THE HINDU

Imp. News Jan. 29th 2012 Page-1  Heavy voter turnout in Manipur, militant kills 5: Chief Electoral Officer P.C. Lawmkunga said that according to preliminary official reports, 82 per cent of the 17.50-lakh voters exercised their franchise.  In Jaipur replay, university bows to ABVP film fatwa: Symbiosis University has cancelled the screening of documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak's Jashn-eAzadi on Kashmir, after the right-wing student organisation, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), raised objections to its separatist' nature. The film was supposed to be screened at a three-day national seminar called Voices of Kashmir' at the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce, organised in association with the University Grants Commission (UGC) on February 3, 4 and 5. The organisation now wants the entire seminar cancelled, ABVP Pune unit Secretary Shailendra Dalvi told The Hindu on Saturday evening. The content of the seminar, like the film, is anti-India, and against the Indian Army. We will not stand for anything that divides the country. Symbiosis has agreed to cancel the film screening, and we are giving them three days' time to think about the event, too, Mr. Dalvi stated.  Bid to make an Ayodhya out of Bhojshala foiled: The Madhya Pradesh police on Saturday foiled the plans of a Hindu right wing group that had vowed to take out a palki yatra on the occasion of Basant Panchmi to the controversial Bhojshala archaeological structure in the Dhar district. Once a seat of learning, the Bhojshala, currently under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India, currently follows a curious modern tradition whereby Hindus are allowed to offer prayers every Tuesday while Muslims are allowed to pray every Friday. Dhar has often been considered the Ayodhya of Madhya Pradesh on account of the controversy surrounding the Bhojshala, a 11th century structure built by Dhar's great architect -king Bhoj who unfortunately and wrongly has been used by the ruling BJP government to communalise the state capital Bhopal by renaming it to Bhojpal. The structure later, around the 13th century and since, became a mosque named after Muslim saint Kamaluddin Chisti, a disciple of the famous Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya. And so, according to official sources, the situation could take the form of a more serious showdown next year, when Madhya Pradesh will be facing assembly elections and Basant Panchmi will fall on a Friday, the weekly Muslim prayer day.

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Whether or not the Bhojshala will become an election issue next year is a point of speculation especially since the current police action has hinted at it not being backed by the ruling BJP government in the State. Page 2  Improving quality of education requires going beyond the usual':

NGO Pratham Rajasthan releases Annual Status of Education Report revealing some disturbing facts and figures The report, based on data collected from 31 of the State's 32 districts, reveals that 57.3 per cent of children going to complete primary education cannot read even the Standard II level text fluently and approximately 75 per cent of children would be completing primary education without the ability to do division. Dealing with the declining capacity of children, the report points out that the percentage of children in Standard V who could read at Standard II level had dropped to 42.7 per cent in 2011 from 56 per cent in 2006. The situation in mathematics was stated to be even more worrisome . The percentage of children in 2006 in Standard V who could do division sums was 54.1, while the number dropped to 23.7 per cent by 2011. However, there has been a steady decline in children in both government and private schools going for tuitions since 2007. In both primary and upper primary schools, the average attendance of children was 70 per cent during 2011. On an average, 75.9 per cent of primary schools had all the teachers present, while only 50.3 per cent of upper primary schools had all of them present on the day of the surveyors' visit. Significantly, 52.6 per cent of the government primary and upper primary schools do not meet the norms laid down in the Right to Education Act for pupil-teacher ratio. The percentage of schools having girls' toilet available and usable has risen from 50.3 in 2010 to 66.3 in 2011. Page 5  New toll-free service launched for Haryana dairy farmers: Haryana Agriculture Minister Paramvir Singh on Saturday launched a new toll-free number phone service to facilitate livestock owners getting information concerning livestock by dialling 1800-180-1184 number. Page 9  Shiv Sena goons vandalise The Times of India office: Justice Markandey Katju writes to Maharashtra Chief Minister condemning attack Over 20 Shiv Sena workers ransacked the lobby of The Times of India building here on Wednesday in protest against an article written on senior Sena leader Anandrao Adsul, an MP from Amravati. The page A goal is a dream with a deadline. https://www.facebook.com/groups/indiancivils/ Page 2

one article in Maharashtra Times on Saturday speculated that Mr. Adsul was on his way to joining the Nationalist Congress Party. Justice Markandey Katju, chairperson of the Press Council of India, has written to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, seeking to know the action taken against the accused. I may mention that this is not the first time that such an incident has happened in Maharashtra. I had written to you earlier also about such assaults and harassment of journalists. I, therefore, must tell you now that the Press Council may now have to take a serious view of the matter and take suitable action if such incidents are not curbed in your State, he said. Justice Katju in his letter said: This is totally unacceptable in a democracy. Under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution, the media enjoys freedom and, under Section 13 of the Press Council of India Act, it is the duty of the Press Council to maintain the freedom of the Press. If mediapersons or the media offices are physically attacked, it is a gross violation of the media's Constitutional right. Your government's duty is to maintain law and order, and also uphold the Constitution. Please therefore let me know at the earliest what action you have taken against the hooligans who committed this outrage. In particular, please inform me whether the delinquents have been arrested and any criminal proceedings launched against them.  Yanam limping back to normality: Normality was partially restored in this town, an enclave of Puducherry, a day after it was rocked by unprecedented violence on Saturday, as 300 policemen, including those from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, took control of the situation. We have already identified the main accused in the murder of Chandrasekhar, Deputy InspectorGeneral of Puducherry I.D. Shukla said here. The police had recorded all the developments on video and also collected footage from television channels. To a question, he justified the police action in which Murali Mohan died. BUSINESS  IAB asks SEBI to widen mutual fund reach: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)- appointed International Advisory Board (IAB) has said that there is a need to widen the reach of the mutual fund industry, horizontally and vertically. The IAB took note of the risk management mechanisms in place in the equity and equity derivative segments in India. It advised SEBI on the need to strengthen the legal framework to protect the collaterals of the clients posted with the brokers. The IAB also deliberated on the global developments related to algorithmic / high frequency trades and co-location and the resultant challenges to risk management.

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 Race hots up for top job at CIL: An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer R. P. S. Kahlon, the serving Environment Secretary to the West Bengal Government, has joined the race for the post of the chairman-cum-managing director of Coal India Ltd (CIL), the world's single largest coal mining company. A 1984-batch IAS officer from the West Bengal cadre, he holds a post-graduate degree in English. At least three other IAS officers are also believed to have applied to the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) which conducts the interviews for the post which has been lying vacant without any steady incumbent, since the retirement of P. S. Bhattacharyya in February 2011. SPORT  India's second overseas wipeout: And so it ended, at 11.28 a.m. Adelaide time, India's second successive 4-0 clean sweep overseas; this is a team that achieved great things - even if it might have fallen short of greatness but the pity is you wouldn't know it from these eight Tests.  Victorious Azarenka: Belarus's Victoria Azarenka swept imperiously to her first Grand Slam title and the World No. 1 ranking on Saturday when she demolished Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open final. The 22-year-old, playing her first major title match, made light of the occasion and her illustrious opponent as she hammered the Russian former champion 6-3, 6-0 in just 82 minutes.  New Zealand routs Zimbabwe: New Zealand posted its biggest winning Test margin when it demolished Zimbabwe by an innings and 301 runs on the third day of its one-off Test at Napier's McLean Park on Saturday. After starting the day at 392 for five, New Zealand added 103 in 18 overs, giving B.J. Watling time to notch up his maiden Test century before declaring at 495 for seven. Man-of-the-Match Chris Martin then led a bowling attack that routed Zimbabwe twice in the same day first for the tourists' lowest Test innings of 51 followed by 143 in its second innings. The winning margin was seven runs better than New Zealand's previous record of an innings and 294 runs set in 2005, also against Zimbabwe.  Chitra Magimairaj's long wait ends: Chitra Magimairaj's 11-year wait for a National title ended when she got the better of Tamil Nadu's Neena Praveen 3-1 in the women's snooker final of the Manisha National billiards & snooker championships on Saturday. Chitra won 58-43, 57-28, 32-35, 44-9 in the final, which was set to five frames with a time-frame of 40 minutes each. In the semifinals, she shocked the top seed Arantxa Sanchis. Chitra, who won the National 8-ball and 9-ball titles in 2005 and 2007 and the National 6-red snooker championship at Chandigarh last September, said she was delighted to finally clinch the National crown.

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Page 16  New killer' bacteria on the prowl: articleAfter the scary New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 or the superbug was detected two years ago, the world is now faced with the community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (ca-MRSA) bacterium that is resistant to almost all common antibiotics. In India, where poor hygiene and the availability of over-the-counter antibiotics lead to development of resistance, an estimated 100 to 200 million people are reportedly already carriers of these virtually unbeatable killer bacteria. The killer bugs have also reached England, presumably through medical tourists who travelled to India for cosmetic surgery, and reportedly already infected several hundred people. A few cases have also turned up in Germany. Infestation with multidrug-resistant bacteria is normally harmless to healthy individuals because their immune systems can keep the pathogens under control. Problems arise when an individual becomes seriously ill. Israel even experienced a nationwide outbreak a few years ago. Within a few months, about 1,300 people were afflicted by an extremely dangerous bacterium that killed 40 per cent of infected patients. Even today, the same bacterium still sickens some 300 people a year. Only one antibiotic having fatal side effects is still found to be effective against MRSA bacteria. In contrast to ha-MRSA primarily affecting elderly, ca-MRSA affects young people  Remembering Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan: February 5 marks the Urs of Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan that will be held at his mausoleum in Delhi. As a part of this event, special Sufi trails are being organised by international tour operators for followers of this Indian mystic who took Sufism to the West. It was in Hyderabad that the musician became a spiritual guru. His grandson Zia Inayat Khan, in his work A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan , chronicles Hazrat Inayat Khan's stay in the city. He received rave reviews from officials in the royal court and the lofty title of Tansen al Zaman' from the Nizam himself. Many would not know that Noor Inayat Khan, the World War II hero executed by the Germans in the Dachau Concentration Camp, was the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Ora Ray Baker. Today Hope Project, started by Vilayat Inayat Khan, takes up community health, livelihood and education-related works in the slums near Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah keeping Hazrat Inayat Khan's Sufi philosophy as a guiding principle. SUNDAY MAGZINE  Reality is not in the realism':

Best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel The Famished Road (1991), Ben Okri was one of the biggest draws at this year's Jaipur Literature Festival. A goal is a dream with a deadline. https://www.facebook.com/groups/indiancivils/ Page 5

 Hundred years of resistance: The African National Congress of South Africa, founded in January 1912, got a lot of support from Mahatma Gandhi, who had already begun his campaign of passive resistance against racism. The birth of the African National Congress a century ago, in January 1912, was a landmark in the history of Africa, marking the beginning of the end of centuries of exploitation and humiliation of the continent. It received hardly any attention at the time internationally or from the white establishment in South Africa. On July 29, 1911, Gandhi's newspaper, Indian Opinion, reported an interview with Seme on the progress of plans for the conference, which was held in Bloemfontein from 8 to 11 January 1912. The conference established the South African Native National Congress (later renamed the African National Congress). The Reverend John Langalibalele Dube of Natal, founder of the Ohlange Industrial School which was located close to Gandhi's own Phoenix Settlement was elected President in his absence. Dube then sent a letter to Chiefs and Gentlemen of the South African Native National Congress accepting the honour and published it in his newspaper Ilanga lase Natal on February 2, 1912. Indian Opinion reproduced an extract from his letter in its issue of February 10, 1912, under the title The Awakening of Africa. It referred to Dube as our friend and neighbor and called the letter a manifesto. In 1913, when the Natives Land Act was passed by the Union Parliament, Gandhi was vehement in his denunciation. An editorial in Indian Opinion declared: The Natives Land Act of the Union Parliament has created consternation among the Natives. Indeed, every other question, not excluding the Indian question, pales into insignificance before the great Native question. This land is theirs by birth and this Act of confiscation for such it is is likely to give rise to serious consequences. 1913 was also the year of passive resistance by African, Coloured and Indian people in South Africa. In June, African and Coloured women in the Free State began passive resistance against a new law requiring them to carry passes. They were supported by the SANNC. The authorities were eventually forced to abandon passes for women.  Imported threat: Spotted deer were introduced to the Andaman Islands either in the early 1900s or the 1930s. The exact date doesn t matter, and nor does the actual number. What matters is that, in the absence of predators, they have multiplied and spread, swimming from one island to another. In each island their population has shot up, and they browse relentlessly on the seedlings of the forest trees that regenerate there. They avoid browsing on only two of the hundreds of species of trees found there. Forests of Pongamia (pongam) monocultures are taking over the coastlines, and Lagerstroemia, leafless for most of the year, is taking over the once lush rainforests of the interior. If left unchecked, the fabled forests of the Andamans will, sooner or later, be a thing of the past. What can be done to control the deer? Sterilisation is too expensive and chancy. Translocation is possible, but to where? Any animal that is transported to an area outside its normal range is considered an introduced species. Any introduced species that causes environmental or ecological damage is termed as invasive. The science behind the control of invasives is very straightforward: eradicate whenever possible. It does not require a detailed scientific study.

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A 2001 study estimated the damage done by invasives in India alone was US$ 116 billion annually (yes, I did mean billion). However, in spite of being signatory to international treaties covering this, India yet has to evolve a serious plan to control invasives.

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