Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

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Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

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Obama Second Inaugural: A Déjà vu Moment

At the height of the "fiscal cliff" showdown, the final political battle of his first term, President Barack Obama lamented the bitter persistence of Washington partisanship as "déjà vu all over again."

Today, as Obama delivers his second inaugural address on the west front of the Capitol, he could say the same thing about the looming political battles of his new term.

Four years ago, Obama took office amidst what he then described as "gathering clouds and raging storms," an economic crisis that resulted from "our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age."

The nation was in the throes of a financial collapse, decades in the making, whose breadth and depth were only starting to be known. It would become a devastating recession, the worst since the Great Depression.

Now, even as the economy continues a gradual climb back from the brink, many of those "hard choices" still remain, with climbing deficits and debt and a yawning partisan gap over how to deal with them.

On the horizon is a cascade of fresh fiscal crises, these politically self-imposed, over the nation's debt ceiling, spending cuts and a federal budget, all of which economists say threaten another recession and could further downgrade of the nation's credit rating.

Obama will use the first major speech of his second term to try to reset the tone of debate and turn the page on the political battles of the past, hoping for something of a fresh start.

Obama Sworn In for Second Term, Kicks off Inaugural Festivities Watch Video

Getting the Parties Started: Memorable Inaugural Balls Watch Video

He will "talk about the challenges that face us and what unites us as Americans," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told ABC News.

"Monday is an American moment: the swearing-in of the President of the United States -- everyone's president," Messina said. "You're going to see a president who wants to work across party lines to get things done, that's what the country wants."

He will acknowledge that we won't "settle every debate or resolve every difference" but that we "have an obligation to work together," said a senior administration official, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely about the speech.

Obama will not discuss specific policy prescriptions in his address, though he may broadly allude to issues of war, immigration, climate change and environment, and gun control, officials said. The details will be saved for the State of the Union address on Feb. 12.

But the president will make clear that his re-election -- the first Democrat to win two elections with more than 50 percent of the vote since FDR -- reflects momentum for his agenda, said top White House aides.

"He's going to find every way he can to compromise. But he's going to be pretty clear, and we're also going to bring the American people more into the debate than we did in the first term," senior Obama adviser David Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week."

Polls show Obama begins his second term with soaring popularity -- the highest job approval rating in years -- and strong backing on some of his top legislative priorities.

Fifty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of Obama's job performance overall, the most since November 2009, with a small exception for the 56 percent spike shortly after the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

That rating compares with 19 percent approval for Congress -- matching its lowest at or near the start of a new session in polls by ABC News and the Washington Post since 1975.

Majorities in the survey also broadly favor Obama's position on the debt ceiling, gun control measures, and reforms for the immigration system.

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Hostage toll to rise after Algeria ends desert siege

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - Algeria warned on Sunday that the hostage death toll from a siege at a desert gas plant would rise, after its troops staged a final assault which killed all the remaining Islamist gunmen.

Britain said at least three of its citizens had been killed in the crisis, ended when Algerian special forces stormed the In Amenas plant on Saturday. France acknowledged the death toll would be high but cautioned against criticizing Algeria's military response, saying it had faced an intolerable situation.

Algeria's Interior Ministry had reported on Saturday that 23 hostages and 32 militants were killed during assaults launched by Algerian special forces to end the crisis, with 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages freed.

However, Minister of Communication Mohamed Said said this would rise when final numbers were issued in the next few hours. "I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up," Said was quoted as saying by the official APS news agency.

Details are only slowly emerging on what happened during the siege, which marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces are battling Islamist militants across the Sahara desert in Mali.

In London, Prime Minister David Cameron said that British citizens were among the dead. "Tragically we now know that three British nationals have been killed and a further three are believed to be dead and also a further British resident is also believed to be dead," Cameron said in a televised statement.

One Briton had already was confirmed killed when the gunmen seized the hostages before dawn on Wednesday at the plant, run by Norway's Statoil along with Britain's BP and Algeria's state oil company.

The Islamists' attack has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius defended Algeria's handling of the crisis, after some governments expressed frustration that they had been kept in the dark.

"What everyone needs to know is that these terrorists who attacked this gas plant are killers who pillage, rape, plunder and kill. The situation was unbearable," Fabius said.

"It's easy to say that this or that should have been done. The Algerian authorities took a decision and the toll is very high but I am a bit bothered ... when the impression is given that the Algerians are open to question. They had to deal with terrorists," he told Europe 1 radio in an interview.

MULTINATIONAL HOSTAGE-TAKERS

The Islamist militants seized the remote compound near the Libyan border, taking a large number of hostages. Said reported that the militants had six different nationalities and the operation to clear the plant of mines laid by the hostage-takers was still under way.

Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaeda-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind of the raid.

One American has also been confirmed dead. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.

Some Western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. Algeria, scarred by a civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, had insisted there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

President Barack Obama said on Saturday the United States was seeking from Algerian authorities a fuller understanding of what took place, but said "the blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out".

British Foreign Secretary William Hague declined to confirm newspaper reports that some hostages had been executed in cold blood. "We don't know that definitively. That sort of thing is quite likely to have happened," he said, noting "the nature of the terrorists involved".

BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.

PLANNED BEFORE FRENCH LANDED IN MALI

The militant attack was one of the most audacious in recent years and almost certainly planned before French troops launched the operation in Mali this month to stem an advance by Islamist fighters.

Hundreds of hostages escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.

Before the Interior Ministry released its provisional death toll, an Algerian security source said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.

Mauritanian news agencies identified the field commander of the group that attacked the plant as Nigeri, a fighter from one of the Arab tribes in Niger who had joined the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in early-2005.

That group eventually joined up with al Qaeda to become Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It and allied groups are the targets of the French military operation in Mali.

The news agencies described him as "one of the closest people" to Belmokhtar, who fought in Afghanistan and then in Algeria's civil war of the 1990s. Nigeri was known as a man for "difficult missions", having carried out attacks in Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the country's outwardly tough security measures.

Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.

Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.

The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Giles Elgood, Myra MacDonald and David Stamp; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Bodies of 25 hostages found in Algeria gas plant

ALGIERS: The bodies of 25 hostages seized by Islamists were found on Sunday inside a remote gas plant in the Algerian Sahara desert, media said a day after special forces swooped to end a deadly 72-hour stand-off.

Citing security sources, Anis Rahmani, director of the private television channel Ennahar, told AFP the army discovered "the bodies of 25 hostages" as they sought to secure the sprawling site.

Earlier, Algeria's Communications Minister Mohamed Said had told a radio station: "I fear that it (the toll) may be revised upward," after at least 23 foreigners and Algerians, mostly hostages, were killed over the four days.

- AFP/fa

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Congress converting largest democracy to dynastic society: Arun Jaitley

BANGALORE: A day after Congress elevated Rahul Gandhi to number 2 in the hierarchy, the BJP reacted sharply stating the Congress's response to finding solutions to bourgeois problem is to convert the largest democracy to dynastic society.

"The reforms the party (Congress) has chanted is to take democracy to dynastic rule. The meeting (shivir) failed to address the issues of spiraling price raise, cap on LPG, investment coming to a standstill among others, but has promoted the dynasty rule," ArunJaitley, opposition leader in RajyaSabha, slammed Congress while participating in BJP convention organized by party's law and parliamentary cell on Sunday.

Perhaps, for the first time, BJP, the principal opposition criticized Congress after the party formally anointed Rahul as the party's vice-president - in other words, the No 2 in the hierarchy. Commenting on the elevation, which also means that Rahul is the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 2014 elections, Jaitley said the parties from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu have forgotten the ideologies and were crowding around families. "Political parties have seized to be structural in nature. Ideologies have taken back seat and families are playing vital role in ruling the state. Only in the feudal society inheritance will be given importance and most of the parties barring Left parties to are following this route," he lamented.

He, however, said the public are smart not to take the developments as dictated by the Congress. Outlining the culture of political parties in the country, In the light of Rahul's elevation, the opposition leader in Rajya Sabha compared BJP with other parties and claimed that it was the only party in the country that was structural. He maintained that the chief ministers in BJP ruled states got the post out of clear merit, not due to the surnames they carry. "We have galaxies of chief ministers whose abilities have been proven. Barrack Obama did not become President of US on the basis of family name or caste. It was ability to lead and immense merit he took the top post," he said.

Jaitley said Rahul's anointment, who possibly will take on Gujarat strongman Narendra Modi in 2014 general elections, would put country at risk as his priority, experience, public knowledge and reforms mind is unknown.

Targetting AICC president Sonia Gandhi, the BJP leader said the middle-class in the country are disillusioned with UPA for rampant corruption, negative economic and infrastructure growth, spiraling price rise due to its anti-people policies. While inaugurating the shiver, Sonia made it clear that the youth and the urban middle class were the party's priorities for 2014.

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.

The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.

Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.

"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.

In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.

Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

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Online:

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

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Algeria Hostage Crisis Over, One American Dead

After the Algerian military's final assault on terrorists holding hostages at a gas complex, the four-day hostage crisis is over, but apparently with additional loss of life among the foreign hostages.

One American, Fred Buttaccio of Texas, has been confirmed dead by the U.S. State Department. Two more U.S. hostages remain unaccounted for, with growing concern among U.S. officials that they did not survive.

But another American, Mark Cobb of Corpus Christi, Texas is now confirmed as safe. Sources close to his family say Cobb, who is a senior manager of the facility, is safe and reportedly sent a text message " I'm alive."

Inside Algerian Hostage Crisis, One American Dead Watch Video

American Hostages Escape From Algeria Terrorists Watch Video

In a statement, President Obama said, "Today, the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria. The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms. ... This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups in North Africa."

According to Algerian state media, 32 militants are dead and a total of 23 hostages perished during the four-day siege of the In Amenas facility in the Sahara. The Algerian Interior Ministry also says 107 foreign nationals who worked at the facility for BP and other firms were rescued or escaped from the al Qaeda-linked terrorists who took over the BP joint venture facility on Wednesday.

The Japanese government says it fears "very grave" news, with multiple casualties among the 10 Japanese citizens working at the In Amenas gas plant.

Five British nationals and one U.K. resident are either deceased or unaccounted for in the country, according to British Foreign Minister William Hague. Hague also said that the Algerians have reported that they are still trying to clear boobytraps from the site.

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Foreigners still trapped in Sahara hostage crisis

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were captive or missing inside a desert gas plant on Saturday, nearly two days after the Algerian army launched an assault to free them that saw many hostages killed.

The standoff between the army and al Qaeda-linked gunmen - one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades - entered its fourth day, having thrust Saharan militancy to the top of the global agenda.

The number and fate of victims has yet to be confirmed, with the Algerian government keeping officials from Western countries far from the site where their countrymen were in peril.

Reports put the number of hostages killed at between 12 to 30, with possibly dozens of foreigners still unaccounted for - among them Norwegians, Japanese, Britons, Americans and others.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.

On Saturday, the Algerian military was holding the vast residential barracks at the In Amenas gas processing plant, while gunmen were holed up in the industrial plant itself with an undisclosed number of hostages, making it difficult for Algerian special forces to intervene.

The army is surrounding the plant, and helicopters are monitoring the area, Algerian state radio said, quoting a reporter in the city of In Amenas.

Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified compound when it was seized before dawn on Wednesday by Islamist fighters who said they wanted a halt to a French military operation in neighboring Mali.

Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched an operation, but many hostages were killed in the assault. Algerian forces destroyed four trucks holding hostages, according to the family of a Northern Irish engineer who escaped from a fifth truck and survived.

Leaders of Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed frustration that the assault was ordered without consultation and officials have grumbled at the lack of information. Many countries also withheld details about their missing citizens to avoid releasing information that might aid the captors.

An Algerian security source said 30 hostages, including at least seven Westerners, had been killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian, with the nationalities of the rest of the dead still unclear, he said.

Algeria's state news agency APS put the total number of dead hostages at 12, including both foreigners and locals.

The base was home to foreign workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others.

Norway says eight Norwegians are still missing. JGC said it was missing 10 staff. Britain and the United States have said they have citizens unaccounted for but have not said how many.

The Algerian security source said 100 foreigners had been freed but 32 were still unaccounted for.

"We must be prepared for bad news this weekend but we still have hope," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.

A U.S. official said on Friday a U.S. flight carrying wounded people from many countries had left Algeria, without giving further details.

The attack has plunged international capitals into crisis mode and is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.

"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.

"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," Algeria's state news agency said on Friday, quoting a security source.

MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY

Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began, because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

A French hostage employed by a French catering company said he had hidden in his room for 40 hours under the bed before he was rescued by Algerian troops, relying on Algerian employees to smuggle him food with a password.

"I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."

The captors said their attack was a response to the French military offensive in neighboring Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the single week since France first launched its strikes.

Paris says the incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary.

Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.

The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in a civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of Al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year, prompting the French intervention in that poor African former colony.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.

Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere. ... Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London, Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries in Dublin, Andrew Quinn and David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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India ruling party urges Rahul Gandhi stand for PM

JAIPUR, India: Leaders of the ruling Congress party on Saturday clamoured for Rahul Gandhi -- scion of India's Nehru-Gandhi dynasty -- to be named the prime ministerial candidate ahead of next year's polls.

Gandhi, 42, has preferred to take a back seat in the party's politics until now, concentrating instead on leading the Congress youth wing into the general elections due in 2014.

But Oil Minister Veerappa Moily hailed Gandhi as the country's leader for the "present and for the future" at a meeting of the party in the tourist city of Jaipur in northern India aimed at brainstorming for the 2014 elections.

Another veteran Congress member, Mani Shankar Aiyar, said the party would back Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather all led India, should he decide to accept a bigger role.

Sanjay Nirupam, a Congress leader from the western Maharashtra state, also pitched at the meeting for Gandhi to be formally projected as the new leader and provide a fresh momentum to the party's electoral fortunes.

Gandhi "is our candidate for the post of prime minister after the 2014 elections", Nirupam told reporters at the weekend meeting where pictures of the young politician were prominently featured.

Calls for Gandhi to take a greater role within the party have become louder in recent months, especially in the wake of reverses suffered by the Congress-led government in some of its traditional strongholds.

Congress, India's oldest political party, was routed in polls in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Goa last year.

Manmohan Singh, the 80-year-old current prime minister, has been buffeted by falling economic growth and a damaging series of corruption scandals.

But Gandhi's appetite for India's turbulent political scene has often been questioned by critics due to his refusal to accept repeated requests to take on ministerial responsibilities.

Sonia Gandhi, mother of Rahul Gandhi, and Congress party president, on Friday said the meeting was taking place as Congress faces "serious challenges" in states long-considered strongholds for the party.

She also conceded that some of the left-leaning government's wide-ranging welfare subsidy programmes had failed to reap political benefits.

-AFP/ac

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Chintan Shivir: Congress leaders pitch for Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate

JAIPUR: Amid talk that Rahul Gandhi will be given a larger responsibility, clamour for declaring him as the Congress prime ministerial candidate grew louder at the party's Chintan Shivir on Saturday.

Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla, Jitin Prasada, senior leader Manishankar Aiyar batted for larger responsibility for Rahul as the party recognised the need to respond to the demands of "new changing India peopled by a more younger" generation.

Young leader Milind Deora said, "It is a consensus and feeling in the Shivir that youths should be empowered.

On the first day also, a number of leaders including Raj Babbar and Avtar Singh Badhana had demanded that Rahul should be declared Congress PM candidate before the party goes to next Lok Sabha polls.

"Rahul will lead the party during 2014 general elections and would be the prime ministerial candidate," party leader Sanjay Nirupam said before the discussions began on Day-2.

Uttar Pradesh leader Jitin Prasada said, "Things are being discussed as to how we can ensure participation of youths. Rahul is certainly our leader and he will lead 2014 general elections of Congress and the country as well."

Union minister Veeprappa Moily said, "Rahul is already a leader.We have stable leaders we are proud of them. Congress has always enjoyed great leadership. If there is any disconnect we are discussing these concerns and will ensure that there is proper connect."

About the demand for larger role to Rahul, Union minister Rajiv Shukla said, "It is to be decided by Sonia and Rahul, we can only demand and we are demanding.

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