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Bill favours PIOs
of rich countries Jaswant defends Yashwant
in Hindu nationalist tag upsets
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Reward is no right: SC Dogri, Bodo in Eighth
Schedule Myanmar to flush out insurgent camps Humane treatment for Bangladeshis in
India sought CBI names witnesses in
poet case Police remand for Telgi’s accomplice
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Bill favours PIOs
of rich countries New Delhi, December 23 Although the demand for dual citizenship emerged during the first Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations in January, yet some of the provisions of the Bill appear to be favouring one sections of the PIOs. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2003, which is awaiting the assent of the President, states that Overseas Citizenship would be granted to PIOs residing in 16 countries, also calls for compulsory registration of every citizen and issuance of a national identity card. The PIOs, who are presently eligible for dual citizenship, as per the Bill, are those residing in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Cyprus, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. Critics have argued that favour is being extended to one section of the PIOs residing in some of the Western nations who have made substantial wealth, with the hope that the PIOs would invest part of their savings in the country of their origin. They said the list of countries did not cover PIOs residing in Asia, South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America. Even in Europe, only PIOs residing in select countries can avail themselves the benefit and none of the Islamic countries have been included in the list, although Israel finds a mention. Incidentally, Indians were forcibly moved to countries like South America, Fiji, Mauritius and West Indies by the British colonisers to work in the fields. And, in some of these countries, PIOs even head their respective governments after two centuries of struggle. The Bill states that the list of countries could be increased subject to such conditions and restrictions, including the condition of reciprocity as may be prescribed. The other provision of the Bill is the ‘Oath of allegiance’ to the Constitution. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, which examined the Bill, had suggested the government to reformulate the provision. Critics argued that said proviso would defeat the very purpose of the Bill as the PIOs would have primary allegiance to the country he had made his home, where he enjoyed domicile and made a living. He would only have certain facilities in the second country, which is granting him some rights only due to the emotional ties. As per the Bill, the PIOs who seek dual citizenship will not have any political right, will not be allowed to vote or run for office or take jobs in defence services. However, they would be allowed free movement without visas and be able to own properties, build or invest directly in projects in the country. |
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Jaswant defends Yashwant
in stock scam
case New Delhi, December 23 “JPC has not found my esteemed colleague Yashwant Sinha of guilty in the scam”, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh told the Lok Sabha while replying to a debate on the Action Taken Report on the recommendations of the JPC. Stating that “no guilty person will be spared”, Mr Singh said while responding to the Opposition’s demand on who had been punished for being responsible behind the scam. Reiterating the government’s commitment to implement the recommendations of the JPC, he said the subjective interpretation of the recommendations was not possible. Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar charged the Government and Mr Sinha ( the then finance minister) of shirking responsibility and led a walk-out of Opposition members. JPC chairman Prakash Mani Tripathi said that the minister could not be held responsible on the basis of the charges made by the Opposition. “You cannot hold the House to ransom”, Mr Tripathi told Mr Aiyar and P.R. Dasmunsi (Congress). The Finance Minister said that as many as 150 of the total 276 recommendations have been implemented and observed that it would be wrong to assume that the Securities Exchange Board of India had limited role. Urging the members to assist in quick passage of Bills, he said it was important in the context of de-mutualisation of stock market and reforms in the banking sector. Mr Singh said there was a difference between the market scam of 1992, when office of the Controller of Capital Issues (CCI) was lodged in Finance Ministry, the JPC of 2001 with statutory SEBI was nine years old with all the powers under securities laws. |
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Hindu nationalist tag upsets
BJP New Delhi, December 23 Reacting to the US report on ‘religious freedom’ circulated in the media, BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the USA had no right to cast aspersions on a political party in India. The USA should realise that it was not the ‘boss’ of the world and should have a look at its own human rights track record world over and in the countries where US Army was deployed, he said. Conversion through force or allurements was a human right violation and the BJP was against it, Mr Malhotra said. The spokesman said the BJP was a ‘nationalist party’ representing all communities, including Muslims and Christians. “There is no Hindu organisation involved in violence and subversive activities,” he said. About the report referring to rewriting of history, Mr Malhotra said it was necessary when imperial historians had portrayed India as a barbaric society bereft of any culture before the arrival of the English into the country. In another development, Professor Malhotra declined to comment on the Central Bureau of Investigation filing a First Information Report naming former Union Minister of State Dilip Singh Judeo in the bribery scandal saying that the law was taking its own course. Mr Judeo was no longer in the ministry and the question of the party taking action comes if the court finds him guilty, he said. |
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Supplementary chargesheet in Taj corridor case Lucknow, December 23 The government had earlier handed over chargesheets to Bagga, Punia and R.K. Sharma, a former Environment Secretary, all accused. The supplementary chargesheet accused Bagga of putting his signature on a note prepared by Sharma in connection with the decisions taken by the mission management board at its meeting, the sources said. Punia has been charged with amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income in the additional chargesheet, they claimed. According to the chargesheet, Sharma had prepared the fake note, stating therein that the management board had, at its meeting, decided to start forthwith the works in the project. The note, according to the chargesheet, contained several items which were not even discussed. The board only discussed the techno-feasibility report, the sources said. Besides, the government has also sent a chargesheet to Under Secretary of the Environment Department Rajendra Prasad accusing him of tampering with government documents. —
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Reward is no right: SC New Delhi, December 23 “By the very nature of things no one has a legal right to claim a reward. The scheme itself shows that it is purely an ex-gratia payment subject to the guidelines and may be granted on the absolute discretion of the competent authority,” a Bench comprising Mr Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Mr Justice G.P. Mathur ruled. The interesting question came before the apex court in an appeal by the Centre, challenging the Madras High Court’s September 22, 1999 order, directing the Department of Customs and Central Excise to pay the informer, C. Krishna Reddy Rs 25 lakh in addition to Rs 10 lakh, already paid to him by the Department. Setting aside the High Court order, the apex court said the Department had already sanctioned Rs 10 lakh to Reddy before he filed a petition. It said in view of the policy on reward, as amended by the Union Government in 1989, his claim for additional reward could not be accepted. Reddy in his writ petition before the Madras High Court, had claimed a reward of over Rs 1.71 crore for furnishing the information to the Department about the evasion of customs duty of nearly Rs 3 crore in the import of fodder production units by two firms in March 1987. “This is not a case where some large scale smuggling operation had been brought to the light or the identity of some hardcore sumugglers had been revealed as a result of the information given by the respondent,” the court said. Fooder units were installed by the importing firms — The Sanjeevani Fodder Products and FOMETA India Machines. For installing these units in various states and the Union Government had given tax exemption to the former on 50 machines on its assurance that those were to be supplied to the farmers belonging to the Bharat Krishak Samaj (BKS). But the allegation against Sanjeevani was that it had imported 56 units and sold five of them in the market to earn profit, while FOMETA, had allegedly used the machines for commercial purpose. The Sanjeevni was also accused of not donating the machines to the BKS as per the exemption condition and kept them under its control at the installed sites and use it to earn profit. In its adjudication order, the Department had imposed Rs 8.72 crore as duty, redemption fine and penalty on the two companies and the informer had claimed 20 per cent of it as a reward as per the 1985 guidelines.
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Dogri, Bodo in Eighth
Schedule New Delhi, December 23 The Constitution (one hundredth amendment) Bill 2003, passed by Lok Sabha yesterday, was unanimously passed by Rajya Sabha to include Maithili, Dogri and Bodo and Santhali in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution. Replying to a discussion in the Rajya Sabha, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani assured members to bring in a comprehensive legislation to include more languages in the 8th Schedule after consulting experts and linguists. Regarding the status of English, Mr Advani said for the unity of the country it was necessary that both English and Hindi co-exist. Mr Ramashankar Kaushik, SP, said that recognition of spoken languages could hurt the cause of Hindi as the official language. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, RJD, said the Centre had stirred a hornet’s nest by including the spoken languages in the 8th Schedule. He was supported by Mr Arjun Singh (Congress) who wanted the Government to come out with comprehensive policy to allay the feeling of discrimination by the language group not finding their way in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution. Mr L.M. Singhvi, BJP, expressed his ‘distress’ over non-inclusion of Rajasthani in the list of official languages. Dr Karan Singh (Congress) said that inclusion of Dogri in the 8th Schedule was a recognition of the contribution of the Dogra culture. Prof Saifuddin Soz wondered why the Centre had denied Dogri language the honour for more than a decade even though the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly had twice passed resolutions in this regard. Mr V. Virumbi (DMK) sought ‘clasical language’ status for Tamil. Moving the Bill, Mr Advani said that for the first time two tribal languages Bodo and Santhali were being included in the 8th Schedule. He said the Government during its talks with Bodo militants had agreed to consider their demand for inclusion of Bodo in the Eighth Schedule. |
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Myanmar to flush out insurgent camps New Delhi, December 23 Regarding media reports that due to the ongoing military operation in Bhutan, the beseiged militants there of the United Liberation Front of Assam, National Democratic Front of Bodoland and Kamtapur Liberation organisation were sneaking into Myanmar from Bhutan, Mr U Win said “We will take whatever action is necessary”. The External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, said India had “full assurance” from Myanmar that it would not allow any insurgent group in that country. |
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Humane treatment for Bangladeshis in
India sought Kolkata, December 23 Mr Bhattacharjee in a letter to the deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Mr L.K.Advani, admitted that several lakhs of Bangladeshis who had entered West Bengal and other places without valid documents, had already settled down in India. The letter was sent to Mr Advani recently. The Congress and theTrinamool Congress also made a similar demand The Tripura Chief Minister, Mr Manik Sarker , CPM, and the Assam Chief Minister, Mr Tarun Gogoi,
Congress, had also made the same demand. |
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CBI names witnesses in
poet case Lucknow, December 23 The CBI has also named some state civil service officials, two doctors, two managers of a five star hotel as witnesses, a highly-placed CBI source told The Tribune today. The CBI filed the charge sheet on Friday last in the CBI court naming former minister, now in the Samajwadi Party, Amarmani Tripathi, his wife, his nephew, among the six accused. |
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Police remand for Telgi’s accomplice Pune, December 23 Desai, who allegedly acted as marketing manager of Telgi’s syndicate and was arrested yesterday by the special investigating team, was produced before the Judicial Magistrate First Class M.N. Bondre for remand. NASIK: A CBI team, has inspected the bank account and locker of suspended General Manager of India Security Press (ISP) Gangaprakash Choudhary. —
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