Seasoned Indian diplomat Kamalesh Sharma was on Sunday reappointed Secretary-General of the 54-nation Commonwealth grouping for a four-year term beginning April 2012.
India proposed 70-year-old Mr Sharma’s name for a second term to the coveted post at the concluding session of the 21st Commonwealth heads of government meeting here. Pakistan seconded it. The proposal was accepted unanimously by everybody.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard congratulated Mr Sharma on his re-appointment at a joint press conference with Mr Sharma.
“I am deeply appreciative of the confidence reposed by the leaders of the Commonwealth for giving me a further term in office,” Mr Sharma said. Faced with a poser on his age at a time when the focus of the Commonwealth was on the youth, Mr Sharma had a deft response: “In life it does not matter how old you are, but how young you think.” — PTI
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Wife performs man’s last rites to save land
Rabindra Nath Choudhury
Raipur, Oct. 30
A 65-year-old woman in a Chhattisgarh village on Sunday broke age-old Hindu traditions by performing her husband’s last rites, which till now remains a male preserve, to foil machinations of her kin to claim a share of her properties.
Boudhini Bai, a resident of Jainagar Barpara under the Bisrampur police station in Bilashpur district, nearly 150 km from here, lit the funeral pyre of her husband Ghaguram Binjhia, 70, after completing all rituals, leaving fellow villagers surprised.
Good samaritans in the locality came forward to help her by carrying the bier to the cremation ground after her kin refused to do the last rites of her husband, demanding a share of her property, the police said.
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DRDO likely to encrypt india’s foreign hotlines
New Delhi, Oct. 30: India’s hotlines with other countries may take some time to be set up as the government now plans to rope in DRDO for encryption of the communication system. A high-level meeting was chaired by national security adviser Shiv Shanker Menon to consider various options for setting up the hotlines with other countries, official sources said here. After a detailed deliberations, it was decided that a standard draft international agreement for establishing hotlines and a set of standard operating procedures will be prepared by the DRDO and MTNL which will be used for negotiations with foreign partners, the sources said. — PTI