrist watch from Gomti river in Sultanpur, police suspected that she was murdered. However, her body has not been recovered yet.

In the FIR lodged at Kumarganj police station, Shashi's father Yogendra Prasad, an employee of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Awadh University, had accused Anand Sen, a distant relative and driver Vijay Sen, of having committed the crime. Seema Azad, a classmate of Shashi and believed to be a close associate of Anand Sen, was also named in the case.

Anand Sen's name figured as a prime suspect in the chargesheet filed in the court by the police on the basis of narco analysis test of Vijay Sen. The Allahabad High Court had rejected the bail plea of the BSP MLA in the case. Meanwhile, Shashi's father Yogendra Prasad welcomed the court's verdict saying that justice was done.

The BSP welcomed the order. "We welcome the court's decision to award life sentence to former Mnister Anand Sen and the two others. Sen was immediately sacked from the party and also from his Ministerial post as soon as his name cropped up in the murder case", a party release issued here said.

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Widen Swami Laxmanananda killing probe ambit, HC orders police—The Pioneer – 18.5.11

PNS | CUTTACK

Dissatisfied over the nature and progress of the investigation into the sensational murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, the Orissa High Court on Tuesday once again asked the State Crime Branch (CB) police to expand the purview of its investigation and file a fresh affidavit in the court.

The 80-year-old Hindu seer was brutally murdered along with four of his disciples during the Janmashtami celebrations at Jalespeta Ashram in Kandhamal district on August 23, 2008. The Crime Branch was entrusted by the State Government to probe into the matter and the cops in the meantime have submitted two chargesheets in the case naming 14 accused, of whom only nine have been arrested till date.

Not satisfied with the CB investigation, the seer’s disciple Brahmachari Madhav Chaitanya filed a writ in the HC seeking an impartial inquiry by an independent agency. He also questioned why the investigating police were not probing the motive and conspiracy angle of the brutal murder.

“Although Swamiji had received threatening letters to eliminate him several times before his death, the Crime Branch police have failed to make any headway in that angle”, argued the petitioner’s advocate MN Krishnamani, a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court. Even as the police have filed two chargesheets in the case claiming all the accused are Maoist cadre, the main accused in the case has not yet been apprehended, Krishnamani told the court alleging that the investigating police officers are completely silent over the role of a local Church in the incident.

Urging the HC to order a CBI inquiry into the case, the SC lawyer alleged that the CB police have not made any significant progress in the case and are now trying to dilute the sensational murder case by painting the Maoists as the villains. He told the court that the prosecution is trying to build a soft case thereby facilitating the culprits to escape punishment.

Krishnamani also brought to the notice of the court that the CB police have not brought the reported resolution passed by a local Church, into the purview of investigation. Members of Beticola Parish Church Council of Baliguda had reportedly passed a resolution prior to the incident that Swamiji would be killed.

After hearing the arguments of the petitioner advocate, Justice Kumari Sanju Panda directed the CB to expand its purview of investigation and file a fresh affidavit before the next date of hearing scheduled on June 29.

Adarsh housing society file goes missing—The Pioneer – 15.5.11

TN RAGHUNATHA | Mumbai

A file pertaining to the controversial Adarsh housing society has disappeared this time round from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in New Delhi.

Confirming the development, a senior CBI official told The Pioneer on Saturday: "The disappearance of a file pertaining to the Adarsh housing society came to our notice, when our team visited the MoEF last week. The missing file contained correspondence between the Maharashtra Urban Development (UD) department and MoEF between 2002 and 2003 and some internal memos / write-ups of MoEF on issues pertaining to the Adarsh housing society".

"We wanted the file in connection with the ongoing investigations into the Adarsh scam. The MoEF officials were not sure as to how the file had gone missing. It is unlikely that they will lodge a complaint with the police in this connection. However, the MoEF officials assured us that they will re-construct the missing file and send it across to us," the CBI official said.

According to the official, the missing correspondence comprised letters written by the MoEF to the State UD department about the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms and the need for the Adarsh society approaching the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) for seeking the CRZ clearance.

Khambatta, appearing on behalf of the MoEF, had told the High Court that PV Deshmukh, then deputy secretary of the State UD department, had "misinterpreted" the letter written by the Ministry and issued a letter to the Adarsh society, claiming that the MoEF had given a CRZ clearance to the Adarsh building, while the fact remained that the Ministry had said that the society had to approach the MCZMA for such a clearance.

The revelation about the disappearance of the Adarsh society-related correspondence from the MoEF comes nine days after the CBI arrested three State UD department officials — a desk officer Gurudutt Vajpe, Assistant Town Planner NN Narvekar, and a clerk Waman Raul — in connection with the reported disappearance of some crucial Adarsh scam-related official documents from the department's files nearly six months ago.

A month after the UD department found pages 15, 27, 99 and 279 missing from a particular Adarsh society-related file kept in the department's record room, a desk officer Gurudutt Vajpe from the department had lodged a complaint with the Marine Drive police station on November 26 last year.

The file containing the missing documents — said to be some correspondence carrying official notings vis-a-vis CRZ clearance and the issue relating to the reduction of the width of a road adjacent to the land on which Adarsh society came to be constructed — had reportedly gone missing from the files of the State UD department on October 28, 2010.

The correspondence related to papers originating from the State UD department between 1999 and 2003. Ramanand Tiwari, the then UDD principal secretary, is believed to have made the notings in these missing documents.

Tiwari, who is one of the 13 accused in the Adarsh scam is alleged to have had a hand in the disappearance of the four crucial Adarsh-related documents. Incidentally, Raul — arrested in connection with the missing State UDD documents case — was then clerk to Tiwari.

Tiwari, whose son Omkar was allotted a flat in the Adarsh building at Colaba in south Mumbai after he in his capacity as the then State Urban Secretary allegedly doled out favours to the controversial housing society, has, among other things, been accused of facilitating the transfer of FSI from the neighbouring BEST land to Adarsh which helped the controversial housing society build to the height of 103.60 metres.

The arrests came more than 12 weeks after the Bombay High Court transferred the case Mumbai Crime branch to the CBI on February 17. Significantly enough, while transferring the case to the CBI, the high court had observed: "There is a direct link between the (missing) documents pertaining to deletion of reservation for a road and CRZ clearance for Adarsh and the scam".

Before the CBI took over the investigations into the missing documents case, the Mumbai crime branch sleuths had in all questioned 66 persons and recorded 40-odd statements in connection with the missing documents.

Admitting that a 'new file' opened for controversial Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai was missing, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh sought to downplay the incident, saying it was not a 'permanent' file and was liable to be 'weeded out'. He claimed that 'too much' should not be read into the development and that his Ministry had 'reconstructed' the correspondence with the Maharashtra Government that was supposed to be contained in the file.