Saturday, July 18, 2009
Clinton seeks goodwill in India
U
S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has begun a five-day visit to India aimed at strengthening political and economic relations.
She is currently in Mumbai, where she attended a private ceremony to honour the victims of last November's attacks which left more than 170 people dead.
She is staying in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where many of the victims died.
Mrs Clinton is also likely to press for better ties between India and Pakistan when she goes to Delhi on Sunday.
Observers say she will argue that the current US alliance with Pakistan is not at India's expense.
BBC regional analyst Jill McGivering says that at present, the US focus is on Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the battle against Taliban insurgents in both countries.
But the Obama administration is keen to address concerns in India that Delhi's interests are being neglected, our correspondent adds.
Drumming up business
BBC state department correspondent Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with Mrs Clinton, says the secretary of state is keen on people-to-people diplomacy and usually holds town hall events and meetings with civil society leaders on foreign visits.
Before the official part of the visit in Delhi on Monday, she will take time in Mumbai, the commercial capital, to meet business leaders and visit a women's NGO that helps to provide poor women with employment.
In the afternoon she will spend an hour at a school talking to volunteers at the Teach India programme, promoting education for the poor.
As her first engagement, she attended a morning ceremony to mark the Mumbai attacks, held in private and without press coverage.
It was held in the Taj Palace hotel where she was staying.
The attacks, in November last year, have become a major source of tension between India and Pakistan.
India wants Pakistan to punish those responsible and take tough action against militant groups.
The US has been working to bring the sides back into dialogue.
If tensions along Pakistan's border with India were reduced, the Pakistani military would be able to focus more fully on the north-west and dealing with its own insurgency there.
Pakistan is now promising to address the concerns about militants, but many in India are sceptical.
Our correspondent also says the visit is also partly about business.
The agreement which ended a three-decade ban on the sale of civilian nuclear technology to India was a centrepiece of the last Bush administration.
Now India is expected to name two sites where US companies can build nuclear power plants. It is business worth billions of dollars.
Boxing champ, Renu Gora serving tea?
N
ew Delhi, Jul 18: Drawing attention to the plight of sports persons of the country, a picture published in a newspaper report shows the 2006 World Boxing Championship bronze medalist Renu Gora serving tea and snacks.
In a Hindustan Times report published on Saturday, Jul 18 claims that Renu along with another upcoming boxer Monica were serving the media personnel at an event. The report quotes her as saying that she has been forced to serve tea and wash cups at the National Institute of Sports (NIS).
Renu Gora is at the NIS, Patiala studying to be a coach, but she has been reduced to a serving and a cleaning help.
The report quotes her as saying that she has been forced by 'Sir' to do this kind of tasks. However, in a interview with the CNN-IBN, she denied that she ever said that she was forced to serve tea and snacks and on the contrary said that she chose to do the work.
Indian PM Wary of Khuga Dam Project
I
mphal, Jul 18 : The construction of Khuga multi-purpose project is taking so long that even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who laid its foundation nearly three decades ago, is shying away from commissioning it.
“The Prime Minister did not even want us to mention the name of the project when I met him. He did not say no to the invitation for commissioning the project, but showed reluctance as the project has become too old,” chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh told the Assembly today.
Singh laid the founda1tion stone of the project at Khuga in the southern district of Churachandpur in 1980, when he was the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission.
Though the project is nearly 30 years old, its components are not yet ready for use.
The original cost of the project, Rs 15 crore, has in the meantime escalated to Rs 250 crore.
The multi-purpose project aims to irrigate 15,000 hectares of agriculture land and provide five million gallons of drinking water daily.
It also has a 1.5MW power project.
However, the trial run for irrigation and drinking water is yet to take place and the power project equipment, purchased long back, have rusted and become useless by now.
Ibobi Singh and irrigation and flood control minister N. Biren Singh blamed former governments for taking so long to complete the project.
“It is only after the Ibobi Singh government came to power in 2002 that the work was taken up on a war footing. At that time the project was almost abandoned. The previous governments also failed to maintain work quality,” Biren Singh said, reacting to charges by two Opposition members, Okram Joy Singh and T. Hankhanpao.
The Opposition members alleged that poor quality of work led to frequent breaching of the earthen embankment of the main canal. They also expressed the apprehension that the main dam could collapse, killing people and livestock extensively in the district.
Ibobi Singh said breaching of embankments at one point or other was normal during a trial run because the embankments had not yet settled down.
“The minister and engineers are working round-the-clock to plug holes and improve the embankments,” he assured the House.
Biren Singh, too, assured the House that the main dam would never breach.
