OID‰‰†‰KOID‰‰†‰OID‰‰†‰MOID‰‰†‰C New Delhi, Monday,April 14, 2003www.timesofindia.com Capital 36 pages* Invitation Price Rs. 1.50 International India Times Sport Cherie Blair begins Computers for just Kaif shines as a book on the Rs 1,000 for Class XI India demolish wives at No.10 students in Goa South Africa Page 10 Page 7 Page 15 WIN WITH THE TIMES 6 governors Established 1838 Bennett, Coleman & Co., Ltd. 7,000 years gone in 48 hrs War is a poor chisel to carve AP needed, but out tomorrow. — Martin Luther King Iraq’s heritage NEWS DIGEST Delhi dithers ravaged as US By Bisheshwar Mishra Fire in Lajpat Nagar: A fire in La- TIMES NEWS NETWORK jpat Nagar’s Central Market gutted a ready-made garments showroom on troops watched New Delhi: Six governors are to Sunday evening. A short circuit is leave office at the end of April. likely to have caused the fire, divi- The Centre has not yet finalised their sional officer with the Delhi Fire Ser- By John F Burns replacements. vices (DFS) Atul Garg said. P3 Baghdad: The National Museum of Though the main consideration be- Samata in trouble: The Samata Iraq recorded a history of civilizations fore Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and Party appeared to that flourished in Mesopotamia more Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani is be on the brink of a than 7,000 years ago. But it took only to provide jobs for the RSS old guard, split on Sunday, 48 hours for it to be destroyed. At the views of the BJP’s NDA partners with followers of least 1,70,000 artifacts carried were and — at least in the case of one state, railway minister Ni- away by looters. Jammu and Kashmir — of chief min- tish Kumar and de- The full extent of the disaster came isters are also being borne in mind. fence minister to light only on Sunday,as the frenzy of In normal circumstances, the ap- George Fernandes looting began to ebb. pointment of governors for J&K, Ra- slugging it out in As fires in a dozen government min- jasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Patna. The tussle is said to be an ef- istries began to burn out and looters Himachal Pradesh and Lt Governor of fort by Nitish to gain a firmer grip on Delhi — all of whose tenures end this the party. P5 tired of pillaging in the 90-degree heat, museum officials reached the hotels month — would have been decided by Fund for Sikkim airport: Prime where foreign journalists were staying now. But given the complexities of the Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on along the eastern bank of the Tigris. political situation, the PM and DPM Sunday promised an additional They brought word of what is likely have had to tread warily, sources said. amount of Rs 110 crore to Sikkim for to be reckoned as one of the greatest Talk of Girish Saxena’s replace- the construction of an airport at cultural disasters in recent Middle ment has been doing the rounds for Pakyong near Gangtok. He also Eastern history. over three years. This time a change promised Central help for the con- A full accounting of what has been seems inevitable as the presence of an struction of an alternative road link- ex-intelligence official in the Raj ing Gangtok with north Bengal. P5 lost may take weeks or months. The museum had been closed during Bhawan jars with the ‘‘healing touch’’ Guidelines for tourists: Follow- policy of state chief minister Mufti much of the 1990s, and as with many An Iraqi guard walks through the ravaged vault of the national museum in Baghdad on Saturday. ing the recent attack by a tiger on Iraqi institutions, its operations were Mohammad Sayeed. tourists in Bandhavgarh reserve in cloaked in secrecy under Hussein. Sources say Sayeed has suggested Madhya Pradesh, Project Tiger has It remains unclear whether some of THE TREASURES OF that the next governor should not be a asked all 27 tiger reserves to fit open the museum’s priceless gold, silver and former army, police or intelligence tourist vehicles with iron grills and BAGHDAD MUSEUM copper antiquities, its ancient stone DAY 25 man, and that the Centre should be sliding windows. P7 DAY 25 and ceramics and fabled bronzes and represented in the state this time by a N Korea changes stand: After gold-overlaid ivory, had been locked ● Fighting starts in the ‘‘civilian face’’. With Gen Padmanab- months of insisting on direct talks away for safekeeping elsewhere before outskirts of Tikrit han and former RAW chief A S Dullat with Washington, North Korea has out of the running, Delhi LG Vijai the looting, or seized for private display ● Saddam’s half-brother signalled that it would be willing to in one of Hussein’s myriad palaces. Kapoor has emerged as the front-run- accept US demands for discussions What was beyond contest was that Watban caught in Mosul ner. Both Advani and Sayeed are com- over its nuclear programme. P10 the 28 galleries of the museum and ● 7 US prisoners of war found fortable with him. However, the Con- vaults with huge steel doors guarding in Samarrah, N Baghdad gress, which feels Kapoor is too cosy YOU SAID IT by Laxman storage chambers that descend floor af- with the BJP, might prevail on Sayeed ter floor into darkness, had been com- INSIDE to oppose the name. For Delhi LG, two former home sec- pletely ransacked. ● Baghdad battles to restore retaries — B P Singh and K Padman- Officials with crumpled spirits officials cited a solid gold harp from the that littered the museum’s corridors to order, anti-US protests held abhaiah — are the contenders. fought back tears and anger at Ameri- Sumerian era. find the glossy catalog of an exhibition ● In Madhya Pradesh, BJP stalwart can troops, as they ran down an inven- Another was a sculptured head of a of “Silk Road Civilizations” that was Armed groups order Iraq’s Pyarelal Khandelwal is likely to take tory of the most storied items that they woman from Uruk, one of the great held in Japan’s ancient capital of top Shi’ite cleric to leave the place of Bhai Mahavir, and in Gu- said had been carried away. Sumerian cities, dating from about the Nara in 1988. Najaf, ransack his home jarat, party veteran S S Bhandari may The looting was carried out by thou- same era, and a collection of gold neck- Turning to 50 pages of items lent by ● 278 shells having suspected have to make way for BJP vice presi- sands, who poured into the museum af- laces, bracelets and earrings, also from the Iraqi museum for the exhibition, he chemical arms found dent Kailashpati Mishra. In Ra- ter daybreak on Thursday and re- the Sumerian dynasties and also at said none of the antiquities pictured jasthan, the Centre is looking for a mained until dusk on Friday,with only least 4,000 years old. remained after the looting. ‘‘All gone in SIDESHOW suitable person to replace governor one intervention by American forces, But an item-by-item inventory of the two days,” he said.NYT News Service ● US tanks in Kirkuk, Ansuman Singh. most valued pieces carried away by the Comment: lasting about half an hour, at More collateral damage of reassuring Turkey that Comment: With polls coming up in lunchtime on Thursday. looters hardly captures the magnitude the Iraq invasion, this time of incalcu- of what had occurred. Kurds will not run the city several states, this next round of gu- Nothing remained, museum officials lable cultural legacy. To many, this will bernatorial musical chairs assumes More powerful, in its way,was the ac- ● Last oil well fire doused by said, at least nothing of real value, seem as outrageous a vandalism as the more political significance than usu- from a museum that had been regarded tion of one museum official in hurry- destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas experts in Kuwait ing away through the piles of smashed al. A ‘friendly’ governor can often tilt as perhaps the richest of all such insti- by the Taliban in Afghanistan. ● Northern Kirkuk oilfield will the balance in a closely-fought elec- tutions in the Middle East. ceramics and torn books and burned- Dr Germ and Mrs Anthrax: Page 11 out torches of rags soaked in gasoline start production soon tion and beyond. VAT is coming! Don’t know what As examples of what was gone, the See Dubyaman on page 10 will be next. I got this to keep proper accounts and a chap to operate it! indiatimes.com POLL Genetic code of SARS cracked Yesterday’s results: Do you think the Vancouver/ Hong Kong: Scien- SARS resembles other viral present Indian team has the tists in Canada have broken the ge- genomes, and gives us hints about potential to win matches without Dravid and Tendulkar? netic code of the virus suspected of the biology of the virus’’. causing SARS, the first step toward Cathay Pacific Airways, mean- Yes 67% No 33% developing a test for doctors to di- while, acknowledged that an exec- agnose victims of the killer flu or, utive warned that its entire pas- • The poll reflects the opinions of Net users who chose senger fleet could be grounded if to participate, and not necessarily of the general public. in future, a possible vaccine. The worldwide toll from the dis- traffic keeps falling. 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