CMYK

Radio Mirchi leads in all metrosTIMES NEWS NETWORK

India’s largest private radio net-work, Radio Mirchi, looks set to car-ry over its success in Mumbai to theother three metros, according to a re-cent IMRB Car Track survey. In eachmetro, Radio Mirchi has emergedthe number one radio channel.

The car track survey is done byIMRB, a WPP Group researchagency. Field personnel from IMRBstationed themselves at 10 of thebusiest traffic junctions in eachmetro during morning and eveningrush hours and randomly chose private cars.

Once they selected a car, theychecked the radio dial to determine

the radio station the occupant wastuned into.

Hemant Mehta, Country Manager,IMRB International said: ‘‘The cartrack survey is a fairly accurate in-

dicator of radio listenership. Theimportant feature of the methodolo-gy is that the findings are based onverification of the dial in the car, rather than on what the occupant claims.’’

Radio Mirchi sources added that itwas good news for the radio indus-try, as 60-70% of the in-car popula-tion were already tuning into radiobarely 2-3 weeks after it was lauchedin Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai.

These latest findings will come asa boost to the nascent FM radio in-dustry. The Mumbai experienceshows that the growth in listener-ship in cars is a precursor to similargrowth in listenership at home.

PM’s Europe tour: Prime MinisterVajpayee will embark on a three-na-tion tour beginning Tuesday. His significant interaction will be withChinese leader Hu Jintao because ofVajpayee’s impending visit to Beijingat June end. P11

Arjun vs Digvijay: Refuting seniorparty leader Arjun Singh’s remarkson infighting within the Congress,MP chief minister Digvijay Singhsaid he did not agree that there wasno leader to fulfil the dreams of Indi-ra Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. P9

Hurriyat minus Geelani:Jamiat-e-Islami leader and former Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali ShahGeelani has said he left the Hurriyat’s executive council becausethe conglomerate did not act againstthe People’s Conference for defying a boycott on assembly polls last year. P9

UP caste equations: The induc-tion of Rajnath Singh and SwamiChinmayanand in the Atal Bihari Vaj-payee cabinet seems to have giventhe BJP in Uttar Pradesh somebreathing space. P7

Capitation fees: Up to 25 percent admissions in private medicaland dental colleges across thecountry can be ‘‘on sale’’, while therest would have to be filled by stu-dents who qualify in the commonentrance test by states. P10

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BJP supportsquota forpoor amongupper castes

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Jaipur: The Bharatiya Jana-ta Party has supported reser-vation for upper caste poor ingovernment jobs.

The party has decided tourge the NDA government toset up a commission for theecnomically backward class-es (EBC) with proper termsof reference, so that the ec-nomically weaker sections ofthe society will also behelped, without diluting theprotection to the sociallybackward classes.

BJP general secretaryPramod Mahajan said afterthe meeting of the nationaloffice bearers of the party:‘‘The BJP feels certain sec-tions of the society, whichare not covered under the re-served categories of sched-uled castes, scheduled tribes and other backwardclasses, are economically sopoor that they need a specialtreatment. We can call this asEconomically Weaker Class-es. These sections shouldalso be brought under somekind of reservation policy.’’

The resolution was passedafter the Congress govern-ment in Rajasthan passed aresolution in a Cabinet meet-ing recently demandingamendment of the Constitu-ton to enable the upper caste poor get reservationbenefits.

The Congress governmentdemanded 14 per cent reser-vation for the upper castepoor without diluting thequota enjoyed by the SCs,STs and other backwardclasses.

Gehlot government’s movecaught the BJP unawaresand it supported the cause bygoing a step ahead and asking the BJP-led NDA gov-ernment to set up a commis-son to determine who allcould be covered under thenew EBCs.

The Sunday meetng wasattended by BJP presidentVenkiah Naidu, DeputyPrime Minister L K Advani,party’s general secretaryPramod Mahajan, Unionminister Rajnath Singh and others.

Another policeman on shooting spreeTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Assistant inspector ofpolice Prashant Sawant, 39, shotdead his wife and son before shoot-ing himself in his flat at Chemburin Mumbai on Sunday morning.

In a suicide note addressed tohis parents, Sawant said he was

depressed as his stomach ailmenthad not improved and that he wasfed up with his job.

Sawant shot his wife Jaishree,37, and 9-year-old son Pragnesh,both of whom were sleeping, atpoint blank range with his servicerevolver at around 9 in the morn-ing. Jaishree died on the spot,

while her husband died at Rajawa-di hospital in Ghatkopar.

Pragnesh died at 11.15 am. Hisparents, who were in the adjacentroom, rushed to their son’s bed-room when they heard the shots.

Police said Sawant had been suf-fering from ulcer and hyperacidityfor the past ten years.

Tune in%cars Mirchi Total No

tuned in share% of FMstations

Delhi 68 43 5Mumbai 70 45 7Kolkata 65 52 6Chennai 60 49 4Source: IMRB Car Track. Delhi, Kolkata:May 19, Chennai: May 21, Mumbai: Apr 22

TOI Archives

King of popis nearlybankruptLos Angeles: Michael

Ja ck s o n ,the King ofPop whoamassed ah a l f - b i l -lion-dollarf o r t u n eover the

past 20 years, is saddledwith debt and teeteringnear bankruptcy, his for-mer financial adviserssay in a lawsuit. Thelawsuit, set for trialJune 18, claims Jack-son’s extravagant spend-ing has created ‘‘a tick-ing financial time bombwaiting to explode atany moment’’.

Union Finance andInvestment Corp. ofSouth Korea filed thelawsuit in Los AngelesCounty Superior Court,claiming Jackson owesthe firm $12 million. AP

Jackson

British Virgin needs nourgin’, Branson stymied

By Dominic O’Connell

London: Executives at British Airwayswill this week be asked to draw up plansfor a dramatic bid for Sir Richard Bran-son’s Virgin Atlantic after it emergedthat Virgin had come within a whiskerof trying to buy BA.

Branson was close to making a full-blown offer to BA shareholders earlierthis year -having started tentative talkswith BMI British Midland, the airlinechaired by Sir Michael Bishop.

Branson enlisted the support of TexasPacific Group, the American private-eq-uity firm founded by David Bonderman,one of the world’s most successful air-line investors. He was advised on the BAplan - codenamed Project Balloon -byCredit Suisse First Boston.

Sources close to Branson said that af-ter three weeks’ study, he and his advis-ers decided instead to pursue talks withBMI. The merger discussions becamepublic last week.

BA would say only that it was “watch-ing developments” between BMI andVirgin. But it is understood that JohnRishton, finance director, and RogerMaynard, director of investments, will

be asked to draw upcontingency plans onMonday.

Senior BA execu-tives say the negotia-tions could yet lead toa deal involving theircompany. “We are notruling anything in orout at the moment,”said a senior BA exec-utive. Rod Eddington,

chief executive, has told colleagues thata bid for BMI would likely fall foul ofcompetition regulators – the combinedgroup would have more than half of alltake-off and landing slots at Heathrow –but a bid for Virgin was not out of thequestion.

Sources close to Branson say Virginplanned to make its move on BA once itsshare price slid below £100 – which it didfor much of March. The offer wouldhave been pitched at £130-140, valuingBritain’s flag carrier at about £1.5 bil-lion. “Our conclusion was that the com-petition issues would not have been thatgreat, but on balance we decided that thetalks with BMI offered a better opportu-nity,” said a Virgin source. The Sunday Times

www.timesofindia.comNew Delhi, Monday, May 26, 2003 Capital 44 pages* Invitation Price Rs. 1.50

IndiaAmitabh Bachchan gets another lifetimeachievement award

InternationalWho’s wearing what?Fashion-watcherskeep tabs on CannesPage 12

Gilchrist propelsAustralia to One-day series win

Times Sport

Page 10 Page 17

Max temp: 37.7oC/Min: 25.7oCSunset: Tuesday – 1911Sunrise: Monday – 0526Moonset: Monday – 1503Moonrise: Tuesday – 0311

Senegal envoy’s son kills driverTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Mansoor Ali, son ofSenegal’s ambassador to India,Ahmad Al-Mansoor Diop, alleged-ly killed his driver during a fightat a five-star hotel here late on Saturday night.

The police said Ali, 24, wasdriven to the Taj Palace Hotel bydriver Dilver, 32, a resident ofPushp Vihar in south Delhi. Alihad gone there to attend theAfrica Day 2003 celebrations, be-ing attended by diplomats andembassy staff of over 20 African nations.

DCP (New Delhi) Manoj Lallsaid: ‘‘In a reported scuffle overcar keys, Ali allegedly hit andpushed Dilver, whose head hitsome hard object. He was taken to

RML Hospital where he was de-clared “brought dead.’’ The policesaid a case under Section 304 — orculpable homicide not amountingto murder — has been registeredagainst Ali, who has not been ar-rested as he enjoys diplomatic

immunity. Sources said the MEAwas on Sunday “informed” aboutthe incident.

Lall said the incident occurredaround 10.30 pm when Ali went tohis car after the party to go home.He lives in West End in southwest

Delhi. ‘‘He asked Dilver for thecar keys, which the latter refused.An altercation followed and the two came up to the “IN” gateof the Taj Palace Hotel. The twowere engaged in a scuffle duringwhich Dilver was allegedlykilled,’’ he said.

Hotel guard Surinder saw theincident and reported the matterto the security manager, whomade a call to the police at 10.44pm. The police reached the spotand found Dilver lying with in-juries on the face and head.

‘‘The driver died of internal in-juries as there were little signs ofblood. We are waiting for the au-topsy report. Ali sustained a frac-ture in the forearm and was treat-ed at AIIMS,’’ the DCP said.

The police said Ali had report-

edly asked for the keys after hefound Dilver in an inebriatedstate. Ali told the driver that asDilver was not in a state to drive, he would drive himself home.

Lall said: ‘‘The point came tolight during the investigation.But the alcohol content in thebody of the deceased can only beascertained after the medical re-port.’’ The local police said no-body had heard Ali saying any-thing about Dilver being drunk.Secondly, why would anybody bebeaten to death for this?” a police-man said. Asked why Ali wascharged for culpable homicideand not murder, Lall said: ‘‘Theincident does not prove any mo-tive behind the killing.”

Why cops goover the edge

By Maneesh PandeyTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A Delhi policeconstable survives on amonthly salary of Rs 6,000.

His plight is even worsethan that of the desperateMumbai assistant inspectorwho shot his wife and son be-fore killing himself on Sun-day morning.

About 40,000 constablesform the backbone of theDelhi police, but they aresubjected to near inhumanworking conditions.

A senior police officersaid: ‘‘Only 20 per cent of theconstables, roughly about8,000, have access to officialhousing. The rest are forcedto live in slums and resettle-ment colonies, which couldlead to a nexus with criminals.’’

In contrast, a British con-stable gets between £18,000and £22,000 per year. Theservice conditions includesubsidised housing, ration,canteen facilities, travel andother perks. Their childrenget free schooling.

But a Delhi police consta-ble does not get even his mea-gre entitlements. Today, the

majority of the force livespacked into steamy, unhy-gienic barracks. “In sum-mer,there is shortage of wa-ter; in winter we do not gethot water, and in the rainyseason, the tents leak. Toi-lets, dirt and bad food are aproblem all the year round.”

They have only two extrabenefits for working in a cap-ital city: a metro allowanceof Rs 60 and washing al-lowance of Rs 30 per month.

An officer at Police Head-quarters said: ‘‘It is housingwhich hits them hardest. Ittakes a constable at least 11 to15 years to get a flat allotted.”

Constables and head con-stables get less than Rs 1,000as house allowance.

This amount, say officials,is not sufficient even to rent ajhuggi in a prime area. Yet,free housing up to the rank ofinspectors is mandatory, ac-cording to the rule book.

An officer said: ‘‘Coupledwith these are long hoursand the lack of leave. Theysee their children growingonly horizontally, seeingthem only while they are asleep.”

TOI

CISF constable Raj Namdeo, who killed his senior and detained six colleagues during a six-hour hostage dra-ma at Mumbai airport on Saturday, was remanded to police custody till May 31 on Sunday. Report on page 7

Richard Branson

DFS undone by fire within: P2

Diplomat, hence immune?● Under the 1961 Vienna Convention, diplomats and their families enjoy complete immunity for crimes in the hostcountry. ● This immunity is based on the principle that the diplomatshould be able to conduct his official duties without hindrance.● Exceptions include any

commercial activity which doesnot form part of the diplomat’sofficial duties.● If the diplomat’s family member is an adult, he does not enjoy immunity. Mansoor is 24.● If investigation shows that he is actually liable, he has toseek special permission fromthe government of India for immunity.

Dilver wasn’t drunk, says family: P3

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To chat on SMS send 'cchat' <your question> to 8888

Q. How can bad linesbe treated?- DiandA: By the treatmentsof palmistry, which isdifferent from all oth-

er practices because only in this(palmistry) we can see the im-pact of the treatment on the linesof our hands. Bad lines of thepalm can be treated.Q. Which line indicates foreigntravel?- SugarA: Travel lines or voyage lines areon the mound of moon (below themound of Mercury and oppositethe mound of Venus) which areindicated from outside of the

palm towards the life line. Thetime of travel is indicated on thelife line and fate line. If we canobserve minutely just before thetravel time, one hairline movingfrom the lifeline towards themoon can be seen.Q. A person whom I know doesnot have the 3rd line. Does thatmean he has no luck?- DiamondA: No, luck line means the personis not directed as per his luck po-sitions. And if that person hasgood will power and good mindline with good life line then hecan run all his work peacefully.Q. Does life has any meaning ifeverything is predicted?- AliveA: When Nature has created thelines in the palm it means all thelines have very deep meaningand values in life. Meaning of lifedepends upon your approach andacts towards the life.

“Bad lines in the palm can be treated”— S. BANERJEE, Palmist & Vaastu Consultant

11 am: Indrani DasguptaModelOn how to be a

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voice of Mowgli in Jungle Book

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• Cinema: The multiplex wayPVR CEO Gerald Dibbayawanexplains how India’s No 1 multiplexaims to expand the market further.• Your voice on cricket and sexReaders express strong sentimentson cricket and sex.

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AGRICULTURE/ ALLIED

01.06.2003: All India Entrance Examination by ICAR New Delhi for admission to UG programme and Award of National TalentScholarship in Agriculture and allied subjects other than Veterinary Science for2003-2004.

BIOINFORMATICS

31.05.2003: All India Entrance Test for Advanced Post Graduate Diplo-ma Course in Bioinformatics at the Bioinformatics Centre,Pondicherry University, R V Nagar, Pondicherry-605014.

01.06.2003: Entrance Examination for Advanced Diploma in Bioinformatics (10 am to 12.30 pm) at University of Pune,Bioinformatics Centre (http://bioinfo.ernet.in)

01.06.2003: Entrance Examination for M Sc (Bioinformatics) (2.30 pmto 5 pm) at University of Pune, Bioinformatics Centre (http://bioinfo.ernet.in).

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01.06.2003: Written test for BBS/BFIA course at Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Delhi (www.cbsdu.net).

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31.05.2003: Entrance test for B Ed, Univ of Delhi, Central Intt of Education (www.cie.du.ac.in).

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01.06.2003: Entrance exam for Masters degree of (i) Hotel Manage-ment /(ii) Tourism Management at Dept of Tourism,Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra 03.06.2003:Entrance Test for MTA at Institute of Vocational Studies,H P University, Shimla-171005 (www.mtashimla.com).

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2 & 3 June ‘03: Rashtriya Indian Military College Admission Test for admission to RIMC Dehradun (UA).

EXAMINATION ALERT

(This is an indicative guide. The dates may change.)

turningpoint

People pay forRajdhanirescheduling

By Pushpa Girimaji

You makeyour travelplans forthe sum-mer, bookyour railticket in ad-vance and

heave a sigh of relief thateverything is taken care of.And then you are told thatthe train on which you arebooked has been cancelledand you have to make afresh booking. Well, I amnot talking about a hypo-thetical situation here.This is the plight of pas-sengers booked to travel toHowrah on Fridays on theRajdhani Express.

On May 20, the railwaysissued an advertisementdrawing the attention of

passengers to certainchanges in the New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani Expressschedule. The gist of thehighly complicated adver-tisement was that Rajd-hani Express 2302 betweenNew Delhi and Howrahwould become 2306 on Fri-days and would run be-tween New Delhi andHowrah via Patna insteadof grand chord and so allthose booked on 2302 onany Friday from May 23 toJuly 11 ( eight Fridays)should get their ticketscancelled for a full refund.They may get fresh book-ings made on 2306 if theyso wish.

The railways seem to beimpervious to the incon-venience and harassmentthat this would cause tothe passengers. Or about

the uncertainty that itwould bring about in theirtravel plans, and the un-pleasantness of such atask in this heat and theholiday rush. Even thosewho would have bookedtheir tickets on the inter-net will have to go to thereservation counter be-cause there is no provisionfor cancellation on the net.Yet, there is no expressionof regret or a word of apol-ogy from the railways intheir advertisement.

The Railways could wellhave waited till July 11 tobring about the change inthe route so that all thosebooked on it would not beinconvenienced. Or itcould have asked all thosebooked on 2302 to Howrahto travel on 2306 insteadand asked only those trav-elling to the interveningstations to make freshbooking on the net andprovided for cancellationand refund of their earliertickets on board the train.Or, offered a small com-pensation to passengers tocover their travel to thebooking counter. Havingfailed to take any of thesemeasures, the railways areliable to be hauled up fordeficient service by the af-fected passengers.

A class action suit be-fore the apex consumercourt , asking for reim-bursement of expenses in-curred on cancelling andrebooking the tickets andcompensation for the diffi-culties and distress suf-fered would be well in or-der. That would also forcethe railways to think aboutthe interests of passengersthe next time they re-schedule a train.

Faridabad gets its own Planet MTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Want to get aglimpse of Norah Jones,Karunesh, Elton John andPandit Vishwa Mohan Bhattall in the same room? Farid-abad residents have had theirfirst taste of watchingcelebrity and they’re queu-ing up for more. Planet M,the music store that offershome entertainment withover 6,000 music titles and2,000 CD ROM, VCDs andDVDs opened at Ansal Plaza,Faridabad, on Sunday.

Spread over 1,200 sq ft, themusic store of the universe isthe last word in audio acces-sories and Planet M memora-bilia.

Speaking on the inaugura-tion, The Times of Indiamanaging director VineetJain said, ‘‘ Faridabad opens

up new and exciting shop-ping options. Planet M willbring in a truly internationalmusic and entertainmentexperience.’’

Expecting over 500 foot-falls daily, the store alsoplans to organise events andpromotions that will bringnational and international

stars to the city.‘‘We have taken care to cus-

tomise the store to suit theneeds of the residents. In ad-dition to a whole range of ti-tles from world to spiritualmusic, we have Indi-pop titlesand VCDs that are in greatdemand,’’ said Ajay Mehra,Times Retail’s chief operat-ing officer.

Planet M is a chain of 12stores in all major cities, in-cluding Mumbai, Delhi,Kolkata and Chandigarh, be-sides 20 satellites, that isshop-in-shop stores, acrossIndia.

Commenting on the open-ing Times EntertainmentCEO Arun Arora said,‘‘Shopping for music shouldbe a joy like music itself.With this conviction webring Planet M to the resi-dents of Faridabad.’’

Mohammed Ilyas

The 13th Planet M store is inaugurated at Ansal Plaza,Faridabad, on Sunday.

DFS undone by the fire withinBy Sachin Parashar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi The Delhi FireService (DFS) will have topull out all stops to quell thisfire. Entrusted with the re-sponsibility of safeguardinglives and property in the city,DFS has been bogged downby inadequate resources,overburdened staff and anindifferent management.

The DFS has about 90 wa-ter tenders, when actually200 are needed. Almost 90 percent of its 7,000 fire hydrantshave been rendered uselessby road carpeting. Even thenumber of underground wa-ter tanks are less than 50 percent of what is required.

The response time, timetaken by a water tender toreach the spot, is rarely thestipulated five minutes in theurban areas and in the ruralareas it can be anything be-tween 10 minutes to one hour.Concurred DFS chief fire of-ficer R C Sharma said: ‘‘Theresponse time is unsatisfac-tory in some areas, but therewill be significant improve-

ment as more and more firestations come up.’’

The city is currently hav-ing to make do with 36 onlyfirestations. While there aresix fire stations in New Delhidistrict, east Delhi — home toalmost 35 per cent of the pop-ulation — has only five.

Two makeshift fire sta-tions were scheduled to startfunctioning by the end ofyear 2002 in east Delhi. Onlyone, however, has come up

till now at Wazirabad-Loniroundabout.

The biggest cause of strifefor DFS, however, remains alackadaisical staff which be-lieves it has been given shortshrift by the management.Firemen continue to work for24 hours at a stretch even af-ter the high court’s ruling infavour of eight hour shifts.‘‘There is no incentive in thisjob. There are no promotionsfor a fireman,’’ Sunder

Sehrawat, the general secre-tary of the employees’ union.

MCD was entrusted withconstructing staff quartersfor the firemen in Najafgarh,Jawalapuri and Prasad Na-gar, but the project has beenhanging fire over a tiff withthe Delhi government. ‘‘Mostof the firemen still sleep inbarracks; or in dingyone-room apartment withkitchen,’’ said Sehrawat.

The scarcity of essentialequipment only adds to theirwoes. ‘‘There are simply notenough masks and most ofthem don’t have enough oxy-gen,’’ said Satbir Bhati, for-mer secretary of the employ-ees’ union. Sharma, however,claimed that there was noshortage of masks. ‘‘We haveplenty of fire masks and weensure that a firemen’s life isnot at risk while performinghis duty,’’ said Sharma.

Even food is a problem. ‘‘Atthe fire stations we run thekitchen from our expenses.Why can’t the managementpay for our food at least,’’said a fireman.

Times Music war of DJs TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: There was thrilling action atthe regional finals of the DSP BlackTimes Music War of DJ’s in associationwith Zod! at Unitech Country Club inGurgaon on Saturday.

The event was supported by DenonSahil, Planet M, powered by Indiatimesand managed by 360 Degrees.

The fire was mainly fuelled by a heavydose of music from the mixers andturntables of the warring DJ’s, a supersix chosen from over 33 contestants.‘Punjabi Bond’ Vikrant held a power-packed singing grenade onstage and per-formed numbers from his new dance al-bum ‘Sone Da Challa’. Kashmir-bornbombshell Xenia Ali then took positioncentre stage and sang two fresh tracksfrom her Times Music album ‘Meri Ada’.

The evening then rocked on as DJPrince, Lawrence, Honey, Pro, Jaypeetried one by one, in 10 given minuteseach, to bring down the house with hip-hop, drums’n bass, breakbeats, rhythmand blues, all kinds of rhapsody, musiclike Bobby Mc Ferrin, and even patriotic

ice-breakers. In the end, DJ Charan wasdeclared ‘commander’ of this regionalround of DSP Black Times Music War ofDJ’s. He played Hindi songs, used props,sampled in reverse and maintained anequal rhythm and tempo throughout hissequence.

He spelt out the cardinal rule, ‘‘A goodDJ must have explored his machines.’’No coincidence then that the stage fightwas preceded by a certain DJ Whosane?who had taken India by storm four yearsback with Moksh — an album whichcombined crazy techno and trance withauthentic Indian spiritual mantras.

DJ Charan is now ready to pack off forthe finals of DSP Black Times Music Warof DJ’s at Mumbai on June 7.

It was a treat to watch and hear inter-national Asian Electronica band MidivalPunditz mixing and playing their musicon-the-spot with vocalist SmritiMinocha’s LIVE rendition of ‘Rattiyan’.Classical singer Papon too contributed tothe LIVE flavour of ‘Bhangra Fever’,both tracks from Midival Punditz self-ti-tled album.

Consumers’ bodyopposes CAS

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Fifty consumerorganisations, under the ban-ner of Consumer Coordina-tion Council (CCC), have op-posed the Conditional AccessSystem (CAS). They have de-manded that the scheme be de-ferred till such time as an au-tonomous regulatory body iscreated and the consumer’sinterests are included in thenew policy.

In a press conference heldon Saturday, the council saidthey were planning to file pub-lic interest litigations in allfour metros — Delhi, Chennai,Kolkata and Mumbai — ifCAS was implemented by July14 as announced by the Cen-tre. The CAS policy makes itmandatory for pay televisionchannels to be routed through

a set-top box that costs be-tween Rs 3,000-Rs 10,000. Theconsumer has the freedom tochoose the bouquet of chan-nels he wants and pay only forthat. Free to air channels are,however, independent of thissystem. ‘‘We are not anti-CAS.We only want the consumers’perspective to be reflectedin the policy,’’ CCC memberVarsha Raut said.

Council members said thatin the six meetings held withthe task force set up by the in-formation and broadcastingministry certain suggestionsand objections were raised butno attention was paid to them.

‘‘This policy does not takeinto account documentationof the billing system and theimpact of their monopoly inan area,’’ R K Awasthi.

Compensationfor farmers

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Years after theirland was acquired by the DelhiDevelopment Authority (DDA)for developmental purposes,farmers are going to receive al-ternate residential plots in thecapital.

The DDA has decided to holda computerised draw for allot-ment of 589 alternative residen-tial plots of different sizes to thefarmers whose land had beenacquired under the scheme of‘‘large scale acquisition, devel-opment and disposal of landin Delhi.

In the line of fire

per cent of the 1,200highrises don’t have NoCsfrom the fire service

fires are caused bypoor electrical gadgets

more employeesneeded in the DFS

underground staticwater tanks needed. DFShas less than 300

40 300

70060

CHECK OUT

Bank asked topay up forovercharging

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: A consumercourt ordered the Citibankto pay a card holder Rs10,000 as compensation forcharging him thrice for aservice. This was done de-spite the consumer’s com-plaints to the bank afterthe first time he was over-charged.

According to the petitionfiled in December 1991,Citibank reportedly of-fered Vipin Gupta a 50 percent discount on insurancepremium for good healthmedical policy of New In-dia Assurance CompanyLimited. Gupta applied forthe scheme. The insurancecompany sent him the cer-tificate number for the pol-icy and charged him Rs1,477 as premium for thepolicy at 50 per cent dis-count. It also charged himRs 150 as transaction fee,shown in the statement dat-ed January 20, 2000. Theamount was reportedlypaid before the due date.

But, according to thecomplainant, the Citibankagain charged Gupta Rs1,477 as premium and Rs150 as transaction feethrough the statement dat-ed February 13, 2000. Theerror was reportedlybrought to the notice of thebank. The bank reportedlywrote back saying that theamount was charged provi-sionally and further direct-ed him to furnish declara-tion form for the cancella-tion of policy and return of

original cover note for goodhealth February 2000 poli-cy. Gupta, however, claimedthat he never applied norreceived any cover note andthe matter was again takenup with the bank.

According to ShashiShankar, Gupta’s lawyer,the bank admitted the mis-take and said that it hadbeen rectified. The bankalso assured that such alapse will not occur again.

In April, however, Guptareceived a letter from theinsurance company inti-mating him of cancellationof cover note for February2000 policy and directedhim to refund the premiumamount.

Six months later, Guptareceived a letter from thebank, billing him again Rs1,477 for good health Febru-ary 2000 policy. Upset overthe harassment, Guptafiled a case in New Delhidistrict consumer redressalforum.

CMYK

D E L H IThe Times of India, New Delhi Monday, May 26, 2003 3

•The consumer wascharged for policy henever applied for

•The bank could notexplain why the mis-take was repeated

• The court chargedthe bank with deficien-cy of service

•The bank will have topay the compensationwithin 30 days

Bank bungle

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Four arrestedfor prostitution

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chandigarh: The Chandi-garh police on Sunday ar-rested three girls and a man,all residents of Delhi, oncharges of prostitution. Thegirls were allegedly membersof a dance troupe which in-dulged in flesh trade.

The police claimed thatthey had received informa-tion about the involvement ofDelhi girls in the sex racket.The mobile phone numbersof these girls had been circu-lated among many prospec-tive clients in the city. The po-lice on Saturday set out to laya trap.

A deal was struck for Rs10,000 over a mobile phonewith a known pimp, Kiran,based at Rajouri Garden inDelhi.

A meeting was arrangedoutside a discotheque in sec-tor 9. A decoy customer hand-ed over a wad of notes toAmit Sharma, the man who

was to provide the girls. Assoon as Sharma accepted themoney, the police standingnearby nabbed him. Thegirls, sitting in a car parkednearby, were also held. Thegirls were identified as Tisha(20), Kavya (21) and Divya(25), all from Delhi.

Tisha and Kavya told thepolice that they were resi-dents of Rohini while Divyasaid that she had recentlyshifted to Panchkula.

A case under various sec-tions of the Immoral Traf-ficking Act has been regis-tered. The accused were re-manded to one day policecustody.

Investigations revealedthat the girls were frequentvisitors to Chandigarh andvarious other cities of Pun-jab. Sources said that a policeteam will be sent to Delhi toarrest Kiran after acquiringher arrest warrants from thecourt.

More interaction: Theneed for promoting greateracademics-industry interac-tion was on Thursday em-phasised by Union ministerof state for HRD VallabhbhaiKathiria. He directed the offi-cials concerned to preparenecessary guidelines. TNN

Hunting for a place to stayTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: For the nearly12,000 outstation studentswho are expected to troopinto Delhi University onceadmissions begin, residen-tial accommodation is of pri-mary concern. These stu-dents hail mostly from theeastern states of Bihar, WestBengal and Assam. Studentsneed to camp in the city forthe month long admissionexercise.

Namit Shrivastav, a stu-dent of economics at Han-sraj College, was no strangerto Delhi. The Patna-basedboy had been a residentialstudent at Modern School,Barakhamba Road. His trou-bles started when he beganapplying for admissions.‘‘Even before acquiring ad-mission forms, I would ad-vise all students to find pay-ing guest accommodation inDU quickly,’’he said.

Namit stayed in a payingguest set up in Outram linesduring admissions and forthe six months he had towait for hostel accommoda-tion. ‘‘I paid Rs 2500 for theroom, which I shared with afriend of mine,’’ he said.With no kitchen, Shrivastavspent around Rs 1000 amonth on tiffin meals pro-

vided by a dabbawala. ‘‘Thefood was awful, and we hadto change the service everymonth tillI joinedhostel,’’ hesaid.

Out ofthe 79 col-leges in DU, only 11 offer res-idential accommodation.Only 4000 rooms are avail-able for an average 12,000 as-pirants every year.

While Rs 2500-3000 is theaverage cost of paying guest

accommodation for areasnear DU like Outram lines,Hudson lines, Vijaynagar,

KingswayCamp andM u k h e r -jee Nagar,the kind ofaccommo-

dation offered to boysand girls is completely dif-ferent.

‘‘While boys prefer hiringan entire room, girls tend topay on per bed basis,’’ saidRatula Kundu, a student of

Kirorimal college.‘‘Girls mostly take up one

big room with around fourbeds and pay an averageof Rs 1500 per bed,” she said.Safety, in fact, is the majorconcern for girls and privatehostels have come up.

Bijumoni Bora, who runsthe Kamarupa Girls Hostel,charges Rs 3000 per monthon sharing basis.

‘‘Our USP is safe accom-modation for these girls whoare away from home,’’ shesaid.

Sanjay Sekhri

College life has several challenges for outstation students. Admission is just one of them.

THE GREATCOLLEGE RUSH

Students treadthe beaten track

By Nistula HebbarTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: So what are Del-hi University’s most wantedcourses? Where will themost cut-throat competitionbe? If the first ever open dayheld for aspiring DU stu-dents is any indication, stu-dents believe in treading thebeaten path, with some sur-prising diversions.

Previous favourites likeEconomics (honours) andEnglish (honours) still holdsway, but the latest boom intelevision channels and ra-dio stations has upped theante on mass communica-tion courses.

Sanjana Gupta, a studentof Modern School,Barakhamba Road is all setto apply for a course in MassMedia. Offered only in In-draprastha College, journal-ism, print in particular doesnot interest her.‘‘I’m a peo-ple person, so I figure Iwould be good on TV, andyes radio jockeying is alsoan option,’’ she says.

What about if she doesnot get her desired course ofstudy? ‘‘I want to do eco-nomics honours. I like thesubject and its considered

good too,’’ she added.Her classmate Bhuvanesh

is very categorical. ‘‘EitherB.Com (honours) or B.Com(pass) because it has somevalue in the job market,’’ hesays.

Pankhuri is a in a com-plete minority, she is one ofthe very few who wants todo fine arts. ‘‘In each of thefour sessions, there weresome 15 queries on econom-ics and English courses,’’said Aditi Sharma, a volun-teer at the open day.

‘‘A surprise to us was thelarge number of queries onpure sciences, supposedlyon their way out now withthe popularity of appliedcourses,’’ she added. Thereis of course an easy expla-nation for this popularity.‘‘Most students who do notget through entrance examsfor engineering and medi-cine, enroll in these coursesand prepare for examsagain,’’ she added.

The top five thereforewere English (honours),economics (honours), B.Com (honours and pass),journalism and pure sci-ence subjects like physicsand chemistry (honours ).

Dilver was not drunk,says family

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The family mem-bers of the Indian driver, Dil-ver, who was allegedly killedby the son of Senegal’s am-bassador on Saturday night,said the deceased never con-sumed liquor on duty. ‘‘Hedrank occasionally,’’ said hisbrother Pankaj.

The driver reportedly diedin a scuffle over car keys ofthe diplomat’s Nissan car(number 97 CD 1) at city’s TajPalace Hotel.

The family was reacting toallegations that the deceasedwas inebriated and the en-voy’s son, Mansoor Ali, want-ed to drive the car himself.

Pankaj said: ‘‘Our motherallows us to consumer liquoronly inside the house. Shehad warned us against get-ting drunk outside.’’

The family also wonderedhow Dilver got engaged in ascuffle and that too with hisemployer’s son. ‘‘He was cool-tempered and the neighboursremember him for always go-ing out of his way to help oth-ers,’’ Pankaj said.

The deceased was fromSolan district in HimachalPradesh and lived with histwo brothers and widowedmother in Pushpa Vihar forover 15 years.

K K Laskar

A show of culture and colour at the Chandni Chowk festival in New Delhi on Sunday.

‘AIDS patients denied care’By Sachin Parashar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The Delhi highcourt has asked a non- gov-ernment organisation(NGO), Delhi Network ofPositive People (DNP+), toprovide details about thealleged shoddy treatmentbeing offered to HIV posi-tive patients in the hospi-tals. The NGO had filed apetition in the court on thealleged discriminatorytreatment being meted outto AIDS patients in the hos-pitals.

The petition alleged thatPeople Living WithHIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) are

denied access to healthcare and treatment, even incritical condition, particu-larly by state-run hospitalsand medical institutions.The NGO comprises onlyAIDS and HIV affected peo-ple as its members and offi-cials.

Chief Justice B C Pateland Justice A K Sikri askedthe NGO to provide specificinformation on hospitalswho are allegedly denyingtreatment to HIV/AIDS af-fected patients and postedthe matter for further hear-ing on July 23.

The petition claimedthat there is now a treat-ment for the disease, albeit

an expensive one, in theform of triple combinationART (Anti-Retroviral Ther-apy) which can prolong thelife of an AIDS patient.

The petitioners said thatthat most of the PLWHAsare dying because theycan’t afford this treatment.

The NGO said that thesepatients deserved the treat-ment under Article 21 interms of the right to lifeand the right to health.

The Delhi government,Centre, National AIDSControl Organisation andthe Municipal Corporationof Delhi have been madeparty in the petition.

CMYK

D E L H I The Times of India, New Delhi4 Monday, May 26, 2003

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BANGKOK/TOKYO: ThaiAir 0010 (TG-316), I-A0050 (IC-855) FRANKFURT: Lufthansa0305 (LH-761) AMSTERDAM: KLM0140 (KL-472) LONDON/NEW YORK:British Air 0210 (BA-142), A-I 0715 (AI-111) PARIS: Air France 0040(AF-147) SINGAPORE: Sin’poreAirlines 2315 (SQ-407), I-A 0050 (IC-855) HONG KONG/SEOUL:A-I 2340 (AI-312) ROME/MANCHESTER:A-I 0300 (AI-131)

MUMBAI: 0315 (AI755), 0345 (AI 156),0615 (AI 146), 2330 (AI112) GOA: 1245 (AI 643)

WEATHER

THE CITY REPORTRain or thundershowers are likely to occur at manyplaces in sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim; at afew places in Andaman and Nicobar islands, ArunachalPradesh, Assam and Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur,

Mizoram, Tripura and Gangetic West Bengal and at isolated placesin Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal,Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Chattis-garh, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

Max Min

INDIA

Guwahati 33 25 Dehradun 35 19 Hyderabad 42 27 Indore 39 27 Jaipur 42 28 Lucknow 40 26 Patna 39 27 Rajkot 40 26 Shimla 23 15 Srinagar 23 11

FLIGHTS OUTOF DELHI

Mumbai: I-A 0700,0800, 0900, 1200, 1300,1700, 1800, 1900, 2000,2300 Jet Air 0650,0800, 0935, 1400, 1725,1935, 2030, 2200,Sahara 1700, 0935,1520, 1800, 2025KOLKATA: I-A 0700,1600★★ ,1700,1945Jet Air 0600, 1720,Sahara 0620,1915CHENNAI: I-A0640,0955★★★1645,1900 Jet Air0645,1900BANGALORE:I-A 0650, 1645, 1900Jet Air 0635,1715,Sahara 0725, 1745HY’BAD:I-A 0630, 1745GOA: I-A 1200,Sahara 1200 KULU: Jagson 0630,0650, 1215 ★AHMEDABAD:I-A 0600,1700★★ 1845,Jet Air 0610 GUWAHATI—BAGDOGRA:I-A 0555★★ , 1010•★ Jet Air 1010

NATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL

AIR INDIA

Ph: I-A:140,142. ★ Mon, Wed,Fri, ★★ Tue, Thu, Sat, ★★★Mon-Fri, Sun, Jet Air: (City)6853700, (Airport) 25665404Sahara: (City) 2335901-9,(Airport) 25675234/875, (Tele-Checkin) 25662600. • Mon, Fri.

A-I: (City)23736446 /47/48(Air.)25652050, British Air:(Air.) 25652908, Lufthansa:23323310, Singapore Airlines23356286, Thai Air: 3323638

TRAIN RESERVATIONS

No. of passengers dealt on 24.05.2003 (Delhi Area): 59,673 (N. Rly. Area)2,63,931. It does not necessarily mean that reservation is available on allsubsequent dates. For further information regarding reservation: Ph: 131 forcomputerised PNR, for status enquiry contact 1330, 1335, 1345.

(Information supplied by Indian Railways)

Earliest date on which berth / seats were available at 1400 hrs. on25.05.2003 in important trains leaving various Delhi stations.

Train No. Train / Exp / Mail 1 ac 2 ac Ac 3t SlNORTH4033 Jammu Mail 28.05 03.06 16.06 03.064645 Shalimar Exp — 27.06 26.06 04.062403 Jammu Exp 03.06 18.06 23.06 23.06EAST2302 Kolkata Rajdhani 27.05 30.05 30.05 —2304 Poorva Exp 29.05 11.06 18.06 18.062382 Poorva Exp 26.05 10.06 16.05 23.062312 Kalka Mail N.A. 20.06 27.06 23.062392 Magadh Exp N.A. 05.06 10.06 11.062402 Shramjeevi Exp — 27.05 05.06 09.062418 Prayag Raj Exp 26.05 28.05 29.05 02.064056 Brahmputra Mail — N.A. 03.07 02.075622 North East Exp — 23.06 29.06 26.062554 Vaishali Exp 26.05 11.06 11.06 17.062816 Puri Exp — 12.06 23.06 16.062802 Purshottam Exp — 17.06 18.06 16.068476 Neelanchal Exp — 24.06 27.06 13.064230 Lucknow Mail 27.05 31.05 06.06 09.06WEST2904 Golden Temple Mail 30.05 16.06 17.06 19.062926 Paschim Exp 26.05 17.06 23.06 23.062952 Mumbai Rajdhani 11.06 16.06 17.06 —2954 AG Kranti Rajdhani 09.06 12.06 16.06 —2474 Sarvodaya Exp — 26.06 26.06 19.061078 Jhelum Exp — 02.07 23.06 23.062916 Ashram Exp 27.05 23.06 23.06 12.06SOUTH2616 G T Exp 10.06 16.06 22.06 09.062622 Tamil Nadu Exp 10.06 16.06 22.06 10.062432 Trivandrum Raj 24.06 06.07 01.07 —2626 Kerala Exp — 23.06 22.06 17.062618 Mangala Exp — 26.06 22.06 12.062628 Karnataka Exp — 21.06 22.06 09.062724 A P Exp 17.06 23.06 22.06 12.062430 Banglore Rajdhani 14.06 30.06 30.06 —7022 Dakshin Express — 16.06 — 09.06

Max MinDelhi 38 26 Mumbai 35 28 Chennai 41 22 Kolkata 36 22 Bangalore 37 24 Ahm’bad 41 27 T’puram 33 26 Bhopal 41 28 B’eshwar 39 25 Pune 37 23

WORLDMax Min

Amsterdam 16 11 Bahrain 36 27 Bangkok 36 27 Beijing 29 14 Chicago 18 06 Geneva 27 12 Hong Kong 33 27 London 18 09 Los Angeles 24 15 Moscow 28 14

For booking and information, please call:

23302352, 23302353, 51-666-888

3 commitsuicide, twoare students

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Three persons,including two students,committed suicide in sepa-rate incidents in south andcentral districts. Accordingto the police, after the boardresults were announced, astudent of Lal BuildingSchool in Devli, Ravinder(18), committed suicide onMay 23.

According to the centraldistrict police, one TarunJiwani (22) of MataRameshwari Nagar con-sumed poison early on Sun-day. The deceased had cometo his house at 4.15 am aftercompleting his night duty.After some time, his moth-er found him unconscious.Jiwani was taken to a hos-pital where he was declaredbrought dead.

In the same street, a class12 student, Shashi Bala,was declared brought deadin the hospital.

Trees don’t grow on moneyBy Rahul Chhabra

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Governmentagencies spend over Rs 100crore annually to keep Delhigreen. However, there aredoubts over the cost-effec-tiveness since the state of thegreen cover remains a causefor concern.

The Municipal Corpora-tion of Delhi (MCD), whichmaintains 90 per cent of thecity, has failed to increasegreenery despite an annualbudget of about Rs 80 crore tooversee 13,000 parks and gar-dens. ‘‘Almost 80 per cent ofthe budget is usedup as wages forthose involved inhorticulture de-partment,’’ said asenior MCD offi-cial.

According to theForest Survey ofIndia, 10.2 per centof Delhi’s geo-graphical area was under for-est and tree cover in 2001.

Delhi state environmentand forest minister, DeepChand Bandhu, said: ‘‘Dur-ing the last four years the for-est cover in the city was in-creased by 62 sq km. Thisyear, our target is to increasethe forest cover to 15 per centof the total area.’’

Officials of DDA’s MasterPlan cell claim the green ar-eas in the city constitute 20per cent of the total area andthese have grown by aboutthree percent in the last twoyears. They paint a rosy pic-ture about green belts.

But environmentalistsgreet their claims with awithering look. ‘‘There is no

improvement in the groundwater table level despite theso-called increase in greencover. Rise in water table isan indicator of increase ingreen cover,’’ said Ravi Agar-wal of Srishti, an NGO. Headded that afforestationdrives were mainly money-spinners for the government.

Lutyen’s Delhi and theridge continue to be the city’s‘lungs’. While the ridge is en-dangered by encroachmentsand blatant cutting of trees,opportunities to increase thegreen cover in the New Delhiarea appear to be drying up.

Also, maintenancewill drain moreand more resourcessince most of treeshere are over 50years old, and havestarted showingtheir age.

DDA, NDMC,Delhi CantonmentBoard and Delhi

government’s forest depart-ment also take up separate af-forestation drives and collec-tively spend about Rs 20 croreannually.

Most tree plantation drivesfail to have an impact due toa high mortality rate ofabout 60 per cent. ‘‘Had allthe saplings planted in thecity would have survived, thecity would have turned into adense forest by now,’’ saidAgarwal.

Pooh-poohing the DDAclaim of a three per centgrowth in green areas, insid-ers say that an increase inacreage is not guarantee ofan increase in vegetation.

‘‘This so-called growth hascome about mainly because

the status of rural areas onthe outskirts has changed onpaper, and been designated agreen area,’’ conceded a DDAofficial. The green cover isshrinking because of en-croachments.

MCD officials say that theproblem is compounded be-cause there is no intra-agency coordination. ‘‘Therehave been several instances

when the horticulture de-partment has planted freshsaplings, and the engineeringdepartment has pulled themout just weeks later whiledigging up the road,’’ saidVijendra Gupta, a BJP mem-ber of the MCD’s StandingCommittee,

It is also a well-known factthat councillors squandertheir budgets on boundary

walls and fountains in parksso that they can cream offcommissions, when the mon-ey would have been more ef-fectively spent on grass andplants.

‘‘Provision for plants andfountains is very often madewithout even checkingwhether enough water isavailable,’’ spluttered anMCD official said.

Is Delhi green enough?

Forest CoverDistrict Geographic area Dense forest Open forest Total Percent ScrubCentral Delhi 24.68 0.58 1.69 2.27 9.20 0East Delhi 63.76 0.13 1.44 1.57 2.46 0New Delhi 34.90 3.83 5.90 9.73 27.88 0North Delhi 59.16 1.11 2.07 3.18 5.38 0North East Delhi 60.29 0.60 1.25 1.85 3.07 0North West Delhi 440.31 2.95 5.42 8.37 1.90 0South Delhi 249.85 17.62 34.89 52.51 21.02 3south West Delhi 420.54 11.13 18.96 30.09 7.16 1West Delhi 129.52 0.07 1.69 1.76 1.36 0Total 1,483.00 38.02 73.31 111.33 7.51 4

Rs 10 cr forparks’ upkeep,Rs 70 cr forpaying salaries

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The MunicipalCorporation of Delhi (MCD)maintains 13,000 parks in thecity. Of these, about 2,000 arein institutions like schools,colleges, hospitals, stadiums,Red Fort grounds anddispensaries.

About 2,765 parks lack ba-sic irrigation facilities and1,209 don’t even have bound-ary walls. There are over7,500 gardeners to maintainthese parks.

A senior MCD official ad-mitted that only 4,000 parkswere well-maintained.

Out of an annual alloca-tion of Rs 80 crore, onlyRs 10 crore is spent on devel-oping and maintainingparks. The rest is spent onsalaries.

Besides the lack of irriga-tion facilities, it is the un-even distribution of man andmachine in certain pocketsthat has resulted in theneglect.

There are about 1,300 tube-wells owned by the MCD.

However, barring southand central Delhi and somegreen patches like CivilLines, Rajpur Road andthe Ridge area near DelhiUniversity, east and westDelhi resembles a huge con-crete jungle.

Forests versus parksTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Apart from the7,777 hectares of the ridgewhich have been declared asreserve forests, the other cityforests are not protected. Butthe fate of the protected andunprotected forests is notmuch different.

‘‘Unlike the ridge, the cityforests are open to land usechange. For example, a fewyears ago the city govern-ment tried to have 13 five-starhotels in the forest near Vas-ant Kunj,’’ Agarwal said.

The conversion of largetracts of lands in forests toparks is hurting the city en-vironment even further.‘‘Regular recharge ofgroundwater can be ensured

by a better under growth andtree cover (by retaining theridge as a natural forest andnot a landscaped park),’’ a Sr-ishti report says. Parks re-quire a lot of tending and wa-ter to survive, while forestsgrown on their own.

Buddha Jayanti Park, Ma-havir Park, parts of SanjayVan, Panchshila city forestand Rabindra Rangshala aresome examples of forest landgiving way to parks. ‘‘Parksare okay in colonies. But theforests should get theircleared lands back and theyshould be afforested again.We can have jogging tracksthere so that people can enjoynature in its pristine state,’’Agarwal said.

Green city to concrete jungleBy Saurabh Sinha

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Statically speak-ing, the forest cover in thecity has improved. Realisti-cally speaking, the change is-n’t showing.

In the past few years, said asenior official on condition ofanonymity, thousands of ma-ture trees have been felled forseveral projects like roadbroadening. ‘‘Saplings havebeen planted in lieu of thefelling. But their survivalrate is hardly 40 per cent andthey will take several yearsto take place of the felled ful-ly-grown trees,’’ said the offi-cial.

School of Planning and Ar-chitecture director A KMaitra said: ‘‘In the last 30years, there has been a sig-nificant depletion in thegreen cover. Just 40 per cent

of the present forests have agood crown cover, 40 per centhas a degraded cover and therest is scrub land.’’

Environmentalist RaviAgarwal of an NGO Srishti,which is fighting to save theridge here, agreed. ‘‘Had thegreen cover actually im-

proved, Delhi’s water tablewouldn’t have hit rock bot-tom. The reality is that thecity is fast losing its green ar-eas and even the rural partsare being added to the urbanconglomerate,’’ he said.

Saumitra Mukherjee, anassociate professor in JNU’sSchool of EnvironmentalSciences, said the city’s ever-increasing population andnumber of vehicles parked inparks was threatening thegreen cover. ‘‘The city isgrowing so haphazardly thatthe green areas here arebecoming endangered,’’ hesaid.

Naturalist Pradeep Kr-ishen said the satellite im-agery used to map the greencover does not show the den-sity of the forest cover as itcan’t differentiate between‘‘a tree and a bush’’.

‘‘The entire ridge here is

being overrun by the VilayatiKeekar — Mesquite tree.This species is so aggressivethat it is fast replacing thenative species of Delhi thatevolved to survive in thecity’s climate over the cen-turies. So even if the wrongspecies grow, it’s more a mat-ter of concern thansomething to boast about,’’he said.

The forests are full of the‘‘wrong’’ species. ‘‘Exotictrees that look beautiful wereplanted on a large scale, un-mindful of the fact whetherthey were suited to Delhi’ssemi-arid climate or not,’’said another expert.

As a result, today the ridgehas an impoverished eco-sys-tem. At least six types of na-tive species like the salai,chichola and kulu are com-pletely missing from thecentral ridge.

‘Gardens are being destroyed’Sheetal ChawlaClass 10 studentSt Francis De SalesschoolDelhi is green only atcertain places. Theparks maintained byMCD only have shrubsand bushes. The peo-

ple are not involved in making Delhigreen. Though we do plant saplings onsome occasions, they are not enough.

Piyali DasguptaHousewifeI don’t think Delhi isgreen. Kolkata is muchgreener. Governmentis responsible, alongwith the public, for notmaking the city green-er. People should plant

more trees to compensate the concretethat surrounds us. Only systematic af-

forestation is the answer to a dry andpolluted Delhi.

L M AtreyPrincipalNavin Bharti SchoolParks and green areasare being destroyed byslums and dumping ofgarbage. Though thegovernment is trying

its best, they can’t do anything alone.People don’t co-operate. They don’t have

any civic sense.Everyone is right-ful, but no one isdutiful. People justtalk of theirrights, not of their

duties. That is very unfortunate. Thegreen areas are an important part ofthe city and should not be considered asa waste of space.

Ashish BaggaEngineering studentIndraprastha UniversityDelhi is green in cer-tain areas only. Thedensely-populated ar-eas are not green.Many multinational

companies are now developing parks,which is a good move.

S K ChoudharyDeputy managerAshok LeylandSome areas are cleanerand greener, than oth-ers. South Delhi isprivileged. Where isthe place to grow trees.Every inch is being

converted into a concrete jungle there.Nobody cares.

READERS’ GRIEVANCES

Overflowing drainsThe drainage system inward number 48,Parampuri Colony, and ad-jacent colonies of UttamNagar has collapsed.Drains are overflowingand the stagnated sewagehas become a breedingground for diseases. Sever-al people have startedfalling ill. Near S-88,Parampuri Colony, allmanholes and drains areoverflowing. One goodspell of rainfall and allroads in the area will besubmerged in sewage. Thisarea has become a livinghell. Authorities mayplease act urgently. — Ra-jesh, S-88, Parampuri, Ut-tam Nagar

Courier undeliveredI had couriered an im-

portant letter on March 14,2003(receipt number8014541). It was addressedto Bishop Karam Masih at1, Church Lane, New Del-hi. The addressee is yet toreceive the courier. Thecourier company, (The Pro-fessional Couriers, 585,Jaypee Complex, BankStreets, Munirka), is un-

able to show the delivery ofthe letter. — Prasad Y N,WZ/44, Poshangipur,Janakpuri

Investment duesI invested Rs 4,000 (40

shares) with AdventureCountry Resorts Ltd,Mumbai, through its Delhioffice in July 1999 for threeyears(vide folio NoA008982). The shares ma-tured in June 2002. Thecompany has now closedits offices. I request theregulatory authorities toinclude my name in the listof investors. — Usha Shar-ma, L-8, Gali No.23, Mahin-dra Park, Near Adarsh Na-gar

ID card awaitedI submitted two pass-

port-size photographs withmy PAN application formlast year. I have just re-ceived the PAN numberfrom the income-tax officeat Connaught Place, butam yet to receive the iden-tity card for which I hadsubmitted the photo-graphs. The authoritiesconcerned may please dothe needful. —D K Mitra,BG-5/27 B, Paschim Vihar

Readers should send their contributions addressed to Readers’ Grievancesc/o Metro Editor, The Times of India, 7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002.

PEOPLETALK

Power failure inNDMC areasNew Delhi: SeveralNew Delhi areasplunged into darknessdue to the failure of theDelhi government’s gasturbine on Sunday.

The worst-hit wereVIP colonies in NDMCarea which sufferedblackouts of up toone hour at about8.30 pm. TNN

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The son of aPunjab police officer and hisfriend were arrested on Sun-day by the northwest districtpolice in connection with thedouble murder in Sultanpurion Friday night. The policesaid that a drug cartel wasbehind the incident.

Two persons, including awoman, were murderedwhile a girl was seriously in-jured when 20-year-oldSandeep, son of a Punjab po-lice officer, and his friendSukhjinder got into an argu-ment with the victims at thelatter’s residence in Rama Vi-har.

According to the police,the incident took place in thehouse of one Nand Lal Azad

at D-44/A, Rama Vihar inSultan Puri about 3 am. Azadis an electrical engineer withDelhi Development Authori-ty (DDA) and was not presentin the house at the time of in-cident. Four persons werethere in the house. They wereAzad’s wife, Meena (40), hisdaughter Purnima (21), sonGulshan (14) and Gulshan’sfriend Guarav (18).

The police said Meena andGaurav died in the incident,while Purnima wasseriouslyinjured due to the stabwounds inflicted by the crim-inals. Gulshan escaped un-hurt.

Meena is the second wife ofAzad and Gaurav is the eld-est son of Gobind Sharma,who stays in K-block in thesame locality. The police had

ruled out robbery as the mo-tive behind the incident asthe entry into the house waswithout resistance.

Additional deputy com-missioner of police (north-west), R S Yadav, said:‘‘Sandeep and Sukhjinderwere drug addicts who hadgot in touch with Meena, herdaughter Purnima and an ac-complice Gaurav last weekfor getting smack. Theybought 50 gms which costthem Rs 10,000. On reachingAmritsar, Sandeep andSukhjinder discovered thatthey had been cheated as oth-

er chemicals were mixed inthe drug.’’

The two came back to Del-hi and confronted Meena.Meena and her associates,however, did not take theircomplaint seriously.

‘‘In anger, Sukhjinderstabbed Gaurav with a kir-pan. On hearing the noise,Meena and Purnima rushedto the room and they werestabbed too. Gulshan, whowas in the next room, lockedhimself in the kitchen,’’ theDCP said.

At the time of incidentAzad was not in Delhi.

CMYK

D E L H IThe Times of India, New Delhi Monday, May 26, 2003 5

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MCD defersfund allocationover protests

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: After protestsover alleged improper budg-etary allocation to eachward, the Municipal Corpo-ration of Delhi (MCD) com-missioner, Rakesh Mehta,has shelved the ward-wise al-location of budget till theyear end.

The commissioner alsoconstituted a 6-member com-mittee to review allocationsand make recommendations.

‘‘A number of representa-tions have been received re-lating to the allocation ofbudget to each ward. In orderto finalise the allocationskeeping in view the variousheads of account, it has beendecided to constitute a com-mittee to make further rec-ommendations,’’ Mehta said.

‘‘The committee will giveits recommendations aftertaking into account all therelevant factors by Septem-ber 30, 2003. As the matter isstreamlined, the ward-wiseallocation shall be kept inabeyance till December 31,’’the commissioner said.

The commissionershelved his recent order onzonal planning committee fordeciding how the fundswould be utilised.

Raising objection againstthe allocation of budget, theleader of opposition SubhashArya said the way funds wereearmarked amounted tostraitjacketing of the alloca-tion.

Punjab cop’s son held for murder Slum colonies nobody’s babyTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Seventeen re-settlement colonies at theperiphery of the capitalcontinue to subsist withoutpower, water and sewage fa-cilities as the MunicipalCorporation of Delhi(MCD) refuses to takecharge and the Delhi gov-

ernment is dithering overbearing the expenditurehere.

Raising the issue of se-vere lack of civic amenitiesin these colonies relocatedby the Delhi DevelopmentAuthority (DDA), the leaderof Opposition of MCD’sstanding committee Vijen-

der Kumar Gupta saidthese colonies have become‘‘nobody’s baby’’ after theywere removed from the cen-tral Delhi localities.

There are 12 colonies un-der the Delhi DevelopmentAuthority and the remain-ing five are with the slumwing of Delhi.

Power supply: Electricitysupply will remain disrupt-ed between 10 am to 5 pmon Monday in Kalkaji,Janakpuri, Dwarka, SunderVihar, JJ Colony and Nan-gloi.

CMYK

The Times of India, New Delhi6 Monday, May 26, 2003

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I N D I AThe Times of India, New Delhi Monday, May 26, 2003 7

NCB: Biswashas no linkswith tenantKolkata\Shillong: The Nar-cotics Control Bureau (NCB)has clarified that former CBIofficer U N Biswas had no di-rect links with the drug rack-et that was being operated byhis tenants.

Photographs of S NThanga, alleged kingpin ofthe international drug rack-et, have been distributed attwo border points of Cham-pai and Moreh to prevent hisescape from India to Myan-mar, zonal director of NCB RM Meena said. Askedwhether NCB had got any ev-idence of Biswas’ direct in-volvement in the case, Meenasaid ‘‘No direct links havebeen found as of now’’.

Gloria Remi, wife of S NThanga — the abscondingtenant — has told the policeshe was born in Myanmar,brought up in Mizoram andmarried in Bangalore.

She was interrogated forthe second time by the policefor four-and-a-half hours onFriday, a senior official ofMadandriting police stationsaid on Sunday.

Customs department herehad found that Thanga was a Myanmarese and not aMizo. PTI

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PU teachers’protest today

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Patna: Even as Patna Uni-versity (PU) teachers re-solved to launch an agitationfrom Monday in protestagainst the broad daylightmurder of their colleagueSiddheshwar Lal of ScienceCollege on Saturday, PU au-thorities postponed the BA, BSc and B Com Part I Honoursexaminations scheduled tobegin from Monday in viewof the examination boycottcall given by the teachers.

According to PU controllerof examinations K NPaswan, the Degree Part IHonours examinations of2003 will now begin in thefirst week of July. The de-tailed programme of the ex-aminations would be notifiedlater, he said.

The Bachelor of Architec-ture Part IV examination of2002 scheduled from Mondayhas also been postponed, ac-cording to a PU notification.

Srinagar-Lehhighway opensSrinagar: The first convoy ofArmy vehicles, carrying de-fence supplies, moved fromSrinagar to Kargil and Leh inLadakh, following the re-opening of the Srinagar-Lehhighway after six months.

The road, lifeline to thefrontier region, was thrownopen to traffic on Saturday byMaj Gen A K Chopra, offici-ating general officer com-manding, 15 Corps. PTI

Cong to protestagainst Amethi renamingLucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Con-gress is chalking out a strategy to lodgeits protest over the renaming of Ame-thi. The party plans to hand over theresponsibility of the campaign to itsDalit leadership to counter chief min-ister Mayawati.

The party unit will contest the gov-ernment’s decision to rename Amethiafter Chatrapati Shahuji Maharaj, whohas no relevance in Uttar Pradesh, saidCongress spokesman Akhilesh Singhon Saturday.

Protest dharnas and demonstrationshave already started in the newly-carved district with eminent Dalitleaders heading the campaign to drivehome the point that the people there —cutting across caste lines — were nothappy with the renaming of the place.Amethi owes its development to theCongress and the Gandhi family, Singhsaid. People here cannot be divided oncaste lines to serve the political mo-tives of the BSP, he added.

On Friday, the local party unit andthe youth wing held a protest rally inGauriganj, which has been made thedistrict headquarter of the new dis-trict.

The Congress leaders from Amethiare likely to meet governor VishnuKant Shastri soon to submit a memo-randum in this regard.

The Congress has not ruled out a le-gal recourse over the issue and is look-ing into the details, said Singh.

The symbolic use of Dalit leaders tohead the protest against the renamingof Amethi gains significance in thebackdrop of Mayawati’s attempts tocounter the Congress influence in thearea by first holding an alert rally towarn the Dalits against ‘‘the Congressdesigns’’ and, secondly, by renaming itafter a Dalit icon.

Meanwhile, the people of Amethihave expressed reservations over thenew name. PTI

Gehlot hascommunaldesigns: RajeJaipur: Cautioning partyworkers against the Gehlotgovernment’s designs to‘‘create’’ communal tensionin Rajasthan, state BJPpresident Vasundhara Rajeasked them on Sunday toavoid confrontations on trishul ban and reserva-tions.

‘‘Workers should avoidany confrontation whichthe government is trying toimpose on them,’’ Raje, whois undertaking a Parivar-tan Rath Yatra in the statefor the last 28 days, said.

She alleged that the Con-gress government was at-tempting to create commu-nal tension by banning tr-ishul and dividing societyon the reservation issue.PTI

BJP juggles with UP equationBy Arvind Singh BishtTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Lucknow: The BJP has much tocelebrate in Uttar Pradesh follow-ing the Union Cabinet reshuffle onSaturday. The inclusion of twostate leaders — Rajnath Singh andSwamy Chinmayanand — intoPrime Minister Atal Bihari Vaj-payee’s Cabinet appears to haveachieved the desired course cor-rection for the party’s caste equa-tions in the state.

Both ministers belong to the up-per caste Thakur community inUP, which, the BJP leadership felt,was seething with resentmentagainst the Mayawati-led BSP-BJPcoalition government.

The Thakur community, theBJP’s traditional votebank in thestate, has felt progressively alien-ated from the party ever since ittried to expand its base by wooingthe Dalits and Yadavs.

With Singh and Chinmayanandbecoming ministers, the messageto the state is quite clear — theBJP is interested in rebuilding itssupport base among the uppercaste communities. Singh takes

over the agriculture ministry.Chinmayanand, who was electedMP for the fourth consecutiveterm, has been made minister forthe first time. He will be the junior

minister in the home ministry.The exercise is being seen as a

way to pacify the Thakur commu-nity as well as neutralise the heatgenerated by Mayawati’s decisionto slap the Prevention of Terror-ism Act (Pota) against former min-ister and MLA Raghuraj PratapSingh, popularly known as RajaBhaiya, a Thakur, and his father,Udai Pratap Singh.

The issue had become a bone ofcontention between the BJP andthe Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP),its coalition partner in the stategovernment, with Singh and stateBJP chief Vinay Katiyar express-ing their displeasure over it.

The BJP also faced dissensionon the issue, with 10 BJP MLAsopenly siding with Raja Bhaiyaand forming a pressure group todemand that Mayawati’s govern-ment be dismissed. The centralleadership of the party had to in-tervene to prevent a split.

Singh got his share in the face-saving exercise and has consider-able clout with the Thakur com-munity, which has 35 MLAs to the86-member BJP legislature partyin UP.

Namdeo depressed at work: FatherBy Somit Sen and Aneesh Phadnis

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Central Industrial Securi-ty Force (CISF) constable RajNamdeo had informed his parentsthat he was considering a drasticstep as he was feeling stressed out athis work place.

‘‘My son was posted at the airporttwo months ago. It seems he was nothappy with his superiors and wasupset about the 14-hour work sched-ule. He was feeling depressed andtold me about it,’’ Raj’s father, CISF

head constable L H Namdeo said.Apparently, Raj had recently

planned to go to his native place inMadhya Pradesh with his motherUma Devi and his younger sister,who is physically challenged. ButKaranjkar had reportedly refused tosanction him leave, sources said.This may have prompted the consta-ble to take this extreme step.

‘‘The incident has shocked us asRaj is not a temperamental person.He is usually calm,’’ said a dis-traught Uma Devi, who was instru-mental in persuading her son to lay

down the rifle. In fact, joint policecommissioner Javed Ahmed whokept persuading him for over threehours to release the hostages saidNamdeo seemed to be ‘‘calm andcomposed.’’ ‘‘He could have easilydone something worse like killingthe hostages. There were enough (30)bullets in his rifle’’, Mr Ahmedstated.

On Saturday, Namdeo, 22, alleged-ly shot dead his superior, deputycommandant, A R Karanjkar andheld five colleagues hostage beforesurrendering around midnight.

•BJP wants to mend fenceswith the upper castes in UP

•Rajnath Singh and SwamiChinmayanand’s inductioninto the Cabinet a way topacify the Thakur community

• 35 of BJP’s 86 UP MLAsare Thakurs

Power games?

CMYK

The Times of India, New Delhi8 Monday, May 26, 2003

PROPERTY

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I N D I AThe Times of India, New Delhi Monday, May 26, 2003 9

CAS needs to put consumer first, says PMTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Concerned overthe CAS-confusion, PrimeMinister Atal Bihari Vajpay-ee has directed the informa-tion and broadcasting min-istry to ensure smooth tran-sition to the new set-top-boxregime.

During a meeting with I&Bminister Ravi ShankarPrasad and his top officialson Saturday, Vajpayee madethree specific directives: Pro-tect the consumer interest,ensure smooth transition tothe box age and closely moni-tor the situation.

Assisted by his principalsecretary Brajesh Mishra

and some other PMO offi-cials, Vajpayee reviewed theprogress in CAS implementa-tion. Introduction of CASwill affect close to one crorepeople in the four metrocities. According to the Par-liament mandate, the condi-tional access system has to bein place from July 14. Other-wise, all the pay channelswill go off the air.

In their response, Prasadand his officials clarified thatwithout the set-top-box, a TVviewer could still watch morethan 30 channels offered infree-to-air bouquet. The box,they stressed, would be re-quired only if the consumerwanted to see any pay chan-

nel. As a follow-up, Prasadheld a meeting of his seniorofficials on Sunday.

The free-to-air bouquet,which offered a minimum of30 channels for Rs 72 plustaxes, would be a good mix of

entertainment, sports, newsand films, they said. The I&Bofficials told Vajpayee thatwith market forces operat-ing, possibly the big cable op-erators would have no choicebut to provide the boxes totheir consumers under con-cessional schemes.

‘‘CAS is in the nation’s in-terest, people need to have achoice,’’ Prasad reportedlyremarked defending the newsystem. He pointed out thatthe new regime of tele view-ing had the possibility oftriggering a Rs 50,000-croreelectronic industry in thecountry.

He, however, admitted thatthe early market demand of

about two million boxeswould be met by exports fromabroad. Explaining the gov-ernment’s role in the tech-nology adoption, he said thatconflict between broadcast-ers and big cable operatorsover the issue of under-re-porting subscribers left nochoice for his ministry but tointervene.

The Prime Minister wastold that in about 10 days, twonotifications would be issuedregulating the price of paychannels and compelling thebroadcasters to announcehow many of their channelswould stay pay and howmany be part of the free-to-air bouquet.

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Top Tibetan delegation in China for dialogue

By Jagdish BhattTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Shimla: A top-level four-member Tibetan delegationreached China on Sunday tocontinue its talks with theChinese leadership to createthe right atmosphere for ne-gotiations between Beijingand the Tibetan government-in-exile. The delegation lefton Saturday-Sunday mid-night from Delhi.

The four members of thedelegation are: Special en-voys of the Dalai Lama inWashington and to the Euro-pean Union (based at Brus-sels), Lodi Gyaltsen Gyariand Kelsang Gyaltsen respec-tively; additional secretaryin the department of infor-mation and international re-lations (DIIR) of the Tibetangovernment-in-exile atMcLeodganj, Sonam Tagpo;and head of the internation-al campaign for Tibet inWashington, Phuchung Tser-ing. The delegation will be re-ceived by the United Frontdepartment of the ChineseCommunist Party. The samedepartment had hosted thisdelegation when it visitedBeijing in September 2002.

Talking to Times News Net-work, DIIR secretaryThupten Samphel said, ‘‘Wehope this second visit of thedelegation will give a cleareridea to the two envoys of theDalai Lama of the thinkingof the new Chinese leader-ship on the issue of Tibet.

BJP shadowCabinet in MPahead of pollsBhopal On the lines of theParliamentary practice inBritain, the Opposition BJPin Madhya Pradesh hasformed a shadow cabinet inthe state ahead of the next as-sembly elections.

‘‘The legislators includedin this cabinet have been al-loted departments and itsfirst meeting is scheduled tobe held here on June 8,’’ BJPsources said on Sunday.

The chief minister of thisshadow cabinet is BJP’s starcampaigner Uma Bharti,who has already been namedas the party’s chief ministe-rial candidate for the state.

Legislators, who have beenmade members of the shad-ow cabinet, have been told tomake preparations about thedepartments allotted to themso that this information canbe used to prepare slogans,pamphlets and posters forthe assembly elections.

Based on the recommenda-tions of this cabinet, the BJPwould finalise chargesagainst the Digvijay Singhgovernment, the sourcessaid. This would also be use-ful to draft BJP’s manifestofor the next assembly elec-tions.

The shadow cabinet hasbeen formed to make BJP’slegislative wing more activebefore the assembly electionsin the state.

State BJP presidentKailash Joshi and its organ-ising secretary CaptainSingh Solanki would be pres-ent at the first meeting of theshadow cabinet. PTI

I left Hurriyat council overpoll boycott issue: Geelani

By M Saleem PanditTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Srinagar: Prominent Jami-at-e-Islami leader and for merAll-Party Hurriyat Confer-ence chairman Syed Ali ShahGeelani says he left the Hur-riyat’s executive council notbecause of failing health butbecause the Hurriyat did notact against the People’s Con-ference (PC) for defying theconglomerate’s boycott of as-sembly polls last year. The PCis a constituent of the Hur-riyat.

In a late evening develop-ment on Saturday, Shiekh AliMohammad was made theJamiat representative in theHurriyat executive council

in place of Geelani on the in-structions of Jamiat chiefGulam Mohammad Bhat.

Geelani, who was arrestedunder the Prevention of Ter-rorism Act (Pota) last yearahead of the state assemblyelections and operated uponfor malignancy in Mumbairecently following his releasefrom a Ranchi jail, had notbeen attending Hurriyatmeetings. Geelani refuted theclaims of both the Jamiatand the Hurriyat leadershipthat he had not been attend-ing the meetings because offailing health.

Geelani charged the PCleadership, especially SajjadLone and Bilal Lone, withhaving fielded proxy candi-

dates in the assembly elec-tions. Asked about the Lones’denial of these charges, Gee-lani said: ‘‘Everybody knowsthe reality. The proxy candi-dates won because the Lonessupported them.’’

Geelani said he had ad-vised the Jamiat chiefagainst sending a representa-tive to Hurriyat unless thePC made its stand clear.

Keeping Geelani out of theHurriyat is considered hereas a move to keep hawkishleaders out of the conglomer-ate in view of the latest thawin Indo-Pak relations.

Geelani had criticized Pak-istan for reciprocating PrimeMinister Vajpayee’s offer offriendship.

•I&B officials said without set-top-box,viewer can get about 30 channels

•Box is required only towatch pay channels

•I&B minister said theearly demand for boxeswould be met by exports

Box matters

PTI

A tourist poses in the traditional Kashmiri dress on a shikara on the Dal Lake on Sunday.Tourists have started coming to the Valley raising hopes of a good season this year.

The heat is on Arjun SinghBhopal: Describing seniorparty leader Arjun Singh’sremarks on infighting with-in the Congress as ‘‘inap-propriate’’, MadhyaPradesh chief ministerDigvijay Singh on Sundaysaid he did not agree withhis view that there was noleader to fulfil the dreamsof Indira Gandhi and RajivGandhi.

‘‘Congress president So-nia Gandhi is fully compe-tent to lead the nation,’’Digvijay said here.

‘‘Sonia Gandhi has en-trusted Arjun Singh withmany responsibilities by

making him a member ofmany important commit-tees.

Arjun Singh shouldspeak about such issuesonly in the appropriate fo-rums,’’ said the chief min-ister, who has oftendescribed Arjun Singh ashis mentor or ‘‘guru’’ inpolitics and has very rarelydisagreed with him in pub-lic.

Arjun Singh had report-edly lamented about the‘‘present state of affairs’’ inthe Congress, saying it was‘‘plagued by intensegroupism’’ and ‘‘held

hostage by self-centredleaders’’ last Wednesday inNew Delhi at a function onRajiv Gandhi’s death an-niversary.

‘‘Our towering leaders,Indira and Rajiv, were de-voured by terrorism. Now,it is up to Soniaji to fulfiltheir dream. But today’sCongress cannot fulfil her(Indira) dream,’’ ArjunSingh was reported to havesaid.

A senior Congress leaderlike Arjun Singh shouldhave avoided speaking likethis in a public function,the chief minister added. PTI

CMYK

I N D I A The Times of India, New Delhi10 Monday, May 26, 2003

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President may visit J&K next monthNew Delhi: President Abdul Kalam is likely to visit Jammuand Kashmir next month to send a strong political messagesupporting the peace initiative of Prime Minister Vajpayeeand the healing touch policy of chief minister Mufti Mo-hammed Sayeed.

The President’s visit will come weeks after Vajpayee’s ownvisit to Srinagar, where he urged all Kashmiri groups tocome to the negotiating table and extended an olive branch toneighbouring Pakistan.

Rashtrapati Bhavan sources said Kalam’s programme wasstill tentative and the details were being worked out. TNN

Hollywoodall set to sellIndian films

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Top Holly-wood banners are get-ting into the Indiancommercial movie busi-ness in an unprecedent-ed way. For the firsttime, 20th Century Foxwill be distributing acommercial film,Jhankar Beats writtenand directed by SujoyGhosh. Columbia Tris-tar and its parent entitySony Pictures are alsoconsidering ‘Bollywood’projects.

So far, the Hollywoodbiggies had sporadical-ly handled mainstreamHindi films like Decem-ber 16 and somecrossover movies likeMonsoon Wedding, BendIt Like Beckham andBollywood Calling. Butnow, Fox is lining up EkHaseena Thi, a RamGopal Verma moviestarring Saif Ali Khanand Urmila Matondkar,and possibly a KetanMehta flick afterJhankar Beats.

Fox says it is seriousabout selling Indiancommercial cinema.For Hollywood majors,easier clearances by theForeign Investment Pro-motion Board has alsohelped. But they cite thecoming of age of con-tent in Indian cinema as

the main driver.‘‘There’s a certain

level of maturity amongthe Indian audience to-day which was not theretwo years ago,’’ says MDof 20th Century Fox, In-dia, Aditya Shastri.‘‘People watch a goodfilm even if there are nostars. So, we are lookingat films that contentdriven and have an in-trinsic script.’’ He sayseven most film-makershave matured and arefully committed to aproject.

Jhankar Beats, aslice-of-life film starringJuhi Chawla, RinkieKhanna, Rahul Boseand Riya Sen, is aboutthree young couples.The guys work in thesame office and at nightthey play for a localband. Jhankar Beats isa contest that they wantto win desperately.

‘‘It is urban, contem-porary,’’ says Sid-dhartha Das, COO ofPritish Nandy Commu-nications, which hasproduced the movie.‘‘The market is lookingat substance now, andexploring non-formulastuff. I think people to-day have such a lot ofchoice in entertainmentthat unless they find afilm compelling, theyreject.”

Big B gets AsianGuild’s AwardLondon: AmitabhBachchan, the ‘Shahen-shah’ of the Indian filmindustry, was chosen forthe Bollywood’s ‘Life-time AchievementAward’ by the London-based Asian Guild hereon Saturday night whileShah Rukh Khan, win-ner of the prestigiousFilmfare Awards ninetimes, got BollywoodStar of the DecadeAward.

Sixty one-year-oldBachchan was recentlyvoted by Britain’s Chan-nel 4 television as one ofthe greatest 100 film

stars of all time. Earlier,he was voted as the starof the millennium in apoll conducted by theBBC on-line.

Pakistan’s successfulbowler in one-day crick-et Wasim Akram, one ofthe all-time greats whoannounced his decisionto retire from the gamerecently was chosen forthe Sports Award whileIndia’s most successfulfilm-maker YashChopra won the awardfor his outstanding con-tribution to the film in-dustry. PTI

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Admission in private medical and dental colleges

25 pc ‘sale’ and rest on meritTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Upto 25 per centof admissions in privatemedical and dental collegesacross the country can be‘‘on sale’’, while the restwould have to be filled bystudents who qualify in thecommon entrance test.

For unaided minority in-stitutions, the criteria withthe management would beupto 50 per cent to facilitateadmission of candidatesfrom their own communityas per the new set of guide-lines.

After a long debate onhigh capitation fees chargedby private colleges, many of them promoted by politicians with an eye onprofits, and on the need to set norms, the govern-ment has worked out the

75:25 ratio. The governmenthas also to taken into ac-count a Supreme Courtjudgment on institutionsrun by the minority com-munities.

The HRD ministry hasalso directed the states to es-tablish ‘‘transparency inthe fee structure’’ by consti-tuting a standing committeethat will fix the ceiling onfee structure for profession-al institutions and alsomonitor its implementa-tion.

In the case of govern-ment-aided institutions,however, the governmentwill control the admissionand fix the fees, except theminority-aided institutionswhich will have the discre-tion of admitting studentsbelonging to their commu-nity up to a percentage to be

determined by the govern-ment.

In a letter, the ministryhas asked the state govern-ments to ensure that admis-sions to these institutionsare based ‘‘on the principalof merit and that there istransparency in fee struc-ture to prevent profiteer-ing’’.

According to the new

guidelines, the state govern-ment may allot certainnumber of seats to candi-dates belonging to poor andweaker sections as per mer-it.

The state may require thecolleges to grant these stu-dents concession in feethrough scholarships.

The guidelines came aftera meeting of the Unionhealth secretary, statehealth secretaries and vice-chancellors of healthand medical sciences universities in March thisyear.

The Supreme Court hadin its ruling last year allowed sufficient discre-tion to the managements of private institutions interms of admitting studentsand fixation of fee.

UN bid to conserve forestsBy Chandrika Mago

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The UN will sitdown on Monday to discussthreats to forests and put avalue to forest resources topropel conservation andmanagement measures.

Director-general (Forests)M K Sharma, leading theteam to the 12-day UN Fo-rum on Forests meeting inGeneva, says they will show-case attempts at communityparticipation through thejoint forest managementmechanism which covers72,000 villages.

But Sharma has enoughproblems at home — far re-moved from issues of inter-national trade, access tomarkets and clamps on tradein illegally harvested timber.

A couple of years ago, in acourt case related to illegalmining in MP’s Shivpuri dis-trict, Sharma, then addition-al director-general, hadpointed out how the lack ofpriority was affecting thissector, with revenue and de-

velopment requirements,and a nexus of corruptionbetween officials and politi-cians, making deep inroadsinto ‘‘unguarded’’ forests.

Not much has changed.Development needs areclashing with targets of cov-ering a fourth of the countryby forests in four years.

Without the SC, says anenvironmentalist, therewould be no forests today. Be-fore the court stepped in, Rs6,000 crore worth of timberwas being illegally removedfrom the heavily-forestedNorth-East every year.

An estimated eight lakhhectares of forest landaround the country has beenencroached upon. Recently, aforest commission was

formed to suggest reforms inthe sector.

Yet, crores of people livein the 1.7 lakh villagesaround forests — and are de-pendent on them. And, theUN recognises that forestsare more than just wood andnon-wood products: Theyhelp conserve biodiversity,battle climate change, pro-tect watersheds.

Environmentalists saythree hundred rivers andrivulets originate from thecountry’s 27 tiger reserves;in all, a fifth of the countryclubbed as forest land is thebirthplace of about 600rivers and rivulets. The linkis simple and devastating:No forest, no water. No wa-ter, no food.

Green cover•Before courts stepped in, illegal logging from NE a yearwas worth Rs 6,000 crore

•A fifth of the countryclubbed as forest land is thebirthplace of about 600 rivers

•After the debate oncapitation fees, the Govtset 75:25 ratio

•Will control admis-sions, fix fees for aidedinstitutions

•Will fix ceiling on feestructure for professionalinstitutions

New norms

CMYK

I N D I AThe Times of India, New Delhi Monday, May 26, 2003 11

HC directive on Shankar Sharma’s assetsBy Swati DeshpandeTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Justice A.M. Khan-wilkar of the Bombay HighCourt on Friday permitted theIncome Tax (IT) departmentto continue the block assess-ment of First Global chiefShankar Sharma’s assets.

The judge vacated a staygranted earlier by fellow vaca-tion judge Nishita Mhatre.

First Global, which hadbankrolled the Tehelka tapesand is accused of having flout-ed various laws, had movedthe vacation court for a stayon the IT department’s assess-ments of its assets.

The firm said further as-sessment be stopped as IT offi-cials had not returned certaincompact discs taken by it dur-ing the department’s raid al-most two years ago.

First Global’s counsel saidthe firm would not be able toanswer the queries of the ITassessment officer.

But the IT department saidit had copied certain informa-tion pertaining to the compa-ny’s accounts on to the department’s CDs and con-tended that First Globalwould have all the informa-tion on its computers’ harddrive.

Counsel for Income TaxBeni Chaterjee told the judge that First Global wasonly attempting to hamperthe assessment as the two-year deadline to completeit was expiring on May 31,2003.

After every raid, the IT de-partment carries out a blockassessment of the company’sassets for the preceding sixyears.

Another reasonfor a nationaljudicial panel

By Rakesh BhatnagarTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The govern-ment now has another rea-son to speed up efforts forsetting up a National Judi-cial Commission: The BarCouncil of India’s recentoutcry against close rela-tives of judges practisingin the same courts.

BCI vice-chairmanAdish Aggarwal has urgedthe Chief Justice of Indiato transfer such judges tosome other high court. Healso refers to provision 6 ofthe Bar Council of IndiaRules in supportof his demand.

It states: ‘‘Anyadvocate shall notenter appearance,act, plead, or prac-tise in anyway before acourt, tribunal or authori-ty..., if the sole or anymember thereof is relatedto the advocate...’’

Earlier, Congress MPsand lawyers R K Anandand Kapil Sibal had toldParliament about thegrowth of ‘‘uncle judges’’.Anand had urged the law-makers to revive the pre-1990 position in which theexecutive alone was thesole authority to appointand transfer judges.

That concept may not beacceptable as it had led to a‘‘packed judiciary’’. Notedconstitutional expert andMP Ram Jethmalanisummed up that situationby saying ‘‘it was not im-portant to know law, butthe law minister to becomea judge’’.

Thus, the selection ofjudges has changed handsfrom the executive to judi-ciary. If the pre-1990 situa-tion had its serious draw-backs, the latter model hasgiven a lever to the execu-

tive and legislature to de-mand another change inthe form of a National Ju-dicial Commission.

The law-makers wouldhave their reasons forstripping the judiciary ofits powers to appoint andtransfer judges as theyhave had enough of vari-ous pronouncements pros-ecuting leading politi-cians.

Anand, counsel for for-mer Prime Minister P VNarasimha Rao in the cor-ruption case, also touchedthis aspect. He said:‘‘Late-

ly, for the lastabout 10 years, we(law-makers) al-lowed the privi-lege given to theMPs under Arti-

cle 105 to be breached. Inbreach of Article 105, cer-tain cases were registeredagainst the MPs at the in-stance of the judiciary....Anumber of MPs and minis-ters were prosecuted at theinstance of the judiciary.Many MPs could not con-test elections because theprosecution was launchedat the behest of judici-ary...’’

He added: ‘‘We have al-lowed the judiciary to beused against ourselves....A number of MPs couldnot contest elections. I re-member Advani could notcontest election. He took tothe point ‘no, I will not con-test election till I amcleared by the court’. Ulti-mately, he was cleared. Hehad to lose for five years’’.

Anand’s speech wouldwin applause. So wouldJethmalani’s descriptionof the pre-1990 situation.The core question howeverremains to be addressed —whether any model otherthan the prevailing onewould serve the litigants.

Tribal womanraped in BengalKolkata: A tribal womanwas allegedly raped by twopersons at Beldanga vil-lage in West Bengal’sBardhaman district. Theincident took place on Fri-day night and a hunt is onfor the two persons namedin the FIR lodged by thewoman, the police said.PTI

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In Europe with eye on ChinaBy Manoj Joshi

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Prime Minister Vajpay-ee’s week-long three-nation tour be-ginning on Tuesday, that will bringhim into contact with top world lead-ers, is his first major diplomatic ex-ercise after Gulf War II and the Pak-istan initiative.

But the PM’s most significant in-teraction will be with Chinese leaderHu Jintao because of Vajpayee’s im-pending visit to Beijing at the end ofJune, the first visit by an Indian PMin 10 years.

Officials say the 30-minute bilater-al meeting with Hu in St Petersburgwhere both leaders are attending the300th anniversary celebrations of thenorthern Russian city, and theirmeetings in Evian where they are at-tending the Group of Eight industri-al countries summit, will be vital indetermining the chemistry betweenthe leaders of the two Asian giants.Such chemistry plays an importantrole in international diplomacy thanis commonly understood, says a vet-eran diplomat.

There is a great deal at stake forboth countries — while their trade re-lations are booming, their political

relations remain frigid. Their 4,056-km border remains disputed thoughtreaties in 1993 and 1996 have easedthe tension there. But while India’sconcerns are immediate, the Chineseworries are theoretical.

India finds it difficult to warm upto a country that continues to supplynuclear and missile technology toPakistan. China’s worries are about afuture where there could be US-Indiaaxis to contain China.

But both are aware of the enor-mous benefit their economies canhave from good ties. China is keen toopen up the trade route throughSikkim to Tibet as a way of halvingthe cost of sending supplies to Tibet,while India wants much better rela-tions before it can go out of its way tohelp Beijing.

Hu remains a relatively untested

leader since he assumed the leader-ship of the Chinese Communist Par-ty and the Presidency only late lastyear. His first major crisis was an in-ternal one — the SARS epidemic. Butin the post-Gulf War II period, he willbe seeking to improve ties with Indiato offset the global balance of powerthat has tilted dramatically in Amer-ica’s favour.

Vajpayee’s visit comes some 18months after the visit of Chinese Pre-mier Zhu Rongji to India in January2002. The backdrop of the visit wasthe Indo-Pakistan crisis following theattack on Parliament on December13, 2001. Vajpayee himself last visitedChina in 1979 when he was externalaffairs minister in the Janata Partygovernment of Prime MinisterMorarji Desai. The last Indian PM tovisit China was P V Narasimha Raoin 1993.

In recent years, external affairsminister Jaswant Singh, defenceminister George Fernandes and oth-er ministers and officials have visitedChina. But the last top-level visit wasthat of President K R Narayanan in2000 as part of an exercise to repairrelations after the bitter exchange ofwords between the two countries fol-lowing the Indian nuclear tests.

•Vajpayee’s meeting with Hu atSt Petersburg crucial

•PM to visit Beijing at the end ofJune

•While trade ties are booming,political relations remain frigid

Plenty at stake

IAF ready to inductflight simulators

By Rajat PanditTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: IAF pilots cannow look forward to atleast one thing: New gen-eration flight simulators tohone their flying skills.

While the much-delayedAJT (advanced jet trainer)deal is yet to get final clear-ance from the CabinetCommittee on Security, theIAF has begun the processof inducting sophisticatedsimulators for differentfighters and helicopters,say sources.

There have been over350 aircraft accidents inthe IAF since 1990, withover 130 pilots losing theirlives. Human error, fol-lowed by technical defects,is the single biggest factorfor the frequent crashes.

Ranging from basiccockpit procedure trainersto mission-specific ones,the simulators to be in-ducted include:● Three low-cost missionsimulators for MiG-27s.● Simulators for MiG-21‘‘Bisons’’, which are ex-pected to be in service till2015.● A full-mission simulatorfor MiG-29s.● Full-mission simulatorsfor Sukhoi-30MKIs, thefourth-generation air dom-inance fighters currentlybeing inducted into theIAF from Russia.● Two existing missionsimulators for Jaguardeep-penetration jets andfull-mission simulators forthe multi-role Mirage-2000s are also being up-graded.

LEGALVIEW

CMYK

The Times of India, New Delhi12 Monday, May 26, 2003

BRICKBATSEverything has a limit, but it seems thatthis rule doesn’t apply to your strip.Please stop it and restart internet hu-mour in its place.— Siddhartha TembeEnough is enough. Are you not happydishing out such a moderate fare in thename of a comic strip that on top ofthat you waste space to print mails? — Vishwa Vijayendra Narayan, Delhi

For bouquets go towww.timesofindia.come-mail: dubya-man@indiatimes.com

Dog bites cat man: Itcould have been a cat-astro-phe, but Meow Mix cat foodchief executive officerRichard Thompson is recov-ering after being bitten by aRottweiler. The encounterhappened just as Thompsonis about to launch ‘‘MeowTV’’, a feline-friendly comedyon the cable’s Oxygen net-work that features cat yogaand cat haiku. ‘‘I think thedogs had a conspiracyagainst me,’’ he joked. AP

Giuliani marries: FormerNew York mayor RudolphGiuliani and his longtimecompanion tied the knot onSaturday night in a 15-minuteceremony before 400 guestsgathered on the lawn outsideGracie Mansion. Giuliani andJudith Nathan recited tradi-tional wedding vows beforeMayor Michael Bloombergunder an altar surrounded byyellow flowers, said Giuliani’sspokeswoman Sunny Mindel.Asked whether he was nerv-ous before the ceremony,Giuliani replied, ‘‘No, not atall. I’ve performed 200 ofthese as mayor.’’ AP

Hollywood pulls out ofMorocco: Work on a majorHollywood movie starringLeonardo DiCaprio andNicole Kidman will pull out ofMorocco following lastweek’s suicide bombingsthat killed 41 people, a reportsaid. Entertainment industrybible Variety daily said thisweek that work on ‘‘Alexan-der The Great’’, currentlyfilming in Morocco, would bemoved to Australia amidfears that the high-profile pic-ture could become a targetfor terrorists. AFP

Turkey bags Eurovisioncontest: A rhythmic mix ofbelly dancing and West Asianflair propelled Turkey’s SertabErener to the annual Eurovi-sion Song Contest title in atight battle that came downto the last vote. Belgium tooka close second followed byRussian duo Tatu. The 48thannual event was held inRiga on Saturday. AFP

Back in the (ex)-USSR:Beatlemania grippedMoscow on Saturday as PaulMcCartney staged an open-air concert on Red Square,with President Vladimir Putinamong the thousands of fansdancing to the music of theFab Four. The Russian presi-dent was in the audience asthe ex-Beatle entertained anaudience of some 20,000 inMoscow’s celebrated venuewith its Lenin Mausoleumwith more than 20 Beatlesclassics and other Wings andsolo tracks. AFP

Gangster Guy: His last film— Swept Away — sunk with-out a trace. Now Guy Ritchieis going back to what hedoes best — directing agangster film. Set in Las Ve-gas, the next project of theBritish hubby of US pop divaMadonna will be a heistmovie, titled Revolver. Holly-wood hunk and close friendBrad Pitt is widely tipped totake on the lead role, reportsPeopleNews. ANI

Demi is dating: It’s not thefirst time that Demi Moore isdating a younger man. Thistime, the man in question isMTV funnyman and upcom-ing actor Ashton Kutcher. Al-though the Hollywood beautyhas gone on a string of dateswith Ashton around Los An-geles, friend of the unlikelypair claim that the relation-ship is not yet serious.“They’re just having a bit offun,” a friend told TeenHolly-wood.com. ANI

Miss Brazil Gislaine Ferreira (left) and Miss Bolivia Irene Aguilera Vargas wave to onlookers in Panama City during a Carnival celebration on Saturday, ahead of the MissUniverse beauty pageant to be held on June 3.

AROUND THE WORLDReuters

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Who’s wearing what at CannesCannes: It’s nail-bitingtime at the Cannes film fes-tival, not just for the bigstars and directors, but alsofor the big couture names,who hope that some of theglory will rub off onto theirproducts.

As the top people in worldcinema wait for prizes andacclaim, the world’s top de-signer labels too face 12days of angst, watching tosee who’s wearing who’sclothes at the festival, one ofthe world’s most prestigiousmedia events.

From Chanel to Versaceto Armani, Dior and Saint-Laurent, the big designer la-bels descend on the festivalcarrying outfits not yet seenin boutiques in the hopes ofhanging them on the backsof the world’s most glam-orous people.

The battle for press andTV attention is big busi-ness, building up monthsahead of the yearly bash.

Two years ago, Yves

Saint-Laurent Rive Gauchestruck gold when NicoleKidman, a personal friendof house designer TomFord, strutted up theCannes red carpet fitted outby the house.

This year she chose aslinky pink number fromPucci by Christian Lacroix.Penelope Cruz, currentpartner of Kidman’s ex,Tom Cruise, chose an ex-travagant tightly-waistedblack dress by Dior.

YSL this year turned outformer Czech Wonderbragirl, Eva Herzigova, whichwas not bad going, but didbetter on the boy’s frontwith a tuxedo worn by Neo—also known as KeanuReeves — the star of block-buster Matrix.

It was all long gowns atthe daily evening do’s atCannes this year, and de-spite designer forecasts of areturn of the mini, therewere few to be seen in thestreets. AFP

Electronicmusic festivalattracts morethan 1 millionDetroit: Thousands of mu-sic fans flocked to the open-ing of an electronic musicfestival that organizers ex-pect will draw more than 1million fans over the longMemorial Day holiday week-end.

Movement 2003, a re-named, muscled-up versionof the Detroit Electronic Mu-sic Festival started threeyears ago, will feature morethan 80 performances bysome 70 artists, includingtechno pioneer Kevin Saun-derson.

Saunderson, Juan Atkinsand Derrick May are general-ly credited with creating thesound when they wereschoolmates at a Detroit jun-ior high school.

‘‘This is like a pilgrimageto the birthplace of techno,’’festival spokeswoman Bar-bara Deyo said on Saturday.

Derek Bolzman, 19, camefrom Saginaw at the urgingof friends who had attendedthe festival other years.

‘‘It’s pretty freakin’ big,’’he said. ‘‘I thought it’d be in abuilding or something.’’

The festival is billed byorganizers as the biggestfree music event in NorthAmerica.

Martin Bonds, 35, ofDetroit, has performed atthe festival before but camethis year to enjoy the musiche has loved since he waskid.

‘‘For us older guys, it’smostly about the music,’’ hesaid.

‘‘When I was a kid, it couldhave been in a hole in thewall — as long as it had abanging system, it woulddraw a huge crowd.’’

The festival’s future was injeopardy earlier this year,when the city announced itwould no longer provide asubsidy and organizers hadtrouble lining up privatesponsors.

May got many of theperformers to appear forfree or for a fraction of whatthey might usually get for agig.

He also covered somecosts with $90,000 of his ownmoney. AP

Geographic society honours IndianLondon: Mumbai-based Harish Ka-padia, editor of Himalayan Journal,has won the Patron’s Medal of theworld renowned Royal GeographicSociety, an honour bestowed on anAsian and Indian for the first time in

past 125 years.Kapadia, has been chosen for the

prestigious medal for his exceptionalcontribution to exploration and ge-ography. The award will be presentedon June 2. PTI

Virtual golf: Annika beats VijayVijay Singh, one of golf ’s longest

hitters, said that Annika Soren-stam shouldn’t play with the

male professionals. Others may think sotoo after she failed to make the cut at theColonial Country Club on Friday. Butcould a simple change in the design of agolf course level the playing field be-tween men and women?

A virtual course was designed that re-warded precision, while penalizingshots that were too long or too short.

‘‘Annika’’ and ‘‘Vijay’’ were createdand given the strengths of male and fe-male golfers. They were rated from 0 to100 in 10 categories. Annika excelled in‘‘accurate driver’’, ‘‘accurate irons’’ and‘‘accurate putter’’.

Vijay excelled in ‘‘power hitter’’,‘‘draw shot’’, ‘‘fade shot’’, ‘‘high back-

spin shot’’ and ‘‘long driver’’.What followed was simulated four

rounds of golf. The first hole: A 333-yard

par 4, with a dogleg to the left.The green is small and protected by

sand. Annika had two birdies and twopars; Vijay, one birdie and three pars.

The second hole: A 134-yard par 3. Wa-ter and sand surround the L-shapedgreen.

Accuracy is at a premium. Annikabirdied all four rounds, usually puttingfrom 10 feet or less. Vijay scored threepars and a bogey. The third hole: A 509-yard par 5, with two fairways separatedby cross bunkers and water.

Reaching the green requires an ap-proach shot over a small lake. Annikahad three birdies, one par. V ijay, onebirdie, two pars and a double bogey.

The final score: Annika, 9 underpar; Vijay, 3 under par. Annika wins!NYT News Service

AFP

Italian actress Ornella Mutti at Cannes on Saturday.

Bombay Dreams goes white: Bombay Dreams, UK’s firstall-Asian musical, is to be rewritten with new white charactersto make it more “accessible” to American audiences. Accord-ing to The Telegraph, Lord Lloyd Webber, the producer of the4.5 million-pound extravanganza, believes that the additions tothe cast are essential for its transfer to Broadway, where itopens in January. Introduced by Thomas Meehan, the writer ofBroadway hits such as The Producers, the characters are twoUS tourists who explain Mumbai life to the audience. ANI

Reuters

Matrix star Keanu Reeves (right) and Australian actorHugo Weaving at the MTV Video Music Awards Japan2003 in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Sunday.

Ajit Ninan

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I N T E R N AT I O N A LThe Times of India, New Delhi Monday, May 26, 2003 13

CatastrophesTerrorist attacks in 2001 caused the biggest insurance losses ever from man-madeevents. Last year, however, saw a return to “normal”, as insurers suffered their biggestlosses as a result of natural disasters, such as floods in Europe, spring storms in Ameri-ca and hurricanes in the Caribbean. India registered the highest death toll from any single catastrophe, when 2,000 people died in social unrest in Gujarat.

Figures are in 0002002, $ bn

Source: The Economist

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5

38

6

37

71

9

36

23

30

22

163

Europe, flooding

US, Spring storm

Europe,Storm Jennnett

Europe, Rainfalltriggers flooding

Caribbean/US,Hurricane Lili

Caribbean/Mexico/US,Tropical Storm Isidore

US, Tornadoes,storms rain and hail

France,flooding

US, Winterstorms

US, Winterstorms

No of victimsdead and missing

0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0

India, violence followingattack on train in Gujarat

Afghanistan/Pakistan,Earthquake

Gambia, Overcrowdedferry sinks

India/Bangladesh/ Nepal,Cold spell with freezing temp

Nigeria, Explosion in munitions depot

India, Heatwave with temp up to 49 deg C

China, Flooding after rains, lanslides

India/ Bangladesh,heavy flooding

Nepal, Floods, lanslides

Egypt, Passenger traincatches fire at night

No. of victims deadand missing, 2002

Worst human costsBiggest insurance losses

28 killed inPhilippinesferry mishapManila: At least 28 peopledrowned and 203 others wereplucked to safety Sunday aftertwo Philippine passenger fer-ries collided during badweather, a navy spokesmansaid.

An unknown number ofpassengers were also believedmissing after the wooden-hulled MV San Nicolasrammed into the Super Ferry 12 in choppy waters offthe coast of Corregidor andLimbones islands west ofManila.

It was the latest in a long list of deadly sea tragedies inthe 7,000-island Philippine archipelago, where ferries are a common mode oftransport.

The San Nicolas was on itsway to Manila from the south-western island of Palawanwhile the bigger vessel was enroute to the central city ofCebu when the accident occurred.

Commander Gerry Mala-banan of the Philippine Navysaid the death toll was 28 deadwith 203 rescued.

All the casualties were fromthe San Nicolas. None of the1,400 passengers aboard theSuper Ferry 12 were injured,initial reports said. AP

Britain set to fish out treasure shipBy William J Broad

After months of review,the British govern-ment has given final

approval for the recovery of a17th-century shipwreck be-lieved to contain history’srichest sunken treasure.

British officials said thatthey would announce theirapproval this week of the re-covery plan — the endeav-our’s last legal hurdle — andthat the recovery team saiddeep-sea excavation wouldbegin this summer.

The reviews dealt with crit-icism from British expertswho said they worried thatthe public-private recoveryplan might not be up to schol-arly standards, officials said.

The British governmentbelieves the excavation sitecontains the wreckage ofHMS Sussex, which wentdown in a storm in 1694 withgold coins on board. Today,experts said, the cargo couldfetch perhaps as much as $4billion.

The warship, with its 80guns and 500 men, was lead-ing a large British fleet intothe Mediterranean to fight awar against France and itsexpansionist agenda underLouis XIV. The gold was tobuy the loyalty of the Duke ofSavoy, a shaky ally onFrance’s southeastern flank

who controlled important in-vasion routes to and fromParis.

The ship sank in waters ahalf mile deep. The finders ofits putative resting place willpublicly identify the site onlyas off Gibraltar.

Odyssey Marine Explo-ration Inc. of Tampa, Florida,found what the British au-thorities believe to be thewreckage of the Sussex dur-ing four expeditions from1998 to 2001. It is a disinte-grating mound rich in can-

nons, anchors and other arti-facts. In September, the com-pany signed an agreementwith the British governmentto raise its remains from thebottom of the Mediterraneanand split the proceeds. Undermaritime law, a sunken war-ship remains the property ofthe owner state.

With its recovery plan ap-proved, Odyssey is now gear-ing up for an expedition thissummer. A large vessel is tohover over the mound andsend down a tethered robot to

map the site and clear awaydebris. The robot, equippedwith bright lights and arms,will move artifacts and shipparts to lifting baskets fortransport to the surface.

“This will be the deepestarchaeological excavation ofa shipwreck ever undertak-en,” said Greg Stemm,Odyssey’s director of opera-tions. “We are excited to beworking with the govern-ment of the UnitedKingdom on this historicproject.” NYT News Service

NYT

After months of review, Britain has given nod to the recovery of a 17th-century shipwreck believed to contain history’s richest sunken treasure. A model of HMS Sussex.

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Pak mullsMFN statusfor IndiaIslamabad: The Pakistangovernment has called an in-ter-ministerial meeting hereMonday to discuss grantingmost favoured nation (MFN)status to India, the Dawnnewspaper reported.

The meeting will be at-tended by senior officialsfrom the ministries of de-fence, railways, sports andculture, interior, foreign of-fice and commerce.

“(The meeting) would alsowork out a negotiation agen-da for a possible resumptionof dialogue between the twocountries,” the paper said.

“(It) would discuss re-sumption of air, train, busservices and sports ties be-tween the two countries aswell as proposals for furtherenhancement in these ar-eas,” it added.

The “main task of themeeting would be to discussthe pros and cons of possibleextension of the mostfavoured nation status to In-dia and its implications onPakistan’s economy.”

At the same time, Dawnsaid, granting MFN status toIndia was fraught with dan-ger for Pakistani manufac-turers producing goods simi-lar to those of their Indiancounterparts.

“There is a possibility thatthe products in which Indianproducers enjoy an edge inquality could wipe out thePakistani products from thelocal market.”

It said Indian industrywould have an edge in access-ing Pakistani markets be-cause of government sup-port. “Indian exports coveredunder the export promotioncapital goods and technologyup-gradation schemes aretax-free in India along withseveral export incentivesavailable to such goods.”Dawn pointed out. IANS

Mayors of Delhi, Karachidiscuss peace in RomeRome: The mayors of Karachi andNew Delhi asserted on Sunday theycould play an important role in resolv-ing the tensions, saying relations at alocal government level were more con-ducive to peace-building.

They, along with some 40 other may-ors from cities like Kigali, Washing-ton, Athens and Sarajevo, met in thehalls of Rome City Hall for the second“Glocalisation Conference”.

“I am convinced our cities can playan important role in peace-building,”Niamatullah Khan, mayor of Karachi,said. “We mayors are closer to the peo-ple, to the nerve of the people, than na-tional governments. We know how thepeople can be brought to a certain vision.”

“We have learnt a lot from each oth-er. In exchanges between mayors, thetensions that make it difficult for na-tional politicians to talk to each otherdo not exist,” Jain said.

“We have a great desire to resumethe city-to-city contact that once exist-ed (between Indian and Pakistanicities). If the chance arises I willmaybe take a delegation of councillorsto Karachi,” said Jain.

Khan was also interested in visitingNew Delhi or hosting a visit from Jain.“Either he will invite me or I will in-vite him. I’m definitely going to talk tohim about it before I go home.” Khansaid the “glocalisation” process need-ed to become much bigger and muchfaster to realise its potential.Reuters

US severs contact with IranWashington: The Bush admin-istration has cut off contactwith Iran, and Pentagon offi-cials are pushing for actionthey believe could destabilisethe government, the Washing-ton Post reported Sunday.

The move follows intelli-gence reports suggesting Al-Qaida operatives in Iran playeda role in the May 12 suicidebombings in Saudi Arabia, ac-cording to the newspaper.

Citing administration offi-cials, the newspaper said theWhite House “appears ready toembrace an aggressive policyof trying to destabilise theIranian government.”

Officials will meet Tuesdayat the White House to discussthe Iran strategy, with Penta-gon officials pressing for actionthat could lead to the topplingof the government through apopular uprising, the Post said.

The US severed ties withIran following the 1979 Islamic

revolution. Last year, PresidentBush branded Iran as part ofan “axis of evil” that was try-ing to develop banned nuclearweapons.

The United States also hasaccused Iran of harbouringmembers of Osama binLaden’s Al-Qaida network,which Washington blames forthe September 11, 2001, attacks.

But since the US campaign totopple the Taliban regime inAfghanistan, Iranian and USofficials have met from time totime to discuss a variety of is-sues. After this month’s suicidebombings in Riyadh, SaudiArabia, the Bush administra-tion cancelled the next plannedmeeting, the paper said.

The newspaper said “verytroubling intercepts” beforeand after the Saudi Arabiabombing played a major role inthe administration’s new

stance toward Iran. The intelli-gence suggested Al-Qaida oper-atives in Iran were involved inthe planning of the bombings,which killed 34 people, the Postreported.

On Thursday, the officialIRNA news agency of Iran saidUS allegation that the Islamicnation harboured Al-Qaidamembers were based on faultyintelligence, but officialsvowed to arrest any militantswho might have slipped intothe country.

On Saturday, Iran’s top diplo-mat told the London-based Al-Hayat that Iran sees no need toimmediately revive a dialoguewith the United States follow-ing talks on who should governpost-war Iraq. “This dialoguehas stopped now and we see noreason to revive it for the timebeing,” Iranian Foreign Minis-ter Kamal Kharrazi said. Reuters

Israel givesnod to peaceroadmap, butwith ridersJerusalem: The Israeli Cabi-net on Sunday narrowly ap-proved a US-backed peaceplan that envisions a Pales-tinian state by 2005, but at-tached a number of condi-tions.

The Cabinet approved theplan by a 12-7 vote, with fourabstentions. It marked thefirst time that an Israeli gov-ernment formally affirmedthe Palestinians’ right tostatehood.

The vote came two days af-ter Israeli Prime MinisterAriel Sharon reluctantly em-braced the ‘‘roadmap’’ toWest Asia peace, amid in-tense US pressure.

The Palestinians acceptedthe plan last month, immedi-ately after it was presented,but Israel sought majorchanges.

Israel demanded, amongother things, that a Palestin-ian crackdown on militiasprecede any steps by Israel.Sharon also insisted that thePalestinians drop withoutfurther discussion a demandfor the ‘‘right of return’’ ofPalestinian refugees to Is-rael.

On Friday, the UnitedStates declared that it wouldtake the Israeli requests intoaccount, but also said therewould be no changes in theroadmap.

Meanwhile, PalestinianPrime Minister Mahmud Ab-bas said in an interviewbroadcast in Cairo on Sun-day that the Palestinians willnot accept any change to theroadmap for peace with Is-rael,

The document “must be ac-cepted as is, including ... itsconditions and articles.No modification of the articles will be accepted bythe Palestinian side,” Abbastold Egyptian state televi-sion.

“We accepted the roadmapdespite reservations,” hesaid. “We dropped thesereservations to advance thepeace process.”

Palestinian foreign minis-ter Nabil Shaath said earlierAbbas would meet withSharon on Monday if the pre-mier secured his cabinet’sapproval for the roadmap.Agencies

Reuters

Young Chinese couples share a quiet moment at a park in Shanghai on Sunday. More and more people are visiting public places as SARS epidemic has stabilised, but authorities in Beijing have cautioned residents not to relax vigilance against the deadly disease.

Teheran deniesAl-Qaida linkWashington: Iran’s am-bassador to the UN on Sun-day refuted US accusationsthat his country has shel-tered Al-Qaida terrorists,insisting that Teheran is inthe forefront of anti-terroractivities.

“If there are Al-Qaidapeople, they are either un-known to us, operating inplaces that we have notbeen able yet to detect, andwe will welcome any infor-mation that would help usin arresting them,” UNAmbassador Javad Zariftold ABC television.AP

First Saudi womanpilot spreads wingsAmman: Saudi Arabia’sfirst woman pilot hopes allwomen in the conservativeIslamic kingdom will oneday have the freedom shenow enjoys.

Wearing a scarf and apilot’s shirt and trousers,Hanadi Hindi shyly admitsshe found it difficult tomake the transition from aveiled, sheltered life inSaudi Arabia to a muchless restrictive routine inJordan, where she is intraining.

“Women are bannedfrom driving in Saudi Ara-bia, so being a pilot is un-thinkable for a woman.”Hindi said, “But after sev-en months in Jordan, I feelI’m a new and differentperson. Now I can makemy own decisions.”

Hindi, 24, comes from avery religious family fromMecca, home to the holiestof Islamic shrines.

Her eyes fill with tearsas she mentions her father, who had alwayswanted to become a pilothimself.

He encouraged Hindi tobreak with centuries-oldtraditions and live hisdream, brushing off harsh

criticism from relativesand friends and sendingher to Jordan’s MideastAviation Academy whereshe studies flying with twoother women and 70 men.

Hindi has four sistersand two brothers, and avery conservative motherwho is still angry at beingforced to let her daughtergo.

“Many people in mycountry were angry andwere critical for two rea-sons: because I was com-ing to Amman to study fly-ing and because I was trav-elling abroad without amahram (male relative es-cort required by sharia orIslamic law).” Reuters

Reuters

Hanadi Hindi

CMYK

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY

In supporting the new UN resolution, France has taken astep in the right direction of moving forward together.

— Colin Powell

By Rajesh Kalra

This sure was a short marriage. The MediaLab Asia (MLA) project, joint venturebetween our government and the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology, born only inJune 2001, is history. Frankly, given the hastewith which the project was conceivedwithout any homework merely to give photoops to politicians, and the way it meanderedinitially without a full time CEO, its fate doesnot come as a surprise.

However, if the beginning was bad, the endhas been worse. Whatever might be thereason behind the divorce — MIT’s $5 millionroyalty demand, or the need for funding froma developing nation when its own source offunding has dried up, or that MLA’s trackrecord of developing esoteric products is notin line with that for the mass products theyhad expected, or the absence of promisedprivate funding — the government of India’shandling of the matter has been amateurish.

Arun Shourie has been telling whoever iswilling to listen that his ministry has askedMIT to leave. He was at his sarcastic best inone report saying, that he asked MIT toleave, but if it gives it (MIT) solace to saythat it pulled out, then he would give itthat satisfaction. One failsto understand where wasthe need to bring ego intothis issue?

Our IITs are excellent, nodoubt. In fact, they mayactually be better than MIT indeveloping what MLA wassupposed to do, for theyunderstand Indian needsbetter than anyone. Butwhy antagonise an academicinstitution like MIT? Whatwe might have done in the process isantagonise the entire US educational set-up.Couldn’t the break-up have been handledmore tactfully so that both parties didnot lose face?

Our IITs are excellent at the under-graduate level, but at the post-graduatelevel, we are nowhere. For that, ouracademicians have to rely on quality USuniversities. Hundreds of Indians havegained from higher education in the US.Would this have been possible if they hadgained higher education in, say Denmarkor Australia? The truth is that the besttechnology is in the US.

Let us not underestimate the powerwielded by ranking US universities. If wehave egos, they have bigger ones, and thefact is that our academicians cannot reallydo without them. One hopes Mr Shourierealises his mistake and promptly resortsto some damage control. Hopefully, thesituation is not irretrievable. As for theproject itself, one hopes with the IITs’involvement, things will improve, and tosome extent, the trend of reverse engineer-ing which is currently pursued in the nameof R&D is reversed.

Talking about R&D, one only needs to look

at India’s finest endeavour in the field so far— C-DoT. The premier telecom R&D outfitbenefited immensely from the politicalbacking provided by Sam Pitroda andthe technical acumen of G B Meemamsi.The result was there for all to see. It provideda tremendous bargaining chip, forcingmultinationals to lower the prices of theirdigital switches to under a quarter of therates they had charged so far. Also, thetelecom boom witnessed in the country,especially in the form of STD/ISD boothswhich dot the countryside now, isentirely due to the rural exchangesdeveloped by C-DoT.

But no sooner had the centre made aname for itself, political meddling andegos came into play. Initially it was theNambiar committee, which muzzled theeffort due to an ego clash with Mr Pitroda.Subsequently, whenever the centre showedsigns of re-emerging, politicians repeatedlyforced it to depart from its stated mandateand develop products to suit their egos.So recently, we had the centre expendits limited resources on developing a mobileswitch when it should actually haveconcentrated on upgrading its existing

product range. The resulthas been an importedmobile switch with littlevalue addition, while themain line switch, its life-line, remains straddled withobsolete features.

This is unfortunate becausein terms of money andtime spent vis-a-vis results,C-DoT was undoubtedly thecrowning glory of India’sR&D effort. One really hopes

that with the promise of delivering productswhich India really needs, the media labdoes not fall into the same trap. For that,Mr Shourie would have to ensure that thealacrity with which he ousted MIT ismaintained to insulate the project fromunnecessary meddling from politiciansand bureaucrats.

More important, let the project not losetrack of its objectives by worrying aboutpiffling matters like salaries paid toconsultants. Several professors in leadinginstitutions make millions through inde-pendent assignments. They are permittedto do so. Let this not be dictated by somebureaucrat who tries to interpret the rulebook to satisfy his ego.

R&D the world over is run differently.There are no straitjacket rules for R&D.Therefore, conventional administration doesnot help. Since Mr Shourie has repeatedlymentioned his interactions with IITprofessors, he must surely have heard thistoo. And now that there is talk of involvingthe HRD ministry as well, let there besome genuine effort to improve educationstandards at the post-graduate level. Inthat respect, the MIT break-up might proveto be a blessing in disguise.

Media Lab MessIndia Can’t Afford an Ego War The Indira Gandhi National Open Univer-

sity (IGNOU) was recently described bya top-ranking UN official as leading ‘a globalrevolution’ in education. Making extensiveuse of electronic media, it has become thesecond largest open university in the world.Masterminding IGNOU’s phenomenalgrowth and extensive use of technology wasscientist R Sreedher, who, as the directorof Electronic Media Production Centre,envisioned ‘self-owned radio systems andchannels for every educational institution’ inthe country. Before leaving the Capitalto join the Anna University in Chennai,he spoke to Surojit Mahalanobis:

Looking back, how do you explain yourachievements at IGNOU?

Admittedly, the Electronic Media Produc-tion Centre was a gift from Japan. But whenI joined in 1998, it was described as a whiteelephant. In four years, we brought down theexpenditure and made drastic improvementsin the use of the existing facilities. Wereplaced old equipment with state-of-the-arttechnology and increased productivity.Today, three IGNOU channels are running,without any additional technical manpower.

We reduced the cost of running thechannels, maintaining a 24-hour trans-mission without anymajor complaints.We’d envisaged afour-pronged stra-tegy, namely, createviable systems andinfrastructure, in-crease the availabi-lity of signals, imp-rove the quality ofprogrammes, andmarket them. I wassuccessful in doingthe first. The secondstep was always adistant dream. Maybe the ensuing launch ofConditional Access System (CAS) can cometo IGNOU’s rescue. The third step requireshuge funding and also a change of outlookso that we can start producing qualityprofessional educational videos. The fourthstep is our success story. The Gyan Vaniradio stations are run by a staff of three.These stations were commissioned at halfthe cost of what it costs to set up an All IndiaRadio station. That’s quite satisfying to me.Moreover, in just two years, more than 1,000hours of good-quality educational audioswere produced and brought out as CDs.What is the road map you drew for IGNOU?

That IGNOU will start 10,000 special down-links through dedicated dish antennae incolleges and institutions so that we build upour dedicated viewership. Recently, IGNOUlaunched Gyan Darshan-3 (GD3). DifferentIIT units have started telecasting technologyeducational programmes. A fourth channel— the Krishi channel — will soon be on theair. All centres for agricultural sciences willstart their programmes through it.Is IGNOU likely to spur a stiff competition inthe education market?

I think a large number of students will get

access to distant education through radiobroadcasting and GD channels. We havelaunched GD3 for the IITs. The IIT classroomlectures are being telecast live for students inover 1,200 engineering colleges countrywide.That will push up the quality of technicaleducation. Later, the channel will haveinteractive facilities too, enabling students toconsult IIT teachers at a distance.Do IGNOU’s videoconferences or channelshave enough viewership? Has it ever beenverified through a professional rating agency?

The conferences are always with pre-informed viewers. We correspond withthe target group either through e-mail ornotifications. These are essentially closeduser-groups. Hence, there is no need forprofessional ratings. As long as the desiredinteractivity is achieved, it serves thepurpose. But steps have doubtless to be takento increase awareness. Earlier, we weren’tmaking optimum use of our satellite. That’snot the case now. There are surveys andstudies, done by reputed educational institu-tions such as AIMA, Institute of CharteredAccountants and DPEP, which suggestthat IGNOU channels are quite popular atstudy centres.

Educational channels will never achievesubstantial TRPs... But with the recent

launch of EklavyaTechnology channel,the ground realitieshave changed for thebetter. Whether itis students at IIT,Roorkee, or those ata remote self-finan-ced engineering col-lege in Tamil Nadu,the channel attractsa lot of attention.But these telecastsare supplementaryin nature and cannot

substitute the need for a teacher. Just as yougo to a library, you can watch these telecasts.With the latest trend of having radio stationsat every locality, a move you’d started atIGNOU, what will be the relevance oftraditional research universities?

These radio stations are going to servethe community around colleges and univer-sities. They are not going to do any research.Maybe they can bring out the results ofresearch done by traditional universities tothe public. I am eagerly looking forward tothe day when every educational institutionin the country will have its own radio stationand start serving the community around it.Tell us about your assignment at the AnnaUniversity?

The Anna University is the world’slargest technical university having over240 affiliate engineering colleges. Thisuniversity has not ventured into distanceeducation. I am in charge of the AudioVisual Research Centre and our brief is to goin for good quality education videos andaudios. We have also applied for a commu-nity radio licence, and if that comes through,we’ll soon start one of the country’s firstmodel campus radios.

Channelising Learning

The IIT classroom lectu-res are being telecast livefor students in over 1,200engineering collegescountrywide. That willpush up the quality oftechnical education. La-ter, the channel will haveinteractive facilities too.

Q&A

Sex and the CityYour Delhi Times article, ‘More sex please,we’re Indian’ (May 22), should be aneye-opener for both policy-makers as well asparents. As you pointed out, 54.4 per cent ofthe respondents indulged in pre-marital sex.About 48.8 per cent did so before the age of21, making a mockery of the law that mencannot marry before the age of 21. Wehave failed to recognise that humanity’sbiological clock has remained unchangedfor ages. Unfortunately, our hypocriticalattitude towards sex only encouragesinstances of eve-teasing and rape.— Vijayanta C Chitale, via e-mail

III am appalled by the kind of reports you arecarrying in Delhi Times. Do you really

need to disturb the minds of children inmany households?

We encourage our children to read thenewspaper, expecting them to moveaway from the junk on the idiot box. Andwhat do we get? Obscene pictures andvoyeuristic reports. I believe in responsiblesex education, but this is going too far.Have you completely discarded all notionsof social responsibility? I am stoppingmy copy of TOI.— Meera Khetrapal, via e-mail

Authoritarian ApproachApropos your news item on ‘Cantt off limitsfor traffic’ (May 22), the army has noauthority to close any road in a cantonment.It is contrary to the provisions of Section192 of the Cantts Act 1984. There is astatutory procedure prescribed, but seldomdoes the army follow the same.

In Pune, the station headquartersrecently declared horses being taken to therace course a security risk! It is time thatthe civil administration sits back and takestock of the Cantt administration and bringabout a much needed balance to protectcivilian rights being violated in the garb of‘security’ against the rule of law. If thearmy cannot co-exist with civilians thenthey should relocate from cities likeDelhi, Pune, etc.— R Srinivasan, New Delhi

CONVERSATIONS WITH READERS

Letters to this column should be addressed to Letters c/o Edit pageEditor, The Times of India, 7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, NewDelhi-110002. email:edit@timesgroup.com

Mobile EspionageWith reference to your news report, ‘‘Yourmobile is spying on you’’ (May 19), I feelthat the new service should be welcomedby Delhiites because of the increasingcases of crime in the Capital. It will proveto be a boon for the police and otherinvestigating agencies in tracing thewhereabouts of criminals and their vic-tims. As far as privacy is concerned, thecell operators should exercise restraintand not start spamming us with commer-cial messages. The service should also beextended to other parts of the country,keeping in mind the increasing dangerbeing posed by criminals and terrorists.

Siddhartha Raj Guha, via e-mail

From timesofindia.com

No. 124 Vol. 54. Air charge: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai ,Cochin, Chennai & viaRs.3, Indore and via 50 paise. National edition: No aircharge.Price in Nepal: NEP Rs 5, except Sunday: NEP Rs 7. RNI No. 508/57 MADE IN NEW DELHI REGD. NO. DL-25002/92. Published forthe proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., by Balraj Arora at Times House, 7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110 002 and printed by him at 13, Site IV Industrial Area,Sahibabad (UP),MNS Printers Pvt. Ltd., Industrial Area, Phase II, Panchkula, Haryana - 134109 and VasundharaPrinters Ltd., Tiwari Ganj, Faizabad Road, Chinhat, Lucknow. Regd. Office: Dr Dadabhai NaorojiRoad, Mumbai - 400 001. Editor (Delhi Market): Bachi Karkaria-responsible for selection of newsunder PRB Act. Executive Editor: Shekhar Bhatia. © All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole orin part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Postal Registration No.: TN/ChiefPMG/399/2002

Footprints

One night a man had adream. He dreamed hewas walking along thebeach with the Lord.

Across the sky flashedscenes from his life.

For each scene,he noticed two sets offootprints in the sand;one belonging to him,

and the other tothe Lord.

✥

When the last scene ofhis life flashed beforehim he looked back atthe footprints in the

sand. He noticed thatmany times along thepath of his life therewas only one set offootprints. He also

noticed that ithappened at the very

lowest and saddesttimes in his life.

✥

This really botheredhim and he questioned

the Lord about it:“Lord, you said that

once I decided to followyou, you’d walk with

me all the way.But I have noticed that

during the mosttroublesome times inmy life, there is onlyone set of footprints.

I don’t understand whywhen I needed you

most you wouldleave me.”

✥

The Lord replied: “Myprecious, precious

child, I love you andI would never leave

you. During your timesof trial and suffering,when you see only one

set of footprints,it was then thatI carried you.”

From the Internet✥

It is cynicism and fearthat freeze life; it is

faith that thaws it out,releases it, sets it free.

Harry E Fosdick✥

Faith in order, which isthe basis of science,

cannot reasonably beseparated from faith inan ordainer, which isthe basis of religion.

Asa Gray

Ud

aysh

anka

r

The Times of India, New Delhi14 Monday, May 26, 2003

Moolah MantraBy K S Venkatachalam

Robert Kiyosaki, in his bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad,talks about two distinct anddisparate influences on hislife, of two fathers. Thepoor dad, the actual father,although a highly educatedperson struggled finan-cially throughout his life;and the rich dad, father ofthe author’s best friend, inspite of being a schooldropout, went on to becomea millionaire because ofhis risk-taking abilities.Simply stated, the bookpropounds the theory thatthe poor and the middleclass (represented by poordad) work hard throughouttheir lives for money,whereas the rich (rich dad)have money working hardfor them.

I had in my neighbourSanghvi, our own richdad. Sanghvi, a charteredaccountant, belonged to awealthy Gujarati business

family. He built up asizeable fortune in realestate, because of his astutebusiness sense and his risk-taking nature. During the1980s, when Harshadbhairuled the stock market,millions of people, inspiredby his success, took to theequity route. Sanghvi, wasone amongst them and hemade millions during theboom. He also had theforesight to get out beforethe market crashed.

Being my friend, I hadonce requested him to helpme make some money.All my investments werelocked up in fixed deposits,the safest financial instru-ment available those days,with assured returns. ‘‘Giveme a lakh, and I will haveit multiplied five-fold,’’ headvised. Having a poor dadpersonality, I asked, ‘‘Whatif, I end up losing my hardearned money.’’ Sanghvisaid that bourses werenot meant for the weak-

hearted, and that I shouldstay away from it. I beganapplying in new ventures,which were mushroominga dime a dozen, and waslucky to get allotment inall the companies I hadapplied.

One morning, 22 yearslater I suddenly remem-bered my investments andapproached a broker inMumbai to sell them. Onelook at my scrips and hesaid, ‘‘Sir, I suggest thatyou go to a raddiwala.You will at least get threerupees a kilo for yourscrips.’’ The companies,whose scrips were in mypossession, had eitherceased to exist or were onthe verge of closure.

I only wish Rich Dad,Poor Dad was written 30years ago, for then I wouldhave had money workinghard for me. I have now de-cided to invest in an ‘Art ofLiving’ course instead, andleave the rest to my karma.

In India, many civilisationshave come together over theyears, creating new patternsof universal oneness. RajaRam Mohan Roy ushered inthe age of new thought in1828. He wrote: ‘‘All mankindis one great family of whichnumerous nations and tribesexisting are only variousbranches’’. In Bengal, Rabin-dranath Tagore’s fatherpassed on these thoughts tothe poet who wrote: ‘‘I loveIndia not because I havehad the chance to be bornon her soil, but becauseshe has saved through tumul-tuous ages the living wordsthat were issued from theilluminated consciousness ofher sons’’.

All religions tell us thatthe divine is within us.The Gospel according toSt Thomas says: ‘‘He whohas heard and assimilatedmy word is as I’’. In SanatanaDharma it is Tat Tvam Asi.To find divinitywithin oneself itis important toact with compas-sion towards allbeings. Mexicanpoet Octavia Pazwrote: ‘‘In Indiathere is a passionfor unity’’. Mau-lana Azad onceasked: ‘‘If religi-on expresses theuniversal truth,why should conflicts ariseamongst different beliefs,each claiming to be thesole repository of truth, andcondemning others as false?’’

One reaches the infinitethrough love, not throughviolence. ‘‘Ahimsa hi paramdharma, Sarva dharmasamabhava’’. The trishul ofShiva represents the threedimensions of space, earthand sky and the three gunasthat each of us must strive toovercome in our own lives.Guru Vyasa spoke of thefolly of men who choose theway to destruction throughdiscord when all legitimatematerial satisfaction couldbe had through the way offellowship and harmony.

Ours is a multifariousheritage. On the Sindhu-Gangetic plains the tribeswere known as Sindhus andHindhus. Hindhu becameIndus to the Greeks and thecountry on the bank of theIndus became India. Therewas no caste, no temple, only

prayers in the oral traditionof the Rig Veda. Castebecame an ugly name muchlater. Yet, Rishi Parasar (thelaw giver) was the son of aChandala, Rishi Vasishta’smother was a fisherwoman,Viswamitra was a Kshatriya,Valmiki a hunter. All becamegreat gurus. In the oral verseof the Rig Veda, men andwomen were equal.

Sanatana Dharma wasmeant to be India’s gift to theworld, a way to realise peaceand harmony. Increasingly,however, ancient customs arebeing taken out of contextfor political purposes. Cattlewere extremely importantfor the Vedic people and sobecame symbols of spiritualexperience. Go, the namefor cow and bull, alsoconnotes the earth and thespeech of rishis. Gokulameans temple; it also meansKrishna’s dwelling place.

Today, politicians fightover cow protec-tion. Why protectonly the cow?What about thebeautiful birds ofthe sky? And thedonkeys and thestreet dogs thatare constantlybeing ill-treated?The environment,too, needs pro-tection. Majestictrees are regular-

ly being chopped down. Thisdecreases forest cover andcauses more pollution. So thelist is long and painful.

Ecological awareness isthe intuitive awareness ofthe oneness of all life. Ourancient heritage advocatesprotection not only for hu-man beings and animals butfor the elements, too. Listento the words of the AtharvaVeda, written 4,000 years ago:

‘‘We are birds of the samenest,/ We may wear differentskins,/ We may speak differ-ent languages,/ We may be-lieve in different religions,/We may belong to differentcultures,/ Yet we share thesame home — Our Earth./For man can live individual-ly,/ But can survive only col-lectively/ Born on the sameplanet/ Covered by the sameskies/ Gazing at the samestars/ Breathing the sameair/ We must learn to happi-ly progress together/ Ormiserably perish together’’.

Time to Re-kindlePassion for Unity

By Mrinalini V Sarabhai

http://spirituality.indiatimes.com

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“You’re worried about seeing him spend his earlyyears in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be

happy? Nothing to shriek, play and run around all daylong?” said Rousseau. The French philosopher couldhave been addressing his anguish to today’s new-ageparents, judging by how few of their children evenknow what it is to spend a day that is not packed withone or another kind of enforced activity. In the fren-zied rush from school to piano class to French lessonsto computers to tennis, is there any time left when thechild can be herself ? Childhood used to be sheermagic. Its boundless joys were so because they wereunspoilt by calculation. Indeed, childhood was leisurewithout guilt. Remember Enid Blyton’s enchantingfairy tales? And the Ramayana lovingly recited bygrandma? Remember the excitement of planning anescapade? Or the many hours spent in idle fantasy?Were they wasted moments? No, with each story toldand each sport played, our imaginations would soar:We inhabited a wonderful world of ideas. True, therewere no computer games to sharpen our minds on. Butwe did one better. We invented our own games.

Childhood was about guileless excitement. Itwas about the incomparable elation of climbing theneighbourhood mango tree and tasting its forbiddenfruit. Why have we robbed our children of thosecarefree moments? Today’s young have to carry ontheir slender shoulders, not just the weight of a loadedschoolbag, but the burden of the lucrative future theirparents have meticulously chalked out for them. Lookat the grotesque spectacle of celebrity new-borns andtoddler fashion queens. Or consider the fact that thestarting age in computer training schools is 0-2. On thefast track on which the 21st century child travels,childhood is evidently a needless obstruction. As withall obstructions, this too must be bypassed to enablespeedy progress. Today’s impatient foetus is born notas an infant but as a miniature adult. There can beno objection to your two-year-old walking the rampfor the sheer fun of it. But if that is the first step inpushing her into a money-spinning career, then you’veconverted her into a performing machine. And you’vedestroyed her childhood.

The news report in this paper about childrenbetween the ages of two and six being groomed

for possible future careers ranging from fashionmodelling to television anchoring will cause manyto lament the loss of childhood in the increasinglyhectic rat race which begins only too early. Have thewonder years of innocence really gone for good? Werechildhoods past more enchanted than childhoods pre-sent, plagued by anxieties of peer pressure and fiercecompetitiveness in everything from exams to sport?Fiddlesticks. In fact, the wonder years have never beenmore wonderful. Far from hemming in childhood’shorizons, modern technology — from the Net andsatellite TV to cheap air travel — has hugely enlargedthe scope and immediacy of young imagination. Forexample, theme parks and digitally created simula-tions of lost civilisations, faraway planets and futureworlds bring to vivid life what in yesteryear was acces-sible only through dusty library books. But doesn’tthis stifle imagination rather than stimulate it? Cer-tainly not, for innovative technology acts as a mentalvitamin tonic which invigorates flights of fancy.

The common argument that today’s children arebecoming couch potatoes thanks to television isfallacious. The so-called idiot box is only as idiotic asone chooses it to be: If you choose mindless soapsover infotaining programmes like those on Discoverychannel, you can only blame yourself and not the box.Similarly, the hue and cry raised about children beingprecociously subjected to the compulsive urge tosucceed at all costs misses out on the all importantpoint that childhood is itself a constant process ofexperimentation and role playing. Far from beingforced to try their hands at catwalking or TV anchor-ing, children relish such creative mimicry — whichbesides being great fun could also pave the way for alucrative future career. Be a boring old accountant likeDad or a bank executive like Mom? Forget it, I want tobe a Prannoy Roy or a Madhu Sapre. And if we justtake a look at the scores of new career options thathave suddenly sprung up, from event managementto VJing, we can see that far from childhood’s end,what we have today are childhood dreams.

VIEW

COUNTERVIEW

Children Have Never Had it So Good

The Brat-race SpellsChildhood’s End

India in IraqOld Europe’s battle with the US may well be over, consider-ing the UN’s quick nod to the resolution on post-war Iraq.Consequently, both the military ‘occupation’ of Iraq and itspolitical and economic reconstruction now stand sanctifiedby the UN. This is a situation without precedent sinceWorld War II. With this the 12-year-old sanctions againstIraq come to an end and Iraq’s administration passes intothe charge of the US and UK, formally designated the‘Authority’. That this is an absolute victory for the US goeswithout saying. There is to be a UN co-ordinator nomi-nated by secretary-general Kofi Annan. This co-ordinatoralso finds a place on the advisory council appointed to offerconsultations to the ‘Authority’. Yet, control of decision-making vests almost entirely with the ‘Authority’. Theconcessions made by the US in the UN resolution aremostly cosmetic. But France, Russia and Germany havetaken the pragmatic decision to justify the new situation inIraq in terms of accelerating peace and development.

The surprising thing is the reported choice of India formonitoring one out of the five administrative sectors intowhich Iraq has been divided. Clearly, the anti-war resolu-tion that Parliament passed in the closing stages of the warhasn’t worked against India’s interests. On the contrary, theUS evidently sees a role for India in the management ofIraq. India might benefit from looking at how the NATOmembers, including Germany and France, are dealing withthe award of the other sector to Poland. NATO has agreedto provide all help to Poland, obviously calculating thedividends from taking on that responsibility. India’sresponse should be on similar lines. The spin-off effectsfrom providing troops and accepting responsibility for akey sector in Iraq could well include bagging a few sub-contracts, which would stand India in good stead. The UN’swillingness to oversee the war aftermath has more or lessresolved the earlier dilemma surrounding the legitimacy ofthe war. Indeed, there need be no contradiction between ourdisapproval of the US war on Iraq and our participating instabilisation efforts in post-war Iraq. At the same time,the Indian leadership would do well not to overplay thesignificance of the new role. Measured pragmatism shouldbe the Indian approach to an offer that places this countryin an advantageous role in the strategic Gulf region.

CMYK

Not much gainat Cannes

To align with the globalmovie business, Bolly-wood needs to learn a lot,feels showman SubhashGhai. After taking overas chairman of the CII en-tertainment committee,Ghai tells N Vidyasagarabout the road ahead for

the Indian film industry.You were at Cannes this year... is there anygain for us?The gain was not much. We are yet to es-tablish a competitive position like China,Italy, Hong Kong and Iran. However, wewere being noticed. A large number ofdistribution and finance firms from theUS, UK, Italy and France showed interestin buying Indian movies, mainlycrossover movies. Indian brand led byGodrej, Vijay Mallya, Mahindras andHindujas offered a great advantage. Itwas inspiring and promises a better fu-ture. We still need to make many goodproducts for the international market.Are we adapting to the changing needs ofthe global movie business?Indian Cinema has always been limited toits traditional market, with products thathave sensibility of their own. We have aunique format of five or six songs anddrama portrayed with a lot of entertain-ment value. With the outstanding visibil-ity of Shekhar Kapur, M Knight Sham-lan, Lagaan and Aishwarya on theCannes jury, Miss World, Miss Universeand cricket — the West cannot ignore In-dia anymore.Where does the Indian film industry standin terms of international acceptance?Hollywood believes in transparency andcorporatisation, which is still a toughproposition for us, considering the waywe deal or make our movies. We need toadapt to their language, system and theexcellence in producing cinema with aninternational perspective. We may createthe films with our ethos and local culture,but the narrative should have an interna-tional perspective.There were no big gains for Bollywood in2003. Are you optimistic about a comeback?Cinema has to change to charm achanged audience. Today, the audience isexposed to a global level of entertainmentstandard. To cater to this evolving taste,we need to invest in educating new gen-eration film makers and cultivate a freshnew perspective.What role should government play?They should fund film makers. We needinstitutes to promote education in cine-ma, TV and other media arts. Venturecapital has to be encouraged to invest incorporatised film companies. This is es-sential if we wish to march ahead of Chi-na, Japan and UK within five years.

MONDAY FACEOFF

Subhash Ghai

Maruti public offer toopen on June 9: With themarket regulator SEBI clear-ing its draft prospectus, carmaker Maruti Udyog Ltd islikely to open its much-await-ed public offering on June 9and close the books on June16. Through the initial publicoffer for sale of 7.2 croreshares by way of book build-ing route, Maruti will divest 25per cent of the governmentequity in the joint venture carcompany, sources close tothe disinvestment processsaid. The company has agreen shoe option of retainingupto 10 per cent. PTI

SBI-Canara JV in Russiato commence soon: TheCommercial Bank of India,the 60:40 joint venture be-tween SBI and Canara Bankin Russia, is all set to startoperations soon. “We are justawaiting approval fromRussian government,” CanaraBank chairman R V Shastrisaid on the sidelines of thebranch inauguration in NewDelhi. The new joint venturein Moscow, will have an initialcapital of $20 million (approxi-mately Rs 100 crore). PTI

IBM India staff detainedin Malaysia: An employeeof Bangalore-based softwaremajor IBM India has beendetained by Malaysian au-thorities, company sourcessaid on Sunday. NarendraBabu, working in the planningdepartment of IBM, was de-tained while he was boardinga flight back home on Fridayevening, the sources said.The reason for detention ofBabu was not known, theysaid. An IBM spokesmandeclined to comment. PTI

Inflation falls below sixper cent: Inflation continuedto fall for the fourth consecu-tive week shedding another0.13 per cent to 5.90 per centfor the week ended May 10,even as primary items be-came costlier. The change ingeneral price line, measuredby wholesale price index(WPI), fell in the latest report-ed week after it remainedabove six per cent for the lastseven weeks and the indexwas only 1.62 per cent anyear-ago period. WPI, howev-er, stood firm at the previousweek’s figure of 172.4 as theindices of fuels and manufac-tured items remained un-changed and the index was162.8 in the previous year. PTI

E X E C U T I V E D I G E S T

NATIONAL

Telecom Italia investorsapprove Olivetti merger:Telecom Italia and debt-heavyparent Olivetti marched onwith plans to merge on Satur-day when shareholders in thephone company approved thedeal, overriding protests fromsome investors. Amid allega-tions of a conflict of interestlodged by a dozen interna-

tional investment funds, hold-ers of nearly 93 per cent ofTelecom Italia’s voting sharesin attendance at the meetingsupported the plan. The planrequired a two-thirds majorityfor approval. The outcomehad been expected as Olivettiholds 55 per cent of TelecomItalia’s voting shares. Reuters

GUS set to sell homeshopping unit: UK retailerGUS Plc is expected toannounce this week the saleof its home shopping unit toUKbusinessmen the Barclaybrothers in a deal possiblyworth 500 million pounds($819 million), the SundayTelegraph reported. Bothparties hope to complete the

deal by Wednesday, whenGUS reports annual results,the report said. The transac-tion would see David andFrederick Barclay mergeGUS’s mail-order division withthe well-known Littlewoodsmail-order chain they acquir-ed last year. Officials at GUScould not be immediatelyreached for comment. Reuters

Resona to hasten 20%cut in workforce: ResonaHoldings Inc, Japan’s fifth-largest bank, plans to cut itsworkforce by about 20 percent by March 2005, twoyears earlier than originallyplanned, Kyodo news agencyreported on Sunday. Osaka-based Resona would submit

the new plan to the FinancialServices Agency on May 30when it formally requests forthe injection of public funds,Kyodo quoted sources assaying. Resona had plannedto slash its workforce to16,000 by March 2007. Reuters

INTERNATIONAL

Mikael Gulbenkian, chairmanof Calgary, Alberta-basedHeritage Oil Corp, is lookingfor business opportunities inIraq, which he calls ‘a para-dise’ for oil investors.

I N C

Today’s question:Will the Maruti IPO revive

the primary market?To vote, log on to

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

• The poll reflects the opinions of Net users who chose to participate, and not necessarily of

the general public.

Yesterday’s results: Does yourorganisation have a sexual

harassment police?Yes 18% No 72% Can’t say 10%

ET INSTA POLL

Napster’s back: Napster founder ShawnFanning is probably smiling quietly to himselfas a new $40 million deal between Napster’snew owner Roxio andmusic companies Universal and Sonycould well bring Napsterback from the dead.

New brews: After par-leys lasting 18 months,Vidya Chhabria’s ShawWallace finally cut a deal with SABMiller,which acquired a 50per cent stake in a new JV for $132.8 million. Too high a pricetag? Well, that’s why the deal took so long.

All gain, some pain: Asthe greenback weakenedglobally, the rupee contin-ued its climb againstthe dollar. While theRBI says it will wait andwatch, theFM’s worriesare apparentin a lower exports target.

The Times of India, New Delhi, Monday, May 26, 2003

Rebuilding IraqActing oil minister of Iraq Thameral-Ghadhban said Iraq’s crude oiloutput will double within a month,oil exports will resume in threeweeks and US troops will secureoil installations soon

Up in armsPeople takepart in a rally toprotest against the French government’splan for pensions reforms in Paris

Affordable carAn Indonesian local firm haslaunched Kancil, a small carwith a fiberglass body and a404 cc-4 stroke-1 cylinder engine. It is targeted at themiddle class.

Post-war Iraq: No power,no rebirth in business

By Neela Banerjee

Last Tuesday, like mostdays since the war,there were no cus-

tomers in Rahim Dhiyakh’sbutcher shop in Baghdad.The heavy sides of beef andlamb hanging from wallhooks shone dark and glassy,spoiling in the heat.

Before the war and Iraq’stroubled peace, Dhiyakh’sshop would stay open untilmidnight, but now, with mostof his business gone, it closesat around 4 pm. The shop getsonly a couple of hours ofelectricity a day, far too littleto keep the freezer running.His customers, mostlywomen, are too frightened toventure out during theevening on Baghdad’s darkand often lawless streets.

‘‘Electricity is the mainproblem,’’ Dhiyakh said, asone of his employees washeda large tree stump used as a

butcher block. ‘‘Electricitymeans safety, work. It’s thechain of life.’’

In the most palpable ofways, the US promise of anew Iraq is floundering onthe inability of the US occu-piers to provide basic servic-es, particularly electricity.

On the priority list ofplaces where power must berestored here in the capital,business and industry arelast, after hospitals, waterand sewage treatment plantsand residential areas. Butbusinesspeople here warnthat the the slow pace of pow-er restoration to industryand commerce could devas-tate what’s left of an econo-my already weakened by 12years of sanctions.

‘‘The impact of this is aripple effect,’’ said MaazenBaaghet, co-owner of al-Shu-muz, which makes plasticshopping bags in a factory inthe capital’s industrial Jami-

la district. From Dhiyakh’sbutcher shop to Baaghet’sfactory to large chemicalplants to the refineries thatmake the gasoline and cook-ing gas now in shortage here,businesses, even those withtheir own power generators,have sharply scaled back pro-duction. Without electricity,people do not go to work orhave work to go to. And with-out street lights, the cityfaces an even higher crimerate, residents say. Amidsuch privations, one of thefew things that thrives nowin Baghdad, is a deepeningdistrust toward the US.

At full production, Iraqipower plants can generatearound 5,500 megawatts.Electricity had been rationedaround the country, withBaghdad, as the seat ofpower, receiving a dispropor-tionately large share andthe rest of the countrylosing out. NYT News Service

Crucial role of‘social capital’in growth

By Jay Bhattacharjee

Many readers willhave followed the de-bate in the media on

international competitive-ness and the various factorsthat are involved in the computation of the indices ofhuman development in coun-tries throughout the world.Organisations like the UNDP,the World Bank as well assome private research institutes periodically release their reports on theseissues.

The critical nature of thedebate can be understood ifwe pose some basic queries.For example, is it possible tomeasure the impact of trans-parent and efficient regula-tors in a country’s economicgrowth?

We all know that investorconfidence is the bedrock ofa nation’s capital market andthe successful mobilisationof investment resources bythe corporate sector from theinvesting public is dependenton the preservation of in-vestor confidence.

Secondly, what is the im-pact of good governance onnational growth rates? Towhat extent does an efficientdispute resolution mecha-nism (the regular court sys-tem or arbitration) affect in-vestment decisions by the do-mestic private sector or bypotential international in-vestors?

Admittedly, these are ex-tremely serious themes, butmainstream economists andfinancial analysts seem tohave neglected them in thelast few decades, despite a lotof work done in the allied ar-eas of welfare economics andpricing of social goods sincethe mid-19th century.

The pendulum has slightlyswung back in the last fewyears, after the prolongeddrought of the 1980s and the1990s.

A recent addition to thisvitally important area is theconcept of ‘‘social capital’’,which can also be looked atin terms of trust or commu-nity feeling.

A layperson’s interpreta-tion of the broad theme isthat a higher degree oftrust between people in a par-ticular country leads tothe entire nation being betteroff.

The difficulty confrontingfinancial analysts and econo-mists when they study thenotion of social capital isthat they have to questionone of the fundamentaltenets of orthodox theory,which is that people are basically driven by self-interest.

There may be more thansheer altruism involved —lawyers, doctors and ac-countants in Delhi who jointhe Rotary or something sim-ilar or the Capital’s culture-vultures who frequent musicsocieties and film clubs maybe doing nothing more thanpure networking that willhelp to increase their futureincome streams.

Neo-classical economistscan then hijack the entire ef-fort by postulating that indi-viduals gain benefits or utili-ty by helping others in thecommunity. This will thenbecome a marginal extensionto the existing body of re-search and thought.

The study of social capitalrequires a paradigm shift inthinking.

One will now have to addthe community to the state,its institutions and the mar-ket in a broad canvas thatwill try to grapple with thetask of understanding theworking of an economy. InIndia, such an integrated ap-proach will yield substantialdividends if we set about thetask seriously.

Macro-economic and sec-toral efficiency can be sub-stantially improved if thiscountry makes a determinedeffort to promote trust andfellow feeling in all spheres.The caveat is that those per-sons and agencies that thriveon conflict and distrust havea clear disincentive in thepromotion and enhancementof social capital.The author is a member of the Delhi StockExchange, jbinvestfin@indiatimes.com

Pension norms confuse insurersBy Prabhakar Sinha

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Is a single regulatorthe solution to the confusion inthe fledgling pension sector?Norms for pension funds — to beannounced soon — continue tocause considerable confusionamong insurance firms, particu-larly those already offering pen-sion products to customers.

The uncertainty has beencaused by the government pro-posal to set up a separate Pen-sion Fund Regulatory and Devel-opment Authority (PRDA). It hasalso mooted limiting the numberof players operating in the pen-sion fund space to six.

Where does that leave the 10-odd insurance companies whichare already selling pension prod-ucts? The main players are LIC,

SBI Life, ICICI Prudential, HDFCStandard Life, Max New YorkLife, Birla Sun Life, Om KotakMahindra, and Aviva. At pres-ent, these players are governedby the Insurance Regulatory De-velopment Authority (IRDA).They are asking whether the sixplayers limit would cover the ex-isting insurance companies al-ready providing this service.

In 2001-02, the total pensionbusiness by these players ac-counted for Rs 2,500 crore. Thebusiness is expected to havegrown to around Rs 4,000 crorelast year.

IRDA chairman N Ran-gachary said that all the existinginsurance players would contin-ue to sell their products. At pres-ent registration granted by IRDAto existing life insurance compa-nies covers the pension business.

A source said it was likely thatthe current legislative frame-work might have to be amendedto permit non insurance playersto operate in this business.

It is believed that the new en-trants like mutual funds whichare currently not operating inthe life insurance and pensionbusiness, could be governed by

the new regulator, PRDA. To-wards this end, PRDA is expect-ed to prescribe necessary regula-tion covering various aspects ofthe business.

A senior official close to thegroup framing the new rules toopen the pension business, saidthat this would create confusion.If the insurance companies aregoverned under the existing setof rules by IRDA and the otherplayers — like mutual funds andbanks — are taken care of by thenew regulator, there would be aproblem of level-playing field inthe sector, he argued.

Therefore, he suggested thatall the players that sell pensionproducts should be brought un-der one regulator. However, in-surance firms say those in thepension business would be regu-lated by both IRDA and PRDA.

AP

The Zigui Port on the upper reach of the Three Gorges in central China’s Hubei Province isopened to traffic. It’s an important port on the Yangtze River linking the east and the west.

UTI changes investment planBy Rajesh Chandramouli

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: Indian financialservices sector is facing ashakeout. As part of the re-structuring exercise at theUnit Trust of India (UTI), adecision has been taken toexit from all co-promoted in-vestments made by the cor-poration.

As per the plan, UTI willexit from Over the CounterExchange of India (OTCEI),Infrastructure Leasing andFinancial Services (IL&FS),National Stock Exchange(NSE), Infrastructure Devel-

opment and Finance Compa-ny (IDFC) and Stock HoldingCorporation of India Ltd(SHCIL).

“As part of our restructur-ing exercise we have decidedto exit from all the invest-ments we have made as co-promoters in institutionslike IL&FS, NSE, SHCIL, OT-CEI and IDFC,” M Damodha-ran, Chairman of UTI said.

These investments are inthe books of DevelopmentReserve Fund of UTI-I.Though the intent is to findinvestors for these over thenext 12 to 18 months, it is not

clear whether there would beany takers for a few of theselike OTCEI. The process forthis disinvestment exerciseis expected to begin shortly.Independent valuationswould be conducted on eachof these institutions andthen merchant bankerswould be appointed to findsuitors, sources familiarwith the development said.

In certain cases like NSEand SHCIL, the existing in-vestors are likely to pick upUTI’s stake as they are prof-itable investments, theyadded.

Coca-Cola tolaunch flavouredmilk drinks in USAtlanta: Got milk? Coca-Cola has. TheCoca-Cola Co said that it was planning to in-troduce a new dairy drink in the UnitedStates this summer in a bid to boost itsshare of the growing nutritional beveragemarket. A spokesman for the world’s No. 1soft drink maker acknowledged the newproduct after Beverage Digest, a leading in-dustry newsletter, published details of thecompany’s roll-out plans.

The new drink, which will be calledSwerve, will come in chocolate, vanilla-ba-nana and blueberry flavors and containmore than 50 per cent dairy products, al-lowing it to carry the “Real” seal of theAmerican Dairy Association. The first 12-ounce cans will appear in stores and drinkmachines in July or August, shortly beforemillions of US children return to school.Unlike many milk products, they will notrequire refrigeration before opening.

Current graphics for the product show afigure of a grinning cow wearing darkglasses. “Coming at a time when consumerdemand for healthy beverages is growing,this product makes sense,” said John Sich-er, editor of Beverage Digest. “It shouldwork well in schools.” The launch of newdairy drinks would put Coca-Cola in directcompetition with Britain’s CadburySchweppes Plc and Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo Inc., which already sell simi-lar products in the US market.

Cadbury Schweppes’ Snapple BeverageGroup unit markets chocolate drink Yoo-hoo. PepsiCo sells a variety of Frappuccinodrinks in collaboration with StarbucksCorp. Reuters

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•Proposal to create two regulators creating confusion

•While there are 10-oddpension players, new rulescap the number at 6

•Some feel two regulatorswould deny a level-playingfield

In a mess

AFP

Iraqi men demanding participation and jobs in reconstruction.

CMYK

B U S I N E S S T I M E S The Times of India, New Delhi16 Monday, May 26, 2003

4 American states may ban outsourcingLondon: Four US states areconsidering legislation to banoutsourcing of state data pro-cessing contracts to developingnations even as dozens ofhousehold names, spanning in-surance, banking, technologyand telecoms, are transferringpart of their white collar ad-ministrative and customer-service work to Asia, particu-larly to India to cut costs.

The US states consideringthe measure to curb flight ofjobs are New Jersey, Maryland,Connecticut and Washington,the Sunday Telegraph reportedon Sunday.

The report also expressedconcern about the future of UKcall centres, a major industryemploying about 500,000 peopleacross 6,000 sites. According toit, Mitial Research, a specialistconsultancy, has predicted thatone third of Britain’s largercall centres could shut down by2005 with the loss of 90,000 jobs.

General Electric, the giantUS conglomerate, which initi-ated the bold decision to shift

thousands of back office jobs toIndia a decade ago, is still in thevan, with 11,000 Indian process-ing staff, the report said.

‘‘If China is becoming theworkshop of the world, India isthe world’s back office,’’ saysChris Gentle of Deloitte Con-sulting, part of Deloitte andTouche, the big five accountan-cy firm.

Deloitte estimates that 2 mil-lion jobs in financial servicesalone are likely to move from

developed economies to emerg-ing nations in the next fiveyears. Across all industries, theexodus of services jobs couldbe 4 million.

By 2008, financial servicesfirms, are expected to havetransferred $356 billion, or anaverage of $1.4 billion for eachof the world’s top 100 financialservices companies. For lead-ers such as Citigroup andHSBC, there could be savings oftwo or three times that level.

India’s rise has been re-markable. Some 100,000 peopleare thought to be employed incall centres, while India’s com-puter services and software in-dustry is now worth $10 billion.It is expected to grow by 25 to 30per cent this year, according toNasscom, the computer indus-try body.

Call centres in India handlethe processing of studentloans, queries about utilitybills for Powergen and flightbookings for British Airways.A series of other British com-panies, including BT, HSBC,Prudential and Aviva, are shift-ing their call centres to theworld’s biggest democracy.

Cost is just one issue. ‘‘Com-panies go for the costs and stayfor the quality,’’ says MikeHarding, the managing direc-tor of Mercer O Liver Wyman.India may be a poor countrybut it has a well-educated, Eng-lish-speaking workforce.

JP Morgan has said it wouldset up a team of 40 junior re-search analysts in India. The

plan is to provide greater ana-lytical coverage at a fraction ofthe cost in the West.

The trend has even caughtthe eye of the entertainment in-dustry. Sanjeev Bhaskar, thestar of the spoof BBC chatshow ‘‘The Kumars At No 42’’,is to script the call centre, afilm billed as a comic love storyset in India and the UK.

Citigroup now employs 3,000people in India in call centresand processing operations inMumbai and Chennai havehelped it to become the world’smost profitable financial serv-ices firm — its revenues havegrown by $ 35 billion in the pastfive years, while costs have in-creased by just $12 billion.

HSBC, which is due to open aglobal processing centre inKuala Lumpur this year and al-ready has a major back officecentre in Shenzhen, China, ex-pects to employ 9,500 call centreand processing staff in devel-oping countries by the end of2003, including 5,500 in Indiaand 3,500 in China. PTI

Tatas seek Govt support for VSNLNew Delhi: The Tatas are under-stood to have sought the govern-ment’s support to protect the in-terest of Videsh Sanchar Nigam,whose fortunes have taken a dip,amid the growing competition inthe telecom sector.

Tata chief Ratan Tata is be-lieved to have recently met com-munication and disinvestmentminister Arun Shourie to briefhim about the happenings in theacquired company and problemsbeing faced by it.

When contacted, a Tataspokesperson, however, said ‘‘weare not aware of Ratan Tatameeting the minister’’.

He however, also confirmedthat Tata had written a letter re-cently to Shourie about VSNLbut declined to give details aboutthe content.

Asked about the news reportsthat Tatas had approached thegovernment to take back VSNL

on the ground that it was a baddeal, the spokesperson said ‘‘thereports in the media about the is-sue are completely unfoundedand the group categorically de-nies such malicious reports’’.

Tata’s communication to gov-ernment assumes importance inthe wake of a steep 77 per centfall in net profits witnessed byVSNL in the third quarter endedDecember 2002, at Rs 81.8 croreagainst Rs 357.2 crore in the yearago period.

The company had attributedthe drop to changed scenario ininternational telephony sector,and opening up of the sector tocompetition.

It is understood that the Tata’sletter is related to ensuring rout-ing of the international long dis-tance traffic from telecom PSUsBharat Sanchar Nigam and Ma-hanagar Telephone Nigam. PTI

Telecom wiresget more entangled

By J Mulraj

India has achieved a teledensityof only 5 per cent of its popula-tion, indicating the huge market

potential in this sector. Doubtlessthe sector has shown a goodgrowth; the cellular subscriberbase has touched 12.6 million. This,however, pales in comparision towhat has been achieved in China,which, in the 2002 calender yearalone, sold 107 million cellularhandsets! Since this accounted fornearly a quarter of global handsetsales, it gives China an enormousbuying clout internationally.

If one were to analyse the dereg-ulation of the telecom sector in In-dia, and all the current controver-sies, one comes to two basic conclu-sions. Both emanate from the factthat the government is both theregulator as well as a player. Theyare a consequence of two things,namely, a desire to protect govern-ment companies and then a desireto add to the government revenues.

To take the second one first, thegovernment had thrown open thecellular sector, but wanted to raisehuge amounts through the auctionof license fees. In order to collectthis ‘ransom’ it allowed duopoliesin each circle. It was thus the con-sumer that paid (remember callcharges of Rs 16 per minute?). It isthis license fees that has become astumbling block to the entry ofcheaper WLL service. The cellularoperators are protesting on the ba-sis of a non-level-playing field.

The desire to protect governmentfirms is creating its own set ofproblems, such as, recently, the de-sire to impose ‘access deficitcharges’ on all other players, in or-der to compensate the two state-owned companies, MTNL andBSNL, for losses made for provid-ing telecom services to unprof-itable areas. This is untenable. Atleast if there is no time-frame forwhich ADC has to be paid, if at all.

Besides, private sector playersare expanding into rural areas.Bharti, for instance, announcedplans to invest Rs 12 billion to coverover 1,100 towns. Technologies suchas WLL also bring down cost of te-lephony especially for rural areas.

In India, a lot more entrepre-neurs have been created and thereis more competition. Perhaps toomuch of it! With each circle havingseveral fixed line, cellular and WLLplayers, there are about 6-7 compet-ing players each cutting costs to thedelight of consumers. The nextround, however, will see a consoli-dation with the smaller players get-ting wiped out or taken over. Thegovernment has facilitated this bymaking the license transferable. Af-ter that, it is quite likely that call-ing rates will start rising again.

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BPO Ban(d)wagon•New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington mullban on outsourcing

•One third of UK’s call centrescould shut down by 2005 with the loss of 90,000 jobs

•2 million jobs in financial servi-ces alone are likely to move toemerging nations in next 5 years

•Major insurers like Prudentialand Aviva are also jumping on the bandwagon

CMYK

Nobody seems to be interestedin finding out the actual rea-son behind the increase in

number of positive tests by athletesin recent times. The athletes areaware of the harmful effects. But theycan’t go for other alternatives, likefood supplements, as the import du-ties on them are too high. Hence, notall can afford them. I would like todraw the attention of the governmentin this regard and request for a re-duction of the duties. If the food sup-plements are available at a cheapprice in the Indian markets, it willhelp reducing the use of drugs.

Rahul Bhatia,New Delhi

Indian football skipper BaichungBhutia has raised a pertinent point.

The game needs to be marketed proper-ly. Adequate television and radio cover-age is the key to success. National Foot-ball League matches should be resched-uled for weekends, and day-nightersduring weekdays. Besides, legal bettingmust be allowed to promote the gamelike in England. This drives human in-terest and following. A South Asian Su-per League consisting best teams from

Pakistan, Bangladesh,Sri Lanka, Nepal andBhutan can also beplanned. If the corpo-rates offer tax incen-tives like tax holidaysand exemptions on sports promotionexpenses, it would prove beneficial.

Ramesh Brahmadathan

Ihave been a table-tennis player butopted to become a doctor instead. I

understand the dilemma of parentsand the sportsmen. During the Com-monwealth Games, NRIs in UK hadorganised a felicitation function in aneffort to support the sportsmen. Un-fortunately, we couldn’t do any morethen, but I would certainly like to beable to contribute more. This could beboth financially and otherwise. Thereare two major problems facing Indiansport and both are inter linked. Thereis no money in the game due to lack ofsuccess. The other is the poor selec-tion policies followed by the federa-tions and other sports bodies. And of

course there’s politicsinterfering with thesport.

Shirish Dubey

This is in referenceto Baichung

Bhutia speaking on the present poorstandard of Indian football. It is in thegrip of officials who have their ownvested interests, whose sole purpose isto project their image. Some of themhave been there for almost two decadesand they have contributed nothing buta decline in the standard. They are atthe helm of affairs by virtue of theirpolitical connections and do not anyhave other credentials. Identify theseelements and isolate them. It would bethe first step in right direction.

V.N. Rana

My son is a badminton player whorepresented Delhi in the 2000

National Games. Subsequently, healso appeared in the CBSE Xth boardexaminations and passed with 72.4%marks. But it couldn’t fetch him ad-

mission in a reputed school as theminimum criteria for the selectionwas more than 85%. My son had beenbusy for more than two months priorto the Games which affected hispreparations badly. But there arehardly any relaxations/quotas forsportsperons in schools and colleges.How can a parent encourage theirwards to take up sports seriously?Even in schools, teachers discouragechildren to play saying there’s no fu-ture in sports.

Ashwani Kumar, New Delhi

Ihail from a small town namedKaithal which is a district town in

Haryana. But the sports departmentof this district does not have its ownstadium here. They are running theirsports programmes at the R.K.S.D.college-ground but the college author-ities, of late has issued a notice to va-cate it at the earliest. The stategovernment is too lethargic to lookinto the issue.

Sumeet Seth,Kaithal, Haryana

Readers can send their views on timessport@indiatimes.com or faxat 23323346, 23324173.

Keep vested interests away from national soccer

Vaughan tops ratings: MichaelVaughan reign as the world’s top-ranked batsman has been cut shortafter his failure in England’s first Testagainst Zimbabwe. Australia’sMatthew Hayden quickly regained hisplace at the top after Vaughan, look-ing out of sorts, managed just eightruns in England’s win on Saturday.Vaughan, the top run-scorer in worldcricket last season, had replacedHayden in the Test ratings in April.Hayden averaged 63.16 in Australia’s3-1 Test series win over West Indiesearlier this month. Shaun Pollocktops the bowling ahead of AustralianGlenn McGrath and Sri Lanka’s off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan. AFP

Yuvi does better: Yuvraj Singhshook off his opening failure withbetter show in his next tow outingsfor Yorkshire in English county crick-et. He had scored 11 on debut andadded a unbeaten 29 in the drawngame against Glamorgan. On Sun-day, he was unbeaten with 33 off 3off 51 balls when rain stopped playat 94 for 3 also against Glamorgan.

US to play host: The Women’sWorld Cup will take place in the Unit-ed States next September after be-ing moved out of China because ofthe deadly severe acute respiratorysyndrome (SARS) disease, thePhiladelphia Inquirer reported onSaturday. The US had hosted theevent in 1999 and was one of twonations, along with Sweden, to sub-mit bids by the deadline. Canada hasalso requested that some of the earlyround games be played in Common-wealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta- an outdoor venue built for the 1982Commonwealth Games. AFP

Future plans: J & K government isplanning to host this year’s C KNayudu under-19 cricket tournamentin the valley but sports officials be-lieve that the state does not have thenecessary infrastructure to hold sucha prestigious event. PTI

PROUD WINNER: Chinese Wang Nan,the winner of the women's singlesin the 47th World Table Tennischampionship displays a vase ofSevres at the Palais Omnisports inParis on Sunday.

AFP

SPORTS DIGEST

I’m not worried by any flack. Ifpeople want to look at these

three days and complain aboutmy captaincy that’s irrelevant

— Nasser Hussain after beating Zimbabwe

January 11 - Aus 271-4 def. Eng 264-7 by 7 runs January 15 - Aus 214-6 def. SL 211-9 by 4 wkts January 19 - Aus 153-6 def. Eng 152 by 4 wkts January 21 - Aus 215-1 def. SL 214-8 by 9 wkts January 23 - Aus 118-0 def. Eng 117 by 10 wkts January 25 - Aus 229-7 def. Eng 224 by 5 runs

World Cup, SAFebruary 11 - Aus 310-8 def. Pak 228 by 82 runs February 15 - Aus 128-1 def. Ind 125 by 9 wkts February 20 - Aus 170-2 def. Ned 122 by 75 runs (DL) February 24 - Aus 248-3 def. Zim 246-9 by 7 wkts February 27 - Aus 301-6 def. Nam 45 by 256 runs March 2 - Aus 208-8 def. Eng 204-8 by 2 wkts March 7 - Aus 319-5 def. SL 223 by 96 runs March 11 - Aus 208-9 def. NZ 112 by 96 runs March 15 - Aus 178-5 def. Ken 174-8 by 5 wkts March 18 - Aus 212-7 def. SL 123-7 by 48 runs (DL) March 23 - Aus 359-2 def. Ind 234 by 125 runs

In West IndiesMay 17 - Aus 270-5 def. WI 205-8 by 2 runs (DL) May 18 - Aus 166-2 def. WI 163 by 8 wkts May 21 - Aus 258-4 def. WI 233-9 by 25 runs May 24 - Aus 286-5 def. WI 219 by 67 runs.(Key: DL - Duckworth-Lewis Method for rain-affected matches)

The Australian winning streak

Australians unstoppablePort of Spain (Trinidad): WorldCup champions Australia steamedto a 67-run victory over the WestIndies to clinch the One-day inter-national cricket series 4-0 at theQueen’s Park Oval here on Satur-day night. The Australians, thedominant force in world cricket,won their 21st consecutive One-day match and their 11th straightover the Windies.

Ricky Ponting’s team powered to286 for five off their 50 overs andbowled out the West Indies for 219off 45.3 overs to underline the gulfin experience and performance be-tween the two sides in the seven-game series.

The West Indies, pinned downby Australia’s pacemen early inthe innings, were always well be-hind the asking rate and self-de-structed with three suicidal runouts in the last four wickets to fall.

Man-of-the-match AdamGilchrist topscored with 84 in Aus-tralia’s innings with youngster

Michael Clarke contributing ablazing 55 off 40 balls in the high-est Australian innings at theTrinidad ground and only tworuns behind the best AustralianODI total in the Caribbean.

Gilchrist, freshened up after sit-ting out last Wednesday’s victoryin St Lucia, hammered nine foursand a six in his 103-ball knockwhile 22-year-old Clarke, whoscored an unbeaten 75 in St Luciain midweek, provided late fire-works with six boundaries and asix. Clarke rode his luck — he wasbowled off a Corey Collymore no-ball and was reprieved on 47 by Ri-cardo Powell who dropped a dollycatch in the deep — to remain un-beaten in three ODI innings in hisfledgling international career.

All the top-order batsmen con-tributed to Australia’s big total.Matthew Hayden smacked 44 off 61balls, skipper Ponting hit 38 (47),Andrew Symonds 24 (28) andMichael Bevan was out on the finalball of the innings, holing out toBrian Lara in the deep off VasbertDrakes for 21 off 22 deliveries.

The West Indian fielding was dia-bolical. They spilled four catches,twice in Gilchrist’s knock,Symonds on 10 and Clarke (47).Opener Chris Gayle hit 84 off 113balls in the West Indies innings, butapart from skipper Brian Lara’s 40off 47 balls he found little support.

“We decided to open the bowlingwith Brett Lee and Gillespie today,a bit of extra pace, and it seemed towork for us and when Glenn cameon in the middle, he kept thingstight and got their run-rate up...the West Indies were under pres-sure from there,” said Ponting af-ter the victory.AFP

Ajit Ninan

Costa, Serenafeel the heatParis: Title-holders SerenaWilliams and Albert Costawill be feeling the heat de-spite the chilly weather fore-cast for the second GrandSlam of the season whichstarts here on Monday. Thereigning champions crownsare looking decidedly shakyon the eve of the two-weektournament on the slow redclay of the Roland Garroscomplex on the outskirts ofthe capital.

Williams will be going forher fifth straight major title,something last accomplishedby Germany’s Steffi Graf in1988-89. But while the jour-ney back to Paris should besentimental one forWilliams, who won the firstof her 22 WTA titles here,and began her ‘Serena Slam’at Roland Garros last year,the 21-year-old American ar-rives on the back of losses toJustine Henin-Hardenne inCharleston and French hopeAmelie Mauresmo, the fifthseed, in Rome. “She can befrustrated,” warned Bel-gium’s Henin-Hardenne. “Ithink it’s good for the otherplayers that we can see that.”

Mauresmo, who has nevergot beyond the fourth roundat Roland Garros, agreed:“I’m trying not to put any

pressure on myself this year.But I believe I have a way ofbeating the Williams.”

Yet another all-WilliamsGrand Slam final is not cer-tain as elder sister Venus,seeded third, who has yet towin in Paris and opensagainst US qualifier Saman-tha Reeves, is short on matchplay and form after pulling astomach muscle before theGerman Open.

World number one Serenais in the top half of the drawand will go up against experi-enced German Barbara Rit-tner, but lurking down theline is dangerous Belgiansecond seed Kim Clijsters,winner on clay at the ItalianOpen, and slayer of Serena inthe season-ending champi-onships last year.

Costa, meanwhile, beginsagainst Argentine qualifierSergio Roitman, and theninth seed admits it will be atough task faced with worldnumber one Lleyton Hewitt,former champion GustavoKuerten and French hopeRichard Gasquet all in hisside at the top half. AmericanAndy Roddick is also brim-ming with confidence afterwinning with ease on Austri-an clay. After his first GrandSlam title Costa has not wona title and is hoping to rekin-dle the fire on clay here.AFP

AP

West Indies’ Ryan Hurley collides with Ricky Ponting during the fourthODI at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, on Saturday.

WI post mammoth totalPort of Spain (Trinidad):West Indies waltzed to a for-midable total of 290 for five in50 overs against Australia inthe fifth ODI at Queen’s ParkOval here on Sunday.

West Indies skipper BrianLara, after electing to bat,chipped in with a fine 80 be-fore edging an Andy Bicheldelivery to wicketkeeperAdam Gilchrist. He shared a178-run second-wicket part-nership with Wavel Hindswho made 79.

Earlier, the Australians,who clinched the seven-gameseries 4-0 with a 67-run victo-ry in Saturday’s match, made

three changes to their team.Jimmy Maher, Andy Bicheland Nathan Hauritz taketheir place at the expense ofMatthew Hayden, Jason Gille-spie and Brad Hogg.

Jamaican all-rounder DavidBernard makes his ODI debutfor the hosts at the expense ofVasbert Drakes. The Aus-tralians are chasing their 22ndconsecutive ODI win and 12straight against West Indies.The hosts lost the openingdouble-header at Kingston’sSabina Park, fell to a 25-run de-feat at Castries’ BeausejourStadium and lost by 67 runshere on Saturday.Agencies

Anderson’s five-star debutLondon: James Anderson capped a re-markable rise through the ranks of Eng-lish professional cricket on Saturday byplaying a major role in England’s in-nings and 92-run win in the first Testagainst Zimbabwe.

Fast bowler Anderson, 20, on his Testdebut and less than a year after makinghis first-class bow for Lancashire, tookfive for 73 in as Zimbabwe were shot outfor 147 and forced to follow-on before los-ing with more than two days to spare. Inthe process he became the first Englandbowler since Dominic Cork against theWest Indies in 1995 at Lord’s to take fivewickets in an innings in his first Test.

“I couldn’t ask for a better debut,” saidAnderson who is by English standards,young to be playing Test cricket.

Much of his career has been a seriesof happy accidents. He was ‘spotted’

playing for Burnley Cricket Club by a fe-male supporter who got in touch withLancashire, where he attracted atten-tion with some impressive county cham-pionship performances during 2002. Hefinished that season with 50 first-classwicket, including a best of six for 23against Hampshire. A spell at England’sacademy for promising players in Ade-laide followed.

But injuries before and during the Eng-land senior team’s tour of Australia andto several first-choice quicks includingDarren Gough, Simon Jones and StephenHarmison, as well as pace bowling all-rounders Andrew Flintoff and CraigWhite, eventually saw Anderson calledup for the One-day series through lack ofavailable alternatives.

However he proved he’s more than amere stop gap, bowling at lively pace withan accuracy rare for novice Englishquicks.AFP

ZIMBABWE IN ENGLAND

FRENCH OPEN

West Indies:C Gayle lbw b Lee 5 W Hinds c Gilchrist b Bichel 79 B Lara c Gilchrist b Bichel 80 R Sarwan c Gilchrist b Lee 32 M Samuels lbw b Lee 42 R Powell not out 20 R Jacobs not out 7 Extras: (b 1, lb 11, w 11, nb 2) 25 Total (for five, in 50 overs): 290 Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-183, 3-192, 4-263, 5-264 Bowling: Glenn McGrath 10- 0-46-0 (3w), Brett Lee 10-2-56-3(2nb, 1w), Ian Harvey 10-1-46-0,Andy Bichel 10-0-67-2, NathanHauritz 6-0-38-0 (1w), MichaelClarke 4-0-25-0.

SCOREBOARD

The Times of India, New Delhi, Monday, May 26, 2003

Let’s play annuallyWasim Akram is appealing again but

the verdict is nowhere to be seen.The former star has appealed for anannual Indo-Pak Test series. That’ssome hope. But for the time being, let’s say Amen to that

The Mexican wave The Mexican wave Ana Guevaraswept Cathy Freeman’s (left) meetrecord to win 2003 PrefontaineClassic Grand Prix. Guevaraclocked 49.34 for her 400 metreszipping past Freeman’s 50.02

Ronaldinho for Man U?Goose bumps and all that. That’s whatRonaldinho is getting these days at apossible thought of playing for ManUnited. He admitted it was a “concretepossibility”. “When I think of learningfrom Ferguson, I get goose bumps”

Defending champions Serena Williams and Albert Costa will start their campaign at French Open

TENNIS2003 French Open

(Women’s singles — probable champion)S Williams evens

K Clijsters 7/2 J Henin-Hardenne

V Williams 5/1 J Capriati 14/1

A Mauresmo 16/1 L Davenport 20/1

as per ladbrokes.com.

BETTING METER

The response of our readers has been overwhelming. Due topaucity of space we could not print all of them. Here are

some of the views of our readers

INDIAN SPORT

SLEEPINGGIANT

Latif worried aboutbatting failure Islamabad: Pakistan captain Rashid

Latif has attributed thedefeat of his new-lookteam in the final of therecent Sri Lankan tris-eries to the failure ofhis top order batsmento click.

“If our top order batting starts click-ing and Yousuf Youhana gets in hisgroove, Pakistan will be strong combi-nation in coming months,” he told themedia in Karachi after his return fromSri Lankan tour. Pakistan reached thefinal of the trination tournamentplayed in Dambulla in Sri Lanka butlost the trophy to New Zealand. HostsSri Lanka failed to qualify for the final.

Latif said opener Taufiq Umar wastried in two events after the World Cupbut was unable to deliver. He said Tau-fiq can continue as opener in Tests sug-gesting he preferred another openerfor ODIs. “I will be putting forward mysuggestions to the selection commit-tee,” he said.

Latif expressed satisfaction over theperformance of his pace quartet ofShoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami,Shabbir Ahmed and Umar Gul.PTI

‘No plan to withdrawBangladesh’s Test status’Karachi: The International Cricket Council(ICC) has no plans to withdraw Bangladesh’sTest status and was committed to improvingcricket in the country, the Asian CricketCouncil (ACC) said on Sunday.

“ICC and ACC are particularly committedto all out support to improve cricket inBangladesh and reports giving (the) impres-sion that Bangladesh’s Test status would betaken back are totally wrong,” ACC develop-ment manager Zakir Husain Syed said.

“ICC has plans to improve the infrastruc-ture and domestic competitions inBangladesh and has allocated around $0.5million for that purpose.”

Bangladesh became the tenth Test-playingnation in June 2000 but has since failed to jus-tify the status, losing 18 of 19 Tests. The na-tional team has not won a One-day match forfour years. Syed told reporters before leavingto attend the ICC development committeemeeting from May 31 to June 1 in New York,that ICC development manager Andrew Eadhad nominated certain areas where the ICCand the Pakistan-based ACC could work to-gether for Bangladesh’s improvement.

“The ICC has planned an elite training pro-gramme in Bangladesh and ACC will alsoconduct a sports medicine programme be-sides various other coaching and umpiringprogrammes there,” Syed said.AFP

Australia: 286 for 5 West Indies:C. Gayle lbw b Harvey 84 R. Powell c Ponting b Gillespie 8 W. Hinds lbw b Lee 3 R. Sarwan lbw b McGrath 16 B. Lara c Hayden b Symonds 40 M. Samuels c Hogg b Harvey 27 R. Jacobs run out (Lee) 13 R. Hurley run out (Symonds) 0 V. Drakes lbw b Gillespie 9 M. Dillon not out 0 C. Collymore run out (Ponting) 2 Extras: (b 4, lb 4, w 8, nb 1) 17 Total: (All out, in 45.3 overs) 219 Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-33, 3-77, 4-146, 5-174, 6-197, 7-201, 8-217, 9-217.Bowling: Lee 8-1-30-1 (1 nb, 1 w), Gillespie8-0-30-2 (4 w), McGrath 7-0-21-1, Hogg 9-1-41-0 (1 w), Harvey 9.3-0-58-2 (1 w),Symonds 4-0-31-1 (1 w).

SCOREBOARD

AP

Defending champion and top-seeded Serena Williams of theUS cuddles her Jack Russell Terrier “Jackie” after practiceon Saturday at the Roland Garros in Paris.

‘No desire to play men’Paris: Serena Williams wasimpressed by Annika Soren-stam’s foray onto the PGATour. The No. 1 women’s ten-nis player has no desire toplay against men, though.

‘‘I think she did great,’’Williams said Sunday. ‘‘I real-ly wanted her to do even bet-ter. But I think she did really,really well.’’

Williams, who begins de-fense of her French Open ti-tle on Monday, added thatSorenstam proved ‘‘she can

hang up there. It’s cool shewas able to do that.’’

At the Colonial tourna-ment in Fort Worth, Texas,this week, Sorenstam be-came the first woman to playin a PGA Tour event in 58years. The Swede had cred-itable rounds of 71-74 butmissed the cut. Williamswon’t entertain thoughts oftrying something similar.

‘‘I’m here to play female ten-nis,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve never beeninvolved in men’s tennis.’’ AP

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T I M E S S P O R T The Times of India, New Delhi18 Monday, May 26, 2003

CAPITAL SPORTONGC are champions:Star-studded ONGC defeatedSonnet Cricket Club by 6wickets to annex the 30thGoswami Ganesh Dutt me-morial cricket tournament.Man of the match SandeepSharma, who scored a fluent82 for the winners was thechief architect of victory.Sunil Joshi was declared theman of the tournament whileMohammed Kaif was ad-judged the best batsman. Sonnet CC: 187 for 8 in 40 overs:(Saket Bhatia 69) ONGC: 191 for 4 in38 overs (Sandeep Sharma 82).

Deadly Tony: In the Lax-man Dass memorial crickettournament, Tony Singhclaimed 5 for 34 to guide HariBhoomi Club to a 3 wicketwin over Rohtak RoadGymkahna. Besides Tony,Varun Kumar stroked a scin-

tillating 54 to guide Bhoomiinto the quarterfinals.

RR Gymkhana: 207 for 8 in 40 overs(Pradeep Chawla 61, Tony Singh 5 for34) Hari Bhoomi Club: 208 for 7 in 40overs (Varun Kumar 54).

Tarun hits ton: Tarun andYogesh hit centuries to helpSalwan Boys thump Pelicanby 211 runs in the DDCA U-15 league at the Bharat Na-gar ground. In another en-counter, Bright CC beat Han-sraj Smarak School by 103runs while Young Friendsbeat Vasant Vihar by 33 runs. Salwan Boys: 327 for 4 in 40 overs(Tarun Chowdhury 126, Yohgesh Kumar100) Pelican: 116 in 39 overs (VarunChakraborty 49).

Bright Club: 198 for 6 in 40 overs(Sumit Kundu 107) HRSS: 95 in 28.5overs.

Young Friends: 169 in 39.1 overs (Is-han Bakshi 5 for 49) Modern School:

136 for 8 in 40 overs.

Match tied: The match be-tween Air Sahara and SouthDelhi Colts in the Lala Raghu-bir memorial cricket tourna-ment ended in a tie at theModern School, BarakhambaRoad ground. Chasing Sa-hara’s 230 for 9, the coltsended up at the same scorein their stipulated 40 overs. Air Sahara: 230 for 9 in 40 overs(Vikas CHand 80, Kapil Mehta 54, Deep-ak Bhatnagar 46, Ashish Malhotra 3 for28) South delhi Colts: 230 for 8 in 40overs (Nishal Gaur 67).

Institutional league: TheDelhi Soccer League institu-tional football league willkick-off at the Ambedkar Sta-dium at 4pm on Monday. Del-hi Administration will take onAIIMS in the inaugural matchwhile FCI play PNB in thesecond match of the day.

CROSS COUNTRY

Army’s peaks of pride

H eights. Nothing on earth surpass-es 8848m. Yes, it’s Mount Everestin all its grandeur. A three-mem-

ber team led by Maj SS Shekhawat ofthe Indian Army scaled it fromthe more difficult direc-tion — the South Col — braving roar-ing 70mph winds. It was ajoint venture with the Royal NepalArmy on the golden jubilee celebra-tions of the first ascent to the summit

under the banner Joint Indo-NepalEverest Massif Expedition.

But the icing on the cake for theIndian Army was the summitingLhotse — majestically standing at8511m — the first ever Indian team todo so since it was first climbed in 1956.The 12-member Indo-Nepal joint expe-dition led by Chering Norbu Bodh,broke the earlier record for the largest

contingent to have scaled the techni-caly difficult peak, too. Earlier, therecord was held by a Russian team of11. ‘‘It’s a great achievement and apartfrom being a golden jubilee celebra-tion, it was a goodwill gesture of theIndian Army towards our Nepal coun-terparts,” said Brig V K Chopra, DDG,Army Adventure Wing to Wanderer..Records are nothing new for him. TheIndian Army has been entered inthe Limca Book of Records for theirAnnapurna Expedition last year. Forthe record, Bodh has become thefirst Indian to scale more than three8000m and above peaks.

Return of the veterans

A s in cricket, hockey also seems tohave been forced to take note ofthe performances in domestic

tournaments. That alone could explainthe return to the national side of someseniors, who had been sidelined afterIndia’s none-too-happy showing in theOlympic Games and in the World Cup.

First the squad has been increasedto 20 from 18 and then Mukesh Kumar,Baljit Saini and Baljit Dhillon havebeen brought back. Of course, DhanrajPillay continues to perform a notch ortwo above the rest, though he shootshis mouth off every now and then tothe annoyance of teammates as wellas administrators. By naming himcaptain, the Indian Hockey Federation

may have taken a risk, but he shouldbe a lot more mellowed man now afterall the ups and downs he has gonethrough. Dhanraj would be happy tofind chum Mukesh in the line-up,hoping that the genial Hyderabadi willkeep pace with him upfront.

Does the selection of these seniorsmean that the selectors and coachesare looking at them as prospects forthe next Olympics in a year’s time?

It will also be a big test for chiefcoach Rajinder Singh and his panel ofexpert coaches to prove the needof such a big back-up team.

The Australian speciality

Though Glenn McGrath issued aprofound apology after his alterca-tion with West Indian Ramnaresh

Sarwan, the controversy refuses to diedown. Last week top ICC officials,including president Malcolm Gray andchief executive Malcolm Speed, issuedstatements condemning the excessiveaggression of the Australian players.

Both Speed and Gray roped inumpires David Shepherd and SrinivasVenkataraghavan into the controversy,saying that it was the duty of theumpires to ensure that all such actsdid not go unnoticed. Gray admittedthat the Australians were losingfans across the world because ofsuch behaviour.

Reports last week suggested thatsuch indiscipline was not limited tothe Australian cricketers. Other sportshad people such as Leyton Hewitt whoalso had been guilty of misbehaving attimes. Rightly so, Gray suggested thatit was really up to the national bodiesto develop within their teams a changein culture. On the other hand, thereare Australians such as captain SteveWaugh who are amused to see what thefuss is all about. After all, display ofaggression was for them a way of life,there was nothing wrong with it. Afterall, if that helps get the desired result,there is nothing wrong with it.

Golf can be fun!

F ifty young golfers, aged six to 17,are having a ball at the Delhi GolfClub this week in the Junior Train-

ing Programme 2003, very differentfrom the past few JTPs which were vir-tually summer melas for 250 young-sters. Fortunately, the DGC powers thatbe, have, this year reverted to the earli-er objectives of the programme, to helpdevelop junior potential.

The JTP has been restricted to amanageable 150 aspiring golfers,

divided into three groups of 50 each,each group with its own qualifiedcoach and assistant, and a wellorganised two-week programme.

Popular coach Nonita Lall Quereshiand professional golfer-husband,Faisal, are ensuring that the first batchof kids not only are taught the basicsbut learn that golf is fun. Each learnergets a Lall-Quereshi folder with awealth of information on the gamecomplete with amusing illustrationsand rules quizzes, an impressive iden-tity tag, T-shirt and cap fashionablyworn backwards. Two hours’ coachingin the morning, two in the afternoonso groups remain small, also avoidboredom and heat exhaustion.

Yoga starts them young with breath-ing and stretching exercises, and at ahealth session, parents and childrenlearned how to prevent sports injuriesand cope with heat and fatigue. This isthe pattern for the complete packagefor each group of 50, with the campstaggered over six weeks.

The TT slide

E ver since the world table tennischampionships have been splitinto the team and individual

events in different years, the organis-ers may be finding it easy, but Indianplayers are finding the exit gates with-in a day or two of the commencementof the championships. Even thechange in format from the 21 pointsgame to 11 and from best of five tobest of seven doesn’t seem to havemade much of a difference.

Two men and two women made it tothe main draw from the qualifiers, butall of them fell at the first hurdle in theopen singles. India’s best player,Chetan Baboor, has had an odd goodwin thanks to his playing in the Euro-pean circuit, but he may have playedhis last world championship as he is aqualified engineer and is likely tosettle down in the U.S. Mantu Ghosh,who became the youngest nationalwomen’s champion, forced her way

into the team as a top-ranked player.Years ago, players like K Nagaraj and

Sudhir Phadke made someimpression in individual events and thebest showing by an Indian team was atthe Dortmund world championships inGothenburg in 1985 when they wereplaced 12. When India hosted the worldchampionships in Delhi two years later,we slipped to 16, and the slide contin-ues. Even in the region, India have notbeen able to push ahead much for yearswhat with China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong marching ahead. Inthis open era, several nations have play-ers of Chinese origin just likeAfrican track athletes settling down inEurope. The only way India can hope todo well at international events is to im-port Chinese players!

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The fight against drugsW hile the Indian sports

officials keep dis-cussing what kind of

action they should takeagainst drug abusers caughtseveral months ago, theChinese showed them howto strike when the iron ishot by placing bans on 34of their errant athletes, in-cluding a coach.

Of course, China is also try-ing to mend its ways and,more importantly, show thatto the world after several oftheir athletes have invitedshame upon their countryby getting caught in thedrugs net.

Having faced acute embar-rassment more than once,the Chinese have resolvedto conduct thousands of teststo ensure history does notrepeat itself.

Meanwhile, sports officialsacross the world anticipatetougher days ahead when ath-letes will resort to genetic dop-ing — use technologies that will enable them to manipu-late their genes to increase the body’s muscle mass ormake blood cells replenish faster. The World Anti-DopingAgency is confident that it would be able to devise meth-ods to catch the guilty athletes because the preva-

lent blood and urine tests will not be of any use. But be-fore that, it would be a good idea to ask national federa-tions to first act fast on the blood and urine tests that havedetected presence of banned substances.

Udayshankar

AFP

Former South African president Nelson Mandela meets English football captainDavid Beckham in Johannesburg. Beckham later said it was “an amazing honourto greet the elderly statesman”.

Acid test for hockey team Bangalore: A confident Indi-an hockey team left here forAustralia to take part in thetwo-leg three-nation invita-tional tournament starting onMay 28 where its much await-ed face-off with Pakistan isexpected to provide fireworksfor the 12-day event.

Led by the mercurial Dhan-raj Pillay, the 20-memberteam took the late night flightto Singapore en-route to Aus-tralia, which has fielded Aus-tralia ‘A’ side for the event be-sides its national side.

Exuding optimism, 34-year-old Pillay and chief Coach Ra-jinder Singh said the teamwas confident of putting up agood show, having undergonea month-long rigorous train-ing programme at the Sports Authority of India, SouthCentre.

“Our morale is high. Weare well prepared to facetough challenges,” they saidat the airport before leaving.The event would be held atPerth and Sydney.

In particular, India’s fix-tures with Pakistan are ex-pected to be watched keenlyback home as it is the firsttime that they would be cross-ing swords following peaceovertures from New Delhi.

The presence of veteranslike Baljit Dhillon, BaljitSingh Saini and Mukesh Ku-mar, besides Pillay, woulddefinitely be of great help,believes Rajinder, who wascoach of the Indian juniorteam that won the World Cup.

Saini would strengthen themidfield, where the teamwould have to otherwise de-pend on new players, he said.

Penalty corner coachHarinder Singh, who also ac-companied the team alongwith assistant coach BaldevSingh, said changes in penal-ty corner rules effected bythe world governing bodyFIH would be advantageousto India.

The sacking of skipperMohammed Nadeem, penal-ty-corner expert Sohail Ab-bas and another key playerand left-half MohammedWasim, has no doubt given ajolt to Pakistan which, how-ever, is on a high after afterwinning the Azlan ShahTournament in Malaysia twomonths ago.

India begin their campaignwith a match against Aus-tralia ‘A’ on May 28, while Pak-istan will take on Australiathe same day. PTI

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Brown Sugar proves merit TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: According to in-formation received here onSunday Brown Sugar (MrsSilva Storoi astride) claimedthe Karnataka Juvenile Million, the feature event ofthe Bangalore races held onSunday.

Results: Doncaster Plate: Red Flame 1,Luca Brassi 2, Honest Princess 3, BeautyMission 4. Prince Khartoum Plate: Na-tional Victory 1, Flash of Speed 2, IronButterfly 3, North Berwick 4. KarnatakaJuvenile Million (gr II): Brown Sugar 1,One Magic Moment 2, Lancaster 3, OnnuOnnu Onnu 4. Sir Charles TodhunterMemorial Cup: Beat It Dude 1, Assumer2, Golden Fortune 3, Double Eagle 4. LadyGibraltar Plate: Emilio 1, Lusitania 2,Dark Knight 3, Etiquete 4. MinisterianPlate: Integral 1, Trajan 2, Queen AndCountry 3, Bench Mark 4.Handicaps for Mysoreraces: Following are the

handicaps for Mysore racesscheduled for Wednesday:Bol Publication Cup: 3 Y-O Only:1,100m: Rich With Tradition 56, LandFeeder 56, Emissary 56, Go For It 56, As-sortment 56, Jackie Brown 54.5, ShowBoat 54.5. Ramanagarar Plate: 30 &Above: 1,200m: Pride Estates 64, Al-mond 59, Baaja Bajav 58, Just Do It 58,Yours Mine N Ours 57.5, Frontier Hero 56,Gullane 54.5, Almost Heaven 53.5, Hero-ic 53, Telegram 53, Sher Khan 52, BlazingRock 51.5, Royal Salute 51.5, Valencia49. Sarqur Plate: 20-35: 1,400m: BenBrown 61, Kingston Heath 60.5, AscotLeader 59.5, Concur 59.5, RoyalCaribbean 59.5, Exstream 58.5, MarvelStar 58.5, Royal Debut 58.5, Soul of Gold58.5, Arduous 57.5, Wind Rush 57, Terrif-ic Dancer 57, Financer 56.5, Desert Fox56, Foolish Pursuit 56, Strength of Faith55, Crystal Goblet 54.5, Stormsky 54.5,Daggers Drawn 54, Mambo King 54. Roy-al; Incatnate 54, Golden Estate 53.5, PrideValley 53, Rosnovski 52.5, Full Moon 51,Special Selection 50.5.

Mahesh-Max canpull it off in Paris

By Ashis Ray

Any perceptive observ-er of the remarkablysuccessful Leander

Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi dou-bles combination, wouldhave inferred that the chem-istry that produced such anunbeatable force in 1999, wasunder pressure soon after.Despite this, they came uptrumps for the second time inthe French Open in 2001.

After the separation, Bhu-pathi has fared rather betterthan Paes. The Bangaloreanand his new partner, MaxMirnyi of Belarus, currentlyworld number 25 in singles,make a formidable pair. Lastyear, they reached the semifi-nals in the French, the quar-terfinals at Wimbledon andtriumphed in the US Open.This season, the old firm wasnot restored to start with, af-ter, apparently, the Belaru-sian wanted to concentrateon singles. Upon a re-think,though, they have stormed totitles at Estoril, in Portugaland in the prestigious MasterSeries tournament in MonteCarlo; and look as threaten-ing as any other duo atRoland Garros.

In contrast, Paes, with theless experienced David Riklof the Czech Republic, is re-quired to do much of the run-ning himself which he hasthe skill to undertake.

In December, he returnedto his base in Florida tostrenuously work on his fit-ness and game. Around thesame time, MartinaNavratilova became a useful,encouraging influence not tomention, his other half in amixed doubles victory in theAustralian Open. In thistournament, Paes alsoreached the quarterfinals of

the men’s doubles with Rikl,before clinching the ATP titlein Dubai with him. He, then,went on to lift the DelrayBeach crown, in the UnitedStates, with Nenad Zimonjicof Serbia. This month, Paesand Rikl, after an indifferentphase in the interim, quali-fied for the last four in theHamburg Masters, beatingJonas Bjorkman and ToddWoodbridge on the way.

At the moment, Paes andRikl may not be as fancied asBhupathi and Mirnyi in theFrench Open, but are unlike-ly to be pushovers either. In-deed, a year ago, Paes, inspite of a virtually scratchpairing with the Czech,Tomas Cibulec, forced hisway into the last four atRoland Garros.

Mental distress can be amajor impediment. AndreAgassi — as confirmationcomes that wife Steffi Graf isexpecting her second baby —is a classic case of being mo-tivated by happy home life; somuch so, that at 33, he is a se-rious challenger even on thegrinding red clay, though it isdoubtful if he can cope witha five-setter against a toughopponent.

However, an ArgentinianArmada seems to loom onthe horizon, what with Ham-burg throwing up an all-Ar-gentinian last four.

As for the fairer sex, Lley-ton Hewitt’s Belgian girl-friend, Kim Cljisters and theFrench number one, AmelieMauresmo, are hinting at dis-lodging Serena Williams, nomean task, while the tabloidsare excited about a preco-cious 16-year-old Russian,Maria Sharapova.

TENNIS TRAIL

AFP

MAN & THE MACHINE: Italian Valentino Rossi (L) and Spanish Sete Gibernau (R) are engulfed insmoke in the 500cc category at the French Mortorcycling Grand Prix in Le Mans on Sunday.

AFP

REACHING MILES: South African golfer and world No. 2 Ernie Els plays his approach to the greenat the 1st hole during the 4th round of the Wentworth PGA tournament in London on Sunday.

RACES

Dempo scrapepast SalgaocarMargao: Dempo’s chancesof making to the semifinalsof the U-19 National Foot-ball League got a boost onSunday when they edgedpast title aspirants Salgao-car by a solitary goal at theDuler grounds. The winputs Dempo on top withseven points from threematches, displacing Sal-gaocar who remained onsix points after sufferingtheir first defeat. Coutinhotrapped a Clifford pass andnetted the winner in the42nd minute. PTI

Varsha triumphsJamshedpur: Varsha Dut-ta of Assam clinched theunder-14 and under-18 sin-gles titles in girls’ section

while Bengal’s Rupesh Royemerged champion in theboy’s under-18 year catego-ry of Tata Steel TennisChampionship.

In the girls section, Var-sha trounced MikaMuhuri 6-3, 6-2 while in theU-14 category, she regis-tered an easy 6-1, 6-1 winover Survi Verma toemerge champion. In theboys’ category, Roy defeat-ed Anshuman Dutta of As-sam 7-5, 6-3. PTI

Ramkumar winChikmagalur: Defendingchampions V R Naren Kumar and co-driver D Ramkumar of teamMRF won the Coffee-dayChampionship Rally, thefirst round of the MAI Indian National RallyChampionship, here onSunday. PTI

Chile lift WorldTeam Cup Dusseldorf: Chile outplayedthe Czech Republic on Satur-day to lift the World TeamCup for the first time. Fer-nando Gonzalez made a per-fect start by claiming a dra-matic 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/5) victo-ry over Jiri Novak, and afterRadek Stepanek levelled thetie by overcoming MarceloRios 6-3, 7-6 (7/5), Gonzalezteamed with Nicolas Massuto beat Novak and Stepanek6-4, 6-2 in the doubles.

Gonzalez made his fourthgreat escape in two weeks ashe battled his way to victoryagainst Novak. He won hisfirst round match at theHamburg Masters after trail-ing 5-1 in the third set, and inhis Friday match in Dussel-dorf he beat David Nalbandi-an in straight sets afterfalling behind 4-2 in the firstset and 5-2 in the second. AFP

Schlager wins raregold for EuropeParis: Austria’s WernerSchlager won the men’s sin-gles title at the Table TennisWorld Championships hereon Sunday.

The number six seed de-feated Korea’s 61st Seed JooSe-Hyuk 4-2 (11/9 11/6 6/1112/10 8/11 12/10).

The 30-year-old registeredEurope’s first success in theBlue Riband event since thelegendary Swedish paddlerJan-Ove Waldner won gold in1997.

The bronze medal winnerat the 1999 championshipshad booked his ticket to thefinal with a seven-set, semi-final victory over doubleOlympic champion KongLinghui of China earlier on

Sunday.The right-handed attack-

ing player became the firstever world men’s singleschampion for his country.

Schlager’s 11/9 7/11 12/1011/8 8/11 7/11 14/12 triumphleft China without a repre-sentative in the men’s blueriband event for the firsttime in six years.

Joo beat 9th seed Kreanga4-1 (11/5 3/11 11/7 11/8 12/10).Joo, who is the surprise pack-age in the line-up given hiscomparatively lowly 61stseed ranking, was always incontrol of the match againstthe bandana-wearing Krean-ga. Joo came up with aseriesof forehand drives to unset-tle Keranga. Thereafter hisdropshots further baffled hisopponent. AFP

WORLD TT

Wang intendsto emulate CoeParis: Wang Nan is aiming todo a Sebastian Coe, theBritish Olympian who turnedto a career in politics after heretired from the athleticstrack, when she finally turnsher back on table tennis.

The heroine of Saturday’swomen’s singles at the WorldChampionships revealed:“I’m keen on politics, and re-cently represented Liaoningprovince as a delegate at a bigCommunist Party meeting.”

Wang Nan, who with thisgolden hat-trick has sur-passed even the record of hergreat mentor, Deng Yaping,who ‘only’ won two worldchampionship singles in the1990s, confessed she has beenwell and truly bitten by thepolitical bug. “I feel being asportswoman can have animpact on your future life. I’llmake a decision when I re-tire.” AFP

CMYK

Monday, May 26, 2003 19The Times of India, New Delhi

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T I M E S S P O R T The Times of India, New Delhi20 Monday, May 26, 2003

Coldfinger Beckham: England and Man-chester United fans can rest easy. DavidBeckham’s broken scaphoid doesn’t meanthat he will miss any important fixtures. Butfor the player himself there are some worries.A television website listed ten things Beck-ham can no longer do1. Shaking celebrity hands: No man wasmore relieved on Thursday night than NelsonMandela. Good Lord - if the broken bone hadhappened just 36 hours earlier, the most pop-ular man in South Africa would never haveshaken hands with, err, Nelson Mandela. 2. Braiding his barnet: Say what you likeabout Alice bands, but at least you can adjustthem with one hand. Braids? We’re talkingtwo hands, a couple of well-placed mirrorsand hours of spare time. Expect them to gowithin the fortnight. 3. Signing new contracts: It’s not easy hold-ing a pen when your hand is enclosed in aplaster cast — even if you happen to be inMadrid and the other hand is holding on to asuitcase stuffed full of pesetas. 4. Playing games on his mobile: Great newsfor shoppers stuck in check-out queues. Ifyou’re left standing with your fruit and veg onyour next visit to the supermarket, it’s be-cause the girl behind the till has lost the codefor Braeburn apples, not because of Becksand his Space Invaders obsession. 5. Changing nappies: Sorry, Victoria - ifRomeo lets rip at an inopportune moment, it’soff with the wedding ring, on with the clothespeg and into the nappy nightmare you go. 6. Catching cans of drink: The barman canslide all the drinks he wants down the saloonbar. With the cast on his hand, Becks will sim-ply have to let the cola go. 7. Dressing himself: Of course, Becks hasn’t

been dressing himself for years - Victoria’scamp stylist has looked after that area since1997. But expect to see slip-on shoes takingover from lace-ups and elastic-waisted track-suit bottoms edging out the button-fly Armanijeans. 8. Gesturing at fans: If you have any filthychants up your sleeve, now’s the ideal time tolet rip. Sure, Becks might give you a nastylook - but there certainly won’t be any fingersbeing stuck up in your direction.

9. Taking money off Michael Owen: Youcan’t take part in a game of cards on theteam bus if you can’t hold your hand or dealwhen your turn comes. Which means if youwant to win money off poor gamblers, you’regoing to have to find other ways - like I Spy atpounds 50 a go - of doing so. 10. Stopping his wife: Yup - she now hasfree rein to do whatever she wants. Expectthe David Beckham single and album beforeSeptember.

G R A F F I T I Kanetkar for German stintBangalore: India’s top-ranked badmintion playerNikhil Kanetkar said he hasdecided to have a trainingstint with Bjoern Joppien,one of Germany’s top shut-tlers, during July-August.

Kanetkar, world ranked 51,said on Sunday that he wouldbe training for about a monthwith Joppien, World number

27, in Langenfeld club where,P Gopichand had played pri-or to his All England Cham-pionship triumph in 2001.

Playing in German leagueis not new for Kanetkar, whofeatured for Bisphmisheimclub in the second divisionlast year. The SARS scare hashit Kanetkar’s plans to quali-fy for the 2004 AthensOlympics as he could notpick up valuable points. PTI

Bhutia might playfor a Greek club

By Nilanjan DattaTIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Indian soccer skipper BaichungBhutia will now be tryingout his luck with FC Panio-nios Athens, a Greek firstdivision club which willfeature in the UEFA Cupthis season.

Sources told the TimesNews Network on Sunday:“They are keen to sign himfor the season. But beforethat they want to observe

him for a week.”Speaking from Kolkata, Bhutia said the dates

of trials haven’t been confirmed as yet. “Myagent will get back to me within two days,” hesaid. “If the offer is good enough, I’d certainlygo for it,” he said refusing to divulge any moredetails about the move.

Panionios, who have won the Greek Cuptwice, are currently at the 5th position in theHellenic National League with 53 points from 29matches. FC Olympiakios and Panathinaikosare joint leaders at 67 points each.

The club, coached by Jozef Bubenko, isowned by Pagozidis Eleftherios who also ownsAEK Athens (presently at the third place with65 points from 29 matches).

Meanwhile, the officials of the two-Kolkatagiants East Bengal and Mohun Bagan claimedthat Bhutia has already finalised their contractwith them. But the star striker is yet to official-ly sign a deal.

AP

Real Madrid’s Brazilian player Ronaldo (C) is congratulated by teamates after scoring histeam’s second goal against Valencia in a Spanish League clash in Valencia on Saturday.

THE SPORTING WORLD AT A GLANCETENNIS

ARAG ATP World Team Champi-onships, Dusseldorf: Final: CzechRep v Chile (Singles: Fernando Gon-zalez (Chi) beat Jiri Novak (Cze) 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5), Radek Stepanek(Cze) beat Marcelo Rios (Chi) 6-3 7-6 (7-5). Doubles: Fernando Gonza-lez (Chi) & Nicolas Massu (Chi) beatJiri Novak (Cze) & Radek Stepanek(Cze) 6-4 6-2, Chile beat Czech Re-public 2-1.ATP Tour Internationaler Raif-feisen Grand Prix, St Poelten: Fi-nal: 1-Andy Roddick (US) beat 6-Nikolay Davydenko (Rus) 6-3 6-2.WTA Tour Internationaux deStrasbourg, Strasbourg: Final: 7-Silvia Farina Elia (Ita) beat KarolinaSprem (Cro) 6-3 4-6 6-4.WTA Tour Open de Espana Villade Madrid - Trofeo Volkswagen,Madrid: Final: 1-Chanda Rubin(US) beat Maria Antonia Sanchez-Lorenzo (Esp) 6-4 5-7 6-4.

BASKETBALLNBA League: Play-offs conferencefinals best of 7 - San Antonio 96

Dallas 83 (San Antonio leads series2-1), New Jersey 102 Detroit 82(New Jersey wins series 4-0).

CYCLINGGiro d’Italia, Stage 14 (Marosti-ca-Alpe Pampeago, 162 km): 1Simoni (Ita) Team Saeco 4hrs46mins 43secs, 2 Stefano Garzelli(Ita) Vini Caldirola-SO.DI at0.35secs, 3 Raimondas Rumsas(Ltu) Lampre at 0.36, 4 Julio A.Perez Cuapio (Mex) Ceramiche Pa-naria-Fiordo at 0.49, 5 YaroslavPopovych (Ukr) Landbouwkrediet-Colnago.Overall Classification after Stage14: 1 Gilberto Simoni (Ita) TeamSaeco 65hrs 45mins 39secs, 2 Ste-fano Garzelli (Ita) Vini Caldirola-SO.DI at 1min 19secs, 3 AndreaNoe’ (Ita) Alessio at 3.39, 4 YaroslavPopovych (Ukr) Landbouwkrediet-Colnago at 4.09, 5 RaimondasRumsas (Ltu) Lampre at 5.08.

GOLFUS PGA Tour Bank of AmericaColonial, Colonial Country ClubFort Worth, Texas, Third-round

scores, (USA unless statedPar 70): 193 Kenny Perry 6864 61, 201 Rory Sabbatini(Rsa) 64 70 67, 202 JimFuryk 68 65 69, 203 JeffSluman 68 68 67, Hal Sutton71 67 65, Stewart Cink 67 7066, 204 Harrison Frazar 6969 66, Steve Flesch 69 6669, Pat Bates 69 66 69, FrankLickliter II 68 66 70, 205Brandt Jobe 67 70 68, Este-ban Toledo (Mex), 68 68 69,Alexander Cejka (Ger) 70 7065, Dan Forsman 66 66 73,Phil Mickelson 67 70 68,Nick Price (Zim) 70 70 65,Patrick Sheehan 65 72 68.USA LPGA Corning Classic,Corning, New York, Third-round scores, (USA unlessstated par 72): 199 CatrionaMatthew 68 64 67 (Gbr), 201Lorie Kane 67 65 69 (Can),202 Beth Daniel 69 66 67,Juli Inkster 68 66 68, MegMallon 67 66 69, 203 HelenAlfredsson 66 68 69 (Swe),204 Soo Yun Kang (Kor) 7264 68,Wendy Ward 70 66 68,205 Rosie Jones 66 70 69,206 Natalie Gulbis 67 70 69.

AP

Chile’s tennis players Fernando Gonzalez (bottom) and Nicolas Massu jubilate after win-ning the Tennis World Team Championships in Germany on Saturday. Chile won 2-1.

AP

Daniel Pedrosa of Spainholds the winner’s trophy onthe podium after he won the125cc category at the FrenchMotorcycling Grand Prix inLe Mans, France, on Sunday.Italy’s Aprilia rider LucioCecchinello finished second.

Real Madrid keep up paceMadrid: Two goals fromRonaldo helped Real Madridto regain the leadership of theSpanish first division, at leastfor 24 hours, after they won 2-1 at reigning Spanish champi-ons Valencia on Saturday. Hisbrace means that Real Madridnow have 71 points from 35games, with three games stillto play.

Real Sociedad are secondwith 69 points but have agame in hand. The Basquestravel to Malaga on Sunday.Deportivo La Coruna arethird with 66 points but theirhopes have almost evaporatedafter a 3-0 defeat away to der-by rivals Celta Vigo.

Madrid took the initiativein an exciting match whenRonaldo headed home a LuisFigo cross after 25 minutes.

Valencia wasted little timein levelling the score andFabio Aurelio sent a long-dis-tance effort past the out-stretched arms of Real goalieIker Casillas.

However, Ronaldo showedhis appetite for the big occa-sion and got the winner fromanother Figo cross, dribblingaround a prone Valencia goal-keeper Santiago Canizares be-fore tapping the ball into thenet.

Atalanta-Reggina relega-tion play-off: Atalanta andReggina will face each otherin a two leg relegation play-off

after both teams finished lev-el on points on Saturday, thefinal day of the 2002-03 Serie Aseason.

Atalanta won 2-1 at ASRoma while Reggina tri-umphed 2-0 at Bologna, butthese wins were not enough toguarantee survival.

Modena and Empoli alsoended up with 38 points butretain their top flight statusbecause they have betterhead-to-head records againsttheir fellow strugglers.

At the top end of the tableParma and Udinese qualifiedfor next season’s UEFA Cupcompetition thanks to winsagainst Empoli and Lazio re-spectively, while Chievo missout after losing 4-3 at leaguechampions Juventus.

Lyon are champions:Reigning champions Lyon be-came the first French sidesince Marseille in 1992 to re-tain their league title despitegoing down to their worsthome defeat of the season onSaturday. Guingamp, lookingambitiously towards qualify-ing for the UEFA Cup, tookonly 18 minutes to prove theirdetermination and went on tohand Lyon coach Paul LeGuen a 4-1 end-of-season de-feat. Lyon had virtually as-sured the title last week andMarseille, playing to retaintheir second place to booktheir return to the ChampionsLeague, would have had toscore a mountain of goals toovertake them. AFP

SOCCER ROUNDUP

BADMINTON

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