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January 16, 2012

Akali leader’s son booked in Rs 18-crore paddy scam

Moga, January 16
The police has registered a case against the son of a senior Akali leader and three officials of the Markfed for their alleged involvement in a paddy scam worth Rs 18 crore.
An FIR under various sections of the IPC and the Essential Commodities Act was registered against Mandeep Singh Brar, owner of Avtar Rice Mill, Baghapurana, former Markfed DM Amarjit Singh Sandhu, branch manager Kamal Kumar and custodian Sham Lal at the Baghapurana police station.
SHO Gurpreet Singh said that the accused were yet to be arrested.
Mandeep Brar is the son of senior Akali leader Jagtar Singh Rajeana, who was an aspirant for the SAD ticket from the Baghapurana assembly constituency, while Mandeep's grandfather Sadhu Singh Rajeana was elected to the state assembly twice from the Baghapurana assembly constituency.
According to information, as many as 338 wagons of paddy went missing from the mill in the past several months. The total loss has initially been estimated at Rs 17.40 crore, but this could exceed due to fluctuations in the prevailing market rates.
Markfed District Manager HS Dhaliwal said that a team of senior officials of the department inspected the rice mill on January 14 and found that the paddy procured by the agency during 2010-2011 and given for milling was missing from the mill.
Earlier, when the rice mill did not hand over the milled rice to the Markfed on time, it raised doubts in the minds of authorities. Inquiries made by the local unit smelled a scam. Dhaliwal wrote a letter to the Markfed MD on January 11, which led to on the spot inspection by senior authorities from the head office.
Meanwhile, the Markfed authorities are assessing the exact loss so that recovery process could be initiated against the mill.

PPP gaining ground, slow and steady Having caught the fancy of the youth, it is now a force to reckon with

Manpreet Badal, PPP chief Chandigarh, January 16
The mere 10-month-old People’s Party of Punjab, which suffered a series of setbacks a few weeks ago with its frontline leaders defecting to either the Congress or the SAD, appears to have recovered much of the lost ground.

The party has begun to give sleepless nights to the Congress and the SAD-BJP alliance in several assembly segments. Reports from the field indicate that PPP candidates, contesting under the umbrella of the Sanjha Morcha, a coalition of four parties, have started gaining ground in various constituencies.
The SAD and the Congress are a worried lot as the parties are yet to figure out as to which party will be affected the most with the PPP gaining ground among the voters. While the SAD leadership has been claiming that the Congress will be affected most, the latter maintains that the PPP will eat into the SAD-BJP vote bank.
It is too early to say what the performance of the PPP and its allies (CPI, the CPM and the SAD-Longowal) will be in the coming assembly elections, but one can say with certainty that the PPP will determine the outcome of the elections.
The party has caught the imagination of the youth. The PPP chief, Manpreet Badal, who has single-handedly raised the party from next to nothing, has infused hope in them. Manpreet has provided a new political idiom and to some extent a new meaning to the state’s politics.
He has played a vital role in making politics issue-based. Credit goes to him for bringing state’s ailing economy to the centre stage. He has made several socio-economic issues a part of his public discourse.
On the way to building the party, Manpreet saw some of his close associates lured away by the Congress and the SAD. The biggest jolt came when his two lieutenants, Jagbir Singh Brar and Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, deserted him. His opponents started questioning his ability to raise a party. They ridiculed him for failing to keep his flock together with some saying he was arrogant.
But Manpreet always held that his party’s main stake- holders were the people themselves, yearning for change and freedom from an exploitative system.
Among the PPP’s frontline leaders now are Bhagwant Mann, Gurpreet Singh Bhatti, Kuldeep Singh Dhose and Harnek Singh Gharuan. Manpreet’s main adviser is Dr SS Johl. Bir Devinder Singh is back with him.
Of the 117 seats, Sanjha Morcha has put up candidates on 115 seats-the PPP has fielded 91 candidates, the CPI 14, the CPM 8 and the SAD-Longowal 2.
The Sanja Morcha has not put up any candidate in Abohar and Dera Baba Nanak. Among the PPP candidates are doctors, advocates, technocrats, artistes, sportspersons and progressive farmers. At least 85 of them are fresh faces. The average age of the PPP candidates is 50.
Manpreet says his party has caught the people’s fancy like no party in the past. “There were certain persons who were not committed to a struggle and they quit the PPP. It is not uncommon for people to lose nerve on the way and opt out,” he explains. “We are gaining ground everyday. People listen to our candidates attentively. They are impressed by our programme and the first 100 days’ agenda. We will perform far better than our opponents expect and in some segments, our candidates’ performance will surprise political observers,” he claims. “Our biggest asset is the younger generation, which will decide the state’s tomorrow,” claims Manpreet, who has travelled about 1,90,000 km since October 2010, when he was thrown out of the Shiromani Akali Dal. “During the past 13 months, we organised three big political conferences-at the Maghi Mela in Muktsar last year,at Khatkar Kalan on March 27, 2011, to announce the formation of the PPP, and one at Moga to mobilise the cadres.
“Besides, I have addressed more than 1,000 political meetings in rural and urban areas during this period,” he says, adding that the party has a membership of 18 lakh and has 4,500 office-bearers.
Untiring Crusader  
  • Manpreet was expelled from the Shiromani Akali Dal in October 2010
  • He has travelled about 1,90,000 km since then
  • In the past 13 months, he has held three big conferences — at the Maghi Mela in Muktsar last year, at Khatkar Kalan on March 27, 2011, and at Moga to mobilise cadres
  • Manpreet has addressed more than 1,000 political meetings in rural as well as urban areas
  • He says the party has a membership of 18 lakh and has 4,500 office-bearers
  • The PPP has fielded candidates in 91 constituencies
frontline leaders
Bhagwant Mann, Gurpreet Singh Bhatti, Kuldeep Singh Dhose, Harnek Singh Gharuan and Bir Devinder Singh Manpreet’s main adviser is Dr SS Johl

Now, Ombudsman for higher education institutions in India


To be covered

n
Central universities, the IITs, IIMs and NITsn All technical and management institutions recognised by the UGC, AICTE and the National Council for Teacher Educationn Deemed universities recognised by the Centren Non-degree granting institutions approved by academic regulators
New Delhi, January 16
Students attending higher education institutions run by the Centre and recognised by academic regulators will now have a platform to register their grievances and seek redress.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development today passed an executive order to mandate all central higher educational institutions like the central universities, the IITs, IIMs and NITs, among others, to appoint an ombudsman to redress grievances of students by the start of the next academic session.
The order will be equally applicable to all technical and management institutions recognised by regulators such as the UGC, the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the National Council for Teacher Education. It will also apply to deemed universities recognised by the Centre and the non-degree granting institutions approved by the academic regulators.
The move comes in the wake of persistent resistance that the ministry’s ambitious Bill on establishment of educational tribunals met with in the Rajya Sabha where the Bill remains in a limbo.
“We can’t keep waiting. We have to move,” HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today said, adding that the ombudsman would be responsible for addressing students’ grievances related to denial of admission, non-observance of declared merit in admissions, non-observance of applicable regulations for reservation, withholding of documents and non-refund of fees in case of withdrawal of admission, discrimination and matters concerning students in pursuit of studies in the institution.
In matters concerning weaker sections such as SCs, STs, OBCs or minorities, the ombudsman can co-opt a person of eminence of the area from a weaker section to assist him.
The ombudsman will have to deliver his judgment in a month and though his order would not be binding on the institution, the institution can lose recognition from the regulator in case of repeated violations and non-compliance with the orders of the ombudsman.
“Non-compliance can lead to withdrawal of recognition,” Sibal explained.
The ombudsman will have to be a person with a judicial or legal background. The institute would have to appoint him from a panel suggested by the affiliating university in case of technical and management institutions and the Central Government in case of deemed universities.
The suggestion of instituting an ombudsman was made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD when it was looking at the Bill on Prevention of Unfair Practices in Technical and Management Institutions.
“The committee made this suggestion and we are going to implement it. Although the idea was to set up a grievance redress mechanism through the Educational Tribunals Bill, but if the Bill does not come, I am not going to wait,” Sibal said.
The proposed ombudsman would not cover grievances related to teachers.

201 Indians rescued from cruise ship


Captain’s ‘ERROR’ behind accident
The arrested captain of the 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia has been accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before its 4,200 passengers had been evacuated. An official said he appeared to have made "serious errors of judgment" and had brought the ship too close to shore where it struck a rock that tore a large hole in the hull.
2,300 tonnes of fuel on ship
The chairman and CEO of Costa Cruises said 2,300 tonnes of fuel was aboard the capsized cruise ship, but that no sign of leakage could be seen so far. Pier Luigi Foschi told a press conference cruise ships such as the Costa Concordia had "no safety problem"
Rome, January 16
One Indian is missing in a luxury cruiser drowning incident off the Tuscan coast in Italy while 201 crew members from the country have been rescued, officials said here today.
As efforts were on to trace the missing Indian, the Indian government set up control rooms both in New Delhi as well as here to facilitate information about the rescue.
Indian embassy officials here said while one Indian named Robello Russel Terence, who was a Waiter on the ill-fated Costa Concordia, was yet to be traced and efforts were on to verify other details about him, no casualty among the Indians has been reported so far.
The incident, which happened on Saturday, left six persons dead. The ship hit a reef or rock near the Tuscan island of Giglio, before it went down.
Visvesh Negi, a spokesman of the Indian embassy here, said "there were a total of 203 Indians on the ship - one passenger and 202 crew members". In Delhi, the Ministry of External Affairs said it has set up control rooms to deal with enquiries about the Indians on board the ship. "Out of the 202 crew members, 201 have been traced and are safe. One person is missing. We are co-ordinating with the Italian Government and trying to trace the missing crew," Negi said.

foul content

Blocking websites not an option: Google India
New Delhi, January 16
Google India, which along with 20 websites is facing criminal cases for allegedly hosting objectionable materials, today told the Delhi High Court that blocking them was not an option as democratic India was not a "totalitarian" regime like China.

"The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China," advocate N K Kaul, appearing for Google India, told Justice Suresh Kait.
During last hearing, Justice Kait had warned Google India and social networking site Facebook India that websites can be "blocked" like in China if they fail to devise a mechanism to check and remove objectionable material from their web pages.
Responding to the court's remark, Kaul referred to media reports on the issue saying "they (reports) suggest the existence of the right (freedom of speech)."
Initiating arguments, Kaul said internet is a global system which have billions of users that also included companies, private persons and the governments and their departments.

Shaheed Bahi Mewa Singh Lopoke


Gurdwara Sahib Sukh Sagar, New Westminster celebrates the sacrifice made to the community by Shaheed (Martyr) Bhai Mewa Singh every January. 
He sacrificed his own life for his beliefs to fight against injustice to the poor and community and this year the society is launching www.mewasingh.com with information on the events.
About Shaheed Bhai Mewa Singh
Leading up to execution of Shaheed Bhai Mewa Singh were many different acts of injustice and harsh discrimination against the Sikhs. The song sung by most Canadians at the time was, “White Canada Forever”, discriminatory acts by the government of the time such as the Election Act of March 1907, which deprived East Indians from provincial and municipal elections,1908 Act to ship Sikhs to British Honduras, the laws that prevented the children and wives of Sikhs from coming to Canada and then the unforgettable Kamagata Maru incident and the denial of fresh water and food to the passengers and subsequent disastrous consequences for the passengers once they ship was sent back to India was on the minds of all Sikhs at that time.
Amongst the local Sikhs a few spoke up against this injustice, one of them was Bhai Mewa Singh a simple but religious-minded Sikh who was a reciter of the Guru Granth Sahib and came from the village of Lopoke, in Amritsar, India.
The last straw in these discriminatory incidents came on Sunday September 6, 1914 when Bela Singh Jain an informer and agent of Inspector Hopkinson, pulled out two guns and started shooting at the Khalsa Diwan Society Gurdwara Sahib on West 2nd Avenue. He murdered Bhai Bhag Singh, President of the Society and Battan Singh and Bela Singh was charged with murder, but Hopkinson decided to appear as a witness in his case and made up much of his testimony at his trail and subsequently Bela Singh was acquitted.
On October 21, 1914, Bhai Mewa Singh, Granthi of Khalsa Diwan Society shot William Hopkinson in the Assize court corridor with two revolvers because he believed him to be unscrupulous and corrupt, using informers to spy on Indian immigrants.
At the trail in the court of Judge Morrison, Mr. Wood the attorney of Mewa Singh in his statement said, “The Sikh community felt that Hopkinson was in part responsible for the failure of the plans to land the Sikhs aboard the Komagata Maru. He was born in India (English Father and East Indian mother). He could speak Indian languages fluently. He established a ring of informers to report about the activities of the Sikh community. Bela Singh Jain was his chief informer and an employee of Immigration department. He acted as a victorious lord over his community and was backed by his boss Hopkinson”. Mewa Singh made a historical statement in the Court:
“My religion does not teach me to bear enmity with anybody, nor had I any enmity with Mr. Hopkinson. He was oppressing poor people very much. I, being a staunch Sikh, could no longer bear to see the wrong done both to my countrymen and Dominion of Canada. This is what led me to take Hopkinson’s life and sacrifice my own life. And I, performing the duty of a true Sikh and remembering the name of God, will proceed towards the scaffold with the same amount of pleasure as a hungry babe goes towards his mother. I am sure God will take me into His blissful arms.”
In addition Bhai Mewa Singh also paraphrased the Tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh Ji “He is truly a hero who fights on the side of the weak, gets questered and cuts limb by limb, but does not flee.”
On October 30th 1914, Mewa Singh was found guilty and at 7.45am, Jan 11, 1915 in New Westminster B.C., Mewa Singh became the first and the only Sikh to be executed in Canada. After his execution, his body was taken in a procession through the city by Sikhs and was cremated with great honor
The sacrifices made by Bhai Mewa Singh remind us each year of the struggles that Sikhs had to endure to gain some measure of equality in Canada.

ਪਿਤਾ ਲਈ ਧੀ ਦੁਨੀਆ ਦਾ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਡਾ ਤਾਜ-ਰਾਏ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਵਿਦਾਸ ਟੈਂਪਲ ਸਬਾਉੱਦੀਆ ਵਿਖੇ ਪਹਿਲੀ ਵਾਰ ਮਨਾਈ ਕੁੜੀ ਦੀ ਲੋਹੜੀ


ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਵਿਦਾਸ ਟੈਂਪਲ ਸਬਾਉਦੀਆ ਵਿਖੇ ਮਨਾਈ ਲੋਹੜੀ ਦੇ ਸਮਾਗਮ ਮੌਕੇ ਹਾਜ਼ਰ ਔਰਤਾਂ
ਮਿਲਾਨ (ਇਟਲੀ), 16 ਜਨਵਰੀ (ਇੰਦਰਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਲੁਗਾਣਾ)-ਇਟਲੀ ਵਿਚ ਬਹੁਤ ਘੱਟ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਅਜਿਹੇ ਹਨ ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਆਪਣੀ ਨੰਨੀ ਪਿਆਰੀ ਕੁੜੀ ਦੀ ਇਸ ਸਾਲ ਖੁੱਲ੍ਹਕੇ ਲੋਹੜੀ ਮਨਾਈ ਹੋਵੇ। ਹੁਸ਼ਿਆਰਪੁਰ ਜ਼ਿਲ੍ਹੇ ਨਾਲ ਸਬੰਧਿਤ ਨੌਜਵਾਨ ਆਗੂ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਤੀਰਥ ਚੁੰਬਰ ਜਿਹੜੇ ਕਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਵਿਦਾਸ ਟੈਂਪਲ ਸਬਾਉਦੀਆ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਪ੍ਰਬੰਧਕ ਕਮੇਟੀ ਦੇ ਵਿੱਤ ਸਕੱਤਰ ਹਨ, ਨੇ ਇਸ ਸਾਲ ਆਪਣੀ ਲਾਡਲੀ ਬੇਟੀ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਚੁੰਬਰ ਦੀ ਲੋਹੜੀ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਵਿਦਾਸ ਟੈਂਪਲ ਵਿਖੇ ਸਮੂਹ ਸੰਗਤਾਂ ਨਾਲ ਮਨਾਈ । ਇਸ ਲੋਹੜੀ ਦੇ ਸਮਾਗਮ ਮੌਕੇ ਗੁਰੂ ਘਰ ਵਿਖੇ ਸਜਾਏ ਦੀਵਾਨ ਵਿਚ ਭਾਈ ਬਲਵਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਅਤੇ ਭਾਈ ਗੁਰਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀਤਾ ਨੇ ਇਲਾਹੀ ਬਾਣੀ ਦੇ ਕੀਰਤਨ ਦੁਆਰਾ ਸੰਗਤਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਗੁਰੂ ਚਰਨਾਂ ਨਾਲ ਜੋੜਿਆ। ਗਿਆਨੀ ਜਗਤਾਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਸੜੋਆ ਨੇ ਕੁੜੀ ਦੀ ਲੋਹੜੀ ਮਨਾਉਣ ਲਈ ਪ੍ਰੇਰਦਿਆਂ ਵਿਸ਼ੇਸ਼ ਕਵਿਤਾ ਵੀ ਪੜ੍ਹੀ। ਇਸ ਮੌਕੇ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਪਰਮਜੀਤ ਰਾਏ ਪ੍ਰਧਾਨ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਰਵਿਦਾਸ ਟੈਂਪਲ ਸਬਾਉਦੀਆ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਪ੍ਰਬੰਧਕ ਕਮੇਟੀ ਨੇ ਕਿਹਾ ਕਿ ਇਕ ਪਿਤਾ ਲਈ ਧੀ ਦੁਨੀਆ ਦਾ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਡਾ ਤਾਜ ਹੈ। ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਕਿਹਾ ਕਿ ਗੁਰਬਾਣੀ ਵੀ ਔਰਤ ਦੀ ਸਿਫ਼ਤ ਕਰਦੀ ਹੈ। ਇਸ ਲੋਹੜੀ ਦੇ ਸਮਾਗਮ ਮੌਕੇ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਰਾਮ ਆਸਰਾ ਲਾਲੀ, ਸ੍ਰੀ ਪ੍ਰਗਟ ਕੁਮਾਰ ਸਹੂੰਗੜਾ, ਡਾ: ਦਿਲਬਾਗ ਮਾਹੀ, ਡਾ: ਟੈਕ ਚੰਦ ਸੀਣਾ, ਸ੍ਰੀ ਬਲਬੀਰ ਲਾਤੀਨਾ, ਸ੍ਰੀ ਪਰਮਜੀਤ ਪੰਮਾ, ਸ੍ਰੀ ਹਰੀ ਰਾਮ ਆਦਿ ਮੌਜੂਦ ਸਨ।

Gallery: Italian cruise ship disaster

Gallery: Italian cruise ship disaster

Canadian tourists safe after cruise ship runs aground in Mediterranean


Rescuers are seen next Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off the west coast of Italy at Giglio island January 14, 2012. Passengers leapt into the sea and fought over lifejackets in panic when an Italian cruise ship ran aground and keeled over, killing at least three and leaving dozens missing.

Rescuers are seen next Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off the west coast of Italy at Giglio island January 14, 2012. 


A dozen Canadians were among the more than 4,000 shocked and shaken passengers and crew aboard a luxury cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Tuscany late Friday night, in a collision that claimed the lives of three and left 41 missing, the Foreign Affairs Department confirmed Saturday.
In an email, Claude Rochon, a foreign affairs spokeswoman, told that all 12 Canadians "are well and have been accounted for.'' Rochon could not say whether any of the Canadians suffered injuries.
"To protect the privacy of the individuals concerned, no further details can be released,'' she wrote in an email. "Canadian consular officials are providing consular assistance as needed.''
At about 10 p.m. on Friday, the Costa Concordia luxury cruise ship was touring the Mediterranean when it "struck rock'' off the coast of Isola del Giglio in Italy, the ship's operator Costa Cruise confirmed in a statement on Saturday.
The ship "sustained significant damage'' and when it began to severely keel over, "the order was given to abandon ship and deploy the lifeboats,'' the company stated.
On Saturday, three people were confirmed dead and at least 40 people were missing, French news agency Agence France-Presse reported.
Earlier in the day, news reports said there were 70 passengers unaccounted for, but as officials confirmed the number of people safely on the shore, the number of missing had been lowered, according to AFP.
Giuseppe Linardi, the governor of Grossetto, a city in Tuscany, told AFP that rescue workers were still trying to locate 41 people. Three were found dead, he confirmed.
"Checks are continuing, it is a fairly lengthy task that will go on into the night,'' he said. "Of the 4,232 people on board, 4,191 have been found so far.''
On Saturday, the ship's captain was arrested, AFP reported.
According to news reports, two Canadians on the ship were Wingham, Ont., couple Alan and Laurie Willits. The couple made it to safety on dry land.
Laurie told CNN that she and her husband were watching a magic show at the time of the collision.
"All of a sudden, the lights flashed and the boat tipped like it was turning, but it didn't return to level,'' Laurie told CNN, describing the moment the ship ran aground. "And then we heard a scraping noise to the left of the ship and my husband said, 'We're sliding off our seats . . . something's wrong.' And the magician disappeared, that was the funny part.''
Laurie told CNN that she and her husband hurried to their cabin amid the panic to grab their coats and life jackets.
"We knew we had to get out of there. We knew it was something serious. We grabbed our coats, that was it - none of our valuables, none of our important papers.''
As the ship began to lean to one side, Laurie said she heard the horrific sounds of crying children and screams fill the air as frigid ocean water gushed onto the ship.
The two eventually managed to get into a lifeboat, Laurie said, about an hour to 90 minutes after the emergency alarm was raised.
Once on dry land, the two watched from a pier on the island as the ship slowly keeled over until it was at an almost 90-degree angle in the water, CNN reported.
Earlier Saturday, other news reports pegged the death toll at up to six people. Linardi explained that difficulties in the rescue had led to confusion over the official death toll, which was put at six, earlier. He added that he believed 52 of the passengers on board the ship where children.
The survivors were taken to the small port of Santo Stefano near the scene of the accident, AFP reported.
Carnival Corporation, the operator of the cruise ship, released a statement on Saturday.
"This is a terrible tragedy and we are deeply saddened,'' the company wrote. ``Carnival Corporation . . . offers our sympathies and heartfelt condolences to all of the Costa Concordia guests, crew members and their families.''
The company wrote that they are co-operating fully with authorities and "working to fully understand the cause of what occurred.''
"The safety of our guests and crew members remains the No. 1 priority of Carnival Corporation . . . and all of our cruise lines.''
The ship was sailing from Rome with scheduled stops in Savona, Italy, Marseille, France, Barcelona, Spain, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo, Italy.

Titanic 2012: Costa Concordia, the Italian Ship Sink


Helicopter lifting survivor Manrico Gianpetroni to safety (15 January 2012)

USA Today reports that eight people have been confirmed dead in the horrific Costa Concordia shipwreck that caused the luxury liner to list so badly to the right that hundreds couldn't reach their lifeboats to get to safety.

Two days after it ran aground, the ship was still lying flat, and Concordia crew members joined Coast Guardto see how many of the missing were still trapped with the sinking cruise ship.
"There are some 2,000 cabins, and the ship isn't straight," said Italian Coast Guard Commander Franceso Paolillo. "I'll leave it to your imagination to understand how they [the rescuers] are working as they move through [the cruise ship]."
As the search continues for the missing, however, more and more people are moving beyond the icy facts of those still lost in the shipwreck and moving on to questions of how the Costa Concordia accident occurred in the first place.
Why didn't the ship stay clearer of the rocks? Why did the captain, as he is alleged to have done, abandon ship when there were still so many passengers on board? How could this happen to a modern-day vessel like this, almost a century after the Titanic made shipbuilders and captains swear "never again"?
It's exactly toward the Titanic that so many people, observers and victims alike, are turning.
But while the two great ships do share some superficial similarities, what both binds these two tragedies together and sets them apart is in the problem of evacuations.
The Titanic's sinking is largely agreed to be the result of human hubris. The Concordia, however, is already acknowledged to be the result of human error. Both in both cases, 100 years apart, the unpreparedness for a sudden sinking continues to be starkly apparent.
The Titanic and the Concordia
Both the Titanic and the Concordia were monstrous ships whose size would prove to be their undoing. The Titanic was the biggest ship ever built in the British Empire, and crashed into an iceberg. The Concordia was the largest ship ever constructed in Italy, and ran aground on either a reef or a large rock.
And like the Titanic, the Concordia, the best and most luxurious of the Costa cruise lines run byCarnival Corp., boasts some of the flashiest and most exclusive amenities of its time.
Both vessels even had oddities with their christening, a fact pointed out by AP reporters and sure to feed the fodder for superstitious folk looking into the tragedy. The Concordia wasn't christened at all; the Titanic had the traditional bottle of champagne thrown against it, but the bottle would not break.
'Excessive Speed'
But when discussing the Titanic and the Concordia, one stark difference appears: the engineering hubris that doomed so many passengers on the vessel's maiden voyage in 1912.
The Titanic sported 16 separate compartments divided by watertight doors, with the idea that even if four of those compartments were breached, the ship could still stay afloat.
But engineers, believing a ship so large and powerful was unlikely to sink anyway, neglected to take into account the fact that the bulkheads dividing the 16 compartments came up only 10 feet above the waterline, meaning water could still flood the closest compartments even if intact.
The British inquiry into the sinking confirmed that the Titanic's sinking was exacerbated by the ship's "excessive speed" in its collision with the iceberg, and by the appalling lack of safety precautions instituted at the time.
What lifeboats there were on board (not nearly enough for the thousands of passengers) had never been used, in drills or otherwise, and many boats left the scene of accident filled to one-third capacity for fear they would break.
Radio operators aboard the ship, meanwhile, didn't relay messages about icebergs to the ship's officers before it was too late, and there was no announcement system in place to let passengers know when the situation became grave.
All these limitations, along with the lack of set-down regulations at the time, were borne from the hubris that the Titanic could take on anything.
'As far as I am concerned, we were in perfectly navigable waters'
Compare this to the sinking of the cruise ship Concordia.
From what we know so far, the issue was not human hubris, but plain human error, particularly that of Capt. Francesco Schettino.
Schettino told maritime investigators that his charts indicated he was in water deep enough to navigate safely. He then struck an unidentified rocky outcrop of Giglio, a nearby island.
Once he realized the extent of the damage, he tried to change course and head for Giglio harbor. He then stayed on board until every passenger on deck was rescued.
"The area was safe; the water was deep enough," he was quoted by Italian news sources as saying. "As far as I am concerned we were in perfectly navigable waters."
Those on board the Costa Concordia, however, report the captain leaving the ship before almost any of the passengers had gotten off, findings supported by Francesco Verusio, chief prosecutor in the Tuscan city of Grosseto.
"[Captain Schettino] very ineptly got close to Giglio," he told ANSA news agency. "The ship struck a reed that got stuck inside the left side, making it lean over and take on a lot of water in the space of two, three minutes."
Sources report Schettino was at least four miles off course when the vessel struck rocks of the island of Giglio, Tuscany, despite Italy having very well-mapped sea lines, and the cruise ship began listing dramatically almost immediately.
Unsubstantiated reports by The Daily Mail even indicate the captain may have been drinking just before the accident, and was seen partying with some female passengers shortly before the wreck.
Schettino has been arrested by Italian authorities and may be charged with manslaughter for his role in the accident and for abandoning ship so quickly.
According to the Italian navigation code, captains who abandoning sinking ships before their passengers are off can face up to 12 years in prison as punishment.
"The commander left before and was on the dock before everyone was off," Ophelie Gondelle, a French military officer, told The Daily News. "Normally the commander should leave at the end."
'One hundred years later, we still don't do a good job'
The Titanic's sinking may have been caused more by hubris, and the Concordia more by simple incompetency. But according to the International Maritime Organization, part of the United Nations, by far the most dangerous part of a shipwreck is the evacuation of passengers.
And here, as with the Titanic, the Concordia floundered and failed.
"It's amazing that, 100 years later, we're still arguing about how many lifeboats are needed, what kind of training the crew had and what evacuation procedures were," said Bob Jarvis, a maritime law professor.
Jarvis is at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "One hundred years later, we still don't do a good job getting passengers ready for a disaster."
Passengers aboard the Concordia report that the crew didn't give clear directions on how to evacuate. They waited so long to lower the lifeboats that many didn't end up being used because the ship was listing so heavily to the right.
BBC News reports that some passengers only recognized the cue to abandon ship because they'd been on several cruises before.
Seamus and Carol Moore, a couple on the cruise ship, said they had to climb back onto the ship and wait two more hours for rescue after their lifeboat.
A woman named Ananias, an L.A. schoolteacher, said she had to shimmy along a rope down the exposed side of the cruise ship to get to the rescue boat below.
'Now we have something to compare it to'
In 1912, those reading about the Titanic were appalled at the fact that there weren't enough lifeboats for all the passengers on board a voyage across the Atlantic, and were shocked that a ship billed as "unsinkable" would go down on its maiden voyage.
One hundred years later, those watching footage of the Costa Concordia accident are outraged at the captain's apparent incompetency behind the wheel, and marvel that a cruise liner could have run aground while steering though such well-charted waters.
"To see a ship like this in 2012, with all the sophisticated navigation equipment, doing something that it does every week, you don't expect that today," said Jarvis.
"We all think we know about the Titanic because of the 1997 film. Now we have something to compare it to."