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NSA does a Pillai but skips naming Pak
Lakhvi, Saeed had plans to attack more cities: NIA
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M’rashtra charters plane to ‘forcibly’ fly back Naidu & Co
Price rise issue comes in the way of MPs’ salary hike
Hockey player alleges sexual harassment
NHRC seeks report on infected blood to thalassaemic kids
Free-for-all in Bihar
House
NDA legislators hold placards during a protest against price hike outside the Bihar Assembly in Patna on Tuesday. — PTI
Monsoon Session
DRS Chaudhary new MHA spokesman
Lankan Tamil MPs meet Karuna
Former AG Banerji dead
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NSA does a Pillai but skips naming Pak
New Delhi, July 20
“For us, it's been brought home most recently by what we learnt from Headley, which confirms many of the things that we knew before. And it’s really the links between the official establishment and with existing intelligence agencies, it’s that nexus, which makes it a much harder phenomenon for us to deal with. Unfortunately what we know and what we see suggests that these links or this nexus, in fact, will not be broken soon. If anything, it is getting stronger,” said Menon. Without naming Pakistan, Menon said the nexus had left no room for India to be optimistic as the link was growing “stronger”. The interrogation of Headley proved “our worst fears have come true and the situation is as bad as we thought”, Menon said while opening a conference on “Countering terrorism in South Asia: Perspective from US and India” organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and the US-based Heritage Foundation. Stating that “there is less possibility of being optimistic”, the NSA said the traditional definition of terror groups in South Asia has become obsolete in the wake of these outfits merging to conduct operations. “The other aspect that is coming from it is how over times in the last few years these terror groups in South Asia have got fused, they are training together, using the same communication," Menon said. “The traditional distinction of these terror groups has become meaningless,” he said, referring to Pakistan's “good” Taliban and “bad” Taliban theory. Menon is the second top Indian official to openly speak about the official patronage which militant groups receive in Pakistan. The Home Secretary had said in an interview last week that the ISI had a “much more significant role” to play in the Mumbai mayhem and that the Pakistani spy agency was "literally controlling and coordinating the attacks from the beginning till the end". Headley, who is in a Chicago jail, was interrogated by Indian investigators, including sleuths from the National Investigation Agency (NIA), last month. Sources say Headley told Indian interrogators that the ISI had paid Rs 25 lakhs to LeT to purchase the boat used by the 10 Pakistani terrorists who headed to Mumbai to execute the worst-ever terror attack in India in which 166 persons were killed. Headley also said he visited five terror camps in Pakistan, and that some of these were run by the ISI.
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Lakhvi, Saeed had plans to attack more cities: NIA
New Delhi, July 20 “The present case has to be viewed in a larger perspective as the ambit of probe goes beyond the Mumbai attacks case,” NIA's counsel said before the court of District and Sessions Judge SP
Garg. The NIA’s counsel made these remarks after the court asked them as to why the probe agency was seeking issuance of
non-bailable warrants when a Mumbai court had already issued NBWs against them in the terror attack case. The NBWs were a condition precedent for the issuance of Red Corner Notices
(RCN) against them, he further added. The court has posted the matter for tomorrow.
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M’rashtra charters plane to ‘forcibly’ fly
Aurangabad, July 20 The denouement to the dramatic events, which unfolded last Friday with their arrest at Dharmabad on Andhra Pradesh border, came when the former chief minister and TDP legislators were forcibly put on a chartered flight arranged by the Maharashtra government. Officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said some of them had to be physically lifted to the airplane after they squatted on the runway shouting “we want justice” while others boarded without offering resistance. Naidu and his contingent of TDP legislators and leaders were earlier scheduled to be taken to Aurangabad prison after being transferred from the makeshift jail at Industrial Training Institute at Dharmabad this morning. According to Bharat Bhosle, the superintendent of Aurangabad jail, two barracks were kept ready for them. However, eager to wriggle out of the sticky situation after Naidu declined to accept bail, the Maharashtra government, in a last minute change in script, dropped the charges to pave the way for his return. The home department faxed a letter to Nanded district collector asking him to inform the Dharmabad court through the public prosecutor that the government was withdrawing the case relating to violation of Section 144 CrPC (prohibitory orders) against Naidu and others. Earlier in the day, tempers ran high at the Dharmabad ITI where TDP legislators and leaders scuffled with the police, who allegedly used force to make them board the vehicles to take them to Aurangabad. Some legislators were alleged to have been injured and their mobile phones damaged in the melee in which Naidu's shirt was claimed to have been torn. There were protests in Hyderabad where enraged TDP workers burnt effigies of Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and made attempts to gatecrash into a meeting that Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was having with the Finance Ministers of southern states. In Maharashtra too, Shiv Sena and MNS workers showed black flags to Naidu on way from Dharmabad to Aurangabad. The two states are locked in a legal dispute over the sharing of water from the Godavari river and TDP has been accusing Maharashtra of irregular construction of various irrigation projects on it to the detriment of lower riparian state Andhra Pradesh. The SC is scheduled to hear the matter on August 10.
— PTI
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Price rise issue comes in the way of MPs’ salary hike
New Delhi, July 20 However, the recommendation to hike the daily allowance from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 is set to be accepted. The constituency allowance of Rs 20,000 per month, 34 single air journey tickets and a free AC First Class railway pass and the cap on free telephone calls currently enjoyed by the MPs will remain untouched. The panel, which submitted its report to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar in May, had recommended that the monthly allowance be hiked to Rs 40,000 and also suggested that the quota of free air and rail journeys be raised. UPA sources said inter-ministerial consultations on this issue were currently underway and a Bill providing for the necessary hike in the salaries of MPs would be passed in the monsoon session of Parliament commencing on July 26. The government is wary of giving a huge hike to the MPs at this juncture when it is under fire for runaway inflation. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, it is learnt, had baulked at the idea of a five-fold raise. Finance minister and Lok Sabha leader was also not happy with the figures presented by the Parliamentary panel. The report was to be taken up in the last Parliament session but Mukherjee had sought more time for detailed discussions on the plea that such decisions could not be taken in a hurry. The government’s move to dilute the committee’s recommendations are unlikely to be received well by the MPs who have been insisting that that their salary be fixed at Rupee one higher than that of an officer in the rank of a Secretary to the Government. The MPs have been complaining that their present monthly salary of Rs 16,000 is meagre as compared to what lawmakers get in other countries. It was on the basis of this demand that the Parliamentary panel had suggested a monthly salary of Rs 80,000. It also suggested the introduction of an institutionalised mechanism that would automatically bring the salary of an MP at par with that of government officials.
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Hockey player alleges sexual harassment
New Delhi, July 20 Following the complaint, Hockey India has set up a four-member committee to probe the allegation, Hockey India general secretary Narendra Batra said. The committe comprises Rajiv Mehta as its chairman and former players Zaffer Iqbal and Ajit Pal Singh and
Sudharsan Pathak. Batra said. “Today, a women team member has mailed me a complaint of sexual harassment, usage of vulgar language, and asking for sexual favours against a coaching staff,” Batra told PTI.
Batra said he had also received an anonymous mail last Friday, where allegations had been levelled against the videographer of the team for having being involved in a sexual orgy with prostitutes during the foreign tour. He said five photographs of the videographer with the prostitutes had also been mailed to him. Batra said the Sports Ministry had been apprised of the complaints. The Government had suggested a woman representative be appointed in the committee, and hence, Pathak was inducted. “The committee had its first meeting yesterday and decided that the videographer would not be accompanying the team on upcoming tours,” he said. Batra further said such complaints would be looked at seriously and assured that there would be no harassment or intimidation of those making the allegations. — PTI
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NHRC seeks report on infected blood to thalassaemic kids
Jaipur/Jodhpur, July 20 The NHRC observed that the contents of reports, if true, raise serious issues of violation of human rights of these children. Five children were found HIV positive and 29 with hepatitis C in Jodhpur on December 28, 2008. Then, three more were found HIV positive and 17 others with Hepatitis C on May 8. One thalassaemic girl even died this January. The state had formed a panel led by the State AIDS Control Society director, Purohit, who had stressed on the need of adopting advanced techniques of blood donation but to no avail. Vipin Gupta, secretary, Marwar Thalassaemia Society, with whom 130 children are registered, felt that the recent cases could have been avoided had the government taken the report seriously. Lately, the society has issued memos to principal of SN Medical College, Jodhpur, seeking facility of a nucleic acid test (NAT) technique at the blood bank of Umaid Hospital and an updated thalassaemia ward. However, college principal RK Aseri said the proposal to set up the technique had been sent to the state that was now looking into it. The college had also formed a three-member panel to investigate if there were any flaws in the blood bank testing methods. The society has sought a special consideration for BPL families besides adequate staff and resources at Umaid Hospital’s thalassaemia ward. Early this year, the state had sought a report on feasibility of testing through NAT machines, which brings down the window period for HIV test from 22 days to seven but the Health Department is still sitting over the reports sent by SMS Medical College, Jaipur, and SN Medical College, Jodhpur, on the issue of setting up NAT machines.
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Free-for-all in Bihar
House
Patna, July 20 The trouble started as soon as the House assembled for the day. The MLAs from the opposition camp - the RJD, the LJP and the Congress came to the well disrupting the proceedings. They were all shouting slogans demanding resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over the alleged irregularities in expenditure of more than Rs 11,000 crore of development and welfare funds for which the Patna High Court had ordered a CBI enquiry. Post-lunch
hours when the House re-assembled for the day’s proceedings, the
opposition members again stormed into the well shouting slogans. At this
point of time the ruling NDA members also went to the well demanding
resignation of the UPA government at the Centre for its failure to
contain price rise. The slogan shouting gradually turned into pushing
each other and finally the ruling party MLAs uprooted the reporter’s
table and flung it towards the opposition benches. It became a free for all with even women members taking an active part in it. The Speaker adjourned the House for the day with the remark that it was one of the blackest days in the history of parliamentary democracy. |
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'Saffron terror’ may split Oppn
Faraz Ahmad/TNS
New Delhi, July 20 The BJP seems mentally prepared and is not too hopeful of the same camaraderie as witnessed at the start of the Budget session of Parliament, when the entire Opposition, including the Left, Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav, stood alongside Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj to protest against price rise. The BJP is apprehensive of the Congress or its allies seeking a discussion in Parliament on the alleged involvement of RSS men in a series of terror blasts in Malegaon, Ajmer Dargah, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta Express. The Left and the entire gamut of “secular parties”, including some of the NDA allies like the JD-U may have no option but to attack the RSS, with Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Mayawati’s BSP even seeking a ban on the RSS. The JD-U already had a hard time today facing the issue. Its president Sharad Yadav said here today, “I feel terror has nothing to do with any religion and whoever is involved should be dealt with strictly in accordance with the relevant legal provisions.”
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DRS Chaudhary new MHA spokesman
New Delhi, July 20 In an official order, the Ministry asked all heads of different divisions of the ministry to inform Chaudhary whenever there was any need to share information with the media.
Chaudhary, a 1977 batch IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, is Additional Secretary
(Naxal management) and his appointment comes days after the Pakistan blamed Union Home Secretary G K Pillai for making a statement against the ISI just two days before the foreign minister-level talks between the two nations last week. Normally, an official from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is attached with the ministry to talk to the media. In an unrelated development, Shafi Eeshan
Rizvi, officer on Special duty (OSD) to the Home Minister, will be going back to his parent
organisation. He is a 1989 batch IPS officer of the Uttarakhand cadre. He has been promoted as IG and will return to his original posting with a central intelligence agency. The ministry has sought applications from IPS officers belonging to batches between 1993 and 1996 for the post of OSD to Home Minister.
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Lankan Tamil MPs meet Karuna
Chennai, July 20 AS Gnana Sambandan, who led the delegation, told the reporters that the Sri Lankan government was trying to convert Tamils as a minority in their traditional homeland, by expediting Sinhalese settlements. While thanking the Indian government for providing financial assistance for the rehabilitation of the Tamil people, the Tamil Nationalist Alliance MP said, “Even though, we are ready to negotiate with the government for a political solution, the island government is not showing interest in a political solution for the Tamil people.” Gnanasambandan said he had appealed to Karunanidhi to help the resettlement of the Tamil people in their native places. The CM assured that he would not let them down under any circumstances.
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Former AG Banerji dead
New Delhi, July 20 His last rites will be performed tomorrow evening at Lodhi Road electric crematorium here. He is survived by two sons who are also practising advocates. While his elder son Bebal Banerji is a senior advocate practising in Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court, the younger son Gourav Banerji is the Additional Solicitor General.
— PTI
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Patna, July 20
For us, it's been brought home most recently by what we learnt from Headley, which confirms many of the things that we knew before. And it’s really the links between the official establishment and with existing intelligence agencies, it’s that nexus, which makes it a much harder phenomenon for us to deal with.
— Shivshankar Menon