NEWS ITEMS

A MARRIAGE PARTY LOOTED
Dacoits Dressed In Khaki
(From Our Correspondent)
Lahore, June 11
A daring dacoity is reported from Jullundur Cantonment. A local marriage party returned from Sialkot, but could not proceed at once from want of conveyances. The bridegroom&’s brother was sent in the only carriage available, in charge of ornaments and cash, accompanied by two or more persons. About five hundred paces from the railway station, the carriage, it is stated, was stopped by some men in khaki, who seized all ornaments and property, and mercilessly belaboured the occupants of the carriage. The bridegroom&’s brother is lying in a precarious condition.

The following interesting statement regarding the progress of work on the Lower Ganges bridge near Saraghat appears in the Railway Administration Report issued last week: “More than two-thirds of the total quantity of earthwork required for the approaches has been completed; also the pair of stone pitched guide banks flanking the bridge, and three-quarters of the Raita Ghat guide bank. The five well foundations started in 1911 were completed in the same working season and two piers built. Of the six other well foundations which have been started, two are nearing completion. Work was delayed in 1912 on account of the late arrival of materials from England due to the strikes.” The formal sanction of the Secretary of State has just been received for an estimate of four and three quarter crores for the bridge and it immediate approaches.
12 June, 1913

statesman news service
GUWAHATI, 1 JUNE: National Union of Journalists (India) has expressed grave concern over delay in police action against the goons who stabbed to death three newspaper employees in Agartala on 19 May. In a statement issued from New Delhi today the NUJ strongly condemned the killings of Ranjit Chaudhary (manager), Sujit Bhattcharjee (proof reader) and Balaram Ghosh (driver) who used to work for Dainik Ganadoot, a Bengali newspaper published from Tripura. NUJ secretary general Ras Bihari categorically pointed out that the state police have not shown any initiative to arrest the culprits even after 12 days of the gory incident. He also urged Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar to order a high level probe into the incident and compensate the victims’ families. Unidentified assailants had stormed into the Ganadoot office, located in the heart of Agartala and stabbed all three workers to death. All the injured persons were taken to a nearby hospital, but attending doctors had declared them brought dead. The owner and editor of Dainik Ganadoot, Mr Sushil Chaudhary, later, claimed he had been the target of the assailants. Agartala Press Club first condemned the incident and it was followed by many local journalist bodies, including Journalist Forum Assam (JFA), All Meghalaya Journalists’ Union,  Shillong Press Club, Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists and Arunachal Press Club, which urged the Tripura government to book the killers at the earliest. The JFA even organised a protest at Guwahati Press Club on 21 May and urged the Communist party-ruled government to probe and compensate the bereaved families. Other important organisations, including Editor&’s Guild of India, Reporters Without Borders, International Federation of Journalists and Committee to Protect Journalists, also expressed serious concern over the incident and asked Mr Sarkar, who also holds the Home portfolio, to take all possible steps to punish the perpetrators.

agence france-presse
ISTANBUL, 11 JUNE: Riot police re-entered Istanbul’s protest square today, sending demonstrators scrambling with teargas and water cannon in a fresh escalation of unrest after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would meet with protest leaders.
Hundreds of police officers backed by armoured cars moved in on Taksim Square in the early morning in their first return to the site after pulling out on 1 June, saying they wanted to remove makeshift barricades erected by protesters and clear the area of flags and banners.
The police action surprised protesters, hundreds of whom have been camping out in the adjoining Gezi Park, and came just hours after Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Mr Erdogan would meet with protest leaders tomorrow, in his first major concession since the deadly unrest began nearly two weeks ago.
Despite the Premier’s conciliatory gesture, the deputy warned: “Illegal demonstrations will not be allowed anymore in Turkey.”
Smoke filled the square as riot police fired tear gas and urged protesters to stay calm and return to Gezi Park, with some protesters throwing stones and incendiary devices in response.
Overnight thousands again took to the streets of Istanbul and the capital Ankara, defying Mr Erdogan’s threat that they would “pay a price” for the unrelenting unrest, the biggest challenge yet to his Islamic-rooted government’s decade-long rule.  Riot police fired teargas in the centre of Ankara to disperse hundreds of protesters, sending them scrambling, though protest crowds were smaller than at the weekend.
The nationwide unrest first erupted after police cracked down heavily on a campaign to save Istanbul’s Gezi Park, next to Taksim Square, from demolition on 31 May.
The trouble spiralled into mass displays of anger against Mr Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), seen as increasingly authoritarian.
Nearly 5,000 demonstrators, scores of whom are young and middle-class, have been injured and three people have died, tarnishing Turkey’s image as a model of Islamic democracy. “Our intention is to remove the signs and banners at the site. We have no other goal,” said Istanbul governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu on Twitter. “We will not touch Gezi Park and Taksim, we will absolutely not touch you,” he added, urging demonstrators to stay away from troublemakers.

LONDON, 31 MAY: High doses of two common painkillers, used by millions of Indians, taken over a long period of time may increase the risk of heart attack, Oxford researchers have warned.
The study on more than 350,000 patients taking prescription doses of such medications found the chance of a heart attack or stroke rose by almost 40 per cent. The study found the increased risk of cardiac side-effects from ibuprofen was similar to those of another arthritis drug, Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market almost a decade ago when research had suggested it might double the risk of heart attacks, The Telegraph reported.
The University of Oxford study findings suggest prolonged use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and taken by millions of arthritis sufferers medicines was “risky” ~ but said patients needed to weigh up the benefits of drugs which allowed them to function against the potential dangers.
The research, published in The Lancet, found that for every 1,000 people with a moderate risk of heart disease, around eight would normally have a heart attack or stroke each year.
When similar patients were given one year of treatment with a high dose of ibuprofen (2400mg daily) or diclofenac (150mg daily) that risk rose, with 11 patients suffering the major cardiac events. The study found one in three of the extra heart attacks were fatal.
The same dosage ~ which is the maximum normally prescribed, and twice the amount which is allowed over the counter ~ doubled the risk of heart failure, from 3 to 7 cases in 1,000, and more than doubled the risks of complications such as bleeding ulcers, the study found.
However, the findings, from an analysis of 639 randomised trials, found that a third drug, called naproxen, did not increase the risk of heart attacks or strokes, when a high dose of 1000 mg a day was taken. pti

There is more than one way for things to fade from view, says s ananthanarayan

THE Cloak of Darkness, which makes its wearer invisible, is a common fairy tale motif. But it has now become reality through the use of materials that do complex things to light and make light go around an object, instead of being blocked or reflected. Moti Fridman, Alessandro Farsi, Yoshitomo Okawachi and Alexander L Gaeta from Cornell University, USA, report in the journal Nature another method of effectively achieving the same thing — by getting light to slow down, and then rushed to catch up, during an instant, to miss an event that takes place during that instant.
One way for an object to avoid being seen is to let light just pass through. But objects in general are not transparent and would interact with light that falls on them. Even if there were a transparent coat on the object, light that falls on the coat would get bent towards the object, which would then interact, generally by reflecting the light. Persons in front of the object would then see the object and persons behind would see a shadow. But if the light falling on the transparent coat could be made to turn not towards the object but away, then the light could be guided, through the coat, around the object and sent on its way from the other side of the object.  If this happens, then persons in front of the object would see no reflected light and persons on the other side would see no shadow. The object would disappear!
The reason that light that enters a transparent medium is turned “inward”, or towards the direction along which it came to the medium, is the refraction of light. This is usually explained as because light travels slower in the medium than in air, and this causes a beam of light to bend inwards. But the change in direction of light is in fact concerned with the electric and magnetic properties of materials and the fact that light is a wave that consists of electrical and magnetic fluctuations. The interplay of the electric and magnetic properties of the material affect the electric and magnetic components of the light wave in such a way that for all natural materials the direction of propagation changes within the medium, and away from the surface of the medium. In theory, the nature of electric and magnetic interactions can be such as to result in the beam bending the other way, but this does not happen for natural materials.

Metamaterials
But artificial materials can be created that do affect light in this way. The world of metamaterials consists of compositions of materials designed to have more properties than the components. The components are microscopic in form and the structure has features that are of the dimensions of or lesser than the wavelength of light. Materials like this can have electric and magnetic properties, known as susceptibility and permeability, which allow for light entering the material to bend in the opposite way. A cylinder made of such material can be designed so that light falling on one side turns along the surface of the cylinder and goes all the way round, till it is allowed to escape and continue along it original path. The beam of light would then be quite unaffected by an object that is placed within the cylinder and that object, in effect, would be invisible!
Metamaterial invisible cloaks have been implemented only for specific bands of light in the microwave region and are far from perfect. The dimensions of the objects that can be cloaked are also very small. Recent reports are of cloaks made not of bulk metamaterial but an “ultrathin” cloak, which works by creating waves that interfere with reflected waves and prevent reflection from emerging from the object. This cloak is able to conceal larger objects, again in the microwave region. Professor John Pendry of the Imperial College, London, who pioneered the work, however, cautions that a practical invisible cloak is still a far cry. It works with objects a few centimetres across but it is not a cloak you can drape on anything, he says.

Hole in time
These methods of turning a light beam to flow around an abject use ways of dealing with spatial properties of light waves to create, as it were, a hole in space, where an object can hide without being seen. But the mathematical equations that deal with the way electromagnetic waves behave allow nearly the same manipulation that is possible with space to be carried out with the time dimension. A wave on the water, for instance, has the form of a snake, to show the height of the water along a line in space, at any moment. But if we consider a single point on the surface of the water, the water level at that point also rises and falls, as time goes on, in the same way as it does along a line on the surface, at a given instant.
Using this parallel, another approach to invisibility is to slow light down for an instant, and then to speed it up again to catch up with the time that has passed, so that there is a gap in the time for which the wave has been there. An event that occurred during that instant would then have avoided being detected by the light wave. The method makes use of the idea of a “time lens”, which could expand and magnify a short pulse of time to become detectable, just like a glass lens can magnify fine print. This concept was first developed to help detect electrical pulses that were very close together, in time.
The way it works is that an external light wave, with a varying frequency, is added to the first light waveform. The external wave creates combined waves with the original wave. If there are two closely placed peaks in the original wave, there are two different combined frequencies created, as the external wave interacts with each peak at a different time. These waves of different frequencies can then be separated and the two peaks get prised apart.
The same idea is implemented with a light wave, again in the microwave region. A pair of time lenses splits the light wave into a higher and a lower frequency component. Now, a prism is able to split light into the colours of the rainbow because different frequencies travel at different speeds and hence bend in different ways in the prism. In the same way, the light beam that is passed through the pair of time lenses splits into a “fast” component and a “slow” component and they separate.
The two components then reach another, complementary pair of time lenses, which reverse the speed changes to restore the light wave to the way it was at the start. But in the gap between the two sets of time lenses, there was a part of the beam that was “fast” and a part that was “slow”, with a gap in between. If an event that affects the light beam occurs in the “time gap”, it would have no effect on the beam.
Artworks in museums are sometimes protected by laser beams. If a burglar could create a time gap, he could slip in undetected. This was tried out by the Cornel University team, using three different lasers for the main beam, the varying frequency addition and the “event”. The “event” beam became undetectable every time the lime lens was switched on, but the time gap they created was very brief, just 40 trillionths of a second. That burglar would have to be quick!

The writer can be contacted at
simplescience@gmail.com

A profound loss to cinema
SIR, ~ The untimely death of Rituparno Ghosh, the renowned film-maker and actor, is a profound loss to the world of cinema. He was indeed a pioneer of the post-Satyajit Ray new wave that marked the Nineties. He had enthralled the audience with his celluloid gems and gave Bengali cinema a new dimension. He was only 49. His death will be mourned both in Tollywood and Bollywood.
Rituparno was an acclaimed film-maker, known for his stellar and innovative styles in a career that spanned two decades. He was initially a script writer in an advertising agency and switched over to cinema with his debut  children&’s film, Hirer Angti (Diamond Ring) in 1994. Unishe April won the national award in 1995. Altogether he won 12 national and some international awards, including the national prize for best director  (Abohoman).
He can be credited with films not only in Bengali, but in Hindi and in English as well, featuring Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Rakhee, Ajay Devgun to name but a few artistes. Chokher Bali was his blockbuster film in which Aishwarya Rai Bachchan played the most acclaimed role. His films dwelt on the dilemmas of  India&’s urban middle class. 
Rituparno Ghosh died too young but will always be remembered as one of the most talented and versatile  film directors of the country. His contribution to cinema will  inspire young and talented film-makers.
yours, etc., ramesh g jethwani, bangalore,  31 may.
A trailblazer
SIR, ~ Rituparno Ghosh was a trailblazer in Bengali cinema. His death, at a relatively young age,  is a great loss to Indian cinema. The void will not be easy to fill. With a bevy of national and international awards, his films glorified women, their inner feelings, passion and sufferings. Through these columns, I offer my condolence to the bereaved family.
yours, etc., s s paul, chakdaha (nadia), 30 may.
Populist cinema
SIR, ~ Rituparno Ghosh was indeed a talented director and his premature demise is terribly unfortunate. But to describe him as a worthy inheritor of the Satyajit Ray mantle may be a little difficult to digest. He did make a number of  thought-provoking films, notably Unishe April, Dahan, Asukh, Utsav during the initial phase of his career. Post-2003, however, he started playing to the gallery by corrupting his films with lurid sequences.
 He did succumb to the glamour of Bollywood and often incorporated populist, if not crass, ideas into Bengali cinema. Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Tapan Sinha worked on a vast canvas, but Rituparno largely confined his films to the extra-marital and/or same-sex paradigm. By addressing the lowest common denominator, he might had made his films commercially successful, but this was a severe assault on the cerebral qualities of Bengali cinema.
yours, etc., kajal chatterjee, sodepur, 31 may.
The poorer without
SIR, ~ The sudden demise of Rituparno Ghosh at the age of 49 is shocking. As a film-maker, he added value to Bengali cinema. In a span of 20 years ~ from Hirer Angti in 1994 to Chitrangada last year ~ Rituparno had directed 19 films, notably Unishe April, Dahan, Asukh, Chokher Bali, Raincoat, Bariwali, Antarmahal and Noukadubi. He won 12 national awards. After the golden era of Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha, Asit Sen, Mrinal Sen and Ritwick Ghatak, the name of Rituparno can be added to Bengal&’s list of legendary film-makers.
Commercial cinema will be the poorer without his art films. May his soul rest in peace.
yours, etc., bidyut kumar chatterjee, faridabad, 30 may.
Panchayat gameplan
SIR, ~ The gameplan of the West Bengal government was clear from the moment it appealed to the Division Bench of Calcutta High Court against the Single Bench verdict. The intention was to delay the panchayat election and thwart the State Election Commission&’s plan  to deploy central paramilitary forces to ensure a free and fair election.
  The government has now belatedly realised that it will be extremely difficult to conduct the first phase in nine districts with its own security devices. It has been compelled to agree to 300 companies of central forces.  Even then, there might be a shortfall.
yours, etc., anil kumar choudhury, kalyani, 30 may.
Politicians and sport
SIR, ~ India needs a piece of legislation that will bar interference by politicians, not merely in the affairs of BCCI but sport in general. By setting up an inquiry commission to probe the spot-fixing scam, the authorities are playing to the gallery. The BCCI, led by N. Srinivasan, is as corrupt as the United Progressive Alliance government, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Corrupt and greedy politicians have ruined the BCCI ever since its inception.
Srinivasan kept the board members in good humour by providing  them with freebies at the cost of BCCI. It might not be an exaggeration to submit that IPL matches have always been fixed. Players, commentators, anchors and TV channel owners are uniformly corrupt. The anti-betting and anti-gambling propaganda by a few interested television channels is only a diversionary technique. Both gambling and betting should be legalized sooner rather than later.
What is the definition of the expression, “conflict of interest” ? How could Srinivasan become the BCCI chief and at the same time control the ownership of CSK?  The investigation will not be fair unless both Srinivasan and his son-in-law are jailed and the ministers allegedly involved dismissed.
yours, etc., tusar kanti kar, howrah, 30 may.
At bookies’ request?
SIR, ~ Two facts have been overlooked amidst the controversy over the IPL spot-fixing scam. First, in the Rajasthan Royals versus Mumbai Indians match played on 15 May, Ankeet Chavan gave away 15 runs in one over…. as requested by the bookies. Mumbai Indians won the match by 14 runs and gathered certain match-points.
  Technically, the result should either have been scrapped or the whole match should have been replayed in all fairness Quite  apart from the vested interests involved, the probability of that particular over yielding no runs at all is exactly half. If that happened, Rajasthan Royals may have even won the match.
I do not have statistics for the other matches where such spot-fixing was indulged in by the errant bowlers, but the results need to be reviewed. The findings could well result in the entire playoffs proving to be a comedy of errors.
The other issue is that Thisara Pereira gave away 29 runs in one over when bowling to Pollard. This match was also won by Mumbai Indians. If you view the video of that over, you will notice that all the balls were delivered at waist-height, and Pollard repeatedly hit the balls for boundaries and over-boundaries.
No effort was made to bowl yorkers to control the runs and the batsman. Once the fixing scandal broke, Pereira advisedly did not concede 29 runs in any match even in his full complement of four overs. Don’t you think his possible involvement should also be investigated?
These shenanigans would suggest that the Mumbai Indians won in the IPL by default and not  by virtue of its distinctive superiority. The sooner the Ambanis and their players realise this fact, the better.
yours, etc., v k tankha, kolkata, 30 may.
 

david phelan sums up the high points of the Apple World Wide Developers Conference

IN one of the longest keynotes from Apple for years — two full hours — Tim Cook and colleagues tried to fight back after a tough year. Would this be enough to put the gloss back on Apple? Apple needed to show it could innovate, have fresh and appealing ideas — and lots of them. The key to the show was the iOS reveal, the new, flatter design of iPhone and iPad software created by Jony Ive. Sir Jonathan Ive is the Brit behind the iconic designs for the iPhone, iPod and more. But could he change the existing software into something classier?
The problem with iPhone and Apple Mac software is that it pretended to be something else. So the calendar has a border designed to look like stitched leather, a corner of torn paper visible where last month&’s calendar had been torn off. This is what&’s known as skeuomorphism, where one thing is made to look like another.
The new software gets rid of all these. Time and again at the keynote, presenters went out of their way to decry the current styling – “No virtual cows were killed in the making of this software” was followed by “Even thought there&’s no stitching on the calendar, it still stays in place”.
And the results for the Mac software looked good. This will be released in the autumn and be called OSX Mavericks in a move away from names of big cats and towards Californian locations. But the transformation of iOS was stunning. There were eye-popping effects that made the background images seem to sit behind the app icons, so that when you tip the phone, the two move separately. The redesign is absolutely from the ground up and looks as fresh as paint. It may not mean that the Apple system is far ahead of its rivals but it&’s definitely better looking.
This is all it needed to be. Windows Phone and BlackBerry offer radically more modern interfaces but nobody is buying into them because they have smaller, less comprehensive app stores. If Apple users looked longingly at other operating systems, they won’t any more. In a few months they will have the familiarity of their current phones with gorgeous new effects.
Style over substance? Maybe so, but with this much style, who cares? And there will be plenty of innovations when the software launches, including features from the Mac moving to the iPhone and vice-versa.
There was lots more announced, from the sneak peek at the professional quality hardware, the Mac Pro to new versions of the MacBook Air with exceptional battery life. But the biggest cheers of the show and the most eye-catching looks were the iOS redesigns from Jony Ive, Craig Federighi and their teams. These will be enough to keep Apple iPhone users loyal when the next handset is released later in the year.
the independent

statesman news service
DIAMOND HARBOUR/MIDNAPORE, 31 MAY: Trinamul Congress activities allegedly pushed a pregnant woman and kicked her belly after she fell down on the ground following a scuffle over a dispute on between two families.  
The injured woman was admitted to hospital with serious injuries and was kept under observation for four days after abortion. She was released today afternoon.
Two families were fighting over a pipeline in ward number 6 under Diamond Harbour Municipality. Meanwhile Trinamul activists reached the the spot and tried to break the pipeline.  
During the altercation Mrs Supriya Halder started arguing with the TMC supporters. Mrs Halder said: “I told them they couldn’t break it and suddenly the TMC activists pushed me and I fell down. They kicked my belly repeatedly while my family and I tried to warn them about my pregnancy.
“The former Trinamul councillor, Mr Debu Mallik, was there and led the team of Trinamul activists,” she said.
Mr Mallik, however, denied his involvement.
The victim’s husband lodged a complaint against four of the accused. Two of the accused were arrested while the other two are absconding. The arrested men were released on bail.
Mr Anwar Hossain, superintendent of Diamond Harbour sub-division hospital, said Mrs Halder is now well and had to undergo an abortion because of the lack of accurate formation of ovum and not for her injury.
However, the woman said the Trinamul activists were responsible for her condition.  

TMC leader in police custody
A Trinamul Congress leader, who was arrested by the Jhargram police yesterday on charges of attempting to burn alive an aged woman, was remanded in police custody for 10 days today.
The accused leader, Mr Gouranga Pradhan, was produced before Jhargram additional chief judicial magistrate court today where the magistrate, on hearing pleas, remanded him in police custody.
Police said the accused and his associates had recently solved a land-related dispute of Sabitri Sarkar (65) who lives in Benageria in Jhargram. But within a few days, the accused had threatened the woman of dire consequences if she failed to give five cottah land to him for constructing the Trinamul Congress party office.
When the woman refused to comply he and his associates barged into her house and attempted to burn her alive by pouring kerosene on her. The woman was immediately taken to Jhargram district hospital where she is in a serious condition. 
A complaint was lodged against seven persons with the Jhargram police and the police yesterday arrested the accused Trinamul Congress leader from his hideout.

SERAMPORE,  31 MAY:  Three members of two very active notorious gangs of the Hooghly industrial belt fell in the trap of Serampore police. The trio- Sanjay Ganguly , Chotka Mitra and Ratan Das, all residents of Rabindranagar, Chinsurah were arrested on Thursday midnight with arms and ammunition. Well known for forcible extortion and killing, the two gangs ~ one led by Ramesh Mahato and Nepu Giri and the other by Sanjib and Toton of Rabindranagar, Chinsurah, have even developed a well-set network from Howrah to Bandel, roping in other anti-socials of the entire Hooghly Industrial belt. The gangs had turned rivals after intruding into each other’s self-defined areas. In the course of their rivalry, they were getting engaged in violent activities quite often, disturbing the peaceful life of innocent people. The murder of Kamal Pal of Rabindranagar and an attempt to kill Bacchu, the main witness in the case of Ramesh Mahato, was followed by a pitched battle between the Serampore police and the gang members of Ramesh Mahato and Nepu Giri in which five notorious criminals were arrested. Chinsurah police were in the lookout for these absconding criminals who were at last arrested by the Serampore police from their new secret hide out at a mango grove in Padavati colony, Baidyabati. The trio are accused and charged under various serious criminal cases. sns

statesman news service
BURDWAN, 31 MAy: Police arrested two female employees of a chit fund company who are said to be keeping in touch with its absconding director.
Police raided the office of the chit fund company in Durgapur this morning and arrested Ms Moumita Chattaraj and Ms Anita Mukherjee. “The two had been sending e-mails regularly to the director of Axes Multi Developer who is at large since 29 April,” said an officer.
Police raided the corporate office of the company on 29 April following complaints by a depositor. Despite several raids three directors of the company couldn’t be traced. Their cell phones also couldn’t be tracked. Police investigations revealed the absconding directors had been in touch with their employees via e-mail and were getting regular feedback from the local staff.

Agent&’s father commits suicide
GOBORDANGA, 31 MAY: Shantimoy Ghosh (53), father of a chit fund agent, allegedly committed suicide due to repeated harassment of his family by investors in Sammadarpara in Gobordanga, Barasat, today. sns

agence france-presse
St Petersburg, 31 MAY:The incoming president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will still not receive any salary, current head Jacques Rogge (in photo) announced today.
Rogge said the question of a salary had been raised during the IOC executive board meeting, after talks with the six male candidates for the prestigious post.
“I have consulted with the six candidates, the six of them said they did not want to be remunerated,” said Rogge, who is not paid a salary.
“They will go under the current system of reimbursement. That settles the matter for this election. However the principle can be revised shortly, should the situation change.”
The six candidates to succeed Rogge, with the nomination announced on September 10, are Germany’s Thomas Bach, Swiss Denis Oswald, Ukrainian Sergei Bubka, Singapore’s Ng Ser Miang, Taiwan’s Ching-kuo Wu, and American Richard Carrion.
“I don’t expect a seventh candidate or an eighth — I think it will be six candidates,” added Rogge.

press trust of india
LAHORE, 31 MAY: The PPP will field senior leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim against PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif for the election of the new premier in Parliament on 5 June, rejecting a request to facilitate a unanimous vote.
Former federal minister Fahim heads the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians, the name under which the party is registered with the Election Commission. He will be Pakistan Peoples Party’s candidate for the election to be held in the National Assembly on 5 June.
However, the PPP’s move will not affect Mr Sharif as the PML-N has a majority in the 342-member lower house of the parliament.
PML-N leaders said Mr Sharif’s election for an unprecedented third term as premier will be a mere formality.
The PPP had earlier indicated it might vote for Mr Sharif in order to continue its policy of reconciliation with other political parties.
When the PPP emerged the single largest party in the 2008 polls, its prime ministerial candidate, Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani, was elected unopposed in the National Assembly. However, most PPP leaders were of the view that their party would be further marginalised if it goes soft on the PML-N at the centre.
They believe Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf is a potential threat to
the PPP and may deprive it of its role
as Opposition at the centre if the
PPP continues its reconciliation
policy and becomes a “friendly opposition”.
PPP secretary general Sardar Latif Khosa said: “My party is the second largest party with 38 seats in the National Assembly and it is not going to be subservient to any other party,” he said.
The Tehrik-e-Insaf, the third largest party in parliament with 31 seats, has fielded Javed Hashmi for the slot of premier.

Anti-Taliban fighter killed in Pak blast
ISLAMABAD, 31 MAY: A member of an anti-Taliban militia was killed when a bomb went off on the outskirts of Peshawar city in northwest Pakistan today, police said. The bomb planted under some stones was detonated by remote control while Najeem Khan was driving through the Badabher area of Peshawar on a motorcycle. Khan was killed instantly, police said. pti

PARIS, 31 MAY: Two years ago, Novak Djokovic (in photo) entered the French Open on a 39-match winning streak dating to the previous December. Last year, he came to Paris having won 21 consecutive matches at Grand Slam tournaments.
And in 2013? Well, Djokovic arrived having lost two of his preceding four matches, both on clay. The man responsible for one of those surprising defeats, Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, just so happens to be Djokovic’s next opponent at Roland Garros. "It’s going to be a tough one for both of us, definitely," Djokovic said, looking ahead to their third-round match. "I need to be on top of my game." Ranked and seeded No. 1 at the French Open as he tries to complete a career Grand Slam, Djokovic hasn’t faced much difficulty so far, winning both of his matches in straight sets, including 6-2, 6-0, 6-2 against 83rd-ranked Guido Pella of Argentina on Thursday.
Truth is, the most vexing thing for the Serb — and many other players — on Day 5 of the clay-court major was the wet weather. Djokovic gestured at the dark, threatening sky between points, as if to say, "Please don’t rain again. Let me finish my work first!"
"The most important thing for a player in these interruptions and rain delays is not to get frustrated mentally," Djokovic said, "because it’s a very fine line. … Your intensity is there, and suddenly they call it off."
Because of repeated rain, only 18 of Thursday’s 32 scheduled singles matches were completed. Six were suspended in progress — defending champion Maria Sharapova led Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard by a set and a break when they stopped — and eight were postponed entirely, including seven-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal against Slovakia’s Martin Klizan. All of which created quite a crammed slate for Friday.
In addition to Sharapova resuming her match, and Nadal starting his, others due on court included 17-time major champion Roger Federer against No. 30 Julien Benneteau; No. 12 Tommy Haas, who is 35, against 20-year-old American qualifier Jack Sock; No. 15 Gilles Simon of France against No. 18 Sam Querrey of the United States; No. 19 John Isner against 21-year-old Ryan Harrison in an all-U.S. matchup; and 2008 champion Ana Ivanovic against Virginie Razzano, the Frenchwoman who stunned Serena Williams in the first round last year. If things go to plan, Djokovic and Dimitrov would meet Saturday, 3{weeks after their last match. That was in the second round of the Madrid Open, where the 21-year-old Dimitrov emerged with a 7-6 (6), 6-7 (8), 6-3 victory. Dimitrov is seeded 26th at the French Open and reached the third round at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time. His first-round opponent, Alejandro Falla, retired while trailing early in the second set because of stomach problems, and Dimitrov defeated Lucas Pouille of France 6-1, 7-6 (4), 6-1 Thursday.
"I’m actually really looking forward to the next round," said Dimitrov, who’s been learning how to deal with the paparazzi since being linked to Sharapova. "I mean, hopefully it’s going to bring out the best of me." While success at this level is still pretty new for Dimitrov, Djokovic has won six major titles, including the Australian Open in January. Djokovic has yet to win the trophy in Paris, though: He lost to Federer in the 2011 semifinals, and to Nadal in last year’s final, and says the French Open is his top priority this season.
Both Djokovic and Dimitrov know that one has a big advantage when it comes to experience in big matches — and in best-of-five-set matches.
"It’s going to be very physical," Djokovic said. "All the hard work that I put into preparations for this tournament hopefully will play to my advantage and will pay off on the court."
For the second day in a row at Roland Garros, no seeded men lost Thursday. But there were some unexpectedly early departures among the women, none more so than by 2011 champion Li Na, who was seeded sixth. Li, who also twice was the runner-up at the Australian Open, lost 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 to 67th-ranked American Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
By earning her fourth career win in 25 tries against top-10 players, Mattek-Sands helped give the United States five women in the third round at the French Open, the country’s most since six made it in 2004. That’s also the most that far at any Grand Slam tournament since the half-dozen at Wimbledon in 2005.
"We have a lot of talented, young kids," the 28-year-old Mattek-Sands said, then added with a wink and a smile, "Obviously, older kids, too."
The other Americans who won Thursday were No. 17 Sloane Stephens and 54th-ranked Jamie Hampton. Up next for the 23-year-old Hampton is No. 7 Petra Kvitova, the 2011 Wimbledon champion.
The 20-year-old Stephens, meanwhile, faces 92nd-ranked Marina Erakovic, who beat No. 16 Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to become the first woman from New Zealand to reach the French Open’s third round.
Like other players Thursday, Stephens waited and waited and waited through rain delays before wrapping up a 6-1, 6-3 win against Vania King of the U.S. "You literally have nothing to do," Stephens said. "Should I eat? Do cartwheels?" ap

Brazil v England
Brazil will host England in a friendly on Sunday in Maracana stadium after a court threw out a judge’s order cancelling the match over safety concerns. A court ruled that after an inspection, the recently renovated stadium did after all meet safety standards, a Rio court statement said. The O Estado de Sao Paulo daily on Thursday quoted court sources as saying the Rio judge who earlier cancelled the match had acted on a request from state prosecutors. They had said that there was no evidence Maracana met "the minimum necessary conditions to host games or events." But the authorities in Rio sent that ruling before a duty judge. They argued that because of a "bureaucratic mistake" the safety report had not been delivered to the relevant official.
They judge duly overturned the earlier ruling, clearing the way for the game to go ahead. An estimated 74,000 people are expected to watch Sunday’s match, which will be the second test for the stadium inaugurated on 27 April.
Catching Cavani
Reports in Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday claimed that Chelsea had offered Serie A side Napoli 30 million euros plus Fernando Torres in a bid to secure the services of Edinson Cavani. Napoli are reported to have offered the Uruguayan an improved salary worth 7 million euros a year in a bid to keep him at the club. Cavani was the top scorer in Serie A in the season just finished, scoring 29 goals. The 26-year-old is also believed to be a target for Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, with the latter having offered money plus Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko in an attempt to secure his signature, according to Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis. Cavani is currently on international duty as Uruguay prepare to face Venezuela.
Title for India
The Indian team, consisting of Manan Chandra, Brijesh Damani and Alok Kumar, clinched the inaugural Asian Team Snooker Championships by defeating Iran 3-0 in the title clash in Doha, Qatar. The Indians were on top right from the beginning, heading their group with three wins in as many games. They beat Qatar and Afghanistan 3-1 each in the quarter-finals and  semi-finals, respectively.
Nine-month ban
Paris Saint-Germain sporting director Leonardo was on Thursday handed a nine-month suspension after being found guilty of pushing a referee. The ban, handed down by the disciplinary commission of the French football league (LFP), applies to all official duties as well as stopping him from being present on the touchline during PSG games.
Weightlifting
Ragala Venkat Rahul picked up all the three gold medals in the boys’ 77kg category as India continued to shine in the Asian Youth Weightlifting Championships on the event’s fourth day in Doha on Friday. India have so far secured 27 medals: 13 gold, seven silver and seven bronze ones. 
 

patricia mukhim
ASSAM chief minister Tarun Gogoi is a veteran Congress warhorse. His claim to fame is that he is senior to nearly all the cabinet ministers in the UPA-2. And that includes Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Gogoi was a minister in the Union cabinet during Rajiv Gandhi&’s time and held the food and civil supplies portfolio. He is holding the reins of Assam for the third consecutive term and this gives him some sort of a political halo. He is past his 80th year and thinks he can talk down to just about anyone who challenges him.
When confronted recently by citizens about the unmanageable garbage in Assam&’s upcoming metropolis – Guwahati — Gogoi made the most ridiculous statement ever. He told the media that garbage was a sign of prosperity. He implied that the people of Assam could now afford to buy packaged food, packaged goods, packaged products of all kinds and that they obviously had to discard the containers. All these packages and containers were, he implied, what constituted garbage. No one has taken on Gogoi for this abominable statement. Does this mean the citizens agree with what their chief minister is saying? If indeed garbage is a sign of development and prosperity then all garbage should be dumped at the gates to the Secretariat at Dispur. Gogoi can then showcase to all visitors how his state has developed amidst the stench and filth that no modern city would be proud of.
But garbage is not the only thing Gogoi has slipped on. His political battle with former favourite acolyte Himanta Biswa Sarma, presently health and education minister, is out in the open. It&’s a daily free-for-all between the two. Fortunately the Congress in the state is not yet in free-fall mode because the political alternatives have not emerged. So Gogoi is correct when he asserts that in 2016 the Congress will return to rule Assam with a vengeance; that the Congress will throw up many more MPs from Assam in 2014. All these statements reek of megalomania but right now they sound like gems of wisdom because the people of Assam believe in them.
However, this is a problem that does not beset Assam alone. The whole country is agonising over an alternative to the beleaguered UPA-2, now on its last legs and unable to show any credible leadership in countering Chinese belligerence or in giving a new fillip to the sagging economy. The only emerging alternative to the UPA is the BJP-led NDA, which is now projecting Narendra Modi as its poster boy for 2014.
It is a sad development that huge sections of youth looking for a more aggressive leader at the helm of India&’s affairs are turning to Narendra Modi. This is evident from the kind of  “likes” Modi gets on social networking sites each time he utters something. But does the Congress derive any lessons from these developing events? No, it doesn’t.
A superficial refurbishing of the Union cabinet recently with a Prime Minister who no longer makes sense with Gen-X is not exactly a good recipe to win the 2014 elections, as far as the UPA is concerned. The electorate across the length and breadth of this country wants a leader who leads from the front, not a night watchman keeping guard over the “gaddi” until crown prince Rahul Gandhi takes over. But even if he takes over, does he give the impression of being a “leader”, as we understand leadership in its real sense and not as a dynastic prince of the Congress who gets to sit on the throne not because he is capable but because he is the anointed one?
Dynasty is incongruous in a democracy. Yet we have suffered dynastic rule for decades since Independence, except for a brief respite in 1998-2003. But the tragedy is that if the NDA is to be led by Narendra Modi, large swathes of this country will feel alienated by the BJP&’s rightist ideologies. Godhra remains a deep psychological scar (when the state colluded with the forces of communalism and completely abandoned a section of its citizens, leaving them to nurse their wounds). Although many today argue that Gujarat has remained violence-free since Modi has been in the hot seat, some memories do not fade with time; not for those who have lost their all. These memories are what will make it difficult for the NDA to win enough seats to lead this country in 2014.
The third front comprising non-Congress, non-BJP parties are in such ferment that they are unlikely to emerge as a cohesive force, strong enough to dismantle traditional Congress or BJP vote banks. I am saying this with a sadness and bewilderment that grips the average citizen of this country. Being an avid traveller for many different reasons, one gets to listen to a wide spectrum of views which one stores in one&’s memory bank.
Quite a number of leading industrialists in this country have suffered from the sluggish economy and the indifferent policies of the UPA towards the manufacturing and other sectors. Some of these big names are now willing to throw their weight behind Modi, not because they have forgotten Godhra but because they believe he can put this country on to a more economically sound and vibrant trajectory. Now how this is going to play out in the next 11 months is something to watch out for.
In the USA, the Republicans and Democrats are equally strong forces countering each other with equal political muscle. This is not the case in India. We are a fragmented polity and hang on to political parties for our own petty reasons, such as caste, religion, tribe, region and what have you. This is weakening democracy. Or have we adopted the wrong template of democracy unsuited to our temperament? Is a different model of democracy, tailored to the heterogeneous nature of our polity, the need of the hour? Surely a mere display of democracy which is today symbolised by a “once-in-five-years” election, cannot be enough to sustain democracy.
In the absence of clarity on governance issues and who is supposed to do what, as we grapple with the democracy we have, and strive for the ideal we want; as we try and stitch together different elements that we claim are democratic in nature but are not; as we ignore the problems that threaten democracy such as the manner in which the Congress is run; as we try and explain away dynasty as a real need for the country to remain cohesive, as if a non-Nehru/Gandhi leader in the Congress would send the country into complete anarchy, the more likely we are to have people like Tarun Gogoi taking the electorate for granted and pushing the responsibility of governance to citizens who have neither the wherewithal nor the resources to resolve the garbage crisis of Guwahati city. There is a system of civic governance in place.
If there are mountains of garbage around, Gogoi should pull up those responsible for the mess and give them an earful instead of the oxymoron he mouthed. This is like throwing the ball right back at the tax payer! Indeed, Gogoi&’s exposition on garbage will go down in history as the most ludicrous statement of the year by any chief minister in this country. But just as Mark Antony argued so cogently and with exceptional oratorical skills as to why Caesar had to die at the hands of Brutus, similarly Tarun Gogoi will survive the most outrageous verbalisations of a mind that has gone unmistakably senile. It is sad for the people of Assam that Gogoi can get away with such political profanities!

The writer is editor, The Shillong Times, and can be reached at patricia17@rediffmail.com

rangan dutta
After the recent Chinese intrusion in Ladhak&’s Daulat Beg Oldi area, the focus is back once again on Arunachal Pradesh as the Chinese leadership has not deviated from its objective of diverting the Siang river, one of the main tributaries of the Brahmaputra, to North China before it enters India. China has, of course, denied that the water diversion project is being taken up soon. It has sent a signal to India about its long term geo-economic and strategic interest in Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls “Southern Tibet”.
Geo-economics is an emerging discipline. Though not as well established as geo-politics, its basic premise — that “geography is economic destiny”— seems to hold good for the entire Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin sub-region of South Asia encompassing eastern and North-east India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and parts of Myanmar up to the Bay of Bengal port of Sittwe in Rakhine province. The politicians, particularly in the eastern states, under the delusion of state-based, linguistic and political identities are yet to fully capture the implications of development in their neighbourhood for their economic and ecological future.
 Nothing else explains the lack of interest in the media in the recent assessment of international bodies placing Bangladesh, dubbed once as a “basket case”, among the 11 emerging Asian economies and the opportunities this remarkable development will create in the Bay of Bengal. However. mindsets are changing and this is evident from the recent agitations in Assam and Manipur against massive plans to build high dams to exploit the region&’s hydel potential, especially in Arunachal Pradesh, which alone is estimated to have the potential for 50,328 MW.
The Arunachal Pradesh government approved the construction of 132 hydel projects with a total installed capacity of 40,145 MW to 12 public and 120 private companies as of October 2010, involving the construction of over 100 high dams upstream in the state. This will entail massive deforestation, the submergence of valley lands, displacement of tribal farmers and a disruption of livelihoods.
Dam-induced floods from the 405 MW Ranganadi hydel project in Arunachal Pradesh and the Assam plains have already led to agitations against the 2000-MW Lower Subarnsiri and 1,750-MW Lohit hydel projects, now under construction along the Assam-Arunachal border, are instances of project-induced water conflicts that are certain to spread if the Centre or the states implement the projects in the pipeline. The Arunachal Pradesh government is naturally happy as these projects involve an investment of over Rs 100,000 crore in a time frame of five to 10 years in a state with a population of  one  million-plus.
The 2007 World Bank strategy report on development of the North-east estimated the revenues from the sale of free power at the rate of 12 per cent of power generated from the project, which is admissible to the state, would at least triple if all the hydel projects were sanctioned or implemented. Moreover, the current practice of the project proponents to make “up front payments” to the state as a kind of advance payment of royalty or future free power that the state is entitled to receive, is an attractive proposition for the states usually faced with resource crunch.
This is a clear windfall gain for the states as it would allow more space for revenue spending. But the question remains, could a North-eastern state really develop fast through sale of power to the rest of India? The answer is a clear “no” as the experience of the resource rich countries like Nigeria and Chad – rich in oil and even the recent spurt in mining of coal and limestone in the Garo Hills region of Meghalaya for export to Bangladesh, suggest that the sudden induction of money, unaccompanied by the creation of basic growth-inducing institutions, modern skills and entrepreneurship, quickly turn a resource-rich country into one afflicted with “resource curse” for several reasons.
First, the political class would prefer quick-maturing infrastructure projects that attract contractors from outside, in the process creating opportunities for sub-contracting for locals and outsourcing and a huge cash flow in a placid tribal and agrarian society that did not experience it earlier.
Second, it corrupts the police force as extortion from vehicles carrying materials, often illegally, is too lucrative to avoid and is the first step towards the building up of a police-criminal-armed outfits-politician nexus which leads to a deficit of democracy and, unless nipped in the bud, an exploitative security obsessed state eventually.
Third, it creates a fertile ground for semi-educated local youth to form armed outfits with some pet political catchwords to carry on extortion as a viable business proposition because the victims usually are not unwilling to cooperate. Its overall impact is huge project time and cost overrun, which again suits everybody but in the process the state and society get destabilised. And destabilisation spreads rapidly like the flood waters of the Brahmaputra in two ways.
First, because no one paid heed to the note of caution given in the above World Bank report that the eastern Himalayan rivers have minimum flow during winter (December-February) and maximum during the monsoon (June-September), there will be seasonal variations in hydel power output. The run of the river projects would face problems in absorbing large blocks of base water during the monsoon. Thus, when the peak demand is less in the monsoon the reservoirs have to release water. This, the Assamese farmers in upper Assam have rightly pointed out, has been causing devastating and sudden flashfloods in downstream plain areas in the command of the 405-MW Ranganadi project affecting even areas that were not prone to flooding and have been disrupting the livelihoods of millions and endangering costly infrastructure of roads and bridges built over the years and, ironically, with Central funds.
Loss of livelihoods spreads disaffection and this seems to be a weak link in the North-east regional plan for infrastructural development. The proposed giant hydel project at Tipaimukh in Manipur will entail the felling of eight million trees and irreversible destruction of life-supporting sub-tropical rainforest for which no amount of compensatory afforestation will ever restore even a fraction of its ecological value.
The environmental impact of these projects requires not just a state- or a project-specific assessment but a sub-regional effort because of its impact on neighbouring countries. It is time the Centre and the states took note of this spontaneous agitation of farmers and forest-dwellers across the North-east, the resistance to the looming resource curse and jointly promote growth of trans-boundary water governance in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin in the true spirit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical Economic Cooperation and the UN declaration of 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation.

The author, a former Assam cadre IAS officer and scientific consultant in the office of the PSA to the government of India, is presently a principal consultant, International Coop Alliance-Asia-Pacific, New Delhi

Disgusted with extortion, Dimapur shows the way
UNDERGROUND outfits in Nagaland had better watch out and mend their ways because once a final settlement of their demands is arrived at their leaders will be expected to fulfill the political, social and cultural aspirations of those they are supposed to serve. They must be made to realise that their so-called “dictats”, if not checked, might well jeopardise the very cause they are fighting for.
The Nagaland ceasefire has been in force since 1 August 1997 and this may have helped silence the guns, but over the years reports have also spoken of a widespread sense of insecurity among peace-loving citizens as a result of largescale extortion. The business community, the rich and even the commoner have not been spared. Not only are militant groups having a field day, even anti-social elements, in the guise of extremism, are indulging in collecting “taxes” and those at the receiving end dare not challenge their activities for fear of retribution. Sadly enough, the Neiphiu Rio government&’s thinking is that what is happening today is beyond its jurisdiction. But this comes as no surprise because Rio owes his present position to the NSCN(IM).
In this backdrop, on 18 June Dimapur observed a 12-hour bandh in protest against the undergrounds’ unabated taxation on goods and the consequent rise in prices of essential commodities. Called by the Action Committee Against Unabated Taxation under the aegis of the Naga Council, Dimapur, the bandh was an instant success. It evoked an overwhelming response from different district centres, though they did not participate. The Kohima Chambers of Commerce reportedly supported the bandh by hoisting black flags.
The Acaut has objected to the imposition of “back-breaking” multiple taxes on the business community, particularly the dealership syndicate, and wants this replaced by a single tax regime payable to each militant outfit. It wants an end to the dealership and syndicate systems. It is reported that there is just a single poultry dealer supplier in the whole of Dimapur district who dictates what can and cannot be sold in the open market.
It is understandable that underground organisations in truce mode need a constant flow of money for the upkeep of their designated camps but what they have been doing is forcibly collecting “taxes” from different sources. Just a few months before the NDA regime folded up in 2004, BJP Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee offered monetary assistance to both factions of the NSCN to run their camps. Later, even Rio raised the issue with Vajpayee but the NSCN(IM) leadership ended the matter, commenting that “this has to be seen from the right perspective of the people”. It is still not too late to take a fresh look and end this extortion or tax regime.
***
LAST week, the Guwahati-based Assam Tribune carried a report on state additional director general of police BJ Mahanta, who heads the Task Force, suggesting that the commando battalions of the Assam Police be converted  into a well-knit offensive team called the Assam Police Commando Organisation to meet the challenge posed by Maoists in Assam. This is not  a bad idea if only it helps ward off the involvement of the Army in civilian duty.
It has been noticed that at every chief ministers’ conference fresh suggestions are put forward, only to be forgotten soon enough. For instance, four years ago the Meghalaya government demanded the creation of two more armed police battalions to check cross-border infiltration, a special commando unit to fight militancy in the Garo Hills, a counter-insurgency warfare institution for training police personnel and modernisation of the police force. Had the Centre acted upon this, perhaps the Garo Hills today would not have turned into one of the most disturbed places in the entire North-east. It has been noticed that additional Central forces are no panacea for regional ills. Individual states must raise their own forces, manned by home stock. Perhaps that could be the emphatic “No” to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.