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Saturday, July 25, 1998

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Jain report to be tabled on July 30
Tribune News Service
NEW DELHI, July 24 — The government will table the final report of the Jain Commission along with Action Taken Report containing conspiracy aspect of assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on July 30.
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr Madan Lal Khurana, announced here that the decision was taken at the Business Advisory Committee of the House which met this afternoon.
Consequently, the current session of the House has been extended by a day. It was scheduled to end on July 29.
Mr Khurana said since the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee was leaving for Colombo on Tuesday to take part in the SAARC Summit, it was decided to table the report on Thursday evening.
He said some members at today’s meeting wanted a discussion soon after the report was tabled while some were of the view that discussion could be taken up during the special session of Parliament scheduled for mid-August.
The government had earlier planned to table the report, submitted by Mr Justice (Retd) Milap Chand Jain during March this year, on Monday.
However, after a meeting on Thursday the Union Cabinet decided to constitute a four-member sub-committee to study the final report of the Commission.
The group of ministers constituted to study the report is headed by the Union Home Minister, Mr Lal Krishna Advani, the Human Resource Development Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mrs Sushma Swaraj and the Civil Aviation Minister, Mr Ananth Kumar.
The Cabinet had considered the issue in detail and decided the group of ministers would make an in-depth examination of the recommendations of the Commission and the Action Taken Report.
Earlier the Congress Spokesman, Mr Ajit Jogi, said the party had reiterated its demand to table the report of the Commission in the current session.

J&K negotiating for criminal-tracing software
Tribune News Service
NEW DELHI, July 24 — The Jammu and Kashmir Government is negotiating with the CMC, the public sector information technology major, for the installation of the finger print analysis and criminal tracing software system (FACTS) in the state.
The Chairman and Managing Director of the CMC, Mr S.S. Ghosh said the signs from the state government had been very "encouraging" and the company was hopeful that by the year-end some concrete work in this regard might be started.
The Tamil Nadu Government has already started the process of installation of the system and a contract has also been signed with the Mauritian police for the purpose.
FACTS is an automated fingerprint identification system developed for use by law enforcement agencies in crime detection as well as by civilian welfare agencies for the identification of duplicate records.
The system uses advanced state-of-the-art techniques in image processing and pattern recognition to automatically capture , encode and match fingerprints.
The identification is carried out against stored data banks of fingerprints and also supports databases containing information such as name, photographs, signatures and criminal history.
Announcing the first quarter financial results, Mr Ghosh said the company had drawn up a plan for equity enhancement. The exact route for this, however, would depend on the dilution of government stakes in the company. The government presently holds 84 per cent stake in the company with the remaining 16 per cent being held by public and FIs.
The government was considering a report prepared by the I-Sec for the divestment of stakes, Mr Ghosh said, adding that, since this was not core sector, the stakes of the government could be reduced to as low as 26 per cent.
The company had achieved a turnover of Rs 5144.23 lakh for the first quarter of the financial year 1998-99 netting an increase of 35 per cent over last year’s figure.
The company had recorded a 300 per cent increase in net profit in the first quarter of the current financial year with the figure standing at Rs 88.74 lakh.
Elaborating on the plans of the company during the Ninth Five Year Plan, he said the total financial requirements of the company would be Rs 125 crore, out of which as much as Rs 50 crore would be mobilised internally.
This year itself, the company would be investing about Rs 25 crore, mainly in product development in infrastructure, networking areas and the strengthening of services. The CMC was also going to increase investment in its US subsidiary Baton Rogue International (BRI). As much as 80 per cent of the company’s overseas earnings accrued from the BRI.
It had also recently entered into an arrangement with Sun Microsystems, Singapore, Nasscom and DoE to set up India’s first Java competency centre at Hyderabad.
In addition, a contract to install an integrated IT package to streamline the freight operations of the Railways. It would also be providing C-DAS, an indigenously developed software for the Mumbai stock exchange, Mr Ghosh said.

2 J&K militants get 7 years' jail
NEW DELHI, July 24 (PTI) — A city court has sentenced two Kashmiri militants to seven years rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each in the terrorist funding case.
The duo have been convicted under Sections 3 and 4 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), for receiving funds through hawala channels from abroad and distributing the same in Jammu and Kashmir to help militants, a CBI press note said today.
One of the convicts, Shahabuddin Gauri, was a former research student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) here, while the other, Ashfaq Hussain Lone, was a resident of Srinagar.
The CBI had filed charge sheets against five accused in the case in March 1992. The other three accused had absconded.
Earlier, Gauri was arrested by the CBI on charges relating to hawala transactions which came to light following seizure of diaries of Jain brothers, the prime accused in the multi-crore hawala cases.

Gurgaon to have Madhuban-like police complex
From Jatinder Sharma
Tribune News Service
ROHTAK, July 24 — The government has proposed to set up a Madhuban like police complex at Gurgaon to cater to the policing needs of southern Haryana and the adjoining districts of Rohtak and Bhiwani.
The proposed project, which also includes construction of a new jail for Gurgaon, has been approved by the Chief Minister, Mr Bansi Lal. The gram panchayat of Bhondasi has reportedly donated 350 acres of land for setting up the new police complex.
Explaining the considerations for the new complex, the DIG, Gurgaon range, Mr Paramvir Rathee, said the pattern of urbanisation and industrialisation in Haryana revealed Faridabad and Gurgaon districts to be the "thrust areas". These two districts are experiencing the process of change from an agrarian society to an urban society with a strong industrial base.
The urban areas, he said, required a different pattern of policing as contra-distinguished from the district pattern which was essentially rural-oriented. If law and order is not to become a casualty in these areas the policing system has to shift over to the metropolitan pattern," he argued.
Moreover, there was also a high concentration of minority community in this region which at times had led to communal tensions. Care has to be taken to meet that eventuality too in times to come. Needless to add, rapid urbanisation would lead to a spurt in the growth of population, crime and vehicular traffic which would have serious consequences, he said.
The Madhuban police complex, located about 150 km away from Gurgaon, would hardly be able to come to the aid of this region in case of unforeseen eventualities assuming the shape of a law and order problem, he said. With the ever increasing volume of vehicular traffic, the movement of forces from the Madhuban complex would become increasingly difficult for tackling such situations in this region.
The solution, he argued, lay in decentralisation in terms of location of the state reserve police force. This in turn necessarily implies establishing a new police complex in this region.
The existing police training college at Madhuban was originally set up to cater to the training needs of only 600 police personnel, including fresh recruits, promotional and professional courses trainees. As on date, there was no separate recruits training centre for the lower ranks or women police officials.
To relieve the congestion in the Madhuban complex and in the interest of discipline requiring avoidance of forced mixing of the lower and higher ranks of the police, it would be in the fitness of things if the recruits training centre for constables and head constables was set up at the proposed new complex, Mr Rathee said.
He said the issue of gender bias was getting discussed increasingly and there was a demand for reservation for women in various spheres of human activity. The state law and order machinery was yet to gear itself to meet the coming change on this count.
Mr Rathee therefore proposed the government should actively consider raising of at least half a battalion, if not full, of woman police as part of the state armed reserves. This need was in addition to the normal women police officials available in the districts for day-to-day functioning. As the Madhuban complex had already reached a saturation level, this need could be taken care of at the proposed complex at Gurgaon.
The existing forensic science laboratory at Madhuban was overburdened and understaffed and in the recent past this had led to intervention by the high court following which the government had to sanction a number of new posts. He suggested a regional forensic science laboratory should be set up at the new complex which could cater to the needs of the four districts of Gurgaon range and also Rohtak and Bhiwani districts.
Similarly, the telecommunications wing (wireless) of the Haryana police does not have proper training centre. It is temporarily located in the Police Lines at Jind and its main workshop and stores are located in a borrowed building of the armed police at Madhuban. This scattering of establishment was not conducive to the maintenance of discipline as supervision was divided.
As technological changes in the field of communication were taking place very fast, the police force would have to be quick in adapting itself to the changes. This needed constant training with a view to updating the skills of personnel of the telecommunications wing. To meet this fast growing need, he proposed to establish a centre for the same at the new police complex.
Following the shifting of the city and Sadar police stations and the district jail to the new site, the government could earn approximately Rs 100 crore from the auction of land presently occupied by them. This amount would be sufficient to meet infrastructure expenditure, he said.