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CBI claims to have got all the relevant coal scam files
Apex court rejects PILs in Ganguly case
Snoopgate: Gujarat Police refuse to file FIR against Modi |
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Now, CAG can audit accounts of private telecom companies
Telcos may challenge HC order
China on mind, India and Japan agree to ramp up military ties
AP House fails to debate Telangana Bill amid chaos
‘Your lordship’ shall prevail as SC turns down plea
Gogoi wants CBI probe into Nagaland killings
Flyers resort to age-old gold smuggling tricks
Traders threaten stir over free sale of fruit & veggies
SC sets 3-month deadline for appointing mining regulator ‘Depressed’ Telugu star hangs self
Focus on youth as NRIs’ jamboree kicks off today
Bhushan’s remark on Kashmir sparks row
Adolescent health programme launch today
Ahead of polls, govt proposes 54 central schools
Foreign touch: A tourist in ‘aam aadmi’ cap in Islampur on Monday. PTI
After AAP, BJP taps into NRI support
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CBI claims to have got all the relevant coal scam files
New Delhi, January 6 CBI sources said so far the agency has not come across any criminality on the part of Coal Ministry officials which makes a pressing case for the closure of these inquiries registered by the agency in September last year. The information of 'missing files' will be crucial component of the status report to filed by the agency before the Supreme Court on January 9 besides cases in which probe is likely to be completed soon. The agency would also inform the Supreme Court about the number of cases in which no criminality has been detected and can be taken out of the purview of ongoing investigations. The sources said the agency has received all the relevant files and detailed examination of coal ministry officials has also been done. Since probe does not indicate that public servants were intentionally withholding these records from probe, the agency might seek permission from the apex court to close these enquiries, they said. The CBI had registered two enquiries to look into the issue of missing files on coal block allocations from the Coal Ministry. One was for the period between 1993 and 2005 and another is for the period 2006-09. The slow CBI probe into the coal scam had come under sharp criticism of the court which had said the agency was still in the "first gear" and needed to pick up speed. "You (CBI) have to pick up some speed. The pace of inquiry is not good. You are still driving in the first gear. Yours is a huge task and all these need to reach the logical conclusion," a bench headed by Justice R M Lodha had said. — PTI
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Apex court rejects PILs in Ganguly case
New Delhi, January 6 Rejecting the pleas, a Bench comprising Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there was a set procedure for the removal of state HRC chiefs and there was no need for the SC to take any parallel action. “Let the law take its own course,” it said. One of the PILs had been filed by Dr Padma Narayan Singh, taking exception to the removal proceedings against Justice Ganguly on the basis of mere allegations. The other petitioner, Uday Gupta, contended that the SC should not shy away from acting on the report of its own panel comprising Justices RM Lodha, HL Dattu and Ranjana Desai. After going through the panel’s findings, the CJI had said the apex court was not in a position to do anything on the issue since Justice Ganguly was not a sitting judge of the SC on the day of the alleged assault at a five-star hotel in Delhi on December 24, 2012. Gupta, however, said that even before the panel was set up it was known that the judge in question had retired ahead of the incident and as such the SC could not refrain from acting on its own findings. The Bench, however, said it was not bound to explain the reasons for setting up the panel to each and every person appearing before the court. On the basis of the depositions made before it, the SC panel had noted that there was a prima facie case of “an unwelcome behaviour (unwelcome verbal/non-verbal conduct of sexual nature) by the judge with her in the Le Meridien hotel room.” Justice Ganguly has denied the allegations. Nevertheless, the Union Cabinet has taken a decision to initiate the process for his removal as WBHRC chairman.
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Snoopgate: Gujarat Police refuse to file FIR against Modi
New Delhi, January 6
Kumar told the media that he had arrived at the police station at around 12.30pm on Monday to file his complaint against Modi and Shah in connection with the case which he sees as a cognisable offence. He said that the station house officer concerned first refused to accept the complaint and then later said that the matter was already sub judice and had been placed before a central government-appointed inquiry committee for a probe. The suspended IAS officer said he was the aggrieved party and therefore, he had the locus standi to file the FIR. "Sector-7 police station officials refused to take any action initially. They asked me to go to commission or the court," he said. "This is a cognizable offence and the Supreme Court has said that an FIR should be lodged in a cognizable offence. I have submitted evidence of audio clippings of the two websites (Gulail and Cobra post)," he said. "My complaints are against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, former state home minister Amit Shah, then Inspector General (intelligence) A K Sharma and others," he said. Sharma also said the Commissions of Inquiry constituted to probe the scandal have powers to make recommendations but it is the police which has to register an FIR, investigate and prosecute. "A Commission of Inquiry has got nothing to do with a criminal activity. If a criminal case takes place, an FIR has to be filed," he said, adding, "The Commission does not look into the criminality." When contacted, Gandhinagar SP Sharad Singhal said Sharma's application has been accepted, but refused to elaborate. The 1984-batch IAS officer has claimed he was being victimized by the BJP government in Gujarat for his knowledge of the "intimacy" shared by Modi with the architect. Sharma is facing six criminal cases in Gujarat. Two investigative news portals, Cobrapost.com and Gulail.com have claimed, on the basis of taped conversation, that Shah had ordered the illegal surveillance at the behest of one "Saheb" in 2009. The Gujarat Government appointed a two-member commission on November 26 to inquire into the snooping scandal. The Centre on December 26 also constituted a commission of inquiry to investigate the snooping on a woman in Gujarat allegedly at the behest of Modi. The Union Cabinet had also decided to constitute the inquiry into the incidents of physical/electronic surveillance in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi allegedly without authorisation. —PTI
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Now, CAG can audit accounts of private telecom companies
New Delhi, January 6 Under the license agreement, the telecom companies were liable to pay 6 per cent of their gross revenue, excluding spectrum charges, as annual fee to the Centre and the exact amount they owed to the government could be determined only through a CAG audit, a Bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and V Kameswar Rao held. The HC came out with the ruling while dismissing telecom associations’ petitions challenging the directives of the telecom regulator,
TRAI, and the Director General of Audit of the telecom department on three occasions during January-May 2010 asking the telcos to produce their books of accounts for three years and related documents to the CAG for assessing their revenue. The HC, however, clarified that the CAG should restrict itself to auditing “the receipts and no more. The CAG would not confuse himself with his wide all embracing power under Section 14(2) of the CAG Act, 1971 which includes inquiries into aspects like faithfulness, wisdom and economy in expenditures.” Significantly, the ruling has come at a time when the electricity distribution companies in Delhi are resisting a move to subject them to CAG auditing. A plain reading of Article 149 of the Constitution revealed that the CAG had to audit the records of government revenues and expenditure. “The accounts of the telecom licensees, in relation to the revenue receipts can be said to be the accounts of the Central Government and thus subject to a revenue audit as per Section 16 of the CAG Act, 1971,” the HC held. “The prying eyes of those who seek accountability must adopt the vision of a friendly adviser, who treats those whom he visits as gentlemen desirous of doing right and not the vision of a suspicious opponent desirous of finding evil and ready to make the most of it,” the HC cautioned the
CAG.
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Telcos may challenge HC order
New Delhi, January 6 Officials at the telecom companies did not rule out the possibility of them approaching the Supreme Court to challenge the order, which they claimed was against the business principals in the country. Today, a bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and V Kameswar Rao permitted the top accounting body to conduct audit of private telecom companies under the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI) Act. Dismissing the pleas of the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers and the Cellular Operators Association of India
(COAI), which represent private telecom firms, the bench, however, reminded the CAG to confine its auditing to "receipts" of telecom firms only. Officials at the telecom companies said they would wait to read the complete order before charting out their strategy, but were sure that the order would be challenged in the apex court. Currently, the operators are taking legal recourse to decide the future course of action. Reacting to the order, industry body FICCI said there was "no place for CAG interfering into a private company's books" as the official auditor was set up to examine accounts of government firms. "As far as audit through the CAG is concerned, we believe the CAG was constituted to be answerable to Parliament in respect of businesses which are owned by the government. So therefore to my mind, there is no place for CAG interfering into a private company's books," FICCI president Sidharth Birla said at a
conference. Telcos have been arguing that CAG can't audit private companies. To achieve the purpose of audit, the operators had pointed out that they have already put in place mechanism of special audit as envisaged in the licence agreement between department of telecom and the companies. They have been claiming that they maintain accounts in line with the TRAI rules and can't be forced to furnish financial information to the
CAG. On the other hand, the country’s top audit body had vigorously staked its claim to audit the accounts and sought revenue sharing details from the telecom companies. It said it has full powers to audit accounts of the telecom firms to ensure that claims to receipts have been "pursued with due diligence by the Union and no loss occurred due to fraud and efficiency and effectiveness of the transactions has been maintained." In 2009-10, the department of telecommunications
(DoT) ordered CAG-empanelled auditors to audit the books of the telcos for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08. The firms whose accounts were asked to be scrutinised included all the big operators like Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltd, Tata Teleservices Ltd and Reliance Communications Ltd
(R-Com).However, the operators then approached the Delhi high court saying private companies fell outside the jurisdiction of the public auditor.
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China on mind, India and Japan agree to ramp up military ties
New Delhi, January 6 In the recent past, Beijing has been openly critical and suspicious of India-Japan ties. Indian Defence Minister AK Antony and his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera today met in New Delhi and announced a long list of events for 2014. This includes new-set of counter-terrorism exercises between the Indian Army and Japan land forces, continued cooperation in anti-piracy, maritime security, continuation of naval exercises and defence-secretary level talks besides a visit by the Indian Defence Minister to Japan. On December 17, Japan had set out a new strategy and it talked explicitly about Tokyo’s increased interest in New Delhi. It said: “Japan will strengthen its relationship with India in a broad range of fields, including maritime security through joint training and exercises as well as joint implementation of international peace cooperation activities”. The Japanese document had specifically mentioned fears it had from Beijing: “China has been rapidly advancing its military capabilities. It is also rapidly expanding and intensifying its activities in waters and airspace, showing its attempts to change the status quo by coercion”. Both, India and Japan have long pending territorial disputes with China and are uneasy over several issues like China’s domination in the South China Sea through which large number of cargo laden merchant vessels pass. “Japanese Defence Minister briefed ( ntony) on Japan's National Security Strategy and Antony appreciated the detailed briefing,” Indian Defence Ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar said. The two ministers agreed on the necessity to conduct high-level and working-level regular consultations and exchanges, deepening exchanges between forces besides adding to education and academic research exchanges. “It was decided to strengthen India-Japan defence consultation and cooperation to strengthen the strategic partnership,” a statement of the ministry said.
Japan PM to be chief guest on R-Day
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be the chief guest at the Republic Day function in the national capital. Besides the economic ties between the two countries, Abe is keen to forge defence and strategic ties with India.
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AP House fails to debate Telangana Bill amid chaos
Hyderabad, January 6 For the third consecutive day today, the special winter session of the Assembly was adjourned without taking up the discussion on the AP Reorganisation Bill, 2013, referred by President Pranab Mukherjee. The members opposed to the division of the state stalled the proceedings, forcing Speaker Nadendla Manohar to adjourn the House in two spells. When there was no respite from the furore, he adjourned it for the day. Two rounds of meeting of the Assembly Business Advisory Committee (BAC) failed to break the deadlock. Significantly, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who is strongly opposed to division of the state, stayed away from the BAC meeting. The leader of the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) N Chandrababu Naidu, whose party is vertically divided on regional lines, also skipped the meeting. The representatives from Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra regions, jointly referred to as Seemandhra, have been stalling the proceedings of the House and preventing the debate on the draft bill. The members belonging to YSR Congress Party, headed by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, have been more aggressive in blocking the discussion on the Bill, insisting that the House pass a resolution in favour of keeping the state united. Though President Pranab Mukherjee had sent the draft Bill to the Assembly on December 12, the debate has not started so far due to turmoil in the House. The Assembly has time till January 23 to send its views to the President on the draft Bill. Going by the bitter regional divide, it is unlikely that there would ever be any meaningful discussion on the Bill in near future.
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‘Your lordship’ shall prevail as SC turns down plea
New Delhi, January 6 A Bench comprising Justices HL Dattu and SA Bobde made it clear that it was not in a position to ask fellow judges in the SC and the HC not to accept the use of “my lord or your lordship.” It was for the Bar Council of India (BCI) to mandate the advocates to shun such expressions, it clarified. The petitioner, 75-year-old advocate Shiv Sagar Tiwari, pleaded that he his efforts to get rid of these expressions, which were nothing but the legacy of the British Raj, had failed to yield any result. The BCI had adopted a resolution far back in 2006 under the Advocates Act 1961 advising advocates not to use such expressions and this was notified in the official Gazette on May 6, 2006. However, this practice was continuing in the SC, several high courts and trial courts. The petitioner said he had also given representations to the SC Bar Association and the CJI but to no avail. Contending that the use of the expression, lordship, was nothing but a sign of slavery, the petitioner pleaded that barring the god almighty nobody on earth could be “my lord,” what to say of the judges. The BCI had allowed the advocates to address the HC and SC judges as “your honour” and lower court judges as “sir,” but nobody was following it, he lamented.
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Gogoi wants CBI probe into Nagaland killings
Guwahati, January 6 Gogoi has already called up his Nagaland counterpart Nephiu Rio to discuss the incident and follow up action on part of the Nagaland police to nab the culprits. Nine decomposed bullet-ridden bodies were recovered from a drain near Dimapur on Friday last. Hands of the bodies were tied behind.
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Flyers resort to age-old gold smuggling tricks
Mumbai, January 6 The past few weeks have seen passengers adopt crude methods like hiding gold bars in their rectums, hiding the yellow metal in their undergarments or simply turning them into belt buckles and painting them over to pass through customs undetected. A few have even melted gold bars to look like electronic parts which are then fixed inside television sets brought as passenger cargo. "A lot of the methods which went out of fashion in the 1990s when gold imports were liberalised are coming back," an officer of the Air Intelligence Unit of the Customs department told this reporter. On the night of Saturday and Sunday alone, the Customs Department seized gold worth more than Rs 75 lakh which were being imported illegally. On Sunday morning, the Customs officials intercepted Alibabu Mohideen shortly after he disembarked a Saudia flight from Dammam. He was caught with 12 gold bars weighing 1.4 kg which were stitched to the inside of his trousers. The haul was valued at Rs 34.5 lakh. A second passenger, Syed Raza on a flight from Bangkok tried to pas through the Green Channel wearing a crude gold chain weighing 304 grams. Another passenger, Mohammad Jafar Ali who alighted from a Jet Airways flight from Dubai was found to be carrying five gold biscuits weighing 583 grams inside the belt holding up his jeans. Yet another passenger from Riyadh was found carrying gold bars weighing 466 grams in his underwear. In the last case, a passenger was found carrying two gold cylinders weighing 350 grams inside his rectum. Customs officials say, many of the passengers carrying gold in their person are caught when they are subjected to checks by metal detectors. In addition, customs personnel are trained to look for passengers behaving in a suspicious manner. "There has been an increase in smuggling of gold after import duties were increased. In December alone, we intercepted 22 people while they were attempting to smuggle gold," says APS Suri, Commissioner of Customs. Officials say a few enterprising smugglers last month even cello-taped their consignment to the airport trolley in the belief that only their luggage would be checked. According to the World Gold Council as much as 150 to 200 tonne of gold may have been smuggled into India during 2013 to cater to the insatiable demand for the yellow metal in the country.
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Traders threaten stir over free sale of fruit & veggies
Mumbai, January 6 "The move to sell fruits and vegetables directly to customers would affect both farmers and customers alike," says Ashok Walunj, director, APMC at Navi Mumbai. "Already, there is freedom for farmers and buyers to buy agricultural products under the open auction so it is not necessary to bypass the APMCs," Walunj said. The traders are joined in by the head-loaders union or the Mathadi workers who are employed at the markets. "More than 10,000 mathadi workers who work in the markets would be affected if farmers are allowed to sell directly to shopping malls and big shopkeepers," Narendra Patil, president of Mathadi Workers Union said in a statement here today. In a resolution passed here today, the traders at the APMC blamed retail traders for jacking
up prices of food products thereby giving rise to inflation. The Maharashtra Government announced that fruits and vegetables would be removed form the purview of the APMC Act from January 15 this year.
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SC sets 3-month deadline for appointing mining regulator New Delhi, January 6 A three-member Green Bench of the SC headed by Justice AK Patnaik clarified that it had directed, not advised, the Centre in 2011 to set up the regulator. The Bench, which included Justices SS Nijjar and FMI Kalifulla, passed the order, dispelling Centre’s doubts on this score. The apex court directed the Centre to submit a compliance report by March 31. The regulator would be responsible for appraising projects, enforcing environmental conditions for approvals and to impose penalties on polluters. The present mechanism under the September 14, 2006 Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification issued by the Centre for project clearance “is deficient in many respects and what is required is a regulator at the national level having its offices in all the states which can carry out an independent, objective and transparent appraisal and approval of the projects for environmental clearances.” The regulator could also monitor the implementation of the conditions laid down in the environmental clearances. It could exercise only such powers and functions of the Centre under the Environment (Protection) Act and “obviously cannot exercise the powers of the central government under Section 3 of the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980.” However, the regulator would ensure that the National Forest Policy 1988 was duly implemented as held in the 2011 SC order, it clarified. The court rejected the Centre’s contention that the government alone could act as the regulator and no one could be appointed as a regulator as suggesed by the SC in the Lafarge mining case in 2011.
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‘Depressed’ Telugu star hangs self
Hyderabad, January 6 The 33-year-old actor was apparently depressed over the dwindling movie offers and financial problems. He ended his life by hanging himself from the ceiling of his gym at his apartment in Srinagar Colony. “I Love you” was the last SMS he sent from his mobile to his wife Vishita who was away attending a birthday party. Uday, who acted in 19 films and won Filmfare award for the best actor in 2001, made calls to some of his close friends and spoke about his frustrations before taking the extreme step at 12.15 am. The Telugu film industry plunged into a state of shock on hearing the news of his death. The actor’s wife grew suspicious as Kiran was not responding to her phone calls and rushed home only to find him hanging from the ceiling fan of his personal gym. When his friends found that his cell phone was switched off, they too quickly alerted neighbours but by that time it was too late to save him. He was rushed to Apollo Hospital in Jubilee Hills where the doctors declared him dead. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West Zone) V Satyanarayana said that it was a case of suicide and the actor was apparently suffering from depression. The police seized his cell phone and laptop to investigate the causes that may have led to his tragic end. Born into a middle class family in 1980, Uday made a debut with “Chitram” which was a runaway hit. He pulled off a hattrick as two other box-office hits followed, Nuvvu Nenu (“You and me”) and Manasantha Nuvve (“My heart is full of you”) to catapult him to an iconic romantic hero status. He was among the youngest winners of the Filmfare Best Actor award when he won it in 2001. In an industry dominated by a few families, Uday was an outsider who went on to become a sought-after hero. The actor’s wife told the police that they were facing financial problems and her husband was depressed over lack of movie offers. Uday had soured relations with his father. Uday was engaged to megastar Chiranjeevi’s elder daughter Sushmita in 2003 but the marriage was called off by mutual consent. He married Vishita who he met through Facebook.
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Focus on youth as NRIs’ jamboree kicks off today
New Delhi, January 6 The focus of the three-day annual jamboree of overseas Indians will be on engaging the youth diaspora in different sectors. Malaysian Minister of Natural Resource and Environment Datuk Seri G. Palanivel will be the chief guest. Addressing a press conference here today on the eve of the flagship event of his ministry, Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi said the event this time was expected to open new horizons for a strong network of young overseas Indians to contribute to India's engagement with youth in all sectors. Ravi said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would address the diaspora meet on Wednesday, while President Pranab Mukherjee will deliver the valedictory speech and give away ‘Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards’ the next day. The event is organised every year by the government to mark the return of Mahatma Gandhi to India from South Africa. This is an effort to connect with the nearly 25 million Indian diaspora living across the globe. Several states as well as Central Government departments will also be pitching for investments from Indian diaspora participating in the meet. The Chief Ministers of different states, including Gujarat, Kerala, Haryana, Goa and Himachal Pradesh are scheduled to address the meet and seek investments for their respective states. On the first day of the event, there will be sessions directed at youths. In fact, the first day will be called "Youth PBD", the minister said. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) will coordinate and manage the event, while the Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs will be the partner ministry for the event.
Three-day event
* Malaysian Minister of Natural Resource and Environment Datuk Seri G. Palanivel will be the chief guest for the three-day event *
Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi said the event this time was expected to open new horizons for a strong network of young overseas Indians to contribute to India's engagement with youth in all sectors
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Bhushan’s remark on Kashmir sparks row New Delhi, January 6 Aware that Bhushan’s remark in a television programme created a controversy, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal said there cannot be a referendum on such issues in which decisions are taken based on law and order requirement. The party plans to contest Lok Sabha elections this year. “Deployment of the army within the country should be decided on the basis of internal security threat. There is no question of a referendum on this. But we believe the sentiments of the locals should be respected. Otherwise, democracy will be under threat”, the AAP founder-leader told the media when asked for his reaction. In his interview to a television channel, Bhushan said: “It is very important for us to win the hearts and minds of the people and prevent alienation. For that, the first thing which needs to be done is to remove
AFSPA, which gives the army immunity in (cases of) human rights violations.” The army’s deployment for internal security purposes should be effected only with the consent of the people, except in the cases where the rights of minorities need to be protected, he had said. The Congress, which supports the AAP Government in Delhi from outside, counselled it needs to act in a more responsible manner. Party spokesman Sanjay Jha said: “AAP should realise that they are no more an NGO or an activist. They are a political party. So whenever making a comment on matter of national importance, they need to think, ponder on what you say”.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley said AAP was taking a weak stand on the issues of national security emphasising that such issues cannot be decided either by populism or referendum.
What he said
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Adolescent health programme launch today
New Delhi, January 6
As part of the National Adolescent Health Programme that will be launched tomorrow, the Ministry of Health is hoping that every village with 1,000 persons will select peer educators and train them to discuss issues of adolescent health — from nutrition and gender-based violence to substance abuse and mental health — with their friends from
the community.
The peer educator concept is being introduced for the first time in India under the programme which Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will launch tomorrow in the presence of state government representatives.
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Ahead of polls, govt proposes 54 central schools New Delhi, January 6 The Tribune has learnt that the Ministry of Human Resource Development has proposed the establishment of Kendriya Vidyalayas in 54 new locations including one each in Amethi, Rae Bareilley and Kakinada, the respective Lok Sabha constituencies of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju himself. Each such KV will cost the exchequer Rs 14 crore as per the norms laid down by the Central Public Works Department. Aware that the Finance Ministry will pose hurdles in the clearance of the project which will cost the Government around Rs 756 crore, the Ministry of HRD proposes to roll the project from its own funds. “We are trying to bring down the costs per school. But we will spend our own funds on these KVs,” a top Ministry official admitted today. Already the Ministry of moved a note for the approval of the Expenditure Finance Committee of the Finance Ministry. Once the approval is received, a cabinet note will be moved and the project rolled before the Model Code of Conduct is imposed. The rollout of 54 KVs is part of the establishment of the 12th Plan scheme under which 500 new KVs are to be set up in the 12th Plan period to cater to the wards of central government officers and the entire central bureaucracy. But the approval to the project just ahead of the 16th general elections makes the move interesting considering the new schools are proposed in politically significant constituencies including that of Rahul Gandhi who will face not just the SP and BSP but also the Aam Aadmi Party hurdle in Amethi this time. AAP’s Kumar Vishwas has said he will contest against Rahul in the Amethi segment in UP. Sonia’s segment Rae Bareilley will also get its share of a central school so will Kakinada, the LS segment which Pallam Raju represents in the Lok
Sabha and from where he plans to contest again. Raju has been cross with the Congress high command after the announcement
of Telangana.
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AAP may contest from all seats in UP New Delhi, January 6 From Amethi Lok Sabha seat AAP leader Kumar Vishwas, who also apologised today for his earlier remarks related to Muharram, is likely to give a fight to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. "As suggested by party members, I've filed application for Amethi Lok Sabha seat. District unit has forwarded the request and I'm hopeful for it," he said. The party has also set-up a three-member sexual harassment complaints committee in line with Supreme Court's Vishakha judgment of 1997 guidelines on internal complaints committees, at a time when none other political parties, including the six national ones, are yet have any such mechanism in place. Though it is the first among the political parties to have the committee it has missed out on one aspect that of minimum strength (four-member panel) as mandated by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
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After AAP, BJP taps into NRI support New Delhi, January 6 The party has started connecting with its NRI supporters for not just expanding its network and raising funds, but also to encourage them to use social media tools and propagate the saffron message ahead of the General Election. Like in the case of AAP, when many NRIs physically joined the election campaign in Delhi, the BJP has also asked its overseas supporters to shift base to India ahead of the Lok Sabha poll. The 10-point agenda, circulated at a function organised by the Overseas Friends of BJP on the eve of the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas here, asked NRIs to mobilise public opinion among NRIs and persons of Indian origin (PIOs) among family, friends and society in their country of stay to support the BJP and Narendra Modi. Understanding the potential of NRI groups in handling Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other social media tools, the party’s IT cell held a meeting yesterday to finalise plans for better use of social media tools in foreign countries. Senior leaders say most NRIs believe that India is ready for change but with the Kejriwal factor coming in, a more active approach is required to build faith in BJP fundamentals. The BJP has a good network in 25 countries across the world and is expanding base to 32 nations ahead of elections. The BJP has also asked its supporters to work wholeheartedly to help achieve the mission of 272 plus seats in 2014. The party also asked its overseas supporters to make phone calls and send e-mails to friends and family in India and abroad in the next 100 days. It has also asked them to mobilise young boys and girls to make extensive use of modern-day communication channels like twitter and facebook to spread the BJP’s message. Senior BJP leaders today interacted with members of Indian diaspora who attended the function to build confidence in the party’s future.
Overseas help
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The Supreme Court today dismissed two PILs, one pleading for dropping the proceedings to remove retired SC judge AK Ganguly as the Chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC) for allegedly trying to sexually assault an intern, and another for apex court action on the report of its three-judge panel indicting him.
New Delhi, January 6 
Just three weeks after Japan announced its new National Security Strategy -— talking about the need to have very good ties with India and apprehending trouble from China —Defence Ministers of India and Japan today agreed to ramp up military interaction between the two Asian countries.
In the recent past, Beijing has been openly critical and suspicious of India-Japan ties. Indian Defence Minister AK Antony and his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera today met in New Delhi and announced a long list of events for 2014.
A police officer refused to accept a complaint filed by suspended Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Pradeep Kumar against Narendra Modi and the state's former home minister and key aide Amit Shah. He has now threatened to move court.