The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

2G: Court allows Swamy to testify against PC

New Delhi, December 8
Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy was today allowed to testify in support of his private complaint seeking prosecution of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in the 2G case by a Delhi court.

The court said Swamy “was not prevented in law” from bringing fresh evidence about the roles of “other conspirators” in the scam.

Special CBI Judge OP Saini allowed the plea of Swamy that in view of his knowledge of “fresh evidence” on the identity of other conspirators, he be allowed to depose again in the case.

“In view of the facts that complainant was not aware of the identity of additional proposed accused(s) at the time of filing of the complaint, but has now come to know about it, he is not prevented in law from leading evidence on this point, more so, when he has referred to the role of other conspirators in his complaint,” the court said.

The court partially allowed the application of Swamy, who had not only sought to record his statement but also wanted to examine some government officials, to press his case that the then Finance Minister Chidambaram was equally culpable as he and former Telecom Minister A Raja had a role in deciding 2G Spectrum prices and the entry fee.

“Accordingly, complainant Dr Subramanian Swamy is permitted to recall himself as complainant witness for leading further evidence.

“However, other witnesses, as mentioned in the list of witnesses filed with the application, shall be allowed to be summoned only after relevance of their testimony is explained by the complainant (Swamy),” it said, and fixed December 17 as the next date of hearing.

The court, in its three-page order, referred to a high court judgment and said, “The magistrate is duty-bound to consider those factual averments even if they are not contained in the written complaint made to him.”

Swamy, who first deposed in January before another court, sought permission to testify again saying earlier he was not aware of Chidambram’s role.

The court said, “Furthermore, the case is still at the initial stage. Only complainant has examined himself as a witness. If such a prayer is made at an early stage of the case, I see no reason for disallowing the same.” The court had, on December 3, reserved its order on Swamy’s plea seeking permission to examine himself afresh. — PTI

Parliament adjourned

The Opposition on Thursday disrupted proceedings in Parliament by vociferously demanding resignation of Home Minister P Chidambaram for his alleged role in the controversial 2G Spectrum allocation. Members of the BJP-led NDA created uproar in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to seek Chidambaram’s resignation in the wake of a Delhi court allowing Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy to become a witness in the 2G Spectrum case. The Lok Sabha could not conduct any business as it saw trouble as soon as it met for the day at 11 am, forcing its adjournment till noon and then again till 2 pm.

Harvard removes Swamy-taught courses

New York: Harvard University has decided to remove courses taught by Subramanian Swamy at its annual summer school session, terming his views as "reprehensible" in a controversial piece he wrote on Islamic terrorism in India. Swamy had recommended demolishing of mosques and suggested that only Muslims in India who "acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus" should be allowed to vote.

MPs give a thumbs down to Paswan Jr’s film
Aditi Tandon/TNS

New Delhi, December 8
Yesterday evening, when Bihar Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan held a special screening of his son Chirag’s debut film in the Parliament House Complex, the Yadav leaders from the state turned up to watch, to the surprise of everyone.

Keeping politics aside, RJD’s Lalu Yadav and JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav arrived at the GMC Balayogi auditorium in Parliament to encourage and appreciate Chirag’s Paswan, whose first film, “Milay na miley hum”, was screened in a hall with a capacity to accommodate all the parliamentarians and many more guests.

It is another matter that very few - just 25 MPs - actually arrived even though the presiding officers of both the Houses - Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari - were among the VVIPs who actually watched the film which has not done well at the box office. Inquiries from Paswan’s office revealed that over 800 invitations were sent to all MPs of both the Houses and all ministers.

Sadly for Paswan, the evening did not turn out as well as it did for Lok Sabha member Shatrughan Sinha, who had similarly screened “Dabangg”, starring his daughter Sonakshi, in the same auditorium. That film was also open to the Lok Sabha secretariat staff, which explained the good gathering.

In comparison, the hall today was sparsely occupied, with mainly MPs from Bihar and Maharashtra turning up to watch the Chirag Paswan starrer. Among the thin crowd were BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy; Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, Jitin Prasad; Vijay Darda and Hanumantha Rao; RJD’s Rajya Sabha MP Rajniti Prasad and NCP’s Tariq Anwar.

Present from the Paswan family was the Dalit leader’s wife and son Chirag. The latter has deliberately retained his surname, ducking the Bollywood trend of changing the name to suit the glamorous medium.

Mecca Masjid blast: Rs 70 lakh for Muslim youths wrongly held
Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, December 8
Seen as the first such case in India, the Andhra Pradesh Government has released compensation for the innocent Muslim youths who were falsely implicated in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case.

The state Minorities Welfare Department has issued a GO, sanctioning the release of Rs 70 lakh, to be distributed among 70 Muslim youths who have been acquitted of all the charges. “The money will be paid as a confidence-building measure and compensation,” the GO said.

This is perhaps the first instance of the victims of “police torture” in a terror case being paid compensation. The unprecedented move is seen as an acknowledgement of the wrong done to the innocent youth.

Out of 70 persons, who were wrongly implicated in the case, 20 men would be paid Rs three lakh each while others would get Rs 20,000 each. The order came after Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy announced in the State Assembly that the compensation would be paid to the innocent youth.

Significantly, the National Minorities Commission (NMC) had recommended that the money be raised by deducting from the salaries of the policemen who made the arrests and tortured the victims. Nine persons were killed in the blast that ripped through the historic Mecca Masjid in the heart of the city during Friday prayers on May 18, 2007.

Sufi poetry, theatre to dominate Jaipur lit fest
Vandana Shukla/TNS

Chandigarh, December 8
The much-awaited fifth DSC Jaipur Literature Festival will be held from January 20 to 24 at its usual venue Diggi Palace in Jaipur.

This year, the festival will play host to over 200 speakers from across the globe. Prominent authors, poets and playwrights who have confirmed their participation include author of several books on spirituality and science like Deepak Chopra, Helen Fielding, English novelist, who created the fictional character Bridget Jones of the cult movie Bridget Jone’s Diary, Nigerian novelist and poet Ben Okri, Chinese author Amu Chua whose book on Asian mother’s capacity to produce hard working tigers in 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' created a stir in the world of mothers around the world.

This year the focus will be on a variety of issues, including Bhakti and Sufi traditions, Arab Spring, Gandhi, Ambedkar and Anna, vegetarianism, censorship, writing from the conflict zones and theatre. Internationally acclaimed playwrights are going to participate in the festival. If “Dance Like a Man” fame playwright Mahesh Dattani will initiate dialogue on Indian theatre, JLF co-director William Darlymple said, “I am particularly proud this year to have brought Tom Stoppard and David Hare, two of our greatest living playwrights.”

Other celebrity writers who will have an opportunity to meet their fans include Sri Lanka-born Booker winner Canadian novelist and poet Michael Ondaatje, author of “The Cats Table” and “The English Patient”, which was turned into a popular Hollywood film to win nine Academy Awards in 1996, and Annie Proulx, the American journalist and author whose second novel “The Shipping News” won her a Pulitzer for Fiction, while her short story - Brokeback Mountain - was adapted as an Academy Award winner film. They will be holding reading sessions and will talk about their writing craft.

Jason Burke, the south Asia correspondent of The Guardian and The Observer, who reported events leading to 9/11 and David Remnick, winner of Pulitzer Prize for his book “Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire,” and editor of The New Yorker will contribute to the discussions on the Arab Spring.

Pavan Varma of “Being Indian” and “The Great Indian Middle Class” fame, poet and translator of Kabir, Arvind K Mehrotra, Amish Tripathi, writer of “The Secret of the Nagas”, C.P. Deval, Fatima Bhutto, Gulzar, Hari Kunzru, Jamaica Kincaid, James Schapiro, Javed Akhtar, Lakshmi Sharma, Mohamed Hanif, Piyush Daiya, Prasoon Joshi, Purushottam Agrawal, Rahul Bhattacharya, Rabi Thapa, Ranjit Hoskote, Shyam Jahangid, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Tahmima Anam, Thant Mynt-U, Tom Stoppard and Zoe Heller, to name a few, are also going to be there.

To avoid last-minute glitches, provision of online advance registration has been made for all visitors. All registered visitors will be given a code online, which will be checked at the entry gate to avoid entry of unregistered visitors. “These changes have been introduced to ensure better management,” added Sanjoy K Roy, producer JLF. Like previous years, there will be no entry fee for the literature festival, but speculation is rife that a nominal entry fee may be introduced for the evening musical programmes, which attract unmanageable crowds.

In 2011, the five-day festival had showcased 225 speakers in 140 sessions, which attracted nearly 60,000 visitors, initiating some of the most candid and uncensored debates on topical socio-political issues one has witnessed in the country.

Pranab cites premature election as reason for retreat on retail FDI
Anita Katyal
Our Political Correspondent

New Delhi, December 8
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today told Congress MPs that the government was forced to backtrack on its decision to allow FDI in retail as it was not acceptable to its allies and could have resulted in “pre-mature elections” if the Opposition’s adjournment motion had been accepted.

Briefing party MPs on the steps being taken by the government on the issue of black money at a specially convened meeting today, Mukherjee made a passing reference to the recent FDI controversy which had united the Opposition and divided the UPA.

The party position on this controversial issue is expected to be further delineated when Congress president Sonia Gandhi addresses members of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) next week.

There was no official briefing about today’s meeting but party sources said Mukherjee strongly defended the government’s move to open up the retail sector but added that if an adjournment motion on this issue had taken place, a key constituent of the ruling alliance would have not voted with the government.

This would have been unprecedented and created an awkward situation for the government, he is learnt to have said.

It is better to suspend the policy than to go in for pre-mature elections, he told the MPs. “I apologise to those members who had supported FDI in retail and might be feeling let down. But if we had gone ahead with it, it would have created a crisis for the government,” he added.

According to party MPs who were present at the meeting, Mukherjee admitted that it was the responsibility of the Congress to carry its allies along and since it was unable to do so in this instance, it decided to keep the policy in abeyance till it is able to forge a consensus among all the stakeholders.

Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had opposed the FDI policy, had refused to budge from her position and had gone as far as to say that she would support the Opposition’s adjournment motion.

The UPA’s other key ally, the DMK, was also not in favour of this policy but it had assured the Congress that it would not vote against the government though its members would oppose it during the debate.

As Mukherjee told the meeting, the party would utilise the coming months to create public awareness about the benefits of allowing foreign direct investment in the retail sector.

Party MPs will be briefed on this subject at another meeting next week to enable them to counter the Opposition campaign against the FDI policy.

The panel of 11 spokespersons, which was set up recently to articulate the government’s policies to the media, was also briefed by the members of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on media, headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram.

Besieged by controversies, the UPA government is facing its worst credibility crisis and it has to shore up all its resources to refurbish its sagging image. The party has, therefore, picked its young junior ministers to speak to the media.

mining scam
FIR filed against Krishna, 2 ex-CMs
Shubhadeep Choudhury/TNS

Bangalore, December 8
An FIR was registered against External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and two other former Karnataka Chief Ministers by the Lokayukta police today on a private complaint alleging that they facilitated illegal mining during their respective tenures.

The Case Files
z The Lokayukta police registered a case on a private complaint against three former Karnataka Chief Ministers SM Krishna, N Dharam Singh and HD Kumaraswamy
z The complaint alleged that the three leaders facilitated illegal mining during their respective tenures as CM
z Eleven bureaucrats have also been named in the FIR

Besides Krishna, his senior Congress colleague and successor N Dharam Singh and Dharam Singh’s successor and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy have been named in the FIR. “The FIR has been registered in the Bangalore City Lokayukta police station”, Satyanarayana Rao, ADGP, Lokayukta police, told The Tribune.

Eleven bureaucrats have also been named in the FIR filed under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Forest Conservation Act, Forest Act and Minerals and Metals Regulation and Development Act (MMRDA) and the IPC.

Admitting a complaint filed by social activist TJ Abraham on December 3, Lokayukta Court Judge NK Sudhindra Rao had directed the police to register FIR against three former CMs. The order was passed under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. If the police finds evidence in the allegations, the FIR will culminate in the filing of a chargesheet before the court.

Written copy of the court’s order reached the Lokayukta police yesterday following which the FIR was registered today. The complainant alleged that Krishna, who was the Chief Minister from October 1999 to May 2004, and Dharam Singh (2004-06) and Kumaraswamy (Feb 2006 - Oct ’07)) permitted illegal iron ore mining for pecuniary gains.

Abraham had submitted that his complaint was based on the report on illegal mining presented to the government by then Lokayukta Santosh Hegde in August.

With this, four former Karnataka Chief Ministers are facing probe based on private complaints. BS Yeddyurappa of the BJP was released on bail last month after his arrest on a complaint alleging irregularities in land de-notifications.

The Anna effect: Mumbaikars choose ‘clean’ candidates for civic poll
Shiv Kumar/TNS

Mumbai, December 8
Egged on by social activist Anna Hazare's call to elect clean people as their representatives, residents' groups across Mumbai are coming together to field candidates who are untainted by either crime or corruption.

Among those vying for tickets to contest the Mumbai civic elections in February next year are college students, housewives, young professionals, businessmen and activists. Residents' associations that have expressed their desire to field candidates for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections say they are receiving good response from citizens.

"The response has been encouraging so far and we have received the names of several probable candidates," says Harish Pandey, an office-bearer of the New Link Road Residents' Forum at Dahisar in North Mumbai.

The body, which successfully dragged a prominent builder right up to the Supreme Court to save vast tracts of mangroves from being encroached, enjoys tremendous goodwill among people in at least six municipal wards making it a tough challenger to mainstream political parties.

Elsewhere in Mumbai, residents' associations have already chosen their candidates. One group, called the Mumbai Nagrik Satta, has already decided to field a housewife Thelma D'Souza from ward 115 in Juhu which is reserved for women.

The group is headed by Adolph D'souza (no relation to Thelma), who is the outgoing corporator from the same ward. Adolph was the first citizen corporator to be elected by residents' groups in the last municipal election in 2007. He will move to another ward, according to the Mumbai Nagrik Satta.

So far at least half-a-dozen organisations have come forward to field citizens' candidates in different parts of Mumbai. Last week, the Mumbai Nagrik Satta chose to field Hina Shroff, also a housewife, from Ward 65 which is also reserved for a female candidate.

Another recently-formed body called Mumbai 227 has also announced that it would field candidates in the civic polls. The body, which initially announced that it would field candidates in all the 227 wards, is likely to back out from the areas where other residents' organisations are fielding candidates, say sources.

However, Mumbai 227 is collecting applications from aspirants and will be conducting interviews with them before zeroing on the right candidate. Representatives of the residents' associations say most the people who have expressed their desire to contest the elections as their candidates are young people, including below 40 years of age.

India concerned over Sino-Pak nuclear cooperation in PoK
Ashok Tuteja/TNS

New Delhi, December 8
India today expressed concern over certain aspects of the China-Pakistan relationship, particularly the nuclear cooperation between them in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). However, the government was keeping a constant watch on all developments having a bearing on India’s security, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur told Parliament.

The nuclear nexus between Pakistan and China has been a cause for concern not only to India but the entire international community for quite sometime. Beijing has also in recent months confirmed that it proposes to build two nuclear plants for Pakistan at Chashma, virtually in disregard of the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

Meanwhile, regarding the Sino-Indian border dispute, she said there was no commonly delineated Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries.

From time to time, on account of differences in the perception of the LAC, situations have arisen on the ground that could have been avoided if the two countries had a common perception of the LAC.

Kaur said the government was regularly taking up any transgression along the LAC with the Chinese side through established mechanisms, including border meetings, flag meetings and diplomatic channels.

E Ahamed, the other Minister of State for External Affairs, told the Upper House that India had clearly told China that the oil and gas exploration activities by the Indian companies in the South China Sea off the Vietnam coast were purely commercial in nature and the dispute should be sorted out in accordance with international laws.

Oil exploration activities by India’s ONGC Videsh in the South China Sea waters off Vietnam had recently irked China, which claims the region as its own and says activities by foreign companies in its waters undermine its sovereignty.

The South China Sea dispute had also figured in talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in Bali last month on the sidelines of East Asia and ASEAN summits. The minister said sovereignty over the areas of the South China Sea was disputed between many countries and India was not a party to that. “As two developing countries with growing energy needs, India and Vietnam have been cooperating in the oil and gas industry to enhance their energy security,” he said.

SC accepts bail plea of suspended Gujarat IAS officer
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, December 8
The Supreme Court today accepted the bail plea of Gujarat cadre IAS officer Pradeep Kumar Sharma, who has been in judicial custody since January 6 this year for his alleged involvement in a land scam in the course of the re-development of the earthquake-hit Bhuj city.

A Bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prasad Desai, however, directed Sharma to file an affidavit assuring his appearance in the trial court whenever needed and reporting to the police once a week. The state government should facilitate him to file the affidavit from the jail, it clarified. The case would be taken up again on December 13 for passing the bail order.

While Sharma was the Collector of Bhuj district from May 2003 to June 2006, the state government filed five FIRs, beginning from 2008 till this year. Sharma alleged that he had been framed as his younger brother, Kuldip Sharma, the senior-most IPS officer from the state cadre, had exposed the alleged role of Modi in the 2002 riots. Also, Modi apprehended that the arrested IAS officer had a video on his life and making it public would damage his reputation.

The Bench did not agree with the suggestion of senior counsel Ranjit Kumar, who argued for the Gujarat Government, that Sharma should be asked to report to the police every day as he had sold his house and planned to take asylum in an Arab country to escape the trial.

The court gave liberty to the state to provide the photograph and biometrics of Sharma to all airports and ports to prevent him from fleeing the country.

Release, deport Pak prisoners, SC tells govt
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, December 8
The Supreme Court has directed the government to expedite the release and deportation of all Pakistani and other foreign nationals lodged in various prisons across the country without any justification.

A Bench comprising Justices RM Lodha and HL Gokhale gave the instructions to Additional Solicitor General Parag Tripathi while hearing a PIL filed by Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh.

“Wherever you find there is unreasonably long detention without any justification, the affected foreign nationals should be expeditiously released and deported to their respective countries,” the Bench said.

Before the next hearing of the PIL on January 24, 2012, the government should file an action taken report, which should also have a schedule for providing similar relief to the remaining prisoners, the Bench clarified.

The Bench, however, took serious exception to Bhim Singh providing unverified details of foreign nationals lodged in Indian jails. At the last hearing, he had mentioned about the plight of four Pakistani women prisoners.

But the government said two of them were undergoing a 10-year sentence for drugs smuggling, while the third was on trial for unlawful activities. The fourth was a four-year-old girl child (Heena) of one of the prisoners in the central jail in Amritsar.

The Bench advised Bhim Singh to approach the court only with correct details as it had decided to be tough hereafter.

5,000 CCTVs to guard 1,200 strategic locations in Mumbai
Shiv Kumar/TNS

Mumbai, December 8
Indian and international corporate houses are lining up to bid for a comprehensive integrated surveillance project for Mumbai which would cost the taxpayers as much as Rs 6,000 crore.

Under the project, more than 5,000 cameras would be installed at 1,200 strategic locations across the city. These cameras would be monitored round-the-clock at three levels, officials say.

In addition to the local police station, which would be monitoring the cameras installed within its jurisdiction, similar facilities would be extended to zonal offices as well as the police headquarters in downtown Mumbai, officials confirmed.

“It will be a very comprehensive set up with police control rooms monitoring footage at various levels. We are also considering setting up a separate cadre to monitor the footage,” Maharashtra Chief Secretary UC Sarangi said. The decision to set up the integrated monitoring system was a result of a study tour to London by senior politicians and bureaucrats headed by Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil.

The state government has now received expressions of interest from some of the biggest corporate houses in the country, including Reliance Industries, Tata, IBM and others. As much as Rs 6,000 crore would be spent on this system over the next few years, say sources.

Based on inputs received from security experts, the state government officials are pushing for state-of-the-art software to monitor footage from the CCTVs in real time. Similar systems installed in countries other than the UK are also being studied by officials. A special cell comprising of police officers specialising in photographic intelligence is also sought to be set up.

Officials say the company which would be responsible for setting up the security system would be selected by this month-end. Work on the project will begin in the New Year. The CCTV-based intelligence system will be networked with similar facilities installed by private organisations and other agencies like the railways and the airports, say sources.

Security boost for vulnerable Guwahati too
Bijay Sankar Bora/TNS

Guwahati, December 5
As many as 291 CCTV cameras are being installed in 91 strategic locations in this most populous and biggest city in the Northeast to raise the guard against the designs of terrorist outfits. Fifteen-odd cameras have already been set up in three locations, including one near the state capital complex, and the process would be completed within three months.

The city has been the target for blasts by various terror outfit in the past. The most devastating of terror attacks were the serial blasts on October 30, 2008 when three crowded places in the city were rocked along with Kokrajhar, Barpeta Road and Bongaigaon in Assam killing over 90 persons and injuring over 400. The serial blasts were triggered by the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) led by Ranjan Daimary.

18 tonnes of coins in Tirumala treasure trove
Suresh Dharur/TNS

Hyderabad, December 8
The country’s richest temple, Tirumala is sitting over a huge stock of coins, both Indian and foreign, donated by pilgrims over several years. The collection weighs a whopping 18 tonnes!

This includes nearly six tonnes of foreign coins. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), an autonomous body which runs the affairs of the hill shrine in Andhra Pradesh, has initiated an exercise to assess the value and antiquity of the old coins collected from its “hundis” (donation boxes).

A team of numismatists has been pressed into service to assess their value for disposal at a later date after taking into account their antiquity, TTD Executive Officer LV Subrahmanyam said. “The coin experts drawn from the Archaeological Survey of India and the state archaeology have already begun the exercise and are expected to complete the scrutiny and assessment within a week,” the senior IAS official said.

Stating that the huge stock of coins was being categorised on the basis of metal, country and size, the temple official said the coins were made of copper, bronze and steel and had their origins in countries like the United States, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Nepal, Thailand and Arab countries.

“The foreign-origin coins weigh approximately six tonnes,” the EO said.

Based on the number of antique coins, the TTD has been mulling a programme to set up galleries in prominent museums across the country to display of its coin collection. “We want to utilise the opportunity to showcase “Sanatan Dharma” through coins by setting up such galleries in museums across the country,” Subrahmanyam said.

The TTD has also taken up cleaning of copper plates, containing “Annamaiah kirtans” composed by the 15th century saint poet Tallapaka Annamacharya who penned over 32,000 kirtans in praise of Lord Venkateswara.

These kirtans were engraved on 2,698 copper plates by his son Tallapaka Pedda Tirumalacharya and were preserved in the temple’s sanctum sanctorum.

Meanwhile, according to preliminary estimates, the value of 162 precious stones, mostly diamonds, which were offered by an unknown devotee last week, would be around Rs 1.5 crore. “The exact figure will be known only after the evaluation report is received from the jewellery section of the TTD,” Subramanyam said, adding that a purchase certificate of precious stones was also found in the “hundi” along with the precious stones.

Nestled among the picturesque string of seven hills, the Tirumala temple is
one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. With annual revenues crossing Rs 13,000 crore, it is considered the richest shrine.

Fear of Modi prompts BJP to withdraw booklet
Faraz Ahmad/TNS

New Delhi, December 8
A booklet praising Chhatisgarh chief minister Raman Singh for good governance has mysteriously disappeared from BJP circles in Delhi, within a day of its release by party president Nitin Gadkari on December 1. This has led to speculation that the booklet was withdrawn presumably because it did not go down well with BJP’s reigning mascot, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

The booklet was prepared by the Governance Cell of the BJP and sources suggest that its convenor and former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar had praised Raman Singh for good governance on several counts, including his government’s schemes reaching the targeted population, leading a more honest and able administration and achieving a better image even among BJP’s critics. Till now Modi was used to being projected as the unbeatable mascot and outshone all his peers on all counts of governance whenever the BJP tried to show itself as a party of good governance. In turn he would rise on such occasions and condescendingly also mention his peers like MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and former Rajasthan CM Vasundhra Raje as victims of discrimination by the Congress government.

Of late though, Chauhan, too, has received considerable attention and praise from the party and even outside for leading a pro-poor administration.

Maharashtra flip-flops over Mangeshkars’ demand to shift flyover
Shiv Kumar/TNS

Mumbai, December 8
The Maharashtra Government is caught in a bind over a demand made by singers Lata Mangeshkar and her sister Asha Bhosale that a flyover proposed outside their home at the downtown Peddar Road be scrapped.

The flyover or road over bridge at the Peddar Road is meant to remove bottlenecks on the road connecting the southern-most part of Mumbai with the rest of the city. Shortly after the facility was proposed a few years ago, the sisters threatened to leave the city if the facility came up. Both Lata and Asha complained that the elevated bridge passing by the building, in which they live, would allow onlookers to peer into their houses. Both women also felt that vehicles zooming over the flyover would result in increased noise pollution.

Since then, the government has decided to go slow on implementing the project. However, last week Minister for Rural Development Jayant Patil, who is also the guardian minister for Mumbai, told a newspaper that the project has indeed been scrapped.

Following Patil's remarks, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray hit out at the two Mangeshkar sisters. "If the Peddar Road project is scrapped, we won't allow any flyover to be constructed anywhere in Mumbai," Raj Thackeray told reporters.

The project was first mooted in 1995 when the Shiv Sena-BJP government was in power in the state.

Residents of the Peddar Road are, however, strongly behind the Mangeshkar sisters. For the past several years, residents of the area have been sending out petitions against the project. The government, however, insists that the concerns of the residents are being addressed.

"As demanded by the residents of the Peddar Road, we have already begun installing noise barriers on all flyovers in Mumbai," says Maharashtra's Chief Secretary Ratnakar Gaikwad. The suggestion first mooted by the people in this area was taken up by residents' associations across Mumbai. Environmental groups report that installation of noise barriers does help in reducing noise pollution created by fast-moving vehicles on flyovers.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which is tasked with building the flyover at the Peddar Road, has complained of a major hurdle in the way of the project. In a report submitted by Bipin Shrimali, managing director, MSRDC, the presence of water pipelines dating back to the British days was a major hurdle in constructing the flyover.

Karuna greets Sonia on her b’day

Chennai, December 8
DMK president M Karunanidhi greeted Congress president Sonia Gandhi who turns 66 tomorrow, saying, “People have abundant faith and robust confidence in you”. In a faxed message to Sonia today, he said she was “at the helm of affairs when parliamentary democracy in India is passing through a crucial stage”.

“Our people have abundant faith and robust confidence in you and they strongly believe that you have all the capabilities to improve the quality of their life,” he said.

Noting her brief illness, Karunanidhi said she rededicated herself in the service of the people. “I am quite sure that you will continue your excellent performance for the good of India for years to come,” he said. — PTI

Ghose murder trial resumes
Bijay Sankar Bora/TNS

Guwahati, December 8
More than 14 years after an NGO official Sanjoy Ghose was abducted and killed in Majuli river island of Assam by the militants of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assom (ULFA) in July 1997, a fast-track court here is all set to resume the trial of the case in the wake of arrest of one of the accused, Phatik Hatimota alias Pankaj Saikia, an ULFA militant.

In response to a petition by the CBI which had earlier completed investigation into the case and filed a chargesheet against 11 accused, the fast-track court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Kamrup district, has directed the Jorhat District Jail authority to produce accused Hatimota on December 19. It has also instructed the SSP, Guwahati city police, to facilitate security for the accused while being brought to the court from Jorhat.

Sanjoy was the secretary of NGO called AVARD-NE, which was working for the development of backward river island of Majuli in Jorhat district. He was abducted by the ULFA on July 4, 1997 and killed on the same day.