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Cong forms Punjab poll panel, picks young MPs as members
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Haryana Cong dissidence: Rahul to make leaders sit and talk
News Analysis
Fertiliser scam: CBI examining Norwegian request for help
Bodo militants gun down 5
Ugandans’ harassment: Govt promises action
Akhilesh woos Brahmins in Cabinet reshuffle
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Cong forms Punjab poll panel, picks young MPs as members
New Delhi, January 18 Senior Congress leader from Kerala PC Chacko, who headed the Joint Parliamentary Committee that examined issues of the 2G spectrum allocations, is head of the screening panel for Punjab and would be assisted by Gujarat’s Deepak Babaria, a close aide of Rahul. Other members of the committee are - former minister Choudhary Jagjit Singh, Christian minority leader from Gurdaspur Salamat Masih, and state Congress committee vice-president Sardul Singh. Leaders of all state units of the Congress frontal organisations - Malti Thapar of Mahila Congress, Vikram Singh of Youth Congress and Daaman Bajwa of NSUI - are members of Rahul’s brigade. The list comprises all senior leaders, including state party president Partap Singh Bajwa, CLP leader Sunil Jakhar and all senior Congress leaders and union ministers from the state - AICC general secretary Ambika Soni, Preneet Kaur, Manish Tewari and Santosh Choudhary. Former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and all ex-state party presidents - RL Bhatia, SS Dullo, Rajinder Bhattal, HS Hanspal - have been named in the committee that also has legislator Laal Singh and former Deputy Speaker Darbari Lal as members. Among three state vice-presidents represented in the panel are Bharm Mohindra, Razia Sultana and Sardul Singh. Among senior leaders Mohinder Singh Kaypee, as special invitee to the Congress Working Committee, was named in the panel by Congress president Sonia Gandhi today. Jahkar said he had no idea about the role of the committee as he had not received any brief regarding it. “I know a list has been drafted but I do not know what the mandate of the committee is,” he said. The list has a mix of all state factions with six women members. Will ensure accountability in party: Rahul
In his first formal interaction with AICC delegates and district Congress presidents of all states today, Rahul Gandhi said by ensuring accountability in the party, he would clean up the system. He said this after former Punjab Congress chief SS Dullo complained that while loyal Congress workers kept waiting for rewards, outsiders got plum posts in the party
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Haryana Cong dissidence: Rahul to make leaders sit and talk New Delhi, January 18 “I will make all leaders sit together and talk,” Rahul told Haryana AICC delegates who asked him to help them put an end to the ongoing dissidence in the state unit where Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda led one faction and Union Minister Kumari Selja and Rajya Sabha member Birender Singh led another. State party stalwarts were part of the 80-member delegation Rahul had met at the AICC headquarters today to talk about the challenges ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Indicating that all castes and factions would have to work together if the electoral battle in Haryana (10 LS seats) had to be won, Rahul reportedly told the delegates that development alone would not help and it was essential to take everyone along. Sources who attended the closed-door meeting told The Tribune that when a delegate mentioned about the development in Haryana, Rahul intervened to say: “If you talk to me about development, I will talk to you about Delhi. The level of development in Delhi was no less, but we lost. The Valmikis went against us. That should not happen. We cannot lose our core voters.” Rahul said Scheduled Castes in Haryana must not be ignored. “All castes must be taken along,” he told the delegates in the presence of Hooda. Selja had been repeatedly saying that the Haryana Government had not protected the interests of Dalits and only one caste was benefitting. Those who attended the meeting included MPs Ashok Tanwar, Naveen Jindal, Avtar Bhadana and Shruti Choudhary, state leaders Savitri Jindal and Kiran Choudhary. Divided they stand
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Out of his closet, Rahul talks big, but will he deliver?
Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 18 Out of 23 who spoke, only two were above 60 years of age, the majority being below 45 years. Even among the older ones, one was Mohd Muslim, MLA from Amethi, Rahul’s Lok Sabha segment. The Gandhi scion’s stamp on the speakers’ list was thus visible and in many ways it was, apart from Rahul’s own anointment, the next huge indicator of the generational shift in the Congress. What’s significant though is whether Rahul’s young brigade can deliver by winning elections and whether Rahul himself, after making lofty promises of democratising the party and bringing in youth and women, actually realise those. His biggest promise to workers yesterday was: “The battle ahead is tough. We will go into it as warriors and not rest till we win.” Those who heard Rahul are lauding his coming of age and the fact that he has finally transformed from a part-time politician to a full-time one. But all top leaders of the Congress say it is now time for Rahul walk the talk and deliver on promises. “It was a combative, assertive speech, just what the Congress workers wanted. I hope the momentum is sustained and Rahul continues to lead from the front. He has come of age,” said Anil Shastri, special invitee to the Congress Working Committee which had day before decided not to elevate Rahul as a PM nominee. Though Rahul scored well on speech delivery, on content, he was analysed hard. Picture this-he spoke elaborately on giving the Congress workers a voice and ensuring that paratroopers don’t get tickets. But several party leaders in private admit that they have had problems getting appointments with Rahul. “It has always been easier to meet the Congress president. Hope this will change,” an AICC office-bearer told TNS. Rahul also said he wanted 50 per cent chief ministers of the Congress-ruled states to be women. But the fact is he could not even ensure basic representation for women in the recently released Punjab Congress list which had only nine women office-bearers among over 100. The major change that Rahul did execute last week in the face of tough opposition from older guard was the appointment of two young MPs - Sachin Pilot and Arun Yadav - as presidents of state Congress committees of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, respectively.
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Fertiliser scam: CBI examining Norwegian request for help
New Delhi, January 18 The CBI is in receipt of a Letter Rogatory (LR) from the Norwegian authorities after reports on Friday said that the police in that country indicted four former executives of fertiliser company Yara International including its former Chief Executive and top legal counsel. LR is a legal request for assistance or information in investigation by a country which is probing a case through Interpol to a country where the alleged beneficiary resides. “We have received an LR through Interpol and are examining the papers. We can institute a preliminary enquiry after the process is complete,” CBI Director Ranjit Sinha told The Tribune here today. When asked specifically whether reports had named former Punjab IAS officer Jivtesh Singh Maini and if the matter could be pursued, the CBI Director said, “The matter is being looked into.” Efforts to reach Maini on his mobile phone yielded no response. “The Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (ØKOKRIM) has indicted four people in Yara International ASA's former senior management of gross corruption. The conditions for the use of bribery against a minister in Libya and a senior public servant in India,” a company statement said. It came two days after ØKOKRIM imposed about $48 million fine on Yara for bribing a senior Indian government official and entities in Libya and Russia. The case pertains to 2006-07 when Yara was in negotiations with Kribhco to set up a joint venture. Reports said the $ 1 million pay-off was allegedly routed through the son of the Indian bureaucrat. Reports from Norway in June 2012 said that in Yara findings, an “unacceptable payment of $1 million in 2007” was paid to a consultant in India and related to negotiations with Krishak Bharti Cooperative Limited.
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Bodo militants gun down 5
Guwahati, January 18 The police said the night bus, “Swapna”, was coming from Siliguri in West Bengal to Lakhimpur in Assam when it was stopped by armed NDFB(S) militants wearing camouflage battle fatigue at Ramphalbeel under the Serfanguri police station in Kokrajhar district around 10 pm on Friday. The militants than called out a group of Hindi-speaking passengers and fired upon them from close range. Five persons were killed in the firing while three were injured, the police said. Senior police officials visited the scene from Kokrajhar and launched a combing operation in the area. The injured were taken to the hospital in Kokrajhar. All victims were from Bihar. The NDFB(S) in a statement issued to the media claimed responsibility for the killing and termed it a retaliation to killing of one of its men by a team of Assam Police and Army at Moinaguri under the Kachugaon police station in Kokrajhar district earlier on Friday. 2 more shot dead The NDFB's killing spree continued for the second day as they gunned down two more persons and injured four others in two districts on Saturday, the police said. Armed men belonging to NDFB's anti-talk Song Bijit group fired indiscriminately at Sakuwaserfung in Chirang district around 7.30 pm, killing a man and injuring four others. Also, a Hindi speaking barber, Bikram Singh (55), was shot from close range as he came out of his saloon at Ambagaon. — PTI
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Govt mulls check on social media
Patna, January 18 “Sitting in the Home Ministry, I see old provocative photographs being circulated on Facebook which results in communal riots,” Shinde said in an indirect reference to Muzaffarnagar riots. The minister was addressing a function here. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad were also present. “Recently there were some provocative items about Northeast and strict action was taken,” Shinde said. “Seeing the evil impact of social media which is taking the society on a wrong direction we are thinking of imposing a check on them,” the Union Home minister said. Shinde lamented “twisting” of facts in the name of investigative journalism and said it was a challenge for the media to uphold honest journalism. “There is a question mark today on how much truth media reports give... its a big challenge for newspapers to maintain honesty of journalism,” he said. Shinde said the print media also faces challenge from faster mode of delivery of information on Internet.
— PTI
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Ugandans’ harassment: Govt promises action
New Delhi, January 18 Dinkar Khullar, Secretary (West) in the ministry, held a meeting with African Ambassadors from nearly 20 countries to reassure them that India was committed to providing safety and security to all foreign nationals, including Africans. He told them that there was no deliberate targeting of the nationals of any country and this particular incident was an aberration. Some of the African envoys drew New Delhi’s attention towards recent attacks on Nigerians in Goa and the one on a student from Burundi in Jalandhar in April 2012.
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Akhilesh woos Brahmins in Cabinet reshuffle Lucknow, January 18 Pandey is also chairman of the Samajwadi party’s Brahmin Sabha and has successfully organised several Brahmin sammelans for the party.
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MUMBAI PATNA New Delhi AHMEDABAD Lucknow New Delhi Rajahmundry (AP) Patna new delhi
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