New Delhi, August 30
Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav has declined the offer of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to join the Union Cabinet.

The Prime Minister is reported to have made the offer to the SP leader at the first meeting of the six-member coordination committee of the Congress and the SP which met at his residence here today to discuss key government policy issues.

Apart from the Prime Minister and Mulayam Singh Yadav, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and Congress leaders 
Pranab Mukherjee and A.K. Antony were also present at the meeting and so was SP general secretary Amar Singh on behalf of his party.

The meeting was held in the wake of reports indicating SP’s concern over issues related to spectrum allocation, windfall tax and matters pertaining to petroleum sector.

Later Amar Singh said, “The Prime minister offered us the Cabinet berths but we declined the offer, because Mulayam Singh said with elections so close we want to concentrate on working on the ground with the people preparing for the next general elections.”

But informed sources said, “At this juncture there is very little manouvering space available to the Prime Minister to offer any significant portfolios to his new alliance partners.” And therefore if the SP had accepted the offer it would have had to contend with only formal presence in the Union Cabinet.

This panel is a virtual replica of the UPA-Left coordination committee and was constituted after the SP joined the UPA and played a significant role in saving the Manmohan Singh government from defeat in the trust vote on July 22.

The only difference is that no other member of the UPA except the Congress is there and insofar as that it is unique in some ways.

Sources said it had been constituted to make SP feel the importance of supporting the government and to consult it on all-important issues involving the government.

This meeting also laid the ground for the seat sharing talks between the two parties.

The Congress-SP talks on seat sharing in Uttar Pradesh for the coming general elections are now going to be held here on September 1. Amar Singh accompanied this time by SP secretary-general Ram Gopal Yadav would represent his party while the Congress team consists of its general secretaries Rahul Gandhi and Digvijay Singh as also UPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi.

Earlier, the UPCC coordination committee was held at Allahabad to strategise the party’s line of bargain with the SP in the impending discussions.

New Delhi, August 30
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today discussed with Congress president Sonia Gandhi the revised text of the draft prepared by the US for consideration by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at its meeting on September 4-5.

The meeting was also attended by external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and political secretary to the Congress president Ahmed Patel.

The revised draft was handed over to India by the US on Thursday. The fine-tuning of the draft was done by top Bush administration officials in consultations with foreign secretary Shiv Shanker Menon, who is in the US.

The revised draft apparently addresses some of the concerns of the NSG sceptics without hurting the Indian position in any way.

India has already stated that it wanted a clean exemption from New Delhi or it was ready to walk out of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Manmohan Singh earlier today held consultations on the revised draft with Mukherjee, national security adviser M.K. Narayanan and Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar.

New Delhi, August 30
The government today insisted that senior Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz was not killed in the police firing during a protest march in Kashmir, rejecting allegations in this regard made by some sections in the state.

National security adviser M K Narayanan said the Hurriyat Conference was aware that the police did not kill Aziz but it would “never admit” it. “The fact of the matter is... it was certainly not the police. He was shot in back,” Narayanan said in Karan Thapar's “Devil's Advocate” programme on CNN-IBN when asked about the killing of the Hurriyat leader.

Justifying his argument, he said Aziz was shot in the back while the police was in front when the incident occurred in Baramulla during the Hurriyat-led “March to Muzaffarabad” on August 11 in Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier, the Hurriyat had alleged that Aziz was killed in the police firing. The National security adviser said the facts could have been “much clearer” if the police had been able to conduct a post-mortem.

“They took the body away before there was a chance for the post-mortem. Then the fact would have been much clearer,” Narayanan said.

Claiming that the Hurriyat knew that the police was not responsible for killing Aziz, he claimed that there was “concern” among the Hurriyat leaders as to who was out to kill them. — PTI

New Delhi, August 30
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani has promised to set up four benches of the Supreme Court to enable a quick disposal of cases by the apex court, in case his party returns to power.

Advani was speaking at a national conference on governance and politics organised by the BJP Legal Cell here today.

He said, “There is a suggestion that there should be four zonal benches of the Supreme Court in Delhi (for northern India), Kolkata (eastern and north-eastern India), Chennai (southern India) and Mumbai (western and central India) only to hear appeals from the high courts. The principal or main Bench of the Supreme Court in New Delhi should concern itself with only constitutional matters, inter-state disputes and other important matters. We could consider this reform if there is broad consensus on it.”

The Leader of the Opposition said, “If the people give us mandate to form the next government at the Centre, it is my solemn assurance to make legal and judicial reforms one of the points of highest priority in our agenda of good governance.”

He said, “Our first commitment will be to vastly enhance the budgetary allocation to unclog the judicial system and minimise the delays. In India, only 0.2 per cent of the GNP is spent on the judiciary. We shall increase it by five times in five years.”

Advani said, “We are willing to consider any effective mechanism for fast-track disposal of cases involving major economic offences and major corruption cases against politicians and civil servants. This is necessary to strengthen people’s faith in the political and judicial system.

“I shall soon set up an advisory committee, headed by Arun Jaitley and comprising eminent legal and constitutional experts, to prepare an agenda for legal and judicial reforms as part of our larger agenda of good governance. This will be made available for a nationwide debate before its adoption.”

New Delhi, August 30
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has termed manual scavenging one of the worst violations of human rights. At a national workshop on "Manual Scavenging and Sanitation," organised here on Saturday, the Commission called for an immediate end to the degrading practice.

The Commission said the extended deadline to eradicate manual scavenging, which had been shifted from December 2007 to March 2009, shouldn’t be further extended at any cost." It is good that most of the states have come out of the defensive mode and have agreed for a resurvey of manual scavengers by independent agencies," observed the Commission.

While asking the states to stick to the definition of manual scavengers as per the Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, the Commission had earlier asked the states to identify each manual scavenger on priority basis. A clear demarcation between manual scavengers and sanitation workers was directed.

The NHRC has now said that conversion of dry latrines to wet and demolition of dry latrines wherever needed, should be taken up simultaneously. "Under no circumstances the scholarship given to the children of rehabilitated manual scavengers should be stopped," the commission warned, adding that those who are still employed as manual scavengers in any part of the country could approach the Commission or the state human rights commission with their grievances.

The deliberations began earlier with objectives of the workshop being laid out by A.K. Jain, secretary general, NHRC. He said that despite the laws and interventions by courts and statutory bodies, the demeaning practice continued. Ironically, though several states kept telling the Commission as well as the Supreme Court that no such practice existed in their areas, the evidence presented by NGOs was contrary to claims.

New Delhi, August 30
The government has proposed an amendment to the existing Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules dealing with maximum residue limits (MRLs) of pesticides in carbonated water.

Issuing a draft notification here to change Rule 65 pertaining to the MRLs of pesticides in carbonated water, the health ministry has invited comments from public within 60 days. The proposed notification comes in the wake of widespread fears in the past that pesticide residues in carbonated water are much higher than the prescribed limits.

The issue first came to light following the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) report on pesticide residues in carbonated soft drinks (CSDs). The CSE argued that pesticides level detected in the official analysis were higher than the European Union standards.

Later, however, the CSE samples were picked by the government from marketplaces and sent to two reputed labs for testing. Both labs shared their findings showing the results were much lower than the CSE findings and were within safety standards for drinking water as given by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and local regulations as defined in Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Rules, 1955, which the health ministry now seeks to amend to ensure better health of people and stricter MRL standards.

Right now, under the PFA Act, the government prescribes a standard for carbonated soft drink. India also has a standard for drinking water which specifies standards for pesticide residues.

World-wide, however, there are no standards for pesticide residues in carbonated soft drinks/ beverages/ processed foods, the maximum residue limits (MRLs) being attached to primary agricultural commodities used as ingredients for manufacture of the food product. The composite MRLs, as set for the ingredient primary agricultural commodity, also apply.

Experts have, however, long argued that the country does not have a standard for carbonated water, and in the absence of any regulatory standards, it is difficult to hold any company/manufacturer responsible for anything.

The current move of the health ministry seeks to address this issue. It proposes an amendment to Rule 65 of PFA Rules, 1955, which specify MRLs for various agricultural commodities.

Significant also is the fact that following the furore caused by the CSE reports, the health ministry had set up a four-member expert committee headed by the then Indian Council of Medical Research director-general Dr N.K. Ganguly to fix the maximum residue limits (MRLs) for pesticides in carbonated beverages, fruit and vegetables juices and other finished products.

The committee was to guide pesticide Residue Sub-Committee on technical aspects regarding the fixing of MRLs, including methodology, toxicity, processing factor and health risks conforming to the internationally accepted Codex Working Principles.

Chandigarh, August 30
The CBI today claimed that it had the statement of Sanjeev Bansal’s clerk, according to which, the money was meant for Justice Nirmal Yadav.

This came to light when the CBI, while seeking the police remand of the four accused before the special public prosecutor (SPP), said that the scrutiny of the documents revealed that Prakash Ram had stated that on the instructions of Sanjeev Bansal, he reached the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur on August 13 to deliver the packet of Rs 15 lakh. However, when he was being handed over to the police on the directions of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, he talked to Sanjiv Bansal on his mobile phone and informed about the incident. On this, Bansal informed him that the money was to be delivered to Justice Nirmal Yadav and not Justice Nirmaljit Kaur.

The CBI sought for remand of Nirmal Singh in order to investigate the alibi taken by Bansal and Rajeev Gupta regarding the real purpose behind the delivery of the alleged money.

The prosecution asked for police remand of Sanjiv Bansal to unearth the wider nexus between Sanjeev Bansal and higher judiciary. The remand of property dealer Rajeev Gupta was demanded to verify the fact of Gupta having delivered Rs 15 lakh on August 14 to Justice Nirmal Yadav as per the statement of Sanjeev Bansal. Further, the CBI sought for the extension of remand on the grounds to start the investigation afresh without any prejudice.

Defending the police remand, the defense counsel argued, “The work has also been withdrawn by the high court from Nirmal Yadav. However in the present case, none of the judges, including the one on whose the money was delivered or the judge who has been identified by the prosecuting agency, has been called upon. It was further elaborated by the defense that in an offence of bribery, there are two parties, bribe giver and bribe taker.

In the present case, Ravinder Singh is the bribe giver and judge of the high court is the bribe taker. Yet the prosecuting agency has failed to interrogate any of the judges concerned in the matter.

The prosecution sought for seven-day police remand for the prime accused, Sanjiv Bansal, Nirmal Singh, Rajiv Gupta and Prakash Ram from the Special CBI Court. The court, however, sent the four accused to police remand for two days. The courtroom was jam-packed with a battery of lawyers. After the remand, the defense counsel was given time to talk to the accused.

Senior advocate Rajiv Atmaram, and former advocate-general Mohan Jain was also present in the court.

New Delhi, August 30
Despite monsoon picking up pace in August, area sown under essential kharif coarse grains like jowar, bajra, maize, pulses, cotton and sugarcane continues to trail behind acreage under these crops as compared to last year.

Latest data from the agriculture ministry shows that coarse grains, pulses, cotton and sugarcane have not been able to make much from late rains and cropped area this year remains much lower than that during last year.

Acreage under coarse cereals till August 29 is down to 191.6 lakh hectare (lh) in comparison to 207.9 lh on the same date last year. The area under pulses has also declined to 97.8 lh from 116.9 lh last year largely due to monsoon being delayed in growing areas. Jowar is down to 28.0 lh as compared to 33.5 lh in corresponding period last year, bajra to 74.8 lh in comparison to 81.7 lh and area under maize (corn) to 69.5 lh in contrast to 72.8 lh.

Delayed rains are also being seen as the reason for area under cotton decreasing. Sowing in cotton is down to 89.1 lh this year from 90.9 lh. Agriculture experts say low prices and pending arrears from sugar mills are the reasons behind lower coverage of sugarcane this year with sown area dropping to 44.1 lh from 53 lh.

Despite a very good beginning this year, the monsoon saw a slowdown, picking up momentum towards July-end and early August. Due to this, important crop producing areas in central, western and peninsular India, fared very badly.

However, delayed rains appear to have benefitted rice and oilseeds. Area under rice has increased to 344.8 lh from 329.5 lh during the corresponding period a year ago. The rise in acreage could also mean a record rice production, which the government reeling under high inflation figures in the election year is praying for.

Area under oilseeds has also crossed the coverage of these crops at this time last year by a significant margin. This year 95.2 lh is covered under soyabean in comparison to 87.2 lh last year. Due to good coverage of soyabean, the kharif oilseed crops will give good output even though sowing in groundnut is lower at 50.3 lh against 51.5 lh.

Meanwhile, high August procurement has taken rice purchase figure to 269 lakh tonne this year. Rice procurement in kharif marketing season (KMS) 2007-08 as on August 26 was 269.09 lakh tonnes as against the overall procurement of 251.07 lakh tonnes in KMS 2006-2007. This represents an increase of 7.18 per cent over the previous year.

The government assures that there is a comfortable stock of food grains and it is estimated that the stock of wheat as on April 1, 2009, will be higher at 78.60 lakh tonnes compared to the buffer norms of 40 lakh tonnes. Similarly, it is estimated that the rice stock will be 62.43 lakh tonnes as on October 1, 2008, against the buffer norm of 52 lakh tonnes.

Kolkata, August 30
Krishna Kumar Birla, popularly known as K K Babu, was a builder of modern institutions, ranging from industry to education, one of the famous symbols of which is the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani Rajasthan, his birthplace.

Birla called his birthday (November 11, 1918) a historic day in his autobiography, “Brushes With History”, as agreement of armistice for World War-I was signed on that day.

K.K. Birla inherited a legacy in which the creation of wealth, philanthropy and political leadership was all regarded as part of nation-building.

Spiritual strength and moral values were regarded part of K.K. Birla’s personal credo. He built a Radhakrishna Temple (popularly known as Birla Temple) here and many other institutions countrywide that enriched the fabric of Indian society.

He established the K.K. Birla Foundation, which institutes annual awards for excellence in Indian literature, scientific research and Indian philosophy.

Birla, who studied at the Calcutta University, Delhi University and Panjab University, married Manorama Devi on July 3, 1941.

An avid reader and sports enthusiast, he was president of the All-India Lawn Tennis Association between 1980-85, Bridge Federation of India and the Rajasthan Club of Kolkata.

He authored several books including “Indira Gandhi - Reminiscences”, “Partner in Progress” and “Contributions of Krishna Kumar Birla to debates in the Rajya Sabha, 1984-2002”. He also set up the K K Birla Academy in Delhi to undertake research on scientific, cultural and historical subjects.

He was responsible for expanding the famous BITS, Pilani, with extension of its campuses in Dubai, Goa and Hyderabad.

His wife Manorama Devi Birla died in Kolkata on July 29.

Several dignitaries, including Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, visited K K Birla’s residence to pay their last respects. The cremation would take place at the Keoratala burning ghat. — PTI

New Delhi, August 30
The CPM has called upon the Centre to “take cognisance of terroristic activities of the Bajrang Dal and take a strong action.”

A CPM delegation led by the party’s Polit Bureau and a Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat visited Orissa to conduct an on-the-spot study of situation following a large-scale attacks by Bajrang Dal men on Christian tribals as a fallout of murder of VHP’s Swami Lakshmanananda. It has asked the Centre to play “a proactive role to ensure that violence is stopped and that appropriate measures are taken.”

Addressing mediapersons here today after the visit, Brinda said, “Since many of the areas are under Schedule 5 of the Constitution, the Centre has an added responsiblity,” implying the Centre’s commitment to protect the tribal population in Orissa directly affected by the violence.

She also said, “We have stated that enough evidence is available to prove the Bajrang Dal’s involvement in making and exploding bombs and indulging in other terrorist activities and this has also been established by the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra. After this it is for the government to take an appropriate action against the Bajrang Dal.”

The CPM is preparing a report on Orissa, which Brinda said would be handed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

She regretted that the state administration is not allowing peace missions to enter the affected regions whereas the Bajrang Dal and VHP general secretary Praveen Togadiya were allowed a free run of 200 km to spread a campaign against Christians.

BRIEFLY

Kannada columnist dead
MYSORE: Noted Kannada columnist and writer H.S. Krishnaswamy Iyengar (88) died of a heart attack at a private hospital here on Friday. Popularly known as HSK, he had written several books on Kannada literature, besides books on commerce and economics, both in Kannada and English. HSK was the recipient of several awards, including Kannada Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980 and Karnataka Patrika Academy Award in 1996. — UNI

First e-literate city
KOZHIKODE: With over 93 per cent of the total households attaining “cyber fluency”, Kozhikode has achieved the distinction of becoming the first city in Kerala to attain cent per cent e-literacy. An official declaration to this effect was made at a function held here on Saturday. The e-literacy scheme, launched in December 2005, worked towards the objective with the concerted effort of the city corporation and state-owned ‘Akshaya e-centres.’ In all, 93.5 per cent of the 80,532 households have gained cyber fluency. — PTI

Help assured to cataract surgery victims
TIRUCHIRAPALLI: Union minister of state for law and justice K. Venkatapathy has assured all possible assistance to victims of the free cataract surgery, performed at the Joseph Eye Hospital here last month. The minister, who visited the patients at the hospital on Friday, said immediate steps would be taken to provide old-age pension to the victims. Venkatapathy said he would explore the possibility of getting medical relief from the Centre. — UNI