“I want to tell you that my government has done more for UP than all parties like SP (Samjawadi Party), BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and Congress together since Independence,” Mayawati told the CNN-IBN news channel.

Expressing confidence that the BSP will return to power, she said: “You should ask the people who are coming in large numbers in my rallies to understand why people are supporting me.”

Stating people know that her policies are meant for development of all communities, Mayawati expressed confidence that her “social engineering” (combining the Dalit and Brahmin vote) which gave her a majority in 2007, will work this time as well.

“You should ask people who come to my rallies to see how I am working for development of all communities,” she said.

Number of seats – 49

Voters – 1,56,54,936 (men 86,53,345, women 70,01,279 and others 312)

Total candidates – 829

Women candidates – 87

Constituency with most candidates – Govindnagar – 34

Constituency with least candidates – Rasulabad – 7

Key parties – BSP, BJP, Congress, Samajwadi Party, NCP

Number of EVMs – 48,015

Largest constituency – Orai

Smallest constituency – Arya Nagar

Total polling stations – 17,267

One person was killed in Kabul, one in the eastern city of Jalalabad and at least four in Parwan province.

US officials apologised on Tuesday after Korans were “inadvertently” put in an incinerator at Bagram airbase.

Officials at Bagram reportedly believed Taliban prisoners were using the books to pass messages to each other.

The charred remains of the volumes were found by local labourers.

Protesters in Kabul shouted, “Death to America!” and threw stones at Camp Phoenix, the main US base in the city.

Riot police used water cannon to disperse protesters, some of whom were blocking the road leading to Jalalabad, one of the main trade routes into the capital.

Witnesses said security guards were firing into the air. There were also reports of people chanting pro-Taliban slogans.

One protester in Kabul was killed and 10 wounded.

Four further deaths were confirmed in the Shinwari district of Parwan province, north of Kabul. There were also peaceful protests in the eastern province of Kunar.

French officials have confirmed the deaths and said they were a result of an attack by governmental forces on Homs, a center of the civic unrest gripping Syria. While the United Nations has ceased counting the death toll, Local Coordination Committees, a Syrian activist group, has said more than 20 people were killed.

Ochlik, who had previously ventured into the perilous environs of Haiti and the Congo, recently won a World Press Photo award for his work.

Colvin is considered one of the finest foreign correspondents of her generation, particularly in Britain.

The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont has already penned a eulogy of sorts, emphasizing Colvin’s temerity and resolve.

“When colleagues were discussing last week whether it was possible to reach the centre of the Syrian city, it was in the knowledge that Colvin was already there and trying to go further,” he wrote.

-reuters

Two Kolkata police officers who had misbehaved with an Anglo-Indian woman when she went to a police station to report her alleged rape were Tuesday removed from active duty following an inquiry.

“Sub-Inspectors Manish Singh and Saikat Niyogi have been removed from active duty. Departmental proceedings will also be initiated against them,” said Joint Commissioner (Headquarters) Jawed Shamim.

The Anglo-Indian woman, a mother of two, had complained that she was raped at gunpoint Feb 6 inside a moving car after partying late at a night club on fashionable Park Street.

The women and her family members later alleged that when they went to the Park Street police station to report the matter, they were subjected to lewd comments and misbehaviour by the two officers.

Later a probe headed by Joint Commissioner Supratim Sarkar was ordered into the matter. Sarkar submitted his report Tuesday following which the duo were removed from active duty.

Kumar told Dr. Singh that law and order is a state subject under the Indian Constitution, and it was his view that the new anti-terror hub is being given sweeping powers that violate the principles of federalism.

Kumar said: “It has been left fully to the absolute and arbitrary discretion of the NCTC authorities to make demands from the state governments and press for their immediate fulfillment. While the creation of a strong mechanism to counter terrorism at the national level is the need of the hour, would it not be better to consult state governments?”

“The creation of NCTC is highly-flawed in as much as it has been very surprisingly created within the Intelligence Bureau which is a secret intelligence organisation without any accountability to parliament….is it not an established principle that secret intelligence are never given the powers of arrest? Not even the British, during their rule of India, gave the powers of arrest and search to the IB,” wrote Kumar.

Last week, Patnaik and Banerjee described the NCTC’s powers as draconian and asked the Prime Minister to withdraw the executive order that outlines its rights and reach.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu, Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh, and Mani Sarkar who heads the Left government in Tripura, have agreed with this interpretation.

Its current mandate allows the NCTC to swoop into any state, arrest suspects and fly them out of the state. It will not be obliged to consult the local government.

“Since ‘police’ and ‘law and order’ are state subjects, any action involving arrest, search and seizure should be taken only with the active involvement of the state police,” Kumar said in his note to Dr. Singh.

The government has so far been stressing that the NCTC has been formed under an existing law – the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act of 1967 and that the first chapter of the act clearly explains that it applies to the whole country.

AIIMS apex trauma centre chief Dr. M.C. Misra said cyclist Kishan was conscious but had suffered multiple injuries and paralysis of all four limbs.

“He has fractured his ribs and has received multiple injuries to his upper spine, chest and brain. All his four limbs are paralysed and he may suffer from paralysis for the rest of his life,” Misra told.

A police officer told that they were waiting for the recovery of Kishan, a resident of Dakshinpuri area in south Delhi, as he was the only witness to the incident.

“His statement can be only recorded if he recovers,” said the official.

Early Sunday morning, a young south Delhi realtor, Anukool Rishi, was driving his Lamborghini sports car at a high speed when he lost control. The car hit Kishan as it crashed into a bus-stop railing on the Bus Rapid Transit corridor near Panchsheel Enclave.

Rishi died on the spot and Kishan, who received severe head injuries, was rushed to the AIIMS apex trauma centre.

Despite pursuing a sustained military crackdown on the opposition in cities across the country, President Bashar al-Assad forged ahead with plans to hold a referendum at the end of the week.

Activists in the western city of Hama said troops, police and militias had set up dozens of roadblocks, isolating neighbourhoods from each other.

“Hama is cut off from the outside world. There are no landlines, no mobile phone network and no internet. House to house arrests take place daily and sometimes repeatedly in the same neighbourhoods,” an opposition statement said.

Government troops extended their control on Hama after an offensive last week that concentrated on northern neighbourhoods on the edge of farmland that have provided shelter for Free Syrian Army rebels.

The rebel fighters have been attacking militiamen, known as shabbiha, while avoiding open confrontations with armoured forces that had amassed around Hama.

Government forces also maintained their siege of pro-opposition neighbourhoods of Homs, south of Hama on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. Opposition activists reported sporadic morning shelling of Baba Amro district.

Security forces also mounted a campaign of arrests and raids in two suburbs of Deraa city and loud gunfire was heard, activists said. The reports could not be independently verified.

In Damascus, activists unfurled a pre-Assad era national flag over a road bridge at the edge of the capital, YouTube footage showed.

The Monday actions followed a weekend which saw one of the biggest demonstrations yet in Damascus as the uprising against Assad’s 11 year-rule neared its first anniversary.

Security forces have killed at least 5,000 people, according to human rights groups, in a campaign to crush the revolt while the Assad government says it has lost more than 2,000 soldiers and security agents in what it describes as a struggle against foreign-backed terrorists,

The conflict has also pitted Western and Gulf-led Arab powers against Assad allies Russia, China and Iran.

The former have condemned Assad for the bloodshed and called for him to step down. Beijing and Moscow say all sides are to blame for the violence and the crisis should be resolved through talks, not foreign intervention.

China’s Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, in a front page commentary on Monday, said: “If Western countries continue to fully support Syria’s opposition, then in the end a large-scale civil war will erupt and there will be no way to thus avoid the possibility of foreign armed intervention.”

A Chinese envoy met Assad in Damascus on Saturday and backed his plan to hold a referendum this coming Sunday on a new constitution which would lead to multi-party parliamentary elections within 90 days.

Syria’s official SANA news agency said about 14,600,000 people throughout the country were eligible to take part in the referendum. The West and Syrian opposition figures have dismissed the plan as joke, saying it is impossible to have a valid election amid the continuing repression.

WESTERN FEARS

Assad has ruled Syria for 11 years after succeeding his father Hafez on his death. The Assad family belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, in a majority Sunni country, and there are fears the uprising could break down into a full sectarian conflict.

Meanwhile two Iranian naval ships docked at the Syrian port of Tartous on Saturday, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported. The ships were said to be providing training for Syrian naval forces under an agreement signed a year ago.

Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi, quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency, said: “Our ships passed through the Suez canal and it is Iran’s right to have a presence in international waters.”

With Shi’te-led Iran already at odds with the United States, Europe and Israel over its nuclear programme, the deployment was likely to add to Western concerns that the Syria crisis could boil over into a regional conflict if it not resolved soon.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, asked about the Iranian move at briefing in Jerusalem, said Assad was supported by Iran and the Hizbollah militant group and that Russia and China had given him “a licence to kill”.

“Iran invests a lot in trying to save the Syrian regime, by advising them, by supplying equipment, by sending people and maybe by also sending these ships through the Suez Canal,” he said.

Foreign ministers at a G20 industrialised and emerging nations meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, said they were worried about whether a peaceful solution could be found.

The West has ruled out any Libya-style military intervention but the Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, has indicated some of its member states were prepared to arm the opposition.

In Washington the senior U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, said intervening in Syria would be “very difficult” because it was not like Libya.

Syria’s army is very capable, with a sophisticated, integrated air defence system and chemical and biological weapons, Dempsey said. It was also not clear who or what the fragmented opposition was exactly, he said.

A so-called “Friends of Syria” conference is scheduled to take place in Tunisia this Friday, bringing together Western and Arab powers.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, speaking in Los Cabos, said the group aims “to place maximum pressure on president Assad to go, to end the butchery that we see day by day unfolding in Syria and to make sure we have a durable and peaceful political transition”.

-Source : Reuters;  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Angus MacSwan

Addressing a public gathering in Firozabad, Dutt said: “My father used to say that a person, who returns home by the end of the day after forgetting all wrongs, is considered sensible. I have returned home, the Congress is my home. I request you all to become sensible like me and return back home.”

“22 years is a long time. Return back home and enable Hari Shankarji (Congress candidate) to win with a heavy margin of votes. Make Rahul Gandhi’s hands even more stronger,” he added.

Dutt, 53, was in the Samajwadi Party (SP) prior to joining the Congress.

The veteran actor also enthralled the crowd from the dialogues of his super hit flicks ‘Munnabhai M.B.B.S.’ and ‘Agneepath’, and drew their attention to the basic day to day problems being faced a common man in the country.