Assets case: CBI court extends Jaganmohan Reddy's remand till Jan 31

HYDERABAD: A special CBI court here on Thursday extended till January 31 the judicial remand of YSR Congress President Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and other accused in connection with the alleged disproportionate assets case.

Jagan, along with other accused including former minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana Rao, industrialist Nimmagadda Prasada and senior bureaucrat K V Brahmananda Reddy (all accused in Vanpic aspect of Jagan assets case), who are currently lodged in Chanchalguda Central Prison, were produced before the court through video-conferencing after which their judicial custody was extended by another 14 days.

Jaganmohan Reddy was arrested by CBI on corruption charges on May 27 last year.

The court also extended the judicial remand of former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, his brother-in-law B V Srinivas Reddy, and another accused Mehfuz Ali Khan in the illegal mining case involving Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) till January 31 after they were produced before it through video link.

The mining baron, who is lodged in Chanchalguda jail, was supposed to be taken to Bellary today after a court there had summoned him on a prisoner transit warrant, in connection with a defamation suit filed by former MLA Diwakar Babu.

However, Chanchalguda jail authorities did not take Janardhan Reddy to Bellary, as the local police were unable to provide escort to present him before the Bellary court.

The Bellary court had directed that Janardhan Reddy should appear before it on January 18.

In a related development, the court also extended the judicial remand of Emaar scam accused Sunil Reddy till January 31.

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy

NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.

The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.

The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.

But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.

"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.

The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.

The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.

Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.

The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.

U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.

Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The vaccine is safe," she said.

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Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

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Israeli left seeks to regain appeal with focus on economy

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - In decline since the peace it sought with the Palestinians unraveled into violence, Israel's Labour Party looks set to regain some lost ground in next week's election after waging an economy-focused campaign.

Opinion polls forecast an easy victory for conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tuesday's vote, which may push Israel further to the right, if as widely expected, he then enlists pro-settler and religious allies to his coalition.

But center-left Labour, bolstered by public discontent with high living costs and the flagging political fortunes of the once-governing centrist Kadima party, seems poised for its strongest parliamentary showing in years.

Netanyahu has made Israel's security the main campaign issue of his right-wing Likud party, fielding a joint list of candidates with the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party.

He has cited Iran's nuclear ambitions, civil war in Syria and a new Islamist government in Egypt as reasons why, as Likud's campaign posters say, Israel needs a "strong" leader.

While Netanyahu plays his security card, a revamped Labour Party is using economic and social issues to try to claw its way back, focusing on Israeli concerns about rising living costs.

Opinion polls forecast a respectable second-place finish for the center-left party, now focused on pocketbook rather than peace issues, with talks on Palestinian statehood frozen since 2010 in a dispute over Israel's settlement-building policies.

Abraham Diskin, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, said Labour was also benefiting from a steep decline in support for Kadima, which won the most assembly seats at the last election in 2009, but failed to retain power.

Kadima was outmaneuvered by Netanyahu, who became prime minister after drawing a clutch of right-wing and religious parties into a coalition with a big parliamentary majority.

Diskin attributed much of Kadima's election success in 2009 to former Labour voters. "They are now returning to the Labour Party," he said.

Some opinion polls predict that Kadima, now led by Shaul Mofaz, a dour ex-defense minister, will win no seats next week.

The party, a relative newcomer to politics and lacking a historical power base, was founded in 2005 by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who quit the Likud after a rebellion in its ranks over Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza that year.

DOMINATION

Labour, now led by a former journalist, Shelly Yachimovich, dominated the first three decades of Israel's statehood and forged interim peace deals with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

But an ultranationalist assassin killed its leader, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995, Netanyahu won an election the following year after Palestinian suicide bombings, and a Labour return to power in 1999 was cut short when Ehud Barak failed to clinch a final peace accord and a Palestinian uprising erupted.

"Over years, the left was challenged by realities, not only by right-wing Israeli forces but by Middle East realities, and it never rose to the challenge," said political commentator Ari Shavit, who writes for the left-wing Haaretz daily.

"It is perceived by most Israelis as being totally irrelevant," he told Reuters.

However, unprecedented social protests in Israel in mid-2011 when hundreds of thousands took to the streets angered by high housing costs and soaring prices, gave Labour an opportunity.

Its election campaign has homed in on a struggling middle class. Under a photo of Yachimovich and the slogan "It can be better here", the party's website features a link to an economic plan it promises will narrow the gap between rich and poor.

It proposes higher taxes for the rich and for corporations and faster construction of affordable public housing.

Opinion polls show Labour taking up to 20 of parliament's 120 seats compared with about 34 for Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu. Labour won just 13 in 2009, a tally reduced to eight when Barak, now defense minister, and four others left the party in 2011.

DEFICIT

Labour latched onto some bad financial news on Monday to contest Netanyahu's claim to be a skilful economic manager.

"Tell me how much longer he can keep calling himself Mr Economy," Yachimovich said after figures showed Israel's budget deficit had risen to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product last year, double the original estimate.

Labour candidate Erel Margalit, referring to Israel's high-tech prowess, also hammered home the economic message, saying: "Netanyahu turned the start-up nation into a stagnant nation."

Unlike other center-left leaders, Yachimovich has pledged not to join a Netanyahu-led coalition.

Factions to Netanyahu's left also include two new centrist parties - Hatnua, led by Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister and ex-Kadima chief, and Yesh Atid, headed by TV talk show host Yair Lapid.

Opinion polls predict eight seats for Hatnua and 11 for Yesh Atid. Livni's attempts to entice Yachimovich and Yesh Atid into a center-left alliance failed, perhaps due to clashing egos.

Taking his own swipe at Netanyahu's economic policies, Lapid provided a bright moment in a generally lackluster campaign when he publicly drew a red line through a cartoon depiction of a bomb listing price rises that have hit the middle class.

The stunt mimicked Netanyahu's own sketching of a red line through a cartoon bomb at the United Nations in September, when he said Iran was moving closer to a nuclear weapons capability.

While Labour, Yesh Atid and Hatnua compete for the political center, the small Meretz party carries a torch for the left.

"We're not ashamed, we are a left-wing social democratic party, we are proud to be called left-wing," Nitzan Horowitz, a Meretz legislator, told Reuters.

The party, led by Zahava Gal-On, has three parliamentary seats and opinion polls show it may double that total next week.

Horowitz outlined the "three pillars" of Meretz's platform as separating religion and state, ensuring social justice and promoting peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Meretz opposes settlement activity and says Israel should immediately recognize a Palestinian state along the lines that existed before the Jewish state captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

(Additional reporting by Rinat Harash, Lianne Gross and Rami Amichai; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Ori Lewis; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Candidates to campaign hard for Punggol East seat

SINGAPORE: The four candidates vying for the Punggol East parliamentary seat will be campaigning hard over the next nine days to capture votes from some 31,600 residents.

The four candidates are: Dr Koh Poh Koon of the People's Action Party (PAP), Mr Kenneth Andrew Jeyaretnam of the Reform Party (RP), Mr Desmond Lim Bak Chuan of the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and Ms Lee Li Lian of the Workers' Party (WP).

On January 26, Punggol East residents will go to the polls to pick one of the four candidates to represent them in Parliament.

The seat was vacated last month by former Member of Parliament Michael Palmer.

It will be Singapore's second by-election since the 2011 General Election and it has the longest list of contenders for a parliamentary seat since 1997.

Candidate Dr Koh, a colorectal surgeon, is a fresh face. The 40-year-old, who has dubbed himself "the son of Punggol", has already outlined areas of concern he plans to focus on -- namely ensuring renovations to Rivervale Plaza stay on track and improving childcare amenities for the constituency.

Despite being flanked by party leaders at the nomination centre, Dr Koh said he is his own man and will run his own campaign.

"My supporters, voters of Punggol East, let us work together to make a better Punggol East," he said.

Many believe Dr Koh's biggest opponent will be the Workers' Party's Lee Li Lian.

She is no stranger to residents in Punggol East having contested there in the 2011 General Election.

She was then Mr Palmer's closest contender and garnered 41 per cent of valid votes.

Ms Lee said: "I will serve you whole-heartedly and I will continue and constantly stand up for your rights. On 26th of January, vote for the Workers' Party and send me into Parliament."

Also back to make another bid for the Punggol East seat is SDA's Secretary-General Desmond Lim.

He too had contested in the constituency at the 2011 General Election but lost his election deposit when he garnered just 4.5 per cent of the valid votes.

Undeterred, Mr Lim said he is determined to serve the residents, having been active in the area since 2005.

He said: "Dearest residents of Punggol East, Desmond Lim is back -- dedicated and more determined to serve you and your family in Punggol East."

Rounding up the four candidates is Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam.

This is the second electoral fight for the son of former Workers' Party chief JB Jeyaretnam. He contested as part of a team in West Coast GRC in 2011.

Mr Jeyaretnam said: "This election, we are determined to bring a real choice to the voters of Punggol East. This is your chance to decide how you want to be represented."

Earlier, retired acupuncturist Zeng Guoyuan and private tutor Ooi Boon Ewe turned up at the nomination centre. However, both left without filing their nomination papers.

- CNA/al

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Showrooming is a growing trend in India: Study

BANGALORE: A new IBM study of 26,000 global consumers released today at the 2013 National Retail Federation convention found they are diversifying the way they shop for and acquire goods, becoming increasingly open to buying both online and in-store depending on their needs at time of purchase. While more than 80% of shoppers chose the store to make their last non-grocery purchase, only half are committed to returning there next time they buy.

IBM's research finds that consumers are in a transitional state. According to the study, 35%t of the respondents are unsure whether they would next shop at a store or online. Nine percent are ready to commit to making future purchases online. Of all eight product categories tracked in the survey, the two most popular categories chosen by consumers for an online shift are consumer electronics and luxury items, including jewelry and designer apparel.

"Today's consumer is sophisticated and opportunistic, navigating between store and online environments interchangeably to meet their shopping needs of the moment," said Jill Puleri, global retail leader, IBM Global Business Services.

"To satisfy clients, retailers must deliver a consistent, convenient shopping experience across each consumer touch point, extending from the store to online and back again. The key is using data and analytics to better understand the behavior and preferences of shoppers to close the sale,'' he said.

The IBM study also found that nearly half of online purchases in studied categories resulted from "showrooming," a burgeoning trend in which consumers browse goods at a store, but ultimately buy them online. Significantly, nearly a quarter of these online shoppers intended to buy their item in the store, but ultimately purchased online - primarily due to price and convenience.

Retailers must better connect their store and online presence to capture the sale to showroomers. Today, online-only retailers account for one-third of showroomer purchases. Younger, male and affluent shoppers are most likely to showroom. Although a global phenomenon, there is a higher incidence of showrooming in China (26%) and India (13% than the U.S. (7%), for example.

The IBM study reveals that consumers are seeking a truly integrated shopping experience. Retailers must better connect their online and physical stores, blending benefits into both at various points in the shopping cycle -- from research to purchase -- to build brand loyalty and repeat sales. In the store, retailers must infuse digital experiences, enable store associates with the technology to save the sale and embrace consumer-owned technology. Online, retailers most optimize their websites for various devices. The IBM Digital Analytics benchmach found that 70 percent more consumers used a mobile device to visit a retailer's site on Cyber Monday in 2012 than 2011. However, today's study found that only 3 percent of shoppers are using retailers' mobile apps.

IBM Retail Analytics solutions can provide the fact-based insight retailers need to treat each consumer as an individual, meeting their growing expectation for personalization.Analytics can also be used to identify why showroomers are shifting purchases online so retailers can act and adjust accordingly.

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Our audience is comprised of 40M active subscribers to blogs, tweets, Facebook and RSS feeds from top publishers including Inc, MSNBC, Reuters, InformationWeek, TechTarget, CBS Sports, AOL, CNET, ABC News, NBC, Politico and hundreds of others. Learn More

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France keeps up Mali air strikes, African troop plan advances

BAMAKO (Reuters) - France kept up its air strikes against Islamist rebels in Mali as plans to deploy African troops gathered pace on Tuesday amid concerns that delays could endanger a wider mission to dislodge al Qaeda and its allies.

France has already poured hundreds of troops into Mali and carried out days of air strikes since Friday in a vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance that combines al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM with Mali's home-grown MUJWA and Ansar Dine rebel groups.

Western and regional powers are concerned the insurgents will use Mali's north as a launchpad for international attacks.

West African defense chiefs were to meet in Bamako on Tuesday to approve plans to speed up the deployment of 3,300 regional troops foreseen in a U.N.-backed intervention plan to be led by Africans.

Speaking from a French military base in Abu Dhabi at the start of a day-long visit to the United Arab Emirates, President Francois Hollande said French forces in Mali had carried out further strikes overnight "which hit their targets."

"We will continue the deployment of forces on the ground and in the air," Hollande said. "We have 750 troops deployed at the moment and that will keep increasing so that as quickly as possible we can hand over to the Africans."

He saw the African troop deployment taking "a good week".

France plans to field a total 2,500 soldiers in its former colony to bolster the Malian army and work with the intervention force provided by the ECOWAS grouping of West African states.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius - accompanying Hollande on a visit aimed at firming up trade relations and making progress on a possible sale of 60 French Rafale fighter jets - said he was confident Gulf Arab states would also help the Mali campaign.

Fabius said there would be a meeting of donors for the Mali operation most likely in Addis Ababa at the end of January.

He predicted the current level of the French involvement in Mali would go on for "a matter of weeks".

ECOWAS mission head in Bamako Aboudou Toure Cheaka said the West African troops would be on the ground in a week. Their immediate mission would be to help stop the rebel advance while preparations for a full intervention plan continued.

The original timetable for the 3,300-strong U.N.-sanctioned African force - backed by western logistics, money and intelligence services - did not initially foresee full deployment before September due to logistical constraints.

Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Guinea have all offered troops. But regional powerhouse Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has cautioned that even if some troops arrive in Mali soon, training will take more time.

The plan is being fast-tracked after a plea for help by Mali's government after mobile columns of Islamist fighters last week threatened the central garrison towns of Mopti and Sevare, with its key airport.

"SAFEGUARD MALI"

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said France's goals were to stop the Islamist rebels, to "safeguard the existence of Mali" and pave the way for the African-led military operation.

U.S. officials said Washington was sharing information with French forces in Mali and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.

"We have made a commitment that al Qaeda is not going to find anyplace to hide," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters as he began a visit to Europe.

As French aircraft bombarded mobile columns of Islamist fighters, other insurgents launched a counter-attack further to the south, dislodging government forces from the town of Diabaly, 350 km (220 miles) from Bamako.

French intervention has raised the risk for eight French hostages held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara and for 30,000 French expatriates living in neighboring, mostly Muslim states. Concerned about reprisals at home, France has tightened security at public buildings and on public transport.

The U.N. said an estimated 30,000 people had fled the latest fighting in Mali, joining more than 200,000 already displaced.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday welcomed the French-led military intervention in Mali and voiced the hope that it would halt the Islamist assault.

Amnesty International said at least six civilians were killed in recent fighting in the town of Konna, where French aircraft had earlier bombarded rebel positions, and called on both sides to spare non-combatants.

France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, is among the toughest proponents of a speedier deployment of the African troops, and convened a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday to discuss the crisis.

French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters after the meeting that the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Denmark and Germany had also offered logistical support for France's Mali operation.

"I felt that all the members of the Security Council were expressing their support (for) and understanding of the French decision," Araud told reporters.

No Europeans or other African Union members will be allowed in the defense chiefs meeting in Bamako on Tuesday, a western diplomat told Reuters, requesting not to be named.

"They don't want any French pressure at the meeting," the diplomat said.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi; Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Richard Valdmanis in Dakar, Brian Love in Paris and David Alexander in Lisbon; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Anna Willard)

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S'pore scientists identify genes for central corneal thickness

SINGAPORE: Singapore scientists have identified genes for central corneal thickness (CCT) that may cause potentially blinding eye conditions. These eye conditions include glaucoma, as well as the progressive thinning of the cornea, which may eventually lead to a need for corneal transplantation.

The team is from the Singapore Eye Research Institute and the Genome Institute of Singapore, which is an institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

A*STAR has described the findings as a world first. It said they show that Singapore is well placed globally in eye and genetics research in finding causes for sight threatening conditions.

Eye doctors can use genetic analysis to better manage such patients and prevent their condition from getting worse.

The team studied 55 hospitals and research centres around the world and analysed more than 20,000 individuals in European and Asian populations.

CCT is linked to potentially blinding eye conditions such as keratoconus, a condition where the cornea progressively thins and takes on a more conical shape that may eventually require transplantation.

A*STAR said the Singapore team has had remarkable success identifying the most CCT-associated loci to date.

It identified six distinct genetic loci in two papers published in 2011 and 2012 via samples collected from Singaporean Chinese, Indians, and Malays, as well as Chinese in Beijing. However, none was found to be associated with common eye diseases like this study has now shown.

Overall, this new study identified a total of 27 associated loci, including six for the keratoconus. These observations suggest that most of the CCT-associated loci identified from populations of European descent are shared with Asian populations.

-CNA/ac

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Left, Right join hands against FDI in retail

NEW DELHI: BJP, CPI and JD(U) on Tuesday come together to launch a national campaign against FDI in retail and sought support from the people to make the movement against the government's "anti-people" policy a success.

"This is a fight against UPA's FDI decision and it is the anti-people policy of the government that we are opposing," JD(U) leader and NDA convenor Sharad Yadav said here.

Blaming the government for its failure on the economic front, Yadav said industrial production and employment generation has slowed down in the country.

He said, "Indian market is expanding for years and we are not opposed to the expansion of market.

"Now to revive the market, government is punishing people through FDI decision. It is taxing common man by raising rail fares," JD(U) leader said.

He further said that retail shops are the second largest employment generating business in the country and by bringing in retail FDI it will create unemployment in the country.

Comparing the situation with that in China, Yadav said "China's position was equal to India's in economic terms in 1980. But China strengthened its internal position first before doing any business outside."

Criticising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Yadav said, "the Prime Minister has taken two strong steps till date. One on nuclear issue and the second time on FDI."

Supporting the agitation against the FDI decision, BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said the struggle will continue till it is withdrawn and promised that NDA will scrap the decision if it comes to power in the next elections.

"All NDA allies, Left Front and regional parties have opposed FDI. We will scrap the decision when we come to power," Joshi said. He did not agree with the government's view that this will boost the economy.

"Wherever FDI in retail has come, it has ruined the economy of that country," Joshi said, charging that "in India they (US) are trying to come through bribery."

"Bribery amount of Rs 125 crore was reportedly paid in the name of lobbying," Joshi charged.

Reiterating his party's resolve to fight the decision, Joshi said, "We will take the agitation to the village level and make the March 7 rally on it a success."

CPI leader AB Bardhan said Government has not won the fight yet.

"They may have technically won it in Parliament but the battle is not yet over," Bardhan said.

Defending his presence on the same dais with the BJP, the CPI veteran said, "This is a fight for the common man. We may have different ideology but on this issue we are united to fight together."

Cautioning the people against the danger in bringing FDI in retail, he said monopoly price will prevail in the market and consumers will not benefit.

"Consumers may benfit in the beginning but in the longer run, they will be losers. Instead of generating jobs, it will take away jobs," CPI leader said.

He said the FDI decision is going to affect 20 crore people in the country and the market will be flooded with Chinese products.

Spelling out the future agitational plan, Bardhan said, "We will demonstrate in front of the Walmart shop and wherever they will acquire land in the country."

Bardhan further said all trade unions like AITUC, INTUC, BMS are opposing the FDI decision.

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