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Headlines
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News:
New outfit of LeT responsible for attack: Advani
Militant kills nine Amarnath pilgrims, injures 30
Uproar in Maha Assembly as Munde offers to resign
Teachers, parents protest board exam for Std IV
Armitage to visit India, Pak this month
Brother of Sept 11 hate crimes victim shot dead
India calls for end to violence in Middle East
UN Assembly slams attacks against Palestinians, Israelis
Naik to look into previous allotments of petrol pumps
Rupee weakens against US dollar early Tuesday
Indian Commonwealth team receive a rousing reception
Kumble doubtful for second Test against England
Srinath signs up for Leicestershire
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Sensex: 3023.26, +11.91
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Forex, Metals and
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News
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New outfit of LeT responsible for attack: Advani
New Delhi,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: Al Mansuriya, a new militant outfit floated by Lashkar-e-Toiba, is responsible for Tuesday's attack on Amarnath pilgrims near Pahalgam, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani said.
Talking to reporters after attending a meeting between a Congress delegation and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Advani said of the 28 people injured, 15 of those seriously wounded had been airlifted to Srinagar for treatment.
Stating that a high-level team of Home Ministry officials led by a Special Secretary had reached the site for an on-the- spot assessment of the situation, he asserted the Amarnath yatra (pilgrimage) would continue.
Earlier, Minister of State for Home I D Swami said "we are determined to continue the Amarnath yatra. The yatra will continue."
He told reporters that the team would also review security arrangements for the pilgrimage and these would be further tightened.
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Militant kills nine Amarnath pilgrims, injures 30
Srinagar,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: In the first major strike on Amarnath pilgrims this year, a militant attacked their base camp gunning down nine devotees and injuring 30 others in their sleep in the wee hours near Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday.
Appearing from the nearby hillock, the militant, believed to be a foreign mercenary and dressed in Gujjar (shepherd) attire, tore the three-tier security set up and launched the surprise attack at 5.20 am hurling grenades and firing indiscriminately from an AK-47 rifle for a few minutes before he was shot dead by the security persons, officials said.
They said the militant struck when the pilgrims were sleeping at the base camp of Nunwan, 100 kms from here, from where devotees begin their arduous 46-km trek to reach the cave shrine of Amarnath situated at an altitude of 3880 metres.
Fourteen of those seriously injured have been hospitalised in Srinagar while others have been admitted to different hospitals in Anantnag. Condition of four of the injured was stated to be serious, they said.
No militant outfit has claimed the responsibility for the attack -- the second within a week on pilgrims.
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Uproar in Maha Assembly as Munde offers to resign
High drama was witnessed in Maharashtra Assembly on Tuesday after senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde offered to resign as member of the house, taking offense to certain remarks made by Deputy Speaker Pramod Shende.
The lower house witnessed three adjournments over the issue, which was resolved after hectic parleys by senior leaders of the Assembly in speaker Arun Gujrathi's chamber.
Irked by certain remarks of Shende, Munde said in his 21-year-long stint in the Assembly never was he treated with such kind of harshness.
Trouble broke out when Shende, who was in the chair, made certain remarks as Munde interrupted during revenue minister Ashok Chavan's reply on the drought situation across the state.
The BJP leader was objecting to Chavan citing a newspaper report about Centre denying financial assistance to the state to run the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS).
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Teachers, parents protest board exam for Std IV
Parents and teachers are rallying to make the state government reconsider its resolution introducing board exams for standard IV students.
Across the city, Parent Teachers’ Associations (PTA) are organising meetings to protest the government resolution, while the PTA United Forum—an association of PTAs in city schools—is planning a meeting of 120 school representatives later this week to chalk out its strategy.
The Forum has already launched a signature campaign in schools.
In Bandra’s St. Stanislaus school, parents braved the pouring rain on Sunday to attend a meeting to discuss the government resolution.
School PTA secretary Sandra Patel said that parents were made aware of the contents of the circular and its impact.“
We talked about the absurdity of such a circular being framed without taking parents’ or teachers into confidence,’’ Ms Patel said. She added that the board exams would burden students.
These exams are to be held in addition to the annual school exam. Exams will be held in three subjects—social sciences, maths and general knowledge.
The tests will be spread over one day and students who top these exams will be given scholarships. Parents are upset that the resolution was issued only on July 15, after the academic year started, leaving them no time even to prepare students for what is in store.
Arundhati Chavan, president of the PTA United Forum, said that the exams would “take away the students’ childhood’’. Her organisation had been in the forefront of an agitation against the government decision to increase fees in aided English-medium schools.
“We feel that these exams will overburden the child,’’ Ms Chavan said. Students will have to appear for the board exam in February and then take another annual exam in March or April.
Though the syllabus for both the tests is the same, it would put children under tremendous pressure, she added.
The Parent Teachers’ Association of Canossa school at Mahim held a meeting recently to discuss the exam issue, while at Shailendra Education Society, parents launched a signature campaign against the move, said principal M.L. Phansekar.
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Armitage to visit India, Pak this month
Washington,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: Nearly two months after his visit to the region, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will travel to India and Pakistan later this month to review the steps taken by the two countries to ease their tensions since his last trip.
As part of his five-nation tour, Armitage will visit New Delhi on August 23 and Islamabad on August 24, "where he will build upon his June visits to those cities and review the steps India and Pakistan have taken since that time to further de-escalate tensions," State Department Deputy Spokesman Philip Reeker told reporters here on Monday.
He will also follow up on Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to South Asia last month, discussing initiatives to expand US bilateral relations with both countries, Reeker said.
When told that Armitage "is following his visit because may be Secretary Powell's visit was a failure at least in India", Reeker said: "No, not at all. It is very clear our engagement (is) with both countries, including India and Pakistan, and what we are trying to do here in terms of our bilateral relations with each country, but also in continuing to see that both sides live up to the commitments they have made and see a continuing defusion of the tensions there."
Armitage will also be visiting Sri Lanka, China and Japan during the trip.
Sri Lanka will be Armitage's first stop and he will visit Colombo on August 22. After visiting India and Pakistan, he will be in Beijing from August 25-27 and in Tokyo from August 27-28.
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Brother of Sept 11 hate crimes victim shot dead
Washington,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: The brother of the first South Asian killed in hate crimes following the September 11 attacks, has been shot dead, police said.
The 52-year-old Sukhpal Singh, brother of Balbir Singh Sodhi, was killed on Sunday morning in San Francisco while he was driving his cab by someone outside the vehicle, they said.
Balbir, a gas station owner in Mesa, Arizona, was killed on September 15 by a gunman driving through the station.
Sukhpal, a resident of Daly City, California, was on his way home from his shift as a United Cab driver just before 4 am local time when someone outside his vehicle shot him in San Francisco's Mission district, according to police and Singh's manager.
Police said there is no evidence that Sukhpal's killing was a hate crime. He may have been the victim of a bullet intended for somebody else, they said.
"We don't exactly know what we have, but from all indications, it looked like the cab driver was in the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of his own," Inspector Joseph Toomey told the local media.
The murder has sent shock-waves through the entire Indian community in the country.
However, the Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force (SMART) has urged the police to investigate the murder as a hate crime.
According to media reports, as gunshots rang, Sukhpal's taxi careened down 24th Street towards Mission Steet and struck a parked car which burst into flames when it hit another car.
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India calls for end to violence in Middle East
United Nations,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: Asserting that terrorism has to be "abjured in absolute terms", India has said all acts of violence and terror against innocent civilians in the Middle East must come to an end while declaring that the Palestinian Authority, headed by Yasser Arafat, remains a "credible negotiator and partner" in the peace process.
"We believe that all acts of violence and terrorism have to be abjured in absolute terms," India's Ambassador to the United Nations V K Nambiar told UN General Assembly on Monday.
There can be no justification for terrorism on any grounds, including political, ideological and religious, he asserted during a debate on Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report on Israeli military action in Jenin.
"We wish to reiterate our call for an end to violence, whether military actions or acts of terror against innocent and unarmed civilians," he told the 189-member Assembly.
Nambiar also expressed support for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, saying the Palestinian Authority headed by him remains a "credible negotiator and partner in implementing the understandings reached."
His remarks assume significance in view of the position of the Bush Administration that Arafat should be replaced by another Palestinian leader for any peace process to move forward.
Nambiar also stressed, that while reform of Palestinian institutions is important, "it cannot allowed to become a precondition to resuming peace process".
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UN Assembly slams attacks against Palestinians, Israelis
United Nations,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: In a major victory for the Palestinians and Arabs, UN General Assembly has condemned attacks against Israeli and Palestinian civilians and demanded end to Israeli incursions in the West Bank and all acts of violence.
After day-long debate on situation in the Middle East which heard constant condemnation of Israeli military action against Palestinian civilians, the 189-member Assembly adopted a resolution, jointly drafted by the Arabs and the European Union, by 114 votes to four with 11 abstentions.
Besides demanding end to Israeli incursions and violence in the Middle East, the resolution, approved Monday night, called for a free access to all areas by medical and humanitarian organisations.
The debate itself was on expected line with Arabs and Islamic nations strongly attacking Israel, the United States strongly defending it and attacking Islamic fundamentalist groups, and others trying to strike balance between the two.
The resolution was a major victory for the Palestinians and Arabs who had failed to get any such resolution through the UN Security Council where the US had threatened to veto any draft which did not condemn Islamic fundamentalist outfits including Hamas.
But the Assembly resolutions, unlike those of the Council, are not enforceable or legally binding and have little value beyond showing what the world at large feels.
To win support of European Union which lent strength to the resolution, the Arabs agreed to water it down. The condemnation of Israel was toned down. The original resolution had not mentioned anything about suicide attacks.
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Naik to look into previous allotments of petrol pumps
New Delhi,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: Stung by Opposition's tirade on favouritism shown to ruling BJP in allotment of petrol pumps, Federal Petroleum Minister Ram Naik on Tuesday said he would look into all the previous allocation of pumps and gas dealerships.
"There is a demand to review all previous allotments. It will be looked into," he told PTI a day after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee annonced cancellation of all the allotments made since January 2000.
At the same time, Naik, whose resignation is being sought by Opposition parties, launched a counter attack on Congress saying it should explain why the wife of V George, personal secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, was given a petrol pump in Delhi on the ground that she did not have any source of livelihood.
"There can't be two standards," Naik warned and advised Opposition parties to end the issue in view of "bold" decision taken by the government.
"We have responded to the general feeling expressed by media and the Opposition. Since controversy had arisen, Prime Minister took a bold decision. For everything there has to be an end," he said when asked about the continuing demand for his resignation, which led to adjournment of both the houses of Parliament for the second successive day on Tuesday.
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Rupee weakens against US dollar early Tuesday
Mumbai,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: The rupee weakened against the US currency on fresh dollar demand from corporates and importers at relatively lower levels in moderately active early trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market on Tuesday.
Opening around Rs 48.6450/6550 per dollar, the rupee later declined to Rs 48.67/68 in late morning deals, sharply lower from Monday's finish of Rs 48.6400/6450.
Renewed dollar demand from banks for their corporate clients exerted fresh pressure on the rupee but there was adequate local dollar supplies to absorb the buying.
Moreover, the outlook for the rupee remained positive following healthy dollar inflows from exports and a lingering weak dollar against major world currencies, a forex dealer said.
The rupee scaled over 5-1/2 months peaks in the past two days backed by strong exporter dollar sales and inward remittances.
In cross currency trades, the Euro was quoted at Rs 47.56/59, Pound Sterling at Rs 75.78/81 and Japanese Yen (100) Rs 40.60/62.
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Indian Commonwealth team receive a rousing reception
New Delhi,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: Amidst scenes of widespread revelry and celebrations, the victorious Indian contingent at the Manchester Commonwealth Games arrived here early Tuesday morning to a rousing reception from a nation starved of sporting glory.
As the flight from London was delayed, hundreds of fans, relatives, schoolchildren and mediapersons waited for more than four hours at the Indira Gandhi International Airport to welcome the heroes of India's best ever performance at an international event of this magnitude.
Sports Minister Uma Bharti and top officials of Indian Olympic Association were present at the airport to receive the contingent which returned with a rich haul of medals and a third-place finish in the final medal tally.
There was beating of drums, fans breaking into impromptu dance and a lot of slogan shouting as the sound of the bands sent by army and para-military to welcome their wards faded into the background.
The athletes, who arrived in two seperate batches in an interval of two hours but came out of the arrival lounge together, were pleasantly surprised and amused to receive such a huge reception.
Shooters Anjali Vedpathak and Jaspal Rana, both of whom won four gold medals each, and the women's hockey team were the centre of attraction as mediapersons and photographers jostled with each other to get near to them.
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Kumble doubtful for second Test against England
Trent Bridge (England),Tuesday, August 06, 2002: Ace leg spinner Anil Kumble has developed a minor injury and is a doubtful starter for the second Test against England starting here on Thursday.
The Indian team manager Ranga Reddy said on Monday that Kumble has a calf trouble in his right leg and he has a 50-50 chance of being fit for the second Test.
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Srinath signs up for Leicestershire
Bangalore,Tuesday, August 06, 2002: Indian Speedster Javagal Srinath, who had announced his retirement from Test cricket recently, has signed up a contract with the English county side Leicestershire.
Srinath told reporters here that he would be playing for the county side from August 19 to September 22.
"Since the doors are closed for me for the ICC trophy, I have signed the contract", he said.
Srinath said he has taken full consent of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in this regard.
"This would be a good opportunity to begin first class cricket to stay match-fit", he said.
Srinath said he also had offers from South Africa but did not accept them as the fixtures there were clashing with the domestic first class season in India.
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Sensex: 3023.26, +11.91
The sensex closed at 3023.26, up 11.91
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Forex
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1 U.S. $ = 49 INR
1 Japanese Yen = 0 INR
1 British Pound = 75 INR
1 Canadian $ = 30 INR
1 Singapore $ = 27 INR
1 UAE Dirham = 13 INR
1 Saudi Arabian Riyal = 13 INR
1 Euro = 47 INR
1 Qatar Rial = 13 INR |
Metals
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Weather
| Temperature : 76 F / 25 C
Humidity : 96%
Dew Point : 76 F / 24 C
Wind : West at 11 mph / 17.7 km/h
Wind Gust -
Pressure : 29.64 in / 1004 hPa
Conditions : Rain
Visibility : 1 miles / 1 kilometers
UV : 0
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