29tober 2007

Thanks : IBN Live
India won't go back on its economic reforms

New Delhi: Taking pot shots at the Left post the nuclear deal face off with it and almost losing grip over his government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hasn’t left a single opportunity to make it clear that his courtship with the Left parties is now almost in deep freeze.

"No policy reform has ever been reversed. The Indian economy, and its globalisation, has moved in only one direction – towards greater and greater freedom for individual creativity, initiative and enterprise,” said Manmohan Singh.

The Prime Minister was speaking at a Fortune magazine summit on Monday. His listeners were top corporate czars who want to see greater liberalisation in Indian economy. But his allies want to hear a different tune.

Messrs Karat and company don’t like what the PM is preaching and their threats are still very much alive.

"There is no Third Front as of now. But if the government goes ahead with the nuclear deal. Then we will re-prioritise ourselves,” said General Secretary, CPI-M, Prakash Karat.

While his Left allies are ganging up against him, surprisingly his opponents (BJP) are changing their stand on the nuke deal. Now, they say the deal is fine as long as the military might is not capped.

So whether its greater flexibility on usage of pension funds in stock markets, or opening up of Insurance sector or land use policies, its getting increasingly clear that the Left and Manmohan cant be the best of friends that they would have wanted to.

Thanks : The Hindu
Manmohan to head land reforms council
NEW DELHI: Responding to the Janadesh March into the capital by thousands of rural poor and landless people on Sunday to press their demands, the Union government on Monday announced the setting up of a National Land Reforms Council with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its chairman.

The Council will take a “holistic approach” to land reforms and related land management issues and will come out with a National Land Reforms Policy.

Political-level body
The Council, likely to be a political-level body with representation from the States as well as the Centre, will be assisted by a committee on ‘State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task in Land Reforms’ to be headed by Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh.

The committee will have experts from related specialities and fields, and will be in place within a month.

The committee will look into issues of land reform, distribution of ceiling surplus land and wasteland, tenancy, right to the tiller and setting up of fast track courts in a time-bound manner.

Thanks : The hindu
A ship sails tall and proud
KOCHI: INS Tarangini, the Indian Navy’s sole sailing ship, returned here on Monday after a 10-month voyage around the globe.

Its skipper, Commander Sunil Balakrishnan, spoke of the triumphs and the travails the team faced along the way.



He said the voyage gave his cadets valuable experience to now enable them to steer sophisticated ships of the Navy.

The cadets were exposed to sailing in heavy winds, different aspects of navigation and so on. The vessel will now embark on a journey to countries in South-East Asia, from January to March 2008.

The ship set sail from Kochi on January 10 to participate in Tall Ships Races in the U.S. and to train cadets.

Trainees numbering 279 from the Indian Navy, 16 from the Coast Guard and 18 from 15 countries — Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Djibouti, Eritrea, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the U.K. and the U.S. — were on board.

Tarangini had earlier circumnavigated the globe from January to April 2004 with the theme ‘Building bridges of friendship across the oceans,’ and from April to November 2005 with the theme ‘Strengthening the bridges of friendship across the seas.’