Gear up to use GM seeds: Kalam
 

Chennai Oct. 15: Former president Dr A.P.J Abdul Kalam asked farmers to get ready to switch over to Genetically Modified (GM) seeds in a big way.  “We have to switch over to GM seeds because our agricultural productivity levels are very low. Our farm productivity is less than half of China’s,” said Dr Kalam during his interaction with the farmers of Manapakkam, Illedu and Chunampet villages in Kancheepuram district on Wednesday.   The former president, an aeronautical scientist of repute, pointed out that agricultural productivity of Tamil Nadu itself was low compared to that of states like Punjab.

“While the farmers of Punjab produce 7 tonnes of paddy per hectare, Tamil Nadu’s output is less than 4 tonnes. Our cultivation methods have to be improved so that the farmer gets a fair return,” said Dr Kalam. He said that farmers who opted for Bt Cotton, a GM variety seed, have made considerable gains financially as well as socially. “The tests and official clearance of GM seeds for various kinds of crops are underway. Once the final clearance is issued, farmers should opt for them,” he said. While one of the farmers asked him about the strong opposition to GM seeds from various sections, Dr Kalam said the farmers were free to choose the kind of crops they want.  “My suggestion is that you should improve the productivity and yield. If you can do it without GM seeds, you are free to do so,” said the former president.

Dr Kalam also wanted a quality assurance system to monitor seeds, fertilisers and pesticides.  “There were instances of farmers getting cheated because of spurious seeds and fertilisers, he said. The former president, who turned 77 on Wednesday, spent the entire day crisscrossing half a dozen villages and cut the birthday cake amidst the tiny tots of a play school in Illedu.     

Do not confuse us: Rajini fans
 

Madurai Oct. 15: Disappointed by superstar Rajinikanth’s statement that neither can anyone force nor stop his entry into politics, his fans in Madurai and Theni districts have come out with a strong remark against their star: Thalaivaa, neeyum kuzhambi, engalaiyum kuzhappaadhey (Do not get confused and confuse us too). Posters carrying these lines have cropped up in the rural pockets of Madurai and Theni districts. His fans, who had earlier expected superstar’s entry into politics to set right the problems faced by the state such as power crisis and thereby taunted the DMK government, have splashed graffiti venting out their frustration.

Unfazed by Rajinikanth’s statement that action would be taken against those responsible for such posters, his fans have put up posters with different wordings. “Will you enter politics or not? Come out with a good decision. Do not get confused and confuse us too,” read a poster put up by Vadipatti town panchayat councillor A.Boominathan. “Why confusion? Either you take a decision or let us take a decision,” said his fan V.Sonai through a poster in Sanampatti.

No major meltdown impact
 

CHENNAI Oct. 15: The global financial meltdown following the collapse of US investment banks will have limited impact on the industries in Chennai in the short and medium term, say industrialists. There are no long term fears Though the reverberations of the unremitting credit meltdown in the US were now echoing in the other sectors, industrialists feel this is temporary. According to Phaneesh Murthy, CEO, iGATE Corporation, “The decision making process will become slower in the next two quarters. December and March quarters will lead to further weakness. The overall spend in the financial services space will come down dramatically.”

Other sectors will also be cautious on their IT spend.ῠῠ ῠ”The overall IT budget in 2009 would be less than 2008 spending across the sector,” he said. Though the Indian IT companies might have a few comfortable quarters margin wise, there would be a lot of pressure on the revenue front. The domestic auto sector has also been pulled down by the slowdown and the crashing stock markets. The slowdown has hit sectors like heavy commercial vehicle and even small cars will not have any demand in the domestic market, say analysts in the auto sector. The financial crisis has also had an impact on the demand for gold in Chennai.
Despite high prices customers are finding the yellow metal a safer investment, said L K S Syed Ahmed, proprietor of LKS Gold House in Chennai.

The only negative thing about the slowdown in the US economy is that it has impacted hiring in tier-II cities. Many companies who usually go for campus hiring in September and October have now opted for December. A few companies have still not called candidates to whom they have made offers

‘Quit home’ protests gather pace in state
 

MADURAI Oct. 15: A new form of democratic protest, catching up in rural Tamil Nadu, is causing a severe headache to revenue officials. In May, Pillaimaar families of Uthapuram in Madurai district left their village and climbed the hills to live in the wild after the government razed part of a wall, which the CPM claimed separated Dalit and Pillaimaar habitats. With support from other villages, they lived on the hillside for about ten days before revenue officials persuaded them to return from their self-imposed exile. Now disgruntled groups in other villages too are following suit to catch the attention of the powers-that-be.

A month later, Hindu Vanniyars in Perumalkovilpatti near Ambathurai packed their bags and descended on the Mariamman temple in Dindigul to protest against the authorities who allegedly cut down trees to make way for the chapparam (chariot) of a church. The protestors stayed in the temple for two days until the revenue officials pleaded with them to return home. Last month in Kaakkivadanpatti near Sivakasi, six castes including dalits joined together against Naickers and vacated the village after the issue over rights to worship in the Kalia- mman temple came to a boil. About 500 families camped in another temple in a nearby village for a week to get their demands fulfilled.

In the western belt of Tamil Nadu, at Kandampatti in Salem, Vanniyars walked out of their village and stayed put in Siddhar hills last month when dalits were allowed to enter the Draupadi Amman temple. The latest in the news are the Ahamudaiyars of Melmangalam near Periyakulam who have pitched their tents on a hillside in support of their demand for representation on the local temple committee. ῠWhile political parties are trying to whip up passions, revenue officials face the tough challenge of making these people return.ῠ

Watch digital films in buses
 

Chennai Oct. 15: Tamil Nadu would become the first state in the country to install an internet-based Out of Home display technology in more than 10,000 buses operating on long routes. The facility would allow the passengers traveling through theses buses to view high quality digital relay of movies, educational programmes, government policies and other entertainment programmes.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle G.J Moses, managing director, Pallavan Trasnport Consultancy Services Limited, a nodal agency that is implementing the programme, said that this is the first of it kind in the country and would be installed in buses under the build, own, operate and maintenance (BOOM) concept.ῠῠ “Earlier the system was used in the Rajdhani Express, but it is for the first time in India that it would be installed in the buses on large scale,” he said and added that initially the system would be installed in 2,100 buses.

Mr Moses said that the content like movies, songs and commercials will be hosted in the web and operated from the central server at the control room by the operating agency. The LCD television with a unique inbuilt set top box would download the contents in compressed and encrypted files of MP4 and AV format while entering or halting at the wireless fidelity enabled depot. The contents can be adjusted according to the area within the stipulated time slots, which would allow local advertisement and contents to be displayed. Besides instant messages and warning could also be sent to the buses from the control room, he said.

Debendranath Sarangi, secretary, transport department, said earlier Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation was spending Rs 5.50 crore per annum for operating televisions in 4,000 buses. The new systems will fetch additional revenue of about Rs 8.75 core per annum as ad revenue.

A drama, says Jaya
 

Chennai Oct. 15: AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa on Wednesday called chief minister M. Karunanidhi’s call for resignation of MPs from Tamil Nadu on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue ‘a hypocritical drama.’ῠ She dubbed the resignation of DMK Rajya Sabha MP Ms Kanimozhi as ‘the height of drama’ and asked all the DMK ministers at the Centre to resign immediately if they were really concerned about the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils.ῠ “I strongly condemned Indian military’s secret support to the Sri Lankan military in the latter’s annihilation of Tamils. I called upon chief minister M. Karuna-nidhi to withdraw support to the UPA government at the Centre to bring about a solution to the issue,” said the AIADMK chief in a statement here.

“I said that unless the DMK withdraws support to the UPA at the Centre, Delhi will not come forward to help the Sri Lankan Tamils on a humanitarian basis. The resolution adopted at the all-party meet raises doubts as to whether Mr Karunanidhi has been acting at the behest of the LTTE. The resolution has asked for an end to war in Sri Lanka. Ending war is an internal decision of that country,” she pointed out.ῠ “The priority is to ask the Centre to stop military aid to Sri Lanka and pressurise Lanka to stop attacks on innocent Tamil civilians. Will Mr Karunanidhi ask the LTTE to stop using innocent Tamil civilians as strategic pawns in the war?” she asked.

“Mr Karunanidhi had eulogised the slain political chief of the LTTE. Will he ask the LTTE to allow innocent Tamil civilians to move to safer places? There is information that the LTTE is not allowing the Tamils to move to safer places,” she said. “Mr Karunanidhi is only attempting to protect the LTTE by asking for a ceasefire now. This is not acceptable,” she added.

MDMK MPs ready to resign
 

Chennai Oct. 15: MDMK general secretary Vaiko on Wed-nesday said that his party was ready to sacrifice the posts of its two MPs for the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils. “MDMK is ready for any kind of sacrifice to protect the interests of Tamils and to stop the genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils,” he said in a statement.

He also appealed to the Centre to threaten Sri Lanka with economic sanctions and end of all diplomatic ties if the Lankan government did not agree to a ceasefire.ῠ “Prime Mini-ster Manmohan Singh had admitted in a letter written to me on October 2 that India had been helping Sri Lanka militarily to protect the latter’s national unity. India should take back all the radars given to Sri Lankan Air Force and withdraw Indian military units deployed there,” Vaiko demanded.ῠ “India should cancel the financial aid given to Lanka and stop giving military training to Lankan forces. We should pressurise them to announce ceasefire and allow opening of a U.N. office at Colombo,” he said

Ring road to link Vandalur, Minjur
 

Chennai Oct. 15: The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has pla-nned to develop a 62 km long outer ring road connecting Vandalur in the south and Minjur in the north to decongest traffic in the city.ῠ CMDA member secretary Vikram Kapur told Deccan Chronicle, “We have pla-nned to develop an outer ring road along the periphery of Chennai Metropolitan Area with the objective of relieving congestion within the city and catalysing even dispersal of urban growth.” The outer ring road will connect four national highways - NH 45 at Vandalur, NH 4 at Nazarathpet, NH 205 at Nemilichery and NH 5 at Nallur - and the Thiruvottiyur Ponneri-Panjetty Road at Minjur covering 62.3 km. The cost for this road with six lanes is estimated to be about Rs 850 crore.

The CMDA would acquire land for the ORR in two phases, Mr Kapur said. The first phase of land acquisition from NH 45 to NH 205 for a length of 29.5 km covering 29 villages had been completed and the second phase of acquisition from NH 205 to TPP Road covering 28 villages was under progress. “We expect the land acquisition to be completed by this year end and execution of the project would begin in 2009,” he added. “This project will help divert traffic emanating from Chennai-Tiruchi road, Chennai-Bangalore road, Chennai-Tiruvallur high road, Chennai-Nellore road and Tiruvottiyur-Ponneri-Panjetty road,” he said.

The member secretary said that a consultancy study for the preparation of a detailed feasibility report (DFR) for the project had been completed. “On getting the state government’s approval of the DFR, the preparation of a detailed project report will be taken up after which execution of the work will begin,” he said.

Woman priest takes charge
 

Madurai Oct. 15: For Pinniyakkal (50) of Nalluthevanpatti in Usilampatti block, it has been an unrelenting battle with the men in her village and neighbourhood who do not want a woman as a temple priest. Her father Pinnathevar assigned the ancestral poosari rights of the Sri Duragai Amman Temple to her before his death in November 2006. However there was opposition to her becoming the temple poosari. The deputy tashildar submitted that 89 per cent of the villagers were against her and they chose a male poosari in her place. But Pinniyakkal’s perseverance carried her through. After two long years, the Madras High Court Bench in Madurai ruled on September 5 that “the altars of God must be made free from gender bias.” Justice K. Chandru also directed the Collector to provide protection to enable her to perform poojas.

On Tuesday night, after over a month, the district administration gave her the protection. Unfazed by stiff opposition from the men, especially in Puthur Nalukarai and Linganaickanpatti, she retrieved her poosari rights.ῠ Accompanied by revenue officials and police and draped in an auspicious yellow saree, she walked into the Durga temple to serve the Goddess. Some men in Linganaickanpatti had created obstacles when she was taken to the temple.

“They obstructed our entry by placing thorny bushes on the path to the temple. We had to hold talks with them. But they refused to give in saying they were not willing to give their lands for the purpose, which they had allowed when the male poosari was in charge of the temple. So we had to take her through a temporary path,” a police officer said. However, a happy Pinniyakkal told Deccan Chronicle, “Women in my village are by my side.ῠ Recognising me as a poosari, they, in accordance with the custom, offered me the head of the goat after they slaughtered it during a festival last week. This is more than enough for me.”

Order has gone down drain: HC
 

Chennai Oct. 15: Pulling up the state government for allowing conservancy workers to get inside the drains, despite its earlier directive, the Madras high court on Wednesday reiterated its order and cautioned that any violation would be viewed very seriously. A division bench comprising Chief Justice A K Ganguly and Justice F M Ibrahim Kalifullah posted after three weeks, further hearing of the PIL filed by A Narayanan. The bench said, “This court feels very much disturbed on hearing that even after an order was passed on October 13 making it amply clear that no human being should be allowed to get inside the drainage/sewerage lines for clearing any block, in an incident that took place on October 14, one person who went into the drain, allegedly for clearing the same, had died and two persons have been seriously injured.”

The Government Pleader submitted that no person had entered the drainage line for clearing the block and that the person who had reportedly died in the incident was involved in the work of construction of a new drainage line which had not yet become operational.
“We have before us a report filed by the Chief Engineer of the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, in which it has been stated, ‘Entry of worker into the manhole cannot be avoided in some circumstances’. It has been stated that one such situation is when an inspection is to be carried out to assess the condition of the infrastructure or when machine erection is required, entry of man is allowed into manhole using protective gears. But, the photograph shown in the newspaper clearly demonstrates that those who go inside the drains for clearing the block use no protective gears. Therefore, the report which has been filed does not match with the ground realities”, the bench pointed out.

However, the government pleader submitted that he would file a detailed affidavit in this regard, for which, he was granted two weeks time, the bench added.

Pimp’s arrest under Goondas Act upheld
 

Chennai Oct. 15: The Madras high court on Wednesday upheld an order of the Commissioner of Police (CoP), detaining a pimp under the goondas act. A division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice S Tamilvanan dismissed the HCP filed by N Jyothi, seeking to quash the order of CoP, detaining her husband Mohan alias Mohan Reddy under the goondas act. According to police, Mohan was a habitual offender under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and already four cases were pending against him for acting as a pimp. Promising cinema chances, he brought girls from neighbouring states through his associates and thereafter induced and forced them to indulge in prostitution.

Petitioner contended that her husband knew only Telugu. Since the order of detention, grounds of detention and other documents were not supplied in Telugu, his detention was vitiated. Pointing out that serious allegations of inducing and forcing innocent women to the flesh trade has been made against the detenu, the bench said on a perusal of the entire materials placed on record prima facie there were reasons for the CoP to detain him under the act.

Power cuts may go, says minister
 

Chennai Oct. 15: Electricity min-ister Arcot N.Veerasamy on Wednesday said that the existing schedule of load shedding across the state would be stopped in the near future.
The one and half hour power cuts in the city had already been lifted and the six and a half hour power cuts in the rural areas had been reduced to two hours, he claimed.

Inaugurating the Energy and Environment Meet, a one-day seminar organised by FICCI here, he said Tamil Nadu would be a power surplus state by 2012. “Merchant Power Plants (MPPs) with a total capacity of 20,000 MW in the East Coast area had been sanctioned. The construction of ports at Thoothukudi, Villupuram and Cuddalore to ensure coal supply, will get over in two years and the power projects will start generation by 2012,” he said. 
More power projects to generate 1,600 MW were in the pipeline and would commence generation by 2010, he said.

“We are encouraging all sugar mills to generate power through cogeneration. The government has requested the technical team at TNEB to explore the possibilities of increasing generation from the sugar mills,” he added.   Later answering queries from the media Veerasamy said the power cuts in the state had almost been lifted because of the rain. The problems faced by the industrialists because of power shortage would also be sorted out.

K. Balasubramanian, Member (generation) TNEB, later addressing the gathering on the power position in the state said that of the 24 applications received by the TNEB for setting up MPPs, 12 had been sanctioned. Work on three MPPs with a capacity of at least 6,000 MW had started. Gireesh B.Pardhan, additional secretary, Union ministry for power, and energy experts took part in the seminar.

Deccan Chronicle

PM counsels Lanka
 

New Delhi Oct. 15: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday urged Colombo to pursue a “negotiated political settlement” rather than seek a military victory, even as pressure on him mounted from the Tamil Nadu parties demanding Indian intervention to secure ceasefire in the battered north Lanka.

“Situation in Sri Lanka remains a cause of serious concern for India. We are concerned over escalating hostilities, losses suffered by civilians and increasing number of displaced persons,” the Prime Minister said in reply to a question at a press conference after the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit here.
“We always believe that situation in Sri Lanka does not call for military victory. It calls for negotiated political settlement which res- pects the unity and the integrity of Sri Lanka and at the same time, respects the essential human rights of minorities, particularly Tamil minorities,” Mr Singh said.

Also, India “is concerned over harassment and killing of Indian fishermen” and made representations to the Sri Lankan government,” the Prime Minister said, referring to the National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan summoning the Sri Lankan deputy high commissioner last week. Union minister T. R. Baalu met Mr Singh to hand over a copy of the Chennai resolution and also a letter from the DMK chief explaining the ‘critical situation’ in Lanka. “The PM has assured that everything possible would be done to resolve the crisis,’’said Mr Baalu.

Latest release: Rs 65,000 cr
 

Mumbai Oct. 15: In two coordinated actions, the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India released Rs 65,000 crore on Wednesday and eased norms to allow more cash into the markets. In one sweep, the RBI chopped the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by one per cent to pump in Rs 40,000 crores into the banking system. CRR is the percentage of deposits which banks have to park with the RBI. This is the third time in nine days that the RBI is cutting the CRR. In effect, it has released a total of Rs 1,00,000 crores. The RBI allowed banks to borrow 0.5 per cent of their total deposits for meeting liquidity requirements of mutual funds. This is a “purely a temporary measure”, the RBI said.

Mirroring the hard times, the Tuesday window for banks to make available Rs 20,000 crores to mutual funds to meet any redemption requirements saw only Rs 3,500 crores utilised. In other financial measures, the RBI announced a 14-day repo facility that would be conducted daily until further notice up to a cumulative amount ofῠ Rs 20,000 crores. (In a repo or repurchase agreement, a borrower sells securities for cash to a lender and agrees to repurchase them later for more cash.)

The RBI also raised the interest rate ceiling on FCNR(B) deposits and the interest rate ceiling on NR(E)RAῠ deposits by 50 basis points to attract investment from abroad. Earlier the finance minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, said the the the RBI at the request of the government had agreed to provide Rs 25,000 crore to lending institutions immediately for the farm debt waiver scheme.ῠ He said Rs 7,500 crore would be made available to commercial banks and Rs 17,500 crore to apex agriculture bank, Nabard.ῠ There will be no requirement of providing collateral.

He promised banks access more funds to raise their capital adequacy ratio to 12 per cent. He doubled to $6 billion the investment limit in corporate bonds by FIIs, whose withdrawal from Indian bourses had triggered the Indian meltdown.

 

Kani offers to resign, Congress is unfazed
 

Chennai Oct. 15: In tune with the all-party resolution that all the Tamil Nadu MPs would quit on the Lankan issue, DMK’s Rajya Sabha member Ms Kanimozhi handed over her resignation letter to her father and chief minister Karunanidhi in protest against the killing of innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka. The letter was addressed to the chairman of the Upper House and it was up to her party leadership to “take an appropriate decision at an appropriate time,” she told reporters at Chennai.

However, the Congress in Delhi sought to downplay the Tamil Nadu pressure, with party spokesperson Manish Tewari insisting that the Tuesday declaration from Chennai was no threat to the UPA government and parties were mostly concerned about the civilian deaths in the Lankan war. Arguing that India had limitations in pressuring Colombo, he said, “The (Tamil Nadu) parties should understand that you are not dealing with a part of India but a sovereign nation.” Besides, it would not be possible to change foreign policy due to political compulsions. “Foreign policy evolves over a period of time, which is beyond administrative compulsions,” Mr Tewari said, adding that the Indian concerns have been conveyed to Sri Lanka.

 

Techie held for sending threat mails
 

CHENNAI Oct. 15: The Chennai city cyber crime cell on Wed-nesday night arrested a 23- year-old software programmer working in Infosys at Mahindra City, near here, for allegedly sending a threat mail to President Prathiba Patil. “We have picked up Sriram Jaganath, a resident of T Nagar, for sending threat mail to the President,” Mr R. Sekar, Chennai city police commissioner, told this newspaper.
Sriram had sent the mail from his black.monolith2001@gmail.com to the official website of Rashtra- pathi Bhavan on October 11 and 12, holding out threats to President Pratibha Patil and her family. During questioning, the cyber cell team found that he was ‘reacting against the establishment.’

 

1,900 staff ‘Jet’tisoned
 

Mumbai/Kolkata Oct. 15: Jet Airways has sacked 1,900 employees on probation and has reduced its winter schedule by 15 per cent to cut expenses, said Jet Airways executive director B. Saroj Dutta. “The 1,900 employees who are sacked will be given priority in employment whenever the situation will improve,” he added. Mr Dutta, talking about the dire scenario in the aviation sector, said, “The Federation of Aviation Industry has given a proposal to the Central government seeking its help as, apart from high fuel costs, corporate clients have curtailed their expenses drastically.”

He added, “We do not know when the situation will improve but we are cutting costs on all fronts to sustain till the situation improves. None of the decisions taken by the senior management is responsible for the airline’s losses as it is a global crisis, Mr Dutta said.ῠ He was answering a question on whether anyone from the management was asked to leave for wrong commercial decisions. “None of the senior officers have been asked to resign,” he added. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, meanwhile, said, “If Jet Airways sacked 1,900 employees then Jet’s flights will not be allowed to fly from any o A Maharashtra Navnirman Senaῠ delegation is expected to meet the Jet management on the issue on Thursday. Interestingly, Jet has a Shiv Sena union which has been quiet on the retrenchment.

 

Adiga’s White Tiger wins Booker
 

London Oct. 15: Indian-born Aravind Adiga won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for his debut novel The White Tiger in London on Tuesday night. The 33-year-old author, born in Chennai and brought up partly in India and Australia, is the second youngest writer to win the ΰ50,000 prize, which has come as an early birthday present for him. He turns 34 on October 23. “I would like to dedicate this award to the people of New Delhi,” Adiga said in his acceptance speech, adding that Delhi had been “the most important city in the world 300 years ago, and could again become so.”

Adiga said he wrote the book while living in New Delhi and that he is very fond of the city. “All that is good and all that is bad is what comes to Delhi for resolution. I hope the rich and poor come together - and make sure what is good wins,” he added.
Adiga, a former journalist with stories published in the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal and who worked as a correspondent for Time magazine in India, now lives in Mumbai. He also thanked his friend, Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, who inspired him to continue writing.

The chair of the jury, former MP and Tory minister Michael Portillo, described The White Tiger as an angry book. “The novel is in many ways perfect. It is quite difficult to find any structural flaws with it,” he said. “My criteria were ‘Does it knock my socks off?’ and this one did - the others impressed me - this one knocked my socks off,” Mr Portillo said, adding the book showed “the dark side of India” and “shocked andῠ entertained in equal measure.”

Mr Portillo said the final meeting of the panel of judges on Tuesday afternoon was a “tough” and “emotional” one. “It was an emotionally draining decision, but there was no blood on the floor,” Mr Portillo said. “There was no immediate unanimity,” he said, but the quality of debate was moving.

“The judges found the decision difficult because the shortlist contained such strong candidates. In the end, The White Tiger prevailed because it shocked and entertained in equal measure. The novel undertakes the extraordinarily difficult task of gaining and holding the reader’s sympathy for a thoroughgoing villain. The book gains from dealing with pressing social issues and significant global developments with astonishing humour.” The book, which is the ninth winning novel to take its inspiration from India or Indian identity, is the story of a villager, his journey from impoverished life to finding success as anῠῠ entrepreneur in a city.

 

Deccan Chronicle

Palin keeps irony, comedy alive in US
 
By Sarah Strickland

The British have long asserted that Americans have no sense of irony. Something about their can-do, earnest “have a nice day” approach and flag-waving, church-going lifestyle gives the impression that they simply don’t get it.ῠ That and speaking in sentences that go up at the end? Irony is alive and kicking in the United States of America. Perhaps not in everyday life, but in razor-sharp, inventive and agonisingly funny form on its satirical TV news shows. With interest in the current election at fever pitch, record numbers are flocking to three shows in particular.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report, both on the cable channel Comedy Central, have seen huge increases in their viewing figures, while NBC’s Saturday Night Live is enjoying its highest ratings in 14 years. For SNL, Sarah Palin has been a God-send.ῠ One of its former stars, comedian Tina Fey, happened to be the spitting image of the Republican vice-presidential candidate and agreed to return to the show to play her.ῠ Appearing first alongside SNL’s Hillary Clinton, she responded to talk of foreign diplomacy with a perky “And I can see Russia from my house!”

More than five million people have gone online to watch Ms Fey’s impression of Ms Palin’s cringe-making CBS interview with Katie Couric.ῠ “I had 15 to 20 false alarms in New York where I thought I saw Osama bin Laden driving’ a taxi,” she confides with a wink. What was so clever, and damaging, about the parody was that much of it was almost verbatim.ῠ Ms Palin’s answers were so hilariously incoherent, the script-writers didn’t need to embellish that much. Until, with a folksy gosh-darnit, Fey delivers the killer punch line.

“Katie, I’d like to use one of my lifelines,” she chirps, stumped by a question on foreign policy. “I’d like to phone a friend”.

With the real Palin withheld from the media for so long, the alternative version filled the gap - something that may have damaged her reputation for good.
“What political satire does is fix the political persona in peoples’ minds,” said Alan Schroeder, associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University, Boston.
“The comedic version that gets established is very hard to counteract.”
He puts the flourishing of satirical comedy down to the Bush administration.
“Things got so surreal over the last eight year that journalism was not providing the same check and balance to government any more,” he said.

He recalls Steven Colbert, in his manic right-wing television pundit persona, mercilessly lampooning George Bush at the annual Whitehouse Correspondent’s Association dinner in 2006.ῠ “It was illuminating, being in a room full of journalists whose job it was to provide that sceptical eye - and he was the one who got the job done. Comedians have always been the ones who have had license to speak truth to power.

In a time when dissent is not looked on favourably, comedy is one of the few outlets for acceptable political dissent.”ῠSomeone who has more or less escaped the satire is Mr Barack Obama - perhaps because he is African-American or maybe because he simply isn’t funny. “Maybe that’s what we need after eight years of Bush,” says Mr Alan Schroeder. “But there’s a price to pay in entertainment value,”ῠ he adds.

The writer, a British journalist based in Washington, will file a weekly feature on the US presidential election for this newspaper

Attacks backfire on McCain: Poll
 

New York Times Service Oct. 15: The McCain campaign’s recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found. After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of strong political attacks on Mr Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that more voters see Mr McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr Obama.

Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr McCain had spent more time attacking Mr Obama than explaining what he would do as President; by about the same number, voters said Mr Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking. Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 per cent of those determined to be probable voters said they would vote for Mr Obama and 39 per cent said they would vote for Mr McCain. The findings come as the race enters its final three weeks, with the two candidates scheduled to hold their third and last debate on Wednesday night.

Author flees Italy after Mafia threat
 

Naples, Oct. 15: Italian author and investigative journalist Roberto Saviano said he would leave Italy, after a Mafia turncoat told police of a plot to murder him by Christmas.ῠ “I will leave Italy, at least for a period of time, and then we’ll see,” said Mr Saviano in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica, published on Wednesday.ῠ Mr Saviano’s international best-seller Gomorra exposed the activities of Naples’ ruthless Camorra crime syndicate.

“Screw success. I want a life, a house, I want to fall in love, drink a beer in public, go to the bookstore and choose a book by reading its backcover.”ῠ He has been living in hiding under 24-hour police protection for the past two years. “I want to keep writing, writing, writing because it is my passion and my way of fighting. In order for me to write, I need to plunge my hands into reality, rub it on myself, smell the sweat,” he said.

“I don’t want to live in sterilised hyperbaric chamber, inside a police station, today here, tomorrow 200 km away, taken back and forth like a package without knowing what happened or could happen.” Mr Savianoῠ carried out his own research for the book, which denounces the activities of the Camorra. The book’s disclosures allegedly prompted the Camorra to issue a “death sentence” for Mr Saviano and his bodyguards. The Camorra plot to kill Mr Saviano had reached its “operational” stage according to, Mafia turncoat Carmine Schiavone.

Mr Saviano, 28, feels “a prisoner of the Camorra” and says he wants to leave the country to get his life back. “I feel like I have the right to take some time off… I do not see any reason to continue living this way, as a prisoner of myself, of my book and my success,” he said.ῠ Gomorra has been made into a successful movie which won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie was named Italy’s entry for next year’s Oscars, reportedly further incensing the Camorra.

One of the movie’s leading actors, Bernardino Terraciano, who plays a mafia boss in the film, was arrested on suspicion of extortion and having ties to the Casalesi clan.

Martin Luther King kids in court over book deal
 

Atlanta, Oct. 15: The children of Coretta Scott King and the Rev Martin Luther King Jr faced off in an Atlanta courtroom in a dispute over their mother’s personal papers that could derail a lucrative book deal. The Rev Bernice King, Martin Luther King III and Dexter King have looked more like adversaries than siblings in recent months. The surviving three King children are involved in three lawsuits.

Mr Dexter King, as the head of his father’s estate, is seeking his mother’s papers, which are currently in his sister’s possession, in order to be use them in a memoir that an author had been helping Coretta Scott King write before her death. Ms Bernice King is refusing to turn over the papers, claiming her mother changed her mind about the book before her death. New York-based Penguin Group is threatening to pull the $1.4 million book deal this week without the documents. Speaking to reporters outside of the Fulton County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon, Mr Dexter King said he was saddened by the family feud. “This is not in the spirit of our parents,” he said. “It’s not the way we were raised. It’s just very disheartening.”

FBI: Texas murder was an honour killing case
 

Austin (Texas), Oct.15:ῠ The Federal Bureau of Investigation has finally admitted after almost a year that the murder of two teenage girls by their father is a case of “honour killing.” Sarah Said, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were killed on new year’s day, and were found in the back seat of a taxicab in Texas.

But for nine months, the FBI deflected questions about whether their father, the prime suspect may have targeted them because of a perceived slight upon his honour. The girls’ great-aunt, Gail Gartrell, says the girls’ Egyptian-born father killed them both because he felt they disgraced the family by dating non-Muslims and acting too Western, and she called the girls’ murders an honour killing from the start. But some Muslims say that calling the case an honour killing goes too far. “As far as we’re concerned, until the motive is proven in a court of law, this is [just] a homicide,” Mr Mustafaa Carroll, the executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Dallas, said. He said terms like “honour killing” may stigmatise the community.

Indian mass inspired me: Adiga
 

London, Oct. 15: Indian-born Aravind Adiga was remarkably composed when the chairman of the jury Michael Portillo announced his name as the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 after 10 pm at Guildhall in London on Tuesday. Explaining that his jetlag was responsible for “vision of composure,” the 33-year-old Adiga said his work as a journalist and his experience of life in North India had inspired him to write The White Tiger. His book was an “attempt to capture the voice of the men you meet as you travel through India - the voice of the colossal underclass.”

Travelling along the Ganga, he said, inspired him to think in a new way. Adiga said he realised the dark humour of these people. It is  “very similar to that of black Americans and people living in Jewish ghettos in Europe.” “This voice had not been captured,” he added, “and I wanted to do so without sentimentality or portraying them as mirthless humourless weaklings as they are usually.”

Explaining how he created the main protagonist of the book, Balram Halwai, Adiga said he met a group of rickshaw-pullers during an assignment in Gaya, Bihar. “One of them was called Balram and another one was a Halwai, who went on to tell me his life story. The guy called Balram had a lot of anger inside him and said to me that he didn’t understand why he was wasting time talking to me when I would return home and promptly forget him,” Adiga added. However, he never forgot this man and used him to fashion his protagonist.

“The White Tiger at its heart is a story about a man’s quest for freedom, set in a social and political context. This is about a man trying to understand self, without any help from his background, without any help from his family, being put in an entirely new world. He mulls on how to get out of  the trap,” he explained. Adiga zeroed in on tiger as a metaphor to explain the character of Balram.

It’s splitsville for Madonna
 

London, Oct. 15: Speculation that pop singer Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie plan to divorce grew on Wednesday after a report in a British newspaper said the couple would announce the split “imminently.” When asked about the report in the Sun tabloid, Barbara Charone, Madonna’s London-based publicist, replied, “No comment.”

Madonna and British filmmaker Ritchie have denied previous reports that they planned to end their eight-year marriage. The Sun quoted a “highly-placed source” as saying Madonna, 50, and Ritchie, 40, “just couldn’t live together any more” and could “not bear the pretence of being happily married. Rumours that the London-based couple planned to split have been circulating for months, fuelled by reports in the summer that the singer had lined up Fiona Shackleton, a lawyer who acted for former Beatle Paul McCartney in his divorce. Madonna is in the middle of her Sticky & Sweet world tour. Ritchie has seen his  career recover from a series of critical duds and he is now making major Hollywood blockbuster Sherlock Holmes.

Facebook to trace terrorists
 

London Oct. 15: British home secretary Jacqui Smith said on Wednesday that the Labour government is planning to give the police and security and intelligence agencies new powers to access and store records of phone calls, emails and Internet traffic and to access personal data held by Internet services. Ms Smith also decided to give the security services more power to gather electronic data after warnings that criminals were becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of technology to avoid detection.  In a speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research on Wednesday, Ms Smith said a new legislation would be required in order for law enforcement agencies to keep pace with changing technology.

She, however, clarified that the government did not want to record and store the content of all emails, text messages and telephone calls and appropriate safeguards would be put in place. “There are no plans for an enormous database which will contain the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the phone or online. Nor are we going to give local authorities the power to trawl through the database in the interests of investigating lower level criminality under the spurious cover of counter-terrorist legislation,” she added. In view of the current threat level, the police and security agencies want to access personal data from social network like Facebook and Bebo and gaming networks.

Ms Smith said communications data of the sort which helped convict Soham killer Ian and the July 21 bombers was not being routinely stored. “The communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we intercept communications and collect communications data needs to change too.

Deccan Chronicle