New Delhi, May 23
DMK supremo M Karunanidhi met his daughter Kanimozhi in the Tihar Jail here this evening. Accompanied by Kanimozhi’ mother Rajathi Ammal, husband Aravindan and DMK MP TR Baalu, the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister spent some time with his daughter, who was arrested last week in connection with the 2G scam.

They all were first taken to the Deputy Superintendent’s office of jail number six, where they completed formalities required to meet Kanimozhi.

Karunanidhi, his wife and 10-year-old son of Kanimozhi were allowed to meet her first. Later, others also went inside. They entered the jail at 5.45pm and came out at 6.45 pm. Of the one-hour time, they spent 35 minutes with Kanimozhi while the remaining time was spent in completing various formalities.

Sources said they also met A Raja. Several party MPs and senior DMK leaders also accompanied Karunanidhi to the jail premises, but they did not meet Kanimozhi.

Talking to the mediapersons, Karunanidhi said Kanimozhi’s arrest was a vendetta against the DMK and his family. He said he was confident of winning the “final war”.

Karunanidhi, who arrived here from Chennai in the morning, said it was he who had advised Kanimozhi to become a shareholder in Kalaignar TV in October 2005 when his wife Dayaluammal sold her share for Rs 100 crore.

After meeting his daughter, Karunanidhi, who was planning to return to Chennai this evening, came back to the hotel where he was staying. Later, Home Minister and senior Congress leader from Tamil Nadu P Chidambaram met him.

However, Karunanidhi did not meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi during his day-long stay in the Capital. According to sources, Karunanidhi meets Sonia Gandhi whenever he visits New Delhi. It has been a practice ever since the party aligned with the Congress in 2004.

Earlier in the day, Union Minister MK Alagiri’s wife Kanthi met Kanimozhi at the trial court and consoled her. With tears rolling down her eyes, Kanthi, who also arrived in Delhi this morning, went to the special CBI court at the Patiala House court complex and spoke to her for a few minutes.

NEW DELHI: Three days after failing to secure bail on the ground of being a woman, DMK MP Kanimozhi today moved the Delhi High Court seeking the relief citing the need to look after her school-going child who is devoid of the care of his father who is working abroad.

"The petitioner (Kanimozhi) is having a single school-going child to be taken care of. Her husband is employed abroad and the court should grant bail to her," said the bail plea, filed by the daughter of the DMK patriarch through advocates VG Pragasam, SJ Aristotle and Sudarshan Rajan. The court is likely to hear the plea tomorrow. — TNS 

New Delhi, May 23
The Delhi High Court today rejected the bail pleas of five senior corporate executives accused in the 2G telecom Spectrum allocation case.In a related development, a Central Bureau of Investigation trial court rejected the anticipatory bail plea of co-conspirator in the case and Cineyug Films' founder Karim Morani. He is the only accused who has not been arrested.

High Court’s Justice Ajit Bharihoke denied bail to Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom, Sanjay Chandra of Unitech Wireless and three officials of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group -- Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara. Except Pipara, who is in hospital, all the others are in Delhi's Tihar jail.

Justice Bharihoke said: “All the five bail application are dismissed.” As the court pronounced its verdict, the wives of Chandra and Goenka broke down.

“This is an offence of the highest magnitude which not only impacts the society at large but also puts a question mark on the governance in the country which can adversely affect the economy of the country,” said the court.

Special Public Prosecutor UU Lalit said: “The corporates and the accused were direct beneficiaries of the entire spectrum deal and they were involved in a conspiracy along with (former communications minister) A Raja to obtain benefit from the grant of Spectrum licences.”

In the trial court, the anticipatory bail plea of Morani, who has been granted exemption from personal appearance in court due to ill-health, was rejected. “His plea is dismissed and he (Morani) is directed to appear in the court tomorrow at 10 am, failing which coercive process shall be issued,” Special CBI Judge OP Saini said.

The court dismissed Morani's bail plea on medical ground, saying that as per May 19 reports received from the department of Cardiology and Neurosurgery of Mumbai's JJ Hospital, his condition is “stable and normal”. — Agencies 

New Delhi, May 23
The negotiations on a draft Lokpal Bill today gained momentum with the government and civil society members agreeing on a number of basic principles of the proposed law and deciding to meet more often.

Emerging from a three-hour meeting, Union Minister Kapil Sibal expressed confidence draft Lokpal Bill would be ready by June 30, as announced in a government notification, in time for introduction in the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

The meeting chaired by Finance Minister Mukherjee took place in the backdrop of co-chairman Shanti Bhushan raising the issue of slow progress on drafting the Bill and expressing doubts whether the June 30 deadline would be met.

He said there was consensus on almost half of the 40 points brought to the table by the Anna Hazare’s five-member team and the discussion on the same would continue when the Joint Drafting Committee meets again on May 30.

Bringing the higher judiciary and the Prime Minister within the ambit of the Lokpal were still sticking points and discussion on the same is expected to be taken up at the next meeting.

Hazare’s team presented a set of suggestions from some other civil society groups on the Lokpal Bill that also included recommendations of the public hearings on the issue held at various places across the country.

Sibal said there was complete agreement on the issue of the authority of Lokpal being independent without any interference from the government.

The minister said there was also an agreement in the meeting that the Lokpal would have power to look into any matter of corruption against public servants.

With agreement on nearly 50 per cent of the basic principles, the committee decided to direct the Legislative Department to begin drafting the Lokpal Bill.— PTI 

Kolkata, May 23
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked West Bengal residents to co-operate with the police in its drive to unearth illegal weapons.The Chief Minister suspected that some politically-backed criminals were possessing huge quantities of illegal weapons in various districts and told cops to intensify their recovery operations.

Talking to mediapersons at the Writers’ Building, Mamata said she was not at all surprised that huge quantities of illegal weapons and other firearms were recovered from CPM cadres and its party offices.

She said that although her party had been demanding recovery of illegal arms for the past two years, the then state government did not pay heed to it. “We have now asked the police to recover the illegal arms. Police has been asked to work impartially. Our priority is to maintain law and order without looking at political affiliations,” said the Chief Minister.

Kolkata: Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata has congratulated West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on her resounding success in the recently concluded Assembly poll. In a congratulatory message addressed to the Chief Minister, Tata expressed hope that West Bengal would make rapid strides in all spheres of development under her leadership. — PTI

New Delhi, May 23
A CBI court today took cognisance of the charge sheet filed against former Commonwealth Games (CWG) Organising Committee secretary Suresh Kalmadi and 10 other accused, including two private companies, for their alleged role in financial irregularities in awarding contract to a Swiss firm for the installation of the Timing Scoring Result (TSR) system for the sporting event.

The special CBI judge, Talwant Singh, directed the prime investigating agency to produce five accused - Suresh Kalmadi, games organising secretary-general Lailt Bhanot, former director-general VK Verma, the then deputy director-general (Procurement) Surjeet Lal and the then Joint director-general (Sports) ASV Rao - before the court tomorrow. Bhanot and Verma’s judicial custody expires tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the court also issued non-bailable warrant against OC treasurer M Jayachandran and directed for its execution by June 6.The three others, including Anil Madan, PD Arya (both promoters of Faridabad-based Gem International Firm) and AK Reddy of Hyderabad-based firm AKR Constructions are absconding. The court also issued summons to AKR Constructions and Swiss Omega and asked them to be present through their representatives.

The CBI had filed the chargesheet on May 20 against Kalmadi, describing him as the main accused in the corruption case involving award of Rs 141-crore contract to the Swiss firm.

“I have taken cognisance of the charge sheet, the statement of the witnesses and other documents filed along with it. I feel that there is sufficient material to take cognisance against the accused persons,” the special judge said.

New Delhi, May 23
The terror attack on the Mehran naval base in Karachi has once again raised concerns in India about the threat of Pakistan nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of terrorist groups.

Home Minister P Chidambaram, meanwhile, expressed his sympathy for those killed in the attack at Pakistan’s port city. He said India would have to remain constantly on the vigil due to the happenings in its neighbourhood.

“We are not happy about the incidents in Pakistan. We are sorry that lives are lost,” he added.

Official sources said the attack in Karachi had raised several questions on the safety of nuclear installations in the neighbouring country. On top of it, Pakistan was hell bent upon increasing its nuclear arsenal.

On the audacious terror attack in Karachi, the sources said it was quite clear that it was a well-organised atrike. “It seems a lot of planning had been done…it also shows that terror groups in Pakistan can strike at the time and place of their own choosing,” they added. It was a sophisticated strike using heavy weapons since it was a joint base of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy.

The sources said India had apprehended an increase in terror attacks in Pakistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2 at Abbottabad by the US forces. However, the attack of the magnitude of the one on the naval base was quite shocking.

Sources said the safety measures at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were also being reviewed from time to time in view of the constant threat from terror groups. The government has provided bullet-proof cars to all senior officials.

All officials posted in the Indian mission have been asked to curtail unnecessary travel and venture out only with proper security guards. Meanwhile, on reports about the killing of Taliban chief Mullah Omar, the Home Minister said there were contradictory versions and “we have to wait and see whether that report is correct.”

New Delhi, May 23
The first scientific study on decadal rate of selective abortions of girls in India has thrown up shocking evidence of a staggering rise in the number of missing girls right from 1980s, and of how the wealthiest and the most educated have conspired to eliminate the girl child.

Titled, ‘Trends in Selective Abortions of Girls in India from 1980 to 2010’, the significant new study, to be published in The Lancet online tomorrow, uses Census data across decades to conclude that an average 4.5 million girls went missing in India in last decade. This figure was 1 million for the first ten years (1980-90) and 2.6 million for the next 10 years, clearly indicating a rise in the practice of sex-selective abortions. Policy implication of the finding is also clear: The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostics Techniques Act has not worked.

By far, the last decade has been the most brutal for the girl child, with the study using the Census statistics of 1991, 2001 and 2011 (provisional data) and the findings of National Family Health Surveys to prove that the wealthiest and the most educated were the biggest conspirers against the girl child.

So while sex ratios remained unchanged for the families with the not-so-educated mothers, they actually fell in those where mothers had gone to schools/colleges.

On the one hand, the study, conducted by the Centre for Global Research and the University of Toronto, shows 4.5 million selective abortions of girls in 2000s, on the other, it concludes that the sex ratio of the second born, if the first born was a girl, has fallen in India between 1990 and 2005 compared with no change if the first born was a boy.

This conditional sex ratio fell from 906 in 1990 to 836 in 2005 and further in the 2011 Census. “This is evidence enough that selective abortion of girls has increased over the decades,” the study says.

When seen in terms of the education standard of the family, the sex ratio of the second born, if the first born was a girl, was found to be lower in families where mothers had 10 or more years of education as compared to families where mothers had no education. Gap in selective abortion of girls between these two groups (educated and uneducated) has also increased over time.

Similarly, the researchers found that sex ratio of the second born, if the first born was a girl, was lower for the richest 20 per cent of the households as compared to the poorest 20 per cent. “This gap widened between 1990 and 2005 which means selective abortion of girls has increased most for the richest 20 per cent of the families,” states the study, which shows that 90 per cent Indians now live in states where the sex ratio is below a natural level of 950 to 975 girls for every 1,000 boys.

As many as 278 districts - close to half of all - have been posting greater declines in the sex ratio than the national average decline of 1.4 per cent. 

New Delhi, May 23
The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre Government seeking its response to a petition filed by Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, sentenced to death for the 1993 assassination attempt on Youth Congress leader MS Bitta, for commuting the capital punishment to life term.

A Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and CK Prasad asked the government to give, within six weeks, the reasons for the delay in taking a decision on Bhullar’s mercy petition pending for eight years. “We are surprised the mercy petition is pending for eight years,” the court said.

Arguing for Bhullar, Senior counsel KTS Tulsi said his client had been confined in a 7x9 feet cell in the Tihar jail since August 25, 2001 when he was convicted. The agony of waiting to be hanged had made him a mental wreck and was currently being treated at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Science at Shahdara near here.

Mumbai, May 23
An Income Tax tribunal has allowed ace cricketer Sachin Tendulkar to claim deductions from his taxable income pertaining to earnings from modelling in advertisements.

Asha Vijayaraghavan, judicial member of the tribunal, and R K Panda, accountant member, gave the ruling on four appeals filed by the batting maestro against the verdict of Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) for assessment years 2001-02 to 2004-2005.

The two-member tribunal, which gave its order on May 20, upheld the cricket legend’s argument that he was an ‘actor’ while appearing in commercials. Tendulkar argued that he had claimed deductions under Section 80 RR of I-T Act on the ground that he was an 'actor' while appearing in advertisements. He submitted that the CIT (A) had wrongly held that he was not an actor as cricket was his principal profession.

He further argued that he was a cricketer and not a professional actor. He submitted his appearances in advertisements made him an actor and thus he was entitled to deductions. Moreover, he argued that such deductions had been allowed to him earlier. — PTI