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IAF to keep Sukhoi fleet grounded till fault is fixed
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money Trail
Modi’s security up after death threat
Day after son slams Cong working, PC meets Sonia |
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Won’t accept conditions for talks: Pak
Unsafe buildings in HP, Kangra-like quake will wreak havoc : Expert
PM urged to list soldiers killed in anti-Sikh riots
SpiceJet flight hits animal before take-off
Shiv Sena to elect leader on Sunday
Not in CLP leader’s race: Chavan
Cong MLA Rane targets Gujaratis
6 parties unite to take on govt in Parliament
Damaged crop drives Mansa farmer to death
Telangana farm loan waiver ‘too little, too late’
SC reduces death penalty of rapist-murderer to life
Youths wearing Pak team T-shirts booked
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IAF to keep Sukhoi fleet grounded till fault is fixed
New Delhi, November 6 With over 200 aircraft grounded, almost one-third of IAF’s entire fleet of 640 fighter jets is not available for flying. A team of experts from India and Russia is examining the plane’s seat ejection system, but has not been able to find any breakthrough. A source in the IAF said: “How can we fly the jet till the problem is identified and rectified. As of now, we don’t even know where the problem is and why the seats had ejected on their own.” Officials said both pilots were ejected automatically on October 14, leaving the plane pilotless mid-air, resulting in the crash 20 km off Pune in an unpopulated area. “Can we have crashes of such nature, imagine a pilotless plane over a thickly populated city. It will be catastrophic besides losing a plane that costs a couple of hundred crores,” said a senior functionary in the IAF. A Court of Inquiry is in progress in Pune and specific checks are being conducted on the aircraft. The plane that crashed was from a batch imported from Russia and not one assembled by Defence Ministry’s public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bangalore. The makers of the pilot seat — NPP Zvezda K-36DM — in Russia and the IAF are part of the probe. The October 14 incident in which both pilots ejected was the third such incident. In the first incident in 2008, an airman carrying out a pre-flight test at the Bareilly Sukhoi base had died. The seat ejected on its own when he was sitting in the cockpit making checks. The airman, who was thrown 50 feet up in the air, hit the roof of the hangar, killing him instantly. The second incident occurred in Jodhpur this year when one of the fighter jets was taxing to take-off. The seats ejected and the pilots were thrown 100 feet in the air.
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money Trail
New Delhi, November 6 The Income Tax Department is now mulling prosecution against 300 entities figuring on the list of 628 entries in the HSBC Geneva list given to the Supreme Court recently, official sources said. The SIT found and reported that there was no amount shown in almost 289 HSBC Geneva entries, while 122 of them appeared twice on the same list. “The SIT found that the biggest impediment in taking action against the people listed in this particular lot was that there were no details about the operations of these accounts. It was not reflected in the list as to when these accounts were opened and what was their transaction history,” a source said. The report of the SIT, headed by retired Supreme Court Judge MB Shah with Justice Arijit Pasayat (retd) as its vice-chairman, said the I-T department had undertaken 150 search or survey operations against those named on the list but prosecution proceedings were yet not final against them. — PTI
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Modi’s security up after death threat
New Delhi, November 6 Security forces are being told to beef up security dramatically ahead of upcoming elections in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand where Modi is expected to address several public rallies. Officials are taking seriously a tweet from the spokesperson for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Ahrar (TTP-JA). The group, which claimed responsibility for the November 2 suicide bombing on the Pakistan side of the Wagah check post near the Indian border that left around 60 people dead, has threatened the Indian PM. "You are the killer of hundreds of Muslims. We w(il)l take the revenge of innocent people of Kashmir and Gujarat," TTP-JA spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan has been reported as saying in published reports. Modi is keen that his security retinue should not curb his interaction with people. Ranjit Rai, former director of Naval Intelligence, said terrorists could disrupt polls in J&K and that Modi was also their target.— IANS
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Day after son slams Cong working, PC meets Sonia
New Delhi, November 6 The delegation led by Tamil Nadu Congress chief EVKS Elangovan professed loyalty to the Gandhis and told them that they would work to revive the "K Kamaraj" rule in the state. Kamaraj, the late Congress stalwart, had successfully governed the state for a long time and later drafted the famous "Kamaraj plan" to revive the party when it was in trouble nationally. The plan mandated top Congressmen in government positions to resign and work to rejuvenate the party. While the meeting came against the backdrop of Karti's opposition of the Gandhis, party leaders ruled out the possibility of the Congress acting against the former Finance Minister. Elangovan told The Tribune: "We met Soniaji and Rahulji to speak about state matters and told them that we would not allow Vasan's exit to harm the party and will work to revive Kamaraj rule in Tamil Nadu. There was no discussion on Karti Chidambaram or his remark." Asked if other leaders made a reference to Karti's statement which is being seen as a direct attack on the Gandhis, Elangovan said he had not yet heard the controversial comment and would respond only after he looks at its contents. "I have not seen the statement," he said indicating that action against Karti was a mere speculation at this point in time especially when P Chidambaram accompanied the delegation in question. Rumblings continued within the Congress with more and more people questioning the long practiced centralised style of party functioning. Rahul, it is learnt, is willing to democratise the party and give more autonomy to states, said a leader adding that Rahul had long been seeking to give state units a high level of independence. "What Karti has said is what Rahul's has already been proposing. Rahul is for decentralization of powers," said a Congress source adding all these issues, including the comments being made by Congress persons in the right earnest, would go into the input Rahul's team is building ahead of the much awaited AICC reshuffle. Another leader while reacting to Karti's statement said it was a way of people to assert their presence and "seek their pound of flesh" in the Congress, which is presently vulnerable.
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Rajnath in Israel, vows to boost defence, security ties
Tel Aviv, November 6 “‘Shalom’ to the people of Israel. Reached Tel Aviv last night. Shall meet the Prime Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu today in the evening,” Singh tweeted after reaching Israel. “India and Israel share very warm & cordial bilateral relations. We look forward to strengthen it further,” he said. Singh was scheduled to arrive here yesterday morning but had to reschedule his plans after his flight from Monaco was cancelled due to bad weather. The minister was in Monaco to attend Interpol’s General Assembly. Despite the unexpected change in Singh’s plans, the Israeli government rolled out a red carpet in welcoming him with Netanyahu, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich re-adjusting their tight schedules to meet him. Singh started his Israel visit by visiting Holy sites in the old city of Jerusalem. The home minister then left for a helicopter tour of the Jordan Valley and Israel’s northern and southern region with National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen to get a sense of the security situation in the country. — PTI
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Won’t accept conditions for talks: Pak
Islamabad, November 6 “As we have been stating the dialogue between Pakistan and India is not a favour that one country does to the other. Dialogue between Pakistan and India is a necessity for peace in this region so that South Asia also focuses on economic development and welfare of the people,” Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said, reacting to Jaitley’s remarks at the India Economic Summit in New Delhi. “We do not accept any conditionality. Kashmiris are not Indian separatists they are people in occupied territory struggling for their right to self-determination that has been recognised by the United Nations resolutions. Pakistan is a party to the dispute. So this contention is not acceptable,” she said. — PTI
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Unsafe buildings in HP, Kangra-like quake will wreak havoc : Expert
Dharamsala, November 6 “In 1905, a quake of 7.8 magnitude struck Kangra and resulted in over 20,000 deaths. If a quake of similar intensity strikes the region again, it would wreak havoc as the population has grown manifold and buildings are more unsafe than what they were in 1905,” said Prof Gupta while talking to The Tribune. Prof Gupta, who is president of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics and a member of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), was here to take part in a workshop on status of natural hazards in Himachal Pradesh. The event was organised by the Central University Himachal Pradesh (CUHP), Shahpur. On chances of region witnessing a high magnitude quake again, he said: “It’s difficult to predict it. However, certain pattern of events point towards occurrence of a big quake in a region. Before a region receives a big temblor, small quakes strike the area for some months. With the help of latest techniques, we can predict the occurrence of a quake to a certain degree.” The scientist said buildings in McLeodganj and Shimla were highly vulnerable to quakes. “I saw some new multi-storey buildings coming up in Mcleodganj. The foundations of buildings were superficial...they are likely to collapse in case a big quake strikes the region,” he said. “We can take a cue from Japan that raises multi-storey buildings that are designed to resist even bigger quakes,” he said. Prof Gupta said the foundation of a building in Himachal must go beyond the soil liquefaction layers. “The top soil in most areas of this hilly state is soft. If the foundation starts below the liquefaction layers, it will make the building safer,” he said.
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Separate regulator for herbal drugs soon
New Delhi, November 6 Opening the first Aarogya fair organised by the government as part of the World Ayurvedic Congress, which India is hosting, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the proposed regulator would be on the lines of the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation which works to check the quality of allopathic drugs before granting them approval for import or export. There is, however, no such regulator for the traditional medicine sector, which is why Indian herbal medicines have failed to make an impact in the global herbal drug market. Vardhan today admitted that lack of standardisation of herbal drugs, including Ayurvedic, Unani, Homeopathic and Siddha medicines, was resulting in India’s poor position in the global market estimated at 100 billion USD. A majority share of this global trade in herbal drugs is currently held by China, which began much early on this road. The Health Ministry’s plan to have a separate drug regulator for herbal medicines would bring oversight to this unregulated sector and will facilitate standardisation of drugs by evolving and laying down essential parameters for quality maintenance. “Call it whatever — Ayurvedic medicines or herbal medicines or traditional medicines — the global market is estimated at about $100 billion today. India’s share in this is negligible because quality standards are not maintained to international specifications. The government has decided to address this lacuna,” Vardhan said. The minister regretted that India had “missed the bus” in terms of capitalising on her headstart in the traditional medicines sector. “It is a pity that China has captured such a huge share of the world market whereas India’s presence is non-existent. We are determined to develop Brand India through Ayurveda,” Vardhan said. The PM has already asked the Health Ministry to boost the traditional medicine sector which is why among the very first Cabinet items approved by the Narendra Modi government was establishment of the National AYUSH Mission. Vardhan today also said the future belonged to holistic medicine and no single stream of medicine is supreme. Indian traditional medicines have not made the global cut yet due to lack of quality control and assessment, which is critical to exports.
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PM urged to list soldiers killed in anti-Sikh riots
New Delhi, November 6 HS Phoolka, who is has contested cases of several victims, yesterday wrote to the PM saying the MoD is yet to officially release a list of Sikh officers and men who lost their lives in the carnage that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. The list of the dead must be conveyed to either the state governments or to the Ministry of Home Affairs to help families receive compensation under the scheme of rehabilitation of riot victims, Phoolka said in his letter which carries the names of 50 such officers and men who died in the riots. All 50 soldiers were serving officers and jawans in Defence forces — Army, Navy and Air Force. The Government of India has not compiled any official list on the subject so far. Most names do not even find mention on the list compiled by the Home Ministry. The widows and family members of many of these serving personnel have not received compensation paid to those killed during the riots. Phoolka asked the PM to direct the Ministry of Defence to verify the list and compile a list of all such soldiers who went missing during riots. He further requested the Ministry of Home Affairs to compensate these soldiers’ families on a par with the others killed.
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SpiceJet flight hits animal before take-off
Surat, November 6 "A Surat-to-Delhi SpiceJet aircraft, Flight number SG 622, carrying around 140 passengers excluding crew members today hit a stray animal on take-off roll at Surat airport," said Siddharth Kumar, an airline's spokesperson. All passengers and crew members are safe and will be provided an alternative arrangement soon, Kumar said. Considering the stray-animal menace, SpiceJet has also decided to suspend its services on Surat airport for an indefinite period. — PTI
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Shiv Sena to elect leader on Sunday
Mumbai, November 6 But it is unclear whether the party would lay claim for the post of Leader of the Opposition as there is no clarity on whether it will join the government by the weekend. All Sena MLAs met with party chief Uddhav Thackeray and said they were prepared to sit in the Opposition. “We have authorised party chief Uddhav Thackeray to take a decision on whether to sit in the Opposition,” Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant said after meeting with Thackeray today. He added the Sena chief would also decide on who will be the leader of the party in the Maharashtra assembly. The Sena has demanded that its ministers be inducted in the government before Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis faces the vote of confidence in the House. However, the CM told mediapersons that Cabinet expansion will happen only after the trust vote.
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Not in CLP leader’s race: Chavan
Mumbai, November 6 “I have asked the party not to give me any responsibility. In the past 15 years I have held many responsibilities in the party. Now I have got back my constituency and I want to spend time working for the people of my constituency,” Chavan told mediapersons. The Maharashtra Congress unit is in the process of electing its leader in the state Assembly before it meets for the first time next week. Senior party leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Mohan Prakash are in Mumbai as central observers to oversee the election of the CLP leader. Several senior party leaders like Narayan Rane and supporters of former CM Ashok Chavan had criticized Prithviraj Chavan and blamed him for the party’s poor showing in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections. Narayan Rane who lost his seat in the Assembly polls has been the most vociferous in his attack against Chavan. He alleged that many candidates who were in the fray were not even provided adequate funds to fight the elections properly. “Some leaders accepted defeat even before campaigning,” Rane had said.
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Cong MLA Rane targets Gujaratis
Mumbai, November 6 Rane remained unapologetic even after several senior Congress leaders distanced themselves from the tweet.
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6 parties unite to take on govt in Parliament
New Delhi, November 6 Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav hosted a lunch for leaders of five political parties — JD(U), JD(S), INLD, SJP and RJD — at his residence here. JD(U) leaders Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, JD(S) leader HD Deve Gowda, INLD’s Dushyant Chautala and SJP’s Kamal Morarka attended the lunch. Former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told the media that the parties decided to unite to raise issues of public importance in Parliament. Thanking Mulayam for the “initiative,” he said the parties, which were part of the Janata parivar, decided to work together on the principle of unity. He did not rule out possible ‘merger’ of the parties to further their electoral prospects. “The answer to this lies in future...we can move towards one party (Hum ek party ki taraf badh sakte hain),” he said. Though Mulayam was the host, he sent Kumar to brief the media on the lunch meeting. Mulayam’s cousins Shivpal Singh and Ram Gopal and JD (U)’s KC Tyagi flanked Kumar during the briefing. To a question why the Congress, also an opposition party, was not invited, Kumar said they did not discuss the Congress. — PTI
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farmer
suicides across country Manas Dasgupta
Ahmedabad, November 6 In an affidavit before the apex court in response to a show-cause notice served on the state government, it, however, issued a rider claiming that out of the 96 farmers who had committed suicide in the state, only two suicides were directly caused by agriculture-related problems. According to an official spokesman of the state government here, both the agricultural-related suicides were recorded in Amreli district in the Saurashtra region last year in which one farmer committed suicide because of the failure of the standing crops due to natural reasons and another due to increasing debt burden from farming. The affidavit claimed that 85 farmers committed suicide because of “various reasons other than farming” while nine suicides were because of increasing debts taken for “reasons other than farming.” It admitted that it had not paid compensation to any farmer claiming that there was no provision for compensation to farmers committing suicide for personal reasons. The farmers’ leaders, however, claim that the police in the state deliberately avoid registering any farmers’ suicide case as related to agriculture to cover up the failures of the BJP government to provide support to the farming community. In a statement here today, a senior Congress farm leader and a member of the state Assembly, Raghavji Patel, claimed that more than 10,000 farmers had committed suicide in the last 13 years in the state. He expressed the apprehension that more farmers would be forced to commit suicide in the coming days because of the failure of the Modi government at the Centre to declare adequate support price to cotton-growers. He said the Centre was deliberately avoiding declaring the support price because of its “pro-industrialists policies.”
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Damaged crop drives Mansa farmer to death
Mansa, November 6 Raj had sown cotton seeds on six acres — two acres of his own and four acres of panchayati land. He had taken the panchayati land on lease for Rs 60,000. But on losing hope of a good crop and finding himself in no position to repay the lease amount, he took the extreme step of killing himself. Raj Singh does find a mention in the records of the department of agriculture in Mansa that states that he suffered loss of crop spread over 3.5 acres due to water logging that took place on September 2. Avtar Singh, Sarpanch, Musa village, said, “Raj Singh got only 200 quintals of cotton produce whereas the yield could have been five times more, had the crop not been damaged due to water logging. He is survived by his wife and two children including a daughter.” Earlier, 44-year-old farmer Gurdeep Singh — reeling under debt — of same village committed suicide on September 16 after his whole cotton crop on four acres, including 2.5 acres on lease, was damaged. Gurdeep’s name was not even recorded in list of farmers in the village who suffered loss to their crop due to water logging. In Musa village that witnessed water logging over 200 acres, the agriculture department recorded in its survey that only one acre was completely damaged while many others have suffered damage from 25 to 75 per cent. The agriculture department in its survey had recorded that only 6,587 acres of agricultural land in all 14 villages of Mansa sub-division and 18 of Jhunir sub-division had been affected by water logging on September 2. But farmers maintain that crop on more than 15,000 acres of agricultural land — on which they had largely sown cotton — had been destroyed completely.
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Telangana farm loan waiver ‘too little, too late’
Hyderabad, November 6 Though the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government has disputed the figure, it admitted that the problem was serious and promised to stand by the bereaved families. As part of measures to tackle the rural distress, the government has started implementing the loan-waiver scheme, one of its key poll promises. “Crop loans up to Rs 1 lakh have been waived to relieve farmers from debt burden. We have already released Rs 4,500 crore for the loan-waiver scheme, clearing a quarter of the loans,” state Agriculture Minister P Srinivas Reddy said. However, the Opposition parties and farmers’ organisations argue that the government’s help was “too little and came too late in the day” as delayed and deficit rains, poor and erratic power supply and lack of fresh loans from banks had pushed the farmers into the depths of despair. “The government should treat this crisis as a national disaster. It should declare an agricultural emergency in Telangana. Unless public and private loans are waived and some confidence-building measures are taken, suicides will continue,” said social activist P Srihari Rao who had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Andhra Pradesh High Court to seek help for the families of farmers who have committed suicide. “The farmers require Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore in the kharif season, with the bulk of the funds going into cotton farming. But the banks refused to give them loans as the deadlock over the loan-waiver scheme continued almost till October-end. This forced farmers to borrow heavily from private lenders with interest rates ranging from 40-50 per cent. Cotton farmers are the worst-hit as the picking trends indicate yields of only 2-3 quintals an acre against the normal of 8-12 quintals,” said S Malla Reddy, All-India vice-president of Kisan Sabha, a farmers’ organisation affiliated with the CPM. Meanwhile, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has directed officials to ascertain district-wise details about farmers’ deaths. “It is wrong to say that hundreds of farmers have committed suicide due to the failure of crops. We are ascertaining the facts and our priority is to save the farmers,” the Chief Minister said.
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SC reduces death penalty of rapist-murderer to life
New Delhi, November 6 A three-member Bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu noted that the convict had not committed any other crime when he was absconding for six years till his arrest in 2008. This showed that he was not a menace to society and the case did not fall in the rarest-of-rare categories warranting death penalty. While absconding, the man got married and had a girl child only to abandon both. The Tamil Nadu police managed to nab him after six years on the basis of jewelleries he had looted from the rape victim and her house and pledged in two pawn shops. The convict, B Kumar, who also had three other names, had come to the Supreme Court, challenging the death sentence awarded by the trial court, and upheld by the Madras High Court in 2011. Kumar had entered the victims’ house when they were alone, pleading that he wanted to take back some implement he had left behind. Once inside, he assaulted two of them as they tried to prevent him from committing rape on the third. The SC Bench, which included Justices SA Bobde and AM Sapre, noted the convict’s intention was to satiate his lust and not to kill. “The court has to further enquire and believe that the condemned accused cannot be reformed or rehabilitated and is likely to continue with his criminal acts,” it explained.
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Youths wearing Pak team T-shirts booked
Lucknow, November 6 “An FIR on charges of treason has been registered against 10 youths at Kubersthan police station here last evening,” said Superintendent of Police Lalit Kumar Singh over phone from Kushinagar. Tension gripped Kalyan Chhapar village after the youths were seen participating in the procession on November 4 wearing Pakistan cricket team t-shirts. This was opposed by some locals, who later informed the police. After the intervention of police, the youths removed their t-shirts. — PTI
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New Delhi, November 6
New Delhi, November 6
I have asked the party not to give me any responsibility. In the past 15 years I have held many responsibilities in the party. Now I want to spend time working for the people of my
constituency