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Saturday,
November 23, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Youth held
in Delhi rape case India, Russia finalise defence deals Defence
purchase to be ‘transparent’ US Treasury Secy gets no audience with PM
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Manmohan
leads walkout in RS Cong slams
govt on Pak intrusion NORTH INDIA IN
PARLIAMENT Katiyar:
book Rao for demolition Veerappan
gives 12-day ultimatum Indo-China
talks on boundary positive Railways
gallery sans Netaji’s photo Report
on riots motivated: BJP Mehbooba
meets PM Kalam
calls on Sai Baba Canada
keen to assist Uttaranchal Raja
Bhaiyya booked |
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Youth held in Delhi rape case New Delhi, November 22 The accused was identified by the victim in the morning and around 11 a.m. the police informed a local court about his arrest. The court yesterday refused judicial remand to Rahul who had alleged police harassment for the past three days. The Magistrate, Mr Bharat Parasar, has asked the police to file a report in the case. Rahul, who resides in a slum cluster near the “Khooni Darwaza” at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and works in a transport agency owned by his uncle, stated in an application that there was threat to his life from the police. He alleged that since Rahul was tattooed on his hand the police suspect him to be the main culprit, Mr Ajay Digpal appearing for Rahul said. Mr Digpal also alleged that the police had also taken a photograph of his house. Rahul’s advocate claimed that
Rahul was not in Delhi on the fateful day as he had gone to his native village in Tonk in Rajasthan. The police has launched a citywide drive in this regard. Meanwhile, the National Commission for Women (NCW) today held a meeting with the Delhi Police Commissioner, Delhi Home Secretary and college and university officials to devise mechanisms to curb crimes against women in the city. The meeting, which was convened by NCW chairperson Poornima Advani, was attended by Delhi Police Commissioner R.S. Gupta, Delhi Home Secretary R.N. Swami, Principals of 20 medical and other colleges and representatives of Vice-Chancellors of Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. At the meeting the head of the Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) was also present. Ms Advani along with NCW members Shanta Reddy and Baby Rani Maurya had visited the site of the incident and held discussions with senior college officials and students to ascertain the security arrangements made by the college authorities before and after the incident. The students had told reportedly the NCW chairperson that the inhabitants felt insecure as eve-teasing had become a common phenomenon on the campus, where there was no check on the movement of outsiders. The girls demanded that necessary measures be taken by the college authorities to strengthen the security inside the campus. |
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India, Russia finalise defence deals New Delhi, November 22 According to well-placed sources here, the two countries are understood to have broadly reached at an agreement on the Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, which Moscow is inclined to give as a “gift” to New Delhi but with a tag attached: that the retro-fitting of the carrier, which will go into billions of dollars, would be done by Russia. The agreement was reached during intensive parleys between the Russian side led by visiting Minister of Industry and Science and Technology Ilya Klebanov and India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and senior officials. Mr Klebanov, during his brief interaction with the media along with Mr Sinha at Hyderabad House late this evening, admitted in response to a specific question that “major contracts were nearly finalised” at today’s meetings. Mr Klebanov’s talks with the Indian side are also understood to have focussed on the Amur class submarines, which in layman’s terminology are the “poor man’s nuclear submarine” because of their capability to remain under water for much longer period than the Augusta and other class of submarines that Indian and Pakistani navies possess. It is understood that a deal between India and Russia on the sale and transfer of technology of Amur submarines also reached the final stages during Mr Klebanov’s visit. The Amur class of submarines, technically known as Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) submarines, can remain under water for far longer duration than the usual non-nuclear submarines. Sources say an AIP technology submarine can remain under water for a week to four weeks as against the submarines India and Pakistan which have to resurface once every 24 hours. A submarine’s stealth quality and its capacity to remain under water continuously are the two most important aspects which determine its strategic assessment. |
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Defence
purchase to be ‘transparent’ New Delhi, November 22 Speaking at a meeting organised jointly by the Indian Army and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here yesterday, Mr Dutta said the details of the procurement procedure should be worked out with the private industry. With major policy issues related to the entry of the private sector in the country’s defence sector having been resolved, the details of public-private partnership in the defence sector need to be worked out, he said. “Modernisation of the Indian Army is no longer a matter of choice but has become a compulsion which no country can ignore and the participation of the private sector has become an essential requisite”, the Defence Secretary said. “Because of the closed-door policy that we have been following for the past 50 years, there may be some bottlenecks initially, but the industry should realise this and try to find their way out”, he said. He said that the industry should not only look at the short-term objective, but also look at exporting defence equipment manufactured in India. He said that there was a vast opportunity for the private sector to participate as equipment worth Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 crore was being imported at present. Master General of Ordnance Lt-Gen S.J.S. Saighal said that an integrated and step by step approach needed to be adopted to achieve the target of 70 per cent indigenisation of defence requirements. |
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US Treasury Secy gets no audience with PM
New Delhi, November 22 The Vajpayee-Al-Saha and Vajpayee-Klebanov meetings took place even as the US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil is also in town and is leaving the country without getting an appointment with Mr Vajpayee. According to diplomatic sources, the stark contrast has not gone unnoticed by Washington. External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha also met Mr
Al-Saha and Mr Klebanov today.  |
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Manmohan leads walkout in RS
New Delhi, November 22 In the Rajya Sabha the entire Opposition led by Leader of the Opposition Manmohan Singh staged a walk-out, protesting against the appointment of Justice Venkataswami, a retired Supreme Court judge, as Chairman of the Authority on Advance Ruling on Customs and Excise in May. Expressing “shock” over the appointment, the Opposition said, “The very authority which is investigating the government is sought to be given a job by the government”. In the Lok Sabha the issue was raised during question hour by Congress Chief Whip P.R. Dasmunshi, who said, the appointment was “highly prejudicial” to the Tehelka probe. He was joined by CPM member Basudev Acharia. Responding to members’ concern Finance Minister Jaswant Singh told both Houses that his ministry had written to the Chief Justice of India in September, last year, for nomination of a retired judge of the apex court for the job. The then Chief Justice, the Finance Minister said, had recommended Ms Venkataswami’s name and the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had given its approval in April. “The Finance Ministry entirely went by the recommendation of the Chief Justice”, Mr Jaswant Singh said, adding that Mr Venkataswami was appointed to the post in May. Contending that the appointment was a matter of “grave concern”, Opposition members said the authority of the Tehelka inquiry has been “compromised” with the Judge accepting the post. Mr Manmohan
Singh charged the government with showing disrespect to the system of
checks and balances and violating all norms of constitutional
propriety. PTI |
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Cong slams govt on Pak intrusion New Delhi, November 22 Party spokesman Satyabrata Chaturvedi said it was a serious matter. “Parliament was in session then, but neither the government nor the Defence Ministry took the nation into confidence,” he said. The spokesman said Defence Minister George Fernandes, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, had admitted that Pakistan Army crossed the LoC on July 26 and occupied a post in the Kupwara sector for several days which was eventually cleared by the Army with the help of the Air Force. The government, Mr Chaturvedi said had been consistently denying media reports of such an intrusion. The Congress also took exception to government’s decision to give a top government job to Justice K. Venkataswami probing the Tehelka expose and alleged that it was an attempt to influence the commission’s probe. The Congress also demanded registration of cases against acting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet colleagues named in the report prepared by citizen’s tribunal. |
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NORTH INDIA IN PARLIAMENT New Delhi, November 22 While 234 farmers
benefited in the district of Kangra, 262 farmers benefited in Solan, 157 in Bilaspur, 106 in Una, 27 in Mandi, 48 in Hamirpur and 32 in
Sirmour, the House was informed. The NAIS covers food crops (cereals, millets and pulses), oilseeds and annual horticultural/commercial crops, subject to availability of past yield data. The crops covered under the scheme in Himachal Pradesh are wheat and barley during the rabi season and maize, rice and potato during the kharif season, the minister told the House. In reply to another question, the minister said experiments conducted by Punjab Agriculture University on growing capsicum, bittergourd, bottlegourd and cucumber under nets had shown an increase in the yield of these crops. The incidence of pest and disease attack had been noticed to be less. Growing of crops under nets was an old and known technique and was used for protecting crops on a small and limited scale, the House was told. There are 13,982 fair price shops in Punjab at present, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution U.V. Krishnam Raju told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. The number of fair price shops in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh were 7,230, 3,957, 2,926, and 121, respectively, the House was informed. The state governments had been advised that fair price shop owners should be encouraged to enlarge the basket of commodities by adding non-PDS items for sale through PDS outlets at the retail prices to be fixed by them. There was no proposal to provide all consumer items through these shops, the minister told the House. The state governments had asked for early announcement of minimum support prices (MSP) for kharif crops, including paddy, fixation of higher MSP of paddy (Rs 57-Rs 850), coarse cereals (Rs 530-Rs 850), pulses (Rs 1450-Rs 2261), Groundnut-in-shell (Rs 1460-Rs 1983), cotton (Rs 1875-Rs 3400), payment of bonus etc. The government announced the MSP of various kharif crops 2002-03 season taking into account the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and the views of the state government and Central ministries, as well as such other relevant factors considered important for fixation of MSP. Keeping in view the failure of monsoon in various parts of the country during June-August, 2002, the government announced special drought relief prices for kharif crops of the 2002-03 season, the minister told the House. The special drought relief prices would be over and above MSPs already announced for kharif crops of 2002-03 season, the Rajya Sabha was told. |
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Katiyar: book Rao for demolition New Delhi, November 22 Deposing before the Liberhan Commission, probing into the sequences that led to the demolition of the disputed structure on December 6, 1992, Mr Katiyar said he was not aware of the responsibility of the RSS in the demolition. He maintained that foreseeing trouble, he had met the then Prime Minister, asking him to make a public announcement urging the sants to desist from any activity till the matter was resolved within a stipulated time. Mr Katiyar said Mr Rao had sent Central forces to Ayodhya to show to the world his sincerity in dealing with the situation while in fact he had been in direct contact with them all along. Casting aspersions on the intentions of Mr Rao, he said, “A case should be lodged against Mr Rao, but, instead, we are being booked.” Rejecting the suggestion that kar sevaks stopped the Central forces from reaching the disputed structure to stop the demolition, Mr Katiyar said, “I do not know who all were kar sevaks. Even Mr Narasimha Rao, Mr Arjun Singh and many people in the Central forces were kar sevaks”. |
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Veerappan
gives 12-day ultimatum Chennai, November 22 The Chief Minister of Karnataka, Mr S.M. Krishna, has convened an all-party meeting tomorrow to plan his move in response to Veerappan’s audio tape received by Mr Nagappa’s family yesterday. The elusive brigand has sent clear signals that his patience is running out. Karanataka Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Mr B.K. Chandrasekhar, told reporters in Bangalore after a high-level meeting convened by Mr Krishna that they discussed the Veerappan tape and an all-party meeting would meet tomorrow to consider the issue. The Chief Minister has been assuring the family of Mr Nagappa that his government will make all efforts to secure the release of the Janata Dal(U) leader. Mr Krishna is also under growing pressure from senior seers from various mutts in Karnataka to step up efforts to get Mr Nagappa freed. |
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Indo-China talks on boundary positive New Delhi, November 22 The issue of exchanging maps on the Western sector could be taken up at the Beijing meeting. The two sides, which held three sessions of talks at the 14th meeting of the Joint Working Group on the boundary question, also decided to continue their dialogue mechanism on terrorism in spring next year which would be followed by security talks, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman told reporters here. The Indian side, led by Foreign Secretary Kanwal
Sibal, conveyed its concerns on terrorism and there was a “greater understanding” about this on the Chinese side, he said. The Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Yi led his side. The dates for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to China were still under discussion, he said. Asked about the stand taken by China on Arunachal Pradesh and
Sikkim, he said these were complicated issues and both sides were approaching it in a constructive manner. “We have to work through and resolve them peacefully and according to commitments given at the highest level.” The discussions were held in a “positive and forward-looking manner”, he said. |
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Railways
gallery sans Netaji’s photo Kolkata, November 22 The exhibition was flagged off by the Railway Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar from the New Delhi station on August 15 and has been on its journey to cover the country’s 63,000-km-long route before finally returning to New Delhi on April 16, next year. Incidentally, on April 16, 1853, the country’s first train was run between Bombay (now Mumbai) and Thane. Though Netaji, Lala Lajpat Rai and several other national heroes have been left out, the photo gallery has two life-size photographs of Mr Nitish Kumar and former Railway Minister, Ram Vilash Paswan. Mr Nitish Kumar has his place next to Mahatma Gandhi along with Prime Minister Vajpayee and President, Kalam. But neither Ms Mamata Banerjee nor Mr A.B.A Ghani Khan Chowdhury, the two former railway ministers from Bengal, have found any place there. Conspicuously absent is also Babu Jagjivan Ram. Lal Bahadur Shastri is there but at a remote corner of the gallery which hardly draws any visitor’s attention. However, Jawaharlal Nehru has got a place along with his daughter Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. The argument given is that since it was impossible to exhibit pictures of all national leaders on the train, only some prominent and important leaders who had their direct interaction with the Railways had been accommodated. According to the Railways’, Netaji did not have any direct interaction with it. But history says Netaji had mysteriously disappeared while travelling on the Delhi-Kalka Mail, which he had boarded from Dhanbad on January 17, 1941, on way to Punjab. The Netaji Research Bureau, of which Dr Sugata Bose, Netaji’s grandson, is the chairman and Ms Krishna Bose, Trinamool Congress MP is an honourable member, has resented it. Meanwhile, Forward Bloc leader Asoke Ghosh has urged the people to boycott the exhibition now being held at the Howrah station. |
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Report
on riots motivated: BJP New Delhi, November 22 “This report is politically motivated and comes at a time when elections to the Assembly are round the corner. It will divide society on religious lines,” BJP parliamentary party spokesman V.K. Malhotra told newspersons here. “Such reports will only further inflame people’s anger and there is no need for such a report when a judicial inquiry is in progress,” he said. |
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Mehbooba
meets PM New Delhi, November 22 During her 30-minute meeting, she urged the Centre to allot surplus power from the Northern grid to the state in the winters and extend financial support for running gas turbines to meet the electricity demand. She urged the Centre to create employment opportunities in the state and absorb youth in government departments. She suggested that new battalions of the Jammu Kashmir Armed Police should be raised to absorb the educated youth. Ms Mehbooba described Mr Vajpayee’s response as “positive”. In her meeting with Ms Gandhi, the working of the coalition government in the state was discussed. Ms Mehbooba also met Congress leader Dr Manmohan Singh. |
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Kalam calls on Sai Baba Puttaparthi (Andhra Pradesh), November 22 Dr Kalam, who arrived here this morning by a special Indian Air Force aircraft, was received at the airport, near here, by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who had flown in just an hour before the arrival of the President. Dr Kalam was with the baba for about 20 minutes. This was his first visit here after assuming office. He had visited the baba on July 14, the eve of the presidential elections. Mr Naidu left for Hyderabad immediately after his breakfast with the President in the wake of the Dilsukhnagar bomb blast.
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Canada
keen to assist Uttaranchal Dehra Dun, November 22 Mr Woodhouse, who is currently here to attend a symposium on mountain farming, said that the Canadian International Development Agency was keen on rendering assistance to Uttaranchal in agriculture, industry and tourism development. Mr Tiwari told him that his government was making all efforts to raise the per capita income of Uttaranchal residents. |
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Raja Bhaiyya booked Pratapgarh, November 22 Several documents regarding the running of illegal liquor shops and extortion of money worth crores of rupees were recovered by the police yesterday, Deputy Superintendent of Police Ram Shiromani Pandey told reporters here today. “For the past three years liquor shops in the area were being run in an illegal manner without proper auction and a case under the Gangsters Act has been filed against Raja Bhaiyya”, he said.
PTI |
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In video (
Mr
Robert Woodhouse, Head of the Community Based Economic Development
(CBED) Project, Canada, on Wednesday met Chief Minister N.D. Tiwari
and apprised him of the various ongoing funding as well as technical
assistance schemes in Uttaranchal.
