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NDA relents, to move separate motion on Volcker
Sonia promises action
against guilty
Manjunathan’s murder scares Indian Oil officers
Panel set up to draft new police Act, SC told
Resignation of Sangma accepted
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70 feared drowned in TN bus accidents
2 get death for killing woman, baby
CPM questions EC’s right to disqualify voters
Cinema: trying to get the big picture
Miffed Raj Thackeray declares ‘sanyas’
Student’s murder triggers arson
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NDA relents, to move separate motion on Volcker
New Delhi, November 25 A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of NDA leaders, chaired by NDA Chairman and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had in the House assured that if separate adjournment motions are brought of each of the three issues — Volcker issue, revelations by Mitrokhin Archives and Daniel Moynihan, then he would allow a debate...So, at the NDA meeting it was decided to move separate adjournment motions,” BJP Parliamentary Party spokesperson V.K. Malhotra told newspersons here. Stating that the NDA would move an adjournment motion on the Volcker issue on Monday, Mr Malhotra hoped that the Chair would accept it and allow a debate. The NDA had till now persisted with taking up all the issues together as all revelations concerned the influence of foreign money on domestic politics and national security. The ruling UPA coalition was opposed to clubbing the three issues as they contended that Mitrokhin Archives and the Moinihan revelations were “old and outdated” issues and that had no bearing on the current scenario. The Lok Sabha Speaker had observed in the House that “as the notices (adjournment notices of NDA) relate to more than one matter and even then not very definite, and do not justify adjourning all other business in the House for immediate discussion and further do not relate to a matter for which the Union Government is responsible, over and above not being matters of recent occurrence, under the rules, notices are not eligible for admission by the Chair.” Mr Malhotra said the NDA would insist on a detailed discussion on these issues and demand the removal of Mr Natwar Singh from the Union Cabinet and the resignation of Congress President Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson of National Advisory Council (NAC). Replying to a question on how the Opposition could justify its act of blocking Parliament for the past two days, Mr Malhotra said, “The smooth functioning of Parliament depends on the attitude of the government and the Opposition can’t be blamed... Moreover, we have already told the Speaker that we are ready to sit late hours to compensate for the time lost due to adjournments.” |
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Sonia promises action
against guilty
New Delhi, November 25 In her second public reaction to the Volcker controversy, Mrs Gandhi emphatically denied any involvement of the Congress in the oil-for-food matter in the course of her address to the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP). She reiterated their readiness for a debate on this issue and castigated the Opposition for unnecessarily disrupting Parliament. She did not name Mr K. Natwar Singh but made it clear that the party will take action against any person whose involvement in the programme is brought out by the enquiry authority set up by the government. “We will not hesitate to take action, if the probe findings so warrant, against anyone who may have misused the party’s name for personal gain,” she declared. Mr Natwar Singh was not present at the meeting. Mrs Gandhi’s observations come at a time when the Opposition has disrupted Parliament for the last two days on the Volcker issue and is gearing to put the Congress on the mat when this matter is debated in the Lok Sabha on Monday. Despite the party’s dismal performance in the recent Bihar Assembly polls, the matter merited only a fleeting reference in Mrs Gandhi’s speech. Admitting that the results were “clearly disappointing for us”, she said the Congress faces a big challenge ahead but felt that this also provides many opportunities for strengthening the party. A large section in the party which wants the Congress to use this opportunity to chart an independent course in Bihar must have been disappointed by Mrs Gandhi’s observation that the election is a signal for secular forces to remain united. The Congress President also announced that the AICC plenary session will be held in Hyderabad from January 20 to 22, providing an occasion for imparting a new momentum to the party organisation. With the next round of Assembly polls in the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam due early next year, the twice-postponed plenary session will be an important event. |
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Manjunathan’s murder scares Indian Oil officers
Lucknow, November 25 The hired men of a petrol pump owner at Gola Gorakhnath in Lakhimpur Khiri, about 170 km from Lucknow, cut short a promising career when they shot 27-year-old Manjunathan, a 2002 batch graduate from IIML on Saturday evening. Young, enthusiastic and incorruptible, Manjunathan, while carrying out his duty of ensuring quality control, had unwittingly taken on the petrol pump owners’ lobby that was adulterating diesel with kerosene. He informed senior Indian Oil officers about the corrupt practice. He shut down one Mittal Service Station for adulteration and allowed it to reopen only on getting an assurance of quality. On Saturday when Manjunathan went on a surprise check, he caught them once again indulging in malpractices. This time, the petrol pump owner and his friends killed him in cold blood. With the eighth arrest of Devesh Agnihotri yesterday all those named in the FIR are in police custody, including the main accused Manu Mittal, the son of the petrol pump owner. Originally from Kolar in Karnataka, Manjunathan was the eldest of M. Shanmugham’s three children. A manager with Bharat Earth Movers Limited, the father had often asked his son to give up the job in the remote part of north India and settle in Bangalore. He also nursed fears about his son’s earnest campaign against adulteration of petrol. His death has left his former teacher Neerja Pande in a state of trauma. The Chairperson for communication at IIML, Dr Pande, says that for her he is no less than a martyr who sacrificed his life. Recalling him as a lively young man full of energy and always ready to sing in his mother tongue, Dr Pande said he was “born that way — ever ready to take on challenges and not get bogged down”. “The death of such an upright officer has left us all distraught”, admitted the vice-president of the Indian Oil Officers Association (IOOA), Mr Subodh Dakwale, who was attending the condolence meeting of the Indian Oil officers based in Uttar Pradesh. The officers shared their unease as most of them work under extremely treacherous conditions. “The petrol pump owners are well-heeled with all the right connections. Taking them on is no easy task,” said a young officer who had come to attend the meting. The government has agreed to withdraw the marketing discipline guidelines (MDG) following the threat of the Oil Sector Officers Association to go on an indefinite nation-wide strike. It is this guideline that places the responsibility of controlling adulteration on sales officers of oil companies, pointed out Mr Dakwale. Speaking to The Tribune, Mr Dakwale said Union Petroleum Secretary, S.C. Tripathi had asked the IOOA to identify the “difficult petrol pumps”. Similarly, the Chairman, IOC, Mr S. Behuria, has assured them that the company would provide them security. |
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Panel set up to draft new police Act, SC told
New Delhi, November 25 Solicitor-General G.E. Vahanvati placed before a Bench of Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Mr Justice C.K. Thakker the September 20 notification of the government appointing the committee of legal experts, former bureaucrats and top police officers, who had worked in different situation to tackle these problems. |
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Resignation of Sangma accepted
New Delhi, November 25 Mr Sangma was elected from the Tura constituency in Meghalaya in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections as a candidate of the Trinamool Congress, headed by Ms Mamata Banerjee. He resigned from the Lok Sabha membership last month amid indications that he was going to return to the NCP, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. A staunch critic of Congress President Sonia Gandhi on the issue of her foreign origin, he was expelled from the Congress when he and Mr Pawar formed the NCP. Mr Sangma severed ties with the NCP, opposing the party’s move to be a part of the alliance led by the Congress before the 2004 Lok Sabha election. |
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70 feared drowned in TN bus accidents
Chennai, November 25 The first tragedy occurred when the bus driver did not pay any heed to a police warning and drove on to a bridge totally submerged under water and part of it had collapsed. The bus fell into the Sirugani river in Ramanathapuram district, nearly 500 km from here. The second accident took place late afternoon when a bus going from Pattukkottai to Aranthangi in Thanjavur district was swept away by floods. The driver was negotiating a causeway overflowing with water. |
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2 get death for killing woman, baby
Mumbai, November 25 Additional Sessions Judge R.B. Malik found Ashish Borvale and Clint Fernandes guilty of stabbing 50-year old Letitia Mendes and hanging her 18-month old grandson Dylan from a celing fan at their flat in IC Colony, Borivli in suburban Mumbai on November 19, 2003. A third accused, Wilfred Dias, was sentenced to life imprisonment since he was posted outside the Mendes’ flat as a lookout. Two more youths, Karan Khanna and Pradeep Divar, are being tried as juveniles since they were minors at the time of the murders. All youths were students of Mumbai’s Rizvi Catering College and took baking lessons from Letitia Mendes at her flat. They were looking for quick money and decided to murder Mendes. The youths then stole Rs 75,000 from the flat. However Mendes’ daughter Glenda and the baby happened to be sleeping inside the house and the accused tried to do away with them as well. A badly injured Glenda survived the stabbing and alerted neighbours who called the police. She also identified the accused. |
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CPM questions EC’s right to disqualify voters
New Delhi, Nov 25 The commission’s directive to delete the names of those against whom NBWs had been pending for six months high turnout and less violence in Bihar Assembly poll brought appreciation from different quarters for the poll panel. Indications are that there are around 72,000 non-executed NBWs in West Bengal, where the Left Front has been ruling the state for the past 27 years. The CPM questioning the Election Commission’s authority to remove the name of such persons from the voter’s list is unlikely to garner much support from political opponents, including Congress and the Trinamool Congress. Even the BJP, which is trying to set a foothold in the red bastion, is unlikely to support the Communists’ move. CPM leader in Rajya Sabha Nilotpal Basu said the party would raise the issue in Parliament if felt that the EC had overstepped its jurisdiction. “This was no way to fight the criminalisation of politics. There was a due process of law. Undertrials, including those in jails, as well as convicts, have their names on the voters’ list. They might not be allowed to exercise franchise, but they had the right,” he said. Earlier the CPM politburo had discussed the issue and indicated that it would send a protest note to the Election Commission. Sources in the poll panel said the commission had the power to delete the names of such persons and had not overstepped its authority. “Under Section 22 of the RP Act, the name of a person who has ceased to be ordinary resident in the constituency, can be deleted by the ERO at any time before the last date for the nomination of candidates from the constituency,” the sources added. |
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Cinema: trying to get the big picture
Panjim, November 25 The key speaker was Union Minister for Urban Development and Culture Jaipal Reddy who is filling in for the new Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Mr Priyaranjan Das Munshi. Since Culture and Urban Development, his new departments, are closely connected with filmmaking, he continues to be as sought after as he was as I and B Minister. He revealed that on the line of an agreement with Italy on co-production of films, an agreement would be signed with Britain on December 5 by Mr Munshi. Also in the pipeline are agreements with China, Canada and Germany. Our makers run to foreign locales. There is no reason why exotic Indian locales should not be utilised by foreign filmmakers. Mr Reddy promised to bring about nationwide parity in entertainment tax and also assured the filmmakers that his government would go the extra mile to wipe out intellectual property piracy. One does not expect film actors to be very articulate on cerebral matters but Amisha Patel proved to be a refreshing exception. In her brief speech, she touched upon the ability of Indian films to make a mark on the world screen, even in those countries where leave alone an Indian language, even English was not spoken. The Hindi cinema with all its songs and dances and drama is lapped up in the remotest corners of the world. Instead of looking down upon this genre, there is need to promote it, she said. Among other speakers were filmmaker and head of the CII’s National Entertainment Committee Bobby Bedi and president of the Film and Television Producers Guild of India Amit Khanna. The Cinema of the World section boasts of some high-quality offerings this year. While the opening film yesterday was Brazilian “Olga”, which is in the competition slot, the first film screened today at the Kala Academy was “The Wild Guys”. The Canadian film has already done the rounds of nearly a dozen film festivals and has been declared the best film at the World of Comedy International Film Festival, Toronto. It is a comedy all right, but looks at the dark secrets hidden in the nooks and corners of every man. There is an Indian feel about it because some of its four protagonists want to come to terms with their souls through the tantra and pranayam. They are all modern men who head North from Seattle to a forest for a “soul exploring” weekend. Without food and shelter, they encounter their blind spots and bald spots. The film is quite an achievement, considering that this marks the directorial debut of William F Gereghty. But then, what cannot be forgotten is that he is the third generation in a family of filmmakers. Meanwhile, the film bazaar was inaugurated at the Kala Academy here today by Mr Jaipal Reddy in the presence of Mr Bobby Bedi, Yash Chopra, Amit Khanna, director-actor Nagesh Kukunoor and NFDC chairman Manmohan Shetty. But it ran into turbulence right from day one. The Film Federation of India, the apex body of film industry in India, has decided not to take part in the activities of the film bazaar, which is being organised by the CII this year. Mr G. Adi Seshagiri, president of the FFI, alleged here today that the FFI was being ignored by the Government of India by not taking into consideration its views and suggestions for the film industry. According to him, a few individuals were trying to misrepresent the film industry because of their vested interests. He pointed out that FFI members made 970 films in a year whereas non-FFI members made no more than 30 films. |
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Miffed Raj Thackeray declares ‘sanyas’
Mumbai, November 25 In an interview to a newspaper here, Raj Thackeray said he was taking a break from politics since the Shiv Sena had sidelined him. ‘’My relationship with Balasaheb is entirely different from any one else in the party. No one will understand it. I am his devotee and am bound by the blood relation at the same time,” Raj has been quoted as saying. Miffed at being sidelined in the party, an angry Raj had decided not to campaign in Malvan against rebel-turned Congress leader Narayan Rane citing ill health. |
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Student’s murder triggers arson
Lucknow, November 25 The violence which virtually paralysed the city for at least eight hours began after the students learnt that Kamalesh Yadav who was contesting as general secretary of the students’ union in the Allahabad University poll had been murdered last night. At least 13 motor cycles, two jeeps, including one of the police, were burnt and six houses set ablaze in a spiralling violence in the city. Violence started in the Cornelganj area of Allahabad and then spread to adjoining areas prompting the police to impose prohibitory orders. The Rapid Action Force (RAF) was also brought in to control the warring groups of students. |
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Lucknow, November 25
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