Manmohan Singh certainly knows his strengths. And he's pitching it hard. In an exclusive interview to TOI, the PM said if voted back to
power, he would roll out a 100-day action plan to revive the economy by adding greater zip to the stimulus packages and by tackling job losses.
"There is considerable scope to refuel the stimulus packages and our aim is to take the economy back to the stage where 9% to 10% growth is possible," he said, adding that such a boost would revive confidence in the economy.
Singh was hopeful of a quick economic recovery and creation of new jobs. He said that the recovery process was being led by cement, textiles and construction industries and these sectors would also create employment opportunities.
Singh has also added a new priority to his 100-day "to-do" list ^ bringing back black money salted away in tax havens abroad by taking whatever steps required. He, however, disputed figures being quoted by BJP leader L K Advani: "I am not denying its existence ^ but how much in Swiss banks, how much in tax havens, nobody knows."
On opaque banks in tax havens, he said, "We argued within a group of friendly countries for absolute transparency within the banking system and an international agreement to share information between tax authorities of different countries."
The PM has pointed to India's unstable neighbourhood along with home-grown terror and said that given the international ramifications, his government would urgently modernize the security and intelligence mechanism if voted back to power. He drew attention to the Taliban's expansion in Pakistan and linked it to a spurt in terror directed against India.
On the role of home-grown terror, he said, "We cannot say there are no links between terrorists outside and terrorists within the country." He laid emphasis on getting the basics like ground-level policing right. "Ultimately, community policing is the best way (of handling the problem)," he said.
Insisting only a Congress-led government would be up to the task of meeting the challenges, he recalled the perils posed by a government that lacked solid moorings by referring to the mortgaging of gold reserves by the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government and the success of the Congress government that took office in 1991 in bringing it back.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Mexico bid to contain deadly flu
Mexican authorities have closed schools and public buildings in the capital in a bid to contain a new flu virus suspected of killing up to 60 people.
Public events were suspended and residents donned face masks as concern grew over the outbreak.
Health experts say tests so far seem to link it with a new swine flu virus that sickened eight in the southern US.
US experts said they were taking the virus seriously and working to learn as much as possible about it.
But both the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said that there was no need at this point to issue travel advisories for parts of Mexico or the US.
In Geneva, the WHO said an emergency committee would likely convene over the weekend. It said it had prepared "rapid containment measures" in case they were needed.
In the US, the White House said it was monitoring events.
Mexican authorities suspect the virus may have been involved in the deaths of about 60 people, mostly in and around Mexico City, since mid-March.
A new swine flu strain has been confirmed in 20 of the deaths and 40 others are being tested, Mexico's health secretary said. More than 900 other people are thought to have been infected.
Public events were suspended and residents donned face masks as concern grew over the outbreak.
Health experts say tests so far seem to link it with a new swine flu virus that sickened eight in the southern US.
US experts said they were taking the virus seriously and working to learn as much as possible about it.
But both the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said that there was no need at this point to issue travel advisories for parts of Mexico or the US.
In Geneva, the WHO said an emergency committee would likely convene over the weekend. It said it had prepared "rapid containment measures" in case they were needed.
In the US, the White House said it was monitoring events.
Mexican authorities suspect the virus may have been involved in the deaths of about 60 people, mostly in and around Mexico City, since mid-March.
A new swine flu strain has been confirmed in 20 of the deaths and 40 others are being tested, Mexico's health secretary said. More than 900 other people are thought to have been infected.
As Jobs Die, Europe’s Migrants Head for Home
Six years after the Spanish construction boom lured him here from his native Romania, Constantin Marius Craiova is going home, another victim of the bust that is reversing the human tide that has transformed Europe in the past decade.
Migrant and Foreign Workers“Everyone says in Romania there’s no work,” Mr. Craiova, 30, said with a touch of bravado as he lifted his mirrored Ray-Bans onto his forehead. “If there are 26 million people there, they have to do something. I want to see for myself.”
Mr. Craiova, who is planning to return to Romania next month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland and Britain in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.
But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Western Europe have deteriorated, workers like Mr. Craiova are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living, in their native lands.
In many ways, this is what the European Union was meant to be, a zone where workers could move freely in search of jobs. But as the economic crisis deepens, fault lines are emerging across the Continent, where borders may be porous but national identities remain fixed.
Indeed, while all workers are theoretically equal under European rules, some may be more equal than others as national, or even local, concerns come to the fore.
Consider Ireland’s capital, which earned the nickname Dublinski as roughly 180,000 Poles, Czechs and other Eastern Europeans went there in search of work after the European Union expanded in 2004. Now, a stunning rise in the unemployment rate, currently 10.4 percent, is making even the most recent arrivals rethink their plans.
“Since 2000, there has been a resurgence of intra-European migration,” said Rainer Münz, a migration scholar who is head of research and development at Erste Bank in Vienna. “To a certain extent, that’s clearly unwinding now.”
Between April 2008 and the end of this month, as many as 50,000 workers are likely to have returned home from Ireland, mostly to Eastern Europe, according to Alan Barrett of the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin.
“Things have changed quickly,” said Monica Jelinkova, 25, who moved to Dublin from the Czech Republic 18 months ago. “I used to know 15 people here. Now there are only four friends left.”
While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”
Until very recently, countries like Spain, Ireland and Italy were nations of emigrants, not immigrants.
That changed in the decade-long expansion that began in the late 1990s. In Spain, where the growth has been the most explosive, the foreign population rose to 5.2 million last year out of a total of 45 million people from 750,000 in 1999, according to the National Statistics Institute. Ireland’s population, now 4.1 million, was also transformed, with the percentage of foreign-born residents rising to 11 percent in 2006 from 7 percent in 2002.
“In the U.S., it took generations to build up a foreign-born population of that size,” said Demetrios Papademetriou, head of the Migration Policy Institute, a research group in Washington. “These countries have done it at an unprecedented rate, but the society and institutions haven’t even begun to have a chance to catch up.”
Alcalá, a Madrid bedroom community and the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, is home to so many Romanian immigrants — 20,000 by some estimates — that Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, campaigned here for parliamentary elections last fall.
But signs of the reverse migration of Romanians are already evident. “Slowly, slowly, they’re disappearing,” said Gheorghe Gainar, the president of a Romanian cultural association in Alcalá. “When you look for them, you don’t find them. Sometimes you ask a relative, and they say they’ve gone back.”
The reverse exodus from more prosperous countries in Western Europe is likely to add to the economic pressures already buffeting Central and Eastern Europe, where migrants from developing countries are in turn being encouraged to leave.
The Czech government announced in February that it would pay 500 euros, or about $660, and provide one-way plane tickets to each foreigner who has lost his job and wants to go home.
And in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, workers from China have been camped out in freezing weather in front of the Chinese Embassy for two months, essentially stranded after their construction jobs disappeared.
Like the Czech Republic, Spain is offering financial incentives to leave. A new program aimed at legal immigrants from South America allows them to take their unemployment payments in a lump sum if they agree to leave and not return for at least three years. The Spanish government says only around 3,000 people have taken advantage of the plan, but many others are leaving of their own accord.
Airlines in Spain are offering deals on one-way tickets to Latin America, and they say demand has increased significantly. Every day, Barajas airport in Madrid is the setting for emotional departures, as families send their jobless loved ones back home.
Citizens of European Union countries, like Mr. Craiova, are not eligible for the incentive plan for Latin American migrants, but they are finding other creative solutions to their predicament.
Like many other Romanians leaving Spain, Mr. Craiova said he planned to take the unemployment money he was owed by the Spanish government back to Romania, where it will go further. He needs only to return to Spain every three months to sign for it. His Peruvian wife, with their children, will follow him to Romania once he finds work.
Regardless of their fate, many immigrants realize that economic circumstances are squeezing locals, too. On a recent weekday evening, Juan and Miriam Garnica, Bolivians who are legal residents in Spain, were sending off Juan’s cousin, who had not found enough work in the fields to stay the three years required to establish residency.
The cousin, Sandro Garnica, 36, looked despondent as he held two backpacks and a new digital camera. But Ms. Garnica, 35, a worker for the Madrid city government, was philosophical.
“We have a plan B,” she said. “At least we can go back to our home. But the Spanish? What do they do?”
Rachel Donadio reported from Alcalá de Henares, Madrid and Rome, and Nelson D. Schwartz from Paris and Vienna. Eamon Quinn contributed reporting from Dublin, and Davin Ellicson from Bucharest, Romania.
Migrant and Foreign Workers“Everyone says in Romania there’s no work,” Mr. Craiova, 30, said with a touch of bravado as he lifted his mirrored Ray-Bans onto his forehead. “If there are 26 million people there, they have to do something. I want to see for myself.”
Mr. Craiova, who is planning to return to Romania next month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland and Britain in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.
But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Western Europe have deteriorated, workers like Mr. Craiova are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living, in their native lands.
In many ways, this is what the European Union was meant to be, a zone where workers could move freely in search of jobs. But as the economic crisis deepens, fault lines are emerging across the Continent, where borders may be porous but national identities remain fixed.
Indeed, while all workers are theoretically equal under European rules, some may be more equal than others as national, or even local, concerns come to the fore.
Consider Ireland’s capital, which earned the nickname Dublinski as roughly 180,000 Poles, Czechs and other Eastern Europeans went there in search of work after the European Union expanded in 2004. Now, a stunning rise in the unemployment rate, currently 10.4 percent, is making even the most recent arrivals rethink their plans.
“Since 2000, there has been a resurgence of intra-European migration,” said Rainer Münz, a migration scholar who is head of research and development at Erste Bank in Vienna. “To a certain extent, that’s clearly unwinding now.”
Between April 2008 and the end of this month, as many as 50,000 workers are likely to have returned home from Ireland, mostly to Eastern Europe, according to Alan Barrett of the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin.
“Things have changed quickly,” said Monica Jelinkova, 25, who moved to Dublin from the Czech Republic 18 months ago. “I used to know 15 people here. Now there are only four friends left.”
While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”
Until very recently, countries like Spain, Ireland and Italy were nations of emigrants, not immigrants.
That changed in the decade-long expansion that began in the late 1990s. In Spain, where the growth has been the most explosive, the foreign population rose to 5.2 million last year out of a total of 45 million people from 750,000 in 1999, according to the National Statistics Institute. Ireland’s population, now 4.1 million, was also transformed, with the percentage of foreign-born residents rising to 11 percent in 2006 from 7 percent in 2002.
“In the U.S., it took generations to build up a foreign-born population of that size,” said Demetrios Papademetriou, head of the Migration Policy Institute, a research group in Washington. “These countries have done it at an unprecedented rate, but the society and institutions haven’t even begun to have a chance to catch up.”
Alcalá, a Madrid bedroom community and the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, is home to so many Romanian immigrants — 20,000 by some estimates — that Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, campaigned here for parliamentary elections last fall.
But signs of the reverse migration of Romanians are already evident. “Slowly, slowly, they’re disappearing,” said Gheorghe Gainar, the president of a Romanian cultural association in Alcalá. “When you look for them, you don’t find them. Sometimes you ask a relative, and they say they’ve gone back.”
The reverse exodus from more prosperous countries in Western Europe is likely to add to the economic pressures already buffeting Central and Eastern Europe, where migrants from developing countries are in turn being encouraged to leave.
The Czech government announced in February that it would pay 500 euros, or about $660, and provide one-way plane tickets to each foreigner who has lost his job and wants to go home.
And in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, workers from China have been camped out in freezing weather in front of the Chinese Embassy for two months, essentially stranded after their construction jobs disappeared.
Like the Czech Republic, Spain is offering financial incentives to leave. A new program aimed at legal immigrants from South America allows them to take their unemployment payments in a lump sum if they agree to leave and not return for at least three years. The Spanish government says only around 3,000 people have taken advantage of the plan, but many others are leaving of their own accord.
Airlines in Spain are offering deals on one-way tickets to Latin America, and they say demand has increased significantly. Every day, Barajas airport in Madrid is the setting for emotional departures, as families send their jobless loved ones back home.
Citizens of European Union countries, like Mr. Craiova, are not eligible for the incentive plan for Latin American migrants, but they are finding other creative solutions to their predicament.
Like many other Romanians leaving Spain, Mr. Craiova said he planned to take the unemployment money he was owed by the Spanish government back to Romania, where it will go further. He needs only to return to Spain every three months to sign for it. His Peruvian wife, with their children, will follow him to Romania once he finds work.
Regardless of their fate, many immigrants realize that economic circumstances are squeezing locals, too. On a recent weekday evening, Juan and Miriam Garnica, Bolivians who are legal residents in Spain, were sending off Juan’s cousin, who had not found enough work in the fields to stay the three years required to establish residency.
The cousin, Sandro Garnica, 36, looked despondent as he held two backpacks and a new digital camera. But Ms. Garnica, 35, a worker for the Madrid city government, was philosophical.
“We have a plan B,” she said. “At least we can go back to our home. But the Spanish? What do they do?”
Rachel Donadio reported from Alcalá de Henares, Madrid and Rome, and Nelson D. Schwartz from Paris and Vienna. Eamon Quinn contributed reporting from Dublin, and Davin Ellicson from Bucharest, Romania.
‘China is fishing in troubled waters in Lanka’
China is using the ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka to expand its sphere of influence and that has impacted India’s response to the situation, said Home Minister P Chidambaram. “China is fishing in troubled waters. That is a lone, discordant voice among all of the global community,” he told Hindustan Times on Friday.
The comments are significant as Lanka’s importance for Beijing is in the sea-lanes of communication in the north Indian Ocean through which Chinese trade and energy supplies flow.China is encouraging the Sri Lankan offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) while the rest of the world, including India, has called for a cessation of hostilities to enable civilians to escape. Fighting for a separate state for Tamil-speaking people, the LTTE has been declared a terrorist outfit by United Nations.
"China is acting with a clear agenda,” said Chidambaram. “Our policies take account of the Chinese calculations.” He said Pakistan also might have wanted to seek a foothold on the southern (maritime) border of India, but internal issues were holding it back. “They are not in a position to do something adventurous now,” he said.
The comments are significant as Lanka’s importance for Beijing is in the sea-lanes of communication in the north Indian Ocean through which Chinese trade and energy supplies flow.
“They want to secure the lanes by building strategic and defense ties with Colombo,” said Sujit Dutta, head of the East Asia Programme of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
Senior Chinese naval officials have often stated that “the Indian Ocean isn’t India’s” despite no such claim by New Delhi. In the conversation that spanned a range of political and security issues Chidambaram expressed satisfaction over his 150 days in office. He replaced Shivraj Patil on December 1, 2008 in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. He was finance minister till then.
“Our intelligence gathering and sharing are far more effective now than six months ago. State governments are responding to the situation with utmost urgency and are better equipped to deal with it should another terrorist attack take place,” he said.
The Home Hinister said India is trying to put pressure on Colombo and the LTTE to cease hostilities. "It’s a humanitarian crisis. We want the killings to stop. Unfortunately, neither the Sri Lankan government nor the LTTE is willing to listen to the international community,” he said.
Chidambaram said the advances made by the Taliban in Pakistan were “extremely worrisome” for India. “Large sections of Pakistan are under the control of the Taliban,” he said. However, the Home Minister did not endorse former NSA Brajesh Mishra’s fears that the Taliban could “get their hands” on nuclear weapons. “My impression is that there are adequate systems in Pakistan to secure them,” he said.
Chidambaram detailed the measures the UPA has already taken to rubbish the BJP’s promise of bringing back Indian wealth stashed in foreign banks. “I challenge Mr Advani to name one step the NDA took between 1998 and 2004 when it was in power to bring back black money. They did not do anything,” he said. During his stewardship of the Finance Ministry, the UPA made “substantial progress” towards unearthing Indian wealth in secret foreign accounts, he claimed.
“Read my lips. We’ve made substantial progress…I am not at liberty to disclose details as some procedural formalities are still underway,” he said.
The comments are significant as Lanka’s importance for Beijing is in the sea-lanes of communication in the north Indian Ocean through which Chinese trade and energy supplies flow.China is encouraging the Sri Lankan offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) while the rest of the world, including India, has called for a cessation of hostilities to enable civilians to escape. Fighting for a separate state for Tamil-speaking people, the LTTE has been declared a terrorist outfit by United Nations.
"China is acting with a clear agenda,” said Chidambaram. “Our policies take account of the Chinese calculations.” He said Pakistan also might have wanted to seek a foothold on the southern (maritime) border of India, but internal issues were holding it back. “They are not in a position to do something adventurous now,” he said.
The comments are significant as Lanka’s importance for Beijing is in the sea-lanes of communication in the north Indian Ocean through which Chinese trade and energy supplies flow.
“They want to secure the lanes by building strategic and defense ties with Colombo,” said Sujit Dutta, head of the East Asia Programme of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
Senior Chinese naval officials have often stated that “the Indian Ocean isn’t India’s” despite no such claim by New Delhi. In the conversation that spanned a range of political and security issues Chidambaram expressed satisfaction over his 150 days in office. He replaced Shivraj Patil on December 1, 2008 in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. He was finance minister till then.
“Our intelligence gathering and sharing are far more effective now than six months ago. State governments are responding to the situation with utmost urgency and are better equipped to deal with it should another terrorist attack take place,” he said.
The Home Hinister said India is trying to put pressure on Colombo and the LTTE to cease hostilities. "It’s a humanitarian crisis. We want the killings to stop. Unfortunately, neither the Sri Lankan government nor the LTTE is willing to listen to the international community,” he said.
Chidambaram said the advances made by the Taliban in Pakistan were “extremely worrisome” for India. “Large sections of Pakistan are under the control of the Taliban,” he said. However, the Home Minister did not endorse former NSA Brajesh Mishra’s fears that the Taliban could “get their hands” on nuclear weapons. “My impression is that there are adequate systems in Pakistan to secure them,” he said.
Chidambaram detailed the measures the UPA has already taken to rubbish the BJP’s promise of bringing back Indian wealth stashed in foreign banks. “I challenge Mr Advani to name one step the NDA took between 1998 and 2004 when it was in power to bring back black money. They did not do anything,” he said. During his stewardship of the Finance Ministry, the UPA made “substantial progress” towards unearthing Indian wealth in secret foreign accounts, he claimed.
“Read my lips. We’ve made substantial progress…I am not at liberty to disclose details as some procedural formalities are still underway,” he said.
Modi takes a risky gamble
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s ultimate arbiter on the distribution of tickets in Gujarat, state chief minister Mr Narendra Modi has fielded nineteen new faces in his state where ballots will be cast on 30 April in all 26 Parliament constituencies.
If the BJP wins most of these seats it would establish Mr Modi as the most successful gambler in national politics, for no other state leader had been as daring as he to put so many eggs in one basket in this crucial Parliament election. This is particularly significant in light of the BJP indicating today that Mr Modi is second in line after Mr LK Advani for the post of Prime Minister, a declaration that has sent a wave of excitement among BJP workers, as well as the party's traditional voters.
The simple calculation behind granting tickets to his chosen loyalists is to defeat the anti-incumbency factor. Simultaneously, analysts say, by sending this team of loyalists to Delhi, the Gujarat CM is reinforcing his status in the party organization.
Mr Modi displayed remarkable high handedness in discarding some old BJP stalwarts like Mr Kashiram Rana, six-time MP from Surat, giving that ticket to Ms Darshana Jardosh, a two-time municipal corporation member.
Another ambitious BJP leader under grooming is Mr CR Patil, a nominee for Navsari seat in south Gujarat. He is believed to have accepted the responsibility of winning all seats in this part of the state where the Congress has four sitting MPs in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Speaking to The Statesman, Mr Patil, a wealthy farmer from Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, claimed he would stand up to the challenge. The consolidation of rural–urban votes in the delimitation exercise, Mr Patil said, would favour his party since “urbanites were BJP voters”.
Sitting Congress MP from Bardoli constituency, Dr Tushar Chowdhary, was of the view that such calculations seldom counted since an MP is gauged by his performance. He said the Congress should win 16 of the 26 seats because of the incumbency factor. Yet, Dr Chowdhary appeared unhappy with the weakness of the Congress as an organization, and agreed, if somewhat reluctantly, that much needed to be done to revive the party.
'Nothing to apologise for'
Mr Narendra Modi remains defiant over his role in the Gujarat riots, telling a TV channel that he had nothing to apologise for, adds PTI from New Delhi. Defending himself against allegations of being callous towards the plight of Gujarat minorities after the riots, he said, “Why are you being generous? Do not forgive Narendra Modi, if he has done anything wrong. Hang him publicly if you find him guilty.”
If the BJP wins most of these seats it would establish Mr Modi as the most successful gambler in national politics, for no other state leader had been as daring as he to put so many eggs in one basket in this crucial Parliament election. This is particularly significant in light of the BJP indicating today that Mr Modi is second in line after Mr LK Advani for the post of Prime Minister, a declaration that has sent a wave of excitement among BJP workers, as well as the party's traditional voters.
The simple calculation behind granting tickets to his chosen loyalists is to defeat the anti-incumbency factor. Simultaneously, analysts say, by sending this team of loyalists to Delhi, the Gujarat CM is reinforcing his status in the party organization.
Mr Modi displayed remarkable high handedness in discarding some old BJP stalwarts like Mr Kashiram Rana, six-time MP from Surat, giving that ticket to Ms Darshana Jardosh, a two-time municipal corporation member.
Another ambitious BJP leader under grooming is Mr CR Patil, a nominee for Navsari seat in south Gujarat. He is believed to have accepted the responsibility of winning all seats in this part of the state where the Congress has four sitting MPs in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Speaking to The Statesman, Mr Patil, a wealthy farmer from Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district, claimed he would stand up to the challenge. The consolidation of rural–urban votes in the delimitation exercise, Mr Patil said, would favour his party since “urbanites were BJP voters”.
Sitting Congress MP from Bardoli constituency, Dr Tushar Chowdhary, was of the view that such calculations seldom counted since an MP is gauged by his performance. He said the Congress should win 16 of the 26 seats because of the incumbency factor. Yet, Dr Chowdhary appeared unhappy with the weakness of the Congress as an organization, and agreed, if somewhat reluctantly, that much needed to be done to revive the party.
'Nothing to apologise for'
Mr Narendra Modi remains defiant over his role in the Gujarat riots, telling a TV channel that he had nothing to apologise for, adds PTI from New Delhi. Defending himself against allegations of being callous towards the plight of Gujarat minorities after the riots, he said, “Why are you being generous? Do not forgive Narendra Modi, if he has done anything wrong. Hang him publicly if you find him guilty.”
Rahul rips Left rural record
Rahul Gandhi today termed the situation in rural Bengal worse than that in Uttar Pradesh, launching withering criticism of the Left in its lair.
“I understand communists are those who look after the interest of the poor. But what kind of communists exist here? When I was coming here by helicopter, I saw the pathetic conditions here.
“I have worked in UP, I have travelled extensively in UP…. I have thought that UP was backward. But now I find the situation here is far worse. You have to change the government here,” the Congress leader told a meeting in Malda.
Any comparison of Bengal with Uttar Pradesh — counted among the “Bimaru” (sick) states — is red rag to the Left. CPM state secretariat member Benoy Konar said: “Rahul appears to have become too clever for his age (enchorey paaka). Will anybody in Bengal believe that our state is lagging behind UP?”
If the question is posed against the record in implementing the rural job scheme — the UPA trophy to which the Left also stakes claim — Uttar Pradesh is ahead of Bengal on at least three counts. (See chart).
But on other parameters such as infant mortality rate (UP’s 79 per cent against Bengal’s 47 per cent) and child immunisation (UP 29.7 per cent, Bengal 40.9 per cent), Bengal appears to be better off than Uttar Pradesh, according to government data.
Rahul’s statement also stirred memories of a comment made by his late father Rajiv Gandhi in 1987 that Calcutta was a dying city. A controversy broke out then but the substance of the young Gandhi’s observation today reflects the plight of voters like Butu Karmakar even if language was a barrier between them (see report on top).
If the Left is seeing a predictable political pitch in Rahul’s speech, he did make, unwittingly or otherwise, a point that cut across party lines.
Rahul underscored the failure to use funds not just in Purulia and Bankura, both Left strongholds, but also in Malda where the last-mile administration is in the Congress’s hands.
“I can say about this district (Malda) that the UPA government had given Rs 30 crore (to build homes for the poor), but Rs 12.4 crore remains unspent. We had also given Rs 70 crore under the NREGS (the rural job scheme) but only four families found work for 100 days,” he said.
Rahul in Purulia. (Amit Datta)
A Malda official said it was the responsibility of the zilla parishad to take the funds allocated and spend it through panchayats. In Malda, the zilla parishad is run by the Congress.
It was not clear whether Rahul made the statement in Malda because of a political slip of the tongue but he appeared to have done his homework — a not too familiar trait in politicians on the campaign trail. In Purulia, he said: “In your district, people did not get work for even 20 days.”
Inability to spend money is a paradoxical curse of welfare schemes in the country. “One of the main reasons is political. Panchayats run by a particular political party may use the funds for only their supporters. How else can you explain Bengal’s record of providing only 25 days work under the NREGS? It is the marginal farmers who are most dependent on the NREGS and funds going unutilised means they suffer the most,” economist Kalyan Sanyal said.
Rahul referred to another issue relevant to Bengal now: power crunch and how the nuclear deal may one day help tackle it.
“I understand communists are those who look after the interest of the poor. But what kind of communists exist here? When I was coming here by helicopter, I saw the pathetic conditions here.
“I have worked in UP, I have travelled extensively in UP…. I have thought that UP was backward. But now I find the situation here is far worse. You have to change the government here,” the Congress leader told a meeting in Malda.
Any comparison of Bengal with Uttar Pradesh — counted among the “Bimaru” (sick) states — is red rag to the Left. CPM state secretariat member Benoy Konar said: “Rahul appears to have become too clever for his age (enchorey paaka). Will anybody in Bengal believe that our state is lagging behind UP?”
If the question is posed against the record in implementing the rural job scheme — the UPA trophy to which the Left also stakes claim — Uttar Pradesh is ahead of Bengal on at least three counts. (See chart).
But on other parameters such as infant mortality rate (UP’s 79 per cent against Bengal’s 47 per cent) and child immunisation (UP 29.7 per cent, Bengal 40.9 per cent), Bengal appears to be better off than Uttar Pradesh, according to government data.
Rahul’s statement also stirred memories of a comment made by his late father Rajiv Gandhi in 1987 that Calcutta was a dying city. A controversy broke out then but the substance of the young Gandhi’s observation today reflects the plight of voters like Butu Karmakar even if language was a barrier between them (see report on top).
If the Left is seeing a predictable political pitch in Rahul’s speech, he did make, unwittingly or otherwise, a point that cut across party lines.
Rahul underscored the failure to use funds not just in Purulia and Bankura, both Left strongholds, but also in Malda where the last-mile administration is in the Congress’s hands.
“I can say about this district (Malda) that the UPA government had given Rs 30 crore (to build homes for the poor), but Rs 12.4 crore remains unspent. We had also given Rs 70 crore under the NREGS (the rural job scheme) but only four families found work for 100 days,” he said.
Rahul in Purulia. (Amit Datta)
A Malda official said it was the responsibility of the zilla parishad to take the funds allocated and spend it through panchayats. In Malda, the zilla parishad is run by the Congress.
It was not clear whether Rahul made the statement in Malda because of a political slip of the tongue but he appeared to have done his homework — a not too familiar trait in politicians on the campaign trail. In Purulia, he said: “In your district, people did not get work for even 20 days.”
Inability to spend money is a paradoxical curse of welfare schemes in the country. “One of the main reasons is political. Panchayats run by a particular political party may use the funds for only their supporters. How else can you explain Bengal’s record of providing only 25 days work under the NREGS? It is the marginal farmers who are most dependent on the NREGS and funds going unutilised means they suffer the most,” economist Kalyan Sanyal said.
Rahul referred to another issue relevant to Bengal now: power crunch and how the nuclear deal may one day help tackle it.
MFs line up new equity schemes
A rally in the Sensex, up 30 per cent since March 9, has brought back life into the sagging mutual fund business, with fund houses gearing for quick launches and filing offer documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
While ICICI Prudential launched its Target Return Fund only last week, fund houses have filed offer documents for six equity schemes since April 8, including three from Reliance Capital AMC.
But mutual fund managers say the rally has nothing to do with it.
“While things look much better now, we did not file the offer documents with SEBI because of the upward movement of the market as we started the process of filing when Sensex was at around 8,000,” said Sundeep Sikka, CEO, Reliance Capital AMC.
DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund has lined up two funds schemes — World Mining Fund and World Energy Fund — while Reliance Capital AMC plans Nifty and Sensex based index funds and a micro capital fund as well.
“We feel that there is a need for these schemes in our portfolio,” said Sikka.
Canara Robeco Mutual Fund plans to come up with Force Fund, which will invest in companies operating in the financial sector, retail sector and entertainment sector. The market fall seems to have brought learning and maturity in the fund houses.
ICICI Prudential’s Target Return Fund will allow investors to withdraw gains at pre-determined triggers at 12 per cent, 20 per cent, 50 per cent and 100 per cent. This means that if the trigger has been fixed at 20 per cent, the fund house will pull out the 20 per cent return as and when the scheme’s NAV hits the target profit of 20 per cent. The remaining amount will, however, remain invested.
While ICICI Pru has launched its scheme, it is cautious. “Though we have launched the scheme now, we will invest the money only after the elections,” said Nilesh Shah, deputy managing Director.
While ICICI Prudential launched its Target Return Fund only last week, fund houses have filed offer documents for six equity schemes since April 8, including three from Reliance Capital AMC.
But mutual fund managers say the rally has nothing to do with it.
“While things look much better now, we did not file the offer documents with SEBI because of the upward movement of the market as we started the process of filing when Sensex was at around 8,000,” said Sundeep Sikka, CEO, Reliance Capital AMC.
DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund has lined up two funds schemes — World Mining Fund and World Energy Fund — while Reliance Capital AMC plans Nifty and Sensex based index funds and a micro capital fund as well.
“We feel that there is a need for these schemes in our portfolio,” said Sikka.
Canara Robeco Mutual Fund plans to come up with Force Fund, which will invest in companies operating in the financial sector, retail sector and entertainment sector. The market fall seems to have brought learning and maturity in the fund houses.
ICICI Prudential’s Target Return Fund will allow investors to withdraw gains at pre-determined triggers at 12 per cent, 20 per cent, 50 per cent and 100 per cent. This means that if the trigger has been fixed at 20 per cent, the fund house will pull out the 20 per cent return as and when the scheme’s NAV hits the target profit of 20 per cent. The remaining amount will, however, remain invested.
While ICICI Pru has launched its scheme, it is cautious. “Though we have launched the scheme now, we will invest the money only after the elections,” said Nilesh Shah, deputy managing Director.
MFs line up new equity schemes
A rally in the Sensex, up 30 per cent since March 9, has brought back life into the sagging mutual fund business, with fund houses gearing for quick launches and filing offer documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
While ICICI Prudential launched its Target Return Fund only last week, fund houses have filed offer documents for six equity schemes since April 8, including three from Reliance Capital AMC.
But mutual fund managers say the rally has nothing to do with it.
“While things look much better now, we did not file the offer documents with SEBI because of the upward movement of the market as we started the process of filing when Sensex was at around 8,000,” said Sundeep Sikka, CEO, Reliance Capital AMC.
DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund has lined up two funds schemes — World Mining Fund and World Energy Fund — while Reliance Capital AMC plans Nifty and Sensex based index funds and a micro capital fund as well.
“We feel that there is a need for these schemes in our portfolio,” said Sikka.
Canara Robeco Mutual Fund plans to come up with Force Fund, which will invest in companies operating in the financial sector, retail sector and entertainment sector. The market fall seems to have brought learning and maturity in the fund houses.
ICICI Prudential’s Target Return Fund will allow investors to withdraw gains at pre-determined triggers at 12 per cent, 20 per cent, 50 per cent and 100 per cent. This means that if the trigger has been fixed at 20 per cent, the fund house will pull out the 20 per cent return as and when the scheme’s NAV hits the target profit of 20 per cent. The remaining amount will, however, remain invested.
While ICICI Pru has launched its scheme, it is cautious. “Though we have launched the scheme now, we will invest the money only after the elections,” said Nilesh Shah, deputy managing Director.
While ICICI Prudential launched its Target Return Fund only last week, fund houses have filed offer documents for six equity schemes since April 8, including three from Reliance Capital AMC.
But mutual fund managers say the rally has nothing to do with it.
“While things look much better now, we did not file the offer documents with SEBI because of the upward movement of the market as we started the process of filing when Sensex was at around 8,000,” said Sundeep Sikka, CEO, Reliance Capital AMC.
DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund has lined up two funds schemes — World Mining Fund and World Energy Fund — while Reliance Capital AMC plans Nifty and Sensex based index funds and a micro capital fund as well.
“We feel that there is a need for these schemes in our portfolio,” said Sikka.
Canara Robeco Mutual Fund plans to come up with Force Fund, which will invest in companies operating in the financial sector, retail sector and entertainment sector. The market fall seems to have brought learning and maturity in the fund houses.
ICICI Prudential’s Target Return Fund will allow investors to withdraw gains at pre-determined triggers at 12 per cent, 20 per cent, 50 per cent and 100 per cent. This means that if the trigger has been fixed at 20 per cent, the fund house will pull out the 20 per cent return as and when the scheme’s NAV hits the target profit of 20 per cent. The remaining amount will, however, remain invested.
While ICICI Pru has launched its scheme, it is cautious. “Though we have launched the scheme now, we will invest the money only after the elections,” said Nilesh Shah, deputy managing Director.
Taliban militants edge closer to Pakistan capital
Emboldened Taliban fighters imposed control over towns and villages closer to Islamabad on Thursday, raising alarm among foreign governments and many in Pakistan that authorities are ceding swaths of the country's heart to Islamic hard-liners.
Authorities dispatched a small paramilitary force from the North-West Frontier Constabulary to the district of Buner, just 60 miles from the capital, where Taliban forces took control of much of the area this week.
But Pakistani news media said the Taliban repulsed the deployment, with unconfirmed reports saying at least one policeman had been killed.
Taliban fighters from the nearby Swat Valley have infiltrated the area, emboldened by a government-sanctioned peace deal allowing them to enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, in the onetime tourist paradise. Since entering Buner, the Taliban has reportedly set up checkpoints, begun patrolling roads and ordered barbershops to stop shaving beards.
In a meeting with tribal elders, Taliban militants agreed to lower their armed presence and not seek vengeance against residents who had resisted their arrival. But the militants said they would not withdraw from Buner.
"We will not leave the area," a Taliban commander, Mufti Bashir, told local journalists.
The moves have prompted some of the roughly 1 million Buner residents to flee, and unsettled observers in Pakistan and abroad who fear the government lacks the will to impose its authority.
The government has tried to downplay the threat to its sovereignty. Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani told reporters in Islamabad that the government would see to it that the peace agreement isn't violated. "The government will not allow anyone to challenge the government," he said in a statement.
But it was uncertain how much force the government was prepared to use. Thursday's limited dispatch of frontier guards, not the army, suggested that Islamabad was still not primed for a fight.
The Obama administration for a second straight day expressed deep concern over the advances by militants and Islamabad's failure to stop them.
"The news over the past several days is very disturbing," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on Islamabad to take "appropriate actions" to stop the insurgents.
"We want to be helpful in any way we can," he said. "But it is important that they recognize the real threats to their country."
Supporters of the Swat deal, hammered out in February after two years of a bloody Islamist insurrection and signed into law by President Zardari just last week, had contended that it would secure peace and even divide militant factions. But any breathing room or disunity was apparently short-lived, if it ever existed.
The militants are "very organized," said Ahmed Rashid, author of "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia." "They're a faction of the main Taliban and they're spreading out from Swat to different valleys."
The Taliban's rule in Swat has been characterized by the burning of girls' schools, the killing and beating of officials who opposed its power, and punishment for unrelated men and women seen together in public.
On Thursday, militants attacked a truck terminal in the city of Peshawar, also in the northwest, and burned five tankers that were transporting fuel to North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan.
A local police official said dozens of attackers set fire to the trucks with gasoline bombs and that security guards fled. The attackers escaped.
Analysts said they didn't expect an immediate push by Taliban forces into Islamabad, saying it was more likely the militants would work to strengthen their grip in surrounding valleys.
In Pakistan's parliament Thursday, many lawmakers blasted the Taliban for its brand of Islam and fretted over its growing clout.
They are in Buner and coming toward the town of Haripur," lawmaker Haider Abbas Rizvi told reporters outside parliament.
"The government needs to take urgent steps and counOpposition lawmakers said Taliban militants were trying to impose their version of Sharia and divide the country along sectarian lines.
But Ilyas Bilour, a senator from North-West Frontier Province, where Swat and Buner are located, blamed inadequate security forces.
"The government should do something, as we have police that are weak and unable to stop the Taliban," he said.
Pakistan has long focused much of its energy and resources on national security, with India traditionally seen as its main threat.
"Everyone and his dog knows this is not a military trained for counterinsurgency," said Mosharraf Zaidi, a political analyst.
Nor is it clear that a political consensus will emerge any time soon on the need to wage a full-on fight against the militants, some of whom reportedly got started with the help of Pakistan's security services.
"People have been waiting for Pakistan's 9/11 moment," Zaidi added. "But this isn't America."
The country is extremely diverse, with a huge range of dialects, languages and traditions, analysts said, making a unified view on something as emotive as fighting Islamic fundamentalism very difficult.
"There's blame at India, Afghanistan, Russia -- basically everyone else," author Rashid said. "The government has its head in the sand. It's very bleak."
Still, trying to win over urban areas filled with cosmopolitan middle-class residents presents a tougher prospect for the Taliban than grabbing and intimidating rural areas.
"You can't possibly think the rest of the country, particularly the urban areas, is going to fall like a house of cards," Zaidi said. "Ultimately I think the country will overcome this. But it's going to get worse first."
The U.S. State Department called for "very decisive and aggressive action" by Islamabad. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who a day earlier described the situation as an "existential threat," said the administration was "deeply concerned by the increasing insurgency that is destabilizing Pakistan."
Also Thursday, Richard C. Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, telephoned Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. A vague statement issued a few hours later said only that the two had discussed security issues and Zardari's upcoming trip to the United States.
Authorities dispatched a small paramilitary force from the North-West Frontier Constabulary to the district of Buner, just 60 miles from the capital, where Taliban forces took control of much of the area this week.
But Pakistani news media said the Taliban repulsed the deployment, with unconfirmed reports saying at least one policeman had been killed.
Taliban fighters from the nearby Swat Valley have infiltrated the area, emboldened by a government-sanctioned peace deal allowing them to enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, in the onetime tourist paradise. Since entering Buner, the Taliban has reportedly set up checkpoints, begun patrolling roads and ordered barbershops to stop shaving beards.
In a meeting with tribal elders, Taliban militants agreed to lower their armed presence and not seek vengeance against residents who had resisted their arrival. But the militants said they would not withdraw from Buner.
"We will not leave the area," a Taliban commander, Mufti Bashir, told local journalists.
The moves have prompted some of the roughly 1 million Buner residents to flee, and unsettled observers in Pakistan and abroad who fear the government lacks the will to impose its authority.
The government has tried to downplay the threat to its sovereignty. Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani told reporters in Islamabad that the government would see to it that the peace agreement isn't violated. "The government will not allow anyone to challenge the government," he said in a statement.
But it was uncertain how much force the government was prepared to use. Thursday's limited dispatch of frontier guards, not the army, suggested that Islamabad was still not primed for a fight.
The Obama administration for a second straight day expressed deep concern over the advances by militants and Islamabad's failure to stop them.
"The news over the past several days is very disturbing," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on Islamabad to take "appropriate actions" to stop the insurgents.
"We want to be helpful in any way we can," he said. "But it is important that they recognize the real threats to their country."
Supporters of the Swat deal, hammered out in February after two years of a bloody Islamist insurrection and signed into law by President Zardari just last week, had contended that it would secure peace and even divide militant factions. But any breathing room or disunity was apparently short-lived, if it ever existed.
The militants are "very organized," said Ahmed Rashid, author of "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia." "They're a faction of the main Taliban and they're spreading out from Swat to different valleys."
The Taliban's rule in Swat has been characterized by the burning of girls' schools, the killing and beating of officials who opposed its power, and punishment for unrelated men and women seen together in public.
On Thursday, militants attacked a truck terminal in the city of Peshawar, also in the northwest, and burned five tankers that were transporting fuel to North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan.
A local police official said dozens of attackers set fire to the trucks with gasoline bombs and that security guards fled. The attackers escaped.
Analysts said they didn't expect an immediate push by Taliban forces into Islamabad, saying it was more likely the militants would work to strengthen their grip in surrounding valleys.
In Pakistan's parliament Thursday, many lawmakers blasted the Taliban for its brand of Islam and fretted over its growing clout.
They are in Buner and coming toward the town of Haripur," lawmaker Haider Abbas Rizvi told reporters outside parliament.
"The government needs to take urgent steps and counOpposition lawmakers said Taliban militants were trying to impose their version of Sharia and divide the country along sectarian lines.
But Ilyas Bilour, a senator from North-West Frontier Province, where Swat and Buner are located, blamed inadequate security forces.
"The government should do something, as we have police that are weak and unable to stop the Taliban," he said.
Pakistan has long focused much of its energy and resources on national security, with India traditionally seen as its main threat.
"Everyone and his dog knows this is not a military trained for counterinsurgency," said Mosharraf Zaidi, a political analyst.
Nor is it clear that a political consensus will emerge any time soon on the need to wage a full-on fight against the militants, some of whom reportedly got started with the help of Pakistan's security services.
"People have been waiting for Pakistan's 9/11 moment," Zaidi added. "But this isn't America."
The country is extremely diverse, with a huge range of dialects, languages and traditions, analysts said, making a unified view on something as emotive as fighting Islamic fundamentalism very difficult.
"There's blame at India, Afghanistan, Russia -- basically everyone else," author Rashid said. "The government has its head in the sand. It's very bleak."
Still, trying to win over urban areas filled with cosmopolitan middle-class residents presents a tougher prospect for the Taliban than grabbing and intimidating rural areas.
"You can't possibly think the rest of the country, particularly the urban areas, is going to fall like a house of cards," Zaidi said. "Ultimately I think the country will overcome this. But it's going to get worse first."
The U.S. State Department called for "very decisive and aggressive action" by Islamabad. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who a day earlier described the situation as an "existential threat," said the administration was "deeply concerned by the increasing insurgency that is destabilizing Pakistan."
Also Thursday, Richard C. Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, telephoned Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. A vague statement issued a few hours later said only that the two had discussed security issues and Zardari's upcoming trip to the United States.
Blast carnage at shrine in Iraq
Aftermath of suicide bombing in Baghdad
Two female suicide bombers have attacked Baghdad's main Shia shrine, killing at least 60 people and injuring 125 others, officials in Iraq say.
The attack happened at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiya area as people gathered for Friday prayers.
It comes a day after 84 people were killed in two separate suicide attacks in Baghdad and Baquba.
Many victims in Baquba and in Baghdad on Friday were Iranian pilgrims and the violence was condemned in Tehran.
Violence fell sharply in the last year and the latest bombing does not change this trend, but it is a worrying development, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad.
'Explosion and fire'
Early reports suggested the attackers had detonated explosives belts near two gates of the revered shrine, which was crowded with worshippers.
The shrine is the Shias' most revered location in the city. Carrying out the attack on a Friday, when the shrine would be crowded with worshippers, was clearly aimed at maximising both the number of casualties and the degree of sectarian provocation involved.
It was attacks like this that helped fuel the cycle of sectarian violence that took many thousands of lives in 2006 and 2007. The past year or more has seen a huge improvement in the security situation.
But deadly suicide attacks seem now to be intensifying once again, raising fears of a return to the bad old days.
Many Iraqis will however be worried that it could be a sign of worse to come when the American troops complete their withdrawal, as they're supposed to do by 2011.
However, a senior Iraqi bomb disposal officer later told Reuters news agency that the suicide attackers had used two leather bags packed with explosives, which they set down among the crowds at two of the gates to the shrine.
"They used sidestreets to get there and this enabled them to avoid checkpoints," said Major-General Jihad al-Jabiri.
The howling of the wounded echoed through a nearby hospital where the victims were admitted, the hallways packed with security forces and anxious family members looking for loved ones, an AFP correspondent reports.
Sabiha Kadhim, 50, had come up from the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniya with her family, four of whom were killed in the blast.
Lying on a stretcher, her head and hand bandaged, she said: "I was near the shrine and suddenly there was a huge explosion and a fire broke out.
"I saw human body parts everywhere."
Qassim Zada, a 62-year-old Iranian pilgrim from Tehran, had come to the shrine with his wife. He now lay in hospital, his clothes soaked in blood.
"I was only a few metres [yards] away from the explosion and I don't know what happened," he said.
The shrine, in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of the capital, has been a target for insurgents in the past.
'Hateful' attack
Around 25 of those killed on Friday were Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi police said.
WEEK OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS
Friday: Baghdad shrine attack kills 60
Thursday: Baquba restaurant attack kills 56, Baghdad street bomber kills 28
Wednesday: Bomber kills five in Dhuluiya
Monday: Bomber kills three policemen in Baquba
Most of the 56 people now known to have been killed when a suicide bomber blew up a restaurant in Baquba, Diyala Province, on Thursday were also Iranian pilgrims.
On the same day, a suicide bomber infiltrated a crowd of displaced families in Baghdad as they received supplies from police, detonating an explosives belt and killing 28 people.
At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani - the influential Iranian cleric and former president - condemned Thursday's attack on pilgrims.
"The incident yesterday was a very, very hateful example of those who harm religion in the name of religion," he said in a sermon broadcast live by Iranian radio.
"We feel sorry for the Iraqi people because such corrupt groups have penetrated into Iraq. We also criticise America for not having the serious will to preserve Iraq's security."
Meanwhile, new statistics from Iraq's health ministry say that since 2005 when violence worsened more than 87,000 Iraqis have been killed.
The figures are based on hospital and mortuary records and are seen as significant given the heated and highly politicised debate over the human cost of the war in Iraq, our correspondent says.
Two female suicide bombers have attacked Baghdad's main Shia shrine, killing at least 60 people and injuring 125 others, officials in Iraq say.
The attack happened at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiya area as people gathered for Friday prayers.
It comes a day after 84 people were killed in two separate suicide attacks in Baghdad and Baquba.
Many victims in Baquba and in Baghdad on Friday were Iranian pilgrims and the violence was condemned in Tehran.
Violence fell sharply in the last year and the latest bombing does not change this trend, but it is a worrying development, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad.
'Explosion and fire'
Early reports suggested the attackers had detonated explosives belts near two gates of the revered shrine, which was crowded with worshippers.
The shrine is the Shias' most revered location in the city. Carrying out the attack on a Friday, when the shrine would be crowded with worshippers, was clearly aimed at maximising both the number of casualties and the degree of sectarian provocation involved.
It was attacks like this that helped fuel the cycle of sectarian violence that took many thousands of lives in 2006 and 2007. The past year or more has seen a huge improvement in the security situation.
But deadly suicide attacks seem now to be intensifying once again, raising fears of a return to the bad old days.
Many Iraqis will however be worried that it could be a sign of worse to come when the American troops complete their withdrawal, as they're supposed to do by 2011.
However, a senior Iraqi bomb disposal officer later told Reuters news agency that the suicide attackers had used two leather bags packed with explosives, which they set down among the crowds at two of the gates to the shrine.
"They used sidestreets to get there and this enabled them to avoid checkpoints," said Major-General Jihad al-Jabiri.
The howling of the wounded echoed through a nearby hospital where the victims were admitted, the hallways packed with security forces and anxious family members looking for loved ones, an AFP correspondent reports.
Sabiha Kadhim, 50, had come up from the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniya with her family, four of whom were killed in the blast.
Lying on a stretcher, her head and hand bandaged, she said: "I was near the shrine and suddenly there was a huge explosion and a fire broke out.
"I saw human body parts everywhere."
Qassim Zada, a 62-year-old Iranian pilgrim from Tehran, had come to the shrine with his wife. He now lay in hospital, his clothes soaked in blood.
"I was only a few metres [yards] away from the explosion and I don't know what happened," he said.
The shrine, in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of the capital, has been a target for insurgents in the past.
'Hateful' attack
Around 25 of those killed on Friday were Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi police said.
WEEK OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS
Friday: Baghdad shrine attack kills 60
Thursday: Baquba restaurant attack kills 56, Baghdad street bomber kills 28
Wednesday: Bomber kills five in Dhuluiya
Monday: Bomber kills three policemen in Baquba
Most of the 56 people now known to have been killed when a suicide bomber blew up a restaurant in Baquba, Diyala Province, on Thursday were also Iranian pilgrims.
On the same day, a suicide bomber infiltrated a crowd of displaced families in Baghdad as they received supplies from police, detonating an explosives belt and killing 28 people.
At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani - the influential Iranian cleric and former president - condemned Thursday's attack on pilgrims.
"The incident yesterday was a very, very hateful example of those who harm religion in the name of religion," he said in a sermon broadcast live by Iranian radio.
"We feel sorry for the Iraqi people because such corrupt groups have penetrated into Iraq. We also criticise America for not having the serious will to preserve Iraq's security."
Meanwhile, new statistics from Iraq's health ministry say that since 2005 when violence worsened more than 87,000 Iraqis have been killed.
The figures are based on hospital and mortuary records and are seen as significant given the heated and highly politicised debate over the human cost of the war in Iraq, our correspondent says.
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