L A T E S T      N E W S

SC questions Centre's power to allocate coal blocks

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Centre's power to allocate coal blocks to companies, saying it has a lot of "legal explanation" to do as the statutory Act empowers only the states to undertake this task.

The apex court said that the Centre cannot undermine the Mines and Minerals Act which has given no power to it to allocate coal block to companies.

A bench of justices RM Lodha and J Chelameswar asked the government to go through other legislations particularly the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, to find out whether it is empowered to allocate the resources.

"There is absolutely no power given to the Centre under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957. There is no provision overriding the Act. You require to give a lot of legal explanation," the bench said.

"The question is does the Centre have power under the Act and does it have the power to undermine the entire statutory mechanism. Can you override the statutory provision of the Act... It is very doubtful, legally perhaps," it said.

Attorney general GE Vahanvati said he does not want to give 'off the cuff' answers to these questions and sought time to go into these issues.

The bench granted six weeks time to the Centre to respond to the issue.

"From your affidavit itself it appears that minerals-and-mining lease has to be executed by the state and not by the Centre. It strikes at the root of all allocations," the bench said.

The bench was hearing a PIL filed by advocate ML Sharma and various members of civil society including former CEC N Gopalaswami, ex-Navy chief L Ramdas and former Cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, seeking a SIT probe into the coal block allocation scam. — PTI

Hyderabad MP Owaisi gets bail

SANGAREDDY(AP): A local court granted bail to MIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi in connection with a 2005 case against him for allegedly obstructing the then Medak district collector and other officials from discharging their duties.

Asaduddin was earlier sent to judicial remand till February 2 and lodged in the Medak district jail at Kandi, 6 km from Sangareddy.

He is likely to be released on Thursday itself after production of bail orders before the jail authorities, sources said.

The 5th additional district judge (ADJ) court in Sangareddy town of Medak district allowed Asaduddin's bail plea and directed him to furnish a personal bond for Rs 10,000 and 2 sureties of like amount.

The defence had submitted that Asaduddin had to attend a conference in Hyderabad on January 25.

The judicial first class magistrate and prohibition and excise court had earlier dismissed Asaduddin's two bail petitions.

The case was registered on a complaint by a revenue official, that Asaduddin, his younger brother and party MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi (presently in jail at Adilabad district in a hate speech case) and others who protested demolition of a place of worship at Muttangi village near Patancheru during the widening of the Mumbai National Highway.

They had allegedly engaged in heated arguments with the then Medak district collector A K Singhal and other officers during the protest and Owaisi brothers had allegedly pushed the collector. — PTI

Gadkari threatens I-T officials

NAGPUR : A day after becoming a "free man", Nitin Gadkari today held out a threat to I-T authorities, probing dubious fundings in the Purti group with which he was associated, saying nobody would save them when BJP came to power at the Centre.

"As BJP president I had to maintain dignity and work within boundaries....Now I am a free man. Congress' boat is about to sink and when our party comes to power, there would be no Chidambaram or Sonia to save them (IT officials)," Gadkari said addressing party workers, a day after demitting office.

On home turf for the first time since the on-field inquiries by taxmen on Tuesday put paid to his hope of getting a second straight term as BJP chief, Gadkari said,"Earlier CBI was doing Congress's bidding and now the I-T people are following suit.

"I know how they are hatching conspiracies against me sitting in Delhi, Nagpur and Pune....I also know their names. Some people in the organisation sympathetic to me and BJP have told me about this," he said.

IT's on-field inquiries at 11 premises in Mumbai belonging to alleged shell companies related to the Purti Group on January 22, a day ahead of the election for the post of BJP president, which Gadkari looked all set to win with RSS backing, had forced a rethink and he was finally elbowed out of the contest. — PTI

Andhra HC dismisses Jagan's bail plea

HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday dismissed the regular bail petition of YSR Congress chief Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy in connection with an alleged disproportionate assets case involving him.

The AP High Court had on December 24 dismissed the statutory bail plea of Jagan.

The CBI had on January 22 alleged before the Andhra Pradesh High Court that it was unable to speed up the investigation into Jaganmohan Reddy’s case owing to the non-cooperation of the state government.

Mr. Jagan’s counsel S. Niranjan Reddy arguing for the bail had earlier complained that the investigation seemed to be never-ending and in the name of incomplete investigation the bail cannot be denied.

The CBI, however, contended that the bail petition was not maintainable in accordance with the apex court order, which had said that Mr. Jagan had the liberty to approach the trial court for bail after the filing of the final charge sheet.

On November 28, a special CBI court had dismissed his statutory bail petition observing that “granting bail at this stage of pending investigation will not only impede the investigation, but also infringe the avowed purpose set out by the Supreme Court in its order.”

His second bail plea was also dismissed subsequently on December 4 after which Mr. Jagan moved the High Court and filed two bail petitions.

VANPIC project’s promoter (industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad) allegedly invested Rs 854 crore in the companies belonging to Mr. Jagan towards a largesse for which the then AP government, led by late YS Rajasekhara Reddy, doled out many favours in the form of awarding the project.

Mr. Jagan, who was arrested on May 27 this year by CBI on corruption charges, is presently under judicial remand and lodged at the Chanchalguda Central Prison here.

The central agency had submitted a progress report on the ongoing investigation into the alleged illegal assets of Kadapa MP to the Andhra Pradesh High Court on January 4. — PTI

5-day Jaipur Literature Festival begins

JAIPUR: The DSC Jaipur Literature Festival 2013, possibly the most high profile gathering of litterateurs in Asia, kicked off Thursday with rights campaigner and Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi saying that "the right to dream should be made a fundamental right".

Stressing on "humanness" to accept "each others rights to live with dignity", Mahasweta Devi said: "There has been a jailbreak of dreams in the country."

Addressing a gathering at the sun dappled lawns of the Diggi Palace that has been hosting the festival since 2005, she said: "People have been evicted from forests... Where will they go? There are Naxalites whose crime is they dare to dream. Why should they not be allowed to dream? The right to dream should be made the fundamental right."

Rajasthan Governor Margaret Alva and chief minister Ashok Gehlot were amongst those present. The inaugural session "O To Live Again", played to an overflowing house on the front lawns of the heritage resort.

The space sponsored by Tata Steel is a manicured green lung that will serve as the main venue of the five-day festival.

The venues have been sponsored by corporate entities like the Tata Steel, Google, Counselage as well as the forums many of which have found presenters from organisations like the British Council, Edinburgh's World Writers' Conference, Hindustan Times, DNA, Rajasthan Patrika, Vodafone and banks.

The keynote address gave away to a slew of literary discussions featuring the likes of Dalai Lama, noted writer Zoe Heller, emerging Pakistani novelist Jamil Ahmad, Neelesh Mishra, Pico Iyer, Shashi Tharoor, Binayak Sen, Javed Akhtar and Nadeem Aslam on day one.

On Thursday morning, the resort wore a festive look. Around 9.30 am, a group of Drepung Loseling Buddhist monks broke into sonorous chants imbuing the venue with a spiritual fervour.

The culture and music stage has been shifted to a hotel this year to make room for more literary events and people.

"We can accommodate another 5,000 more people this year," a senior functionary of the festival told IANS. The organisers said they were expecting more than 200,000 visitors over five days this year - up from 120,000 last year.

A row over RSS demanding a ban on the posse from Pakistan and hardline Muslims groups rallying for the ban of four writers who had read out from Salman Rushdie's controversial "Satanic Verses" last year failed to make an impact.

There are 283 authors participating in the Jaipur literature festival amid heavy police presence following threats from extremist groups.

"We are not here to be bullied," said event producer Sanjoy Roy.

Co-director of the festival William Dalrymple said the festival had grown enormously in strength since 2005 when barely 14 people turned up, some of them inadvertently for want of anything to do better.

The coming five days will see literary sessions addressing subjects as diverse as cinema, sensuality, Buddhism in literature, Afghanistan, extremism, art, yoga, poetry, Shakespeare, philosophy, James Bond, women's issues, politics and the Arab world.

At least 40 women writers from all over the world will discuss aspects gender justice and empowerment.

The flavour of India will dominate the festival with an extravagant spread of vernacular literature in 17 languages, including Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Magadhi, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Santhali and Urdu.

The hype around literature and the presence big names in writing generate brisk business in sale of books every year. A book stall set up by Full Circle drew dozens of first-time buyers Thursday who went on virtual shopping spree to get books autographed by their authors.

Food and 'masala chai' flowed plenty for writers and delegates since early morning with the ladies of Diggi household supervising over the meals and snacks to lay out a traditional table.

"The spirit of Jaipur has changed from the royal pink city of the Rajputs and the Mughals to a democratic literary destination," said a visitor of Indian origin reconnecting to Jaipur after 10 years in UK. — IANS

Shinde remarks: BJP begins protests

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will hold countrywide protests from Thursday against Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's "Hindu terror" remarks.

The announcement to hold protests was declared by Rajnath Singh after being elected as the party president on Wednesday.

"The recent statement of Shinde shows the government is not serious on its fight against terrorism," Rajnath Singh said, addressing party workers here.

"Just for vote bank politics, they are poisoning the atmosphere of the nation with communalism. We condemn the statement," he said.

He said the BJP would hold countrywide protests against Shinde's comments.

Kamal Haasan's film faces ban

Chennai: With Muslim organisations objecting to actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan`s movie ‘Vishwaroopam’ on the ground that it portrays the community in bad light, the Tamil Nadu government Wednesday banned it for 15 days.

The movie was slated for release Friday and the government order was issued late Wednesday after the representatives of some Muslim organisations met the state home secretary and submitted a memorandum.

When Muslim organisations had objected to the movie, Kamal Haasan organised a special show for them to allay their fears.

However, the organisations hardened their stance after watching the movie, alleging that the community was shown in bad light.

According to H.M. Jawahirullah, a member of Tamil Nadu assembly and president of Muslim Munetra Kazhagam, the movie painted all Muslims as terrorists.