Passengers onboard the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express had a miraculous escape when seven of its coaches and the engine derailed near Gaya station following an explosion triggered by suspected Maoists late Monday night, police said.

There was no casualty or serious injury, Gaya district Superintendent of Police Sushil Khopde said, adding none of the derailed bogies fell on its side which possibly was the reason why no casualty took place.

A major disaster was averted as the train was moving at a very slow speed. The seven coaches which jumped the track did not crash because of the slow speed. The train was travelling at 75 km per hour, a restriction put on all night trains in the area fearing trouble during the naxal bandh. The down route has now been restored, and all trains coming from the north to the eastern regions of the country are using this track.

Sanjay Saraogi, a passenger of the D-3 coach, one of the seven derailed bogies, told PTI that none of the passengers were harmed in the incident.

Passengers were taken to Mughalsarai by a rescue train from where a special train was arranged to send them to New Delhi, the railway sources said.

"We heard the sound of a blast, but to my knowledge no harm has been caused to the passengers in the affected bogies," he said from the spot, about 15 km from Gaya station.
    
The explosive planted in the tracks between Kasta and Paraiya stations went off shortly after the train left Gaya station, Khopde said, adding a medical team with rescue train was sent to the spot.

The impact of the blast caused a 4-feet-wide crater twisting the railway tracks completely. It's evident that the Maoists used powerful explosives which were planted in the section between Kasta and Paraiya stations near Gaya. The driver and passengers say they heard a loud explosion soon after the train left Gaya station. Hearing the sound of the blast, the driver applied the brakes.

The spot of the explosion is under Gaya-Mughalsarai section of the East Central Railway.

The 48-hour bandh has been called by the CPI (Maoist) in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and three districts of Maharashtra to protest against the 'Operation Green Hunt' launched against them.
 

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There has been an upsurge in hiring of non-resident Indians and expats by companies in the country in the past two years, thanks to improved infrastructure and competitive compensation levels, experts say.

"In last two years, most of the companies are hiring non-resident Indians (NRIs) and expats because there is an increase in demand for such skilled professionals," executive search firm GlobalHunt India Director Sunil Goel said.

Echoing similar opinion, executive search firm EMA Partners International Managing Partner - India K Sudarshan said: "Over the last few years expats are more than happy to come to India largely because of the fact that Indian companies are globalising, people now want to be part of the India growth story and compensation level is very competitive."

Elaborating the reason behind the surge, Goel said: "Of late, infrastructure in India has improved a lot. Compensation levels have become competitive as per the cost of living and good availability of healthcare and education services are attracting most NRIs to look back at opportunities in their own country."

Besides, the slow recovery of western markets has forced a large pool of NRIs and expats to look for opportunities outside and here India tops the list. Any positive movement towards global recovery will give a boost to a company's operating earnings from India, Goel added.

According to GlobalHunt India those segments which registered the maximum number of expats hiring include banking and financial services, automobile, infrastructure, pharma and retail.

The appointment of expats in the automobile space has increased nearly three-fold, while, in technology centres of banking and financial services companies, hiring has increased to five to six times.

Giving details, Goel added hiring in infrastructure sector has increased 10 times and for pharma and life sciences it has increased five times and in the retail and supply chain space it has risen nearly 40 per cent. 
 

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A graduate student from Andhra Pradesh has been shot dead during a robbery at an Oklahoma grocery store where he was working part-time.

G Prasanth had left his home in Santosh Nagar, Hyderabad, in January, to study Science at the Oklahoma State University. He was shot dead at 7 pm on Sunday night. 

The police has yet to determine why Prasanth was killed during the armed robbery. His friends at his college reportedly informed his family of his death.

Prasanth had quit the merchant navy in India for higher studies abroad.

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Summoned to success by President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled Congress approved historic legislation Sunday night extending health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and cracking down on insurance company abuses, a climactic chapter in the century-long quest for near universal coverage.

"This is what change looks like," Obama said a few moments later in televised remarks that stirred memories of his 2008 campaign promise of "change we can believe in."

Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the House on a 219-212 vote. Republicans were unanimous in opposition, joined by 34 dissident Democrats.

A second, smaller measure -- making changes in the first -- cleared the House shortly before midnight and was sent to the Senate, where Democratic leaders said they had the votes necessary to pass it quickly. The vote was 220-211.

Obama's young presidency received a badly needed boost as a deeply divided Congress passed legislation touching the lives of nearly every American. The battle for the future of the health insurance system -- affecting one-sixth of the economy -- galvanized Republicans and conservative activists looking ahead to November's midterm elections.

Far beyond the political ramifications -- a concern the president repeatedly insisted he paid no mind -- were the sweeping changes the bill held in store for Americans, insured or not, as well as the insurance industry and health care providers that face either smaller than anticipated payments from Medicare or higher taxes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation awaiting the president's approval would extend coverage to 32 million Americans who lack it, ban insurers from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and cut deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade. If realized, the expansion of coverage would include 95 percent of all eligible individuals under age 65.

For the first time, most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, and face penalties if they refused. Much of the money in the bill would be devoted to subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year pay their premiums.

The second measure, which House Democrats demanded before agreeing to approve the first, included enough money to close a gap in the Medicare prescription drug coverage over the next decade, starting with an election-season rebate of $250 later this year for seniors facing high costs.

Much of the cost would be covered by the pharmaceutical industry, which made a deal months ago with the White House in which it pledged to spend lavishly on television ads to help pass the bill.

It also included sweeping changes in the student loan program, an administration priority that has been stalled in the Senate for months. It would have the government originate all student loans, denying banks and other private lenders of a lucrative business they have long had. Much of the savings would go into increased Pell Grants for needy college students, but black and Hispanic colleges would also benefit.

For the president, the events capped an 18-day stretch in which he traveled to four states and lobbied more than 60 wavering lawmakers in person or by phone to secure passage of his signature domestic issue. According to some who met with him, he warned that the bill's demise could cripple his still-young presidency, and his aides hoped to use the victory on health care as a springboard to success on bills to tackle stubbornly high unemployment that threatens Democratic prospects in the fall.

Obama watched the vote in the White House's Roosevelt Room with Vice President Joe Biden and dozens of aides, exchanged high fives with Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, and then telephoned Speaker Nancy Pelosi with congratulations.

"We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things," he said later in the White House East Room. "We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people.

Crowds of protesters outside the Capitol shouted "just vote no" in a futile attempt to stop the inevitable taking place inside a House packed with lawmakers and ringed with spectators in the galleries above.

Across hours of debate, House Democrats predicted the larger of the two bills, costing $940 billion over a decade, would rank with other great social legislation of recent decades.

"We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare and now, tonight, health care for all Americans, said Pelosi, D-Calif., partner to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the grueling campaign to pass the legislation.

"This is the civil rights act of the 21st century," added Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the top-ranking black member of the House.

Republicans readily agreed the bill would affect everyone in America, but warned repeatedly of the burden imposed by more than $900 billion in tax increases and Medicare cuts combined.

"We have failed to listen to America," said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, leader of a party that has vowed to carry the fight into the fall's midterm elections for control of Congress.

The final obstacle to the bill's passage was cleared at mid-afternoon when Obama and Democratic leaders reached a compromise with anti-abortion lawmakers whose rebellion had left the outcome in doubt. The White House announced the president would issue an executive order pledging that no federal funds would be used for elective abortion, satisfying Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and a handful of like-minded lawmakers.

A spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed skepticism that the presidential order would satisfy the church's objections.

Republican abortion foes also said Obama's proposed order was insufficient, and when Stupak sought to counter them, a shout of "baby killer" could be heard coming from the Republican side of the chamber.

The measure would also usher in a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor. Coverage would be required for incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014.

The insurance industry, which spent millions on advertising trying to block the bill, would come under new federal regulation. They would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions and from canceling policies when a policyholder becomes ill.

Parents would be able to keep children up to age 26 on their family insurance plans, three years longer than is now the case.

A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion would go into high gear.

Obama has said often that presidents of both parties have tried without success to achieve national health insurance, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt early in the 20th century.

The 44th president's quest to succeed where others have failed seemed at a dead end two months ago, when Republicans won a special election for a Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, the votes to prevent a final vote.

But the White House, Pelosi and Reid soon came up with a rescue plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure despite opposition to many of its provisions, then have both houses pass a fix-it measure incorporating numerous changes.

To pay for the changes, the legislation includes more than $400 billion in higher taxes over a decade, roughly half of it from a new Medicare payroll tax on individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples over $250,000. A new excise tax on high-cost insurance policies was significantly scaled back in deference to complaints from organized labor.

In addition, the bills cut more than $500 billion from planned payments to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and other providers that treat Medicare patients. An estimated $200 billion would reduce planned subsidies to insurance companies that offer a private alternative to traditional Medicare.

The insurance industry warned that seniors would face sharply higher premiums as a result, and the Congressional Budget Office said many would return to traditional Medicare as a result.

The subsidies are higher than those for seniors on traditional Medicare, a difference that critics complain is wasteful, but insurance industry officials argue goes into expanded benefits.
 
 

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3:00 pm: Satish Sawant, an insurance agent, collected his brand new Nano from a showroom in Prabhadevi, and headed home, dreaming of showing off his first car to his family at LIC Colony, Mulund (W).

3:45 pm: The car burst into flames at Eastern Express Highway. Sawant jumped to safety.

Sawant had spent Rs 2.4 lakh on the silver Nano (MH03 AW 913), which he had got fitted with an A/C and a power steering.

As Sawant cannot drive, the Concorde Motors showroom provided him with a driver to take him home safely.

There was not much afternoon traffic on the Eastern Express Highway, it being a Sunday afternoon. Sawant managed to cross Bhandup in less than 40 minutes. Around 3:45 pm, he reached Navghar Signal on the Eastern Express Highway. Suddenly, a motorcycle overtook him, signalling him to look behind.

As he turned to see what the biker was pointing at, he was alarmed to see the rear of the car in flames.

Sawant and the driver leapt out of the burning car. In no time, the car was engulfed in flames. Even a tree on the side of the highway was singed.

A shaken Sawant said, "I have no idea what happened. A motorcycle rider overtook me and told me that the vehicle was on fire. The engine was behind me and I did not realise that the car was on fire," said Sawant.

A fire tender rushed to the scene and doused the fire. The Navghar police (Mulund E) have registered a case yesterday evening.
 

A supporter of the British Airways cabin crew strike, holds a mask depicting BA CEO Willie Walsh at a picket line at London's Heathrow airport, Sunday March 21. AP Image
 
British Airways cabin crews walked off the job for a second day on Sunday but the airline insisted the strike was having less impact than expected and said it was able to restore flights that had previously been cancelled.

The airline, locked in a bitter dispute with workers over a pay freeze and changing working conditions, was forced to cancel or delay hundreds of flights over the weekend as cabin crew launched a three-day strike after negotiations collapsed on Friday.

Many travellers en route to the United States who were supposed to have brief stopovers at Heathrow, the airline's London hub, ended up stranded at the airport and faced long waits to connect with flights home.

But British Airways (BA) said it was coping well with the strike due to its extensive contingency plans and the fact that many crew members ignored the strike call.

"Our contingency plans are continuing to work well on Sunday morning around the world", it said in a statement.

But many strikers gathered at Heathrow Airport to make a visible protest with one commenting, anonymously, that BA flight staff and cabin crew had been divided on the issue.

BA said almost all the cabin crews at Gatwick airport and about half of those at Heathrow reported for duty on Saturday, allowing the airline to reinstate more than a dozen previously cancelled flights - including those to Miami and Los Angeles, as well as some short-haul European destinations.

The airline said all long-haul aircraft from overseas airports arrived in London as planned on Sunday morning and said there was no evidence of strikes at any overseas airports.
In preparation for the strike, BA had retrained some staffers to serve as cabin crew and leased planes and crew from rival carriers to take up some of the shortfall.

Still, about 1,100 out of the airline's 1,950 flights scheduled to operate during the three-day walkout were expected to be cancelled.
Union leaders disagreed with BA's claims of success, however, saying nearly 10-thousand members did not go to work Saturday and as a result many passengers complained about in-flight food and services.

Unite, the union representing BA cabin crews, said scores of BA planes were grounded, clogging up parking space, and only one of the five regular flights to New York's JFK airport took off Saturday.

Unite was planning a second, four-day walkout due to begin March 27, and it had said more strikes will be scheduled after April 14 if the dispute is not resolved.

Union joint general secretary Tony Woodley said he was calling on the airline's board and chairman to intervene and resolve the dispute.

"Today, I will be appealing to British Airways at board level to take matters in hand and restart negotiations to reach an agreement which would allow the strike scheduled for next weekend to be averted", Woodley said in a letter to union members.
 

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Battery-operated vehicles and solar lighting are being considered by a joint panel of MPs for Parliament House to protect the grand symbol of India's democracy from pollution.
       
At a recent meeting of Parliamentary forum on Global Warming and Climate Change under the chairmanship of Speaker Meira Kumar, the idea of battery-operated vehicles was mooted with the aim of curbing vehicular emissions within the premises of Parliament, Lok Sabha sources said.
       
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and senior members of both Houses, who attended the meeting, welcomed and appreciated the idea.
       
In another move aimed at saving energy, the possibility of lighting up Parliament using solar power is being looked into.
       
Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah has already given his ministry's presentation to the Speaker in this regard.
       
The matter is now being examined by the technical committee which advises the high-level committee headed by the Speaker to maintain the heritage status of Parliament House complex.
       
One of the MPs of the upper house has also suggested that the dependency on air conditioners be reduced.
       
To make the complex green, more emphasis is being laid on increasing the tree cover, taking special care of the old trees and keeping ponds and water bodies full.
       
Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha K. Rahman Khan is the vice president of the forum which comprises 32 members including Jairam Ramesh.
 

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A two-day bandh called by Maoists across 6 states West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh as well as 3 districts of Maharashtra begins today.

The bandh is in protest against the Union Budget, which the Maoists say is anti-poor and prepared under the dictates of the World Bank.

The bandh is also meant to create public opinion against the Operation Greenhunt, the Centre's offensive against Maoists. Maoists have warned Home Minister P Chidambaram of large-scale violence if the police continued to hunt down its cadres and kill innocent people.

The six states are on a high alert.

The bandh has posed a threat to railway property, especially rail tracks as well as communication systems in the inter-state border zones. As a result, 10 trains, including Patna Palamu Express, Ranchi-Delhi Garib rath, and eight passengers trains have been cancelled in Bihar and Jharkhand.

Six trains passing via Barkakana Latehar section in Jharkhand have been diverted via Rajabera.

Maoists also triggered a blast on a stretch of land along the railway track between Midnapore and Godapia Sal stations in West Midnapore district in the wee hours today as the bandh called by them began.
 

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In a sign of the mounting power of the army over the civilian government in Pakistan, the head of the military, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, will be the dominant Pakistani participant in meetings in Washington this week.

At home, much has been made of how Kayani has driven the agenda for the talks. They have been billed as Cabinet-level meetings, with the foreign minister as the nominal head of the Pakistani delegation. But it has been the general who has been calling the civilian heads of major government departments, including finance and foreign affairs, to his army headquarters to discuss final details, an unusual move in a democratic system.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has been taking a public role in trying to set the tone, insisting that the United States needs to do more for Pakistan, as "We have already done too much." And it was at his request that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed this fall to reopen talks between the countries at the ministerial level.

The talks are expected to help define the relationship between the United States and Pakistan as the war against the Taliban reaches its endgame in Afghanistan. It is in that context that Kayani's role in organizing the agenda has raised alarm here in Pakistan, a country with a long history of military juntas.

The leading financial newspaper, The Business Recorder, suggested in an editorial that the civilian government of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani should act more forcefully and "shun creating an environment conducive to military intervention."

The editorial added, "The government needs to consolidate civilian rule instead of handing over its responsibilities, like coordination between different departments, to the military."

"Gen. Kayani is in the driver's seat," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University. "It is unprecedented that an army chief of staff preside over a meeting of federal secretaries."

Kayani visited the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., over the weekend, and will attend meetings at the Pentagon with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and Defence Secretary Robert M Gates on Monday. He is also to attend the opening ceremony of the talks between Clinton and Qureshi at the State Department on Wednesday, a spokesman at the US Embassy in Islamabad said.

The most pressing concerns in the talks, according to officials on both sides, will be trying to establish confidence after several years of a corrosive relationship between allies, which only in the past few months has started to gain some positive momentum.

But the complexity of the main topics at hand - the eventual US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan's concerns about India - is expected to make for a tough round of talks.

On the positive side for Pakistan, the Obama administration has been rethinking its policies toward the country, said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States. "There is a realization that some of its assumptions over the past year were not correct: that Pakistan's security paradigm could be changed, that its military could be pressured," Lodhi said.

Meanwhile, concerned about efforts by the Afghan government to engage in talks with Taliban rebels, who have important bases and allies on Pakistani soil, the Pakistani government will offer itself as a mediator in any such negotiations, Hussain said. He said that the message would be "If you want to talk to bring the Afghan Taliban into the mainstream, you should talk to us."

Tensions with Afghanistan have been raised by some of Pakistan's recent operations against the Taliban, most notably the recent capture in Pakistan of a senior Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The former head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said Friday that the arrest had jeopardized back-channel negotiations with Baradar's faction of the Taliban.

But the spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, Abdul Basit, said Saturday that Baradar's arrest had nothing to do with reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan.

India's growing role in Afghanistan was also high on Pakistan's agenda. The spokesman for the Pakistani military, General Athar Abbas, said Pakistan would be "conveying very clearly" its displeasure with India's offer to help train the Afghan army at the behest of US and NATO forces. Pakistan has made a counteroffer to train the Afghans, an offer that Pakistan knows is unlikely to be accepted but that it made to pressure Washington to stop the Indian proposal, Pakistani analysts said.

Kayani arrives in Washington after what the Pakistani military considers a stellar nine months in fighting the Pakistani Taliban, first in the region of Swat and most recently in South Waziristan.

The militants, according to the Pakistanis, have been weakened in their bases in the tribal areas, but at a high cost. According to Pakistani Army figures, 2,377 soldiers were killed in the two campaigns. About 1 in 10 of those killed were officers, a very high rate, Hussain said.

With those sacrifices and the heavy toll on army equipment in mind, Pakistan is expecting quicker reimbursement from the United States of its expenses in fighting the militants, Abbas said.Pakistan has complained that the United States has unfairly held up payments of $1.2 billion for 2009 under an agreement to help finance the fight against insurgents. For its part, Washington says its auditors need to satisfy Congress that the Pakistani military has properly spent the money.
 

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Is the US now open to a nuclear deal with Pakistan similar to the Indo-US deal?

Reports suggest a change of heart on the part of Washington, which had so far kept rebuffing Pakistan's request for a nuclear deal.

Anne W. Patterson, US Ambassador to Pakistan, has said in an interview to a US-based Pakistani journal: "We are beginning to have a discussion with the Pakistan Government" on the country's desire to tap nuclear energy.

She said these would be "working level talks" on the issue in Washington this month. "Earlier on, non-proliferation concerns were quite severe. I think we are beginning to pass those and this is a scenario that we are going to explore...," Patterson said.

India has taken note of the possibility of a deal between the US and Pakistan. In New Delhi, government sources said India hoped the international community would strike the right balance between meeting energy needs of any country while taking on board its track record on proliferation of nuclear technology and weapons of mass destruction.
 

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