Continuing with his series of tours, chief minister Arjun Munda will once again be away from the state for the next three days.

He flies to Puri today to join BJP president Rajnath Singh who begins the much-publicised “Bharat Suraksha Yatra”.

For the past few days, Munda has been moving in and out of Ranchi for reasons both personal and political, which dragged his government into controversy.

According to a BJP functionary, it is important for the chief minister to be present alongside Rajanth Singh during the yatra in Puri.

“Not only is it politically correct for Munda, whose stature has grown in the BJP set-up, but also because the function is in the neighbouring state of Orissa,” he said.

The company plans to offer the DB2 Viper “test drive” as a free download to customers. Also, at an event in Jaipur, India, Ambuj Goyal, IBM’s general manager of its information management business, is expected to provide more details on the database’s features.

Bob Picciano, vice president of data servers at IBM, said the latest release is the equivalent of a “release candidate,” the industry term for a product that’s close to being fully developed and tested. The generally available product is scheduled for completion in the early summer, he said.

The most significant feature to be added in the DB2 Viper version is the ability to store and index XML documents in a “native” format, according to IBM.

The company has added a separate storage mechanism for XML to DB2. The mechanism keeps the document structure intact rather than reformatting it for a relational system. DB2 Viper’s “hierarchical” storage format and XML-specific indexing will greatly improve performance for applications that use XML data, Picciano said.

LONDON: A slice of Rajasthans royal past will come back to life in the seaside town of Brighton when the 120-year-old Jaipur Gateway outside the Hove Museum is restored and opened to public this week.

The Jaipur Gateway, a much-loved prominent landmark in Brightons cultural life, was built in 1886 for the Maharajah of Jaipur, who commissioned it as a gift for Queen Victoria, and was sent to the Colonial India Exhibition.

When the exhibition closed, it was transferred to London’s Imperial Institute. In 1927, when the Hove Museum opened, its director, Sir William Furse, gave the gate as a gift.

The ornate marble and sandstone structure — eight intricately carved columns and a rectangular roof topped by a large onion-shaped cupola — is similar to the many such structures in Jaipur.

Chris Chapman, building surveyor for Brighton and Hove City Council, said: Its a Grade II-listed monument and a registered artefact. It’s essential that it comes back. The possibility that it could be lost forever is not an option.”

Jewels, gun seized from bank locker

Authorities at the State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur’s Fort branch broke open locker no 37, on Monday, as the person, who had hired it had not paid his dues for the last 20 years.

The bank officials decided to break open the locker, registered in the name of Punjab resident R S Gill, as he had not visited the bank since the last 20 years. Interestingly, he never operated the locker. The bank received the last rent of Rs 4,500 through a demand draft in 1995.

The police found a Smith and Wesson revolver, greased and neatly wrapped in a newspaper titled, The Atom, dated September 24, 1949, and a jewellery box, containing antique gold pendants, earrings, a necklace and pearls worth about Rs 65,000.

The box had the label of jeweller Nanji Bhagwan & Brothers, Shaikh Memon Street near Crawford Market.