Negotiations Drag Out for 5-Year-Old Hostage













An Alabama community is on edge today, praying for a 5-year-old boy being held hostage by a retired man who police say abducted him at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon.


Nearly 40 hours have slowly passed since school bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, heroically tried to prevent the kidnapping, but was shot to death by suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, a former truck driver, police said.


Dykes boarded the bus Tuesday and said he wanted two boys, 6 to 8 years old. As the children piled to the back of the bus, Dykes, 65, allegedly shot Poland four times, then grabbed the child at random and fled, The Associated Press reported.


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The primary concern in the community near Midland City, Ala., is now for the boy's safety. Dale County police have not identified the child.






Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser/AP











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"I believe in prayer, so I just pray that we can resolve this peacefully," Dale County sheriff Wally Olson said.


The boy is being held in a bunker about 8 feet below ground, where police say Dykes likely has enough food and supplies to remain underground for weeks. Dykes has been communicating with police through a pipe extending from the bunker to the surface.


It is unclear whether he has made any demands from the bunker-style shelter on his property.


The young hostage is a child with autism. Dykes has allowed the boy to watch television, and have some medication, police said


Multiple agencies have responded to the hostage situation, Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said. The FBI has assumed the lead in the investigation, and SWAT teams were surrounding the bunker.


"A lot of law enforcement agencies here doing everything they possibly can to get this job done," Olson said.


Former FBI lead hostage negotiator Chris Voss said that authorities must proceed with caution.


"You make contact as quickly as you can, but also as gently as you can," he said. "You don't try to be assertive; you don't try to be aggressive."


Voss said patience is important in delicate situations such as this.


"The more patient approach they take, the less likely they are to make mistakes," he said.


"They need to move slowly to get it right, to communicate properly and slowly and gently unravel this."



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Egypt curfew scaled back as Mursi seeks end to bloodshed


CAIRO/BERLIN (Reuters) - Egyptian authorities scaled back a curfew imposed by President Mohamed Mursi, and the Islamist leader cut short a visit to Europe on Wednesday to deal with the deadliest violence in the seven months since he took power.


Two more protesters were shot dead before dawn near Cairo's central Tahrir Square on Wednesday, a day after the army chief warned that the state was on the brink of collapse if Mursi's opponents and supporters did not end street battles.


More than 50 people have been killed in the past seven days of protests by Mursi's opponents marking the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.


Mursi imposed a curfew and a state of emergency on three Suez Canal cities on Sunday - Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. That only seemed to further provoke crowds. However, violence has mainly subsided in those towns since Tuesday.


Local authorities pushed back the start of the curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. in Ismailia and to 1:00 a.m. in Port Said and Suez.


"There has been progress in the security situation since Monday. Calm has returned," Suez Governor Samir Aglan said.


Mursi, speaking in Berlin before hurrying home to deal with the crisis, called for dialogue with opponents but would not commit to their demand that he first agree to include them in a unity government.


He sidestepped a question about a possible unity government, saying the next cabinet would be formed after parliamentary elections in April.


Egypt was on its way to becoming "a civilian state that is not a military state or a theocratic state", Mursi said.


The violence at home forced Mursi to scale back his European visit, billed as a chance to promote Egypt as a destination for foreign investment. He flew to Berlin but called off a trip to Paris and was due back home after only a few hours in Europe.


Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met him, echoed other Western leaders who have called on him to give his opponents a voice.


"One thing that is important for us is that the line for dialogue is always open to all political forces in Egypt, that the different political forces can make their contribution, that human rights are adhered to in Egypt and that of course religious freedom can be experienced," she said at a joint news conference with Mursi.


SPIRIT OF REVOLUTION


Mursi's critics accuse him of betraying the spirit of the revolution by keeping too much power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement banned under Mubarak which won repeated elections since the 2011 uprising.


Mursi's supporters say the protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first democratically elected leader. The current unrest has deepened an economic crisis that saw the pound currency tumble in recent weeks.


Near Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday morning, dozens of protesters threw stones at police who fired back teargas, although the scuffles were brief.


"Our demand is simply that Mursi goes, and leaves the country alone. He is just like Mubarak and his crowd who are now in prison," said Ahmed Mustafa, 28, a youth who had goggles on his head to protect his eyes from teargas.


Opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei called for a meeting of the president, ministers, the ruling party and the opposition to halt the violence. But he also restated the precondition that Mursi first commit to seeking a national unity government.


The worst violence has been in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, where rage was fuelled by death sentences passed against soccer fans for roles in deadly riots last year.


After decades in which the West backed Mubarak's military rule of Egypt, the emergence of an elected Islamist leader in Cairo is probably the single most important change brought about by the wave of Arab revolts over the past two years.


Mursi won backing from the West last year for his role in helping to establish a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians that ended a conflict in Gaza. But he then followed that with an effort to fast-track a constitution that reignited dissent at home and raised global concern over Egypt's future.


Western countries were alarmed this month by video that emerged showing Mursi making vitriolic remarks against Jews and Zionists in 2010 when he was a senior Brotherhood official.


German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said ahead of Mursi's visit that the remarks, in which Mursi referred to Zionists as "descendants of apes and pigs" were "unacceptable".


"NOT AGAINST JEWS"


Asked about those remarks at the news conference with Merkel, Mursi repeated earlier explanations that they had been taken out of context.


"I am not against the Jewish faith," he said. "I was talking about the practices and behavior of believers of any religion who shed blood or who attack innocent people or civilians. That's behavior that I condemn."


"I am a Muslim. I'm a believer and my religion obliges me to believe in all prophets, to respect all religions and to respect the right of people to their own faith," he added.


Egypt's main liberal and secularist bloc, the National Salvation Front, has so far refused talks with Mursi unless he promises a unity government including opposition figures.


"Stopping the violence is the priority, and starting a serious dialogue requires committing to guarantees demanded by the National Salvation Front, at the forefront of which are a national salvation government and a committee to amend the constitution," ElBaradei said on Twitter.


Those calls have also been backed by the hardline Islamist Nour party - rivals of Mursi's Brotherhood. Nour and the Front were due to meet on Wednesday, signaling an unlikely alliance of Mursi's critics from opposite ends of the political spectrum.


Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy dismissed the unity government proposal as a ploy for the Front to take power despite having lost elections. On his Facebook page he ridiculed "the leaders of the Salvation Front, who seem to know more about the people's interests than the people themselves".


In a sign of the toll the unrest is having on Egypt's economy, ratings agency Fitch downgraded its sovereign rating by one notch to B on Wednesday.


(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Stephen Brown and Gernot Heller in Berlin; Writing by Peter Graff)



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Brazil night club owner attempts suicide






SANTA MARIA: An owner of the Brazilian night club where 235 people perished in a weekend fire tried to commit suicide, police said Wednesday, as the number of survivors seeking medical treatment after the disaster continued to rise.

Elissandro Sphor tried to kill himself with a plastic shower hose, said senior police official Lilian Carus in the town of Cruz Alta 125 kilometres from Santa Maria, where the club owner is hospitalised.

"It was clear he wanted to hang himself," Carus told AFP, adding that a police officer arrived at the scene -- a hospital where Sphor is being treated for gas poisoning -- before anything happened.

Police took Sphor and three others into custody as they pieced together what caused the inferno at the Kiss nightclub, which was packed with partying students when the blaze broke out early Sunday.

About 75 injured victims of the fire are clinging to life, some in critical condition, in the college town of Santa Maria.

Meanwhile, health officials there said about 20 people have been hospitalised since the fire with symptoms of "chemical pneumonitis" after breathing in smoke and toxic gases emitted during the inferno.

The symptoms may take five days to appear and can be severe, health official Neio Pereira said.

Most of the victims died of smoke inhalation as they desperately tried to escape.

Those treated for the respiratory ailments Wednesday were in addition to 123 people hospitalised after the fire, which authorities say was sparked by a cheap flare lit by musicians as part of an illegal pyrotechnics display.

Authorities catalogued a long list of other infractions at club, including a lack of emergency lighting, non-functioning fire extinguishers and suspected overcrowding.

It also was operating with an expired licence and had only one functioning exit, which survivors said was unmarked and blocked by steel barriers, making it difficult to flee the establishment.

Sphor's doctor told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that since the tragedy, his client -- who is one of two owners of the night club -- cries incessantly, has had to be put on a prescription of tranquilisers, and is emotionally "destroyed."

Meanwhile, dozens of people late Tuesday took to the streets of Santa Maria demanding justice and stricter laws.

"We will work tirelessly until all those responsible are identified," police commissioner Marcelo Arigony promised the demonstrators -- even as many blamed the government itself for failing to carry out the inspections that might have saved lives.

Some survivors said that security guards initially blocked the exit to prevent customers from leaving the club without paying their bar tabs.

Fire chief Sergio Roberto de Abreu said his department had been in the process of reviewing the club's fire extinguisher documentation, but that approval had not yet been given at the time of the fire.

Lawyers for the club, however, have insisted that the establishment was in full compliance.

- AFP/jc



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Anna launches 'Jantantra Morcha', aims to change system

PATNA: Anna Hazare on Wednesday launched a new outfit " Jantantra Morcha" at a rally in Patna.

"Now a change in the system is our aim. The change can be brought about by passing the Jan lokpal Bill and decentralizing power to gram sabhas and ward sabhas," he told a public meeting.

The social activist said the new outfit would not join electoral politics and the occasion marked the beginning of the "second freedom struggle". He said now he plans to tour the entire country to awaken people. "I wish to awaken only six crore of the country's 120 crore people. If six crore people are with me, government "ki naak dabaunga, munh khulegi" (government will be forced to talk)," he said. He said the government would be forced to give Jan lokpal to the country.

In his 45-minute speech, Anna did not refer to Arvind Kejriwal at all. Alleging the Congress-led government did not intend to bring the Jan lokpal because 15 of its ministers would be behind bars and that 163 of the MPs were tainted, he said after the demand of Jan lokpal was fulfilled they would force Parliament to empower people with the "right to reject" and "right to recall" their candidates if they were unworthy.

"None of the rejected candidates should be allowed to contest election," he said and added that parties would be forced to give tickets to clean candidates.

Hazare said he chose Bihar as the venue for his first 'Jantantra Rally' because the "pious land" was the "tapobhoomi" of JP and Mahatma Gandhi. "We have to realize the dreams of JP that have remained unfulfilled," said Anna in a bid to strike a chord with the crowd responding with an applause every time he used adjectives like "goonda", "lootera" and "ghotalebaaz" for the people in power.

Former army chief Gen VK Singh and former IPS officer Kiran Bedi were present at the rally as well.

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Study sees prostate cancer treatment side effects


A new study shows how important it is for men to carefully consider treatments for early-stage prostate cancer. Fifteen years after surgery or radiation treatment, nearly all of the older men in the study had some problems having sex.


About one-fifth had bladder or bowel trouble, researchers found.


The study doesn't compare these men — who were 70 to 89 at the end of the study — to others who did not treat their cancers or to older men without the disease. At least one study suggests that half that age group has sexual problems even when healthy.


The study isn't a rigorous test of surgery and radiation, but it is the longest follow-up of some men who chose those treatments.


Since early prostate cancers usually don't prove fatal but there are no good ways to tell which ones really need treatment, men must be realistic about side effects they might suffer, said one study leader, Dr. David Penson of Vanderbilt University.


"They need to look at these findings and say, 'Oh my gosh, no matter what I choose, I'm going to have some quality-of-life effect and it's probably greater than my doctor is telling me,'" he said.


The study appears in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.


Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men. In the United States alone, there were about 240,000 new cases and 28,000 deaths from the disease last year. Radiation or surgery to remove the prostate are common treatments when the disease is confined to the gland.


Men usually live a long time after treatment — 14 years on average — so it's important to see how they fare, said another study leader, Vanderbilt's Dr. Matthew Resnick.


The study involved 1,655 men diagnosed in 1994 or 1995, when they were ages 55 to 74. About two-thirds of them had surgery and the rest, radiation. They were surveyed two, five and 15 years later. By that time, 569 had died.


Men who had surgery had more problems in the first few years after their treatments than those given radiation, but by the end of the study, there was no big difference.


After 15 years, 18 percent of the surgery group and 9 percent of the radiation group reported urinary incontinence, and 5 percent of the surgery group and 16 percent of the radiation group said they were bothered by bowel problems. But the differences between the two groups could have occurred by chance alone once researchers took other factors such as age and the size of the men's tumors into account.


Impotence was "near universal" at 15 years, the authors write — 94 percent of the radiation group and 87 percent of the surgery group. But the difference between the groups also was considered possibly due to chance. Also, less than half of men said they were bothered by their sexual problems.


"These men do get some help from pills like Viagra, Cialis, Levitra," but it may not be as much as they would like and most men would rather not need those pills, Penson said.


The National Cancer Institute paid for the study. Two authors have consulted for several makers of prostate cancer treatment drugs.


No study is perfect and this one has many limitations, said Dr. Timothy Wilson, urology chief at City of Hope, a cancer center in Duarte, Calif. Men who are having problems are more likely to complete follow-up surveys because they're angry, so that could skew results, he noted.


Still, "it's a high percentage" with side effects, said Wilson, who has been a paid speaker for two makers of surgery equipment.


"There's no question we overtreat" many cases of early prostate cancer, yet the disease is still the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in men. "We need to better sort out who really needs treatment," he said.


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Online:


New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org


___


Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Giffords to Senate: 'Americans Are Counting on You'













Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, whose congressional career was ended by a bullet wound to her head, opened a Senate hearing on gun violence today by telling the panel, "Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important."


In a determined and forceful voice, she told the Senators to be "courageous" because "Americans are counting on you."


Giffords sat alongside her astronaut husband Mark Kelly as she delivered her emotional statement just over a minute long imploring Congress to act on gun policy.


"This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities, for Democrats, and Republicans," the former Arizona congresswoman said. "Speaking is difficult but I need to say something important: Violence is a big problem too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you. Thank you," Giffords said before being helped out of the hearing room.


Giffords was shot by a gunman in her Arizona district two years ago, and was a last-minute addition to the hearing about the nation's gun laws as lawmakers grapple with how to curb gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., tragedy that left 20 children and seven adults dead late last year.


Today's hearing is a showdown on guns, featuring two powerful but conflicting forces in the gun control movement. Giffords' husband also testified, as did Wayne LaPierre, the fiery executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association.








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Kelly's opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee today emphasized that he and his wife are both gun owners and he has said that he recently bought a new hunting rifle. But he said they are also dedicated to minimizing gun violence because of their personal tragedy.


"We are simply two reasonable Americans who realize we have a problem with gun violence, and we need Congress to act," Kelly said. "Our rights are paramount, but our responsibilities are serious and as a nation we are not taking responsibility for the gun rights our founding fathers conferred upon us."


Kelly said that a top priority should be to close the loophole that says people who buy weapons at gun shows are not required to undergo background checks.


"Closing the gun show loophole and requiring private sellers to require a background check for they transfer a gun…I can't think of something that would make our country safer than doing just that," he told the panel.


Giffords and Kelly recently launched Americans for Responsible Solutions, an organization promoting the implementation of universal background checks and limits on high capacity magazines.


"Overwhelmingly, you told us that universal background checks and limiting access to high capacity magazines were top priorities, and I'll make sure to address each of those ideas in my opening remarks," Kelly wrote in an email to supporters Tuesday. Kelly asked the group's allies to sign a petition calling on Congress to pass legislation on both issues.


LaPierre laid out the NRA's opposition to universal background checks and urged legislators not to "blame" legal gun owners by enacting new gun control laws.


"Law-abiding gun owners will not accept blame for the acts of violence of deranged criminals. Nor do we believe the government should dictate what we can lawfully own and use to protect our families," LaPierre said."And when it comes to background checks, let's be honest – background checks will never be 'universal' – because criminals will never submit to them."


"If you want to stop crime, interdict violent criminals incarcerate them and get them off the streets," LaPierre said.


He repeated an NRA proposal to place armed security guards in every school in America, arguing that "it's time to throw an immediate blanket of security around our children."






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Sixty-five found executed in Syria's Aleppo: activists


BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday in a "new massacre" in the near two-year revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.


Opposition campaigners blamed the government but it was impossible to confirm who was responsible. Assad's forces and rebels have been battling in Syria's commercial hub since July and both have been accused of carrying out summary executions.


More than 60,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began throughout the Arab world two years ago.


The U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday the fighting had forced more than 700,000 people to flee. World powers fear the conflict could increasingly envelop Syria's neighbors including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, further destabilizing an already explosive region.


Opposition activists posted a video of a man filming at least 51 muddied male bodies alongside what they said was the Queiq River in Aleppo's rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood.


The bodies had bullet wounds in their heads and some of the victims appeared to be young, possibly teenagers, dressed in jeans, shirts and trainers.


Aleppo-based opposition activists who asked not to be named for security reasons blamed pro-Assad militia fighters.


They said the men had been executed and dumped in the river before floating downstream into the rebel area. State media did not mention the incident.


The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it provides objective information about casualties on both sides of Syria's war from a network of monitors, said the footage was evidence of a new massacre and the death toll could rise as high as 80.


"They were killed only because they are Muslims," said a bearded man in another video said to have been filmed in central Bustan al-Qasr after the bodies were removed from the river. A pickup truck with a pile of corpses was parked behind him.


STALEMATE


It is hard for Reuters to verify such reports from inside Syria because of restrictions on independent media.


Rebels are stuck in a stalemate with government forces in Aleppo - Syria's most populous city which is divided roughly in half between the two sides.


The revolt started as a peaceful protest movement against more than four decades of rule by Assad and his family, but turned into an armed rebellion after a government crackdown.


About 712,000 Syrian refugees have registered in other countries in the region or are awaiting processing as of Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency Said on Tuesday.


"We have seen an unrelenting flow of refugees across all borders. We are running double shifts to register people," Sybella Wilkes, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters in Geneva.


On Monday, the United Nations warned it would not be able to help millions of Syrians affected by the fighting without more money and appealed for donations at an aid conference this week in Kuwait to meet its $1.5 billion target.


Speaking ahead of that conference, Kuwait's foreign minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khaled al-Sabah said on Tuesday there was concern Syria could turn into a failed state and put the entire region at risk.


Aid group Médecins Sans Frontières said the bulk of the current aid was going to government-controlled areas and called on donors in Kuwait to make sure they were even-handed.


MISSILES


In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, insurgents including al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters captured a security agency after days of heavy fighting, according to an activist video issued on Tuesday.


Some of the fighters were shown carrying a black flag with the Islamic declaration of faith and the name of the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al Qaeda in neighboring Iraq.


The war has become heavily sectarian, with rebels who mostly come from the Sunni Muslim majority fighting an army whose top generals are mostly from Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Assad has framed the revolt as a foreign-backed conspiracy and blames the West and Sunni Gulf states.


Fighting also took place in the northern town of Ras al-Ain, on the border with Turkey, between rebels and Kurdish militants, the Observatory said.


In Turkey, a second pair of Patriot missile batteries being sent by NATO countries are now operational, a German security official said on Tuesday.


The United States, Germany and the Netherlands each committed to sending two batteries and up to 400 soldiers to operate them after Ankara asked for help to bolster its air defenses against possible missile attack from Syria.


(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Kuwait, Sabine Siebold in Berlin and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Heavens)



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US Senate confirms Kerry as next secretary of state






WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed Senator John Kerry as the next secretary of state, approving President Barack Obama's pick to replace Hillary Clinton by a wide majority.

The Senate voted 94-3 in favour of Kerry, after the chamber's Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination earlier in the day.

His nomination was pushed through the Senate in a matter of days, given the clear bipartisan support for the 69-year-old veteran Democratic lawmaker, who spent 28 years in the Senate.

Kerry -- a senator from Massachusetts best known outside the United States for his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign -- was nominated last month by Obama to take over from Clinton as the nation's top diplomat.

He is known to have long coveted the job, but almost lost out to US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who had been seen as Obama's first choice.

But she withdrew from consideration for the post under Republican fire over the administration's response to the September 11 attack on a US mission in Libya that left four Americans dead.

Earlier, Kerry said he was "humbled" and gratified by the support from the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he himself chairs.

"They've been wonderful, they've been really superb," he said of his committee colleagues, adding, "I'm very wistful about it, it's not easy" leaving.

Clinton, 65, is expected to leave her post Friday, amid swirling speculation about whether she will run for the presidency in 2016. For now, she has said only that she is looking forward to some rest after four gruelling years.

At his confirmation hearing last week, Kerry called for "fresh thinking" as he outlined his foreign policy agenda and plans for relations with Iran, China and the Middle East.

"American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We cannot allow the extraordinary good that we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely by the role that we have had to play since September 11th, a role that was thrust upon us," he said.

The decorated Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist has built impeccable credentials during his time in the Senate. He has sat down with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, soothed nerves in Pakistan and visited the Gaza Strip.

- AFP/jc



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Intellectuals come out in support of Ashis Nandy

NEW DELHI: The paradox of a champion of social justice being booked under the caste atrocities law has prompted an array of intellectuals and artistes to come out in support of academic Ashis Nandy from India and abroad. They include Romila Thapar, Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, Aparna Sen, Shabana Azmi, Sharmila Tagore, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Charles Taylor, Rajeev Bhargava and Yogendra Yadav.

Referring to his controversial statement at the Jaipur Literature Festival, an online petition signed by them said: "While Nandy's deliberately ironic remark on corruption in the OBC and SC/ST political elites as a form of equality may not be to the liking of all, we have no doubt that it was meant to question the upper caste-middle class notions of morality rather than denigrate marginalized and subaltern groups."

In a tacit admission that his statement was open to diverse interpretations, the petition addressed to the government said that Nandy had evolved "a distinctive and provocative style of making claims, comments and arguments". Although he has over the years "affirmed the rights of marginalized groups and communities to assert and express themselves in their unique ways", the petition added that Nandy's own method has been "to illuminate through anecdote, aphorism and irony".

Lamenting the illiberal demands for his arrest, the petition signed so far by over 300 persons said: "In a country where intellectual freedoms are shrinking every day, the right of thinkers like Ashis Nandy to argue and articulate unconventional views must be protected at all costs."

Other signatories to the petition include Arjun Appadurai, Nandita Das, Alok Rai, Zoya Hasan, Leela Gandhi, Achin Vinaik, Nandini Sundar, Lawrence Liang, Pranab Bardhan, Shamndad Basheer, Kamal Chenoy, Dilip Menon and Sumit Sarkar.

In a similar expression of support to the besieged scholar, Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association (JTSA) alleged that the crisis had been created by "media violence and culture of intolerance". According to JTSA, a section of the media "in the garb of safeguarding the dignity of the underprivileged has not only harmed that further but has also disgraced the eminent intellectual by forcing an apology out of him".

Denying the suggestion that he had held backward communities responsible for widespread corruption, JTSA said that those who were familiar with Nandy's work would know that "the accusation is farthest from the truth". It said: "Not only has he been grossly misunderstood but the accusation is an affront to his decades long deeply sensitive scholarship including that on the backward communities."

Meanwhile, Kancha Ilaiah, well-known scholar on Dalit issues, reportedly said: "Ashis Nandy made a bad statement with good intentions. However, as far as I know, he was never against reservation. The controversy should end here."

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent


BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.


Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after getting a double-arm transplant.


Wounded by a roadside bomb in 2009, the former soldier said he could get by without legs, but he hated living without arms.


"Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don't have that, you're kind of lost for a while," the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at a news conference at Johns Hopkins Hospital.


Doctors don't want him using his new arms too much yet, but his gritty determination to regain independence was one of the chief reasons he was chosen to receive the surgery, which has been performed in the U.S. only seven times.


That's the message Marrocco said he has for other wounded soldiers.


"Just not to give up hope. You know, life always gets better, and you're still alive," he said. "And to be stubborn. There's a lot of people who will say you can't do something. Just be stubborn and do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."


Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the team that conducted the surgery, said the new arms could eventually provide much of the same function as his original arms and hands. Another double-arm transplant patient can now use chopsticks and tie his shoes.


Lee said Marrocco's recovery has been remarkable, and the transplant is helping to "restore physical and psychological well-being."


Tuesday's news conference was held to mark a milestone in his recovery — the day he was to be discharged from the hospital.


Next comes several years of rehabilitation, including physical therapy that is going to become more difficult as feeling returns to the arms.


Before the surgery, he had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."


The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.


"We'll get it back together. We've been through a lot worse than that," his father, Alex Marrocco, said.


For the next few months, Marrocco plans to live with his brother in an apartment near the hospital.


The former infantryman said he can already move the elbow on his left arm and rotate it a little bit, but there hasn't been much movement yet for his right arm, which was transplanted higher up.


Marrocco's mother, Michelle Marrocco, said he can't hug her yet, so he brushes his left arm against her face.


The first time he moved his left arm was a complete surprise, an involuntary motion while friends were visiting him in the hospital, he said.


"I had no idea what was going through my mind. I was with my friends, and it happened by accident," he recalled. "One of my friends said 'Did you do that on purpose?' And I didn't know I did it."


Marrocco's operation also involved a technical feat not tried in previous cases, Lee said in an interview after the news conference.


A small part of Marrocco's left forearm remained just below his elbow, and doctors transplanted a whole new forearm around and on top of it, then rewired nerves to serve the old and new muscles in that arm.


"We wanted to save his joint. In the unlucky event we would lose the transplant, we still wanted him to have the elbow joint," Lee said.


He also explained why leg transplants are not done for people missing those limbs — "it's not very practical." That's because nerves regrow at best about an inch a month, so it would be many years before a transplanted leg was useful.


Even if movement returned, a patient might lack sensation on the soles of the feet, which would be unsafe if the person stepped on sharp objects and couldn't feel the pain.


And unlike prosthetic arms and hands, which many patients find frustrating, the ones for legs are good. That makes the risks of a transplant not worth taking.


"It's premature" until there are better ways to help nerves regrow, Lee said.


Now Marrocco, who was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, is looking forward to getting behind the wheel of his black 2006 Dodge Charger and hand-cycling a marathon.


Asked if he could one day throw a football, Dr. Jaimie Shores said sure, but maybe not like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.


"Thanks for having faith in me," Marrocco interjected, drawing laughter from the crowd.


His mother said Marrocco has always been "a tough cookie."


"He's not changed that, and he's just taken it and made it an art form," Michelle Marrocco said. "He's never going to stop. He's going to be that boy I knew was going to be a pain in my butt forever. And he's going to show people how to live their lives."


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Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., contributed to this report.


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