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| THIS
OUR NORTH AMERICA |
| World’s Billionaires
hit hard by the recession |
Khushwant
Toor writes from Toronto
OUT of the fortunate 1,125 billionaires
around the world last year, the list is not shorter
by 332, leaving behind now 793 billionaires around
the world. A billionaire is a person who has a
net worth of at least one billion units of currency,
such as United States dollars, U.K. pounds or
euro. Counting the number of zero’s behind
one billion = 1000,000,000.More
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| Ending the war |
ON Feb. 27, 2009, President Obama announced
a firm date for the end of the U.S. military intervention
in Iraq. "Let me say this as plainly as I
can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in
Iraq will end," he declared. A transitional
force of between 30-50,000 troops would remain
in Iraq temporarily. "Through this period
of transition, we will carry out further redeployments,"
he explained, "and under the Status of Forces
Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend
to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end
of 2011."More
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| A new era for science |
ON March 9, 2009, flanked
by Nobel laureates, well-known medical researchers,
and a bipartisan group of members of Congress,
America’s Democratic President Obama signed
an executive order undoing President Bush's August
2001 directive banning federal funding for all
but 20 embryonic stem (ES) cell lines. For Obama,
this was no quiet embrace of science. He declared
in clear words , "At this moment, the full
promise of stem cell research remains unknown,
and it should not be overstated.More |
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| Shahid Bhagat Singh’s
niece defends BJP |
Gurpreet
Singh writes from Vancouver
IN an interesting development, the UK based niece
of Bhagat Singh – one of the most revered
Indian martyr has defended the Hindu nationalist
BJP. In a radio interview on the occasion of the
birth anniversary of Chacha Ajit Singh, the revolutionary
uncle of Bhagat Singh and a freedom fighter himself,
Varinder Sandhu not only justified the mandate
of the BJP, but also defended its communal politics.More |
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| Indo-Canadian MP in
steamy controversy |
INDO-Canadian member
of House of Commons Ruby Dhalla, considered a
sexiest women politician is in the centre of a
steamy controversy. Dhalla, who is the MP from
the Brampton-Springdale constituency on the outskirts
of Toronto, is in a legal battle to stop distribution
of DVDs of a Bollywood movie she acted in 2003
before her election to parliament.More |
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| ANALYSIS |
| Budgets:
Some basic connotations |
Vinod Anand
IN common nomenclature, a budget includes
an estimate of income and expenditure for a future
period as opposed to an account which records financial
transactions. Budgets are an essential element in
the planning and management of the financial affairs
of a nation, business and even household. They are
made necessary because income and expenditure do
not occur simultaneously.More |
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| Terrorists aim for
destabilisation, media attention |
Beena
Sarwar writes for IPS from Karachi
SOUTH Asia seems to be caught in a vortex
of violence as the countries that form this region
- from Sri Lanka at the southern-most tip, Bangladesh
to the east, Nepal crowning the north, Pakistan
along the west and India in the middle - deal
with internal nightmares that their governments
routinely blame on neighbours.
The armed attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team
in the historic city of Lahore in Pakistan has
sent shockwaves through a country already racked
by regular suicide and other attacks.More |
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| ART, MEDIA & LITERATURE |
| 39 Years ago: Lata Mangeshkar
adored for Punjabi music directors |
|  Harjap
Singh Aujla
BETWEEN 1968 and 1970, I was serving on the faculty
of the Punjab Engineering College Chandigarh.
During 1968 and 1969, I was one of the teachers
who took the students of the college on annual
all India educational tours. Each year Bombay
was prominent on our itinerary. Finding some time
off from the hectic official duties, I attempted
to have a face to face meeting with great singer
Lata Mangeshkar in 1968, but did not succeed.More
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Lahore under siege: Two terrorists killed, 1 held
alive | NSA against Varun is 'misuse of a serious
law': Maneka | Capt Kanwaljit Singh to be cremated
at 2 PM | 'GM, Chrysler have no 'viable' plans'
| Gambhir, VVS guide India to draw in 2nd Test
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| Lahore under siege: Two terrorists
killed, 1 held alive |
| Lahore
is under siege battling its second terrorist attack
in a month. Heavily armed militants have attacked an
elite police training academy in Manavan on the outskirts
of Lahore, just 12 km from the Wagah border. Police
and army forces are engaged in a fierce encounter for
well over four hours. Over 20 people have been killed
and the number is expected to climb higher.More
Updated on March 30, 2009 at 01:00 p.m.
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- NSA against Varun is 'misuse
of a serious law': ManekaMore
- Capt Kanwaljit Singh to be
cremated at 2 PMMore
- 'GM, Chrysler have no 'viable'
plans'More
- Gambhir, VVS guide India
to draw in 2nd TestMore
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| E D I T O R I
A L |
| Vote for democracy |
|  IT
is a hard won freedom that is under threat from
the vested interests; money bags, manipulators
and musclemen. Indians made huge sacrifices to
win this freedom from an oppressive British regime
that was destroying our social, political and
economic freedom. Surely the imperialists have
not forgotten their loss and are returning with
the help of lackeys in one form or the other.More
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| FOCUS |
| Demise of parliamentary
democracy
|
 Gobind
Thukral
INDIA holds the ritual of elections every five years
or even earlier if so required, and spends huge
sums of money. This year is it going to cost Rs
10,000 crore. But if one observes these bodies even
casually, one is disappointed. Most assemblies either
meet for short durations, mostly to fulfill constitutional
obligations or are mired by shouting, walk outs
and fracas.More |
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Government
and Tamil Tigers should allow civilians to escape conflict
area |
|  THE
Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) should immediately agree
to a plan of action to allow civilians trapped in the
Vanni to leave the conflict area, Human Rights Watch
said today. Some 150,000 civilians are at grave risk
from fighting and aid shortages in the shrinking war
zone in northeast Sri Lanka.More
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| FEATURES |
| Learn from Punjab how
not to govern
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| Gobind
Thukral
 AS
everybody knows militancy in Punjab that took
away several thousand innocent lives was the direct
outcome of dreadful politics and a horrific rule.
But no lessons seem to have been learnt from those
horrific days. Otherwise how could the poor governance,
rampant corruption and lack of equitable development
be explained? Many of the leaders come to rule
by hook or crook and stay in power as long as
they can manage to.More
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| Dire need for an alternative
agriculture model |
|  Rajinder
Chaudhary
REPORT of the Punjab State Farmers Commission to the
Government of Punjab on Organic Farming provides an
opportunity to examine the potential of various alternatives
to the presently dominant chemical fertilizer and insecticide
based farming. Two key points made by the Commission,
or rather by all conventional agricultural scientists,
including Norman Borlaug, are low productivity of the
organic agriculture and non availability of enough organic
material.More
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| Don’t
abuse the displaced in Sri Lanka |
| Charu
Lata Hogg
 THE
scenes witnessed in the Vanni are devastating: Dead
bodies of civilians lie strewn along dusty roads. Hospitals,
playgrounds and houses stand ravaged by heavy artillery
and rockets fired from multi-barrel launchers. Civilians
who remain in the conflict zone come under fire running
for cover.More |
| LAW & JUSTICE |
| How basic is the structure
of Indian Constitution |
| Joginder Singh Toor
 THE
theory of basic structure is based on the principle,
that a change in a thing does not evolve its destruction
as destruction of a thing is a matter of substance
and not of form. Supreme Court of India in M.Nagraj Vs Union of India
stated, “Once it is held that
fundamental rights could be abridged but not destroyed,
and once it is further held that several features of
the Constitution cannot be destroyed, the concept of
express limitation on the amending power loses its force
for a precise formulation of the basic features of the
Constitution." More |
| COMMENT |
| A peoples commission for
farmers in Punjab
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|  IN
Ludhiana on March 8, 2009, a People’s Commission for
Farmers was announced after a day-long dialogue
at Wheat Auditorium, Punjab Agriculture University on
“Future of Organic Farming in Punjab: Its Importance
in Punjab” organized by Kheti Virasat Mission
- KVM.More
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| Communist
manifesto comes home |
| OVER 160 years
after the Communist Manifesto sparked minds and set
off revolutions in different parts of the world, the
British Library here has acquired the only complete
copy of the first edition of the document. Appearing
even as a wave of revolutions swept Europe in Spring
1848, the pamphlet that is known as the Communist Manifesto
was first printed in London.More |
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