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Naroda-Patiya
Riot Case Sohrabuddin
encounter case
Left parties to deliberate on political alternative
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Chinese Premier arrives next week; border row tops agenda
India unveils low-cost diarrhoea virus vaccine
Scholar Asghar Ali Engineer passes away
CRIME & COMPENSATION
Need to construct more bases on islands: Antony
Navy hit by another ‘sex scandal’, Antony orders investigation
Locked in cockpit, AI pilot makes emergency landing
BJP trains guns on Tewari, Sibal
Govt launches multimedia initiative
From June, sea planes to ease Mumbai travel
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Naroda-Patiya Riot Case Manas Dasgupta
Ahmedabad, May 14 An official spokesman indicated that the state government had asked the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) to wait till the opinion of the advocate general of the state was available before moving the high court seeking death penalty for former Minister of State for Women and Child Welfare Mayaben Kodnani and former Bajrang Dal convener Babu Bajrangi. The state legal department had informed the assistant public prosecutor that the government had “withdrawn” the permission granted to the SIT to move the high court and directed that all the relevant papers be submitted to the advocate general for his opinion on the issue. The Modi government had created a flutter last month by disclosing the fact that the state had given sanction to the SIT to move the high court against the special fast track court’s order which had awarded 28-year jail to Kodnani and imprisonment till death to Bajrangi. The SIT was also told to move for death penalty against convicts and activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, including Bipin Panchal, Haresh Rathod, Premchand Tiwari, Murli Sindhi, Suresh Didawala, Naresh Chhara and Manoj Kulkarni, who were awarded different periods of jail terms for participating in the carnage in which about 95 Muslims were brutally killed. SIT sources claimed that the state government had given it sanction not only to move against 10 convicts, including Kodnani and Bajrangi, seeking death penalty it had also agreed to move the high court seeking higher punishment for other convicts and challenge the acquittals of others. A panel of three advocates was also constituted last month to move the high court and the special public prosecutor in the case Gaurang Vyas had stated that the petition challenging the lower court’s order would be filed within a fortnight. However, even before the SIT moved, the Modi government took a U-turn.
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Sohrabuddin
encounter case
Mumbai, May 14 Kataria is the second high-profile politician to be named in the alleged fake encounter case after former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah, considered close to Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Besides Kataria, the CBI also charged Andhra Pradesh Inspector General of Police (Intelligence) N Balasubramanyam, Director of RK Marble Vimal Patni, and another Andhra Pradesh Police officer G Srinivasa Rao under sections related to murder, kidnapping, wrongful confinement and causing disappearance of evidence among others. The magisterial court issued summons to Kataria and three others to appear before it after the agency filed the supplementary chargesheet, which runs into 500 pages. They are likely to appear before the court on June 4. In its 500-page supplementary chargesheet, the CBI has alleged Sheikh was "eliminated" for demanding Rs 24 crore from Patni who was introduced to Amit Shah, also an accused in the case, by Kataria, the then Rajasthan Home Minister. — PTI
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Left parties to deliberate on political alternative
New Delhi, May 14 Moving forward the pieces, the Left parties have decided to organise a national convention here on July 1 where representatives of the Communist Party of India (CPI), the CPM, the All India Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party will deliberate to draw contours of alternative based on programmes and policies. Elaborating on the format, CPI national secretary D Raja told The Tribune that during the open forum, representatives from these four Left parties will take a view on the issues, challenges before the country and the task ahead. “We will discuss the kind of intervention that the Left parties can undertake in the backdrop of the issues before the people, challenges the country faces and the task that need to be done,” he said. Having pulled out of the UPA-I following sharp differences over the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Left parties’ attempt to forge a Front consisting of parties outside the Congress and the BJP-led formations came a cropper during the 2009 general elections. Over the past four years, the Left parties have been opposing the economic policies being pursued by the Manmohan government.
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Chinese Premier arrives next week; border row tops agenda
New Delhi, May 14 Announcing the two visits at a media briefing here today, MEA spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said India was committed to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary dispute with China. “It is our conviction that an early settlement of the boundary issue will advance the basic interests of both the countries. We feel it should be pursued as a strategic objective by both countries,” he said. The visit assumes significance against the backdrop of the recent incursion by Chinese troops in Ladakh, leading to three weeks of increased tension between the two neighbours. The spokesperson said the two countries were still discussing the joint declaration likely to be issued at the end of Premier Keqiang’s visit. As of now, the Chinese leader will arrive in New Delhi on May 19 at the head of a high-level delegation. He will hold restricted and delegation-level talks with Prime Minister Singh the next day after
he is accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. He will also have meetings with President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. The Chinese
Premier will deliver a lecture on May 21 before leaving for Mumbai in the afternoon to address a meeting being organised by apex Indian chambers of commerce. Meanwhile, Manmohan Singh will leave on his trip to Japan on May 27. After spending three days in Japan, he will go to Thailand on a two-day visit. The growing Chinese assertiveness in Asia, introduction of a high-speed rail system in India and the civil nuclear cooperation will be high on the agenda during Manmohan Singh’s talks with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe. Manmohan Singh was scheduled to travel to Tokyo in November last year for the annual India-Japan Summit but the trip had to be postponed following the sudden announcement of elections in the East Asian country.
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India unveils low-cost diarrhoea virus vaccine
New Delhi, May 14 Moreover, the vaccine also showed impact against severe diarrhoea of any cause, K Vijayraghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), said, adding that the trial showed ROTAVAC to have an excellent safety and efficacy profile. “With low price and strong efficacy, ROTAVAC has the potential to significantly reduce the incidence of severe diarrhoea due to rotavirus among children in India,” MK Bhan, former secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, who has been actively involved with the research, said. The commercial production of the vaccine would, however, take some time as it is yet to get clearance from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI). Krishna M Ella, CMD, Bharat Biotech, said they were planning to file a dossier with the DCGI in July and come to the market after getting the requisite regulatory clearances. Bharat Biotech, which has been associated in the development of vaccine candidates and clinical trials, has announced a price of $1 per dose, much cheaper than other rotavirus vaccines available in the market. Officials said there were two licensed rotavirus vaccines introduced in over 40 countries but they remained out of reach for many in the developing world. ROTAVAC is an oral vaccine administered to infants in a three-dose course at the ages of six, 10 and 14 weeks alongside routine immunisations recommended at these ages. The vaccine was developed through a social innovation partnership that brought together the experience and expertise of Indian and international researchers as well as the public and private sectors. The vaccine originated from an attenuated (weakened) strain of rotavirus that was isolated from an Indian child at AIIMS in 1985-86. Since then, partners have included DBT, Bharat Biotech, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Stanford University School of Medicine, and non-governmental organisation PATH.
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Scholar Asghar Ali Engineer passes away
Mumbai, May 14 Engineer, a widower, is survived his son Irfaan and daughter Seema Indorewala. He was ailing for several months and breathed his last at his Santacruz East home around 8 am. Born in Salumbar, Rajasthan, in a Dawoodi Bohra Amil (priest) family March 10, 1939, Engineer acquired his training in Quranic tafsir (commentary), tawil (hidden interpretations of Quran), fiqh (jurisprudence) and hadith (Prophet's teachings, sayings) during his early days. His father, Sheikh Qurban Husain, was the Amil who also taught the young Engineer Arabic. Later, Engineer studied all the major religious works and scriptures by eminent scholars. He founded the Institute of Islamic Studies (1980) and the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (1993), and also authored around 50 books on various topics. — IANS
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CRIME & COMPENSATION R Sedhuraman Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, May 14 The trial courts should make enquiries to assess the paying capacity of the convicts before pronouncing the verdict on sentence in order to award adequate compensation to the victims, a Bench comprising Justices TS Thakur and Gyan Sudha Misra ruled in a judgment. A copy of the verdict should be forwarded to all the HCs for circulation among the judges handling criminal trials and hearing appeals for implementation, the Bench said. Acknowledging that under Section 357 CrPC courts “may” order compensation to victims, the apex court said after applying the tests emerging from various cases to the legal provision, “it appears to us that the provision confers a power coupled with a duty on the courts to apply its mind to the question of awarding compensation in every criminal case. The SC clarified that while the award or refusal of compensation in a particular case might be within the court’s discretion, “there exists a mandatory duty on the court to apply its mind to the question in every criminal case. Application of mind to the question is best disclosed by recording reasons for awarding/refusing compensation.” The SC’s interpretation was meant for enforcement prospectively, the Bench said.
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Need to construct more bases on islands: Antony
New Delhi, May 14 A string of naval air stations and expansion of existing facilities are planned for Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal and the Lakshadweep and Minicoy Islands in the Arabian sea. Defence Minister AK Antony today called upon the top brass of the Navy to strengthen maritime support infrastructure in the islands. — TNS
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Navy hit by another ‘sex scandal’, Antony orders investigation
New Delhi, May 14 The case has come up on a day when the Defence Minister asked the top brass of the Navy in its commanders’ conference to take sternest possible action against officers involved in such deeds. “The Defence Minister was very helpful and has told us that he has ordered a departmental inquiry into the charges made by me and my parents against my husband,” the woman complainant said here after meeting Antony. She alleged that her husband, who is a Lieutenant Commander (equivalent to a Major in Army) posted at the Naval Ship Repair Yard (NSRY) in Karwar, “forced me to get sexually involved with his colleagues and consume alcohol.” The woman, who says she has shifted to her maternal home after this episode, has accused her husband of physical and mental torture. An MBA, she got married in February last year to the officer. The woman alleged that her husband had threatened that if she disclosed about his deeds to anyone, “he would put up my nude pictures on the Internet to spoil my image socially”. She said her husband is working on an important assignment related to the Navy’s Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier at a shipyard in Russia and is about to be posted there soon. In a complaint sent to the Defence Minister on April 30, she had demanded departmental disciplinary action against him. The officer could not be reached for his comments. In the recent past, several cases of sexual misconduct have come up against Navy officers including one where the wife of another Lt Cdr in Kochi filed an FIR against her husband and colleagues alleging that she was being forced into wife swapping by her husband.
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Locked in cockpit, AI pilot makes emergency landing
New Delhi, May 14 The pilot of Airbus A-320, operating flight AI-403 from Delhi, made the landing yesterday evening under emergency conditions at Raja Bhoj Airport in Bhopal. He wanted to go to the washroom but he found the door locked, they said. The flight had taken off from Delhi around 5 pm and landed at Bhopal an hour later. After Air India's technicians fixed the problem, the aircraft pursued its onward journey around 8 pm and reached Bangalore without any trouble, the sources said. AI-403 is a direct flight from Delhi to Bangalore. — PTI
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BJP trains guns on Tewari, Sibal
New Delhi, May 14 Unimpressed with UPA’s MNREGA advertisement campaign, the party has asked the “all-subject expert minister” (Tewari) to provide the exact number of people working as bonded labour, abolished in 1976 by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, in the country. The party has termed the campaign “even more absurd than fairness cream advertisements”. “The advertisement is an admission by the Congress that it has not been able to liberate bonded labour from the clutches of feudal lords despite ruling the country for more than 50 years,” said P Muralidhar Rao, party general secretary. Sibal’s “anti-Modi remarks”, meanwhile, saw a fuming saffron party retaliating with a photograph of him signing an MoU in Mozambique, where the Indian national flag was placed upside down. “Does he care for India and its dignity? He should be focusing on his job than wasting his time in targeting the Gujarat Chief Minister,” spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said. “Now we know what the new Law Minister will be channelling his energies on,” she said, lashing out at Sibal while also taking exception to Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh remarks against the Supreme Court. Taking over his new assignment on Monday, Sibal had reportedly attacked Modi, saying he would “completely expose” the Gujarat Chief Minister before the media. On the government’s “multi-crore” media blitzkrieg with tag line “Thanks to MGNREGA no bonded labour anymore”, Rao wondered how “an eminent lawyer like Manish Tewari” could forget that the bonded labour had been abolished in 1976 by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. “I am at a loss to understand where did this bonded labour, which UPA government supposedly freed through MGNERGA, come from. If the claim made in the ad is true then the government must furnish the numbers, which form the basis of the claim,” Rao said.
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Govt launches multimedia initiative
New Delhi, May 14 The initiative under theme “Glimpses of the India Story” underscores the impact of policy decisions at the ground level for inclusive growth and participatory governance within the rights framework. It will be put across on television, radio, print and outdoor publicity with the objective of informing and appraising the public to encourage greater participation in these efforts.
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From June, sea planes to ease Mumbai travel
Mumbai, May 14 Maritime Energy Heli Air Services (MEHAIR), a private operator, has received clearances from the
Navy, police and the aviation ministry to begin this service. “We have received all clearances and services will begin from mid-June," MEHAIR director Siddarth Verma said. Sea plane services will connect Juhu in suburban Mumbai to Nariman Point with the distance being covered in a few minutes. The fare would be pegged at Rs 750 per head. According to Verma, MEHAIR will deploy the Cessna 208 amphibian aircraft which has a capacity of nine passengers. The fare is equivalent to a radio cab which covers the distance in an hour's time. With the state-owned Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, which is backing the project, a number of tourist destinations like Lonavala, Murud-Janjira, Tarkali and Sindhudurg will be opened to this form of transport. Maharashtra's irrigation department that owns several major dams in the state is also looking at their tourist potential. Since sea planes can land in water, officials say the picturesque dams can be opened to tourists as well. Maharashtra's Tourism Minister Chhagan Bhujbal had earlier said that townships around the dams in the Western Ghats can
be linked to Mumbai through sea planes. Seaplanes are small aircraft fitted with water-skis, which let them land on sea, rivers, lakes and other water bodies.
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Gogoi faces flak for honour to ‘bikini girl’
Guwahati, May 14 ULFA dubbed the actor “bikini girl” of Hindi cinema (“An Evening in Paris”) and said Gogoi had no right to hurt the sentiments of the people of Assam by selecting Sharmila for the award. It claimed Sharmila had no contribution towards propagating and popularising the ideals of Srimanta Sankardeva, the “vaishnavite” saint who undertook a widespread religious and cultural movement encompassing all communities in Assam in the 15th century. The outfit also called upon the intelligentsia to identify the members on the selection panel who recommended Sharmila’s name for the state award. The ULFA’s statement was, however, silent on Sharmila’s Assamese roots. The actor’s mother was from a prominent family of Assam. Accepting the award from the President, Sharmila said: “Half of me is from Assam since my mother was an Assamese. Ira Baruah, my mother, was the daughter of J Baruah, the founder Principal of Earl Law College (now Government Law College) in Guwahati.” She dedicated her award to her mother who, she said, used to tell her about the high status accorded to women in the Assamese society.
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Apparently under pressure from the pro-Hindutva forces, the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat is trying to further delay a decision on seeking death penalty for two high-profile convicts in the Naroda-Patiya 2002 carnage case.
