CHANDIGARH: Unconfirmed reports of an increasing number of Punjabi youths using illegal channels to migrate to European countries were confirmed on Thursday with the release of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report. The 123-page study reveals that over 20,000 youths from Punjab and parts of Haryana are migrating illegally every year.

A majority of the youths moving abroad either land up in jails of those countries, commit suicide while on their way or lose lakhs of rupees to unscrupulous travel agents, it says. According to it, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Nawanshahr and Hoshiarpur districts of Punjab, and Ambala, Karnal, Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts of Haryana are leading in this illegal migration. In a majority of cases involving youths overstaying abroad, most are from Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Nawanshahr and Hoshiarpur.

The study has been conducted by former consultant of UNODC, KC Saha. A team from Heal Society, Chandigarh, and Delhi-based Institute of Social Science played a vital role in it by providing vital details from the states of Punjab and Haryana. According to Saha, irregular migration has not only spread to newer areas of Punjab but also the neighbouring states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Unscrupulous agents are operating from more prosperous areas of Delhi and from five star hotels……

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan met with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani here on Thursday in a show of public friendship, even as the two sides tried to work through underlying tensions over how to deal with the Taliban militants who use the countries’ lawless border region as a sanctuary.

Both leaders stressed that stability for their countries hinged on mutual cooperation, and Mr. Karzai tried to assuage widespread public unease in Pakistan about the growing influence in Afghanistan of India, Pakistan’s regional rival. “Afghanistan does not want proxy war between India and Pakistan,” Mr. Karzai said at a joint news conference with the prime minister, adding that he appreciated Indian efforts in Afghan reconstruction.

Earlier Thursday, Mr. Karzai met with the powerful Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and on Wednesday, the day of his arrival, Mr. Karzai held talks with President Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistani officials said that the two presidents had a warmer relationship than the frosty one that existed between Mr. Karzai and Pakistan’s former president, Pervez Musharraf. “Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have improved greatly,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a media adviser to Mr. Zardari.

But some analysts noted that beyond the diplomatic niceties, important differences remained. Mr. Karzai’s main mission, they said, was to seek Pakistani help in promoting conciliatory gestures and peace efforts toward the Taliban……

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BEIJING: A day after the Dalai Lama blamed China for trying to “annihilate Buddhism,” China responded by accusing the Tibetan religious leader of trying to split the country, and called on foreign governments to take action against “separatist groups” operating overseas.

China also expressed its particular “appreciation” to the Indian government for restricting activities of “anti-China” forces operating in India, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang said.

“The Indian government has recognised Tibet as an integral part of China and does not allow anti-China political activities in India,” he said in response to a question on the Dalai Lama’s comments criticising the Chinese rule, made in a speech in Dharamshala to mark the 51st anniversary of his failed uprising. Mr. Qin also criticised Tibetan activists’ reported attempts to break into Chinese embassies in India and other countries, and said China appreciated the role played by India and other countries in restricting “anti-China” activities.

The Dalai Lama in his speech strongly attacked China for its policies in Tibet, which, the exiled religious leader says, have eroded Tibetan culture and restricted freedom of worship. “They are putting the monks and nuns in prison-like conditions, depriving them [of] the opportunity to study and practice in peace,” he said.

He also, for the first time, voiced support to groups that have been campaigning to establish a separate “East Turkestan” state in China’s Muslim Uighur-majority western Xinjiang region. The Dalai Lama expressed his “solidarity” with ethnic Uighur groups, and said he stood firmly with them……

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First the Best Bakery Case trial was moved out of Gujarat after the victims complained of intimidation by the state. Then the Bilkis Bano Rape Case was transferred to Mumbai because the Supreme Court found Gujarat unable to deliver unbiased justice. Now, in the crucial Gujart Riots cases, the public prosecutors have resigned alleging the court is communally biased and the Special Investigation Team indifferent.

The credibility of the Special Investigation Team that has summoned Gujarat CM Narendra Modi in connection with Ehsaan Jaffrey murder case in the 2002 Gujarat riots is also under scrutiny in the Supreme Court. (Read: Modi summoned by Supreme Court panel)

The court hearing the Gujarat Riots Cases is biased against witnesses and the Special Investigation Team re-investigating Gujarat Riots cases is indifferent, these are the strong allegations that have been made by Public Prosecutors R K Shah and Nayana Bhatt who have officially complained and resigned from the case.

Two months ago, activists filed a complaint against the SIT on the grounds that it includes Shivanand Jha, a police officer accused by Zakiya Jaffrey in her complaint.

Activists are also upset that the SIT has been slow to summon Modi and that the SIT’s chief, Raghavan, does not spend enough time in Ahmedabad.

The complaint has also asked for the SIT to be reconstituted….

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A UN team visiting Alang recently found that the Gujarat yard had virtually no healthcare facilities and routinely violated global shipbreaking norms. The visit followed an enquiry report on December 16 by the Ministry of Environment that asked the Ministry of Steel to investigate how 200 obsolete ships, carrying fake documents, had managed to enter Indian waters post September 2007. This, said the ministry, was in blatant violation of a host of UN laws such as the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and the Rotterdam Convention.

The environment ministry note followed newspaper reports about the highly contaminated US ship Platinum ii (formerly MV Oceanic, SS Independence) that continued to beach at Alang. The discarded vessel – declared dead by the US naval administration – carries hazardous waste, including 238 tonnes of asbestos-containing material and polychlorinated biphenyl and radioactive material, besides 126 used lead batteries. Platinum II is the latest dead arrival to feed Gujarat’s ship-breaking industry.

The probe also found how ship owners from the developed world were buying ‘flags of convenience’ by registering dead vessels in Liberia, Panama, St Vincent, landlocked Mongolia and Tuvalu and then, in turn, sendind them to Alang and Bhavnagar in Gujarat and other South Asian beaches. “Since the ships change hands several times, it becomes virtually ­impossible to trace the original ship owner. Almost 90 percent of the dead ships use these flags of convenience’,” Praveen Nagarseth, head of a shipbreaking association, told TEHELKA….

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CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Civil Medical Service –Class I (PCMS-I) Association, while appreciating the concern shown by the Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal, over the alleged “PCMS-I doctors Recruitment Scam”, has rejected the Chief Secretary-level Inquiry, as it will serve no useful purpose.

It has, rather, demanded a ‘Time Bound Probe’ by the “Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)” keeping in view the magnitude of the scam and very high status enjoyed by the persons involved in the selection process.

Terming this scam as a constitutional and provincial shame, the Association has demanded that till the completion of this Inquiry, all these 312 recruitments of doctors, recently recommended by the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) should be held in abeyance and their joining reports should be with-held, since a large number of selected doctors are allegedly academically much below average and a vast majority of the meritorious and deserving candidates have been rejected. The probe should also cover the postings of these doctors made by the Health Department……

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