The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

JD-U to go it alone in Gujarat Assembly poll
Sharad Yadav, Nitish to hold elections rallies in state

New Delhi, September 10
Carrying further its reservations over Narendra Modi, the JD-U, which runs a coalition with the BJP in BIhar, has decided to contest Assembly elections in Gujarat on its own.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose antipathy to Modi is well known, will also campaign for the JD-U candidates in Gujarat, where elections are due this year-end.

Giving indications of the party's plans, JD-U president Sharad Yadav told reporters the "BJP is the larger party in the NDA. We will go for alliance with the BJP wherever it wants us, but barring in Gujarat". He was replying to a question whether JD-U contesting elections separately in a state ruled by the BJP would not give impression of a rift in the NDA.

Both party chief Sharad Yadav and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will campaign in Gujarat aggravating further the strains between Kumar and Modi that have come to the fore on more than one occasion.

Yadav, however, sought to downplay the development by maintaining that the JD-U never had an alliance with the BJP in Gujarat.

He refrained from answering repeated queries on why the JD-U was making an exception of Gujarat when it was ready to contest with the BJP in alliance in all other states.

Yadav also refused to specify how many seats his party wanted to contest in Gujarat saying it was for the state unit to decide.

There is a speculation that the JD-U state unit plans to contest 100 out of the 182 Assembly seats in Gujarat in the coming Assembly elections.

Yadav, however, said, "We have been contesting separately from the BJP in Gujarat for a long time. We are part of the NDA alliance in many states, while in many others like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, we contest separately. There was never an alliance in Gujarat."

To a specific query whether the Bihar Chief Minister would campaign for JD-U candidates in Gujarat this time, Yadav said Kumar and he himself as well as a large number of ministers of the Bihar Government had gone to campaign for the party candidates in the last Gujarat Assembly elections as well.

"Both of us (Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar) have campaigned there earlier also. We will do it this time as well," he said. — PTI

Tribune Exclusive
Naval copter deal ‘drifting into rough weather’
Man Mohan
Our Roving Editor

New Delhi, September 10
The Defence Ministry has informed the two competing foreign military helicopter firms that their commercial proposal validity has been ‘extended’ till December 31, 2012.

This has happened at a time when the firms were expecting a final decision any moment. It has been over three years from the date the tender for 16 multi-role naval helicopters for the sea and off-shore operations was re-issued.

Top naval sources suspect that the lucrative $1.2 billion deal for the procurement of these helicopters has started “drifting into rough weather.”

It is learnt that a commercial negotiation committee has been formed to assess the rival vendors’ bids. Technical trials finished last year.

The delay has started impacting the Navy’s operational readiness with some frontline ships without their air assets and their inability to realise the full operational potential of the fleet at sea. The delay leads to cost over runs, technological obsolescence and leaves a vital maritime security gap.

The firms in the race to win this contract (TM (M)/0025/MRH/9918) are: American company Sikorsky, makers of Black Hawk, has offered its naval variant ‘Seahawk’ helicopter (S-70B) and European firm, NATO Helicopter Industries (NHI), which has offered its NH90 machine. The NHI is a consortium of France, German, Italy, Spain, Finland and Australia firms.

The decision makers are in a dilemma as the NHI has ‘openly’ questioned Sikorsky’s claims and has been ‘shooting letter missiles’ (three so far) to Defence Minister AK Antony and top authorities, raking up the issues of alleged non-compliances by Seahawk and the irregularities in the field evaluation trial and that Sikorsky has been “granted waivers on a number of non-compliances with qualitative requirements.”

On July 26, the NHI Business Director Julien Negrel fired the latest salvo by writing to Defence Secretary SK Sharma. The Tribune has accessed the copy of Negrel’s letter. The previous two confidential letters were reported by this newspaper in an exclusive report on July 9, 2012.

The Defence Ministry sources, however, claimed that the Sikorsky was “not granted any waiver.” Sources said the Ministry has already “responded to the allegations” and “yet the same queries are being repeated questioning the expertise, professional integrity and authority of the navy’s flight evaluation team and of the Defence Ministry.”

Instead of cribbing, a top naval officer felt, the Defence Ministry should take a tough stance against errant companies.”

Sikorsky has refused to comment on the competitor’s allegations on the plea that it is against their code of ethics and that they believe in buyer country’s technical evaluation and procurement process.

The trend of levying allegations on the competitors seems to be picking up in many critical defence procurements. Another case is of the 197 light helicopters for the Army, which since 2003 has not seen the light of the day in spite of the tenders being issued twice.

Social websites will have to abide by Indian law, US told
Ajay Banerjee/TNS

New Delhi, September 10
Alarmed at the way social networking websites have been used to spread communal hatred over the past few weeks, India has conveyed to the US that website-owing companies based in its territory could be in trouble and face action under Indian laws.

A three-pronged plan is in place and will be rolled out soon to curb the misuse of Internet, social networking, Twitter, Facebook and personal blogs to spread rumours, sources say.

Apart the three-pronged plan, the US authorities have also been told that the companies based on its land will be liable to face action under Section 153 of the IPC. Most of the major websites like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo are US-based.

The US has been told that the offensive pages will not only have to be blocked, the content will have to be removed as some of the pictures are damaging, offensive and culturally unacceptable.

While addressing a press conference here today, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said, "Earlier, the US companies were not cooperating, but now they have started cooperating."

The three-pronged plan to prevent misuse of the Internet was discussed at the three-day DGPs' conference that concluded in Delhi on Saturday. The first part is accepting the reality that billions of posts and Net access by Indians cannot be monitored in real time to block access, so the need is to identify the persons whose Twitter, Facebook accounts periodically spew venom against one community or the other. These people will be identified and booked.

The second part of the plan is to prompt citizens concerned to report offensive content, without identifying themselves, and not share such content with others even to express anguish. To ensure this, each state will have a specialised cyber police station tackling such crimes. Thirdly, police personnel will be given special training to tackle the menace with the help of experts from the computer emergency response team.

Kudankulam N-plant
1 killed in police firing as protest turns violent

Kudankulam (TN)/New Delhi, September 10
A fisherman was killed in firing on anti-nuclear protesters at a coastal village in Tuticorin district while they clashed with the police near the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, torching local administrative offices.

The police said a 44-year-old fisherman was killed when it opened fire at a group of persons who clashed with them while blocking a road in Manapad coastal village as the protest spilt to neighbouring Tuticorin district.

In Delhi, the government accused some foreign NGOs of instigating the protesters.

Opposing the loading of uranium at Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district, the focal point of the agitation for the past two days, over 2,000 protesters fought pitched battles throwing stones and logs. The police resorted to lathicharge and burst teargas shells to disperse them.

The police action came after authorities failed to persuade the protesters who, for the second day, defied prohibitory orders and stayed put at the seashore, about 500m away from the Kudankulam plant.

Sporadic violence then followed as enraged groups of protesters set fire to a local panchayat office, the village administrative officer's office and a state-run liquor retail shop in Kudankulam in an ugly turn to the over year-long peaceful protest.

The protest spilt into Tuticorin where about 500 persons stopped a train for some time by squatting on the track. The protestors also blocked the Tuticorin-Nagercoil highway.

"Foreign NGOs are supporting the movement. We are aware of the NGOs that are behind it," Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told reporters.

Shinde said the government was very clear as far as nuclear energy was concerned and wanted it to be produced in India as it was cheap and clean.

In February, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had blamed some US-based NGOs for putting difficulties in launching the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu.

The government had also probed fundings of around 12-13 Indian voluntary organisations which were launching the protest movement in Kudankulam.

In Chennai, appealing for peace, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa asked the people not to fall prey to anti-nuclear lobbyists, insisting that the project was safe.

Condeming the police action, People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the protest against KNPP, announced a 48-hour relay fast against it.

The BJP lashed out at the police action and held the UPA government at the Centre responsible for the "riot-like situation" in Kudankulam.

Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy demanded that the Army be put on stand-by to assist the Tamil Nadu government in quelling the protesters.

The protesters gave the call for the siege as a last-ditch effort to stall the Indo-Russian project after regulatory authorities gave their nod for loading the uranium fuel in the first of the two reactors.

A bandh-like situation prevailed here and in surrounding villages with shops and schools remaining shut. The villagers also dug up main roads leading to Idinthakarai in a bid to prevent police vehicles from entering it.

Around 4,000 security personnel, including Rapid Action Force, have been deployed in the area.

The first unit of KNPP was scheduled for commissioning in December last, but ran into rough weather with the locals demanding its scrapping on safety concerns. — PTI

Shinde blames foreign NGOs

Foreign NGOs are supporting the movement. We are aware of the NGOs that are behind it.
— Sushil Kumar Shinde, Union Home Minister

Sibal for global collaboration to make Internet ‘safer’
Aditi Tandon/TNS

New Delhi, September 10
Days after the Centre had trouble reining in social media users, who posted hate messages on the net to scare off the North-East people from their chosen places of residence, HRD and IT Minister Kapil Sibal today sought a global collaboration to “make the web safer”.

Speaking at the India-Cambridge Summit, Sibal urged visiting top UK academics, led by Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge Professor Leszek Borysiewicz, to “collaborate on ways to find a fine balance in the use of Internet and its safety”.

“What children watch on the net these days is mostly pornography. That is dangerous. The net is being used to spread misinformation, sell spurious drugs and promote terror activities. Internet is a great medium for empowerment, but it also has great potential of misuse by those who want to spread hostility,” Sibal said.

He said the world needed a global cooperation to address the issues arising out of the unregulated use of Internet.

“Internet is an unlimited highway for dissemination of every sort of information. Anything with no limits can be dangerous,” the minister said, insisting that the government had no desire to control the social media, but certainly wanted to address the challenges of lack of safety it poses.

Karnataka to release 10,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu

New Delhi, September 10
In a goodwill gesture, the Karnataka Government today agreed before the Supreme Court to release 10,000 cusecs of water from the Cauvery to Tamil Nadu till September 20.

In the wake of Karnataka's gesture, a Bench of Justices DK Jain and Madan Lokur refused to pass any order on Tamil Nadu's plea for direction to its neighbouring state to release 2 TMC of water. The Bench hoped the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) headed by the Prime Minister would be able to find an "amicable" solution to the river water dispute.

The court also disposed of Karnataka's plea, saying if it is kept pending, the authority might not find a solution to the dispute and will be ultimately left to it to decide it.

The Bench, however, allowed the state governments to take appropriate steps if the CRA meeting does not take place.

The CRA, comprising the Chief Ministers of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala, is scheduled to take place on September 19.

The Bench also took a dig today at the Centre whose lawyers were absent during the hearing of the case. — PTI

Anti-talks ULFA faction regaining strength, claims Assam Police
Bijay Sankar Bora
Tribune News Service

Guwahati, September 10
The anti-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) has apparently regained some of its strength after a lull for over an year as the outfit has launched two powerful grenade attacks in the state during the past four days, including one in a high-security area in the heart of Guwahati city.

The Assam police has thwarted more such grenade attacks by the ultras by recovering five powerful grenades and detonators yesterday at Rangiya, 35 km from here, while the explosives were being taken from Tamulpur in Baksa district bordering Bhutan. Kamrup district police superintendent PS Mahanta said a suspected militant was arrested along with the cache of explosives and his interrogation was on.

The Assam police claimed that the ULFA anti-talks faction, led by its fugitive commander-in-chief Paresh Barua, has joined forces with anti-India fundamentalist forces backed by the Pakistani ISI to disrupt peace in Assam. The police said the ULFA faction, which does not have sufficient trained cadres working for it at present, has hired criminals to hurl grenades.

Goa asks 90 mines to suspend operations

Panaji, September 10
The Goa government today issued a notification asking all 90 mines to suspend operations with immediate effect.

The State Mines and Geology Department issued this notification directing the mines to stop their operations.

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar told PTI that the mines would not be allowed to operate, if they were found to be carrying out work without the necessary permissions.

The mine owners have been asked to submit their documents before they could start operations. The notification states that the mine owners need to submit all paper, including permissions from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest. — PTI

Madhya Pradesh agrees to dam oustees’ demands
Vibha Sharma/TNS

New Delhi, September 10
More than two weeks after villagers of Khandwa district in Madhya Pradesh chose this unique protest mode — a water satyagraha — to present to the world their plight following the rise in the water level of the Omkareshwar dam, the state today accepted their key demand and agreed to bring down the water level in the reservoir to 189m from the present 190m.

It also agreed to provide land in lieu to displaced persons and constituted a inter-ministerial committee to address related issues.

For 50 men and women of this obscure region, who embarked upon this health-threatening mode of protest instead of descending on the famous protest spot of Jantar Mantar in the Capital to draw attention of the media and political class, it was a major victory.

Talking to The Tribune from Khandwa, Alok Agarwal of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, said that many times in the past 17 days, the water level rose to the point of drowning them, but the protesters unrelentingly held on to their positions. Their skins started to peel off and many developed rashes in their bodies, but they stayed put.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also announced a five-member committee, comprising three ministers, the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) chairman and the Commissioner of Indore, to look into people’s problems. But faced with a situation that was fast threatening to become a political crisis, he also accused the activists of catering to vested interests.

The settlement is only for Omkareshwar. Villages affected by the Indira Sagar Project (ISP) are continuing their protest against raising the level beyond 260m.

Bill to bar manual scavenging finally introduced in Parliament
Aditi Tandon/TNS

New Delhi, September 10
Rapped by the Supreme Court for its failure to eliminate manual scavenging 65 years post-Independence, the government introduced in the just-concluded monsoon session of Parliament a new Bill to prohibit the practice and bar manual cleaning of septic tanks and sewers across India.

The law, “The Prohibition of Employment as manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill 2012”, makes such employment a cognisable and non-bailable offence. The government admitted that existing laws had failed to deliver.

The new law overrides the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Toilets Prohibition Act 1993 which prescribed one year jail and Rs 20,000 fine for employing manual scavengers. Not even one person was convicted under this law in years.

The new law says, quite ambitiously, that within nine months from its commencement (when it is notified after being passed by both Houses of Parliament and is given assent by President), all insanitary (dry) latrines will be destroyed and replaced with sanitary ones.

Engagement of manual scavengers will become unlawful once the Act comes into force. State governments will, within a year of its commencement, prohibit employment of persons for manual cleaning of septic tanks and sewers and give them protective gear or use modern cleaning technology.

The new Act requires municipalities to survey insanitary toilets and manual scavengers in their jurisdictions within two months of its enforcement.

“Every local authority will survey insanitary latrines within two months of the enforcement of this law; within 15 days of the publication of the list, notice will be issued to owners to demolish or convert dry latrines into sanitary ones within six months of commencement of the law,” says the Bill introduced by Social Justice Minister Mukul Wasnik. “This clause is good but ambitious, considering the government itself hasn’t managed to survey manual scavengers so far. We have estimates of around 8 lakh,” says social worker Bharat Dogra.

Overworked District Magistrates have been asked to ensure manual scavengers are not hired and also head district-level vigilance committees.

HIGHLIGHTS of the BIll

RAILWAYS EXEMPT: The Bill says water flush latrines in railway coaches when cleaned by employees with protective gear (which the Centre will notify) won’t be considered insanitary latrines. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has, however, repeatedly called Indian Railways the world’s biggest open toilet

NOT MANUAL SCAVENGERS: Those who clean human excreta with protective devices, the Centre will notify as part of the new Act

MANUAL SCAVENGERS: Employed for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of human excreta from insanitary latrines or railway track before excreta decomposes fully

INSANITARY LATRINE: Which requires human excreta to be handled manually either in situ or in an open drain or pit into which the excreta is discharged before it fully decomposes

Spurious drugs: Govt wants fresh survey
Aditi Tandon/TNS

New Delhi, September 10
Conscious of the expanding spurious drug market, the government has decided to order a fresh survey of the extent of prevalence of fake and counterfeit drugs in the country. The survey, to be conducted as part of the 12th Plan, will have a vast sample size to arrive at the most comprehensive estimate possible of the level of spurious drugs in the market.

The Health Ministry has until now been quoting a 2009 study of fake drugs, which the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation conducted on 24, 138 samples collected from pharmaceutical retailers. Of these samples, only 0.046 per cent was found spurious. As for drugs of substandard quality, they make up around 5.6 per cent of the total drug market at any given time.

But these figures are clearly doubtful and need to be revalidated with a larger sample size collected from spots that are vulnerable to spurious drug usage.

“The old study did not cover vulnerable spots like government hospitals where medicines procured by state or Central agencies land, primary health centres which get free drug supply under the NRHM and remote areas. The new survey will concentrate on sampling from these areas to test the quality of drugs being passed on to common man. We are concerned that the new free drug scheme of the government may encourage intermediaries and law-breakers to manufacture fake medicine and make quick money,” Bejon Misra, founder-director, Partnership for Safe Medicines, said today at a workshop held in collaboration with the Health Ministry and the WHO on the need to use technologies for detecting and tracking fakes.

The government is willing to mandate the use of such technology by pharmaceutical firms once it has evidence of the efficacy of detection of fakes. These technologies include alpha-numeric coding, bar coding and serialisation to enable the consumer to find out who the manufacturer of the drug is. Some pharmaceutical companies are using these technologies to protect their brand value but not for consumer information.

The use of these technologies is also rooted in their desire to boost the export potential. India’s drug export business has grown from Rs 200 crore a year in 1970s to over Rs 40,000 crore a year today. Unless India assures international buyers of the quality of its stock, it cannot keep the experts booming.

“National and international pharmaceutical traders need to be satisfied about the quality of Indian drugs. Some people have expressed doubts. The new survey with a huge sample size will allay these fears,” Drug Controller General of India Dr GN Singh said.

A correct estimate of spurious drugs in India is not available. Although some sections of the media have been quoting the WHO as saying that 35 per cent of the fake drugs produced in the world come from India, WHO India Representative Nata Menabde today clarified that the WHO never made such an assessment and the reports are false.

Centre gets 2 weeks to take stand on Salem

New Delhi, September 10
The Supreme Court today granted two weeks to the Centre to analyse the Portugal's court order terminating the extradition of Abu Salem to India and spell out its proposed action against the alleged gangster.

A Bench headed by Justice P Sathasivam, granted the time after Attorney General GE Vahanwati submitted that the government needs time to go through the judgment as the order is in Portuguese language and has to be first translated into English.

The Bench had earlier asked the CBI and the Ministry of External Affairs to file their replies to Salem's plea for quashing criminal cases against him. — PTI

Bandh paralyses life in Odisha, 5,000 detained

Bhubaneswar, September 10
Normal life was crippled across Odisha today due to disruption in train and road traffic during a bandh called by the Congress as over 5,000 partymen were taken into preventive custody.

The bandh, called in protest against alleged police crackdown on partymen during a Congress rally held in the Capital on September 6, was peaceful, police sources said.

Director General of Police Prakash Mishra said over 5,000 persons were taken into preventive custody in different places. Congress leaders, however, claimed that about 12,000 partymen were arrested while enforcing the bandh.

State Congress president Niranjan Patnaik, Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh and former Chief Minister Hemanand Biswal, were taken into preventive custody, the sources said. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Thiruvananthapuram
System to protect wetlands:The Kerala Government has decided to institute a three-tier management committee with a view to protecting wetlands and natural lakes in the state. The decision was taken at a meeting convened by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here today. — PTI