|
|
|
|
|
The 2G Spectrum Scam
Chargesheet against Raja by April 2: CBI
Shoes waved at SC panel chief Punia
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
M’rashtra to ban controversial book on Gandhi
Adarsh scam
Lack of progress in black money probe glaring: SC
Hasan’s hawala links trigger ripples in AP
BHAKRA-BEAS POWER DISPUTE
Don’t delink talks with terror: BJP
From 2017, MBBS won’t be enough to practice medicine
|
|||||||
|
The 2G Spectrum Scam
New Delhi, March 29 The CBI had called Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, who was also arrested, for questioning and put them under its custody after evidence emerged of their involvement in a scam, which, the Comptroller and Auditor General said, caused the loss of a whopping Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer. Asif Balwa and Agarwal were directors of the erstwhile Kusegaon Fruits & Vegetables Pvt Ltd, which was later rechristened as Kusegaon. The firm is suspected to have acted as a conduit for channelling the scam money in and outside India. It allegedly acted as a go-between for transfer for over Rs 200 crore to Kalaingar TV, a Tamil channel. Its managing director Sarath Kumar Reddy has been questioned and the CBI sources have not ruled out his arrest. A CBI spokesperson, RK Gaur, said both accused would be produced before a special CBI court tomorrow. The agency is likely to seek their custody for interrogation. When the CBI sleuths confronted the due today with the documentary evidence of their involvement in the scam, they turned evasive and did not provide satisfactory explanation, official sources said, prompting the agency to arrest them for their sustained interrogation in custody. So far, six persons, including former telecom minister A Raja and former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, have been arrested by the agency.
|
|
Chargesheet against Raja by April 2: CBI
New Delhi, March 29 In another major development, a Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly sought the government’s views on a fresh petition seeking a CBI probe on the basis of a 2000 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which had pointed out “illegalities and irregularities” in the allocation of spectrum resulting in losses running into thousands of crores. Further, the Bench sought the CBI’s response to another plea for transferring the investigation into the mysterious death of Raja’s close aide Sadiq Batcha in Chennai early this month from the Tamil Nadu police to the CBI. The proposed CBI chargesheet is on the basis of a Supreme Court order directing investigation into the irregularities since 2001. The SC had passed the order on PILs seeking action on the basis of the 2010 CAG report which had estimated the notional loss arising from allocation of Spectrum to telecom companies in 2008 at 2001 prices at Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Earlier, the CBI had assured the SC that the first chargesheet would be filed by March 31. But today, the agency sought further time as it was still giving final touches to the 80,000-page document. The SC accepted the plea. Yesterday, the Delhi Government issued a notification designating Additional Sessions Judge Om Prakash Saini as the special judge to exclusively undertake the trial. According to the CBI, it will file several additional chargesheets against various individuals and companies depending upon the progress in the investigations.
|
|
Shoes waved at SC panel chief Punia Barabanki: Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes PL Punia on Tuesday faced an embarrassment in his constituency when agitating Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) activists waved shoes at him during his speech, forcing him to leave in a huff. Punia, who went to meet BKU activists staging a sit-in in front of a spinning mill to press their demands, earned the ire of the protesters when he started speaking in favour of the mill owner, BKU district president Mukesh Singh said. "The BKU activists got angry when Punia started speaking in favour of the mill owner," Singh said. Angry activists waved shoes at him and he quickly left midway in his speech. — PTI
|
|
M’rashtra to ban controversial book on Gandhi
Mumbai, March 29
The minister also informed that the state government would write to the Centre for not publishing the controversial book. Congress MLC and Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Manikrao Thakre said in the Upper House that the book, “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India”, has maligned the character of the Father of Nation. “This is very serious that the author of the book has raised questions about the character of Gandhiji who initiated non-violence movement. I condemn the book and this should not be made available,” Thakre said. The MPCC president also appealed to members of the House to join hands on the issue. — PTI
|
|
Adarsh scam New Delhi, March 29 “After the Court of Inquiry (COI), the Army has issued a show cause notice to Maj-Gen Ram Kanwar Hooda, the then General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa Area about his role in the whole issue and he has also submitted his reply," Army sources said here. The Army had ordered a CoI under Pune-based Military Intelligence School Commandant Lt-Gen JS Rawat after the scam broke out to probe the role of serving officers, including Hooda in the scam. After the COI was ordered, Hooda, serving as Additional Director General (Mechanised Forces) at the Army Headquarters here, was put under Discipline and Vigilance (DV) ban by the Adjutant General's branch. Any officer under such a ban is not considered for any course or promotion by the authorities. The CoI was completed in January and had concluded that the land on which the society was built belonged to the Army and was wrongfully given away to private builders. The 104-apartment society got embroiled in a controversy after the Navy had raised concerns over security as the building over-looked important military installations. On December 9 last year, Defence Minister AK Antony had ordered a CBI probe to fix responsibility of the armed forces and defence estates officers in the housing scam. — PTI
|
|
Lack of progress in black money probe glaring: SC
New Delhi, March 29 “Whole night we were going through the records pertaining to the interrogation of Hasan Ali for a week. We find that except two or three questions, no consistent effort has been made to find out the source of the funds,” a Bench comprising Justices B Sudershan Reddy and SS Nijjar told Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium. The SG had submitted the Enforcement Directorate records to the Bench yesterday. The Bench further said the manner in which the investigating agencies had proceeded on the black money issue since 2008 left much to be desired. The apex court is hearing a bunch of PILs seeking a directive to the government to take steps to bring back about $1.7 trillion estimated to be illegally stashed away in foreign bank accounts. Ali alone holds $8 billion. The Bench made the observations after the SG said there was no need for the apex court to constitute a special investigation team (SIT) at this juncture. The proposal could wait till another status report on the probe, which would be filed in a week or so, he said. “It is far safer to trust the investigators. The officers responsible to bell the cat must bell the cat.” Senior counsel Anil Divan, Ram Jethmalani (also the main petitioner) and Rajeev Dhavan (who appeared for another petitioner, former Punjab police chief Julius F Riberio) strongly pleaded for the SIT, contending that nothing much could be expected from the Enforcement Directorate in the next one week as ED’s track record had been disappointing in the past three years. Instead of swinging into action following the PILs, the government, the income tax department and the ED were filing affidavits in the SC pleading for the dismissal of the PILs, they contended. The Bench, nevertheless, said it would decide on SIT on April 8 and asked the government to file its next status report before this date.
SC: Give Hasan, kin adequate security
The Bench also directed the government to provide adequate security to 53-year-old Hasan Ali and his family members. It passed the order on a hand-written letter received from Ali, apprehending threat to his life and of his kin from persons he had named during his interrogation. Ali was also allowed to seek bail from the trial court in Mumbai.
The apex court also directed the ED to henceforth record, both on video and audio, the interrogation of Ali and others allegedly involved in laundering black money and submit the recordings to the SC.
|
|
Hasan’s hawala links trigger ripples in AP
Hyderabad, March 29 The sensational story, published in a New Delhi-based daily, quoted investigators to say that Ali, who is now in the CBI custody, had spilled the beans about his high profile contacts. The revelation about his alleged links with a former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and an actor-turned-politician has set off furious speculation about their identity. According to the media report, the investigators have not named them for want of foolproof material evidence. It said Ali had confessed to helping a former Chief Minister and a film star-turned-politician to launder their ill-gotten wealth and pump it back to fund elections and movies. The report quoted investigating sources as saying that Ali was not only laundering black money but also helping politicians and film stars access it whenever they wanted. Though the report did not mention any names, the former Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party leader N Chandrababu Naidu and Praja Rajyam Party President Chiranjeevi appeared before the media and demanded that the Centre must step in to clear the air and ferret out facts. “We are told that Ali had named a former CM, two regional parties and an actor-turned-politician during 2009. The Centre should tell the people who these individuals are and the parties that benefited from their dealings with this hawala dealer,” Naidu said. Chiranjeevi, who recently announced merger of his PRP with the ruling Congress, rubbished the speculation in a section of the local media, pointing an accusing finger at him. “I do not know who this Hasan Ali is. Films were my world and I know nothing beyond that. Let there be a fair inquiry to bring out the facts,” he said. The media report said Ali had admitted before the officials of the Enforcement Directorate that he had acted as a conduit for channeling the money of several politicians and film personalities from AP. The investigators were said to have discovered a massive trail of black money. According to the probe agencies, Ali routed cash for political parties for at least two election campaigns over the past 10 years.
|
|
|
BHAKRA-BEAS POWER DISPUTE
New Delhi, March 29 Arguing before a Bench comprising Justices RV Raveendran and AK Patnaik, senior counsel Shyam Divan said it was Punjab that was affected by the transfer of territory and population to Himachal, but did not object to the Act respecting Parliament’s powers to alter the sizes of states by redrawing boundaries. Himachal “can’t have pre-existing rights based solely on territory or inhabitants”, Divan argued. HP’s demand for a 7.19 per cent share in power generation on the basis of population transfer did not hold any water as India had a “single citizenship” law under which people in all states were treated alike. “The whole notion of pre-existing rights linked to territory and population transfer is without any legal foundation,” Punjab’s senior counsel argued. Responding to HP’s demand for 12 per cent free power from the Bhakra and Beas projects on the basis of submergence, he said this was applicable only to Central projects. It was Punjab and Haryana that had invested in BBMB projects and not the Centre, Divan contended. Himachal could base its claims only on the basis of the Constitution, which came into force on January 26, 1950, the New State Act of July 1, 1954 when HP and Bilaspur were merged, the 7th Constitutional Amendment Act of November 1, 1956 under which Himachal became a union territory and the 1966 Re-organisation Act. Another important document pertaining to Himachal’s rights was that of January 25, 1971 when the assets and liabilities of the hilly state were determined. “The Re-organisation Act was a package which dealt with the rights and liabilities of HP not only in relation to the Bhakra and Beas projects, but also on other aspects,” Punjab contended. The Bench is hearing arguments on Himachal’s original suit filed in 1996, seeking its “legitimate share” of electricity from these two projects. At present, the hill state is getting 2.5 per cent from Bhakra, 15 MW from Beas 1 project and nothing from Beas 2.
|
|
|
Don’t delink talks with terror: BJP
New Delhi, March 29 Speaking on the subject even before the Indo-Pak Home Secretary level two-day negotiations concluded, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said here today, “We are very clear that talks should not be delinked from terror.” Sitharaman was, in effect, repeating what her leader L.K. Advani said in Mumbai yesterday that there should be dialogue with terror. She said, “We still think Pakistan needs to give a lot of assurances on curbing all terror activities and planning against India and the Government of India need to secure such assurances from Pakistan” in advance before sitting on the negotiating table. The BJP spokesman also recalled how Home Minister P Chidambram had recently told a news channel that the speed with which the trial of the 26/11 Mumbai attack accused has moved from the lower court to the higher court, only shows the disinclination of the Pakistan government to stop terror from its soil. — TNS
|
|
From 2017, MBBS won’t be enough to New Delhi, March 29 Medical undergraduates would have to clear an additional exam to get a licence to practice medicine. In a landmark move to introduce uniformity in the standards of undergraduate medical teaching and basic medicine delivery, the medical Council of India’s Board of Governors today recommended a national-level Indian Medical Graduation Licence Examination beginning April 2013. The exam modelled on the exit tests for medical graduates which several European countries conduct, would be optional till 2016, but from the very next year “when the first batch of MBBS graduates passes out after studying the revised medical curriculum prepared by the MCI”, it would be compulsory and no MBBS graduate would be allowed to practice unless he/she cleared the test and got a licence. Those passing the exit test would be given “Indian Medical Graduate” certification by the MCI, which would itself hold the said examination. The exit test would be in the nature of an online test for the 40,000 annual MBBS pass outs, whose minimum standards of medical comprehension would be assessed. There could be one or more papers of three-hour duration with each question worth one mark. There would be no negative marking, the MCI Vision Document, 2015, stated. The move was discussed today at the meeting of 200 experts, which the MCI had called. They endorsed the test, which the MCI would now have to notify. In another development, the expert gathering also gave a go ahead to a new, two-year Masters of Medicine course after the MBBS. This course would be equivalent to the diplomas currently being given in clinical specialties, but would allow the pass outs to practice medicine in district and rural hospitals.
|
||||||
Minister ‘slaps’ man, booked Gadkari raps Cong Near-miss probe
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has summoned DB Etisalat CEO Atul
Jhamb, Shamik Das of S-Tel and Sigve Brekke, MD of Unitech, in connection with 2G and 3G spectrum allocation case along with Ratan
Tata, Anil Ambani and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia.
“Gandhiji was a respected leader and is known as the Father of the Nation. He led the freedom movement of India. The government will initiate steps to ensure that the book is not published in the state,” Industries Minister Narayan Rane told the Legislative Council today. 
