New Delhi, October 23
Petroleum minister Murli Deora today hinted at the reduction of fuel prices within a week. Cornered by the Opposition and allies in the Lok Sabha over the exorbitantly high petrol and diesel prices, the minister said the government was watching the international crude oil price scenario and would decide on the matter in a week.

The announcement comes close after finance minister P. Chidambaram ruled out immediate cuts in petrol and diesel prices.

The reduction, it is learnt, has been put on hold till the conclusion of OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) meeting scheduled tomorrow.

Deora today told Parliament that certain countries were about to make fresh
announcements with respect to fuel prices, after which India would decide
on the issue.

When cornered from all quarters, he blamed the delay in decision-making on rupee depreciation against the dollar.

“The Indian rupee has devalued by 24 per cent against the dollar,” Deora said, inviting the wrath of the Opposition and the Left, who accused the UPA of double standards, considering its Rs 3,000 crore bailout package to the airlines industry.

The matter was raked up by CPM’s Ruchand Pal, and followed up by his deputy leader in the House Mohammad Salim. “Reduction is only for VIPs, not common people,” Salim said.

The fuel price issue rocked the House in the question hour, after CPI’s Midnapur MP Pramod Panda sought to know why fuel prices had not been reduced despite over 50 per cent fall in the global oil prices.

A defensive Deora was quick to cite rupee depreciation as the reason, but ended up being cornered from all quarters by the opposition (BJP, BSP, BJD) and even ally RJD.

His announcement on fuel price reduction came after the Opposition demanded time-bound commitment on the issue.

Another embarrassing situation arose for the government when BJD’s B.K. Tripathy asked if the UPA had any fuel pricing policy at all.

Deeg (Bharatpur), October 23
Septuagenarian Lala Ram Yadav was hoping that all firecrackers made by his family, though illegally, would be sold by this Diwali.

Instead, Yadav this evening lit the pyres of 15 members of his family, who were among the 26 killed in last night’s blast in Darukutta colony of the district that borders Agra district of Uttar Pradesh.

The 26 dead include 11 children and five women. Of these, seven children and three women were the relatives of Ram Yadav.

He lost his three sons, five grandchildren, two great grandchildren, three women relatives and two other relatives in the incident.

While the Jodhpur stampede had spoiled the gaiety of Navratra festival, the explosions in the illegal firecracker manufacturing unit has spread gloom among people awaiting Diwali festivities.

By the time the debris was removed and all trapped and the bodies were taken
out, a horrifying truth was revealed that people in the area were virtually living
on explosives.

Firecrackers are being manufactured illegally in houses in all areas, even thickly populated areas.

The local administration woke up after the incident, arrested 15 illegal firecrackers manufacturers and seized a large quantity of explosives from their houses.

Though a detailed investigation would confirm the house from where the explosions started, preliminary investigations revealed they took place probably in the house of Lala Ram Yadav.

According to Deeg police, the incident took place around 10 pm, and as houses were situated close to each other, blasts in Yadav’s house triggered series of explosions. “Within minutes, six houses were razed with dozens trapped under the debris.”

It seems cracker manufacturing work was on when the explosions took place. “The manufacturers must be working day and night to honour heavy orders they have got for the Diwali,” said circle police officer R Meena.

Ram Vati, 43, who is under treatment in a local hospital, said she was asleep when the blast took place.

“I was sleeping on the first floor of my house with my son and daughter when there was a loud noise and we felt sky has fallen on us.”

She was trapped under the heap of bricks and stones and she thought an earthquake had struck.

Kamal Singh, another injured, said there was a series of deafening explosions. “Before I could run out of the house, the roof fell on me.”

The police is having a hard time investigating the matter as no eyewitness or injured has revealed where the blast occurred.

Anank Kumar, Bharatpur collector, said none had the permission to manufacture firecrackers or store heavy explosives in their houses.

An eight-year-old girl, rescued from the debris of the collapsed house of Rakesh Kumar, where she was trapped for over 14 hours, succumbed to her injuries at a local hospital.

She had suffered multiple fractures and injuries all over her body leading to
excessive bleeding.

The Deeg town was in mourning as 26 bodies were cremated this evening. Residents joined the funeral processions.

Markets remained closed and the manufacturing of crackers, both legal and illegal was put on hold.

Chennai, October 23
MDMK leader Vaiko was arrested here today on sedition charges for his vocal support for the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and a court sent him to 14-day judicial custody.

“Vaiko has been charged under Section 124 (A) of the IPC (waging seditious war against the government) and under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for supporting the LTTE,” a senior official said.

Arrested from his residence in northwestern part of the city in the afternoon, Vaiko was taken to a magistrate’s court under heavy police protection by the Tamil Nadu police’s ‘Q’ Branch that deals with extremist violence.

He was sent to the high-security Puzhal prison under heavy police escort, police officials said.

MDMK presidium chief Kannappan was also arrested from Coimbatore district in the evening and sent to jail.

Vaiko had asked the Central government to cut off diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka in retaliation for its military action against the LTTE and openly canvassed support for the terrorist group.

Elsewhere in the city, a large number of lawyers blocked traffic outside the Madras High Court shouting slogans against the Congress, which had demanded the arrest of those film directors who had called for an armed separatist rebellion in Tamil Nadu to garner support for the Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka.

Vidhuthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol Thirumavalavan and hundreds of his supporters were arrested earlier in the day for blocking rail traffic, demanding India ask Sri Lanka to stop military operations against the ethnic Tamils.

Thirumavalavan and his party cadres were arrested all over Tamil Nadu as a preventive measure and were let off later, officials said.

Two railway coaches were set on fire in Madurai, 400 km south of here, by
unidentified protesters.

“We could not put out the fire immediately as the compartments were hemmed in from both sides by high parapet walls. However, the flames have been doused now. We are on the lookout for the culprits,” N. Balakrishnan, an official, told reporters at the spot.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan deputy high commission here was under heavy police security following an attack by a group of students that damaged glass of a few windows. — IANS

New Delhi, October 23
Despite wide powers and major responsibilities given to state governments in matters of Wakf administration under the Wakf Act 1995, states have failed to monitor activities of Wakf Boards.

While in some states, Wakf Boards have not been constituted at all, in others they have been superseded.

Not just this, at present valuable Wakf properties worth thousands of crores is under illegal occupation and exploited by unscrupulous builders.

“And all in connivance with corrupt officials of State Wakf Boards, Mutawallis and weak management committees,” said Rajya Sabha deputy chairman K. Rahman Khan, briefing media on a report by Joint Parliamentary Committee on gamut of issues pertaining to the Wakf in the country.

With particular reference to Punjab, he said land mafia in Punjab was hand in glove with Wakf Board officials “who are bartering away lot of Wakf properties because of weak set-up of the board and absolute neglect of the board by the state government”. The committee, headed by Rahman Khan, tabled the report in Parliament today.

The report explains how hardly any Wakf Board has taken any proper initiative to develop thousands of acres of prime rural and urban land that it owns.

In short Wakf administration has been victim of willful neglect and general apathy of state governments.

The reason for this willful neglect and general apathy, explains Rahman Khan, is that almost all boards are financially weak, their members hardly have any vision and the management is abysmally weak.

“The states have generally failed to monitor activities of the boards, have not taken any interest in Wakf administration and remained silent spectator to gross violation of the Act and encroachments of valuable Wakf properties,” Rahman Khan said.

The situation in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh is equally bad. The committee said it failed to understand why these three states and the Union Territory, despite opting for independent boards, had not evinced any interest in administration of their Wakf Boards. In Punjab valuable Wakf properties have been leased out for negligible consideration.

“The Punjab Wakf Board is one of the largest Wakf Boards with a large number of properties,” the report said, expressing deep concern about the way the Punjab Board was functioning and the way valuable Wakf properties was being leased out for negligible consideration.

Also blaming the community for the current state of affairs, Rahman Khan said: “The community has hardly taken any interest in preventing the misuse of valuable Wakf properties and raising its voice against the misuse. Muslim community has remained silent spectator.”

“In Punjab some of the lease cases the land so given is plotted and construction is undertaken though under the law this is not permitted,” he said, adding that not only in Punjab but in other states, including Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, land mafia was thriving on leasing of Wakf properties.

Citing various examples, he said, “One such example is Chauma village in Haryana that HUDA has acquired offering meager compensation”.

The committee has given 130 recommendations for improvement of functioning of Wakf institutions, including complete survey of all Wakf properties.

“Taking into consideration the extend of potential Wakf properties, a massive investment is required if these properties need to be saved”.

New Delhi, October 23
The Supreme Court today dismissed an application filed by the Ansal brothers, Sushil and Gopal, seeking a review of the court’s order, cancelling their bail in the Uphaar cinema tragedy case.

“We cannot blow hot and cold by first cancelling the bail and then modifying the order,” Justices B.N. Aggrawal and G.S. Singhvi remarked.

Mumbai, October 23
Raj Thackeray and his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) are likely to feel the heat from the Vilasrao Deshmukh administration at least till Chhath Puja, which falls in the first week of November.

The event is already giving sleepless nights to top police officials as leaders of
the north Indian community and the MNS are likely to use it to showcase their
clout in the city.

Police officials have now made it mandatory for scores of activists of the MNS to report daily at local police stations for the next couple of weeks so that they could keep tabs on their activities.

Mumbai's police commissioner Hassan Gafoor had warned that MNS activists could be arrested and lodged in preventive custody till the end of Chhath Puja if required.

Chhath Puja, which was virtually unheard of in Mumbai in the past, has become a major cultural event in the city following the increase in the north Indian population.

Organisations like the Bihar Jharkhand UP Janhit Trust, floated by Congress
leader Sanjay Nirupam, have taken to celebrating the event in a big way in
Mumbai's Juhu beach.

North Indian leaders are said to be mobilising thousands of people of north Indian origin to attend the Chhath Puja this year as well.

Raj Thackeray had earlier accused Nirupam and other north Indian leaders of using the occasion to mobilise members of the community on political lines.

Already Union railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has announced that he would be attending Chhath Puja.

After Raj Thackeray warned Yadav against stepping into Mumbai for the event, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said he would attend the function as well.

Deshmukh has, however, asked Nirupam to abide by the Supreme Court ruling on installing loudspeakers at Juhu beach.

A number of residents have filed lawsuits stating that the use of loudspeakers and the presence of large crowds was disturbing the peace in the area.

Meanwhile, MNS leaders are tightlipped on the party's strategy towards Chhath
Puja. "We will announce our stand at the appropriate time," a party spokesman
told this reporter.

However, the gag order issued by the Mumbai police will ensure that Raj Thackeray does not issue any inflammatory statements in the run-up to the festival.

The Maharashtra government has decided to keep a tight rein on Thackeray after last Sunday's violence against north Indians by filing nearly 60 cases in different police stations across the state.

Thackeray, who is out on interim bail till Friday, made the rounds of various police stations today as specified by his bail conditions.

He will be marking attendance at the Kherwadi police station every morning for seven days as ordered by the Bandra court.

Shortly afterwards, Thackeray had to visit the Kalyan railway police station, which is probing the attack on railway property and the assault on candidates from north India who were appearing for examinations on Sunday last.

Lucknow, October 23
The Mayawati government has finally sanctioned action against 12 IPS officers who were found to be on the wrong side of law during the police recruitment scam, which had taken place during the regime of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The officers will be prosecuted under Section 197 of the IPC stated a government press release.

These officers are B.B. Bakshi, Akhilesh Mehrotra, Daljit Choudhury, Ramendra Vikram Singh, B.S. Tripathi, S.K. Mathur, Chavi Nath Singh, Sunil Kumar Gupta, R.N. Yadav, Shailendra Pratap Singh, Malkhan Singh Yadav and B.K. Agarwal.

During 2005-2006, the Mulayam Singh Yadav government had set up 55 selection boards for the recruitment of police constables.

When the Mayawati government came to power, a probe was ordered into the complaints of irregularities in the recruitment process.

The probe headed by then ADG STF Shailjakant Mishra had found 50 of the 55 boards guilty of corruption and irregularities in the selection process.

The Mayawati government had sacked 17,868 newly recruited police constables signed up by the then government.

The officers had also been suspended. However, no action had been initiated against them due to technical reasons.

New Delhi, October 23
The government has issued an advisory to Star One channel for using an offensive word against one community in an episode of the programme “The Great Indian Laughter Challenge-2” telecast on June 23.

The information and broadcasting ministry has issued this advisory in response to a complaint, which alleged the participants of the programme Ali Hassan and Irfan made a derogatory remark against a particular community.

The ministry has advised the channel not to repeat this offence in future and show better self-regulation in creation of programme content.

It has asked the channel to ensure strict compliance with this direction and said that any further violation may entail stringent action, including taking the channel off the air, an official press note here said.

The advisory has been issued on the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) constituted by the ministry to look into the specific complaints against the violation of Programme and Advertising Codes.

After viewing the recordings of the programme, the committee held unanimous opinion that the offensive word should not have been used by the participants. The channel should have rather exercised better restraint.

The IMC also observed that though Ali Hassan and Irfan had performed the episode as fictional characters, the utterances could not be brushed aside merely as comedy as they would propagate the practice of untouchability, which has since been abolished under Article 17 of the Constitution of India.

The committee further observed that even if it was presumed that the participants being foreign nationals might have been oblivious of the implications of the utterances as fictional characters in the episode, the channel being responsible for telecast of this programme for public viewing could not be absolved of the charges.

Guwahati, October 23
A day after four infants died immediately after being administered measles vaccine in Baska district of lower Assam, the state government has dismissed allegations that the deaths were caused by the vaccine.

“The measles vaccine are prepared by the Human Biological Institute at Hyderabad, and they have no past history of causing death to human beings,” health minister Himanta Biswa Sharma said here today.

Instead, Sharma indicated that the deaths could be related to the high infant mortality rate (IMR) prevalent in the state.

“I have consulted at least 50 pediatricians, including the head of the department in the Guwahati Medical College , and everybody is of the same opinion that vaccines do not cause deaths,” he said.

Wednesday being the weekly immunization day, over 5,000 infants had taken the same vaccine in different government health centres across the state.

Guwahati, October 23
Three CPRF jawans were detained by the police in Udaliguri district today for interrogation in connection with alleged rape of two women in strife-torn Rowta area in the violence-hit district.

They had been identified by the victims during an identification parade conducted at the Rowta police station.

Two cases of alleged rape on two women by CPRF jawans on patrol duty in Bhalukmari village under Rowta police station were registered on October 20.

Udalguri deputy commissioner Kamal Mahanta said he had been informed by the police that the CRPF jawans were now being interrogated by police.

The official said the reports of medical examinations conducted on the two women at Mangaldai Civil Hospital had not revealed rape.

However, the state government issued instruction for preservation of materials and evidences collected and used by the doctors for the examination of the two women, for further examination by doctors of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), he added.

A 24-hour bandh beginning was called by the All Koch Rajbanshi Students Union in the area today to protest the alleged incident of rape and demanding exemplary punishment to the guilty CPRF personnel. The bandh affected normal life in the violence-affected district.

Soon after, Khan adjourned the house for 10 minutes. The Rajya Sabha staff again tried to set the seat right but the problem persisted.

Chandigarh, October 23
The three-judge committee set up by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for looking into the cash-at-judge’s doorstep case today talked to Justice Nirmal Yadav for almost five hours.

It is believed that the committee questioned Justice Yadav at length on the Solan land deal, and her acquaintance with co-accused in the case Ravinder Singh and Sanjeev Bansal.

Justice Yadav was apparently questioned on the basis of statements recorded by the committee during its visits to the city. She was among the last ones the committee talked to.

It is believed that the committee wanted to give her an opportunity to clarify her stand on issues emerging out of the statements of the witnesses and the accused in the matter.

She arrived at the UT guest house at about 3.50 pm this afternoon, and appeared before the committee at about 4.20 pm. She continued to interact with the committee till late this evening.

Available information suggests Justice Yadav told the committee that the Solan land deal was clean and all the persons involved in it were genuine.

Moreover, the deal was struck after seeking due permission and following the procedure. Besides this, the property had not been undervalued.

Justice Yadav has all along been saying she knew Ravinder Singh through other judges, but the money erroneously delivered at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur was not meant for her.

The committee is expected to wind up its probe and leave the city by 2.25 pm tomorrow. So far, the committee has examined officers connected with the Solan land deal, besides other witnesses and accused in the case.

Continuing with the probe, the committee interacted with a senior officer from Solan. The panel, comprising Allahabad High Court Chief Justice Hemant Laxman Gokhale, Gujarat High Court Chief Justice K.S Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur of the Delhi High Court, also talked to Ravinder Singh and his wife once again.

Ravinder Singh reportedly stuck to his stand and told the panel he had nothing to do with the money, and had made no attempts to ensure that it was handed over to any judge. The committee is expected to submit its report to the CJI expeditiously.

New Delhi, October 23
The BJP yesterday demanded the representation of serving and retired armed forces personnel on the pay commission and the setting up of a statutory body for the welfare of ex-servicemen.

Stressing that there was a great discontent in the forces over pay anomalies in the Sixth Pay Commission, leader of opposition Jaswant Singh said in the Rajya Sabha that the government must attend to the anomalies attentively and sympathetically.

“It was unusual for service chiefs to go to the extent of voicing their protest in public, but it was done because of unusual circumstances,” he said, raising the issue during the Zero Hour.

The Prime Minister and the defence minister should consider these demands sympathetically and address the issues raised by them, he added.

Singh, himself an ex-serviceman, said if this was not done, military personnel would lose their morale.

“Why does a soldier or an airman agree to die (for the country). Principle motivation is ‘izzat’ (honour). If you do not give ‘izzat’ they deserve, you will be robbing them of central impulse of military morale,” Singh said.

Expressing concern over shortage of 18,000 officers in the forces, he also demanded one-rank-one-pension and resettlement scheme for the ex-servicemen, saying that a statutory commission should look into welfare of the ex-servicemen as personnel from the services retire at very young age when they still had full life ahead.

“Constitute a commission for the welfare of ex-servicemen so that this periodic
problem dose not arise,” he said, also asking for a proper resettlement scheme
for ex-servicemen.

He said the government should also consider the demand for inflation-indexed pension to neutralise the impact of price rise.

Chandigarh, October 23
A fresh controversy appears to have erupted over orders issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on revision of the pay scales of armed forces personnel consequent to the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

In new special army instructions (SAIs) issued in the past week, the MoD has modified the definition of rank pay earlier admissible to commissioned officers and has de-linked it from the basic pay despite the fact that SAIs issued after the fourth and the fifth pay commissions define rank pay as “part of basic pay”.

Legal experts say that the fresh move of the MoD to de-link rank pay is not only in contravention of approved recommendations of the Union Cabinet, but also against the spirit of the MoD’s own earlier SAIs and court orders.

The revised definition, sources claim, would adversely impact the status of armed
forces officers.

Para 3 (b) of the SAI 2/S/08 issued on October 11, 2008, terms rank pay only as “rank pay admissible to commissioned officers of the three services”.

Earlier, SAI 2/S/87 and SAI 2/S/98 also mentioned that rank pay forms a part
of the basic pay. It is learnt that the service headquarters is taking up the issue
with the MoD.

The new “disparity” has come to light even as a high-level committee comprising three Cabinet ministers constituted to look into pay-related issues raised by the armed forces is yet to submit its report.

According to officers, rank pay was carved out of basic pay of military officers by the Fourth Pay Commission, when a common scale was introduced for all ranks from second Lieutenant till Brigadier.

The rank pay was added into the basic pay as a differentiating factor. The addition of rank pay as a part of basic pay was approved by the Union Cabinet and also notified in SAIs issued by the MoD.

Sources claimed that there were still instances wherein civilian officers posted to the MoD, by their own interpretation, refused to add rank pay into basic pay for status comparison purposes, despite the fact that courts of law had also ruled rank pay to be an integral part of basic pay.

While the tussle over the status of Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel vis-à-vis equivalent civilian officers continues, the Jodhpur and Chennai Benches of the Central Administrative Tribunal have, in a case filed by MES officers, already held that directors and superintending engineers of the Central Engineering Services are junior to full Colonels and are equivalent to Lieutenant Colonels.

In the meantime, the Central government has started implementing pay progression parity for all Group A organised civilian officers with the IAS but the defence services have been kept outside the purview of the new scheme.

The pay achieved by 100 per cent civil officers in 16 years is achievable by
less than one per cent military officers and that too after 33 years of service,
sources said.

BRIEFLY

Judge complains of dowry harassment
Katni (MP): A woman judge in Madhya Pradesh had lodged a complaint against her in-laws accusing them of harassing her and demanding Rs 1 crore in dowry, the police said on Thursday. Madhuri Raj Lal, posted as Judicial Magistrate First Class in the district court here, got married in 1994 to a doctor, N.R. Lal, who died last year. In the complaint, Lal alleged that her in-laws were harassing her and her parents for the last one year for dowry. A case under various Sections of the Dowry Act has been registered. — PTI

Modernisation of ITBP
New Delhi: The Indo-Tibetan Border Police has submitted a Rs 300-crore proposal before the government for the modernisation of the force, which guards sensitive borders and vital installations, including Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan. “The fund will be spent for the modernisation of the force in the next two years,” ITBP director general Vikram Srivastava told mediapersons here on the eve of the force’s 47th raising day. — PTI