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Will ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ revive costume dramas? HC jolt to Andhra irrigation projects
SC upholds conviction of Judge in bribery case
Basu defends plot allotment
Noose
tightens around IAS officer
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BJP launches stir to protest seer’s arrest
New Delhi, November 20 “The arrest of the Shankaracharya is as significant in the history of the nation as the imposition of Emergency,” said Mr Advani, who observed a fast against the religious leader’s police remand here. Mr Advani, who sat on a day-long dharna near the Parliament House protesting the “treatment meted out to the seer”, also announced that the BJP’s sit-in programme would continue till the time the pontiff remained in police custody. “This battle is not an ordinary battle and the consequences for the governments should be the same”, he said, referring to the Emergency and the subsequent rout of the Congress in the 1977 poll. Alleging that both AIADMK and DMK had been against the seer, he said while one party was in power in the state, the other was a key constituent of the ruling UPA at the Centre. “Both the Tamil Nadu Government as well as the Centre is responsible for the shabby treatment being meted to Shankaracharya,” he added. The Leader of Opposition said in his 53 years of life, he had encountered only two actions which appeared “impossible” - Emergency when even lawyers defending political prisoners were imprisoned and the arrest of the Shankaracharya. Launching a scathing attack on the Left, Mr Advani said one could not have expected Communists to voice against the arrest of Shankaracharya. “Communists supported both “misdeeds”, the imposition of the Emergency and the arrest of the Kanchi seer,” he said. Significantly, the first day of the three-day protest virtually turned out to be a “symbolic one” as there were hardly a few hundred party workers at the venue. Interestingly, even the presence of spiritual Guru Asa Ram Bapu, could not attract crowd and security personnel and mediapersons outnumbered BJP workers. Senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi will lead the protests tomorrow and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Monday. Earlier, the protest dharna was marred by an unpleasant incident of minor scuffle between a journalist and some party workers. Journalists, gathered to cover the protest led by BJP president L.K. Advani, at one time threatened to boycott before senior leaders intervened to lower the tempers. The problem started when a TV channel correspondent, during live coverage, made some remarks which were not liked by workers standing nearby. An argument began which was followed by some workers and the journalist grabbing each other’s clothes. Following this all mediapersons gathered there threatened to boycott the event. Worried BJP leaders Arun Jaitley, Vijay Goel, S S Ahluwalia and MLA Vijay Jolly promptly intervened and persuaded the mediapersons to stay on by asking the party workers to apologise. Traffic was diverted as the entire Parliament Street stretch near the Jantar Mantar was closed for the dharna.
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New Delhi, November 20 “The arrest of the Shankaracharya is an attack on the Hindu dharma and culture. We are holding a three-day protest against the arrest of the Shankaracharya. On Monday an all-India bandh will be held to protest the arrest of the pontiff,” VHP Vice-President Acharya Giriraj Kishore told UNI on telephone from Bhopal where he is leading the agitation. CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu units of the VHP, the BJP, the RSS and the Hindu Munnani today organised “human chain” protests in front of various temples in the state, condemning the arrest of Kanchi seer and the treatment meted out to him by the state police. Volunteers of the Sangh Parivar shouted slogans, condemning the arrest of the seer and demanded his immediate release. — UNI, PTI
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Junior seer keen on meeting Shankaracharya Kancheepuram, November 20 Shankara Vijayendra Saraswathi told Tamil religious magazine “Kaamakoti”, which will hit the stands next week, in an exclusive interview that “I just want to see ‘my guru’ and hear what kind of tribulations he is undergoing from him — straight. The second and third hand information is confusing and threatening at the same time.” “I have requested the advocates representing us to seek permission (of the Magistrate Uttamraj) to enable me to meet my guru in person — a one-on-one meeting. That is all I want — for now.” This is the first interview given by the junior pontiff to the media after the Shankaracharya’s arrest on November 11. Regarding the slain Sankaraman for whose murder Jayendra Saraswathi is now in police custody, he said: “I remember this man vaguely. That is all. All this talk about him being a former employee of the mutt and everything else is like a nightmare. But why talk about him? The courts can find out the truth. But I have firm belief in one thing. My guru is innocent. Every allegation made against him is untrue. The outside world doesn’t know what kind of rigorous discipline we have (and) how many rituals we have to perform.” As a matter of policy people at the mutt have done away with mobile phones and so did the junior Shankaracharya on the apprehension that someone might call him and try to frame him in the murder case too. The Tamil Nadu police has traced calls from the cellphone of an assailant to Jayendra Saraswathi’s mobile and submitted it as evidence. Though no mobile telephone is registered in the Shankaracharya’s name but in the video footage recoded by the police he could be seen using a mobile phone reportedly owned by a mutt manager. The junior Shankaracharya is pained at the media reports and did not hide his anguish over recent media reports, particularly on television channels. He asked: “Why has the Press suddenly turned so hostile towards us?” and said, “as every hour passes, I am informed that a new series of lies have been said about us. ”
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Kanchi
seer’s health normal
Kancheepuram, November 20 A team of government doctors, which checked the seer as per the court order, found his condition normal. Meanwhile, the mutt officials were in constant touch with the authorities concerned about the Shankaracharya’s health condition. “His condition is normal. But he has been facing some problems with his food,” Mutt Manager N Sundaresa Iyer told reporters here today. He said lawyer V Krishnaswamy, nominated by the Acharya to see him daily for an hour for consultations as permitted by the Magistrate while remanding the Acharya to police custody, met him last evening and held discussions. To a question, Mr Iyer said the mutt was taking all legal steps to secure the Acharya’s early release. He said the normal functioning of the mutt remained ‘’unaffected’’.
— UNI
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Will ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ revive costume dramas?
Mumbai, November 20 Several of today’s filmmakers have had costume dramas and love legends in mind, but not many have dared to go ahead with their projects, fearing poor audience response. Akbar Khan has been sitting idle with his love legend “Taj Mahal” for many months now, while Raj Kumar Santoshi wants to make the love legend of the Rajput king Prithviraj Chauhan and Sanjukta with Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s dream project is “Bajirao Mastani”, chronicling the tumultuous relationship between the Maratha king and his unlikely adversary. The success of “Mughal-e-Azam” may just give them the needed confidence to go ahead. We already have two important costume dramas readying for release. In Subhash Ghai’s “Kisna”, Vivek Oberoi in the title role plays a pre-independence fighter romancing an Indian and a British woman, while Ketan Mehta’s historical “The Rising” has Aamir Khan with Rani Mukherjee who plays a prostitute. Costume dramas were a thriving genre in the 1950s and 1960s. Asif himself made his directorial debut in 1944 with “Phool”, a lavish epic for its time. It took him 16 years to release his next film. Members of the “Mughal-e-Azam” cast died and had to be replaced. The hero Chandra Mohan was replaced by Dilip Kumar. Madhubala herself, immortalised as ‘Anarkali’ in the movie, was dying of a heart problem and doctors had forbidden her from carrying those heavy iron chains that her character wears in captivity. Her performance bears shades of Meena Kumari’s swan song in Kamal Amrohi’s “Pakeezah”, into which the actress poured her heart and soul while dying of a liver ailment. Prior to Asif’s opus, Nandlal Jaswantlal’s “Anarkali” in 1953 depicted the same star-crossed love story of Prince Salim and Anarkali and became a huge success. Just like “Mughal-e-Azam” seven years later, the music, and the songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar, played a large hand in the film’s success. If in “Mughal-e-Azam” viewers showered coins at the iconic Madhubala dancing to “Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya”, in “Anarkali” they did the same for Bina Rai singing “Zamana Yeh Samjha Ke Hum Pee Ke Aaye”. Soon after “Mughal-e-Azam”, Asif launched another love tragedy “Love & God”, based on the legend of Laila and Majnu. Halfway through, the male protagonist Guru Dutt passed away. He was replaced by Sanjeev Kumar and the film was finally released in 1983. Between “Mughal-e-Azam” and “Love & God” there were a number of successful costume drama/love legends, including M. Sadiq’s “Taj Mahal” in 1963 featuring the Anarkali pair of Pradeep Kumar and Bina Rai as Shah Jahan and Mumtaz. Other popular costume dramas of the 1960s include “Raj Kumar” featuring Shammi Kapoor in the title role and “Suraj” starring Rajendra Kumar. But none was as successful as “Mughal-e-Azam”. And the rush to watch its re-release only confirms its status as Indian cinema’s most enduring love story. “From Mallika Sherawat, everyone seems to have suddenly switched loyalties to Mallika-e-husn (queen of beauty) Madhubala,” says a Bihar distributor who earlier made neat profits exhibiting the kitschy “Tauba Tauba”. “‘Mughal-e-Azam’ has got youngsters who so far seemed sold on flesh entranced by the draped elegance of the Venus Of Indian cinema.”
— Indo-Asian News Service
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HC jolt to Andhra irrigation projects Hyderabad, November 20 The latest reversal came when the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday quashed major irrigation tenders for 27 projects, dubbing the procedure adopted by the state government in the selection of contractors as “arbitrary, irrational, discriminatory and suffering from malice in law.” The opposition Telugu Desam Party, which had been accusing the Rajasekhara Reddy Government of “large-scale corruption” in the allotment of tenders to a “favoured few” at double the rates, demanded the Chief Minister’s resignation following the court’s strictures. An agitated Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who made it his life’s ambition to build massive projects to provide the irrigation facility to 65 lakh acres in the next five years, however, reiterated his government’s resolve to take up the project after overcoming legal hurdles. “It’s a do-or-die battle for us and we will complete this gigantic task despite all odds,” the Chief Minister with a farmer-friendly image asserted. But Congress leaders admitted in private that the prestige of the government suffered because of the haste with which a syndicate of contractors was awarded all works. Earlier this week, the government had received a setback when the AP High Court ruled that the Pulichintala project could not be taken up without the mandatory environment clearance. The Chief Minister took up the controversial project in a spirit of challenge despite vociferous opposition from the TRS, an ally in the government, as well as his own partymen from the Telangana region, who saw it as against Telangana interests.
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SC upholds conviction of Judge in bribery case
New Delhi, November 20 Upholding the award of three years’ rigorous imprisonment to S. Janardhana Rao in a 1996 case for taking a bribe of Rs 3 lakh in a case pending before him and promising the accused that they would be acquitted if they paid the money, a Bench of Mr Justice B.N. Agrawal and Mr Justice A.K. Mathur said, “the high court was wholly unjustified in doubting the veracity” of the evidence of witnesses against the judge. Mr Rao, at that time, was IIIrd Metropolitan Sessions Judge of Hyderabad. “...the judgement of the high court acquitting him suffers from the vice of perversity as it has refused to place reliance upon the evidence of witnesses merely on the basis of certain minor contradictions in their evidences, though they have supported the prosecution case on all material particulars,” the apex court ruled. Mr Rao, who had initially demanded a bribe of Rs 6 lakh from accused Eshar Singh and Rajinder Singh in a criminal case before him, was trapped by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on September 6, 1996, following a complaint about the demand of money. The deal between the accused and the Sessions Judge had finally struck for Rs 3 lakh as per the prosecution case. The trial court had mainly relied upon the evidence of four key witnesses, including Eshar Singh who went to deliver the money to Mr Rao’s house and the ACB officers participating in the trap. The Supreme Court said the statements of the key witnesses had been relied upon by the trial court to prove the circumstances against Mr Rao upon the threadbare discussion of their evidence and there was no scope for disbelieving it. The Bench also took exception to the high court making certain adverse remarks against the then Registrar (Vigilance) of the high court for granting permission for prosecution of Mr Rao and ordered expunging of the same from the records.
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Basu defends plot allotment
Kolkata, November 20 Though defending his act Mr Basu wanted the state government to carry out the Supreme Court’s order and take over the land from the former judge within one year’s time during which he would have to vacate the house he has built on the land. But the former High Court Judge Justice Banerjee said he would request the Chief Justice to ‘revise’ the judgment on the plea that he had not been heard by the honourable Bench before passing on the order. He said he had got the land at the government price of Rs 40,000 along with other judges and it had no connection with his passing of the order in allowing the Chief Minister to use his discretionary power in the allotment of plots at Salt Lake. Meanwhile, the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declared the state government would abide by the Supreme Court’s order. He, however, refused to make any comment on the merit of the judgment. The Supreme Court judgment, which caused uproar in the judiciary, the political as well as official circles in the state put the Left Front government in an embarrassing situation Justice Banerjee’s counsel, too, expressed surprise that how the former judge could be singled out and victimised when other 24 former judges and 269 persons, including the politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, journalists, film personalities and other VIPs had been allotted plots at Salt Lake by the then Chief Minister under the special quota.
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Noose tightens around IAS officer Jaipur, November 20 Along with Srivastava, the ACB has also included in the case his wife Seema, brother, Ajay Shankar Srivastava, nephew and nieces, Vikas Anand, Ritu Anand and Saras Sudha and other close relatives. ACB sources said that besides heavy investments in the PPF, the LIC, time deposits, UTI bonds and shares, Srivastava owned a plot costing nearly Rs. 25 lakh in the name of his mother-in-law Champa Devi, at Noida and also a flat in Malviya Nagar, Jaipur along with some agriculture land costing over Rs 8 lakh. While proceedings against Srivastava are on, he and his relatives have filed a petition in a local court against senior police officials for allegedly seizing his bank accounts and lockers in an illegal manner. The petition is scheduled to be heard on November 22.
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Hearing in Ayodhya case on Nov 25
Lucknow, November 20 The special Raebareli court had, on September 19, 2003, discharged important BJP leaders, including former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani. — PTI
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Ambedkar Nagar LS byelection
on Dec 20 Lucknow, November 20 The EC had decided to hold elections on Oct 13. However, a slip by the District Magistrate of Ambedkar Nagar who had issued the election notification instead of the ADM who had been nominated the returning officer by the EC, led to the postponement of the poll.
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