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Bishnoi hogs limelight
at NDA dinner
SP, CPM resort to mud-slinging
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Shibu Soren’s wish-list
Rahul to be among UPA speakers
Speaker, Somnath stays on
Govts have won 6 of eight trust votes
HC tells POTA court to expedite case
50-cr Fraud Case
13 killed in road mishap
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Bishnoi hogs limelight at NDA dinner New Delhi, July 20 Bishnoi, son of Haryana former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, dropped a bombshell in continuing allegations of horse-trading claiming that he was approached by a person “very close” to him with Rs 100 crore offer to abstain during the trust vote. “I was also offered a ministership in return of supporting the nuclear deal,” Bishnoi told reporters. Refusing to divulge the identity of the person who made the offer, the Bhiwani MP only said that he was someone “very close to me”. JMM chief Shibu Soren, who sealed a government saving pact early in the day after playing literally hide and seek giving anxious times to the UPA, made a grand entry at the PM’s dinner. Four of his MP colleagues also accompanied him. Suspended DMK member Dayanidhi Maran, who announced support to the government in Chennai this morning, rebel SP MP Raj Babbar, DMK’s Kanimozhi and SP’s S. Bangarappa were among others who were also present. PDP leader Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and his daughter and MP Mehbooba Mufti and chief ministers of Assam (Tarun Gogoi), Andhra Pradesh (Y S Rajasekhara Reddy), Maharashtra (Vilasrao Deshmukh) and Haryana (Bhupinder Singh Hooda) also were present at the dinner besides several union ministers. According to reports, some MPs from the NDA alliance were conspicuous by their absence. They included 10 BJP MPS and all but one of them had reportedly given reasons. — PTI
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SP, CPM resort to mud-slinging
New Delhi, July 20 Unnerved by the CPM cosying up to BSP chief
Mayawati, who is busy spiriting away substantial number of Mulayam Singh Yadav MPs, the SP chief said, “They are ready to make Mayawati the Prime Minister with the BJP support. But they did not allow Jyoti Basu to become the PM. She is facing charges of trading off Taj
Mahal. Next will be Lal Qila (Red Fort) and then Parliament House. “What an irony that ‘Lal’ (Red brigade) and Lal Kishan Advani are coming together. This same Mayawati went to support Narendra Modi in Gujarat elections. You can’t trust the Left anymore. The Left, the BJP and Naidu
(TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu) are muddying the political waters.” CPM general secretary Prakash Karat was also quick to take offence. He called SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav a betrayer and said, “SP betrayed us thrice. In 1999 all of us together brought down the Vajpayee government. But the SP broke ranks and went over to the other side securing a second term for the
BJP. “Then in 2002, Mulayam Singh, the Left, V.P. Singh and Deve Gowda formed the Lok Morcha (People’s Front) against the NDA government. But he refused to support our proposal to secure a second term for Dalit president
K.R. Narayanan and Morcha folded.” Karat also recalled how the SP on its own joined the anti-Bush campaign with the Left when US president George Bush visited India and reminded that Mulayam addressed rallies and his party spoke in Parliament against the nuclear deal and the US hegemony Later in the evening, the SP paraded a BJP MP to prove that they too are attracting MPs from the other side.
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Shibu Soren’s wish-list
“The PM’s response to our demands was positive,”
Soren, who met Manmohan Singh at his residence along with four more MPs, told
reporters. Soren also exuded confidence that the UPA government would survive the trust vote. “We have done our work by deciding to support the
UPA. The government will survive,” said Soren. He informed that a monitoring committee would be constituted with JMM’s representation to ensure the implementation of the 13-point demand made by the party. “We have made demands for the development of tribals in Jharkhand and few districts of West Bengal and
Orissa, which are part of the greater Jharkhand,” said Soren. He claimed that the demand of greater Jharkhand was also being considered by the Prime
Minister. Soren also cleared that he would get back the Union coal ministry, besides a berth of minister of state for the
JMM. “We did not demand more than what is our right. We have demanded only one
MoS, besides the Union coal ministry, which I earlier held,” told Soren said.
— PTI
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Rahul to be among UPA speakers
New Delhi, July 20 He is expected to highlight the performance of his four-year-old government and emphasise how and why the Indo-US nuclear deal is beneficial to the country in the long term. At the end of the two-day debate, he is also expected to reply to it before the motion is put to
vote. Rahul Gandhi, along with top leaders of the Congress as also its supporting parties are expected to participate in the discussion. These include Congress ministers P.
Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Saifuddin Soz, and RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who was part of the
UPA-Left coordination committee. Other union ministers Kapil Sibal, Vayalar
Ravi, Ram Vilas Paswan, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Anand Sharma, Praful Patel, M
Ramadass, Sachin Pilot, Krishna Tirath and Kanimozhi will also speak on the behalf of the
UPA. External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, the leader of Lok Sabha, could be intervening in the two-day long discussion. On the eve of the trust motion, national security adviser
M.K. Narayanan and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon briefed most of the UPA speakers, including Rahul Gandhi, on the intricate details of nuclear deal to prepare them well for the debate. Narayanan and Menon told them about the nuances and details of the Indo-US nuclear deal and the draft safeguards agreement during the nearly hour-long session at the South Bloc here. The briefing to equip key speakers with intricate details of the deal and its benefits came in the backdrop of Left parties and opposition NDA planning to pin down the government on the issue. Gurudas Dasgupta of the CPI and Rupchand Pal and Mohd Salim from CPM would utilise the opportunity offered by the trust vote to attack the government and the
deal. — PTI
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Speaker, Somnath stays on
New Delhi, July 20 Chatterjee has convened a meeting of the floor leaders of different political parties tomorrow morning before the House takes up the trust vote. He has so far parried questions as to what he would do on July 22, by merely remarking “It is a million dollar question”. The Speaker, a CPM member from Bolpur in West Bengal, has maintained that he has been elected to the post by all parties and once in the post he is above party politics. The Speaker’s office had also issued a statement saying, he “does not represent any political party in the discharge of his duties and functions.... since his election as Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee has scrupulously kept himself away from all political activities.”
— PTI
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Govts have won 6 of eight trust votes
New Delhi, July 20 Interestingly, the concept of a trust vote started only in 1979 because in all general elections before that — from 1952 to 1977 — the mandate was so decisive that there was no need for a confidence motion. The first time the need arose was in 1979 when Charan Singh was the Prime Minister after an earlier split in the Janata Party.
Realising he did not have the requisite numbers, Charan Singh did not even come to the House to face the confidence motion and resigned. The next time a trust vote was moved was a decade later when V.P. Singh became the Prime Minister in December 1989. He won but stepped down a year later after losing a no-confidence
motion. Chandra Shekhar, who succeeded Singh, won a trust motion in November 1990 but resigned five months later after the Congress party withdrew its support to the government. Prime minister
P.V. Narasimha Rao won a confidence vote in July 1991. His government lasted a full five years. Prime Minister
H.D. Deve Gowda won a trust motion in June 1996 but lost in April 1997 when the Congress withdrew its support to his
government. Inder Kumar Gujral, who succeeded Gowda, won a vote of confidence in April 1997 but resigned in November after losing the majority support. In 1996, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee resigned on the floor of the House before the confidence motion could be put to vote, admitting he did not have the numbers in his
favour.Vajpayee, however, won a trust vote in May 1998. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not have to move a confidence motion in 2004 as he was assured of majority with the outside support of the Left. The same Left has now forced him to seek a vote of confidence after 50 months in
power. Manmohan Singh will be the first Prime Minister who will not vote on a trust motion since he is not a member of the Lok Sabha but of the upper house of Parliament. Although the magic figure for the government to survive is placed at 272, this could be even lower depending on the members present and voting when the government faces a trust vote
Tuesday. The Lok Sabha’s strength is 545. Of this, 543 are elected members and two are nominated from the Anglo-Indian community. These two can vote. There are two vacancies. One member, P.C. Thomas of the Kerala Congress, is barred from voting though he can take part in the debate. This is due to a Kerala High Court directive in response to an election petition filed against him.This reduces the figure of those who can vote to 542 - and so the majority of 272. The Speaker is called upon to vote only in the case of a tie. — IANS
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Ganga faces ‘dry’ threat
New Delhi, July 20 Interacting with The Tribune from Washington, Brown said the Himalayan glaciers are receding rapidly and many could melt entirely by 2035. The Ganga is at risk because of the fast-melting Gangotri glacier, which feeds it, in Uttarakhand. “Such an eventuality poses a serious threat to food production in the entire northern belt. It would also endanger the sacred status of the Ganga,” he said. Brown is president of an American NGO, Earth Policy Institute, which provides a global roadmap for a sustainable future. Recently, he visited India to launch the Hindi version of his new book, “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.” Interestingly, his career started with tomato farming. In his opinion, “We need not go beyond ice-melting to see that civilisation is in trouble. Business-as-usual is no longer a viable option.’’ The four goals of “Plan B 3.0” are to stabilise climate, stabilise population, eradicate poverty and restore the earth’s damaged ecosystems. “If the giant Gangotri glacier that supplies 70 per cent of the water to the Ganga during the dry season disappears, the river could become seasonal and carry no water in summers when irrigation needs are the greatest,’’ said Brown adding that the intergovernmental panel on climate change was also of the same opinion. Ganga also supplies drinking water to 407 million people. A recent study carried out by India’s department of science and technology has found that the Gangotri glacier is shrinking at a pace of 17 metres per year due to global warming and subsequent climate change. Its mammoth neighbour, the Pindari glacier, is also reportedly melting at a speed of about 9.5 metres a year. Gangotri glacier is one of the largest glacier systems in the Himalayas and the source of Bhagirathi river, one of the major tributaries of the Ganga. It is nearly 30 km long and 0.5 to 2.5 km wide, and has more than 20 tributary glaciers feeding it. At one time, the terminal point of Gangotri was the temple town of Gangotri, but the glacier has slowly been retreating and is now far away from the town. “Mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau are melting and could soon deprive the major rivers of India and China of the ice-melt needed to sustain them during the dry season,” Brown pointed out. According to him, the world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia. Notably, India and China are the world’s leading producers of wheat and rice. “In India, water tables are also falling and wells are going dry in almost every state. Losing the river water used for irrigation can lead to politically unmanageable food shortages,’’ he warns. “In a world where grain prices have recently climbed to record highs, with no relief in sight, any disruption of the wheat or rice harvests due to water shortages in India and China will greatly affect not only people living there but consumers everywhere. In both the countries, food prices are likely to rise and grain consumption per person can be expected to fall,’’ added Brown. “As food shortages unfold, India may try to import large quantities of grain, although it may lack the economic resources to do so, especially if grain prices keep climbing. Many Indians will be forced to tighten their belts further, including those who have no notches left,’’ Brown concluded.
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HC tells POTA court to expedite case
Mumbai, July 20 The direction was passed on the petition filed by Ashrat Ansari, prime accused in the twin blast case. Ansari had questioned the credibility of two of the prime witnesses in the case, Ajmeri Shaikh and Kanti Popat. He had moved the High Court after the POTA court rejected his application. Justice Nishita Mhatre of the Bombay High Court in her judgement observed that every individual had the right to appeal, be it the common man or an accused, and that the POTA judge should have given a patient hearing to Ansari's grievances before rejecting it. Both witnesses, Shaikh and Popat, whose credibility Justice Mhatre has directed to check, are prime witnesses in the trial of the twin blasts that took place at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar in South Mumbai. Shaikh had deposed to have been a good friend of two of the accused, Rizwan Ladoowala and Hassan Batterywala. He had said that he had visited the accused's residence after the blasts and Batterywala had offered him sweets to "celebrate their achievement".
— PTI
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50-cr Fraud Case
New Delhi, July 20 A bench, headed by Justice Ashok Bhan, will hear the matter. Earlier, the apex court had stayed the Bombay High Court's directions that asked the trial court to go ahead with the matter seeking a CBI probe. According to Patel, the Unit Trust of India (UTI), in April 2004, had filed a complaint before the Magistrate's Court against nine directors of Mumbai-based Auto Riders Finance Ltd, alleging that they had misappropriated the security given against Rs 50-crore loan borrowed between 1993 and 1995 for setting up the auto finance company. However, the UTI later sought deletion of three names, including that of Patel, on the ground that According to Patel, the Magistrate had deleted his name and the names of T.N.V. Ayyar and Surendra Ruia on November 19, 2004, and the order was not challenged till the filing of the appeal before the apex court in 2006. However, the minister said the High Court on August 16, 2006, had entertained two PILs filed by a Delhi-based journalist M. Furquan and one Shoaib alias Richie Sequeira and allowed the order of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Mumbai, that asked the petitioners to approach the High Court for a CBI probe into the scam.
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13 killed in road mishap
Dehra Dun, July 20 Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the road accident. Khanduri instructed the officials to provide all necessary help to the injured and sanctioned ex gratia amount of Rs 50,000 to the next of the kin of the deceased.
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Excavations help rewrite history Count on mules to cut
emissions Turning to Internet for
abortion Jumbo plans 
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New Delhi, July 20
