He was a member of the CPI(M)Politburo from the time of the party’s founding in 1964 until 2008.

From 2008 until his death in 2010 he remained a permanent invitee to the central committee of the party. On his death,he was the last of the founding Politburo members of Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Jyoti Basu was born on 8 July, 1914 in an upper middle-class Bengali family in Calcutta (Kolkata). His father, Nishikanta Basu, was a doctor from the village of Bardi in Narayanganj District, East Bengal (now in Bangladesh), while his mother Hemalata Basu was a housewife. Basu’s schooling started at Loreto School at Dharmatala, Calcutta (Kolkata), in 1920. It was there where his father shortened his name and he became Jyoti Basu. However he was moved to St. Xavier’s School in 1925. Basu completed his undergraduate education and received the honours in English from the Hindu College (renamed the Presidency College in 1855).

After completing his undergraduate studies in 1935, Basu set for England for higher studies of Law. Young Jyoti Basu was perusing to crack the elite ICS examination but the destiny had some other things to offer. It is said that Basu attended lectures of Harold Laski at the London School of Economics in late 1930. It was in England that Basu was introduced to the activities of politics through the Communist Party of Great Britain. There he was inspired by noted Communist Philosopher and prolific writer Rajani Palme Dutt. In 1940 he completed his studies and qualified as a Barrister at the Middle Temple. In the same year he returned to India. In 1944 Basu becameinvolved in trade union activities when CPI delegated him to work amongst the railway labourers. When B.N. Railway Workers Union and B.D. Rail Road Workers Union merged, Basu became the general secretary of the union.

Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. She noted that at least local government structures remained after the 2004 tsunami hit Indonesia’s Aceh province, but in Haiti, the town of Leogane, for example, had lost all its public services in the earthquake.

The earthquake “has decapitated the city,” said Byrs, pointing out that this made coordination of aid efforts all the more difficult. Byrs had earlier said that a UN assessment team surveying towns to the west of Port-au-Prince found that up to 90 per cent of the buildings in Leogane had been damaged or destroyed by Tuesday’s 7.0 magnitude quake.

“No local government infrastructure remains,” she said.Around 2,40,000 people are estimated to have died in the massive earthquake that hit Haiti.

The Haitian government has said that while 40,000 people have been buried, at least a hundred thousand are still under the rubble.

Authorities have also said that the main concern now is that desperation is turning to violence.

There are reports of gangs of robbers preying on survivors desperately awaiting aid. Police are being rushed to the areas from where reports of robberies are coming in.

Some looting broke out in downtown Port-au-Prince, with a body burned and at least two shots fired. Three days after the earthquake, governments across the world were pouring relief supplies and medical teams into the quake-hit Caribbean state, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.

But due to huge logistical hurdles, including a clogged airport and badly damaged port, and the sheer scale of the destruction, the aid was not yet reaching the victims.

Until quite recently, the world’s fastestgrowing big economies both felt themselves largely immune from the contagion afflicting the rich world. Optimists even hoped that these huge emerging markets might provide the engines that could pull the world out of recession.

Now some fear the reverse: that the global downturn is going to drag China and India down with it, bringing massive unemployment to two countries that are, for all their success,still poor-India is home to some two-fifths of the world’s malnourished children.

The pessimism may be overdone. These are still the most dynamic parts of the world economy.But both countries face daunting economic and political difficulties. In India’s case, its newly positive self-image has suffered a double blow: from the economic buffeting,and from the bullets of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai last year. As our special report makes clear,

India’s recent self-confidence had two roots. One was a sustained spurt in economic growth to a five-year annual average of 8.8%.The other was the concomitant rise in India’s global stature and influence. No longer, its politicians gloated, was India “hyphenated” with Pakistan as one half of a potential nuclear maelstrom. Rather it had become part of “Chindia”-a fast-growing success story.

The Mumbai attacks, blamed on terrorist groups based in Pakistan and bringing calls for punitive military action, have revived fears of regional conflict. A hyphen has reappeared over India’s western border, just as the scale of the economic setback hitting India is becoming apparent. Exports in October fell by 12% compared with the same month last year; hundreds of small textile firms have gone out of business; even some of the stars of Indian manufacturing of recent years, in the automotive industry, have suspended production.

The central bank has revised its estimate of economic growth this year downwards, to 7.5-8%, which is still optimistic. Next year the rate may well fall to 5.5% or less, the lowest since 2002.

“21st Grand Slam final, 11th win.The beauty of continually putting the hard work day in and day out in the gym or on the track when you’re not feeling great, these are the things you play for,” Paes said after lifting the Australian Open mixed doubles title at Melbourne Park with Zimbabwean Cara Black.

Paes and Black beat Russian Ekaterina Makarova and Czech Jaroslav Levinsky 7-5, 6-3 to lift their second title together. With this, Paes equalled one-time partner Mahesh Bhupathi’s record for most Grand Slam titles by an Indian.

“I’m a student of life; I’m a student of tennis. It keeps teaching me about getting better. If Roger Federer can keep improving,I think all of us can still improve, as well,” Paes said.

With this triumph,Paes also kept a promise he had made to Black.

Paes and Black had made back-toback Grand Slam finals – the US Open and the Wimbledon – last season but lost both times and Black said the Indian had promised to win the Australian Open.

“We talked about it last year.He promised. He made a promise to me we were going to get this one. He’s good at getting keeping his promises,” Black said.

Reflecting on Sunday’s win, Paes said he and Black were better in court
coverage as compared to their rivals.

“I think that just our expertise and the way we play doubles, the way we cover the right shots at the right time,and the fact we keep bringing it to our opponents.

“Even if they break us once, even if they break us twice, even if they break us three times, they’re going to have toplay exceptional tennis throug the whole match to win. I think that’s what won it for us in the semis really, which was a real tough match.

“That’s what won it for us today, is that our individual play, our instincts are very well matched well together,” he added. Paes said he and Black also capitalised on errors made by Makarova and Levinsky.

In an interview to Ramananda Sengupta, Dr Abraham says events like the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (being held in Chennai January 7-9 this year) helps Indians abroad connect with their motherland India, but much more needs to be done.

GOPIO Convention 2009 theme is “Critical Issues of Interest and Concern to NRIs and PIOs.” The program will start with GOPIO Regional Vice Presidents and Chapter Presidents providing reports from different regions of the world to alert the larger GOPIO crowd on important issues or concerns to that region. Four conference sessions will follow.These are NRI/PIO Parents Coping at Home and Abroad, NRI/PIO Contributions to Projects in Respective Homelands, Business and Investment Challenges and Opportunities in a Global Financial Crisis Scenario and finally Current Economic and Non-Economic Issues Confronting NRIs/PIOs. We will pass resolutions on issues NRIs/PIOs as well as those oflarger interest.

GOPIO cooperates with PBD in many ways,and speakers at various sessions to bring out the issues of NRIs/PIOs to the attention of Government of India and state governments.We also publicize PBD events to all its members. GOPIO holds its convention before the PBD so that we could discuss various issues before PBD starts. These issues keep in changing with time and GOPIO meeting every year provides a great platform for NRIs/PIOs to come together and discuss them in depth before the PBD. We present the resolutions passed at the GOPIO meeting to the government of India.

This anomalous situation is the results of the flawed electoral system of ‘first past the post” embodied in the provisions of the Sections 65 and 66 of the Representation of the People Act 1951 and Rule 64 of the Conduct of Election Rules 1961. These are at variance with the  nstitional provision for choosing MP and MLAs. Whereas Articles 81 and 170 requires them to be chosen from the constituency, the Act and the rules provide that the candidate getting the highest number of votes hall be declared elected.There is a world of difference between the two. Whereas, the can candidates getting the highest number of votes may be said to be elected by the voters who voted for him, he cannot be said to be chosen by the constituency unless he has the support of majority voters of the constituency, or at least the majority of voters exercising their right of franchise. The word “choose” denotes a single entity doing it. When a group has to choose, it has to choose as if the group is one entity. Choosing does not fracture the chooser while electing fractures the elector. That is why if choosing is being done by a group, it has to be by consensus,or by a clear majority.

The word “suffrage” finding place in Article 326 of the Constitution also guides us in the same direction. Suffrage does not go comfortably with the first past the post system. As per the Oxford Dictionary, when used in the context of a group, the word suffrage means “the collective vote of a body of persons” and “the collective opinion of a body pf person, hence contextually, consensus of opinion (common and general) consent”.

Thus, as a results of the faulty unconstitional provision in the Act and the Rules the so called public representatives are not chosen by their constituency, but generally represent only the will of minority of the voters casting their votes,and not the will of the electorate of their constituency, or even of those exercising their right of franchise.

Moreover, to equate those getting less than 50% votes polled with those who polled more than 50% votes is also not legally correct and proper as according to the well settled law laid down by the Apex Court eating unequal as equal is also violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.

In the existing electoral system the member of seats won by a party has also no correlation with the percentage of votes polled by it. Hence the number of seats won by a party is not a true index of its popularity among the voters and, therefore does not reflect correctly the will of the people. The existing system of first past the post is faulty for this reason also. Thus, it is also violative of Article 19(1) of the Constitution as it stifles the will and voices of the majority of we the People. The expression “freedom of speech and expression” which in the case of Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, has been given the meaning to include citizens’ right to know the antecedents of the candidates will certainly include right to be represented in Lok Sabha and State Assembly. The MP/MLAs look after the interest of their voters only and the vast majority of the voters who do not vote for them have no voice in Parliament and Assembly. Thus the present system is against the basic structure of the Constitution as it amounts to negation of democracy and also fails to ensure free and fair elections,which is the basic requirement of democracy. As held by the Apex Court in 2001 7 SCC 126 “Parliamentary democracy envisages representation of the People” ( which is missing at present) and “the legitimacy of the law would be to ensure that the role of the political sovereign- the People is not undermined” (which the existing provisions fail to ensure),Instead it gives undue weight age to the dominant caste/community and fosters and reinforces divisive tendencies of castes and minorityism instead of checking them as emphasized recently by the Apex Court.

Mr. Subodh Kant Sahai, Minister of Food Processing Industries, Govt. of India in his inaugural address said, “Government has approved the scheme for the establishmentof Mega Food Parks, for which Rs.50 crore worth grant would be provided by the Central Government for each Mega Food Park. We will set up 10 such Mega Food Parks initially, out of the total proposed 30 Mega Food Parks during the 11th Plan period.

Storage and logistics of the agri-produce is another major challenge. World over logistics cost of entire processing chain works out to be 6% of the  product cost in case of India it is as high as 11%.He hoped that this cost would be brought down.

Maharashtra State had played a vital role in India’s success story during last decade. Maharashtra is the first State in India to formulate new Industrial policy, ITES policy, BioTech Policy, Township Policy and now new IT Policy, said Mr. Ashok Chavan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra in his keynote address.Maharashtra has led Industrial development and investment in India and consolidated its position as the most favoured investment destination of the country.

Age of Red tapism in the State is now over and we welcome all investors with Red Carpet. Our efforts are towards providing more quality infrastructures, improve quality of services and Governance to have an edge over the other States, said the Chief Minister.

3 Idiots received generally positive reviews. Subhash K. Jha (film critic and author of The Essential Guide to Bollywood)states: “It’s not that 3 Idiots is a flawless work of art. But it is a vital, inspiring and life-revising work of contemporary art with some heart imbued into every part. In a country where students are driven to suicide by their impossible curriculum, 3 Idiots provides hope. Maybe cinema can’t save lives. But cinema, sure as hell, can make you feel life is worth living. 3 Idiots does just that, and much more. The director takes the definition of entertainment into directions of social commentwithout assuming that he knows best.”

Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India gave it four and a half stars and suggests that, “The film is a laugh riot, despite being
high on fundas [...] Hirani carries forward his simplistic `humanism alone works’philosophy of the Lage Raho Munna Bhai series in 3 Idiots too, making it a warmand vivacious signature tune to 2009. The second half of the film does falter in parts, specially the child birth sequence, but it doesn’t take long for the film to jump back on track.”

Mayank Shekhar of the Hindustan Times gave the film three and a half out of four stars and comments that this “this is the sort of movie you’ll take home with a smile and a song on your lips.”