Vaiko arrested for pro-LTTE remarks
“LTTE and Sri Lankan Tamils could not be separated. Though we are against any violence, we should differentiate between violence and right”, he said.
“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had assured me no military aid would be supplied to Sri Lanka, had gone back on his word,” he alleged.
Vaiko said, “if the need arises, I will be the first man to take up arms in support of Sri Lankan Tamils. I will gather youths all over the country for this purpose”.The MDMK presidium chairman, M Kannappan, had told the meeting that time would come to demand for a separate Tamil Nadu. In that meeting, a two-hour film on Sri Lankan army’s alleged atrocities against Tamils was screened.
In a statement on Wednesday, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa had demanded that all LTTE supporters be booked.
Tamil Nadu government’s decision to arrest Vaiko was to make it clear that ruling DMK’s support was only for the suffering Sri Lankan Tamils and not for LTTE.
Vaiko, now an ally of Jayalalithaa, was detained under POTA by her Government in 2004 on his arrival from the United States after he had made a pro-LTTE speech at a public meeting in Tirumangalam in Madurai.
DMK chief M Karunanidhi had condemned Vaiko’s arrest at that time.
This is the second time that Vaiko has been arrested for supporting the banned group, the earlier occasion being during the previous AIADMK government when he was held under POTA.
Vaiko was arrested under the Unlawful Prevention Activities Act, police said.
He was remanded to 14 days judicial custody.
Vaiko said soon after his arrest that his party was for India’s sovereignty. At the same time, it could not allow the Centre to provide arms and ammunition and logistics support to Sri Lankan government ‘to perpetuate war against Tamils’.
Obama establishes double digit lead over McCain
The poll says that a growing number of voters said that they were comfortable with the Democrat’s values, background and ability to serve as commander-in-chief.
It’s the largest lead in the Journal/NBC poll so far, and represents a steady climb for Senator Obama since early September, when the political conventions concluded with the candidates in a statistical tie.
“Voters have reached a comfort level with Barack Obama,” said Peter D Hart, a Democratic pollster who conducts the poll with Republican Neil Newhouse.Though most voters polled said that McCain is better prepared for the White House than the first-term Obama, there are increasing concerns about the readiness of McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the poll showed.
The race, the Journal said, has rested largely on the question of whether voters could get comfortable with Obama, the first African-American to run on a major party ticket, and one who has been on the national political scene for just a few years.
McCain has worked to stoke concerns about Obama’s past and his qualifications, raising questions about his rival’s character and his association with 1960s-era radical William Ayers. The new poll suggests that these attacks haven’t worked. The poll found that Obama now holds a 12-percentage-point advantage with independents, a group both sides have fiercely sought. Two weeks ago, Obama led this group by just four percentage points. In mid-September, independents favoured McCain by 13 points.
Obama leads suburban voters by 12 percentage points, up from two points two weeks ago. He leads among older voters, those over 65-years-old, by nine points, erasing a one-point McCain advantage from the last poll. And in the Midwest, home
to a swath of battleground states, he is now favoured by 25 points, up from a one-point advantage.
Some daily tracking polls, the journal said, have found a tighter race between McCain and Obama in recent days.
Real Clear Politics, a Web site that averages major polls, shows Obama up by 7.2 percentage points.
Others have found a larger spread, such as one released Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press, a nonpartisan research group. That poll found a 14-point advantage for Obama among registered voters.
Many polls also show McCain lagging in key battleground states, which hold the electoral votes that could decide the race.
Obama, the paper said, has also eaten into traditional Republican advantages, notably on taxes, despite McCain’s attempts to make the issue a central economic theme of the campaign’s closing days.
In the mid-September Journal poll, McCain was favoured 41 per cent to 37 per cent when voters were asked which candidate would be “better on taxes.” This week’s poll found Obama leading on the issue by 48 per cent to 34 per cent.
That, the Journal says, may be partly due to Obama’s argument that McCain would raise taxes on health-insurance benefits. While McCain’s health plan does raise some taxes, the plan overall represents a net tax cut, the paper said, citing independent estimates.
Chandrayaan-1 in earth’s orbit, sends signals
India’s first unmanned flight to the moon blasted off from Sriharikota, off the Andhra Pradesh coast, early morning on Wednesday and started to cruise around the earth in its designated orbit, minutes after a copybook liftoff.
Carrying over a billion hopes, India’s maiden lunar mission began its historic journey to the moon on Wednesday when an indigenously developed rocket placed the spacecraft into the Transfer Orbit “perfectly”.
A 44-metre-tall and 316-tonne rocket called the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C11) carried the 1,380-kg lunar orbiter from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, , about 80 km north of Chennai, at exactly 0622 hrs IST.
After 18.2 minutes of the lift-off, ISRO’s warhorse rocket injected Chandrayaan-I into earth orbit.
The cuboid spacecraft built by the Indian Space Research Organisation – likely to be injected into Moon’s orbit on November 8 – has launched the country into the elite club that has sent missions to the moon.
Other members of the club are the US, former Soviet Union, European Space Agency, China and Japan. The US returns to lunar exploration aboard Chandrayaan-1, which is also carrying two NASA instruments in its payload.
The first four phases of the launch were 100 per cent perfect, said the scientists, and ground stations across the world – including the master control station in Bangalore – started getting signals from Chandrayaan.
Hectic activity is on at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Peenya, Bangalore which will be the country’s nerve-centre for controlling Chandrayaan-I for the next two years.
The Deep Space Network (DSN) at Byalalu will join ISTRAC in tracking the spacecraft for the next six hours.
’It’s a historical moment’
Speaking minutes after the successful liftoff Chairman of the Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) G Madhavan Nair described the moment as historic. “India has started its journey to the moon. The first leg has gone perfectly. the spacecraft has been launched into orbit,” he said.
Nair pointed out that the launch had gone off perfectly despite heavy rain in and around the spaceport for the last four days. “We’ve been fighting the odds for the last four days,” he said.
But the weather gods relented by Tuesday evening and there no rain when the launch took place in a cloudy morning sky.
Chandrayaan-1 started to orbit the earth on its geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), from which its onboard liquid apogee motor (LAM) will be fired in a series of complex manoeuvres to take it to the lunar orbit – 387,000 km from earth – on Nov 8.
It was a dream come true for about 1,000 space scientists and technologists when PSLV-C11, with the spacecraft atop, blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre of the state-run ISRO.
Within minutes of the 44.4-metre rocket roaring aloft, leaving behind an inferno in the underground inlets of the second launch pad, the mission control centre of the space station erupted with joy and excitement.
Top scientists, led by Nair, space centre director M C Dathan, associate director M Y S Prasad and others shook hands and hugged one another even as the high-security facility reverberated with clapping of hands and cheers.
Former ISRO chairmen U.R. Rao and K. Kasturirangan and space commission member Roddam Narasimaiah, who were present on the occasion, congratulated Nair and his team.
India’s Largest Test Victories
India thump World Champs Australia by 320 runs
India drubbed Australia by 320 runs at Mohali to take a 1-0 lead in the Border-Gavaskar series. This is India’s biggest ever Test win (excluding innings victories).
India dominated this match with everybody chipping in significantly. Debutant Amit Mishra had a 7-wicket match haul, while Sourav Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir slammed centuries in first and second innings respectively. Sachin Tendulkar scored 88. But the ‘Man of the Match’ was the captain himself. MS Dhoni was given the award for his knocks of 92 and 68*.
Earlier, Australia, who resumed the play on Tuesday with their overnight score of 141/5, were bundled before the lunch in reply to India’s 515 runs on the last day of the second Test.
Zaheer Khan fastened India’s winning bid as he took three quick wickets of Brad Haddin, Cameron White and Brett Lee while Amit Mishra wrapped up the proceedings by claiming Mitchell Johnson and Michael Clarke.
Zaheer struck in the very first over of the fifth day and dismissed Haddin for 37 runs after he added 84 runs with Clarke for the sixth wicket. A good length ball from Zaheer came back to beat Haddin and crash into the middle and off-stump.
In his next over, he got White come forward for the drive. The ball took an outside edge and Dhoni took a good catch behind the wicket. Lee didn’t even last a ball. Zaheer pitched a short stuff that beat Lee and uprooted the off-stump.
After Lee fell, India hoped to finish it quickly but a 50-run partnership between Johnson and Clarke frustrated the hosts. Mishra then foxed Johnson with his flight caught him off his own bowling. Clarke, who slammed a fighting 69, fell as the last wicket as he pulled a good length ball from Mishra and Sehwag at midwicket pouched it safely.
Australian coach Tim Nielsen had confessed after the close of fourth day’s play that team played for a win but the gameplan backfired. Of course, with 515 runs to chase in four sessions on a spinning track can never be easy and playing aggressively cost Australian heavily.
4th innings score in India by visiting team
| Inn4 | Score | Result | Margin | M | Season | Venue | Target |
| WI | 276-5 | W | 5 wickets | 1 | 1987-88 | Delhi (Feroz SK) | 276 |
| NZ | 272-6 | D | drawn | 1 | 2003-04 | Ahmedabad (GS) | 370 |
| WI | 270-7 | D | drawn | 3 | 1966-67 | Chepauk | 322 |
| WI | 266 | L | 96 runs | 1 | 1994-95 | Wankhede | 363 |
| NZ | 252-2 | D | drawn | 3 | 1999-00 | Ahmedabad (GS) | 424 |
| Aus | 212 | L | 171 runs | 2 | 2000-01 | Calcutta | 384 |
Injury almost pushed me into depression: Sania
OFF COURT: The Indian ace has been out of action since the Beijing Olympics.
Forced to stay away from courts for almost half the season, a fit again Sania Mirza is eyeing a comeback at January’s Classic tennis tournament in Hong Kong and revealed that she almost sunk into depression while struggling to recover from a wrist injury.
The Indian ace has been out of action since the Beijing Olympics, where her wrist injury flared up again and she had to concede her first round singles match.
Sharing the trauma she faced when she ran out of options to get her wrist healed, she said it was difficult to cope with the situation at that time.
“It was scary. It was career threatening. I was almost going through depression. I think the post-injury period is more difficult to cope with and I am happy to be back. But I never doubted that I cannot make a comeback ,” Sania, who is in Capital for the treatment, said.
Sania said she was keen to make a comeback but was not in a hurry. She confirmed that she will play a team tournament in Hong Kong in January before resuming her Tour activities.
“It is a big honour to represent Asia. It is great to be a part of such a large field, where you have players like (Jelena) Jankovic and (Maria) Sharapova. But we still have two-and-a-half months to go and it is very long period in tennis,” she said after spending about an hour on the DLTA courts, practicing with Radhika Tulpule.
Talking about the next season, she said she was approaching it cautiously.
Banks safe, but economy may slump: PM
HIS ECONOMIC ADVICE: Manmohan Singh says tackling inflation remains goverment’s priority.
Indians banks are safe and depositors need not worry for their money, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told Parliament for the first time after the worldwide financial crisis.
“Our banks, both in the public sector and in the private sector, are financially sound, well capitalised and well regulated. There should be no fear of a failure of any bank,” Singh said in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
“I wish to assure depositors in our banks that their deposits are entirely safe.” Singh, however, warned that the economy might slow down.
“The financial storm has shaken confidence in the system and precipitated a steep decline in stock markets. It has produced a sharp slowdown in economic activity, with the prospect of a prolonged recession in industrialised countries,” he said.
There is enough capital, but “nevertheless, we must be prepared for a temporary slowdown in the Indian economy”.
Singh said the precise impact of the global financial crisis was difficult to estimate but the economic slowdown in developed countries is likely to have an “indirect impact” on the Indian economy.
Some estimates projected GDP growth to reduce to 7.5 per cent in the current year, but “our effort will be to minimise the negative effect of the financial crisis… to return to the growth trajectory of 9 per cent.”
The Prime Minister said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Government were carefully monitoring the flow of credit and would ensure that the additional liquidity infused into the system translated into actual credit.
“We will not hesitate to do more, if needed. While the capital adequacy ratios of all our banks are well above the Basel norm and above the RBI stipulated norm, government has promised that it will help banks, which have lower ratios, to access funds to increase the capital risk-weighted asset ratio to 12 per cent,” he said.
Sourav Ganguly completes 7,000 Test runs
Sourav Ganguly reached a personal landmark on Friday when he became the fourth Indian batsman to cross 7,000 runs during the first day’s play of the second cricket Test against Australia at the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium here. Ganguly’s feat came just an hour after Tendulkar surpassed the record of West Indian Brian Lara as the highest scorer in Test cricket. The Prince of Kolkata, who will retire from international cricket after the four-Test series, crossed the milestone while on 40 after gliding a Johnson delivery to sweeper cover for a double. Tendulkar and Ganguly stitched a crucial partnership after India lost four wickets with 163 runs. The reached the duo in the post-tea session of the first day’s play here. Ganguly took 111 Tests to achieve the feat, in his 12-year illustrious career. The other three in the 7,000-run category are Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid. Ganguly is the 33rd batsman in world cricket to cross the 7,000-run mark in Tests. |
China to help Pakistan build nuke reactors
The US might not be willing, but Pakistan’s old friend and strategic ally, China has agreed to help it build two more nuclear reactors.
Top officials said that was this part of China’s efforts to improve civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries.
An agreement to this effect was signed in Beijing during the course of the first visit of the new Pakistan President ,Asif Ali Zardari, to China that concluded on Friday, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said.
However, Pakistan has not been able to swing a deal like the one between India and the US.
Meanwhile, China has spoken out against the discrimanatory nature of that Indo-US Nuclear Deal, saying Pakistan should not be left out.
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