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The Karnataka Crisis
Bhardwaj harassing a political opponent, says Jaitley
‘Protests if INS opposes wage boards’ proposal’
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No bitterness towards killers: Staines’ widow
Rajasthan ATS takes custody of Aseemanand
CAG to appear as witness in 2G scam
Andhra CM talks tough
Govt reduced to minority: Jagan camp
Mumbai hospitals on high alert after Congo fever scare
MHA babu chargesheeted for info leak
Decline in birds at Chilika Lake Airbus joins bid for mid-air refuellers Satellite to identify illegal constructions Jaitley gets special charge of Assam CISF strength to be reviewed Rlys seeks two-fold hike in budgetary support Suicides due to crop failure Terror shadow over Thackeray’s b’day
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PC backs Guv, denounces Oppn
Ashok Tuteja/TNS
New Delhi, January 22 "It is not the first time that a Governor has given his sanction to prosecute a chief minister or a minister. The law in this respect is clear and well-settled," he said in a statement here.
He also invited the BJP’s attention to the statement made by Mr Justice (Retd) Santosh Hegde, Lok Ayukta of Karnataka, who has observed that the Governor had the jurisdiction to grant sanction for prosecution. Therefore, the Home Minister said he was disappointed that the BJP has raised the decibel level and taken to the streets. “This is not correct and is totally unacceptable. The Government of Karnataka is obliged to maintain law and order in the state, not to standby when law and order is disrupted by party cadres or there are acts of violence. I have requested the Home Secretary, Government of India, to speak to the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, Karnataka in this regard.’’ He also cited the case of M.P. Special Police Establishment vs. State of Madhya Pradesh (2004 vol.8 SCC page 788). That was a case in which the then Governor of Madhya Pradesh Bhai Mahavir, overruled the advice of the Cabinet and granted sanction to prosecute two Ministers. A five-Judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld the order of the Governor. The Home Minister said he, however, was glad to note that the BJP no longer was saying that the alleged transgressions of law in Karnataka were “only immoral and not illegal.” Surely, the BJP knew the legal position. The BJP also knew that any person aggrieved by the order of the Governor could seek legal remedies. “Hence, it is my sincere hope that the BJP will advise its state unit to abide by the law and will advise the Government of Karnataka to discharge its constitutional obligation to maintain law and order.”
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Bhardwaj harassing a political opponent, says Jaitley
New Delhi, January 22 Speaking exclusively to The Tribune, Jaitley said, “The Governor has converted himself into an investigator and pre-empted all investigations by granting a sanction and asking private people to prosecute the Chief Minister.” The BJP leader in charge of Karnataka described the Governor “A political opponent wearing a constitutional hat and harassing a political opponent.” He said, “In federal politics when a person with a political background is appointed as a Governor, and he uses that partisan attitude to harass a state government, then it is not merely a constitutional authority exercising a constitutional function. It’s a political opponent wearing a constitutional hat and harassing a political opponent. This is improper.” Jaitley admitted to charges of corruption against Yedyurappa and Reddy brothers and said, “There have been some charges made against the government and the Chief Minister. We have no difficulty in those being honestly investigated. We, however, have a serious problem. Even when the investigations are being conducted, the Governor has converted himself into an investigator and pre-empted all investigations.” He described Governor Bhardwaj’s action as a “Serious issue of federalism” adding, “Governors are nominees of the Centre. In federal politics when a person with a political background is appointed as a Governor, and he uses that partisan attitude to harass a state government, then it is not merely a constitutional authority exercising a constitutional function.” The leader of the BJP which stalled the entire Winter session of Parliament on the issue of corruption of the UPA government at the Centre, failed to see parallels. He said, “I think there are very few takers for Bhardwaj’s action. There is no independent investigation which has said anything against the Chief Minister. Here you have a CAG report with very strong prima facie facts.” He commended the first BJP government in the South saying, “I think in terms of performance and pro-people policies, the Karnataka government did well. After winning the Assembly elections, the party won the Lok Sabha elections, the municipal elections and the panchayat elections. It’s a popular government in the state.”
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‘Protests if INS opposes wage boards’ proposal’
New Delhi, January 22 “Today, newspaper employees are together and are capable of strongly opposing the anti-employee policies. We will go on a nationwide agitation, if necessary,” the Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees’ Organisations said in a statement after holding an emergency meeting on the issue. The confederation, which is an apex body of the country's five large federations of newspaper and news agency employees organisations, asked the government to ignore the anti-employee suggestions made by INS and immediately notify the recommendations of the wage boards and force the newspaper owners to implement the same. The wage boards for working journalists and non-journalists and other newspaper employees had on December 31 last year submitted their report to the government, recommending 2.5-3 times hike in basic pay among other suggestions. The recommendations have been proposed to be implemented from January 8, 2008. Confederation general secretary MS Yadav said: “Media plays an important role as the fourth pillar of the democracy. Therefore, it is necessary that journalists and non-journalist employees are financially independent. In this context, the constitution of wage board by the government plays an important role.” The confederation also criticised INS for their opposition to the Majithia Wage Board’s recommendations. Yadav said INS should remember that it was also part of the process of finalising the the recommendations and, therefore, it was bound to agree to the same. Today's meeting was attended by National Union of Journalists (I) senior leader NK Trikha, Indian Journalists Union president Suresh Akhouri, All-India Newspaper Employees Federation general secretary Madan Talwar, Federation of PTI Employees' Unions leader Ajay Tyagi and UNI Workers Union president ML Joshi.
— PTI
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No bitterness towards killers: Staines’ widow
Bhubaneswar, January 22 "Because of forgiveness I hold no bitterness towards the persons who killed my family," the 59 year-old woman told PTI through an e-mail. Her remarks came a day after Dara Singh and Mahendra
Hembram, convicts in the case, escaped death penalty with the Supreme Court ruling that the crime was not "rarest of rare" and upheld the life sentence awarded to them. "Forgiveness is needed to check hatred and violence... God forgives but the earthly consequences of that sin continue...Forgiveness does not change the consequences for the wrong. Forgiveness and the consequences of our wrong-doing should not be mixed up. "Forgiving did not mean that the normal judicial process of India should not be followed," Gladys, who was conferred the Padmashree in 2005, said. Gladys, who is currently staying in Australia with her daughter and father, said she would continue to serve the needy as desired by Graham. On January 22, 1999, Staines and his two minor sons — Philip (10) and Timothy (6) — were burnt to death by a mob at Manoharpur area in Keonjhar district. Meanwhile, Dara Singh, alias Rabindra Pal Singh, lodged in Keonjhar district jail, has claimed he is innocent. "If it is (the life sentence) the verdict of the Supreme Court, I accept it. My conscience says I am innocent. But I will go by the court order," a jail official said quoting
Dara. — PTI
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Rajasthan ATS takes custody of Aseemanand
Jaipur, January 22 The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Ajmer had issued a production warrant against Aseemanand on January 18 and the ATS has now brought him from the custody of National Investigation Agency in Panchkula, Haryana. He was produced before Judicial Magistrate-I, Ajmer, Vikram Singh who remanded him to the ATS custody. “We will interrogate him and produce him in the court tomorrow," Additional Superintendent of Police (ATS) Satyendra Singh said. Aseemanand is accused in the dargah blast in which three persons were killed. A Panchkula court had earlier on January 15 recorded the statement of Aseemanand in connection with the Samjhauta case. The blast in the Indo-Pak train in Haryana's Panipat district had left 68 persons dead in February 2007. Aseemanand was arrested by the CBI on November 19 last year for his alleged involvement in Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad that left nine persons dead. He was earlier living under a fake identity in Haridwar. His name had also come up during the probe in Malegaon blast of 2008 when Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad recovered the number of the Swami's driver from Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, another Abhinav Bharat member and an accused arrested in Malegaon case. — PTI |
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CAG to appear as witness in 2G scam
New Delhi, January 22 Special CBI Judge Pradip Chaddah last evening sought presence of the top auditor and the official, RP Singh, in the court on February 5 to depose as witnesses. The order came on a private complaint by Swamy seeking registration of a criminal case against Raja for his alleged role in the scam, which, according to the CAG, caused a presumptive loss of 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer. The court had on January 7 held as “maintainable” the complaint filed by Swamy on December 15 last year. He had made a three-fold prayer that included that his complaint be taken cognisance of and Raja be summoned to take the case to its logical conclusion. As per the second prayer, Swamy wanted the court to appoint him “as a deemed public prosecutor under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act”. Swamy has also sought the court's directions to agencies like the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate to assist him in conducting prosecution and in the further investigation into the scam. Quoting from the CAG report, Swamy had alleged that Raja committed fraud by adopting the first-come-first-served basis in allocating spectrum to ineligible companies. — PTI
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Andhra CM talks tough
New Delhi, January 22 "No one is at anyone's mercy here. I'm not at anybody's mercy. Everyone who is here is at the mercy of the Congress party," he told a press conference here, when asked about Jagan's boast that the Chief Minister was surviving due to his mercy. Jagan had told the media here recently that he was doing a great favour to the Congress. "As I'm a gentleman, your (Kiran Kumar's) government is surviving. Had I told my MLAs to break away from the Congress, your government would have collapsed long ago." Dismissing Jagan’s allegations, the Chief Minister said: "No injustice from the Congress party has ever been done to him or his family. We are very clear that Madam (Sonia) Gandhi has got a very special place and liking towards (the late) Rajasekhar Reddy and she has encouraged Rajasekhar Reddy. That is the reason for his growth as the leader in the state." Attacking Jagan, the Chief Minister, who met Sonia Gandhi today, said that those people who were now talking, have never been in politics nor have they helped Rajasekhar Reddy to win any election anywhere. "We have been working with Rajasekhar Reddy for the last 20 (to) 30 years," the Chief Minister said. — PTI
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Govt reduced to minority: Jagan camp
Hyderabad: Claiming that the Andhra Pradesh government has been reduced to minority, the Jagan camp today dared CM N Kiran Kumar to step down from their posts and seek a fresh mandate.
“We are ready to quit our posts if you and your Cabinet colleagues do so. We shall all go to the people to seek a fresh mandate. We will campaign with late CM YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s pictures and you use only Sonia’s. Let us see who wins,” Chandrasekhara Reddy said, addressing a protest programme organised by Jagan on Saturday.
— PTI
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Mumbai hospitals on high alert after Congo fever scare
Mumbai, January 22 According to health officials, patients who visit Gujarat regularly are visiting hospitals in Mumbai to get themselves tested. However, so far there is no outbreak of Congo fever in Maharashtra, health officials said. A few samples from Mumbai and other places which were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune for testing have turned out to be negative, officials said. However the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has asked civic hospitals in the city to remain prepared for an outbreak of the CCHF. The Directorate of Health Services in Maharashtra also stated that there was a possibility of an outbreak in the state. Maharashtra's Health Minister Suresh Shetty told reporters today that officials would be keeping a watch on the state's borders with Gujarat. According to health officials here, victims of the CCHF die from multiple organ failure with the brain, kidney and lungs getting affected. The mortality rate for those suffering from the CCHF is 30 per cent. The National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, has warned that the CCHF is transmitted from animals and those already suffering from it by ticks. Dengue is spread by mosquitoes.
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MHA babu chargesheeted for info leak
The chargesheet, running into 2,343 pages, was filed in the court of Special Judge Sangeeta Dhingra Sehgal who took it into the records and fixed January 29, the next date of hearing, for taking it on cognisance. The police, which have recently got the nod to file the chargesheet against the IAS officer and co-accused Vineet Kumar (CMD of Kolkata-based Temptation Food Pvt Ltd), sought their prosecution under various provisions of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and bribing a government official. Singh, who is in jail since his arrest on November 23, has recently moved the high court for grant of bail. The chargesheet claimed that as many as 12,000 calls of the accused were intercepted and the IAS officer was using code words like software for flesh trade and hardware for accommodation which he sought as benefits for the works performed.
— PTI
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Decline in birds at Chilika Lake
Bhubaneswar, January 22 "During the annual bird census conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, 804,452 birds were spotted at the lake against last year's 924,578," an official of the state wildlife department told IANS. Chilika, spread across the districts of Puri, Khurdha and Ganjam along the east coast, is the largest brackish water lake in Asia covering an area of over 1,100 sq km. It is considered one of the hotspots of bio-diversity in the country and a great attraction for the tourists for fishing, bird watching and boating. The lake, about 100 km from here, is considered as the largest wintering ground for migratory waterfowl found anywhere on the Indian subcontinent. About a million migratory birds visit the lake in October and return in March. "At least 90 officials and experts were engaged in the latest counting. They spotted 169 species of birds. Of them, 103 were migratory. Last year the number of species sighted was 180, of which 114 were migratory," the official said. C.S. Kar, a scientist with the state wildlife department, said: "The less number may be attributed to high-water level in the lake triggered by untimely rains in December." Kar, who was also involved in the census, said there was still a possibility of more birds arriving at the lake in the next few days. "If you look at the figures of past five years, the number of birds visiting the lake range from 700,000 to 900,000. The figure is very much within the range this year," he said. Last year birds like flamingos, grey and purple herons, egrets, spoonbills and storks were spotted at the lake. — IANS
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Airbus joins bid for mid-air refuellers New Delhi, January 22 The Airbus has pitted its A-330 multi-role tanker transport (MRTT) plane for the bid. The IAF had re-issued the tender in September 2010 after the original tender for the air refueller, issued a couple of years ago, was cancelled following the Finance Ministry's objection to the cost of the plane. Boeing, the other major company producing such planes, is not bidding for the tender, thereby pitting Airbus Military against IL 78. Airbus Military's market development head Didier Vernet told reporters here that the company had submitted its proposals for the IAF tender last week. The company would submit its offsets proposals for the contract by April. Under the defence procurement procedures, a global firm winning a contract for defence orders worth over Rs 300 crore will have to plough back 30 per cent of the deal in Indian defence industry, aerospace, internal security or training sectors. The deal is not just worth six aircraft. The IAF is expected to make a follow-on order of the aircraft it chooses. The new mid-air refuellers are required by the IAF to augment its existing IL-78 fleet. Ticked off by the Finance Ministry, this time the IAF has asked the global manufacturers of mid-air refuellers to submit their proposals as per life cycle costs. Airbus claimed its product would be more economical to operate and maintain. The A330 MMTT could be converted and given a transport role, too, within a matter of an hour or two, the company said.
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Satellite to identify illegal constructions Mumbai, January 22 The decision follows several successes of environmental groups, which furnished archival copies of Google Earth -- dating back several years -- to refute claims made by builders across Mumbai. “The Urban Development Ministry is preparing a report on the CRZ violations using this technology,” an official in the department, headed by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, confirmed. According to state government sources, the modalities of carrying out the mapping exercise were still being worked. For instance it is not clear which agency will be tasked with the project. Both Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation have jurisdiction over Mumbai and are currently locked in a turf war. Over the past five years, courts in Maharashtra, including the Bombay High Court, have relied on satellite maps to check environmental violations. Recently, residents of Dahisar in suburban Mumbai had purchased satellite maps from US company ‘Mapmart’ to prove systematic destruction of mangroves by slum dwellers of the area over the past decade.
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Jaitley gets special charge of Assam Guwahati, January 22 The BJP organisation in charge of Northeast P Chandrasekhar Rao confirmed that though the party had earlier made Varun Gandhi in charge of Assam, it has now given special responsibility to Jaitley for elections in Assam and West Bengal while Sushma Swaraj has been given special responsibility of elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. “The BJP expects best performance in Assam during the forthcoming Assembly elections among all five poll-bound states because of the favourable situation in Assam where illegal migration from Bangladesh has precipitated a crisis of identity for indigenous population,” the BJP leader said. He said the BJP hopes to be the kingmaker in Assam after the 2011 Assembly elections with a much better performance compared to the 2006 election when it won only 10 seats out of the total 126. This time the party plans to contest almost on all seats on its own. “Our intention is to expand the base of the party to all assembly segments in Assam besides trying winning more seats this election,” he said.
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CISF strength to be reviewed Chandigarh, January 22 The strength of the CISF, the largest industrial security force in the world, was raised from 93,000 to 1,10,000 personnel and thereafter further enhanced to 1,45,000 in phases extending up to 2011. During the formulation of plans for expansion of the force and its restructuring, a review was recommended after undertaking a security audit at its existing and projected deployment and assessing its manpower, technological and equipment requirements thereof. The strength of the force was raised to cater to the increased threat perception in the wake of growing incidents of terrorism, attacks on sensitive establishments as well as the demand from the private industry for the CISF protection. Over a hundred private firms, including those in the strategic sector, information technology, finance and manufacturing have sought the CISF protection at their establishments. Besides requisition from the private sector, the CISF has been deployed at 189 public sector undertakings, 57 airports, 50 government buildings and 33 places of national and commercial importance like the Delhi, Metro, Taj Mahal and other monuments. Extending protection to the private industry is a new charter of duties for the CISF, which was raised in 1968 to provide security cover to the PSU, after a devastating fire in the Heavy Engineering Corporation, Ranchi, in which sabotage was suspected. The cost of deployment to the private sector would be fully reimbursed by the industry concerned. It has also been suggested that general watch and ward and entry points in these establishments be in the hands of private security, while the CISF provides cover to the critical areas in terms of quick-reaction units, surveillance and access management and control.
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Rlys seeks two-fold hike in budgetary support New Delhi, January 22 Railway Ministry officials confirmed that the public sector behemoth had Rs 39,600 crore as gross budgetary support to carry forward various projects, including expansion and modernisation of railway infrastructure and augmenting passenger services. Railways aims to increase the production of coaches, wagons and locos keeping acute shortfall in passenger coaches and increased demand for new trains and freight services. Railways internal resources generation have been reducing over the past few years due to various factors, including cost escalation and pay commission load. The Budget will also lay stress on improving safety and security of passengers like improvement in signalling system, installation safety related technology like the Anti-collision devices (ACD) and the train protection warning system
(TPWS).
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Suicides due to crop failure
Chhatarpur (MP), January 22 Kunjilal Ahirwar (28) ended his life by hanging self himself to a tree in his field at village Pathada in Chhatarpur district, after frost damaged his crop in five acres, his wife Bhagunti Bai said. In another incident, a farmer of Chhatarpur identified as Lakhan Kushwaha (40) hanged himself at Tapriyan village, after crop failure, his elder brother Dharmdas Kushwaha said.
— PTI
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Want fast-track courts for terror cases: Moily Raja Bhaiya offers to surrender Constable shoots self with AK-47 32 kg explosives seized in Naxal belt
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New Delhi, January 22
