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Kingpin Santosh Jha surrenders
MPs angry over tour guidelines
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Zahira admits NGO funded her Delhi visit
446 child labourers rescued
Bodo aspirations fulfilled
Shoot-on-sight orders in Varanasi
Anaemia killing women silently
Rajasthan bans book glorifying Sati
Chandrika to arrive today
Rapists given life term
FIR against suspended DIG
2 women allege sex abuse by husbands
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Kingpin Santosh Jha surrenders
Patna, June 1 Accompanied by his lawyer and former Law Minister Shakeel Ahmed Khan, Jha surrendered before the vigilance judge J.M. Prasad in the case. The judge remanded Jha in judicial custody till June 10. Jha’s lawyer Shakeel also filed a petition in the court for lodging his client in judicial custody in the Patna Medical College and Hospital on health ground. Shakeel Khan told the court that Jha was also surrendering in connection with another vigilance case relating to alleged irregularities committed by his ‘blacklisted firm’-Santosh Printing Press-in execution of the literacy project in Kathiar. The vigilance judge had yesterday issued non-bailable warrants of arrest against Goswami and eight others, including Jha in connection with the scam. The judge had also ordered search of houses of the accused, besides impounding the passport of Goswami. All domestic and international airports, besides the immigration check post officials had already been alerted by the state Vigilance Bureau probing the scam to prohibit Goswami and his assistant Amitav Arun from fleeing the country. |
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MPs angry over tour guidelines
New Delhi, June 1 The 19-point ‘do’s and don’ts’ issued recently created such a situation that members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at its meeting yesterday unanimously decided to cancel their tour to Ahmedabad and Mumbai. While the PAC members felt that the “tone and tenor” of the guidelines was “humiliating” and showed the members in “poor light”, sources said, adding that there was a sense of unrest over the new rules among the MPs of almost every political party. Committee Chairman Vijay Kumar Malhotra is said to have intervened and avoided a confrontation by persuading the committee members to go ahead with the tour, promising them to take up the issue with the Speaker after his return from a foreign tour. Prof Malhotra, who is a senior BJP leader, declined to go beyond admitting that the issue had agitated the members and he had assured them that he would take up the issue with the Speaker. As per the revised guidelines, parliamentary committees should not undertake on-the-spot study tours unless it is absolutely necessary for proper examination of the subject for the committee. “If absolutely necessary, the committee may undertake a tour. It is desirable that a small sub-committee or study group consisting of not more than one-third members of the committee may be formed for the purpose,” the guidelines say. According to the ‘do’s and don’ts’, members should take particular care to maintain proper dignity and decorum during tours so that no criticism is made of the committee in any manner. No gifts are to be accepted by the members/officers of the committee/sub-committee/study group from the organisation concerned. Sufficient notice of the tour programme should be given to the administrative ministries/state governments or undertakings concerned about the tours. The committee or sub-committee or study group, while on tour, should not accept any invitation for lunch or dinner or any hospitality that might be extended by any private party. At the official lunch or dinner, if any, that might be accepted by the committee or sub-committee or study group, no liquor should be served. No member should take any other person along during the official tours. A member may, however, take his or her spouse on tour on medical grounds with the prior permission of the Chairman of the committee. The spouse or attendant of a member should in no case accompany the members during official study visit to any installation/undertaking/office or establishment and during informal discussions with officers of the establishment concerned. No member should give any statement regarding committee proceedings to press or electronic media. Whenever any such briefing is required to be done, the Chairman of the committee should do it. The guidelines also tell MPs that tours should not be undertaken merely because something has to be seen or discussions have to be held with the local authorities. “Where a committee proposes to undertake a tour, prior permission of the Speaker should be taken. The proposal for tour should be clearly and adequately justified by the Chairman of the committee and should not involve examination of witnesses outside Delhi. “Only when there is a specific requirement to visit installations or there are other compelling and related grounds, a proposal may be submitted for consideration of the Speaker,” the revised norms say. Ordinarily, no permission would be granted for more than one study tour per year, the guidelines say, noting that a tour undertaken during weekend shall be treated as one tour of the committee. Besides, tour by sub-committee/study group is to be undertaken only when the whole committee does not go on tour and is not to be undertaken in addition to the tour of a whole committee. The cost of board, lodging and transportation during tours would be borne by the Lok Sabha Secretariat as per the guidelines and not by the public undertaking organisations concerned. |
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Zahira admits NGO funded her Delhi visit
Mumbai, June 1 Fourteen persons, mostly relations of Zahira, had died in a mob assault on the bakery in Vadodara on March 1, 2002. After a Gujarat court had acquitted all accused in the case, it was transferred to Maharashtra for re-trial on the direction of the apex court on her plea. Zahira admitted that her family had sought assistance from Vadodara’s Janadhikar Samiti when asked by the court if she had made an application to the NGO. ‘’My brother Nafitullah had sought assistance in a request made to its (NGO) trustee Tushar Vyas.’’ Judge Abhay Thipsay, who inspected the bakery in Vadodara last week, today questioned her about the application she had filed in the apex court, the expenses borne by the NGO and certain other aspects of the case. While admitting that the NGO had paid for her family’s travel expenses when they had to appear before the Supreme Court-appointed committee, Zahira said hotel and food expenses in Delhi were, however, borne by a lawyer. The NGO, too, had been paying them through a lawyer, she said but would not specify the exact amount. Zahira said she did not remember seeing any videographer shooting the rescue operation at the bakery by the police on March 2, 2002, the morning after the carnage because there was a huge crowd of onlookers, police personnel and fire fighters. However, when shown a video-clip in which she is seen talking to a policeman, she recalled that he had asked her about her mother’s whereabouts but added she could not recollect his name. The video shot by the Gujarat Police had earlier been submitted in court by the case investigating officer. To a question by the Judge, Zahira said she and her family members were rescued from the terrace of the bakery by fire fighters. She also informed the court that she had taken to tailoring and her brother Nasibullah was working as a labourer to eke out a living.
— UNI, PTI |
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446 child labourers rescued
Mumbai, June 1 Most of the children were brought from towns of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, the police said. Nearly all of them were employed by zari units in Central Mumbai neighbourhood of Nagpada, Madanpura and Central Mumbai. The operation lasted for three hours. Mr Jaiswal said co-ordinated action by 24 police teams saw the swoop begin simultaneously before 10 am. In all more than 200 police personnel, including 30 officers and 20 women constables were pressed into action. He added that social activists and people working with non-government organisations helped the police with crucial inputs. “These raids were planned some time ago. It required proper planning so as to avoid any unpleasant incident,” Mr Jaiswal said. He noted that most of the children rescued today were under 15 years of age. Several owners of zari units were booked under laws pertaining to illegal employment of minors. In all 44 persons have so far been arrested for illegally employing minors. Police sources said many employers tried to evade police action by hiding children in specially-built cavities in the hovels that functioned as zari units. Many of the rescued children bore injuries and torture marks suspected to have been inflicted by their employers. Apart from zari units, the children were employed in tanneries, restaurants and small manufacturing units, police said. |
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Bodo aspirations fulfilled
Kokrajhar (Assam), June 1 But his own party, the BJP, failed to win a single seat at the just-concluded elections in the BTC to choose its first-ever elected body. And not only the BJP but also the principal Opposition Asom Gana Parishad could win only a single seat of the total 40. For the ruling Congress, it made a tactical retreat before the poll by declaring not to contest officially. The logic was to allow the newly-formed Bodo Peoples’ Progressive Front (BPPF) to win the poll to properly reflect the aspirations of the Bodos. But unofficially the Congress backed some Independent candidates to taste its support base in the BTC and could manage to get only three of them elected. In the final outcome, after the Mizo National Front (MNF), the first militant outfit from the North-East, that surrendered arms a decade back, to take part in the elections and form the government in Mizoram, the BLT was the second militant outfit to take part in the BTC poll held on May 13. Prior to the elections, the BLT and the All Bodo Students’ Union(ABSU) formed the BPPF. But in the run-up to the poll, there was an ego clash between BPPF president Rabiram Narzary, who is the adviser to the ABSU too, and the interim BTC chief, now an elected chief
executive member, Hagrama Mohilary. Hagrama Mohilary was the leader of erstwhile militant outfit BLT. As a result of this, Mohilary had put up a number of Independent candidates against some official BPPF candidates, mostly those representing the ABSU. Mohilary even backed an Independent candidate against Rabiram Narzary. And after the outcome was known on May 28, it was the former BLT cadres, either in the form of Independents or BPPF candidates, who won the majority of seats enabling former militant leader Hagrama Mohilary to emerge as the elected BTC chief. Mohilary and his camp followers have won 26 out of 38 seats and secured the support of another 12 elected candidates, including that of the AGP and the Congress-backed Indepen-dents, to marginalise all mainstream parties in the fray. In the remaining two seats the State Election Commission has ordered repolling. The BJP had contested in 18 seats and the AGP in 14. After Hagrama Mohilary emerged the chief of the BTC, Rabiram Narzary, his bete noire, was now in the mood to bury the hatchet, by describing the differences of opinion between the two allegedly as a “ploy” by the Congress. Narzary said,” The Congress is second to none in divisive politics”. But in the process of their ego clash, the people of Bodoland experienced the unprecedented violence marked elections, a clash between former BLT cadres and ABSU
supporters. As the dust has settled down now, the emergence of Hagrama Mohilary in the political map of Assam by defeating the mainstream political parties, as well as his adversaries in the BTC, now has put a big question mark on the fate of the mainstream parties in the next Assembly poll. It is clear now, that be it the Congress, the BJP or the AGP, without Hagrama Mohilary’s support it was difficult for them to dream of winning a good number of Assembly seats (nearly 20) of a total 126 dominated by the Bodos in lower Assam. |
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Shoot-on-sight orders in Varanasi
New Delhi, June 1 The byelections are expected to break the stalemate over government formation in Goa as the Congress and the BJP-led fronts have an equal number of 17 supporters each in the 40-member Assembly. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is seeking election on Congress ticket from Kiloi and former Karnataka Chief Minister S. Bangarappa from the Shimoga Lok Sabha constituency as a Samajwadi Party nominee. In the direct contest in Allahabad, on the one side is the BSP candidate Pooja Pal, young widow of the slain MLA Raju Pal. Her only serious rival is the Samajwadi Party candidate and the main accused in the murder of her husband - Ashraf, who is lodged in the Naini jail for the murder case. Meanwhile, shoot-on-sight orders have been issued for those who try to create trouble at polling stations in the Varanasi (north) Assembly constituency. Votes, sealed in electronic voting machines, will be counted on Sunday.
— UNI |
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Anaemia killing women silently
New Delhi, June 1 “India leads in iron
deficiency anaemia in world. More than 90 per cent of the women, adolescent girls and children are anaemic in India which leads to their increased vulnerabilty to other diseases,” Dr Sudipto Roy, national president of IMA, told reporters. While nine out of 10 adolescent girls, children and pregnant women are anaemic, 24 per cent of adolescent girls between 10 and 19 years suffer from severe anaemia, according to various statistics, he said. Anaemia is a silent epidemic in the country and it indicates both poor nutrition and poor health of a nation, he said adding that nothing much has been done at Central and state level to control the situation. An ongoing survey in east Delhi among 25,000 persons, including MCD schools and about 35 slums, has also come up with similar findings that over 90 per cent adolescent girls and about 85 per cent adult women are anaemic, Dr Sharda Jain, president of IMA’s women wing, said. Normal looking people may be anaemic, she said adding
anaemia is silent energy drainer and one of the major causes of decreased work productivity and decreased scholastic achievement leading to school dropouts. Besides, aneaemia is directly responsible for 20 per cent of maternal deaths and is a contributory factor in another 20 per cent deaths, Dr Jain said. Anaemia in Indian population could be controlled simply by taking a balanced diet in the form of fresh fruits and green vegetables, she added. IMA would launch a nationwide programme on Doctors’ Day, July 1, by the name of `Anaemia Free India’ under which anaemia detection and treatment camps would be organised, he said. Besides, Delhi Medical Association had declared every Thursday as “aneamia prevention day” when free iron and folic acid would be distribute to every woman in the city, he said. Folic acid deficiency was emerging as another problem and causing heart diseases and diabetes in Indian women, he said.
— PTI |
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Rajasthan bans book glorifying Sati
Jaipur, June 1 According to an official spokesman, a probe also has been ordered into the publication of the book. Moreover, Devasthan Commissioner Fateh Krishna Kalla has been shifted out of the department. He has not been given any official responsibility so far. The step followed protests by women’s organisations, who are seeking the lodging of a police complaint against Mr Kalla, writer of the book Mahendra Bhanawat and Minister of State for Tourism and Devasthan Usha Punia, who released the book titled “Rajasthan Ke Lok Devi Evam Devta” on Monday. Ms Punia had to cancel a scheduled press conference today after the women’s groups organised a protest at the venue of the press conference. New Delhi: Taking suo moto cognizance of a news report about an article in a Rajasthan State Tourism Department publication which “glorified” the practice of Sati, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has served a notice on the state government. NCW Chairperson Girija Vyas while demanding action against the publisher, writer and the State Tourism Department, said the description of temples in the article amounted to a glorification of this social evil.
— PTI, UNI |
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Chandrika to arrive today
New Delhi, June 1 Ms Kumaratunga has not desired to meet anybody else in the Indian Government during her two-day working visit, though UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi may call on her. Ms Kumaratunga is using this visit as a diplomatic leverage to consolidate her own position at home on the question of signing the joint mechanism with the LTTE. The visit also comes at a time when the LTTE is said to be rebuilding its war machinery. There are reports that the LTTE is planning to launch a do-or-die phase of its military struggle for realising its goal of “Eelam”. Key sources in the South Block told The Tribune yesterday that Ms Kumaratunga’s visit had nothing to do with a proposed defence pact between the two countries and the issue was not even on the agenda. The Sri Lankan President is in a Catch-22 situation on the question of post-tsunami international aid. A conference of potential international donors in Candy (Sri Lanka) recently pegged the promised aid at $ 4 billion. However, the donors have attached a string with the aid saying that the money will be released only when the Sri Lankan Government signs a joint mechanism on distribution of the aid with the LTTE. |
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Rapists given life term
Jaipur, June 1 The two accused - auto-rickshaw driver Shankar and his accomplice Rakesh had raped the 47-year-old German tourist on May 11 in Jodhpur. “The fast track court in its judgment while imposing certain fines has given life imprisonment to the two,” Ravi Prakash Meherda, Superintendent of Police, Jodhpur city, told IANS on phone. The court took just 20 days to pronounce its judgment in the case that had rattled the desert state, which is a popular tourist destination. The incident occurred when the German tourist hired an auto-rickshaw to go to her hotel on the night of May 11. Shankar, along with his accomplice Rakesh, took her to the outskirts of the city where Shankar raped her. When Rakesh was trying to rape the tourist, villagers from nearby, hearing her screams, reached the spot, forcing the duo to flee. The police apprehended Shankar and Ramesh early next day. Taking suo motu cognizance of media reports, the Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur had on May 13 directed the government to carry out a probe “as expeditiously as possible” and to complete the trial within one month. The High Court had also asked authorities in Jodhpur to provide security to the German tourist and the state government to bear all expenses of her stay in Jodhpur. The woman returned to her country on May 19, the police sources said.
— IANS |
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FIR against suspended DIG
Lucknow, June 1 The report was registered at Alambagh police station here last night by Crime Branch Inspector J. P. Singh under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, officials said here today. Soon after lodging the report, the police conducted raids at several places in search of Tripathi and also filed a report against Atul Singh on charges of making extortion demands and issuing “life threats to a deputy jailer”, they said. The Uttar Pradesh Government had ordered a departmental inquiry against Mr Tripathi after his alleged nexus with Atul Singh was “exposed” by the police on Monday.
— PTI |
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2 women allege sex abuse by husbands
Jaipur, June 1 Invoking Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, two women at Jodhpur have filed complaints against their husbands for their unnatural sex behaviour. Provisions of this section deal with sodomy. Recently, the Inspector-General of Police of Jodhpur range got a rebuff from the Chief Minister, Ms Vasundhara Raje, for not taking prompt action on the complaint of a woman who was allegedly a victim of the pervert sexual conduct of her husband. Consequently, the SHO of the area was placed under suspension and a case registered against the accused husband who is currently behind bars. |
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