Hyderabad, July 1
A constitutional crisis stares at Andhra Pradesh with the elected representatives of the ruling Congress from Telangana region today deciding to submit their resignations on July 4 to mount pressure on the Centre to concede the demand for a separate state.

The dramatic announcement came after a marathon meeting of the party MPs, state ministers, legislators and MLCs held in the city. Taking note of the growing public pressure for a precipitating action to achieve the statehood goal, the meeting decided to opt for en mass resignations.

“Our decision is guided by an overwhelming public sentiment in the Telangana region. We are ready to sacrifice power for the sake of the people,” state panchayatraj minister K Jana Reddy said after the meeting.

While the MPs would submit their resignations to Lok Saha Speaker Meira Kumar, the MLAs and the MLCs would hand over their papers to Assembly Speaker N Manohar and Legislative Council chairman A Chakrapani, respectively, on Monday, senior MP K Keshava Rao said.

The meeting was attended by attended by seven out of 12 Congress MPs from the region, 18 MLAs, nine out of 13 ministers and nine MLCs. The ruling party has 50 legislators from Telangana, which accounts for 119 seats in the 294-member Assembly.

Though all the elected representatives may not quit their posts, the resignations by an overwhelming majority of them are likely to create a constitutional crisis for the Congress Government. The Telangana protagonists, across the political spectrum, argue that en mass resignations and the consequent constitutional crisis was the only way to force the Centre into taking a decision on the long-pending issue.

With Andhra Pradesh contributing 33 MPs to the UPA kitty, the political instability here is bound to have an adverse impact on the Centre.

Minutes after the announcement from the Congress camp, the Telangana leaders from the TDP also declared that they would also quit their posts on July 4, setting the stage for a showdown with the Centre.

New Delhi, July 1
India hopes to test fly its first indigenously-developed 90-seater regional transport aircraft (RTA) in the next five years, a top official has said.The 90-seater RTA will be developed as a team India initiative led by the CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL), which can also see some global participation, CSIR Director-General Samir Brahmachari said here today.

A committee headed by former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair submitted a feasibility study to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) recently in this regard.

The Committee, which had top bureaucrats and aerospace scientists as members, has suggested a two-pronged approach --- Design Development and Production Unit --- to realise the objective.

“The Committee has come to a conclusion that the RTA should be a narrow body turbo fan aircraft with a seating capacity for 70-90 persons and stretchable to 80-100 persons,” Brahmachari said.

“The total project cost is estimated at Rs 7,700 crore — Rs 4,500 for the design and development stage and Rs 3,200 for the production unit,” he said.

The Nair Committee has also suggested that the government pick up the entire tab for the design and development state and has favoured a joint venture route for setting up the production facility.

The panel has set a target of six-eight years for completion of the development and production stage of the project.

“We hope to have the prototype ready in the next five years assuming that the project takes off in 2012,” Brahmachari said.

The CSIR has recruited 85 engineers in Bangalore-based NAL for the design and development of the RTA, Brahmachari said, adding that there would be an additional requirement of at least 300 more engineers for the project.

He said discussions were still taking place on whether to involve the private sector at the design stage itself.

Discussions had also taken place with the Israel Aerospace Agency and a Swedish company while preparing the feasibility report for the project.

The report has also been submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has called for further consultations on the matter.

Brahmachari said the designing of the aircraft would be linked to small and medium enterprises sector which was already manufacturing some components for the aircraft industry.

“Such an approach will help reduce costs and will also help further develop the MSME sector,” he said.

As per aviation market projections, the country will require about 500-600 regional aircrafts, while the global market is estimated to be about 10-fold.

The aircraft will be capable of take-offs and landings on smaller runways making it fit for use on 85 per cent of the country’s airports.

The aircraft will also have a low carbon footprint and capable of travelling 2,500 km in one go, Brahmachari said. — PTI 

Chennai, July 1
More than 300 Air Warriors were today inducted into the Indian Air Force at a passing-out parade held at the IAF station at suburban Tambaram.Air Commodore Alok Kumar, Command Flying Training Officer, reviewed the parade held at the end of their training.

Kumar said the career prospects in the IAF had 'substantially improved' and urged the newly inducted professionals to strive for excellence.

The operational efficiency of the IAF hinged upon maintenance and administrative support, he added.

"The IAF is in the process of a technology-based transformation and modernisation with the phased induction of high-performance, state-of-the-art aircraft and high-precision military hardware and automation," he said. Earlier, the Air Warriors had gone through a 'rigorous intensive training' at the Mechanical Training Institute and Workshop Training Institute.

Besides the 322 personnel, 13 soldiers from the Air Forces of Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka also earned the training course certification, a release here said. — PTI 

New Delhi, July 1
The Congress today admitted to being in the finals of “talks” with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) for the coming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, an acid test for party’s crown prince Rahul Gandhi.

Senior Congress leader and UP in charge Digvijay Singh confirmed that the “stage is set” for discussions on modalities of the alliance, which most likely would happen after the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee meeting on July 12.

The Congress did rather well in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections but does not have any significant presence in western UP, the stronghold of Ajit Singh. For Ajit Singh, who is understood to have unsuccessfully tried to bargain with Mayawati’s BSP and Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, it could be a win-win situation. Sources say he is bargaining for a berth at the Centre in lieu of the Congress-RLD alliance.

However, some senior Congress leaders are believed to have opposed the alliance with Ajit Singh. Calling the leader “unpredictable and unreliable”, they say that if the BSP fell short of seats to form the government after the 2012 elections, he would not think twice before leaving the Congress high and dry.

The Congress has limited choices as it goes about to make Rahul’s UP dream a reality. Digvijay Singh said the Congress was open for alliances in UP barring with “the BJP, the SP and the BSP”. The Congress is not interested in the SP because the grand old party fears being treated as a junior partner by Mulayam Singh. There are other smaller factions like the Apna Dal and the Peace party, which the Congress does not mind tapping as it would mean consolidating the minority vote bank.

But the problem is that the Peace party is trying to carve a niche in the Muslim vote bank, emboldened by the recent successful attempt of the AIUDF in Assam, which emerged as the second largest party after the Congress in the recently-held Assembly polls.

Meanwhile, in response to whether Ajit Singh would be accommodated in the next Cabinet reshuffle at the Centre, Singh preferred to remain quite. 

Alibaug, July 1
Aparajit Anil Mittal, COO of Hotel Mount View at Khalapur near here, has been arrested in connection with the rave party busted by the police on Sunday night, officials said today.

Mittal (23) was arrested last night from suburban Andheri in Mumbai and will be produced at the Khalapur JMFC court later in the day, the police said. Earlier, five persons, including inspector Anil Jadhav of Mumbai's Anti-Narcotics Cell, were arrested in connection with the party, where drugs were supplied to the youths.

Hours after his arrest on June 27, Jadhav was suspended by the Maharashtra Government pending an inquiry.

Besides Jadhav, four others arrested were identified as Jadhav's aide Sunil Ghule, party organisers Snehjit Sajalkar and Kushankumar Sujankumar, hotel manager Rahul Khanna, while another accused Vickey Shah is still absconding. The five accused, who were booked under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, were remanded in the police custody till July 2.

The police had raided the rave party organised in the Khalapur hotel on Sunday night and seized contrabands, besides articles used for consuming drugs and Rs 3 lakh.

Around 300 youths, including more than 60 girls, had attended the party. However, all were let off after medical examination. — PTI 

Guwahati, July 1
The Centre has set 2012 as the deadline for complete sealing of the porous India-Bangladesh border through completion of border fencing and enhanced patrolling of riverine portions where fencing cannot be erected.

The Union Home Ministry has told a visiting delegation of the All-Assam Students' Union (AASU) which has been fighting against illegal migration from Bangladesh across the porous border, that border fencing scheme has been put on the fast track for completion of the project that has continuously missed deadline for the last five years.

"Senior Home Ministry officials said the Centre was quite serious to seal the border to prevent infiltration and other cross border criminal activities," said AASU adviser Dr Samujjal Bhattacharyya, adding that the ministry officials were reminded of several deadlines that had been missed so far.

Bhattacharyya informed that the Centre had also directed the Assam Government to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which was stalled last year after violence erupted in Barpeta during a protest rally by sections of the minority community opposing the exercise.

Assam shares a border of 263 km with Bangladesh. Fencing of the border was committed in the Assam Accord of 1985 but civil society organisations including the AASU had been voicing concern about the 'Centre being not serious' about implementing the clause in the agreement.

The most porous stretch of Bangladesh border in Assam lies at Dhubri district which has a riverine border of 49 km with the neighbouring country.

Plans were firmed up several years ago by the ministry to station a floating border outpost in the district but had so far not been implemented. Some length of riverine border is located in Karimganj district in south Assam.

Unlike the frontier with other countries, the Indo-Bangla border is thickly populated which has made fencing a difficult task at many places. 

Kolkata, July 1
There was no medical negligence in the death of 18 babies at the state-run BC Roy Children's Hospital here but the infrastructure was not up to the mark, a probe panel said today.

"No medical negligence or human lapse was found on inquiry," Health Secretary MN Roy told reporters at Swasthya Bhavan after the government probed the deaths at the region's largest paediatric referral hospital.

Noting that most of the babies were brought to the hospital in a "very critical condition", he said 13 of those who died had respiratory trouble and four had low birth weight.

Roy said the inquiry report stressed on the need for development of medical infrastructure in the hospital where a special unit was supposed to be built for new-born babies.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who holds the health portfolio, yesterday ordered an inquiry into the death of the babies and warned of stern action against anybody found guilty.

Families of the babies and local people barged in yesterday and blocked the road before the hospital before being dispersed by police. — PTI