Rs 10,000 crore cut in defence budget hits critical procurement deals

NEW DELHI: A deadly double whammy has hit the armed forces. As it is, the entire Indian defence procurement process is a long-winded, tortuous one. To make matters worse, it often gets derailed by allegations and complaints - some genuine but many motivated.

And now, with the defence capital acquisitions budget being slashed by around Rs 10,000 crore — as was first reported by TOI last month — several critical procurement projects have come to a grinding halt. They range from acquisition of submarines and howitzers to missiles and helicopters.

"Nothing is moving. This is the largest capital budget cut in several years. The finance ministry's fatwa has ensured a virtual blanket ban on progressing procurement cases any further. It will have a cascading adverse effect for the next few years," admitted a senior defence ministry (MoD) official.

Added another, "Many crucial projects are also stalled due to allegations of corruption, technical deviations etc...nobody wants to stick his neck out to take a decision. Defence minister A K Antony himself refers everything, even anonymous complaints, for a probe. Several MPs have also taken to writing letters to Antony on one project or the other, further delaying matters."

In terms of sheer criticality, the two biggest projects facing huge delays are the over $10 billion one for six new-generation conventional submarines and the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to acquire 126 French Rafale fighters.

The submarine proposal, dubbed Project-75 India, has been in the making for several years now. But the MoD is yet to even issue the global tender or RFP (request for proposal) to kick off the formal process.

The explanation: The RFP is still being vetted for eventual clearance by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) since two of the submarines will be imported from the foreign vendor finally selected. Three will subsequently be built at Mazagon Docks in Mumbai, and the last at Hindustan Shipyard Ltd in Visakhapatnam after transfer of technology. "Even if things move very fast from here on, the Navy will get the first submarine only by 2023 at the earliest," said an official.

Similarly, the joint Army-IAF procurement case for 197 new light-utility helicopters for over Rs 3,000 crore, with Russian Kamov Ka-226T pitted against Eurocopter AS 550 C3 Fennec, has been stalled for months due to complaints of technical deviations during the flight evaluation trials.

This is not the first time the 197-helicopter project has run into trouble. The entire process was scrapped in December 2007 after almost being finalized with Eurocopter due to some irregularities. This when the armed forces desperately need 440 such helicopters to replace their virtually obsolete Cheetah/Chetak fleets.

The inking of the contract for the gigantic MMRCA project itself has been put off till the next fiscal due to the budget cut. The RFP for this project was issued way back in August 2007, and that too after a delay of several years then, but it is yet to be finally inked. Given India's dismal record in arms procurements, it's no wonder that some of fighters eliminated in the race earlier still fancy their chances of a comeback.

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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Rescued Ala. Boy Watching Cartoons in Hospital

The 5-year-old held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama is cheerfully watching Spongebob and posting sticky notes on everyone around him at the hospital as organizers plan a birthday party for him so big it may take place at a high school football stadium.

The boy, identified only as Ethan, is apparently unharmed but is at the hospital for numerous evaluations, authorities said today.

Ethan was rescued by the FBI Monday after they rushed the underground bunker where suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was holding him. Dykes was killed in the raid and the boy was taken away from the bunker in an ambulance.

Ethan's thrilled relatives told "Good Morning America" today that he seemed "normal as a child could be" after what he went through and has been happily playing with his toy dinosaur.

"He's happy to be home," Ethan's great uncle Berlin Enfinger told "GMA." "He's very excited and he looks good."

Click here for a psychological look at what's next for Ethan.

Ethan is "running around the hospital room, putting sticky notes on everyone that was in there, eating a turkey sandwich and watching Spongebob," Dale County Schools Superintendent Donny Bynum said at a news conference today.

Ala. Hostage Standoff Over: Kidnapper Dead, Child Safe Watch Video

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Jimmy Lee Dykes Dead Watch Video

Ethan is expected to be released from the hospital later today and head home where he will be greeted by birthday cards from his friends at school. Ethan will celebrate his 6th birthday Wednesday.

When asked about a birthday party for Ethan, Bynum said, "We are still in the planning stages. Our time frame is that we are waiting for Ethan, waiting on that process, but we are going to have it at a school facility, most likely the football stadium at Dale County High School."

He said many "tears of celebration" were shed Monday night when Ethan was reunited with his family.

"If I could, I would do cartwheels all the way down the road," Ethan's aunt Debra Cook told "GMA." "I was ecstatic. Everything just seemed like it was so much clearer. You know, we had all been walking around in a fog and everyone was just excited. There's no words to put how we felt and how relieved we were."

Cook said that Ethan has not yet told them anything about what happened in the bunker and they know very little about Dykes.

What the family does know is that they are overjoyed to have their "little buddy" back.

"He's a special child, 90 miles per hour all the time," Cook said. "[He's] a very, very loving child. When he walks in the room, he just lights it up."

Dykes allegedly shot and killed bus driver Albert Poland Jr., 66, before taking Ethan hostage.

Authorities said today they have not yet spoken to Poland's family since Ethan's rescue, but were planning on visiting them today.

"We know that Ms. Poland is aware and she is celebrating today with us and we did talk to Mr. Poland's son who lives in Hickory, North Carolina," Bynum said. "He called last night and made the comment, 'My dad's last child is home.' So it goes to show what kind of people they are."

A new school bus and new driver were back today on the route where Poland was killed and Ethan was kidnapped.

Officials have remained tight-lipped about the raid, citing the ongoing investigation.

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North Korea nuclear test would face "firm" U.N. action: South Korea

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is united on North Korea's nuclear arms program and will undoubtedly approve tough measures against Pyongyang if it carries out a new atomic test as expected, South Korean U.N. Ambassador Kim Sook said on Monday.

"The North Korean nuclear test seems to be imminent," Kim, who is president of the Security Council this month, told reporters. "Obviously there are very busy activities going on at the (North Korean) nuclear test site, and everybody's watching."

"Everybody is unified and they are firm and resolute," he said. "I would expect very firm and strong measures to be taken ... once they go ahead with such provocation."

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Israeli, Palestinian textbooks give kids slanted view: study

JERUSALEM: Israelis and Palestinians rarely demonise each other in their schoolbooks but each side's texts offer children a one-sided view of their conflict, says a joint study released on Monday.

"Dehumanising and demonising characterisations of the other are rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books," according to the study funded by the US State Department and carried out by Palestinian, Israeli and US academics.

"Both Israeli and Palestinian books present exclusive unilateral national narratives," wrote the authors, from Bethlehem, Tel Aviv and Yale universities.

"Historical events are selectively presented to reinforce each national narrative," said the study, which analysed more than 3,000 textbooks approved in 2011 by the sides' education ministries as well as those distributed in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community which has its own education system.

On the loaded issue of maps, only four per cent of Palestinian schoolbooks and 13 per cent of the Israeli texts show borders and captions recognising the other.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank is often referred by its biblical name of Judaea and Samaria, particularly in the ultra-Orthodox schools.

"The lack and absence of information about the other serve to delegitimise the presence of the other," says the study.

It noted that negative portrayal of the adversary is "more pronounced in the Israeli ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian books than in the Israeli state books," which it says have more self-critical content.

"There is much to do in general in the educational system and in particular with school textbooks, if the parties in conflict decide to embark on the path of peace," the study concludes.

The Palestinian Authority and Israel often accuse one another of teaching violence and hatred to their schoolchildren.

An Israeli education ministry statement dismissed the new study as "biased, unprofessional and profoundly unobjective."

"The education ministry chose not to cooperate with those elements who are interested in maliciously slandering the Israeli educational system and the state of Israel," it added.

"The attempt to create a parallel between the Israeli and Palestinian educational systems is without any foundation whatsoever and has no basis in reality," the ministry said.

Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad, in contrast, welcomed the report, saying it "confirms that Palestinian textbooks do not contain any form of blatant incitement, which is based on contempt towards the 'other'."

He said that the Palestinian ministry of education cooperated in the research and that he had instructed it "to study the report thoroughly and to use its conclusions... to develop school curriculums," based on "principles of coexistence, tolerance, justice, and human dignity."

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the study was an independent analysis carried out by an NGO called A Different Future in partnership with the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land.

"Our point in funding it was to enable this Council of Religious Institutions to take what it got from the report, use it in a constructive manner to continue to pursue its objectives... for peace and religious tolerance in the curriculum," Nuland told reporters.

"We're not taking a position one way or another on what the study found."

- AFP/jc

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Rahul's first visit to Amethi as Cong VP

LUCKNOW: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will undertake a two-day tour of his parliamentary constituency Amethi on Tuesday. Rahul, who will visit Amethi for the first time since his elevation in the party ranks will meet senior party functionaries and leaders in the area, apart from laying the foundation of some development works in the area.

Regarding this as the maiden visit of the 'prime minister-in-the-making', local Congress leaders said the party camp is happy to be hosting the future PM. "There was a general sense of disappointment after Sonia Gandhi turned down the top job after Rajiv Gandhi. Now, with Rahul's elevation in the party's hierarchy, we are thrilled to see the Gandhi lineage being carried forward."

Though Rahul will not address any public rallies during his two-day visit, his closed-door meetings are expected to concentrate on mass scale restructuring of the party cadres. Over the past few months, the party has emphasised need for a complete overhaul of the systems to include more grassroot level workers in the decision-making process.

With Rahul's elevation, senior party leaders said they also expected to see the younger crop of Congressmen being elevated in the party ranks.

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Iran hedges on nuclear talks with six powers or U.S.

MUNICH (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it was open to a U.S. offer of direct talks on its nuclear program and that six world powers had suggested a new round of nuclear negotiations this month, but without committing itself to either proposal.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West suspects is intended to give Iran the capability to build a nuclear bomb, have been all but deadlocked for years, while Iran has continued to announce advances in the program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said a suggestion on Saturday by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Washington was ready for direct talks with Iran if Tehran was serious about negotiations was a "step forward".

"We take these statements with positive consideration. I think this is a step forward but ... each time we have come and negotiated it was the other side unfortunately who did not heed ... its commitment," Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference where Biden made his overture a day earlier.

He also complained to Iran's English-language Press TV of "other contradictory signals", pointing to the rhetoric of "keeping all options on the table" used by U.S. officials to indicate they are willing to use force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"This does not go along with this gesture (of talks) so we will have to wait a little bit longer and see if they are really faithful this time," Salehi said.

Iran is under a tightening web of sanctions. Israel has also hinted it may strike if diplomacy and international sanctions fail to curb Iran's nuclear drive.

In Washington, Army General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the United States has the capability to stop any Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, but Iranian "intentions have to be influenced through other means."

Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his comments on NBC's program "Meet the Press," speaking alongside outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta said current U.S. intelligence indicated that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.

"But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability," he said. "And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing."

The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, has said he will give diplomacy every chance of solving the Iran standoff.

THE BEST CHANCE

With six-power talks making little progress, some experts say talks between Tehran and Washington could be the best chance, perhaps after Iran has elected a new president in June.

Negotiations between Iran and the six powers - Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany - have been deadlocked since a meeting last June.

EU officials have accused Iran of dragging its feet in weeks of haggling over the date and venue for new talks.

Salehi said he had "good news", having heard that the six powers would meet in Kazakhstan on February 25.

A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates the efforts of the six powers, confirmed that she had proposed talks in the week of February 25 but noted that Iran had not yet accepted.

Kazakhstan said it was ready to host the talks in either Astana or Almaty.

Salehi said Iran had "never pulled back" from the stuttering negotiations with the six powers. "We still are very hopeful. There are two packages, one package from Iran with five steps and the other package from the (six powers) with three steps."

Iran raised international concern last week by announcing plans to install and operate advanced uranium enrichment machines. The EU said the move, potentially shortening the path to weapons-grade material, could deepen doubts about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's mission to stop its arch-enemy from acquiring nuclear weapons was "becoming more complex, since the Iranians are equipping themselves with cutting-edge centrifuges that shorten the time of (uranium) enrichment".

"We must not accept this process," said Netanyahu, who is trying to form a new government after winning an election last month. Israel is generally believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.

(Additional reporting by Myra MacDonald and Stephen Brown in Munich, Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty, Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Jim Wolf in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Will Dunham)

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Iran announces nuclear talks, open to 'authentic' US meet

MUNICH: Iran on Sunday announced fresh talks with world powers on its nuclear drive and said it was open to an offer from the US for two-way discussions if Washington's intention was "authentic".

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the six world powers planned to resume talks in Kazakhstan on February 25, and he insisted that Iran had never pulled back from the negotiations.

"I have good news, I've heard yesterday that 5+1 or EU3+3 will be meeting in Kazakhstan 25th of February," Salehi said during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference.

Iran and six world powers -- the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- held three rounds of talks last year aimed at easing the standoff over Iran's nuclear activities, which Tehran insists are peaceful.

The six, known as the P5+1 or EU3+3, called on Iran to roll back its programme but stopped short of meeting Tehran's demands that they scale back sanctions, and the last round ended in stalemate in June in Moscow.

Since then, talks have been held up over disagreements on their location.

The European Union welcomed Salehi's announcement.

"It is good to hear that the foreign minister finally confirmed now. We hope the negotiating team will also confirm," said Michael Mann, a spokesman for the EU's top diplomat Catherine Ashton.

Salehi said Iran took comments by US officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, who said at the Munich conference on Saturday that Washington was ready to hold talks with Iran on its nuclear programme, "with positive consideration".

Washington ruptured diplomatic ties with Iran in the wake of the 1979 revolution, and relations remain hostile.

"We have no red line for negotiations, bilateral negotiations when it comes to negotiating over a particular subject," Salehi said.

"If the subject is the nuclear file, yes we are ready for negotiation but we have to make sure ... that the other side this time comes with authentic intention, with a fair and real intention to resolve the issue," he said.

He criticised as contradictory the desire for negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue alongside "threatening rhetoric that everything is on the table" -- that is, a military option.

"If there is an honest intention on the other side, then we will take that into serious consideration," Salehi said.

Asked when direct US-Iranian negotiations would take place, Biden told the conference on Saturday: "When the Iranian leadership, Supreme Leader, is serious."

He said: "There is still time, there is still space for diplomacy, backed by pressure, to succeed. The ball is in the government of Iran's court, and it's well past time for Tehran to adopt a serious, good-faith approach to negotiations with the P5-plus-1."

However, in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published late Sunday, he warned that the "diplomatic window is closing."

"The Iranian government must approach the talks with seriousness and good faith," Biden said in remarks translated into French.

Outgoing Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called in Munich for a "strong political will by the world" on the nuclear issue.

"I was glad to hear yesterday Vice President Biden saying loud and clear (that) containment is not an option," he told the conference.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking just before the formal start of talks to build Israel's new ruling coalition, said the most important mission facing the new government was preventing a nuclear Iran.

"It is a mission which has become more complicated because Iran has equipped itself with new centrifuges which reduce the enrichment time," he said.

"We cannot live with this process."

It was the first official reaction since it emerged that Tehran was planning to install more modern equipment at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran, according to a UN document seen by AFP in Vienna on Thursday.

- AFP/jc

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