Hyderabad, June 28
Caught in a web of controversies, the Sathya Sai Central Trust today sought to clear the air by firmly denying the allegations of financial irregularities and promising to make its annual accounts public. In the same breath, the high-profile trust, which manages the multi-crore spiritual empire built by the spiritual guru, opposed any attempt by the government to take over its operations.

Appearing before the media for the first time after the police recently seized Rs 35.50 lakh in cash which was being taken out from the ashram at Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh, two key members of the trust V Srinivasan and Naganand asserted that the trust had nothing to do with the confiscated money.

The cash was donated by a devotee for the construction of Sai Baba’s samadhi and the money was to be given to Bangalore-based Shankarnayana Consultancy Private Limited, which was entrusted with the task of building the memorial.

“The samadhi is not being built by the trust as it cannot undertake religious activity. We are a public charity trust,” Srinivasan said.

Both Srinivasan and another trustee and Baba’s nephew RJ Ratnakar were questioned by the police in connection with the recovery of the cash.

In the midst of reports of a possible government take-over, the trust members made it clear that there was no such need. “We are quite capable of managing the affairs of the institution. There is no need for the government to set up a separate monitoring mechanism,” Srinivasan said.

The trust members also rejected the argument that the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) model could be adopted in which the government retains the overall control. “This is not a religious trust but a spiritual and charitable institution,” Srinivasan argued.

Asked about the state government’s notice to the trust to disclose its financial details, organisational structure, future plans and revenue and expenditure accounts, the trustees assured that they would provide all the details.

“There are absolutely no financial wrongdoings. All the donations are accounted for. The income from the fixed deposits in nationalised banks is adequate to take care of our expenses. All the charity activities initiated by Baba will continue,” they said.

The trust was actively considering a proposal to make public the annual reports on financial transactions of the central trust and the allied trusts, they said. 

New Delhi, June 28
The curtain is set to come down on the controversial tenure of Mridula Mukherjee, present director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), with its executive council close to picking Mahesh Rangarajan, professor of history, Delhi University, as her successor. Mukherjee's term ends on August 9.

However, there is no official word on the fresh appointment as the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is yet to give its approval. But reliable sources said Mahesh Rangarajan was the front-runner for the post. Rangarajan, who is also a columnist and a political commentator, is a historian with a special interest in environmental history and colonial history of British India.

Although the PMO had approved two-year extension for Mridula Mukherjee in 2009, despite stiff opposition from 57 scholars and think tanks, the director fell foul of the present dispensation as she was seen to have lobbied for the adoption of a resolution by the Indian History Congress against the government's decision to appoint any social scientist and not a modern historian to head the NMML. Mukherjee had recorded her dissent when the executive council, headed by veteran Congress leader Karan Singh, proposed a change in the recruitment rules for the director of the research institution.

Not taking kindly to her dissent, the Culture Ministry had written to her, saying she should have recused herself from the discussion in the executive council as she was an "interested party".

Several academics, including veteran historian Satish Chandra, had written to Karan Singh opposing the change.

After an exchange of terse letters between EC Chairman Karan Singh and the NMML director, the matter came to a head two months ago when Karan Singh threatened Mukehrjee with disciplinary action if she went ahead making new appointments as her term as director would expire on August 9.

Mukherjee's tenure has created a divide among historians as her supporters and opponents have been slugging it out over the past few years. Raising questions over the functioning of the prestigious institution, a group of scholars had petitioned teh Prime Minister, urging him "to revive the museum so that it again becomes India's pre-eminent centre of dispassionate scholarship in humanities and social sciences". They had demanded that "once the present director Mridula Mukherjee's term ended in August, her successor must be chosen through an open transparent process".

New Delhi, June 28
DMK leader M K Stalin today met his half-sister and party MP Kanimozhi, arrested in connection with the 2G scam, at Tihar jail here.

Stalin, who flew in from Chennai today morning, met Kanimozhi at Tihar accompanied by DMK Parliamentary Party Leader TR Baalu and MP AKS Vijayan.

The atmosphere was emotionally-charged, and Stalin and Kanimozhi were seen talking to each other for some time in Tamil. The meeting lasted for over 30 minutes.

The DMK leader also met former Telecom Minister A Raja and Sharad Kumar, Managing Director of Kalaignar TV, in the jail. Prison officials allowed the meeting after a request in this regard was made by a DMK MP.

Stalin's visit to Delhi comes a week after his father M Karunanidhi met Kanimozhi at the Tihar jail. — PTI

New Delhi, June 28
The Centre will launch a scheme to compensate rape victims from August 1, an official statement said on Tuesday. "The scheme has been approved and the budget has been provided. Now it has been decided to launch the scheme (for rape victims) on August 1,” Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath said.

The scheme will aim to provide restorative justice to rape victims through financial assistance as well as support services.

It provides an amount of Rs 200,000 for the victim which may be increased to Rs 300,000 in certain cases, like the rape of a minor or of a mentally or physically-challenged woman. — IANS 

Mumbai, June 28
Beware of that party invitation floating around on social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut or LinkedIn. The cops could be watching you.

This is the message officers of the cyber crime cell of the Mumbai police are putting out to the hip crowd trawling the Internet for the next big party. Last Sunday, officers of the cell scored big when they busted a rave party at Karjat on the outskirts of Mumbai. Caught in the dragnet was none other than an inspector of the Narcotics Control Bureau who is suspected to be the drug supplier for the do.

According to the police, the invitations for the rave party, code-named Shanti Yatra, were being circulated on Facebook and ravers, as participants are called, paid Rs 1,000 per head to join in. The police seized drugs like ganja, charas, heroin and ecstasy from a dealer at the party. “These raves are big businesses with revellers coming from around the country. There are DJs (disc jockeys) who specialise in performing at raves who come from abroad,” says Inspector Nandkishore More of the cyber crime cell.

Three DJs from abroad, Jane Bourbounese, Starling and Raveholic, were to perform at Sunday’s rave says More. One foreign DJ is presently in the custody of the police. According to the police, the rave was planned several months in advance with the venue spruced up with the latest sound systems. The organisers are being investigated for their links with drug dealers.

According to sources, the cyber crime cells of the Mumbai and Pune police began monitoring the Internet for rave parties around five years ago. Details like the actual venue of the parties are usually sent by SMS on the mobile phones of members. But the policemen say they have penetrated deep into these networks.

New Delhi, June 28
The BJP appears unprepared for any substantive discussion on the Lokpal Bill in or outside Parliament.

The party has so far avoided spelling out its stand on the issues raised in either of the two drafts prepared by Team Anna or the government. Only the other day former BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi had pleaded that “we will state our position only when the government introduces the Bill in Parliament.”

But there are some in the BJP who are not so sure what their stand would be in Parliament either. Asked about this, a senior BJP leader simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders. His reasons: “Ninety per cent of the MPs want the Lokpal but feel that the Jan Lokpal Bill is outrageous and can never be passed by any Parliament.”

As a result a section fears that the BJP could resort to its time-tested strategy of stalling Parliament to avoid any discussion. While Joshi did not say this in so many words when asked if his party would allow the Houses to run to facilitate a discussion on the Lokpal Bill, Joshi turned around and said, “It is the duty of the ruling party to ensure that the House runs.”

The BJP will participate in the all-party meeting on the Lokpal Bill convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 3 when the government will place the Anna draft as also its own to seek comments of the parties before it goes to the Union Cabinet for the final clearance. But going by Joshi’s statement, the party may not put its cards on the table.

Till now, the BJP has maintained a deliberate ambiguity. On the one hand it supported Anna Hazare’s demand for a Lokpal and on the other it refused to spell out anything about the powers of the Lokpal or whether the Prime Minister and the judiciary should be put under the Lokpal. In his letter of June 2 to Pranab, BJP president Nitin Gadkari refused to commit himself, saying that his party would express its views only after the government showed its cards.

After the government and Anna drafts came out in public domain, the Left, the SP and most other parties, including BJP ally Akali Dal, spelt out their stand. But BJP said ‘not yet’.

Then on June 24 when three members of the Anna team, namely Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Manish Sisodia, went to meet BJP parliamentary party and NDA chairman LK Advani to seek his views, he postponed a reaction saying he would not be able to express his views immediately as these were yet to be formalised. He asked them to return on July 2, a day ahead of the all-party meeting but Team Anna pressed for July 1, which Advani granted, anticipating that by then Gadkari and the two Leaders of Opposition in Parliament, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, would have returned to the Capital.

Cheyenne (US), June 28
The secretive business havens of Cyprus and the Cayman Islands face a potent rival: Cheyenne, Wyoming.

At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn’t a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations.

It’s a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol. Neighbours say they see little activity there besides regular mail deliveries and a woman who steps outside for smoke breaks.

Inside, however, the walls of the main room are covered floor to ceiling with numbered mailboxes labeled as corporate “suites.” A bulky copy machine sits in the kitchen. In the living room, a woman in a headset answers calls and sorts bushels of mail.

A Reuters investigation has found the house at 2710 Thomes Avenue serves as a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains. It is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as “shell” companies, paper entities able to hide assets.

Wyoming Corporate Services will help clients create a company, and more: set up a bank account for it; add a lawyer as a corporate director to invoke attorney-client privilege; even appoint stand-in directors and officers as high as CEO. Among its offerings is a variety of shell known as a “shelf” company, which comes with years of regulatory filings behind it, lending a greater feeling of solidity.

“A corporation is a legal person created by state statute that can be used as a fall guy, a servant, a good friend or a decoy,” the company’s website boasts. “A person you control... yet cannot be held accountable for its actions. Imagine the possibilities!”

Among the entities registered at 2710 Thomes, Reuters found, is a shelf company sheltering real-estate assets controlled by a jailed former prime minister of Ukraine, according to allegations made by a political rival in a federal court in California. The owner of another shelf company at the address was indicted in April for allegedly helping online-poker operators evade a US ban on Internet gambling. The owner of two other firms there was banned from government contracting in January for selling counterfeit truck parts to the Pentagon.

All the activity at 2710 Thomes is part of a little-noticed industry in the US: the mass production of paper businesses. Scores of mass incorporators like Wyoming Corporate Services have set up shop. The hotbeds of the industry are three states with a light regulatory touch-Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada.

The pervasiveness of corporate secrecy on America’s shores stands in stark contrast to Washington’s message to the rest of the world. Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the US has been calling forcefully for greater transparency in global transactions, to lift the veil on shadowy money flows. — Reuters

New Delhi, June 28
The Medical Council of India (MCI) plunged deeper into the crisis today, with another officer of the regulating body putting in his papers. Deputy Secretary of the council Dr Anshuman Darbari reportedly resigned last evening.

MCI sources confirmed that Darbari, a Masters in Cardio Thoracic Surgery (MCH), who earlier served in RML Hospital, Lucknow, resigned yesterday, citing “personal reasons”. He will serve his month-long notice beginning yesterday.

Though top council sources said Darbari had certain problems with the Chairman of the Board of Governors, Dr KK Talwar, Darbari said he had quit on personal grounds.

“I am the only son of my parents who stay in Rishikesh. My wife and children stay in Lucknow. I am unable to look after my family and have decided to quit. My children need my attention,” he said.

These grounds for resignation seem queer as Darbari had joined the MCI only in April this year during the tenure of the former MCI BOG headed by Dr SK Sarin. Asked if he would reconsider his decision, Darbari said, “I have no such plans as of now.”

Interestingly, his exit today coincided with the withdrawal of resignation by MCI secretary Sangeeta Sharma, who had quit on June 14. Under notice, Sharma said she had withdrawn her resignation after the MCI BOG assured her of a healthy working atmosphere. She, however, admitted that the BOG had not responded to her withdrawal yet.

Jamshedpur, June 28
Six schoolgirls fainted after a teacher asked them to do 100 sit-ups here today. They were admitted to Tata Main Hospital here.

The girls, Class IX students of Beldih Church School, were punished for causing din during a teachers’ meeting.

Inspector-cum-officer in charge of the Bistupur police station Pramod Kumar Singh said the girls were Amrita Kumari, Rukshar Hashmi, Sazia Hassan, Simran Arora and two others.

No written complaint had been lodged in this regard as yet, he said. However, the parents of the girls claimed that they have registered a written complaint against the teacher, Nilanjana, and she had been suspended. The parents alleged that the girls were hit on their legs with a stick.

A teacher of the school, who was among others to take the girls to the hospital, denied the allegation, but admitted that they were asked to do 100 sit-ups.

The school authorities did not confirm if any action had been initiated against the teacher, but said they were looking into the incident. — PTI 

BRIEFLY

Will meet Sonia on Thursday: Anna
Pune: As part of his outreach to political parties on Lokpal Bill, Anna Hazare on Tuesday said he would meet Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Thursday. Hazare said he would be meeting all party Presidents from Wednesday. Asked why was he going to meet Gandhi when the Congress was opposed to his agitation, Hazare said “it was part of the democratic process in our discussions.” — PTI