|
|
|
|
|
Despite rows, K’taka deputy ombudsman refuses to quit
Taints turn BJP’s dream run in K’taka into nightmare
Naidu promises free KG-to-PG education
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Met predicts a chilly week ahead
New Delhi, February 12 The minimum temperature is expected to fall by 3 to 6°C across the plains of northwest and west India this week, renewing the cold wave over the region, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) today said. The snow-covered Khardungla Pass in Leh. — PTI
Maoists gun down 3 in Midnapore
Assam to house CRPF Cobra Force base for N-E
Army Chief leaves for UK today
Cash crunch: Andhra goes slow on populist scheme
class x
exams
CBSE launches its international curriculum online
Land
Allotment Irregularities in AP
‘It's now business as usual at ISRO’
|
|
Despite rows, K’taka deputy ombudsman refuses to quit
Bangalore, February 12 Chandrashekaraiah, a retired judge of the Karnataka High Court, who was sworn in as the Upalokayukta (deputy ombudsman) on January 22, is facing trouble from an unexpected quarter. Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court Vikramjit Sen has opposed his appointment saying that the customary consultation with him was not carried out while choosing Chandrashekaraiah for the job. Chandrashekaraiah is also caught in a row like many judges over acquiring a site in the infamous Karnataka Judicial Employees Cooperative House Building Society. He got a plot from the society despite already owning a house in Bangalore. He also broke the law on three other counts for owning the site. While Governor HR Bhardwaj okayed Chandrashekaraiah’s appointment despite his involvement in housing site controversy, he subsequently favoured review of the Upalokayukta’s appointment in the light of Chief Justice Vikramjit Sen’s letter to Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda objecting to Chandrashekaraiah’s appointment. Chandrashekaraiah has refused to quit. He can be removed only by going through an extremely cumbersome process of moving an impeachment motion in the state legislature. The motion must be approved by an overwhelming majority of votes to ensure that the Upalokayukta is shown the door. In September, retired Supreme Court judge Shivraj V Patil resigned from the post of Lokayukta and the following month, retired Karnataka High Court judge R Gururajan resigned as Upalokayukta after there was hue and cry in the media over them owning sites in a cooperative housing society in violation of the law. Governor HR Bhardwaj, a former Union Law Minister, rejected the Chief Minister’s recommendation to appoint SR Bannurmath, a former Kerala High Court Chief Justice, as Lokayukta after it surfaced that he too had obtained a site in a cooperative society illegally.
Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare’s presence in Bangalore has prompted his key followers to turn their attention to the row over the appointment of Upalokayukta in Karnataka. India Against Corruption (IAC) secretary Prithvi Reddy has backed the review of Justice Chandrashekhariah's appointment as Upalokayukta. Team Anna’s lead campaigner Arvind Kejriwal, who is camping at the trendy naturopathy institute where Anna is undergoing therapy, has also extended support to the demand of reviewing the Upalokayukta’s appointment.
|
|
Taints turn BJP’s dream run in K’taka into nightmare
Bangalore, February 12 Right from its inception in May 2008, the BJP government in Karnataka has been affected by a never-ending stream of scandals. Seven ministers, including the trio who resigned recently after being caught on TV cameras watching sleazy visuals on a mobile phone during the Assembly session, have so far resigned in Karnataka after being found involved in various scams and scandals. The Reddy brothers - Janardhana and Karunakara - and their associate Sriramulu did not resign from Cabinet, but their indictment in the report on illegal mining prepared under the aegis of the then Lokayukta Santosh Hegde made their retention in the Council of Ministers untenable after Sadananda Gowda took over as the Chief Minister following dissolution of the Cabinet headed by the tainted Yeddyurappa. Janardhana Reddy, arrested by the CBI on September 5 in connection with illegal iron mining in Andhra Pradesh, is still cooling his heels in a Hyderabad prison. Sriramulu, angry at being denied a seat in the Gowda-led Cabinet, rebelled against the BJP and is now an Independent MLA. Karunakara Reddy continues to remain a BJP MLA, but is keeping an extremely low profile. If one includes the Bellary troika in the list of sacked ministers, which they effectively were, then the number of ousted ministers becomes 10. In hip circles of Bangalore, they are being called the “Ocean’s Ten”, mimicking the Hollywood movie “Ocean’s Eleven” which tells the story of a heist. Not all the 10 sacked ministers of the BJP government face “heist” charges, though a fair number of them do. The rest were embroiled in sex scandals. The first minister to go was Krishnaiah Shetty. He was accused of pledging forged documents to get a bank loan of over Rs 7 crore and was also found involved in a housing board scam. Medical Education Minister Ramchandra Gowda had to quit following a recruitment scam. Chief Minister Yeddyurappa was forced by the BJP high command to resign after Santosh Hegde came out with the disclosure that a mining company had paid crores of rupees to his family members. Food and Civil Supply Minister Hartalu Halappa had to quit after his friend’s wife accused him of rape. The latest is this series are the resignations by the three ministers - two of whom were watching a sleazy video on a mobile phone belonging to the third one.
n
Krishnaiah Shetty: Pledging forged documents |
||
|
Naidu promises free KG-to-PG education
Hyderabad, February 12 That’s not all. After free education, the youth will get an unemployment dole of Rs 1,000 per month till they get a job, said Naidu at a youth rally ‘Yuva Tarangalu’ organised by his party in Hyderabad. However, the former Chief Minister did not elaborate on how he planned to fund such schemes. In a bid to attract the youth, he assured 33% quota for the youth while distributing party tickets in the next elections. The TDP chief also promised self-employment to all
rural unemployed and setting up of development zones in every district. Once hailed as the poster boy of reforms, Naidu has been making conscious efforts for an image make-over ever since losing power in 2004. During his nine-year tenure as Chief Minister from 1995 to 2004, Naidu had strongly opposed populist schemes and was a frontrunner in implementing far-reaching economic and administrative reforms. However, on the eve of the 2009 polls, he offloaded his reforms baggage, embraced populism with gusto and made some astonishing poll promises, including direct cash transfer scheme for the poor. Despite being billed as the ‘Mother of all poll promises’, the cash transfer scheme failed to yield electoral benefits for his party as the Congress returned to power for a second term. The anti-farmer and pro-rich image was one of
the main reasons attributed to the TDP’s rout in the 2004 elections.
|
||
|
Met predicts a chilly week ahead
New Delhi, February 12 In the past two days, the minimum temperatures have risen by 3 to 5°C over some parts of Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, west Uttar Pradesh, west Madhya Pradesh, north Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan and by 2 to 3°C over east Madhya Pradesh and east Uttar Pradesh, giving residents some respite from the bone-rattling chill. However, temperatures are still below normal in most parts. According to the IMD, cold wave conditions are still prevailing over parts of east Uttar Pradesh, central and east India where temperatures are still below normal by 5°C. Mercury in parts of Haryana, Punjab, east Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh is also running well below normal levels. In the plains, the lowest minimum temperature of 4.3°C was recorded at Narnaul in Haryana while rain and snowfall occurred at most places in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Though the IMD terms low temperatures during February as a normal phenomenon, some weather experts have reason to believe that the cold wave in Europe, which killed many people there, could be the cause of extreme winter conditions in India. They feel that larger weather patterns, like La Nina and global warming, may be responsible for the extreme winter conditions in the country.
|
||
|
Maoists gun down 3 in Midnapore
Kolkata, February 12 The Maoists attacked the police party after gunning down the villagers and the constable. The exchange of fire lasted over two hours. At sunset, the Maoists fled into the jungle. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who returned to the city today after her two-day visit to north Bengal, alleged that the CPM was creating law-and-order problems in Maoist areas. The police, residents and TMC workers have been asked to remain alert to any subversive activities by Maoists and CPM workers, she said. The joint action force would continue to operate in the Maoists-prone districts of Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura. She appealed to the Maoists to surrender their arms and return to a life of normalcy.
|
||
|
Assam to house CRPF Cobra Force base for N-E
Guwahati, February 12 The Assam Cabinet will soon take a decision approving setting up of the base of Cobra Force in the state, a home department source said. In fact, Assam government had requested the Centre to set up National Security Guards (NSG) base in the state, but New Delhi instead agreed to post a base of Cobra Force. The base will be a battalion headquarter of the force meant for the entire North-East. The Assam Government is now required to provide at least 300 acre land free of cost to facilitate the base of the elite force. The training facility in the Cobra Force base could be a boon for Assam Police personnel when it comes to
specialised training for combating insurgent Maoists.
|
||
|
Army Chief leaves for UK today
New Delhi, February 12 In the first visit to the UK by an Indian Army Chief in four years, Gen Singh will be interacting with senior military and civilian hierarchy and discussing various defence related issues to strengthen existing defence ties with that country.
— PTI
|
||
|
Ministry proposes National Ambulance Code
New Delhi, February 12 The code will define specifications for an ambulance, including its length, breadth, facilities and equipment required for basic life support. It will lay down specifications like those pertaining to doctors and para-health staff inside the facility, its location and minimum time in which it should respond to emergency calls. A “National Emergency Medical Services Network” is also being planned by interlinking all existing and new ambulances through a centralised toll-free number, Road Transport and Highways Minister CP Joshi said at the recently concluded ‘International Congress on Emergency Medical Services System along National Highways’. He said his Ministry would also provide 140 advance life support ambulances to identified trauma care centres being developed by the Health Ministry to impart first-aid training to drivers, toll booth operators and volunteers from nearby villages along national highways for spinal and head injury cases. At present, there are no set standards and a majority of times, ambulances are merely transport vehicles, inadequately equipped and completely unsuitable to carry any patient, let alone the trauma cases in road accidents. Only specialised and high-end hospitals have ambulances that fit the copybook prescription and description of what a real ambulance should be like. Road accidents have earned India a dubious distinction. Statistics suggest there is one road accident every minute and a life is lost every four minutes. With over 1,30,000 such deaths reported annually, the country has overtaken China. It now has the worst road accidents’ rate worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its first ever global status report on road safety. The report says an estimated two million people in India have a disability that resulted from a road mishap. Doctors also admit that many accident victims, perhaps as high as 40 to 50 per cent, succumb to their injuries due to inadequate care during transportation. The National Health Profile of India 2009 lists injury as the third leading cause of deaths in the country.
n
The code will define specifications for an ambulance, including its length, breadth, facilities and equipment required for basic life support
|
||
|
Cash crunch: Andhra goes slow on populist scheme
Hyderabad, February 12 The fee reimbursement scheme initiated by late Chief Minister YS Rajashekhara Reddy in 2009 envisages reimbursing the tuition fee of students belonging to backward classes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and economically weaker sections. It entails an investment of nearly Rs 3,000 crore and stands to benefit over 27 lakh students. The scheme had led to mushrooming of private engineering colleges, particularly in rural areas, where there were no takers for engineering seats in the past due to exorbitant fee. With the introduction of the scheme, these colleges could fill up their seats with BC students and claim reimbursement of tuition fee from the government. An apparent resource crunch has forced the Kiran Kumar Reddy government to go slow on the scheme. The arrears to be paid to the managements of private colleges have meanwhile mounted. This has pushed several colleges into a crisis. As many as 75 engineering colleges have stopped admissions for the current academic year and are up for sale. “With the government changing the guidelines for fee reimbursement, several colleges have become unviable,” said N Ramesh Babu, Chairman of the Consortium of Engineering and Professional Colleges Management Association of Andhra Pradesh (CEPCMAAP). According to the new guidelines, students with 75 per cent attendance, 50 per cent marks in the first year of the plus-two course and an annual family income below Rs one lakh are eligible for reimbursement of tuition fees. The government’s decision has dealt a death blow to 720 private engineering colleges in the state. At least 75 colleges, including 50 in and around Hyderabad, have thrown in the towel and are up for grabs now. “The colleges are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain themselves due to financial crunch. We have approached the Supreme Court several times. It ordered the government to release funds immediately. Yet, none of the professional colleges has received the money so far,” Ramesh Babu said. A spokesman of the AP State Council for Higher Education admitted that the policy of promoting the cause of higher education through fee reimbursement scheme was flawed and difficult to implement. Making matters worse, several private educational institutions have sprung up only to make a quick buck by exploiting the scheme. The government is yet to clear arrears amounting to Rs 3,600 crore that have accumulated over the last two academic years. Managements of Engineering, Pharmacy, MBA, MCA, M Tech and B Ed colleges have threatened to shut down their institutions indefinitely if the government fails to clear the arrears.
n
The fee reimbursement scheme initiated by late Chief Minister YS Rajashekhara Reddy in 2009 envisages reimbursing the tuition fee of students belonging to backward classes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and economically weaker sections
|
||
|
class
x exams Bijay Sankar Bora Tribune News Service
Guwahati, February 12 Now, thanks to an Assam government scheme which is unique to the state so far as the country is concerned, Pankaj now not only has a PC but also he is doing a distant learning course of Bachelor of Computer Applications from Sikkim Manipal University. He plans to pursue a Masters degree in the same stream thereafter. He gives tuitions to school children in the neighbourhood to support his family financially. He also encourages his siblings to study hard to achieve the award. The scheme called Anundoram Barooah Award Scheme (ARBAS) was introduced in Assam by the state government in 2005. It is named after Anundoram Barooah, the first Assamese and fourth Indian officer in the Indian Civil Service of the British era. According to the scheme, Assam government has so far provided computers to over a lakh students who have secured 60% or above in aggregate in An average of 1.70 lakh students take the examination every year. According to an official in Assam Electronics Development Corporation Limited (AMTRON) which acts as the nodal agency for distribution of computers to the high-performing students, eligible students passing the HSLC examination in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 were provided a desktop each while those securing 60% and above in the examination in 2010 and 2011 were given a laptop each. “The state government spent Rs 25 crore in 2005 on implementation of the ARBAS. The investment rose to over Rs 52 crore in 2011 because of distribution of laptops instead of desktops,” the AMTRON official informed. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said, “From this year onwards, the ARBAS will also cover students securing 50 to 60% in aggregate in the HSLC examination. These students will be provided with desktops while their counterparts securing 60% and above will be provided with laptops. The ARBAS has inspired our students to excel in the examination as reflected in the improving success rate since 2005.” A total of 12,756 students received computers in 2005, 13,493 in 2006, 12,708 in 2007, 17,331 in 2008, 17,362 in 2009, 19,352 in 2010 and 19,512 in 2011. So far, a total of 1,12,511 computers have been distributed to those passing the Class X final examination with over 60% marks in aggregate.
|
||
|
CBSE launches its international curriculum online
New Delhi, February 12 The CBSE-i portal will distribute the Board’s internationally benchmarked curriculum which was formulated in 2010 and offered in that year for classes I and IX. In 2011/12, the curriculum was extended to classes II, VI and X. From this year onwards, the curriculum will be extended to classes III, VII and XI. At present, 23 schools outside India, primarily in the
UAE, are offering the CBSE international curriculum, whose registration fee is Rs 1.5 lakh compared to Rs 10 lakh for certain other global curricula. CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi said on Saturday that the global CBSE curriculum will be piloted in 50 schools in India as well. “We will call for expressions of interest from schools which want to offer the new curriculum,” he said.
|
||
|
Land
Allotment Irregularities in AP Suresh Dharur Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, February 12 Questions are being raised over the timing of the decision and the scope of the probe. In some quarters, it is seen as a politically motivated move to dig the past, unearth questionable land deals and project late Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy in poor light. “How do you explain the government’s decision to examine the land allotments made during the period 2004-2009 when my husband was the Chief Minister?” asked YSR’s widow YS Vijayamma. The YSR Congress, floated by his son and MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, demanded that the terms of reference of the 15-member House Committee be broadened to include the land alienation decisions taken by the previous Telugu Desam Party government as well. In a letter to the Assembly Speaker N Manohar, Vijayamma, who is also honorary President of the YSR Congress, alleged that the committee had been constituted with the sole aim of maligning her husband as part of a strategy to “erase his political legacy”. “If the probe has to be meaningful, it should cover the land allotted to various companies by the previous TDP government between 1994 and 2004 and also during the last two years of Congress rule. I have every reason to believe that this probe is aimed at tarnishing the image of my late husband in a desperate attempt to wean away the supporters of YSR Congress," Vijayamma said. Interestingly, Jagan and his followers alleged a nexus between the ruling Congress and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party in this regard. “They have joined hands to tarnish the image of my father and to block my political career,” Jagan said. By limiting the scope of the probe to cover YSR’s tenure, the government has exposed itself to the charge that its decision was biased. “There is a deep-rooted conspiracy to erase YSR’s image from public memory. All this is happening with directions from Delhi (Congress high command),” Jagan alleged. “The TDP had stalled the Assembly proceedings demanding a House Committee. Then, the Chief Minister (N Kiran Kumar Reddy) readily accepts it without any debate. If this is not a match-fixing, what else is it? They want to spread misinformation and harass me,” the Kadapa MP said. Interestingly, the common thread running through the ongoing CBI investigations into corruption cases revolves around YSR and the decisions made during his tenure. The CBI is currently investigating three high-profile cases pertaining to illegal mining in Anantapur district by former Karnataka Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy and his associates, the Emaar land scam and the alleged illegal assets of Jagan. In many ways, these high-profile cases appear interlinked.
|
||
|
Rural ministry aims to extend water, sanitation facilities to every village
Guwahati, February 12 Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh today said, “The dream project of my ministry for 2012-13 will be to improve drinking water and sanitation facilities in rural India. I am sure the government will approve of the plan as it will be a key project to spur rural development. “Out of around 6 lakh villages in the country, only about 25,000 villages are bracketed as “nirmal gram”. It will be a big task for the Rural Development Ministry to provide drinking water and sanitation in the rest of the villages throughout the country,” Ramesh said while calling upon the state governments to chip in to create more such villages. Everyday, an estimated 1,000 children under five die because of
diarrhoea, a preventable disease, due to sanitation crisis in rural India. Sanitation-related illnesses in both children and adults drain productivity and income, ultimately perpetuating
poverty. Ramesh lauded the women self-help groups (SHGs) in the country for their good work. He praised women SHGs of Assam stating that in terms of performance, these were fast becoming on par with their counterparts in Kerala and Andhra
Pradesh.
|
||
|
‘It's now business as usual at ISRO’
Bangalore, February 12 At the same time, he dismissed suggestions in some quarters that the controversy which persisted for two weeks has dented the image of Indian Space Research Organisation and that it has cast a shadow over the space programme. "I don't think so (that ISRO's image has taken a beating, and that it has overshadowed the programme). That's the feeling I get from (various) ISRO centres (in the country)," Radhakrishnan said.
— PTI
|
||
|
Jantar Mantar
As Nehru-Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi's chief strategist and mentor for the ongoing Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh is keeping a punishing schedule these days. However, his preoccupation with the election campaign has not stopped Digvijaya Singh from taking an occasional break. Last week, he was spotted
Trinamool gives UPA the jitters
The deteriorating relations between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress are giving the UPA government the proverbial jitters. Just as the war of words between the two parties appeared to have subsided, officials from the water resources ministry and external affairs ministry were in for a rude shock when they reached Kolkata last week for a meeting of the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission to discuss the water flows from the Ganga and other matters relating to the Teesta river. Representatives from the West Bengal's irrigation department were missing from the meeting as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee suddenly asked them to accompany her to Siliguri for an important function. Not just the officials but she also invited Irrigation Minister Manas Bhuinya to join the group. Now, Bhuinya is from the Congress and has been at loggerheads with Mamata but it did not stop her from ferrying him to Siliguri as the real purpose was to prevent him from attending the meeting and to embarrass the Centre.
Busy Ajit ‘works from home’
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
Hyderabad, February 12
at the famous Allahabad Coffee House which still retains its old-world charm and continues to be the haunt of local intelligentsia and mediapersons who gather there regularly to exchange notes about the state of the nation. Not only did the cheerful Congress leader spend over an hour discussing the Congress prospects in the ongoing elections, he also called up his regular friends at the Bhopal Coffee House from there to chat briefly about the campaign. In fact, Singh is a regular visitor to the Bhopal Coffee House and is known to spend hours there every time he visits his home state.
Although he has held a few meetings with his ministry officials, new Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh has had no time to begin full-time work from his plush office at the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan. To begin with, Ajit Singh has hardly been in Delhi since he took charge of the ministry as he is busy with the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. More importantly, however, the personal staff picked by him to man the ministerial office, is yet to join as it is in the process of getting its security clearances while his predecessor Vyalyar Ravi's staff has since moved out. As a result, Ajit Singh has primarily been functioning from his residence where ministry officials and party workers are seen vying for his attention on the occasions that he is in Delhi.