Russell Feingold amendment rejected By a convincing margin of 13-5, the committee rejected an amendment by Democrat Senator Russell Feingold requiring President George W Bush to certify that India would not divert nuclear fuel to its weapons programme.
The committee gave its nod for an amendment by Lincoln Chaffee, Republican from Rhode Island, that the US was not supporting India`s nuclear weapons programme directly or indirectly.
Piloted by Democrat Barak Obama from Illinois, the second amendment endorsed sought US assurance that other nations would not step in to help India if it carried out any action such as an atomic test, triggering halt in American nuclear supplies.

At a state level seminar organised by the Centre for Alternative Dalit Media, the National Commission For Women,dalit women detailed the testimonies of caste-based violence against them.In her comment, Malini Bhattacharya of NCW promised that their demands will be considered.The women gathered from Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar,Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Jharkhand also demanded a ban on sale of liquor across the country and better education facilites, drinking water, sanitation, land rights,

health facilities and loans to set up small enterprises.Aruna Sharma, Joint Secretary of the Human Rights Commission urged for active cooperation from the organisations and individuals from the various states present at the meeting to eradicate the practice of picking night soil by dalit men and women.Geeta Sahare, member of Delhi Commission for Women, said that more platforms are needed to discuss dalit issues.

The Minister said the work on the proposed Bill was on and the draft would be ready by the end of the monsoon session and it would be introduced in the winter session.Once a legislation was enacted in this regared, he said, this would provide legal status to Panchayats for "non-formal dispute settlement" at local level.

The terms of reference of the Baxi Committee included preparing a comprehensive draft proposal, model rules and guidelines and draft explanation about the Bill.

The Minister also announced holding of a day-long meeting on 14^th July of PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas) states to determine the condition of Panchayats there.

Singhvi said those buildings, which do not have water harvesting structures, would not be given water connections.

The much-talked about proccess of fine-tuning the enabling legislation in the US Congress to implement the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal has been postponed. The International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives was scheduled to carry out the process, known as 'mark-up', on Wednesday.
But in response to a query in this regard, a staffer in the Committee said, "we do not have this measure scheduled for this week."
While the Committee has not put down a firm date on the mark-up, it is believed that it has been pushed back to the week of 26th June.
The House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee may go for the mark-up on 28th June so that lawmakers will have the opportunity to take a look at the measure on their respective floors upon their return from the Independence Day Work Period on 10th July.
The Bush administration was very keen that the House and the Senate Committees must finish up their mark-up by the end of the month as Congress goes away on a recess to coincide with the long weekend of 4th July.
Given the Congressional overall agenda and the timeframe, the Administration and backers of the civilian nuclear deal are keen that the final vote on the floors of the House and the Senate must be done by the end of July.
When they return from recess on 10th July, Congress will be functioning till about 27th July before breaking off for the Summer Work Period on 5th September.

In Amethi, the people were however disappointed as the MP did not visit the constituency ahead of his birthday and remained ''confined'' to Rae Bareli for two days.

However, Rahul preferred to stay with mother and AICC president Sonia Gandhi at Rae Bareli during her two-day tour.

In New Delhi, audio recorders were distributed among 80 students of a school for the blind at a function organised by Youth Congress workers to celebrate Rahul Gandhi's birthday.

Cabinet Minister Oscar Fernandes, DPCC chief Ram Babu Sharma and IYC president Ashok Tanwar were among those present at the function, a DPYC spokesman said.

They also handed over school bags to many children from orphanages, he said. 

"A delegation from ISRO recently visited Israel to review the progress in the project, including a short visit by its Chairman, and found that the progress is smooth and the telescope is close to integration stage", Director of Israel Space Agency (ISA), Zvi Kaplan told a news-agency.

By 2050, world population is projected to reach nine billion people. That would constitute a 38 percent jump from today's population total of 6.5 billion, and more than five times the 1.6 billion people believed to have existed in 1900. Demographers foresee declining, more aged populations in many industrialized nations, and explosively-growing, ever-younger populations in much of the developing world. VOA's Michael Bowman reports from Washington, both trends are seen as problematic.If projections hold true, future global population growth will be heavily concentrated in Latin America, Africa and South Asia. Carl Haub is senior demographer at the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau. "All world population growth today is in the developing world. There is no natural population growth in Europe, and even the U.S. is very heavily dependent on immigration," he said.By 2050, Africa's population, both northern and sub-Saharan, is expected to surge from 900 million to almost two billion, while South Asia's population is projected to swell from 1.6 billion to nearly 2.5 billion. At the same time, Europe's population is expected to shrink from 730 million to 660 million.Haub has sobering words for African governments worried about resource management in the face of explosive population growth, or European governments concerned about providing for an increasingly aged population: in the short-term, little can be done. "Demographic momentum is such that you cannot change something overnight. We cannot go back and have the babies we should have had in 1985. Whatever goal you might set, you have to start doing something about it about a generation ahead of time," he said.The bottom line is that fertility rates will likely remain low in regions where babies are most-wanted from a public policy standpoint, and highest in many regions where poverty and hunger are already prevalent. The United Nations Population Fund's Africa Director, Fama Hane Ba, says many developing nations are struggling to provide for their current populations, and could be overwhelmed by future demographic growth. "One of the consequences is the tremendous challenges to the countries, the governments and the populations to take care and to provide [for] social services, to these growing populations, and also employment opportunities," she said.Experts also foresee increased urbanization in the developing world. Elizabeth Chacko, who teaches geography and South Asia studies at George Washington University, come from India, which is expected to account for one-fifth of world population growth over the next 50 years. "When you think about population growth at large, there is the density factor. People do not just spread evenly across the country. They are crowded in the cities, they are crowded in the coastal plains. And that makes for all kinds of problems. We know that with higher density there are often higher rates of crime, greater chance of the spread of epidemics," she said.But Chacko notes that population growth can also generate a larger workforce and a bigger consumer base, both of which tend to propel economic growth.At the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, demography expert Nicholas Eberstadt warns that 50 year population projections can prove inaccurate, since they involve predicting the reproductive habits of a generation that has yet to be born. Nevertheless, to the extent that rapid population growth is anticipated in the developing world, he says it need not spell disaster for the poor. "In low-income areas there is continuing population growth. Does that mean unemployable people, or does that mean a vibrant workforce? It depends an awful lot on the sorts of policies and institutional settings in which one finds oneself. That seems to me to be a good argument for getting policies right and institutions good, rather than trying to fine-tune the birthrate," he said.Eberstadt makes a similar argument for industrialized nations, noting that efforts by European governments to promote higher birthrates have met with little success. "Inducing women to become - let's call them 'baby ranchers' - is a very expensive proposition when women have alternative occupations in the paid labor force. Most Western European countries have tried to 'talk up' the birth rate, and not surprisingly that does not work too well," he said.Chacko notes that many developing nations have programs to promote contraception. She says she sees a common thread in regions where those programs have proven most successful: the empowerment of women. "Kerala [state] in southern India has had one of the lowest fertility rates [in the country] and everything we know about Kerala suggests that the women in the state have a high status; they have been educated; they have been working for a long time. And research has shown that even a few years of education can have a great impact on fertility rates, because this is a woman who can read, who can understand the kind of birth control she might want to use - but also be empowered to use it," she said.Among developed nations, the United States is an enigma. Unlike Europe, the U.S. population is expected to increase by one-third by 2050. Demographers note that the United States continues to receive large number of immigrants, predominantly from Latin America, and that immigrants tend to have higher birthrates than the domestic population as a whole. They also note that higher standards of living allow many American women to successfully rear children on their own, and that American men generally share child rearing duties to a larger extent than their counterparts in other nations.

Source:VOA

In this connection, Sujlana claimed that the Vice Chief of army staff Lt Gen K Pattabhiraman had been misquoted and it was Government's policy to encourage women to join the armed forces.

Nearly 4300 pilgrims proceeded towards the shrine on foot from the Baltal camp today, after it was opened today.

The Baltal-Amarnath route, the shortest to the cave shrine, was closed due to blockage of Sangam top and Brahri Marg tracks, a spokesman of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, Madan Mantoo said.

About 3,000 pilgrims, including a few elderly persons, were allowed through the Pahalgam-Amarnath route.

The yatra was suspended since Saturday, after heavy snowfall and landslides had blocked the way to the shrine.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has announced that a militant named Abu Hamza al-Muhajer has been appointed as the group's new leader to succeed the slain Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by the US forces in last week. According to a Web statement posted Al-Qaida in Iraq made this announcement. The name al-Muhajer, Arabic for "immigrant," suggested he was not Iraqi.
"Al-Qaida in Iraq's council has agreed on Sheik Abu Hamza al-Muhajer to be the successor for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the leadership of the organization," said a statement signed by the group on an Islamic militant Web forum where it often posts messages.It said al-Muhajer was "a beloved brother with jihadi (holy war) experience and a strong footing in knowledge."The authenticity of the statement could not be independently confirmed. Al-Zarqawi, who founded the group, was killed Wednesday in a US airstrike northeast of Baghdad.

New York Congressman Crowley, who represents the second largest South Asian community in the United States, based in Jackson Heights, Queens, said, ''By reducing this aid to Pakistan, we are sending a message that democracy must eventually be restored and human rights must be upheld. Even with our allies, the United States firmly is committed to seeing that all people are treated with the respect and dignity of the rule of law.''

Majority of the American consumers are most comfortable with India and have given it highest overall trust rankings with respect to local companies taking steps to protect or safeguard personal information.

However, US adults are most comfortable with India, Canada and Ireland and have given these countries highest overall trust rankings with respect to local companies taking steps to protect or safeguard personal information.

Philippines, Mexico, Haiti and Russia received the lowest trust rankings.

The survey sponsored by global law firm White & Case LLP, and developed by independent privacy think tank Ponemon Institute found that 51 percent of US adults do not want a US organization to send sensitive personal information such as social security or driver's licence numbers to a local company in another country.

Opposition was higher when it came to sharing even more sensitive information: 60 percent didn't want their credit or debit card account numbers shared with an offshore company; 64 percent opposed having their employee records shared; 73 percent opposed having their banking or home mortgage information shared; and a whopping 83 percent opposed having their health records shared with a local company in another country.

"That so many Americans are concerned about sensitive personal data going overseas isn't surprising given the growing threat of identity theft and general misperceptions about outsourcing itself," said White & Case partner Steve Betensky, who regularly advises companies on outsourcing issues.

According to a report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, this condition, referred to as hyperandrogenemia, is characterised by high levels of androgens, such as testosterone or androsterone, hormones that control the development masculine characteristics.

Police said the trio had visited Mahajan's residence twice in the night and allegedly had champagne with Mahajan and Moitra.

"We are trying to ascertain the identities of the three and investigations are on in that direction," Additional DCP, New Delhi, Manish Aggarwal said.

He said police has recovered "some white powder" in a polythene from the scene and has sent it for chemical examiantion. "It is a very small sample and details about it would be known only after chemical examination," he added.

However forensic experts have visited his residence to collect evidence. A team belonging to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) arrived at the 7, Safdarjung residence to collect evidence from the scene, hours after Rahul was admitted to Apollo hospital.

The late BJP leader's private secretary Vivek Moitra died and Rahul taken to hospital after a late night party, with three "unidentified" guests. Senior police officials were also present at the scene of the incident as forensic experts searched through the house to collect evidence, like finger prints and traces of other material deemed key to the investigation. The incident came barely a month after the BJP General Secretary was murdered by his younger brother in Mumbai.

The sanctions would deny Dawood, who was wanted in India for among other crimes the 1993 serial Mumbai blasts, and his organisation in India, Pakistan and UAE access to US financial system.The Kingpin Act, which became law in December 1999, targeted significant foreign narcotics traffickers, their organisations and operatives worldwide, denying them access to the US financial system and all trade and transactions involving US companies and individuals.

The Kingpin Act did not target the countries in which these foreign individuals and entities were operating or the governments of such countries.

Dawood had been widely reported including in the Pakistani media to be living in Pakistan under 'official patronage'.

So for all practical purposes, Dawood can continue to live comfortably in Pakistan.In October 2003, the US Treasury Department designated Dawood Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224 and requested the United Nations list him as well.''This designation signals our commitment to identifying and attacking the financial ties between the criminal underworld and terrorism,'' Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Juan Zarate had stated.The UN listing required all UN Member States take similar actions.''We are calling on the international community to stop the flow of dirty money that kills. For the Ibrahim syndicate, the business of terrorism forms part of their larger criminal enterprise, which must be dismantled.''

The US had previously shown little inclination to go after Dawood, or help India get him, despite connecting him to al-Qaeda and worldwide terrorist activity.