Bhiwani, August 29
Former chief minister Banarsi Das Gupta died at a Delhi hospital after prolonged illness early this morning. He was 90. He is survived by a son and a daughter.

Gupta had been admitted to a hospital in Delhi in early May after he sustained a head injury when he fell in his bathroom. He remained in coma for a long time. Around 11 p.m. last night he had a heart attack. Doctors tried to revive him for over two hours but failed. The veteran leader passed away around 1 a.m.

His body was brought to his residence here at 4 a.m. People thronged his residence on receipt of news of his death to pay their last respects. All government offices and educational institutions were closed throughout the state as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

Born on Novermber 5, 1917, in Maneru village near here, Banarsi Das Gupta had his schooling in Charkhi Dadri. He graduated from a college in Pilani. In 1937 he joined the Praja Mandal Movement and was jailed in 1941. He actively participated in the Quit India Movement in 1942 and remained in jail for three years. He was married in 1940.

Gupta was first elected to the Vidhan Sabha constituted by the Maharaja of Jind for his tiny state in 1945. Gupta first became the chief minister in 1975 when Bansi Lal joined the Union Cabinet during the emergency. He remained in the post till 1977 when he lost the election to the state assembly. During this stint he was widely seen as a dummy chief minister.

In 1989 he again became chief minister for a brief term when Devi Lal became Deputy Prime Minister and his son Om Parkash Chautala had to resign as chief minister in the aftermath of the Meham incidents. Since then he had limited his activities to social organisation of the Aggarwal community.

Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Congress General Secretary Janardhan Dwiwedi, former chief minister Hukam Singh, INLD leader Ajay Chautala, several MPs, ministers and legislators attended the cremation. A police party presented reversed arms and buglers sounded the last post as the pyre was lit.

REWARI: The union minister of state for defence production Rao Inderjit Singh, who was scheduled to address a press conference at the Bal Bhavan here on Wednesday, converted it into a condolence meeting while expressing shock and grief at the sudden demise of former chief minister Banarsi Das Gupta. Rao along with deputy commissioner Chander Prakash and other senior officials also observed a two-minute silence as a mark of respect to the departed leader.

Yamunanagar: Banarsi Dass Gupta, a former chief minister of Haryana, was a great leader and popular among the masses. This was stated by former chief minister Om Parkash Chautala, who was on a visit here. He said Gupta was one of the tallest leaders from the Aggarwal community. He said his death has created a vacuum in the political field, which would not be easy to fill.

Chandigarh, August 29
Two days of gruelling arguments, marked by animated counsel referring extensively to apex court judgements, today culminated with Justice L.N. Mittal granting moderate respite to Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

“Arguments heard on maintainability of the petition (seeking pre-arrest bail for the Dera chief). Judgement reserved on the petition. But since the petitioner has been summoned by the trial court on August 31 and there is only a day in between, some interim arrangement has to be worked out. Accordingly, keeping in view the submissions of the CBI counsel, Rajan Gupta, the trial court is directed to adjourn the August 31 hearing to September 15 or later,” Justice Mittal pronounced in the open court.

In simpler terms, the order implies that Dera chief now will not have to appear before the trial court on August 31 even as Justice Mittal’s final order on the bail plea stands reserved. Thus, there will be no hearing before the trial court in Ambala on August 31. Significantly, no other relief has been granted.

Paucity of time turned out to be the saving factor for Dera chief with the judge expressing inability to come out with the final order on the bail plea in a day’s time.

Justice Mittal observed that since the judgement was to be on an essential question of law, relating to the parameters of pre-arrest bail under Section 438 CrPC, he needed reasonable time to weigh all submissions made during the proceedings.

Interestingly, the judge had initially pronounced that interim bail be granted to Dera chief till the final order on the bail pleas was pronounced. At this, the CBI counsel intervened and submitted that adjournment of trial court hearing would be more appropriate remedy as the interim bail might jeopardise prosecution’s case.

“We are at a stage when the trial court has issued a process (summons to Dera chief). The question now is not of arrest but appearance. We oppose bail as it may lead to tampering of evidence or threatening of witnesses,” Rajan Gupta averred.

The judge accepted the request and altered his initial pronouncement to finally restrict to an element of appearance only.

Earlier, during the three-hour-long brainstorming on the parameters of pre-arrest bail, both the CBI counsel and the petitioner’s counsel, S.K. Garg Narwana, referred to a gamut of apex court judgements, particularly Gurbax Singh Sibia case, Adri Dharan case, K.L. Verma case and Sunita Devi case.

Laying threadbare various points of law involved, the counsel hammered upon their respective stance and avoided touching upon the merits of the case, i.e. the evidence part and so on.

Rajan Gupta highlighted the fact that mere denial of pre-arrest bail would not automatically translate into the arrest of the petitioner. It was solely the discretion of the investigation officer to arrest him or not and there was no binding factor as such about the inevitability of arrest.

Narwana said the purpose of Section 438 CrPC was to save the petitioner from police harassment and torture. He also objected to the counsel for complainant in Chattrapati murder case, Ashwani Bakshi, making submissions before the court.

Incidentally, the dera chief has sought pre-arrest bail in three cases, two of murder and one of sexual exploitation of sadhvis’.

Fatehabad, August 29
The CPM today said that the 123 nuclear treaty with the USA, recently signed by the government, was a grave issue and warranted a national debate on it but added that the government was not serious about it.

Inderjit Singh , state secretary, CPM said ,while talking to mediapersons here today, the left parties’ opposition to the implementation of the treaty should not be viewed in isolation for the 123 treaty alone, but it should be viewed comprehensively with regard to all military dealings with the USA.

He added that the left parties would not take the things lying down and would protest against the policies detrimental to national interests.

He said A.B.Vardhan, CPI secretary-general, and Parkash Karat, CPM secretary-general, would lead protest march and demonstrations to Vishakapatnam on September 8, where US and Indian Navy were busy in joint military exercise.

He alleged that the treaty signed by India was one-sided and heavily tilted in favour of the USA.

He alleged that when the US Congress passed the Hyde Act, it deliberated over the issue for 18 months in their parliament, but on the other hand, the matter was not debated for a single day in the Indian parliament.

The CPM secretary described reported statement of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as ironical that of all US presidents, George Bush has been the most friendly towards India.

He cited several reasons to bring home his point that the left parties’ opposition to the 123 nuclear treaty was not unfounded.

He said the common minimum programme, which served as a guiding principle for the relations between various factions of the UPA government, provided that all foreign treaties would be in accordance with India’s foreign policy.

But the Hyde Act provided that foreign policies of the countries signing the treaty would be congruent to each other.

He stated that at an earlier occasion also the government had signed against Iran at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was against India’s time tested foreign policy.

He said it was surprising that while majority in parliament was against the treaty, the government wanted to go ahead with it.

Gurgaon, August 29
The job of power supply and distribution system management in rural Haryana will be given to franchisees, preferably to panchayats.

This was revealed by Ashok Lavasa, financial commissioner (power) and principal secretary to the government of Haryana, while talking to media at the Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) after inaugurating national launch of training on ‘Capacity building in rural distribution franchising for franchisees and franchisers’.

It is a distribution reform, upgrades and management training programme, which is funded by US aid through the ministry of power, India. The training programme is organised jointly by the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), Power Finance Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation.

Lavasa said the franchisee model of power distribution programme has been divided into three phases. The MoU were being signed by the village panchayats and DHBVN or UHBVN. The panchayats would engage ITI trained youth as gramin vidyut pratinidhi (GVP) of the villages for attending to the complaints relating to power supply and minor maintenance of distribution system. In the second phase, the GVPs would look after the work of meter reading, bill preparation and distribution and revenue collection. In the third phase, the panchayat can take over all the activities relating to power supply in the village and it will recover the electricity bills and pay it to the DHBVN for the supply received from main transformer placed outside the village.

The nigam will pay Rs 4,500 to the panchayat for each GVP. The panchayat can engage one GVP for each 500 power consumers. There will be a number of performance-based incentives for panchayats and GVPs. He hoped that the franchisee model of distribution would help in curbing power theft.

Lavasa added that Rs 24,500 crore would be spent on strengthening the power transmission and distribution system, besides enhancing the power generation capacity in the state during the 11th Five Year Plan.

He said the state would add 600 MW installed power generating capacity during the current financial year as the first unit of 300 MW capacity of the Deen Bandhu Chotu Ram Thermal Power Plant, Yamunanagar is to come on bars in November and its second unit of same capacity would be commissioned in February.

Construction work of the 1,200 MW Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Plant, Khedar (Hisar) has gained momentum and its first unit of 600 MW capacity will start generation by December 2009. Its second unit would be functional by March 2010. Giving details of other power projects, Lavasa said Delhi and Haryana were constructing a 1,500 MW joint venture thermal project at Jhajjar. Haryana will get 750 MW from this project before the Common Wealth Games to be held in Delhi in 2010. In addition, a number of small renewable power generation projects of 700 MW capacity would also be set up in the state. Haryana is first state to announce tariff for purchasing power from renewable sources. 

Rewari, August 29
The Bawal police has arrested Prem Singh, husband of Suman Devi (25), on charges of harassment for dowry, causing hurt and criminal intimidation.

The other accused - Suman’s father-in-law Ram Swarup, mother-in-law Ram Sukhi Devi and brother-in-law Rameshwar - all residents of Deeg town of Bharatpur district of Rajasthan, are yet to be arrested.

Earlier, on a complaint filed by Suman Devi, a resident of Khijoori village, near Bawal, the police registered a case of ill-treatment and causing hurt under Sections 323, 498-A, 406, 506 and 34 of the IPC against the accused.

In her complaint, Suman had alleged that she was tortured for dowry and then made to quit her marital home by her in-laws.

Gurgaon, August 29
Soon Gurgaon will become SEZ hub as about 52 SEZs out of the 77 approved for Haryana are going to set up here.

Official records revealed that nearly one third of the agriculture land of Gurgaon would be covered by SEZ and these projects would generate employment for over 20 lakh people. Only five SEZs fall in the category of multi products and services and as many as 36 SEZs would be in the category of IT/ITES. There would be four bio-tech SEZs, three SEZs in the category of textile, apparel and jewellery.

While some of these duty free zones would be of large size, majority of them would be smaller ones. HSIIDC-Reliance joint venture SEZ would be developed on 25,000 acres, DLF Universal SEZ would be spread over 20,000 acres and Emmar MGF would cover 10,000 acres. On the other hand, majority of other SEZ would cover less than 500 acres and the smallest one would be developed on only 25 acres of land.

The setting up of such a large number of SEZ in Gurgaon gives a clear indication about the speedy development taking place in the area but it also raises question as to how these economic enclaves would be able to meet their basic requirements of water, electricity and world class infrastructure.

Since power supply would play a key role in the development and operation of these SEZs, sources added that the zones would have their independent captive power plants.

“The smaller zones would have to indicate their power demand before hand because then only we could work out on how to meet the future plans of these industries. We have already started working on the 12th Plan since we realised the imminent increase in the electricity requirement,” said financial commissioner and principal secretary power Ashok Lavasa.

A senior official of the Public Health Department, who deals with water supply in Haryana, admitted: “This is a serious issue and we need to find out the total demand for this region, then only we can commit to fulfil this meet this requirement.”

Surinder Singh, a representative of the Kisan Bumi Bachao Andolan said for the licensee, to buy the land, no time limit has been specified and also, no time limit has been fixed for him to set up the SEZ.

While taking about setting up of Reliance SEZ in the state, he said the required area for setting up of SEZ is 25,000 acre but only 13,000 acre of land has been acquired so far. When will this SEZ be set, is the confusion gripping the farmers of the area.