Lucknow, May 16
The original Mandal man, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, supports the idea of doubling the seats in educational institutions to address the brewing unrest at introducing OBC quotas in institutions of higher education.

“It is our responsibility to work towards an inclusive society. We need to take everyone with us” stressed Mr Singh while appealing to the medicos to attend to the patients while carrying on their protest.

Addressing a press conference to announce a “Mukti Sangram” rally at Laxman Mela Maidan on May 30, Mr Singh declared that it would bring Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan on the same platform. He has also managed to get nod from CPI’s A.B. Bardhan and D.Raja to address the rally.

Giving the contours of the forthcoming broad conglomerate of political parties realigning under the banner of his Jan Morcha, Mr Singh said they would represent the “voices of the janata” and will come together on specific pro-poor issues.

Capitalist-led policies of the state government are at the moment the rallying point of the morcha, he pointed out. “All major decisions regarding the development of Uttar Pradesh are taken by the UP Development Council which is a body of capitalist”, Mr Singh said.

“This government does not represent the interests of the vast numbers of landless agriculture labourers, weavers, and socially and economically marginalised people who will be given a voice by the morcha”, he claimed.

Elaborating on the economic agenda of the rally CPI (ML) state chief Akhilendra Pratap Singh, who is giving issue-based support to the morcha, said accountability would be demanded on behalf of the farmers who had lost their land for the Dadri power plant that had made no progress so far.

Answerability would also be demanded towards the farmers committing suicide in the state, youth not finding employment, tribals being displaced and OBC, Dalits and Muslims being denied rights, declared the CPI (ML) representative.

The umbrella political outfit is clearly a cause for concern for the ruling Samajwadi Party as it has the support of at least two MLAs who had been ministers supporting the present government.

They are Nationalist Communist Party MLA Kaushal Kishore and former BSP and presently SP MLA and chairperson of the Lalit Kala Academy Kunwar Brijendra Pratap Singh. Both admitted to be supporting the present government for the want of a better alternative.

Suspended Samajwadi Party MP Raj Babbar heads the new outfit that is the political front of Mr Singh’s Kisan Morcha launched a few years ago.

New Delhi, May 16
The government is likely to introduce a scheme estimated to cost around Rs 25,000 crore to provide social security cover to over 30 crore workers in the unorganised sector soon, with the Arjun Sengupta Commission today submitting a new draft of the Bill to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The Bill had been delayed after objections were raised by Left parties claiming dilution of labour laws in the scheme.

The scheme, presented by the National Commission for Enterprises in Unorganised Sector, was formulated after examining Bills for social security drafted by the Labour Minister, the National Advisory Council and the commission itself, Chairman of the Commission Arjun Sengupta said.

“The scheme envisages to cover 30 crore workers in the unorganised sector over a five-year period and provide them with social security that would include health and life insurance, provident fund and old age pension,” he said.

The cost of running the scheme in the first year would be 0.25 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, which will go up to 0.48 per cent in the fifth year, Sengupta said.

In the first year, the Centre will have to spend Rs 6,384 crore, which will go up to Rs 19,135 crore, while state governments will spend Rs 1,254 crore in the first year, which will increase to Rs 6,267 crore.

The scheme will be contributory in nature with workers, employers and government paying Re 1 a day. “Since only 17 per cent of the informal workers not in agriculture have identifiable employers, their contribution can be paid by government and recouped through a tax or a cess,” the commission said.

In case the workers are not in a position to pay, their share can be paid by the Central Government.

The commission has suggested that the Centre could bear 75 per cent of the burden of the scheme while the rest could be borne by the state governments.

The proposed contributions will generate Rs 1,095 per registered worker per year of which Rs 380 will go as premium for health insurance, Rs 150 for life insurance and Rs 565 towards old age security.

Under health insurance, workers will get a benefit of Rs 15,000 per year, maternity benefit of Rs 1,000 and sickness allowance for 15 days beyond three days of hospitalisation.

They will be extended a life cover of Rs 15,000. The provident fund for workers will ensure 10 per cent return, which may either be withdrawn on maturity or converted to annuity combined with unemployment insurance through withdrawal of the part of accumulated fund after a block-in for 10 years.

For BPL workers, the scheme proposed extension of the national old age pension scheme to ensure a monthly pension of Rs 200 per month to such workers.

The commission said the funds collected through contributions could be managed by specialised agencies like life insurance and general insurance companies and pension fund managers.

For implementing the scheme, the commission has suggested a federal structure. The National Security Board will implement the scheme at the central level while state social security boards will do it at state and district level. Workers’ facilitation centres — which may be NGOs or trade unions — will facilitate the scheme including registration of workers.

New Delhi, May 16
In a unique case of its kind in the history of country’s legal profession, the Delhi High Court has recognised exclusive right of a law firm over knowledge-based data created by it and debarred those lawyers who once were associated with it from using the same after leaving the company.

In a judgment considered to be a landmark so far as recognising the copyright of a lawyer’s knowledge, Mr Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, in a recent order, restrained four advocates, including a foreigner, from using the computer data of law firm Titus and Co with which they worked as junior trainees and allegedly had taken out the data in CDs when leaving it after some years of association.

Holding that drastic change in work culture, specialisation in different fields of legal knowledge required a greater degree of understanding in defining relationships between advocates, Mr Justice Kaul said the four lawyers, who once worked with Titus, could not use the material they had allegedly “stolen” from its data base at the time of leaving it.

“They are being restrained only from using the copied material of which the plaintiff (Titus and Co) alone has a right,” the court said. However, it clarified that the parting lawyers were otherwise free to carry on their profession, utilise the skills and information they have retained mentally while working with the firm.

The court said “the misuse of any such material (by parting lawyers) could expose the plaintiff firm to liability towards its clients apart from a loss of face in such eventuality”.

The four lawyers — Sema Ahluwalia Jhingan, Alishan Naqvee, Dimpy Mohanty and Alfred A Adebare (Nigerian national) — who worked with Titus, a 16-year-old law firm, were accused by it of "illegally" taking away its computer data when disassociating with it. The four lawyers, however, had claimed that they had also contributed their skills in creating the database.

The nature of information stated to have been taken away by the four advocates from Titus’ computer datebase primarily was of two fold — the list of clients and law firms and opinions and advice in respect of which the firm had an obligation to maintain confidentiality - which, it said, was crucial for running its business as a legal entity.

Senior advocate Arun Jaitely, who argued the case for Titus, contended that the four lawyers were paid “performance linked” remuneration by the firm and they were required to work under its discipline and regime. They did not have any right to work independently.

Accepting his arguments, the court said the four lawyers could not utilise the agreements, due diligence reports, list of clients and all such material which has come to their knowledge or has been developed during their relationship with the firm and which per se was "confidential” in its point of view. 

New Delhi, May 16
Diplomatic moves could well result in the delay of testing intermediate range ballistic missile Agni-III even as Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said there was no political pressure against test firing of the missile but a “self-imposed restraint” not to go ahead with its testing.

“We have no pressure on us. Nor are we putting any political pressure. It is just we have decided to have self-imposed restraint,” he told mediapersons.

“As responsible members of the international community, we want to keep our international commitments on non-proliferation,” the Defence Minister said when asked why India was not going ahead with the testing of Agni-III.

However, senior officials of the Ministry of Defence pointed out that the delay would be because of the current state of relations with China and the USA. The decision for testing more than 4,000 km range ballistic missile would be a political one and given the diplomatic moves underway with China and the USA it was unlikely that the decision would be taken in a hurry, the officials said.

Most importantly, Mr Mukherjee is visiting Beijing later this month and would not like to send out a disturbing message with the testing of Agni-III just before his visit. Some of the issue which the Defence Minister is expected to take up during his visit would be the resolving of the border issue with China and developing closer military ties between the two fastest growing nations of the world.

The officials pointed out that there was also the delicate issue of the India-US civilian nuclear deal that was presently being negotiated. Further, China has also put forward its reservations on the India-US nuclear deal.

There have been indications since 2004 that Agni-III could be launched anytime when wanted.

Country’s top Defence Scientist M. Natarajan said yesterday that the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) had cleared all technical parameters for the test of the missile, which will give New Delhi capability of hitting targets more than 4,000 km away.

Commenting of the DRDO chief’s statement, the Defence Minister, however, clarified that self-restraint did not mean that the DRDO can’t go ahead with cold-bed tests for the sub-systems of the missile.

Mr Mukherjee was talking to reporters yesterday on the sidelines of a function to mark the three-day conference of Chief Controllers and Controllers of Defence accountants here.

In his inaugural address, Mr Mukherjee said his ministry planned to delegate powers on capital acquisitions to lower levels to speed up the process of weapons induction.