 |
|
|
Law on honour killings soon: PC
Security beefed up at nuke plant site
Derecognition Crisis |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Price Rise
Sharad Yadav’s chopper makes emergency landing
Released spy seeks relief
26/11 Probe
Soon, just one chance to crack IAF pilot test
Statehood Demand
|
|
Law on honour killings soon: PC
Though he refrained from naming ‘khap panchayats (kangaroo courts)’ he said, “Whoever is the cause of the crime, an individual or a collective, must be punished. My duty is to ensure that laws adopted by Parliament are obeyed and enforced. Once the law is made, it must be enforced. I am confident that the GoM will give its report shortly and my intention is to introduce the Bill in this session itself.” The proposed legislation while defining honour killing might also include in its purview public stripping of women and externment of young couples from villages and any “act which is humiliating will be punished with severity”, the Home Minister said, also hinting at putting the onus of proof on the accused in the proposed law. But it is still to be decided whether it will be a standalone law or incorporated as an amendment in the IPC or CrPC.Speaker Meira Kumar joined the House in expressing serious concern over the growing incidents of “honour killings” saying young people were being killed by those who are supposed to love them.Chidambram shifted the blame on the state governments saying, "If the state governments are tardy, lax or remiss, it should be held for not being accountable," and asserted that, “we must look ahead and build a society of secular values and enlightened views. We are living in the 21st century”.Earlier Gurudas Dasgupta, said honour killings showed “criminality at its worst where mother kills her own child, father colludes and brother becomes a wild conspirator”. Demanding strong measures to prevent “the emergence of social fascism”, the CPI leader wanted to know whether the Chief Minister of a neighbouring state was “lukewarm” to the strong action being proposed by the Home Minister because the khap panchayats control votes.BJP leader Gopinath Munde said it was a serious matter that the khap panchayats were “running parallel legal system, giving orders and also getting their orders implemented.
|
|
Security beefed up at nuke plant site
Mumbai, August 5 According to the authorities, NPCILteams that visited the villages to take soil samples were attacked and chased away by the villagers, who said they did not want to part with their land. Many villagers, including leaders of the Konkan Vinashkari Prakalpa Virodhi Samiti (KVPVS), which is behind the protests had been arrested, the police said. The NPCIL has called for huge police reinforcements so that the survey work can be carried out. According to the KCPVS, women were coming out in large numbers to take on police personnel. The district authorities were bringing in police women from other areas to arrest the protesters, the police said. The government has acquired 968 hectares of land in five villages and handed it over to the NPCIL. However, villagers have refused to accept the compensation cheques. The government has sought to appease the villagers by offering them market price for their land instead of the ready-reckoner prices usually paid in the case of land acquisition. Peasants and Workers Party leader Vaishali Patil, who is the convenor of the KVPVS, said the government's move to acquire the land fromvillagers was illegal as the Union Ministry for Environment had not given clearance for the project.Beginning with two 1,650-MW plants, the proposed nuclear park will see power output to go up to 10,000 MW in the next 20-25 years. The NPCIL has already signed a contract with France’s Areva for reactors, each costing approximately $5.2-7.8 billion. The Trouble
nThe Nuclear Power Corporation of India is constructing a cluster of nuclear power plants under the Indo-US nuclear agreement. The Ratnagiri plant is part of the project. nEarlier this week, NPCIL teams that visited the villages to take soil samples were attacked and chased away by the villagers, who said theydid not want to part with their land. nThe corporation has called for huge police reinforcements so that the survey work can be carried out.
|
|
Derecognition Crisis
New Delhi, August 5 A Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma made the remark after the deemed universities said the reports of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Tandon Committee appointed by the HRD Ministry on their functioning were “poles apart.” Senior counsel Fali S Nariman, appearing for some of the 44 affected institutions, said the conclusions of either the UGC or the committee were bound to be wrong as both could not be right. There was need for a fresh reassessment by an independent body, he contended. Nariman questioned the government’s assurance that it would protect the interests of about 2,00,000 students who would be affected in the event of derecognition. The government neither had the power to transfer students from one institution to another nor had so many vacant seats to accommodate all of them, mostly from medical and dental streams. Most of the deemed universities were faced with derecognition for making profit by overcharging the students, but these institutions were strictly following the apex court guidelines for deciding the fee structure. The fee committees were being headed by retired high court judges, he argued.
|
|
Price Rise
Debating on the issue in the Rajya Sabha this evening, Mukherjee said a composite approach was needed to deal with the issue and also blamed the situation on supplies. A dissatisfied Opposition leader, Arun Jaitley, however, said Mukherjee’s reply lacked any assurance for bringing down the prices. “The worries still remain. The scholarly speech has no clue or assurance on when the situation will be controlled,” Jaitley added. Like the Lok Sabha had done yesterday, the Rajya Sabha also adopted a resolution seeking the government’s action to reign in the spiralling prices. Mukherjee said he was not passing the buck to the states, but most areas like PDS and enforcing the Essential Commodities Act lay with them. Revamping the PDS was primarily a responsibility of states and has to be done by them, he added. The Centre cannot decide as to what stock of foodgrains has to be kept where, he said. “We could have provided the relief to those below poverty line (BPL) if our public distribution system was in place, but unfortunately it is not so one of the decisions taken in the meeting of the chief ministers was to revamp the PDS,” Mukherjee said.He suggested that the Central control on PDS was not possible. The states will have to decentralise it to the panchayat level. Elaborating on supplies, Mukherjee said the shortage of sugar, edible oil and pulses was one of the major hitches and he wanted a strengthened PDS to ensure the protection of those BPL. — PTI
|
|
|
Sharad Yadav’s chopper makes emergency landing
Patna, August 5 Two IAS officers working as secretary to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar were also on board.However, all of them along with the two pilots escaped unhurt. The chopper was carrying Yadav and others to Madhepura (Sharad Yadav’s Lok Sabha constituency) to attend the foundation-laying ceremony of a bridge on river Kosi. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was also supposed to board this chopper and accompany his party chief for the function but he decided to undertake a road journey and left a day earlier to attend some other programmes at Bhagalpur. After the chopper was grounded, Sharad Yadav and other passengers accompanying him were flown by the state government aircraft to Saharsa, adjacent to Madhepura for attending the function. Bihar’s Principal Secretary of Civil Aviation Afzal Amanullah told The Tribune that the aircraft had been hired by the government from a private aviation company for a month as its own chopper had been sent to Mumbai for repairs. As per the schedule, the chopper took off from Patna airport at 9.15 am. Barely three minutes after it was airborne, the pilot noticed some unusual vibration at the tail but a check of the system showed everything in order.
|
|
Released spy seeks relief
Rajkot, August 5 Buttesingh Dharamsingh alias Darshanlal, a native of Jammu, was arrested in Pakistan in March 1997 and awarded 25-year imprisonment on espionage charges. However, he was released on June 30 this year.Darshanlal, who was here to meet MK Paul, a human rights activist working for missing defence personnel, fishermen and spies languishing in Pakistan jails, claimed that he was sent to Pakistan by Indian intelligence agencies and visited the neighbouring country twice a month. The spy claims to have visited Pakistan nearly 14 times before being apprehended. Since his arrest Buttesingh's family was not given a single penny from the security agencies, he alleged. —PTI
|
|
26/11 Probe
New Delhi, August 5 Following international pressure, Pakistan had arrested a few persons who were part of the Mumbai attacks conspiracy. India believes that there is no question of allowing a magistrate to be cross-examined by Pakistani courts, even if the cases are similar in nature. At the best, the magistrate can depose that it was he who signed the order on Ajmal Kasab and that he had heard out the witnesses in detail under the Indian Penal Code and the relevant sections. Even for such a deposition by the magistrate, permission has to be sought from the Bombay High Court, under whose jurisdiction the Special Court was set up in the Arthur Road prison in Mumbai to try out Kasab, the lone survivor of the 10 militants who attacked Mumbai. Sources said video conferencing could be allowed for the IO but there could not be a definite time frame to it, as being quoted in a section of the media. In India, deposition via video conferencing is admissible, it remains to be seen what Pakistan laws are on the matter. In case the video conferencing option is not acceptable, then India can consider sending the IO.
|
|
Soon, just one chance to crack IAF pilot test
New Delhi, August 5 The new system, called Computerised Pilot Selection System (CPSS), developed by the DRDO will replace the existing Pilot Aptitude and Battery Test (PABT) that only considered the psycho-motor (synchronisation of mind and limbs) abilities of aspiring IAF pilots. The IAF and DRDO today signed an agreement that envisaged delivery of 80 such CPSS simulators along with 300 nodes for cognitive tests to the Staff Selection Boards (SSB) situated in Dehradun, Mysore and Allahabad at a cost of Rs 25 crore in three years’ time. "The CPSS is a unique, path-breaking system in the world and is the best of the best system for assessing the aptitude of candidates for selection into the IAF's fighter, transport and helicopter flying streams," DRDO Chief Controller (Life Sciences) W Selvamurthy said. Developed jointly by the Bangalore-based Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) and Delhi-based Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR), the project for designing the CPSS began in 1998 and has fructified after 12 years of research by the two laboratories to prepare a foolproof test. "The development has taken this much time because of the lengthy process involved in developing both the psycho-motor and cognitive tests. We want to be sure the test is foolproof so that once a candidate has gone through the CPSS and failed, he or she cannot crack it again," Selvamurthy explained. The system, he said, came about through a collaboration that the DRDO labs did with IAF over these 12 years right from the time the system was conceived. The DRDO teams also extensively studied 17 such systems in use in countries such as the US, UK, Germany, France, Israel, China and Canada to adopt the best practices from them and refined them to suit the Indian standards. IAF's Air Officer Personnel Air Marshal K J Mathews said the CPSS would provide the best pilots and the force might be able to reduce the number of accidents, which is of major concern to it. “People involved in warfare need to be the best. We will be delighted to have the CPSS within three years," he said. Mathews also noted that the three SSB centres that currently carry out pilot aptitude tests were working overtime due to the huge number of candidates appearing for those tests every year. — PTI
|
|
Young MPs appeal to Kashmiri youth
New Delhi, August 5 "History teaches us that any resolution can only be brought about through dialogue and not not through violence,” the MPs said in their "Statement for the Youth of Jammu and Kashmir". “What has happened in the recent past has been very unfortunate and we are deeply concerned.... We urge our young brothers and sisters in J and K to exercise restraint and have trust in the power of dialogue,” the statement said. Releasing the statement in the Parliament House complex, Congress MP Priya Dutt told reporters that the MPs were deeply concerned over the loss of lives in the valley. Her party colleague Deepender Hooda said 40 MPs, cutting across party lines, had signed the appeal. "In this century, when the whole world is looking towards India, and as we look to join the club of developed nations, we believe this dream can only be achieved if all of us are equal stakeholders in it. "Future belongs to our generation. We, the young parliamentarians, belonging to your generation, sincerely hope for a bright shared future for you and for all of us," the MPs said in the statement. Among the signatories to the statement were Priya Dutt, Deepender Hooda, Milind Deora and Jyoti Mirdha (Congress), Anurag Thakur (BJP), Akhilesh Yadav (SP), Shatabdi Roy (Trinamool Congress), Supriya Sule (NCP) and Bhavna Gavli (Shiv Sena). — PTI
|
|
Statehood Demand Guwahati, August 5 “We have adopted this unique way to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to the statehood demand of Bodo tribe in Assam by dispatching over two lakh postcards to press for our demand,” ABSU president Promode Bodo told The Tribune today. The Central government’s recent decision taken in principle to create a separate Telangana state out of the present Andhra Pradesh has rekindled Bodo tribe’s hope for a separate homeland to be carved out of Assam even though the tribe has been granted a separate autonomous council under the amended Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. “The reorganisation of Indian states into smaller units will be for the benefit of the country because it will narrow down the regional imbalance and disparity in economic growth and social development. The sense of alienation among the various ethnic and linguistic groups will be removed only when the larger states are bifurcated and the administrative set-up becomes easily manageable,” the ABSU leader said.Not only the ABSU, the Bodo People’s Front (BPF) -- which is ruling the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council -- has also raised the demand for a separate Bodoland state even though its leaders were signatories to the BTC Accord of 1993 that provided autonomy to thetribe under the amended Sixth Schedule.
|
||||||
Solution to BlackBerry issue soon: Raja
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
A chartered chopper carrying NDA convenor Sharad Yadav and Bihar minister for Road Construction Prem Kumar had to make an emergency landing in the rice fields on the outskirts of the state capital following a technical snag minutes after it had taken off from the state hanger at Patna airport today.
New Delhi, August 5
New Delhi, August 5
