Submarine arm of Navy soon
Vice-Admiral B.S. Soman, Chief of Naval Staff said here [Ernakulam] to-day [October 20] that the submarine arm of the Navy would be commissioned into service very shortly. In an informal chat with Pressmen, the Chief of the Naval Staff said they had also finalised the project for replacing the old ships of the fleet as part of the programme for strengthening the navy. Admiral Soman said expansion of the Navy was a costly business. “However, we have got to augment our fleet.” Asked whether there had been any attack on Cochin by the Pakistan Air Force planes in the recent Indo-Pakistan conflict, Admiral Soman said that basically, no Pakistan aircraft – jet or bomber – did have the range to make the flight to Cochin unless it be from an aircraft carrier. The Chief of the Naval Staff said in reply to a question that except for an attack on Dwaraka in Gujarat by the Pakistan Navy “the Indian Navy had never had any chance to come into action at all with the Pakistan Navy during the recent fighting. We have not lost any of our ships nor has Pakistan Navy sunk any Indian ship”.
Failure to adhere to rules
The Department of Social Security has castigated the Indian Council for Child Welfare for its failure to adhere to the terms and conditions of the grants given to it by the Department and to render accounts in time. The Council, the largest recipient of the Department’s grants to voluntary organisations, got about Rs. 12 lakhs in grants during 1963-65. The Department’s experience is that the “Council is not a good and timely account rendering organisation. It also does not adhere to the terms and conditions attaching to the sanctions in spite of the fact that these are accepted by the Council in writing.” The detailed accounts of grants sanctioned to the Council during 1962-63 and 1963-64 for the Bal Sevika training programmes were received by the Social Security Department in March and May 1965. Scrutiny of the accounts revealed that the Council for Child Welfare incurred expenditure in excess of the ceiling prescribed for various items by the Social Security Department, and admitted non-sponsored candidates for the Bal Sevika training schemes whereas it had been laid down that only candidates sponsored by the various agencies with assurance of re-employment should be admitted to the courses. The Council also failed to submit quarterly progress reports and income and expenditure statements in respect of individual centres and half-yearly consolidated progress reports and income and expenditure statements in respect of the schemes as a whole. Another charge against the Council is that it managed to get an excess grant by furnishing wrong information to the Department. A sum of Rs. 1,293.36 was received by the Council during 1963-64 on the plea that it had paid this amount to the technical officer as travelling and daily allowance. Inquiries by the Department showed that only Rs. 247.90 was spent on the officers’ T.A. and D.A.
Coordinated development of South
The regional conference of the constituents of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the southern States of Andhra, Kerala, Madras and Mysore, in a resolution adopted here [Bangalore] yesterday [October 19] asked the State Governments in the region to view industrial development in terms of the greatest good of the country as a whole. There was no place for State rivalries either within or outside the region, although the conference appreciated the need for balanced regional growth. Apart from tax reliefs and relaxation of monetary and financial controls the conference urged the need for a brighter economy to meet the needs of the Emergency. It also focussed attention on issues of interest to the Southern Region, such as the early completion of the Southern Zonal Power Grid for even distribution of electricity for maintaining industrial production, measures to meet the situation posed by the accumulation of stocks in the textile industry in the South, ironing out the diversities in the sales tax structure and incentives for the plantation industry in the South. As already reported the conference was inaugurated by Mr. S.L. Kirloskar, President of the Federation, yesterday [October 19]. The inaugural speech of Mr. Kirloskar, set the pattern in general to the statement of conclusions issued at the end of the conference. The conference hoped that the “overwhelming lessons” of the recent hostilities would be learnt for the formulation and implementation of policies in taking the country to self-reliance economically and militarily, the paramount twin-objectives.
6 rats consume a man’s food
A rat consumes foodgrains as much as its own weight every day and six rats consume one man’s food. This was stated here [Baroda] to-day [October 19] by Mr. T.A. Pai, Chairman of the Food Corporation of India, quoting from a research report from the U.S.
Mr. Pai, who was addressing a “Common meet on our food problems,” said in India the population of rats was growing rapidly along with the country’s population. Serious measures should be taken to eradicate more than 2,480 million of these rodents which were responsible for the country’s food shortage to some extent, he said.
