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Cong
leadership was wary of singling out Badal Vehicles
burnt, factory damaged in mob violence Stop
sending vehicles to Assam through Bihar, say truckers CBI to
probe violence in Assam Judges
must be men of integrity, says CJI Railway
ex-minister supports Nitish |
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Telugu
paper clarifies on PSU row Ceasefire
could lead to solution, says Fernandes Cong plans reply to show-cause notice
Resident
card must for re-entering Canada
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Cong leadership was wary of singling out Badal New Delhi, November 26 There was an element of circumspection on the part of the highest Congress leadership in singling out Mr Badal for alleged acts of corruption without a watertight case, barely 10 days before crucial Assembly elections in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh on December 1. A strong opinion in a section of the AICC was that moving against Mr Badal at this juncture might amount to courting disaster. Authoritative sources said there was no great enthusiasm in the highest echelons of the Congress leadership of zeroing in on just Mr Badal. Clearly, the central leadership of the Congress believes that there can be serious political repercussions of singling out Mr Badal. Its impact and political ramifications, adverse or gainful, are not going to be confined to Punjab. At any rate, the Congress high command believes that law will take its own course and matters of litigation are a time-consuming affair. The leadership was acutely aware that the Congress poll plank in Punjab when the party came to power by dislodging the SAD government was two-fold -fighting corruption and giving an impetus to development. Sources said rampant corruption had been the bane of Punjab. Further, it will be naive on anybody’s part to admit that corruption has been rooted out since the Capt Amarinder Singh government assumed office early last year. It has taken nearly 18 months since the investigations started against Mr Badal, his immediate family and certain friends for the Punjab government to file a challan. Stretching the matter indefinitely would have caused further embarrassment to the Congress government in Punjab. Armed with the relevant papers, Capt Amarinder Singh had two sittings with senior leaders of the AICC to discuss the Badal family’s disproportionate assets case last week. Within 48 hours of his return to Chandigarh, the government presented a challan in the court of the District and Sessions Judge, Ropar, on November 22. The Special Judge, Mr S.K. Goyal, has summoned all six named in the challan to appear in court on December 1. Mr Badal, his son Sukhbir Badal, Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and other Akali leaders have dismissed the allegations as fabricated, politically motivated and a bundle of lies. |
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Vehicles burnt, factory
damaged in mob violence Gurgaon, November 26 The mob burnt six cars and damaged 10 scooters, a motor cycle and around 60 cycles parked outside the factory. All vehicles belonged to employees of the company. Senior
Superintendent of Police Kuldeep Singh Siag informed mediapersons gathered on the spot that around 600 persons gather on the road adjacent to a garment unit Kabir Leathers, 496, Phase 3, Udyog Vihar each Friday for offering “Namaz”. Today there were more than 1000 persons. At about 9 a.m. some in the crowd were selling caps and Maulvis were asking the Muslims to donate generously for
“Madarsas,” located in different parts of the country, said the SSP. As some of them were preparing themselves for “Namaz” by laying mats on road, a clash broke out among them over the collection of donations. Things soon flared up and people started throwing stones at one another. “Their anger reportedly turned towards the garment unit and soon they started throwing stones at the unit”, said Mr
Saig. The SSP said that the police was investigating the reason, as Vikram Sekhri, managing director of Kabir Leathers, had told them that neither he nor his any employee he had any grouse against anybody from the Muslim community. The mob fled when the police reached the place. On the complaint by Gaurav Mehar, quality control manager of the unit, the police has lodged an FIR. The police, meanwhile, arrested five persons from the spot, who had allegedly indulged in the burning of vehicles. The arrested persons are Ahmid
Rahman, Jamin and Moslam of Bihar and Mansur Aalam and Shaob of UP. |
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Stop sending vehicles to Assam through Bihar, Patna, November 26 The Bihar Motor Transport Federation (BMTF) has written to the All India Goods Transport Association in Delhi requesting it to direct truckers to stop sending vehicles to Assam till the situation normalised there, BMTF President Uday Shanker Prasad Singh said. He said letters were also sent to state transport federations of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and others states. In an emergency meeting of the BMTF here yesterday it was decided that if the transporters from other states did not stop plying vehicles to Assam the BMTF would stall movement of trucks to that state through Bihar from next week. He said vehicles from Bihar would keep off the roads to Assam till the Central government and the Assam government gave them assurance that the transporters would not be targeted in the state. On an average 4000 to 5000 trucks go to Assam from Bihar daily carrying food items, medicines and other goods. Irked over the killing of four truck drivers at Nalbari, the BMTF, at its executive body meeting on November 22 had decided against sending trucks to Assam. Imphal: The All Manipur Students’ Union on Wednesday appealed to the Manipur Government to curb the influx of Biharis into the state in the wake of ongoing violence in Assam. Talking to mediapersons here, union President L. Joykumar urged the Government to send back those Biharis who had fled to the state from Assam. In a small state like Manipur, the influx could cause demographic and social change, Joykumar said, adding that several students sacrificed lives during the anti-alien stir in the state in early 80s while demanding the deportation of “foreign nationals” (mostly Bangladeshis).
— PTI |
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CBI to probe violence in Assam Guwahati, November 26 “We have decided for the CBI probe because if the state government conducted the probe then the opposition parties would allege that it was one-sided,” Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told a press conference here today. “We will be writing soon to the Centre for a CBI probe as all the facts should be revealed as to who was responsible for the attacks,” he said. Reiterating that the carnage took place due to lack of sufficient security force, Mr Gogoi said of late 15 more companies of paramilitary force had arrived which raised the strength to 125 companies in the state. “Had the paramilitary force been present here earlier we could have perhaps avoided such unfortunate incidents,” he said.
— PTI |
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Judges must be men of integrity, says CJI New Delhi, November 26 Speaking at a Law Day function here, in which Law Minister Arun Jaitley said the Centre was seriously considering to increase the number of Supreme Court judges, the CJI said “a judicial office is essentially a public trust” and the judges should always keep this fact in mind. Society was entitled to expect that a judge must be a man of integrity, honesty and should have more vigour and ethical firmness to resist any temptation. “Any conduct, which tends to undermine public confidence in the integrity of a judge, would be deleterious to the efficacy of the justice delivery system,” he said, adding that stringent
standards had to be enforced upon judicial officers. “A judge is always a judge and he cannot have a split personality with different traits at different times,” the Chief Justice said. The Law Minister told the gathering that a proposal for increasing the strength of Supreme Court judges from the existing 26 was under consideration of the government in view of increasing number of cases coming before it. This follows the Centre’s recent decision to increase the number of High Court judges by 94, to bring down the burden of nearly 34 lakh cases pending in High Courts. |
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Railway ex-minister supports Nitish Kolkata, November 26 Mr Khan Chowdhury yesterday said he had sympathy for the unemployed youths of Assam where development works were needed at a war footing. Like West Bengal, unemployment problem was acute in Assam and other areas in the north-eastern region. He felt the unemployed youths in these areas should not be blamed if they were frustrated. The former minister said during his tenure as Railway Minister he had tried his best to provide maximum jobs to the local youths. He has written a letter to Mr Nitish Kumar supporting his decision to decentralise the recruitments at various zonal railways. But he advised Mr Nitish Kumar to provide job facilities in certain categories to the local youths as most jobs were earmarked for the SC/ST and other weaker sections. Mr Khan Chowdhury also condemned ULFA and other terrorist groups in killing Biharis in Assam. He demanded that the Centre should send para-military forces to Guwahati to help the state police in tackling the situation. But as a long-term measure, the Centre should immediately take up several development programmes in Assam and other backward states in the north-eastern region which would solve the unemployment problems vis-à-vis terrorists problems in the
region, Mr Khan Chowdhury said. |
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Telugu paper clarifies on
PSU row New Delhi, November 26 In reply to a legal notice served on the newspaper management by Law Minister Arun Jaitley after the Congress had mentioned his and other ministers’ names, Vaartha’s lawyer Anip Sachthey said, “My client has neither mentioned any incidence or occasion of any such misuse nor is in possession of any material which can even remotely suggest that.” Expressing regret over the publication of the report both in Telugu and Hindi editions of Vaartha, Mr Sachthey, responding to the legal notice sent by Mr Jaitley’s counsel Maninder Singh, further said, “The news item, which never mentioned any such allegation either against Mr Jaitley or any other minister, has been wrongly constructed by some people as if our newspaper is making such assertions against them.” Following the publication of the report, the Congress had led a delegation to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, requesting him to ask Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to sack the six ministers. Mr Maninder Singh, releasing the copy of Vaartha’s reply to the media here, said Vaartha had categorically stated that the news item did not intend to “directly or indirectly suggest that Mr Jaitley has misused any PSU under his ministry.” The advocate of Vaartha said the newspaper has already published a clarification and regret in its November 23 issue on the front page. |
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Ceasefire could lead to solution, says Fernandes Raipur, November 26 “There are enough reasons to believe the ceasefire could take them (the two countries) to a final solution as it was implemented after a serious thought,” he told reporters here. Maintaining that the matter should be looked at from a ‘positive angle’, he said the initiative taken by India earlier had not yielded success but the step taken by the Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali would give momentum to resolving the outstanding issues and both the nations should work to take it to a ‘final solution’. However, the ceasefire would not be binding on the Army as far as militants were concerned and any one trying to intrude into the border would be given the same treatment that was being given earlier, Mr Fernandes said. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had promised he would try once again and this ceasefire was an outcome of that, he said. On whether Pakistan was adopting a ‘soft’ attitude towards India because of the impending visit of Mr Vajpayee, the Defence Minister said he was not aware of the reasons. “Who does not want all outstanding issues to be resolved permanently and relations strengthened to remove the effect of tension on development,” Mr Fernandes said. To a question about dialogue with militants, Mr Fernandes said Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani had taken steps for a dialogue with them and this ceasefire would also bring momentum to that. He dismissed reports that the step was taken on ‘instructions’ from the US, saying, ‘‘No one can instruct India on any matter since it is a powerful nation”.
— PTI |
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Cong plans reply to show-cause notice New Delhi, November 26 Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters that the show-cause notice pertaining to Capt Amarinder Singh was received today and the party had a week to submit its reply. Today’s notice comes soon after the EC issued a similar notice to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi for violation of the Model Code of Conduct. Both Ms Gandhi and Mr Jogi were asked to explain the use of state government aircraft after the announcement of the assembly elections. The Congress had replied that Ms Gandhi had used the Chhattisgarh Government helicopter for an official programme which was outside any election-bound state. Mr Jogi also said he had used the aircraft for official purposes, describing it as an “inadvertent error”. |
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Resident card must for
re-entering Canada New Delhi, November 26 The permanent resident card replaces the paper IMM 1000 Record of Landing document and will be the official proof of status document for
Canadian permanent residents, the Canadian High Commission said in a press note here today. Existing permanent residents must be in Canada to apply for the permanent resident card. Application and information kits are available at
www.cic.gc.ca. |
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6 feared drowned in boat mishap Bettiah (Bihar), November 26 The police said the reason behind the mishap was not immediately known. The body of one of the victims has been recovered. The local administration has sought the services of divers to fish out the remaining bodies.
— UNI |
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Punjab Day celebrated New Delhi, November 26 The audience danced to the tune of Punjabi singer Harbhajan Mann and Raj Tiwari. Over five lakh persons have visited the pavillion and so far enquiries worth Rs 12 crore have been generated, a release said today.
— TNS |
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