 |
|
|
Buddha stays away from Politburo meet
Black box of YSR’s chopper recovered
Plane Fire |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Parties out to woo voters in Bihar
Maya as deity catches art buyer’s fancy
Shortage of quality faculty worries CJI
NCW notice to ‘Sach Ka Saamna’
PM on Facebook
Another honour killing suspected
After BJP, RSS to sit down for ‘chintan’
Navy to finetune security system
Now, MLCs bat for Jagan as CM
18 years on, HC orders probe into death
IIT faculty joins stir on Teacher’s Day
300 teachers get National Awards
Cops lathicharge teachers in MP
Warrant issued against
Bal Thackeray
|
|
Buddha stays away from Politburo meet
New Delhi, September 5 Ever since the party fell to the Trinamool Congress in the recent Lok Sabha elections, Bhattacharya has been consciously avoiding attendance at important meets lest collective criticism should put him on the defensive. In the rectification document, which tops the agenda for the two-day meet, Bengal is natural to focus prominently given CPM’s embarrassing defeat after 32 years of absolute power. In its June 22 report on poll reverses, the party’s central committee had openly blamed poll reverses on “shortcomings in the working of the Buddhadeb government, municipalities and panchayats and Bengal’s aggressive industrialisation policy”. Prakash Karat, general secretary, had even said, “We are for reworking the Bengal’s industrial policy. We also have to be careful about the conduct and style of functioning of our leaders in both West Bengal and Kerala.” With the flak headed for him, Buddha, under whose nose several non-communist elements are said to have entered the party in Bengal, chose to absent himself today. Officially he was said to be unwell, the excuse earlier extended when he failed to turn up himself or send his industries minister Nirpuam Sen to represent the state in the meeting on internal security called by the Prime Minister on August 17. The Politburo, sources say, may discuss appointing Buddha’s deputy to ensure party’s way forward in Bengal, where cadres need to be re-disciplined. Speaking earlier today, Sitaram Yechury said the meet would discuss the current political scenario in the country, forthcoming elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh, and the rectification document that would be adopted after the central committee took it up in October. The document is expected to lay down conditions for the cadres to follow, ask them to abstain from lavish lifestyle, religious rituals, avoid accepting finances from tainted people besides focusing on key domestic issues like price rise. The Politburo will also plan pro-people agitations over the coming days, having realised the hard way that overstressing foreign policy matters does not really help the cause of realpolitik where local issues always enjoy prominence.
Somnath slammed
New Delhi, September 5 “It has become a practice of Somnath Chatterjee to level baseless charges against the CPM and the Left ever since he decided to cross over to the government side,” People’s Democracy stated in today’s edition. “Why did the then Speaker not speak out against it? He should have sought a police investigation,” stated the CPM through its official organ.
|
|
Black box of YSR’s chopper recovered
Hyderabad, September 5 A team of Greyhounds, an elite anti-Naxalite wing of the state police, found the cockpit voice recorder during search operations in the area and handed it over to the investigators from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The DGCA investigating team, headed by RK Tyagi, held a meeting with the local civil and police officials at Kurnool. The team, which was scheduled to visit the crash site at Paavuralagutta hillock today, could not take up the journey because of inclement weather. The investigators are expected to visit the site tomorrow. However, they held discussions with the local officials. Along with black box, pieces of wreckage, a set of photographs, video records and copies of the postmortem reports were handed over to them. “The black box was found intact. It is expected to help in investigations to know the cause of the crash. The team would take it to Delhi to retrieve the messages. The investigators will know what were the last messages given by the pilots before the crash,” the Kurnool District Collector Mukesh Kumar Meena said. The 11 year old, twin-engine Bell-430 helicopter was flying from Hyderabad to Chittoor on September 2 when it deviated from the flight path, hit the cliff of the hillock in the dense forest area, about 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool, and crashed.
|
|
Plane Fire
Mumbai, September 5 Air India officials said the pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft were taken off the roster as the Director General of Civil Aviation asked them to be made available for the inquiry into the incident. Shortly before take-off, the Boeing 747-400 aircraft deployed on the Mumbai-Riyadh route reported a fire on the left engine. Passengers were hurriedly evacuated via the emergency chutes while fire engines were called to put off the fire. Several passengers who received minor injuries during the evacuation process were administered first-aid at the airport. Another aircraft was deployed to take the passengers to their destination. Air India said, in a statement today, a four-member committee has been set up to look into the incident. The committee comprises Air India's executive directors S Mathur, AS Soman, S Rotakar and R Harihar. Meanwhile, the airline is in the midst of another controversy with passengers sending photograph of the burning aircraft and the evacuation process to television channels. Some passengers even called up television channels to say that safety norms were violated when the evacuation chutes even on the side of the fire opened. Photographs obtained by television channels showed the emergency chutes on all sides being opened. However, Air India said in its statement that no evacuation was carried out from the side where the fire was reported. Spokesman Jitendra Bhargava told reporters that the chutes on the left side of the aircraft opened after all the passengers were evacuated. The conduct of the in-flight crew has also come in for criticism.
|
|
Parties out to woo voters in Bihar
Patna, September 5 The result of these elections will be no less crucial for opponents of Nitish like Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. Despite their best efforts, Lalu and Paswan could not succeed in forging an alliance with the Congress for these elections. Apparently, the Congress is nursing an ambition of regaining its lost glory in Bihar and establishing itself as the main opponent to the ruling NDA. The party’s decision to go on its own by putting up its candidates on all 18 seats and rope in its young brigade of Union ministers like Sachin Pilot, Jatin Prasad, Mukul Wasnik, Arun Yadav, CP Joshi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kamalnath for campaigning vindicates this theory.
|
|
Maya as deity catches art buyer’s fancy
Lucknow, September 5 “Please don’t ask me for the name of the buyer or the price at which these paintings were sold. I would disclose the details at a right time. All I can say at the moment is that the person belongs to Lucknow,” said 21-year old Tripathi. When pressed further he preferred to make a hurried exit from the state’s Lalit Kala Akademi gallery at Lal Baradari on pretext of an “important errand”. Tripathi’s 19 paintings are on display here till September 7. Three of the paintings, which border on kitsch calendar art, are in the form of a minis-series devoted to ‘Dalit masihas’ (Dalit prophets). Out of these, two depicting Mayawati have been picked up. The third one --- showing the close-ups of Mayawati, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and Dr Ambedkar placed over a lotus with two earthen lamps burning in the foreground --- perhaps did not catch the fancy of the mysterious buyer and is still adorning the wall of the gallery. In the first painting, that has been sold, Mayawati is depicted as a deity. Tripathi had portrayed her with a halo with one hand extending in blessing and the other holding a blue flag. A miniature elephant provides the backdrop. The second painting was influenced by the popular depiction of Goddess of wealth Laxmi. It showed Mayawati in a sari with long tresses standing atop a lotus flower with two elephants at her feet.
|
|
|
Shortage of quality faculty worries CJI
New Delhi, September 5 Lucrative offers and job opportunities in corporates have attracted young graduates, the Chief Justice said, while felicitating NR Madhava Menon, a legendary law teacher, on Teachers Day. “There are a lot to be done to improve legal education in our country. At present, we are facing considerable shortage of talented law teachers. One reason for this is that the graduates of good law schools are getting lucrative job opportunities in commercial law firms,” he said. — PTI
|
|
|
NCW notice to ‘Sach Ka Saamna’
Jaipur, September 5 Talking to the mediapersons here today, NCW chairperson Girija Vyas said, “There were several complaints against the show from women, so we have decided to serve notice on the production house, Big Synergy, seeking explanation.” She said a number of women had objected to the way social values were being portrayed in the show. She urged the people not to participate in the show that lifts the veil from a person’s private life and makes it public. She opined that such revelation of truth not only affects the life of the participants but also that of viewers. The show had created furore in the last Parliament session with several MPs dubbing it as degrading to Indian culture. Later, the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting had sent a notice to the channel, which replied to it late last month.
|
|
|
PM on Facebook
New Delhi, September 5 In the course of a discussion on NDTV, Singh’s former media advisor Sanjaya Baru said though the Prime Minister is not net savvy, he has a Facebook account, which is regularly updated. But he had no idea as to who was updating it. Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, who has been extensively using the site Twitter, said the PM had once asked him what the site was about and how it worked. “I told him at that point - look which politician is going to resist an audience, in those days 24,000 or something,” he said. “He (Prime Minister) laughed and said of course you should not and today I have an audience of 84,000 and tomorrow it might be more....no politician would wisely turn down an audience of so many that he could reach,” Tharoor said. The minister said his remarks on the site are a combination of personal and official comments. “But in none of my 1000 tweets have I said anything which I could not have said publicly or that in anyway embarrasses or compromises the government.”
— PTI
|
|
|
Another honour killing suspected
Rohtak, September 5 The police has sent the recovered body parts for further examination to Forensic Science laboratory. Hailing from Talu village, the 17-year-old girl had been residing at her maternal grandparents house at Karontha village. She died under mysterious circumstances on the intervening night of September 3 and 4 and was cremated in the wee hours yesterday. A maternal uncle of the girl during investigation reportedly disclosed today that his niece had eloped with a boy of her native village a few months ago. He reportedly confessed that his sons had strangulated the girl to death before her cremation as she had disgraced her family. The Sadar police told TNS that the Station House Officer was investigating the case and an FIR would be registered accordingly if there was any truth in the accusation. No arrests had been made so far.
|
|
|
After BJP, RSS to sit down for ‘chintan’
New Delhi, September 5 It has invited not just formally recognised sangh and BJP men to this two-day meet scheduled to be held in Mumbai on September 9 and 10, but also those even loosely identified with or even those prevaricating between the sangh and secularism. The list of invitees includes LK Advani and Arun Jaitley’s think tank Swapan Dasgupta, who has of late been advising his leaders to break free from the sangh and chart out an independent course akin to Christian Democrats of Europe. Also included is Arun Shourie, counselling the RSS to hurriedly take over the BJP lest it should be too late. Jaswant Singh, who compared the RSS to American right wing racists Ku Klux Klan and was expelled by the BJP for praising Jinnah, will not be there. But his son and former BJP MP Manvendra Singh may delegate for his father since he is also invited. From the BJP, its president Rajnath Singh and vice-president Bal Apte are going there. Apte will read out his controversial report that he first read in the BJP’s “chintan baithak” at Shimla, notwithstanding stout denials by Rajnath Singh and Jaitely and which was then leaked out to the media by BJP insiders. The entire RSS top brass will also be there. Sources said sangh chief Mohanrao Bhagwat is concerned over the present state of affairs, not just in the BJP but even the waning interest of the urban upwardly mobile middle-class in the sangh itself and the whole exercise is directed at reinventing the BJP.
|
|
Navy to finetune security system
New Delhi, September 5 The Navy will take on board all agencies like the coast guard, customs and marine police for the exercise, well-placed sources in the government said while confirming the development. The latest revision of the Naval doctrine announced on August 28 expanded scope of the doctrine to include the threat from maritime terrorism to coastal security. The exercise will start after the monsoon ends. The forthcoming exercise is a part of the new strategy by which the Navy will lay down standard operating procedure (SOP) for various areas and also detail out the response of each agency to deal with situations at short notice. The working of the agencies for handling security would be integrated into the Navy’s pattern of working and operations, a source said. The Navy was given full charge of coastal security on March 1 this year. It has already conducted an exercise on the eastern front for the states on the east coast during summer. “Some lessons were learnt and those will be we implemented when the exercise is done on the western seafront,” a senior official said. The Western coast is seen as a very vulnerable zone. The entire coastline has been divided into small sectors by the Navy for its own direction-finding. A conceptualisation exercise was conducted some weeks ago on the western seafront. This time, coordination would be the focal point. It will test the prowess of each “sector” along the coast for the availability of powered boats, man power deployment, fast attack crafts, reaction time, radar coverage, response of AIS transponders and also the efficacy of the identification system for fishing boats.
|
|
Now, MLCs bat for Jagan as CM
Hyderabad, September 5 The ruling party MLCs today held a meeting here and passed an unanimous resolution urging the party high command to make Jagan, 36, the next Chief Minister. The meeting was attended by 33 out of 56 party MLCs while 20 others telephonically conveyed their solidarity to the campaign to anoint Jagan as YSR’s successor. “We will hand over the resolution to the party high command after the seven-day mourning period is over,” the party whip in the Legislative Council, Shivarami Reddy, said. "In order to carry forward the legacy of YSR and fulfill his dreams, it is appropriate to make Jaganmohan Reddy the next CM. He has all capacity and leadership qualities to lead the state," he said.
|
|
18 years on, HC orders probe into death
Mumbai, September 5 A petition filed in the High Court alleges that current state agriculture minister Balasaheb Thorat was involved in the death, which occurred 18 years ago. Division bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and Roshan Dalvi yesterday said that inquiry was needed to find out whether the death - due to burn injuries — was "accidental, suicidal, or homicidal".
|
|
IIT faculty joins stir on Teacher’s Day
Mumbai, September 5 Nearly 4,000 IIT faculty members in the country are participating in the agitation, which has entered its second phase. Ten days ago, the faculty members of the elite engineering institutes had taken mass casual leave. Faculty members here continued to teach but wore black badges as a mark of protest. They said Union HRD Ministry should consider their demand seriously as they are overburdened with additional 27 per cent of students admitted through OBC quota and also have to cater to new branches of IITs. The faculty members had submitted a memorandum to the ministry last month in support of their demand. The IIT faculty is currently getting salaries as per the Sixth Pay Commission report, which according to them, is equal to UGC grade. They, however, want a higher scale as IITs are specialised higher educational institutes. — PTI MP professors on strike
Bhopal: Professors in Madhya Pradesh are marking Teachers Day in a different way this Saturday - they have started an indefinite strike demanding higher pay. The joint front of government college teachers, Shasakiya Mahavidyalayin Shikshak Sanyukta Sangharsh Samiti, said the teachers went on an indefinite strike after the state government failed to keep its promise of implementing the revised pay scale from September 4. The teachers will not participate in any of the functions organised for them on this special day. "Madhya Pradesh Education Minister Archana Chitnis had assured teachers after a state level rally on August 22 that all action for implementation of the revised scales would be completed by September 4," a statement issued by the committee said. Earlier, the teachers had undertaken phase-wise but peaceful agitation from August 3 to 22 to press their demands. They suspended their agitation after being assured that their pay would be revised September 4. The Madhya Pradesh University Teachers Association and the Barkatullah (Bhopal) University Teachers' Association (BUTA) president H.S. Yadav told IANS: "We will be on an indefinite strike from Saturday till our demands are fulfilled."
— IANS
|
|
300 teachers get National Awards
New Delhi, Sept 5 Lauding the Right to Education Act on the occasion, Ansari said the law was a historic step and would be more empowering in terms of impact that the Right to Vote. But he underlined that the time had now come to assess whether formal enrolment had translated into meaningful educational outcomes. The Vice-President pointed out that today we have a situation in which teachers are politically empowered and professionally disempowered which is a disservice to the cause of education. “The need of the hour is to painstakingly rebuild the professional identity of our teachers, nurture their skills and professional competence through continuing education,” he said.
|
|
Cops lathicharge teachers in MP Bhopal, September 5 The police lathicharged the teachers marching towards chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s residence to stage a demonstration protesting non-payment of honorarium to them for the last four months. Over two dozen teachers were injured in the cane charge, four were serious condition, vice president of Rajya Adhyapak Sangh Jagdish Yadav said. Terming the police action as barbaric, Yadav said the teachers were not getting their honorarium for three-four months and were forced to live in abject poverty. He said the teachers should get salaries instead of honorarium. Meanwhile, 80 protesters had been arrested and booked under different sections of IPC, Bhopal SP Jaideep Prasad said, adding that the police had to resort to mild lathicharge after the protesters hurled stones at them. The SP said 10 policemen were injured in the incident.
— PTI
|
||
|
Warrant issued against
Bal Thackeray Patna, September 5 Rakesh Pati Tiwari, the sub-divisional judicial magistrate in Ara, district headquarters of Bhojpur, ordered issuance of the warrant yesterday after Thackeray failed to appear before him or send a lawyer representing him in compliance with the court’s July 7 order.
— IANS
|
||
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
