gaddam@remus.rutgers.edu (Surekha Reddy Gaddam) (06/11/91)
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Source: [NEWSCLIPS/INFO.SERVICES.MAIL] MAIL/USA
Chandra Sekhar Kammula <kammula@plato.engr.umbc.edu
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Subj: CIVIL SERVICES EXAM IN INDIA CANCELLED AFTER LEAKAGE OF EXAM
QUESTIONS
NEW DELHI (JUNE 10) DPA - Authorities in India have cancelled the
examinations that were to be held to select candidates for the top
bureaucratic posts following leakage of question papers in some of the
subjects, news reports said Monday.
The autonomous Union Public Service Commission, which conducts the tests, said
on Sunday fresh examination dates would be announced later.
The cancellation were announced following the publication over the week-end of
the questions in some subjects in the Times of India newspaper.
Candidates in New Delhi who appeared for the tests on Sunday, even after
publication of the alleged questions, confirmed that the question papers of
history, economics, political science, sociology and physics were identical to
the one printed by the newspaper.
The papers were sold to candidates for prices ranging between 3,000 rupees
(about 150 dollars) and 20,000 rupees with the mysterious ''leakers'' raking
in thousands of dollars.
The cancelled examinations were preliminary ones which winnowed out candidates
for the final selection stage for posts in the diplomatic, administrative,
police and excise services in the federal government.
Many of the candidates, who had prepared for months for the tests, were
disraught over the leakage.
One of them, V.K. Singh, unaware of the leakage of the very same questions
that he had answered some minutes ago at a examination center in New Delhi,
broke into tears when he saw the published questions in the newspaper.
Subj: TORRENTIAL RAINS AND HEATWAVE KILL 264 PEOPLE IN INDIA
NEW DELHI (JUNE 10) DPA - Heavy rains and a heatwave sweeping different parts
of India have killed 264 people, the United News of India news agency reported
Monday.
While a heatwave in the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan has claimed 192
lives so far this year, torrential rains on Saturday and Sunday in Bombay and
its suburbs have accounted for 40 deaths and injures to 50 others, mainly in
house collapses.
Most of the victims in Rajasthan have died of heatstroke with area hospitals
full of people weakened by the heat. Newspaper reports say this summer is
proving the hottest in the region since 1916, with shade temperatures in some
spots reaching 50 degress Centigrade.
UNI said other rain related deaths occured in Kerala (24), Karnataka (2) and
Gujarat (6).
The financial capital of India, Bombay, remained cut off from its suburbs as
commuter train services remained suspended for the third successive day due to
water-logging of the tracks.
Bombay's Sahar international airport and domestic Santa Cruz airport reopened
for flights early Monday morning after remaining closed Sunday as the runway
was flooded and water entered the customs and cargo arrival terminal.
Airport personnel from New Delhi were flown to Bombay to man the flights as
the local staff were unable to reach their work spots.
The weather bureau in Bombay said the city recorded 63 centimetres on Saturday
and Sunday, as the annual southwest monsoon slashed the area with all its fury
destroying several thousand hutments that left over 100,000 slum dwellers
shelterless.
Weathermen warned that ''heavy to very heavy rains accompanied by gusty
winds'' were expected to lash the Bombay area on Monday-Tuesday.
Subj: INDIAN MINE ACCIDENT CLAIMS AT LEAST 150 LIVES
NEW DELHI (JUNE 10) - Some 150 workers were feared killed in a coal mine
tunnel in central India, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Monday.
It said the accident occurred in the Singrauli colliery Sunday when the tunnel
was flooded by heavy rains.
Subj: HEAVY RAINS CLAIM 94 LIVES IN BOMBAY, INDIA
NEW DELHI (JUNE 10) - The Indian metropolis of Bombay was limping back to
normality Monday, after the heaviest rains in nearly four decades left at
least 62 people dead in the city and nearby areas.
Thirty-four others were killed elsewhere in the country by rains and flash
floods which destroyed hundreds of homes and left thousands of people homeless,
news reports here said.
More than 50 others were injured as the rain that began Saturday morning
destroyed scores of shanties in Bombay, uprooted hundreds of trees and crippled
normal life in the bustling city of 10 million.
Nearly 100,000 dwellers of the poor shanty towns which dot Bombay lost their
homes as 63 centimeters (25 inches) of rain fel on the city, breaking a record
set in 1953, The Times of India and other newspapers said.
The Press Trust of India (PTI) said 17 people were killed in Bombay, the
country's financial and movie capital, 34 in neighburing Thane district and 11
in other nearby areas. Previous reports had put the Bombay toll at 40.
Most deaths occurred when homes collapsed.
PTI said that after two days of total dislocation, road and air transport were
returning to near normalcy in Bombay. But attendance Monday in banks,
factories and government offices was thin.
Bombay's airports also reported a partial resumption of domestic and
international flights, but only 5,000 feet (1,515 meters) of runway were
useable because of water logging.
Earlier, all domestic flights were cancelled and international flights
rescheduled after water entered the customs and cargo sections in the airports,
End of News
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Edited to suit the needs of misc.news.southasia - a moderated news group