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PM honours kin of Kedarnath crash bravehearts
Ordinance withdrawal
To fight BJP, stay united: Rahul to Gujarat cadres
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Monsoon to withdraw from NW by Oct 15: IMD
1984 Sikh troops’ revolt stray case, Centre tells SC
Copter deal: Ex-Deputy Air Chief quizzed
Vacate house by Oct 10, SC tells Justice Dewan’s son
SC ordinance: K’taka ‘Lalus’ await verdict
Maharashtra unveils senior citizens’ policy
Centre rolls out Rs 99,000-cr scheme for state varsities Jiah Khan’s mother moves high court, wants CBI probe
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PM honours kin of Kedarnath crash bravehearts
New Delhi, October 4 At a special function organised on the occasion of the 9th foundation day of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the PM felicitated family members of the 20 bravehearts belonging to the Indian Air Force (IAF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), who died in a helicopter crash during rescue operations on June 25. A sum of Rs 2 lakh has been given to family members of each of the victim. A Mi-17 V5 helicopter of the Indian Air Force crashed on June 25 at Gaurikund, near the Kedarnath temple, killing all twenty, including five IAF personnel and pilots. The helicopter was tasked with dropping firewood for mass cremations of victims who had died in floods. The ITBP lost six men in the crash while the NDRF lost nine.
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Pranab, not Rahul, saved face: Advani
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 4 BJP veteran LK Advani said Rahul’s objective would have been fully served had he simply said that the “decision taken by the government needs to be reviewed”. He also hinted in his blog that behind Rahul’s public denouncement of the ordinance was his mother Sonia Gandh’s attempt at damage control as the President would have returned it. “It’s Pranabda, not Rahul, who saved the situation,” says the title of Advani’s blog in which he praised the President for not being a “rubber stamp like other Congressmen who had earlier occupied the high office” while reminding Sonia that the “nonsense slur” hurled by her son was not just for the PM but the entire UPA for which the Congress president, too, should share the responsibility. “The victory that has come to the country by withdrawal of this illegal and immoral ordinance has, thus, been thanks only to the Rashtrapati, who has proved that the UPA would err seriously if it assumed that like most other Congressmen who had earlier occupied the high office of President, he too would remain a rubber stamp President,” Advani said in the blog. Advani felt Rahul’s victory was really confined to rubbing off UPA's authority, and not merely the Prime Minister’s. “So, the nonsense slur hurled at the Cabinet approved ordinance cannot apply only to the PM and his Ministers. Soniaji must also share responsibility”.
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To fight BJP, stay united: Rahul to Gujarat cadres
Ahmedabad, October 4 Rahul’s itinerary didn’t include any public meeting or programme to contact voters. Senior leaders of the party were kept out of the meeting venues when he met office-bearers of district units and other lower-rung leaders. The Congress vice-president wanted to ascertain the reason for party’s repeated drubbing in Assembly elections.
Rahul also attempted to dispel the apprehension among the party workers about the popularity of the BJP and charisma of Chief Minister Narendra Modi that they believed was causing the downfall of the Congress in Gujarat. Rahul lambasted his party men to send across the message that the Congress was a victim of factional politics and group rivalry and no credit must be given to the BJP or Modi for party’s electoral debacles.
Rahul pointed out that the Congress was losing elections in Gujarat even before Modi’s advent on the electoral arena and even before the BJP established itself as a strong alternative to the Congress in the state. A united effort by the party minus factionalism could force Modi and the BJP to bite the dust in the General Election. After meeting the office-bearers and party workers of 17 Congress district units in south and central Gujarat in Ahmedabad yesterday, Rahul held a similar meeting of the 13 party district units in north Gujarat and the Kutch-Saurashtra regions in Rajkot today. At both places, he also held meetings with the party’s elected leaders in the municipal corporations and
panchayats. His visit, the first after taking over as the vice- president, helped to rejuvenate the demoralised Congress workers who had lost heart after successive defeats of the party almost at all levels of election and continued neglect by the state party leadership. The vacuum at the top reflected from the party’s compulsion to continue with Arjun Modhvadia as the state Congress chief despite his resignation after the party’s defeat in the Assembly polls in December 2012. Most senior Congress leaders have failed to stop the Modi juggernaut in the past and the Central leadership is looking for someone who would be able to lead the party in the coming Lok
Sabha. Lambasted by Rahul, Modhvadia, however, tried to minimise the damage claiming that the “factionalism” was no longer a major issue and the entire party was strongly united behind him. The meetings of party’s office-bearers with
Rahul, however, betrayed Modhvadia’s claim when worker after worker poured their heart out against the state leadership, their style of functioning and failure to reach to the women and young voters.
Anger among workers
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Monsoon to withdraw from NW by Oct 15: IMD New Delhi, October 4 The IMD expects a complete withdrawal of the southwest monsoon around October-end by when its north-east arm will take over the southern Peninsula. At present, the withdrawal line of monsoon is passing through Kalpa, Hissar, Jodhpur and Nalia, says the IMD while pegging the cumulative rainfall six per cent above normal till date. The UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its recent report, predicted that North India was likely to heat up more than the southern parts of India while the subcontinent may see longer rainy seasons in the second half of the century. Pai said the overstay of monsoon is not because of climate change and temperature variation but because of several reasons, including oceanic currents related factors. A series of low pressure areas in the Bay of Bengal also supplemented to the monsoon current this year. “Monsoon’s longer stay this year is an anomaly but not an abnormality,” says Pai. The SW monsoon generally starts withdrawing from the northern regions in the first half of September and the retrieval is complete by around September-end.
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1984 Sikh troops’ revolt stray case, Centre tells SC
New Delhi, October 4 In a 114-page joint affidavit in response to the SC notice on a PIL filed by IS
Yadav, a medical doctor from Rewari, the government and the Army said “the big revolt by Sikh troops” in 1984 as claimed in the petition “was actually confined to small sections and attributable to peculiar circumstances prevailing then”. “Such an incident is a stray case as the nation moves ahead. Numerous such minor incidents keep taking place across various types of
organisations. These are dealt with according to rules and law on the subject and cannot be attributed to any class-based structure.” The regimentation system for “war fighting is derived from experiences gained in war over the ages. This system has been the key ingredient of its success in various operations. Even the developed nations look towards India to emulate this model”, it was averred. In fact, under the present practice a “demographic segment of the population has been grouped together for the purpose of recruitment into some units based on operational needs and not based on caste and region as claimed by the petitioner”. “Grouping of socially, culturally and linguistically similar troops contributes to smooth execution of complex tactical manoeuvres in operational conditions of extreme stress where normal-rational thinking is inhibited,” it was reasoned. Further, common physical parameters were an important tangible ingredient of tactical military drills and hence regimentation was retained on the “lines of reasonable classification”. The classification-based units had met several emergencies successfully and, as such, diluting the present composition “will have adverse effect on the motivation and morale of the Army at large”, they contended. The PIL has sought abolition of recruitments on the basis of caste, religion and region which was part of the divide-and-rule strategy of the British to prevent the emergence of national loyalty among service personnel or a monolithic integrated Indian Army. Pointing out that the Army was recruiting 1.5 million people, the petition said “such a major source of employment should not become the pocket prerogative of select communities or castes”. The government, however, said India’s borders with Pakistan, China, Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka straddled deserts, plains, sea, mountains and tribal regions, and hence “it is logical that citizens of these states will have a large role to play in their
defence” due to their acclimatisation to the terrain, and climate and knowledge of language and customs.
Caste-based recruitment
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Fighter jet fleet dwindling, says IAF Chief
New Delhi, October 4 IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne today spelled out plans to develop a fighter aircraft base at Nyoma in Ladakh and upgrade seven airfields for carrying out operations in the North-East but warned against a rapidly declining fleet of fighter aircraft. The IAF Chief, while addressing a press conference ahead of the Air Force celebrations, said they were looking at giving life extension to ageing aircraft since there was no decision on inducting new jets yet. “The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) and the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) are critical. In case the MMRCA does not come to us by the end of the 12th plan (March 2017), our force levels start to go down rapidly. That is what we have to prevent. We have to maintain our force levels to certain levels.” The MMRCA is stuck in final negotiations between French Company Dassault and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, while the LCA is awaiting its final operational clearance. The IAF has a sanctioned force level of 42 squadrons (each having around 20 planes), but it is currently down to 34 squadrons, some with ageing MiG-21s. “We are authorised to have 42 squadrons, but are much less than that. In the 12th and 13th plans (ending March 2022), we want to maintain a certain force level. We will phase out a number of squadrons right up to 2022,” said the IAF chief. He added that the fleet levels would be maintained by giving life extension to fighter aircraft. “We will have to give life extension to a few fleets. We are going to phase out certain types of MiG-21s and MiG-27s. The MiG-21 Bison fleet will have to continue till 2025.” “The MMRCA is an important project for the IAF because of our declining force levels. We need the LCA at the earliest and the MMRCA on time. If we sign the MMRCA next year, the first plane will come in 2017. We cannot delay any further,” the IAF Chief said. He said the advanced landing grounds (ALGs) in the North-East are being upgraded to have day and night facilities. “A sum of Rs 720 crore has been released for the ALGs and work started last week. By 2016, most of these will be ready for operations,” he said. The ALG at Nyoma in south-eastern Ladakh is being developed into a full-fledged air-base. It will be ready in around five years at a cost of Rs 2,173 crore. “Once ready, we want to operate everything from there - fighters, helicopters and transport planes. Nyoma is 13,300 feet high but it will be possible to base aircraft there.” The ALGs in the North-East - built by the British for the Burma operations in 1944 - exist at Pasighat (East Siang), Ziro (Lower Subansiri), Mechuka (West Siang), Tuting (Upper Siang) and Walong (Anjaw). Another ALG at Vijainagar was paved last year. But Vijainagar, which has 6,000 inhabitants, lacks a road link or electricity. China has seven airstrips in Tibet and 19 in Xinjiang - both bordering India. Besides, all-weather roads enable thousands of troops to move rapidly across the plateau and carry out patrol duties in vehicles.
Nyoma airfield to be a base
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Copter deal: Ex-Deputy Air Chief quizzed
New Delhi, October 4 As deputy IAF chief, he was in charge of procurements. The CBI is inching towards filing its charge sheet in the case as it has got almost all the documents from Italy, which are now being studied, sources said.
— PTI
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Vacate house by Oct 10, SC tells Justice Dewan’s son
Chandigarh, October 4 An advocate, Suvir has been staying in the first floor of the house with his family; and has been using a portion of the ground floor to run his office. Justice Dewan and his wife Romilla are also staying in a part of the ground floor. The crux of the dispute between the father and son is the house. Chief Justice Dewan has been claiming that it was self acquired property and has executed a will disinheriting Suvir from all his moveable or immovable assets. Suvir, on the other hand, has been arguing that it was Hindu Undivided Family property as shown in the income tax returns. As such, he argued his sisters had no right in the property. Taking up the matter, a division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on September 25 had asked Suvir to vacate the house and pay within 15 days costs of Rs 50,000 in favour of the elderly couple. The Bench had ruled: “Other than the oblique motive to grab the property at Chandigarh and keep possession of the same against the wishes of the owner, there can be no other reason,” the Bench had asserted. “In fact, it was quite clear during the course of arguments that not only the respondent (Suvir Dewan) wants to deprive the appellant (Justice Dewan) to deal with his property as per his wishes, but wanted to grab the whole property for himself denying the share of his sisters”. The Bench had added: “What can be a greater travesty of justice in this situation where Suvir insists that he will not stay in his own house built by him lying vacant, but insists on staying with his parents who do not want him or his family to live with them”. The Bench had categorically asserted “the courts cannot be left helpless to assist the senior citizens, whose rights are protected under the Act because of obdurate and unreasonable stand of the son before directing Suvir and his family to vacate the Sector 11 house “to the extent it is occupied by them”. The keys were to be handed over to Chief Justice Dewan within 15 days. The Bench had passed the orders after Chief Justice Dewan, 85, and his 74-year-old wife had moved the High Court about four months back asserting that “they deserve to live a life of dignity and honour”. Their counsel, Puneet Bali, had claimed the cause of dispute was one-kanal house in Sector 11-B. Alleging humiliation and use of unparliamentarily language, the elderly couple had claimed that their younger daughter’s visit aggravated matters so much that Justice Dewan suffered a mild stroke in December 2011. They added the daughters were not allowed to peacefully stay or enter the house, “making it difficult and humiliating experience”. Justice Dewan had purchased the house in his own name 1962. Just about two decades later, he withdrew Rs 20,000 from his general provident fund to make additions and alterations in the house. He also bought a plot in Panchkula Sector 6 for the benefit of his son. Suvir sold the plot and from the proceeds purchased another plot in Panchkula Sector 2, utilising the balance amount for construction on the plot. However, he continued to live with the parents in their Sector 11 house.
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SC ordinance: K’taka ‘Lalus’ await verdict
Bangalore, October 4 At least five sitting MLAs in the state, including three in custody and one absconding, are currently facing investigation by the CBI in connection with various mining scams. The fifth, BS Yeddyurappa, had to give up his Chief Minister’s post after being accused by the Lokayukta of receiving bribe from a steel company. The remaining four face similar charges in the Belekeri iron ore scam, being investigated by the CBI under directions from the SC. The CBI charge-sheet claimed 3.5 million tonnes of confiscated iron ore, which was impounded at Belekeri port, was exported illegally. The ore from the Bellary region of Karnataka was alleged to have been mined illegally. Independent MLA from Karwar Satish Sail, who owns Mallikarjun shipping company based in the coastal town, allegedly helped ship the ore. Independent MLA B Nagendra allegedly created fake permits for facilitating the export, while BJP legislator Anand Singh is accused of providing space in his warehouse for dumping the seized iron ore. BSR Congress MLA Suresh Babu is facing charges of facilitating the export of ore under instructions from kingpin Janardhana Reddy. Reddy is no longer a legislator as his Karnataka legislative council membership expired some time ago. He was the Tourism Minister in the BJP government in the state led by Yeddyurappa. Nagendra, Suresh Babu and Satish Sail are now in CBI custody, while Anand Singh, who succeeded Reddy as the Tourism Minister in the previous state government, has fled to Singapore where he has got himself admitted to a hospital.
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Maharashtra unveils senior citizens’ policy
Mumbai, October 4 The policy approved by the state Cabinet covers financial security, healthcare and housing for senior citizens. While those above the age of 65 will be classified as senior citizens, those below the age of 70 will be categorised as "capable of working" and those till the age of 80 will fall under the category of "elderly" and those older will be called "very old".
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Centre rolls out Rs 99,000-cr scheme for state varsities New Delhi, October 4 The scheme will fund state institutions that fulfil certain conditions such as mandatory accreditation, improved student faculty ratio (at least the national average of 24:1) and lifting the ban on faculty recruitment. The funding of state varsities through the UGC will end and it will only fund research funding. It will no longer disburse Rs 500 crore worth of development grant to state colleges and institutions annually. Called Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), the scheme was approved by the Cabinet yesterday and will cost Rs 98,134 crore over two plans. The Central share will be Rs 69,675 crore and state’s share will be Rs 28,459 crore in both plans. To seek funds, states would have to first set up State Higher Education Councils to invite plans from state institutions and route those to the Centre for approval. At the Central level, there will be a project approval board to sanction requests. States must however match 35% grant to receive the 65% Central share. The division of central-state funding in case of north east, J&K, Himachal and Uttarakhand will be 90:10. RUSA is the third in the line of centrally sponsored schemes in education — the first two being Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan.
The objectives
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Jiah Khan’s mother moves high court, wants CBI probe
Mumbai, October 4 Jiah's mother Rabia Amin has alleged that it has come to light that her daughter may have been killed and made to look as if she committed suicide. To support her argument, Rabia has annexed to the petition an independent forensic expert's report which indicates the case to be homicidal death rather than suicide. Alleging shoddy investigations by police to help Jiah's boyfriend Suraj Pancholi, the petition demands a CBI probe into the murder.
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Maoists surrender
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With Congress scion Rahul Gandhi walking away with the accolades for withdrawal of the ordinance on convicted lawmakers, the BJP today sought to “set the record straight” by giving President Pranab Mukherjee the credit for the Congress-led UPA’s U-turn on the issue.
The Centre and the Army have sought the dismissal of a PIL against recruitment based on caste, religion and region, contending that such enrolments did not pose any threat to national integrity and rather “enhances its war-fighting effort and combat capabilities”.
