Lanka Offers 48 Hours Truce

Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse late on Thursday announced cessation of hostilities by his troops “for the next 48 hours” to allow safe passage “to a secure environment” for all the civilians trapped in the conflict zone and urged the LTTE to allow the civilians to freely move to safety during this period.

“I urge the LTTE within the next 48 hours to allow free movement of civilians to ensure their safety and security. For all those civilians, I assure safe passage to a secure environment. I also assure all those living in the north, and in conflict areas in particular, that vacating LTTE-held areas will ensure their physical security and enable peace, freedom and rights for all citizens of this country,” President Rajapakse said in a “special statement” here.

The President said it was unfortunate that the LTTE was “exploiting the safe zone, declared by the security forces for the civilians, to use as an artillery launching pad to attack security forces and indiscriminately kill civilians.”

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Faculty quota: IIMs, IITs to be exempted

The Central government has decided to exempt 47 premier higher educational institutions in the country from reserving in their faculty positions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

All existing IITs, IIMs, NITs and universities like Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, Benaras Hindu University, Allahabad University, Visvabharati University and AIIMS have been exempted from making reservations in faculty positions.

The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Reservation in Posts and Services) Bill, 2008, has declared these higher educational institutes as centres of excellence and exempted them from making reservations in faculty positions.

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Obama on Arab Television: United States not the enemy

US President Barack Obama chose an Arabic satellite TV network for his first formal TV interview as President, delivering a message on Tuesday to the Muslim world that “Americans are not your enemy”.

The interview underscored Mr Obama’s commitment to repair relations with the Muslim world that have suffered under the previous administration. The President expressed an intention to engage West Asia immediately, and his new envoy to the region, former senator George J. Mitchell, was expected to arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

“My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy,” Mr Obama told the Saudi owned, Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel. Mr Obama noted that the US had made mistakes in the past, but “that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there’s no reason why we can’t restore that”.

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Prime Minister is better, watches Television

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had gone through a coronary bypass surgery on Saturday at AIIMS, is making speedy recovery. On Monday, Dr Singh watched the Republic Day parade on TV from his hospital bed. Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi visited Dr Singh and inquired about his health.

AIIMS authorities said the Prime Minister continues to make “excellent progress” and had “some semi-solid food” on Monday. He had been on a liquid diet till Sunday evening after the surgery. Authorities said several invasive monitoring lines have been removed and the Prime Minister will be given physiotherapy once he is out of the ICU to enable early mobilisation. Though the date of discharge has not been finalised, considering his progress, doctors do not think that Dr Singh would have to stay in the hospital for long. “The PM is showing further improvement in his health. In the morning he watched the Republic Day function on television,” said AIIMS medical superintendent D. K Gupta.

Dr Singh, 76, underwent an 11-hour bypass heart surgery at the AIIMS. He is expected to be in the hospital for about a week.

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Jawan kills 6 in North-East

In one of the worst case of fratricidal killings in the paramilitary forces, a jawan of the Assam Rifles shot dead six of his colleagues, including a junior commissioned officer, at a remote motor vehicle checkpost in Manipur’s Ukhrul district late on Wednesday night.

The incident took place at Awang Kasom, about 15 km west of Chingai sub divisional headquarters, where troops of the Assam Rifles are on duty at a road checkpost.

Rifleman T.S. Tangkhul, who was probably on duty, got into a heated altercation with his JCO and shot him dead with his service rifle.

Hearing the gunshots, five other jawans rushed in and Tangkhul found himself surrounded by five of his unit colleagues who tried to disarm him.

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National Identity Cards for coastal areas

In its ongoing effort to beef up coastal security following the Mumbai terror attacks, the Centre has decided to issue multi-purpose national identity cards to the population living in the coastal areas.

To expedite the project, under the charge of the Registrar General of India, the government has asked states to undertake data collection for the creation of a National Population Register with respect to habitations in coastal areas without waiting for the 2011 census.

States have been asked to furnish the final list of the coastal villages by February 1 so that the data collection can commence from the last week of February. The project is to be completed in a period of one year.

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Cisco plans big server market push

Within the next few months, Cisco Systems, the largest maker of networking equipment, plans to release a product that threatens to shake up the technology industry and put the company on a collision course with traditional partners like Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

The product — a server computer equipped with sophisticated virtualization software — is a bold but risky move by Cisco into an unfamiliar, intensely competitive market that typically produces far lower profits than Cisco makes from network gear. But it reflects the company’s ambition to grow beyond its roots as the so-called plumber of the Internet to offer everything from instant messaging software to digital stereos.

For years, Cisco remained content to sell the switches and routers that direct the rivers of data flowing between computing systems. It dominates that market, making most of its $40 billion a year in revenue, and 65 per cent gross margins, from such products.

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Green Park shootout: 4 gangsters held

Four dreaded gangsters believed to have been involved in more than a couple of daring daylight robberies in New Delhi in the past few months were arrested by the special staff of the South Delhi police on Monday following a fierce gunbattle outside a crèchecum-preparatory school in South Delhi’s posh Green Park locality. Three policemen were injured in the shootout, which also foiled another robbery attempt by the criminals.

Two other accused, Nadir, an Afghan national, and Harpal, both of whom had managed to escape in a Santro car as the shootout started, surfaced dramatically in the Noida studio of Hindi news channel Sahara Samay on Monday evening, claiming that they were not involved with any gang. The Delhi police crime branch later arrested the two, who claimed they fled in panic as the gunbattle started.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) H.G.S. Dhaliwal said that acting on a tipoff, a police team led by Inspector Rajendra Singh had been trailing the suspects from the South Extension area. The suspects were moving in two cars — a Honda Accord and a Hyundai Santro.

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Obama, Biden roll into Washington by train

Barack Obama warned Americans on Saturday of the vast challenges ahead as he rolled by train into Washington, kicking off three days of celebration of his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States.

Mr Obama waved to crowds from the back of a vintage train car and stopped twice for rallies in frigid weather on the more than 7-hour journey from Philadelphia to Washington, where he takes office on Tuesday amid the deepest economic crisis in generations and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Only a handful of times in our history has a genera tion been confronted with challenges so vast,” Mr Obama said as he began the trip in Philadelphia, evoking the patriots who launched the American fight for independence in the city in 1776.

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Obama: Qaeda is No. 1 threat to United States

US President-elect Barack Obama said on Wednesday that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden remain the “number one threat” to US security, after a new voice recording emerged from the terror group’s leader.

“Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are our number one threat when it comes to American security,” Mr Obama said, after the recording warned the President-elect of new fronts in bin Laden’s self styled holy war against Western interests.

“We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that they cannot create safe havens that can attack Americans. That’s the bottom line.” The 22-minute audio recording, whose authenticity was confirmed by the US-based Site Intelligence Group, was the first commentary from the Al Qaeda leader in eight months.

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War is last option, says Army Chief

Confirming that Pakistan had moved troops from its western to its eastern borders, Indian Army Chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor said on Wednesday that India was keeping all its options open, and that the “military option is the last option”. Addressing his annual press conference here on the eve of Army Day on Thursday, Gen. Kapoor said: “There is a larger amount of tension since 26/11. We feel the perpetrators (of the Mumbai terror attack) came from Pakistani soil. We in India are keeping all our options open. This is not hysteria for war, but all options are open — diplomatic, economic and the last resort is the fighting option.”

He went on: “The military option is the last option. The decision is on the political leadership. The political leadership has said that war is not an option but (that) all options are open.”

Gen. Kapoor confirmed that a section of Pakistani troops deployed till now in its Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have now been deployed at Pakistan’s eastern borders (with India). “We are aware of it,” he said.

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Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam holds over 200,000 captive

New Delhi's silence was as welcome for Colombo as it was worrying for ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka. As Sri Lankan fighter jets and attack helicopters pounded LTTE positions on Monday, the Tamils fbared for the safbty of civilians in the Wanni area and those others trapped behind LTTE lines in the jungles of Mullaittivu.

While the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance appealed to New Delhi and Chennai in the same breath to intervene and save the lives of civilians caught in the conflict zone, a moderate section represented by the Tamil United Liberation Front directed its anger at Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi for not being vocal enough on the plight of civilians being used as a human shield by the LTTE. The LTTE is holding over 200,000 civilians captive in the jungles of Mullaittivu, its last bastion, in order to recoup its residual fighting capability and thwart Sri Lankan troops from making further advances.

Gajen Ponnambalam, a Member of Parliament and general secretary of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) - a TNA constituent - said what was happening in Sri Lanka today was "genocide".

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P Chidambaram: Bangla citizens are getting too many visas

Illegal migration from Bangladesh has become a major cause of concern for home minister P. Chidambaram, who “sees no reason” why a large number of visas are being issued to Bangladeshis. Security agencies, on the other hand, are increasingly alarmed over gaps in the Indo-Bangladesh and Indo-Pakistan border fencing, which serve as entry points for both illegal migrants and terrorists crossing over into India. The states causing concern include Gujarat, West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram. The home minister also feels that these porous borders and illegal immigration were causing “unexpected demographic changes” in the country.

Mr Chidambaram, in an interview to NDTV, meanwhile, also said he was concerned about the huge influx of Bangladeshis into the country every month, many of whom were “staying back” even after their visas expired. He saw “no reason” why such a large number of visas should be issued to Bangladeshis every month. Mr Chidambaram’s statement could well take the sting out of a major BJP campaign theme: on the illegal entry of Bangladeshis into India.

The home minister acknowledged that the existing mechanism to monitor whether a Bangladeshi who had legally entered had indeed returned to his country after expiry of his visa was “ineffective”.

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Slumdog now gets Writers Guild screenplay nomination

The Slumdog Millionaire saga continues with the British director Danny Boyle’s Mumbai-set film picking up more key award nominations in the run-up to next month’s Academy Awards.

While the Writers Guild of America (WGA) nominated it for best Adapted Screenplay for screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) picked it up for Best Cinematography nomination for Anthony Dod Mantle on Wednesday. Most of those nominated by the WGA and ASC go on to earn Academy Award nominations as well. The WGA will announce its winners on February 7 while the ASC will unveil its award recipient on February 15. Last year, the two WGA winners, Juno for Original Screenplay and No Country For Old Men for Adapted Screenplay and the ASC winner, There Will Be Blood later won Oscars in those very categories. The NAACP Image Awards, given by America’s oldest and largest civil rights organisation, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, also recognised the film with two nominations — Best Independent Feature and Best Supporting Actor for British Indian actor Dev Patel.

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Pakistan, finally, says Kasab is Pakistani

After weeks of dilly-dallying, Pakistan on Wednesday admitted that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone 26/11 terrorist captured in Mumbai, is a Pakistani national. “We are confirming Ajmal Kasab is from Pakistan,” Pakistan’s information minister Sherry Rahman said in Islamabad. Pakistan foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq acknowledged as much, citing a preliminary investigation conducted by the Pakistani authorities.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s Dawn News TV channel cited unnamed sources as saying that a preliminary investigation carried out by Pakistani law enforcement agencies has established that Kasab was a resident of Faridkot village of Okara district in Pakistan’s Punjab province and the son of Amir Kasab and Noor Elahi. It also said copies of the probe report had been submitted to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the interior ministry.

The acknowledgement from Pakistan, which had refused to confirm Kasab’s nationality on the ground that he was not registered in the country’s databases, comes two days after New Delhi handed over a dossier of what it said was evidence linking the 26/11 attacks to elements in Pakistan.

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Federal Bureau of Investigation to recruit 850 new agents

At a time when the United States is experiencing one of the worst ever layoffs and more than two million people have lost their jobs in past one year, the country’s premier investigating agency Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced to launch one of its largest ever hiring blitz.

FBI said it is hiring as many as 850 special agents, with emphasis on those having critical skills like knowledge of key foreign languages including Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. In addition to this, FBI is also hiring 2,100 professional support staff.

Urging people to apply for job openings in FBI, the agency’s assistant director John Raucci, said: “Whatever your background or expertise, you will find the FBI exceptionally rewarding.

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Google hopes to open a trove of little-seen books

Ben Zimmer, executive producer of a Web site and software package called the Visual Thesaurus, was seeking the earliest use of the phrase “you’re not the boss of me.” Using a newspaper database, he had found a reference from 1953.

But while using Google’s book search recently, he found the phrase in a short story contained in “The Church,” a periodical published in 1883 and scanned from the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

Ever since Google began scanning printed books four years ago, scholars and others with specialised interests have been able to tap a trove of information that had been locked away on the dusty shelves of libraries and in antiquarian bookstores.

According to Dan Clancy, the engineering director for Google book search, every month users view at least 10 pages of more than half of the one million out-of-copyright books that Google has scanned into its servers.

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Protesters throw shoes at No. 10

British anti-war and human rights activists were joined by common people in a huge demonstration in London on Saturday afternoon against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

The organisers, a group of more than 30 human rights organisations, had wanted to leave shoes at Downing Street inspired by Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush, to register “disgust” over British PM Gordon Brown’s action “in stopping a unanimous call by the United Nations for Israel to stop bombing immediately.” They had asked protesters to carry their old shoes with them.

However, the police had barricaded half of the Whitehall, not allowing anyone to come close. The protesters in anger threw their shoes towards the gates of Downing Street and set fire to the Israeli flag while chanting slogans.

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Semester-based exams in universities soon

University students across the country would soon be taking examinations based on semester system instead of an annual exam system followed right now. The marking system would also be based on grades that would be transferable to other universities if the student wants to seek a midcourse admission to another institute.

The UGC’s much-delayed plan to implement the revamp of the functioning of universities across the country is finally set to be implemented. The commission has accepted the recommendations of the committee, with Gnanam, former V-C, Pondicherry University, and Deepak Pental, V-C, Delhi University as members, established to look into the university reform process.

UGC chairman S.K. Thorat on Friday said that the reform process would be implemented soon. “The UGC would soon be directing universities to begin the process of implementation the reform. We expect to implement the proposed reforms in a phased manner over a period of next three four years,” the UGC chairman said. He said that as the academic reforms process is linked to financial incentives the commission hopes that it won’t face problems in implementation.

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Thai nightclub fire kills 60, hurts 200

At least 60 people were killed, including many foreigners, and more than 200 injured when a fierce fire ripped through a popular nightclub in Thailand’s capital Bangkok early on Thursday morning.

The blaze broke out at the famous Santika Club, frequented by both locals and tourists, in Ekkamai area after a pyrotechnic display ignited the second floor ceiling largely made of soundproofing material, reports said.

A number of foreigners, mainly Asians, were among the casualties from the blaze that erupted shortly after midnight at the club, the police said.

Nearly 10 foreigners, including from Australia, the Netherlands, Nepal and Japan, were reported to be killed during the stampede to get out of the club from burns, smoke inhalation and injuries during the incident, they said adding, around 30 bodies were charred beyond recognition.

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