New Delhi, March 23
It was battle of two eminent lawyers in the Rajya Sabha as the main opposition party in the House, the BJP, with an apparent eye on the approaching assembly polls in a number of states targeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his contention that the 2009 poll victory prove nothing wrong had happened during the 2008 trust vote.

While the BJP, led by Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley, who is a lawyer by profession, tore into the Prime Minister’s statement, alleging that UPA-I had survived because of "retail purchase of parliamentarians", it was the turn of another lawyer, Home Minister P. Chidambaram to come to the aid of his party and its leaders. The frequent face-off between the two lawyers turned out to be the highpoint of the discussion in the House on the Prime Minister's statement. Initiating a short-duration discussion in the House on the Prime Minister's statement on cash-for-votes, Jaitley alleged that UPA government in its first tenure had fallen short of majority in 2008 following the withdrawal of support by the Left parties. This was made up by "procurement" of MPs.

While pointing out that bribes and inducements were offered to cross- vote, he said that bribes paid to MPs were video-recorded. This shortage in majority was made up by "retail purchase of parliamentarians," Jaitley said while adding that the leaked cables sent by the US Embassy in India to Washington, first accessed by 'The Hindu' daily, were corroborative evidence which can be verified as the two countries have agreements to cooperate in criminal investigations. Jaitley was particularly harsh on the Prime Minister for his statement that the Parliamentary Committee which went into the cash-for-votes case found insufficient evidence of bribery, saying “criminality is determined by investigating agency and courts and not by parliamentary committees.”

Quoting from parts of the report, Jaitely said the panel had not recommended closure of the case for want of sufficient evidence. The committee, he said, wanted the bribery should be probed by an investigating agency. "What happened in 2008 was a fraud on Indian democracy," he said. Without naming Samajwadi Party or its leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, Jaitley said a leading political party changed its stand and supported the UPA after CBI soft-pedalled cases against its top leader. The BJP leader said MPs had complained that they were being "approached" and three of them "decided to act, at great personal risk, as whistle-blowers" and helped to investigative journalists tape money-givers on camera.

Home Minister Chidambaram participating in the discussion said, “Investigation is in progress and will be completed shortly.” He said while the police was investigating evidence, including forensic reports, Delhi Police had taken up the investigations soon after it emerged that some MPs had been offered money. Allegations that a political party "engineered and manufactured" the sting operation would also be probed, he said. Asserting that the probe would be thorough and taken to its logical conclusion, Chidambaram said that revelations have come that the sting operation by a television channel was not an independent journalistic exercise but a "deliberate attempt in collaboration with a political party”.

Without naming the BJP, Chidambaram said that according to allegations another political party was looking for buyers for their MPs for the so-called sting operation. Pointing out a conflicting role of the Home Minister, who is also has the charge of Delhi Police investigating into the case, Jaitley said, "You are demolishing investigation of your own colleagues... You have created a cover-up".

New Delhi, March 23
If politics was the first high point of the Opposition-UPA face-off in the Parliament today, poetry was the second. It was in fact surprising to see Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - the man under attack himself - come out wittingly in the Lok Sabha to show how poetry could be used as much to unite people as it could to divide them.

So when he rose to take on a ballistic Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj who had scathingly attacked his personal authority to stay in the chair this morning, the last thing anyone had expected was an Urdu couplet as the first line of defence.

But an incredibly relaxed PM dropped all his trademark inhibitions and answered Sushma in her own style. Needless to say, she was left smiling in his face. “Maana ki teri deed ke qabil nahi hoon main…Tu mera shauq to dekh, mera intezaar to kar….,” the PM said after admitting that he was no match to Sushma’s oratorical skills.

The BJP leader had earlier wound up her attack on the PM, firing a couplet as the last salvo. “Tu idhar udhar ki na baat kar, Yeh bata ki kafila kyun luta…Hame rehzano se gila nahi, Teri rehbari ka sawaal hai,” she said, hitting the PM where it hurt the most.

She was referring to his habit of passing the buck whenever in trouble. “If inflation is a concern, Sharad Pawar is responsible; for 2G, A Raja is responsible; for CWG, Kalmadi is responsible. You know nothing. If you don’t know anything, why are you the PM?” she asked during the debate on WikiLeaks expose regarding the UPA paying cash to MPs to win the July 22, 2008 trust vote in the Lok Sabha.

Meanwhile, the frenzied debate on Wikileaks today got UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to make her first utterances in the 15th Lok Sabha which has been in place since May 2009. The rare occasion was seized by the Opposition benches which went into a frenetic clamour when Sonia retorted to BJP leader Yashwant Sinha’s remarks that the UPA and the PM were shielding criminality. “Your Government was accused of doing the same thing,” a provoked Sonia Gandhi shouted from her chair. The BJP benches went hysterical with counter shouts of “Madam boli”. Eventually, Yashwant was the happiest of the lot. “I have managed to get Sonia Gandhi to speak, seems my point has been driven home.”

Mumbai, March 23
Officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today raided the Pune residence of Sunil Shinde, the chartered accountant of alleged hawala operator and stud farm owner Hasan Ali Khan.

Sources in Pune said the search and seizure operations began at Shinde’s residence this morning and was still continuing late into the afternoon. Shinde is said to have been Ali's accountant ever since the latter shifted base to Pune from Hyderabad, said sources.

There were reports of ED sleuths conducting searches at various places in Delhi in connection with the probe against Hasan Ali Khan, who is facing money laundering charges.

Meanwhile, the suspended senior IPS officer, accused of secretly filming the interrogation of Hasan and leaking its doctored CD, has said that he was made a “scapegoat” and the action being initiated against him may be to “hush up” the entire case.

“Days after I expressed my willingness to help the Enforcement Directorate in Hasan Ali Khan case, I was suspended. Moreover, I was also due for promotion. I sense that this was done to me so as to hush up Hasan Ali's case. I also believe there are some other reasons as well for my suspension,” Ashok Deshbhratar, the suspended DCP, said.

Deshbhratar was accused of conducting a sting operation and making a CD of the interrogation of Hasan Ali in a fake passport case when he was arrested in Mumbai in 2008.

In the CD, Hasan was shown boasting of his 'links' with top leaders of the Congress and the NCP and how the decision to appoint Hassan Gafoor as Mumbai’s Police Commissioner was taken at a meeting in a suburban five-star hotel, police said.

After Deshbhratar's suspension, Home Minister RR Patil had said, "It has been proved in the (CID) investigation that the police officer had doctored the CD with an intention to malign the government. He did not pass on the information about his secret interrogation to his superiors and it proves his ulterior motive.” — PTI

New Delhi, March 23
Leaders of the protesting Jat community have demanded that the Central government should fix a time frame to deal with their demand of including the community in the list of OBC quota in central government jobs.

Last night the expected meeting of the Jat leaders with the Home Minister did not materialise. Sources said the Centre has now asked Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to intervene and talk to the protesting Jats.

Confirming that a delegation was to meet Hooda, Hawa Singh Sangwan, Haryana state president of the All-India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, told the Tribune over phone: “We have been invited for talks with the Chief Minister and we will be meeting him”.

Last night the Jats conveyed to the Home Ministry officials here that “a time frame should be fixed to assess the demand”.

Today, Home Minister P Chidambaram met Hooda and also Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. The latter expressed fears that the planned protest of the Jats to stop supply of milk and vegetables to the Capital could spell trouble. The Centre was keen that Hooda — himself a Jat — should get involved and sort out the issue using his clout in the community, sources said. A few days ago, Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda had met the Home Minister.

The Jats in western Uttar Pradesh have cleared the rail track following a court order. However, threats by the community in Haryana loom large.

The Jats have set two deadlines — one of March 25 and another one for March 28 —by when they threaten to block all the highways and rail tracks in the state. The Centre had earlier held a round of talks with the Jats in a bid to put an end to the agitation that has entered its third week affecting normal life at many places.

Crucially, the government has offered change in rules to allow the National Commission for Backward Castes (NCBCs) to receive representations of the Jats to consider the community's pleas for inclusion in the Central government list of Backward Castes.

The existing rules do not allow the NCBC to take the petitions of the Jats as it had rejected their plea for inclusion in the quota list in 1998.

“The change of this particular rule does not need any Parliamentary approval. So, the Ministry of Social justice and Empowerment is likely to issue an official notification in this effect soon so that the NCBC can consider their pleas again,” officials said.

New Delhi, March 23
The expose in the Tehelka magazine about the BJP organising the cash-for-votes sting operation in the midst of the UPA government seeking a vote of confidence in July 2008, came in as a handy stick for the government to beat the main Opposition with, leaving the BJP virtually without a leg to stand upon.

Leading the attack during the discussion in the Lok Sabha today on the WikiLeaks allegation that MPs were bought for the 2008 confidence vote, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal charged the BJP with contacting a TV channel and setting up the sting.

Bansal said, "The BJP stage-managed this tamasha...it's the BJP's habit to twist and turn the statements in the way they like," blaming the main Opposition further of using "Tactics of maligning the PM."

But it was left to Kapil Sibal in the Lok Sabha and Chidambram to stun the BJP into silence with Chidambram even hinting at following it up with formal legal action.

Reading out from the Tehelka magazine, Sibal said "This is the story that stands to turn contemporary discourse on its head. It is a story how three main political parties and sections of media have fooled the nation. It is the story of how the BJP had willfully set out to entrap its opponents in cash-for-votes scandal; the story of how the SP fell into the trap."

In the Rajya Sabha, Home Minister P Chidambaram while avoiding naming Tehelka said: "The allegations are in the public domain that the sting operation was not independent exercise but done with the help of another political party. There are allegations that when the first sting operation failed, there was a desperate attempt by a party to find buyers for its MPs."

The cash-for-votes scam erupted hours before the vote of confidence took place when three BJP MPs walked into the Lok Sabha with cash that they said added up to Rs 3 crore.

New Delhi, March 23
A government study says that 53 per cent of children below 18 years of age have undergone some or the other form of sexual victimisation. What is even more worrisome is that more than half the abusers are known to the children.

The gravity of the situation today set the wheels rolling for a crucial Bill that will give the country, for the first time, a comprehensive law to deal with sexual offences against children by providing for stringent punishment of up to 10 years in jail, which may even extend to life imprisonment.

Tabled in the Rajya Sabha by Women and Child Krishna Tirath, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011, will deal exclusively with sexual offences against children. It will protect children from sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography and provide for establishment of special courts for trial of such offences and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

“Sexual offences against children are not adequately addressed by extant laws. A large number of such offences are neither specifically provided for nor are they adequately penalised,” the statement of objects of the Bill said.

The Bill will now be sent to the Standing Committee. The legal tool also provides for treating sexual assault as “aggravated offence” where it is committed by a person in position of trust or authority over a child, including a member of the security forces, police officer, public servant, management or staff of a children’s home, hospital or educational institution.

It will be treated as an aggravated offence where the child victim is below the age of 12 or suffers from a mental or physical disability or the sexual offence causes grievous hurt or injury to the child with a long-term adverse effect on the child’s mind and body. The punishment for such an offence would be imprisonment of up to seven years with fine. The punishment for penetrative sexual assault has been proposed to be at least five years in jail and a minimum fine of Rs 50,000. Sexual assault also includes fondling the child in an inappropriate way, which will invite a penalty of minimum three years in jail.

Section 7 of the Bill provides for “no punishment” if the consent for sexual act has been obtained with a person aged between 16 and 18 years.

New Delhi, March 23
Data collected by the NCRB suggests significant increase in cases of sexual offences against children from 2,265 in 2001 to 5,749 in 2008. Nineteen per cent of the world's children live in India and constitute 42 per cent of the total population.

New Delhi, March 23
The home secretaries of India and Pakistan are set to resume talks, the first between the two since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. India is ready with the list of known terrorists who are hiding in Pakistan. The list includes underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and the Bhatkal brothers, Riyaz and Iqbal, the founders of the terror group the Indian Mujahideen and more than 90 others. Sources said various security agencies have framed a list of wanted persons. The list and other points of discussion during the two-day talks will be cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security that is slated to meet later this week.

Officials confirmed that the Intelligence Bureau, the National Investigation Agency, the BSF and the CBI had been asked to provide inputs. The Indian Army has provided its own data of cross-border infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir. Home Secretary, GK Pillai is to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Chaudhry Qamar Zaman which is crucial. The composite dialogue process, covering the entire range of outstanding issues, has been stalled since the Mumbai terror strikes in November 2008. The two meet on the sidelines of the SAARC home ministers conference in Islamabad in June last year.

In Thimphu last year it was decided to resume the composite dialogue and the forthcoming two-day meeting is the first step in that direction. India will be ready with locations of existing terror training camps across the border in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The Home Ministry will also seek voice samples of Mumbai terror attack masterminds whose voices had been taped when calls to the terrorists were intercepted. Voice samples of masterminds of that attack, including LeT operative Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi are needed. New Delhi is livid at the free run LeT founder, Hafiz Saeed, has in spreading anti-India sentiments.

Hyderabad, March 23
The Andhra Pradesh High Court today asked the Central government to make the entire report of the Justice BN Srikrishna Committee public, which went into the contentious Telangana statehood issue. The contents of Chapter VIII, deals with law and order and internal security issues, of the 500-page report have not been disclosed so far.

Admitting a petition from a local advocate seeking a direction to the government in this regard, Justice L Narasimha Reddy ruled that the report be made public in its entirety. The judge also wanted copies of the undisclosed chapter be circulated among the political parties for discussion. Barring Chapter VIII, the contents of the Srikrishna report were made public on January 6. A note on the assessment of law and order situation and the impact of the statehood movement on internal security was submitted by the five-member panel in a sealed cover.

After a 10-month long exercise, the committee had recommended maintaining united Andhra Pradesh along with creation of a statutory Telangana Regional Council to address the core socio-economic concerns of the backward region. The chapter pertaining to law and order situation has not been kept in the public domain. Hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by former MP M Narayana Reddy, the HC had, in February, asked the Attorney General of India GE Vahanvati whether the Centre would ever disclose the full contents of the report.

Arguing on behalf of the Union Home Ministry, the Attorney General told the court that the Srikrishna Committee report was part of a political process initiated by the Centre to decide on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.

Contending that the report would not come under the purview of judicial scrutiny, Vahanvati said, “The bifurcation is an issue being dealt by the Centre and it has nothing to do with the state. The Srikrishna Committee has only made certain recommendations which are not binding on the government. The Centre will take a final decision on the matter. The court cannot interfere in the political decisions of the Centre.” The petitioner raised objections over the panel submitting a key portion of its report to Home Minister P Chidambaram in a sealed cover, instead of putting it in public domain. He argued that the committee, in its Chapter VIII of the report, had apparently advised the Centre not to grant statehood to Telangana region on the grounds of law and order problems.

Guwahati, March 23
The BJP national president Nitin Gadkari today hit the campaign trail in Assam calling upon the people to vote for the lotus to vote out the ‘corrupt’ Congress. Gadkari and actor-politician Hema Malini today made a whirlwind tour of several constituencies in Assam separately to woo voters for the saffron party. While Gadkari toured the religious and linguistic minority-dominated constituencies in Barak Valley in south Assam, Hema Malini toured the tea tribes-dominated constituencies in eastern Assam during the day.

Addressing three election rallies at Kalain (Katigora LAC), Dargarbond (Ratabari LAC) and Patharkandi town (Patharkandi LAC), Gadkari stated that the Congress during its 10-year-long rule failed to improve living standard and infrastructure in underdeveloped Barak valley districts where people are reeling under spiraling prices, lack of adequate roads and other surface communication means. He alleged that corruption had become order of the day during the Congress regime and people of Assam were now looking for a change in power.

New Delhi, March 23
After probing the role of its officials, including a serving Major General, in the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam in Mumbai, the Army has submitted its Court of Inquiry report in the case to the Defence Ministry. The CoI was ordered by Army's Pune-based Southern Command to investigate the role of Maj Gen Ram Kumar Hooda and various other officers for issuing No-Objection Certificate (NOC) to the private housing society to construct a 31-storeyed complex on a plot in Kolaba. Hooda was the Mumbai-based area commander for Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa.

“The CoI was completed and submitted with the Defence Ministry last week," according to Defence Ministry sources. In the report, the Army has stated that the land on which the controversial building was constructed belonged to it and the NOC was issued to private builders in violation of rules, they said. The 104-apartment society got embroiled in a controversy after the Navy had raised concerns over security as the building overlooked important military installations.

On December 9 last year, Defence Minister AK Antony had ordered a CBI probe to fix responsibility of the armed forces and defence estates officers in the housing scam.He had asked the CBI to look into the circumstances under which a ‘No-Objection Certificate’ was issued to the housing society to construct the 31-storey building on a piece of land, which was in the "de facto" possession of the Army.

The probe agency was also asked to investigate into the commitments made for allotment of flats in the society for Kargil widows and martyrs' families. Former army chiefs Gen Deepak Kapoor and N C Vij, apart from former Navy chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh, had flats allotted in their names in the housing society. Soon after the scam came to light, the Defence Ministry had asked the Army, Navy and the defence estates to submit a report on the issue.

The preliminary findings of the ministry's probe brought out "criminal conspiracy" at the local level in army and defence estates to give up the land, which was in the Army's possession till 1999-2000, in favour of the housing society. — PTI

Patna, March 23
Software billionaire Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, who co-chair the philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, arrived here on a day-long visit today to meet Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, policy makers, NGOs and community leaders and interacted with villagers.

Soon after their arrival, Bill and Melinda visited Jamsaut and Sabjpura villages in the Danapur subdivision near Patna.

Talking to mediapersons after meeting the villagers, Bill Gates said he was there to know how the health projects funded by his foundation were working for people.

“I am here to know about how far health projects funded by the foundation in partnership with the Bihar government are working to reduce infant and maternal mortality. Besides, (the progress in) institutional delivery and immunisation,” Gates said.

“Along with their delegation, they met the villagers and interacted with them to understand their problems,” a district official who accompanied them said.

Bill Gates also visited Sabjpura-based Cereal Systems Initiatives for South Asia, which aims to help millions of farmers substantially boost crop yield and their income within 10 years. The Gates also met community health workers and state officials to see first-hand the launch of a five-year, $80-million grant made in partnership with the state government. — IANS