Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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White House: Drone Strikes on Americans 'Legal'

Feb 5, 2013 3:54pm

U.S. Air Force

The White House today defended the use of targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens abroad suspected of high-level terrorist activity, but declined to detail the criteria for ordering such an attack.

“Sometimes we use remotely piloted aircraft to conduct targeted strikes against specific al Qaeda terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the United States and to save American lives,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

“We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, to prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives. These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise,” he said.

Administration lawyers found it is lawful to kill an American citizen if a “high-level” government official believes the target is an operational leader of al Qaeda who poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if capture is infeasible, according to a newly disclosed Justice Department document.

The 16-page white paper, first obtained by NBC News, finds there “exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations” and that the administration does not need to present evidence to a court before or after ordering such an attack.

“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the document reads.

Carney repeatedly declined to discuss the details of the white paper.

“I would point you to the ample judicial precedent for the idea that someone who takes up arms against the United States in a war against the United States is an enemy and therefore could be targeted accordingly,” he told ABC News’ Jon Karl.

“[The president] takes his responsibility as commander in chief to protect the United States and its citizens very seriously. He takes the absolute necessity to conduct our war against al Qaeda and its affiliates in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution and our laws very seriously,” he said.

The white paper is believed to be a summary of the reported classified memo that outlined the legal justification for the drone attack that killed American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011.

The American Civil Liberties Union has called the newly discovered document “profoundly disturbing.”

“It’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances. It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact,” ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi said in a written statement.

The Obama administration has carried out more than 300 CIA drown strikes in Pakistan, far more than his predecessor, President George W. Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Pressure is building from Capitol Hill for the White House to outline its legal authority to kill American citizens in counterterrorism operations.

“It is vitally important… for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority,” a group of eleven bipartisan Senators wrote in a letter to the president Monday, “so that Congress and the public can decide whether this authority has been properly defined, and whether the President’s power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards.”

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Iran's Ahmadinejad kissed and scolded in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The trip was meant to underline a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state, President Mohamed Mursi, last June. But it also highlighted deep theological and geopolitical differences.

Mursi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, kissed Ahmadinejad after he landed at Cairo airport and gave him a red carpet reception with military honors. Ahmadinejad beamed as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.

But the Shi'ite Iranian leader received a stiff rebuke when he met Egypt's leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo's historic al-Azhar mosque and university.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, urged Iran to refrain from interfering in Gulf Arab states, to recognize Bahrain as a "sisterly Arab nation" and rejected the extension of Shi'ite Muslim influence in Sunni countries, a statement from al-Azhar said.

Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a news conference he hoped his trip would be "a new starting point in relations between us".

However, a senior cleric from the Egyptian seminary, Hassan al-Shafai, who appeared alongside him, said the meeting had degenerated into an exchange of theological differences.

"There ensued some misunderstandings on certain issues that could have an effect on the cultural, political and social climate of both countries," Shafai said.

"The issues were such that the grand sheikh saw that the meeting ... did not serve the desired purpose."

The visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.

"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his trip.

He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.

Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES

At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of improving relations and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.

Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr sought to reassure Gulf Arab allies - that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran - that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.

"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he said in remarks reported by the official MENA news agency.

Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.

"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.

"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he told Reuters. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."

Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.

Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.

Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a mosque beside Cairo's mediaeval Citadel alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir, Marwa Awad and Alexander Diadosz; Writing by Paul Taylor and Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Roche and Robin Pomeroy)

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Football: Messi agility is all in the mind - scientists

LONDON: Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi may owe his trademark feints and body swerves to the fact his brain is busier than that of a less gifted player, according to a study into footballers' minds.

Researchers at Britain's Brunel University found that highly skilled footballers are able to activate more areas of their brain than novices when an opposing player approaches, enabling them to react to their moves more successfully.

Published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, the research found that experienced players are able to suppress the urge to react instinctively, making them less likely to fall for opponents' attempts to trick them.

As part of the study, 39 players ranging from beginners to semi-professionals lay in an MRI brain scanner and watched clips of a junior international-level player running towards them with the ball.

Occasionally, the oncoming player would produce a deceptive manoeuvre and participants had to decide in which direction they need to move in order to counter.

They were then grouped according to how well they performed in the task, revealing that strong performers were more attuned to the actions and movements of opponents than their less-skilled counterparts.

"Our neuroimaging data clearly shows greater activation of motor and related structures in the brains of expert footballers, compared to novices, when taking part in a football-related anticipation task," said Daniel Bishop from Brunel University.

"We believe that this greater level of neural activity is something that can be developed through high quality training, so the next step will be to look at how the brain can be trained over time to anticipate the moves of opponents."

- AFP/jc

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I&B ministry's channel on YouTube catching people

CHANDIGARH: The Union I&B ministry's free-to-air channel on YouTube, which gives people access to historical recordings, research findings, movie trailers, IEC campaigns, photographs, live telecasts among other priceless data, is slowly catching on.

For those who love history, the channel is a veritable treasure trove, with nuggets like recordings of pre-Independence speeches by Maulana Azad and Mahatma Gandhi to Sardar Patel's February 12, 1949 address to the nation on communal harmony. A quirky video of a pigeon being caressed by Jawaharlal Nehru was the top trending video on the channel on Monday. The channel already has over 1000 subscribers and has registered over 93000 video views since its launch just over three months ago. The I&B ministry, which is in the midst of a major makeover, entered into a non-monetised content-sharing agreement with YouTube in September last year.

"There's a need to cater to the growing tech-savvy population of the country," said Union I&B minister Manish Tewari.

There are also links to obscure researches on chickpea (white chana) from Hyderabad institutes to a new prehistoric rock art site found in Wayanad (Kerala) in January earlier this year. The government is using the platform to give publicise its campaigns, too, such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Bharat Nirman.

The ministry is now in the process of upgrading it to a premium channel which will lead to better live streaming and seamless integration across all social media platforms.

Not just that, the channel has been bundled into an attractive customised app, called MIB, for Android smartphones and will have the same for Apple iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows-enabled smart-phones too.

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Bullying eases for lesbian, gay teens as they age: study

(Reuters) - It does get better for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth, with bullying in their early teens fading away as they grow older, according to a study of the name calling, threats and violence faced by teens in England.

Researchers, whose results appeared in Pediatrics, found that while more than half of non-heterosexual teens reported getting bullied at ages 13 and 14, fewer than one in ten was still being victimized six years later.

"This study provides strong empirical support for the idea that it does get better," said lead researcher Joseph Robinson, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Even though you're bullied in high school, chances are you won't be bullied in young adulthood."

But not all the news was good. Gay and bisexual men, in particular, reported that they were still bullied much more often than heterosexual men when surveyed at age 19 to 20. And bullied LGB youth said those experiences contributed to their feelings of depression and worthlessness years later as young adults

The new data are based on a study of 4,135 teens in England who were surveyed every year between 2004 and 2010. Of those, 187, or 4.5 percent, identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

At the start of the study period, when the youths were 13 and 14 years old, 52 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 57 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls said they were called names or experienced threats or violence.

Six years later, nine percent of non-heterosexual men and six percent of women were bullied.

By then, heterosexual and non-heterosexual women had a similar chance of being bullied, but gay and bisexual men were four times more likely to be victimized than their straight peers.

"Prior studies suggest that the general public has stronger negative feelings toward gay and bisexual males than toward lesbian and bisexual females," Robinson told Reuters Health.

Other experts noted that while the findings supported the idea that teens grow more tolerant as they age, discrimination still existed at aged 18 and 19, especially for boys.

Even when the name-calling and threats of violence had stopped, many LGB teens in the study continued to feel emotional distress, in part related to past bullying.

"There's a lingering effect into early adulthood... from what has happened earlier in life," said Anthony D'Augelli, who studies LGB youth at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

"Despite what would appear to be a decrease (in bullying), we should not assume that all is well in the lives of these young people," added D'Augelli, who was not part of the study.

Andrea Roberts, who studies trauma and health at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said that bullying trends have a lot to do with local culture and acceptance of LGB people, so it's hard to know whether the findings would apply elsewhere.

"It would be really beneficial to have this study done in the United States," she said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/cxXOG

(Reporting from New York by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

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Boy Safe, Kidnapper Dead After Hidden Camera Tip

A week-long standoff in Alabama, where a retired trucker held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker, has ended with the kidnapper dead and the child safe, according to law enforcement.

Officials had been able to insert a high-tech camera into the bunker to monitor the movements of the suspect, Richard Lee Dykes, and they had become increasingly concerned that he might act out, according to a law enforcement source with direct knowledge.

"FBI agents safely recovered the child who's been held hostage for nearly a week," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson said at a news conference.

The agent said negotiations with Dykes "deteriorated" in the past 24 hours.

"Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."

The boy, identified only as Ethan, "appears physically unharmed" and is being treated at a hospital, authorities said.

Joe Songer/AL.com/AP Photo

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Dykes, 65, is dead, but officials have not yet provided details on how he died.

"Right now, FBI special agent bomb technicians are in the process of clearing the property for improvised explosive devices," the FBI said in a written statement. "When it is safe to do so, our evidence response teams, paired with state and local crime scene technicians, will process the scene."

PHOTOS: Worst Hostage Situations

Dykes allegedly shot and killed a school bus driver last week and threatened to kill all the children on the bus before taking the boy, one of the students on the bus said.

"He said he was going to kill us, going to kill us all," Tarrica Singletary, 14, told ABC News.

Dykes had been holed up in his underground bunker near Midland City, Ala., with the abducted boy for a week as police tried to negotiate with him through a PVC pipe. Police had used the talks to send the child comfort items, including a red Hot Wheels car, coloring books, cheese crackers, potato chips and medicine.

Dykes was a decorated Vietnam vet who grew up in the area. He lived in Florida until two years ago, the AP reported, and has an adult daughter, but the two lost touch years ago, neighbor Michael Creel said. When he returned to Alabama, neighbors say he once beat a dog with a lead pipe and had threatened to shoot children who set foot on his property.

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Syrian opposition chief says offers Assad peaceful exit

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Monday to start talks for its departure from power and save the country from greater ruin after almost two years of bloodshed.

Seeking to step up pressure on Assad to respond to his offer of talks - which dismayed some in his own opposition coalition, Alkhatib said he would be ready to meet the president's deputy.

"I ask the regime to send Farouq al-Shara - if it accepts the idea - and we can sit with him," he said, referring to Syria's vice president who has implicitly distanced himself from Assad's crackdown on mass unrest that became an armed revolt.

Speaking after meeting senior Russian, U.S. and Iranian officials, Alkhatib said none of them had an answer to the 22-month-old crisis and Syrians must solve it themselves.

"The issue is now in the state's court...to accept negotiations for departure, with fewer losses," the Syrian National Coalition leader told Al Arabiya television.

The moderate Islamist preacher announced last week he was prepared to talk to Assad's representatives. Although he set several conditions, the move broke a taboo on opposition contacts with Damascus and angered many in its ranks who insist on Assad's departure as a precondition for negotiation.

Alkhatib said it was not "treachery" to seek dialogue to end a conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from their country and millions more are homeless and hungry.

"The regime must take a clear stand (on dialogue) and we say we will extend our hand for the interest of people and to help the regime leave peacefully," he said in separate comments to Al Jazeera television.

Assad announced last month what he said were plans for reconciliation talks to end the violence but - in a speech described by U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as narrow and uncompromising - he said there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".

Syria's defense minister said the army had proved it would not be defeated in its confrontation with rebels but declined to say whether it would respond to an Israeli air strike last week.

Security sources said the Israelis bombed a convoy of arms destined for Assad's ally Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, in neighboring Lebanon. Syria said the attack struck vehicles and buildings at a military research center near Lebanon's border.

Syria's uprising erupted in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests, escalating into a civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority. His family has ruled Syria for 42 years.

ANGER AT IRAN

The violence has divided major powers, with Russia and China blocking U.N. Security Council draft resolutions backed by the United States, European Union and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that could have led to U.N. sanctions isolating Assad. Shi'ite Iran has remained his strongest regional supporter.

Alkhatib met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at a security conference in Germany at the weekend.

"Iran's stance is unacceptable and I mentioned to the foreign minister that we are very angry with Iran's support for the regime," Alkhatib said.

He said he asked Salehi to pass on his offer of negotiations - based on the acceptance of the Assad government's departure - to Damascus. The two men also discussed the need to prevent Syria's crisis spreading into a regional conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, he said.

"We will find a solution, there are many keys. If the regime wants to solve (the crisis), it can take part in it. If it wants to get out and get the people out of this crisis, we will all work together for the interest of the people and the departure of the regime."

One proposal under discussion was the formation of a transitional government, Alkhatib said, without specifying how he thought that could come about. World powers agreed a similar formula seven months ago but then disagreed over whether that could allow Assad to stay on as head of state.

Activists reported clashes between the army and rebel fighters to the east of Damascus on Monday and heavy shelling of rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs. The Jobar neighborhood, on the southwestern edge of Homs, was hit by more than 100 rockets on Monday morning, an opposition activist said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 people were killed by dusk on Monday.

It said 180 people were killed across the country on Sunday, including 114 rebel fighters and soldiers. Sunday's death toll included 28 people killed in the bombardment of a building in the Ansari district of the northern city of Aleppo.

Assad has described the rebels as foreign-backed Islamist terrorists and said a precondition for any solution is that Turkey and Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states stop funding, sheltering and arming his foes.

The majority of the insurgents are Islamists but those affiliated with al Qaeda are smaller in number, although their influence is growing. For that reason, Western states have been loath to arm the rebels despite their calls for Assad's ouster.

Rebels and activists say that Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite militant movement Hezbollah have sent fighters to reinforce Assad's army - an accusation that both deny.

ECONOMIC SUPPORT

"The army of Syria is big enough, they do not need fighters from outside," Iran's Salehi said in Berlin on Monday.

"We are giving them economic support, we are sending gasoline, we are sending wheat. We are trying to send electricity to them through Iraq; we have not been successful."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said later on Monday that Syria's crisis could not be solved by military means and he called for a national accord leading to elections.

"War is not the solution...A government that rules through war - its work will be very difficult. A sectarian war should not be launched in Syria," he told Al Mayadeen television.

"We believe that (deciding) whoever stays or goes is the right of the Syrian people. How can we interfere in that? We must strive to achieve national understanding, and free elections."

Another Iranian official, speaking in Damascus after talks with Assad, said Israel would regret an air strike against Syria last week, without spelling out whether Iran or its ally planned a military response.

Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden all met Alkhatib in Munich at the weekend and portrayed his willingness to talk with Syrian authorities as a major step towards resolving the war.

But Alkhatib is under pressure from other members of the exiled leadership in Cairo for saying he would be willing to talk to Assad. Walid al-Bunni, a member of the Coalition's 12-member politburo, dismissed Alkhatib's meeting with Salehi.

"It was unsuccessful. The Iranians are unprepared to do anything that could help the causes of the Syrian Revolution," Bunni, a former political prisoner, told Reuters from Budapest.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Obama urges Boy Scouts to end gay ban

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said in an interview Sunday that the Boy Scouts of America should end its controversial ban on gays and lesbians when its national executive board takes up the issue next week.

"My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life," Obama told CBS News in a pre-Super Bowl interview.

"The Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives," he said. "And I think nobody should be barred from that."

On January 28, the century-old youth group with 2.6 million boys in its membership ranks said it was rethinking its longstanding ban, and the group's national board of directors is expected to meet Wednesday to discuss the issue.

Unlike the Girl Scouts of the USA, a separate organisation, the Boy Scouts maintained for years a ban on "open or avowed homosexuals" from participating either as members or adult leaders.

Its stance was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2000, but it has come under pressure in recent years to change tack in the face of growing public acceptance of homosexuality.

The CBS interview was broadcast ahead of the Super Bowl, the American football sporting extravaganza that transfixes the country each year.

Obama also told CBS that he hopes to generate more revenue for the US budget without raising taxes by closing tax loopholes.

"There is no doubt we need additional revenue coupled with smart spending reductions to bring down our deficits," Obama said.

- AFP/jc

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Unreliable sources may be taking intelligence agencies for a ride

NEW DELHI: A series of dramatic intelligence inputs by various agencies from along the India-Pakistan border has raised troubling questions if untrustworthy sources are feeding fantastic stories for a payment.

According to at least two sources in the security establishment, the Intelligence Bureau and the Military Intelligence, in the third week of January, filed similar narratives about the January 8 beheading of Lance Naik Hemraj. The strikingly similar reports, sources said, came from their humint ( human intelligence).

A senior official who has been involved in intelligence for a few decades said they suspect that both the agencies were fed by the same source. "This is not an isolated incident. We have been seeing a pattern," he said, citing the instance of a much publicized report last year about five terrorists coming to Mumbai for attacks. The photos released to the public turned out to be that of Lahore traders.

Around the time of the beheading incident, at least three different agencies, including the BSF and Military Intelligence, separately reported that Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed had visited Tattapani across Poonch and extorted action against Indian troops. Again, the inputs were assessed to be of extremely low dependability.

"It has become a regular affair along the border, especially the LoC. We are seeing a pattern. I think these so-called sources are raking in money feeding various agencies. Most of the information is patently false," another senior official said.

The kind of unverified information being fed to Indian agencies is starkly visible in the kind of inputs that has been flowing into New Delhi from the Poonch-Mendhar area in recent years. One Subedar Jabbar Khan, who is also called Sabar Khan, has been heading the ISI detachment in Tattapani for several years now, if these inputs are to go by. Col Siddiqui, who according to these intelligence reports paid Rs 5 lakh for the beheading, has been there for at least five years. Both the facts, that ISI officials would have such a long posting along the border, is adding to further questions about the credibility of these inputs.

A third source said questions over the unreliable inputs have been troubling the security establishment for many years now. In May 2012, Indian agencies were taken for a ride by an input that came through the Research and Analysis Wing about a team of terrorists who had landed in India for an attack in Mumbai. Later, it turned out that the photos of the so-called terrorists were that of traders in Lahore.

Worse, sources said the information was fed to RAW by a man who pretended to be a close relative of a senior LeT leader.

In the face of such frequent recurrences, many are saying that the intelligence agencies need to introduce a verifiable source payment mechanism. Meaning, each source that is paid by a field operative should be verifiable by the agency top brass, which is the system in most developed countries. Indian intelligence field operatives have all the discretion for payments and their sources are a closely guarded secret. There is no scientific assessment of source dependability nor payment mechanisms.

The situation is worse along the border, where there is jostling among the several intelligence agencies to collect information from Pakistan. So a flourishing intelligence industry has sprung up, with many sources. Some of these sources are smugglers who frequently cross borders, and most others are residents of villages along the border. In a large number of cases, they are just feeding the information that Indian agencies want to hear and not always the truth, many here suspect.

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