Patna, June 25
Signalling a thaw in the JD(U)-BJP ties, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Modi today accompanied Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the last leg of his Vishwas Yatra to Gaya district.

Kumar and Modi arrived at the Patna state hangar in separate vehicles, but boarded the same helicopter for Aurangabad. The BJP had yesterday deferred its decision on participating in the yatra. The two leaders, who were seen exchanging pleasantries before boarding the helicopter, refused to take questions on the soured relation between the two parties.

Modi had earlier refused to join Nitish Kumar for the yatra at Paliganj in Patna district in protest against the Chief Minister’s decision to return the flood relief money given by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. BJP president Nitin Gadkari met chief of the party’s Bihar unit CP Thakur and Modi to discuss the alliance with the JD (U) yesterday.

After the meeting, though a few senior leaders from the state maintained that Modi would not participate in the programme, the Central leadership insisted that no directions had been given to the party’s Bihar unit about the yatra. — PTI

New Delhi, June 25
The government did not even have its main UPA allies like the DMK and the Trinamul Congress on board in its move to increase the price of petrol and petroleum products and simultaneously decontrol these linking with the market today.Chemicals and Feritlisers Minister MK Alagiri formally moved a note in the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM) and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee skipped the meeting opposing it publicly.

“I am unhappy. I did not go to the meeting to give my approval to the decision of hiking the price of LPG, kerosene and diesel.” said Mamata Banerjee.

The Opposition BJP, Left and their allies protested loudly and threatened street action and countrywide agitations. BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said, “The BJP condemns the UPA's efforts to burden aam aadmi with yet another dose of petrol and diesel price hike. The food inflation is hovering at 17-20 per cent in the region and people are feeling the real pinch of overall price rise.”

New Delhi, June 25
The IIT-JEE reform panel, charged with suggesting changes in testing patterns for the entry to the technical institutes, may have settled for a two-tier system of screening students, but the government does not appear to be gaming for it.

Two days after the panel submitted its first draft report on the entrance exam reforms, sources in the Ministry of Human Resource Development told The Tribune that the multiplicity of examinations was not preferred at all.

Human Resource and Development Minister Kapil Sibal has been publicly advocating least testing of students to avoid harassment and stress- something that’s not reflected in the suggestions, which the panel headed by IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya had made.

The panel has recommended two levels of screening- first comprising at the school level with scores of Class XII boards and of the national aptitude test and the second featuring long, subjective type testing format where 40,000 short listed students give analytical answers in place of attempting the multiple choice questions. The IIT faculty should manually evaluate the answer scripts, hence obtained.

The sources in the ministry, however, said the idea of having an initial screening and then an add-on examination with subjective type questions for final entry to the IITs was neither logical nor necessary.

“We really don’t understand why should there be two levels of examinations. Why can’t the students be selected through single screening? The idea is to save students from stress. But two tests will make students more prone to stress. They were more bothered about IIT directors’ willingness to retain some control over the entrance examination to the institutes. They regard it as part of autonomy whereas it is not,” an official in the HRD ministry said.

The add-on exams will be resisted from several quarters, including Sibal himself, who has been saying that the Indian examination system is high on testing and low on quality. The draft recommendations of the reform committee will be first discussed at the meeting of IIT directors followed by the IIT Council in July. Sibal heads the IIT council as the HRD minister.

New Delhi, June 25
A Delhi court today issued production warrants against three accused arrested by the Ghaziabad police yesterday on the charges of killing their sisters and husband of one of them in the sensational Ashok Vihar honour killings case.

Metropolitan Magistrate Satish Kumar directed Dasna jail authorities at Ghaziabad to produce the accused before the court tomorrow.

The Delhi police had approached the court with a request to issue production warrant against Mandeep Nagar (23), Ankit Chaudhury (22) and Nakul Khari (21), who were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police from Garhmukteshwar, about 90 km from the national capital.

The court allowed a plea of the police to issue the warrant by hand (dasti) to the Investigating Officer in order to serve it to the Ghaziabad jail authorities at the earliest. However, a court in Ghaziabad sent them to a 14-day judicial custody today, but they will in all probability be produced before the court.

The trio allegedly carried out the murders on June 20 at Ashok Vihar in north-west Delhi as they were said to be angry with their relatives for “sullying” or defiling the honour of their family for marrying in different castes.

The accused were on the run after allegedly killing Ankit's sister Monica, 24, along with her husband Kuldeep, 26, for marrying in a different caste, and Mandeep's 22-year-old sister Shobha, who too had eloped with a man belonging to a different case. — TNS

Ghaziabad, June 25
Showing no remorse, the three youths arrested yesterday for allegedly carrying out the sensational honour killing of three of their relatives in Delhi, told the police that they had also planned to murder a sister of one of the victims for marrying in different caste.

Mandeep Nagar (23), Ankit Chaudhury (22) and Nakul Khari (21) tried to call Mandeep's sister Khushboo on phone on Sunday when they allegedly carried out the murders. They had planned to meet her at some place and murder her, but they could not get in touch with her, SSP Raghubir Lal said.

Khushboo has been provided police protection, according to the Delhi police. However, Mandeep's another sister Shobha (22) was not so lucky. Lal said Mandeep first shot dead Shobha, who had earlier eloped with a man belonging to a different caste, in his car.

Mandeep, according to the SSP, told the police that he did not like Shobha pursuing modelling, but she was adamant on continuing with it so he killed her.

Thereafter, the accused called Ankit's brother-in-law Kuldeep (26) near his residence and also shot him dead, leaving his body in his car. They then killed Ankit's sister Monica, 24.

New Delhi, June 25
After a spate of attacks on security forces, the Maoists are now raising specially trained small teams to eliminate leaders of various political parties across the country.

The central committee of the CPI (Maoist) at a recent meeting has decided to raise “action teams” in all states dominated by them to target political leaders and workers, a Home Ministry official said quoting intelligence inputs.

He said the Naxals were planning to launch the attack in both rural and semi-urban areas in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

“Apprehending threat, many political leaders in the areas dominated by the Maoists have started resigning from their respective political parties,” the official said. Besides, the policy-making body of the CPI (Maoist) also directed its cadres to target any vehicle used by security personnel even if civilians travel along with them, he said.

According to a government estimate, there are 34 districts in the country, which are seriously affected by the Naxal menace. — PTI

Lucknow, June 25
Following a preliminary inquiry conducted by the CBI on the instructions of the Allahabad High Court it has registered an FIR against 12 policemen, including an IPS officer, for their alleged involvement in a fake encounter that took place at Bareilly in 2007.

The IPS officer against whom the FIR has been registered happens to be J Ravider Gaur, a 2005-batch IPS officer, the than ASP of Bareilly. 

New Delhi, June 25
The National Commission for Women’s chairperson Girija Vyas yesterday, appealed to the media to shun the term “honour killing” in its reort and use another term which should highlight the heinousness of the crime without invoking any element of honour.

At a meeting organised with representatives of the different media groups to share and discuss concerns of the commission on issues related to indecent representation of women in the media and the need for self-regulation, she said due care must be taken in the tone and choice of words so that crime, especially those against women, was not glorified.

Vyas said the commission strongly favoured self-regulation by the media as the preferred mode of regulation in keeping with the Right to Freedom of Speech enshrined in the Constitution.

She said that while the news channels were, by and large, responsible in their behaviour, the entertainment channels did require some sort of regulation to ensure propagation of right content.