New Delhi, January 24
National Commission for Women Chairperson Poornima Advani today lamented that despite best efforts by the commission the Women’s Reservation Bill could not be taken up for discussions.

Addressing mediapersons for the last time as the NCW Chairperson today, she said the fact that the 33 per cent reservation issue for women and the Domestic Violence Bill could not be passed and three women commissions could not get statuary recognitions were her major disappointments as she demitted the NCW Chairperson’s office on the completion of tenure.

She also released the annual report of the commission, Year of Endeavour 2004, and said the year was the best of times and the worst of times for the commission. However, other members of the commission, Ms Baby Rani Maurya, Ms Sudha Malaiya, Ms Nafisa Hussain, Ms Nirmala Sitharaman and Ms Anusuiya Uike were conspicuous by their absence at the release of the report and the press conference, hinting towards difference of opinion between them and the chairperson.

Ms Malaiya, in fact, almost did an Uma Bharati on Ms Advani, flaying her in front of all mediapersons for not taking other members of the commission into confidence for the release of the annual report and the press conference. “Why was no other member intimated about today’s event? Were our endeavours for the annual report not important enough,” she questioned Ms Advani in the presence of mediapersons and cameras before walking out of the conference room. Ms Advani, however, told mediapersons that all members had been told about the conference and invited for the release of the report.

Meanwhile, the 586-page report outlines endeavours of the commission towards gender justice, uplift and empowerment of women in addressing various causes, including safety and security, health issues economic, social and legal empowerment, besides media sensitisation.

“Equally significant was the massive evaluation work done by the commission and its members in conducting situational analysis of women in various states and union territories and public hearings on various issues,” she said. Meanwhile, the NCW has written to all Chief Ministers and Chief Secretaries, suggesting steps for controlling trafficking of women and children.

“Trafficking of young women, under-aged girls and children for commercial exploitation has emerged as one of the most formidable challenges required to be tackled and curbed effectively,” says the letter by the outgoing NCW Chairperson.

Chennai, January 24
There are apprehensions that the Tamil Nadu Government is working secretly to take over the Kanchi Shankara Mutt despite repeated statements by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and reiterated by newly appointed state Home Secretary Pavan Raina against any such move.

In Kalavai, a small village 100 km from here, which has grabbed national attention ever since the spiritual head of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham Jayendra Saraswati began using it as a temporary residence, the fears of his devotees have been heightened.

The devotees are not willingly to believe that during the interrogation of Mutt functionaries like the new manager, Mr Mahadeva Iyer, and the newly appointed accountant, Mr Ramamurthy, they were only asked to explain some of the entries in the ledgers.

There is only one question in their minds, will the Government of Tamil Nadu invoke clause 59 of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act 1959 and remove the 69th pontiff?

The Mutt officials too have these fears. They have already dashed off a letter to the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on the basis of views expressed by the Shankaracharya, alleging that the Jayalalithaa government was contemplating to promulgate an ordinance and take over the 2500-year-old institution.

The fears are not unfounded. In fact, there are enough indications that the state government indeed is toying with the idea of taking over the Mutt, despite Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa having said exactly the opposite on the floors of the State Assembly immediately after the arrest of Jayendra Saraswati in November last year.

The Tamil Nadu Government had failed to provide hard evidence before the Supreme Court that the seer had utilised money realised through sale of property to pay the alleged hired assassins who killed the Varadaraja Perumal temple manager Sankararaman. All charges mentioned in the charge sheet are circumstantial and cover mostly moral turpitude of the two pontiffs.

Said thespian and editor of Tamil magazine, “Tughlaq”, Mr Cho Ramaswamy, “I am unable to understand the motives of the government. Though I do not discount the basis of the case filed against Jayendra Saraswati, I have become increasingly uneasy by the way the Special Investigation Team led by SP Prem Kumar and the state government are going about it.”

A combination of all this has forced the devotees and officials of the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt to feel desperate. With this comes the HR&CE Act 1959, which clearly states that “any organisation within the purview of the Act shall be subject to the superintendence and general control of the commissioner for securing proper administration and to see that their income is duly appropriated for the purposes for which they were founded.”

According to legal experts, other clauses in the Act stipulate something more which can result in the filing of a suit in a civil court to effect the removal of the trustee of a religious institution be it a Mutt, or a specific endowment attached to such a body. The HR&CE Commissioner can effect such a removal or “by any two or more persons having interest and having obtained the consent of the Commissioner.”

There are of course other clauses in Section 59 of the Act, which stipulates conditions under which the head of a Hindu Mutt can be removed.

Among other conditions for removal it states if the Mutt head wastes funds or properties of the institution or wrongly uses such funds, converts the income of the institution or properties of the institution into offerings made as gifts to him and gives them away, leads an immoral life or leads a life that will render the institution into one of disrepute and persistently fails to fulfil his duties.

In the charge sheet filed against the Shankaracharya and the junior pontiff all these charges are included and Kanchi Mutt devotees apprehend that the state government might remove the two Acharyas at an appropriate time. 

New Delhi, January 24
Imparting a new dimension to the raging controversy over the Godhra train blaze, the Judge, probing the Gujarat communal violence, has said the Justice U.C. Banerjee Committee’s interim report describing it as an “accident” is not the final word , and the incident could have been a terrorist act.

“As a report prepared by a retired Supreme Court judge, we will certainly give it weight, but it cannot be conclusive. We will have to take into account the evidence provided by several witnesses before we can give our report on what happened in Gujarat,’’ Justice G.T. Nanavati told NDTV.

“Nothing can be ruled out at this stage,’’ said Justice Nanavati, who heads the two-member Commission, appointed by the Gujarat government to probe the Godhra train blaze and its bloody aftermath.

Justice Nanavati said witnesses had provided different versions of what happened in Godhra.

“There were more than 250 persons in the train compartment at the time. It is not so easy for anyone to have a clear idea of the sequence of event, it could have been an act of terror. It will be premature to say that it was an accident at this stage or a conspiracy,’’ he pointed out. The judge also made it clear that the role of the mob at the Godhra station could not be ignored.

“I think everyone has confirmed that there was a mob at the station that was pelting stones from the platform. We cannot ignore this,’’ he argued.

“There is evidence that one person was manhandled by the crowd and was let off as he was any Army man.’’

Justice Nanavati also drew attention to the fact that his Commission had statutory powers unlike the Banerjee report which was a departmental committee of the Railways.

“I do not know what were the compulsions that led to the appointment of the committee. But our Commission has the statutory powers to summon and order re-investigation which I do not think the Railways-appointed committee has.’’ Asked whether the parallel inquiries would affect his Commission, Justice Nanavati replied in the negative.

“We will continue the process of inquiry and investigation. Justice Banerjee’s report will be considered, but it will not affect our inquiry in any manner. We will certainly consider it and see what materials it studied to arrive at the conclusion,’’ he said.

When queried if the Justices (Banerjee and Nanavati-Shah) would be caught in the tussle between Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, he quipped, “We do not get caught in all that...and are faithful to our task.’’He also refuted the charge that his Commission would give a finding that would satisfy the Narenra Modi government in Gujarat. “We may have been appointed by the Modi government, but we remain independent.’’ — UNI

Kolkata, January 24
Three persons, including one child, were burnt alive during their sleep and some 50 others severely injured when a basti in the Tangra area here. Suddenly came under fire around 2 am last night.

Most injured persons with severe burnt wound had been admitted to different hospitals where the condition of at least 14 of them was stated to be critical. Altogether 12 fire engines had fought for over eight hours at a stretch in extinguishing the fire.

According to official report, the incident occurred when some basti dwellers were warming up themselves inside their hutment by lighting some waste papers and thatched materials at midnight.

Some portion of the hutment suddenly caught fire which soon spread to other adjoining hutments where most of the inmates were deep in their sleep. But the people still awaken raised alarms which drew the attention of others and several local people who rushed to the basti for rescuing those still inside their homes.

Most elderly people came out on their own but two old and invalid persons and a child who had been under the trap could not run. They were fully burnt before they could be rescued.

Immediately after the incident, senior government officials and the police visited there and conducted relief operation. Some dwellers had been sheltered in some schools and other empty buildings while several others inside an improvised accommodation made of tarpaulins.

New Delhi, January 24
In an effort to mollify the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS), the Congress today expressed concern over the recent spurt in Naxalite violence while declaring that both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi favoured the resumption of stalled talks with the Naxals in Andhra Pradesh.

“Both the Prime Minister and the UPA chairperson have indicated that the talks must continue. It is a commitment we have made to the people in the state,” Mr Digvijay Singh, AICC in charge of Andhra Pradesh, said here today. His remarks follow attempts to sort out the differences which crept up recently between the state unit of the Congress and the TRS on the Naxal issue.

Enraged by the recent killing of their office-bearer in what they described as a “fake encounter”, TRS ministers had threatened to pull out of the Andhra Pradesh Government.

TRS leader and Union Minister Chandrashekhar Rao even sought a meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi in this connection.

Consequently, Mr Digvijay Singh was asked to broker peace between the two parties. He called on Mr Rao yesterday and persuaded him to talk to AP CM Y.S. Rajshekhar Reddy on the telephone in his presence. He also urged Mr Reddy to continue with the peace initiative with the Naxals as “it is an election promise”.

Following this fire-fighting exercise, the TRS has decided not to carry out its threat while the chief minister has promised to initiate the second rounds of talks with Naxal groups.

Talking to mediapersons today, Mr Digvijay Singh said he had also requested the chief minister to send a police team to inquire into the recent incidents of violence and find out if these were fake or genuine. He said he would meet Home Minister Shivraj Patil to apprise him of the situation.

Expressing concern over the sudden increase in Naxalite violence, he said the Congress favoured an early resumption of peace talks on the “basic issue of governance, socio- economic development land reforms and rights to forest dwellers”.

New Delhi, January 24
The leader of the Opposition and BJP President, Mr L.K. Advani, today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and sought the government’s intervention in securing the release of 644 fishermen apprehended by the Pakistani authorities and 160 trawlers seized by them.

During the 30-minute-long meeting, Mr Advani told the Prime Minister that the Pakistani authorities had recently released 266 Gujarati fishermen apprehended by them but unlike in the past, they were sent back to India via the Wagah border and not through sea route, along with their fishing boats.

The Pakistani authorities have retained the 160 fishing boats and trawlers worth Rs 40 crore thus putting in great difficulties the fishermen whose livelihood depended on them, he said.

Emerging from the meeting, Mr Advani told newspersons that the Prime Minister gave him an assurance that External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh would take up the issue during his visit to Pakistan next month.

Mr Advani said he had also apprised the Prime Minister of the plight of 644 Gujarati fishermen languishing in Pakistani jails and sought New Delhi’s intervention to secure their early release.

The former Deputy Prime Minister was accompanied by Gujarat BJP President Rajinder Sinh Rana, Porbandar MP Harilal Patel and some leaders of the fishermen community.

In a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister, Mr Advani said of the 910 Indian fishermen arrested by Pakistan, only 256 had been released, while the remaining were still languishing in Pakistani jails.

“As per estimates, there are about 157 Indian fishing boats under Pakistani occupation, having a total market value of Rs 19 crore. The livelihood of over 16,000 persons are connected with these boats. All these arrests have been made through the Jakhau fishing zone between India and Pakistan”, he said.

He said it had been noticed that recently there had been more arrests of Indian fishermen outside the range of Pakistani waters.

“Well-armed Indian Coastal and Naval patrols in the Jakhau area, along the Gujarat coast, would certainly prevent any transgressions and illegal capture of Indian fishermen and their boats by the Pakistanis”, he said.

Requesting the Prime Minister to secure the immediate release of all Indian fishermen, along with their boats, Mr Advani said, “the release should be in the Jakhau fishing zone, along with their boats, as was being done in the past, rather than through land at Wagah”. 

Thiruvananthapuram, January 24
Thanks to Indian doctors, a Pakistani teenager has got a new lease of life.

Thirteen-year-old Ayesha Shahbaz from Lahore, suffering from a congenital heart problem, was operated upon at the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences here yesterday and is recovering well, doctors attending on her said.

Ayesha, an eighth standard student, was admitted to KIMS on January 18 with a ventricular septal defect. She was accompanied by her parents.

“She is recovering well after the surgery yesterday. She has been taken off the ventilator. She has also begun to take food orally,” the doctors said.

Stating that the girl would be kept in the intensive care unit (ICU) for a few more days for observation, the doctors said she was likely to be discharged in a week’s time.

The surgery, which costs Rs 100,000 in India and Rs 400,000 in Pakistan, had been done free of cost. The treatment was arranged by the Thiruvananthapuram district unit of Rotary International, District President K. Raghunath said.

Ayesha is the first Pakistani to be offered free treatment in a hospital in the Kerala capital after normalisation of relations between the two countries.

The successful treatment of Pakistani girl Noor Fathima at a Bangalore hospital in 2003 saw more people from the neighbouring country seeking treatment in Indian hospitals.

Financial difficulties, coupled with lack of facilities for treatment, led Ayesha’s parents to seek treatment in India.

“We are thrilled to see Kerala, which almost looks like our home country,” Ayesha’s father Mohammed Shabas, a government school headmaster in Lahore, told a group of people who received the family here on January 18.

“It is said that the people of both countries lived in enmity for long. Now there is a new era of cooperation and affection,” he added.

Mr Shahbaz said they had to mobilise Rs 4 lakh to conduct the surgery in Pakistan and that too after an unending wait to get the date. Since the facility was available only at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology, one had to register the patient’s name several years in advance.

It was at that juncture that the Rotary International offered to sponsor the treatment in India as part of its ‘Gifts of love’ programme.

Once the treatment is over, Ayesha is eager to return to her country as early as possible so that she could resume her classes.

She is a student of the Mughalpura Islamia Girls High School. Though she was good in studies, her frequent health problems prevented her from attending school regularly, her father said. — UNI

New Delhi, January 24
The government will take a final view on the entry of foreign institutions of higher learning into India by April this year after submission of the report of pannel set up for this purpose.

“The pannel headed by Dr C.N.R. Rao, is in the process of giving final touches to their recommendations for submission to the government. It had been set up on the instructions of Prime Minister to prepare a map how to allow the foreign institutions of higher learning to enter into India,” said Minister of Human Resources and Development Arjun Singh today.

He was speaking at a symposium on “Globalisation of Indian Technical Education” organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

Mr Arjun Singh said the government would decide the issue immediately after the report is submitted to the government latest by April 2005.

“Not only this, the UPA government is committed to facilitating and creating job opportunities for the disabled in the private sector through evolution of a proper mechanism”, said Mr Arjun Singh, without divulging its details.

He however, said, that technical and vocational education, including that of higher education in India, did not cater to the needs of growing economies and, therefore, needed to be given a fresh reorientation.

Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, who was also present on the occasion, stressed on the need for a regulatory framework to prevent the entry of “B and C-grade foreign universities.”

He said the government was committed to setting up about 12 institutions of higher learnings to cater to the needs of the industry.

“Textiles, pharma and automobile are the sectors of future growth for which India does not have institutions of excellence,” he said, while proposing setting up of institutions of excellence in partnership with industry in the debt equity ratio of 70:30.