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Barak deal: CBI may seek Israel’s help
4 more held guilty in ’93 blasts case
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Sonia to resume tours, halt party dissent
Uttaranchal becomes Uttarakhand
SC flays Shinde’s role in pardoning Cong man
214 fresh cases of dengue
Visa for Chinese nationals streamlined
Panel recommends laptops for teachers, students
HP drug racket: police submits report
Stress laid on importance of medicinal plants
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Barak deal: CBI may seek Israel’s help
New Delhi, October 12 An indication to this effect was given by a top CBI official here yesterday. “The case could be fully cracked only after getting evidences about the external elements involved in the case and we would definitely need the cooperation of Israeli authorities,” he told The Tribune, wishing not to be quoted. The LR is issued by the designated court based on the evidences and other related information provided by the CBI. CBI sources also said the accused named in the FIR, including former Defence Minister George Fernandes, his associates Jaya Jaitley and R.K. Jain, would be questioned to tie the loose ends in the case. The sources maintained that as per the available evidence, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had from time to time raised objection to the purchase of the system. The only time the DRDO gave its concurrence was in 1996, but that too was conditional. The DRDO wanted that the government should scale down the purchase order and link it with transfer of technology, a procedure mandatorily being followed in the defence deals now. At that time, the DRDO’s decision was influenced by the fact that the purchase proposal had highlighted that hostile neighbour Pakistan had more fire power than India, which was against national security concerns, the sources said. The DRDO had also insisted on giving thrust to Integrated Missile Development Programme, under which ‘Trishul’ was one of the missiles to be developed, the sources said. However, there were repeated attempts to push the purchase against the DRDO’s objections. In 1997, a proposal to buy One Barak Missile as part of the modernisation programme of INS Virat, aircraft carrier, was mooted precisely to avoid stringent purchase procedures, the CBI sources claimed. Meanwhile, close on the heels of the CBI registering an FIR in the Barak defence deal, the naval officer who evaluated the Israeli system said he had objected to its purchase. Vice-Admiral Madanjit Singh (retd), who was then Chief of the Navy’s Western Command, claimed his objections to the Barak anti-missile system were seen as “dissent”. “Initially during the test firing, there were some failures and as a result of that I had raised objections about the Barak missile, which were subsequently dealt with,” he told a television channel. “Nobody is saying that it was a bad system, but it has been designed for...the Israeli Navy and their operating procedures are vastly different from ours. “They have smaller ships, they go (out to sea) for few hours...Our ships go out for several weeks at a time,” he said. Mr Singh said the navy had Russian anti-missile systems, including those fitted on three Krivak-class frigates, that had a “better performance”. Noting that reports based on field trials were the “most important inputs” for all major arms purchases, Mr Singh said he and his colleagues got the impression that the objections to the Barak system were “viewed as professional dissent”. Mr Fernandes, Jaya Jaitley and then Navy chief Admiral Sushil Kumar were named by the CBI in an FIR regarding corruption in the Rs 1,150-crore Barak deal with an Israeli firm in 2000. The charge has been denied by Fernandes, who claimed the Navy had endorsed his decision to buy the system.
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No move to blacklist Israeli arms firm: Pranab
New Delhi: The government on Thursday said that no comparison could be made between the South African firm Denel selling the anti material rifles and Barak and that no decision had been taken to blacklist the Israeli armament company that supplied the missiles to the Indian Navy.
The CBI has filed a case against former Defence Minister George Fernandes and his associate Jaya Jaitley for allegedly receiving kickbacks from the Israeli firm in the supply of Barak missiles. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee who, on being asked whether the company, Israel Aircraft Industries, was being blacklisted, said comparisons could not be drawn between it and the South African arms major Denel. The government earlier last year blacklisted Denel in a similar case after it emerged that the company had paid commissions to middlemen to clinch a deal for selling anti-material rifles to India. — TNS
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4 more held guilty in ’93 blasts case
Mumbai, October 12 However, Judge
P.D. Kode acquitted a truck driver of charges of transporting weapons. Shaikh Mohammed Ethesham Haji Gulam Rasool Shaikh and Shahnawaz Khan Mohammed Khan were found guilty for taking part in the conspiracy behind the blasts, landing arms and RDX at the Shekhadi coast in Raigad in February 1993, agreeing to undergo weapons training and going to Dubai en route to Pakistan for such
training. Shaikh Ethesham and Shahnawaz Khan are close aides of alleged gangster Ejaz
Pathan, who was hired by Tiger Memon to help him in landing arms and RDX that were smuggled from Pakistan for use in the serial
blasts. Raigad residents Sharif Khan Abbas Adikari and Sujjad Alam, alias Iqbal Abdul Hakam
Nasir, were found guilty of taking part in the landing of arms and explosives at
Shekhadi. The court, however, acquitted Ashfaq Kasim Havaldar who was charged with driving a truck laden with arms and RDX. He was given the benefit of the doubt and let off as the police had not recorded his confession to prove his guilt.
— PTI
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Sonia to resume tours, halt party dissent
New Delhi, October 12 She will begin with a day-long trip to Raipur on Saturday where she will address a training programme for party workers and spend time talking to district and block level leaders. The Congress President is going to the BJP-ruled state after a gap of nearly three years. She had last visited Chhattisgarh for the Assembly election campaign. The trip to Raipur will be followed by a visit to Dharmsala on October 30 where again she will interact with state unit workers and leaders and will also address a public meeting. A trip to Arunachal Pradesh is slated for the first week of November. Virtually, all Congress state units are in the throes of bitter factional battles. Consequently, the party organisation has been paralysed. State leaders are so busy fighting among other that they are unable to take on the Opposition in the BJP-ruled states. Nor are they able to put up a united front to tackle the Opposition onslaught in states where they are in power. Ms Gandhi is expected to remind the party workers about the urgent need of working together and at the same time warn them about the dire consequences of infighting. These programmes will set the tone for next February’s Assembly polls in Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Manipur. Taking a cue from the Congress President, AICC Treasurer Motilal Vora,who is also in charge of Uttaranchal, will participate in a public meeting in Uddam Singh Nagar on November 12 along with state Chief Minister N.D.Tiwari. Mr Vora said he would be touring the state after Divali. AICC Secretary R.C.Kuntia is already in Uttaranchal for the preparatory work for the election. The Congress has a tough task on hand in this hill state. The party is here is badly divided while Mr Tiwari remains a constant source of bewilderment and embarrassment for the leadership. After periodically proclaiming that he would like to step down, he has now announced that he will not contest the coming election. Mr Vora refused to comment on Mr Tiwari’s statement. “He is the Chief Minister and he is campaigning vigorously in the state,” he said, adding that Mr Tiwari had not conveyed his decision to him.
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Uttaranchal becomes Uttarakhand
Dehra Dun, October 12 Earlier, the Bill was presented by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Indira Hridayesh in the House. Uttarakhand Kranti Dal leader Kashi Singh Airy said both Congress and the BJP should be given equal credit for the inception of the state, though the name ‘Uttaranchal,’ given by the BJP, did not reflect the people’s aspirations. However, when BJP member Ajay Bhatt said that changing the name of the state would cost crores of rupees, Congress legislator Subodh Uniyal countered by saying “crores of rupees were wasted in the Ayodhya episode too”.
— UNI
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SC flays Shinde’s role in pardoning Cong man
New Delhi, October 12 The court, which yesterday added a new chapter to jurisprudence by laying down new guidelines for the President and the Governors to deal with mercy petitions by strictly keeping politics, religion and caste at bay, said the state government had used its machinery to provide benefit to Reddy to make a case that he was a “good Congress worker”. It was evident from the report of the SP of the district which indicated to the “questionable” reputation of Reddy in his Nandikotkur Assembly constituency area from where he had unsuccessfully contested earlier. But after the Congress came to power, he was turned into a “messiah” with the help of “pliable bureaucracy”. “The only reason why a pariah becomes a messiah appears to be the change in the ruling party,” the court said, clarifying that the Governor ought to have made a deeper scrutiny in exercising the power of pardon with such pliable bureaucracy. The court indicted the Y.S. Rajshekhar Reddy government for the manner in which the entire process of pardon was built up with three top district officers — the Collector, SP and Probation Officer — put on the job to collect material to make a case before the Governor. It also pointed out that during the entire process, the convicted Congress leader was allowed parole several times and the same officers who objected to his release earlier, changed their stance after the change of government. In this context, it referred to the SP’s report as before the 2004 elections, it had stated that there was every likelihood of breach of peace and law and order in the Brahmana Kotkur village and Nandikotkur town if Reddy was released on parole but after the Congress government came to power, the same officer stated there would be no reaction if he was released prematurely.
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214 fresh cases of dengue
New Delhi, October 12 According to the control room of the National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), no chikungunya deaths have been reported from any part of the country in the last 24 hours. The number of confirmed cases of Chikungunya also remains unchanged at 1602. Of these, 21 cases have been reported from Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). The maximum number of chikungunya cases have been reported from Maharashtra (679) followed by 294 in Karnataka, 248 in Andhra Pradesh, 145 in Gujarat, 62 in Madhya Pradesh, 38 in Kerala, four in Pondicherry and one in Tamil Nadu. The number of dengue cases in Delhi and the NCR increased from 1101 yesterday to 1186 today. Of these, 766 cases have been reported from Delhi and the remaining from the National Capital region. In the last 24 hours, Delhi has reported 85 fresh cases of dengue, followed by Kerala that has reported 81. The number of dengue cases in Haryana have increased from 86 to 100, in Punjab from 181 to 201.
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Visa for Chinese nationals streamlined
New Delhi, October 12 Significantly, the Centre’s move comes a day after Reliance Industries Limited Chairman Mukesh Ambani met Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Union Home Secretary V K Duggal on visa facilitation for the Chinese techies who are to start work soon on the Reliance pipeline project. The modified guidelines issued yesterday will ensure easier movement of “genuine” Chinese businesspersons, professionals, students and their dependents in India. Interestingly, the move also comes on the eve of visit of a Left party delegation, led by CPM polit-buro member Sitaram Yechury, to China. The Left Parties have openly criticised the government over restrictions on Chinese FDIs inflow and the visa regime followed for them. The modified guidelines are in line with the contours of the memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed between the Government of India and the Government of People’s Republic of China signed on June 23, 2003 during the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing and the detailed guidelines issued on September 13, 2003, a Home Ministry official told The Tribune. The modified guidelines would help cutting down the delays in issue of visas to “geniune” Chinese professionals and businessman from the present three months to about two weeks, he said adding “the modification in no way will comprise with the security requirements for visa clearance.” The modified guidelines also aim at enhancing the relatively short validity, particularly of business and employment visas and their subsequent
extensions. Earlier, Chinese professionals and businessman were in general issued only visa for three months and they had to follow a long procedure to get it extended. But the modification would help them to get visa for three months to one year and get extension on one year basis upto a maximum of five years.
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Panel recommends laptops for teachers, students
New Delhi, October 12 In its final repot the committee says, “…there is a need for a mindset change and it has to be accepted that the laptop computer should be seen as an entry device to get connected to the knowledge world in cyberspace. Every student and teacher should be given such a device on an ownership basis…” The committee has specified that the provision for laptops for students is mandatory only in engineering, medical and management institutions. “ The provision for laptops to all students and faculty of IIT, IIM, AIIMS and NIT and all engineering, management and medical colleges of central universities may be mandatory. Provisioning of large budget outlays for providing laptops to other students and teachers need nit be mandatory,” the final report reads. Taking cognisance of the merits of the cyber world, it has recommended, “it is necessary to mandate and facilitate the purchase of personal computers and laptops for each student, it said. Where it was not possible, computer laboratories on campuses should be provided with sufficient intensity and should be made accessible on a 24x7 basis so that each student has a dedicated machine on a time-slotting basis”. This is in sharp contrast to the ministry’s reasoning that there is a need for classrooms and teachers more urgently than “fancy tools”. The ministry had in July this rejected the Planning Commission’s idea of implementing the OLPC Scheme on the grounds that it would be appropriate to instead utilise the money for the universalisation of secondary education. The committee also recommended that each campus of the institutes of higher learning should be Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) enabled, fully networked with digital classrooms and video conferencing lecture theatres. The report said the grand plan for technology deployment on campuses was aimed at preparing and providing them essentially digital infrastructure ready to be used by a “plugged in, digital savvy-generation” called “net-Gen”.
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HP drug racket: police submits report
New Delhi, October 12 The hunt for foreign national Sharap Gayaltsen and his local associate Narender Bodh was launched following arrest warrants being issued by a special court in Delhi. They were convicted under the NDPS Act and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for trafficking of drugs from Kulu and Lahaul Spiti districts but the High Court on appeal had suspended their sentence and set them free on bail.
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Stress laid on importance of medicinal plants New Delhi, October 12 Dr Kumar said, “The field of medicinal plants is important for India, as the people in this country rely a lot on traditional medicine which is a major part of our cultural ethos”. The author stressed that the subject was very fascinating for him and he especially wanted to explore mechanisms by which traditional medicine and systems could be preserved. “Perhaps the most important stakeholders in medicinal plants are the collectors of these plants. I’ve done a survey on them as also on traders and pharmacies dealing in these herbs”, he said. Dr Mashelkar said, “This is a very unique book and a real eye-opener because of the issues it deals with. If you look at India in the 21st century you will find that the world is going digital, herbal and spiritual. At CSIR, we have an entire institute dedicated to research in medicinal plants”.
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