India to raise Pak N-issue with Powell
New Delhi, March 15
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived here tonight — his first visit to India in 20 months.

India in touch with Spain over blast suspects
New Delhi, March 15
The Government of India is in touch with Madrid regarding the two Indian nationals arrested by the Spanish authorities in connection with train bombings there.
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New Delhi, March 15
The Supreme Court today directed 12 states which had the maximum impact of the sale of fake stamp papers under the Rs 33,000-crore racket run by Abdul Karim Telgi, to provide the CBI with entire records of the 48 cases shortlisted by it for investigation.

A three-judge bench of Mr Chief Justice V. N. Khare, Mr Justice S. B. Sinha and Mr Justice S. H. Kapadia also stayed the Karnataka Government’s order prohibiting Telgi to be taken out of its jail for questioning by the police of other states.

The court said the prohibitory order passed by Karnataka under Section 268 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) would not come in the way of the CBI taking him into custody for interrogation.

The court also directed the affected states to provide the necessary infrastructure and resource facilities to the CBI for speedy investigation into the 48 cases taken by it for probe, which included 23 from Maharashtra and 10 from Karnataka, the main bases of Talegi’s operation.

The other cases taken by the agency included three each from Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, two each from Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh and one each from Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala and West Bengal.

The direction came during the hearing of a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs) seeking investigation by CBI into the Telgi scam. Advocate Ajay Agrawal, one of the petitioner, said the Karnataka Government order would hamper the probe as Telgi was the main accused, who needed to be interrogated by the agency.

The court asked the CBI to file report on the progress of the investigation within four months.

Solicitor-General Kirit Raval, appearing for the CBI told the court that the agency had selected cases taking into consideration the impact of the fake circulation of fake stamp papers in a particular area and the amount of transactions involved in it.

New Delhi, March 15
The Congress today lodged a complaint with the Election Commission alleging “blatant” violation of the Model Code of Conduct by the BJP accusing it of adopting “corrupt practice and misuse” of the Centre’s social security scheme for the unorganised sector and demanded action against the party.

The complaint was made in the wake of a TV channel’s expose of BJP members in Mumbai distributing forms for the recently launched scheme for workers with the party’s symbol “lotus” and name printed on them.

Pointing out that the scheme was launched after the dissolution of the 13th Lok Sabha, the letter written by AICC General Secretary Oscar Fernandes to the Election Commission said: “Though the hurried introduction of the scheme with the intention of inducing the voters, and now distributing these computerised forms stamped with the BJP symbol, BJP workers are distributing them to thousands of voters from unorganised sector, contributing money on their behalf.”

“It is to be noted that as per the scheme which is yet to be initiated, the forms were to be made available by the Provident Fund Department of the Union Labour Ministry,” it said.

The letter said “this was an open and blatant violation of the Model Code of Conduct and misuse of the government machinery and scheme.”

New Delhi, March 15
The Communist Party of India (CPI) today announced names of six candidates for Lok Sabha seats in Assam, Bihar and Manipur.

The party manifesto will be released at the CPI Central office here tomorrow.

Sources in the CPI told TNS today that the party had decided to field former Agriculture Minister Chaturanan Mishra from Madhubani in Bihar. Mr Mishra had represented the constituency earlier.

It also announced the name of Mr Shatrughan Prasad Singh for the Balia seat, Mr Tej Narain Singh Yadav for the Buxar seat and Janaki Paswan for the Gaya (reserved) seat.

Mr Shatrughan Singh and Mr Yadav have been elected to the Lok Sabha from the Balia and Buxar parliamentary constituencies earlier.

The party will support an Independent candidate, Dr Motiur Rahman Mandal, from Dhubri in Assam. It will field Dr Nara Singh from Inner Manipur.

The CPI has already announced names of candidates for 24 constituencies.

Lucknow, March 15
Efforts by opposition parties to field a consensus candidate against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the Lucknow constituency received a setback with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) becoming the first party to announce its nominee for the seat.

The BSP decided to field Rajendra Mohan Saxena, a former government employee against the Prime Minister.

New Delhi, March 15
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived here tonight — his first visit to India in 20 months. But the main focus of his South Asia visit will be the second and third legs of his tour — Pakistan and Afghanistan.

According to diplomatic sources here Mr Powell's main concerns are the US renewed thrust to capture Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden — for which the US

troops have already started “Operation Mountain Storm” in Afghanistan — and Pakistan's acts of omission and commission in nuclear proliferation.

India was added to Mr Powell's tour itinerary at a much later stage and he was initially scheduled to visit Pakistan and Afghanistan only.

The issue of Pakistan's outward proliferation has acquired a new dimension in the wake of a categoric assurance before the US House Appropriations Committee on March 10 that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's “pardon” to the disgraced scientist Dr A.Q. Khan could be reversed. South Asia Tribune quoted Mr Powell in its latest issue as saying that the presidential pardon to Dr Khan was “a conditional amnesty that can be reversed if President Musharraf believes that (Dr Khan’s) cooperation is inadequate or he believes another set of actions are appropriate.” India is likely to raise the issue tomorrow with Mr Powell.

On this issue, the considered opinion of the Vajpayee government is that it would want to satisfy itself that this outward proliferation from Pakistan has ended and that it would not be allowed to be repeated ever again. External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has already gone on record saying that Pakistan's proliferation issue should not be viewed as a bilateral problem between India and Pakistan but it was a global concern and should be dealt with as such.

They pointed out that New Delhi and Washington were not at a stage when their leaders have to sign on a piece of paper to demonstrate the success rate.

Sources said the issue of business process outsourcing (BPO) would come up during Mr Powell's talks with the Indian leadership. They, however, asserted that the BPO was a commercial issue and not a bilateral problem between the two countries.

New Delhi, March 15
The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to take details about key witnesses from amicus curiae in the major Gujarat riot cases for providing them protection by Central forces’ personnel to ensure that they deposed freely before the trial court.

A Bench of Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Mr Justice S.B. Sinha and Mr Justice S.H. Kapadia directed amicus curiae Harish Salve to supply the list by Wednesday so that the Union Government could take appropriate steps for the security of the main witnesses.

The court also asked the Centre to provide security by Central forces to Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) activist Tista Sitalwad, who had taken up several cases with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and courts on behalf of various riot victims, including that of Zaheera Sheikh in the Best Bakery case.

Mumbai, March 15
The Maharashtra Government is richer by a whopping Rs 1,400 crore from a private company which will collect toll from the swanky Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

State government officials confirmed that Ideal Road Builders (IRB), the highest bidder, paid Rs 918 crore to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) upfront as per the agreed norms. The money will be used to pay off part of the corporation’s Rs 3,500 crore debt.

The corporation had paid Rs 364 crore in 2002-03 by way of interest alone. The prepayment of about Rs 900 crore of the Rs 1800 crore loan taken to build the expressway would substantially reduce the corporation’s debt burden, officials say.

Mumbai-based IRB is to pay the corporation Rs 1,400 crore in over a 15-year period. In return, the company will collect toll on the expressway for this period and maintain the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

The corporation had built the expressway at a cost of about Rs 2,200 crore. However, the income from the project by way of toll collection did not meet expectations as truckers did not use the expressway. They instead used an old road connecting Mumbai to Pune though it was in poor condition in order to avoid the toll.

New Delhi, March 15
Despite tall claims of the government about the all-round development and fast economic growth during the past few years, there are still over eight million families in urban India staying in slums with inadequate basic amenities.

These are not the findings of any NGO or study of a foreign agency but of a nationwide survey carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The survey, that was carried out from July to December 2002 to study the condition of urban slums, has estimated that there are about 52,000 slums in urban areas of the country and about 8 million urban households living in these slums. This represented 14 per cent of the total urban households in the country. The number of slums was highest in Maharashtra (32 per cent) followed by West Bengal (16 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (15 per cent).

A similar survey was conducted earlier by the NSSO in 1993. The total number of urban slums at that time was estimated to be about 56,000.

About 6 million households lived in those slums at that time. Despite a fall in the number of slums by 2002, the population in these slums increased by over 20 lakh families within nine years. The experts said even if the average size of the family was considered as six members then also about five crore persons were staying in urban slums under inhuman conditions.

The present survey found that a little more than half of the slums had been notified by the respective municipalities, corporations, local bodies or development authorities, but they shared a relatively larger proportion (65 per cent) of slum households. The proportion of slum households living in notified slums was higher than the national average (65 per cent) in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka.

About 65 per cent of the slums have been built on encroached land. By and large the main source of drinking water for the slums was either tap or tubewell.

In many cases, the study found, the people were taking water directly from the main water line.

Interestingly, most of the people staying there have taken illegal electricity connections

The study lamented that about 50 per cent of the population staying in non-notified slums did not have access to public toilets. Consequently, they were using any available space for this purpose. However, the survey found that in 83 per cent notified slums the local authorities had provided some sort of facility in the name of public toilets.

New Delhi, March 15
The Railways has launched a fortnight-long cleanliness drive to improve sanitation at junctions, stations and in trains.

Sources in the Railway Ministry said the zonal Railways has awarded contracts in this connection to private parties at some railway stations. The Ratlam junction in Madhya Pradesh was the first to benefit from outsourcing for cleaning work. All major stations in district headquarters and state capitals, 85 important junctions and 50 pairs of trains will be covered during the drive.

Hardwar, March 15
The Ardh Kumbh mela police, Hardwar, arrested an ISI agent who used to pass on secret information, sketches and maps of strategic military installations of the country to Pakistan, via Dubai.

The mela DIG, Mr P.K. Joshi, said yesterday that Asgar, an ISI agent, was caught red-handed while sending a packet of photographs of the Bengal Engineering Group (BEG) and Centre Roorkie to post box No.23515 of Dubai last evening. The police has recovered a Chinese camera and 19 photographs of the BEG & Centre Roorkie from him, the DIG said.

The police said Asgar had been working as an agent of the ISI since 1998 and was paid Rs 20,000 for every information passed on to the ISI. He obtained a passport for Pakistan in 1992 and went there many times. He came in contact with the ISI in 1998 and since then has been working as its agent. His modus operandi was that he used to enter military cantonments as a scrap dealer.

Kolkata, March 15
Music lovers and admirers bade a tearful farewell to the legendary sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Hussain Khan as the body was laid to rest at Gobra burial ground this afternoon.

He was given the burial just beside the graveyard of his father Inayat Hussain Khan as per his wish.

His two sons Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan, a well-known sitarist and vocalist, and Hidayat Khan placed the body inside the grave.