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Friday,
March 29, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Passport fee hiked to Rs 1,000 UP, Maharashtra Cong chiefs may go
Bengal to implement POCA |
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SC judge must probe carnage: NCM President, PM not to
celebrate Holi BJP decides on introspection E. Army Command diverted funds: CAG ITBP pulled up for transfer
of funds Left Front wins 4 seats in Bengal
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Passport fee hiked to Rs 1,000 New Delhi, March 28 The ordinary passport, which will be valid for a period of 10 years, will now cost Rs 1,000 while a jumbo-size passport will cost Rs 1,500, instead of Rs 800. Similarly Rs 300 will be charged for endorsements in the passport as against Rs 100. Miscellaneous services, requiring a passport booklet of 36 pages will be available at Rs 500. Announcing the hike, Mr J.C. Sharma, Secretary, Passports, Coordination and Diaspora in the External Affairs Ministry, told reporters that this measure was aimed at meeting the rising costs of issue of passports and expenditure towards modernisation of offices, computerisation of processes and other requirements. As a major step in decentralisation of the passport process, it is proposed to create district passport cells with computer links with the passport office concerned, Mr Sharma said. He said the state governments would be reimbursed Rs 200 per application to meet cost of manpower, computer equipment and office space for the new facility. Police verification procedures are also being simplified. A person seeking passport renewal while staying at the same residence mentioned in the earlier passport will now need no police verification. For government officials, too, there will be no police verification but they will have to get a no-objection certificate for this purpose from the concerned departmental heads concerned. For those applying for India-Bangladesh and India-Sri Lanka passports, the fee will be Rs 500. For observations, endorsements in the passport like change of address, emigration clearance not required
(ECNR) endorsement, name of spouse etc, the fee is Rs 300 and for miscellaneous service requiring a new passport booklet of 36 pages will be Rs 500 and for 60 pages it will be Rs 700. The fee for ordinary passport with a maximum validity of five years for minor children below the age of 18 years has been fixed at Rs 600 while one has to pay Rs 2,500 for issuance of duplicate passport of 36 pages in lieu of lost, damaged or stolen passport. The fee for the ‘Tatkaal scheme’, which has been very successful in meeting the genuine demands of applicants for urgent issuance of passport, has not been increased.
UNI, PTI |
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UP, Maharashtra Cong chiefs may go New Delhi, March 28 Sources said several other changes were in the offing at the AICC with Ms Mohsina Kidwai, Mr Oscar Fernandes and Mr Mahavir Prasad likely to be given other responsibilities. Mr Ram Nivas Mirdha may also be relieved as chief of the Congress Central Election Committee. While the Congress is to appoint a PCC chief in Punjab, the party chiefs in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are also likely to be replaced. Among the people likely to be given responsibilities are Mr Ahmed Patel, Mr Janardhan Pujary, Ms Margret Alva and Mr Buta Singh. In fact, a reshuffle at the AICC was expected for some months and Ms Gandhi had also indicated this in the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh elections. Now with the Assembly poll over and a brief recess in Parliament, the task of revamping the AICC has begun in the earnest. Mr Azad has been a member of the Congress Working Committee for a long time and had been given important assignments by the party in Delhi. He was the General Secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal which went to the polls recently. Though the Congress could not fare well in Uttar Pradesh, it was able to win a majority in Uttaranchal. AICC sources said Ms Gandhi was not happy over the way party ticket were allotted in Uttaranchal. In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress candidates lost their deposists in about 100 seats. Mr Azad was also General Secretary in charge of Pondicherry, Kerala and Tamil Nadu when these states went to the polls about a year ago. The Congress returned to power in Pondicherry and Kerala. By shifting him to Jammu and Kashmir, Ms Gandhi has given a strong signal about revamping the AICC. Ms Mohsina Kidwai, who is the General Secretary in charge of Jammu and Kashmir, told TNS from Jaipur that the move to replace Mr Azad was not sudden. She said Mr Azad was an experienced leader who would be able to
rejuvenate the party which faces Assembly elections in about six months. There had been a strong demand from a section of the Jammu and Kashmir Congress for replacing Mr Qureshi but the party high command had been putting its foot down. Party leaders felt that by sending Mr Azad to Jammu and Kashmir, the party would be able to contain dissidence in the state. Mr Azad’s organisational abilities would be hard put to test where the Congress has not been able to put its act together. Unlike some other state Congress leaders, Mr Azad has not been very harsh in the criticism of Jammu Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah. |
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Bengal to implement POCA Kolkata, March 28 Mr Bhattacharjee, however, said POCA Bill would not be introduced in haste but he would wait for some more time to dispel all misunderstandings and confusions about POTO and POCA. He admitted that some CPM members as well as other partners of the Left Front failed to distinguish between the two. The Chief Minister said he was glad that the CPM’s central leadership which had so far opposed POCA, ultimately okayed the Bill at the meeting organised in Hyderabad. But since some Front partners, including the CPI, RSP and the Forward Bloc still had some reservations, he would wait for some more time to allow them to change their mind. The Chief Minister said he had conveyed to the Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, about their decision. We would not allow the central agencies to execute the Act in West Bengal, whatever be the consequences, he warned, adding that no central inferences in this regards would be tolerated. On the other hand, justifying the introduction of POCA, Mr Bhattacharjee said the Act would help them to tackle organised crimes, perpetrated in the state by the terrorist outfits like the ISI, SIMI, KLO, ULFA and other organisations. Mr Bhattacharjee feared of POCA did not come into force within next few weeks, several ISI agents and the mafia dons, including Aftab Ansari, the prime suspects the
kidnapping of Khadim owner, Parth Roy Burman and the American Centre attack, would soon be set free on bail. He said arrested persons could be detained under the POTO. He requested Front partners opposing POCA to accept the Bill and allow it to be passed in the Assembly without any further delay. |
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SC judge must probe carnage: NCM New Delhi, March 28 Commission Chairman Justice Mohammed Shamim said in a letter to Mr Vajpayee that the foremost need was to create a sense of confidence not merely among the 97,000 minority community members currently housed in 93 camps but among people of Gujarat who had suffered from violence for over a month. Meanwhile, a day after the Gujarat Government submitted its “comprehensive” report into the communal violence to it, the NHRC held a meeting here today. Commission sources said the report did not come up for deliberations at the “full” commission meeting with the “revised” copy of the report being received only today. |
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President, PM not to
celebrate Holi New Delhi, March 28 “He will not receive any visitor in this connection,” a press note by Rashtrapati Bhavan said today. Meanwhile Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is taking a four-day break in Nainital from today. Mr Vajpayee had already announced that he would not be celebrating Holi because of the violent incidents in Gujarat.
PTI, UNI |
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BJP decides on introspection New Delhi, March 28 Confronted with harsh political realities in the wake of the dismal performance in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections and poll reverses in four state assemblies in the recent past, the BJP high command has asked a group of party leaders to undertake a serious introspection to find out the real reasons for the defeat so that an appropriate strategy to meet the challenges could be worked out. Talking to media persons, BJP spokesman Sunil Shastri said here today that the party had already dispatched teams to Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Punjab and Manipur which had made assessments at the regional level. Results of these exercises would be juxtaposed for arriving at a clear picture. Electoral defeat and the eroding credibility of the party with the masses would come up for discussion prominently at the three-day Goa National Executive commencing on April 12. About the cross-voting indulged in by BJP legislators during yesterday’s Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka and Orissa, resulting in the loss of official candidates, the spokesman said the menace had dogged all parties. The BJP ruled out a mid-term Assembly poll in Gujarat, saying that the time was not ripe for such an exercise because of the communal situation and its effect on the trade and industry in the state. Mr Shastri said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had himself brushed aside suggestions in this regard. |
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E. Army Command diverted funds: CAG New Delhi, March 28 Making a scrutiny of the allocations for the first time, the CAG said the Eastern Army Command purchased consumer goods worth Rs 6.79 crores over a period of three years from 1998 to 2001 from the Rs 10 crore annual fund given to Army commanders by way of special financial powers. “These funds are allocated to meet urgent and immediate requirements of counter-insurgency operations and internal security duties”, the CAG observed as it indicted the Army for diverting the funds to purchase consumer goods saying that these should have been purchased under normal overheads. Commenting that these funds were meant to acquire cutting edge weaponry for the counter-insurgency forces, the CAG said even in such purchases, the command had procured stores worth over Rs 3.12 crores which were found to be substandard and defective. The CAG said that entire stock of 32,800 bullet-proof “patka” brought by the Eastern Army Command between 1995 and 1998, two of the four long distance satellite terminals as well as 3,000 of the 3,700 epicoated barrels were found defective.
PTI |
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ITBP pulled up for transfer
of funds New Delhi, March 28 Taking strong exception to this the CAG has in its report for the year ended March, 2001, has observed that “the fact that government funds could be diverted to maintain a welfare fund without the approval of the ministry is indicative of serious indiscretion in the discharge of delegated financial powers.” According to the CAG, the Ministry of Home Affairs released Rs 1.15 crore for the welfare activities of the ITBP during 1999-2000. Of this, the Director-General, ITBP, transferred Rs 60 lakh between February to August, 2000, to the Himveer Arthik Sahayata Kosh to extend monetary loans at nominal rate of interest to the members of the ITBP. |
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Left Front wins 4
seats in Bengal Kolkata, March 28 The four Left Front candidates who won are Mr Prasanta Chatterjee, a former Kolkata Mayor, Mr Tarini Roy and Md Bahiruddin Ahmed of CPI(M) and Mr Debabrata Biswas, Forward Bloc’s all-India President. |
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