A third of the staff of the Singapore office of RBS Coutts, a private bank that is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS.L) (RBS), have quit in a mass resignation, RBS said today.
The resignations of 75 people came a few months after Hanspeter Brunner, former co-CEO of RBS Coutts, and Raj Sriram, head of its South Asia unit, decided to leave the wealth manager and will join Swiss private bank BSI, sources told Thomson Reuters.
ISLAMABAD (APP) – The Deputy High Commissioner of India in Islamabad was called to the Foreign Office on Friday and Indian protest on Gilgit-Baltistan self-rule order was rejected.
The Foreign Office Director General (South Asia) emphasised that Pakistan rejects the Indian protest as the Government of India has no locus standi in the matter.
A Press release issued by the Foreign Office stated that the Government of Pakistan also rejects the Indian claim that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. “Pakistan’s position on Jammu and Kashmir dispute is based on relevant UN resolutions.”
Two protest notes were handed over to the High Commission for Pakistan in New Delhi on Friday by the Ministry of External Affairs of India, on the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-Governance Order, 2009); and construction of Bunji Dam in Astore District.
Monitoring Desk adds: The Indian Government on Friday summoned the Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan Riffat Masood and registered its protest against the Government of PakistanÂ’s so-called Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order -2009 and its move to construct the Bunji Hydroelectric Project, reported Indian media.
Insofar as the Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order-2009 was concerned, the Indian government charged Pakistan with denying basic democratic rights to the people in those parts of the state of Jammu and Kashmir under its illegal occupation for the past six decades.
New Delhi told the Pakistani envoy that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India by virtue of its accession in 1947.
A government spokesman described the so-called Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order-2009 was yet another cosmetic exercise intended to camouflage PakistanÂ’s illegal occupation of the region.
The Indian Government also lodged a protest on Friday over the proposed construction of the Bunji Hydroelectric Project.
The 7000-megawatt dam is being constructed at Bunji in the Astore District of the Gilgit-Baltistan area with the help of China.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has condoled the death of former Bangladesh Finance Minister Saifur Rahman Saheb who died in a car accident today.
In his message, Dr Singh said: “I was deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic demise of Saifur Rahman.
“He was one of Bangladesh’’s most distinguished politicians, who served the country [...]
Indian troops say they have shot dead five militants who had crossed the international border from Pakistan into Indian-administered Kashmir.
The men were intercepted by the troops in the Gurez area, a spokesman for the Indian army said.
The army said it had foiled many attempts by militants to cross the border this year.
Both India and Pakistan claim the disputed territory of Kashmir and have fought two wars over it.
The incident happened just two days after suspected militants killed two Indian paramilitary soldiers in Lal Chowk area in the summer capital, Srinagar.
In a separate incident on Monday, militants threw a grenade in the city’s Batmaloo area, injuring several people.
Seventeen militants and eight Indian soldiers were killed in a five-day-long gunbattle in Kupwara area near the de facto international border in March.
There has been relative calm since India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire in Kashmir in 2003.
Kashmir has been a flashpoint between the neighbours for more than 50 years and the scene of two of their three wars.
Muslim separatists have waged an insurgency since 1989.
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There has been a sharp drop in Afghan poppy cultivation and production, a United Nations report says.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says opium cultivation has fallen by 22% in a year and production by 10%, with the biggest fall in Helmand province.
But the figures are still higher than three years ago, when British troops began fighting Taliban militants there.
The UN says the drugs trade, which helps fund the insurgency, threatens the legitimacy of the Afghan state.
It has called on the international community to sustain progress in Afghanistan, which produces 90% of the world’s heroin.
The UNODC report praised the introduction of UK-backed "food zones", which distribute wheat seed for farmers to plant.
‘Enormous cost’
It said 20 of the country’s provinces are now poppy-free, but the BBC’s Chris Morris in Kabul says that does not mean they are free of the refining and trafficking of drugs.
The UN report concludes that the bottom is starting to fall out of the Afghan opium market, with the price of opium at a 10-year low.
The UNODC’s Antonio Costa said the report was a welcome piece of good news at a time of pessimism about the situation in Afghanistan.
But he warned that Afghan drugs still have catastrophic consequences – funding criminals, insurgents and terrorists, encouraging corruption and undermining public trust.
Mr Costa also said overall attempts to eradicate opium growing were still a failure, with just 4% of the total crop wiped out over the past two years at "enormous human and economic cost", reports the UK’s Press Association news agency.
This year there were 69,833 hectares devoted to poppy growing in Helmand province, a sharp fall from 103,590 hectares in 2008, the report found.
But this year’s figure was more than double the 26,500 hectares in 2005, the year before British troops deployed in the province.
Helmand continues to account for nearly 60% of the country’s total production of the drug, the UNODC report said.
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At least 20 suspected militants have been killed in clashes across north-west Pakistan, officials say.
The army said 15 militants were killed during clashes with troops in the Swat valley, taking the death toll there over the past few days to at least 45.
In the Khyber Agency, bordering Afghanistan, five people died when security forces attacked militant bases, the Frontier Corps said.
There is no independent verification of the army’s claims.
Journalists have little access to the remote and hostile areas where the clashes are said to have taken place.
"It was very precise and we managed to kill 15 militants," Lieutenant Col Akhtar Abbas told the Reuters news agency of the army’s operation in Swat.
See a map of the regionOn Monday the corpses of 30 suspected militants were found in Swat with gunshot wounds.
The army has denied accusations that troops have been carrying out extra-judicial killings in the region. It told the BBC the men were killed in an army operation.
More than 150 dead bodies have been found in the region over the past month.
The military recently declared Mingora, Swat’s main town, and other parts of the region largely free from Taliban militants after a sustained offensive against insurgents which began in April.
But on Sunday a suspected suicide bomber killed at least 14 police recruits at a training academy in Mingora.
Khyber clashes
Elsewhere, in the volatile Khyber Agency, the Frontier Corps said five militants had been killed when security forces attacked and destroyed three militant bases.
The army is conducting an operation in the Bara sub-district of Khyber.
The entire area is under curfew and access to the media is restricted there.
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says the operation is being conducted aganst the Lashkar-e-Islam group which has been the subject of several offensives over the past year.
But, our correspondent says, the militants’ grip over the area has not yet been broken.
Last week, 22 border guards were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint in the Khyber Pass, on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
The blast completely destroyed a tribal police checkpoint at the Torkham border crossing linking Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province to Afghanistan.
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Many people who fled fighting between the army and the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat valley returned to their homes over the summer after assurances of improved security.
The army says it is in control but violence has continued. Dozens of bodies of suspected militants have been found in recent weeks. Swat residents give the BBC their views.
Habib, a Swat villager, says there is a huge shift of opinion in Swat.
"I belong to the village of Akhoon Kalay Kabal. No house was spared from destruction in our village. When the Taliban were in power, they burned people’s houses. They even looted and then burned the house of the superintendent of the police. They didn’t give a reason for these attacks. See a map of the region
The rest of the destruction was completed by the army’s shells and missiles. After the Taliban’s defeat, the army came in and burnt 19 houses of militants. So there is nothing left.
At the moment the army is busy capturing Taliban fighters, killing them and burning their houses. There is a big change now – ordinary people trust the army like never before. People changed their minds and now they are against the Taliban and help the army in capturing militants.
The Taliban made the mistake of attacking common people, their homes, their property. That turned opinion against them and played into the hands of the army.
It’s now part of life in the Swat Valley – when we get up from sleep we see bodies killed by somebody. Nobody knows who is behind this. What’s certain is the tremendous amount of insecurity in people. We don’t know who will be the next one to be killed.
Can you imagine this to be part of your life How would you be able to live And what effect will this have on young children
We are going through the worst period of Swat history. From the safest and most progressive part of Pakistan Swat was turned into the most unsafe place on earth. We are going back to the Stone Age in the 21 Century!
"
Majid’s father has decided to move the family and the business out of Swat due to the security situation there and settle down in Peshawar. He visited Mingora last week.
"My whole extended family and friends are in Mingora. We moved to Peshawar in May but I go back to Mingora from time to time.
I keep in touch with my family and friends back in Mingora and I went there last week. The security situation now is a lot better than before. The place is much safer and people are happier. Before the army offensive you could see the Taliban, their presence was obvious. Now you no longer see them. The army claims it has driven them away, but people have doubts. The very fact that the army is on every corner means that there are still problems. The army is busy now destroying houses of militants. If bodies are turning up – that is definitely the work of the army. Local people can’t be responsible for this. There is still doubt and worry. There was another suicide explosion a few days ago. It means the militants are still at work. I believe the army is pretty much controlling the situation and they will eventually drive the Taliban out, but it will take some time.
A Swat resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that he and the majority of people around him are satisfied with the army’s work.
"We are very happy that the army has flushed out the Taliban from Swat. There were doubts earlier about the motives of the army, but now it is certain and clear that they came here to protect us and they did a good job of it.
We want them to remain in Swat to keep us safe from the Taliban. In Swat and northern areas of Pakistan, most people are against the Taliban while the vast majority are satisfied with what the army has done here. Have you seen any protest against the army in Swat We hugged them and thanked them on our independence day. As for the dead bodies which have been appearing lately – this is the natural reaction of local people against the militants.
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India’s space agency has abandoned its inaugural moon mission a day after scientists lost communication with the orbiting Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
"We don’t have contact… and we had to terminate…," said the head of Isro – the Indian Space Research Organisation.
The unmanned craft was launched last October in what was billed as a two-year mission of exploration.
The launch was seen as a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with other space-faring Asian nations.
Despite the termination of the mission, Isro chief G Madhavan Nair told reporters that the project was a great success and 95% of its objectives had been completed.
"We could collect a large volume of data, including 70,000 images of the moon," he added.
Isro scientists said the agency was in talks with the US and Russia to track the spacecraft, which was orbiting 200km from the surface of the moon.
Following its launch from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh last October, it was hoped the robotic probe would orbit the Moon, compile a three-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface and map the distribution of elements and minerals.
Useful mission
Last month the satellite experienced a technical problem when a sensor malfunctioned.
An Isro spokesman said at the time that useful information had already been gathered from pictures beamed to Earth from the probe, although the picture quality had been affected by the malfunction.
Powered by a single solar panel generating about 700 watts, the Isro probe carries five Indian-built instruments and six constructed in other countries, including the US, Britain and Germany.
The mission was expected to cost 3.8bn rupees (£45m; $78m), considerably less than Japanese and Chinese probes sent to the Moon last year.
But the Indian government’s space efforts have not been welcomed by all.
Some critics regard the space programme as a waste of resources in a country where millions still lack basic services.
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By M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Kandahar, Afghanistan
Nearly everyone who lives in Kandahar city, the capital of Afghanistan’s southern province by the same name, has acquaintances among the local Taliban militants.
Fazal Ahmad Anis is one of them.
"We are all people from the same area, and Taliban also have good intelligence inside the city, so they know who’s who," he says.
Mr Anis has been hosting music shows for two Kandahar-based television stations for some time, and is now setting up the city’s first audio-visual studios where television plays would be produced.
Taliban consider music and television viewing as un-Islamic, and have often spoken to him by telephone about his plans, without overtly threatening him.
"Their message is clear, though, that I should give up my plans, but producing television dramas has been my dream since I was living in the Pakistani city of Quetta as a refugee," he says.
Wry smile
Kandahar, once a major centre of arts and culture in Afghanistan, has many dreamers like Mr Anis.
In the soothing, air-conditioned atmosphere of Kandahar Coffee Shop – a trendy café with a small library and a billiards parlour – a group of old and young people sit quietly around a table, watching two of them play a game of chess.
One of the players is Naimatullah Zalmay, the head of Kandahar’s chess players’ association.
He has been playing chess for 35 years, he says, and is among the 14-member national chess team recently selected to play in international competitions.
But like music and TV, chess is also considered un-Islamic by the Taliban and the country’s powerful conservative clerics.
When I ask him if he feels threatened by the Taliban, he gives me a wry smile.
"The Taliban’s position on the issue is well known, but what do you do when a high official close to our democratic president opposes our request for funds on grounds that we are indulging in un-Islamic activities"
He doesn’t name names, but one of his colleagues later tells me he was referring to Fazl Hadi Shinwari, chief justice of Afghanistan until August 2006 and still considered close to President Hamid Karzai.
Dejection and fear
During the seven years of Mr Karzai’s rule, Kandahar city has developed by leaps and bounds.
Multi-storey trade centres have appeared all over the place, roads and streets have been built, and most commercial streets now have wide, tiled pavements.
But patrols by the US and Canadian armoured cars frequently force civilian traffic off the road, creating dejection and fear among people.
A bomb-shaped "spy" balloon that hangs high over the city and is said to carry US surveillance cameras is a constant reminder that things outside the city are also not satisfactory.
The governor of Kandahar province, Tooryalai Wesa, admits that his government has not been able to break the Taliban stranglehold in some parts of the province.
In some cases, these "lawless" areas extend to within 5 or 6 km of the city.
The Taliban have comparatively greater freedom to operate in the provinces of Helmand to the west, Uruzgan to the north and Zabul to the northeast of Kandahar.
Together, the four provinces form the lawless south of Afghanistan.
For now, the most immediate target of the Taliban is to prevent people across this region from turning out to vote in presidential elections, due on 20 August.
If they succeed, it will dent the credibility of the election and may spiral into a political crisis for the government, analysts say.
But if they fail, then Kandaharis hope for greater stability in the future.
Awareness show
And many are willing to have close brushes with the Taliban to achieve this.
Abdullah Abdali, a television actor, has been doing government-sponsored stage shows for public awareness in some of the most dangerous corners of the south.
Last year he went to Uruzgan to act in a play on drugs awareness.
"Going there was no problem, but once we had appeared on the stage, we felt exposed and did not feel safe to return to Kandahar by road," he says.
"We waited there three days for a US forces convoy to roll out to Kandahar, and followed it."
Early this month, he did a six-day election awareness show in Qalat, the capital of Zabul, and again took safety precautions on the return journey.
"We told our hosts – the district election commission – that we were staying the night and would leave for Kandahar the next day. Then we went out, quietly jumped into our van and left. You never know who will inform the Taliban that we are coming."
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The Indian government has asked the United States to explain why a leading Bollywood film star was held for two hours at New York’s Newark airport.
Shah Rukh Khan, who was released after India’s embassy in the US intervened, said he felt angry and humiliated.
The actor, who is promoting a film on racial profiling, said he was stopped because he had a Muslim name.
In July, a US airline apologised to a former Indian president for frisking him before he boarded a flight.
The US ambassador to India, Timothy Roehmer, said the embassy was looking into Mr Khan’s case.
Speaking in Delhi, Mr Roehmer said: "Shah Rukh Khan, the actor and global icon, is a very welcome guest in the United States. Many Americans love his films."
He said the embassy was trying to "ascertain the facts of the case – to understand what took place".
Popular celebrity
Mr Khan, 44, told the Press Trust of India news agency he had been detained by immigration officials at Newark airport because his name came up on a computer check list.
He told the agency that he had been released after he was allowed to message a politician in India, who contacted the Indian embassy in Washington on his behalf.
Mr Khan was on his way from New York to Chicago to attend an Indian independence day celebration when he was stopped.
The news was widely reported by Indian media outlets.
Mr Khan has appeared in more than 70 films and is considered one of India’s most recognisable and popular celebrities.
Last month, America’s Continental Airlines apologised to APJ Abdul Kalam amid outrage in India when it emerged that the former Indian president had been frisked and made to remove his shoes at Delhi airport in April.
The airline said in a statement that it had not intended to offend Mr Kalam or the sentiments of the people of India.
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Two of Sri Lanka’s most senior Roman Catholic clergy have spoken out against the continued detention of nearly 300,000 Tamil war refugees.
The Archbishop of Colombo and the Bishop of Jaffna were addressing tens of thousands of pilgrims at a shrine close to camps housing the refugees.
Jaffna bishop Thomas Saundaranayagam, himself a Tamil, said the refugees were being held "like prisoners".
The government says they have to be vetted for links to the Tamil Tigers.
Government forces defeated the Tamil Tigers in their last stronghold in the north earlier this year, bringing the country’s civil war to an end.
Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholics revere the statue of Our Lady of Madhu at the shrine in north-west Sri Lanka and 15 August is a major festival.
This is the first time since 2005 that the government has given permission for Catholics to visit the shrine in large numbers. Until last year the area was controlled by the Tamil Tigers. The warring sides used to make arrangements to allow pilgrims to visit on 15 August.
‘Behind barbed wire’
The BBC’s Charles Haviland is in Madhu and says well over 100,000 pilgrims have visited the shrine in recent days.
In his sermon, the Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Ranjith from the majority Sinhalese community, said this was a beautiful occasion.
However he said it would have been more so had the people of this area being held in camps been able to come, he said, referring to the lack of Tamils.
Bishop Saundaranayagam said most local people were "confined to camps, behind barbed wire fences, like prisoners".
Father Joe Xavier, who has officiated at this shrine for 15 years through war, ceasefire and peace, estimated that as many as 90% of the devotees this year were Sinhalese people who generally could not visit during the long years of Tamil Tiger control.
He said that many Tamils were being held in camps, while others did not want to come this year.
"When we are talking to them they feel their feelings are being hurt," Father Joe said. "When our brothers and sisters are now in the camp we just cannot come and celebrate the feast here."
The main Menik Farm refugee camp is very close by.
Our correspondent says that although security has been tight for the Madhu festival, President Mahinda Rajapaksa cancelled his planned visit out of security concerns.
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A suicide car bomb has exploded outside the Nato headquarters in Kabul, killing at least three people and wounding about 70, Afghan officials say.
A plume of smoke was seen rising above the area, where the presidential palace and embassies are also located.
The explosion comes less than a week before Afghanistan stages presidential and provincial elections.
Taliban insurgents have vowed to disrupt the elections and have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks.
The blast rocked Kabul’s heavily fortified area on Saturday morning.
Sirens blared as police and ambulances rushed to the area which was sealed off by international forces.
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Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has announced a series of reforms to integrate the country’s war-torn tribal areas into mainstream Pakistan.
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have been administered by the central government in a system inherited from British rule.
The new laws will allow political parties to operate there.
Since 2001 the region has been a haven for militants behind surging violence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan, in Islamabad, says that the new laws are a landmark moment for Pakistani politics and will allow people living in the Fata to join and vote for mainstream political parties.
‘Extremists weakened’
A spokesman for Pakistan’s president said the move "empowers the locals and weakens the extremists".
"This breaks the monopoly of clerics to play politics from the pulpit of the mosque to the exclusion of major secular political parties," Farhatullah Babar said.
He was speaking at an overnight ceremony held at President House in Islamabad to celebrate Pakistan’s 63rd Independence Day.
Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous agencies have never been politically and administratively integrated into the rest of the country during the years since the British pulled out in 1947.
Critics say that has created a vacuum which has allowed lawlessness and and militancy to thrive.
The four million people who live in Fata have been ruled by government-appointed agents in concert with tribal leaders.
They are subject to tribal laws that allow for detention without trial and communal punishment, among other unpopular measures.
Mr Babar said the new laws would not reduce the powers of the political agent or alter the laws, but they would mean that political parties could campaign there and represent the region in the national parliament after elections in 2013.
Our correspondent says that the hope is that they will also end draconian laws such as the powers of administrators to hold tribesmen in custody for three years without trial and the power of officials to confiscate or destroy property.
President Zardari said that he expected the reforms to be passed into law later this month.
Since partition a lack of political participation has contributed to a strong sense of alienation among the tribes, correspondents say.
Pakistan’s current problems with militancy along the tribal belt are largely seen as a direct product of such feelings.
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Pakistan has begun its first international freight train service from Islamabad to Istanbul.
The 6,500km (4,040 mile) trial service via the Iranian capital, Tehran, is a pilot project of the regional Economic Co-operation Organisation.
Officials expect it to boost Pakistan’s trade with Turkey and Iran – currently estimated at $1bn – by as much as 50%.
There are also hopes the route will eventually provide a link to Europe and Central Asia, and carry passengers.
Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani he hoped the route would one day also provide passenger services and boost tourism, reports said.
The train will pull 20 containers on its maiden journey from Islamabad railway station, delivering 14 to Tehran and six to Istanbul a fortnight after it sets off.
The first journey will also take railway experts from the three countries on board to gauge the performance and check for obstacles over the vast terrain.
Mr Gilani described the beginning as "an epic event", Pakistan’s APP news agency reported.
Some operational obstacles also remain to be resolved, and parts of the route need to be upgraded, he added.
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Schools, colleges and cinemas in the Indian city of Mumbai have temporarily closed in a bid to limit the spread of the H1N1 virus.
Schools and colleges will remain shut for a week and cinemas for three days.
The city, India’s commercial capital, is in Maharashtra state, which has seen 11 of India’s 19 swine flu deaths – three in Mumbai alone.
Authorities say that public pressure led them to order the closures, but stressed that people should not panic.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan told a television channel that the temporary closure was "only a prevention measure".
"There is no panic…we are going according to the wishes of the people and that is why we are shutting down for about seven days," he told CNN-IBN.
Three of the seven days are holidays, including the weekend, so the shutdown is effectively for less than a week, Mr Chavan said.
A number of Bollywood film releases on Friday have been delayed after cinemas in the capital of the country’s booming film industry shut their doors.
The move by the Mumbai authorities came despite recent comments from India’s Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who has stressed that swine flu is just one of many threats to health in the country.
"It is not the only virus we have in our country. We have much more fatal diseases, much more costly diseases," he said in comments on Monday.
A total of 19 people have died of swine flu in seven cities in India, authorities say.
The swine flu (H1N1) virus first emerged in Mexico in April and has since spread to at least 74 countries.
Official reports say there have been nearly 30,000 cases globally and 141 deaths, with figures rising daily.
Most of India’s confirmed cases of swine flu have been among people who have returned from overseas travel.
Passenger screening has been introduced across India’s main 22 international airports.
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Eastern India’s most prominent mental health institute, in the city of Ranchi, has recently published a list of 98 patients "abandoned" by their families. They were brought here for treatment and even though they are now stable, they are languishing because their families refuse to take them. The BBC’s Geeta Pandey reports.
A group of women stand in a hall, praying: "God, give us strength, to conquer our minds. Before we conquer others, let us conquer ourselves."
Among the women is Laxmi Jaiswal. Her advanced age is etched in the lines of her face. "I’ve been here a very long time, at least 20 years," she tells me. Hospital records show that it is even longer than that – 23 years and two months.
In the years that Laxmi has been incarcerated, she has not had a single visitor. She was initially diagnosed with schizophrenia. After she stabilised, several letters were sent to her address, but there has been no response from the family.
She doesn’t discuss her life with other inmates. "I keep it buried in my heart. If I were to tell anyone, will they be able to return me my family" she asks.
Gently nudged by Sister Celine, the supervisor of the hospital’s female ward, she pours out her heart to me.
"My brother-in-law brought me here. He didn’t get along with my husband. I had children, whereas he didn’t have any. He didn’t like that. He snatched my children from me, and dumped me in this madhouse. My husband did not intervene," she says.
‘No idea’
Laxmi has spent a better part of her life in the institute, forgotten by her family and the outside world.
"We had a large farm in Bihar and my husband used to sell tobacco. I have no idea where he is now or why he never came to see me. He must have taken a second wife, or maybe a third one."
Laxmi is mother to five boys and six girls. "They must be all grown up now. I miss them," she says, tears clouding her eyes.
Although abandoned by her family, Laxmi is yet to abandon hope. Recently, she told the hospital staff that one of her sons was living in Ranchi’s Upper Bazar area.
"It’s a very congested area, we spent an entire day there, but the patient was unable to identify the house. She named a pond, then a market, then a by-lane, but we couldn’t trace her home," Sister Celine says.
"She’s an old woman, she’s been here far too long. It can happen to us. Even if you or I go somewhere after a long time, we may not be able to recognise the place," she says.
In this 500-bed hospital, Laxmi and Agnes are among the 98 people on the list of abandoned patients.
Clinical psychologist at the hospital Amul Ranjan Singh says the reason why families reject a patient is because in India there is a stigma attached to mental illness.
‘Myth’
Most people believe that once a person develops a mental illness, he or she can never be cured.
"There’s a myth that a mental health patient cannot do day-to-day activities or earn a livelihood. And a majority of our patients come from poor families who believe that these people won’t be productive economically."
Hospital staff say some patients are found wandering on the streets and are brought in by the police and there are no records of where they came from.
Then, it all depends on what the patient remembers once he or she is stable. Sometimes, they are able to remember and give their details, but sometimes memory lapses result in mistakes.
"Sometimes the families refuse, outright, to take the patient back. How do we tell a family that the patient is theirs if they refuse" Sister Celine asks.
‘Denial’
For the patients though, coping with rejection can be a very painful affair.
"They go into denial," says Dr Singh. "And there are two ways of denial – either they deny the existence of their family, or they deny their attitude towards them.
"Specially the female patients never forget and they keep expecting that somebody will come for them. Males easily agree that probably there’s nobody around who will come, and they say, I don’t want to go back home.
"Sometimes after a few months, you find the same patient roaming in front of the institute. Their families come and leave them here. This is pathetic. We take them back in and try to give them a life of dignity here," he says.
The hospital’s sprawling campus is divided into separate male and female wards – 150 places are reserved for women and the number of male patients is 350.
The male ward has nearly three dozen "abandoned" patients.
Here I meet Budhwa Munda, weaving cloth on a loom. He’s 62 and has spent 36 years in the hospital. "He has grown old here," says caretaker Jehangir.
Budhwa was brought to the hospital in 1973 by the police and letters sent to the authorities have gone unanswered.
Budhwa doesn’t talk at all, he speaks only with gestures if he needs anything, and Jehangir says they have no idea about his family.
‘Take me home’
Working on the loom alongside Budhwa is Ramji. He was brought to the hospital by his family when he was a boy.
"When he came here, he had no facial hair. Today, he’s greying, so you can make out how long he’s been here," says Jehangir.
At the time of his admission, his family wrote down a false address and no one has ever come to see him. Letters sent to the address have all come back.
"Please take me home," Ramji appeals to me as soon as he sees me. "Send someone with me who will take me by the hand and put me on a bus. He can drop me home and come back. I’ll return a year later."
I’m perhaps the only visitor Ramji has had in a long time. Or maybe ever. He follows me around as I move on to speak to others. His desperation, and the hope in his eyes, is gut wrenching.
For these abandoned men and women here, home’s a far away place, a chimera, a mirage. And it will perhaps remain out of reach for most of them, forever.
Laxmi, however, seems to have come to terms with her reality. "Since this is the place I have been mandated to live in, I will live here till the day I die. After that I will meet my maker."
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages. according to results from Nasa’s gravity satellites.
The Grace mission discovered that in the country’s northwest – including Delhi – the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say rainfall has not changed, and water use is too high, mainly for farming.
The finding is published two days after an Indian government report warning of a potential water crisis.
That report noted that access to water was one of the main factors governing the pace of development in the world’s second most populous nation.
"The situation has to stop today or tomorrow"
Dr Raj Gupta
CIMMYT
About a quarter of India is experiencing drought conditions, as the monsoon rains have been weaker and later than usual.
But weather and climatic factors are not responsible for water depletion in the northwestern states of Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, according to the Nasa study.
"We looked at the rainfall record and during this decade, it’s relatively steady – there have been some up and down years but generally there’s no drought situation, there’s no major trend in rainfall," said Matt Rodell, a hydrologist at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC.
"So naturally we would expect the groundwater level to stay where it is unless there is an excessive stress due to people pumping too much water, which is what we believe is happening."
State of Grace
The Grace (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) mission uses two satellites flying along the same orbit, one just in front of the other.
Minute differences in the Earth’s gravitational pull cause the two craft to shift slightly in their positions relative to one another.
The Grace satellites provide a twin eye on Earth gravity Grace twins measure ‘potato’ Earth
The mission can measure groundwater depletion because the amount of water in aquifers has a small gravitational attraction for the satellites.
Three years ago, Grace scientists noted a loss of water in parts of Africa – but the Indian result is more striking.
"Over the six-year timeframe of this study, about 109 cubic kilometres of water were depleted from this region – more than double the capacity of India’s largest reservoir is gone between 2002 and 2008," Dr Rodell told the BBC.
The northwest of India is heavily irrigated; and the Indian government’s State of the Environment report, published on Tuesday, noted that irrigation increased rice yields seven-fold in some regions compared to rain-fed fields.
Dr Raj Gupta, a scientist working for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), said that the current drought would lead to more groundwater extraction.
"Farmers receive no rains so they are pumping a lot more water than the government expected, so the water table will fall further," he said.
"The farmers have to irrigate, and that’s why they’re pumping more water, mining more water. The situation has to stop today or tomorrow."
Dr Gupta noted that some farmers might be able to switch from rice to crops that demand less water, such as maize or sorghum.
But, he said, that would depend on government policies – which have traditionally promoted rice – and on market demand.
Climate change is likely to be a constraint too, with the area of South Asia suitable for wheat forecast to halve over the next 50 years.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
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Taliban militants have killed a district police chief in an attack on a government base in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, officials say.
At least one other person was killed when the militants attacked the compound in Archi district.
Reports say the attackers struck before dawn with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire.
There have been increasing levels of violence in the province of Kunduz over the past few months.
After militants launched their attack on the government compound, the police chief came out to provide assistance, district governor Shaikh Dabi told the AFP news agency.
"The Taliban ambushed him and killed him," he said.
Eyewitnesses spoke of a lengthy gun battle after the attack began.
Provincial targets
The incident comes as US and Afghan forces intensify their operations against Taliban militants in the south of the country ahead of nationwide elections next week.
On Monday, Taliban militants attacked official buildings in the city of Pul-i-Alam in eastern Afghanistan, killing five people and injuring many others.
It was the latest in a series of similar co-ordinated attacks on provincial cities in recent months.
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections and have stepped up attacks in recent weeks.
But the BBC’s Martin Patience in Kabul says it is likely that violence across the country would have escalated despite next week’s elections.
Such attacks on provincial government compounds are designed to weaken the authority of the Afghan government, our correspondent says.
The Taliban target provincial headquarters because they are not guarded as closely as institutions in Kabul.
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More than a quarter of India’s districts have been affected by drought, the country’s finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has said.
But the minister insisted that the government had a contingency plan and said there was "no point in pressing the panic button."
Officials say that 161 of out of approximately 600 districts in India have been declared drought-affected.
Lower monsoon rainfall than normal is responsible for the drought.
Northern Bihar and Haryana are the worst affected states, reports say.
The deficient rainfall is likely to result in a 20% drop in the sowing of summer crops, Mr Mukherjee said.
Food security
"This country managed the century’s worst drought in 1987. We transported drinking water through the railways. We organised fodder for the cattle," he said.
"This country has the experience of handling the situation and I will advise not to press the panic button".
Mr Mukherjee insisted that the economy would grow by more than 6% despite the drought.
Though many of the affected districts are not major crop-producing areas, the drought is likely to hit farm output and lead to food inflation, analysts say.
Reports say Prime Minister Manmohan Singh convened a meeting of state chief ministers on Monday to discuss food security in light of the drought.
The leader of a delegation of businessmen who met Mr Singh on Tuesday said the prime minister was confident of containing food inflation.
"He was quite confident that given the buffer stock, it would be able to handle the food inflation," Amit Mitra told reporters.
Monsoon rains are critical to India’s farm prospects, which account for a sixth of its economic output.
Up to 70% of Indians are dependent on farm incomes, and about 60% of India’s farms depend on rains. Irrigation networks are dismissed by critics as inadequate.
The summer rains are crucial to crops such as rice, soybean, sugarcane and cotton.
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Two FBI officers are expected to appear later before a special court in the Indian city of Mumbai to testify on last November’s attacks.
Three other US nationals are also expected to give evidence, although using videoconferencing facilities.
More than 170 people were killed in the Mumbai attacks, nine of them gunmen.
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, a Pakistani national, faces 86 charges, including waging war on India, murder and possessing explosives.
After initially pleading not guilty, Mr Qasab confessed that he was one of the gunmen. The trial continues despite his admission.
Six of the people killed in the attacks were Americans, reports say.
"Two Federal Bureau of Investigation officers are likely to appear in person to tender evidence," special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.
The identities of the FBI officers and the American nationals have been kept secret for security reasons, the prosecutor said.
This will be the first time that witnesses from outside India testify in the Mumbai attack case.
Mr Nikam said the FBI officers were expected to tell the court about how the gunmen were in touch with their handlers during the attacks and the kind of technology they had used.
The attacks led to a worsening of relations between India and Pakistan.
India blamed Pakistan-based fighters from the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In the immediate aftermath of the killings, Pakistan denied any responsibility, but later admitted the attacks had been partly planned on its soil.
Islamabad also eventually confirmed that Mr Qasab was a Pakistani citizen.
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