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Seat sharing: BJP gives ultimatum to Shiv Sena
Ajit men, cops clash; RLD MLA hurt
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SIT messed up Saradha probe: CBI
CBI chief in 2G taint: Petitioner refuses to name whistleblower
CVC appointment on hold till court’s verdict, Centre tells SC
UGC retracts on Hindi circular
NBT to drop chapter on Medha Patkar
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Seat sharing: BJP gives ultimatum to Shiv Sena
New Delhi/Mumbai, September 18 However, the Shiv Sena tonight said it would not be dictated by anybody. “We won’t compromise on our self-respect. We met (party president) Uddhav Thackeray today and had a discussion on alliance. Shiv Sena does not obey anybody’s ultimatum. The final decision will be taken only by Uddhav Thackeray,” Sena MP Sanjay Raut told reporters in Mumbai. Having jacked up its demand for contesting 135 of the 288 seats, which has been rejected by the Shiv Sena, senior BJP leaders have communicated to Uddhav to decide within 12 hours whether his party was willing to conform to a “mutual and respectable” seat-sharing
formula or not. The BJP’s ultimatum comes against the backdrop of party president Amit Shah’s tough talk this morning in Kolhapur in Maharashtra that there will be no compromise at the cost of self-respect. “I had told the state BJP leaders Devendra Fadnavis and Vinod Tawde to sort out the matter quickly. But they said they were not getting any response from the Sena,” Shah said. Late Wednesday, the state unit of the BJP sent a list of candidates for 119 of the 288 assembly seats, giving rise to speculation that it had blinked in the contest with the Shiv Sena. BJP leaders had even told reporters off the record that they were expecting a few additional seats from its ally and an assurance that it would not insist on a CM candidate. Negotiators are butting heads on exchanging a few seats on the question of ‘winnability.’Sena leaders said they would not settle for less than 150 seats. Besides the two big parties, there are three others in the alliance which need to be given at least 18 seats, sources said.
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Ajit men, cops clash; RLD MLA hurt
Lucknow, September 18 Thousands of farmers from various districts of western Uttar Pradesh had arrived on the call given by the Bhartiya Kisan Union and the RLD to stop the water supply to Delhi through the Gang Nahar Regulator in Muradnagar. The farmers were protesting against the Central Government’s decision to cut off the power and water supply to bungalow of Ajit Singh on Tughlaq Road, New Delhi. The Ghaziabad police arrested RLD MLA from Modinagar Sudesh Sharma when he along with his supporters tried to cut the water supply to Delhi from the Gang Nahar Regulator. Supporters of the MLA resorted to heavy brick batting following which the police resorted to shelling of tear gas, lathi-charge and even firing of rubber bullets. Nearly 50 RLD and BKU supporters and 20 policemen were injured in the clash. The 470 cusecs of water supplied from Muradnagar Gang Nahar quenches the thirst of around 40 per cent population living in Delhi. UP Jal Nigam Executive Engineer RK Gupta said the Gang Nahar Regulator in Muradnagar supplies 470 cusecs daily to Delhi. RLD UP state secretary Anil Dubey blamed the cutting off of water and power supply to Jat leader Ajit Singh’s bungalow in Delhi as one of the reasons for the Jat disenchantment with the BJP in western UP, costing it the seats of Bijnore and Thakurdwar in the recent by polls.
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SIT messed up Saradha probe: CBI
Kolkata, September 18 “We started the investigation process three months back. But investigations by the SIT formed by the West Bengal Government and the Economic Offences Cell also of the state government have messed up the entire probe process,” said a CBI source. He said it was becoming difficult for the CBI, which was probing aspects like criminal conspiracy, misappropriation of funds and criminal breach of trust in the Saradha episode, to put things and stitch together. Asked when the CBI would be able to complete the probe, the source said, “ED had started the process since April 2013. We have started only three months back. It will take
some time.” — PTI
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CBI chief in 2G taint: Petitioner refuses to name whistleblower
New Delhi, September 18 Those who exposed corruption were entitled to anonymity under the Whistleblower Protection Act, 2011, and various apex court judgments, advocate Kamini Jaiswal, General Secretary of the Centre for PIL (CPIL), the petitioner, said in an affidavit. Further, the whistleblower in this case had given to the CPIL the information and documents against Sinha on a clear understanding that “his/her identity shall be protected,” the affidavit said. Giving a list of whistleblowers who were killed after their names were disclosed, the CPIL said the authenticity of the guest entry register maintained at Sinha’s official residence and given to the SC could easily be verified by ordering an inquiry without exposing the whistleblower to victimisation. The veracity of other information against Sinha given in CPIL’s affidavits could be ascertained from CBI’s original case files, Jaiswal said. The CPIL has filed the latest affidavit in response to the SC’s September 15 order, asking the petitioner to identify the whistleblower to enable the court to consider the petitioner’s plea for restraining Sinha from handling 2G cases. The court passed the order after Sinha had cited SC rules under which disclosing the source of any information that cast a shadow on the reputation of persons in power was necessary. The governing council of CPIL met yesterday and “unanimously resolved that the identity of the source would not be disclosed”.
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CVC appointment on hold till court’s verdict, Centre tells SC
New Delhi, September 18 A Bench headed by Chief Justice RM Lodha directed the government to file its response to the PIL by October 9 and posted the case for next hearing on October 14. Agreeing with some of the objections raised in the petition, the Bench said the Centre should have kept the zone of consideration wide instead of restricting it to certain category of IAS officers. “By restricting the procedure, how will you achieve the objectives of statutory guidelines? The legislative policy should be effectively and objectively implemented,” it noted. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, however, said though about 150 officers had already been selected for consideration, but this would not come in the way of others applying for the posts. If advocate Prashant Bhushan wanted to be considered for the CVC post, “he can submit his application to me,” the AG said. Rohatgi said the list 150 candidates would be shortlisted by a pool of officers in the Department of Personnel and the final list containing about five officers would be sent to the selection committee, comprising the Prime Minister, Home Minister and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. According to the petitioner, the Centre was going ahead with the appointments in violation of the SC’s guidelines and restricting the zone of consideration to a section of IAS officers. The Centre had circulated a letter on July 21, effectively eliminating a number of IAS officers by stipulating that the nominees should be eligible to hold the post of CVC/VCs for at least three years. Further, the posts could not be offered only to IAS officers as the SC guidelines had clarified that all officers, including IPS and IRS, who had a distinguished career and experience in vigilance were entitled to apply for these posts, it said.
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UGC retracts on Hindi circular
New Delhi/Chennai, September 18 The University Grants Commission will now issue a revised circular on the subject tomorrow, UGC Chairman Ved Prakash said today, hours after Jayalalithaa wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing "imposition" of Hindi and that the directive was "not binding" on the state. "The last circular was issued inadvertently mentioning that Hindi be taught along with English as a primary language. UGC has decided to issue a circular tomorrow saying that Hindi is not mandatory. It is the prerogative of the university concerned to decide how to teach, who to teach and what to teach," Prakash said. The circular became public earlier this week and was attacked by political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the DMK, MDMK and PMK, which said they would resist all attempts to "impose" the language on Tamil Nadu. In her letter to Modi today, Jayalalithaa said the circular, amounting to "imposing Hindi", had been initiated during the previous government. She said the two institutions - Anna University and Alagappa University - had received the circular on September 16 where it was stated that Hindi be taught as a primary language along with English in undergraduate courses, besides following it in Law and Commerce streams also. — PTI
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NBT to drop chapter on Medha Patkar
Ahmedabad, September 18 The decision was believed to have been taken at the behest of the Union Human Resources Development Ministry which took cogisance of the complaints by the Ahmedabad-based National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) which first raised the demand in 2002 and unsuccessfully fought the matter for the last 12 years. NCCL president VK Saxena said after Modi took over as the Prime Minister, he resumed the plea for dropping the chapter on Patkar in June this year. The HRD ministry “forwarded” the letter to the director NBT for “consideration” and the NBT “after considering all the documentary evidences provided by the NCCL took the decision to remove the chapter on Patkar,” Saxena claimed.
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Ahmedabad, September 18
