Big States yet to embrace RTE: Sibal

Voicing concern over big States dithering on Right to Education provisions, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said that it will be a “historic failure” if the Act is not implemented across the country.

“It will be a historic failure, if we have passed the Act but not implemented,” Mr. Sibal said at a function here while referring to some states, which have not notified RTE rules as yet.

The legislation was enacted last year and so far, 20 States have notified RTE rules. However, big States such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and West Bengal have not implemented them.

Mr. Sibal was addressing the State education ministers about ways to promote and create awareness across the country about the benefits of the RTE Act.

A nation-wide campaign would be launched from Nuh, Mewat in Haryana from November 11 for promoting RTE across schools.

A message by Prime Minister about RTE to every head teacher of the school will be read out at the school assembly.

The campaign would be taken up in all 13 lakh schools across the country, the Minister said.

The states who have implemented RTE get central assistance for opening neighbourhood schools and other supporting infrastructure.

West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu told reporters that his State would be notifying the RTE rules by November end.

6 killed in small plane crash in remote Nepal

 An army plane with six Nepalese aboard went missing in a mountainous region of west Nepal on Tuesday while bringing a sick person to the capital, officials said.

The plane was flying from the western town of Nepalgunj when it went out of contact in a remote mountainous area about 125 miles (200 Kilo Meters) west of Katmandu, army spokesman Rabindra Chetri said. 

There were two crew members on board, along with a doctor, nurse and a relative of the sick person.

Beglung District offical Shyam Bahadur Thapa said villagers reported a possible plane crash in a forested  mountain area. Local police and soldiers from an army camp were trekking to the remote site but officials were not expecting to hear from them until morning, he said.

Airport Metro to increase peak hour frequency from today

In order to cater to the rush during peak hours, Reliance Infrastructure-operated Delhi Airport Metro Express Line (DAMEL) will increase train frequency from 15 minutes to 12 minutes from Monday.

The trains will run at 12-minute intervals between 8 a.m and 11 a.m and again between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. For the remainder of the day, trains will continue to run every 15 minutes. 

“Based on our internal study and keeping the comfort of airport bound passengers and office goers in mind, we have decided to increase train frequency during morning and evening peak hours,” said Reliance Infrastructure president Anil P. Gupta. 

To meet the increasing footfall and match the increase in frequency, one more train has been deployed on the line, taking the total number of trains to five. “This has resulted in creation of 25 per cent additional passenger carrying capacity during the peak hours”, said the spokesperson. 

“Some of our recent initiatives like opening of Dhaula Kuan and Aerocity stations, increase in train frequency, opening passenger check-in facilities at Dhaula Kuan station and attractive fare structure have increased awareness and ridership on the Delhi Airport Metro Express",  he added.

Clashes defiance in US anti-corruption protests news

Americans protesting corporate greed and inequality faced down authorities in parks and plazas across the country ahead of what organisers describe as 24 hours of public action planned Saturday in cities around the world.

Groups spanning the globe from Asia to Europe and in every U.S. state announced demonstrations and other actions. The rapidly growing movement could link a protest that started financial district together with longer-standing anti-austerity demonstrations that have raged across Europe amid a roiling economic crisis.

Demonstrators from San Francisco to New York resisted police, with some forming human chains and heckling corporate leaders. Hundreds have been arrested on minor charges in cities across the U.S. since the protests started about a month ago.

Protesters at the heart of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York exulted Friday after beating back a plan they said was intended to clear them from the privately owned park where they have slept, eaten and protested for the past month. They said their victory will embolden the movement across the U.S. and beyond. We are going to piggy-back off the success of today, and it’s going to be bigger than we ever imagined, said protester Daniel Zetah.

The owners of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan had announced plans to temporarily evict the hundreds of protesters before dawn Friday so that the grounds could be power-washed and inspected. But protesters feared it was a pretext to break up the demonstration and swelled their ranks by several thousand, recruiting through Facebook, Twitter and world of month.

Minutes before the appointed hour, the word came down that the park’s owners, Brookfield Office Properties, had postponed the cleanup. Brookfield said in a statement that it had decided to delay the cleaning for a short period of time  at the request of "a number of local political leaders".

A man who identified himself as the protester, Felix Rivera-Pitre, said in a statement posted online that he did not provoke the officer. “I was just doing what everyone else was doing in the march,” he said. “It felt like he was taking his frustrations out on me.”

Moderate polling in by-election to Tiruchi West news

Approximately 61 per cent of the 2.08 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the by-election to the Tiruchi West Assembly constituency on Thursday. It had recorded 75 per cent of polling in the Assembly elections. Counting of votes will take place on October 20. 

Polling began on a sedate note. Sporadic spells of brisk voting were witnessed in most of the polling stations, especially in middle class localities such as Thillai Nagar. 

Long queues were seen in localities dominated by minority communities and Dalits such as Andakondan, Periyamilaguparai and Edamalaipattipudur. Conspicuous by their absence were young voters, who had turned up in large numbers for the Assembly elections. 

Though holiday had been declared, many employees of private firms did not turn up to vote, said an agent at a polling station at Crawford. 

“There was no major issue in the by-election to kindle interest. Except the AIADMK and the DMK, political parties were largely concentrating on the local body elections rather than the by-election,” said another agent.

Insertion of ballot papers in EVMs on current news

Every voter in the city will cast two votes — one to elect the Mayor and another to elect the councillor of their respective wards. The Corporation will put up a notice board to help the voters on how to proceed inside the polling booths in an orderly manner to cast one vote after another on October 17.

Each of the 1,121 polling booths (the number of polling booths has been increased by one as the ‘all voters' booth 392 has been split into ‘men' and ‘women'),will have five officials, including one Presiding officer and four polling officials. 

The Corporation Commissioner, S. Natarajan, said that the preparation of the balloting units of electronic voting machines for the Mayoral election for Madurai Corporation was at a final stage on Tuesday. Each polling booth would have two balloting units to accommodate 28 candidates. 

The work of inserting pink colour ballot papers into the balloting units was under way at the Corporation office. After this, preparation of control units would be taken up. The functioning of control units would be checked in the presence of candidates or their representatives before they were sealed, he said.

“Insertion of ballot papers in the balloting units for the 100 wards will begin on Wednesday,” Mr. Natarajan said. Ballot papers would be used for the ward election. These works would be taken up at the zonal offices.

Mr. Natarajan said that all polling material, including ballot papers and statutory covers, had arrived. The second training programme for polling officials would be held on Wednesday. Corporation school teachers and staff and government school teachers would officiate as polling officials.

 

Ansari re-lives his great granduncle’s visit to Turkey news

Nearly a century after his great granduncle Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari led a medical mission to Turkey, Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Tuesday relived the historical visit leafing through a set of documents gleaned from the State Archives. The Vice-President, who arrived here on a six-day visit on Monday, was handed over a folder “Dr. Ansari and his activities in Ottoman Empire” by the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Cemil Cicek. The Vice-President, who never visited Turkey during his 40 years in the Indian Foreign Service, is here on an invitation of Mr. Cicek. 

Drawn from State archives of Turkey, the documents include rare photographs of Dr. Ansari and his medical team that provided assistance to the Turkish army engaged in the Balkan war after his arrival in Istanbul on January 9, 1913 and established under the banner of Indian Red Crescent Society to a warm welcome from Ottoman Red Crescent. 

The mobile hospital at Kadirga became home to the medical team from India around the time when peace talks were held between the Ottoman empire and the Balkan State. Later, with the beginning of the second Balkan war, the team shifted to Omerli village in June that year and set up the mobile hospital at Gallipoli (Canakkale), the State archives recorded. The medical mission under Dr. Ansari also finds mention in Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery of India on its impact on Indian minorities before the outbreak of World War I. 

Earlier, Mr. Ansari paid homage at the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. In his comments in the golden book, the Vice-President noted: “It is an honour for me to pay my homage and respects to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a statesman, visionary leader, and the founder of the Republic of Turkey. His leadership in the war of independence of Turkey was a source of inspiration for India's freedom movement. The ideals symbolised by Mustafa Kemal Pasha continue to inspire secular, liberal and democratic people the world over.”