The following is the text of the speech made by the Prime Minister at the function:

    "I am delighted to join your excellency and the distinguished guests present here in welcoming to Dhaka all those who have travelled from India to Bangladesh on the occasion of the inaugural run of the bus service between Calcutta and Dhaka. This is indeed a joyous occasion for people in both countries. This is a service that we have long planned for and today we see it as a reality. For those of you who have made this landmark journey, I am sure it was a memorable experience. Think for a moment of what your trip today represents!

    Every year a few lakh people cross the border check-points between our two countries. Their travel is expensive. The absence of a direct service has meant the travellers have had to walk across the border with their luggage. Today's inaugural run is, I hope, only the beginning of many more such facilities for people in both our countries. Our travellers include students in large numbers, medical patients, business people, pilgrims, tourists and people who have lived once on other side of our common border, causing them to travel between Bangladesh and India to enjoy the company and affection of their families and friends. It is my earnest hope that in the years ahead, with the cooperation of Government of Bangladesh similar facilities can be put in place for the many people who wish to travel between other destinations in our two countries. While it is befitting that we have begun the service between Calcutta and Dhaka, there is a lot more that we would love to do to promote road links between our countries.

    The start of the service represents one more stage in the active agenda between India and Bangladesh. At the governmental level we deal with many issues big and small which affect the well-being of the people in both our countries. We promote culture, we discuss trade, we exchange ideas on how to improve border management. We hold meetings and conduct studies on the best ways to handle the rivers that we share. We also discuss problems dealing with narcotic drugs, crimes across the border, law and order and insurgency. I would like you to know that when we speak of good relations between our two countries, the Government of India derives great encouragement from the tremendous amount of interaction that takes place between the peoples of India and Bangladesh.

    Many of our problems are similar and much of our heritage is common. Language, literature, music and art, at the same time, we are two separate, sovereign, independent countries who enjoy the kind of goodwill and understanding by which we are able to settle complex problems through bilateral dialogues. It was this approach that led to the signing of the historic treaty on the sharing of the Ganga waters. It is our conviction that the same approach of goodwill and friendship will continue to govern the relations between our two countries.

    Our travellers have spent much of today driving through the Bangladesh countryside. In the month of 'Ashad' which brings the monsoon, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore sang wonderfully of how shadows of the clouds of 'Ashad' play around the 'Kadamba' groves, while the 'Piyal' trees swing in the wind and seem to dance; and I quote-

    Perhaps in coming years we also see more routes and even rail services available to the general public. Whatever the future holds in the areas of these transport linkages, the people of India and Bangladesh will always look back to today's journey and to today's travellers as the ones who started the process. After an early start this morning I know that you will be tired and keen to rest. I am grateful to Her Excellency, the Prime Minister and the Government of Bangladesh for inviting me to Dhaka to join in this wonderful celebration.
 

Thank you. Namaskar".

    (Speech as recorded from direct telecast)
 
 
 

    The Committee has made 25 point recommendations and 14 point conclusions. The Committee has recommended that the uniqueness of New Delhi is that it is a city of gardens. This means it is space that is its main feature and buildings are adjuncts, which can enhance its extraordinary urban design or can destroy it for ever. The enhancement of the relationship between space and buildings achieved by Lutyens, is vital to any intervention in the city. All other considerations are secondary.

    The area under bunglows, public and private, is less than 0.37 per cent of the total land area of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Interference through high-rise, high-density construction would do very little by way of additional accommodation in Delhi but it would destroy once or for all that which gives Delhi the distinction of being the garden city capital of the largest democracy in the world. The Committee emphasises that New Delhi is not a piece of real estate but is a part of heritage whose contribution is aesthetic, psychological, patriotic and environmental. Treating it as a real estate would inevitably call for costly high value development, deliver a national treasury into hands of those with money to burn and drive Government servants and the poor out to the periphery. This would be undesirable in every way, including from the point of view of social justice and equity.

    The Committee says that what Lutyens Bunglow Zone needs is not environmental, densification or intensification of land use, but environmental conservation with revitalisation.

    As for Canopy at the India Gate, wherein the Statue of King George V was installed, which since has been removed, the Committee recommends that the Canopy be left intact.

    Speaking on the occasion, Shri Jagmohan lauded the work of the Committee and said that further action by the Government would be taken after the report was examined thoroughly.

    The six-member Committee on Lutyens Bunglow Zone was appointed by the Ministry of Urban Development last year. The report discusses at length the preservations of Lutyens Bunglow Zone without interfering in its existing land-scape, as it is a common heritage of India which needs to be preserved.
 
 
 

    A decision to this effect was taken at a high-level meeting held here today under the chairmanship of Shri Dalit Ezhilmalai, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. S.P.Agarwal, DGHS, Shri G.R.Patwardhan, Additional Secretary and Heads of major Central Government Medical Institutions attended the meeting.

    The meeting was informed that the officials of the Ministry, Directorate General of Health Services and medical and non-medical personnel of the major Central Government Medical Institutions have offered their services to attend to the injured soldiers at base camps. The meeting was also informed that the institutions have been organising blood donation camps for this purpose and have decided to contribute one day’s salary to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
 
 
 

    The Second Protocol seeks to provide a fresh impetus to the mutual flow of investment, technology, trade and services between the two countries. The Second Protocol provides for lower withholding tax rates vis-à-vis the rates in the existing DTAC as well as the domestic rates in India in respect of interest, royalties and fees for technical services as detailed below:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
S.No.                 Category of                         Domestic                         Rates in the              Rates as per
                           Receipts                             Rates                               existing DTAC         Second Protocol
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1.                        Dividends*                             -                                     20%                             15%
2.                         Interest                                 20%                                15%                             10%
3.                         Royalties &                          20%                                 30%                             10%
                            Fees for Technical
                            Services
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Under the Indian Income tax law, dividend is not taxed in the hands of the shareholder. Consequently, non-residents of India/foreign companies will also not be taxable in respect of dividend income as the more beneficial domestic law would override the Treaty provisions.

    The Memorandum of Understanding would take the traditional Indian systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy into new areas of scientific development and research collaboration in both the countries. The collaborating institutions from the Indian side are the Department of ISM & Homoeopathy, Central Council for Research in Ayurveda & Siddha, Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy, National Institute of Ayurveda, Institute of Post-Graduate Training and Research and Banaras Hindu University.

    The Russian Institutions are the Department of Organizing Medical Services for the Population of the Russian Federation Health Ministry, Practical Research Centre for Traditional Medicine and Homoeopathy of the Russian Federation Health Ministry, Russian State Medical University, Institute of Numerical Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Research Centre for Medical Genetics, City Clinical Hospital and Medical Centre NAAMI. The broad areas identified for cooperation and studies from the Russian side are to carry out fundamental, clinical and comparative research in the field of Indian traditional systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy, to train the sponsored Indian doctors of Ayurveda and Siddha on the scientific evaluation and research methodology in premier Medical research institutions in Russia and to promote publishing joint research papers in medical journals of the country.

    The Indian side shall identify jointly with the Russian side the spectrum of diseases to be researched upon in the framework of the present agreement and the protocol of such studies, provide free of charge all medicinal preparations required for the treatment within the framework of the agreement, send experts of Ayurveda and Siddha to Russia to improve the quality of research work, send experts to Russia to train Russian students on Ayurveda and Siddha and train Russian physicians and students in institutions in India.

    Both the sides have agreed to call annual conference alternately in Russia and in India to evaluate the research work and also to establish treatment or research centers to carry out such studies as are essential to achieve the above objective.

    This is an umbrella agreement meant to benefit both the countries.Through these two systems, the Russian side shall get the benefit in the treatment of various diseases for which there is less or no treatment in that country at present and Indian side shall get the benefit of the most modern advances in the fundamental sciences for scientific validation of the claims in traditional systems and Homoeopathy.
 
 

    At the pilot stage, the scheme will be launched in 80 selected backward districts. No funds would be provided by Central Government for execution of projects to be undertaken by the NRC volunteers. Such expenditure will be met by the beneficiary community or by the beneficiary Government Departments. The Central Government Department , such as Deptt. of Women and Child development, Deptt. of Education , Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment, Ministry of Rural Area and Employment, Ministry of Non-conventional energy, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture and cooperation, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Labour have been approached to give some of their projects / schemes for implementation through NRC

    Some of the sectoral programmes which will be taken up are Agriculture and rural infrastructure (watershed development and water management, waste land development, local irrigation, soil conservation etc.); Child and adult literacy; Healthcare and sanitation including health education, nutrition and population education; Poverty alleviation; Environmental protection and afforestation; Vocational education and training in arts and crafts; Family, women and child welfare; Preservation, promotion of art, culture and sports; Social justice – education against untouchability, dowry, alcoholism, drugs and other evils, promotion of national integration.

    The NRC volunteers would act as catalysts of change. The volunteer would give one year of his youth in the service of the community and nation. The NRC volunteers would atleast be matriculates, having attained the age of eighteen years. There would be sufficient representation of women and SC/ST/Backward youth. The deployment of volunteers will be for one year and no rights for future employment would accrue to the volunteers. The volunteer would be given a certificate after successful completion of volunteership.

    The volunteers will be paid an honorarium of Rs. 1000/- per month and they will work on programmes and projects of the various departments / agenecies of Government of India, State Government or even voluntary organisaitons. Their work will be area and locality specific. The volunteers would be organised into groups by the project officer, who will be appointed on contract basis by a selection committee. The project will deployed by NYKS on a lumpsum honorarium of Rs. 4000/- per month.

    There will be two committees at the National Level viz. The Steering Committee and the Executive Committee. The Steering Committee would be headed by Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports and it would issue guidelines, oversee and monitor the implementation of the scheme. The Executive Committee headed by Secretary (Youth Affairs and Sports) would execute the decisions of the Steering Committee.

    There will also be two committees at the district level viz. District Advisory Committee headed by Chairman Zila Parishad and District Executive Committee headed by District Collector for implementation of the scheme, in accordance with the guidelines and the resources available.

    The Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan will work as the implementing agency for the scheme under the overall supervision of the Department of Youth Affairs and Sports.
 
 

    DLW has scaled new heights in its performance during 1998-99 by manufacturing 161 locomotives which for rating purposes was considered as 230 Equated Units. This is the highest ever production in terms of equated units in the 38 year history of DLW. This was achieved without any capital or manpower inputs. The installed capacity of DLW is 186.5 Equated Units. This level of production exceeds the installed capacity by 23 per cent.

    DLW has also produced three new design, 3100 Horse Power, WDP2 locomotives dedicated to passenger traffic. These higher horsepower locomotives will make possible movement of longer and faster mail and express trains. This will be DLW’s outstanding contribution in the "year of the Passenger".
 
 

    The candidature of all the candidates is provisional. In accordance with the conditions of their admission to the examination they are required to submit the original certificates in support of age, educational qualifications, NCC© (Army Wing) as claimed by them to Army Headquarters, A.G.’s Branch/Rtg./CDSE entry, West Block 3, Ground Floor, Wing No.1, R.K. Puram, New Delhi-110066, in case of IMA. The original certificates are to be submitted within two weeks of completion of SSB interview.

    Candidates may obtain any information/clarification from UPSC, Facilitation Centre regarding their examination/recruitments on working days between 10.00 A.M. to 5.00 P.M. in person or over telephone No.3385271.