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Revise ‘poverty line’ formula: Punjab CM HP wants forest Act waiver Steps to tackle leopard menace in Mumbai |
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ISRO to test
air-breathing engine next year In what will be a significant initial step in India eventually building a reusable launch vehicle capability, the Indian Space Research Organisation is aiming at testing a bench module of a scramjet air-breathing engine next year. EC for bar on tainted candidates In a major move against the criminalisation of politics, the Election Commission has decided to suggest to the Central government to enact a law to debar chargesheeted candidates from contesting elections.
Non-inclusion of Lahore Declaration upsets BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party today took strong exception to omission of Lahore Declaration in Indo-Pak joint statement saying that the UPA Government’s approach smacked of “petty political mindset” which “imperils vital national interest”. Addressing newspersons, former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha voiced the BJP’s concern over the omission of any reference to the Lahore Declaration in the statement issued yesterday at the end of the Foreign Secretary-level talks. Nandyal seat to be vacated for PM The Nandyal Congress MP, Mr S.P.Y. Reddy, will offer to vacate his seat in favour of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, when the latter visits his constituency on Thursday. Kalyan blames Congress for Babri demolition BJP leader Kalyan Singh, during whose chiefministership the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya, in his submission before the Liberhan Commission today blamed the Congress for the December 6, 1992 incident. Arjun denies he had indication of
Babri demolition NDA may boycott
Rly Budget Dhirendra to be new Home Secy Godhra case: only 11 passengers were bona fide Best Bakery case: 1 held 11 convicted in Mumbai serial blasts case A local court today convicted 11 persons, including a suspected ISI agent, in the 1998 Mumbai serial blasts case while one accused was acquitted for lack of evidence.
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Revise ‘poverty line’ formula: Punjab CM New Delhi, June 29 Speaking at the Chief Ministers’ conference on Panchayati Raj and rural development, Capt Amarinder Singh said in case a new formula could not be worked out, states such as Punjab should be compensated by higher allocation of funds for the rural road network and other infrastructure. He said according to the data of the Planning Commission of India, for the year 1999-2000, 6.35 per cent of the rural population of Punjab was living below the poverty line. This had resulted in wide disparity in the devolution of funds for poverty alleviation programmes among states. Punjab had the least share of 0.7 per cent of the pooled funds for this purpose while the share of certain states was as high as 18 per cent. He said Punjab had been ignored in the allocation of funds for poverty alleviation programmes because of the low ratio of persons living below the poverty line. This aberration had occurred because of a common definition of population below poverty line applied across all states. The Punjab Chief Minister said the criteria adopted by the Centre on the basis of the recommendations of the National Development Council (NDC) suffered from certain inherent inadequacies, resulting in a situation where some states were penalised in the form of low funds despite significant progress in human development indicators. Demanding fund allocation to the tune of Rs 680 crore for providing piped water supply, Capt Amarinder Singh said there 12,402 inhabited villages in Punjab and a scarcity of drinking water existed in 11,849 villages as per the criteria fixed by the Centre. |
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HP wants forest Act waiver New Delhi, June 29 HP Rural Development Minister Sat Mahajan, speaking at the conference of Chief Ministers on poverty alleviation and rural prosperity, said provisions of the Forest Conservation Act applied to over 60 per cent of the area in the state, and procedures involved in obtaining clearances under this Act were very tedious and cumbersome. He urged the Centre to provide Rs 332 crore financial assistance to complete the road network in partially covered habitats. Speaking at the conference, Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala called upon the Centre to increase the state’s share in the diesel cess collected from the state. He pointed out that Haryana got merely Rs 107.74 crore of the total Rs 600 crore collected from the state as diesel cess. He said each state should be allotted at least half of the funds raised from the diesel consumers as part of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna. He said the states that were contributing more to the Central Road Fund as diesel cess should be provided better roads. The Centre had failed to provide a matching grant even to those villages which had already deposited Rs 15 crore under 146 schemes for safe drinking water last year, he said, and added the Centre had allotted only Rs 1.17 crore to rural panchayats and also withheld these scheme for paucity of funds. Haryana had provided safe drinking water to 1,829 villages of the total 6,759 villages. The Chief Minister urged the Centre to enhance the allocation for this purpose from Rs 14.58 crore to Rs 25 crore. |
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Steps to tackle leopard menace in Mumbai
Mumbai, June 29 Among the measures, the State Forest Department plans to radio collar those leopards who are trapped, which means construction of a 22 km solar electric fencing in sensitive zones of the park. The SGNP is spread over 103 sq km. It spills over into the neighbouring district of Thane. Leopards who are trapped will be sent to the Melghat and Tadoba tiger reserves in Vidarbha region of the state, Forest Department officials said. The park’s leopard population, according to a 2002 estimate, is between 35 and 40 but experts feel this may have gone up. Additional Chief Secretary (Forest) Ashok Khot asserted that there was no shortage of prey in the forest but pigs, wild boar, hare and fowl were now being released into the core zone. “We do not want to take any chances,” he told reporters. Mr Khot also denied leopards in the park were turning into man-eaters. “They are not man-eaters. If a leopard is hungry it will go for anything. Even a dog or a child.” Accompanied by a team of forest officials and Range Superintendents, he expressed concern at how parents allowed kids to roam out in the night or let the elderly sleep outside when the entire family is in. “They are easy prey for a predator like leopard,” he said. Asked about compensation, officials said if an attack took place on illegal encroachers inside the forest territory, no compensation was given. But otherwise, Rs 2 lakh was given to the next of kin of the victims and Rs 50,000 to the injured. Mr Khot said “habits” of leopards in the park have changed. “Members of the cat family like lion, tiger and leopard hunt whenever they are hungry, be it day or night. But here the attacks have taken place at night or early morning. This is what is known as habit change,” he said. Three leopards, all female aged between three and four years, who were caught since yesterday from Borivali, Aarey and Powai, were sent to the Melghat and Tadoba reserves. “They henceforth will be relocated outside,” he added. Since January this year, there have been 19 attacks in which 14 persons were killed. But only six attacks took place inside the jungle while the rest were in the periphery like Mulund, Aarey, Powai and the areas near Vihar Lake.
— UNI |
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ISRO to test
air-breathing engine next year Bangalore, June 29 ISRO has an ongoing air-breathing propulsion project where work is being done on a dual mode ramjet — scramjet combustor system — at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, near
Trivandrum. ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said that they expected the bench module being developed to be flight-tested in 2005 on a sounding rocket from the Thumba range. “We have been able to hold a flame (sustain combustion) at supersonic speeds in wind tunnel experiments,” he said. Conventional launch vehicles use a combination of liquid and solid fuels along with an oxidiser which they have to carry on board. The oxidiser forms almost 70 per cent of the overall fuel weight. In an air-breathing engine, the oxygen is taken from the atmosphere. With no oxidiser on board, a lot of weight is freed up for satellite payload, thus reducing the cost per kilogram launch. Temperatures generated at hypersonic speeds (above Mach 5) can melt structures, so very high strength materials capable of withstanding high temperatures are needed, which is a challenge in itself. In addition, at those speeds, aerodynamic control must be highly precise and the computational fluid dynamics involved is extremely complex. “We have a long way to go,” Mr Nair said. “The intake is hypersonic, and conditions in the chamber can actually reach Mach 10. Currently we are using a hydrogen based fuel, but we are also exploring the possibility of using kerosene and hydrogen, and perhaps even a methane propane combination.” The air-breathing scramjet technology is at the cutting edge of the aerospace technology the world-over. It may require one to two decades before a truly reusable spacecraft with integrated air-breathing engines are developed. It was only in March this year that a NASA-Boeing experimental aircraft, X-43A, flew successfully for 10 seconds in the scramjet mode at the test speed of Mach 7. |
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EC for bar on tainted candidates New Delhi, June 29 He said the Law Commission had already recommended such a move, which had also found favour with the Election Commission. The EC’s statement assumes great significance as the ruling UPA and the opposition are at loggerheads on the induction of persons having criminal or corruption cases against them in the Union Cabinet. At present, only candidates sentenced to more than two years of imprisonment in criminal cases are barred from contesting elections. In another step to ensure transparency in election expenditure, the Election Commission has forwarded to the Income Tax Department the expenditure returns of the candidates who contested the recent Lok Sabha elections and four state assemblies. “We have passed on to the Income Tax Department in a compact disc all the affidavits (related to poll expenses) collected so far,” Mr Jha said. This would enable the IT Department to match the expenditure returns of each candidate with the Income Tax returns for the corresponding financial year. All the candidates were supposed to file a statement of poll expenditure incurred by them within a month of the completion of the election process i.e. June 13. The list of candidates who were yet to file such returns would be known only after mid-July following which notices would be served on such candidates, he said adding the candidates could submit their statement of expenditure even after the June 13 deadline citing the reasons for the delay. The commission had the right to accept or reject the reasons after verifying them, he said. |
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Non-inclusion of Lahore Declaration upsets BJP New Delhi, June 29 Addressing newspersons, former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha voiced the BJP’s concern over the omission of any reference to the Lahore Declaration in the statement issued yesterday at the end of the Foreign Secretary-level talks. While the party is happy that both sides have agreed on a time frame to discuss all other issues in the composite dialogue process, “we are seriously concerned at some other developments relating to these talks,” Mr Sinha said. “The omission of any reference to the Lahore Declaration and only a passing reference to the path-breaking joint press statement issued in Islamabad on January 6, 2004, after the meeting between Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a matter of deep concern,” he said launching an attack on the new government’s foreign policy. Stating that Indo-Pak relations have not remained frozen after the Simla Agreement, the former External Affairs Minister said a number of developments of far-reaching importance have taken place between then and now. |
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Nandyal seat to be vacated for PM Hyderabad, June 29 Dr Manmohan Singh, during his one-day tour to Andhra Pradesh, will visit Somayajulupalli in the Nandyal parliamentary constituency in Kurnool district and Dharmapur village in Mahabubnagar district and interact with families of farmers who had committed suicide in the recent times. Dr Manmohan Singh, who is presently a member of the Rajya Sabha, will have to get elected to the Lok Sabha within six months of his elevation as Prime Minister. Nandyal, a backward constituency in the faction-ridden Rayalaseema region, was once represented by a former Prime Minister, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao. |
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Kalyan blames Congress for Babri demolition New Delhi, June 29 Kalyan Singh’s counsel B B Saxena alleged that Arjun Singh, who was Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister in the P. V. Narasimha Rao Government at the Centre then, had stated that “some Pakistani infiltrators had made their way to Ayodhya”. This statement of Mr Arjun Singh, who now holds the same portfolio in the Manmohan Singh Government, indicated that the then Congress Government at the Centre might have the knowledge about the involvement of Pakistani infiltrators in the demolition. |
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Arjun denies he had indication of
Babri demolition New Delhi, June 29 “It is wrong to suggest that I had prior information... but it is correct to say that I had an indication about it,” he told press person today, adding that he had brought this to the notice of those concerned. Earlier, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh’s counsel B.B. Saksena cited a statement by Mr Arjun Singh to the Liberhan Commission, saying the Centre then had received information that Pakistani infiltrators had made their way to Ayodhya for the wrongful act. |
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NDA may boycott
Rly Budget New Delhi, June 29 It also decided to “fight with all its might” against the move of the government to remove
BJP-sympathising Governors, “detoxification” of NCERT books, repeal of
POTA, security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, starvation deaths in West Bengal and farmers’ suicides in Andhra Pradesh. The meeting attended by top BJP leaders, including former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, also weighed the pros and cons of moving a Censure Motion on the “tainted ministers” issue under Rule 184, which entails voting. |
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Dhirendra
to be new Home Secy New Delhi, June 29 Mr Ajay Vikram Singh has been appointed the new Defence Secretary in place of Mr Ajay Prasad, who has been given charge of Ministry of Civil Aviation. Mr S C
Tripathi, holding charge of Higher Education has been made the new Petroleum Secretary. The post was earlier held by the new Cabinet Secretary, Mr B K
Chaturvedi. Commerce Secretary Deepak Chatterjee, who has been given a three-month extension in the wake of the forthcoming WTO negotiations, has been given additional charge of Textile Ministry, sources said. |
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Godhra case: only 11 passengers were bona fide
Ahmedabad, June 29 The official, Mr K. C. Bawa, a retired DSP of the railway police, told the commission members, Justice (retd) G. T. Nananwati and Justice (retd) K. G. Shah, that as per his investigations only 11 persons killed in the incident were bona fide passengers among the carnage victims. The commission resumed the recording of statements and cross-examination today and would record statements of police officials involved in this incident. Mr Bawa further deposed that the victims travelling without reservation were identified on the basis of DNA evidence and statements of relatives. During cross-examination by advocate Mukul Sinha and on being asked if the railway police had specific inputs from the Uttar Pradesh police about the movement of 2,500 kar sewaks from Ayodhya on February 25, 2002, Mr Bawa replied in the negative and said they had no information in this regard. When asked if he had information about when and who pulled the chain to stop the train at Godhra railway station, he replied that as per the statement of the Sabarmati Express driver, the train had reached Godhra at 7.40 am and left at 7.45 am, but was unsure as to who pulled the chain.
— PTI |
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Vadodara, June 29 DCB Inspector D.M. Waghela said Jagdish Rajput, Mahendra Yadav and Sanjay Thakkor, who had allegedly taken shelter in the house of Ganpat Manubhai and his wife Bakunaben at Khokharveri village of this district, escaped an hour before the crime branch team from Vadodara raided their residence today. The police arrested Ganpat’s wife and seized the baggage and two two-wheelers belonging to the three accused from the house. House owner Ganpat, a close associate of the accused, and two others, Deepak Yadav and Mahesh Rajput, who were reportedly assisting their accused brothers Mahendra Yadav and Jagdish Rajput, were also absconding, police sources said. — UNI |
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11 convicted in Mumbai serial blasts case Mumbai, June 29 Additional Sessions Court Judge V. L. Achalya directed the accused and the defence advocate to make their submission in the court before the pronouncement of the sentence on July 2. The serial blasts had killed four persons and injured around 30, besides damaging railway property. Six cases were registered in the serial blasts against 15 accused, of whom two are still at large. Those convicted include agent Javed Gulam Hassan. Another accused, Asfaque Sayed Ahmed, had turned approver only to turn hostile later. His trial has been separated from the others. One of the accused died during the trial.
— UNI |
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Charges
framed against five Mumbai, June 29 In all 53 persons were killed and more than 100 injured in the three blasts that were triggered off at Ghatkopar in Central Mumbai on July 28, 2003, and simultaneously at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazar in South Mumbai on August 25 last year. Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said the conspiracy was hatched in Dubai by operatives of the Laskhar-e-Toiba. |
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New Delhi, June 29
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