Wednesday, September 23, 1998
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Kalyan Singh wants Hardwar in UP Uttarakhand Bill tabled LUCKNOW, Sept 22 — The Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Bill (1988) envisaging the creation of a separate hill state of Uttarakhand as referred by the President of India was today tabled in the State Assembly for consideration. 2
charge-sheeted for |
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Defence services get more financial
powers NEW DELHI, Sept 22 — In a major development the Defence Ministry has considerably delegated financial powers to the services. The delegation will cover the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and include areas like construction work, purchase, repair, maintenance and information technology.
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Gangster killed in encounter NEW DELHI, Sept 22 — A gangster of Uttar Pradesh who allegedly planned to kill Mr Kalyan Singh, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and Mohammad Ilyasi, producer of tele-serial “India’s Most Wanted”, was killed in an encounter at Ghaziabad this afternoon. Skydiving
contest inaugurated DPCC
delegation meets Advani |
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Kalyan Singh wants Hardwar in UP LUCKNOW, Sept 22 (UNI) — The Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Bill (1988) envisaging the creation of a separate hill state of Uttarakhand as referred by the President of India was today tabled in the State Assembly for consideration. The Bill was tabled by the Secretary of the Vidhan Sabha. Later, Chief Minister Kalyan Singh moved a resolution seeking 26 amendments to the Bill, including the exclusion of Hardwar district from the proposed hill state. The three-day special session of the Uttar Pradesh Legislature was convened for the passage of the resolution on the creation of Uttarakhand. The original Bill was sent by the President of India for seeking the opinion of the State Legislature in connection with the creation of a separate hill state. The debate on the proposed amendments will take place in the House tomorrow which would send it to the Central Government for follow-up action. The original Bill had proposed Uttarakhand comprising 13 districts, including Hardwar and Udham Singh Nagar. The State Government sought to change the composition of the hill state to 12 districts, excluding Hardwar. The Chief Minister, moving his resolution of amendments, proposed to change the name of the hill state from Uttarakhand to Uttaranchal. The original draft had mentioned Uttarakhand as the name of the proposed hill state. The proposed state is to comprise Pauri, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Nainital, Almora, Pithoragarh, Udham Singh Nagar, Bageshwar, Champawat and Rudraprayag districts. According to the amendment, Uttarakhand will get 20 per cent of the hydel power generated by the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board. The former would have to pay the cost of production for this. The Uttar Pradesh Government has retained all the rights relating to power generation. According to the amendment, the rights and responsibilities related to the present irrigation and hydroelectric projects or even those under construction in Uttarakhand will vest with the Uttar Pradesh Government. According to the amendment, the members of the State Vidhan Parishad who are bona fide residents of Uttarakhand, would now be members of the interim Vidhan Sabha of the proposed state. In spite of the threat of withdrawal of support by the Shiromani Akali Dal, a party supporting the BJP-led coalition at the Centre, the State Government has chosen to remain quiet on the issue of inclusion of Udham Singh Nagar in the proposed state. The amendment says till the time a high court is not constituted in the proposed hill state, the Allahabad High Court will decide the cases. Uttar Pradesh and the proposed state can both start such water resources projects in their respective states as are not harmful to the interests of the other. According to the amendment, the Central Government will provide Rs 50 crore for the setting up of a capital for the new state, although the Bill mentioned that this was the responsibility of the State Government. According to the amendment in connection with distribution of stores, both states would together solve any disputes. If the problems still remain unresolved, the Centre's intervention would be sought. For any road bridge constructed by the Uttar Pradesh Government in Uttarakhand, the right to collect the road tax would not be vested with the proposed state. The discussion on the Bill
would be held tomorrow. It has to be sent to the
President by September 28. |
Defence services get more
financial powers NEW DELHI, Sept 22 — In a major development the Defence Ministry has considerably delegated financial powers to the services. The delegation will cover the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and include areas like construction work, purchase, repair, maintenance and information technology. This would ensure greater role and participation of the services in the decision-making process. It will also reduce the time taken for decision-making and procurement. A new management strategy has been devised for the Navy under which managers at all levels will provide with resources to achieve objectives and targets. The delegations to the Navy are to the extent of Rs 7 crore for repairs and dry docking of ships. Powers to procure revenue stores in the three services is of the order of Rs 3 crore. For the Army at the Principal Staff Officers (PSO) level it was enhanced to Rs 5 crore during the last financial year. Recently, powers had been delegated to Army Commanders in the Northern and Eastern Commands for the purchase of Ordnance stores to the extent of Rs 5 crore per transaction. For construction work for the services, powers have been delegated to the Service Chiefs to the extent of Rs 3 crore per case. In order to give information technology the importance it deserves, Rs 1 crore per transaction has been delegated to the Deputy Chief of Army Staff (DCOAS). Besides these large-scale delegations, problems which contribute to longer decision-making have been analysed. These include decisions on whether to "make or buy" together with the process of scaling, quantity vetting and shortlisting of vendors which are all time-consuming activities. Staff evaluation, preparation of technical matrix, technical evaluation, and field trials also take time. These areas will be sorted
out and the time for decision-making reduced with the
formation of procurement planning boards for revenue and
capital acquisitions. These boards will be headed by the
PSO in the Service Headquarters in respect of the revenue
board and Vice-Chiefs in respect of capital acquisitions
and will have all members associated with the
decision-making process, which include joint secretaries
in the Department of Defence, Defence (Finance), Defence
Production and Supplies, Chief Controller R and D, etc. |
SC stays CVC ordinance NEW DELHI, Sept 22 (UNI) — The Supreme Court today directed the Union Government not to implement the August 25 ordinance, granting statutory status to the Central Vigilance Commission till the disposal of a case challenging its validity before the court. The directive was issued by a three-Judge bench, comprising Mr Justice S.P. Bharucha, Mr Justice G.T. Nanavati and Mr Justice B.N. Kirpal when Attorney-General (AG) Soli J Sorabjee sought time to apprise the government of his views on the ordinance during a resumed hearing in the case. The court granted time to the AG till October 9, when two writ petitions — one by advocate Ashok Thakur and the other by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation — would also come up for hearing. The AG told the court that he had looked into the matter and formed certain views regarding the ordinance. He would have to submit a detailed note to the government and if it was accepted many of the grievances made against the ordinance in the written submission would become redundant. He, therefore, urged the court to give him sufficient time for the purpose especially in view of the fact that the Prime Minister would be away from the country till October 2. The Bench said it was primarily concerned with two aspects of the ordinance — the single directive and exclusion of the word 'others' and inclusion of others in the composition of the Central Vigilance Commission. The AG assured the court that there would be no fate accompli. The single directive about which the court was concerned related to prior permission of the competent authority before the investigating agency could start work against the government officers above the rank of Joint Secretary and high ranking officers of nationalised banks and the public sector undertakings. The court had quashed the single directive but the ordinance had revived it. The Law Commission after
studying the judgement of the court in the Jain-Hawala
case had recommended that the Central Vigilance
Commissioners should be selected from a panel of
outstanding public servants and others. However, the
ordinance had excluded the word 'others'. Further the
ordinance had included others not envisaged in the
judgement noteably the Secretary of the Ministry of
Personnel as an ex-officio member secretary. |
2 charge-sheeted for hotel blast CHENNAI, Sept 22 (PTI) — Two fundamentalists, Erwadi Kasim and Sheikh Mohideen alias Nasruddin, have been charge-sheeted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch (CID), in connection with a bomb blast in a hotel here on October 25, 1996. The two were charge-sheeted yesterday at a Metropolitan Magistrate’s court here, a SIT press release said today. Four persons were seriously injured and the hotel building suffered extensive damage in the blast which occurred in a hotel in North Chennai. Erwadi Kasim has already been charge-sheeted in five other cases including a train bomb blast case (December 6,1997), a bomb blast at the residence of film director, Mani Ratnam (July 10,1995), the imam murder case (early last year), the city’s Vepery police station blast case (December 1, 1997) and a case relating to the seizure of large quantities of explosives, including improvised explosive device (IED) (March 28, 1998). Nasruddin is involved in a case relating to the seizure of huge quantities of explosives from a house in Kodungaiyur on April 4, 1997. The investigations revealed that the explosion was caused by planting an IED using the explosive gelatine with a delay mechanism, the release said. The IED was planted by
Kasim on instructions from Nasruddin, who was the
co-conspirator. |
Gangster killed in encounter NEW DELHI, Sept 22 — A gangster of Uttar Pradesh who allegedly planned to kill Mr Kalyan Singh, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and Mohammad Ilyasi, producer of tele-serial “India’s Most Wanted”, was killed in an encounter at Ghaziabad this afternoon. The Commissioner of the Delhi police, Mr V.N. Singh, said that the suspect, Sri Prakash Shukla, was killed during a joint operation of the Crime Branch of the Delhi police and the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police. According to the Commissioner, the suspect had a hideout at Vasant Kunj in South West Delhi. The Delhi police today received a tip-off that he was coming here from Ghaziabad in his Cielo car (HR-26-G-7305). His car was intercepted by police teams at the intersection of NOIDA and the Mohan Meakins road where Sri Prakash Shukla and his two accomplices, Anuj Pratap Singh and Sudhir Tripathi, were killed in an exchange of fire. The police recovered two revolvers 14 cartridges and a cash of Rs 50,000. The Commissioner said that he wanted to kill the producer for featuring him in a serial telecast on Doordarshan twice this month. Information to kill the Chief Minister of UP was given by Mr Ilyasi who was given the tip-off by the MP from Farukhabad in UP, Swamy Sachidanand. The suspect was allegedly
paid Rs 6 crore to kill the Chief Minister. Apart from
his complicity in cases of robbery and extortion, Shukla
is said to be involved in several cases of murder,
including that of Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA, Brij Behari,
in Patna. He was one of the suspects of the Chara
scandal. |
Skydiving contest inaugurated NEW DELHI, Sept 22 — The skydiving accuracy competition conducted by the Indian Air Force was inaugurated by Air Marshal Vinod Patney, AOC-in-C, HQ WAC, IAF at Air Force Station, Hindon on September 21. The championship is being conducted in two categories; the first is the senior category — for jumpers with 201 free-fall jumps and above, the second is the junior category — for jumpers with less than 200 free-fall jumps. The championship will be for individual competition in both categories whereas team competition is for the first category. The competition is planned over the next three days wherein each competitor will be required to make five jumps with an aim to hit the target on the ground, which is a disc of 15 cm diameter. A formation fly past by two powered micro light hand gliders, piloted by Sgt Saner and Cpl Shitole, flew past the dias to mark the opening of the event. This followed the dropping of a team of 36 skydivers from MI-17 helicopters at a height of approx 6000 feet. The spectacular formation sky diving by the participants of the championship from the Army and the Air force in the background of the blue skies enthralled the spectators. Declaring the championship
open, the Chief Guest, Air Marshal Vinod Patney, AOC-in-C
HQ WAC, IAF commended the efforts of the skydivers and
other participants of the Air Force Adventure Cell for
bringing laurels to the Indian Air force and inculcating
a sense of adventure and spirit of competition through
their activities. |
DPCC delegation meets Advani NEW DELHI, Sept 22 — A group of city Congress leaders met the Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, and expressed their concern about the increasing lawlessness in the Capital. Addressing a press conference here, the president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, Ms Sheila Dikshit, said that Mr Advani shared the concern. Ms Dikshit said the 10-member delegation highlighted the problems faced by people in registering an FIR, which “has now become the prerogative of the police and not that of citizens.” The delegation included Mr Jagdish Tytler, Mr Sajjan Kumar, Mr J.P. Aggarwal, Mr Jag Parvesh Chandra and other senior leaders who urged the Home Minister to carry out changes in policing. The DPCC also laid speculation to rest by announcing that a candidate’s performance in the last assembly elections would not be a criterion for the grant of the tickets. There were rumours earlier
that the Congress was going to deny the ticket to those
who lost by over 5,000 votes in the last poll. The
Congress at present has 17 MLAs in the 69-member House. |
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| CBI recovers stolen idols NEW DELHI: The CBI on Monday claimed to have recovered all priceless antique idols stolen from a Jain temple at Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh with the arrest of five persons. The agency tracked down and arrested the main accused, Babu, a resident of Gungas village in Shivpuri on September 17. His interrogation led to the recovery of 32 stolen idols from a place where they were buried and also from the well where big idols had been dumped. — PTI Two Kukis gunned down 2 more AC coaches
for Shalimar Express Four boat capsize
victims missing 6 killed, 18 hurt
in road mishap Railwaymen to get
53 days’ bonus |
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