Dynamic friends

The first phase of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections recorded 58-62 percent voter turnout but was marred by large-scale Maoist violence that claimed the lives of 19 people, including 10 police personnel, the Election Commission said Thursday.
Giving preliminary statistics compiled from 15 states and two union territories where over 143 million people were eligible to vote in the first round, a poll panel official said that the voting percentage ranged from a low 46 percent in Bihar to a high 86 in Lakshadweep island. Nagaland also witnessed a high turnout of 84 percent.
"By and large the elections were peaceful. Overall poll percentage was between 58 to 62 percent. Considering the complexities and difficulties, the elections were largely peaceful," Deputy Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan said here after the day's balloting ended.
He said there were sporadic incidents of violence blamed on Maoists in some states - Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand - that left 19 people dead, including nine civilians and 10 policemen, and many more injured.
"There were incidences of attacks on police personnel, poll personnel and polling stations. The central police forces and the state police force handled it very affectively," Balakrishnan said.
Images: India goes to pollsMaoists had called for poll boycott in some states and warned that they would chop off the hands of those who went to vote.
Balakrishnan praised the security personnel for their "commendable job" in tackling the Maoist violence.
He said the five-phase elections were designed keeping in mind the "problems and challenges".
He said the picture would be clear late Thursday night or Friday morning.
Among the states that witnessed high polling percent were Lakshadweep (86 percent), Nagaland (84 percent) Manipur (in the range of 66 to 68 percent), Andhra Pradesh (65 percent), Orissa (63 percent) Arunachal Pradesh (62 percent), Meghalaya (65 percent), Assam (62 percent), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (62 percent), Kerala (over 60 percent), Mizoram (52 percent).
Balakrishnan said there could be slight change in the figure in Uttar Pradesh, but the tentative figure was put out between 48 to 50 percent.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the turnout was 48 percent, while in Maharashtra it was 54 percent. "Jammu and Kashmir elections were peaceful and the voting percentage jumped from 44.9 percent in 2004 to 48 percent in 2009," he said.
Polling in violence-hit Chhattisgarh was 51 percent, in Jharkhand 50 percent and in Bihar 46 percent.
Kandhamal district in Orissa, which had witnessed large-scale violence against Christians last year, recorded a tentative percent of 65 percent, the poll panel said.
To minimise violence in Maoist affected areas, the Commission had made changes in the locations of polling booths, poll timing as well as deployment of security personnel, Balakrishnan said.
He said 71 polling stations witnessed Maoist violence, while 86 saw "various types of disturbances". The total number of polling stations was 185,552. Another 76,000 polling stations faced Maoist threat, he said.
Special: Lok Sabha Polls 2009
Violence was witnessed in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. Seven states were free of incidents of violence - Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, Balakrishnan added

MUZAFFARPUR (BIHAR): A criminal case was filed in a court
here on Thursday accusing Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and off-spinner
Harbhajan Singh with 'hurting' fans by staying away from the Padma awards function. Dhoni and Bhajji were to be honoured with the Padma Shree by President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi on Tuesday. Senior advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha filed the case in the court of the CJM Ramdarash seeking to book the cricketers under sections 499 (defamation), 500 (punishment for defamation), 503 (criminal intimidation) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace). Ojha alleged that the two cricketers insulted fans and dishonoured the prestigious award by staying away from the function. The petition is likely to come up for hearing tomorrow, he said

NEW DELH: Deepak Bhardwaj of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Thursday filed his nominations papers from the West Delhi constituency, declaring assets worth a whopping Rs 600 crore. Bhardwaj is the richest candidate, so far, for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections surpassing the previous richest candidate who had declared assets worth Rs 514 crore. Interestingly, the candidate who belongs to Mayawati's party came on a tractor that he uses on his farmland, to the Rampura election office in West Delhi to file his nomination. The 58-year-old tycoon owns businesses in real estate, hotels and education. He runs a school in Dwarka and plans to open two more schools- one in Dwarka and the other in Dhansa, both in West Delhi. A resident of Lajwanti Garden in West Delhi, Bhardwaj also owns a township project called Deepganga in Hardwar and a hotel called Niteshpunj Hotel Complex on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. Earlier this week, the previous richest LS candidate, a Mumbai-based businessman, filed his nomination as an Independent from Surendranagar. Khimji Patadia, 53, has declared assets worth Rs 514 crore, mainly in jewellery and real estate. Besides Patadia, Bhardwaj beats candidates like the Congress’s L Rajagopal from Vijaywada (Rs 299 crore), the BSP’s Karan Singh Tanwar from South Delhi (Rs 150 crore) and the SP’s Abu Azmi from Mumbai NW (Rs 122 crore).

Infosys Technologies has announced its fourth quarter numbers. Its Q4 FY09 net profit dipped 1.7% at Rs 1,613 crore as against Rs 1,641 crore on quarter-on-quarter basis.
It reported a decline of 2.61% in revenues at Rs 5,635 crore as against Rs 5,786 crore QoQ.
Also read: Infosys Q4 net profit down 1.7% at Rs 1,613cr
Guidance for Q1 and FY10
The company is likely to report Q1 FY10 revenues at Rs 5,379-5,480 crore, while EPS is seen at Rs 23.55/share. The company guided for 16% drop in Q1 EPS on QoQ basis.
The company is expecting FY10 revenues to decline by 3.1-6.7% in dollar terms while increase in revenues by 1.7-5.7% in rupee terms. It is seeing EPS for full year FY10 at Rs 96.65-101.18 a share versus Rs 104.43 in FY09. Its FY10 EPS for ADS is seen down by 11-15%.
Infosys disappoints
Rupee guidance: Below estimates
Dollar guidance: Below estimates
Rupee Q4: In line with estimates
Dollar Q4: Missed estimates
Revenues: Down against estimates
Margins: Under pressure
Offshore rates down 4.5%
Commenting on the outlook, Infosys COO said the pricing environment continues to be challenging. The company management added that the environment is challenging as clients are facing tough times. With nearly 70% of its clients cutting their IT budget by over 10%, the situation looks grim, the company added.
The management feels that the guidance will be flat to marginally negative in constant currency terms. The company sees its operating margins to fall by 300 bps while its net profit margins are likely to fall by 200 bps. It sees an average drop in prices to be around 6–6.5%. The reason for de-growth, the management said, was the delay in decision-making.
With regard to wages and hiring, the management made clear that there will neither be a hike nor a cut in wages, but job cuts are planned in FY10

Lucknow (IANS): Samajwadi Party (SP) general secretary and Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt has been booked for violating the model code of conduct by allegedly making an inflammatory speech in Uttar Pradesh's Mau district, an official said Wednesday.
"A case against Dutt was registered Tuesday night after he made communal remarks at a public meeting," district police chief Ram Bharose told IANS on phone.
The meeting to garner support for the Samajwadi Party's Ghosi parliamentary seat candidate Arshad Jamal Ansari was held in the Dakshintola locality of Mau, about 300 km from here.
According to the police, Dutt claimed that police harrassed him in jail because his mother was a Muslim. Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and MP Jaya Bachchan were also present at the meeting.
"After seeing the video footage of the public meeting, the district authorities directed us to register the case against Dutt," said Bharose.
The CD of the public meeting where Dutt made the offensive remarks has been forwarded to the State Election Commission (SEC) for further action.

Failure to control type 2 diabetes may lead to poorer memory and diminished brain power, a new study has found.
Diabetes could lead to diminished brain power (Getty Images)According to University of Edinburgh team, severe hypoglycaemic episodes - hypos - occur when blood sugar levels drop dangerously low. Hypoglycaemia is caused by a lack of sugar (glucose) reaching the brain, which uses it as fuel. Its symptoms include sweating, fatigue, hunger, feeling dizzy, feeling weak, a higher heart rate than usual and blurred vision More severe episodes can led to temporary loss of consciousness, convulsions and coma. Now, in the latest study, researchers recruited 1,066 people with type 2 diabetes aged between 60 and 75. The study was presented at a conference of the charity Diabetes UK. To reach the conclusion, volunteers were given seven tests assessing mental abilities such as memory, logic and concentration. The 113 people who had previously experienced severe hypos scored lower than the rest of the group. They performed poorly in tests of their general mental ability, and vocabulary. "Either hypos lead to cognitive decline, or cognitive decline makes it more difficult for people to manage their diabetes, which in turn causes more hypos,” The BBC quoted lead researcher Dr Jackie Price, as saying. "A third explanation could be that a third unidentified factor is causing both the hypos and the cognitive decline. We are carrying out more research to establish which explanation is the most likely,” the expert added

Pays Rs 31 Cr As Income-Tax, Supercedes Shah Rukh By 0.01 Cr
---------------------------------------------------------------------
New Delhi: Top Bollywood stars seem to have beaten the economic slowdown to post handsome growth in their advance tax payments. Not only did the top 10 earners pay 17.7% more in taxes than the previous year, the industry also threw up a new ‘Hero No.1’. Akshay Kumar, who paid a whopping Rs 31 crore to the I-T department, narrowly pipped Shah Rukh Khan (Rs 30.99 crore) to the title of Bollywood’s highest tax payer of the year 2008-09. The Top 10 Bollywood stars together paid Rs 107 crore as taxes while the same set had paid Rs 90.90 crore in 2007-08, when the economic boom was at its peak. The other two Khans — Salman and Saif Ali — were at number three and four having paid Rs 14 crore and Rs 8.6 crore, respectively. As far as taxes go, Bollywood industry’s Jodi No.1 was Saif Ali and his girlfriend Kareena Kapoor, who herself was placed at No.7 with a deposit of Rs 3.7 crore into the tax kitty. The duo clearly beat theBachchans, Abhishek and Aishwarya, who stood at No.8 and No.6, respectively. Surprisingly, yesteryear superstar Rajesh Khanna continues to be among Bollywood’s big tax payers, coming in at No.5 after paying Rs 6.87 cr, ahead of Big B (Rs 1.25 cr) who slipped to the 10th rank from No.7 last year. Khanna had paid Rs 11.90 crore last year, the thirdhighest sum after after SRK and Akshay Kumar

Hyderabad: Banjara Hills police on Tuesday seized Rs 5 lakh in cash from an election campaigning vehicle of TRS’ Medak Lok Sabha candidate Vijayashanti at Kamalapuri Colony. At about 7 pm, police intercepted a Tata Safari (AP9 EX T/R 5299) as part of the vehicle-checking exercise at Kamalapuri Colony. During the inspection, police found bundles of currency amounting to Rs five lakh in the handbag of one K Srinivasa Rao, 39, who was sitting in the rear seat of the vehicle, B a n j a r a Hills inspector of police Iqbal Siddiqi said. Srinivasa Rao is a m a ke - u p artiste from Avanti Nagar in Erragadda. As he could not give proper explanation for the source of the money, police seized the cash and the vehicle under section 102 (power of police to seize certain property) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). During investigation, police found that the vehicle belonged to one Jayanthi Rao of Goshamahal and the returning officer of the Medak parliamentary constituency had issued permission to use the vehicle for campaigning purposes of Vijayashanti or her agent. In a related development, the enforcement wing of the Dhoolpet excise police station, raided a house in Upper Dhoolpet and seized 148 beer bottles and 40 Bagpiper whisky bottles worth Rs 20,000. The officials arrested one Ashok and booked cases against him, said excise superintendent K Satyanarayan

Campaign For 22 LS, 154 Assembly Seats Ends Hyderabad: Candidates literally rolled through the constituencies in their vehicles as campaigning ended at 4 pm on Tuesday for the first phase of elections in Andhra Pradesh scheduled for Thursday, April 16. Polling will take place for 22 Lok Sabha and 154 assembly seats in the first phase. Strangely, neither national nor regional issues figured in the campaigning by the major parties unlike in the 2004 elections when Telangana was projected as a major issue. This time around, all the major players mentioned free power in the early part of the campaigning, but as polling nears, have limited themselves to shouting from rooftops about the sops they are offering. If it were the development schemes on the Congress side, the grand alliance trumpeted the cash transfer scheme and free colour TV offer. Of the four main leaders, the fate of only one of them, TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao contesting for the Mahabubnagar Lok Sabha seat, will be sealed in the first phase. Chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and PRP chief Chiranjeevi will take on their assembly opponents in the second phase to be held on April 23. While KCR ended the campaign by touring the city on Tuesday, the other three leaders preferred to concentrate on campaigning in those constituencies going to polls in the second phase. Campaigning in the coastal region, the chief minister, Naidu and Chiranjeevi landed in Visakhapatnam by the evening and were closeted with their party leaders devising strategies to win the Vizag Lok Sabha seat. Union minister and Congress candidate D Purandeshwari, TDP’s M V V S Murthy, PRP’s P Srinivas Yadav and BJP’s D V Subba Rao are locked in a fourcornered contest in Vizag LS seat. In fact, the three leaders stayed in the same hotel in the port city while chalking out the strategy for the second phase of elections. The mood was upbeat in both the Congress and the grand alliance camps. Congress sources said the development schemes initiated by the chief minister, including the housing, health and pension schemes should easily carry through the Congress. In the Telugu Desam Party camp, the leaders were confident that the cash transfer and free colour TV offer should swing the electorate in favour of the grand alliance. The PRP too, which has been plagued by desertions and allegations of selling tickets for money, too remained optimistic about its chances with their leaders claiming that Chiru would get simple majority. But what none of the political parties were admitting was the role that money and liquor would play from Tuesday till the morning of polling. “Over the next two nights, our job is to distribute money and liquor and ensure that the voters are brought to the polling booths on Thursday. The real clandestine war between the parties to woo the voters will become full-scale tonight,” said the poll manager of a political party. Last-Minute Efforts Cut No Ice With Voters Hyderabad: On Tuesday, the last day of the campaign, candidates belonging to different political parties were seen making lastminute efforts to reach out to as many voters as possible just before the EC deadline of 4 pm. But Telugu Desam Party TDP didate from Khairatabad K Vijayarama Rao got a hot dressing down from a voter. Talking on his mobile, he entered Bandlines along with his followers. Seeing a 70-year-old woman, he stopped and ended his phone call. Once his gaze fell on the name-plate identifying the householder as F Anthony, Vijayarama Rao picked up conversation with her in English and said: “I am Vijayarama Rao, TDP candidate from this constituency. I request you to vote for our party.” He even stepped into the woman’s house after being egged on by his followers and started explaining to the Anthony family how the Congress, after promising that all the houses in the basti would be regularised, had backtracked. But to Vijayarama Rao’s discomfiture, Kalara Anthony shouted: “It was TDP that traumatised us. Why did you come here only two days before the election? What is your motto? Five years ago, it was the TDP government that had sent truck loads of police to evict us. It was I who fought with the officials to give up the idea of evicting us from here. At least the present government made efforts to regularise our houses and we are told that the work is almost over. There is no way we will vote for you.” An embarrassed Rao tried to explain to her that the Himayatnagar division was earlier not part of the Khairatabad constituency. Seeing an unconvinced Anthony, he had to make a hasty retreat. In other areas the oncebitten-twice-shy Rao just breezed past declining invitations from families to come inside. In another instance, Congress candidate from Jubilee Hills P Vishnuvardhan Reddy was seen waving his hand at all households though no one came out at police quarters in Yousufguda. At Motinagar crossroads under the Kukatpally constituency, TRS candidate M Sudarshan Rao perhaps had doubts about party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao’s crowd-pulling ability at the scheduled public meeting in the area. So, to catch attention of voters, he roped in drama artistes dressed in mythological characters like Krishna, Rama, Hanuman, etc. armed with bows and arrows. After concluding his campaign at Ramnagar in Musheerabad, KCR took part in road shows in Kukatpally, Qutbullapur and Musheerabad constituencies. During his whirlwind campaign, K Chandrasekhar Rao was seen waving to people from inside his campaign vehicle. He addressed meetings at Motinagar and Musheerabad. “There is very little time left for me to go to other constituencies as it is already 3.15 pm. Partymen will be disappointed if I do not visit their constituencies,” said KCR during his speech at Ramnagar. Though he tried to race against time he could not cover Sanathnagar, Nampally from where TRS candidates are contesting.