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New legislation soon to protect paddy fields: Minister

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 12 (UNI) Kerala Revenue Minister K P Rajendran told the Assembly today that a new legislation would be brought to plug all loopholes in the Kerala Land Utilisation Act to strictly check conversion of paddy fields for other purposes.

Replying to a Calling Attention motion by Mr B Raghavan (CPI-M), he said such a legislation was necessary to protect the remaining paddy fields and sought people's cooperation to discourage filling of paddy fields.

Mr Rajendran said paddy fields lying uncultivated would be taken over and entrusted to farmers' organisations and Kudumbashri units for cultivation.

Replying to another Calling Attention by Mr V K Ebrahim Kunju (IUML), Public Works Minister T U Kuruvilla said construction of a new bridge parallel to the existing Venduruthy bridge in Kochi, which was damaged when a dredger hit one of its piers, was in progress.

A sum of Rs 12 crore had already been spent for the construction of Rs 37-crore bridge, which had to be equally shared by the Public Works Department, the Navy and the Cochin Port Trust (CPT), he said, adding immediate steps would be taken to get the shares of the Navy and the CPT.

Replying to a submission by Mr K C Venugopal (Cong), Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said a total of 1,854 vacancies in government services had been reported to the State Public Service Commission for recruitment during May-November, 2006.

He said strict action would be taken against heads of departments if they did not report vacancies to the PSC as and when they arose.

Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem told Mr M Prakasan Master (CPI-M) that efforts were on to acquire land for a container freight station to be set up by the Central Warehousing Corporation in Kannur.

UNI

Apollo, StemCyte ink pact on stem cell therapy

Chennai, Feb 21 (UNI) The Apollo Hospitals today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with StemCyte for using stem cell therapy on patients suffering from diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and thalassemia. The MoU was signed by Apollo Hospitals Executive Chairman Prathap C Reddy and StemCyte Vice-President and Business Development David Carmel here. Under the MoU, the two organisations would also work towards making Apollo a centre of excellence in Cord Blood Transplantation. As part of the MoU, transplant.....

Goods train oil tankers derailed in AP

Rajahmudry, Andhra Pradesh, Mar 12 (UNI) Three empty oil tankers of a goods train got derailed when it was passing through the Yard to main line at Samalkote railway station this evening at 1602 hours, according to Superintendent of Police, Railways, K Venkateswara Rao. Mr Rao told UNI over phone the goods train consisted of empty oil tankers. Three tankers were derailed and there was no damage. The oil tankers were re-railed after hours of hectic restoration work. However, there was.....

Poor economy, ethnic conflicts make North East HIV/AIDS prone

Aizawl, Feb 22 (UNI) Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) has suggested to initiate an inter-state collaborative intervention to reduce the risk of flesh trade across North East as well as to arrest growing threat of HIV/AIDS in the region. A joint report of AusAID and National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) revealed that long due modification of school AIDS Education Programme and lack of motivation in designing awareness initiatives as well as inadequate provision for women friendly HIV testing are main.....
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