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Israel cautions against ‘tyrannies’ with nukes
Pak trying to stop terror, says Fernandes |
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SIT to question
Deshmukh Digvijay booked in graft case Gujarat cops
denied bail in gangrape case BJP accuses Cong of irresponsible governance CPM leaders meet to finalise party strategy
Name
candidate for PM’s post, BJP dares Cong SAD’s
plea to field Jaitley from Amritsar rejected Judge
moves SC on jailbreak case Tax-free Budget in Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav today defended his Rs 618 crore deficit Budget saying that it was “ideal and progressive and aimed to uplift the poor and downtrodden.” Surgeons welcome NHRC move on human organ trade Transplant surgeons have hailed the initiative of the National Human Rights Commission to stop trade in human organs. The NHRC Chairperson, Justice A.S. Anand, has written to the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers on the need to prevent illegal trade in human organs. Govt eases visa
policy for displaced Afghans Lucknow Bench summons
records of Ayodhya case Licences of pilots suspended
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Israel cautions against ‘tyrannies’ with nukes New Delhi, February 11 Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who held talks with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Defence Minister George Fernandes on the third and last day of his official visit here today, later admitted that there was a possibility of terrorists getting nuclear knowhow. Mr Shalom said at a news conference in the evening in response to a Pakistan-specific question: “We are concerned that some knowledge and material reached the wrong hands”. In his tone and tenor, Mr Shalom aired his views strongly, which despite being couched in diplomatese, are bound to leave Pakistanis red-faced. He said: “There is a huge difference between democracies like US, France and India that have nuclear weapons and tyrannies that have these because such countries (the “tyrannies”) might use such weapons against others. It is a matter of international concern.” Mr Shalom’s remark assumes significance in the backdrop of the universally known fact that Pakistan is the only nuclear power in the world where the military, and not the political executive, controls the nuclear trigger. The Israeli DPM also made fun of reports in Pakistani media that after the conclusion of his India visit he would go to Islamabad and mocked at recent reports in a section of Pakistani media before the World Economic Forum’s meeting at Davos, Switzerland suggesting a possible meeting between him and Gen Musharraf. At one point of time, Mr Shalom said without mincing words: “Pakistan should change its approach towards Israel”. This remark, diplomatic sources here said, would inevitably reverberate in Islamabad which of late has been toying with the idea of recognising Israel and setting up diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. Earlier in the day, Mr Shalom met Mr Vajpayee for about half an hour. Though PMO sources described the meeting as “a courtesy call”, it is understood that the two leaders’ discussions were focussed on the peace process in Middle East. Mr Vajpayee inquired about some new ideas raised in Israel recently on Israel-Palestine peace talks. Mr Shalom said Israel was willing to hold talks with the Palestinians immediately and pointed out in the same breath that it has been more than three months since the new Prime Minister of the Palestine Authority has taken over he has not been able to find time to talk to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He said he wanted India to help in the Middle East peace process and sounded pessimistic of the Palestinian attitude when he remarked: “It takes two to tango”. Mr Shalom stoutly defended the controversial security fence that the Sharon government is constructing. Asked about the Government of India’s attitude towards the security fencing, he made an important distinction when he said: “India is not accepting the route of security fence, not the very idea of the fence”. Then came a policy statement from Mr Shalom when he said: “The fence is moveable. The fence is reversible.” Diplomatic observers here attach a lot of importance to this as they feel that this indicates Tel Aviv’s willingness for a flexible approach during peace talks. Arab diplomats, however, were not amused as they described the statement as: “Only sound, no substance”. Mr Shalom also insisted on changing the voting pattern in United Nations and pointed out that last year as many as 20 anti-Israel resolutions were brought and voted in the UN. Of these 20 resolutions, India voted in favour of 19 and abstained in one, while the European Union voted in favour of 16 resolutions. He asked India to reconsider its decision on voting on the security fence issue at the International Court of Justice at The Hague on February 23. On the PHALCON radar deal, he said “Finally we have succeeded in implementing the deal and we expect to make deliveries shortly”. |
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Pak trying to stop terror, says Fernandes
New Delhi, February 11 However, this assessment of Defence Minister George Fernandes was tempered with caution that there were “elements” outside the Pakistan Government planning strategies to continue their terrorist activities in India and to derail the movement towards normalcy. In an hour-long interview to PTI, Mr Fernandes spoke on the situation along the border following the November ceasefire and voiced optimism about further improvement of relations between the two countries. “There is solid information that the Pakistan Government has taken steps to put down terrorism. But there is also evidence that there are elements who have nothing to do with the state and who are always planning strategies to continue their terrorist activities,” he said Asked as who were these elements, he said these were “autonomous agencies” who had been indulging in these kinds of activities but there was no evidence of their being funded by Pakistani authorities. Mr Fernandes, who is the NDA convener, said the ruling alliance would not depart from its stand on the Ayodhya issue and if the BJP had its own agenda on the Ram temple, it would not become an election plank for the coalition. He expressed confidence that the NDA would get an absolute majority on its own in the coming elections on the basis of promises it delivered and due to the state of the Congress, which was in “doldrums”. He said there was a radical change in the mood of the country after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s path-breaking initiatives to resolve serious problems, including Jammu and Kashmir and improving bilateral relations with Pakistan and China.
— PTI |
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SIT to question Deshmukh Mumbai, February 11 According to sources here, the Maharashtra Government is expected to question the accuracy of the narco-analysis and brain-mapping tests done on Abdul Karim Telgi, the prime accused in the multi-crore fake stamp paper racket. Legal advisers have told Maharashtra’s top politicians that the brain-mapping tests undertaken on Telgi comprise a grey area in crime detection and may not stand upto judicial scrutiny. The special investigating team probing the fake stamp paper racket on Tuesday released details of Telgi’s interrogation using the brain-mapping and narco-analysis or truth serum tests. SIT officials said in Pune that Telgi had implicated former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Bhujbal in his confessions. Investigators were still not sure if Telgi was referring to former Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal or his nephew Sameer. The special investigating team will soon question Deshmukh, Chhagan Bhujbal, politicians and police officials, sources here say. Sameer Bhujbal has been questioned twice earlier. Deshmukh admitted to mediapersons here that he had helped Telgi obtain a stamp vendor’s licence when he was Revenue Minister in 1994. Telgi was accompanied by journalist-turned-MLA Anil Gote when he met Deshmukh to get his stamp vendor’s licence application cleared. Gote and another MLA Krishna Yadav of Andhra Pradesh are now in jail for their links with Telgi. Deshmukh told mediapersons today that he would cooperate with investigators. Bhujbal denied that he was paid by Telgi.
Meanwhile, the special court in Pune, hearing cases related to the fake stamp racket, today deferred the hearing on the bail application of Deputy Commissioner of Police Pradeep Sawant to February 23. |
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Digvijay booked in graft case
Bhopal, February 11 The FIR, registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act, names Digvijay Singh, his close friend and Indore-based businessman Subhash Gupta, a former Principal Secretary (Revenue), former Indore Collector Mohammad Sulaiman and competent urban land ceiling authority R.K. Gupta, Lokayukt sources said here today. The case, relating to alleged corruption as also criminal conspiracy, was registered yesterday in compliance with a recent directive of a court in Indore following a complaint by P.C. Jain, alleging that a five-acre prime land in Indore was allowed to be used for colonising, the sources said. It was alleged that instead of attaching surplus land near Dhar Kothi in Indore after annulment of Urban Land Ceiling Act in 1999, the competent authority entered into an alleged conspiracy with Digvijay Singh and his businessman friend for colonising it, they said. Subsequently, a lease deed was allegedly prepared by Sulaiman on the basis of instructions from the Revenue Department following an application for allotment of land at a nominal lease rent in September 2002, the sources said. Digvijay Singh was unavailable here immediately for comments as he was away from Bhopal. Additional Sessions Judge J.P. Gupta had directed the Lokayukt police to undertake an investigation into the alleged land scam. The complainant had alleged that Digvijay Singh was a ‘benami’ partner of Gupta and that he stalled filing of a petition against an order of the Revenue Board, which had cancelled steps for attachment of the land, they said.
— PTI Gujarat cops denied bail in gangrape case Ahmedabad, February 11 Judge H.P. Patel rejected the application on the ground that applicants were senior police officials at present and had also served in Dahod jurisdiction at the time of the incident. He observed that due to their present position, they could hamper investigations and tamper with evidence if granted anticipatory bail. The anticipatory bail plea was filed by Idris Abdullah Sayeed, Ramsinh Bhabhor and Ramansinh Bhagora, who served in the Dahod district and were part of the investigation conducted by the Gujarat police. The court had yesterday heard arguments from the defence and CBI counsel and had reserved its order for today.
— PTI |
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BJP accuses Cong of irresponsible governance New Delhi, February 11 Quoting from a book ‘A Cabinet Secretary Looks Back’ by B .G. Deshmukh, former Cabinet Secretary and Principal Secretary to Mr Gandhi, party spokesman and Law Minister Arun Jaitley said in one instance the Prime Minister’s special security was being asked to go to Italy for special training. When no paper moved in the government and the then Prime Minister was confronted, he (Mr Gandhi) had said the “party would bear the expenses”. Mr Jaitley said in 1986 the Prime Minister was not of a foreign origin but the “obvious foreign connection” was there. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee suggested that the party should come out with a comprehensive compilation of the speeches, letters and other written material about Bharatiya Jan Sangh leader Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay in order to preserve his work for future generations. BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu, in his opening remarks, said the party’s ascendence to power was on the guidelines and ideals spelt out by Deendayal Upadhyay and today every section of the society was looking at the BJP. However, he conceded that the party would have to win the hearts of the minorities to make its political journey complete. Hitting out at the Congress, party President M Venkaiah Naidu said “today’s Congress has left everything and only believes in opportunism” whereas it was the BJP which “respects the values of pre-1950s Congress of Pandit Gobind Ballabh Pant, P.D. Tandon and Madan Mohan Malaviya and not the modern values. The BJP has come to occupy centrestage of Indian politics.” |
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CPM leaders meet to finalise party strategy Kolkata, February 11 Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister and Anil Biswas, the party secretary, were among others present. The party already decided to project Jyoti Basu as “Aaj ka Netaji” ( today’s Netaji Subhas Bose) in the campaign. As Netaji fought for the country’s freedom against the British rule, so Jyoti Basu would be cited as a leader par excellence leading the poor people in their fight against hunger, poverty and the misrule, the leader said. Incidentally, at the recent Kolkata Book Fair, Biman Bose and Subhas Chakraborty, the State Transport Minister, jointly installed Jyoti Basu’s statue by the side of Netaji and Rabindranath, equating them in the same place which caused much controversies. Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee, Union Coal Minister, today met Chief Election Commissioner, T.S. Krishnamurti to lodge complaints against the CPM for misusing the government machinery and the police in West Bengal during the electioneering. They apprehended that there would be a large-scale rigging and false voting by the CPM during the elections. The TMC also submitted a memorandum to the CEC, demanding deployment of adequate number of Central force and observers and polling personnel from other states for ensuring a free and fair election in the state. In this election, the CPM will be fielding candidates in 32 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats and three other partners, the RSP, the Forward Bloc and CPI have been allowed to share the remaining 10 seats. The Congress and the Trinamool Congress, the two major parties have not yet finalised their candidates’ lists. |
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Name candidate for PM’s post, BJP dares Cong Lucknow, February 11 “It is a strange paradox that the Congress is trying to cobble a new alliance but is yet to decide on its prime ministerial candidate,” BJP national general secretary Pramod Mahajan said here today. He said the BJP-led NDA had a clear leader in Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and he would be the next Prime Minister. “The people who will vote for Congress should know as who would be the Congress-led alliance’s prime ministerial candidate ... the Congress should not befool the people,” he said. Mr Mahajan was in town to attend the state executive meeting of the BJP in which the party chalked out its election strategy. When asked about the BJP stand on the Ram temple issue, Mr Mahajan said issue would continue to hog the limelight in all elections until a majestic temple was built at the place where once Babri Masjid stood. |
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SAD’s plea to field Jaitley from Amritsar rejected New Delhi, February 11 Although appreciative of the request, the two top leaders of the BJP categorically turned it down saying that Mr
Jaitley, who is one of the key party leaders and will be coordinating the election campaign and management, cannot be spared, party sources told The Tribune here. The request for fielding Mr Jaitley came from SAD Chief Parkash Singh Badal and his senior colleague
G.S. Tohra a couple of days ago. Mr Badal and Mr Tohra had expressed their keenness on fielding Mr Jaitley as the Union Minister hailed from Amritsar and had charisma to pull a good victory from that seat. Sources said Mr Jaitley had also expressed his willingness to contest from there if the leadership wanted, but Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani made it clear that he could not be spared as his services for campaign management was crucial. Moreover, they pointed out that Mr Jaitley had two more years to go in the Rajya Sabha. |
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Judge moves SC on jailbreak case New Delhi, February 11 A Bench comprising Chief Justice
V.N. Khare, Mr Justice S.B. Sinha and Mr Justice S.H. Kapadia fixed the hearing for February 16, when Bhalla’s counsel Rakesh Dwivedi and Arun Katwalia made a special mention of the filing of his special leave petition. The petition said the high court, in its interim order passed on January 29, had impleaded Bhalla as a party in a
PIL, which had sought a CBI probe into the jailbreak, even when he was not responsible for the administration of the jail. |
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Tax-free Budget in Uttar Pradesh Lucknow, February 11 In the given circumstances the state budget, presented in the assembly earlier in the day, was “balanced” and “village-oriented” with a view to change the face of the state, said Mr Yadav, who also holds the finance portfolio. He said 71 per cent of the budget was focused on making roads, hospitals in rural areas and electrifying villages. Over Rs 1,664 crore was earmarked for new schemes, 80 per cent of which were meant for rural areas, he said adding that the need of the hour was to build the economy brick by brick. Asked how his government would generate resources when he had not imposed new taxes, he said the government would save money through “financial discipline.” — PTI |
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Surgeons welcome NHRC move on human organ trade New Delhi, February 11 The NHRC Chairperson, Justice A.S. Anand, has written to the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers on the need to prevent illegal trade in human organs. He has observed that the illegal trade in human organs often involves exploitation of the poor and violation of their human rights. “The practice of organ purchase has acquired the dubious dimensions of organ trade, with touts operating as middlemen and the creation of allegedly false records of a compassionate donation,” Justice Anand has said in his letter. Justice Anand has further observed that there are several instances in which the ‘compassionate donor’ provision in the Act has been misused. Dr Samiran Nandy, surgical gastroenterologist, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, and member of the Singhvi Committee set up by the government to draft a Bill on organ transplantation, has said the Organ Transplantation Act clearly forbids trade in human organs. “Any financial transaction for trade in human organs constitutes a criminal offence. To check if the donor and the
recipient are emotionally related, the Act has provided for an authorisation committee controlled by the state government. We introduced the emotionally related provision in the larger interest of patients who do not have close relatives or whose close relatives are not fit to donate organs. The provision of emotionally related and the functioning of the authorisation committees has a loophole. We find that Muslims in Tamil Nadu are suddenly becoming emotionally related to Gujarati
businessmen. The flow of live organs is from the extremely poor to the rich. The middleman takes a lot of money in the transaction,” he has said. A member of the Human Organ Procurement Education (HOPE) Trust, Dr Nandy says both liver and kidney are in great demand and this is evidenced by the countable liver transplants done in India every year. “About two lakh persons die of liver failure every year in India. The number of liver transplants done every year is less than 20. There are two ways of checking the illegal trade in human organs — promoting cadaver organ donation and cracking down on authorisation
committees. The meeting of the prospective donor with the authorisation
committee should be videotaped. Besides, random checks on prospective donors to see if they are actually related will also help,” he says. He says live donation of liver is more dangerous and there have been deaths from live donors as the operation is complicated. “Cadaver operations are more successful,” he states. Appreciating the NHRC Chairperson’s concern on the issue of illegal trade in human organs, Dr R.V.S Yadav, senior consultant transplant surgeon at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital and Metro Hospital, Noida, says, “This Act has been there for almost 10 years. It needs a fresh and thorough relook. We should encourage cadaver organ donation and organ donation by genuine living donors.” Dr Yadav, who has served as kidney transplant surgeon at the PGI in Chandigarh, has pointed out that about 1.5 lakh persons need a kidney transplant every year in India, but only 3,000 get it. “What is happening to the rest of the people? The Act has not helped at all in promoting caadver organ donation,” he has said. |
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Govt eases visa
policy for displaced Afghans New Delhi, February 11 Displaced Afghan refugees spread across the continents earlier had to wait longer for an Indian visa because a clearance from the Home Ministry was essential to process their applications. NCM Chairperson Tarlochan Singh who had taken up the matter with the government has expressed his gratitude to the Home Ministry. In a letter to Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, who is also the Home Minister, Mr Singh has said that the step will “go a long way in mitigating the hardships that the Afghan nationals were facing.” |
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Lucknow Bench summons records of Ayodhya case Rae Bareli, February 11 According to official sources here, the records will reach the High Court before February 23 and 24, fixed for hearing of a writ petition filed against Mr Advani’s acquittal. The other accused — Mr Joshi, Mr Vinay Katiyar, Ms Uma Bharti, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Mr Vishnu Hari Dalmia, Mr Ashok Singhal and Mr Acharya Giriraj Kishore — also filed a revision petition against the special court’s verdict delivered on September 19, 2003. The records include four audio cassettes, four video cassettes, pieces of stone of the demolished structure at Ayodhya, clippings from newspapers and magazines, the entire case diary filed by the CB-CID, UP and the CBI, besides the entire file, the sources said.
— UNI Licences of pilots suspended New Delhi, February 11 Sources here said today that the licences of the two pilots were “suspended as per rules pending final investigation”. These could even be terminated if they were found guilty of violating the air traffic rules. The plane is expected to be released once the investigations are over. The interrogation of the two pilots — C P Singh and Surinder Kapoor — was, however, already over. The two had told the investigators that they could not land at Safdarjung Airport on their first attempt as “birds were flocking around the runway.” The pilots, one of whom is a retired Indian Air Force pilot, said they were forced to take a diversion due to the presence of birds, which allegedly led to their violating the “no fly zone” norms. The five-seater aircraft had dropped height as it was landing and flew low over the Prime Minister’s house.
— TNS |
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