Chennai/Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Governor M.O.H. Farook Thursday died in a private hospital in Chennai due to multiple myeloma - a cancer of plasma cells - at the age of 75, officials said. A seven-day state mourning has been declared in Kerala.

Farook was recently granted leave to go for medical treatment to Chennai.

"He was admitted for multiple myeloma at Apollo Hospital in Teynampet (cancer speciality hospital). The end came today (Thursday) at 9.20 p.m.," an Apollo official told IANS.

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who was on an official trip to Thrissur, cancelled his programme and would leave for Chennai Friday morning to pay his respects.

The Kerala government has declared a holiday for all state government offices and the central government offices in the state capital will not function as well.

Farook, a three-time chief minister of Puducherry and also a former union minister, was sworn in as Kerala governor Sep 8 last year.

A graduate in economics, Farook was born in Karaikal, Puducherry, and was a Member of Puducherry Legislative Assembly between 1964-1991. He was twice the speaker of the assembly.

Between March-December 1990, he was the leader of the opposition.

Thrice elected to the Lok Sabha from Puducherry in 1991, 1996 and 1999, he served as a minister of state for civil aviation and tourism from June 1991 to December 1992 in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government.

In 2004, he was appointed as the Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and held that post till December 2009.

Between January 2010 and September 2011, he was governor of Jharkhand.

In his younger days, Farook had participated in the struggle for the liberation of Puducherry when it was a French colony.

He also took part in the struggle for the maintenance of an independent Puducherry when the late Morarji Desai was the prime minister. Farook was arrested and lodged in jails in Puducherry and Cuddaore, Tamil Nadu.

A widower at the time of his death, Farook was married to S.A. Kadhija Nachiyal in 1960 and they had one son and two daughters.

Pathanamthitta 12-12-2011: Kerala wishes an amicable solution to the Mullaperiyar issue as early as possible M blamed attempts of vested interests to create a rift between Kerala and Tamil Nadu citing the Mullaperiyar issue. These kinds of attempts are unfortunate..

Kerala is united in giving water to Tamil Nadu. There are no different opinions on this. Kerala is showing utmost restraint in these provocative situations.

Pathanamthitta 12-12-2011: CM has instructed to allot revenue land for construction of a Garbage Treatment Plant at Aranmula so that the waste from the Aranmula temple and that of the Aranmula Vallasadya can be effectively treated. The decision was taken at the Mass Contact Programme here.

CM has also decided to give sanction for the Upper Kuttanad Drinking Water Project thereby bring in a permanent solution to the scarcity of drinking water faced by the people of Kadapram, Niranam, Nedumbram and Peringara panchayaths.

CM also distributed financial aid to 15 SC/ST families residing at Adichipuzha colony for constructing houses under the Indira Aawas Yojana.

CM also gave title deeds for 18 SC/ST families. Financial aid of Rs 24.85 lakhs were given to 497 youths under the project of Agricultural Department. Rs 41 lakhs have been sanctioned for the project implemented at the Thottapuzhasseri Panchayath based on the Vadakancherry model project. Pampa labour group secretary received the amount form CM. Rs 9.44 lakhs has also been sanctioned for the paddy farmers of Niranathidam who incurred loss.

A bus damaged by protesters during hartal in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday

The dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Thiruvananthapuram district on Saturday to protest against Friday’s police action against the DYFI and SFI activists who were protesting against the petrol price hike is partial.

Shops and business establishments are remaining closed in the district. Petrol pumps, except that of the Civil Supplies Corporation, are not functioning. Attendance is thin in the Government offices following the hartal that began at 6 a.m. Majority of educational institutions were closed as Saturday was a holiday.

In many areas, the banks which commenced functioning in the morning had to close down as the LDF supporters asked the officials to put down the shutters and stop transactions.

The state-owned KSRTC buses, including the city services, are operating much to the relief of the commuters. Private vehicles and autorickshaws are also running. But, the private buses, including the 110-odd in the city, are not plying.

As many as 11 buses were damaged in the stone-pelting by the agitators in Plavoor, Thumba, Uloor, Sreekariyam, Pappanamcode, Mottamoodu, Murinjaplam, Venjaramood and Kulasekharam. Two drivers had been injured in the stone-pelting. One of them had been admitted to a private medical hospital at Venjaramood. “Despite this, we are running all services, including long distance buses to and from the capital”, a KSRTC official told The Hindu.

Except for the stone-pelting incidents, police said no untoward incident had been reported in the district till 10 a.m. The police have been deployed in large numbers and security has been beefed up in view of the violent incidents in the capital.

The Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have issued separate calls for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Kerala on Monday to protest the hike in petrol price.

The LDF State committee, which held an emergency meeting here on Saturday afternoon, decided to call the hartal for roll back of the price hike and to press for restoration of the administered pricing mechanism for petroleum products. The BJP said it was also organising a hartal from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the same demand. The LDF-BJP hartal would coincide with the vehicle strike called by pro-LDF unions in the transport sector on Monday.

The two hartal calls came despite the State government announcing earlier in the day that it was foregoing Rs. 108 crores in additional tax revenue, thereby bringing the retail price of petrol in the State down by roughly 70 paise a litre.

Briefing reporters after the LDF State committee meeting, Front convener Vaikom Viswan said that the State government's gesture, while significant in itself, was not the right solution for the free pricing regime under which the oil companies were indulging in indiscriminate hike in the prices of petroleum products.

The present hike had come despite a fall in the price of crude oil in the international market from the levels during May when the last major hike came. The oil companies had gone in for a price hike 13 times after scrapping of the administered pricing mechanism pushing up the price of petrol by Rs. 23.83 a litre.

Given the frequency and quantum of price increases being attempted by the oil companies, mere foregoing of additional tax revenue by the State government would not provide any relief to the masses. The need of the hour was the Central policy on oil pricing. Even some of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) constituents had raised this demand. The right thing for them to do was to join the protest being staged by the LDF, he said.

Mr. Viswan also came down heavily on the police for the 'brutal' manner in which it had handled the student-youth agitation in the State capital on Friday against the petrol price hike and demanded action against the police officials responsible for the beating up of the student and youth activists. If the government thought that it could persist with such methods, it would have to pay a heavy price, the LDF convener said.