The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	MiG-21 crashes in Barmer, pilot safe Jaipur, October 7 A MiG-21 combat aircraft of the IAF today crashed near Uttarlai airport in Rajasthan's Barmer district. The pilot managed to eject safely. The plane was on a routine sortie and the incident occurred at around 11.30 am when the pilot was preparing for landing, Defence PRO SD Goswami said. The pilot, Flying Officer Amit, ejected safely. A court of inquiry has been ordered, Goswami said. This is the sixth air crash involving IAF’s fighter aircraft this year and the fifth belonging to the MiG-21 series warplane. In view of the increasing number of accidents involving MiG-21s, the IAF has decided to phase them out by 2017. The force is also planning to allow only experienced fighter pilots to fly the plane from next year. Of the total 976 MiG-21s inducted in the service in the 1960s, over half of them have been lost in air crashes. — PTI
	MMRCA deal: Bids to be opened in Oct-end Tribune News Service New Delhi, October 7 India today cleared the way for opening of the commercial bids of two short-listed companies that are in the race for $10.4-billion deal to supply 126 fighter aircrafts for the Indian Air Force. The bids are expected to be opened within three weeks. A minimum of 15 days advance notice is needed to inform the bidders. The bids will be opened in the presence of companys’ authorised representatives. After the bids are opened, the Defence Ministry will be able to determine the lowest bidder in the deal for Medium-Multi Role Combat Aircraft (M-MRCA) and decide who will ultimately get the contract. The bids will be evaluated on multiple cost parameters like operational and life-cycle costs, including engine over-hauling periods. At a meeting chaired by Defence Minister AK Antony, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) cleared the offset evaluation report of Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon, the two contenders. Both warplanes took part in the recent NATO air raids in Libya. Defence Ministry officials said "All the spadework for the opening of bids has been completed.” As per the offset clause, foreign vendors bagging deals worth over Rs 300 crore are supposed to invest back 30 per cent of the worth of the contract in Indian defence industry. In M-MRCA, the vendors will have to invest 50 per cent of the worth of the deal.
	NSD de-notified as deemed varsity Aditi Tandon/TNS New Delhi, October 7 Keen on pursuing the status of an institute of national importance on the lines of Indian Institutes of Technology, the National School of Drama (NSD) has surrendered its tag of a deemed to be varsity and the Ministry of Human Resource Development has obliged it right back by withdrawing the said status. The NSD was notified as a deemed varsity under the UGC Act on March 11, 2005. But by a notification today, the HRD Ministry withdrew the earlier orders and said it was immediately denotifying the NSD. Importantly, the NSD failed to satisfy any of the UGC requirements and ended up among the 44 deemed to be universities found lagging on various fronts and later categorised as “blacklisted” by the government. These deemed institutions were later, through court orders, given time to come up to the required standards. Clearly, the NSD in between decided that it would rather opt for the status of a national institute which can only be granted through an Act of Parliament and give up its deemed status which it was in any case about to lose. The HRD Ministry in its notification says, “The NSD Society is of the view that deemed university status would undermine the professional training, autonomy and flexibility required in the creative field like theatre. It also feels that academic and administrative autonomy of the NSD will be adversely affected and it will face special problems in appointing teachers best suited to the practice-oriented theatre training institute if it follows UGC instructions.” Accordingly, the NSD Society in a meeting held on October 29 last resolved that the Government may de-notify it as an Institution Deemed University so that it could pursue getting the status of an Institute of National Importance or a Special University to be established by an Act of Parliament. The Ministry of Culture also supported the NSD’s demand for de-notification as a deemed varsity.
	Tainted staff can’t claim pay parity with others: SC R Sedhuraman Legal Correspondent New Delhi, October 7 The Supreme Court has ruled that tainted or censured employees can’t claim parity with those having a clean record in the matter of pay hike as treating them alike would go against the laws governing service as well as the Constitutional provision relating to positive discrimination. Granting party to them “is not permissible in service jurisprudence and is also violative of Article 14 of the Constitution,” a Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma held in a verdict on a bunch of petitions filed by the Rajasthan Government on the issue. Rajasthan had issued an order in the early 1990s for delaying the grant of selection grade to censured employees. The Rajasthan High Court had struck down this order on petitions filed by the affected class IV employees of the state government. The apex court said, “This appears to be a reasonable classification. Otherwise, every employee — one with a clean image and another who has earned censure — will be treated at par.” “An employee with a blemished, polluted, tainted, unclean service record cannot be equated with another who has enjoyed a clean, unblemished, unpolluted, untainted and impeccable service record,” the Bench held. “Article 14 of the Constitution which guarantees equality before law had a caveat under which the state still has the power to differentiate among different classes of people,” Justice Verma reasoned.
	BJP, RSS gearing up for Advani yatra Faraz Ahmad/TNS New Delhi, October 7 The BJP and RSS are gearing up in a big way to make the proposed Jan Chetna Yatra of BJP senior leader LK Advani a success. The yatra will begin on October 11 from Jai Prakash Narayan’s village Sitab Diara in Saran district of Bihar. The BJP today held a day-long media workshop guiding and training media cell in charges from all the 23 states and union territories, which Advani will be touching, to ensure that the right kind of publicity is generated in the media on all 39 days of the yatra. BJP leader Arun Jaitley felt the theme of Advani’s yatra ‘Good governance and clean politics’ will on its own attract the people who are sick of corruption and misuse of institutions by the UPA government. RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohanrao Bhagwat had yesterday told cadres to support all efforts to fight corruption and bad governance in his annual Vijay Dashmi address at Sangh headquarters in Resham Bagh in Nagpur. While declaring that the Sangh was fully supportive of all agitations to fight corruption and also disclosing that the RSS had put all its might behind Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, he called upon his workers to involve themselves with all future movements to fight corruption.
	2G: Raja’s plea to attend SC proceedings turned down Tribune News Service New Delhi, October 7 A trial court hearing the 2G Spectrum case today rejected the plea of former Telecom Minister A Raja requesting its permission to attend proceedings related to the 2G case in the Supreme Court and assist his counsel during the argument. "The application of A Raja is dismissed. The court is adjourned till October 10," said Special CBI judge OP Saini while rejecting the application of the jailed former minister. In a plea filed on October 5, Raja had claimed that there could be many facts of the case that his lawyer (Sushil Kumar) may not know and if he was allowed to be present in the court (SC) in person, he would be able to assist him during the argument. Pleading before the court today, Sushil Kumar, counsel for Raja, said that he would require the assistance of his client in the SC and that as it is a highly secured court, there was no way that Raja could escape. "I wish the assistance of my client in Supreme Court. There is no security threat. The apex court is the highest guarded court in India today and he will not escape from there," Kumar had pleaded. Raja, who was arrested by the CBI in the 2G case in February, is presently lodged in Tihar Jail along with DMK MP Kanimozhi and 12 other top executives of various telecom companies.
	Man walks with severed head of wife, arrested Bijay Sankar Bora/TNS Guwahati, October 7 A day after Ranjit Das allegedly severed his wife’s head following an altercation and marched down a street in Assam’s capital city with it, he was remanded to judicial custody for three days. Das, who lives in a rented house in the Japorigog locality close to the state capital complex at Dispur, allegedly first chopped off his wife Amaya Daimary Das’ head and and then walked around town holding it in one hand with a blood-stained machete in the other until some CRPF jawans accosted him and drove him to the police station. Father of two sons aged nine and six, Das told the police that he suspected his wife was having an affair with another person and told the police the name of the other person. Amaya Daimary Das was a health worker under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and was posted at Orang in Udalguri district. She had come home for her puja holidays when Das killed her . Das, who plies an autorickshaw and runs a small grocery shop in his locality, confessed to have killed his wife during interrogation. The magistrate sent him to three days judicial custody.
	New policy on TV channels to discourage flippant coverage Girja Shankar Kaura/TNS New Delhi, October 7 In order to ensure that only serious and credible operators are permitted to operate "news channels" in the country, the government today approved policy guidelines for uplinking and downlinking of TV channels. The approval came at a Union Cabinet meeting chaired by PM Manmohan Singh. While the amendments to the policy would relate to TV channels, they would specifically be aimed at curbing mushrooming of non-serious TV news channels, set up basically for profit-making. The amendments aim to recast the policy to ensure that the electronic media landscape of the country does not get unnecessarily crowded by non-serious players. A statement issued after the meeting said, "Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has proposed to carry out amendments in the existing policy to reflect the fast evolving electronic media landscape in the country." The amendments are based on extensive consultation with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and envisage, inter alia, significant changes in the eligibility criteria of companies seeking to operate TV news channels in the country. As per the amendments in the policy for uplinking of news and current affairs channels, net worth criteria of the individual or the company has been increased from Rs three crore to Rs 20 crore for the first channel and Rs five crore for each additional channel. Net worth criteria for uplinking of 'non-news and current affairs' channels and downlinking of foreign channels has been revised from Rs 1.5 crore to Rs five crore for the first channel and Rs 2.5 crore for each additional channel. While regulation of foreign TV channels uplinked from abroad and distributed in the country for public viewing is governed by "Policy Guidelines for Downlinking of Television channels" notified on November 11, 2005, private TV channels which are uplinked from within the country are governed by "Guidelines for Uplinking from India" notified in December the same year. Uplinking guidelines also provide for permission and regulation of teleports. The statement said after these guidelines were notified, there has been an exponential growth of television channels, especially during the last few years. The amendments say all TV channels granted the licence would be required to operationalise them within a time frame of one year from the date of permission.
	'Oust-Gamlin’ campaign spills to streets in Arunachal Pradesh Bijay Sankar Bora/TNS Guwahati, October 7 The ‘oust-Gamlin’ campaign spilled to the streets of Arunachal Pradesh today with a huge rally in the state capital Itanagar, organised by the All Nyishi Students’ Union (ANSU) and the Nyishi Elite Society (NES) raising demand for the resignation of the Arunachal Chief Minister. The rally also asked all legislators from the Nyishi community to withdraw support to the CM Jarbom Gamlin. “We have resolved to demand resignation of Jarbom Gamlin and fixed October 12 as deadline. In case he refuses to quit, then we will demand his dismissal and imposition of the President’s rule in the state in view of the deteriorating law and order situation in the state,” Vijoy Sonam, general secretary of Nyishi Elite Society, said from Itanagar. The NES and the ANSU have called for a 36-hour bandh in the state on October 12 and 13 in case Gamlin did not step down. The NES leader said while the law and order situation had worsened, there has been no government activity in the state during the past five months. “The government headed by Jarbom Gamlin has not only failed in discharging its primary duties, but has also pushed Arunachal Pradesh towards anarchy,” he said. Protesters from the five Nyishi-dominated districts in the frontier hill state converged at Indira Gandhi Park in Itanagar, where leaders of the NES and the ANSU criticised the government for allegedly failing to maintain law and order in the state. The Nyishi community, which is in a majority in five of the 17 districts, has 14 MLAs in the 60-member state Assembly in Arunachal Pradesh. Two of them are ministers and four others parliamentary secretaries in the Congress government headed by Gamlin. Gamlin took over as CM of the hill state surpassing many senior leaders of the ruling Congress in May this year following the tragic death of incumbent CM Dorjee Khandu in a helicopter crash. He became the sixth CM of the state which first got a provisional Assembly in 1975. So far no one from the dominant Nyishi community has been able to adorn CM’s chair in the state. Meanwhile, a political crisis is precipitating in the state following the demand by a section of Congress legislators to replace Gamlin by senior minister Nabam Tuki, who is a prominent member of the Nyishi community. A number of Congress legislators and ministers opposed to Gamlin have been camping in New Delhi for over a week now, waiting for an appointment with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Chief minister Gamlin too is in New Delhi with some of his supporters.