The Tribune – Brace for powerless summer

Akash Ghai, Tribune News Service

Mohali, March 17. Erratic power supply is set to haunt people of the state this summer season. Expecting a gap between demand and supply of electricity for 2012-13, the Punjab State Power Corporation has proposed about three-hour power cut during summer days. It has already filed a petition with the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission in this regard.

Giving its projected figures, the corporation has sought permission for about three-hour power cut in May during which the average requirement is being showed as 1,421 lakh units per day (LUPD) against the availability of 1,046 LUPD.

“To fill the gap of 88 LUPD, there is no other way but to impose cuts in all main cities, including Mohali, Patiala, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, district headquarters and urban industrial areas,” said an official of the corporation.

Similarly, in July, when the projected availability is 1,762 LUPD against the requirement of 1,950 LUPD, the duration of proposed power cut is about 3.30 hours per day.

During August, September and October, the proposed power cut is a little less than three hours a day. However, there will be some relief in June when the duration of the proposed cut is 1.10 hours per day.

There is also a proposal for one day weekly off for major industries and three hours of regular power cut everyday for small industries.

With the proposed power cuts for industries, there will be a relief of 58 LUPD during the season. In the petition, the power corporation has stated that there will be no need for power cuts during April, November, December, January, February and March.

Notably, on an average, the unrestricted demand of power in Punjab varies between 1,018 LUPD and 1,950 LUPD, leaving a demand-supply gap of 17 LUPD-189 LUPD for most of the months.

Demand has always outpaced the supply of power in the state and this gap varies between 2.62 per cent and 27.59 per cent.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120318/punjab.htm#6

The Tribune – Makkar seeks review of Rajoana’s death sentence

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 17. SGPC Chief Avtar Singh Makkar today condemned the impending move to execute Balwant Singh Rajoana, assassin of former CM Beant Singh, and dubbed it as the “murder of justice”. In a statement released here, Makkar said all the SGPC-run gurdwaras, including the Golden Temple and Sri Akal Takht, would perform ‘ardaas’ for “chardi kala” (high spirits) of Rajoana tomorrow.

He said the death sentence of Rajoana should be reviewed so that peace and trust of the minorities in the country was maintained.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120318/punjab.htm#10

The Asian Age – Court seeks written reply on Mossad questioning

Asian Age Correspondent

New Delhi, 18 March 2012. A city court on Saturday asked the Delhi police to file an affidavit in response to the complaint of Syed Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi, arrested in the February 13 Israeli diplomat’s car bomb attack case, about being allegedly interrogated by sleuths from Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad.

Though the Delhi police denied the allegations, chief metropolitan magistrate Vinod Yadav, apparently not convinced with the oral submission, wanted the police to state the same on affidavit and sought the official register of the officers questioning the suspect.

On Kazmi’s complaint that besides Delhi police, “Israeli (Mossad) officials line up to interrogate him daily and they are not in uniform in order to hide their identity, CMM Yadav said “the reply of the special cell is silent about the wearing of uniform and name tags by the interrogating officers. Let a detailed reply be filed.”

The Delhi police, however, submitted that the “interrogation of the accused is being conducted as per law without causing any sort of harassment whatsoever to him. The allegations levelled are false and denied,” the Delhi police special cell told the court in a written reply.

The court also sought to know “if any register of names of persons interrogating Kazmi is being maintained and, if not, facts be stated by way of an affidavit by officer not below the rank of deputy commissioner of police.”

The magistrate further told the police: “he (Kazmi) is a human being and not a chattel or a property.”

Syed Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi was picked up by sleuths of the special cell of Delhi police after a probe showed that he had been in touch with a suspect who is believed to have stuck the magnetic bomb on Israeli diplomat Tal Yehoshua’s car on February 13, injuring her and three others.

http://www.asianage.com/delhi/court-seeks-written-reply-mossad-questioning-882

Sint-Truiden, Halmaal Christmas Decorations by Rohnny Houwaer / Sara Cosemans gets award in Leuven

6 January 2012
Epiphany

Nativity Scene 

Christmas wreath
All decorations by Rohnny Houwaer, who lives near to the Sangat Sahib Gurdwara and is a friend of our community

11 January
Sara Cosemans gets award from the Gülen Chair for intercultural studies in the ‘Hollands College’ in Leuven for her thesis on the Sikhs in Haspengouw

The Hall in which the award was given

 Sara Cosemans

Turkish musicians 

To see more Belgium (mostly Limburg) pictures :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12445197@N05/sets/72157622046344528/

More Belgium pictures to follow
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue

The Tribune – Trivedi-Mamata spat escalates

Trivedi on his way out
UPA lukewarm to Mamata’s nominee

Subhrangshu Gupta, Tribune News Service

Kolkata, March 17. The Trinamool Congress today intensified pressure on the Prime Minister to “sack” Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi “immediately”. The announcement is expected to be made in Parliament on Monday. The political spat over the Railway Budget today got uglier with Trinamool Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha Kalyan Banerjee calling up Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi and asking him to resign before he was sacked.

A defiant Trivedi demanded that party chief Mamata Banerjee should give the instruction in writing. “ The party’s Legislature Party leader Sudip Bandopadhyay had asserted in the Lok Sabha that the party had not asked the Railway Minister to resign. Now the Chief Whip says that the party chief wants me to resign. So, in order to avoid confusion, it is best that she send it (the instructions) in writing,” Trivedi told the media on Saturday morning.

Banerjee retorted that since he had not been told “in writing” to join the Union Cabinet either, Trivedi was being unreasonable and should step down gracefully now that the party did not want him to continue. By evening, Bandopadhyay declared in Kolkata that “nothing” would be given to Trivedi in writing.

He also debunked Trivedi’s stand that since he had presented the Railway Budget, he was duty-bound to reply to the debate.

Mamata herself had presented a Railway Budget but resigned soon thereafter, forcing the NDA to rustle up someone else to reply to the debate, he said.

Mamata Banerjee, upset over the rail fare hike announced by Trivedi, also spoke out for the first time and said here that it was time for the PM to act on her request. “Our candidate for the Railway Ministry is Mukul Roy, the current Union Minister of State for Shipping,” she said, refusing to name Trivedi. Roy filed his nomination today for the Rajya Sabha.

Roy has been a member of the Rajya Sabha for the past six years and also served briefly as Minister of state for Railways with the Prime Minister himself holding the charge of the Railway Ministry last year after Mamata Banerjee took over as Chief Minister of West Bengal. Roy had famously refused to visit the site of a railway accident, saying that as Railway Minister it was the Prime Minister’s responsibility to do so.

Congress sources in New Delhi claimed that the Prime Minister was not keen to have Roy as the Railway Minister, at least not during the Budget session of Parliament. Efforts are underway to persuade Mamata to name someone other than Roy or agree to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to steer the Railway Budget and reply to the debate.

Mamata Banerjee had written to the PM on Wednesday evening itself, urging him to drop Trivedi from the Council of Ministers and replace him with Roy. Both the PM and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee have spoken to Mamata Banerjee and are said to have conceded her right to replace her nominee in the Union Cabinet.

The Prime Minister is likely to seek Trivedi’s resignation before the Parliament meets on Monday. An announcement is expected after the motion of thanks to the President’s address is passed.

Trivedi, who has little or no option left to him, would be hoping to be expelled by the party, so that he could continue as an unattached member of the House. But in case he is not expelled, he would be subject to the whips issued by the party. There is a complete breakdown of communication between him and Mamata Banerjee and his position in the party is becoming increasingly untenable.

But if Trivedi refuses to resign, then the only recourse for the Prime Minister would be to sack him.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120318/main1.htm

BBC News – Swiss pair free after Taliban ordeal, Pakistan army says

Thursday, 15 March 2012. A Swiss couple held hostage by the Pakistani Taliban are free after an eight-month ordeal, the army says.

The man and woman were kidnapped last July in Balochistan province.

They turned up at a military checkpoint in the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border on Thursday, the army says.

Unconfirmed reports say the pair may have escaped from their captors, but it is not clear if a ransom was paid or if they were part of a prisoner swap.

Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter insisted that his country did not pay a ransom to secure their release. He told a news conference that the couple fled from their captors.

Mr Burkhalter said that he had spoken to them by telephone in a “very emotional” conversation.

The couple reported this morning at a military checkpoint in Tull area, just on the border with North Waziristan, Pakistan’s military said.

Officials said they had to be given medical treatment when they first arrived.

But the pair appeared to be in good health and smiled and waved as they walked out of the military helicopter that transported them to Peshawar and then Islamabad.

The couple say they were abducted while travelling in a camper van from India to Switzerland.

Military spokesman Athar Abbas told the BBC that the pair were now in Islamabad and would be handed over to the Swiss mission through the Pakistani foreign office after paperwork had been completed.

“Our people in Peshawar say the couple told them they escaped from Taliban captivity,” General Abbas said.

“I am not aware of their detailed account and therefore cannot say where in North Waziristan they were kept, or how far they had to walk before arriving at our checkpoint.”

The couple – Daniela Widmer, 29, and Olivier David Och, 31 – were last seen pleading for their lives in a militant video released in October.

They were abducted by unidentified gunmen from the Loralai area of Balochistan – close to the border with South Waziristan – in July last year.

It is reported they were travelling by road from the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab province to the Balochistan capital, Quetta.

They were then taken to South Waziristan before finally emerging on Thursday at the checkpoint on the outskirts of the town of Tull – close to the North Waziristan border with the Kurram tribal area.

The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that the Taliban and criminal gangs demanding ransoms in north-west Pakistan are often interchangeable.

Our correspondent says the Taliban are able to raise significant funding for their militant activities by collecting ransom money for kidnapped foreigners, who also provide their captives with leverage to make prisoner-exchange demands.

Such revenue is becoming all the more important to militants now that al-Qaeda funding in the region is beginning to dry up, our correspondent says.

Since 2004, there have been more than a dozen incidents in which one or more foreigners have been kidnapped in Pakistan.

One of the more high profile incidents is that of 70-year-old US aid expert Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped by armed men – believed to be from al-Qaeda – in Lahore nearly four months ago.

Soon after the Swiss couple’s abduction, a Taliban spokesman said they were in their custody and would be released if the American government freed Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman jailed in the US for attempting to kill US officials in Afghanistan.

The Taliban later also demanded the release of other Afghan prisoners in US custody.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17379324