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Wagah-Attari freight trains to be more frequent
National meat board on anvil
Cabinet clears 7000 IT posts 2 customs officers among 3 guilty of Mumbai blasts |
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Lodha files
Rs 100-cr defamation suit against Birlas
Tribune Impact Court issues notice to
Prakash Jha Flip side of domestic violence law in focus
Lalu-UPA rift on fielding of massacre accused
Belgian PM arrives in Delhi on trade visit
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Wagah-Attari freight trains to be more frequent
New Delhi, November 2 The decision came after three-day talks between officials of the two countries here in pursuance of the third round of composite dialogue held in Islamabad in March, 2006. Between 20 and 22 freight trains were being run between the two countries on the Wagah-Attari border every month. “We also discussed the introduction of such trains in Munabao-Khokhrapar sector to improve trade, commerce and people-to-people contacts”, said Mr Ashok Gupta, adviser (traffic), Indian Railways, and Mr Ali Arif, additional general manager (freight), Pakistan railways. The two sides deliberated at length on increasing the number of goods trains between the two countries in the Wagah-Attari sector to two per day, they said. The officials said the two sides had agreed in principle on the these issues. Besides the introduction of a special type of rolling stock-like flat-bed wagons for carrying containers, the electrification of the railway line between Amritsar and Lahore was also discussed, they said. They said only reserved berths would be available on the Samjhauta and Thar Express trains. The Indian delegation proposed augmenting services of Thar Express and making available the passenger lists of both trains in advance on a reciprocal basis for expeditious immigration clearance at the railway station, Mr Gupta said. The two delegation decided to strictly enforce the luggage limit of 35 kg per passenger in lower class and 50 kg in airconditioned class, prescribed for the two trains, he said. The two sides also decided that Indian air-brake coaching stock would be used for running the Samjhauta Express when it was the turn of the Indian Railways to ply its rake. Asked if container train operations were also discussed, the officials said yes. The two sides were of the view that regular interaction at senior and lower levels of officials was needed to remove difficulties in the way of the implementation of proposals. “Such meetings can be held at least once an year at the senior level and monthly at the lower level to overcome difficulties”, Mr Arif said. Informed about the introduction of air-brake system by Indian Railways, he said they were in the process of progressively shifting to air-brake stock and high-capacity and speed wagons. — PTI
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National meat board on anvil
New Delhi, November 2 The apex body, under the Ministry of Food Processing, would not only supervise the demand and supply situation and work towards improving the framework of national trade to the benefit of consumers, producers and exporters, but also promote finance, support, research and development and quality and safety issues in the sector. According to a recent proposal submitted to the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) by the ministry, the NMPB may be started with 10 offices all over the country with offices at Chandigarh, Delhi, Srinagar, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Lucknow. The headquarters of the board may be located in Punjab, Haryana or Uttar Pradesh depending on the availability of land and other facilities from concerned state governments. The exercise may start with some key personnel who are being identified. They will oversee the entire process of setting up of the board. A token amount of Rs 20 crore may be provided initially for the purpose. In addition, a plan outlay of Rs 200 crore is being proposed for the sector for the next financial year period which would include promotional activities relating to marketing, hygiene standards, brand promotion, etc. In all, a financial outlay of Rs 100 crore is being proposed for the NMPB during the XIth Five Year Plan. However, the detailed cost estimates would be available only after a detailed project report is prepared for constitution of the board. One of the reasons for the slow and unregulated growth of the meat and poultry sector is that of multiplicity of authorities and lack of promotional component in the present schemes being operated for the sector. “Setting up of the NMPB would address this key weakness by acting as the apex agency for the sector and focussing on overall development of the sector,” according to a vision document prepared by the ministry. As experienced in the case of Commodity Boards like the Rubber Board and the Tea Board and other autonomous organisations like the NDDB and the National Fisheries Development Board, a board structure which includes all stakeholders has proved to be effective in undertaking a holistic view of a sector and devising an integrated approach to promote it, the document said. This becomes possible due to the elements of autonomy and empowerment applicable in case of a board, it said adding the NMPB should therefore be successful in the revitalisation of meat and poultry sector in the country.
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Cabinet clears 7000 IT posts New Delhi, November 2 ''The vacancies are to be filled in three years,'' Finance Minister P. Chidambarm told newspersons here. The vacancies are to be filled by the Department on account of "exponential" increase in workload due to new legislative measures brought into action, Mr Chidambaram said. He said the job would be entrusted to the Staff Selection Commission. As there was such great urgency and in the event the SSC was not able to accomplish it, the government would consider giving the task of recruitment to the Banking Services
Recruitment Board. He said the cost of collection of taxes was lowest in India and even after the recruitment is complete, the cost would not change much and still be the lowest. The CCEA approved the funding of terminal markets for fruits, vegetables and other commodities in a public-private-partnership (PPP) model under the National Horticulture Mission. Such participation would be by way of share in equity upto 49 per cent by the Central/state government, Chidambaram said. An amount earmarked under the scheme included Rs 148 crore for participation in equity capital, Rs one crore for project development
assistance and Rs one crore for general awareness and publicity. The scheme will operate on a hub-and-spoke format linked to a number of collection centres having backward linkages with farmers and forward linkages with wholesalers, distributors and exporters. The CCEA approved the construction of 1000 km of expressways under phase VI with full access control and new alignments along the routes at a cost of Rs 16680 crore. Chidambaram said out of this Rs 9000 crore will come from private sector and the balance
amount of Rs 7680 crore as viability gap funding, cost of land acquisition, utility shifting and consultancy will be met by the government. He said the expressways would be built through public-private
partnership on build operate and transfer (BOT) basis following design, built, finance and operate pattern under National Highways Development Project Phase VI. The CCEA also approved the setting up of a coal based power plant in Chattisgarh by the AES OPGC holding of Mauritius at an estimated cost of $ 1222 million. The government today gave its approval to waiver of the ceiling of Rs 1,000 crores for equity investments by the country's largest power generating company, NTPC, to establish financial joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries in India or abroad. The decision by the CCEA is mainly for the purpose of participating in the bidding of ultra mega power projects (UMPP), subject to the implementation of maximum two projects, being established at the initiative of the Power Ministry.
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2 customs officers among 3 guilty of Mumbai blasts Mumbai, November 2 Customs Inspector Jayvant Gurav and Customs Superintendent S.S. Talawadekar, who were posted in Srivardhan taluka of Raigad in January 1993, were found guilty of helping land arms, ammunition and RDX at Raigad. The court also accepted the testimony of senior Customs officials that the two had prior knowledge about what was contained in the consignment. While both officials were found guilty of taking bribes from Tiger Memon, Gurav not only used a jeep from the Customs department to transport the consignment, he even allowed Uttam Poddar, an aide of Tiger Memon to drive the vehicle. Both officials were, however, found not guilty of being part of the conspiracy to carry out the attacks. A third accused, Ayub Ibrahim Qureshi, an aide of Tiger Memon, was found guilty of possessing a revolver in a notified area. He was found guilty under TADA as well as the Arms Act.
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Lodha files
Rs 100-cr defamation suit against Birlas Kolkata, November 2 The civil defamation case has been filed in the court of Mr Justice Aniruddha Bose of Calcutta High Court and the court has already directed the two parties to file affidavits regarding the matter, Lodha's solicitor Debanjan Mondal said here today. Birla patriarch Basant Kumar Birla and several others, including a PR company of the Birlas, were made respondents in the case. The petition sought an injunction from the court, restraining the Birlas from issuing defamatory words and statements against Lodha. The matter would come up for hearing on November 27. The Birlas and Lodha are engaged in a bitter legal battle for the control of the Rs 5,000- cr assets of the M.P. Birla group after the death of Priyamvada Birla in July, 2004. Lodha's claim that the entire estate has been bequeathed to him by a purported will of Priyamvada made in 1999 was challenged by the Birlas, claiming that the entire estate should go to charities as per a mutual will of M.P. Birla and Priyamvada made in 1982.
— PTI
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Goa tourism industry panics on terror report
Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service
Mumbai, November 2 As reported by this newspaper in its edition on Tuesday and later picked up by other newspapers, the Union Home Ministry warned the Goa Government that terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad were planning to target Israeli and Western tourists flocking to the state during the year-end. With contingents of Central troops taking up positions in Goa, the hotel industry in Goa is apprehensive of the effect the news reports will have on tourist arrivals in the coming weeks. “There is a fear that tourists planning to holiday in Goa may cancel bookings in the coming days,” a hotelier from North Goa said. Hoteliers from Goa are now keen to dispel fears of terror attacks in Goa. After a meeting with some of them on Wednesday, Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane denied that there was threat of terror attacks in Goa. He, however, added that one battalion of Central forces with 500 personnel were being requisitioned to beef up security for the international film festival to be held later this month. Mr Rane, however, sounded a word of caution. He said no body could be too careful since even America could not escape terror attacks. Incidentally, Central forces were not called for in the past years when film festivals were held. Neither were they required during the exposition of the relics of St Francis Xavier in 2004 when lakhs of visitors from across India visited Goa. According to hoteliers, the threat of terror attacks could hurt them badly since for the past two years, they were promoting Goa as an alternative to Bali. They also received much help from charter operators in the UK, Israel and other parts of Europe who paint Goa as a location far away from Kashmir.
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Court issues notice to
Prakash Jha Patna, November 2 The court issued the notice to his company, Holy Cow Pictures Pvt Ltd, after hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by senior Congress leader Prem Chand Mishra. Mr Mishra had challenged the ruling NDA`s recent decision to allot land and some space in the Patna Industrial Area Development Authority's office to the filmmaker for commercial purposes. According to Mishra's PIL filed in July, all norms were violated to favour Jha, with the government selling land to him at a throwaway price. The court has asked Jha's company to explain its position by November 15. Leader of the Opposition Rabri Devi had earlier demanded a CBI probe into the allotment. Samata Party president P.K. Sinha, a close aide of NDA convenor and former JD(U) president George Fernandes, alleged that the state government had allotted one acre of land for just Rs 1.46 million to the filmmaker for construction of multiplexes at the Pataliputra industrial estate. Mr Sinha claimed that the actual market price of the land was Rs 48 million. Another plot of 1.64 acres in Muzaffarpur was also reportedly given to the filmmaker at a very low price. Jha, who hails from a village near Bettiah, had campaigned for the JD(U) during the 2005 Assembly polls. The filmmaker was also seen campaigning with Nitish Kumar two days ago for the parliamentary by-election from Nalanda, slated for November 6. Jha had hit headlines for producing films like "Apharan" and "Gangajal" to portray the alleged misgoverned Bihar.
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Flip side of domestic violence law in focus
New Delhi, November 2 A senior leader of a national party and a former law minister, not wanting to be named, said he could not understand an anamolous situation where an ex-wife with settled claims will still be entitled to stay in her former husband's house along with his present family. ''This not only creates tension in the family but puts her life in danger especially in the rural areas,'' he noted. What many people have not realised so far is the effect of the provision to override and side step all other existing laws, the leader said, adding it is a law applicable to all religions. ''When the Bill came up for consideration, there was a feeble attempt to draw the attention to the flip side but these voices were drowned by the boistrous women MPs, who wanted the passage of the Bill without discussion. Now when the legislation is operational, people will realise the practical problems.
— UNI
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Lalu-UPA rift on fielding of massacre accused
Patna, November 2 The incident took place during 1995 Bihar Assembly poll in which Congress candidate Sachchidanand Singh, and six others were killed. They were massacred in the Tarapur Assembly segment of Munger district. Mr Choudhary was again named as an accused when all nine witnesses of Launa-Parsa case were mysteriously murdered at Nawada village under Tarapur Assembly area in the past. Besides, he reportedly has nine other criminal cases pending against him. Mr Choudhary’s main opponents, UPA-backed CPM’s Subodh Rai and Syed Shahnawaz Hussain of the BJP, have no criminal cases against them. The by-election to the Bhagalpur Lok Sabha seat will take place on November 6,along with Nalanda. Mr Lalu Prasad, whose rule of 15 years was uprooted last year, was thus drawing flak from his UPA allies for unilaterally fielding Mr Shakuni Choudhary in Bhagalpur. To further wreck the alliance unity, the RJD chief was backing the JD(U) rebel Arun Kumar, who was contesting as an Independent candidate from Nalanda, the homeland of Mr Nitish Kumar. The UPA allies led by the Congress were thus fuming with anger in view of Mr Lalu Prasad’s overt attempt to weaken the alliance in Bihar. The state Congress chief Sadanand Singh said that he was going to address a joint election meeting with the CPM Politburo Member Sitaram Yechury in support of the UPA candidate in Bhagalpur. The former state Congress chief, now with the LJP, Mr Ramjatan Sinha, said that the Congress decision to dump the RJD was a long-awaited one and should be construed as the beginning of a new era. Ironically, Mr Sinha was removed from the post of state Congress President last year for his strong opposition to an alliance with Mr Lalu Prasad. The CPI nominee from Nalanda, Mr Gaya Singh, has alleged that by putting up his candidates, the RJD supremo only aimed at splitting the secular votes. The ruling NDA, which has fielded former union minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain from Bhagalpur and Ram Swarup Prasad from Nalanda, was naturally excited over the divided opposition. The outcome to the by-election is being perceived as a referendum on 11 months rule of Nitish Kumar-led NDA government in Bihar.
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Belgian PM arrives in Delhi on trade visit
New Delhi, November 2 During the visit, the two countries will sign three pacts, including an agreement on social security to bolster investment of Indian companies in Belgium. The agreement will provide social security benefits to Indian businessmen and facilitate visa procedures. The three pacts also include a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in science and technology. The signing of the pacts will be preceded by official talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on various issues of bilateral interest. Tomorrow morning, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will call on him. This will be followed by a call on by Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath. He will also address a meeting of representatives of the Indian industry at a function organised by the CII/FICCI/ASSOCHAM. He will later meet UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and call on President Abdul Kalam. After the day-long official engagements, the Belgian Prime Minister will leave for Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai on November 4. — UNI |
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