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Foreign lottery syndicates
dupe Haryanvis
Experts differ on fate of eight independent MLAs
INLD pressuring Ind MLAs: Cong INLD harassing Independent MLAs, alleges Hooda
Speaker reserves judgement |
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Inside
Babudom MDU teachers peeved at govt interference NDRI cancels B Tech degree of ex-student Decentralised planning spurs rural
development: expert 5 booked in dowry death case; panchayat says they’re innocent The police has registered a case of dowry death against five persons in connection with a woman’s death under mysterious circumstances three days ago at Loharwara village in the district on the basis of the complaint of the father of the deceased. Uncertain future stares students in the face Wild cat
caught from village Murder bid case: memo submitted Liquor smugglers attack raiding team Federation resents
frequent power cuts
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Foreign lottery syndicates
dupe Haryanvis Rohtak, June 23 Over the past two weeks, several thousand people all over the state have been bombarded with letters posted from Zurich in Switzerland by an organisation called the European Lottery Guild, asking them to remit the fee within 72 hours. It is learnt that the organisation is mostly targeting credit card holders, though such letters have been received by others too. Many card holders have remitted the amount, not realising that remittance for the purchase of lottery tickets is a violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Inquiries by The Tribune reveal that many accountancy firms are unaware that such remittance is a punishable offence. It is prohibited under Entry no 3 of Schedule 1 of the Foreign Exchange Management (Current Account Transactions) Rules, 2000. The Directorate of Enforcement is authorised to probe such violations. Interestingly, the letterhead of the guild provides only a post box number address in Hownslow, Great Britain. The European Lottery Guild is not even listed among the top British lottery syndicates whose reviews and ratings figure on the British Lotto website. The fine print at the back of the entry form states, “British Lottos and lotteries are not available to residents of Britain through ELG”. No reasons have been given for this. It also states that the ELG “will purchase your entries as your agent and not as principal”. It is also stated that the ELG is “not affiliated with or sponsored by any official government agency”. The documents enclosed with the letters are designed to impress. They include a “Bonus Prize Draw Validation Certificate” which incidentally looks like a cheque that just states the draw amount ($245,000,000) as on June 11, 2004. Nobody knows what that signifies or whether it is required to be sent back to the ELG along with the entry form numbered as Form 1289D/Global. The covering letter states that the “British Government does not tax lottery winnings, so all prize amounts are distributed in full”. However, the fine print at the back of the form says “any applicable taxes or duty are the sole responsibility of the winners”. It is learnt that the addresses are collected from credit card companies and through underhand methods from Indian companies. Many dubious foreign lottery companies have duped Indians in the past using a similar trick. A local bank manager, one of the victims, said all that he received at the end of the exercise was a printout of computer-generated numbers and dates on which the company claimed to have participated in the draws on his behalf. This is exactly what the ELG promises to provide at the end of five weeks. He says that the Reserve Bank should publicise the fact that such remittances are illegal and a punishable offence. |
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Experts differ on fate of eight independent MLAs Chandigarh, June 23 Experts are divided as to the action, if any, that will be initiated against the independent MLAs who are accused of having defected. But, they are unanimous that the fate of the proceedings will depend upon whether or not it is established if the MLAs did join the Congress. "It will first have to be proved that they have defected. The relevant clause says that the MLAs will be said to have defected if they join the legislature group of another party. Just saying that they have taken associate membership of the Congress will not be enough to disqualify them," asserts Senior Advocate and former Punjab Advocate General G.K. Chatrath. As per the sequence of events, these independent MLAs met All-India Congress Committee President Sonia Gandhi and later announced that they had taken up membership of the Congress. Earlier, all these MLAs were supporting the ruling Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). After reports about their having joined the Congress appeared in the media, these MLAs as well as senior Congress leaders went on a damage control exercise. Now the pitch was: we have not joined the Congress. We have just decided to support the Congress instead of the INLD. Says former Haryana Advocate- General and leading lawyer Hawa Singh Hooda, "The Tenth Schedule refers to a person who leaves his party. But, so far, none of them has joined the Congress. Their independent status will change only after they take membership of the Congress and inform the Speaker about the same. Their actions so far do not come under the category of disqualification." But, another former Haryana Advocate-General, Mr Mohan Jain, finds nothing wrong in the proceedings. "Senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda had announced the decision of the six of these MLAs to join the Congress. Media reports, which nobody refuted, said so. So, it is clear that the MLAs did join the Congress. There is no doubt about it. It is settled law that an independent MLA who gets attached to a political party is liable to be punished," Mr Jain says. Incidentally, in 1999, the Maharashtra Assembly Speaker issued notices to seven independent MLAs asking them to explain their decision to join the Congress. The complainant, a Shiv Sena MLA had asserted that the seven independents had violated the anti-defection law by their action. He said that the anti-defection law allowed independents the option of joining a party only in the first six months after their election. As is the case in Haryana, a lot of questions had been raised as to whether the MLAs had actually taken the membership of the Congress. The Independent MLAs in Haryana had also submitted in the Supreme Court recently that they have only withdrawn support from the INLD government and not joined any party. |
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INLD pressuring Ind MLAs: Cong Chandigarh, June 23 Addressing a joint press conference, the officiating Leader of the Haryana Congress Legislature Party, Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, and the General Secretary of the party, Mr Mange Ram Gupta, said here today that Deputy Commissioners had been assigned the job of “buying” the MLAs supporting the Congress. They said in certain cases, the administration was even threatening the MLAs that their property would be demolished if they did not vote for the INLD-supported Independent candidate, Mr Tarlochan Singh. The two Congress leaders said the party had given the notice for a resolution on the SYL canal to the Speaker to be taken up during the one-day session. they claimed that to prempt the Congress from taking credit for moving the resolution, the government brought its own resolution. Though the Speaker had assured the Congress that their resolution would be clubbed with the official one, he rejected it on technical grounds. The Congress leaders said their party supported the construction of the canal. Its MLAs had not walked out of the House in protest against the resolution on the canal but because the Speaker did not accept their request to recall Capt Yadav, who was earlier named by him. They said if the INLD Government took the initiative to meet the Prime Minister on the canal and invited the Congress MLAs to join the delegation, they would gladly do so. Otherwise, the Congress MLAs would meet the Prime Minister on their own. |
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INLD harassing Independent MLAs, alleges Hooda Chandigarh, June 23 In a statement issued here today former Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged that the ruling party was threatening the Independent MLAs with slapping false cases on them if they did not vote for the candidate supported by the INLD in the Rajya Sabha elections. Mr Hooda said the ruling party was misusing official machinery for its political interests, which was gross violation of the democratic norms. He claimed that the Independent MLA from Sonepat, Mr Dev Raj Diwan, had been threatened that he would be implicated in a criminal case having dimensions of moral turpitude. He said the police had gone to the farmhouse of Mr Diwan last night and threatened him. The Congress leader said he had received similar complaints from another Independent MLA also. The Deputy Leader of the Haryana Congress Legislature Party, Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, also denounced the ruling party for allegedly indulging in high-handed tactics to garner support for its candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections. |
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Speaker reserves judgement Chandigarh, June 23 Both MLAs, Mr Karan Singh Dalal and Mr Jagjit Singh Sangwan, were present in the Assembly for the final hearing. Mr Sangwan had earlier given an interim reply to the charges made against him by Mr Mallour, adding that he would submit a more comprehensive reply on June 30 when the High Court vacations would be over and he would be able consult a lawyer on the issue. His plea was turned down by the Speaker. The move has generated a lot of interest because if the MLAs are disqualified it will affect the Congress’ chances of winning one Rajya Sabha seat from the state. The elections for two RS seats of Haryana are due on June 28. Importantly, disqualification proceedings are also under way against eight other Independent MLAs who recently switched allegiance to the Congress from the ruling INLD. Mr Ajay Singh Yadav, officiating Leader of the Congress Legislature
Party (CLP) in Haryana, told TNS that a Congress delegation would meet the Election Commission of India (ECI) at 4 p.m. tomorrow and lodge a complaint about the ruling party’s design to prevent these MLAs from voting in favour of the Congress candidate. |
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Inside Babudom Chandigarh, June 23 The Haryana Chief Secretary, in a letter to Justice J S
Sekhon(retd), Chief Commissioner, Gurdwara Elections, recommended the names of 15 Haryana officers for appointment as observers for the SGPC elections on July 11. The officers, whose names were recommended in the letter written by the Chief Sectretary on June 17 are, Ms Shakuntala Jakhu, Mr S K Saxena, Mr Ramendra Jakhu, Mr Dalip Singh, Ms Manju Gupta, Mr Roshan Lal, Mr R P Chander, Mr S K Gulati, Mr K K
Khandelwal, Ms Jaiwanti Sheokand, Ms Dheera Khandelwal, Mr S C Jain, Mr Avtar Singh, Mr D R Dhingra and Mr H S Rana. Sources said these officers were planning to meet the Chief Secretary and request him to reconsider the decision of sending them as observers for the SGPC elections. "Some of the Haryana officers escaped being sent as observers for the Lok Sabha elections. The government may now recommend the names of these officers as observers for the SGPC elections. Why it is only some officers who are sent on election duties again and again", the sources said. The officers, recommended as observers for the SGPC elections, are also worried reportedly due to absence of any definite guidelines about the power of an observer for the SGPC polls. "When the Election Commission of India decided to appoint election observers, the Representation of People Act was amended to give specific powers to the observers. But nothing of this sort has been done for the gurdwara elections", the sources said. The sources pointed out that a bizarre aspect of the list prepared by the Haryana Government for SGPC elections was the inclusion of the names of two couples in it. The husband-wife pairs figuring in the list are, Ms Shakuntala Jakhu and Mr Ramendra Jakhu, and Mr K K Khandelwal and Ms Dheera
Khandelwal. Usually, only one member of an IAS couple is sent for election duty so that the other can stay at home to look after the family. It is being alleged that at the time of the Lok Sabha elections also, it was the mostly the "out of favour" officers whose names were recommended as observers. In fact, the list recommended for the LS elections included name of an officer suffering from a serious ailment. He could not join duty and as a result put under suspension by the Election Commission. |
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MDU teachers peeved at govt interference Rohtak, June 23 In a memorandum faxed to the Chancellor today, MDUTA President Vazir Nehra and Secretary Ajmer Singh Kajal said the government had convened a meeting, in Delhi, of the search committee for selecting a new Vice-Chancellor of the university. The executive council of the university had annulled the nomination of two members of the panel at its meeting held on May 30. It decided to made fresh nominations at a later date. However, the government ignored the council’s decision and the task of selecting the new VC had been entrusted to the panel which included the members whose nominations had been annulled. They said the Commissioner, Higher Education, Haryana, had faxed a message to the university yesterday asking it to depute an official to Delhi for arranging the payment of travelling allowance bills to the members of the search panel. Meanwhile, it is learnt that the Chancellor’s nominee on this panel, Dr Ramesh Chandra, is out of the country. He is said to have informed the government that he would not be available for the meeting before July 10. He had also suggested that the panel meet only after the government had sought names of the suitable candidates for the post from the University Grants Commission and other universities of the country. According to sources, the Chancellor, on receipt of the memorandum, directed his office to inform the Chief Minister that since his nominee was out of the country, any meeting of the panel would violate the MDU Act. |
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NDRI cancels B Tech degree of ex-student Karnal, June 23 A senior official of the institute told The Tribune that the standing committee and the Academic Council of the NDRI had both recommended the cancellation of admission, registration, marks cards, provisional degree certificates of Abhinav Sharma, who was admitted in the 1997-1998 session allegedly by submitting a fake certificate of Scheduled Caste (SC) category to seek reservation in admission in B.Tech. He qualified for the award of B.Tech (Dairy Technology) degree in 2000-2001. The Academic Council at its meeting held here recently said “After discussion, it was consented that since the authenticity of the certificate of caste has not been verified by the issuing authority, rather it has informed that no such certificate has been issued from their office and the student has also failed to satisfy the NDRI authorities regarding the authenticity of his caste certificate, therefore, on the basis of the legal advice of the institute counsel it was decided to cancel the admission, registration, marks cards, provisional degree certificates and degree certificates of the above student.” The decision was conveyed to him at his present address in the USA through the Indian Embassy. The official further revealed that the student after receiving the degree got a visa from the US High Commission in New Delhi and immigrated to the States. He is said to be well settled in the USA on the basis of this degree. The NDRI authorities had contacted him through the Embassy and on telephone to give him adequate time for a personal hearing before recommending the cancellation of the degree, claimed the official. |
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Decentralised planning spurs Nilokheri, June 23 While addressing the officials, Dr Surat Singh, Director of the
HIRD, emphasised the importance of the role of officials of these departments in effective decentralised planning and its implementation. He pointed out that decentralised planning had assumed importance in Haryana after the enactment of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, for implementing the 73rd Amendment of the Constitution. He said it had become essential for rural development after the devolution of powers, functions and responsibilities on the Panchayati Raj institutions by the Haryana Government by a notification of 1995, instructions of 2001 and the Sarkar Apke Dwar programme. Prof Ranbir Singh, a senior consultant of the
HIRD, was the coordinator of the workshop. He laid stress on a healthy interface between officials and non-officials of the Panchayati Raj institutions for the success of decentralised planning in the state. Leading specialists, including Prof Mohinder Singh of Kurukshetra University and Dr
R.P. Singh from the Extension Education Institute of CCSHAU, Hisar, were the resource persons at the workshop. The participants not only prepared reports on the status of decentralised planning before the 73rd Amendment and its existing status, but also drafted a development plan for Butana village (Karnal) on the basis of a field study. |
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5 booked in dowry death case; Bhiwani, June 23 According to information, Meenu was found dead at her in-laws’ house at Loharwara village on June 20. Her father, Mr Phool Singh, a resident of Sector 13 in Bhiwani, alleged that Meenu was done to death as her in-laws had been harrassing her for dowry and had threatened her with dire consequences several times for not fulfilling their demands. Mr Phool Singh further alleged that Meenu was compelled to commit suicide by her in-laws. The police registered a case under relevant sections of the IPC on his statement against the deceased’s father-in-law Parmanad, mother-in-law Prem Devi, their son Jai Singh, his wife Krishna and Billu of Sarangpur village. On the other hand, the father-in-law of the deceased and the panchayat of Loharwara village sought justice after a thorough investigation in an affidavit to the Inspector- General of Police, Hisar range, the Bhiwani Superintendent of Police and the Deputy Superintendent of Police, of Charkhi Dadri. Parmanand said his son Jaiveer married Meenu five years ago. He said his daughter-in-law was a heart patient and he had spent Rs 6 lakh on her two heart operations at Escorts Hospital in Delhi. He said Jaiveer was a laboratory technician at the Civil Hospital, Charkhi Dadri. He added that Meenu was unable to do heavy works and she went to her father’s house at Bhiwani against the wishes of his son Jaiveer three months back. He claimed that his son could not bear separation from his wife and his son committed suicide. He said Meenu came back to her in-laws’ house on the ‘Rasam kirya of his son, but went to Bhiwani after two days. He said she returned to Loharwara village on June 17, six months after his son’s death and committed suicide in the bathroom on June 20. Parmanad said he had informed Phool Singh about the incident immediately. He claimed that he and members of his family had been implicated in the case deliberately. A panchayat meeting was held in protest against the police case at the village yesterday which held Parmanand and members of his family were declared to be innocent in this case. |
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Uncertain future stares students in the face Sirsa, June 23 According to information gathered by The Tribune, the delay in the declaration of the results was caused by some lapses in the preparation of the computerised results. The university, had hired a Delhi-based software company for preparing the results. Colleges in Hisar, Jind, Fatehabad, Bhiwani and Sirsa are affiliated to the university and over 60,000 students had appeared in undergraduate examinations. The delay was due to failure in bar coding, to be done on the answer sheets in Delhi. “The delay may harm the future of the students interested in taking admission in universities out of the state,” a source said. Sources in the university said the delay could put a question mark on the newly established university as if the last date of admission in different universities. It could be impossible for the CDLU to accommodate its passout students seeking admission in postgraduate courses. Though the authorities claimed that they had speeded up the process of preparing results, they did not give a tentative date for the same. The last date for admission in different universities is July 1 and there is plenty of time to declare the results,” said the Vice-Chancellor, Dr
R.P. Dahiya. He said BA and B. Com results would be declared
shortly. |
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Wild cat
caught from village Sirsa, June 23 The department swung into action following the
report of the attack. Felischaus, a wild cat or ‘jungli billa’, as
it is comonly known, does not have a tendency of attacking human
beings. The animal was nabbed after the villagers noticed movement
in nearby fields and it slipped into an unused septic tank and
received injuries. It was too early to comment if it was the animal
which injured Sattu on Saturday night at Abub Shahr. The department
would match the pugmarks with those at the accident spot, which was
possible once it was cured. The animal received injuries on the right
front paw and was given first-aid at the local veterinary hospita.
Later, it was shifted to Rohtak. It would be freed in the forest once
it recovered completely. |
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Murder bid case: memo submitted Bhiwani, June 23 The persons concerned met the senior officers and sought an inquiry into the allegations. Those who submitted the memorandum included Jagram
Nambardar, Rajpal, Raj Kumar and Ram Singh. The villagers said a heated exchange of words between wives of Rajbir and Jagdish on June 18 led to a scuffle between Rajbir and Jagdish, in which the women and Rajbir sustained injuries. Jagdish got a case of attempt to murder registered against Rajbir and others. |
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Liquor smugglers attack raiding team Bhiwani, June 23 The team was attacked by alleged liquor traffickers who were armed with lathis, gandasas and country-made pistols. The assailants reportedly opened fire before escaping. In the ensuing encounter, the officials seized liquor bottles and a pistol from a Santro car, but the smugglers managed to escape. The police has registered a case against seven persons in this connection. According to reports, an Assistant Sub-Inspector of the Excise Department, Mr Jai Chand, on a tipoff reached Sanga along with the police force. When the team stopped a Santro car, which was reportedly being used for smuggling liquor, the smugglers allegedly attacked the team. The police seized 180 bottles of English liquor. A case under Sections 148, 149, 186, 332, 353, 307 of the Indian Penal Code, Arms Act and Excise Act has been registered against Satpal, Anup,
Kaptan, Sanjay, Kuldip, Vinod and Rajbir of Sanga and Anup of Madanheri village. |
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Federation resents
frequent power cuts Ambala, June 23 The federation stated that there were frequent power cuts throughout the day. Several times the power cuts range from 15 minutes to two hours. “There is also frequent tripping and very low voltage which is adversely hitting the industry. The industry is unable to maintain schedule of production due to the power cuts,” it said. They demanded that the power cuts should be announced in advance so that the industry could work out their working schedule. “We understand that there is a shortage of electricity but the supply schedule information to the industry will help prevent financial losses,” they said. |
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Villagers threaten to continue dharna Bhiwani, June 23 |
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Bhaskar Chatterjee Chandigarh, June 23 |
BSc
III results declared Sirsa,
June 23 According to the university, 967 students appeared in the annual
examination held in April last. |
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Theft in scientific instrument unit Ambala, June 23 The thieves entered the unit from the adjoining coal depot. The thieves took away Rs 22,000 cash, brass moulding and microscope parts. The theft came to light in the morning. |
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