India’s Reliance Industries and British giant BP on Friday announced the creation of an equal joint venture firm to source and market natural gas in India, according to a statement.

The move marks the next step in the $7.2 billion deal that Reliance and BP completed recently, through which the British giant acquired a 30 percent stake in 21 of Reliance’s oil and gas fields off India’s coast.

The firm, called India Gas Solutions, will also develop infrastructure to accelerate transportation and marketing of natural gas within the country.

“The need for assured gas supplies to fuel India’s growing gas demand is crucial and the Reliance-BP partnership is in a position to contribute towards this,” Sashi Mukundan, BP India chief, said in a statement.

India Gas Solutions will comprise a six-member board, with equal representation from Reliance and BP.

Equity for the firm would be based on equal contributions, the statement said, without disclosing details.

The company starts operations with 30 employees transferred from BP and Reliance.

Reliance, controlled by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, in October said it had suspended drilling at its oil and gas exploration blocks covered under the BP deal.

A re-evaluation of its exploration and production strategy is taking place, in partnership with BP, but current oil and gas production remains unaffected. — AFP

KOLKATA, India (AP) — India goes into the second test against the West Indies on Monday safe in the knowledge that its new spin attack is capable of winning games in familiar home conditions.

Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s debut match haul of 9-128 was the standout performance in a five-wicket victory in the first game in New Delhi and the more experienced Pragyan Ojha took seven wickets with his left-arm spin.

India is playing the three-match series with one of its most inexperienced bowling attacks in recent years, with regular pace spearhead Zaheer Khan out with an injury and seasoned off-spinner Harbhajan Singh shunted out by selectors.

Pace bowler Umesh Yadav was the other debutant for India in the opener, taking two wickets in the game.

The young bowlers repaid the faith of selectors, who were hopeful that an experienced batting lineup would make up for any shortcomings, despite having failed to cross the 300-run mark in four previous tests.

A series-clinching win at Eden Gardens could give selectors a chance to experiment further in the final test in Mumbai, and they could even be tempted to tinker with the batting lineup which includes top names like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and V.V.S. Laxman.

“We’re hoping we can take a 2-0 lead because that will allow us to start preparing for the Australia tour early,” chief selector Krishnamachary Srikkanth said earlier this week. “A win in this test will help us try some different ideas.”

For the West Indies, left-hander Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s knack of getting runs against India continued as he hit his seventh century against the team and 24th overall.

His odd stance, in which he seems to face the fielder at mid-wicket rather than the bowler, has proved effective in recent years. But other West Indian batsmen will have to put up bigger scores.

“As soon as the spinners settled (in the first test) we went into a shell,” captain Darren Sammy said after the first test loss. “Maybe we could bat a bit more positively like Shiv showed us.”

The West Indian bowling has looked promising so far with pace bowler Fidel Edwards troubling batsmen with deliveries that slide into them and Sammy bowling a consistent length.

“I would like to commend our bowlers, they have been doing a wonderful job,” Sammy said.

The final test will be played in Mumbai from Nov. 22-26 and will be followed by one-dayers in Cuttack (Nov. 29), Visakhapatnam (Dec. 2), Ahmedabad (Dec. 5), Indore (Dec. and Chennai (Dec. 11). — AP

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Squads:

India: Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, V.V.S. Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Ravichandran Ashwin, Rahul Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron.

West Indies: Kraigg Brathwaite, Kieran Powell, Adrian Barath, Kirk Edwards, Darren Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Marlon Samuels, Carlton Baugh, Darren Sammy (captain), Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach, Denesh Ramdin, Shane Shillingford, Fidel Edwards, Devendra Bishoo.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Ferrari driver Felipe Massa says the onus is on Lewis Hamilton to clear the air between the two after they collided yet again in the Formula One Indian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The two have crashed into each other in three of the past four races. This time Massa was found to be the guilty party and was handed a drive-through penalty from stewards, even though he insisted he did nothing wrong.

The pair exchanged angry words after crashing in Singapore and had not talked since, until pre-race Sunday when Hamilton stood beside Massa during a minute’s silence then wished the Brazilian good luck.

Massa said that counted for little, and said there will be “nothing from me” to mend fences, leaving it up to the Briton to make the first approach.

“He was on my side and he just said ‘have a good race’. Its not part of talking or whatever,” Massa said.

Hamilton had hoped their brief exchange after the minute’s silence could mend bridges between the two.

“There was a one minute silence before the race, I was standing next to Felipe,” Hamilton said. “He’s not spoken to me for a long time but I made the effort, I put my arm round him and said good luck for the race.”

The collision happened on lap 24 of the 60-lap grand prix. Hamilton tried to pass on the inside of a left-hand corner, but Massa moved in sharply and Hamilton crashed into the Ferrari’s sidepod.

Massa was able to continue while Hamilton had to pit with a damaged front-wing.

“I tried to overtake but I tried to pull out of it as he didn’t give me any space, but we collided,” Hamilton said. “It’s a disappointing day and my team deserves better.”

Massa was out of the race 10 laps later when he ran aggressively over a curb and snapped his front suspension — precisely the same mistake he made in qualifying.

He consulted stewards, who explained that he should have left more room for Hamilton, but he disagreed with their view.

“My view is that I broke later than him, I was in front, in a grippy area. I started to turn, could not see him and he touched me, so I don’t understand why I have the penalty,” Massa said.

“Am I supposed to back off and let him through?”

The 30-year-old said he bore no ill will toward Hamilton, but insisted it was the McLaren driver who had instigated all their crashes this season.

“I don’t have anything against him, nothing, zero,” Massa said.

“In all the incidents he touched my car. I did not do anything wrong.”

The three other collisions between the two had been at Monaco, Suzuka and Singapore.

The major disagreement came in Singapore, when Hamilton botched an overtaking move and crashed into his Ferrari rival. After that race, Massa approached Hamilton in the media interview zone, clapped him on the arm and sarcastically said “good job”, to which Hamilton replied “don’t touch me, man.” — AP

Five civilians were hurt Wednesday in a grenade attack by suspected militants in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said, as a sudden upsurge of separatist violence strikes the region.

The attack, the fifth in two days, took place in Bijbehara town, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Indian Kashmir summer capital of Srinagar.

“Suspected militants hurled a grenade at a police vehicle. It missed its target and hit the road injuring five civilians,” a police spokesman said.

He said the area was swiftly cordoned off and a search was launched to arrest those responsible for the attack.

On Tuesday, in a sudden escalation of violence, suspected rebels carried out four attacks across the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, injuring four policemen.

The flurry of attacks follows a relatively peaceful summer in Kashmir, where a 20-year insurgency against rule from New Delhi has often brought normal life to a halt amid protests, clashes with security forces and curfews.

Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Kashmir, announced last week that emergency laws imposed in 1990 allowing security forces to act with near-impunity are to be partially withdrawn as security improves.

Federal army and paramilitary officials are opposed to revoking the law.

Militant violence has dropped sharply in Kashmir since India and Pakistan, which each hold the region in part but claim it in full, started a peace process in 2004. — AFP

India makes its grand debut on the glitzy Formula One circuit this week under pressure to deliver a smooth and safe event after twin deaths rocked the world of motorsports.

The lavish F1 roadshow rolls into Greater Noida, a burgeoning satellite of New Delhi, where India will hope to erase memories of last year’s chaotic Commonwealth Games with a seamless first race on Buddh International Circuit.

India’s first Formula One grand prix also comes after this month’s tragic, mid-race deaths of IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon, 33, and rising MotoGP star Marco Simoncelli, 24, left fellow racers in shock.

“R.I.P Marco A special talent that will be missed… Thinking of your loved ones, and all the motogp paddock,” tweeted Red Bull’s Mark Webber.

And Sunday’s race will be closely watched in the United States, where New Jersey announced it was joining the Formula One circuit in 2013 along with Austin, Texas, which will debut next year.

Formula One’s seventh and possibly most ambitious Asian stop is in Jaypee Greens Sports City, a 2,500-acre (1,000 hectares) development which will meld housing, business and entertainment venues with stadiums and golf courses.

The undulating, 5.14 kilometre (3.19 miles) track, named after Lord Buddha, is known to most drivers only through their hi-tech simulators but it is expected to be challenging with top speeds of around 330 kilometres per hour.

India’s Narain Karthikeyan will be given a rare drive by his team, HRT, for the occasion, although Lotus pulled the plug on plans to let Karun Chandhok stand in for either Heikki Kovalainen or Jarno Trulli.

“Driving in front of the home crowd cheering on is going to be a surreal experience. A once-in-a-lifetime experience and I feel extremely fortunate,” Karthikeyan said.

“There is a huge buzz around the grand prix already and I?m sure that it?ll be a resounding success that will motivate more youngsters towards the sport and give us the future F1 drivers.”

With both the drivers’ and team titles wrapped up by Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull outfit, all eyes are on India’s hosting of the event as Formula One and its sponsors seek to tap the billion-strong, rapidly growing market.

The fundamental difference with the government-run Commonwealth Games is that the grand prix is a venture of India’s bullish corporate world in the shape of infrastructure conglomerate Jaypee.

“The Commonwealth Games forced us to bow our heads in shame,” Jaypee chairman Manoj Gaur admitted last week, when the new racetrack was unveiled.

“We took the Formula One project as a challenge. We decided that we will make the track so impressive that the shame of the Commonwealth Games will be forgotten and our pride will be restored in the world.”

However, eleventh-hour preparations continue at the 400-million-dollar circuit and organisers were forced to slash ticket prices this week in a bid to fill the 120,000-capacity venue.

The grand prix also suffered a legal hitch last week when the Supreme Court froze 25 percent of ticket revenues over a tax dispute, while local farmers have protested over the deal used to secure their land for the track.

But drivers are expecting a watershed weekend as India’s fervour for sports, heightened by a media and advertising blitz, meets brash Formula One in what organisers hope will be a marriage made in heaven.

“We did a demo run in Bangalore and were expecting 5,000 people to turn up,” said McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton. “On the day, there were around 40,000 fans — it was just incredible.

“You can?t believe how many people are aware of Formula One and how many are looking forward to the race.” — AFP

DHARMSALA, India (AP) — An art installation made of 20 tons of soil from Tibet has touched a deep emotional chord among Tibetan exiles, hundreds of whom lined up to walk across the mounds of soil Wednesday.

Monks chanted prayers as emotional Tibetans offered ceremonial scarves at the installation. Some elderly Tibetans kissed the soil from the land of their birth, before finally walking on it.

Contemporary artist Tenzing Rigdol spread the dirt on a stage on a basketball court in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala.

The Dalai Lama and the new prime minister in exile have both accepted it as genuine Tibetan soil. Rigdol says his method for getting it to Dharmsala will be revealed in a documentary in a few months.

For Tibetans living in exile for more than five decades, the installation has evoked strong nostalgia for a homeland to which they hope to return one day.

Rigdol, who has a degree in art from the University of Colorado, says the idea came to him when his father was dying and wished to go back to Tibet.

Rigdol realized that desire was shared by almost all Tibetans exiled from their homeland. The project, he said, was “no longer just about my father’s aspirations.”

The nostalgic pull was evident even among young Tibetans as they picked up fistfuls of soil at the installation.

“I cannot describe my emotions as I touched the soil. I suddenly became emotional when I saw others walking on it and felt connected to a land I have never seen,” said Tenzin Lhawang, a school librarian who was born in India.

Rigdol offered a tray of the soil to the Dalai Lama, who wrote the word “Tibet” in the Tibetan language on it.

“Tenzing Rigdol has brought Tibet to us,” said Lobsang Sangay, the newly elected prime minister of the Tibetan government in exile.

“My idea was that the project in this interactive form could be a sort of re-connection to the land that many have left behind or have never seen,” said Rigdol.

“If merely walking on Tibetan soil here generates such an emotional response, how would it be to walk on Tibetan soil in Tibet,” he said.

The Dalai Lama fled fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. The Indian government allowed him to establish the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharmsala, setting up schools, hospitals and housing there. — AP

MUMBAI, India (AP) — More than 200 Indian girls whose names mean “unwanted” in Hindi have chosen new names for a fresh start in life.

A central Indian district held a renaming ceremony Saturday that it hopes will give the girls new dignity and help fight widespread gender discrimination that gives India a skewed gender ratio, with far more boys than girls.

The 285 girls — wearing their best outfits with barrettes, braids and bows in their hair — lined up to receive certificates with their new names along with small flower bouquets from Satara district officials in Maharashtra state.

In shedding names like “Nakusa” or “Nakushi,” which mean “unwanted” in Hindi, some girls chose to name themselves after Bollywood stars such as “Aishwarya” or Hindu goddesses like “Savitri.” Some just wanted traditional names with happier meanings, such as “Vaishali,” or “prosperous, beautiful and good.”

“Now in school, my classmates and friends will be calling me this new name, and that makes me very happy,” said a 15-year-old girl who had been named Nakusa by a grandfather disappointed by her birth. She chose the new name “Ashmita,” which means “very tough” or “rock hard” in Hindi.

The plight of girls in India came to a focus after this year’s census showed the nation’s sex ratio had dropped over the past decade from 927 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of 6 to 914.

Maharashtra state’s ratio is well below that, with just 883 girls for every 1,000 boys — down from 913 a decade ago. In the district of Satara, it is even lower, at 881.

Such ratios are the result of abortions of female fetuses, or just sheer neglect leading to a higher death rate among girls. The problem is so serious in India that hospitals are legally banned from revealing the gender of an unborn fetus in order to prevent sex-selective abortions, though evidence suggests the information gets out.

Part of the reason Indians favor sons is the enormous expense of marrying off girls. Families often go into debt arranging marriages and paying for elaborate dowries. A boy, on the other hand, will one day bring home a bride and dowry. Hindu custom also dictates that only sons can light their parents’ funeral pyres.

Over the years, and again now, efforts have been made to fight the discrimination.

“Nakusa is a very negative name as far as female discrimination is concerned,” said Satara district health officer Dr. Bhagwan Pawar, who came up with the idea for the renaming ceremony.

Other incentives, announced by federal or state governments every few years, include free meals and free education to encourage people to take care of their girls, and even cash bonuses for families with girls who graduate from high school.

Activists say the name “unwanted,” which is widely given to girls across India, gives them the feeling they are worthless and a burden.

“When the child thinks about it, you know, ‘My mom, my dad, and all my relatives and society call me unwanted,’ she will feel very bad and depressed,” said Sudha Kankaria of the organization Save the Girl Child. But giving these girls new names is only the beginning, she said.

“We have to take care of the girls, their education and even financial and social security, or again the cycle is going to repeat,” she said. — AP

Tickets for India’s inaugural Grand Prix have not sold out, prompting organisers to slash prices in an effort to fill the 120,000-capacity circuit.

On Monday, tickets were still available online in all but the cheapest category — the 2,500-rupee ($55) area.

The private Jaypee group, which has spent $400 million to build the new state-of-the-art Buddh International circuit and bring the event to India, said it was still hopeful of selling the remaining tickets for this weekend’s race.

“We have sold close to 80,000 tickets which is pretty encouraging considering that its the first F1 race ever in the country,” a Jaypee spokesman told AFP.

“Of course we would have been happier had we sold off 90 percent tickets because ticket sales are the only source of revenue for us. But there are still a few days to go and we are keeping our fingers crossed.”

The business conglomerate has also decided to offer discounted race day tickets in the hope of boosting sales.

“Fans can now opt for only race day tickets at discounted price instead of the season tickets which are a little on the high side. A lot of big companies are also in the process of booking corporate boxes,” said the spokesman.

Organisers have showcased engines and put an F1 car on display at various city hotspots, while Indian newspapers have been stoking the buzz, devoting full pages to explaining the technicalities of the sport.

Overall media coverage of the F1 championship — which has already been won by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel — has been overshadowed by the on-going one-day cricket series between India and England, which the home side leads 4-0.

At 2,500 rupees, the cheapest ticket is also far beyond the reach of the vast majority of people in the country.

McLaren-Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton however said over the weekend that he had no doubt that the Indian race would be well-attended.

“We did a demo run in Bangalore and were expecting 5,000 people to turn up. On the day, there were around 40,000 fans. It was just incredible,” the Brit said.

“You can’t believe how many people are aware of Formula 1 and how many are looking forward to the race this week. There’s already a great deal of knowledge about the sport.

“I think it’s going to be a big deal.” — AFP

Tough emergency laws imposed in Indian Kashmir in 1990 that allow security forces to act with near-impunity are to be partially withdrawn, the region’s chief minister announced Friday.

It marks a significant step in the process of normalising the Indian part of Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region divided with Pakistan that has sparked two of the three major wars between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Indian Kashmir was once one of the most dangerous places on Earth as militant groups waged a deadly campaign of bombings and killings to protest against rule from New Delhi.

The draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) was introduced in 1990 to give the army and paramilitary forces — who number half a million today — sweeping powers to detain people, use deadly force and destroy property.

“Time has come for the revocation of laws which were implemented in the state after the onset of militancy,” Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told a police function in the main city of Srinagar.

“These laws will be revoked from some areas of the state within next few days,” he said, without specifying where.

Violence is at its lowest since the start of the insurgency in 1989 and life is slowly returning to normal in a region where the streets used to be deserted after 5:00pm because of strict curfews imposed by security forces.

Tourism has also come back into life, with visitor numbers at a two-decade high as Indians return to the steep valleys, lakes and mountain views of the “Switzerland of the East.”

Abdullah said that peaceful conditions had paved the way for partial withdrawal of the much-hated law.

“These laws would be revoked from all parts of the state with the restoration of peace and tranquility,” he said.

AFSPA has long been the target of human rights groups, which accuse the army of abusing the powers given to it under the act.

Under AFSPA, soldiers are given sweeping powers of detention, are able to shoot alleged militants and destroy any property suspected of being used as a militant hideout.

They cannot be prosecuted unless the Indian government gives prior sanction.

India’s home ministry has pushed for revocation of the act in Kashmir, but senior army figures have resisted any change, saying it could hamper their ability to combat militants, who still launch occasional attacks.

UN special rapporteur Margaret Sekaggya called on the Indian government to repeal AFSPA in January after a tour of Kashmir during which she heard “numerous testimonies” of torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detentions.

Shopkeeper Mohammed Yusuf, 68, welcomed Friday’s announcement.

“It will mean a lot to us. At least security forces will be held accountable for their actions. If peace prevails, I am hopeful these laws will be lifted from the entire state,” he said.

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based lobby group, also applauded the step, but Khurram Pervez, the region’s leading human rights activist, said the partial withdrawal was not enough.

“There is broad recognition in India that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act should be repealed because it has led to so many abuses,” said Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch Asia director, in a statement earlier this week.

Pervez said the partial removal “will leave a lot of space for perpetuators” because someone could be arrested in a place where AFSPA was not in force and then taken to an area under the act.

“These laws should go from the entire state and not in patches,” he said.

Pervez’s group, Coalition of Civil Society, says 8,000 people have disappeared in the region, most of them after being arrested by government forces. Officials put the number of missing at 1,000-3,000.

Separatist politicians opposed to Indian rule demanded further steps.

“Even though we welcome this approach, this is not an issue of a district or a region. If you really want change in the situation, you should begin military withdrawal from the entire state,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the region’s top Islamic cleric and leading separatist.

He said demilitarisation will pave the way for a situation where a solution can be sought through dialogue. — AFP

The latest in a series of strikes at India’s top car maker Maruti Suzuki came to an end on Friday, at a cost of $400 million in lost production and major damage to the group’s reputation.

Maruti, which is majority-owned by Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp, said the 13-day strike at its Manesar plant was called off after an agreement between workers, the company and the Haryana state government.

Operations at the north India car plant will resume on Saturday, a spokesman told AFP.

Maruti makes nearly half the cars sold in India but in recent months has seen a sharp fall in production due to the strikes, hitting its market share — to the advantage of rivals such as Toyota.

The latest strike came after a series of clashes between workers and management at Manesar since June, costing Maruti a total of at least 19.50 billion rupees ($400 million) in lost output.

The unrest followed management refusals to recognise a new union as well as claims of sabotage on the production line and the assault of supervisors.

Earlier this month, Maruti was forced to call in police to evict 1,500 workers who had taken over the factory.

Manesar, which employs 2,000 workers, normally produces up to 1,200 of Maruti’s top-selling Swift and A-Star hatchbacks and SX4 sedans daily.

Fast-growing India is critical to the Japanese firm’s fortunes and is its biggest foreign market.

“Our first aim is to normalise production quickly as we need to meet customer orders,” the Maruti spokesman said, adding that there was a backlog of more than 100,000 Swift cars.

But analysts said the firm could still face an uphill task to regain market share.

Mahantesh Sabarad, an analyst with Mumbai’s Fortune Equity Brokers, said: “Even while production needs to be kept alive, Maruti needs to ensure that labour problems do not re-occur.”

Maruti plans to stave off future industrial action by creating a “grievance redressal committee” including representatives from the management and work force. An independent labour officer will also be a permanent member.

The strikes could not have come at a worse time as auto makers boost production to meet increased demand for cars in the run-up to the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, next week.

During the strikes, Maruti sacked or suspended 94 workers for a range of offences including sabotaging cars and assaulting other employees.

As part of the settlement it has decided to recall 64 of the workers.

Another 30 dismissed for more serious offences will remain suspended, the company added.

Analysts estimate that Maruti has lost nearly three to four percent of its market share in the first half of the current financial year, to 39 percent.

Maruti has been further hit by a strong yen to the rupee, affecting margins as it makes payments for raw materials and dividends in the Japanese currency.

Company shares rose nearly four percent to a day’s high of 1,155 at the Bombay Stock Exchange after the announcement. Shares eventually closed up 1.53 percent.

The strikes compounded a slump in sales of new cars in India, which has also hit other automakers, due to spiralling inflation, the increasing cost of fuel and a rise in the price of raw materials. — AFP