India won’t make first move to lower tension along Pakistani border

NEW DELHI: India is in no mood to make the first move to de-escalate border tension with cross-border firing that began over two weeks ago continuing intermittently, according to top government sources.

In fact, the present strategy is to return Pakistani fire aggressively instead of considering any resumption of talks with Pakistan any time soon, it is learnt. Bilateral dialogue with Pakistan looks distant at the moment, said the sources, with New Delhi putting the blame on Islamabad for not allowing the atmospherics to be created for talks, by its continuous violation of the ceasefire.

Apart from adopting the staid old tactic of pushing in terrorists through the international border and line of control (LoC) under the cover of cross-border fire to divert the attention of Indian security forces, the government has received reports that the border offensive by the Pakistani army has the backing of Islamabad.

The fact that 18 infiltrators were killed by the Indian forces between the floods in Jammu & Kashmir and now is being seen as a typical evidence of the usual practice by the Pakistani army to push in terrorists if the winter snow sets up on the mountain passes.


(With no signs of any let up in the offensive from either side, the possibility of de-escalation seems dim.)

Government sources said the border offensive is a part of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's strategy to internationalize the Kashmir issue and keep its domestic audience engaged at a time when he is faced with troubles at home with political rivals like Imran Khan going after the establishment and the economy in bad shape. It's to keep the volatile domestic situation from blowing up on Sharif's face that the government in Islamabad has been backing the border tensions, sources said.

Defence minister Arun Jaitley is also being constantly updated, it is learnt. On the back of these inputs from various government agencies, Jaitley had said last week that the offensive will become "unaffordable" for Pakistan.

RTE effect: 26% drop in number of out-of-school kids since 2009

NEW DELHI: In a vindication of sorts for the Right to Education Act, the latest HRD ministry-mandated survey shows a 26 per cent drop in out-of-school children in the country since 2009.

According to the latest survey conducted by Indian Market Research Bureau for the ministry, out-of-school (OoS) children have declined to 60.6 lakh — 2.97 per cent of all children in the 6-14 age group — from 81.5 lakh in 2009. In the first survey of 2005, 1.34 crore children were out of school.

Interestingly, there were less girls (28.9 lakh) out of school than boys (31.6 lakh). In fact, girls have consistently done better than boys in all three surveys. A survey of OoS slum children was done for the first time and it their number was found to be 4.73 lakh.

The survey found a continuing drop in the number of OoS children among scheduled castes and Muslims. Among tribal OoS children, the drop was marginal — from 10.69 lakh in 2009 to 10.07 lakh in 2014.


Schoolchildren in a Mumbai school. (TOI file photo by Anahita Mukherji)

In terms of social classes, the number of SC out-of-school (OoS) children have come down to 19.66 lakh from 23.08 lakh in 2009 and 31.04 lakh in 2005.

In the latest survey found there were 15.57 lakh Muslim OoS children, down from 18.75 lakh in 2009 and 22.53 lakh in 2005.



While states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Delhi, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal witnessed a decline in the OoS children, in 13 states and Union Territories percentage of such children has increased since 2009.

These include Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand.



What dampens the good work of RTE is that the decline in OoS disabled children has followed a different trajectory. In 2005, 5.82 lakh disabled children were out of school which went up to 9.88 lakh in 2009 and in the latest round has come down to 6 lakh.



Sources said it could be due to inclusion of more kinds of mental and physical disabilities in the list so that RTE becomes more inclusive. But there is a general acknowledgement that a lot needs to be done on this front.

Ebola Puts a Dedicated Nurse Unaccustomed to the Spotlight in Its Glare

Dallas:  Nina Pham spends her days in isolation inside the same hospital where she contracted the Ebola virus working as a critical care nurse. She discusses her care plans with doctors, said a friend who has corresponded with her. She reads, video-chats with her family and keeps in touch with friends through text messages and emails.

"She's hopeful and just resting," said the friend, Jennifer Joseph, who until recently worked with Pham at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. "Not letting the media and all this overwhelm her. She's just having some time to herself, to be able to read and relax."

Joseph called Pham, 26, a conscientious and careful nurse who double-checked her charts and never seemed to make a mistake, a description that deepens the mystery of how a nurse garbed in gloves, mask and other protective gear contracted the disease from a Liberian man who died last week of Ebola. On Monday, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that Pham's positive test for Ebola over the weekend had prompted the agency to "substantially" rethink how it approaches infection control for health officials.

Frieden also apologized for the wording of his comments of a day earlier, in which he suggested that the nurse had apparently breached safety protocol at the hospital. On Monday, Frieden said he had not meant to give the impression he was blaming Pham - whom he did not identify by name - for contracting Ebola.

Pham's diagnosis fanned fears among hospital workers and raised questions about how the authorities have been monitoring health care workers like Pham, who treated or came into contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian Ebola victim.

Officials have said that Pham felt a low-grade fever overnight Friday, and apparently drove herself to the emergency room at Presbyterian, where she was admitted and put into isolation 90 minutes later. Officials say she is in stable condition.

Since local officials announced her positive test for Ebola early Sunday, the news has resonated through circles of friends who worked with Pham or studied nursing with her at Texas Christian University, and through the Vietnamese community in Fort Worth, where she grew up.

In interviews and news reports, friends have described her as a compassionate and caring nurse who loved her job, was grounded by her Catholic faith and cherished her King Charles spaniel, Bentley, named for her old neighborhood.

A Dallas city spokeswoman has said that the city would care for Pham's dog. (Read)

In photos from friends and family and her now-deactivated Facebook account, Pham is invariably smiling - posing with a friend on a trip to Boston, sitting outside at a cafe or taking a selfie while her dog nuzzles her.

"She's able to make friends in any setting, any scenario," Joseph said. "She has a contagious laugh."

The daughter of political refugees from Vietnam, she grew up in the Bentley Village subdivision of Fort Worth, in a large red-brick home that her family built in the mid-1990s, said a next-door neighbor, Jim Maness. Neighbors said the family was exceedingly private and quiet, and they saw Pham only when she was walking her dog, or coming and going from home in a car emblazoned with stickers from Texas Christian University.

Pham attended the accelerated nursing program at Texas Christian in Fort Worth, and graduated in 2010.

Ashlee Mitchell, a friend from college, said she bonded almost instantly with Pham as they took classes together. Not long after they met, she said, "We were best friends."

On Sunday, the university sent an email to students letting them know that "a TCU nursing alum" had received an Ebola diagnosis, but said she had not been on campus recently, and asked the community to keep her in their prayers.

Pham and her family were active at Our Lady of Fatima, a largely Vietnamese Roman Catholic church, said Tom Ha, the church's education director. Because the family prizes its privacy, he said, congregants are meeting in small groups, rather than large gatherings, to pray for Pham.

Christina Mykahnh Hoang, another church member, said Pham's mother had simply asked friends "to continue to pray."

Ha said Pham's family had not been overly worried about her risk of exposure at Presbyterian, and had been stunned by the news. Her family could not be reached for comment, and have said almost nothing publicly.

"They did not have a concern when the daughter was working with the patient of Ebola," Ha said. "Once they got the news that their daughter caught it, the family was totally shocked. Many Vietnamese-Americans do not know much about the disease. They really don't have a concrete idea of what it is, so people are very confused about it."

Mitchell, Pham's college friend, said the two spoke only fleetingly about her work at the epicenter of Ebola in the United States. Duncan was treated on Pham's unit, Mitchell said in a brief telephone interview Sunday, but Pham had said that only "at one point in time did she have him."

Immersed in such high-stakes work, the two friends tried to steer their conversations toward happier subjects.

"When we talk, we try not to talk about work," said Mitchell, who lives in Colorado. "We didn't talk about the Ebola incident."

To Joseph, Pham was both a great nurse and great friend. She said Pham helped her get oriented at Presbyterian, and during their 12-hour shifts together, taught her "how to become the nurse I am today." Frequently, when thinking about a patient, Pham would ask herself, "What would I do if this was my mom, dad or grandparent?" Joseph said.

She said she feels confident that Pham is getting the best treatment possible and will pull through, and said her work treating a man infected with a deadly disease that has spread fear and paranoia across this city exemplified her commitment to her profession and compassion for people in need.

"We have heroes that are willing to make sacrifices when no one else will," Joseph wrote in an email. "Because I know for a fact the she would take care of him again."

© 2014, The New York Times News Service

New Park Avenue Tower Is Tallest, if Not the Fairest, of Them All

New York:  When viewers tune in to "The Tonight Show" these days, besides Jimmy Fallon's huge smile and the Afro of his bandleader, Questlove, they are met by a remarkably realistic Manhattan skyline.

There is the cityscape on a curtain, of course - a staple of late-night television since Johnny Carson was on the air - but also 37 wooden models behind Fallon's desk. And not just of familiar landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, but less obvious ones, too, including the Hearst Tower, the Pier 17 mall and the Maritime Hotel.

Yet one building is missing that is impossible to miss, and not only from Fallon's offices at Rockefeller Center but just about everywhere in New York City: 432 Park Ave.

On Friday, the 104-unit condominium tower, between 56th and 57th streets, reached its peak of 1,396 feet. At 96 stories, it is arguably the tallest building in the city. One World Trade Center has its spire, but the skyscraper itself is 28 feet shorter than 432 Park. As for the Empire State Building, this new 93-foot-by-93-foot concrete megalith bests it by nearly 150 feet. From the living room of 432 Park's penthouses, it is possible to look down on the observation deck there, flash bulbs glittering like an oversize chandelier.

But even more than the views from the apartments, it may be the views of them that give 432 Park its allure. From Central Park, Park Avenue or Park Slope, there it is. On the George Washington Bridge or Long Island Expressway, there it is. In the bleachers at MetLife Stadium or Citi Field, there it is. Everyone from cinematographers and muralists to tourists and snow globe makers must now contend with the tower.

"It's almost like the Mona Lisa," Harry B. Macklowe, the developer building the $1.3 billion tower, said at a topping-out ceremony on Friday for 1,500 construction workers. "Except instead of it looking at you, you're looking at it wherever you are. You can't escape it."

Not that everyone agrees the building, developed with the CIM Group, based in Los Angeles, is a work of art.

"God, does it stand out," said Marlene Rosenthal, who regularly glimpses it while riding Metro-North. "It's a status symbol, and that's the name of the game in this city."

There can be no doubt the skyline has changed, yet New Yorkers are less sure whether it has changed for better or worse. Some are awed by the slender, omnipresent obelisk, its perfect symmetries, an undeniable feat of engineering; others are repulsed by its dimensions, both physical and financial, where units cost as much as $95 million, an undeniable feat of excess.

"For people who watch the skyline and love it, I think there's a real struggle," said Vin Cipolla, president of the Municipal Art Society. "There's a handsomeness about the building you can't deny, but it's so out of context and so imposing, it's hard to know what to make of it."

His group has urged City Hall to more closely monitor these supertowers. A dozen others are already in the works throughout Manhattan.

The monuments in New York, unlike those in London, Paris and Washington, have always been its tall buildings. This one is no different.

For the first three centuries, it was a pair of churches, Collegiate and Trinity. Then came the World Building, Manhattan Life Insurance, Park Row and Woolworth, emblems of the city's business and media might. The Empire State Building, constructed in 410 days, showed hardworking beauty and recessionary resolve. The World Trade Center, both original and resurrected, built as a symbol of defiance that the city would be great again.

And now, with more than half of the 104 condos sold, including the $95 million penthouse and the cheapest units starting at $7 million, 432 Park proves that that skyline is for sale.

Whoever said money can't buy happiness has never been inside an apartment 1,300 feet above a bustling metropolis.

Yet even if those apartments are out of reach, it is only a matter of time before anyone can buy one - albeit on a postcard or a plate at Fishs Eddy. Movie and advertising backdrops also seem inevitable. Snow globes and other knickknacks might be slower to incorporate 432 Park.

"Unless it becomes a part of the lexicon or the public consciousness of New York, I don't see it becoming a big souvenir," said Nathan Harkrader, a co-founder of NYCwebstore.com, an online souvenir shop. "This has to be something people in Atlanta, Chicago or Las Vegas are going to recognize and know."

And so the producers of "The Tonight Show" have yet to decide whether to include 432 Park in their skyline. The New York Mets have ruled out adopting it in their logo, a spokesman said, and the same goes for the badge of the Fire Department.

Tony Malkin, whose family has controlled the Empire State Building since 1961, said he would not add 432 Park to the interactive displays on its observation decks, which help visitors identify the skyline. "It's medieval," Malkin said. "That's where towers come from, the Middle Ages. The wealthy built them for protection and isolation from the city below."

Fortresses can still be seductive, though. For Demid Lebedev, a 17-year-old daredevil who posts his exploits on Instagram, 432 Park was his Everest. One day, after watching the tower grow, he and a friend decided, "We need to get up there," he wrote in an email. "When we made our way up to the crane I believe we were around the 90th floor and it was incredible! We were literally above the clouds. I can't really compare it to any other building." His photos received thousands of views online, and he received a visit from police detectives a few days later but was not arrested, Lebedev said.

Such reactions are what inspired Macklowe to build 432 Park, he said, which is unlikely to be overshadowed anytime soon, thanks to its location at the edge of Midtown.

What surprised him was any criticism of his building as ugly or uninspired. "If somebody thinks a 1,400-foot building is boring, well, I just don't get that," he said. To those who find it crass, he pointed to the hundreds of workers building and soon operating the tower: "A lot of guys have come up to me today and said, 'Thank you. Because of this building, I can afford my own house.'??"

It just won't be one down the street.

If Manhattan has truly become a playground for the rich, here is its new beacon.

© 2014, The New York Times News Service

More Than 50 Arrested in Ferguson Protests: Police

Ferguson, Missouri:  Pounding rain and tornado watches didn't deter hundreds of protesters Monday outside Ferguson police headquarters, where they stayed for almost four hours to mark how long an 18-year-old black man's body was left in the street after he was fatally shot by a white police officer.

Organizers of the four-day Ferguson October protests dubbed the day "Moral Monday" and committed acts of civil disobedience across the St. Louis region. In addition to the initial march on Ferguson police headquarters, protesters blocked the entrance to a major employer, held a loud rally inside St. Louis City Hall, disrupted business at a Ferguson shopping center and a Wal-Mart, and tried to crash a private Democratic Party fundraiser. On Monday night, protesters announced plans to picket a second Wal-Mart in the St. Louis suburbs.

All told, more than 50 people were arrested, including scholar and civil rights activist Cornel West.

West was among 42 people arrested for disturbing the peace at the Ferguson police station. Some protesters used a bullhorn to read the names of people killed by police nationwide. Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy members - some of whom were among the first arrested - led a prayer service before marching to the station two blocks away.

"My faith compels me to be here," Bishop Wayne Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri said outside Ferguson police headquarters. "I want to show solidarity, and call attention to the structural racism of St. Louis."Protesters were met by about 40 officers in riot gear. Several clergy members approached individual officers and asked them to "repent" for Brown's killing and other acts of violence. Some officers engaged the protesters, while others ignored the efforts.

"My heart feels that this has been going on too long," Ferguson officer Ray Nabzdyk told the clergy. "We all stand in fault because we didn't address this."

Tensions have simmered since the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown by a white police officer who has not been arrested or charged with any crime. Residents were upset about the way Brown's body lay in the street for more than four hours while police investigated the shooting. Many insist Brown was trying to surrender, with his hands up. Residents also protested the military-style police response to the days of riots and protests that erupted immediately after Brown's shooting in the predominantly black St. Louis suburb of Ferguson where just three blacks serve on a 53-officer force.

Since Brown's death, three other fatal police shootings of black males have occurred in the St. Louis area. The most recent involved an off-duty St. Louis officer who was working for a private neighborhood security patrol when he shot and killed 18-year-old Vonderrit Myers Jr. on Wednesday night. Police said the white officer fired 17 rounds after Myers opened fire. Myers' parents say he was unarmed.

Outside Emerson Electric headquarters in Ferguson, six people were arrested for failing to disperse after blocking a street, St. Louis County Police spokesman Brian Schellman said. Emerson is one of the region's largest employers.

At St. Louis City Hall, about 100 protesters blew whistles that echoed off the marble walls. Protest leader Kennard Williams presented a list of four demands to Jeff Rainford, chief of staff for Mayor Francis Slay. Slay was not in the office Monday.

The demands called for an end to participation in a program providing military equipment to police, body cameras for all officers, a civilian review board for police and mandatory independent investigations whenever police kill someone.

Rainford said St. Louis is not part of the militarization program; he promised the other demands will be taken seriously.

"We are already working on all of these things," he said.

Williams said that wasn't good enough, and pledged further disruptions in days to come. One protester was arrested for property damage.

Earlier, hundreds of people marched to Saint Louis University in the pre-dawn hours. A small group held a brief demonstration inside the upscale Plaza Frontenac shopping center in St. Louis County. Another group was turned away by police and security at a Ferguson Wal-Mart, but the store closed out of concern about the protest.

County police spokesman Brian Schellman said Monday night that several protesters were arrested there but could not provide a precise total. He added that an unspecified number of additional arrests were made at the fundraiser for County Councilman Steve Stenger, a Democrat who has come under criticism for his political links to St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch.

Ferguson October began Friday with protesters marching to McCulloch's office and renewing calls for charges against Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown. A grand jury is reviewing the case, and the U.S. Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation.

Turkey Has Not Reached New Deal to Let US Use Base: Officials

Ankara:  Turkey has not reached a new agreement to let the United States use its Incirlik air base in the fight against Islamic State militants, and talks are continuing on the subject, Turkish officials said on Monday.

Turkey had reached an agreement with Washington on the training of Syrian rebels, sources from the Turkish prime minister's office told reporters, without saying who would train the insurgents or where.

 

The comments come after U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Turkey had agreed to let forces from a U.S.-led military coalition use its bases for activities inside Iraq and Syria and to train moderate Syrian rebels.

"There is not an agreement, no decision has been taken with regards to using Incirlik air base," Tanju Bilgic, spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, told reporters at the United Nations in New York.

He said the possible use of Incirlik air base was still "on the agenda" and suggested that Turkey had agreed to allow other facilities to be used to help train and equip Syrian rebels.

"Many issues are pending and many issues are being discussed between the United States and Turkey, this includes the creation of a safe zone and creation of a no-fly zone as well," he said. 

© Thomson Reuters 2014

Boston Evacuates Five With Flu-Like Symptoms From Flight

Boston:  US emergency services in Boston on Monday evacuated five people with flu-like symptoms from a passenger jet after it was quarantined on arrival from Dubai, officials said.

It was at least the third Ebola scare on a commercial flight within the United States in just days, but none of those people taken to local hospitals was believed to have travelled from West Africa.

Emirates flight EK 237 arrived at Boston Logan International Airport at 2:30pm after a 14-hour flight from the United Arab Emirates.

It sat on the tarmac without being evacuated for around two hours before a team of officials dressed in Hazmat (hazardous materials) suits boarded the plane and evacuated the five passengers.

"If it is anything that puts public health at risk, we will notify the proper authorities," said McKenzie Ridings, spokesperson for the Boston Public Health Commission told AFP.

On Sunday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first Ebola case contracted on American soil, a Texas health care worker being treated in Dallas.

Five US airports are screening for Ebola but Logan Airport is not one of them and there are no direct flights between the northeastern US city of Boston and West Africa.

Health care workers in West Africa are on the frontline of the worst-ever Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 4,000 people this year, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and the hardest-hit, Liberia.