JNU scholar becomes Nepal's new Maoist PM

KATHMANDU: A slight, bespectacled 57-year-old scholar who says he learnt the ABC of Marxism while doing his doctorate in Jawaharlal Nehru University became Nepal's 35th prime minister on Sunday as parliamentarians went to the hustings for the fourth time in three years to elect a new premier and end the instability rocking the Himalayan republic since the abolition of monarchy in 2008.
Dr Baburam Bhattarai, a familiar name to Indian intellectuals and communist leaders, became Nepal's second Maoist prime minister after Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda's nine-month government in 2008-9, defeating his rival, former deputy prime minister Ram Chandra Paudel of the centrist Nepali Congress, historically close to India's Congress party.
Often compared to Dr Manmohan Singh, Bhattarai, one of Nepal's most successful finance ministers, polled the votes of 340 of the 575 MPs taking part in the election while his rival, Gandhian leader Ram Chandra Paudel who had spent over a dozen years in prison during pro-democracy movements, received 235 votes.
Paudel said his party would play the role of a constructive responsible opposition and was ready to help in the drafting of a new constitution. However, it would not join the Maoist government. Many of the parties supporting Bhattarai also warned him that the support was conditional: he would have to deliver on his party's promise that it would take the peace process forward in 45 days, especially dismantle the Maoists' People's Liberation Army.
The Maoist victory was ensured with five ethnic parties from the Terai plains, the Unified Democratic Madhesi Morcha with its 71 MPs, agreeing to support him hours before the election. While two parties - the royalist Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal, that is also demanding a Hindu state, and the leftist Nepal Workers' and Peasants' Party boycotted the exercise, an independent MP from the Terai, Baban Singh, warned the winner that he had a bumpy ride ahead as his new comrades were liable to desert him for anyone who offered better ministries.
Unlike the previous elections, Bhattarai's victory has been greeted with some enthusiasm in Nepal because of his academic excellence, clean image and efficiency shown as Prachanda's finance minister in 2008-2009. He had also won the 2008 election from Gorkha with the highest number of votes.
However, the crown comes with several thorns. To remind him how rocky the future is going to be, an ethnic organisation called a bandh on Sunday while Maoist trade union members demonstrated in Kathmandu after their leader, Shalik Ram Jamkattel, was attacked and injured badly by a unidentified group on Saturday night.
The victory comes at a time the new Indian ambassador to Nepal, Jayant Prasad has just assumed office. Prachanda has always blamed the Indian government for failing to win the prime ministerial election in 2010, especially after his Madhesi allies deserted him following a scandal about Prachanda's aide Krishna Bahadur Mahara seeking NRS 50 crore from a Chinese businessman to buy MPs' vote.
Though a moderate who has advocated maintaining friendly relations with India and focusing on peace instead of beginning yet another armed revolution, Bhattarai will also have to work hard to assure India that his government will not be hostile to the southern neighbour. The Prachanda government and the communist-Maoist governments had waged war on Prasad's successor Rakesh Sood and raised anti-India slogans.
Maoists also burnt down Indian company GMR's power project office in western Nepal and forced the closure of ITC subsidiary Surya Nepal's garments factory in eastern Nepal.
Bhattarai would also have to ensure that the new constitution is ready by November, an impossible task if he fails to win the Nepali Congress' trust.
Dr Baburam Bhattarai- A profile..
In the 16th century, Nepal's Gorkha principality had the custom of choosing a king by a simple method. All aspirants took part in a race and the fleetest one was crowned king for a year. Though not a strong man, wily Drabya Shah enlisted the support of several clans to win the race. One of them was Gajanand Bhattarai.
Centuries later, history extracted its revenge on Sunday with Bhattarai's descendant, Dr Baburam Bhattarai, becoming the prime minister of Nepal as well as the deputy leader of the party that ousted from power Shah's descendant, King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah.
The first prime minister from the western region, Bhattarai proved his stronghold there three years ago when he mustered the highest number of votes in the historic constituent assembly election. The son of a poor farmer, Bhattarai had been Nepal's wonder kid, standing first in the school-leaving exam as well as the intermediate exam.
A passage to India came with a scholarship under the Colombo Plan to study in the Chandigarh College of Architecture, followed by an M Tech at Delhi School of Planning and Architecture, and finally, a PhD from the Jawaharlal Nehru University under the guidance of Prof Attiya Habib. It was at JNU that he met his wife, Hisila Yami, also a Maoist leader and minister in the caretaker government, as well as Arundhati Roy and Indian communist leaders as well as leftist intellectuals.
An IT-savvy man who has his own web site --- www,baburambhattarai.com -- and his page on Facebook, Bhattarai fell out with Maoist numero uno Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda during the course of the decade-old "People's War" and was suspended along with Hisila and other leaders critical of Prachanda. Nepal's local media recently reported that he was virtually under house arrest in a remote village at that time and could have also lost his life. Bhattarai was also jailed by the state four times when the armed insurrection started.
Though the differences with Prachanda were papered over for the sake of party unity, they have not been entirely ironed out. They erupted several times recently, creating three different camps within the party and also causing Prachanda to ally with other parties and support their candidates instead of letting Bhattarai contest the prime ministerial poll earlier.
Sunday's victory will probably not be to the liking of a section within the Maoists themselves. Bhattarai had received death threats this summer from a trade union leader loyal to Prachanda.
An author whose hard-hitting memoir was released this year, Bhattarai is also a Bollywood connoisseur. He has been noted trooping to the theatres to watch acclaimed Hindi films like Rajneeti and Rann.
Though friendly towards India, Bhattarai favours scrapping the Indo-Nepal Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950. He also feels some of the tension in Indo-Nepal relations stems from the open border the two neighbours share. While his party supports the Indian Maoists ideologically, he says there are no links with them. Instead, it wants diplomatic and business relations with India.

Despite 33% drop, India records highest newborn deaths in world

NEW DELHI: First the good news: India has recorded a 33% drop in newborn deaths between 1990 and 2009. Now, the bad news. Despite the sharp drop, over 9 lakh newborns died in 2009, the highest in the world. The most comprehensive newborn death estimates so far - covering all 193 countries and spanning 20 years released by the World Health Organization, Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on Tuesday - says newborns account for 41% of all child deaths.
India's neonatal mortality rate (NMR) in 1990 (deaths per 1,000 live births) was 49. In absolute numbers, the nation recorded 13.49 neonatal deaths. In 2009, the neonatal mortality rate stood at 34, which worked out to 9.07 lakhs. Only five countries account for more than half of the world's 3.3 million newborn deaths - India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dr Joy Lawn of Save the Children's Saving Newborn Lives programme said, "Newborns are barely on the global health agenda and this study reveals the tragic results of that neglect. Each year 3.3 million babies still die in the first four weeks of life, despite proven, cost-effective interventions that could save these newborns.
The study found that newborn deaths dropped from 4.6 million to 3.3 million between 1990 and 2009.
But while the newborn mortality rate dropped 28% during that period, it lagged progress on maternal mortality (34% reduction) and mortality of older children (37% reduction for children between 1 month and 5 years).
Consequently, the share of child deaths that occur in the newborn period (the first four weeks of life) rose from an already high 37% to 41% and is likely to be on the rise, the authors said.
The three leading causes of newborn death - preterm delivery, asphyxia and severe infections - are preventable with proper care.
"We know that solutions are simple as keeping newborns warm, clean and properly breastfed can keep them alive, but many countries are in dire need of more and better trained frontline health workers to teach these basic lifesaving practices, said Thomas Chandy of Save the Children.
"The global health worker crisis is the biggest factor in the deaths of mothers and children, and particularly the 3.3 million newborns dying needlessly each year. Training more midwives and more community health workers will allow many more lives to be saved, the study added.
The first four weeks of life - the neonatal period - carries one of the highest risks of death of any four-week period in the human lifespan.
In high-income countries (HIC), now neonates are a major focus of child health both for reducing mortality and morbidity. Globally, the average annual reduction in NMR appears to be accelerating and was twice as high during 1999-2009 (2.3%) as compared to that experienced from 1990 to 1999 (1.1%). Only high-income countries experienced lower average reduction in NMR during 1999-2009 (1.7%) as compared to that between 1990 and 1999 (3.7%), which may reflect the challenge of reducing mortality in very preterm babies.
However, while progress appears to be increasing, the average annual rate of NMR reduction is well below the MDG-4 goal (of 4.4%) at 1.7% per year globally during 1990-2009, and less than for under-five mortality at 2.1% per year in the same period and maternal mortality between 1990 and 2008 at 2.3% per year.

Latest James Bond film to be shot in India

NEW DELHI: After shooting in exotic locales across the globe, the world's most famous spy has taken a fancy to desi destinations like the humble Sarojini Nagar market in Delhi and relatively unknown Navagam town near Ahmedabad. Other possible locations that the latest James Bond flick could be shot in include the sun-kissed beaches of Goa and business hub Mumbai.
The I&B ministry has given permission to India Take One Productions to shoot the latest Bond film. 'Bond 23' is likely to be shot at the cheek-by-jowl streets of Daryaganj, Sarojini Nagar market and Ansari Road in Delhi. The film, to be directed by Sam Mendes, will be released in 2012. This also marks the 50th anniversary of the successful 'Dr No' and the Bond franchise.
The producers have been given permission to shoot in North Goa with the exception of the tunnel at Dudhsagar (south-eastern railway) and Zuari rail bridge over Zuari river (Konkan railways) due to security concerns. Sources said talks with the railway ministry were on regarding these particular locales.
In Ahmedabad, the producers had sought permission to shoot near the Navagam area that is close to installations like Torrent Power limited, ONGC and IOC. The ministry has asked them to ensure that permissions are taken from the railway ministry and the state government. "We have suggested that these vital installations be avoided during the shoot in this area,'' a source said.
The Bond film will join an increasing number of foreign films that are being given permission to shoot in India. At last count, 22 films including big ticket productions like the Tom Cruise-starrer 'Mission Impossible', 'Life of Pi', 'Singularity' and 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' had been given permission. Among reality shows that have been cleared include the World's Strictest Parents' Australia and New Zealand productions.

Five CMs to accompany PM to Dhaka

NEW DELHI: Signalling the growing importance of Bangladesh to India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take along five chief ministers to Dhaka when he travels there next week for one of his biggest foreign policy moves in the region.
The chief ministers of West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram will accompany Singh, an event that is extremely rare in Indian politics. It is intended to signal to Bangladesh that India is ready to press the reset button on ties with its eastern neighbour.
The visit is likely to see India and Bangladesh finally working out a comprehensive boundary agreement. This would be the logical implementation of the Indira-Mujib agreement of 1974, which could not be implemented since Mujib was assassinated in 1975. While its no secret that India's ties with the Awami League is much more pleasant, Indian sources said they were going the extra mile to keep the opposition BNP on board. Bangladeshi opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia will meet Singh, which Indians see as the first step in a continued engagement of all sides of political opinion in Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina addressed almost all of India's security concerns in the past year, which made it easier for India to move faster on other areas. But the Indian concern is the sustainability of the new spring in bilateral ties. That will require a lot of political investment by India on the BNP and Jamaat front.
The boundary defied a resolution all these years, which both sides resisted getting caught in the complexities of "enclaves and "adverse possessions fearing largescale migration, uprooting of people etc. But a joint survey of the affected areas over the past few months showed the affected people to be not more than 53,000.
The boundary agreement will keep the enclaves where they are, that is, those on the Bangladeshi side will go to Bangladesh and those on the Indian side will come to India. So there will be an exchange of territory, but in the broader scheme of things, Indians felt this was the right thing to do. Bangladesh will get a greater chunk of land from India, which would also sweeten the deal for them.
The real deal between both sides will be to work for economic integration. Here, the Indians are a lot more miserly, particularly in the textiles sector. Sources said it was much easier to work towards a simplified visa regime between the two countries. Soon, travellers between India and Bangladesh on the Maitree Express can get immigration and customs clearance on board, instead of having to wait an hour on either side.
There is an understanding in India that some thought has to be given to achieving a more just balance of trade position between the two countries. This can happen with greater investment. Here, Bangladesh will have to work hard to attract Indian companies to invest there. This will need some elbow grease by the Bangladeshis particularly after the disappointment suffered by Tatas a few years ago.

Rs 6 lakh for a night of dance, booze and sex in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Its security befitted a spy agency, its charges were more than a starred hotel's, and the operations were straight out of a James Bond thriller. The Sun-n-Sheel, an inconspicuous hotel in Andheri, was busted last month for running a prostitution racket and dance bars. It was not, however, the catch that left the raiding party astonished but the management's sophisticated functioning.
The establishment charged Rs 6 lakh per patron per visit and allowed them in only with a reference. It also had all the safeguards normally expected from a secret agency's operation: intimidatingly thick-set guards, seemingly defunct elevators that came alive on signal, electronic doors, hidden escape shafts with mattresses below to break the fall, even a separate room stocked with a change of clothes for the dancers for emergencies.
Located on Andheri-Kurla Road in JB Nagar, the hotel, indeed, has a facade as innocuous as any in the city. On the front is a dhaba, on the side other stores, and on the third-floor terrace a restaurant. Day long, these businesses conducted their trade; and late at night, after others had pulled their shutters, the hotel would come to life and stay abuzz till 6am. Most of its customers were businessmen, who needed a reference to gain entry.
Hotel Sun-n-Sheel had a perfectly thought-out operation that would have never given an outsider any clue about the happenings inside. "There was also a strong contingency plan for the girls and customers to escape," said an MIDC police officer.
Forty-five men, including the hotel's owner, Lalji Singh alias Vinod Singh, and 6 women were arrested under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act in the raid on July 24. Singh, it was later found out, is also wanted by the Interpol for a cheating case in Dubai.
Hotel sources say Sun-n-Sheel's shadowy and intricate operations began right at the building's entrance. There, an electronic switch was installed, which, when pressed, caused the lights in the dance bars to flicker to warn of approaching policemen.
On the ground floor too were posted 12 brawny guards manning an iron gate. Their brief was simply to keep out unwanted visitors and collect the Rs 1-lakh entrance fee in cash from trusted patrons.
Once past the first test, the patrons had to take the stairs to the first floor, where two elevators existed: one went straight to the third floor restaurant and the other seemingly remained dead. "The second lift provided access to the second floor. It started only if instructions were provided over phone to the staff on the fourth floor to fix the fuse," said a police officer. On the second floor were two dance bars and rooms for prostitution.
Any patron entering the establishment had to shell out another Rs 5 lakh to the staff. In return, he was given a smaller amount on "a steel plate" in various denominations for the sole purpose of showering the cash on the girls. "The plate would be replenished until the entire Rs 5 lakh was exhausted. This, though, was the lower limit. When two customers fell for the same girl, there was no ceiling," said a source in the hotel.
Put together, the Rs 6 lakh covered the dance, food, alcohol and girls, most of whom who were in the age group of 18-20, some Bollywood aspirants. "For sex, the customers could shift to the rooms that are separated from the dance bars by an electronically operated door fitted to the common wall," said a police officer.
Apart from the switch at the entrance, the establishment had made many arrangements for contingencies like police raids. "Near the bars, there was a room that stocked a change of clothes-like jeans and T-shirts-for the girls," said the officer. On getting out of their dancing clothes, the girls would climb up to the third floor restaurant and blend in with the crowds.
Also, there was a 4ft by 6ft opening to a shaft that patrons and the girls leaped into to escape. At the bottom of the shaft were left piles of mattresses to break the fall. Once on the ground floor, people could flee to a public road behind the hotel through a gate.
When the hotel was raided last month, some girls fled to the third floor restaurant and therefore avoided arrest. Those who tried escaping through the rear, though, were caught. True to the operations, the staff at the dance bars even removed the chairs and dropped mud over the floor to make it appear unused. "But we found the bulbs too hot, which exposed them," an officer said.
Singh, who also owns hotels in Dubai and Mauritius, reportedly boasted to the police about his clout on arrest. "He told us that he supplied models for a late Mumbai-based corporate giant in Dubai," the officer said. The police say they will hand over Singh to the Interpol once the formalities are over. Singh, who is currently out on bail, did not reply to TOI's several attempts to contact him.

Melbourne world's best city to live, Mumbai among worst: Survey

MELBOURNE: Australian city Melbourne has been named as the world's most liveable city, while India's business capital Mumbai placed at 116th position in an annual survey that assessed living conditions in 140 global cities.
According to the Economic Intelligence Unit's new Global Liveability Survey, Melbourne dislodged Vancouver to become the best city in the world to live.
The Canadian capital city that topped the survey since 2002, fell this year to third place behind Vienna, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
According to the report, India's commercial hub Mumbai is ranked 116th, one place up from its previous year's ranking.
In 2010, Mumbai was ranked 117th while Delhi was at 113th position. Though Delhi figured in the new survey, its current ranking was not mentioned in the media report.
Other Australian cities in the top 10 included Sydney, which is placed at 6th, while Perth and Adelaide ranked eighth and ninth.
"Australia, with a low population density and relatively low crime rates, continues to supply some of the world's most liveable cities," survey editor Jon Copestake said.
The top 10 liveable cities included Toronto, which is placed at 4th, followed by Calgary (5th), Helsinki (7th) and Auckland (10th). London was ranked 53, while at 26 position, Honolulu was the top US city.
The worst places to live among the 140 locations surveyed by EIU were Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh's Dhaka and Zimbabwe's Harare.
Scores in Europe had been pushed slightly down by the eurozone crisis, while the Arab Spring had affected ratings across the Middle East and North Africa.
The cities were gauged on five categories -- political and social stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.
They were scored out of 100 and the report noted that the top 10 cities were only separated by 1.8 percentage points.

Hurricane Irene wreaks havoc on New Jersey highways

 

On the western end of the state, there was only one traveler on the Lower Trenton Bridge, famed for its neon "TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES" sign — that would be the flooded Delaware River. Otherwise, the span was closed.

On the eastern half, Interstate 287 in Boonton collapsed from the force of the Rockaway River, shutting down a northbound stretch of the busy highway and leaving the rest of the week’s commute uncertain for hundreds of thousands of motorists.

West, east and in between, travelers today were still being rerouted, shut off, frustrated and beleaguered after Hurricane Irene’s weekend visit.

It looked like titans played a game of baseball on New Jersey roadways, using trees as bats and highway shoulders as the basepaths.

Popular Jersey roads were shut down across the state, including Route 1 in Mercer County, Route 18 in New Brunswick, Route 23 in Morris, Passaic and Sussex counties, Route 29 in Mercer County, Route 46 in Morris County, Route 202 in Wayne and Route 206 in Somerville.
"We’ve been working through the night, but we’re dealing with a lot of water and flood damage," state Department of Transportation spokesman Joe Dee said yesterday.
In Boonton, the northbound side of I-287 that travels over the Rockaway River was closed overnight Monday after a portion of the shoulder washed out just south of Exit 44, he said.
"Floodwater eroded the roadbed and the road surface collapsed," Dee said.
There was no immediate estimate of when the highway would be open for travel.
The Rockaway River went from smooth current to treacherous whitewater rapids overnight. First, the 20-foot barrier of trees alongside I-287 vanished. Then, the embankment below the highway crumbled.
"We heard a rumbling — like thunder," said Loretta Sanford, 75.
Several nearby houses also were evacuated.
Dee said the state was working to shore up the highway side with protective "riprap" blocks. However, just after 11 yesterday morning, another thunderous cascade of rocks fell from the highway side of the river and into the still-rushing water.
With drivers deterred from that section of I-287, Interstate 80 became clogged near the 287 split, causing delays of close to a half-hour.
Adding to the motorist misery last night, flooding shut down exit ramps off I-80 East in Parsippany-Troy Hills and Wayne, causing backups of close to an hour.
In New Brunswick, the swollen Raritan River overflowed its banks, forcing police to close Route 18 from the John Lynch Bridge in Piscataway south to Route 1 on the border with East Brunswick.
With county government offices and the Middlesex County Courthouse still open, drivers crawled along congested side streets off Routes 1 and 130 to reach their jobs.
The Albany Street bridge, an important gateway into the city, remained closed.
Shut-down sections of usually bustling Route 18 became pedestrian malls for bicyclists, dog-walkers, parents with small children, sightseers and the occasional jogger.
Tim Burns walked down the highway and eyed the adjacent, newly redeveloped Boyd Park that was under water.
It was his second stroll on the highway.
"We did it with Floyd," he said, recalling the raging storm that closed Route 18 in 1999.
Trenton’s Assunpink Creek flooded to a record level, submerging train tracks in the state capital that are used by Amtrak and commuter trains.
However, NJ Transit announced later yesterday that trains would be running again today after a three-day shutdown — but not from Trenton to New Brunswick.
In Fairfield, gushing water from the Passaic River shut Route 46 in both directions near the Willowbrook Mall and led to at least five other road closures, authorities said.
"This is the worst," Mayor James Gasparini said. "The roads are impassable."
Gov. Chris Christie said there were 350 road closures at the peak, but it was down to 86 at the time of his news conference late yesterday afternoon in Manville.
In one case, he said, the state brought in construction companies to quickly rebuild a section of Interstate 80 in Morris County.
Christie urged drivers to respect the power of the floodwaters.
"Don’t be complacent," he said. "If you see flooding, don’t drive into it. You don’t know how deep the water is. If you see water, turn around and find another way to go."

Museum in UK county honours former Indian cricketer Ranji

HOVE: Authorities in England's Hove city dedicated a portion of the Sussex Cricket Museum in the memory of late cricketer, K. S. Ranjit Singh Ji, after whom the premier Indian domestic cricket championship, Ranji Trophy is named.
This section of the museum was inaugurated by acting Indian High Commissioner to U.K., Rajesh Prasad,
Ranjit Singh was an Indian prince and a test cricketer who played for the English cricket team and county cricket for Sussex. He has been credited for bringing an unconventional technique of batting backed with fast reactions; he brought a new style to batting that revolutionised the game.
Talking to mediapersons, Rob Broddie, a librarian at the museum said Ranjit Singh Ji was closely associated with Sussex for several years.

"He was revered, if you read out history books, he was a very special player, he was infact the greatest player, both himself, his nephew Dalip, Maurice Tate, Arthur Gilligan. We have had some really special players here. If you go back you had the revered David Shepherd, Tony Greg, Nawab Ali Pataudi, the names go on. The club has very rich history but also this very close collection with the Indians, which I have tried here to show, and it's been rather difficult because I had eight weeks to put it together. This is just a part of it, there is many other archive which I haven't been able to access," said Rob.

Praising the late cricketer, Broddie said he was a great benefactor of the club and often invited English players to his palace in India.
"He was so generous to the club, a great benefactor and he was always inviting English players to his palace in India and the players would go out there and he would treat them royally," added Broddie.
The Sussex Cricket Museum has been allocated more space to facilitate the display of rare memorabilia of Ranjit Singh Ji and other revered Indian cricketers who have visited and played at the Sussex cricket grounds.
The museum is also celebrating 100 years of the first visit to Hove by an official Indian team, in 1911. However, the first Indian team, the Bombay Parsees, came here in May 1886. They could win just one match out of 28, and lost 19 games.

New Chair in Indian studies at Edinburgh



 University of Edinburgh



LONDON: A new Chair in Contemporary Indian Studies is to be created at the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with the Indian Council for Cultural relations, an official release said today.
Chairs focussed on Indian studies have been established at some universities in England, but this is the first such Chair in Scotland.
The agreement to set up the Chair has been signed by University of Edinburgh Vice Principal International Stephen Hillier and ICCR Director General Suresh K Goel.
he Chair will see an Indian academic join the university as a professor, the release added.
The two organisations hope that this initiative will lead to the creation of a Centre for Contemporary Indian Studies at Edinburgh.
As part of the university's long-standing ties with India, it also signed a Memorandum of Understanding earlier this year with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
The university has also opened a liaison office in Mumbai, which will simplify communication and collaboration between the university and partners in Indian education, business and government.
University Principal Professor Sir Timothy O'Shea said: "I am delighted that we are to establish a new Chair thanks to the support of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
Our efforts show that the University of Edinburgh is committed to working with Indian partners and institutions".
He added: "It is my hope that this appointment will strengthen our excellent relationship with India, potentially creating more joint opportunities in the future and allowing us to further education across the world."
The University of Edinburgh has a long tradition of teaching and scholarship relating to India.
Former Edinburgh scholars with Indian links include William Robertson, who wrote one of the earliest European texts on Indian commerce and culture, and Victor Kiernan, known for his translations of the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Mohammed Iqbal.
The University is also home to the Centre for South Asian Studies, the principal academic unit in Scotland dedicated to the study of the Indian subcontinent. The Centre has links with the Scottish Parliament, non-governmental organisations and major educational and cultural groups in South Asia and Scotland.

Facebook snatches NIT Warangal student for Rs 45L

HYDERABAD: It's raining lucrative jobs at NIT Warangal which has had the best placement season so far. The 51-year-old institute started its recruitment drive on August 15 and already has a 21-year-old fourth year BTech computer science student securing the highest ever pay package of Rs 45 lakh per annum. The offer, made by Facebook, has created a record of sorts here. The institute confirmed that the student will be joining the technical wing of the social networking giant, as soon as he completes his course in March next year.

This has set a new benchmark at NIT Warangal in that the highest salary any student from the institute had bagged so far was Rs 20 lakh per annum. From the 2010-11 batch as many as three students had got jobs that paid them Rs 20 lakh per annum, sources at NIT said. It is not just the 21-year-old whizkid who has bagged a hefty package this year. According to sources, the salaries offered to students so far range anywhere between Rs 5 to Rs 12 lakh per annum. The recruitment process for this year that started on August 15 is expected to last till March 2012. Sources said that most of the recruiters so far are IT companies.

About 30 students from computer science stream of the institute have already been recruited. Eight companies have come in for recruitment in the first round so far. According to NIT officials, this year other than the usual brand of companies several new ones have expressed interest in hiring. "Companies have now shed the recession blues completely and are looking for fresh candidates to recruit. Many of them like Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and Google could recruit more number of freshers than they did last year," said a senior professor from the institute. Last year, 92% students from the B Tech batch of the institute and 50 % students from M Tech batch were recruited by companies. The average pay package offered by companies last year was between Rs 6 and Rs 7 lakh per annum. The institute officials are expecting a considerable increase in the pay packages this year. NIT professors said that this year, several companies have been vying for the first interview slots with students.

"Most of the IT companies are willing to pay really well to bright students who get absorbed in the first or second interview. The companies who come for interviews later could offer bigger packages to students. We'll have to wait and watch what the salary trend this year is," said an official from NIT.

Irene Lashes New York Area

People gathered in Hudson River Park in Manhattan at the end of the day after Hurricane Irene swept through the area.

A woman carried her daughter across a flooded street in Hoboken, N.J. In addition to flooding throughout the state, more than half a million residents were without power on Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Residents of Long Beach viewed the rough surf on the south shore of Long Island Sunday afternoon.

Members of the Dix Hills Fire Dept. removed a tree blocking Vanderbilt Parkway on Long Island.

 

A restaurant in Rye, N.Y., was flooded with two feet of water.

West 231st St. in Riverdale was a blanketed by branches and leaves.

Natasha Devine sat on her stoop with her mother Sharon Devine and son Anthony Jackson waiting for the waters to recede in Rosedale, Queens.

Children cleaned up the street in their Queens neighborhood on Sunday.

 

Partially submerged cars on Saybrook Street in Staten Island.

 

Ida Tserlina of Staten Island checked her mail after the storm had passed. Flooding was widespread in Staten Island.

Storm evacuees spent the night at a shelter set up by the city in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

City workers cleared fallen trees from a street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Low-lying areas in Manhattan were flooded, including along the East River near the Williamsburg Bridge.

 

Trees throughout the boroughs were casualties of the storm. Bicyclists navigated past a fallen tree in East River Park on the Lower East Side.

 

 

By the afternoon, the rain had ended and residents ventured out to the pier in Hudson River Park on the west side of Manhattan.

 

Irene pushed into the New York area on Sunday morning, unleashing rain and wind on a city girded for the worst. Rising water lapped over the seawall at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan.

Storm Damage Largely Spares New York

Jessica Libert and her niece Madilynn Rice, 2, survey the flood damage on Croft Place in Staten Island

Tropical Storm Irene swept through the desolate streets of New York on Sunday, flooding low-lying areas and leaving millions of homes without power along the Eastern Seaboard as it continued on to New England. Most New Yorkers emerged from their makeshift bunkers to find little of the widespread devastation the authorities had feared.

The storm, which was downgraded from a hurricane shortly before it hit New York, attacked in a flurry of punches. A police station in Cranford, N.J., flooded and had to be evacuated. Firefighters paddling in boats rescued more than 60 people from five-foot floodwaters on Staten Island. New York’s major airports were closed, and at least four storm-related deaths were reported in New York State and New Jersey.

But after wide-ranging precautionary measures by city officials that included shutting down New York’s mass-transit network, sandbagging storefronts on Fifth Avenue and issuing evacuation orders for 370,000 people across the city, Hurricane Irene is likely to be remembered by New Yorkers more for what did not happen than for what did.

Windows in skyscrapers did not shatter. Subway tunnels did not flood. Power was not shut off pre-emptively. The water grid did not burst. There were no reported fatalities in the five boroughs. And the rivers flanking Manhattan did not overrun their banks.

Still, when the center of the storm arrived over New York City, about 9 a.m., winds had reached 65 miles per hour, making Irene the largest storm to hit the city in more than 25 years, even as the bulk of the storm’s power was reserved for the suburbs.

“All in all, we are in pretty good shape because of the exhaustive steps I think we took to prepare for whatever came our way,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon.

Before striking New York, the storm left a path of wreckage that killed at least 16 people in six states, paralyzed most modes of transportation across the Northeast and caused flooding in several states.

“Many Americans are still at risk of power outages and flooding,” President Obama said, “which could get worse in the coming days as rivers swell past their banks.”

New York’s economic costs have yet to be calculated, but with Broadway dark, storefronts covered in plywood and virtually the entire population shuttered indoors, the weekend’s lost sales and storm damage could end up costing the city about $6 billion, said Peter Morici, a business school professor at the University of Maryland. The total national cost could reach $40 billion, Mr. Morici added.

Outside New York City, the storm’s wrath was stark. In New Jersey, more than 800,000 customers were without power on Sunday, and the state’s largest utility, Public Service Electric and Gas, estimated it could take a week to restore electricity to all of its customers. In Connecticut, 670,000 customers had lost power — roughly half the state — which surpassed power failures caused by Hurricane Gloria in 1985.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said more than 300 roadways were blocked, but he warned that dire problems were still to come, particularly along the Delaware, Ramapo and Passaic Rivers. “The real issue that we are going to have to deal with now is flooding,” Mr. Christie said.

Flooding in Philadelphia reached levels that had not been seen in that city in more than 140 years. Vermont was also struck particularly hard; even as the worst of the winds had dissipated, flooding forced officials to evacuate parts of southern Vermont, and floods were expected in the northern portion of the state as late as Monday.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said it could take a week to fully restore power to the 750,000 customers without electricity. That included 457,000 on Long Island, 50,000 in Westchester County and 34,000 in Queens, officials said. Consolidated Edison said power was not cut in Manhattan.

From Coastline to Mountains, Water Fast and Lethal

Engineers conducting a safety inspection were slammed by waves in Asbury Park, N.J.

In southern New Jersey, a 20-year-old woman called her boyfriend early Sunday to tell him that she was trapped in her car with water that was up to her neck. Then she called the police. Her body was found about eight hours later, still inside her car, which had been swept away during a flash flood on Route 40 in Salem County.

Farther north in the state, a postal inspector waded through a flooded road as he tried to get to the building in Kearny where he worked. He apparently stepped into an unseen drainage ditch and was sucked into 10 to 12 feet of flowing water, the Kearny police said. His body was found 100 yards from the entrance to the building.

Small towns across the Catskills, including Windham, Margaretville, Tannersville, Prattsville and many others suffered devastating floods with many downtowns underwater.

“We’ve been crushed up here,” said Shaun S. Groden, the administrator for Greene County, which includes some of the flooded towns. “We have major flash floods. We have bridges that have been blown out. We have people stranded, people who have gone up to the second floor of their homes.”

In New York City, Tropical Storm Irene’s winds did not come close to meeting expectations, which meant that there was no sea of shattered glass from Manhattan’s forest of high-rise buildings and no waves of water cascading across low-lying neighborhoods.

But the storm’s legacy — touching towns including Fairfield, Conn., and Fairfield, N.J., and rural hamlets in the mountains of upstate New York and as far north as Vermont — is likely to be an extraordinary onslaught of flooding that is still playing out as some rivers continue to rise in an already waterlogged region.

In Vermont, Gov. Peter Shumlin said the state had “a full-blown flooding catastrophe on our hands,” and the state police were urging residents in some particularly hard-hit communities to climb as high as they could in their homes.

While New York City was largely spared, another major urban area, Philadelphia, was not. The Schuylkill River, which runs through the city, reached 13.56 feet on Sunday, the level of moderate flooding. The record, 17 feet, was set in 1869. Floodwaters steadily crept up the main thoroughfare of the Manayunk neighborhood along the Schuylkill. “This is the highest we have ever seen it,” said one resident, Christiane Wuerzinger, 48, who has lived in the area for seven years. “My daughter said, ‘How will we get to CVS? Will we have to take a boat?’ It’s like Venice.”

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said that the state escaped major damage along the coast from the storm, but residents in low-lying areas near rivers and streams faced ominous threats in the coming days from serious inland flooding conditions, particularly along three major rivers, the Delaware, Ramapo and Passaic. The Ramapo, in particular, was expected to reach record levels.

“This storm is transitioning into a flooding event,” Mr. Christie said. “Some rivers have not crested yet.” And, as is often the case, long after the drama of wind-lashed shorelines has passed, residents far from the coast will be dealing with the effects of catastrophic flooding from the storm.

In Hoboken, N.J., people took to the streets to photograph their widely submerged city, including one group paddling a makeshift plywood raft past the brick row houses on Jefferson Street.

For some the flooding proved deadly.

Celena Sylvestri, 20, of Quinton, N.J., was driving to her boyfriend’s house early on Sunday on Route 40 in Salem County when she was caught in floodwaters. The car, with her body inside, was found about 50 feet into the woods off the road, the police said.

The drowning victim in Kearny, who apparently was also trying to escape from a submerged car, was identified as Ronald Dawkins, 47, a Postal Service supervisor.

For some people, flooding was a risk they had come to expect.

In Lindenhurst, Long Island, South Ninth Street is a short block bounded by a canal that leads to the Great South Bay on the south side.

Herb Otten, 73, a retired airline mechanic, said he had lived there for 33 years but was stunned by just how much flooding the storm caused.

“I never saw anything like this in my life,” Mr. Otten said. “White-capped water driving down the block starting from 6:30 to 7 a.m. this morning.”

For others, the flooding came as a total shock.

Mr. Groden, the Greene County, N.Y., administrator, said the National Guard was needed to rescue 21 people who had moved to the second floor of a hotel in Prattsville. After conditions were found to be too windy for a helicopter, the Guard used Humvees and other military vehicles.

“This was a flood of historic volume,” he said. “No one remembers anything like it before.”

Even in New York City, flooding led to moments of tension.

Mousa Tadrose, 44, who lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saybrook Street on Staten Island with his wife and two young sons, is a new immigrant from Egypt.

When he looked out his front door at about 7 a.m., it was raining and there was about a foot of water in the street. Within an hour, the water was up to his stomach.

“I suddenly saw a lot, a lot, a lot — the water is increasing, increasing, increasing,” Mr. Tadrose recalled. “So I go out to my neighbor’s near to me and I carry my two kids and my wife is walking through the water.”

From a neighbor’s house, they notified authorities and were evacuated by raft, Mr. Tadrose said.

For many people living in flood-prone areas, the worst is still to come, officials said.

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said virtually all of the state’s rivers and streams were expected to reach record or near-record levels because of the combination of the storm and an unusually rainy August. Particularly worrisome spots, Mr. Ragonese said, included the Passaic Basin in areas including Pompton Lakes, Lincoln Park, Little Falls, Wayne and Paterson; the Delaware River at New Hope, Pa., Trenton and Lambertville; and the Raritan River Basin around Bound Brook.

“This is one of those cases where the storm is over,” he said, “but there’s still a lot more water coming.”

New York Subway Plans Limited Morning Service

Subway workers checked the tracks along the Franklin Avenue shuttle line in Brooklyn.

The New York City subway, whose closure in the lead-up to Tropical Storm Irene was perhaps the most unsettling element of a prodigious storm preparation effort, is set to reopen on a limited schedule in time for the Monday morning commute, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday evening.

Parts of the underground system will remain closed due to flooding, including all service to the Rockaways in Queens. But nearly all of the subway’s 22 lines, including express and local service, are expected to be restored, Mr. Cuomo said. Fewer trains will run than in a normal morning rush.

Still, other parts of the region’s mass transit network are likely to remain partially paralyzed for the morning commute, including the suburban commuter rail networks that carry thousands of workers to hospitals, investment houses and corner bodegas alike.

The Metro-North Railroad said on Sunday that it would operate no trains at all on Monday on all three of its lines, which serve areas of New York and Connecticut. Its tracks sustained extensive damage from flooding, fallen trees, and mudslides. The Long Island Rail Road will operate partial service on five of its branches, but no trains on four of them.

Although the city escaped a punishing blow from the storm, New York’s ability to return to its usual humming self will rely largely on how quickly its lifeblood mass transit system can recover.

“Transit is the economic life, the cultural life of the city,” said Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center at New York University. “If you don’t have that infrastructure working, you can’t have a meal, you can’t make a living, you can’t get a prescription filled.”

The consequences could quickly spread around the nation: with reduced transit options to the airports, some airlines said they had been reluctant to restore flights into the New York region. Departures will resume at 7 a.m. at La Guardia Airport, and at noon at Kennedy and Newark Liberty International Airports.

Fallen trees and flooded tracks rendered some stretches of the regional rail network impassable on Sunday, and officials said it could be several days before full train service is restored to upstate New York, Connecticut and Long Island, parts of which were hit much harder by the storm than the city.

Speaking to New Yorkers at a news conference on Sunday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said bluntly, “You’re going to have a tough commute in the morning.”

But he praised the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for its decision to pre-emptively shut down the transit network ahead of the storm, saying the agency had taken the right actions to preserve its equipment and would be better positioned to expedite the recovery.

Several subway train yards were flooded on Sunday afternoon, and workers were trying to pump out water so that trains could run on their proper routes. But there were minimal signs of damage to the overall system, officials said, and the underwater tunnels that were considered vulnerable to the storm were mostly untouched.

Many trains had been removed from low-lying yards in advance of the storm, which made it easier for workers to restore them to service for Monday. The volume of service may still be affected by transit workers’ ability to reach those train yards, given the remaining difficulties with transportation.

It is perhaps a sign of New Yorkers’ impatience that many incorrectly believe the subway system can be restored at the flick of a switch. Before trains can start running again, transit workers must manually inspect hundreds of miles of track, pumping out water and checking on thousands of individual signals. (Waterlogged tracks are sometimes restored with hair dryers.)

There were other signs late Sunday that the system was beginning to stir from its self-imposed slumber. Buses began to crawl out of their depots in Manhattan and the Bronx in the afternoon, and the transportation authority offered free rides for the day. Brooklyn and Queens were expected to have some buses back on the streets in the evening, but blocked and flooded roadways prevented service on Staten Island.

Delta Air Lines rented hotel rooms for several hundred employees during the storm so they could quickly return to work on Monday. The airline is also hiring shuttle buses to pick up employees in Brooklyn and Queens on Monday morning.

Late Sunday, Amtrak officials said they did not know when service in the Northeast Corridor would be restored. Gov. Chris Christie said there would be no New Jersey Transit commuter rail service on Monday except for the Atlantic City line. There will be modified schedules for buses, Light Rail and PATH service, which was scheduled to resume at 4 a.m.

The less-than-severe impact that the storm had on the city led to some skepticism about whether the subways should have been pre-emptively closed, although Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo praised the transportation authority for its actions.

Casilda Johnson, 41, a security guard who had just finished a 26-hour stretch of work at the Manhattan Municipal Building, was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge on Sunday afternoon. She planned to meet a relative on the other side who was to drive her home to Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights.

“It’s hard for us to get home,” she said, her MetroCard dangling from a lanyard around her neck.

Speaking of the mayor, she said: “He went overboard this time. You can’t shut this big city down. You’ve got to think of the people who don’t have cars. How are we supposed to get to work, and get home?”

Hurricane Irene closes NY subways; airlines abandon Northeast

WASHINGTON: US airline, rail and transit systems in New York and other eastern cities initiated sweeping weekend shutdowns and slowdowns on Saturday as Hurricane Irene bore down on the region.
Tens of millions of air travelers, train passengers and subway and bus riders scrambled to adjust their routines, work commutes and vacations as transportation networks gradually scale back operations to minimize disruptions. Coordinated transportation-related closures or slowdowns, often seen during winter storms in the Northeast, were mostly announced on Friday to give travelers enough time to adjust and ensure they stay away from Irene's fury. New York's subway system, which carries 7 million riders daily and operates the largest fleet in the world, had never closed due to weather. The storied Staten Island Ferry was to suspend service Saturday night. "You can listen to the noise of the elevated train. That's not going to be here this afternoon, and I think that's the message that people have to start understanding," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, urging residents in designated evacuation areas to heed warnings to leave.
Subways were not expected to resume until Monday. Airlines canceled more than 9,000 flights for the weekend and another 250 on Monday, according to the online flight tracking service Flightaware.com.
The Northeast is the most congested area of US air space, with John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York and Newark airport in New Jersey handling nearly 100 million domestic and international passengers annually. Disruptions in the region affect flights elsewhere.
The New York-area airports closed at noon EDT for arrivals and the last departures were expected during the evening. Those airports would then be fully closed and would reopen as post-storm conditions permitted, officials said.
The virtually empty rain- and wind-swept tarmac at Reagan National in Washington handled sparse Saturday traffic, usually the lightest day of the week. The nation's capital was not expecting a head-on hit from the storm.
Posted schedules showed flights only heading west to Detroit, Milwaukee and other cities. Reagan National, Washington Dulles, and Baltimore-Washington airports all planned to stay open through the storm even though airlines were halting service.
Airports have backup generators that are usually reserved for maintaining power at air traffic towers and for public safety. But expectations were that Washington airports would be active again Sunday afternoon.
"If it goes through and is all over by late (Sunday) morning or early afternoon, things should get back on track," said Tara Hamilton, spokeswoman for Reagan National and Washington Dulles.
As at New York airports, airlines moved jetliners to safer areas like Chicago and other Midwest airports.
"We are not keeping any aircraft in Irene's path," said Andrea Huguely, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp.
Other carriers heavily affected include US Airways, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was working to protect air traffic towers and other facilities and equipment from any storm damage. Despite the shutdown of regular service, some FAA controllers would remain at East Coast airports to handle any emergency, rescue or military flights.
More than 1 million people evacuated the New Jersey shore areas via roads over a 24-hour period, the state's governor, Chris Christie, said.
Christie sharply urged those remaining at Jersey Shore resorts on Friday to "get the hell off the beach" and leave the region to avoid the storm.
Maryland planned to close the 180-foot-high Bay Bridge, which spans the Chesapeake Bay and links the Maryland and Delaware shore with the Washington region, later on Saturday. Virginia closed the 20-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel further south.
Authorities also planned speed and lane restrictions on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, a major north-south span on Interstate 95, and could order it closed if conditions warranted. New York authorities said they could close the George Washington Bridge, depending on Irene's winds. Other New York City suspension bridges could also close.
New York harbor was emptied of ships. Airline travelers had few alternatives with Amtrak also scaling back Northeast rail service on Saturday and planning to shut it down on Sunday.
Freight rail operator CSX curtailed local service in coastal North Carolina and Virginia and would resume operations "as conditions allow."
CSX was inspecting tracks along the mid-Atlantic region. Locomotives, rail cars and crossing gates were secured ahead of the storm.

Airlines scrap thousands of flights as Irene hits

NEW YORK: Travelers across the country faced days of grief as thousands of flights were canceled on Saturday because of Hurricane Irene.
Airlines scrapped more than 9,000 flights this weekend from North Carolina to Boston, grounding would-be travelers as Irene traveled up the East Coast. There were more than 3,900 cancellations on Saturday alone.
Millions of passengers will be affected by the time the storm finally dies as airlines work to accommodate travelers on very full flights. The biggest airlines, United Continental Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc., each canceled thousands of flights.
All New York City-area airports closed to arriving flights at noon on Saturday, when the city's public transportation system shut down. By evening, the five major airports were closed.
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport were both open Saturday afternoon, but most flights had been canceled.
The airports that will be most affected Sunday will be Newark Liberty International and New York's John F. Kennedy International, both with more than 1,200 cancellations, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. Boston's Logan and Washington Reagan were next in line.
Airlines have already canceled dozens of flights on Monday, but all the major US carriers said they would wait to assess damage before canceling more. ExpressJet, which operates regional flights for United and Continental, has the most cancellations for Monday so far at 140.
Philadelphia International Airport closed altogether at 10:30 pm on Saturday and planned to stay closed until at least 4 pm on Sunday.
The storm's timing was compounding problems. August is a busy month for air travel. The storm was expected to hit the Northeast overnight Saturday and early Sunday, which is the busiest time of the week to fly. Sunday is when many vacationers return from trips and many business travelers leave.
Airlines wouldn't say how many passengers would be affected by the hurricane, but the numbers will likely reach into the millions. That's because so many flights, both domestic and international, make connections through major East Coast hub airports. Even passengers not flying anywhere near the East Coast could be delayed for days as airlines work to get planes and crews back into position.
New York City experienced an unprecedented shutdown of its transit operations, the nation's biggest system of subways, buses and commuter rails ahead of Hurricane Irene. It was unclear when the system will run again. City subways alone carry about 5 million passengers on an average weekday.
Train and bus service was cut back elsewhere. Greyhound suspended service between Richmond, Va., and Boston for the weekend. Amtrak reduced its Northeast schedule Saturday and canceled all trains from Washington to Boston on Sunday.
Amtrak has five main routes throughout the Northeast, each serving multiple cities, as well as regional service in Virginia. Several long-distance trains to spots like Chicago and Montreal were affected as well.
Public transportation around New Jersey came to a halt, as trains stopped running and incoming flights were suspended at the New York area airports, including Newark Liberty.
Maryland transportation officials closed the Chesapeake Bay bridge when wind gusts reached 82 mph and suspended transit service Saturday evening. The bridge connects Annapolis and the rest of Maryland to the Eastern Shore.
Hurricane-force winds arrived near Jacksonville, N.C., at dawn. Around 7:30 a.m. EDT, the center of the storm - estimated to be about 500 miles wide - passed over North Carolina's Outer Banks. The hurricane's vast reach traced the East Coast from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to just below Cape Cod. Tropical storm conditions battered Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, with the worst yet to come.
Airlines were most recently hit with a natural disaster last winter, when they canceled thousands of flights ahead of a pair of massive snowstorms. The storms in December and February led to more than 10,000 cancellations over several days and left many thousands of people stranded at airports.
Airlines have been cutting flights over the last year, resulting in planes flying full or nearly so, in an effort to be more efficient. That makes it harder for stranded passengers to find empty seats on new flights once the weather gets better. Airlines waived ticket-change fees for most East Coast travelers affected by the storm. Some pushed off the $150 penalties for as much as a week to encourage travelers to make new arrangements.
American Airlines spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said the airline canceled some flights for Monday. The airline, owned by AMR Corp., is aiming to resume flights in North Carolina and Virginia after noon Sunday. She said it wasn't yet clear when flights in and out of New York would resume.
"The one thing about a hurricane is that you can prepare for it and you just have to adapt your plan based on how the storm travels," Huguely said. "It's basically an educated guessing game."