As, installation of gdal-grass plugin failed (gdal binary file and grass svn file v 53942), I uninstalled everything.
Thereafter, I installed gdal_stable ( v1.9.2) from source as detailed in installation wiki and updated grass trunk ( to v 53950).
During “make” phase, the desktop filled up with error messages stating that has caused error.
I have to restart the system.
Could it be that the execute bit permission on files.
Files should not get executed during make phase.
For now, I am reverting back to v 53942.