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Raj goes soft on chhath puja, hits out at Lalu
BJP leader demands ban on MNS
Lt-Col brought to Mumbai for questioning
Right to education bill gets Cabinet nod
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Go-ahead to South Asian varsity
Ramadoss wants alcohol ads removed from airports
Telugu, Kannada get classical language status
Five cops suspended in nun rape case
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Raj goes soft on chhath puja, hits out at Lalu
Mumbai, October 31 Chhath puja, where thousands of followers of North-Indian origin offer prayers to the sun, takes place on the city’s beaches and a huge gathering is expected at Juhu beach. The authorities were The authorities relaxed a gag order by the police banning Thackeray from speaking in public in order to let him address the media. Thackeray told reporters that he had no objections to chhat puja being held in Mumbai. He went on to say that he had nothing against North Indians living in the city as well. “As a child I used to visit the Ram Leela with my mother and most of the people, who attended were North Indians,” Thackeray said. He however added that political mobilisation by the migrants was not acceptable to the MNS. “I cannot stand politics on communal or religious lines. If they transform chhat puja into an electoral issue it is not acceptable,” Thackeray said. The MNS chief went on to hit out union railway minister Lalu Yadav for what he called playing votebank politics. “The migrants living in the city are being used as vote banks by people like Lalu Yadav,” Thackeray said. He went on to say that inclusion of migrants on voters’ list should not be allowed. Playing the role of a victim, Thackeray said he was being attacked even while Biharis were being attacked across the country. “Biharis were murdered in Assam and Manipur and driven back home, but there was no demand for President’s rule then. People kept quiet when a minister in Goa said beggars from Bihar would not be allowed inside. Sheila Dixit said Biharis were hindering development, but nobody raised a voice against her. Only Raj Thackeray is targeted for speaking up,” he said. Regarding the attack on a youth in a Mumbai train, Thackeray alleged that four Marathi-speaking youth were thrown out of a train in Bihar but their attackers are still roaming free. “But no body is questioning their leaders,” Thackeray said. He further added that the police was justified in gunning down a youth took a BEST bus conductor hostage in Mumbai. “If the police had done nothing, the media would not have spared them,” Thackeray said. The statement by the MNS leader comes just a day after leaders of North Indian parties demanded that he be booked under the National Security Act (NSA) for fomenting violence against migrants. Thackeray snidely remarked that Lalu Yadav too should have been booked under the NSA as under his rule there were 1,200 murders in Bihar. Thackeray also hit out at Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh for withdrawing his security. “I had not asked for security in the first place. But, now it has been withdrawn as part of a political vendetta...let them remember that tomorrow even I will get a chance to form the government,” Thackeray said.
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BJP leader demands ban on MNS
Lucknow, October 31 Holding the Maharasthra government equally responsible for allowing Thackeray to carry on his divisive politics, Mishra pointed out that the MNS chief had held a press conference today while he was granted bail on the specific condition of not speaking to the press. “The Maharashtra government is playing a dangerous game. It allows Thackeray to make statements like Biharis are massacred wherever they go, even in Assam. It forces us to believe that Thackeray is just a mask to cover the face of the Maharasthra government,” he said. While urging the Central government to take some immediate steps to curb the violence in Maharasthra, the Rajya Sabha MP, however, stopped short of specifying what action he expected from New Delhi. “This is a policy decision and has to be decided upon by the party leadership,” said Mishra.
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Malegaon
Blasts Tribune News Service
Mumbai, October 31 Investigators probing the blast zeroed in on Purohit after questioning other suspects who have been picked up so far. The Army officer is suspected to have diverted some RDX explosives from the Jabalpur ordnance factory to the bomb makers who set off the blasts in Malegaon. The police is also probing if the suspects were involved in carrying out blasts in other places. Lt-Col Purohit was brought to Mumbai along with two other Army officers who will sit during his interrogation. Army headquarters have indicated that Purohit may be discharged from service if preliminary evidence was found against him. Purohit is so far the highest ranking Army officer to be questioned in connection with a terrorist plot so far in the country. Apart from a sadhvi, Pragya Singh Thakur, investigators have arrested a retired Major, Ramesh Upadhyay, his associate Sameer Kulkarni and two others. All of them are linked to Abhinav Bharat, an organisation originally started by controversial freedom fighter Veer Savarkar. The body is now headed by Himani Savarkar, niece of Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi. Savarkar has given a clean chit to those arrested so far. However, investigators are now probing other office-bearers of the Abhinav Bharat as well, sources said. According to ATS officials, Lt-Col Purohit was acquainted with Upadhyay and also took classes at Bhonsala Military School, which has links with Hindu right-wing organisations. Reports say such an act by a serving Colonel violates service rules and the Army may take action against him even if he is cleared of charges in the terrorist conspiracy case.
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Right to education bill gets Cabinet nod
New Delhi, October 31 The bill, which guarantees elementary education for children from 6 to 14 years, had earlier faced obstructions from the law ministry, which questioned the manner of budgeting as detailed in the draft legislation. There was lack of clarity in the draft law as to how resources would be allocated and shared between the Centre and states. With the stalemate between the law and the HRD ministries continuing for far too long, the matter went before the Cabinet, which on August 8 referred it to the group of ministers (GoM) comprising HRD minister Arjun Singh, finance minister P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The GoM looked into the manner of sharing of the Budget and resources between the Centre and states and suggested an objective criterion for the same, said highly placed sources in the HRD ministry, which would now append the GoM suggestions to the draft legislation, before the bill is introduced in Parliament in December. To work out the modalities of resource allocation between the Centre and states, the GoM has favoured referring the matter to the finance commission, which can work out a suitable formula. The implementation of the bill, over the period of the plan, will cost about Rs two lakh crore; the share of the Centre and states will be finalised after deducting the heads already being covered under the existing schemes like the Mid-Day Meal, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan etc. As for the bill, it secures children’s right to elementary level education in neighbourhood schools, and seeks to hold all stakeholders -- the state, teachers and parents -- responsible for the education of children. The bill also proposes penalty for parents who are unable to guarantee their children the right to education, a suggestion which the National Human Rights Commission did not take very kindly to. Also, there has been widespread demand, including from the NHRC, to do away with the segmentation of age in respect of the right to education. Many people favour that the Centre should guarantee education to all children from 0 to 18 years and not fix a target age group (6 to 14 years), as it does in the bill. In its present form, the bill lays too much emphasis on infrastructure as compared to quality, experts feel. Whether the law can guarantee quality education to children remains to be seen. Currently, there are over 1.26 crore child workers in the 6 to 14 age group, which the bill seeks to cover. Another 1.34 crore children in the said bracket are out of school.
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Go-ahead to South Asian varsity
The Union Cabinet today gave its approval to the South Asian University bill to be presented before Parliament in December.
The bill traces its roots to the 13th SAARC Summit held in Dhaka in November 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed the establishment of a South Asian university (SAU) to provide world-class facilities and professional faculty to students and researchers from SAARC member countries. An inter-governmental agreement for establishing the SAU was then signed at the 14th SAARC Summit in April 2007. The SAARC member states also decided that the university would be established in India. The establishment of the SAU in India would be the largest visible sign of transformation of SAARC from declaration to implementation. It would also be the first international university to be set up in India. The university would have branches of learning in other SAARC member states. Its jurisdiction shall extend to whole of India and to campuses and centres established outside India in the SAARC region. It would have full functional autonomy as per terms and conditions of the inter-governmental Agreement of April 2007. Meanwhile, the project office of the university started functioning from May 7 this year, with premises identified near Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Once operational by the second half of 2010, the university would accommodate 5,000 students and offer a postgraduate academic programme. For the development of legal contours of the university, a draft bill has been finalised in consultation with the legislative department of the law ministry. The bill takes into consideration the terms and conditions of the intergovernmental agreement, in-cluding full functional autonomy, grant of degrees, holding of examinations, collaboration with other universities and certain privileges and immunities for itself and its officials, as accorded to all SAARC bodies, based on the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities.
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Ramadoss wants alcohol ads removed from airports
New Delhi, October 31 Close on the heels of announcing his ministry’s urge to bring a national policy for alcohol intake control, Ramadoss has now written to civil aviation minister Praful Patel, asking him to remove alcohol advertisements from all airports across the country. And in doing so, he has expressed deep disappointment at “grandiose displays in airports advertising alcoholic drinks manufactured by major brands”. In his recent letter to Patel, Ramadoss has made a particular reference to advertisements of alcoholic drinks on display at the Delhi Airport. Most such ads are in the form of large-sized hoardings, vinyl, digital boards and banners. The health minister has, while arguing against alcohol ads in
his letter to Patel, also cited scientific and technical studies on the multiple harms of liquor
consumption. He has now requested Patel to instruct the authorities concerned to remove alcohol ads, considering such advertisements are already legally banned in electronic and print media. For his part, Ramadoss has told the authorities in the health ministry
to take up the issue with the relevant agencies in the civil aviation ministry, and see that the “needful is done”. The health minister’s act is in line with his rhetoric in connection with alcohol consumption in India. In July this year, Ramadoss had told the India-Brazil-South Africa health ministers’ conference that there are over 62 million alcohol drinkers in India, the age of initiation being just 13.5 years. Data indicates that the age of initiation to alcohol in India has come down from 19 years in 1986 to 13.5 years in 2006. It is further documented that more than 50 per cent of all drinkers in India come under the criterion for hazardous drinking. At the conference, Ramadoss also reminded the delegates of the 58th World Health Assembly’s warning on the harmful effects of drinking, saying: “Drinking is among the foremost underlying causes of diseases, domestic violence
against women and children, disability, social problems and pre-mature deaths.” To create awareness about the harms of tobacco, Ramadoss had even proposed to observe “World No Alcohol Day” on October 2. Notwithstanding Ramadoss’s intentions, an anti-alcohol law will not be easy to push, considering the liquor industry is one of the largest contributors of tax to any states’ coffers.
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Telugu, Kannada get classical language status
New Delhi, October 31 Minister of tourism and culture Ambika Soni said the government had received representations from a wide spectrum of political and civil opinion from both Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for declaration of Kannada and Telugu as classical languages. “These representations were referred to a Committee of Linguistic Experts. The committee recently recommended that both the languages should be classified as classical languages,” she said.
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Five cops suspended in nun rape case
Bhubaneswar, October 31 The action was taken on the basis of a joint report filed by Kandhamal collector Krishna Kumar and superintendent of the police Prabin Kumar. The policemen suspended with immediate effect were an assistant sub-inspector Rasananda Mallick, havildar major K.N. Mohapatra and havildars S.K. Hamim, J.S. Khan and B.K. Mohanty, official sources said.
— PTI
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Student held for email threat to Prez 17 cops injured in Naxal blast Three held for killing deer Male tiger rescued International Book Fair
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