Tribune News Service

Pathankot, May 29

An Army man serving in the Mammun Cantonment area allegedly shot himself with his service rifle this morning.Rakesh Kaushal, Senior Superintendent of Police, said the Army authorities had identified the deceased as sepoy Subhash Parsad (31) hailing from Sewan district in Bihar.He was serving in the 68 Engineering Division and was presently deputed as a sentry in the cantonment area. The SSP said after hearing the gunshots some of his colleagues rushed to the spot where they found the jawan lying in a pool of blood. “His parents have been informed and the body has been sent for a post-mortem. A case has been registered at Mammun Cantt police station,” he added.

A committee of retired bureaucrats set up to help the government draft new education policy has suggested an IAS-like all-India examination for appointing teachers. The existing NET (National Eligibility Test) already serves the purpose. It sets a national benchmark for quality and there is scope for improvement, if required. Bureaucrats learn to say “yes sir”, students need encouragement to question received wisdom. Autonomy and ability of regional institutions to select teachers should be respected. The suggestions for greater regulation and having a quality audit merit consideration but the HRD Ministry may use regulation to push its saffron agenda.  While respecting the functional freedom of private schools, colleges and universities, certain regulatory measures can be mutually agreed upon with a credible dispute resolving authority in place. The committee, headed by former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian, has stressed the recall of the no-fail policy. It has reiterated what 15 states and many concerned citizens have already demanded. What needs to be done is to extend the State’s role from being a mere education provider to a facilitator. Giving needy students vouchers and a choice to choose their school is better than funding schools that don’t function. Technology can be used to spread quality education far and wide. The committee pleads for throwing the doors open to foreign universities. This should have been done two decades ago. Today online courses are available from reputed universities, even from Harvard, Stanford and MIT, enabling students to “sign up, view lectures and submit homework from anywhere in the world”, as Nandan Nilekani puts it. Good quality, videotaped lectures are also available for school students. There is “EkStep”, which offers the basic concepts of literacy and numeracy for children. Salman Khan’s Academy is an alternative model for school-level education. Teachers in this system do not teach but act as mentors and sort out students’ problems in understanding, if any. Nandan Nilekani has argued that it is possible to use technology to “teach the next generation” at an affordable cost. The Central and state governments need to change their set ideas and attitudes before changing education.

Lt Gen KJ Singh, Western Command chief, addresses media at military station in Samba. A Tribune Photo

Our Correspondent

Samba, May 25

The Army has lauded the alert citizens of the country and said they have always played a great role in foiling the nefarious designs of anti-national elements.“There are security related problems which are disturbing. The Army is well-prepared and focused to prevent any untoward incident and will not allow the anti-social elements to succeed as it has thwarted all such attacks in the past and neutralised militants successfully,” Lt Gen KJ Singh, Western Command chief, said on the sidelines of a volleyball tournament in Samba recently.“We are prepared to deal with any kind of situation. We have put in place a necessary mechanism to ensure that the anti-national elements do not succeed in their designs. We have not allowed militants to succeed in their designs anywhere, be it Dinanagar, Pathankot air base or any other place,” the Western Command chief said.Lauding the role of the alert Indians, whom he called ‘jagruk Hindustanis’, linking them with Jagruk Hindustani Volleyball Premiere League, Lt General Singh said the alert Indians had always played a great role in foiling the terror attacks.“In all terrorist attacks, the citizen or ‘jagruk Hindustani’ has had a role to play. Whether it was in Dinanagar in Punjab, where a milkman pointed out the explosive that had been placed on the railway track, or in Udhampur, where two civilians captured Pakistani militant Mohammad Naved,” he said.With regard to the detection of a tunnel on the international border in the RS Pura sector of Jammu, he said it had helped avert a major tragedy and “we have to remain extra vigilant”.

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 18

Over 13 years after it was launched to provide comprehensive medical care to retired armed forces personnel and their dependants, the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) is today faced with a severe shortage of medical staff and funds.Against an authorised strength of 322 medical specialists for ECHS polyclinics, only 128 are posted there (a deficiency of around 60 per cent), according to information released by the Ministry of Defence this month.The shortage of medical officers and paramedical staff is around 26 per cent. There are 700 doctors against the authorised strength of 955 and 1,872 paramedical personnel against the required 2,523.Launched in April 2003, the ECHS caters to a clientele of 47 lakh beneficiaries across the country through a network of 420 polyclinics and 1,445 empanelled civilian hospitals. The situation is not healthy on the fiscal front either. Against a projection of Rs 3,600 crore under the ECHS revenue head for 2016-17, only Rs 2,363.54 crore has been allocated. Under the capital head, Rs 30 crore has been allocated for this fiscal against the projection of Rs 50 crore.“In comparison to what we got last year, funds have been drastically cut this year. We have been sanctioned less than what we were expecting and it will be difficult for us to pull through for the entire year. We will require additional funding,” a representative of the ECHS has been quoted as saying in the latest report by Parliament’s standing committee on defence.The Financial Adviser (Defence Services) said this was the first year of rationalising grants and the provision of funds for the ECHS would be taken care of at a later stage. The ECHS was covered under the Army budget earlier.

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Steamship Komagata Maru is approached by officials at Vancouver port, Canada, in this undated handout photo. reuters

Toronto, May 18

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday tendered a formal apology in his country’s House of Commons, 102 years after the Komagata Maru incident where the government of the day turned away 376 Indians, mostly Sikhs, seeking a better life in Canada.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)“Mr Speaker, today I rise in this House to offer an apology on behalf of the Government of Canada, for our role in the Komagata Maru incident,” Trudeau said in the House, with descendants of the ship’s passengers in the galleries. “No words can fully erase the suffering of Komagata Maru victims. Today, we apologise and recommit to doing better.” The Komagata Maru, a Japanese steamship, arrived in Vancouver in mid-May 1914, after leaving Hong Kong in early April. The ship, however, was not allowed to dock. After an almost two-month standoff, which also involved feisty demonstrations by ethnic Indians on Vancouver’s shores, the ship was eventually turned away. When it reached Calcutta, British colonial authorities attempted to seize suspected radicals on board. The semi-riot that ensued saw security forces kill at least 19 passengers.A 1908 Canadian law at the time forbade arrivals of immigrants in the country who did not make a “continuous journey” from their nation of birth or citizenship. A painful chapter in the history of Sikhs in Canada, the incident also highlighted the discriminatory immigration policies Canada had followed against Asian immigrants in the 19th century.In 2008, then PM Stephen Harper had apologised to the Sikh community, but the Sikh-Canadians had demanded a formal apology in the House of Commons. Trudeau-led Liberal Party, which has four Sikh ministers in the Cabinet, had promised a formal apology during the election campaign last year. — Agencies

Canadian PM apologises for Komagata Maru in House

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, May 18

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to consider a plea for increasing the number of vehicles allowed to ply between Manali and Rohtang Pass to meet the demand during the tourism season.On May 9, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had capped the number of vehicles at 1,200 a day–800 run on petrol and 400 on diesel–to minimise air pollution that was adversely affecting the Himalayan glaciers. The NGT also set a stiff deadline for phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles, replacing them with those run on compressed natural gas (CNG).Appearing for the Himachal Pradesh government, Additional Advocate General (AAG) Suryanarayana Singh told the summer vacation Bench of Justices AM Sapre and Ashok Bhushan that about 35 lakh tourists were expected to visit Rohtang Pass during the season and their requirements would not be met even if all 1,200 vehicles were buses.There was violence in the region last year as taxi drivers and operators had gone on an agitation to protest against the curbs which had affected their livelihood. The state government wanted to avoid recurrence of such problems this year, he pleaded.The Bench was hearing a petition by the Him Aanchal Taxi Operators Union and another challenging various NGT orders. The Bench advised the petitioner’s senior counsel Vibha Datta Makhija to file an appeal against the latest NGT order passed on May 9. Makhija said she would do so either on Wednesday or Thursday, upon which the Bench posted the matter for hearing on May 23.Arguing for the Centre, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar said efforts were being made to start CNG supply by the Indraprastha Gas Limited in the region, but the state government should first come up with a viable business model for the purpose. NGT had pointed out that the state government was found wanting in anti-pollution measures, he said.Makhija contended that there was no logic in placing restrictions on vehicles as hydropower stations were the main polluters. Air pollution caused by just one such station was more than the toxic fumes of all vehicles put together, she pleaded.It was also unfair that diesel and petrol vehicles were sought to be banned only in the region where the air pollution was less than the permissible limit and among the lowest in the country, she argued.The Bench, however, observed that this was due to the need to protect the environment of the Himalayas. It also advised the Centre, the state government and the stakeholders to sit together and come up with viable solutions.

The Antonov AN -225 at Hyderabad airport. (Pic received from aviation sources, photo credit unknown.)

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 13

The world’s largest aircraft, Antonov AN -225 Mriya (the Dream), made its first landing in India early on Friday morning at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, en route to Australia from Europe.The aircraft is making a technical halt at Hyderabad. It touched down at midnight and will stay here for 26 hours before departing for its next destination Kuala Lampur early on Friday morning.(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)“Hyderabad was chosen for the stopover as it is the only airport in India having the required infrastructure, strength and length of runway and taxi tracks and communication system to handle this aircraft. Another requirement was not to overfly the city, which has noise pollution implications,” Narinder Nath, Chief Operations Officer of Air Shagoon, the company handling the ground operations, told The Tribune. Ït took us 25 days to work out the technicalities and obtain landing permission from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the airport management,” he added.The aircraft arrived from Turkman bashi in Central Asia and will proceed to Jakarta and is destined for Perth, with technical halts at three places. It is carrying a generator that weighs 133 tonnes along with a crew of 21 and a few other passengers. The total journey from its origin, The Prague to Perth involves a flying time of about 26 hours spread over three days. The aircraft has a endurance of eight hours with full load.The six-engined Mriya, which means dream in Russian, is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. It was developed to transport the Soviet Braun space shuttle or other super-heavy and outsized cargo. Given its size, wing-span and engine wake, it can operate from a limited number of airports. Only one AN-225 was built in 1988 that served with the Soviet Air Force. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, it remained in storage for a few years and was later, after refurbishment, entered commercial service with the Antonov Airlines of Ukraine. The construction of a second airframe was started in the late 1980s, but it remains unfinished to date due to funding issues. The AN-225 can carry up to 250 tonnes of cargo as compared to 157 tonnes by the double-deck Airbus A–380, the largest passenger aircraft in service, or 80 tonnes by the Boeing C-17, the heaviest freighter operated by the Indian Air Force (IAF). In fact, the IAF has a close association with Mriya’s manufacturer, the Antonov Design Bureau, having operated sizable numbers of the AN-12 medium-lift aircraft and the AN-32 tactical transporter. While Soviet-origin aircraft such as the AN-12, AN-32, IL-76 and IL-78 have been the mainstay of the IAF’s logistic support fleet for the past few decades, Western aircraft such as the C-17 and C-130 have taken over a large chuck of this role. Western aircraft manufacturers are also strong contenders for the IAF’s medium transport aircraft and midair refueling aircraft requirements. The IAF has operated Western transport aircraft in the past, with the Dakota, Caribou, Packet, Otter, Constellation, Avro, Devox and Flying Boxcar prominent among them.

Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Palwal, May 7

The appointment of Vice Admiral Sunil Lanba as the new Navy Chief has brought cheers to residents of the district’s Amarpur village.Sunil, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief (FOC-in-C) of Western Naval Command, will assume charge on May 31. He will take over from Admiral RK Dhowan. He was born in Amarpur on July 17, 1957.“The village is proud of Sunil Lanba. It is the rarest of rare achievement for a person born in Amarpur,” said advocate Rajiv Lamba, a native of the village.He said Sunil Lanba was in touch with his village. “He and his family keep visiting Amarpur. The family owns land in the village.”Sunil Lanba’s uncle, Dharamvir Lanba, uncle and cousin, Arun, who live in the village said Sunil’s appointment as the Navy Chief brought the village in the limelight. The Lanba family has around 40 acres in the village located on the banks of the Yamuna river, said Rajender a local patwari.Sunil (58), a specialist in navigation and direction, will have full three-year tenure as the Navy Chief. An alumnus of Defence Services Staff College, he will be the 21st Indian to be the Navy Chief.He served as Navigating Officer of INS Sindhudurg (Corvette) and INS Dunagiri (Frigate). During his illustrious service, he commanded four frontline warships — INS Kakinada (Minesweeper), INS Himgiri (Frigate), INS Ranvijay and INS Mumbai (Destroyers).

Specialist in navigation

• Sunil Lanba, a specialist in navigation and direction, will have three-year tenure
• An alumnus of Defence Services Staff College, he will be the 21st Indian to be the Navy Chief
• He served as Navigating Officer of INS Sindhudurg (Corvette) and INS Dunagiri (Frigate)