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Farmers’ loan waiver eyewash: Sidhu
India to showcase military might |
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Krishna quits as Maharashtra Guv
Shivani Murder Case
Maya lifts ban on students’ election
Pawar for sharing of farm tech among SAARC countries
HC commutes death sentence of
ex-ACP
Life term to man upheld for murdering mother
2 die in Pune building cave-in
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Farmers’ loan waiver eyewash: Sidhu
New Delhi, March 5 Basing his argument on the Dr R. Radhakrishnan committee report, Sidhu said of the total debt of about Rs 1.12 lakh crore in 2003, Rs 48,000 crore had been sourced from non-institutional agencies of which Rs 18,000 crore debt carried an interest rate greater than 30 per cent. The expert group was constituted by the ministry of finance to look into problems of agricultural indebtedness in its totality and suggest measures to provide relief to farmers. “The report says out of 89.33 million farm houses in the country, 48.6 are indebted either to institutional or non-institutional sources. It is clear that small and marginal households account for more than 80 per cent of indebted households and dependency of this section on non-institutional sources is more than big farmers.” The share of money lenders in the outstanding debt is 36 .3 per cent in Punjab, 24.1 in Haryana, 32.8 per cent in Bihar and 53.4 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, Sidhu said adding that the report was clear that there was a need to relieve farmers from private debt carrying high interest rate by transferring it to institutional agencies. As far as responsibility of his party’s political ally Akali Dal towards farmers in Punjab was concerned, he said the state government was working on a plan to solve majority of farmers’ problems that should be ready within next couple of months. Sidhu, however, called the Centre’s farmers’ loan waiver scheme a complete eyewash and said there was no mention in the agriculture section of the Budget on revival of the sector or steps being taken to bring farmers out of the vicious debt cycle in future. Questioning the government to reveal how the relief was going to be disbursed, he also wondered as to who all would actually benefit from the loan waiver. “Is there a road map to determine the exact number of farmers with land holdings less than two acre? In Punjab several farmers have land holdings of around 10 acre on record, but in reality have less than two acre in possession,” he said. Amritsar MP Navjot Singh Sidhu addresses a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Tribune photo: Mukesh Aggarwal
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India to showcase military might
New Delhi, March 5 According to the ministry of defence officials the exercise has been named “Brazen Chariots” and would be witnessed by around 150 foreign military observers, including defence attachés based in New Delhi for the exercise. The exercise will be the largest in recent times, with the entire gamut of sophisticated weapon systems and platforms, reconnaissance and command and control systems coming into play in a bid to dazzle the foreign observers. The exercise has been set to project the Manoeuvre Warfare Doctrine, which has since been promulgated in the Indian Armed Forces and is seen as a breakaway from the traditional attrition approach of the Army. The Army would be putting to test all of its latest weapon system acquisitions, including the state of the art missile firing tanks T-90 (Bhishma), all weather Air Defence Gun Missile Systems, Searcher UAVs and other electronic sensors and surveillance equipment apart from combat drills by the elite special forces. The IAF during this exercise would be closely supporting the surface forces with its frontline fighter aircraft like the SU-30, MK-I and Jaguar, unleashing a variety of ordnance. Officials here said the message for the foreign observers to take back home will be that India is both an economic and military powerhouse. India, incidentally, has spent a staggering $12 billion in the last four years to import military hardware and software. Besides there are plans to spend another $30 billion on purchases during 2007-2012. The exercise will see the Army’s southern command and IAF’s south-western command join hands to demonstrate and practise “synergised air-land operations in a mechanised and digitised environment”, with the basic focus being on launching “swift offensive multiple-thrusts” to strike deep behind enemy lines. Naval version of Brahmos test fired Scientists of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) today successfully test-fired the ship-to-shore version (naval version) of the supersonic Brahmos missile in the Andaman Islands. According to an announcement from the ministry of defence (MoD) the missile, with a range of more than 290 kms, was launched from the deck of the Russian acquired missile destroyer INS Rajput and precisely hit a land target in one of the islands. The missile met all mission parameters and the test has established the sea to land capability of the formidable weapon system, a Defence Ministry spokesman said. This was the 15th test of the missile jointly developed by Russia and India. Scientists have already carried out successful tests of the ship-to-ship version as well as surface-to-surface version of the multi-role missile. The induction of Brahmos has already begun in the navy as well as the Army. The DRDO is now developing air-to-ground and a submarine version of the missile. Defence minister A.K. Antony congratulated the naval team as well as scientists for the success of the ship-to-land version of the missile.
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Krishna quits as Maharashtra Guv
New Delhi, March 5 Krishna, who led the Congress to defeat in the last Assembly elections, met President Pratibha Patil at the Rashtrapati Bhawan and conveyed his decision to resign after spending a little over three years in the Mumbai Raj Bhawan. Krishna was called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi last night and asked to put in his papers at the earliest and to get involved in the campaign for the upcoming Karnataka elections. The former Chief Minister is likely to be named convener of the state’s election management and coordination committee. The former Chief Minister had been wanting to return to state politics for quite some time. The process was speeded up after the Election Commission said that it would be able to conduct the Assembly elections before the current spell of President’s rule gets over by May-end. The Congress was keen on deferring the elections to give the party some time to push through its agenda while the state is under President’s rule. The party, which has to contend with a resurgent BJP and well-rooted Janata Dal(U), had hoped the Election Commission will seek more time to redraw the constituencies as per the Delimitation Commission report. Krishna's resignation immediately sparked off factional warfare with his detractor and senior Congress leader C.K. Jaffer Sharief pointing out that the party’s tally of seats came down from 170 to 65 in the last Assembly elections under Krishna’s leadership. Sharief might have come out openly against Krishna but he is not alone as there is a sizeable section in Karnataka Congress which consistently opposed the former Chief Minister’s return to state politics.
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Shivani Murder Case New Delhi, March 5 Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri declared the arguments closed and reserved his order today after the prosecution completed its arguments, opposing the defence plea. According to the prosecution, the January 23, 1999 murder of the Indian Express scribe was master-minded by the Haryana-cadre suspended IPS officer Sharma. He allegedly wanted to get rid of her as she had threatened to expose him. — PTI
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Maya lifts ban on students’ election
Lucknow, March 5 Giving in to yet another demand of the Samajwadi party of restoring student union election, the BSP government decided to conduct it in the academic session of 2008-09 under the guidelines prescribed by the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations. Mayawati said the chief secretary, who headed high-level committee appointed by her on October 8, 2007, to review the issue, had finally submitted its report yesterday in which it had agreed in principle to adopt the Lyngdoh Committee Report. “On October 8, 2007, my government had put an interim ban on students’ election till further orders. The idea was to put an end to criminal activities on the state university campus, universities in the name of promoting student union elections. This was vitiating the academic atmosphere and derailed the academic calendar in the state. My government has succeeded in firmly putting it back on tracks”, she said. Quoting the Lyngdoh recommendations, Mayawati informed the House the conditions under which the students’ union election would be held. These include elections within 6-8 weeks of a new academic session, only full time students having 75 per cent attendance as candidates, candidates to have clean records having no criminal or undisciplined background, contestants’ age between 17 for graduates to 28 years for research students, no printed posters or publicity material to be used during election campaign and maximum expenditure of Rs 5,000 on election. Welcoming the decision, deputy leader of the SP Mohammad Azam Khan thanked Mayawati for restoring the nursery of democracy. However, senior SP leader Ambica Chaudhury said it could be seen how the student community took the BSP government’s decision to restore student elections with so many riders.
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Pawar for sharing of farm tech among SAARC countries
New Delhi, March 5 Pawar was addressing the Conference on Science-based Agricultural Transformation Towards Alleviation of Hunger and Poverty in SAARC Countries. The Conference has been organised by the Agriculture Ministry, ICAR and IFFCO Foundation. Ministers, officials, scientists and farmers from SAARC countries will deliberate upon the issues relating to use of science in agriculture over the next three days. Sharing information about the vast network of research institutions and agriculture universities in India, he offered cooperation in agriculture R&D to other SAARC nations. Expressing the need to strengthen the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), the agriculture minister stressed that investments and regional cooperation in R&D must be at the top of policy agenda of SAARC countries. He urged SAARC countries to give a big push to farming and realise high growth rate, while noting that a slew of factors have led to a laggard expansion in this sector in the region. Cooperation in the agriculture sector is of special significance for this region as about 60 per cent of the people in South Asia are still dependent directly on agriculture for their livelihood and also because agriculture has been growing at mere 2 per cent per year, India's agriculture minister said. He said "With agriculture becoming complex, we need science and technology interventions at a much larger scale at all stages of the agricultural chain. It is well accepted that investments in R&D pay off handsomely with appreciable high internal rate of return. Given the agro-climatic advantages and availability of man power, there is potential to turn agriculture in the SAARC region into a dynamic sector with rapid technological innovation accelerating growth and reducing poverty”.
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HC commutes death sentence of
ex-ACP
New Delhi, March 5 Describing custody death as the “worst” crime by a man in uniform, a Bench, comprising Justices Mukul Mudgal and P.K. Bhasin, said Tyagi was guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 Part II of the IPC, which attracts a maximum imprisonment of 10 years. “Death of a person in police custody is a worst kind of crime which could be committed by a man in the uniform,” the court said in its judgement. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on Tyagi. The money shall go to the mother of the victim, Mahender. In addition to this, the court directed the Delhi government to pay Rs 2 lakh as compensation to her. The court also decided two appeals filed by other co-accused - former ACP K.P. Singh and sub-inspector Tej Singh - who were earlier awarded one and three-year jail term, respectively, for their complicity in the offence. While K.P. Singh’s plea against the conviction was allowed, the court rejected Tej Singh’s petition and awarded him six-month jail term for his laxity in probing the case against his senior, ACP Tyagi. A Delhi court on December 18, 2006, had awarded death penalty to Tyagi for torturing Mahender to death. The victim and his friend Ram Kumar were arrested in August 1987 for assaulting a constable posted at Vivek Vihar in east Delhi.
— PTI
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Life term to man upheld for murdering mother
New Delhi, March 5 Shankar Ragho Bhangane was convicted for the brutal murder of his blind mother Girja in January 1999 by a Sessions Court and the Bombay High Court has confirmed his conviction and life sentence. Girja’s husband was blind and deaf. Shankar’s parents were in the house on the day of occurrence of the crime. His wife was not residing with him. The court in its judgement recorded, while rejecting his appeal. Shankar was convicted on the evidence of his own daughter-in-law, who lived separately in an adjoining house. A Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P. Sathasivam, fully believed her testimony that Shankar had demanded food from his mother and when she was not able to do so, he started beating her severely resulting in her death. Prior to the beating Shankar had threatened his mother of setting her on fire and cutting off her legs. The court found no “infirmity” in the statement of the key witness and ruled that the trial court and high court were right in relying on her evidence. “There is nothing discrepant in her evidence to cast doubt on her testimony. Her evidence does not suffer from any infirmity to warrant rejection,” the apex court ruled.
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2 die in Pune building cave-in
Pune, March 5 The police said the building was occupied by some families, but many of them had vacated the dwelling. The deceased have been identified as Bhauram Chodge (50) and his son Prasad (21). The injured were rushed to a hospital, the police added.
— UNI |
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