New Delhi, March 26
Without naming Pakistan, India today said a neighbouring country had strongly resisted its bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

India also warned that ”weak or failing states” in its neighbourhood pose a threat to its security. “India feels very strongly that there is a need for an expansion of the Security Council in both categories --- permanent and non-permanent,” Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said here.

He also called for strengthening of the UN General Assembly as the primary inter-governmental legislative body. “It has become too often a rhetorical forum, or a declaratory forum rather than one which acts as a legislative body which drives the action of the UN organisation,” he said.

The minister was speaking at a seminar titled ‘India’s place in the multi-polar World’. The seminar was organised by the Alfred Herrhausen Society (International Forum for Deutche Bank), Policy Network, London, and the Indian Council for World Affairs (ICWA).

“UN reform is sort of like a malady where all the doctors gather around the patient, and they all agree on the diagnosis, but they can’t agree on the prescription,” he said, while calling for a fresh momentum for UN reforms.

“That is the problem we’ve been facing for the last 18 years of debate on UN reform, since the General Assembly took it on the agenda in 1992 but which we are seeking to supplant with a more serious discussion in the General Assembly plenary,” he said. “In India, we know that we have a neighbour who has strongly resisted any proposal that could see us become a permanent member, and we know that Japan has similar problems with its East Asian neighbours,” Tharoor said, alluding to regional rivalries that stalled the process of reform of the UN Security Council.

Underlining the problem of global terrorism, Tharoor said its appeal might diminish if economic opportunities for youth are increased and greater political pluralism is offered in many societies.

“But in saying this, I am conscious that India’s story could be seriously affected by the failure of other countries in our neighbourhood to do either,” he said in an obvious reference to Pakistan. “Weak or failing states are a major threat to their neighbours. India sees its own security in the promotion of the security and prosperity of our neighbours,” he said.

Jaipur/Dausa, March 26
In a significant development, the Gujjars, who were staging a mass siege at Gazipur in Dausa over quota tangle, have decided to postpone their proposed march to Jaipur and send an 11-member delegation to hold talks with the state government to resolve the issue.

Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla has opted to stay out of the delegation and has sent second-rung leaders to hold a dialogue with the state government. Talking to The Tribune, Bainsla said: “Let our delegation first meet the state government officials. If I see any possibility of finding a viable solution to the problem after their meeting, I will visit Jaipur to clinch the issue with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.” He clarified that their Mahapadav (mass siege) at Gazipur will continue and they have only put off their plan to march to Jaipur. “We will decide our future course of action on the basis of outcome of the talks,” Bainsla said.

Earlier in the morning, the state government intensified its efforts to prevent a violent stir, designating several officials to open channels of dialogue with Bainsla and his aides. The two sides agreed to hold talks merely a few hours before the expiry of the Gujjar leader’s ultimatum to the government. Bainsla held hectic parleys with his supporters at the Dev Narayan Temple in Gazipur before announcing his decision even as a few hundred members of Gujjar community staged mass siege, awaiting further instructions.

Bainsla may have been sticking to his guns there is no denying the fact that the face of the two notable Gujjar stirs in Rajasthan is facing stiff resistance from within his community this time. His rivals in the BJP are also exploiting the situation to the hilt by staying out of the agitation. The fact that Bainsla suddenly opted to stage a Mahapadav (mass siege) at Gazipur in Dausa instead of Pushkar in Ajmer, as announced by him earlier, points towards his declining clout among his men. According to sources, the venue for Mahapadav was changed reportedly due to lack of support from the community in Ajmer, Bhilwara and adjoining districts.

While Mehant Bhudev Das Maharaj of Bhilwara, a religious leader of the Gujjars, has openly come out against Bainsla’s appeal for the Mahapadav, Gujjar MLA from Kotputli Ramswaroop Kasana yesterday took out a peace march in Jaipur to counter Bainsla.

New Delhi, March 26
When Jaya Bachchan took off on a grumpy note this evening, she didn’t surprise anybody. That’s how she is when you ask her to do the explaining for controversies hounding others in her life.

So what if she’s Amitabh Bachchan’s wife. The actor can defend himself on the Bandra-Worli sea-link controversy. And if you want Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh’s take on Women’s Reservation Bill, you trail the Yadav, why ask Jaya. “I’m not here to speak for Amitabh or Mulayamji. I am here to talk about myself. Ask me about my hair, my dress, whatever…” that was Rajya Sabha Member Jaya for us today at the Indian Women Press Corps, which held a crowd 10 times its capacity, most wanting a piece of Jaya’s mind on the sea-link controversy.

No favours were granted, except a reference of disgust for Mulayam’s recent remark that women in Parliament would be whistled at. Asked how she felt about the remark, Jaya retorted, “As you did.” That much politics Jaya has picked up, though she admits electoral politics is not her cup of tea (to that extent the quota law doesn’t affect her).

“I can’t handle politics. I am impatient…?” says the parliamentarian, seldom seen in Parliament. Her term in Rajya Sabha expires in two months and she has no future plans. “Why?” — “What if someone presses the nuclear button and the world ends?” asks Jaya.

One thing she’s sure of is her angst over family friend Amar Singh’s absence from the party. “I don’t like his absence,” said a reticent Jaya, hinting at her exit from SP after the expiry of RS term. Without Amar, it wouldn’t be ethical for her to stay on.

It was he after all who offered her the RS seat. Left to her, she didn’t even know which party to join: “SP invited me and I came. No one else offered,” said Jaya, not quite swearing even by marriage. She wouldn’t have married had it not been for love.

“But girls today needn’t marry to fulfill their desires as women. It’s fine to not have kids?” said Jaya, admitting that falling in love is a painful process. She lived it 38 years and is happy to have Aishwarya Rai for company. Someday she hopes she’ll do a film with Ash.

Hyderabad, March 26
Disagreeing with the apex court’s contention that live-in relationship could not be construed as an offence, the BJP on Wednesday said such an arrangement was against the basic tenets of Indian culture and traditions.

“Such prescriptions are not acceptable. They encourage the youth to resort to unethical practices and lead to degeneration of moral values,” senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters here. He argued that pre-marital sex was an offence and totally unacceptable to Indian society. “Pre-marital sex will corrupt the young minds,” Naidu said.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday observed that a man and woman living together without marriage could not be treated as a crime. While dealing with a special leave petition filed by Tamil actress Khusboo seeking to quash criminal cases filed against her, the court also commented that pre-marital sex between two consenting adults was not an offence.

Mumbai, March 26
It was a birthday gift Satish Sawant gave himself after years of hard labour, but saw the treasured possession, a Tata Nano, go up in flames within minutes of purchasing it.

When the software company employee took delivery of Tata's dream car Nano last Sunday from its showroom at Prabhadevi, he had no inkling of how nightmarish the drive back home to Mulund would be.

"I was at the steering with a driver from the showroom sitting next to me, while my wife Nutan and son Vedant were on the rear seat when the AC suddenly stopped working. Though it restarted on its own soon after, my wife felt the stench of something burning when we reached Mulund-Airoli bridge," Sawant said.

Soon they saw smoke coming out from the rear of the car where its engine is located and immediately stopped it on the eastern expressway, hardly five minutes drive from his Mulund home.

"Alarmed, all of us got out of the car and I had barely managed to pull out the documents from the glove box when the vehicle was up in flames. Thankfully, none of us was brought to any harm," said Sawant, who turned 37 two days later. — PTI

Kolkata, March 26
A huge quantity of small arms and ammunition was gutted in a fire which broke out early today in one of the largest ammunition depots of Indian Army at Panagarh in West Bengal's Burdwan district but there was no loss of life.

The fire gutted the storehouse containing a large quantity of small arms and ammunition, a defence spokesman said here.

There was panic among villagers living in areas around the army establishment after they heard the deafening sounds of explosions in the storehouse and they came out in the open in the dead of night.

"The fire broke out in shed number 16 (storehouse) of the depot at 1.30 am. Within five minutes, the entire fire-fighting machinery of the army was activated to battle the blaze," Wing Commander M Upasani of Eastern Command said.

The blaze was controlled around 3.30 am but the shed was totally destroyed, he said, adding that there was no loss of life or injury.

A crisis-management team of the army, led by Colonel AD Sethi, rushed to the site and helped in controlling the fire while Maj Gen Chowdhury of the Eastern Command reached there for an immediate probe.

The cause of the fire was not known, Upasani said.

Sources said nine fire tenders from Panagarh and Durgapur were engaged in the fire-fighting exercise.

Panagarh, about 120 km from here, is also an important air force base. — PTI

New Delhi, March 26
In a case that has raised the larger question of territorial jurisdiction for resolving marital discords of NRI couples, the Supreme Court today temporarily allowed the custody of a child with the mother staying in India despite the Interpol, acting on an American court order, having issued a red corner alert for restoring the child to the father, who is living in the US.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan ordered “status quo” on the custody of the nine-year-old child studying in the city after Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaisingh contended that the case showed the typical problems being faced by Indian women married to non-resident Indians or persons of Indian origin (PIO) staying abroad.

The Bench, which included Justices JM Panchal and Deepak Verma, issued the order on a petition filed by the mother, challenging this year’s March 8 judgment of Delhi High Court. The HC has ruled that courts in India had no jurisdiction over family disputes of foreign nationals born in India.

The couple had married in India under the Hindu marriage Act in 1996 when the man was staying in the US and the woman in India. After the marriage, the woman also went to the US and the child was born there in 2001. Subsequently, all three became American citizens. However, the couple was not getting along. The woman claimed in her petition that in 2008, they visited India and her husband agreed to let her and the child stay back in Delhi so that she could carry on with her dental practice and the child could study here. However, he slapped a case in a US court claiming that she had kidnapped the child.

While a lower court in Delhi allowed the child’s custody with the mother, the HC quashed the order on the basis of jurisdiction.

The Railways have always remained a favourite target of the Naxals active in Jharkhand. Last year, 15 incidents were reported. All these incidents were reported during bandh calls given by the Naxals. This year also, rail property suffered heavy damage during several ‘red bandhs.’

On Monday this week, with the beginning of a 48-hour bandh by the CPI (Maoist) in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and three districts of Maharashtra, ‘red rebels’ blasted railway tracks in West Bengal and blew up a road bridge in Jharkhand to protest against anti-Naxal operations.

Landmines are Maoists’ most favourite weapons to target the police and paramilitary forces and their vehicles. The success rate of these landmines is reported to be quite high. The Naxals use women and children as lookouts to alert the ‘operators’ to blast these landmines. An increase of 720 per cent was noticed in the use of landmines last year, compared to 2008.

But the situation in Jharkhand is more complex. Unlike Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh , West Bengal and Orissa, Maoists here seem to be fighting among themselves to establish their supremacy in different parts of Jharkhand. The splinter groups appear to have split the arms, ammunition and money in equal measure, resulting in equally strong groups carving out their own pockets of influence and operation.

The CPI (Maoist) is the most formidable Naxal outfit active in the state. But over the past few years, even the CPI (Maoist) has seen desertions leading to the formation of the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), the Tritiya Sammellan Prastuti Committee (TSPC), the Jharkhand Prastuti Committee (JPC), the Jharkhand Liberation Tigers (JLT), the Sangharsh Jan Mukti Morcha (SJMM) and the Sashastra Peoples’ Morcha (SPM) etc..

Since 2008, the CPI (Maoist) alone is responsible for over 400 violence-related incidents, whereas the PLFI is responsible for about 90 and the TSPC for nearly 50 incidents.

The violence caused by the CPI (Maoist) last year had increased by 45.31 per cent, in comparison to 2008. In contrast, the violence caused by the TSPC, PLFI and the JPC had decreased by 33 per cent, 28.57 per cent and 36.84 per cent, respectively.

Tired of getting sandwiched between these groups and getting targeted by them, villagers have started resisting Maoists in many places. As many as fifteen ultras were killed by civilians in the state last year.

Jaipur, March 26
Even as states like Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra may have hit the headlines for farmer suicides in the past, it is Rajasthan where the number of farmer suicides has more than doubled over the last two years.

According to the latest National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) figures, 796 persons with farming background committed suicide in Rajasthan in 2008 as against 395 in 2006, which means a surge of over 100 per cent. Interestingly, during the same period, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have witnessed a significant decline in the number of farmer suicides. Also, other major farming states like UP and Punjab lag behind Rajasthan.

In 2006, agriculture-related suicides were 9.3 per cent of the total number of suicides in the desert state, which went up to 13.9 per cent in 2007 and 15.4 per cent in 2008.

As per the report, the total number of suicides by farmers has dipped nationally, but it has gone up in the country’s eight states - Rajasthan, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. The figures are important in view of the multi-crore loan waiver scheme offered by the Congress-led UPA government ahead of the last year’s Lok Sabha elections.

These figures, when seen in view of a recent report ‘Combined Finances of Union and State Governments’, bring to the fore the fact that all states that registered an increase in farmer suicides, except Chhattisgarh, had a very poor per capita expenditure on agriculture. Also, all states, except West Bengal, that recorded a fall have a very high per capita expenditure on agriculture.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan Agriculture Minister Harjiram Burdak claimed that the suicides had nothing to do with crop failure or rising debt, two factors largely blamed for such incidents in other parts of the country. His stand has not come as a surprise, particularly when the ruling Congress has been trying to project itself as pro-farmer ever since its ascent to power in December 2008.

Even in his recent Budget, CM Ashok Gehlot announced a slew of measures for the farmers.

Guwahati, March 26
The ruling Congress in Assam today won election to two of the Rajya Sabha seats from the state after seven Opposition MLAs, including four from the BJP, cross-voted defying their respective party whips to vote for the common Opposition candidate.

Opposition parties, including the BJP, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) accused the ruling Congress of murdering democracy and resorting to horse trading to win the election.

Congress candidates Nazneen Faruque (first preference) and Silvius Condpan (second preference) won the poll by securing 43 and 42 votes, respectively, while Opposition candidate Jayanta Baruah, a media baron, received only 40 votes. One vote was found invalid. Victory of Condpan would not have been possible if seven Opposition MLAs had not cross-voted.

Four BJP MLAs, Dr Rumi Nath, Abhijit Hazarika, Sambhu Sing Mallah and Kartiksena Sinha defied party’s whip to vote for common combined candidates. A local TV channel caught Assam Health Minister Dr Himanta Bishwa Sharma driving three of these BJP MLAs in his private car from a posh city hotel to cast their votes. Dr Sharma was accompanied by Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain.

BJP national general secretary and chief spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “I don’t have the slightest hesitation to say that in a state (Assam) which has elected Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to the Rajya Sabha, the democracy has been murdered there by the Congress, its Chief Minister and ministers.”

The four BJP MLAs had been suspended from the party and the Speaker of Assam Assembly would be moved on Saturday for their disqualification under the anti-defection law.

One of the AGP MLAs, Abdul Aziz, and two AIUDF MLAs, Rasul Hoque and Anwarul Hoque, also cross-voted in favour of Congress candidate Condpan. The AGP had already suspended Aziz from the party.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said Congress victory in RS poll was recognition of his government’s efforts for all-round development of the state. He said some MLAs from the Opposition had openly voted for the Congress as they did not like the common candidate of the Opposition.

New Delhi, March 26
Citing a commitment made in 1972 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to her Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Centre today pleaded with the Supreme Court for lifting the stay on limestone mining in Meghalaya.

French giant Lafarge was mining limestone for its cement unit in Bangladesh till February 5 this year when the apex court’s Forest Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan slapped a stay following a report by the Ministry of Environment and Forest that the company was extracting minerals from a forest area.

Arguing before the Bench, which included Justices SH Kapadia and Aftab Alam, Attorney-General GE Vahanvati said the Union Cabinet had also approved the mining that time. Accounting for 15 per cent of the GDP of Bangladesh, cement manufacturing played a vital role in the economic growth of the eastern neighbour. Also, the entire project relating to slum development had been affected by the stay. “This time, it will create a very serious problem,” Vahanvati contended.

Justice Kapadia was not impressed. Let the company “pay the market value” and take the limestone for which Lafarge was using a 17 km-long conveyor belt. Justice Alam raised another point: “You cannot do mining in the middle of the forest.”Responding to a query by the Bench, the AG said the company had invested $159 million by taking loans from international lenders and given contracts worth $100 million to two Indian companies.

Assisting the Bench in his capacity as amicus curiae, senior counsel Harish Salve said once the company was allowed to operate in 2007 it had started questioning the duties imposed on it. The company should follow the model of aluminium major Sterlite and part with a chunk of its revenue for the benefit of the tribal people hit by mining.

Listing the matter for further hearing on Monday, the Bench asked the two sides to discuss among themselves and come out with a viable solution.