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China justifies no to road project
Absentee MPs: Sonia cracks the whip
World Aids Day
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Land Scam
CAT crash: Sibal pulls up organisers
15mn mobiles sans IMEI go silent
Memorials Case
LS votes for two central varsities in J&K
Judges’ Appointment
Rising prices find echo in RS
Rajasthan Guv SK Singh dead
Jadhav is Mumbai mayor
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China justifies no to road project
New Delhi, December 1 Beijing went to the extent of saying that India was undertaking the road project in a disputed area. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was quoted as saying by Xinhua that India must maintain peace and stability in border areas. The two sides should make joint efforts to this end before the border issue between them was finally settled. Xinhua said the Indian authorities were constructing the road in a disputed area near the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It confirmed that the construction was stopped after China raised an objection. Minister of State for Defence Pallam Raju, meanwhile, told Parliament that India would find out reasons behind China’s objection to the road construction in the Ladakh region. The 8-km stretch of the road that was being constructed to improve road connectivity was providing employment to local residents. “We will find out the facts of the matter, but I think some of these things happen if there is difference in perception of the border. I am guessing that that must be the reason but we will check into the matter,” Raju said in a written reply. Team in India to boost defence ties
NEW DELHI: Just days after Indian Defence Minister AK Antony expressed concerns over China's growing military aid to Pakistan, a Chinese military delegation will reach India Tuesday night to discuss ways and means to improve Indo-China defence ties. The five-day visit is important as there could be discussion on resumption of the annual “hand-in-hand” Army exercise between the two countries. This year the exercise could not be scheduled and was China’s turn to host it. In 2008, India had reciprocated by hosting an exercise in Belgaum. The next exercise is likely to take place in 2010 in China. Defence Ministry officials said today that the Chinese delegation, led by People's Liberation Army (PLA) deputy chief general Gezen-feng, would hold talks with A K Antony and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar for bolstering the bilateral confidence-building measures. The delegation will also call on the Army Chief, General Deepak Kapoor, the Navy Chief, Admiral Nirmal Verma, the IAF Chief, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, and Army vice-chief Gen P C Bhardwaj during their stay in Delhi.The visit is expected to lower tensions between the two nations which have exchanged heated words over the visit of Dalai Lama to Tawang in November.
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Absentee MPs: Sonia cracks the whip
New Delhi, December 1 Of the 34 MPs who were to ask questions, 31 were absent during question hour yesterday; of these nine were from the Congress. With the rap coming right from the top, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal shot off a caustic letter to the absentee members, reminding them of their duties as parliamentarians and also referring to the importance of question hour. In his letter to the nine erring Congress MPs, Harsh Vardhan, Madhu Yaksh, Jhansi Lakshmi, Anto Antony, Eknath Gaekwad, Sjruti Choudhry, Vikrambhai Madan, PT Thomas and K Suresh, Bansal said they should be more regular in future in attending to their parliamentary obligations. As for Sonia Gandhi, she was herself present in the House today during the crucial debate on the Central University Amendment Bill to allow two universities to be set up in Jammu and Kashmir. In the past also, she had taken the issue of attendance very seriously. Following the Congress president’s rap, the House today saw improved attendance in the treasury benches with younger members like Shruti Choudhry, Sachin Pilot, Deependra Hooda, Vijayinder Singla and Ravneet Bittu, also turning up at different parts of the day.LS Speaker Meira Kumar said she would write to leaders of all parties on her concern over question hour continuing to be undermined and disrupted repeatedly. “I am very concerned. I will write to leaders on these issues,” the Speaker said.
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Sonia flags off second phase of Red Ribbon Express
Ananya Panda Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 1 Hailing for concerted efforts from all stakeholders, she said the disease needs collective efforts from all departments of the government and civil society at large, along with understanding, to battle the epidemic better. Listing the subject as top priority of the Congress-led UPA government, Sonia stated: “We have to reverse the impact of HIV/ AIDS. More importantly at the district level, where people are coming across the party lines to support the cause”. An informed society is an empowered society and information is the key strategy towards prevention. “Information is empowerment, and the idea behind the train, which was mooted by Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, is to spread awareness on AIDS. Another mandate of the train has been to take up the issues under the National Rural Health Mission,” underlined Sonia. Besides providing on-board counselling on prevention of HIV/ AIDS, health workers and volunteers would apprise women on nutritional aspects of early-child health care, prevention of other infections, like - influenza A (H1N1) /swine flu. On the occasion, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad maintained that India’s response to the HIV/AIDS has been satisfactory with cases registering a low from 2003-2007 even though India stands third among all countries with people infected with HIV/ AIDS. Still, many civil society groups and NGOs feel that due to ignorance and inadequate availability of the second-level treatment, there are many people who continue to live with the taboo and discrimination linked with H1V/ AIDS. Azad listed, “Currently, there are 5,000 centres for counselling, testing and screening, and 200 centres where treatment is available, and the train is going to disseminate the message on ways to prevent the spread of H1V and inform them about where to go for counselling and treatment”.
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Act against guilty, MoD tells Army
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 1 Antony, who enjoys a clean image, is seeing the recent case as something that could weaken the ability of the Army to handle security challenges. “It will be prompt action against those who will be found guilty”, said sources. Antony wants that accountability should be fixed at the earliest, they added. The Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju told reporters on Tuesday that the Army had been told to act against the guilty.Meanwhile, in a separate development, the Public Relations Officer of the Indian Army Lt-Col S Om Singh termed media reports on the three ‘guilty’ generals as “character assassination of senior army officers”. He said reports have appeared regarding the ongoing Court of Inquiry. “Since the CoI is still in progress and not finalised, therefore, speculative comments/interferences at this stage about the guilt of an individual is not appropriate”, said the statement that was posted on the PIB website and also-emailed to reporters by the Army PRO.
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CAT crash: Sibal pulls up organisers
New Delhi, December 1 “Those who want to run such institutions autonomously must also be ready to take full responsibility for what they do,” Sibal said in the Lok Sabha, while he was replying to a debate on the Central University Amendment Bill. There was again problem in CAT servers -- servers at two labs at Sahara Academy and School of Management in Lucknow; two in Bhopal and two in Bangalore --causing inconvenience to many students. Reacting to the problem, Sibal said the government could do little but had called for a detailed report into what happened. “Out of 45,000 students, around 8,000 have been affected. They (CAT organisers) should have been more careful. The report, which I got, says virus affected it. We are not directly involved in it. The autonomy of IIMs allows them to do most of these things. IIMs will decide when exams will be held again but this should not have happened,” Sibal added.— PTI
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15mn mobiles sans IMEI go silent
New Delhi, December 1 IMEI is a unique 15-digit code that comes with every mobile phone and helps uniquely identify the handset. This number is reflected in the operator’s network whenever a call is made or received from any handset and therefore allows lawful interception of all calls. Mobile operators store these numbers in Equipment Identity Register
(EIR). In case the handset is stolen, the owner can provide the IMEI number to his operator and all calls from this device is barred. It is a major security precaution, which helps in identifying any misuse of the mobile phones, especially by terrorists and subversives.
— TNS
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Justice HS Bedi offers to opt out
Our Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, December 1 The Bench, which included Justice PS Thakur, declined the state’s plea as petitioner Mithelesh Kumar Singh had not filed his response to the government’s contentions. Mithelesh has filed a PIL questioning the poor state’s wisdom in spending a whopping Rs 2,600 crore on memorials with statues for Dalit icons.
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LS votes for two central varsities in J&K Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 1 The amendment bill, however, attracted its share of debate, with the RJD and the BJP warning the Centre of the divisive potential of two varsities in Jammu and Kashmir and their limited territorial jurisdictions to Jammu and Kashmir divisions respectively, which could fuel separatism. RJD’s Raghuvansh Prasad Singh raised objections to the universities being named after Jammu and Kashmir regions separately and their “territorial jurisdictions” being fixed to the respective divisions. “By doing so, you are doing what the separatists could not,” he said, flustering UPA chief Sonia Gandhi, present in the House during the debate. She immediately called for Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, who was seen explaining to her the technicalities behind the nomenclature and the jurisdiction, which the RJD member was opposing. Later, in his reply, Sibal said there was no question of the UPA acceding to or being part of any sectarian motive. “There would have been anarchy in the state had we lingered on with this issue. As for the jurisdiction, it has been fixed purely for administrative purpose, as it would enable the university to determine its affiliates,” Sibal told the dissenting MPs. Sonia had left the House by the time he replied to the debate that saw over 30 speakers.
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SC moves SC!
R Sedhuraman Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, December 1 The CIC had on November 25 ruled that the appointment of judges was a “public activity” and all relevant information should be made public within 15 days. The commission had passed the order on a petition by one SC Agrawal who had sought “copies of complete correspondence exchanged between concerned constitutional authorities with file notings” relating to the appointment of Justices HL Dattu, AK Ganguly and RM Lodha. According to the petitioner, the appointments were made ignoring the seniority of Chief Justices AP Shah, AK Patnaik and VK Gupta and objections from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Disposing of another application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the CIC had also directed the apex court to disclose the communication between CJI KG Balakrishnan and Justice Raghupathy following the Madras HC judge’s complaint that a Union Minister had interfered in a sub-judice matter. In the two petitions, moved by the SC Registry, it has been contended that the information sought was held by the CJI in his fiduciary capacity and as such should be exempted from being made public under Section 8(1e) of the RTI Act. The law is aimed at bringing about transparency in the functioning of public authorities. The latest move by the SC marks a change of strategy as it moved the Delhi High Court in a similar case earlier following a CIC order for disclosure of details pertaining to the assets of the apex court judges. A single judge Bench of the HC had upheld the CIC order, forcing the SC to file an appeal in the HC that is pending before a three-Judge Bench. Notwithstanding its appeal, the CJI and his fellow judges have declared their assets, posting the details on the apex court website.
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Rising prices find echo in RS
New Delhi, December 1 The trouble started as soon as the House convened. It was the ruling party member Rajiv Shukla who initially asked for details about shooting prices of edible items and the steps taken by the government to check them. In his reply, the Finance Minister said it was the imbalance between the supply and demand of commodities like pulses, edible oil and sugar, which was leading to the rise in prices. On this CPM member Brinda Karat interrupted Mukherjee asking what the government was doing to check the price of sugar, selling at Rs 40 per kg. While Mukherjee was replying to her query, other members of the Left parties started shouting that the government had failed to check the prices of essential items. This irked the Finance Minister who then shot back: “Don’t show your temper here, show your temper somewhere else.” “The sugar availability this year would be about 16 million tonnes and requirement is 23 million tonnes. So there is a shortfall, which is pushing up the prices. To ameliorate the adverse impact of rising prices, particularly on the vulnerable section of society, the answer lies in strengthening the public distribution system,” he said.
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No decision yet on Raje successor
Jaipur, December 1 When Raje had tendered her resignation last month, the BJP steered clear of choosing her successor in view of the Assembly bypolls on November 7 and the civic polls on November 23. The party apprehended that naming her successor would intensify the infighting ahead of crucial elections. However, there has been no word from the party on the issue even after four days of the declaration of civic poll results. Ever since the BJP asked her to step down, local RSS leaders, who were instrumental in her removal, have been pushing the name of former Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria, but Raje is opposed to his candidature. As the BJP has neither intimated the Speaker about her resignation nor chosen her successor, technically Raje continues to be the Leader of Opposition. Now, it would be interesting to see whether the Rajnath camp forwards her resignation to the Speaker or leaves the issue to the new party president. The latter would obviously increase the chances of Raje’s return as the BJP legislature party leader. Meanwhile, the vacuum created at the top after Raje’s removal has cost the BJP dear in the recent polls. The charismatic BJP leader kept away from the elections and the BJP lost all four mayoral posts, including the ones in Kota and Jaipur, which the party had never lost. The debacle in the civic polls has worsened the situation in the BJP as senior leaders like Ram Dass Agarwal and Om Prakash Mathur have targeted state party chief Arun Chaturvedi over the issue. To further add to the party’s woes, Raje loyalists too are hitting out at state leadership for “ignoring” her during the polls. A Raje aide alleged that local legislators were not consulted while allotting tickets for the local body polls, adding that they were not involved in the process at any stage. Mathur said he had quit his post of the state BJP chief after the party’s defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, owning moral responsibility for it, and the same should happen now, apparently hinting that Chaturvedi should also quit. Similarly, Aggarwal has openly voiced his opinion against the “marginalisation of popular leaders” in the BJP. However, Chaturvedi said the BJP fought the civic polls unitedly and they would look into the exact reasons of the party’s defeat.
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Rajasthan Guv SK Singh dead
New Delhi/Jaipur, December 1 The dead body was taken to his residence at New Friends Colony here. Singh was appointed Rajasthan Governor in September 2007, replacing Pratibha Patil after she was nominated as the UPA candidate for President. Before serving in
Rajasthan, he was the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh between 2004 and 2007. He had joined the Indian Foreign Services in 1954 and held several important assignments, including India’s envoy to Pakistan between 1985 and 1989 and also Afghanistan. His son Kaniska quit his job as an investment banker to join the core political team of Rahul Gandhi and is considered within the “inner circle” of the young Congress leader. The Rajasthan government has declared seven-day state mourning from today following the death of Singh. The government also declared half-day holiday today and full-day holiday tomorrow as a mark of respect for the late Governor. National Flag will fly at half-mast during the mourning period. In his condolence message, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said Singh, as the constituional head of the state, played his role with full sincerity for the well-being of the people. He said the state has suffered irreparable loss in his demise.
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Mumbai, December 1 Sena’s Shraddha Jadhav coasted to victory with 114 votes, while the Congress-NCP combine’s Priscilla Kadam could manage just 95 votes in an all-women race. The Shiv Sena also managed a coup of sorts when it got six corporators from Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to abstain from voting. There are 224 corporators, who are eligible to vote in the BMC. Jadhav replaces outgoing mayor Shubha Raul, also from the Shiv Sena. The Congress’ attempts to seize the mayor’s post from the Sena is seen as a personal defeat for Maharashtra Revenue Minister. — TNS
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New Delhi/Jaipur, December 1
