New Delhi, August 23
The CBI is quietly looking into a slew of corruption charges levelled against a number of government agencies and Commonwealth Games officials, but will take “active measures” only after the Games are over.

Sources said there could be registration of more FIRs after the Games as the government believed that the priority right now was to ensure that the Games were successful and probing the allegations and catching the accused could wait.

However, it has also led to apprehensions in some quarters that it could be too late by then as the accused officials would find enough time to cover their tracks.

Official sources said there was so much of information even in the public domain, ranging from paying ridiculously high prices for purchase and hiring of materials to favouring the chosen few, which hinted at corruption, but it could be established only after getting hold of all documents, questioning officials, private parties and surveying their assets.

“It is difficult to do so now when preparations are in full swing. Even among the political parties there is a consensus that the priority is to host the Games successfully and spare the country any blushes. Any action now can be counter-productive,” an official said.

The CBI has so far registered an FIR against Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials and a private firm for suspected corruption in a streetlight project. The agency registered a case on the directions of the Central Vigilance Commission after it found the private firm was allowed to change terms of contracts by manipulating documents so as to ensure more profits for them.

The project was about upgrading streetlights along the city roads. Although not directly connected with the CWG, the project was among a number of beautification projects worth hundreds of crores undertaken in the city by various agencies to give the National Capital a facelift before the Games.

The CVC had found serious irregularities like award of work at higher rates to bidders, poor quality of construction and grating work to otherwise ineligible agencies. The nodal agency for the anti-corruption drive had found large-scale irregularities in 17 projects and asked vigilance wings of different agencies to probe the matter.

Patna, August 23
A Punjab Police team was here in search of one of their fellow cops, a head constable, who went missing in the state in the course of a train journey from Amritsar to Howrah on July 14.

Karamjeet Singh, a native of Mahlawala village under Jhander police station of Amritsar district, was the part of a six-member Punjab Police party deputed to escort as many illegal Bangladeshis from Amritsar to Howrah by a direct train. The immigrants were caught in Punjab and were to be handed over to the West Bengal Police for being deported to their country.

The train they were travelling in — Amritsar-Howrah express, commonly known as Punjab mail in the area — was stranded for about four hours before reaching Patna junction that day. Karamjeet and a few of his colleagues had stepped out of the train along with many other passengers to eat something. When the train started, Karamjeet did not return. His colleagues thought he might have boarded some other coach. And when he didn’t return even at next stoppage, they thought he had missed the train and boarded one for Amritsar.

But when they returned back and checked for Karamjeet with his family, they were surprised to find that neither had he returned home nor had called up his family despite possessing a cellphone.

Thereafter, the police high-ups were informed and a one of the team members came to Patna to lodge a formal FIR with the General Railway Police here on July 25. And a month on, Karamjeet still lies untraceable. He was not carrying any arms or ammunition and the cellphone he had was found working from July 17-28. The calls from the mobile phone were made from Patna and its neighbouring districts.

New Delhi, August 23
In response to requests received from mediapersons, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni has constituted a committee to study the feasibility of granting accreditation to journalists working outside Delhi.

The committee shall also look into the processes likely to be involved for considering the matter, an official release said.Under the terms of reference, the panel shall give its recommendations within a period of six months from the date of its constitution on August 20. Principal Director-General (Media and Communications) at the Press Information Bureau shall convene the meetings of the committee.

The constituted committee has been mandated to give its recommendations to the secretary in the ministry within the stipulated time frame of six months.

The members of the committee are: Raj Chengappa, Editor-in-Chief, The Tribune; Navika Kumar, Political and Economic Editor, Times Now; Asad Raza, Chief of Bureau, Rozana Rashtriya Sahara, Sachidananda Murthy, Resident Editor (Delhi), Malayala Manorama; Dinkar Raikar, Group Editor, Lok Mat, Mumbai; Aditya Sinha, Editor-in-Chief, New Indian Express, Chennai; Asim Ali Khan, Editor, Siasat, Hyderabad; and Kanaksen Deka, Editor, Dainik Agradoot, Guwahati. 

Patna, August 23
They have a tough electoral contest ahead, but Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his rivals Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan are also jostling for supremacy in Bihar's rakhi markets. A day ahead of the festival, rakhis named after the three were doing brisk business today with reports that Nitish Kumar had a slight edge.

“Demand of rakhis with pictures of Nitish, Lalu and Paswan are high among girls, youth and children,” Santosh Kumar, a shopkeeper here, said a day ahead of Raksha Bandhan, where sisters tie decorative threads on their brother's wrist as a symbol of sibling love. While the Chief Minister belongs to the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), Lalu Prasad heads the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Paswan is chief of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

Rakumar Chandrawanshi, a wholesaler of rakhis, said rakhis with Nitish Kumar's pictures, locally known as Nitish rakhis, are selling like hot cakes. “It is the first preference for people...more popular than those named after Lalu and Paswan. All three are fighting a close battle in the rakhis market,” he said.

Mantu Singh, another shopkeeper, said these special rakhis were particularly popular among children and the youth. With hardly two months to go for the Bihar Assembly polls, there are several makeshift stalls selling rakhis named after the state' leading politicians and shopkeepers say many come just to have a look at these special items.

This is not the first time the Lalu brand has been used to spin money. Lalu rakhis hit markets four years ago and got a good response. Apart from rakhis, the Bihar's rural markets have seen Lalu dolls, Lalu chocolates, Lalu fodder and Lalu cosmetics as well. Firecrackers named after Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar were sold ahead of Diwali a few years ago. — IANS

More than a fortnight after the August 6 calamity struck Leh, the health authorities here have set up an epidemic surveillance system to monitor disease outbreak in the aftermath of the disaster.

The district health officials said there was no outbreak so far, but in the event of the tragedy that struck Leh, future epidemic possibilities could not be ruled out. The surveillance has been set up in the office of chief medical officer, Leh, and has started collecting health data from the 23 affected villages of the area and downtown Leh, which has been wiped out.

Aiding the local team in the effort is a group led by experts from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), New Delhi, which is providing all technical help needed. The experts said reports of cholera and typhoid outbreaks in Leh were incorrect. However, future possibility of severe health challenges existed, district health officer, Leh, Dr P. Wangchuk told The Tribune. Surveillance would cover instances of diarrhoea, fever with rashes to watch out for diseases like measles, acute jaundice and acute respiratory infections, which were common to high-altitude regions.

Temperatures being low, vector-borne diseases were not a challenge in Leh, but contaminated water sources were a huge public health threat. The district has projected a requirement of seven lakh chlorine tablets to immediately disinfect drinking water sources. So far, two lakh tablets have come. A consignment of 10 lakh tablets was expected shortly, said the health officials. Only three out of about 16 camps have makeshift toilets and people were openly practicing open defecation. The administration has now distributed bleaching powder for spraying in open toilet areas around camps and water bodies, but hardly anyone was found using them. Asked whether untraced bodies buried under the debris were a cause of concern, Wangchuk said the bodies were close to 12 feet below ground and there was no fear of infection from them.

Doctors were now relying on local radio to flash messages of hygiene, asking people to wash hands every time they eat. “We have got lakhs of pamphlets printed and are using ASHAs and ICDS workers to distribute them. By a week, we will know the disease trends through surveillance, though we can see gastro cases rising slightly,” Wangchuk told TNS.

The NICD experts, meanwhile said, all-out efforts were on to prevent an outbreak. “Most water supply chains have been disinfected,” said an NICD, Delhi expert. 

New Delhi, August 23
Even as the US nudges India to downgrade its ties with Iran, New Delhi has proposed to the Islamic Republic an early meeting of Joint Working Group (JWG) on oil and gas, thus reviving hopes of its participation in the ambitious Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.

Official sources here today asserted that India was still keen to participate in the pipeline project, provided all its concerns were satisfactorily addressed.

‘’It’s absolutely wrong to say that India has backed out of the pipeline project…we are still working towards it,’’ the sources said, adding there were several technical issues which were yet to be resolved. Given the sensitive nature of negotiations in view of the complex relationship between India and Pakistan, no deadline could, however, be set for settling all issues connected with the project.

The sources said that apart from an early convening of the JWG on oil and gas, New Delhi also desired a meeting of the India-Iran special group on the pipeline project. The pipeline project had figured during the foreign office consultations between Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Fathollahi and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao earlier this month. Later, the Iranian minister had told the media that Iran was keen on India’s participation in the project, which would result in a ‘win-win’ situation for all the three countries.

For more than a decade, the three countries have been negotiating the project under which Iran would send natural gas from its territory to the region. Yet geopolitical and commercial issues have repeatedly prevented the deal's fruition despite Tehran's growing need to diversify gas sales to Asian markets and Asian countries’ desire to find a stable, reliable source of gas supplies.

In recent years, India's participation in this project has become more uncertain because of Iran's repeated attempts to raise the price of gas, the US pressure on New Delhi to refrain from participating in the pipeline, external skepticism about Iranian capability to fill the pipeline as it promises, Indian concerns about the overall stability of Pakistan, and in particular, the possibility of terrorism in Pakistan's Balochistan province through which the pipeline would travel.

After years of negotiations, Islamabad and Tehran signed an agreement in March on the project, including the issuance by Pakistan of a ‘comfort letter’ that provided Iran with the assurance that India - or China - could be brought into the project later.

Both Iran and Pakistan now say that if India does not come on board soon, they would try to rope in China as the third party.

Under the ‘comfort letter’, the government of Pakistan would allow a third country to import gas through the pipeline, but the permission will be subject to the gas tariff and transit fee to be worked out as per best practices of that time.

Jaipur/Bhilwara, August 23
The mystery shrouding the vanishing of 61 trucks loaded with 300 tonne explosives delivered from the RECL, Dholpur, has deepened further as the police has neither succeeded in nabbing any of the accused nor in recovering the explosives. The Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh police departments are already facing the heat over the incident, as these had failed to monitor the movement of the consignment from Dholpur in desert state to Sagar in MP.

However, the police alone cannot be blamed for the entire episode. The supply system of the RECL lacks a mechanism to make sure that explosives reached genuine end users. RECL officials claim their responsibility is over with handing over of explosives to the registered agents.

Meanwhile, with the needle of suspicion now strongly pointing towards Bhilwara trader Shiv Charan Heda, the role of police in the textile city has also come under scanner. Questions are being raised as to how the entry of explosives into the district went undetected, particularly when the police itself has claimed that 26 out of 61 trucks were diverted to Heda’s firms - Ajay Explosives and BM Traders - in Bhilwara.

Hyderabad, August 23
Itching for a showdown with the Congress high command, rebel MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is gearing up for the third phase of his controversial “Odarpu Yatra” from September 3.

The party leadership has warned the restive leader against taking up the yatra as it would be seen as a campaign against Chief Minister K Rosaiah. However, Jagan, who is desperate to claim the political legacy of his father and former CM late YS Rajasekhar Reddy, has ignored the threat of disciplinary action.

“There is no question of calling off the yatra. He will resume it in Prakasam district on September 3 as per the orginal schedule,” Jagan’s close aide and Andhra Pradesh Mines Minister B Srinivas Reddy said.

Though the tour is ostensibly meant to console families of those who died of shock or committed suicide following YSR’s death in a helicopter crash on September 2 last year, its political overtones have left no one in doubt about Jagan’s chief ministerial ambitions.

Soon after the death of his father, Jagan allowed an emotional campaign to be orchestrated on his behalf to claim his father’s political legacy. His loyalists have been giving pinpricks to Rosaiah, a non-controversial loyalist picked by the party president Sonia Gandhi for the coveted post.

The Congress high command is worried about his continued defiance.