New Delhi, January 6
Ahead of the Budget session that the BJP is threatening to disrupt over the 2G Spectrum issue, the government is bracing to puncture the Opposition’s strategy in the matter by preparing a defence and “exposing” the BJP’s role in the issue.

Reiterating the UPA’s “no-JPC” stand in the multi-crore telecom scam which cost the nation an entire winter session, senior Congressman and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said there was no question of a rethink on the JPC probe and the government would soon go to the people with the entire truth of the Telecom Policy right from 2001 when the NDA was in power.

Already, as of today, the Telecom Ministry has collected Rs 93 crore worth of penalty from telecom defaulters who had earlier been put on a notice. “The amount to be recovered is Rs 219 crore and we have already recovered 45 per cent. The JPC would have asked us to issue notices six months after deliberating on the issue. It would have asked us to recover losses to the exchequer months later. We have already done all that,” Kapil Sibal today said, adding that the Opposition’s JPC demand had no relevance any longer because the CBI was already investigating the matter; the Public Accounts Committee was examining its financial ramifications and the Telecom Ministry was making recoveries.

The government’s counter strategy of “going to people with the truth of telecom policy” comes at a time when the BJP is holding nationwide anti-corruption rallies with specific focus on the 2G Spectrum allocation which cost the nation Rs 1.76 lakh crore, according to the CAG. Importantly, Sibal today went on to question CAG estimates saying the listed figure was humungous and needed to be explained. “CAG says it is presumptive loss. But we need to know what the real loss is. That’s what we will tell the people because the Opposition has not given us a chance to debate the issue in the Parliament,” Sibal said.

The so-called truth the government wants to reveal would cover the following aspects of telecom sector: why was the telecom policy changed; why was a new policy framework brought; why was revenue sharing model adopted in telecom licensing; what was the loss to the Government exchequer due to adoption of this model; who all were involved in the process and where; what was the level of people’s empowerment following changes in policy and what was the extent of financial gain to the customers.

“Just wait for few days. We will make an interesting expose,” the minister said, accusing the BJP-led opposition of being rigid. He said since the winter session, the government had moved down several notches on the issue -- offering an empowered PAC probe into the 2G issue, a special session and an SC-monitored probe.

“But the Opposition did not budge an inch. Now it is our turn to go to the people,” Sibal said expressing hope that the Budget session would go on smoothly.

New Delhi, January 6
With speculations growing of differences between UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue, the Rural Development Ministry today hurriedly announced a new structure for payment of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that would be linked to inflation.

The announcement, coming right after Prime Minister’s terse reply to Sonia expressing his inability to link payment under MGNREGA to the Minimum Wages Act, however, has not impressed some National Advisory Council (NAC) members, who say the matter would be discussed at the next meeting as some basic issues still remained unresolved.

Meanwhile, as per the revised structure, wages under MGNREGA will go up between 17-30 per cent on the base of Rs 100 for the present. “The revised wages came into effect from January 1 keeping the index in Consumer Price Index as the basis,” Rural Development Minister CP Joshi said at a hurriedly-called press conference.

Joshi said the money a labourer would earn after the wage revision was much more than what at least 20 states were paying as minimum wages. He also asserted that the government was ready to meet additional expense of Rs 3,500 crore, which would be incurred on account of the wage revision between January and March.

Asserting that there were no differences between the Congress president and the Prime Minister on the issue, Joshi explained the wage revision was in fact an outcome of detailed discussions between the two and NAC’s recommendations had been already been considered before the government decided to come out with the wage revision.

Sources, however, say the exercise was aimed at boosting the image of the government in the wake of Prime Minister terse reply.

The Congress president, in her capacity as the NAC chairperson, had written to the Prime Minister saying payment of minimum wages by the states as prescribed under the Minimum Wages Act be ensured under MGNREGA.

New Delhi, January 6
Defence Minister AK Antony is expected to okay a request of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament to send the three Service Chiefs to be present before the PAC - the most powerful watchdog financial committee of both the Houses.

Sources said the Chief of Staffs Committee (COSC) Air Chief Marshall PV Naik and Antony will discuss the matter tomorrow. The three Chiefs, sources said, have been asked by the PAC to be present at the meeting of the committee on January 12 when a matter related to the canteen stores department of the Services is discussed.

It is not that the Chiefs will be presenting something or will be probed, only their presence is needed, a source said while adding that Antony today sought a clarification from the PAC if the three of the top brass were needed or would it suffice if the Vice Chiefs are present.

Normally, it is the Vice Chiefs or the Defence Secretary who is detailed to attend PAC meetings. This is for the first time that the PAC had summoned the Chiefs of the three Services together. In the past there have been instances when one of the Chiefs has been called by the PAC.

Earlier this morning, Indian Army Chief General V.K. Singh denied having received any summons from the PAC. 

New Delhi, January 6
In an effort to increase the pace of constructing warships and submarines for the Navy, the Defence Ministry this evening announced a key turnaround in its policy.

The ministry made it clear that it would ask private shipyards to participate in building warships and submarines. Clearly, this work would no more be the exclusive domain of four Defence Ministry-owned shipyards now. The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) has been amended, the ministry announced late this evening by posting the same on its website. The move comes in the backdrop of the slow-paced and old-method of construction offered by public sector shipyards. Separately, sources said the ministry had initiated a modernisation plan to upgrade its owned shipyards starting with the Mumbai-based Mazagon docks limited - it is here that the six Scorpene submarines and stealth frigates are being constructed. The state-owned shipyards would be upgraded to match the best in the world.

Under today policy shift there would be open competition from bidders for warships and submarines. The last bit indicates that India could ask a private shipyard to build the forthcoming lot of submarines that would have air independent propulsion (AIP) technology - allowing longer submergence periods. It also shows government’s keenness to match China’s frantic pace of ship and submarine building.

In a way, Defence Minister AK Antony has lived up to his promise of enabling faster ship building, as demanded by the Navy. In November last, Antony had hinted at the impending change. He had told defence shipyards “…from now on …there will be no hand holding and no nominations”. Till now, one of the defence shipyards used to be nominated for construction of a particular type of warship.

New Delhi, January 6
Hazardous lead-based paints have a huge market in India with 30 million new houses on offer by the booming real estate sector.

Talking to The Tribune a day after the Quality Council of India (QCI)-initiated study revealed shocking findings of lethal lead levels in majority of enamel paints available in the country, council’s secretary general Giridhar Gyani said a regulation in that respect was urgently needed as its absence would erode country’s economic gains.

The council had earlier commissioned a study that showed that 53.5 per cent of schoolchildren below 12 years of age in metros had much higher lead concentration levels in their blood sugar than was tolerable.

The study titled “Project Lead Free” was conducted for over five years on a sample of 23,500 children in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. It revealed that average lead concentrations in new enamel paints in India was the highest - around 85,000 ppm in yellow paints (most dangerous to health); white and other lighter paints were safer at a lower lead concentration of 1,330 ppm. As already reported by The Tribune yesterday, the Bureau of Indian Standards terms 1,000 ppm to be the permissible limit of lead content in paints. But it does not make adherence to this limit mandatory in the absence of any law.

In fact, China, India and Malaysia have been found to be the most vulnerable to lead poisoning. Another study has shown that over 80 new paints from these countries used in houses have unacceptably high levels exceeding 1,000 ppm. Venkatesh Thuppil, principal adviser to the QCI, who led the study, said lead was hitting children’s IQs so adversely that when calculated in economic terms, the annual loss till 2015 could be pegged at around Rs 600 crore.

The QCI, in association with the National Bal Bhavan, has now started spreading awareness among schools regarding adverse effects of lead exposure on children. Meetings are being planned with the Environment Ministry to build pressure for a regulation for the paint industry.

So far as the top enamel brands of India go, most of them, except Asian Paints, report heavy lead concentration which is much above the acceptable limit of 1,000 ppm in India. 

New Delhi, January 6
A Delhi court today sentenced five members of the Pakistan-based banned terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) to life imprisonment for their involvement in terror activities.

This is the first case in which suspects were tried under POTA in the capital and the court issued its order.

Terming the convicts as ‘merchants of death and destruction’, Additional Sessions Judge R K Gauba said, “These foot soldiers of forces bent upon to sabotage the peace and tranquillity in India, have to be neutralised…In order that they are suitably de-fanged and blunted so as to be of no further use to the enemy.” The court imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on each lifers - Noor Mohammad Tantre, Pervaiz Ahmed Mir, Faroz Ahmed Bhat, all from the Kashmir valley, and two brothers Atiq-uz-Zama and Raees-uz-Zama.

It further dismissed the plea of defence counsel MS Khan which had sought a lenient view on the ground that they had already spent over seven years in jail and had families to look after.