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Telangana Tangle
Andhra House suffers the same fate
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Afzal Guru’s mercy petition not sent to Prez yet
Team JPC to have 30 members
Govt eyes grain exports to benefit from high prices
Come March, tough checks on imported food
NIA chargesheet confirms China’s role in insurgency
HAL to develop warplane engines with French firm
MiG 21 to be phased out
by 2017
Cong, BJP spar over Ramdev
Sohrabuddin
Encounter
Madnis, the power brokers of UP
Indo-Pak talks on March 28
Mumbai 6th most expensive city for office space
Panel to look into death of nine
pregnant women
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Telangana Tangle
New Delhi, February 23 Lok Sabha’s morning session was washed out following three adjournments after TRS chief K. Chandrashekhar Rao and his colleague Vijayashanti stormed the well in Question Hour, demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement on the issue. The BJP was quick to score political points with Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj promising to back any Bill the government might bring to create the state. She didn’t lose a chance to needle an already embarrassed Prime Minister, who was in the House when 11 Congress MPs from Telangana backed the TRS in seeking a separate state. Congress MPs M Jagannath, Madhu Goud Yaskhi and Sarvey Satyanarayana threatened to stall the proceedings until the PM spoke on the issue. They were louder than the TRS duo. “We won’t let the House function. We want Telangana,” the Congress MPs shouted, pushing aside colleague PC Chacko when he tried to calm them down. Outside the House, they met the Prime Minister and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, demanding a separate Telangana state and threatened that they would take the course of suicides and resignations if they went unheeded. The MPs were told to wait until the Budget presentation on February 28; a meeting on the issue would be held on March 1. The Congress MPs from Telangana, however, didn’t budge from their stance, giving full support to the striking pro-Telangana people in Andhra Pradesh where a 48-hour bandh is on. “People are dying for Telangana. We will not yield. We will commit suicide in Parliament if we are not heard. Despite the submission of Sri Krishna report, there was no mention of Telangana in the President’s address. The PM spoke on the 2G JPC but not on Telangana,” Satyanarayan said.
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Andhra House suffers the same fate
Students
canecharged Tension prevailed in the Osmania University campus here after police caned and lobbed teargas shells on
pro-Telangana students when they began pelting stones on the security personnel. The situation on the varsity campus, which witnessed series of clashes between
pro-Telangana students and police personnel for the past two days, had relatively remained calm since morning but by evening the clashes erupted again, police sources said.
— PTI ‘Padayatra’ by Jagan
camp Congress MLAs and MLCs loyal to former party MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy today undertook a ‘padayatra’ here in support of the fast being held by him for the last six days on the tuition fees reimbursement issue. Meanwhile, police officials requested Jagan to call off his fast and take medical treatment as per doctors advice but he declined to do so. Doctors, who attended on
Jagan, said his sugar levels have come down and that he needed treatment.
— PTI
Hyderabad, February 23 On the other hand, Congress MLAs loyal to rebel leader YS Jagan Mohan Reddy too were on their feet on the fee reimbursement issue, leaving the government further embarrassed. The House was adjourned thrice this morning as the Telangana protagonists remained adamant on their demand for a resolution on the statehood issue. While the TRS MLAs mobbed the Speaker’s podium holding placards and raising ‘Jai Telangana’ slogans, the TDP members from the region too raised the issues standing at their respective seats. With no sign of order, Deputy Speaker Nadendla Manohar adjourned the House twice in the morning. He spoke to floor leaders of various parties to break the impasse but to no avail. When the House re-assembled after the second adjournment, the Jagan-loyal Congress MLAs became vociferous and took exception to the government's indifferent attitude even as the former MP's hunger-strike entered the sixth day. The CPI members, meanwhile trooped into the Well of the House raising the Telangana issue.
— PTI
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Afzal Guru’s mercy petition not sent to Prez yet
New Delhi, February 23 Replying during the Question Hour, the Home Minister, while saying that he could not provide an answer as to what caused the delay in forwarding of the mercy petition of Guru, clarified that his ministry was not responsible for the delay in the disposal of the mercy petitions. While pointing out that a new procedure was being followed in forwarding the case to the President, Chidambaram said, “There is no delay from the Home Ministry. I am in no position to comment on the President’s part”. He was responding to BJP’s SS Ahluwalia who wanted clarification on the delay in the pending mercy petition of Guru. Pointing out that the mercy petition for Guru was filed on October 3, 2006, Ahluwalia asked: “Since then, 15 reminders were sent and then Lieutenant Governor of Delhi sent his comments in June 2010. Why has action not been taken?” New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said his government has received no plea from Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru for shifting him to a jail in the state.
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Team JPC to have 30 members
What happens next
New Delhi, February 23 However, if the earlier proposal of keeping the strength of the JPC at 21 would have got carried then many smaller parties, including the AIADMK, would not have found place in the JPC. Curiously, AIADMK’s arch rival the DMK, a prominent member of the UPA alliance whose member A Raja is the main accused in this scam, happily agreed to the move. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal conveyed the government decision to Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj this evening after day-long consultations. But only after AIADMK leader in the Lok Sabha M Thambidurai lobbied hard with the government and the Opposition. Thambidurai held a series of meetings in this connection with Bansal, NDA working chairman LK Advani and Leader of Opposition in the Lower House Sushma
Swaraj. Now Union Communications Minister Kapil Sibal will move the motion for constituting the JPC tomorrow afternoon, after the Prime Minister’s reply to the motion of thanks on the presidential address. The motion will name 20 MPs from the Lok Sabha who will be on this committee. The other 10 from the Rajya Sabha will be announced when the motion will be moved there on March 1. Under the present dispensation, the Congress is entitled to eight members from the LS and three from the Rajya Sabha. The BJP can nominate four from the Lok Sabha and two from the Rajya Sabha. The Left, JD-U and the BSP will be entitled to nominate one member each from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The DMK may have one member each from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The BJD, SP and the TMC may have one each from the Lok Sabha. The NCP is likely to have one member on the JPC from the Rajya
Sabha. At the end of the day, it is working out to 15 members from the Opposition and 15 from the government. The balance can tilt in the government’s favour only if the SP and the BSP decide to side with the UPA. For this the government may have to keep the two parties in good humour till the JPC’s term ends. Meanwhile, there is virtual certainty about certain names in the proposed JPC. This includes BJP’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha SS Ahluwalia and Hazaribagh BJP MP Yashwant Sinha. There is also some talk of nominating BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad on the JPC. Similarly, there seems to be virtual unanimity that Congress Lok Sabha member from Kerala PC Chacko is emerging as the likely choice to head the
JPC.
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Govt eyes grain exports to benefit from high prices
India, the world's 2nd-largest producer of wheat and rice, has kept a tight control over grain exports since 2007, allowing only limited sales through diplomatic deals, while the nation's stocks swelled after three straight years of bumper harvests. “This is the right time to give serious thought over allowing exports of certain quantities of rice, wheat and sugar as we have ample stocks. World prices are very good while the harvest looks favourable,” Pawar said. “Exports should be allowed only to the extent where it doesn’t hurt domestic consumers.” On allowing sugar exports, the minister said the EGoM is likely to consider the issue this week. “This year it (sugar export) was taken seriously by the govt to allow export of half a million tonnes. Quota allocation was also made, but decision was kept on hold. “If we have to give a second thought, we have to call a meeting of Empowered Group of Ministers (GoM). I think that the food ministry has suggested calling a meeting of the GoM sometime in this week and one of the agendas would be reasons to allow sugar export. So that decision would be taken in the GoM meeting probably this week,” he said. Sugar output is pegged at 24.5 million tonnes in 2010-11 (October-September) against 19 million tonnes in the previous year. The annual demand is seen at 22 million tonnes and India has an opening stock of 5 million tonnes. Making a strong case for bringing down the $600 per tonne export benchmark price for Indian onions which has made them uncompetitive, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said the Minimum Export Price is double the prevailing rate in international markets. “I have enquired from the states from where onions are exported to different countries and got information that the prevailing international export price is around $250-300, but our MEP, at $600 per tonne, is almost double,” Pawar told reporters. ”This (higher MEP) will create obstacles in exporting onions from India,” Pawar said.
— Agencies
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Come March, tough checks on imported food
New Delhi, February 23 Under review would be all sorts of scientific food that have involved any laboratory process, including processing. It would cover chocolates, cheese, pastas and beverages of all kinds that seek to enter the Indian food chain. Officers would subsequently be also appointed at Tuticorin and Cochin ports. The notifications of Central import clearance officers has been made under the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSA) Act, 2006, which subsumed all hitherto existing Acts that covered different food. The new law regulates food and all kinds of alcoholic drinks. The officers would assume the role of port health officers, who were so far doing the import clearance jobs. These officers, however, used to report to the state governments and were not given to taking instructions from the Centre. “Under the new law, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is the regulator and hence the officers have been appointed under the FSSA Act. We would now be responsible for any kind of imported food entering the market,” FSSAI officials said. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India was established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, as a statutory body under the administrative control of the Ministry for Health and Family Welfare for laying down science-based standards for articles of food and regulating manufacturing, processing, distribution, sale and import of food.
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NIA chargesheet confirms China’s role in insurgency
Guwahati, February 23 The NIA chargesheet which was submitted to the special court in Guwahati has provided details about how a group of UNLF cadres set up base in Guwahati and extended operations to neighbouring countries, including China, for procurement of weapons. Members of the UNLF visited Kathmandu on several occasions to firm up deals while two meetings were held by the UNLF top brass in China, including one at the border town of Ruili in the south-western province of Yunnan on September 28, 2009. The UNLF, which is the biggest militant group in Manipur, operates through an elaborate network, indulging in extortions to collect fund for procuring weapons, paying its cadres and maintaining camps and hideouts. The chargesheet even names the public works department, FCI and the flood control department in Manipur among other branches in the government that are subjected to extortion by the banned militant group. The chargesheet was based on the confessions of Rajkumar Meghen and a few other UNLF cadres arrested in Guwahati last year. Meghen was picked up in Dhaka on September 29 last year and then handed over to India. According to security sources, arms deals are usually struck in border towns for consignments that are shipped from China through the overland and riverine routes in Myanmar with the assistance of insurgent outfits like the United Wa State Army (UWSA).
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HAL to develop warplane engines with French firm
New Delhi, February 23 Snecma is the same company that had developed engines (jointly with Rolls Royce) for the supersonic jet Concorde that last flew in 2003. Nowadays, Snecma engines power the latest French Air Force fighter Raffale, while its cryogenic engines power the European space satellite launchers. Its sister company, Turbomeca, has been already working with HAL and has co-developed Shakti engine for Dhruv-Mk III choppers, specially designed to operate in areas like Siachen. The first lot of five such choppers has been handed over to the Indian Army. Defence Minister AK Antony told the Rajya Sabha this morning that it was proposed to develop a production version Kaveri (K10) engine on co-design and co-development basis with Snecma, France. “The technical evaluation for the proposal has been completed,” he added. The HAL, the IAF and the Indian Navy, helped by the finance wing, are negotiating the commercial aspects. Sources said the new engine could be used in the proposed twin-engine medium combat aircraft that would follow Light Combat Aircraft Tejas. The Ministry of Defence has set a deadline of 2015 to start the project. It has already chosen US company General Electric’s 414 engine for the next lot of Tejas. The first indications about the new engine emerged at the recently concluded Aero India show when French Ambassador to India Jérôme Bonnafont talked about it. The engine has been code-named Kaveri (K-10). India has, so far, made nine prototypes of Kaveri engines. About 1,975 hours of testing has been conducted on Kaveri engines. The last Kaveri engine prototype has been integrated with IL-76 aircraft at Gromov Flight Research Institute, Russia. The Kaveri engine project was sanctioned in March 1989.
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MiG 21 to be phased out
by 2017
New Delhi, February 23 The last of these single-engined planes would be out of the IAF by 2017. Defence Minister AK Antony told the Rajya Sabha that a number of modern aircraft such as Sukhoi-30 MKI, Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas and the Medium-Multirole Combat Aircraft (M-MRCA) would be procured to replace squadrons of MiG 21 and already-phased-out MiG 23. The Air force had a “clear-cut plan” to phase out MiG 21 by 2017, he said. Introduced in 1963, these planes the uncharitable sobriquet of “flying coffins”.
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Cong, BJP spar over Ramdev
Digvijay is understood to have the tacit support of his party in his latest endeavour - attacking the yoga guru for “targeting” the Congress on the black money issue and questioning the source of funding of his multi-crore yoga empire. While Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed say the Ramdev issue is not important enough to be discussed within the party, sources explain that Baba’s constant rankling on corruption prompted the return-fire from Digvijay. Ahmed did agree that Ramdev must come clean on his assets. Defending Ramdev, BJP leader M Venkaiah accused the Congress of levelling absurd allegations against the yoga guru, saying the Congress was trying to deflect attention by adopting the best known policy of offence being the best
defence.
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Sohrabuddin
Encounter
At the February 16 press conference with the
editors of television news channels, the PM “publicly stated that
Bharatiya Janata Party is hostile towards the Union Government because
it arrested one minister of Gujarat Government…. I submit that this
supports the case of deponent (Shah) that the conspiracy has been
hatched by the Centre”, Shah said in an affidavit filed in the apex
court. When an apex
court Bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and RM Lodha took up Shah’s
case for hearing today, senior counsel Ram Jethmalani reiterated the
contention made by his client (Shah) in the affidavit. Shah, arrested
and questioned by the CBI in the case relating to the killing of
Sohrabuddin, is at present out on bail.
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Madnis, the power brokers of UP
Dehradun, February 23 Prominent among the family members was Syed Hussain Ahmed Madni (1879-1957), an Islamic scholar from Darul Uloom, Deoband, who was conferred the title of ‘Shaikhul Islam’ for his knowledge of ‘Hadith’ and ‘Fiqh’ (religious subjects). After graduating from the Darul Uloom, he migrated to Medina, Saudia Arabia, and taught religious subjects there. Maulana Madni, as he was known, was then appointed as head teacher and Shaikhul Hadith of Darul Uloom. He remained on the position for 28 years. He later returned to India and got actively involved in the freedom struggle. He had considerable influence over a section of the Muslims, especially those belonging to eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. He was against the two nation theory of Muslim League, which brought him close to the Congress. He also remained the president of the Jamait Ulema-e-Hind, a post he held until his death in 1957. After him, his son Maulana Asad Madni became the poster boy of the ruling Congress in the post-Independence era and was also given a Rajya Sabha seat. But after his death, struggle started between his younger brother Arshad Madni and elder son Mehmood Madni over the control of the Jamait Ulema-e-Hind. Later, both ran parallel factions of the Jamaits. Interestingly, both of them have been hobnobbing with various political parties. While Arshad Madni is known to be close to the Congress, Mehmood Madni jumped on to the bandwagon of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and is at present a Rajya Sabha MP. In 1982, the family also wrested for the control of Darul Uloom, Deoband, by opposing Qari Tayyab, an eminent theologian. This led to the bifurcation of the madrassa, with Qari Tayyab setting up his own seminary. The family has remained in the forefront to get their own pound of flesh in the political bargaining to give support to one political party or another.
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Indo-Pak talks on March 28
New Delhi, February 23 Islamabad, responding to New Delhi, had conveyed its consent to the meeting on March 28-29. Union Home Secretary GK Pillai had extended the invitation to Pakistan Interior Secretary Chaudhry Qamar Zaman last week. India had proposed two sets of dates - March 21-22 and March 28-29. It is likely that India will take up the case of seeking action against persons responsible for the 26/11 attack. New Delhi has always maintained that Islamabad arrested the peripheral players while the key planners are roaming around free and spewing venom against India.
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Mumbai 6th most expensive city for office space
New Delhi, February 23 “Apart from being overtaken by Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai CBD (central business district) lost one position on the global rankingalso because of the fact that it has not seen any change in the rental values over the previous year,” he said. New York, which was a place below Mumbai in the 2010 list, moved up by a single notch to fifth place this year, C&W said.
— PTI
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Panel to look into death of nine pregnant women Jodhpur, February 23 The deaths of nine pregnant women between February13 till yesterday in Umaid Hospital and MG Hospital has triggered panic. “The primary reason that has come to the fore is excessive bleeding in all of these women, which they occurred delivering the child,” Superintendent of the Umaid Hospital Narendra Changani said. Apparently the use of a particular batch of drug, I V Fluid, that has been banned in all the hospitals of Jodhpur has emerged as one of the cause of these deaths. — PTI
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Rahat leaves India Aarushi case HIV vaccine trial Kasab to move SC
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New Delhi, February 23
New Delhi, February 23
New Delhi, February 23
According to the official transcript of the PM’s statements
at the press meet, Manmohan Singh had said the government had not lost
the will to take hard decisions on economic reforms. “But the
opposition parties, particularly the BJP, have taken a hostile stand and
the reasons that have been given, frankly I cannot mention them in
public; they say because you have taken some decision against a
particular person, who was a minister in Gujarat, we must reverse it, I
don’t want to add further,” the statement said. 
