New Delhi, October 27
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has reacted sharply against the Mumbai police for killing a youth from Patna, who allegedly fired shots and shouted slogans against the Maharashtra Navnirman Seva (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray in a bus in Mumbai on Monday.

Kumar, who is visiting the national capital, condemned the killing of Patna youth Rahul Raj in a shoot-out in Mumbai. Kumar is here to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek stringent action against Raj Thackeray.

The incident saw a show of solidarity as railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and union steel and fertilizer minister Ram Vilas Paswan too joined in and condemned the killing. Raising a finger against the conduct of the Mumbai police, the senior leaders from Bihar demanded a judicial probe by a sitting judge after meeting Manmohan.

The all-party delegation from Bihar, met the Prime Minister over issues concerning safety of North Indians in Maharashtra. Yadav demanded the arrest of Raj Thackeray while Paswan said the MNS and the Shiv Sena should be banned. The RJD chief also said the Prime Minister had been requested to call an all-party meet on the issue.

Kumar said from TV clippings it appeared that he (the youth) could easily have been overpowered and arrested by the police. Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and general secretary of the state opposition the Rashtriya Janta Dal Shyam Rajak also condemned the police action.

Kumar said the police action was easily avoidable. Kumar contended that even if there was a revolver in his hand, the police could have targeted his hand, adding that it did not seem to be like a situation in which Raj should have been shot dead.

Justifying the shoot-out, Maharashtra home minister R.R. Patil said whoever tried to take law into his hand and terrorise people would be dealt with sternly. Patil said the police carried out their duty and had done a good job. The police, incidentally, claimed that Raj was mentally unstable and was gunned down when he refused to surrender or throw away his gun.

The central government has asked the Maharashtra government to send its report on the incident, union state home minister Shri Prakash Jaiswal, said. Meanwhile, the Bihar government, still struggling to control vandalism by disgruntled students at home, has urged the central government to ensure the safety of people from Bihar during the Chhath Puja in Mumbai.

In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Kumar urged him to intervene and ensure that law was enforced in Maharashtra and action initiated against accused for anti-national activities and acts of sedition. “We need to guarantee appropriate and proper security of life and property of Biharis so that they can go about their business and work without fear,” he said.

Mumbai, October 27
The Maharashtra government has ordered the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to pay a fine of Rs 20,000 for carrying out an attack on the offices of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in Nashik on last Saturday. The state government is likely to pass on the money to the VHP as compensation for damages suffered by it.

The decision to fine members of the party who are part of the ruling coalition in Maharashtra, follows an ordinance enacted by the state government just a week ago after the violence by activists of the

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) against north Indians recently. As per the ordinance, political parties would have to compensate the victims if their workers run riot.

Incidentally, the MNS will not have to pay any compensation to the victims of its violence since the provisions of the ordinance cannot be applied with retrospective effort, according to state government sources. That the NCP becomes the first party to actually shell out money for the actions of its workers has not been lost on its leadership. Workers of the party have been warned that violence would not be tolerated.

Party officials say, the fine would be collected from the 25 persons who were booked for the attack on the VHP's office.

The NCP workers had said they ran riot to protest the bomb blasts carried out by its activists in different parts of India in response to terror attacks by the Indian Mujahideen.

The money is to be collected by the district collector. The local administration has, meanwhile, decided to collect the money from the accused persons, according to reports from Nashik.

New Delhi, October 27
The Supreme Court has ruled that a court cannot exercise the power of contempt in an arbitrary manner as such proceedings should be initiated to ensure its order is complied with and “not to necessarily ensure its order is complied with and “not to necessarily proceed against persons as if they are petty criminals.”

“A person cannot be sentenced on mere probability. Wilful disobedience and contumacious conduct is the basis on which a contemner can be punished,” the apex court observed while dropping the contempt proceedings initiated by the Calcutta High Court against two members of a TV production company.

While contempt of court is a matter, which had to be dealt with all seriousness, the burden of proof should be upon the person who made such an allegation, it said.

“The purpose and object of initiation of a proceeding under the provisions of the Act (contempt) is only to see that the order of the court is complied with and not to necessarily proceed against persons as if they are petty criminals,” a Bench of justices S.B Sinha and Cyriac Joseph observed.

In this case the Calcutta High Court initiated contempt proceedings against the director and another employee of the production house three Cheer Entertainment Pvt Ltd on the basis of a complaint filed by the Calcutta Electricity Company Ltd (CECL). — PTI

New Delhi, October 27
In a landmark judgment here, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has taken “non-service of party whip” upon a member as the ground for the rejection of a petition against him under the anti-defection law.

Never before in the parliamentary history has the question of service of whip been so forcefully argued as in the case of Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) member A. Narendra, who has been given a clean chit by the Speaker under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which deals with defection cases. Narendra was charged by his party with defying the party directive of voting against the UPA government in the July 22 trust vote.

Rejecting the petition filed against Narendra by another TRS member B. Vinod Kumar, the Speaker ruled that the latter was unsuccessful in proving that the party whip was served upon Narendra.

Narendra, incidentally, is the only TRS MP among the total of four in the Lok Sabha who never withdrew outside support to the UPA or resigned from the House. The rest of the three, including current petitioner Vinod Kumar, withdrew support from the government, resigned from the Lok Sabha, and later got re-elected to the Lok Sabha on TRS ticket.

They, however, took oath as MPs only when Parliament met on July 21 for the government to bring the trust vote -- a fact that challenges Vinod Kumar’s locus standi to issue a whip in the first place. As for Narendra, he was earlier suspended from the TRS following his decision to continue to support the UPA and not resign from the House. In the current petition accusing him of defection, Narendra successfully argued that since his suspension from the TRS, he was not in official touch with the party, nor was the party communicating with him on any front, or inviting him to meetings.

He argued with success that even if the party had issued a whip before the trust vote, the same had not been served upon him. As per rules, the whip, like a warrant, has tobe physically served upon party members. It also needs to be mentioned here that Narendra, despite his suspension from the TRS, continues to be affiliated to it, which is why the TRS could challenge him for defection. As per an SC judgment in 1996, suspension or expulsion of a member from the party does not change his party affiliations.

New Delhi, October 27
Even as the Congress and the UPA allies are raising fingers over the alleged involvement of members of Sangh Parivar in acts of terror, the BJP has disowned any association with Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and claimed that the party had nothing do with her.

Sadhvi has been arrested by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra police for her alleged involvement in the recent Malegaon and Modasa blasts. The ATS has also named some ex-servicemen with past BJP/sangh association in this case.

BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said, “She never had any association with the BJP.” When reminded of the photograph appearing in the national dailies showing her sitting with BJP president Rajnath Singh and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Javadekar said, “Anyone can come to join in a condolence, we don’t refuse entry to anyone in a condolence meeting.”

Javadekar said, “We condemn all terrorist action. A terrorist has neither any religion nor a gender. The BJP is clear that a tough policy and tough action has to be adopted against terrorists, without discriminating on the basis of religion gender or region.”

Notwithstanding the denial, there is visible shock and consternation in the BJP circles over its name appearing in connection with the terrorist activities.

The BJP had made terrorism and inflation their electoral plank and made much political capital out of demand of several political parties, including sections within the UPA and the Congress to hold a judicial inquiry into the Batla House encounter.

Since Pragya expose, the BJP leaders have by and large been avoiding the media. Even today virtually no political leader of any consequence was present at their 11, Ashoka Road office, though this is election time and the party has to settle ticket distribution for at least five states. But the junior functionaries there said, “Everyone is busy with Diwali.”

Naturally then the Congress has turned the heat on the BJP on this issue. “The BJP gives us homilies on terror and calls us soft on terror while allowing its own philosophy to preach terror and its activists to commit terror,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.

The Congress has gone to the extent of likening the involvement of former ABVP member Sadhvi Pragya Thakur Singh and BJP ex-servicemen cell member Major Upadhaya alleged involvement in Malegoan and Modasa terror attacks with Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948.

New Delhi, October 27
With the global financial crisis hitting several sectors, top management institutes are worried it will adversely affect the job prospects of their students, who are expecting a drop in the number of offers and the pay packages.

Several top-notch companies have already conveyed their intention to freeze campus placements, while some have decided to hire limited candidates in the final placements.

Top management institutes fear that the hike in average pay packages could be down by 20 per cent, whereas students are apprehensive of a more severe downturn.

“Market meltdown will definitely affect the final campus placements with indications that companies would squeeze their requirements to a bare minimum. Companies, which had recruited five-six students during last campus placements may now restrict the number to one or two,” Sourav Mukherjee, placement chairman, IIM, Bengaluru (IIM-B) said.

The situation had also forced IIM-B to invite more companies to take part in the placement drive.

“This year we are approaching more companies from non-financial sector,” he added.

About 30 per cent of the companies that annually come for campus selection at IIM-B are from the financial sector.

Investment banking sector, which used to bring in hefty pay offers, may also refrain from recruiting this year and this could pull down the upper limit of pay packages.

“With chances of investment banking companies coming for campus selection diminishing, students may not get big pay package offers,” said Prashant Salwan, chairman (placements), IIM Indore said.

He was, however, confident that pass-outs would suitably be placed in other sectors.

“Pay packages for fresh students may not be as attractive this time. For the past five years, the increase in annual package offered to fresh graduates used to be in the range of 20-30 per cent, but now it could be in the range of 10 per cent, average salary being Rs 14 lakh,” said Sushil Kumar, placements chairman, IIM Lucknow.

“We are in stress because the meltdown is going to affect our careers badly. This time we expect pay package offers less by 30-40 per cent than the past year.

Normally, about 4,500-5,000 jobs are offered to the 1,600 odd pass-outs from the seven IIMs alone. Besides, there are several other institutes like the IIFT, XIM & XLRI, Symbiosis, ICFAI, Mudra and SPJIPMR, whose pass-outs also get a good number of job offers. — PTI

New Delhi, October 27
After China unveiled its extensive railway network in Tibet along the Sino-India border, the Government of India is now in the process of building rail infrastructure in the northeast Himalayas and even has more rail links with Nepal.

The strategic need of the ministry of defence, the ministry of home and the ministry of external affairs have separate been kept 
in mind.

The progress of these projects across the country was explained in questions asked in the Rajya Sabha last week.

Crucially a reconnaissance engineering-cum-traffic-survey has been ordered to link Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh with Leh through a broad gauge rail line. Leh is the operational headquarters of the Army in that area of Jammu and Kashmir bordering China. In this area at least three airfields are located. At present all defence equipment and men are either airlifted or they have to use the treacherous road route that is open only for few months in a year. The route runs through heights as high as 17,000 feet above sea level. Incidentally, the planned rail route will also touch the tourist destinations of the Manali and Kullu.

The other main focus is to connect all capitals of the northeastern states. At present, only Guwahati is linked on the rail network. Now the Railways is an advanced stage of processing the proposals to link Imphal, Shillong, Itanagar, Kohima, Aizwal and Gangtok. Sources said all links are considered very important for the growth of those regions and also for meeting defence and internal security needs.

The first beneficiary will be Kohima the capital of Nagaland. The last railhead is in Dimapur and a new 88-km line will connect it with Zubza just short of the state capital.

The project to link Imphal in Manipur has been speeded up. It is targeted to be completed in 2012. Similarly, the rail project to link Shillong has been targeted for completion during 2014-15. In case of linking Itanagar the land acquisition process is on.

The other plan is to have more India-Nepal rail links. The ministry of external affairs has asked the Railways to conduct five “preliminary engineering-cum-traffic-surveys”. Out of these two have been put on the priority list. One is to have new line between Jogbani in India and Biratnagar in Nepal and the other is the gauge conversion between Jaynagar India and Bijalpura. The line will also be extended till Baridabas, Nepal.

New Delhi, October 27
The Centre will introduce 82,000 scholarships per annum under a new scheme for students from weaker sections for graduate, postgraduate and professional courses.

“The scholarships will be awarded to those who have scored a minimum of 80 per cent in class XII and belong to the non-creamy layer,” said sources in the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

“Candidates taking admission in graduation, postgraduation studies in colleges and universities and professional courses such as medical and engineering will benefit from it,” the sources added.

The scholarships titled as ‘Central sector scheme of scholarship for college and university students’ will be equally divided among boys and girls.

The scholarship will be Rs 1,000 per month at the graduate level and university courses and Rs 2,000 per month at the postgraduate level.

Students pursuing professional courses would get Rs 2,000 per month in the fourth and fifth semester, the sources said.

The allocation of scholarships will be divided among the state boards based on the state’s population in the age group of 18 to 25 after segregating shares of the CBSE and ICSE, the sources said.

Besides, the number of scholarships allotted to a board would be distributed among pass-outs of science, commerce and humanities streams of the board in the ratio of 3:2:1. — PTI

New Delhi, October 27
The government has notified its decision to grant 30 per cent interim relief to journalist and non-journalist employees of the newspaper industry with effect from January 8 this year.

The notification, issued last Friday, followed the October 13 decision of the Union Cabinet, taken on the basis of a recommendation by the Wage Boards on June 28.

The notification said the government, after consulting the Wage Boards, fixed the interim rates of wages at the rate of 30 per cent of the basic wage.

Responding to the issuance of the notification, trade union leaders said almost all governments in the past used to enhance the rate of interim relief from what the Wage Boards would recommend.

But “this has not happened this time despite our efforts,” M.S. Yadav, general secretary of the Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees’ Organisations, the apex body of federation in newspaper industry, said.

He said the newspaper industry employees across the country had pinned their hopes on the government and believed that it would provide at least 40 per cent relief to them. — PTI

New Delhi, October 27
After a relatively slow start, paddy procurement in the current marketing season has picked up, perhaps a result of the Rs 50 bonus announced by the government over and above the MSP on October 16.

As per the data compiled by the Department of Food and Public Distribution, 10.67 million tones of paddy has been procured by government agencies so far as compared to 9.89 MT by this time last season. In terms of rice, the procurement comes to 7.17 MT while last year it was 6.67 MT.

Leading states that have contributed to rice procurement are Punjab (8.86 MT), Haryana (1.57 MT), Tamil Nadu (154 thousand tonne), Kerala (36.5 thousand tonne), Uttar Pradesh (27.7 thousand tonne) and Chhattisgarh (14.8 thousand tonne).

As per the paddy arrival and procurement figures released by the government on October 10, it was observed that the farmers preferred to adopt a wait and watch policy during this kharif marketing season.

The total paddy arrival in mandis of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh and Rajasthan on October 10 was 36,43,512, tonnes out of which government agencies procured 31,29,880 tonnes. Last year the arrival in the corresponding period was 46,26,528 tonnes and procurement 32,58,703 tonnes, relatively higher figures than 2008.

Officials said the main reason for initial lower arrival was that there was no official announcement on bonus on paddy MSP. The MSP of Rs 850 and Rs 875 for this year was announced on June 12.

The CACP, which recommends MSP for various crops, had recommended Rs 1,000 per quintal for coarse and Rs 1,050 per quintal for Grade A varieties for the 2008-09 season.

The Cabinet, on June 12, announced an ad-hoc MSP for paddy at Rs 850 per quintal for coarse and Rs 875 per quintal for Grade A varities and referred the matter to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council.

Most states demanded that the CACP recommendations to be implemented and there were indications that the government could increase the MSP of paddy to at least the levels recommended by the CACP. However, the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council suggested that the MSP be fixed at Rs 900 per quintal.

Last year, the MSP of paddy, including bonus, was Rs 745 per quintal and Rs 775 for common and Grade A varieties.

BRIEFLY

2 NIT students drown
PURI: Two students of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) of Rourkela drowned, while taking bath in the sea here. The condition of two more is said to be critical. The police said 13 students from the NIT had come to Puri on a holiday visit and were taking bath in the sea on Sunday when the mishap took place. Eyewitnesses said the students were swept away in the waves due to the rough sea following a depression in the Bay of Bengal. — UNI

Similipal Tiger Reserve
BARIPADA (Orissa): Tourism zone of the Similipal Tiger Reserve and the National Park will reopen for tourists on November 3, official sources said on Monday. The park was closed from June 16 during the monsoon season. In the first phase, visitors would be allowed into the park through the entry point at Jashipur, the sources said. — PTI