Man running children's home held

The owner of a children’s home in a village in Kanyakumari District, wanted by police for allegedly harassing 76 inmates, most of whom are from Manipur and Assam, has been arrested from Kerala. Police said

Shaji, founder of the Bethesda Blessing Home at Pallavi, was arrested in Palakkad last night by a special team formed to nab him after the harassment came to light during investigations by Child Welfare Commission.

Shaji was produced in a court and remanded to judicial custody, they said. During investigations, the commission officials found that the children had been harassed by Shaji and that the home had no approval. All the children have been rescued and shifted to a home in Tirunelveli District from where they would leave for Assam tomorrow, police said.

Environmentalist hails decision on BT brinjal; slams MNCs

Noted environmental activist Vandana Shiva Thursday hailed the Center moratorium on commercial cultivation of BT Brinjal and said GM crops contained harmful elements that could throw open the future generations to complex diseases.

The future generation could suffer from complex diseases due to the harmful elements present in GM crops, she said. Lashing out at corporate and multinational giants, she said these firms were "thrusting" junk food habits on people, leading to complex diseases.

The increasing affinity towards fast food culture is part of "deliberate" efforts by MNCs in pursuit of capturing food processing sector by tending to spoil India’s biodiversity, she said on the sidelines of a food festival here.

Food processing units in India should be set up in rural areas to safeguard the rich bio-diversity in the interest of disease-free society in future. The "toxic and pesticide laced" food marketed in India would would spoil health of the future generations, she said.

The influx of edible soya and palm oil have adversely hit coconut cultivators in Kerala and the "misinformation" campaign against highly nutrient coconut oil was being made under pressure from the MNCs, she said.

The five-day ’Annam’ Food and Agro-biodiversity festival, organised by the Centre for Innovation in Science and Social Action in association with various government institutions, was formally inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas.

Houseboat ride becomes cheaper

India’s not-to-miss tourist experiences like a ride on the Palace on Wheels or stay at the Lake Palace are often beyond the means of most Indians, but the economic slowdown has brought at least one experience within the reach of the middle-class -- Kerala’s houseboats.

For long patronised by rich foreign tourists, the backwater cruise industry in Kerala has woken up to the benefits of winning domestic tourists who virtually kept it afloat when the waves of the global economic slowdown hit the Indian shores in 2008-end. An overnight cruise through the coconut lagoon - an experience that the National Geographic Traveler has ranked ahead of viewing the Taj Mahal - is now cheaper by at least 20 per cent, if not more, than the period preceding the slowdown.

"A single bedroom houseboat can be hired for as low as Rs 6,000 a day and the rates include all meals for a couple... there were days when the same ride would have cost Rs 10,000-15,000," says Kochumon alias Sanish, who captains ’Sandra’, a well-appointed two bed-room houseboat that in its earlier avatar as ’kettuvallam’ (rope-tied country boat) ferried rice and spices in the Kuttanad region, the state’s rice bowl.

Compared to this, a ride on the Palace on Wheels costs anywhere around Rs 2,00,000 per person per week.

"We are seeing a lot of interest from tourists from the north, especially Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and Haryana and rates are no longer prohibitive," said Anil James, a houseboat operator. A typical backwater cruise takes tourists on a 40-km journey through the Vembanad lake, India’s longest spread over 1,512 sq.km, with a stopover at night by idyllic fishing villages whose people and tourists alike shop from a floating market ’Triveni’ operated by Kerala Consumerfed.

‘Encroachments: CPI urged to prove sincerity’

Ramesh Chennithala, KPCC president urged the CPI leadership to prove their sincerity in fight against illegal encroachments. Speaking to the media here, Chennithala opined that the revenue ministry should act, if the CPI leadership is true on their claims.

He alleged that even the CM is adopting a stand favourable to the encroachers.

Chennithala demanded that all encroached land should be taken back and handed over to the landless S Sivaraman ex-MP who resigned from Congress called upon Chennithala.

CAT order on commuted leave

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Ernakulam, has held that commuted leave on the basis of medical certificate cannot be denied to a Central government employee who is about to retire. The sanctioning authority cannot refuse leave at its whims and fancies. The tribunal made the observation recently while allowing an application filed by Elsy John, retired supervisor at the Accountant General’s Office. The tribunal directed the Union government and the Accountant General to regularise the applicant’s leave for 43 days as commuted leave and disburse the withheld amount for the days with an annual interest of 9 per cent from June 1, 2008 till the day of payment within 15 days.

R. Kanakarajan - Scientist of the Year Award

R. Kanakarajan, associate director of the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), Kochi, has been awarded the ‘Scientist of the Year Award’ by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Defence Minister A.K. Antony will present the award at a function at DRDO Bhawan in New Delhi on February 23. K. Ajith Kumar, Scientist ‘C’ of NPOL, has been selected for the ‘Young Scientist Award’ of DRDO for 2009. The award will be handed over to him in New Delhi on February 22.

Foreign equity in insurance opposed

The premium collected by the public sector insurance companies last month is more than the premium income collected by the private insurance companies in the whole year. In spite of a situation like this, the Union government’s move to increase foreign investment in general insurance needs to be seen as an act of malice, said J. Gurumurthy, the standing committee secretary of All India Insurance Employees’ Association. Addressing the 35th annual conference of the General Insurance Employees’ Union (GIEA), Gurumurthy said that while the premium income of public sector companies rose last year, the private companies’ premium income has gone down. The State president of the union K. Ajayan presided over the function.