New Delhi, December 14
A day after the curtain fell on the wasted Winter Session of Parliament, the government and the Opposition continued to squabble over who caused the no-show after all, with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) today not just hitting out at the Congress for triggering the parliamentary fiasco but even daring it to hold mid-term elections if it can after the Bihar drubbing.

“A senior UPA minister has started this mid-term poll talk deliberately to dent the Opposition unity on the JPC demand into the 2G spectrum scam. MPs don’t want elections right now as the 15th Lok Sabha is only one and a half years old. I don’t understand who will afford elections at this time when Bihar election results have reflected the general mood of the country,” senior BJP leader and NDA working chairman L K Advani today said needling the Congress as he stepped up the Opposition’s demand for a JPC probe. He even hinted at trouble at the Budget Session unless a JPC was constituted.

Flanked by NDA partners -- JDU’s Sharad Yadav, SAD’s Naresh Gujral and Shiv Sena’s Anant Geete -- the BJP stalwart recalled how the JPC had earlier been constituted for lesser issues. “And here’s a humongous scam involving public money and issues of propriety. Even the PM doesn’t know many things… portfolios are being decided by others. He is more worried about plugging leakages of Radia tapes. I am shocked,” Advani said.

Under the sharp winter sun at Yadav’s Tuglaq Road residence, NDA partners later also issued a scathing statement saying, “The UPA under an apparently honest PM has surpassed all benchmarks… on corruption.”

Meanwhile, in the run-up to the Budget Session, the BJP today announced a nationwide schedule of anti-corruption rallies to corner the UPA. Beginning in Delhi from December 22, the rallies will hit Ludhiana, Rohtak, Jaipur, Lucknow, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Bangalore is predictably absent from the list, with Advani skirting queries on the BJP’s scam-tainted BS Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka.

New Delhi, December 14
The Opposition’s upcoming campaign against the UPA government on the issue of corruption will be countered aggressively by the Congress through a nationwide programme, which is expected to be announced at the AICC plenary session being held here from December 18-20.

The plenary is expected to launch a scathing attack against the BJP for disrupting the entire winter session of Parliament over its unreasonable demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the 2G spectrum issue and its refusal to discuss the matter. The party will retaliate by referring to the questionable decisions taken by the BJP ministers in the telecom sector when the NDA was in power, the misdemeanours of the Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka and the Tehelka sting operation.

With the NDA today announcing details about its nationwide rallies, the Congress said it is all set to take on this challenge and will also hit the streets to expose the opposition and place all facts before the people. “The Congress is ready for every challenge and in the coming days it will actively take all issues to the people and expose the real intentions of the BJP,” AICC media department chief Janardan Dwivedi told mediapersons today.

Taking a cue from Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s speech to party MPs yesterday in which she heaped praise on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “wise leadership”, the plenary is also expected to come out in his full support.

With Sonia already setting the tone in her hard-hitting address, Dwivedi today was equally strident in his criticism of the BJP even as he scotched opposition-inspired speculation about any differences between the Congress President and the Prime Minister. “There cannot be a bigger lie than this. Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister have a perfect understanding...in fact, there cannot be better understanding between the two as it exists today,” he underlined. Taking a swipe at the BJP, he reminded the principal opposition party about the “relations between the PM and the deputy PM” during the NDA regime.

Hitting out at the BJP for disrupting the entire winter session and its unwillingness to discuss the issues in Parliament, Dwivedi said this was tantamount to insulting the institution of Parliament. “The question is not what happened with regard to the 2G spectrum allocation,” he said, adding that the UPA government had repeatedly said that the matter is already under investigation and it will not hesitate to take action against the guilty. Mocking the BJP’s proposed campaign against the UPA, Dwivedi said it appeared that the saffron party was running out of patience and “finds the coming four years too long.”

New Delhi, December 14
In an important confidence building measure, India and China are expected to announce the launch of a significant initiative in the education sector during Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to New Delhi from tomorrow: teaching of Chinese language in middle schools in India from the next academic year. Both New Delhi and Beijing are quite excited about the initiative, for which China has offered every possible assistance.

Senior Indian officials say the introduction of Chinese in schools will increase trust between the two countries. It would help prepare the younger generation to understand China better.

In order to reflect the importance China attached to the initiative, the Chinese Premier, shortly after his arrival here tomorrow afternoon, would visit the Tagore International School in South Delhi to informally interact with schoolchildren and explain to them the various facets of Chinese culture. He is also expected to announce Beijing’s decision to provide textual and audio-visual material to Indian schools to help teach Chinese.

Tagore school has an important exchange programme with a Chinese school under which Indian teachers impart lessons to Chinese students in yoga through video-conferencing and Chinese teachers give Indian students lessons about calligraphy. A large number of Indian students are currently studying in China, particularly in the field of medicine. A good number of Chinese students are also studying in India in the field of IT and management.

The cultural diplomacy will also be in the spotlight when Wen and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh participate in the closing ceremony of the Festival of India at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium on Thursday evening.

On the economic front, Premier Wen’s visit is likely to yield a slew of commercial deals, which will help smooth relations between the two emerging economies. He is bringing with him the biggest-ever business delegation comprising some 400 industrialists. Diplomatic sources said the two sides were expected to sign more than 30 deals worth over 20 billion dollars.

Hyderabad, December 14
As the issue of withdrawal of cases against agitators rocked Andhra Pradesh Assembly for the third day today, nine legislators of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti were suspended from the House for the day when they obstructed the proceedings of the house demanding an unconditional withdrawal of all categories of cases booked against students during the agitation for a separate Telangana state.

Uproarious scenes prevailed in the House as TRS members frequently stormed the Speaker’s podium and stalled the proceedings. The unruly members had to be bodily lifted out by marshals after they refused to leave the hall despite repeated appeals by Deputy Speaker N Manohar.

Soon after their eviction from the House, the TRS legislators began a sit-in at Telangana martyrs' memorial at Gun Park in front of the Assembly building. Holding placards and raising slogans, they demanded that the government should withdraw all the cases.

Supporting their demand, the other opposition parties-TDP, CPI, CPI-M and the BJP-staged a walkout protesting against the government’s inadequate response. The government had yesterday announced in the Assembly withdrawal of some of the cases, involving petty crimes, against students and others who participated in the competitive agitations for and against Telangana state.

A total of 1,667 cases were registered against 8,047 people during the protests that rocked the state between December 2009 and September this year. Of them, 562 cases against 2,436 people have been withdrawn and decision on the remaining ones would be taken after a close case-by-case examination, the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy said.

New Delhi, December 14
The just-concluded winter session of Parliament can be termed as the worst in the past 25 years of parliamentary history. Disrupted for its entire duration of 24 sittings each in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, it ranks at the bottom of the heap among 82 sessions held since 1985.

The data collected by PRS Legislative Research, which The Tribune has accessed, shows findings of the worst performers among sessions based on the “Resume of Work” details of the two Houses. Resume of Work gives a real time lowdown on which session achieved what in terms of productive time.

Both the Houses this time saw protests on the Opposition’s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the 2G Scam. The Resume of Work of the two Houses reveals that the Lok Sabha worked for 7.37 hours, 5.5 per cent of the total available time (which was 138 hours in the LS which saw 23 actual sittings in winter session after one was cancelled for Chhat prayers), while the Rajya Sabha worked for 2.44 hours, just 2.4 per cent of the available time (the House had to sit for 120 hours at the rate of five hours for each of the 24 days of sittings). These percentages are the lowest in 25 years.

The 8th Lok Sabha, despite the Bofors issue (into which a JPC was formed) worked for more than 100 per cent of the available time in 13 of the 14 sessions it saw. In the 13th LS also, when issues such as the Ketan Parikh stock scam and the Tehelka expose rocked the Parliament, the lowest percentage of working hours in any session was 59.

If all sessions that sat for more than five working days are compared, the current session recorded the worst performance. Two other sessions that saw low performances were the 10th LS in November, 1995, (House sat for 36 per cent of the available time) when the telecom controversy involving Sukhram as the minister came up and the 14th LS in June, 2004, when the Opposition accused the UPA of appointing tainted MPs as ministers (namely Shibhu Soren and Lalu Yadav accused in a murder case and the fodder scam, respectively). In that session, the House sat for 33 per cent of the available time.

New Delhi, December 14
An anguished Supreme Court today came down heavily on Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh calling as “anachronistic” and “incongruous” his interference in shielding a Congress MLA’s family from money lending complaints by poor farmers when he was Maharashtra Chief Minister.

A bench of justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly while “condemning” the action of Deshmukh in no uncertain terms with some hard hitting observations also enhanced the fine to Rs 10 lakh from Rs 25,000 imposed by the Bombay High Court on the Maharashtra government.

The court directed that the fine amount collected should be used for the welfare of the distressed farmers. The court said the action of Deshmukh, now the Union Industries Minister, was condemnable as he acted beyond “all legal norms” for “political consideration” despite Vidharbha region having the dubious distinction of the largest number of farmers’ suicides. — PTI

BRIEFLY

No reason to lie: Digvijay
GUWAHATI: AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh on Tuesday said he had no reason to tell a lie regarding the call he had received from slain Mumbai police officer Hemant Karkare. He said he had requested the BSNL to provide him with the call record of that particular day, but “I have got in written from the ministry saying the BSNL does not keep records older than 12 months.” — TNS

Satyananda Mishra to be new CIC
NEW DELHI: Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra will be the new chief of the Central Information Commission, replacing CIC AN Tiwari. Mishra, a former IAS officer of 1973 batch, Madhya Pradesh cadre, was likely to take charge as the Chief Information Commissioner on December 20, official sources said. Tiwari’s term as the CIC expires on December 19. — PTI

Cash-at-judge’s-door scam
CHANDIGARH: A local court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing in the case pertaining to cash-at-judge’s door scam till January 15. It was stated that the prosecution sanction is awaited from the Law Ministry and president’s secretariat for initiating prosecution against Justice Nirmal Yadav. — TNS

HC dismisses Kasab’s plea
MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday dismissed Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab’s plea to order an inquiry to determine whether he was a juvenile even as prosecution sought confirmation of death penalty awarded to him in the 26/11 terror attacks. The court also asked prosecution to file reply on Wednesday to another petition filed by Kasab seeking constitution of medical board to study his psychological profile and mental frame of mind. — PTI

Amit Shah-related case stalled
New Delhi: The CBI, which is investigating the alleged role of former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah in the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a fake encounter, on Tuesday got the trial stalled in a related case. The Gujarat Government assured the Supreme Court that it would refrain from going ahead with the trial of some senior police officials in the killing of Tulsiram Prajapati, a crucial witness in the Sohrabuddin case. — TNS