28 February 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
New Delhi: Thuingaleng Muivah, general secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM), will arrive in New Delhi this weekend to carry forward the crucial Naga peace talks, the home ministry confirmed on Saturday. Muivah had last visited India in 2006.
“Muivah accepted our invitation communicated through new interlocutor R.S. Pandey to resume the peace dialogue,” Union Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said.
Muivah, who is expected to arrive on Saturday night, will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday. NSCN-IM Chairman Isak Chishi Swu will accompany Muivah during the visit.
“Our general secretary will meet the Indian prime minister after arriving from Amsterdam,” said A.Z. Jami, kilonser (minister) in charge of information and publicity of the Government of People’s Republic of Nagalim (GPRN).
The outfit had entered into a ceasefire with the Indian government in 1997, signaling an end to the 50-year-long insurgency, which was aimed at achieving sovereignty for Naga-inhabited areas in the northeast. The NSCN faction led by guerrilla leader S.S. Khaplang, the NSCN-K, followed suit in 2001.
Besides NSCN-IM and NSCN-K, the NSCN (Unification) and Naga National Council (Adino) are also said to have a stake in the peace process.
Understanding that a permanent solution to the Naga conflict won’t be possible through talks with only one group, the government is trying to get other factions on board.
“Efforts are being made to include all Naga groups because we have realised holding talks with only one group can be counter-productive,” Pillai said.
28 February 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Ahmedabad: The results of the much-anticipated Common Admission Test, the qualifying examination for admission to the elite Indian Institutes of Management, are out. However, like every year, students are already experiencing difficulties in accessing their score cards due to “server issues”.
The results, which were declared early on Sunday morning, can be accessed on http://catiim.in, the official website of all the IIMs. The score card contains candidates scores, both absolute (out of 450) and percentile. The CAT is the first of two stage admission process to the IIMs’ flagship two-year post-graduate programmes (PGP) in management. The second stage comprises Group Discussions/Essay Writing and Personal Interviews.
To retrieve their scorecards, candidates may use their CAT 2009 Register Numbers and email IDs, as it appears on their hall tickets. For those who are unable to do so, due to lack of sufficient details, the Prometric helpline (1 800 103 9293) will available, according to an announcement on the website.
The results, first slated to be released in the first week of January and then in mid-February, are well behind schedule. Roughly 2.4 lakh candidates took the exam this year. The seven IIMs located at Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore and Shillong will put up separate lists of shortlisted candidates, who will qualify for the second stage that comprises group discussion/ essay writing and personal interview. By Sunday afternoon only IIM Shillong and Ahmedabad had put up their lists. Over 120 other B-schools across the country also use these scores as a yardstick for admissions.
This year’s CAT, the first computer-based CAT, was held over a 10-day window in November-December 2009, and then again in January for those whose tests were rescheduled due to technical glitches. The scorecard thus far does not explain any anomalies or queries students may have regarding how a comparative percentile can be determined for 12 different set of questions.Curiously, the score card has marked them out of 450 for a test that comprised 60 questions, spread over three sections that carry equal weightage.
27 February 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
KABUL: Nine Indians have died in a terror attack in Kabul as per preliminary information provided by Afghan government officials, External Affairs minister S M Krishna said. Taliban bombers equipped with suicide vests and automatic rifles attacked a hotel and a guesthouse in central Kabul on Friday.
Insurgents struck in the heart of the Afghan capital Friday with suicide attackers and a car bomb, targeting hotels used by foreigners and killing at least 17 people and wounding dozens, police said.
A series of explosions occurred at the City Centre shopping complex and the Safi Landmark hotel, about 300 metre from the interior ministry, said Abdul Ghafar Sayedzadar, a senior police official.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai said were aimed at Indians working in Kabul.
The four-hour assault began about 6.30 am with a car bombing that leveled a residential hotel used by Indian doctors. A series of explosions and gunbattles left blood and debris in the rain-slickened streets and underscored the militants’ ability to strike in the heavily defended capital even as NATO marshals its forces against them in the volatile south.
Dr. Subodh Sanjivpaul of India said he was holed up in his bathroom for three hours inside one of the small hotels where he lived with other Indians.
“Today’s suicide attack took place in our residential complex,” Sanjivpaul said at a military hospital where his wounded foot was bandaged. “When I was coming out, I found two or three dead bodies. When firing was going on, the first car bomb exploded and the roof came on my head.”
The Kabul attacks came two weeks into a major offensive against the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah, where thousands of US, Afghan and NATO soldiers are battling to drive insurgents out. The British government said one of its soldiers was killed Friday by an explosion while on a foot patrol — the 14th international service member to die in the operation.
In recent weeks, more than two dozen senior and midlevel Taliban figures have been detained in Pakistan, suggesting the attack in the capital could be a way for the militants to show the insurgency remains potent.
In a statement, Karzai condemned Friday’s assault as a “terrorist attack against Indian citizens” who were helping the Afghan people. He said it would not affect relations between India and Afghanistan.
Indian officials also condemned the attack. “We are shocked at the inhuman attack on innocent lives,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.
“Our ties are strong and deep (with Afghanistan) and will remain so. We are very clear that the forces of terrorism will not succeed and we will take every measure to defeat the forces of terror,” he said in New Delhi.
Three police were killed in the attacks, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said, adding that at least 38 people were wounded, six of them police.
Kabul Police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahman told reporters that the attacks began when a car bomb exploded outside the Arya Guesthouse where Indian doctors, who treat Afghan children in the area, were living.
The blast leveled the building, also known as the Hamid Guesthouse. After the car bombing, a suicide attacker detonated his vest of explosives outside the demolished building.
Two other attackers then entered a second hotel known as Park Residence. Police surrounded the building. One of them holed himself up in a room and then blew himself up, killing three police officers and wounding six others. The other attacker was shot dead by police. The Italian diplomat who died had been assisting the police.
“From beginning of the operation, he was in contact with our units and gave us tips and even information regarding the terrorists’ position, which was quite helpful for us,” Rahman said, adding that the tips helped police rescue four other Italians from the scene.
“He was killed by the terrorists who realized that he was passing information to police forces,” Rahman said. “He was in a room right behind the attackers and he could see where they were and what they are doing.”
The scene was chaotic. A body of a man wearing a red shirt was lying near a burned-out vehicle in the rubble. The remains of another man laid in a gully near the epicenter of the blasts. Policemen ran down the streets carrying the injured.
Witnesses said one explosion created a crater about three feet (one meter) wide in front of the Arya Guesthouse; the windows of the nearby luxury Safi Landmark Hotel were blown out.
“I saw foreigners were crying and shouting,” said Najibullah, a 25-year-old worker at the high-rise Safi hotel who ran out into the rain-slickened street in just his underwear when he heard the first explosion.
Najibullah, whose face and hands were covered in blood, said he saw two suicide bombers at the site. “It was a very bad situation inside,” he said. “God helped me, otherwise I would be dead. I saw one suicide bomber blowing himself up.”
The streets, littered with glass and debris, were mostly empty because it was the first day of the Afghan weekend and a major Muslim holiday to mark the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. Afghan police, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, crouched behind traffic barriers with guns ready as a light rain fell and shots sounded from multiple sides.
Police escorted a middle-aged woman in pink pajamas out of the area. She wore a brown sweater, but no shoes, and her socks sopped up water as she walked down the street in a daze. “I haven’t seen … where are my …?” she said, speaking only in sentence fragments.
Jack Barton, an Australian aid worker, said he was awakened by a large blast that blew in the windows of the hotel where he was staying and filled the room with dust.
“There was very intense street fighting outside the guesthouse compound. It happened very close by. After an hour, it slowly drifted away,” he said.
The Canadian Embassy and the US government issued statements denouncing the attacks.
“The United States remains firmly committed to working side-by-side with the Afghan government and people, as well as our international partners, to deliver security and a better future to Afghanistan,” The US Embassy said.
It was the first attack in the Afghan capital since Jan. 18, when teams of suicide bombers and gunmen targeted government buildings, leaving 12 dead, including seven attackers. On Dec. 15, a suicide car bomber hit near a hotel frequented by foreigners, killing eight people.
That followed an October attack on a small residential hotel that housed a number of U.N. election workers. Gunmen with suicide vests stormed the building, killing five U.N. staff.
India is among the largest economic donors to Afghanistan apart from countries that have sent troops to the NATO-led mission. India is seeking regional allies and access to oil- and gas-rich central Asia.
The Indian Embassy in Kabul has suffered two major attacks, the most recent on Oct. 8 when a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at an embassy security barrier, killing 17 people. In July 2008, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle at the gates of the embassy, killing more than 60 people.
India’s growing role here is strongly opposed by Pakistan, which wants a friendly government without ties to its archrival, and by the Taliban because of Indian links to rival ethnic communities here. Many of the Islamic extremist groups in the region have been fighting the Indians for years in Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir.
Also Friday, German lawmakers approved a plan to send up to 850 extra troops to Afghanistan, increasing the maximum number of German troops serving there to 5,350 from 4,500 — a boost to NATO’s multinational force, a week after the Dutch government collapsed over a plan to keep the Netherlands’ 2,000-strong contingent from going home this year.
27 February 2010 | Marc Nongmaithem
Santiago: Hours after a devastating earthquake killed at least 122 people in Chile on Saturday, a massive tsunami hit the Robinson Crusoe island of the Latin American country, President Michelle Bachelet said.
The three-meter wave hit the island, the largest in the Chilean Juan Fernandez archipelago, and was heading toward Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean where evacuations to higher ground were underway.
“A village on the island is half-flooded, people have been evacuated to higher elevations,” the president said, adding there had been extreme damage from the tsunami.
The 8.8-magnitude earthquake hit the country at 3.34 a.m. (1204 IST), some 89 km to the north of Chile’s second largest city Concepcion.
President Bachelet rushed to the national disaster centre to assess the situation and help in relief efforts.
The tremor also damaged buildings in Santiago, about 320 km north of the epicentre, besides disrupting telephone and power lines in some areas.
Several aftershocks, including one that measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, followed the initial quake.
Chilean state television said the president was expected to arrive in the quake-hit area. Areas near the stricken Biobio Region, Maule and Araucania, were declared a zone of catastrophe.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre has issued a warning along the coast of Chile and Peru, and issued a tsunami watch for Colombia, Ecuador, Antarctica, Panama and Costa Rica.
Some 50 nations have been placed under a tsunami advisory. Areas of concern are the Hawaiian Islands, French Polynesia, Australia, and Japan.
Russia’s far eastern region was also advised, but local emergency authorities have said that the region is in no danger.
