CHANDIGARH: Some disgruntled BJP workers here today greeted party nominee for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat Kirron Kher with black flags when she arrived here.

Kher who reached here by an afternoon flight, was shown black flags atleast at two places enroute, sources said. At a couple of places, the disgruntled workers also raised slogans against her.

The party has named Kher as the candidate from Chandigarh, ignoring three frontrunners including former MP Satya Pal Jain, Chandigarh BJP President Sanjay Tandon and former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan.

When Kher's candidature was announced by the party high command on Saturday, there was a revolt in the Chandigarh unit of the BJP, leading to a few resignations by some office bearers of the city unit.

From the Chandigarh seat, where polling will be held on April 10, former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is seeking re-election as Congress nominee.

Bansal had earlier downplayed the presence of prominent women - former Miss India Gul Panag (AAP) and actor Kirron Kher (BJP) - in the fray, saying paratroopers cannot do some overnight magic. - PTI 

Bansal files nomination papers for Chandigarh seat 

CHANDIGARH: Former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and four-time MP today filed his nomination papers for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat, polling for which will be held on April 10.

The 65-year-old politician, filed his papers before the Returning Officer, here.

Bansal was accompanied by his wife Madhu, son Manish, City Mayor H C Kalyan, some Congress councillors and a few supporters when he reached the office of Deputy Commissioner-cum-Returning Officer here.

Later, speaking to reporters, Bansal thanked Congress President Sonia Gandhi, party vice president Rahul Gandhi and members of the party's central election committee for reposing faith in him and re-nominating him from Chandigarh.

He also thanked the people of Chandigarh for their continued support and added he will not betray their faith.

Earlier addressing reporters here on Sunday, Bansal had hit out at his detractors, who questioned his renomination from Chandigarh over the cash-for-post scam issue, claiming he was a victim of a conspiracy and had suffered despite there being no evidence against him.

Bansal is pitted against three prominent women candidates in Chandigarh-- former Miss India and AAP candidate Gul Panag, BJP's actress-turned-politician Kirron Kher and BSP's Jannat Jahan.

Bansal had to resign from the Cabinet in the wake of Rs ten crore cash-for-post bribery scam allegedly involving his nephew Vijay Singla and nine others when the Congress leader was holding the Railways portfolio.

His nephew Vijay Singla and nine others, arrested in the Rs 10-crore cash-for-post railway bribery case last year, will face trial with a special court in Delhi framing charges of criminal conspiracy and corruption against them on Tuesday.

Bansal has been arrayed as a prosecution witness by the CBI in its charge sheet filed last year. - PTI

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav will contest from the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat, besides Mainpuri which he presently represents in Parliament.

"Due to demand of party leaders and workers, SP supremo will contest from both Azamgarh and Mainpuri seats," party's national general secretary Ramgopal Yadav said here today.

The Samajwadi Party had earlier declared Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Balram Yadav as the party's candidate from Azamgarh, which has a sizable number of Muslim and Yadav population.

Speculations were rife regarding Mulayam's candidature from the Azamgarh Lok Sabha constituency, but senior party leader Shivpal Yadav had earlier denied it saying that there was no such proposal.

In the 2009 elections, Mulayam won the Mainpuri seat by a margin of over 1.6 lakh votes. And BJP's Ramakant Yadav won the Azamgarh constituency by nearly 50,000 votes. SP candidate Durga Prasad Yadav came third in the constituency behind BSP's Akbar Ahmad Dampi.- PTIUNITED NATIONS: A United Nation-backed nuclear watchdog has said that it did not detect either any explosion or crash that could be linked to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, amid continued speculation over fate of the aircraft.

“Regarding the missing Malaysian Airlines flight... the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) confirmed that neither an explosion nor a plane crash on land or on water had been detected so far,” Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Stephane Dujarric told reporters here on Monday.

Dujarric said plane accidents may be detected, depending on individual circumstances, by three of the four technologies used by the CTBTO’s International Monitoring System (IMS).

While the verification system has been put in place to detect nuclear explosions, it is also able to detect the explosion of a larger aircraft, as well as its impact on the ground or on water.

CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo had last week said that he would put the sensors of the organisation at work to see if a possible explosion at high altitude of the missing Malaysian Airlines plane could be detected.

Zerbo has also encouraged all scientists from UN member states to carefully study the available data. He had said the CTBTO uses “infrasound” — or infrasonic sensors — to monitor the earth mainly for atmospheric nuclear explosions.

Dujarric said the CTBTO has a network, as part of their Test-Ban-Treaty, of extremely sensitive sensors throughout the world that detect nuclear explosions and earthquakes.

The flight MH370 carrying 239 people have been missing since March 8 and a multi-national search has so far shed little light on where the plane could have landed or crashed.

Zerbo had asked the head of the CTBTO’s International Data Center (IDC) to look at the data to find any clues about the missing plane. Zerbo said infrasound would be the best technology to check for an explosion on the missing plane if there was a monitoring station nearby, “or the explosion is at a level or at amplitude that it could be detected.”

“There’s a possibility, it’s not absolute, that the technology like the Infrazone could be able to detect” an explosion, he had said.

The mystery of the missing plane from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing since March 8 continued to baffle aviation and security authorities who have not succeeded in tracking the aircraft despite deploying hi-tech radar and other gadgets.

CTBTO said infrasound is produced by a variety of natural and man-made sources like exploding volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors, storms and auroras in the natural world; nuclear, mining and large chemical explosions, as well as aircraft and rocket launches in the man-made arena.

Infrasound monitoring is one of the four technologies used by the International Monitoring System (IMS) to verify compliance with the nuclear test ban treaty.

The IDC routinely detect signals from commercial planes taking-off and landing at airports located in the proximity of IMS infrasound stations.

In the past, CTBTO stations have detected some plane accidents, including the crash of a plane at Narita airport in Japan in March 2009. - PTI

SRINAGAR: Non-stop rain and snowfall Tuesday triggered landslides on the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Jammu and Kashmir forcing closure of the vital road link for traffic.

A traffic department official here said incessant rain in Panthal, Digdol and some other places triggered landslides and falling boulders.

"Besides, there has been fresh snowfall in the Banihal area. The highway shall remain closed for vehicular traffic today (Tuesday).

"Travellers must contact the traffic control rooms in Srinagar and Jammu to find out the latest update about resumption of traffic," the officer said.

The over-300-km-long highway is the landlocked Kashmir Valley's only road connection with the rest of the country.

All essential supplies reach the Valley through this highway. Unscrupulous traders in the Valley often indulge in hoarding and profiteering following temporary or prolonged closure of the highway. - IANS

CHANDIGARH: Haryana and Punjab received heavy rainfall last night, mounting worries for farmers as the crops nears harvesting stage. Chandigarh measured heavy rains (19.6 mm), the MeT Department here said.

In Haryana, Ambala received 7.6 mm of rain, Hisar received 2.8 mm of showers while Karnal gauged 4.6 mm of rain.

Bhiwani (1.4 mm), Panchkula (3 mm), Kalka (5 mm), Kurukshetra (6 mm) and Yamunanagar were also lashed by rains.

In Punjab, heavy rains lashed Amritsar at 18 mm.

Ludhiana (6 mm), Patiala (9.4 mm) and Pathankot received 8 mm of rain. Showers were also reported from Ropar, Mohali and Phagwara.

A MeT official said Western disturbance was the main reason behind the showers. Another weather system - an induced upper air cyclonic circulation which lay over Central Pakistan and adjoining West Rajasthan - had also caused change in the weather in the plains of Punjab and Haryana, he said.

A week back, unusual widespread rains accompanied by strong winds had flattened wheat crop at many places in the two states.

The current spell of rains is not good for the crops which are at harvesting stage, agriculture experts have said.
- PTI

MUMBAI:Led by strong buying support from foreign funds, a benchmark index of the Indian equities markets was trading flat on Tuesday after it touched a new record high of 22,040.72 points.

The 30-scrip S&P Sensex (sensitive index) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was trading flat - up 11.75 points or 0.05 percent around 2.19 p.m. - after it soared 144.47 points or 0.66 percent in pre-noon trade to a record intra-day high of 22,040.72 points.

This record high surpassed the previous mark of 22,023.98 hit on March 10.

The rally was led by oil and gas, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and metal stocks.

The S&P Sensex, which opened at 21,849.65 points, was trading at 21,821.55 points, up 11.75 points or 0.05 percent from the previous day's close at 21,809.80 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 22,040.72 points and a low of 21,785.38 points during the trade so far.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was trading flat after it made healthy gains in the pre-noon session.

The 50-scrip Nifty was also trading flat - down 3.40 points or 0.05 percent at 6,500.80 points.

According to market analysts, sustained FII (Foreign Institutional Investor) flows, and improving macroeconomic data led the markets to the new record high.

Sector-wise, the S&P BSE oil and gas index went was up 126.31 points, FMCG index gained 91.89 points and metal index which climbed 60.63 points.

However,S&P BSE Information technology (IT) index was down 60.68 points, capital goods index was lower by 58.54 points and automobile index fell by 20.81 points. - IANS