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Don’t be over-confident, Advani’s advice to cadres
IM planning to kidnap Kejriwal for Bhatkal’s release: Police
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AAP adamant on dharna
No judge found yet to head snoopgate probe
Rahul dials Manmohan to push minority status for Jains
Wife has right to know husband's salary, says CIC
No pre-poll alliance: Akhilesh
DRDO machine detects lies from facial expression
New virus attacks when you swipe your debit card
Dane’s rape: Another juvenile held
Non-English writers ‘don’t have level-playing field’ AI doles out free tickets to staff Chennai women properly dressed, so crime down, says MP minister
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Don’t be over-confident, Advani’s advice to cadres
New Delhi, January 19 “We should not be over confident and there should not be any shortcoming in our preparations and the hard work. One of the reasons for the party losing the 2004 Lok Sabha polls was over confidence,” the senior leader, who last year opposed the projection of Narendra Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, said. Political analysts, among other factors, also attribute the BJP’s 2004 loss to overdoing of the “India shining campaign” crafted around the popularity of the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The BJP’s current campaign too is largely focused around one man-Modi and his development plank though this time the AAP factor is ensuring that the party does not take any “perceived pro-BJP wave” for granted. Perhaps for the first time, Advani thanked Rajnath Singh publicly for naming Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. “I want to thank the party president for his confidence that we will get a majority (in the Lok Sabha) by announcing Modi as the prime ministerial candidate,” he said while lauding the BJP’s good performance in the recently concluded Assembly elections. He also complimented Modi for his tireless efforts and whirlwind rallies to spread the BJP message across the country. The Gujarat Chief Minister has addressed 77 rallies so far and would complete the 100 mark before the Lok Sabha elections, said Advani. Meanwhile, the senior leader also advised the BJP to address the lack of trust among Muslims and asked the community to understand the vote bank politics and have faith in his party. “Our party believes in integral humanism. We do not discriminate on the basis of religion, caste or language,” he said. Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, too, praised Modi as she slammed Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on a host of issues, including his charge that the main opposition did not cooperate in the passage of crucial bills. “Rahul no match for Modi”, said the resolution moved by her. “In many surveys, Rahul Gandhi is far behind Modi in public ratings. The Congress knew that they cannot fight the BJP and Modi politically with Rahul Gandhi as the PM candidate. A certain defeat is inevitable whenever election is held. Therefore, they took the exit route of not declaring the PM candidate at all,” it said. Sushma also made a comparison between growth figures of the erstwhile NDA regime and the current Manmohan Singh Government as she attacked the Congress regime for “slew of scams running into lakhs of crores” which had “dented India's image”.
Compliments Modi
I want to thank the party president Rajnath Singh for his confidence that we will get a majority (in the Lok Sabha) by announcing Modi as the prime ministerial
candidate.
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IM planning to kidnap Kejriwal for Bhatkal’s release: Police
New Delhi, January 19 A team from the security wing of the Delhi Police has briefed Kejriwal about this threat and requested him to take "Z" category security cover, the top sources said. However, it was not immediately clear what was the response of the Delhi Chief Minister in this regard. Senior police officials said that they have received an input in this regard from intelligence agencies. Kejriwal has been declining to take security cover keeping up with his Aam Aadmi Party's policy to end VIP culture in politics. A special NIA court on Friday allowed the plea by Karnataka Police to interrogate Bhatkal, 30, in connection with the blasts at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore in April, 2010. Bhatkal, who belongs to Bhatkal village in Udupi district of north Karnataka, was allegedly involved in a string of terror attacks in Ahmedabad, Surat, Bangalore, Pune, Delhi and Hyderabad, the NIA had said. — PTI
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AAP adamant on dharna
New Delhi, January 19 A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the public affairs committee (PAC) of the party today. Besides dharna, the PAC also discussed two other issues—the revolt by party MLA Vinod Kumar Binny and the economic policy. The Binny issue has been referred to the disciplinary committee of the party. A seven-member committee has been constituted to study and suggest what kind of economic policy should be followed in Delhi. When asked about prohibitory orders issued by the Delhi Police, AAP spokesperson Deepak Bajpai said they had not received any communication from the police on the issue so far. The party was prepared to go ahead with its plan of holding a
dharna.
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No judge found yet to head snoopgate probe
New Delhi, January 19 Official sources said a few judges have been approached by the government to take up the assignment, but all of them are said to have turned down the offer describing the case as "highly political". As the Lok Sabha elections are approaching and Modi is BJP's prime ministerial candidate, sources said, the government so far has not find any judge who is willing to head the judicial commission of inquiry to go into the charges. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has denied that no judge is willing to head the inquiry but admitted "some problems" in announcing the name of the retired judge. On January 10, Shinde had announced that a judge to head the judicial commission would be announced "within a day or two". But even after nine days of Home Minister's statement, no announcement regarding the name of the judge came. On December 26, 2013, government had announced appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the "snooping" on a woman in Gujarat allegedly at the behest of Modi. The decision was taken by the Union Cabinet under Section 3 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act which empowers the Centre to set up such a commission. The commission, to be headed by a retired judge of Supreme Court or retired Chief Justice of a High Court, is supposed to submit its report within three months. The Union Cabinet has decided to constitute the inquiry into the incidents of physical/electronic surveillance in the states of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Delhi allegedly without authorisation, the announcement had said. The commission will also look into charges of snooping on Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh by the previous BJP government when he was in the opposition as well as the leaking of the Call Data Records (CDR) of BJP leader Arun Jaitley in Delhi. The Centre's decision overruled the contention of the Gujarat Government that the matter was a state subject and that it has already appointed a Commission to probe it. The Union Cabinet's decision came against the backdrop of claims that the alleged snooping was conducted beyond the state of Gujarat. — PTI
Case 'highly political'
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Rahul dials Manmohan to push minority status for Jains
New Delhi, January 19 Rahul called up the PM after a delegation of Jain leaders led by Pradeep Jain, Minister of State for Rural Development, met him to seek his support for the notification of Jains as a minority community at the national level under the National Commission for Minorities Act. The government has already in principle decided to grant the request of Jains and the Law Ministry is in the process of preparing a Cabinet note on it. The Tribune was the first to report last month that the Jains will get a Central minority status making them eligible for all benefits under the schemes for minorities including scholarships. Rahul’s intervention will ensure an early Cabinet decision on the matter. At present, there are five Centrally notified minorities — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis. Jains are a minority as per the Census of India. Law Minister Kapil Sibal had earlier told The Tribune that decks had been cleared to give them minority status.
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Wife has right to know husband's salary, says CIC
New Delhi, January 19 Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu said every spouse has a right to information about the salary particulars of the other especially for the purpose of maintenance. "More so, wife has a right to know the salary particulars of the husband, who is an employee of the public authority," he said. The commissioner further said that the details about a government employee's salary is no third party information and these have to be voluntarily disclosed under Section 4(1)(b)(x) of the RTI Act. He said the salary paid to the public authority is sourced from the tax paid by the people in general and it has to be disclosed mandatorily under the RTI section. "The information about the salary of employee or an officer of the same public authority cannot be considered as a third-party information... Public authorities cannot reject such RTI applications about salary under the pretext of the third party information," he held. Acharyulu warned the Home Department of the Delhi Government that such denial of information will be wrongful and could incur penalty. The warning was in context of an application filed by Jyoti Seherawat seeking salary slip of her husband who is employed at the Home (General) department. The information was denied as her husband gave in written to the department that such an information should not be provided to anyone. — PTI
No secret
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No pre-poll alliance: Akhilesh
Balia, January 19 "The SP is going to play an important role after Lok Sabha polls ... The party will not forge any pre-poll alliance and will contest the elections alone," Yadav, who is also the state party chief, told reporters here. To a question regarding Aam Aadmi Party, he said SP men were real 'aam aadmi', wearing red caps and riding bicycles. Describing as unfortunate the Muzaffarnagar riots, Yadav said the state government did whatever it could for rehabilitation of the victims. "The NHRC has probed all aspects of the riots ... an independent inquiry under Supreme Court directive is also underway," he said. On the woes of cane farmers, Yadav said no sugar mill would be sold and private operators would be asked to operate them, if needed. Asking partymen to remain alert about electronic media, he said it tends to highlight negative aspects and ignore positive ones of the government. Defending the decision to hold 'Saifai Mahotsava', he said it was a small fair but mediapersons got angry as extra passes were not given to them and made "spicy news item" of the event. — PTI
The SP is going to play an important role after Lok Sabha polls ... The party will not forge any pre-poll alliance and will contest the elections
alone.
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DRDO machine detects lies from facial expression
Chandigarh, January 19 The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed a new system that is able to detect the emotion of a person who is being interrogated or interviewed. Referred to as the Automatic Deceit Detection and Interrogation System from Face Expression, the system uses a hidden camera to continuously record the subject’s face expression during the interview/interrogation. A computer with special software carries out a near real time mathematical analysis of the face expressions and is able to automatically determine the psychological state of the person, whether he is happy, sad, disgusted or afraid. A senior DRDO scientist said there are seven universal expressions of emotion that include happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, contempt and disgust, each of which produce unique eyeball and facial muscular movements, which are recorded and analyzed to arrive at a conclusion. DRDO scientists said that recent advances in facial image processing technology have facilitated the introduction of advanced applications that extend beyond mere facial recognition techniques and can be used to study expressions and analyze facial and hand movements. The system is portable and being covert and non-intrusive, provides investigators and interviewers with a handy, reliable and user friendly tool that indicates possible deception by a subject. Since the subject may never get to know that his expressions are being analysed, it gives interrogators a tactical advantage.
For, the truth must prevail
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New virus attacks when you swipe your debit card
New Delhi, January 19 The "severely" spreading virus of the Trojan family has been detected conducting its clandestine operations at the Point of Sale (POS) counters placed at retail terminals after the RBI made it mandatory in December last year for debit cards holders to punch in their PIN every time they make a purchase. The virus named "Dexter, black POS, memory dump and grabber" can acquire seven aliases when infecting a system and once it is successful in breaching the security protocols of a POS terminal, it steals confidential data like card holder's name, account number, expiration date, CVV code and other discretionary information which could lead to financially compromising and phishing attacks on the card at a later stage. "It has been reported that malware campaigns targeting payment card processing, point-of-sale (POS), check out systems or equipment are on the rise. "The common infection vectors for POS system malwares includes phishing emails or social engineering techniques to deliver the malware, use of default or weak credentials, unauthorised access, open wireless networks along with the methods of installing malware as a part of service," a latest advisory issued to the public by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-India) said. — PTI
Shopping alert
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Dane’s rape: Another juvenile held
New Delhi, January 19 A mobile phone and some books belonging to the victim were recovered from the 16-year-old juvenile, who was detained from his house in East Delhi's Trilokpuri last night. — PTI
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Non-English writers ‘don’t have level-playing field’ With English being spoken globally, all the eminent authors expressed the fear that good literature written in lesser known languages is being lost to anonymity. The writers writing in languages other than English do not have a level-playing field. Only a certain kind of writing that meets the general demand of urban English reading population is enjoying the benefits of mainstream publishing. “Earlier a novel published in America would get published in the UK after a few months and would come to Asia later. Now, with mergers between publishing houses, books get published simultaneously across continents. My latest novel ‘Lowlands’ was published simultaneously across continents. This puts a different kind of pressure on the writer” observed Jhumpa Lahiri, adding “Commercial currency of English is distressing. Now I live in Italy and I was shocked to learn that about 7 to 8 novels were published in Italy in English in a year.” “American literature is so overrated”, said Xiaolu Guo, well known Chinese and English author, also a celebrated film maker, best known for her film “She” and her novel “A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers.” “Asians like us who were brought up reading the Anglo-Saxan literature, changed their reading habits by the mainstream literature which is sometimes lower than journalistic writing.” On the positive side, she added, the alternative literature has to be more powerful to get noticed and survive and the web offers the opportunity to reach out to the niche reader. “Narrative itself will never die, only forms will change”, added Maaza Mengiste, Ethiopian writer who lives in America and works on lesser known languages of Ethiopia. Award goes to Mistry DSC prize for South Asian Literature 2014, worth $ 50,000, went to Cyrus Mistry for Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer. Six writers were shortlisted for the prize. They are: Anand (Book of Destruction; Penguin India), Benyamin (Goat Days; Penguin India), Cyrus Mistry (Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer; Aleph), Mohsin Hamid (How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia; Hamish Hamilton/Penguin India), Nadeem Aslam, (The Blind Man’s Garden; Random House, India) and Nayomi Munaweera (Island of a Thousand Mirrors; Perera Hussein Publishing. The award was judged by a panel led by literary critic Antara Dev Sen. Shashi Tharoor was to announce the award but he did not come due to his wife’s untimely demise. From mythology to poetry, literature expands Jaipur: On the third day of the seventh edition of Zee Literature Festival, the discourse on the written word moved beyond the confines of literature. From exploring the commonalities of aesthetic — as practiced in art and literature — to the programming for computers — and the need for publishing avenues for literature as well as for the scientific community came under the umbrella of literary discourse. If Jhumpa Lahiri was the star attraction on Saturday, Amish Tripathi, the writer of the bestseller Shiva Trilogy, whose fictional works are taken up by both Bollywood and Hollywood, was welcomed like a film star by a cheering crowd. Nobel recipient for medicine Dr Harold E Varmus, author of “The Art and Politics of Science”, shared some rare insights into the transformation an award like Nobel brings to the life of a “lab rat” like him. “The way literature is the lifeline of writers, the way they need to be published, scientific advancements need publishers to go back to the community.” With his efforts, Dr Varmus has created PLOS (Public Library of Science) triggering a new online publishing movement. Debates on “fluidity of genders” and blurring lines between the ‘truthfulness towards the material’ and the play of ‘imagination’ in the works of fiction and memoir writing witnessed packed houses. An erudite rendering on The Rasa of Language: Art Pleasure and Technology by author Vikram Chandra offered fresh insights into the application of aesthetics in technology. — VS
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AI doles out free tickets to staff New Delhi, January 19 While its top officers like functional directors and joint managing directors are entitled to get 24 free tickets each year, deputy general managers and above get 20 passages under a scheme called Passage Entitlement-Vacation Travel. Those in the category of assistant general managers and senior AGMs having less than 20 years of service can avail 12 such tickets and those above 20 years can get 16. The remaining staffers, who have put in between one and 20 years of service, are entitled to eight free tickets and 12 for those beyond 20 years. Half of these tickets can be used for international travel, according to the scheme which also makes it clear that the number of such staff-on-leave passage would be determined by the airline's commercial department. The scheme comes at a time when the national carrier is estimating a loss of Rs 3,900 crore in 2013-14, though it is down from Rs 5,200 crore reported in 2012-13 and Rs 7,560 crore posted the year before. The airline is also faced with a whopping debt burden of Rs 35,000 crore. While retired employees can avail this facility on a par with what they were getting at the time of superannuation, the scheme also provides that "in exceptional circumstances", an employee could use a maximum of four of his or her own passages for travel of brothers, sisters, son-in-law and daughter-in-law. — PTI
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Chennai women properly dressed, so crime down, says MP minister
Bhopal, January 19 Gaur, who recently returned from a trip to Chennai, said that the crime rate against women in the capital of Tamil Nadu was much less than what it was in Bhopal. Gaur said that the rate of crime against women in 2012 in Chennai was 19.32 whereas in Bhopal, it was 71.38. "The crime rate for women for the whole of Madhya Pradesh was also 71.38 that year," he said. The minister said that during his visit to Chennai, he met a number of senior police officers there who had told him that women in their city dress up fully and regularly go to temples. — PTI
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Jaipur, January 19