US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will arrive in New Delhi on Monday for co-chairing the second India-US strategic dialogue with external affairs minister S.M. Krishna on July 19.
Ms Clinton will call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and meet with other Indian leaders, including UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. She will travel to Chennai on Wednesday where she is likely to meet representatives of the US companies. A host of key bilateral, regional and international issues, including the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and security cooperation in the backdrop of the latest serial blasts in Mumbai, can be expected to be discussed in the strategic dialogue.
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Padmanabha Swamy temple litigant dies
AGE Correspondent
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
July 17: Advocate T.P. Sunder Rajan Iyengar, whose petition in the Supreme Court played a key role in the discovery of wealth worth `1 lakh crore in the Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple, died here on Sunday. The 70-year-old former IPS officer was a spinster. Sunder Rajan who was staying with his close relatives in a rented house close to the temple, was running high fever for the last three days but refused to go to the hospital. The end came in the wee hours. He was cremated later in the day. A 1964 batch IPS officer, Sundar Rajan had worked as assistant director with the intelligence bureau and was also a member of the security team of the former Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi.
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Population rate declines in Bastar
AGE CORRESPONDENT
Raipur
July 17: The population growth rate in Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-hit Bastar region, which is home to many primitive tribes, has witnessed a sharp decline, the latest census has revealed.
Concerned over the disturbing trend, the state government has reportedly instituted a study to find out the causes behind the “unusual” dip in population growth rate in Bastar and suggest corrective measures to arrest the trend, official sources told this newspaper here on Sunday.
According to the latest census, the tribal-dominated Bastar region, comprising districts of Bastar, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Kanker and Dantewada, has total population of 30, 88,414.
Bastar district has a population of 14,11,644 — 66.31 percent of whom are tribals.