New Delhi, August 11
Team Anna today asserted that they would go ahead with the indefinite fast on August 16 for a strong Lokpal Bill, saying there will be no compromise on their demands, but left the door open for further talks with the government.

Social activist Anna Hazare threatened to stop drinking water if the government arrests him before or during the fast and tries to force feed him.

The Hazare team also expressed satisfaction at choice of venue - Jai Prakash Narain Park near Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium - offered to them by the police for holding the fast.

Activist Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the people to maintain calm during the fast.

"We have got reports that in some place, some troublemakers might enter the protest and try to spread violence. We appeal to the people to be aware of such elements," he said.

To fine-tune the strategy for the protest, the core committee of the Hazare team met here this morning and appealed to people to organise relay fast on August 16.

Team Anna is demanding withdrawal of the "anti-poor, anti-Dalit, weak" Bill and seeking the introduction of a stronger one.

Arvind Kejriwal, a close associate of Hazare, said there was no going back on the demands raised by them.

"We are not ready to compromise with anyone till our demands are met. The deadlock continues. We are open for any dialogue, but there is no invitation from the government yet," he said. — PTI

New Delhi, August 11
The surviving victims of Bhopal Gas Tragedy continue to be out of government’s sight, awaiting their share of compensation the Cabinet had approved last year after a Group of Ministers (GoM) revisited the issue. Nearly 28 years after the disaster, 18,568 claims made by sufferers are pending for disposal.

Statistics furnished to the Lok Sabha today by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers revealed that not a single victim of renal failure on account of gas leak had yet been given his due whereas 1,000 claims had been made. Most of the awards have been made in cases involving deaths where out of 5,295 claims filed, 5,020 have been settled and ex-gratia of Rs 379.43 crore paid. This sum forms the bulk of compensation so far awarded - Rs 519 crore. The GoM had approved an ex gratia of Rs 740 crore for all the 48, 694 victims.

But so far, only 30, 126 cases have been disposed of (18568 remain) involving an ex gratia of Rs 519 crore; Rs 221 crore is yet to be paid with the government today saying the same was being made on demand. It also ruled out further revision of the list of victims, with the Minister of State for Chemicals Srikant Jena telling the House in the Question Hour that enough chances had been given to the victims to be counted.

“The final notification in this respect was issued in 1997 and the government had asked those left out to make a claim. Ten lakh additional applications then came. The Welfare Commissioner subsequently finalized the list. How can we change it after 20 years?” Jena asked.

He was responding to a barrage of supplementary questions following CPM member A Sampath’s primary query on the compensation of victims, whose plight was raised in the Parliament last year forcing the government to revise compensation amounts.

To date, compensation has mainly been paid in cases of death, permanent and temporary disability. Those living with chronic diseases like cancer and renal failure are still waiting for money. Out of 2,000 cancer patients who filed claims, only 347 have received compensation amounting Rs 5.12 crore. Out of 42 cases involving people suffering utmost severe injury, only 8 have been paid Rs 0.24 crore in all. Explaining the delay, Jena said, “Whenever the demand comes, money is released.” The payment is targeted for completion by December 2011.

Another concern raised today pertained to the removal of toxic waste from the Union Carbide India Limited site, with Sampth asking the government why the waste was not being transported back to the US at the cost of UCIL? The government said the Madhya Pradesh High Court had recently ruled that the waste may be transported to West Nagpur after the sites earlier agreed upon were rejected. The transfer of waste, the court said, would be subject to Maharashtra Pollution Control Board’s approval.

MPs from Maharashtra led by Datta Megha from Wardha were quick to remind the Centre that 25 lakh people resided around the DRDO’s incineration site in Nagpur where the waste was sought to be sent. Their lives are not cheap, they said.

Guwahati, August 11
A dozen insurgent groups from the Northeastern states Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura have called for “boycott and general strike” to mar celebration Indian Independence Day on August 15. The general strike has been called from the midnight till 5.30 pm on August 15.

The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has decided to do away with night running of all passenger trains in N-E areas during August 13 to 16 as a precautionary measure to prevent possible strikes by ultras. An NFR spokesman Jayanta Sharma informed that besides suspending night running of trains in the run up to the I-Day, the railway authority has also resorted to speed restriction of trains.

Meanwhile, security forces in Assam have launched a combing operation along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh boundary to track militants belonging to the ULFA (anti-talks) trying to sneak in from their hideouts in Arunachal.

In a statement e-mailed to the media, the rebel groups termed the current peace process initiated by Government of India in Assam and Nagaland as a “futile exercise” that has been done by “luring freedom fighters to the so-called Indian mainstream,” and cited “failed” examples of similar process that had been taken in Mizoram and Tripura earlier by Indian government.

New Delhi, August 11
A review of India's national security system structures is presently under way, National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon said today.

The Union Cabinet, he said, had asked a specially appointed task force to undertake the review. ''How we shape those instruments will depend on the task we have set ourselves as a nation and on the threats that we see to India's transformation.''

Menon said India needed at least 15 years more of 9-10 per cent growth if it was to abolish the mass poverty which still afflicted the country.

“So, while India is already a major economy in terms of size and ability to influence prices and supply and demand in certain markets, it will still be a country of poor people with overwhelming domestic priorities for an extended period of time. This will certainly be true for the foreseeable future which is, at best, 15 years,’’ he said.

Menon was delivering the 16th Prem Bhatia memorial lecture, organised by the trust named after the eminent journalist, on “India and the Global Scene’’. Envoys of different countries, former diplomats and leading journalists attended the function.

Mid-Day crime editor Jyotirmoy Dey, who was gunned down by alleged underworld goons in Mumbai, and Times of India's Josy Joseph were given away the Prem Bhatia Award for excellence in political reporting on the occasion. Joseph was chosen for his consistent scoops exposing the scandals in the 2-G case, the Commonwealth Games and the Adarsh Housing Society scams. Dey shared the award posthumously for his work in exposing Mumbai's underworld and corruption in police and bureaucracy. The two winners of the environmental award were Madhuraj, chief news photographer of Mathrubhumi, and G Nirmala.

Reeling out statistics, Menon said there was still a long way to go before it could be said that Indians enjoyed a satisfactory standard of living or were in a position to enjoy and exercise their rights and realise their full potential.

The former Foreign Secretary said India would have to work actively in the pursuit of its interests in the world while bearing in mind its larger goals. India needed to work for a peaceful periphery. “We have an interest in the peace and prosperity of our neighbours, removing extremism and threats from their soil, as we are doing successfully with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.’’

Bangalore, August 11
Karnataka Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda today expanded his ministry, but kept out the mining magnates - Reddy brothers - and their close associate B Sreeramulu from his Cabinet.

Raju Gowda, CP Yogeshwar, Anand Asnotikar, Balachandra Jarkiholi and Independent MLA Varthur Prakash were sworn in by Governor HR Bhardwaj at the Raj Bhawan here today in a brief ceremony. Portfolios to the new ministers will be alloted later.

Anand Asnotikar and Balachandra Jarkiholi, who were both ministers in the previous Cabinet headed by BS Yeddyurappa, are turncoats who had won the Assembly elections in May 2008 as Congress and JD(S) candidates, respectively. They resigned from their seats and then successfully fought on BJP tickets and became ministers.

They were among the MLAs disqualified by the Assembly Speaker in October last year for withdrawing support to the government. Later, they got relief from the Supreme Court.

The remaining ministers sworn in today are freshers. One of them, CP Yogeshwar, is facing a chargesheet from the CID for cheating people of over Rs 37 lakh in the name of allotting sites to them in Ramanagara near Bangalore.

However, Karunakara Reddy, Janardhana Reddy and Sreeramulu, who have been indicted by former Lokayukta Santosh Hegde in his report on illegal mining in Karnataka, failed to make a comeback to the ministry despite hectic lobbying. They were ministers in the BJP’s first government headed by BS Yeddyurappa.

The Reddy brothers, in view of their indictment, also tried for induction of their brother Somashekhara Reddy, also an MLA, in the Cabinet. But he too failed to find a place in the ministry.

This is the second ministry expansion that Gowda has carried out after he inducted 21 ministers on August 8 in a hurried exercise. After today's expansion, the ministry still has seven vacancies.

Gowda took oath as Chief Minister on August 4 following removal of Yeddyurappa by the party high command after the Lokayukta report on illegal mining indicted him.

Even as there are many ministerial berth aspirants within the BJP, the party high command chose to accommodate Varthur Prakash, the only Independent MLA inducted in the Cabinet, in tune with the promise held out to him earlier as a reward for supporting the government.

Sringeri MLA DN Jeevaraj, who recently quit as chief whip of the BJP in the Assembly with hopes of joining the ministry, was left disappointed.

Chief Minister Gowda, who returned to Bangalore last evening after spending two days in Delhi, flew to Delhi this morning again to finalise the list of new ministers in consultation with the party’s central leaders.

While both Yeddyurappa and Jagadish Shettar were present at the oath function, the Reddys and Sreeramulu did not show up.

New Delhi, August 11
The central government has sought details from the Rajasthan Government about Khaleel Chishty, an 80-year-old Pakistani doctor undergoing life imprisonment in a jail in Ajmer in a murder case.

As the question hour proceeded peacefully in the Rajya Sabha after days of disruption, the Prime Minister intervened on a question on Chishty and said the Home Ministry had been instructed to seek details from the Rajasthan Government on the case of the virologist from Karachi Medical College.

Chishty’s mercy petition, which was cleared by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, was sent to acting Governor Shivraj Patil, who sought more details in the case.

Chishty was awarded life imprisonment in January this year on charges of killing a man, who apparently was also his relative. He and some others had been accused of killing Irshid in a fight in April 1992.

The incident took place when Chishty, who had been living in Dubai, was on a visit to Ajmer for offering prayers at the Dargah of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chisty.

His family has been saying that when the murder took place, Chishty was not on the spot. The police took him into custody as he was a Pakistani national.

After the 18-year trial and conviction in a murder case, he moved the Rajasthan High Court against the lower court’s verdict, but his bail application was turned down.

Justice Markandeya Katju of the Supreme Court recently requested the Prime Minister to release Chishty on “humanitarian grounds”.

Acting on Justice Katju’s appeal, Gehlot approved the mercy plea of Chishty and sent it to the Governor for final clearance.

Replying to a question, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna said the authorities from both the sides met regularly to discuss the issue of their nationals in each other’s jails.

Krishna informed the House that the “high commissioners of India and Pakistan meet twice every year to discuss the issue of prisoners”.

He told the House that presently 558 Indian prisoners were lodged in Pakistan jails, of which 232 were non-military people, 252 were fishermen and 74 were Indian Army officers, who reportedly went missing. He, however, added that the figures from the Pakistan government differed from those of India. 

New Delhi, August 11
To meet the severe staff crunch in the newly established Central educational institutions (CEIs), including the new Central universities, the Union Cabinet today approved mobility of faculty and non-faculty personnel to CEIs and other scientific institutions for a period up to 10 years on a deputation basis.

With this decision, the faculty, officers and employees presently working under the Central Government or Central autonomous bodies including those already on deputation to new CEIs and scientific institutions as on today and who are covered under the Central Civil Service (Pension) Rules, 1972, or an identical pension scheme 
before January 1, 2004, will be allowed to join and continue to work up to 10 years.

All such posts occupied by long-term deputationists in new institutes will be automatically treated as exempted from the rule of immediate absorption for the period of deputation. The responsibility of payment of pension to the deputed personnel will be with the lending institution which has a pension scheme.

The pay drawn by personnel on deputation to higher scale of pay will be treated as emoluments for the purpose of calculation of pensionary benefits under CCS Pension Rules, 1972, or identical scheme with respect of deputationists from the Central Government including Central autonomous bodies to newly set up CEIs on or after January 1, 2004.

Mumbai, August 11
Video clips of policemen aiming at the heads at protesting farmers on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Tuesday has come as a major embarrassment to the authorities. Three persons, including a woman, were killed with bullet shots to their heads and upper torsos as the police cleared the expressway after eight hours of blockade by the farmers, who were protesting against the decision to divert water from their farms to the Pimpri-Chinchwad township.

According to the data released by the Maharashtra Government today, the police fired a total of 21 tear gas shells and 34 rubber bullets on the protesters. However, when these failed to deter the protesters, 59 rounds of live ammunition were used on them. While 51 rounds were fired from the service revolvers of the police personnel, eight rounds were fired from self-loading rifles.

"The video shows that the police was not firing in the air, but wanted to kill the protesting farmers by shooting them on their heads," Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray told reporters after meeting with the kin of those who were killed in the incident.

Thackeray added that the police could have used tear gas or lathi charge to disperse the protesters instead of aiming to kill them. "It was simply a cold-blooded murder orchestrated by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and Home Minister RR Patil. We saw on TV how farmers, who were running away from the scene, were shot on the heads by the police," he said.

Ajit Pawar controls the Pune civic body and is the guardian minister of Pune and the neighbouring township of Pimpri and Chinchwad.

Thackeray went on to say that the Shiv Sena would settle for nothing less than the resignations of Pawar and Patil from their posts.

The telecast of the video had its repercussions in the Maharashtra Legislature with the Shiv Sena and the BJP disrupting proceeds in the house.

Patil said the government would immediately suspend the police officers who were filmed aiming for the heads of the farmers. "I have asked the superintendent of police to identify the officers who opened fire. We will suspend them immediately," Patil said.

Local police personnel, who were deputed to monitor the protests, have told their superiors that they were outnumbered by the farmers. While there were 100 policemen, the number of protesters exceeded 1,200. 

Ahmedabad, August 11
After Sanjiv Bhatt, another IPS officer Rahul Sharma has earned the ire of the Narendra Modi government in connection with 2002 riots probe, with authorities issuing a show-cause notice to him asking why he should not be chargesheeted for giving CDs of call records during the violence to various agencies including SIT.

Sharma, a DIG-rank officer, today filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court challenging the state government’s decision of not providing him the "grounds" on which he was served the show-cause notice on February 5 over the CD containing call records during the riots.

The petition was today mentioned before Justice Abhilasha Kumari who has posted it for tomorrow.

The state government might contemplate taking action against Sharma after the notice period ends today, officials said.

Sharma, who was posted in Ahmedabad during the 2002 post-Godhra riots, had given CDs containing phone call records of the 2002 riots to various agencies including Nanavati Commission and the SIT.

In his petition, Sharma has said that he asked the state government on what grounds he was issued the show cause on the matter, but the state government denied him the information.

Sharma had also filed an application under the right to information (RTI) Act seeking details of the grounds on which the notice was served to him. — PTI 

New Delhi, August 11
After two days of disruptions, the Lok Sabha today resumed functioning with the opposition leaders raising concerns around the progress of caste census.

Soon as the Lok Sabha Speaker called for the commencement of Question Hour, JDU president Sharad Yadav got up to ask the government why it had ordered a three-stage census of the castes in India - one by the state, one by the Rural Development Ministry and one by the Urban Development Ministry.

After other leaders, including BJP’s Gopinath Munde, BSP’s Dara Singh Chauhan, SP’s Mulayam Singh and DMK’s TR Baalu had expressed similar concerns, Leader of the Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee assured them that the caste census would be conducted in the format they had suggested.

“Sharad Yadavji gave me a format which I sent to the Home Minister who said it was being followed. Now I am being told that there are some problems at the implementation level. We will sort them out,” he said.

Earlier, Munde insisted that the task be assigned to the Census Commissioner and the Yadavs said the BPL census should be done separately and not as part of the caste census. “Set up a separate commission to count the BPL families. You can’t tag these two tasks along with. At this pace, caste enumeration will never happen,” Sharad Yadav said.

The government had earlier agreed to enumerate castes in the country in the first ever exercise since 1931. It has also asked leaders of all political 
parties to give suggestions as to the manner of such enumeration.