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2 platforms possible to defeat
V.P. Singh persuades Paswan to join front BJP seeks relief for govt servants |
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SC to take up Telgi, other cases from Monday 3 arrested in kidney racket Mystery fever claims 12 lives in Andhra Pradesh Farmer
threatens Naidu with suicide CBI raids 3 BSNL
officials residences Ranvir Sena kills five Dalits POTA Bill becomes Act Panthers party condemns Jammu attack
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2 platforms possible to defeat BJP, says Surjeet Chennai, January 3 “We cannot write off the Congress because it was the biggest and the largest party without whose support, we cannot defeat the BJP,” he said, addressing a press conference at the party’s headquarters here after an hour-long meeting with DMK President M Karunanidhi at the latter’s house. Describing his meeting with Mr Karunanidhi as “successful”, Mr Surjeet said since the BJP leaership was talking of holding the Lok Sabha poll either in April or May, “there is an urgency to rally all the secular forces in the country to defeat the communal BJP”. Asked whether his party will favour Ms Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister, the CPM leader said “it is not the issue now and it can be sorted out later”. In a vast country like India, “many persons can be selected and elected and they can rule the country”. At his meeting with Ms Gandhi this week, the CPM general
secretary had mooted the idea of forming two ‘fronts’, one consisting of the Congress and its allies and the other of the Left and other anti-BJP parties to work in a single direction towards defeating the communal forces. A former President of the party had been accused of taking money and “that is why, it is necessary for various secular forces to come together to defeat the BJP,” he said. When his attention was drawn to BJP President Venkaiah Naidu’s remarks yesterday that CPM should come out “openly” to support the Congress and not in a “veiled” manner, Mr Surjeet said “I need not take any lessons from him. Mr Naidu is only protecting the interests of the BJP and nothing else”. Referring to Tamil Nadu, he said the presence of the MDMK, a known supporter of the banned LTTE, in the new front would not “weaken” it as the main priority was only “to defeat the communal force,” which was posing a danger to the country.
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V.P. Singh persuades Paswan to join front New Delhi, January 3 Sources said Mr V.P. Singh, during a luncheon meeting,
persuaded Mr Paswan to be part of the secular front, efforts for which were being made
by the Congress and some other parties. The former Prime Minister also urged Mr Paswan to use his influence to bring in more and more parties into the front. The meeting assumes significance in the light of the meeting between Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Mr Paswan last week. The Congress has been making efforts to form a secular front with other "like-minded" parties ahead of the Lok Sabha poll to put up a united opposition to the National Democratic alliance. According to another report, with the Lok Sabha poll likely to be held in April-end or early May, the NDA is hopeful of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) joining it thus forming a formidable combination with the BJP and the Shiv Sena in
Maharashtra. "The chances of the NCP joining the NDA is 50-50 and the process of their coming into the alliance will be accelerated with the return of Mr Udhav Thackeray, Executive President of the Shiv Sena from abroad," highly placed BJP sources said today. The move to rope in the NCP into the NDA fold comes in
the wake of the meeting Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray had with Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani in Mumbai
recently where this issue had figured with the Sena not being averse to it. The Shiv Sena supremo had objected to the continued presence of Mr Chaggan Bhujbal in the NCP though BJP sources indicated that “this was not a major hurdle in the way of the NCP joining the alliance. These matters can be sorted as and when the modalities of the NCP coming into the NDA are worked out.” However, on the re-entry of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh into the BJP, the sources said “nothing concrete has been worked out so far and after the kind of language Mr Kalyan Singh had used against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999 while leaving the party, he should first repent it.” Mr Kalyan Singh, who had met Mr Vajpayee on December 24 in Lucknow, had fuelled speculation of his returning to the party fold. Though, privately, BJP
leaders admit that Mr Kalyan Singh’s return will improve the party’s electoral prospects in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh where the party currently has only 29 seats out of 80. A meeting of the MLAs of Mr Kalyan Singh’s Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP) is slated for tomorrow coinciding with his birthday. Two of his MLAs, including his son Mr Rajvir Singh and Mr Kusum Rai, are currently ministers in the government of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. With the DMK and the MDMK leaving the NDA, party sources do not rule out an alliance with the AIADMK though no talks at any level have been held so far. “We have not had any contact at any level so far with the AIADMK and it is too early to say anything in this direction,” the sources said. —
PTI |
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BJP seeks relief for govt servants New Delhi, January 3 Senior BJP leader and chief whip of the BJP Vijay Kumar, who met the Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh here, in a statement said he had requested the latter to merge Dearness Allowance (DA) in pay as recommended by the Fifth Pay Commission. He pointed out that the commission had recommended that the DA of government servants should be merged with the pay when it reached 50 per cent of the pay. In this context, it is worth noting that the Central Government can make such announcements only in the Budget and cannot accommodate such major provisions if it decides to go for a “vote-on-account”. Mr Malhorta also urged him to increase the slab of standard deduction from 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the pay to allow income tax relief up to Rs 50,000. Mr Malhotra also referred to the government’s scheme for pensioners and senior citizens enabling them to invest Rs 2 lakh at 9 per cent interest to get monthly income of Rs 2,000. He said instead of allowing either husband and wife to avail the benefit of the scheme, it should be extended to both and income earned under the scheme should be exempted from tax. Mr Jaswant Singh assured him that he would look into the matter and do whatever was possible, Mr Malhotra said.
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SC to take up Telgi, other cases from Monday New Delhi, January 3 Due to the winter vacations from December 20 to
January 4, hearings in these important matters were adjourned to different dates of January by different Benches of the apex court with the directions that the parties in the cases should complete their pleadings. The public interest litigations for the CBI probe into the Telgi stamp paper scam, inquiry by a commission into the leaking of Dubey’s secret letter to the PMO regarding rampant corruption in Bihar segment of Golden Quardilateral Corridor project leading to his murder allegedly by contractor mafia and the appeal against the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order dismissing a petition against dissolution of Andhra Pradesh Assembly, would be heard on Monday itself. The court had ordered listing of Haryana’s suit for construction of the controversial SYL in the second week of January after the Punjab Government had submitted its reply. The Centre has already filed its affidavit expressing willingness to construct the canal by some of its agencies after the Punjab Government had expressed its inability to execute the project. Former Punjab Public Service Commission chairman Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu, lodged in judicial custody since March 2002 in the “money-for-job” scam, could hope to get bail as the apex court had directed the trial Court in Patiala to complete recording of the evidence of two approvers in the case by January 9 as the court had made it a pre-condition for accepting his plea for bail. A PIL for review of court’s earlier order approving the transfer of the Ayodhaya demolition case from Lucknow trial court to Rae Bareilly, is also likely to be taken up for hearing this month, while it had given a deadline of January 30 to the Centre for completing the process of deporting of six Pakistani prisoners lodged in various jails of Jammu and Kashmir after completion of their sentence for crossing over the Line of Control. Another important petition against the Uttar Pradesh Government’s decision to withdraw POTA cases against independent MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raja Bhaiya, his father and cousin, registered during the Mayawati regime, is also expected to be taken up this month as the court had told the state government that unless it got the permission from the Centre, the cases could be withdrawn because POTA is a central law. The petition of English Daily, “The Hindu” challenging the Constitution validity of Section 499 of Indian Penal Code (IPC), dealing with criminal defamation, might also be listed for hearing this month as the court had given four weeks’ time for reply by the Centre and Tamil Nadu Government, which had registered 25 defamation cases against the newspaper. |
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3 arrested in kidney racket Mumbai, January 3 They were arrested by the Unit I of the detective Crime Branch-CID, yesterday. They were produced before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate S. S. Shirke today, who remanded them in police custody till January 16. The accused were identified as Shivananda Damodar Kamat, alias Shiva Sawant, alias S Kumar alias Shiva (40), Wahab Samim Ahamed Khan (29) and Mohammed Parvez Abdul Hamim Shaikh (31). The arrest was made following a complaint lodged by Kurshid Alam Abdul Rauf Ansari (40) at the VP Marg police station, recently. The court was informed that the victim had been allegedly abducted by the trio and taken to Pune where his left kidney was removed. He came back to Mumbai and after registering an FIR, the police sent him to the government-run Sir J J Hospital here, where it was confirmed that one of his kidneys had been removed. The Mumbai police had launched a massive investigation into the entire racket. Several bogus documents and several incriminating documents were also seized from the accused. According to police sources, the involvement of doctors has not been ruled out. —
UNI |
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Mystery fever claims 12 lives in Andhra Pradesh Nellore (Andhra Pradesh),
January 3 A BJP district functionary L. Subbaramaiah (50) of Kota mandal succumbed to the illness yesterday, which, district medical authorities believe, is spread by contaminated water. One more person was detected with the symptoms of the illness, including swelling of the face and legs. Eleven persons had succumbed to the mystery fever in the district, which witnessed scores of deaths following an outbreak of the Japanese Encephilitis early last year. The District Collector and District Medical and Health Officer had instructed village officers to immediately take up sanitary measures, including chlorination. Meanwhile, 20 residents of Kapparallathippa village are being treated at a community hall for gastroenteritis. The health machinery had been geared up in Bogole mandal to deal with the disease. —
UNI |
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Farmer
threatens Naidu with suicide Vijayawada, January 3 Unable to bear the agony with the cyclonic
rain soaking his ready-to-harvest paddy, the 40-year-old farmer Tama
Nancharaiah pleaded with the Chief Minister during the latter’s
whirlwind visit to the affected areas to procure all the damaged paddy
and threatened that “otherwise I will have no option but to end my
life.” It was a proverbial slip between the cup and the lip for
the Krishna delta ryots, who had taken up khariff paddy cultivation
quite late due to severe water shortage and lost the crop at the time
of harvest to the cyclonic rain. — UNI |
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CBI raids 3
BSNL officials residences New Delhi,
January 3 The CBI registered a case last evening against two divisional engineers and a junior telecom officer for allegedly amassing assets through corrupt means, agency sources said here. Following the registration of the case, a raid was carried out at the residence and official premises of the three officials. In one particular search, the CBI recovered Rs 32 lakh in cash, deposits worth Rs 45 lakh and jewellery worth Rs 5 lakh from the bank locker of a divisional engineer. Besides this, documents about the purchase of land worth Rs 2 lakh was recovered. The
official was being questioned by CBI sleuths, the sources said, adding
that there was no substantial recovery from the other two officers so
far. — PTI |
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Ranvir Sena kills five Dalits Arwal, January 3 Armed with automatic weapons, about 100 members of the private militia of landlords surrounded Bariari village and opened indiscriminate fire on a group of people sitting near a bonfire killing five persons on-the-spot, Superintendent of Police P.P. Pandey said. Two persons were critically injured in the attack and shifted to Patna Medical College Hospital. The Sena members left pamphlets and banners owning responsibility for the killing, he said. While fleeing, the extremists also attacked a police patrol party but no one was injured. CRPF,
Bihar Military Police and Special Task Force personnel began an intense combing operation to apprehend the killers and sealed all entry and exit points of Arwal. District Magistrate K.N. Jha said the Ranvir Sena and the PWG were locked in a war of attrition in Arwal, Bhojpur, Jehanabad, Gaya and Aurangabad districts of the state for a long time. —
PTI |
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POTA Bill becomes Act New Delhi, January 3 Official sources said today that President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has accorded assent to the Anti-Defection Bill aimed at checking defections and limiting the size of the ministries both at the Centre and in states to 15 per cent of the strength of the Lok Sabha and Assemblies. States will be given six-month time to implement the new law after it is notified in the Gazette. The President has also given sanction to the Prevention of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill. —
UNI |
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Panthers party condemns Jammu attack New Delhi, January 3 In a statement issued here, party chief Bhim Singh said the attack was handiwork of the ISI and was aimed at disturbing the social harmony in the region, apart from defeating the SAARC conference. |
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Brown sugar worth Rs 16.2 cr seized Indore, January 3 |
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