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Sunday,
November 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Jatha sans Sikh sangat: Sarna Translation of Salem cases delays extradition Govt firmly in saddle: Maya
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No place for Narmada man in textbooks
India rejects code on missile proliferation Avtar Singh Ragi bereaved
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Jatha sans Sikh sangat: Sarna New Delhi, November 16 Lashing out at the government for allowing the SGPC, to send only a jatha of 50 persons to Pakistan on the occasion of Gurpurb on November 19, DSGMC president P.S. Sarna said ‘’this amounted to treating the Sikhs as second class citizens whose religious sensibilities are least cared for by the establishment.’’ It was ironical that SAD was “falsely propagating’’ that a jatha had been allowed to visit Pakistan. The fact was that 50 Sikhs had been permitted to leave for the neighbouring country and these included only SGPC employees, raagis and government officials with no one from the “Sikh sangat,’’ Mr Sarna said at a press conference here. “It is most unfortunate”, he said and added that “along with SAD, Mr Tirlochan Singh. (Vice-Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities) is also making frivolous claims that the government had allowed a jatha of Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan.’’ “Mr Tirlochan Singh is behaving more like a representative of SAD instead of maintaining an impartial and apolitical status acceptable to all Sikhs that his official position demands, “Mr Sarna said. He said the denial of permission for a Sikh jatha to Pakistan hurt the religious sentiments of the community which had not been allowed to visit the shrines there since 1998. “When the Central Government has not issued any advisory to the Indians against visiting Pakistan why are the Sikhs not being allowed to visit their holy places there.’’ In order to assuage the hurt sentiments of the Sikhs, the government should permit a jatha of Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan for the next Baisakhi celebrations, the DSGMC president demanded. |
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Translation of Salem cases delays extradition New Delhi, November 16 With time running out, the CBI is working overtime to get the translation done speedily so that it could route the extradition papers through the Ministry of External Affairs. According to highly placed sources, the CBI has been so far able to get only documents pertaining to three cases against Salem translated in Portuguese and it is expecting translation of papers on another three important cases by the end of the month. “Unless the case documents are got translated by competent and authorised translators, the application for the extradition cannot be forwarded as it will not be accepted,” a senior official says. There are three cases pending with the Central Bureau of Information (CBI) itself — 1993 Bombay blasts case, one case each in Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh under the Passports Act. There are two cases pending with the Delhi Police and one case with the Bhopal Police, besides 50-odd cases in Maharashtra. The CBI expects complete translation of six major cases by the end of this month and then proceed with routing of the application for extradition to Lisbon through the External Affairs Ministry. “To avoid further delay in applying for extradition, as and when the translation of six major cases are through the application will be processed and routed through Government of India and subsequently other cases will be forwarded,” the official said. The entire issue of extradition of Abu Salem is being monitored by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which has already asked all the state governments to expedite various cases pending against the underworld don so that the CBI could make a fool-proof application for extradition. Salem along with Bedi and another person Haider are in judicial custody in Portugal for 90 days beginning September 20 India will have to move the extradition application before December 19 to strengthen its claim. It may be recalled that a note verbale to the Portuguese government seeking deportation of Abu Salem, immediately after his arrest, was sent by India followed by discussions between the CBI and the Lisbon authorities. Subsequently, the Portuguese authorities have asked India to send a request for extradition instead of deportation, which is being dealt with by the CBI in consultation with the Central government. |
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Govt firmly in saddle: Maya New Delhi, November 16 Claiming that no legislator had withdrawn support from the BSP-BJP government in the state, she said the Governor had not informed her about any such move, hence her government was firmly in the saddle. In reply to a question at a press conference here, Ms Mayawati refused to admit that her government was avoiding a floor test in the Assembly. “Why should I go for a floor test when my government is in the majority?” she said at a press conference here. She was here to visit the State Pavillion in the India International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan on the occasion of Uttar Pradesh day. Ms Mayawati also endorsed Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s stand that “all organisations” honour the ban imposed by Election Commission on VHP’s yatra in Gujarat. In a message to the VHP, which has vowed to defy the Election Commission’s ban, Mr Vajpayee had yesterday asked “all organisations” to honour the ban and said Godhra and the violence after it should not be made an election issue in Gujarat. Meanwhile, Ms Mayawati also announced that as part of measures to spur further development in the state, the government would develop the country’s first ‘Web City’ at a location between NOIDA and Greater NOIDA and provide various facilities to entrepreneurs to attract them to the state. She said an aviation hub would also be set up within the special economic zone (SEZ). A special package to revive sick units had been prepared, she said. |
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No place for Narmada man in textbooks New Delhi, November 16 Talking to TNS on the concluding day of the fourth South Asia Geological Congress organised by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and the Ministry of Coal and Mines, the Nagpur-based Director of GSI, Dr Arun Sonakia said, “This establishes evidence of Indian biological antiquity and continuity because apart from this human fossil, we have younger human fossils in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. This indicates that the Indian race is six lakh years old. The fossil features bear more resemblance to South-east Asian fossils. History books mention the Java man and the Peking Man but do not mention the Narmada man at all. “I wrote to the NCERT several times to update their books and they promised to include the Narmada man when they would revise the textbooks. But it has not been done so far,” he said. A recipient of the national mineral award, Dr Sonakia was invited to mention his priceless discovery at a conference, “Ancestors” in New York in 1984. He also carried the plaster cast to Musee de l’homme in Paris for a
comparative study at the invitation of the museum director, Henri de Lumley. His discovery was published in l’anthropologie in 1985. In 1990, he was invited to exhibit the rare fossil in Tokyo but the Indian Government had its reservations. It feared that the fossil might get lost. The original fossil of the skull is now under lock and key at National Museum in Kolkata. “The oldest fossil of a human skull was found in India by William Theobald, an Englishman, in 1860. The GSI did not have a repository at that time. It was kept in the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kolkata, and got lost. After that, a Dutch doctor, Eugene Dubois, found the oldest human fossil in Indonesia in 1892. He went via India and came back via India. He contested the oriental view that India was the cradle of man,” explained Dr Sonakia. Pointing to the plaster cast of the fossil of the skull, Dr Sonakia said its morphological features indicated that it was of a woman. |
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India rejects code on missile proliferation New Delhi, November 16 Mr Navtej Sarna, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters that regimes such as ICOC did not accommodate its core concerns and proved ineffective in preventing acquisition of nuclear weapon development through clandestine transfers and linkages. |
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Avtar Singh Ragi bereaved New Delhi, November 16 Antim ardas and bhog will be held in Gurdwara Mata Sundari in New Delhi on November 17. She leaves behind three sons and a daughter. Avtar Singh Ragi belongs to the family of ragis who have been singing Sikh hymns for 15 generations. His son Kultar Singh is a renowned ragi. |
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