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.

To read the full article, click here..
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.asianage.com

Police hunts in Bengal, Uttar Pradesh for Delhi suspects

Half a dozen Delhi police teams fanned out to eastern Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal to hunt for the two motorcycle-borne men suspected to be behind Saturday afternoon’s blast at Mehrauli.

Investigators are, meanwhile, keeping close watch on a youth being treated at AIIMS’ trauma centre on the suspicion that he could be one of those who had planted the bomb. No evidence on this has, however, been found.

The injured person, Allauddin, from Gaya in Bihar, had two driving licenses. His brother Shabuddin told the police he was working for a Gurgaon call centre, and his boss there had got him a second driving licence from Nagaland. The reason he was carrying a lot of money was because he had gone to open an account at the State Bank of India on the day of the blast, his family explained.

Five Bangladeshi nationals are among those being questioned, and the police has not ruled out the possible involvement of illegal Bangladeshi migrants.

To read the full article, click here..
To read the ePaper, visit:
http://epaper.asianage.com/Asian/AAge/2008/09/29/index.shtml

Aarushi case:Central Bureau of investigation turns to All-India Institute of Medical Sciences for help

The CBI, tied up in knots in the Aarushi murder investigation, is now banking on forensic examination of vital clues by experts at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences to crack the case.

The CBI had earlier sought the help of AIIMS experts in the Rizwanur Rehman probe in Kolkata and the gruesome Nithari killings in Noida.

The Noida police’s failure to recover the weapons used to kill Aarushi and the family servant Hemraj, even after intensive questioning of Dr Rajesh Talwar, has put added pressure on the CBI. It is also asking forensic scientists to re-examine the post-mortem reports to determine whether these were tampered with.

Forensic experts have told the CBI that it is possible the same weapon was used to kill both victims. They feel that a Nepali khukri, with one side blunt and the other one sharp, might have been used. “If two weapons were used, then one of them could be a butcher’s knife,” Dr Sudhir Gupta, AIIMS associate professor of forensic sciences, told this newspaper.

To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.asianage.com

Big blow to Ramadoss, All India Institute of Medical Sciences law held invalid

Dr P.Venugopal returned to the helm of the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences here on Thursday after the Supreme Court struck down an amendment brought into the AIIMS Act by the Centre fixing the upper age of retirement of the director of the institute at 65 years.

Dr Venugopal had been unceremoniously ousted from the post of AIIMS director in November last year, hours after President Pratibha Patil had signed the controversial AIIMS amendment bill. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the PostGraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (Amendment) Bill 2007 had been introduced by Union health and family welfare minister Anbumani Ramadoss in Parliament in August 2007 after the turf war between the health minister and the AIIMS chief sunk to a new low over the autonomy of the institute. The bill was passed in Parliament amid stiff opposition from the BJP and the AIADMK.

The Supreme Court verdict has proved a major setback for the Centre and for Dr Ramadoss in particular, with several top Opposition leaders demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh immediately dismiss the health minister. "I demand the resignation of Ramadoss, and if he is not resigning I want the Prime Minister to dismiss him forthwith," BJP leader Sushma Swaraj told reporters.

To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.asianage.com