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Maoists blow up rail tracks in Bihar
Terrorism to dominate
PM-Karzai talks |
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Quota row kicks up storm in Cong
IIM directors may discuss reservation issue today
UPA appeasing minorities: Advani
Aligarh calm; death toll reaches six
Kalyan Singh detained on way to Aligarh
School register proof of date
of birth: SC
Salem’s hit man escapes from UP jail
Rail museum opened to public
John Abraham hurt in mishap
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Maoists blow up rail tracks in Bihar
Patna, April 9 The police said over 200 heavily-armed militants stormed the Bansi Nala halt station in Gaya district at around wee hours and dynamited the one-room structure. They asked the railways employees to vacate the place before blowing it up. The Naxalites also blew up the up and down lines in a stretch of few metres leading to disruption of railway traffic on the route since then. The SP,Gaya, Mr Amit Jain, said senior police and railway officials had reached the spot to oversee the repair work and restore traffic on the section. A combing operation had been launched. Meanwhile, the Railways has changed the route of more than 20 trains in view of today’s bandh in Magadh division. The DIG (Magadh Range), Mr Arvind Kumar Pandey, said patrolling had been intensified in Bihar-Jharkhand border adjacent to Magadh division. The division consists of extremist-hit Gaya, Jehanabad, Arwal, Aurangabad and Nawada districts. |
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Terrorism to dominate
PM-Karzai talks
New Delhi, April 9 Mr Karzai, who was received here by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri, will be accorded a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhavan tomorrow. On his second visit to India, Mr Karzai will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest while terrorism is expected to dominate the discussions. The two countries will also sign three MoUs on rural development, education exchange programme and standardisation between the Bureau of Indian Standards and the Afghan National Standardisation Authority. Mr Karzai is also scheduled to attend a joint business meeting and will inaugurate the first-ever festival of Afghanistan in India on April 11. He will also meet President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The Afghan President is accompanied by 10 ministers and ministerial-level advisers, members of the Afghan National Assembly, officials and a high-level business delegation, which testifies to the growing ties between India and Afghanistan. Mr Karzai will also travel to Hyderabad to visit Hi-Tech City, Tata Consultancy Services and the National Remote Sensing Agency He will pay a visit to a rural development project organised by the National Institute of Rural Development. |
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Quota row kicks up storm in Cong
New Delhi, April 9 With the OBCs emerging as a strong political force in recent years, the Congress-can hardly afford to oppose the minister’s proposal. In fact, it has
officially backed the move. But the proposal has all the potential of unsettling Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has always shared an uneasy relationship with Arjun Singh. The HRD Minister, who was once a key member of Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s inner coterie, has always fancied himself as a prime ministerial candidate and has never really accepted Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. The wily minister had deliberately kept a low profile for some time now primarily because his Rajya Sabha term was due to end last month. Mr Arjun Singh has since been renominated and is also seen to be back in favour with the Congress President after being marginalised for the past several months. The HRD Minister was among the three persons who was contacted by Mrs Sonia Gandhi before she went public with her decision to resign from Parliament and as NAC Chairperson last month. Mr Arjun Singh, who has earned the reputation of being a wizard at political chess games, is clearly back in his element. In what many see as a repeat of what transpired during
P.V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure when the HRD Minister constantly questioned Mr Rao’s secular credentials, Mr Arjun Singh may well seek to embarrass the Prime Minister on the issue of reservations in educational institutions. Given the Prime Minister’s pro-reforms image and as somebody who enjoys a sound
reputation with the academic community, Mr Arjun Singh has picked on this subject after much thought. Congress insiders maintain that given Mr Arjun Singh’s past record as a political tactician, this issue is bound to snowball in the coming months. As it is, the revival of what is seen to be the “Mandal politics” has provoked widespread debate among students and academics. It is also expected to dominate the agenda of political discourse in the coming months. There has been no official word from the Prime Minister’s Office on this issue but the HRD Minister was quick to clarify that Dr Manmohan Singh was very much in the know when it was suggested that the PM was not consulted on this issue. |
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IIM directors may discuss reservation issue today
Ahmedabad, April 9 IIM-A Director Bakul Dholakia said the media would be informed when the reservation matter came up for discussion.
He said the date of meeting of IIM directors was decided in January and the meeting was not fixed after the reservation issue cropped up.
He refused to divulge the agenda of the meeting. — PTI
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UPA appeasing minorities: Advani
Charoti (Thane), April 9 “The vote-bank politics is proving detrimental to the interests of the country,” Mr Advani said while addressing his first pubic meeting in the state here after his “Bharat Suraksha Yatra” entered Maharashtra. He said the yatra (fifth such yatra undertaken by him in his political career), was against secessionist forces, terrorism and was in support of good governance. He flayed the Centre for repealing POTA. “Terrorism does not end by doing away with POTA as it was the only law that prevented funding to the terrorists,” he said. Mr Advani said he had undertaken the “Rath Yatra” sixteen years ago with the objective of building Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. “The VHP and sadhus had resolved to build the temple. In 1989 the BJP had formally declared support to the resolve to build the temple,” he added. “The Jawaharlal Nehru government had proposed rebuilding Somnath temple in Gujarat. Similarly, we told the Rajiv Gandhi government to adopt the same policy on the Ram temple issue.” He said the country was facing several threats to its security such as terrorism, infiltration of Bangladeshis and corruption. He also lauded the Gujarat Government for being the topmost state in the country in terms of development adding that Maharashtra, which was once at the top, has now slipped down the rankings.
— PTI |
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Aligarh calm; death toll reaches six
Aligarh, April 9 The 30-year-old man who was critically injured in firing incidents yesterday died at the AMU Medical College Hospital today. Doctors attending on him said he had received gunshot injuries. Divisional Commissioner Ashok Kumar said the indefinite curfew in force in the old city areas remained in force and at least 1,700 paramilitary personnel were deployed in different parts of the city to oversee the situation. He said a demand for 600 more CRPF men was also made. He said the city had been divided into 24 sectors and officers deputed in each sector would be held responsible in case of any breach of peace. He said a systematic probe was being conducted into the incidents of fresh violence although the preliminary inquiries had suggested that the incidents during the past two days were “engineered” to stoke communal flare-up. Meanwhile, barring Aligarh Muslim University that continued to function normally, all schools and colleges in the city remained closed till further orders. However, all examinations to be conducted by the AMU have been postponed for two days. The situation will be reviewed by the university authorities tomorrow, according to Controller of Examinations Mehendi Abbas Rizvi. Minister of Industries Khawaja Haleem handed over cheques of Rs 5 lakh each to the next of the kin of four killed in the firing on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Minister for Haj Haji Yaqoob Qureshi blamed the Aligarh district administration for the communal violence in the town and alleged some officials were still working at the instance of the BJP. “All deaths have taken place in Aligarh due to police firing. Some officials are still working on the orders of the BJP leaders,” Qureshi said. Secretary of the All-India Congress Committee and MLA from Aligarh city Vivek Bansal demanded a CBI probe into the yesterday’s outbreak of violence in the old city areas.
— PTI |
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Kalyan Singh detained on way to Aligarh
Kanpur, April 9 Later, he told reporters that he was “arrested” under provisions of the CrPC without being given a notice. Claiming that he was going to Aligarh to help maintain peace in the communally sensitive town, Singh said it was his fundamental right to go to his home town. Singh alleged: “There was attack on a particular community before a former district magistrate and top police and district officials. Had the security persons had not opened fire, officials of Aligarh could have fallen victims of the attack,” he said. He accused the state government of fomenting violence and riot to capture votes of a certain community. Singh alleged the withdrawal of POTA by the UPA government had resulted in the increase of terrorist activities. Uma Bharti, Delhi Jama Masjid’s Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari and UP Assembly Opposition leader Lalji Tandon were also detained earlier from going to Aligarh.
— PTI |
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School register proof of date
of birth: SC
New Delhi, April 9 "It may be true that an entry in the school register is not conclusive but it has evidenciary value," the Bench clarified. The ruling came on an appeal filed by Chhattisgarh challenging a high court order reversing a trial court decision to sentence a man to three years' rigorous imprisonment for rape of a minor girl. On the basis of the entries made in the school register, the trial court had concluded that the victim was a minor. However, the high court reversed the trial court verdict on the ground that the entries in the school register were not a conclusive proof of the date of birth of the prosecutrix. While agreeing with the high court that the entries in the school register were not conclusive proof, the Supreme Court held that since the same were corroborated by oral evidence of the victim's mother, these could be considered to be the conclusive evidence of the age of the victim. The apex court set aside the high court judgment passed in 1987 and restored the order of the trial court.
— PTI |
Salem’s hit man escapes from UP jail
Mumbai, April 9 Deepak Singh Jagannath Singh, alias Deepu, escaped from a Varanasi jail recently and this has jeopardised the trial in a Mumbai court as he was the prime accused besides Salem, the sources told PTI. Deepak was taken to Varanasi on a request made by the Uttar Pradesh police as he was wanted in a criminal case in that state. The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court here had allowed the Uttar Pradesh police to take the accused to Varanasi on a transfer warrant. However, Deepak gave the police a slip and escaped from the jail recently, the sources said. The Varanasi police had submitted a report in this regard to the MCOCA court here following which designated Judge Abhay Thipsay took a serious view of Deepak's escape from jail and said he would hold an inquiry into the incident. Salem is accused of hatching a conspiracy to murder Dewani as he refused to pay extortion amount while Deepak is charged with murdering Dewani at point blank range in the latter's office in 2001, the sources said. Deepak was arrested last year after co-accused revealed his alleged role in the Dewani's murder.—PTI |
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Rail museum opened to public
Kolkata, April 9 The museum, planned and designed on the New Delhi's national rail museum, which eastern railway's general manager Shyam Kumar inaugurated on Friday, was first of its kind in eastern India. Built in an area of about four acre of land at a cost of Rs 1 crore, the museum, will be an added attraction not only to the railway passengers but also to numerous of visitors from other states and abroad in Kolkata, Mr Kumar claimed. |
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John Abraham hurt in mishap
Mumbai, April 9 After the accident around midnight, Abraham went to the hospital in suburban Bandra for an X-ray and was advised hospitalisation, hospital sources said. Meanwhile, the police has registered a case of negligent driving against the actor. "The actor has suffered injuries in left ankle and knee but there is no fracture. The MRI result is also all right. Abraham's condition is stable and is being monitored continuously. He is likely to be discharged in the next 12 hours," doctors attending on him said.— PTI |
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