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Meghalaya
IAF in pact with Russia for
MiG-29 upgrade
Medical report to decide juvenile offenders’ age
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Film stars distance themselves from Raj
Sarkar to be Tripura CM
Glorious past lost forever
Law against women too: Harassed men
2nd autopsy points to UK girl’s murder
ACHR decries rights activist’s rearrest
ULFA triggers serial blasts, one dead
Nepal Assembly Elections
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Cong, NCP alliance stake claim
Bijay Sankar Bora Tribune News Service
Guwahati, March 8 The seasoned political warhorse from the Garo hills of Meghalaya has masterminded an alternative post-poll coalition in Meghalaya in a bid to keep the Congress, the single largest bloc of 25 elected MLAs, out of power. The Congress after electing Chief Minister D.D. Lapang as its legislature party leader in the morning staked claim to form the government on the strength of being the single largest party in the House. The NCP, which emerged as the second largest party with 14 MLAs as the election results gave a fractured verdict in the hill state, has claimed to have cobbled up an alliance with the regional United Democratic Party (UDP), Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP), Khun Hynnewtrap National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) and two Independents. Along with 11 UPD legislators, two from the HSPDP, one from the KHNAM and two Independents, Manas Chaudhuri and Don Masser, the NCP formed the 31-member Meghalaya Progressive Alliance (MPA) and staked claim before the Governor to form the next government in the state. Sangma said the alliance should be invited to form the government, as it had submitted a list of 31 MLAs out of the total 59 elected legislators in its support. Given the tribal divide in the hill state, Sangma has approached the situation in a very shrewd way, as that is reflected in his declaration that it is not the NCP but the UDP that will lead the MPA coalition. The new alliance has elected UDP president Dr Don Kupar Roy as the chief of its legislature party before proceeding to the Raj Bhawan to stake claim for government formation. A majority UDP MLAs are from the Khasi tribe who will not accept a Garo tribe leader as Chief Minister. Well aware of this sentiment, Sangma (a member of the Garo tribe) decided to stay out of the race for the hot seat and instead projected the UDP to form a coalition government. Earlier in the morning, the Congress, which emerged as the single largest party with 25 seats in the 60-member Assembly, elected Chief Minister D.D. Lapang as its Legislature Party leader in a meeting held at the residence of Lapang in presence of three AICC observers, P.R. Kyndiah, Himanta Bishwa Sharma and Rockybul Hussain. Lapang said the Congress be called to form the government though he did not explain how the Congress was planning to muster support of another five MLAs to achieve the magic figure of 31. Meanwhile, hectic confabulations were on in Shillong among political groups in view of the fluid political situation in the state where the five independent MLAs were now in a win win situation.
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IAF in pact with Russia for
MiG-29 upgrade
Chandigarh, March 8 The IAF operates about 70 MiG 29s, equipping three squadrons -- No. 28, 47 and 223. The deal is estimated to be worth about Rs 3850 crore. The upgrade will include a top-notch avionics suite that also features in the ship-borne MiG-29K/KUB version being produced for the Indian Navy. The overhaul and retrofitting of the aircraft will extend their technical life to 3,500 flying hours and calendar life to 40 years. The modernisation will considerably expand the range of missions of the MiG-29s. At present, these fighters are primarily intended for intercepting aerial targets and ensuring air superiority. Besides the broadened combat potential, the upgraded aircraft will acquire the ability to strike ground (sea-surface) mobile and stationary targets with high-precision weapons under all weather conditions. Complete updating of the on board data and sighting systems will include fitment of state-of-the-art multi-functional Zhuk-ME radar, an advanced on board computing complex, a new weapon control system, an optronic station based on space technologies and coloured multi-functional displays in the cockpit. The retrofitted MiG-29s avionics suite will include a number of up-to-date systems developed and produced by HAL, Bharat Dynamics Limited as well as some foreign firms. The first six aircraft will be upgraded and flight-tested in Russia. The overhaul and modification of the remaining aircraft will be carried out in India using equipment kits supplied by RAC-MiG. Besides the MiG 29, the MiG 27 close support aircraft fleet is also undergoing a retrofit. A comprehensive up gradation of the Jaguar and the Mirage 2000 is also on the cards.
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Medical report to decide juvenile offenders’ age
New Delhi, March 8 The court said though the medical report has never been considered to be a foolproof test to determine the age of a person either by the court of law or medical scientists, yet when there was no proof to show that he was a juvenile, the courts were left with no option but to accept the doctor’s report. But the doctors should be given flexibility of two years on either side to determine the age. A Bench of Justices S.B. Sinha and V.S. Sirpurkar, however, cautioned against applying it as a general principle in strict theoretical manner and said that in each case where there was no clear proof of the age of a teenage offender, the courts had also to take into consideration other relevant material to substantiate the doctor’s report. Since under the new Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, which came into force from April 2001, the age of a juvenile has been fixed 18 years to exempt him from being prosecuted under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the court said in such cases the date of the commission of the crime was very important. “In absence of any evidence which is relevant for the said purpose as envisaged under Section 35 of the Indian Evidence Act, the same must be determined keeping in view the factual matrix involved in each case,” it said. The ruling was given by the court in a case akin to the recent Gurgaon school shootout with the only difference that accused Jyoti Prakash Rai from Buxar in Bihar had killed his classmate by stabbing him repeatedly till he was dead in May 2005. Though he was tried under the IPC provision for the murder, his counsel claimed that he was a juvenile as his age was “estimated” to be about 17 years when he was presented before the magistrate. But the prosecution challenged his claim as it found that the date of birth in his school register as well as in the horoscope was “forged” raising doubt about his actual age. Consequently, the police got him medically examined through two medical boards, which gave two different opinions. In the first report, his age was opined to be 18 years, 5 months and 8 days and in the second it was determined to be between 18 and 19 years. When matter reached the Patna High Court, it concluded that by taking every aspect of the case into consideration, he was not a juvenile, and in any case his age was more than 18 years and he has to face the trial under the normal law. Rai moved an appeal in the apex court, which also upheld the HC order.
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Film stars distance themselves from Raj
Mumbai, March 8 Earlier this week, protestors in Bihar burnt effigies of the three actors after the MNS released a statement by the three actors supposedly opposing the Maharashtra government’s gag order on Raj Thackeray. Under the order, Thackeray cannot address public meetings nor give newspaper interviews. However, after the ‘letter of support’ by the three actors, there were protests in North India following which the actors have clarified that they do not support Raj thackeray’s politics. The Thackeray clan has close links to Bollywood and Raj himself is a regular at film parties. In the latest incident, Salman Khan issued a statement denying that he supported Thackeray’s attacks on migrants. “We cannot support a campaign which questions India’s integrity,” Salman Khan said in a press note. Earlier Suneil Shetty said he could never support such a stand. “Even I am a migrant as my father came to Mumbai from Karnataka,” Shetty said. “We ourselves being originally migrants are not in any position to support such claims. My father is a migrant who lived in Madhya Pradesh and my mother comes from Jammu and that qualifies us as migrants. We are a secular nationalistic family with members from different faiths and the different communities,” Salman Khan added in his statement. Actor Manoj Bajpai landed in a controversy after Saamna attributed a quote to him which said outsiders should not crowd Mumbai. He said in a statement from Delhi that he was misquoted.
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Sarkar to be Tripura CM
Agartala, March 8 The swearing-in of the council of ministers will also be held on March 10, CPM state secretariat sources said. Known for his clean image, 59-year-old Sarkar will be the longest-serving Chief Minister of the state. The CPM-led Left Front stormed back to power in Tripura for the fourth successive term with a massive majority, crushing main rival Congress in the elections held on February 23. The Front secured 49 seats in the 60-member assembly with CPM alone bagging 46 of them. The veteran Marxist leader joined politics in 1967 by participating in the food movement which was organised by the then opposition CPM in the state. He became a party member the next year. He entered the Tripura assembly in 1980 after winning a bye-election from Krishnanagar constituency in the state capital and became the chief whip of the ruling Left Front. He was elected from the same constituency in 1983.
— PTI
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Glorious past lost forever
New Delhi, March 8 Not just this, 35 centrally protected monuments and sites have become untraceable due to “Rapid urbanisation, construction of residential and commercial buildings and implementation of development projects.” And to top it all, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) says that “As on date it may not be able to fix responsibility for the loss.” Terming this a “casual approach of the ASI”, the Parliamentary Estimates Committee headed by P. Kuppusami has criticised the premier organisation responsible for protection of heritage of the nation to fix responsibility for disappearance of 35 protected sites. “It is highly deplorable on the part of the ASI as well as the Ministry of Culture that no expeditious steps have been taken to trace the monuments,” the committee said, asking the ministry to initiate concrete action to trace the missing monuments and fix responsibility. It also recommended that before initiation of any development activity, it should be ascertained that there are no hidden remains in the particular area. Particularly “perturbed” at the illicit trafficking of antiquities, the committee has recommended to the ministry to take concrete steps and ensure amendments to mend “lacunae” in the Antiquities and Treasures Act, 1972, and make it more stringent. Latest report by the Estimates Committee on Maintenance of Monuments by the ASI suggests that as many as 44 cases of theft of idols and statues were reported from the centrally protected monuments in the country during the past five years. However, out of these, only in 14 cases stolen objects were recovered. To keep a check on cases of theft and smuggling, the Antiquities and Treasures Act, 1972, was brought into force. However, the Act, as per the committee, has many lacunae thereby making it less stringent. Perturbed over the fact that only 14 out of 44 cases of theft of precious monuments have been solved, the committee in its report submitted this week told the ministry to take “concrete steps to get the Act amended to curb the cases of rampant theft and smuggling”. It also asked for provision for stringent punishment for the culprit to be included in the amending bill. On its part, the ASI blamed it all on “huge shortage of attendants” and said to cope with this shortage, private security guards, the CISF and local police had been deployed at the centrally protected monuments, archaeological sites and museums. But the Committee said the ministry should try and avail benefit from the very powerful Panchayati Raj system by devising a mechanism in which gram panchayats, patwaris could be involved to take care of the country’s rich heritage.
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Law against women too: Harassed men
Bangalore, March 8 Harassed husbands, who started the movement in Bangalore a few years ago and consist mainly of software professionals, have now made their organisation — Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) — a pan-Indian one with presence in most state capitals, including Chandigarh and Delhi. Members of the SIFF held protests in Bangalore and Delhi today. In Bangalore, they submitted a memorandum to the Governor and held a small function to create further awareness about their cause while in Delhi they held a “morcha’ at the Jantar Mantar. This was followed by forwarding a memorandum to the President. “We have urged the President, who recently talked about legal equality of women, to give equality to all women, not only the daughter-in-law”, said Anil Kumar, one of the founder members of the organisation. Anil said the Dowry Act was
continuously being misused in the country and women themselves were at the receiving end. Anil said though the number of dowry cases in 2006 was only 63,000 in the country, more than five lakh families were either arrested or threatened under various provisions of the Act. “We have a simple issue”, he said asking why the police had to arrest women under the case adding as many as 31,000 women had been arrested under the Dowry Act in 2006. He said sometimes these arrests were made in the evening or weekends and there was a recent case in Tamil Nadu when a class IX student was arrested from her school. The foundation claims that it has members in most Indian cities and that the Internet had been instrumental in the fast spread of the organisation as it provided scope for anonymity while allowing members to put their views across. The foundation website www.saveindianfamily.org allows harassed husbands to connect to each other besides allowing members to post blogs and chatting with each other. Panduranga Katti, also a software engineer and a founder member, said the foundation had come into existence as it was the need of the hour.
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2nd autopsy points to UK girl’s murder Panaji, March 8 The autopsy conducted on the body by a three-member-panel of doctors today recommended that the police should investigate the case as homicidal murder. “It was a unanimous decision of the panel,” North Goa superintendent of police Bosco George told PTI tonight. Meanwhile, the family members of the 15-year-old girl have lodged a case against Anjuna police sub-inspector Nerlon Albuquerque. “The duty officer and in charge of police station Anjuna had lied to me about the facts and circumstances of her death,” Scarlette’s mother Fiona Mackowen said. “We have been saying this from day one. I am
pleased now. In my heart I knew that she was murdered,” she said, adding that they would take the body to UK within next few days. “They have lied to me as well as the media about her body having no bruise marks. They have fabricated the panchanama and misinformed the pathologist about the circumstances of the body and the possible cause of her death,” she said. The mother, however, said she still have faith in Goa police. “There are still good officers in the force,”
she added. Scarlette was found dead at Goa’s popular Anjuna beach on February 18.
— PTI
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ACHR decries rights activist’s rearrest
New Delhi, March 8 A recipient of the Kwangju Human Rights Award, Sharmila was arrested this afternoon by the Manipur police for an alleged suicide attempt. She has been leading a fast unto death since November 2000 in protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFPSA) 1958. Sharmila was released yesterday by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate of Imphal, RM Memcha. She has been in detention for more than a year - the maximum sentence that can be awarded to those found guilty of an offence under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In a statement issued here today, ACHR director Suhas Chakma described Sharmila’s rearrest as “another blow to the universally praised Gandhian methods of protest against injustice.” Chakma said her rearrest once again showed the government’s unwillingness to implement the recommendations of its own commissions on the AFPSA - the commission headed by Justice Jeewan Reddy on the review of AFSPA and the Administrative Reforms Committee headed by Veerappa Moily. The ACHR director said if the government did not implement the recommendations of its own commissions, it would breed contempt for the state.
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ULFA triggers serial blasts, one dead
Guwahati, March 8 Since late afternoon, the ultras exploded bombs in Guwahati, Tinsukia, and Duliajan and Dibrugarh, while two live bombs were recovered from near Mangaldoi and Tinuskia. The latest blast occurred at 8.20 pm at Dibrugarh where one Sanjay Mahato died, while six others were injured. Just before at Tipling, three Army jawans were injured when the ULFA threw a hand grenade on an Army patrol post, the police confirmed. Meanwhile, two people were injured in separate blasts in Guwahati and Tinsukia, while two other bombs were recovered from busy market areas in Assam. Two people were injured in the blast at Fancy Bazaar area in the heart of Guwahati at about 1.30 pm. The bomb, a low intensity IED, was kept near a dustbin. The police suspected it to be the handiwork of miscreants as the crude explosives were used, though they had not ruled out the insurgency angle. In another blast in Tinsukia town of eastern Assam, at least four people were hurt. The blast went off in front of a stationary store. The bomb was planted on a bicycle. A bomb was recovered from Tinsukia hours after the blast there. Another bomb was recovered from Dhula market area in Darrang district. The bomb, weighing about 5 kg, was kept in a bag on a bicycle. A police patrol party spotted the bomb, which was later defused.
— UNI
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Indo-Nepal border to be sealed
Shahira Naim Tribune News Service
Lucknow, March 8 According to DIG Manmohan Bashal, Devi Patan Division, in view of the constituent assembly elections in the neighbouring country additional barriers and pickets would be installed all along the passages linking the border districts with the Himalayan Kingdom. He said to ensure better coordination a high-level meeting of senior officials of both the countries would be held before the elections. “A close watch is being maintained on Maoists as well as Madheshiya activists,” said Bashal. He confirmed that preliminary inquiries had revealed that Maoists had held a meeting sometime ago to damage the Kalkalwa embankment in Bahraich and Shrawasti districts. They were, however, prevented from crossing over. Policemen in plain clothes are being deployed to keep vigil in this sensitive border region, especially on the embankment, he added India shares 1,868 km border with Nepal in five states - Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. After being postponed twice, around 17.5 million eligible voters of the Himalyan Kingdom will elect a constituent assembly on April 10. Earlier it was scheduled for June 20, 2007 and November 22, 2007.
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