Haryana's landless labourer becomes oldest father at 94 Read more: Haryana's landless labourer becomes oldest father at 94

SONIPAT: Surpassing the 90 year old Rajasthan farmer, a Haryana farm labourer is claiming to have fathered a child at an age of 94. Earlier, Nanu Ram Jogi of a Rajasthan village had fathered his 22nd child at the age of 90 in 2007.

Ramajit Raghav, a landless labourer from a small town, Kharkhoda in Sonipat district, said that he had become a proud father of a son. The Haryana government's old-age pension records show that Ramajit is 94 years old. Raghav's memories of the epidemic spread in the region in 1929 and the communal riots during India's partition also substantiate the claim that he is quite old.

His wife Shakuntala who bore him the child is claimed to be in her mid fifties. The child was born in the government hospital of the town. Doctors at the hospital said that the child was delivered normally and was in good health.The couple termed their child's birth as a "god's gift" and named him Karamjit.

Besides owning two cows, the couple has old age pension and daily wages as sources of their livelihood. Raghav told the Times of India that he originally belonged to Begpur village in Uttar Pradesh and had left home about 40 years ago after a violent dispute in his family. He worked as a domestic help in Sonipat town and later shifted to Kharkhoda where he has been living and working at the farm of his landlord Bhajan Bania for the last 22 years.

When asked about the secret behind his long life, Raghav said that he had been a wrestler in his youth and his daily diet comprised of three kgs milk, half a kg almonds and half a kg ghee.

Dr Mahender Kumar, senior medical officer at Kharkhoda Civil Hospital verified that Shakuntala, wife of Ramajit, was admitted in the hospital and she gave birth to a healthy male child about a month ago. When asked whether it was possible for a 94-year-old man to father a child, a medical officer said that though it could not be ruled out, but it was a remote possibility.

 - The Times of India 

Ready to appear before panel, PM writes to PAC chairman

NEW DELHI: Following up on his unprecedented offer, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today wrote to the Public Accounts Committee probing the 2G spectrum allocation scam, expressing his readiness to appear before it.

On a day when Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, whose report projecting a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer in 2G spectrum allocation created a storm, appeared before the PAC, Singh made the offer in a letter to its chairman Murli Manohar Joshi of the BJP.

The Prime Minister had at the Congress plenary on Monday last declared that he was prepared to appear before the PAC since he had nothing to hide.

"...in view of recent propaganda that the Prime Minister is unwilling to be questioned by a Parliamentary committee, I would like to inform you that I am willing to appear before the PAC should the committee choose to seek clarifications from the Prime Minister, though I believe there is no precedent of the Prime Minister appearing before a PAC," Singh said in his letter.

Under Speaker's direction 99 under the rules of procedures and conduct of business in Lok Sabha, the PAC cannot call a minister to give evidence or for consultations in connection with the examination of accounts by it.

The chairman of the committee, however, may have an informal talk with a minister on the subject under consideration by the committee.

Since the Prime Minister's offer is unprecedented in its nature, the Speaker may have to devise a procedure on how the committee could accept the Prime Minister's offer of appearing before it.

Singh said that to the best of his knowledge, the PAC takes evidence from the Secretaries of the Department concerned or the head of the department or the public sector undertakings.

He said the CAG submitted the report on the issue of licensing and allocation of 2G spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications, which was tabled in Parliament in November last and the PAC was looking into it.

"As you are aware, the PAC has sought copies of correspondence between the Prime Minister and the Minister of Communications and Information Technology as well as the Prime Minister's Office and the Department of Telecommunications on issues relating to 2G and 3G spectrum", he said in his letter and hoped that the relevant documents have been furnished to the Secretariat of the Committee.

Addressing the concluding day of the Congress plenary, Singh took everyone by surprise when he said he would be "happy to appear" before the PAC though there was no precedent and he intended to write to Joshi in this regard.

"I wish to state categorically that I have nothing to hide from the public at large and as a proof of my bonafides I intend to write to the chairman of the PAC that I shall be happy to appear before the PAC, if it chooses to ask me to do so," Singh had said.

Contending that the Opposition was "falsely propagating" that government was shying away from JPC to prevent the Prime Minister from appearing before it, the Prime Minister had said that he has "nothing to hide from the public".

The CAG report has proved to be ammunition for the Opposition, including the BJP and Left parties, to target the government and it is insisting that only a Joint Parliamentary Committee can bring out the truth in what they allege is the "biggest scam in independent India".

The entire Opposition stalled proceedings during the month-long Winter Session of Parliament on the demand for JPC into the 2G spectrum scam that resulted in a washout of the session.

A Raja, who has been questioned by the CBI in connection with alleged irregularities in the spectrum allocation, was forced to resign on November 14 as telecom minister.

Japan Snatches Deal for Turkey's 2nd Nuclear Plant from South Korea

Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yıldız (R) and Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akihiro Ohata sign an agreement on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Turkey. Photo by Today's Zaman

After months of talks, Japan appears to have grabbed from South Korea a deal for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Turkey.
Turkey's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tanev Yildiz and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, Akihiro Ohata signed Friday in Tokyo a memorandum of understanding for the construction for a nuclear power plant in Turkey, the Turkish paper Today's Zaman reported.
Yildiz and Ohata have praised the agreement for providing partnership opportunities to the two countries.
"We would like to transfer the know-how of Japanese nuclear power expertise to Turkey and would like to have a high-tech nuclear power plant," Ohata is quoted as saying. During his visit to Japan, Yıldız was scheduled to visit Japanese nuclear power plants, which withstood a strong earthquake last year.
When asked when the construction of a nuclear power plant in Turkey would begin, Ohata said the Turks would like to complete the preparations in three month's time, so they expect to start within the next three months.
Yıldız also met with Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and Senior Vice Minister of Finance Mitsuru Sakurai, as well as with the CEOs of several Japanese companies and representatives from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI).
According to a Saturday's article of the Korea Times, a South Korea-based English-language publication, citing a Korean government source, however, Turkey has not made any decision on selecting a partner to build a new nuclear power plant on its Black Sea coast.
The Korea Times points out that South Korea is competing with Japan for a multibillion-dollar power-generating nuclear reactor project in Turkey; it says that Turkey is now in talks with Japan for the project after its earlier negotiations with South Korea apparently failed to make a breakthrough.
In an interview with Yonhap News Agency earlier this week, Knowledge Economy Minister Choi Kyung-hwan said that Turkey may try to conclude talks with Tokyo by the end of the year, after negotiations with Seoul were put on hold due to disagreement over how to recoup initial investment costs.
South Korea and Turkey began formal talks in March and were expected to reach an intergovernmental agreement during last month's G20 summit in Seoul, but a deal was not reached due to outstanding differences such as establishing "fair" electricity prices, according to the report.
The Turkish English-language paper Today's Zaman reminds that Turkey began negotiating with Japan on the construction of a nuclear power plant in the province of Sinop, in the Black Sea region, at the beginning of December of this year after talks with South Korea failed last month when the two sides failed to reach a common understanding on issues such as price and purchasing guarantees and the state's share.
Earlier in 2010, in May, Turkey reached an agreement with Russia for the construction of what will become Turkey's first nuclear power plant in Mersin's Akkuyu district.
According to the agreement, Russia's state-run Atomstroyexport JSC will construct four 1000 MW reactors at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, and will have a controlling stake in the project. The project is estimated to cost about billion and was approved by Turkey's Parliament in mid-July.
Turkey's Akkuyu NPP is viewed in Bulgaria as a competitor to the potential second Bulgarian NPP at Belene on the Danube where Atomstroyexport is supposed to construct two 1000 MW reactors. Bulgaria and Russia, however, have not reached a final deal for the Belene NPP yet as they have been tangled for months in haggling over the final price of the construction. At the same time, Bulgaria's Borisov government has been seeking strategic foreign investors to finance the project.
For the time being, Finnish company Fortum, French company Altran, and the government of Serbia are expected to participate with small shares, with the Bulgarian state electricity company NEK and Russian state nuclear company Rosatom, the parent of Atomstroyexport, expected to have bigger shares.

Partying Bulgarians Enjoy Mass Fights on Christmas

A security guard has been admitted to hospital in the Bulgarian capital with an injury he got while trying to curb a mass fight that erupted in a Sofia disco early on Christmas Day.
The 33-man got seriously wounded in his right arm after two groups of party-goers got in a melee in a club in the Studentski Grad quarter in Sofia.
"Studentski Grad" (i.e. "Student's Town") hosts the dormitories of the major Sofia universities but its discos draw people from across Sofia as they have become notorious for its "party culture", which often turns violent.
The Christmas Day incident occurred around 5 am on Saturday; the police found out about the mass fight only after the security guard was brought to the Pirogov hospital, and have failed to identify and arrest any of the participants.
The Pirogov emergency room has not reported any other major "Christmas" injuries and incidents.

Patriarch Maxim Issues Christmas Blessing for Bulgarians across the Globe

97-year-old Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim served the Christmas Day mass on Saturday. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

97-year-old Patriarch Maxim, the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, has served the traditional Christmas Day service at the St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral in Sofia.
The Patriarch completed the Christmas service with a prayer for good health and long lives and with a blessing to all Bulgarian Orthodox Christians around the world.
"Today is a day of immense joy for all Bulgarian Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria and around the world," Patriarch Maxim told the people in the crowd St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral in the Bulgarian capital.
"The birth of Christ signifies the entering into the time of eternity, of the immortal into the perishable human nature, of life in the kingdom of death. It brings renewal and salvation for the entire human being and for each one of us personally," he stated.
Unlike the Eastern Orthodox churches of Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Montenegro, Georgia, and Macedonia, who celebrate Christmas on January 7 according to the older Julian calendar, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church together with the Orthodox Churches of Greece, Romania, the Orthodox Church in America, among others, celebrates Christmas on December 25, on the same day as Western Christianity under the Gregorian Calendar.