New Delhi, Oct 16 (ANI): Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who underwent aall bladder surgery at a hospital here, was discharged today.

The Nobel Laureate underwent a successful surgery. He was admitted to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital last Thursday to remove gallbladder stones.

A smiling Dalai Lama waved to people as he left the hospital.

Pradeep Chowbey, the Dalai Lama's doctor, said that the Tibetan spiritual leader is hale and hearty.

"He is in very good spirit and very happy to have had his surgery done here. He is a person now cured of all his problems," said Chowbey.

In August, the 73-year-old Dalai Lama was admitted to a Mumbai hospital and underwent tests for abdominal discomfort.

Doctors advised him to cancel a planned trip to Europe and rest, saying he was suffering from exhaustion.

The Dalai Lama normally spends several months a year travelling the world to teach Buddhism and highlight the Tibetans struggle for greater freedom in China. (ANI)

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New Delhi, Oct 16 (ANI): Several employees of Jet Airways, who were retrenched by the airline, today protested their lay off by the company at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.

The employees gathered at terminal-1B and chanted slogans against the airlines' chief Naresh Goyal and the chairman of Kingfisher Airlines, Vijay Mallya.

They also vented their ire against the government for not taking any action against Jet Airways.

They also thanked the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena for taking up the retrenchment issue in Mumbai. On Wednesday, Jet Airways decided to lay off 1,100 additional employees over the next few days.

Earlier in the day, Jet said it had retrenched 800 flight attendants and suspended its expansion programme, adding that it will also cut flights because of a slowdown in demand.

The additional job cuts would be across all categories and departments, Executive Director Saroj Datta told reporters in a televised press conference.

Jet Airways, in a statement, said it would reduce probationary and temporary workers in other areas, including management and pilots, as it planned to cut flights by about 15 per cent over winter.

In September, Jet had said the company and its budget arm JetLite offered 526 flights daily with a fleet of 109 aircraft.

On Monday, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, which between them have about 60 per cent of the domestic market, agreed on an alliance to cut costs through code-sharing, sharing of ticketing, ground services, joint fuel management, crew training and utilisation. (ANI)

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New Delhi, Oct 16 (ANI): The US Chief of Army Staff, General George W Casey, who is on a three-day visit to India, received a ceremonial welcome here today.

Casey was received by Chief of Army Staff, General Deepak Kapoor and is scheduled to visit the Siachen Glacier base camp near Leh.

That apart, the defence establishment will hold a lengthy discussion with General Casey on the emerging security scenario in South Asia, particularly in the wake of heightened tension along the Pak-Afghan border.

General Casey is expected to hold talks with the top brass of the Indian defence forces on ways to further enhance bilateral military relations between New Delhi and Washington.

Besides meeting and discussing issues of mutual interest with Defence Minister A K Antony, General Casey would also hold talks with General Kapoor and would be given a presentation on the security scenario in South Asia.

Siachen has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan since the mid 1980s when India sent its troops to the 72-km-long Glacier to pre-empt a Pakistani move to send Japanese trekkers to the snowy heights ranging from 18,000 feet to 22,000 feet.

General Casey will also deliver a lecture on land power in 21st Century at the National Defence College here.

He will visit some military bases outside Delhi before concluding his stay in India on October 18. (ANI)

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Paris, Oct.16 (ANI): French police are probing whether Russia's leading human rights lawyer was poisoned by a suspicious substance found hidden in her car.

Detectives in the town of Strasbourg were examining whether Karinna Moskalenko, the country's most prominent defender of Kremlin opponents, had been deliberately poisoned.

Moskalenko said on Monday her husband discovered "large" quantities of a mercury-like substance hidden under her car seat.

Moskalenko had been due yesterday to attend the Moscow trial of three men accused of involvement in the murder of the crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, was shot dead two years ago outside her Moscow flat.

Two Chechen brothers, Dzhanrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, have been charged with carrying out surveillance on Politkovskaya.

A former police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, is accused of giving them technical help.

But the trial was overshadowed by Moskalenko's non-appearance. A champion of victims of torture in Chechnya, she represents many of Putin's most high-profile enemies. These include Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch Putin jailed in 2003, and the opposition leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov.

Moskalenko said her husband, a chemist, stumbled across the deadly substance while cleaning the family car. She and her family had been suffering from severe headaches, giddiness and nausea. The illness prevented her from flying back to Russia for yesterday's trial, she said.

"When we got to the car we realized something was not normal. The only solution was to call the French police. The car was always locked; nobody should be able to open it," she told France 24.

"The exact nature of the act is not clear. Was the intention to provoke or to harm us, to poison me? Those who did this clearly intended to keep me unaware of the presence of the substance," The Guardian quoted her, as adding.

Moskalenko and her family spent Tuesday undergoing tests at the Medical Legal Institute in Strasbourg. Officials at the centre declined to give further details. Yesterday Moskalenko's assistant, Valentin Moiseev, told the Guardian that the lawyer was awaiting the results of the toxicology tests.

She was still feeling groggy, he said, adding: "She's feeling pretty sick."

Mercury is an element that occurs naturally. But exposure to high levels can damage the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and nervous system. (ANI)

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