അട്ടപ്പാടിയില്‍ കാറ്റാടിക്കമ്പനിയെ ഒഴിപ്പിക്കില്ല; ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്കായി പാക്കേജ്

അട്ടപ്പാടിയില്‍ കാറ്റാടിക്കമ്പനിയെ ഒഴിപ്പിക്കില്ല; ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്കായി പാക്കേജ്

തിരുവനന്തപുരം: അട്ടപ്പാടിയിലെ വിവാദ കാറ്റാടി പദ്ധതിക്ക് സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ പച്ചക്കൊടി. ആദിവാസികളുടെ ഭൂമി കൈയേറിയെന്ന് നേരത്തേ യു.ഡി.എഫ് തന്നെ ആരോപിച്ച സുസ്‌ലോണ്‍ കമ്പനിയെ ഒഴിപ്പിക്കാതെ, ലാഭവിഹിതം ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്ക് നല്‍കിക്കൊണ്ടുള്ള പാക്കേജിന് ബുധനാഴ്ച സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ രൂപം നല്‍കി.

പുതിയ പാക്കേജ് അനുസരിച്ച് സുസ്‌ലോണ്‍ കമ്പനി ഉത്പാദിപ്പിക്കുന്ന വൈദ്യുതി വിറ്റുകിട്ടുന്ന ലാഭത്തിന്റെ ഒരംശം ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്ക് നല്‍കും. കമ്പനിയുടെ കാറ്റാടി ഗോപുരങ്ങള്‍ നിലനില്‍ക്കുന്ന സ്ഥലത്ത് കൃഷി ചെയ്യാന്‍ ആദിവാസികളെ സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ സഹായിക്കും. ലാഭത്തിന്റെ എത്രശതമാനം ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്ക് നല്‍കണമെന്നതിനെക്കുറിച്ച് ഉടന്‍തന്നെ ഫോര്‍മുല തയ്യാറാക്കും. കൈയേറിയതായി ആരോപണമുള്ള ഭൂമിയുടെ നിജസ്ഥിതി അറിയാന്‍ ജില്ലാ കളക്ടറില്‍ നിന്ന് റിപ്പോര്‍ട്ട് ആവശ്യപ്പെടും. അതിന്റെ അടിസ്ഥാനത്തില്‍ തുടര്‍ നടപടികള്‍ സ്വീകരിക്കുകയും ചെയ്യും. ഭൂമി നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടതായി പറയുന്ന ആദിവാസികളുടെ ആവശ്യപ്രകാരമാണ് സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ ഇത്തരമൊരു പാക്കേജ് തയ്യാറാക്കിയതെന്ന് മുഖ്യമന്ത്രി ഉമ്മന്‍ ചാണ്ടി അറിയിച്ചു. ''അട്ടപ്പാടിയില്‍ ആദിവാസികളുടെ ഭൂമി കൈയേറി സുസ്‌ലോണ്‍ കമ്പനി കാറ്റാടിയന്ത്രങ്ങള്‍ സ്ഥാപിച്ചുവെന്ന് യു.ഡി.എഫ് അന്നേ പറഞ്ഞതാണ്. എന്നാല്‍ കമ്പനിയില്‍ നിന്ന് ഭൂമി തിരിച്ചെടുത്ത് നല്‍കുന്നതിനു പകരം ആ ഭൂമിയില്‍ നിന്ന് എന്തെങ്കിലും വരുമാനം കിട്ടുന്നതാണ് നല്ലതെന്ന് ആദിവാസികള്‍ പറഞ്ഞു. ബുധനാഴ്ച ആദിവാസി നേതാക്കളുമായി നടത്തിയ ചര്‍ച്ചയിലാണ് ഈ അഭിപ്രായം ഉരുത്തിരിഞ്ഞത്. ആദിവാസികളുടെ അഭിപ്രായത്തെ സര്‍ക്കാരിന് മാനിച്ചേ തീരൂ. അത് യു.ഡി.എഫ് സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ കടമയാണ്. അതുകൊണ്ടാണ് കാറ്റാടിക്കമ്പനിയുമായി ചേര്‍ന്നുകൊണ്ടുള്ള പാക്കേജിന് സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ രൂപം നല്‍കിയത്. ലാഭവിഹിതത്തിന്റെ നിരക്കിനെക്കുറിച്ച് കമ്പനി മുന്നോട്ടുവെച്ച നിര്‍ദേശം സ്വീകരിക്കാന്‍ കഴിയില്ലെന്ന നിലപാടാണ് സര്‍ക്കാരിന്. പരമാവധി തുക ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്ക് ലഭിക്കത്തക്കവിധം ഫോര്‍മുല തയ്യാറാക്കും'' - അട്ടപ്പാടി പാക്കേജ് ചര്‍ച്ചയ്ക്ക് ശേഷം മുഖ്യമന്ത്രി ഉമ്മന്‍ ചാണ്ടി പറഞ്ഞു.

അട്ടപ്പാടിയില്‍ 645 ഏക്കര്‍ സ്ഥലമാണ് സുസ്‌ലോണ്‍ കമ്പനിയുടെ പേരിലുള്ളത്. മൂന്ന് വില്ലേജുകളിലായാണ് ഈ ഭൂമി. ഈ ഭൂമിയുടെ നല്ലൊരു ഭാഗവും വ്യാജ പ്രമാണങ്ങള്‍ ചമച്ച് കമ്പനി ആദിവാസികളില്‍ നിന്ന് തട്ടിയെടുക്കുകയായിരുന്നുവെന്ന് എല്‍.ഡി.എഫ് സര്‍ക്കാരിന്റെ കാലത്ത് യു.ഡി.എഫ് ആരോപിച്ചിരുന്നു. തുടര്‍ന്ന് എല്‍.ഡി.എഫ് സര്‍ക്കാര്‍, ചീഫ് സെക്രട്ടറിയോട് അന്വേഷിക്കാന്‍ ആവശ്യപ്പെടുകയും സര്‍ക്കാരിന് റിപ്പോര്‍ട്ട് സമര്‍പ്പിക്കുകയും ചെയ്തു. കോട്ടത്തറ വില്ലേജില്‍ വ്യാപകമായ കൈയേറ്റം നടന്നിട്ടുണ്ടെന്ന ആരോപണം നിലനില്‍ക്കുകയാണ്. 85.5 ഏക്കര്‍ ഭൂമിയാണ് കമ്പനി വ്യാജപ്രമാണത്തിലൂടെ തട്ടിയെടുത്തതെന്നാണ് ആരോപണം. എന്നാല്‍ 124 മുതല്‍ 180 ഏക്കര്‍ വരെ ഭൂമി വ്യാജപ്രമാണങ്ങളിലൂടെ കമ്പനി സ്വന്തമാക്കിയെന്നാണ് ആരോപണമുള്ളതെന്നും ഇതേക്കുറിച്ച് അന്വേഷിക്കാന്‍ ജില്ലാ കളക്ടറെ ചുമതലപ്പെടുത്തിയിട്ടുണ്ടെന്നും മുഖ്യമന്ത്രി പറയുന്നു. ഭൂമി കൈയേറ്റം നടന്നിട്ടുണ്ടെന്ന് ചീഫ് സെക്രട്ടറി റിപ്പോര്‍ട്ട് സമര്‍പ്പിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടെന്ന കാര്യം ചൂണ്ടിക്കാണിച്ചപ്പോള്‍ ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്ക് പ്രശ്‌നംവരുന്ന ഒരുകാര്യവും സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ ചെയ്യില്ലെന്നായിരുന്നു മുഖ്യമന്ത്രിയുടെ മറുപടി. ''ഭൂമിയില്‍ നിന്ന് വരുമാനം കിട്ടത്തക്കവിധം പാക്കേജ് തയ്യാറാക്കണമെന്ന് ആദിവാസികളുടെ പ്രതിനിധികള്‍ യു.പി.എ. അധ്യക്ഷ സോണിയാജിയെ കണ്ടും പറഞ്ഞിരുന്നു. നിങ്ങള്‍ പത്രക്കാര്‍ ഏതുഭാഗത്ത് നിന്നാലും സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ ആദിവാസികളുടെ ഭാഗത്താണ്. ഭൂമിയുടെ ഉടമസ്ഥാവകാശം ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്ക് തന്നെയായിരിക്കും. അത് കമ്പനിക്ക് കൈമാറില്ല. ആദിവാസികളുടെ ഭൂമി പാട്ടത്തിന് നല്‍കി വരുമാനമുണ്ടാക്കുന്നതില്‍ തെറ്റില്ല. വ്യാജപ്രമാണം തയ്യാറാക്കി ഭൂമി തട്ടിയെടുത്തെന്ന ആരോപണം അന്വേഷിക്കാന്‍ പാലക്കാട് ജില്ലാ കളക്ടറെ ചുമതലപ്പെടുത്തിയിട്ടുണ്ട്. റിപ്പോര്‍ട്ടിന്റെ അടിസ്ഥാനത്തില്‍ തുടര്‍നടപടികള്‍ സ്വീകരിക്കും. സംശയത്തിന്റെ ആനുകൂല്യം ആദിവാസികള്‍ക്ക് നല്‍കും''- മുഖ്യമന്ത്രി പറഞ്ഞു. അട്ടപ്പാടിയില്‍ സുസ്‌ലോണ്‍ ഭൂമി തട്ടിയെടുത്തിട്ടില്ലെന്നും കാറ്റാടികള്‍ പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കുന്ന സ്ഥലം കമ്പനിയുടേതാണെന്നും സി.പി.എം. സെക്രട്ടേറിയറ്റ് പ്രസ്താവനയിറക്കിയിരുന്നുവെന്നും മുഖ്യമന്ത്രി ചൂണ്ടിക്കാട്ടി.

Certificates scam in Baba Farid varsity

FARIDKOT: A scam involving fake certificates to get admission in medical and paramedical colleges in Punjab has come to light following cancellation of the admission of 24 students by Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.

These students had supplied fake certificates to get admission, a university official said, adding that the university had sent class XII certificates of 32 suspicious candidates to the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Rajasthan Education Board (REB) for verification.

The verification report of 24 of these certificates established these to be fake and as a result, the university has cancelled the candidature of these students in different medical and paramedical colleges across the state.

The report of eight others is still awaited.

Vice-chancellor S S Gill said the university had already cancelled the registration of all 24 students. "We have asked the medical colleges concerned to expel them as the certificates of these students were found bogus," he said.

PSEB chairman Dalbir Singh Dhillon also confirmed the development, saying that the university should get a criminal cases registered against the accused to go to the bottom of the scandal.

While 18 of these certificates have allegedly been issued by the PSEB, 14 other certificates have CBSE and REB stamps on them.

The university is also contemplating legal action against the accused to know about the source of these fake certificates.

In 2000 also the university had courted controversy after Punjab pre-medical entrance test (PMET) examination papers had leaked and more that two dozen cases of impersonation were detected.

In PMET-2008, the scandals resurfaced when medical students from various part of the country were found appearing in the tests on behalf of other aspirants.

Students from many medical colleges of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh were found indulging in impersonation for money.

Rebels fight for full control of Tripoli

Rebel reinforcements have streamed into the Libyan capital, Tripoli, to join in the fight against Muammar Gaddafi loyalists, who are putting up strong resistance in some pockets of the city. Fighters from the port city of Misrata have joined fellow rebels who spearheaded the weekend assault that saw the Libyan capital swiftly overrun and Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound falling to the rebels. Fighting on Thursday was concentrated along the perimeters of Bab al-Aziziya and the neighbouring Abu Salim district, where Gaddafi reportedly released, armed and paid former prisoners to fight for his regime. A rebel spokesman told Al Jazeera that "Libyan territory is 90 to 95 per cent under the control of the rebellion". Colonel Abdullah Abu Afra said "the fall of Bab al-Aziziya marked the end of the Gaddafi regime in Tripoli and in Libya" after 42 years in power. Maram Wafa, a resident of Tripoli, echoed this when she told Al Jazeera on Thursday that rebels controlled the majority of the city but that there was still heavy fighting in pockets of the city. "The city is full of snipers, the streets are not safe, and everyone is staying indoors," she said. Concern over attacks Sue Turton, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tripoli, reported on Thursday that locals are very worried that there are going to be attacks by pro-Gaddafi supporters across the city. "There are check points popping up all over the city. Locals are managing to get hold of weapons to police their streets," she said. "There is a lot of nervousness … people are very worried that Gaddafi loyalists are coming through these streets. "They are worried that there will be some sort of attacks across the city, not just in areas we know about but even in areas like this that look quite sleepy." The rebels are also determined to find Gaddafi, and have offered amnesty and a reward to anyone who kills or captures the 69-year-old Libyan leader. In Benghazi, the National Transitional Council (NTC) told a news conference on Wednesday that Libyan business people had contributed $1.7m for the cash reward. "The NTC supports the initiative of businessmen who are offering two million dinars for the capture of Muammar Gaddafi, dead or alive," Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the NTC chief, said. NATO hunts Gaddafi Liam Fox, Britain's defence minister, said on Thursday that NATO is supporting Libyan rebels in hunting Gaddafi and his sons and has stepped up air raids targeting Gaddafi loyalists. "I can confirm that NATO is providing intelligence and reconnaissance assets to the NTC (National Transitional Council) to help them track down Colonel Gaddafi and other remnants of the regime," he told Sky News channel. He declined to comment on a report in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper that British special forces were on the ground in Libya assisting with the hunt. Fox said NATO operations would continue until pockets of resistance containing Gaddafi loyalists were eliminated, and this could take some time. "There was increased NATO activity last night including British fast jets because there are areas of resistance by the regime which has had considerable levels of military expertise, still has stockpiles of weapons and still has the ability for command and control. "They may take some time to completely eliminate and it is likely there will be some frustrating days ahead before the Libyan people are completely free of the Gaddafi legacy." Gaddafi's location was still unknown on Thursday, but as a reminder that he remained on the loose, the defiant leader made an audio address broadcast earlier on Wednesday by the al-Rai television channel. In the address he called on Tripoli residents to repel the rebels' advance. Elsewhere in the country, rebel commanders have said they are readying fresh attempts to advance against Gaddafi's forces in his hometown Sirte, 360km east of the capital and to break a siege of Zuwarah, a town to the west. Rebels said Gaddafi forces were pounding rebels holding the centre of Zuwarah, west of Tripoli, adding that they needed reinforcements to help them break the siege. Rebels advancing towards Sirte were also blocked on Wednesday in the town of Bin Jawad as loyalists kept up stiff resistance. "Gaddafi's forces are still fighting, we are surprised. We thought they would surrender with the fall of Tripoli," rebel commander Fawzi Bukatif said.

Govt ropes in top Muslims to boost minority education

In a major initiative, HRD ministry has called a meeting of 18 leading Muslim industrialists and philanthropists to suggest ways to improve the state of minority education in the country.

Among those called include Azim Premji of Wipro, Fatima Allana of 83-year-old Anjuman Khairul Islam, a leading organisation involved in running educational institutions, and P A Inamdar, an industrialist with interests in education. The ministry also wants them to help set up community-based polytechnics to bolster varied craft skills of Muslims.

"The middle class among Muslims is very competent in various arts and crafts, be it calligraphy, glasswork or embroidery. Instead of setting up conventional polytechnics, philanthropists and industrialists can help set up community-based polytechnics so that the new generation can hone its skills further. It can be set up in public-private partnership," a source said.

Others invited are Nasreen Ibrahim of Rangoonwala Foundation, Mohd Farooq Suleman Darvesh of All India Memon Jamat Foundation, Ateeq Aagpotwalla of Memon Chamber of Commerce, Abdullay Kumhy of Yannapoya Education Trust, K M Arifuddin, secretary, Madina Group of Industries, among others. The meeting is likely to take place shortly.

Th HRD ministry is also working towards setting up a roundtable on minority education and names are being finalised.

The ministry is set to constitute a National Monitoring Committee on Minority Education. It has asked people like Rahul Gandhi, Ahmed Patel and Oscar Fernandes to suggest five names each. Sources said it was likely that P A Inamdar; Valson Thampu, principal, St Stephens College; Shahid Ali Khan, editor, Siyasat; Teesta Setalvad, editor, Communalism Combat; Tahir Mahmood, legal expert; John Dayal, former journalist; Farah Naqvi, member, National Advisory Council and Zoya Hasan, JNU professor, are likely to be made part of NMCME.

Tags: Education, Educational Institutions, Muslim Industrialists, Philanthropists, Public-private Partnership

Engineers Discover Nanoscale Balancing Act That Mirrors Forces at Work in Living Systems

The same type of forces are at work bringing the building blocks of viruses together, and the inorganic supercluster structures in this research are in many ways similar to viruses.

U-M chemical engineering professors Nicholas Kotov and Sharon Glotzer led the research. The findings are newly published online in Nature Nanotechnology.

In another instance of forces behaving in unexpected ways at the nanoscale, they discovered that if you start with small nanoscale building blocks that are varied enough in size, the electrostatic repulsion force and van der Waals attraction force will balance each other and limit the growth of the clusters. This equilibrium enables the formation of clusters that are uniform in size.

"The breakthrough here is that we've discovered a generic mechanism that causes these nanoparticles to assemble into near perfect structures," Glotzer said. "The physics that we see is not special to this system, and could be exploited with other materials. Now that we know how it works, we can design new building blocks that will assemble the same way."

The inorganic superclusters -- technically called "supraparticles" -- that the researchers created out of red, powdery cadmium selenide are not artificial viruses. But they do share many attributes with the simplest forms of life, including size, shape, core-shell structure and the abilities to both assemble and dissemble, Kotov said.

"Having these functionalities in totally inorganic system is quite remarkable," Kotov said. "There is the potential to combine them with the beneficial properties of inorganic materials such as environmental resilience, light adsorption and electrical conductivity."

Zhiyong Tang, a collaborating professor at the National Center of Nanoscience and Technology in China, said, "It is also very impressive that such supraparticles can be further used as the building blocks to fabricate three-dimensional ordered assemblies. This secondary self-assembly behavior provides a feasible way to obtain large-scale nanostructures that are important for practical application."

Kotov is currently working on "breeding" these supraparticles to produce synthetic fuels from carbon dioxide. The work also has applications in drug delivery and solar cell research and it could dramatically reduce the cost of manufacturing large quantities of supraparticles.

"By replicating the self-assembly processes that allow living organisms to grow and heal, we can simplify the production of many useful nanostructured systems from semiconductors and metals so much so that they can be made in any high school laboratory," Kotov said.

This research is funded by the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Research Office.

Suicide-Bombing Bacteria Could Fight Infections

Like any good military unit, infectious bacteria have access to numerous weapons and efficient communication systems. But like soldiers in the field, they're also susceptible to suicide bombers. Researchers have used the tools of synthetic biology to create an Escherichia coli cell that can infiltrate foreign bacteria and explode, killing off the pathogens along with itself.
The project, says bioengineer Chueh Loo Poh of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, was "inspired by nature," particularly by quorum sensing, the ability of some bacteria to detect the number of microorganisms—either of their own species or others—in their environment. When pathogenic Pseudomonas aeruginosa sense other species impeding on their space and nutrients, they communicate with members of their own species using chemical signals and collectively start releasing a bacterial toxin called pyocin that kills off the competition. Together, these communication and defense capabilities allow P. aeruginosa to form tightly packed layers called biofilms, which can cause respiratory tract infections in humans and are particularly dangerous to cystic fibrosis patients.
Poh and chemical engineer Matthew Wook Chang, also at Nanyang Technological University, decided to turn P. aeruginosa's weapon system against itself, using E. coli as the carrier. The researchers tweaked the genes that allow P. aeruginosa to detect other members of its species and put this synthetic genetic code into E. coli's genome. They also gave E. coli a gene for making a modified pyocin that is toxic to P. aeruginosa. By linking the pyocin gene to the sensing genes, the researchers ensured that when the E. coli detected P. aeruginosa in the vicinity, it would fill itself with large amounts of pyocin and become a biological time bomb.
The researchers gave E. coli one last synthetic component: a "suicide gene" that is activated once the pyocin has had some time to build up, causing the cells to burst open and release their toxin. When Chang and Poh grew these synthetic E. coli in a dish with P. aeruginosa, the suicide bomber was able to kill 99% of the P. aeruginosa cells, the researchers report today in Molecular Systems Biology.
Justin Gallivan, a synthetic biologist at Emory University in Atlanta, says in an e-mail that the study "nicely illustrates" how synthetic bacteria can perform complex tasks. But he worries they may not be able to finish the job, because 1% of the infectious bacteria remained after the treatment—even when the researchers put four times as many E. coli as P. aeruginosa into the mix.
The system would also have to undergo a lot of work before it can be considered for use in humans—including, perhaps, replacing E. coli with another delivery system, says Richard Kitney, a synthetic biologist at Imperial College London. "Exposing people to E. coli is not a good thing," Kitney says, as the bacteria are toxic outside the gut. He adds that the team would also have to show that pyocin is effective at killing P. aeruginosa that have already formed a biofilm.
For their part, Chang and Poh say that they plan to test the suicidal bacteria in mice infected with P. aeruginosa. It's not clear, they say, whether pyocin is harmful to mammals, although some other natural bacterial toxins are currently approved for use as food preservatives. They also hope to tweak the synthetic system so that it can sense and respond to signaling molecules released by other species of pathogenic bacteria, such as those responsible for cholera.