WEDNESDAY
www.thestatesman.com
06 MAY
2015
FIND US ONLINE
Scan this with your
smartphone
twitter.com/TheStatesmanLtd
facebook.com/thestatesman1875
Pages 16 |Rs 5|LC
KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR
OUTDOORS
A SEASON
FOR
MARADONA WANTS AN FRIENDSHIP
END TO ANARCHY
TAKING AIM AT FIFA
TRIAL OF
JUVENILES
Forecast: Partly cloudy sky
Rainfall Nil
TEMPERATURE
Max: 40.8 (+2); Min: 21.3 (-4)
HUMIDITY
Max: 79%
Min: 16%
SUNRISE
05:37 hrs
SUNSET
18:59 hrs
GOVT’S U-TURN ON
LAND SWAP BILL
THUMBNAILS
P9
P15
P8
UP IN ARMS
BILL INCLUDES ASSAM, MAY BE TAKEN UP IN RAJYA SABHA TODAY
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag has directed his
officers and jawans not to clap after his address. “After I
finish my address please do not clap,’’ Gen Suhag said at
an Army event in Delhi on Tuesday.
DCW split: AAP leader Kumar Vishwas failed to appear before the Delhi
Commission for Women over allegations by a party volunteer, but DCW
member Juhi Khan threatened to resign protesting against the summons
to the AAP leader.
P3
AAP to monitor channels: AAP government has decided to closely monitor all the news channels while CM
Arvind Kejriwal asked them to spare
wives and children of party leaders
from being dragged into row.
P3
HC quashes FIR against Guv: Madhya Pradesh High Court quashed the
FIR filed against state Governor Ram
Naresh Yadav in connection with the
MP Professional Examination Board
(MPPEB) scam.
P6
PM to visit China from 14 May: Prime
Minister Modi announced his threeday visit to China from 14 May on the
Chinese microblog website Weibo,
saying he is looking forward to holding productive discussions.
P10
CCI clean chit: The Competition
Commission of India has rejected
allegations of unfair business practices against Flipkart, Snapdeal,
Amazon, Jabong and Myntra as it did
not find any proof of violations. P13
UK polls: Indian-origin migrants
could play a decisive role in the UK's
7 May general elections which could
result in a hung Parliament. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Opposition Labour redoubled their efforts
to win over the electorate.
P12
INDICATOR
27,440
-50
8,324
-7
Gold
25,770
+05
Silver
37,600
+350
In an apparent U-turn,
the BJP-led government
today approved a crucial
Constitutional Amendment Bill to operationalise India's Land Boundary Agreement (LBA)
with Bangladesh, which
will now also involve the
land of Assam along with
the territories of West
Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya.
The Union Cabinet,
headed by the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi,
was said to have cleared
this legislation this morning.
The main Opposition
Congress party had been
up in arms against the government's earlier decision to delink Assam from
this legislation.
Only last week, the
Union Cabinet had reportedly cleared an amended version of this legislation that involved the
land of West Bengal, Tripura and Meghalaya but
kept Assam out of it.
This was alleged to
have been done in view of
the Assam BJP's sensitivities against the inclusion of the state in this legislation meant for imple-
NO STATEHOOD
TO DELHI
New Delhi, 5 May:The Cen-
tre today said it was not
considering any proposal
to grant full statehood to
the national capital, a key
demand of the Aam Aadmi Party government.
“There is no proposal
with the government for
granting full statehood to
Delhi,” Minister of State
for Home Affairs Haribhai
Parathibhai Chaudhary
said,replying to a question
in the Lok Sabha. The
AAP has been demanding
grant of full statehood to
Delhi. In the campaign
for Lok Sabha polls last
year,the BJP too had promised to declare Delhi a full
state if the party came to
power, noting that it will
help ensure proper coordination between various
agencies.
PTI
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and
Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari after the Cabinet meeting at
Parliament House on Tuesday. � Shahnawaz Khan
mentation of exchange of
many adversely-held enclaves by the two neighbouring countries in accordance with the IndoBangladesh pact. Assam
is bound for assembly
elections next year.
Although the Modi dispensation had taken states
like West Bengal, Tripura
and Meghalaya on board,
the Congress leadership
had been bent on oppos-
ing the amended Bill while
rejecting the exclusion
of Assam from it.
The Congress insisted
on full implementation
of the Indo-Bangla pact
clinched between the then
PM Dr Manmohan Singh
and his Bangladeshi counterpart Ms Sheikh Hasina in 2011 in Dhaka.
The Assam chief minister and veteran Congress leader, Mr Tarun Go-
goi, recently also wrote a
strongly-worded letter to
the Prime Minister Mr
Narendra Modi, questioning why the state was
kept in the dark and charging that any exclusion of
Assam in the enabling
Bill would violate the 2011
Indo-Bangla pact.
The Modi Cabinet's decision today would thus
ensure a political consensus on the issue and set
the stage for a smooth
passage of this Bill which
is likely to be taken up for
consideration and passage in the Rajya Sabha
tomorrow. The Bill has
been pending in the Upper House since 2013 during the previous Congress-led UPA government's tenure.
Besides requiring the
passing by two-thirds majority in both Houses of
Parliament, the legislation, which reportedly
envisages some redrawing
of India's eastern boundary, would have to be
ratified by about 15 state
assemblies ~ about half of
the total state legislatures
~ of the country before it
comes into effect.
Yesterday, the top leadership of the BJP and
TURN TO PAGE 5
Probe order spells
trouble for Hooda
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Chandigarh, 5 May
In what may spell trouble
for Mr Bhupinder Singh
Hooda, Haryana government today ordered a vigilance inquiry to look
into the allotment of 11
industrial plots by the
former chief minister to
his “relatives and friends”.
An official spokesperson said the Chief Minister Mr Manohar Lal on
Tuesday ordered the vigilance inquiry to look
into the allotment of 11
industrial plots by the
previous Congress government headed by Mr
Hooda in Industrial Estate,
Panchkula (adjoining
Chandigarh) in December
2011 to the “alleged undeserving candidates”.
“These plots ranging
from 496 square metres to
1,280 square metres were
allegedly allotted to the
candidates who were
either relatives of the
then chief minister or
those of his close associates and friends,” the
spokesperson said.
These beneficiaries
included Ms Renu Hooda
(wife of Mr Hooda's
nephew), Ms Nandita
Hooda (wife of Mr Narender Hooda posted as senior additional advocate
general Haryana).
The spokesperson said
Ms Nandita Hooda “is
also the benami ‘owner’
of ‘Golden Tulip Hotel’ on
Panchkula-Morni road,
the ownership of which
actually rests with Ms
Asha Hooda, wife of the
then chief minister Mr
Hooda.
Other beneficiaries
include Ms Mona Beri
(daughter-in-law
of
Mr BR Beri who served as
TURN TO PAGE 7
SALMAN HIT-AND-RUN CASE
Make or mar verdict today
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Mumbai, 5 May
A Mumbai sessions court
will pronounce its verdict tomorrow in the hitand-run case against Bollywood superstar Salman
Khan who, if convicted,
could face upto 10 years
in jail.
The judgment in the
over 12-year-old case,
whose trial saw many
twists and turns, can
make or mar the career
of the actor on whom
ride investments of over
`200 crore.
A tight security blanket will be thrown
around the court when
sessions judge D W Deshpande pronounce the
judgment tomorrow. Only
the lawyers, media and
the court staff will be
allowed to be present.
While fixing 6 May for
delivering the verdict
last month, Deshpande
had directed the 49-yearold actor to be present at
11.15 a.m.
Salman Khan was
tried afresh under
charges of culpable
homicide.
A Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate, who conducted the trial under the
charges of rash and negligent driving, which carries a maximum punishment of two years, had in
2012 slapped the offence
of culpable homicide and
committed the matter to
the sessions court.
The actor has claimed
he was not at the wheel at
the time of the accident
which killed one person
and left four others
injured on the night of 28
September, 2002.
While the prosecution
insisted that Khan was
Actor Salman Khan arrives at an airport in Mumbai on Tuesday. � AFP
driving the Toyota Land
Cruiser that ran over the
victims sleeping on the
pavement outside a bakery in suburban Bandra,
the actor claimed it was
his driver Ashok Singh
who was behind the
wheels. Driver Singh has
endorsed the defence's
claim. The defence
argued that police had
not obtained finger
prints from the steering
wheel to find out who
was driving the vehicle.
Prosecutor Pradeep
Gharat alleged Khan was
driving the vehicle after
consuming rum at a bar,
a charge denied by the
actor.
Nurullah Mehboob
Sharif was killed in the
accident in which Kalim
Mohammed Pathan,
Munna Malai Khan,
Abdullah Rauf Shaikh
and Muslim Shaikh had
been injured.
The defence also disputed the prosecution's
contention that there
were three persons in the
vehicle ~ Khan, his
police bodyguard Ravindra Patil and singer
friend Kamal Khan,
insisting that driver
Ashok Singh was also
present. Khan's counsel
Srikant Shivade argued
that the post-mortem
report of the deceased
indicated that he had
died after being crushed.
Shivade contended that
he got killed when a
crane called by the police
to lift Khan's SUV could
not haul it up in one go
and dropped it on the victims, causing injuries.
The actor has been
charged under IPC sections 304 part II (culpable
homicide not amounting
to murder) which
attracts upto 10 years in
prison; 279 (rash and negligent driving) which
stipulates six months
jail; 337 & 338 (causing
hurt by act endangering
life and causing grievous
hurt, respectively) with
punishment up to two
years.
A protest in Delhi against the “anti-farmer” and “anti-poor” land acquisition Bill. An RSS-affiliated body joined
the protest that could embarrass the government which also faced protests by Left unions. � AFP Report on P3
Govt contradicts stand, says
it is not aware of D’s location
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
Contradicting the Centre's consistent stand ~
that the dreaded underworld don and India's
most wanted terrorist,
Dawood Ibrahim, has been
based in Pakistan under
the protection and patronage of Pakistan's security establishment ~
the Narendra Modi government today told Parlaiment that it was not
aware of Dawood's location.
"The subject (Dawood
Ibrahim) has not been located so far. Extradition
process with regard to
Dawood Ibrahim would be
initiated once the subject is located," the minister of state for home, Mr
Haribhai Parathibhai
Chaudhary, told the Lok
Sabha while replying to
a written question of the
BJP MP Mr Nityanand
Rai.
The minister's writ-
ten reply described Dawood as an accused in
the 1993 Mumbai serial
blasts, stating that a Red
Corner Notice had been
in existence against him.
"The United Nations Security Council has also issued a special notice
against him," he said.
The Indian government has been demanding
the deportation of Dawood from Pakistan for
many years. It has all
along maintained that
the don-terrorist has been
living in Pakistan under
the protection of that
country.
New Delhi has also
handed over to Pakistan
several dossiers on Dawood over the years, giving details about him, India's most wanted fugitive.
On 27 December 2014,
the Union home minister
Mr Rajnath Singh had reportedly asserted that Dawood is India's most wanted terrorist and that it has
repeatedly asked Pakistan to hand him over to
India.
Another Union MoS,
home, Mr Kiren Rijiju
had then said that India
had asked Pakistan to
hand over Dawood as
enough evidence had been
given to it on the fugitive
in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.
As the controversy
flared up following Mr
Chaudhary's written reply in the Lok Sabha, a redfaced government was
said to be preparing to give
a clarification about this
"bureaucratic bungling"
in the House tomorrow.
TURN TO PAGE 5
GST Bill taken up in NO PROBE INTO
LS, fate uncertain in NETAJI SNOOPING
ROW: GOVT
Upper House
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
The Goods and Services Tax
(GST) Bill that has had a
long and tortuous progress
towards getting to the first
stage in Parliament was
finally taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha
today on a day that saw procedural wrangles and
adjournment with the main
Opposition Congress trying to baulk the legislation
till the last minute.
The Constitution (122nd
amendment) Bill,2015,for
rolling in the new tax
regime was taken up after
the Chair rejected Opposition demands to refer
the key reform measure to
a parliamentary Standing
Committee. After procedural wrangling that lasted half an hour before the
debate on the Bill began,
Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley rejected the Opposition demand saying it
was wrong to argue that the
measure had never been to
a standing committee.
“It has spent two-and-ahalf years before the standing committee.Thereafter,
it has been to dozens and
dozens of empowered committees of finance ministers under three different
FMs and four different
chairpersons. “It is only
after this a consensus was
reached between the Centre and the state governments and almost near
unanimity has been
achieved,” he said.
Mr Jaitley said when the
chief ministers were for the
GST “why should we stand
in their way”. “I will literally request you and
beseech you.After all in the
life of the nation comes an
opportunity for all of us to
rise above partisan considerations. Why delay it,
delay it by one more fiscal
year. Your states, the consuming states will suffer,”
he said.
Seeking to bring the
Opposition on board,he said
all Congress-ruled states
have supported the Bill
and Trinamul Congressruled West Bengal and
BJD-ruled Odisha would be
the biggest beneficiaries
from day one. Members of
Congress, BJD, AIADMK
and CPI-M slammed the
government for “bypassing”Parliamentary Standing Committees by refusing to refer several bills to
it. Mr Jaitley said after GST,
the government proposed
three more Bills on the
powers of the Centre and
the states.GST Bill is a Constitution amendment Bill
which has to be ratified by
at least 50 per cent of the
state legislatures. The discussion remained inconclusive. The Bill may be
taken up for voting tomorrow after Mr Jaitley’s reply.
The measure's fate is uncertain in the Rajya Sabha
where it lacks the numbers.
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
The government today
clarified that it has no
plans to conduct any probe
into the reports of surveillance on family members
of Netaji Subhas Chandra
Bose by the Indian Intelligence Bureau for 20 years
after independence.
"There is no proposal
to probe into the spying...,"
Minister of State for Home
Haribhai Parathibhai
Chaudhary told the Lok
Sabha today.
The minister said a
large number of files relating to Netaji, including
those relating to Khosla
Commission and Mukherjee Commission, have been
already declassified and
sent to the National Archives of India.
There are, however,
some classified files with
the Central government
and some files are with the
West Bengal government
relating to Bose, Chaudhary said.
A controversy recently broke out following reports that Netaji's family
was kept under surveillance by the IB for 20 years,
much of it during the tenure of Jawaharlal Nehru.
The stand taken by the
government today on the
issue has surprised political observers as it is opposite what it said a month
ago.
02
When AAP came to power they announced opening of 500 schools, but now it
has come down to 250 schools as the Chief Minister said that they can achieve
only 50 per cent of promises made.
RAMESH BIDHURI
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
DELHI BJP MP
AIR POLLUTION: PLEA IN
NGT SEEKS ‘RORO’ SERVICE
THUMBNAILS
Body found: A body
of an unidentified man
was found hanging
from a tree in a park
at Keshav Puram area
of northwest Delhi.
The incident was reported at 7 am when some
passersby saw the body
hanging at the Musical Fountain Park at Keshav Puram. Prima facie, it appears to be a
case of suicide, police
SNS
said.
Property dealer found
dead: A 38-year-old
property dealer was
found dead under mysterious circumstances at his house in outer Delhi's Rohini. The
deceased Naresh Saini, lived with his family at Shakti Apartments in Rohini Sector9.Naresh's family claimed the death was accidental. They said they
made a call to the hospital after Naresh fell
in the house at around
5.30 am.
SNS
FOR COMMERCIAL VEHICLES WHICH ARE MORE THAN 10 YEARS OLD
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
Havan for Gajendra Singh, a farmer from Rajasthan, who committed suicide at Jantar Mantar. On Tuesday. ��SNS
With a view to curbing air pollution in
Delhi-NCR, a plea was today moved in
the National Green Tribunal seeking
introduction of ‘RORO’ service for
commercial vehicles which are more
than 10 years old.
RORO (roll-on roll-off) is a service
that enables loaded trucks to be carried
directly on railway wagons between two
destinations. A bench headed by NGT
Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar
issued a notice to the Ministry of Railways and sought their reply by May 18.
“There are no trains for human beings,
you want it for trucks. No train enters
railway station in capital on its time,”
the bench said.
The plea filed by Kailash Mishra and
Himani Jain, experts in field of road
transport, has sought intervention in
the Vardhaman Kaushik case (related
to air pollution by vehicles) for providing a “feasible” solution to the air pollution menace in Delhi-NCR.
Advocate Sanjay Upadhyay, appearing for Mishra and Jain, said that if
RORO service is introduced by railways,
the trucks will cross Delhi without causing pollution.
“Keeping in mind the heavy inflow
of diesel vehicles in NCR, the applicants
propose to introduce RO-RO service for
transporting all heavy,medium and light
commercial vehicles irrespective of
their age or fitness level transiting
through Delhi and NCR region on rollon-roll-off train service provided by the
northern railways at a cost lower than
road transport cost,” the plea said.
The plea said that the Konkan Railway
has been operating RO-RO service for
fully loaded trucks for the last 16 years
and have transported approximately 5
lakh trucks during this period.
“The technology and system of RORO, therefore, has been tried and tested successfully by the Indian Railways
and may be replicated in NCR,” it said.
Highlighting the benefits of RORO,
the petition said that this service will
improve the air quality in Delhi and NCR
with reduced number of commercial
vehicles plying on roads.
It will also reduce noise pollution generated by these vehicles and thus curb
vehicular emissions besides generating a new revenue source for Railways. During the hearing, Ghaziabad
Mahanagar Goods Transport Welfare
Association also moved a plea seeking
modification of the Tribunal's order banning plying of diesel vehicles over 10
years old in Delhi-NCR.
PIL in HC against govt FARMERS TO GET NDMC mulls crackdown
COMPENSATION on encroachments
decision to declare
FROM MAY 8
Gajender as martyr
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
A PIL has been moved in the
Delhi High Court challenging city government's decision to declare as a “martyr” a Rajasthan-based
farmer who had allegedly
hanged himself at an AAP
rally at Jantar Mantar here.
The petition, filed by a
lawyer, has sought directions restraining Arvind
Kejriwal government “from
glorifying, justifying, supporting, propagating and
consecrating the act of suicide
committed
by
Rajasthan-based politiciancum-farmer named Gajendra Singh Kalyanwat on
April 22, 2015 at Jantar
Mantar..”
The incident had occurred during an anti land
bill rally called by Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP).
The petition has also
sought directions to Delhi
Police to “not grant any permission to any person, party or group to stage any kind
of 'dharna' or protest at Jantar Mantar” in future.
A dvo c at e
Ava d h
Kaushik, in his plea, has opposed city government's
decision to not only to declare Gajender as a 'martyr'
but also its move to launch
a Farmers' Compensation
4 NABBED FOR
DEMANDING
RS 1 CRORE
RANSOM
New Delhi, 5 May: The crime
branch of Delhi Police has
arrested four men for their
alleged involvement in kidnapping a London-based
businessman from Delhi in
February, and demanding a
ransom of Rs 1 crore.
The accused have been
identified as Iliyas (28), Naseem (25), Irfan (26) and
Abid (22).
Irfan is a resident of Mewat district while others
are from Palwal in Haryana.
Police recovered a mobile
phone and a wrist watch
from their possession.
Police arrested Irfan
and Nasim from Kalindi
Kunj while the other two
were arrested later from
their hideouts in Haryana.
Ilyas had a bounty of Rs 1
lakh while others have rewards of Rs 50,000 each for
their heads.
According to police, the
accused along with others
were involved in kidnapping an Ahmedabad and
London based businessman
and his employee for ransom.
The accused allegedly called
the businessman to Delhi on
the pretext of finalising
some business deal.
The accused frequently
changed their hideouts taking victims along in order
to avoid being trapped.
However, police sucessfully rescued both and arrested one in February itself .
Search is on to nab the other accused.
SNS
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Scheme after his name,
apart from promising government job to one of his
k i n o n c o m p a s s i o n at e
ground.
“This act of respondent
1 (Delhi government) was
nothing but an effort to
glorify, justify, praise, support and consecrate the act
of suicide, attempt thereof itself is an offence under section 309 of Indian
Penal Code, 1860,” the petition has said.
It has also contended
that the government's decision was also “a kind of
abatement and temptation
to others to commit such
a criminal and cowardly act
which is not only prejudicial to public interest but
also a hostile attitude to the
sanctity of life and thus,
nobody, what to talk about
the government, can support and glorify such an
act.”
The plea has also opposed the Delhi Police's
decision to invite and welcome public at large, by way
of advertisement, to come
to Jantar Mantar and stage
protests there, saying the
police should instead prohibit and restrain such activity there, which was a
historical monument meant
and maintained for tourism.
New Delhi, 5 May
Beginning from Bawana
on 8 May, the Delhi government will give the compensation cheques to the
Capital’s rain-affected farmers.
According to an official,
the scheme titled ‘Gajendra
Singh Kisan Sahayta
Yojana’, will be launched by
the chief minister, Mr
Arvind Kejriwal.
The cabinet on 1 May
had approved the name of
the scheme and the formula
of compensation.
“It has been decided that
the farmers who have suffered losses of crops of 70%
and above will be paid Rs
20,000 per acre,” said the official. Others will get a minimum compensation of Rs
14,000 per acre, added the official.
“It has also been decided that any dispute arising
between government officials and farmers on the
quantum of crop loss will
be resolved in the respective
Gram Sabha nearest to the
land of affected farmers,”
added the government official, mentioning that the
compensation scheme is
for farmers and the corporate entities owning land in
Delhi will not get the benefit.
In the wake of earthquakes
in Nepal and some parts of
India, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is planning to intensify monitoring
of illegal constructions and
encroachments under its jurisdiction.
"Natural disasters are lessons for us and we should take
them seriously. We are preparing an action plan to act
tough on illegal constructions and encroachments in
NDMC areas," said a senior
official. Currently,the NDMC
acts on complaints about illegal constructions or en-
croachments in areas under
its jurisdiction.
However, there is no proper monitoring mechanism
in place to take suo motu cognisance of such violations.
"Illegal constructions are
one of the biggest causes of
worry in the wake of natural disaster. The NDMC will
conduct more site visits to
identify illegal constructions
and take due action against
them," the official said.
"The complaints received
at NDMC's call centre about
encroachments and such
constructions will also be
dealt with in a more stringent manner," added the official.
S CORPN FACES NO FUND CRUNCH
In contrast to the statement of its two
counterparts East Delhi Corporation and North Delhi Corporation, the South Delhi Corporation said that it faced
no fund shortage for developmental work.
Today, Mayor of South Delhi Municipal Corporation,
Mr Subhash Arya and Commissioner, Dr Puneet Kumar
Goel, during the inspection of areas including Rajpura,
Chattarpur, Aaya Nagar, Jonapur and Chandan Hulla of
South Zone, said, "there is no shortage of fund in the corporation for developmental work. We are planning to increase the number of Safai Karmcharis in these areas."
The Mayor said that special effort will be made to clean
areas near Aaya Nagar pond and provision of bin in Jonapur, Chandanhulla and Rajpura. Engineer in Chief, Deputy Commissioner and other senior officials were present
during the visit.
The statment came after the citizens of the area briefed the Mayor regarding their problems and civic issues
such as sanitation, roads, drains, dhalao and cattle on roads.
The Mayor directed the zonal officers to improve the
SNS
sanitation condition immediately.
New Delhi, 5 May:
Home Guards stage a protest at Jantar Mantar in the Capital on Tuesday. � SNS
Man acquitted of charge of 61-yr-old stabs wife to death over Rs 10 Civic body ex-staffer attempts suicide
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
raping 12-year-old cousin STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
A man has been acquitted of the charges of raping his 12year-old cousin by a Delhi court after the girl admitted
that she had lodged a false complaint.
“Victim deposed that due to the reason that accused
used to call her insane, she lodged the present complaint
against the accused,” Additional Sessions Judge Gautam
Manan said, while acquitting the accused.
“Similarly, mother of the victim has not supported the
case of the prosecution and stated that on instigation of
her neighbours, she got the complaint lodged against the
accused through her daughter,” the judge said.
The court absolved Samidul, a resident of Jahangirpuri
here, of charges under sections 376(2)(f)(rape by a relative
or person in authority towards woman), 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 (sexual assault) of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences(POCSO) Act.
A 61-year-old man allegedly stabbed his wife to death after an argument over Rs 10 in west Delhi's
Nangloi area.
The accused has been identified
as Ashok who lives with his family in the area. The deceased Rani was Ashok's second wife. He had
separated from his first wife several years ago. It was a second marriage for Rani too who had moved
in with her two sons, aged six and
eight years.
The incident was reported at
midnight on Monday from Ashok's
neighbour Sanjay after which police reached the spot to find Rani
lying dead with several stab
PIL in HC for action plan
in case of earthquakes
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
The Delhi High Court today
agreed to hear a PIL seeking a direction to the Centre, the city government and municipal corporations here whether they have
any action plan in case an earthquake occurs in the national
capital.
A bench of justices B D Ahmed
and Sanjeev Sachdeva said it
would hear the matter tomorrow
after a PIL was mentioned by an
advocate who said the issue relates to possible damage an earthquake can cause to buildings all
around Delhi.
The counsel, during an oral
submission, told the court that
the matter was urgent as instances of houses tilting and walls developing cracks were reported
from Trilokpuri in east Delhi af-
ter the recent earthquake in
Nepal. He said that rampant illegal construction was going on
in Delhi without proper planning
and there was fear of buildings
collapsing in case of strong tremors.
Seeking a direction to fix accountability, the counsel said
“there is an urgent need to determine stability of buildings in
Delhi” and also questioned preparations the government and local bodies have made in order to
save the public from an earthquake.”
“Existing as well as new buildings are at risk and lives of innumerable human beings is at
great risk since Delhi, being located in seismic zone 4, is highly vulnerable to earthquake.
However, the city is not remotely prepared to deal with it,” he
said.
wounds and Ashok standing nearby. His clothes were soaked in blood.
Sanjay told police that he received a call from Ashok's brother Rajesh who told him that the
couple was fighting and to go and
check. When Sanjay reached
Ashok's house, he found she was
already killed. Broken bangles
were found scattered all around.
The quarrel was over Rani lending Rs 10 to someone.
It was during the argument that
Rani slapped him. In a fit of rage,
Ashok brought a knife from the
kitchen and stabbed Rani, leading to her death on the spot.
There were over a dozen stab
wounds on her abdomen, chest,
neck and other parts of the body,
said the police.
New Delhi, 5 May
A 42-year-old former civic body employee attempted suicide by hanging from a tree in Shahdara area of
East Delhi.
The victim, Kamal, is living with
his family in Viswas Nagar area and
is an ex-employee in Shahdara North
Zone of East Delhi Municipal Corporation. Eyewitnesses claimed that
he was expelled from his job three/
four months ago.
According to police, the incident
took place at around 12.30 pm when
the dismissed employees were protesting in front of East Delhi Municipal office headquarters at Shahdara
South Zone. They have been protesting for last 14 days. After some-
Defamation: Court upholds summons
order against MHA staffer’s wife
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
A Delhi court today refused to set aside
a summoning order against a woman for allegedly defaming her husband,
a Home Ministry employee, saying
there is sufficient ground for proceeding against her.
Additional Sessions Judge
Rajneesh Kumar Gupta,while dismissing the revision petition of the woman, said that the allegations levelled
in the complaint filed by her husband
are supported by evidence.
“I am of the opinion that there is
sufficient ground for proceeding
against the accused (woman) under
section 500 (punishment for defamation) of IPC.Accordingly,I do not find
any infirmity or illegality in the impugned order passed by the trial
court and it is upheld,”the court said.
The woman's husband had lodged
a defamation case against her after
she had filed a complaint against him
in 2007 for allegedly committing unnatural sex with her and their twoyear -old son.
The woman in her plea had claimed that allegations made by her
against her husband would be covered under exceptions to section 499
(defamation) of IPC and would not
constitute an offence of defamation.
She had also claimed that she
has approached appropriate authority for the alleged offences but the authority did not conduct the investigation properly and fairly. The court,
however,rejected her contentions saying,“To attract the exception,accused
(woman) has to show that she has made
the alleged accusations in good faith.
It is the subject matter of the trial and
has to be decided only on the merits
of the case after the evidence has been
led in the case.”
It noted that the woman had married her husband in 2002 and several matrimonial disputes were going
on between them.
time, Kamal climbed the tree after
which others climbed to save him.
Kamal made a knot with his cloth.
Then other ex-employees reached the
branch and untied the knot due to
which he fell down on the ground.
He was rushed to hospital where
his condition is stated to be critical.
An eyewitness Rajendra said,
"He was depressed after removal from
his job."
MCD said, as per report one person fell down from a tree accidentally and was taken to Dr Hedgewar
hospital from where he was taken
to GTB for CT scan. He is not serious. It is also reported that he was
a substitute safai karmchari but did
not report for duties for more than
a decade. He was demanding reinstatement and regularization.
Zoo welcomes 14-foot
long King Cobra
New Delhi, 5 May: Delhi
zoo has become the proud owner of a
14-feet long King Cobra weighing seven kilograms, the first
one to come to its premises after 10 years.
“We received a King Cobra, weighing 7 kilograms and 14
feets long from Rajasthan forest department. The rare species
was seized from a private home and handed over to us,” Dr
Panneerselvam, Veterinary officer, Delhi zoo said. The deadly reptile is the first one to come to the zoo after ten years and
the only one here currently.
“We are getting a King Cobra after 10 years and it is the only one right now at the Delhi zoo. It is being kept under observation for possible wounds or tick infestation,” he said. It will
be soon released into the reptile house for the public.
“We are currently giving half-a-kilogram chicken to the animal once in a week. Usually the diet of King Cobra includes
rat snakes and water snakes but we are sticking to chicken
as it was fed the same while in custody of the private owner,”
the officer said.
The 40-year-old Lokamnath who has been assigned to train
the animal says that the Cobra was quite inactive when it
was brought to the zoo but is now picking up on its movements. “We make the animal exercise by releasing it in the
park every day. It was very inactive when it was brought
here, but gradually it is picking up its movements,” says
the trainer.
PTI
The entire media needs vipassana..
MANISH SISODIA
DEPUTY CHIEF MINISTER
THUMBNAILS
Transport deptt suspends six: The Delhi
government's transport department today
suspended six of its
employees for their alleged involvement in a
bribery case.Transport
minister, Mr Gopal Rai,
said that the department had suspended
six employees on charges of corruption, and
has also decided to refer the case for departmental enquiry. "All these
six employees were
found involved in corrupt practices at Azadpur flyover during surprise checking by the
minister past midnight
on 1 May. All these employees were found in
collusion, accepting
bribe from truck drivSNS
ers," said Rai.
Minor fire:A minor fire
broke out in a food shop
at Connaught Place this
evening. According to
fire department, five
fire tenders were immediately rushed to the spot
to douse the flames.
The fire which broke out
at a shop in F-block at
Connaught Place at 6 pm
was completely extinguished by 6.30 pm. SNS
DCW DIVIDED OVER
SUMMONS TO VISHWAS
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
While Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas failed to appear before the Delhi
Commission for Women (DCW)
over allegations by a party volunteer, events turned political
at the DCW press conference today when Juhi Khan, a member of the commission, threatened to resign protesting against
the summons to the AAP leader.
The DCW sent a notice to
Vishwas and his wife last week,
asking them to appear before
it by 3 p m today to clarify the
ongoing row where a women volunteer urged him to dismiss the
rumors of 'illicit relations' between them. The AAP leader,
however, did not appear, prompting 'the powerless' DCW to issue a fresh summons again
and asking Vishwas to appear
before it tomorrow.
Addressing a press conference along with DCW chairperson Barkha Shukla Singh, Ms
Khan openly supported Vishwas, accusing the DCW chief
and others of tarnishing Vish-
was' image.
"I think this is a political conspiracy against him. He is a very
clean person. Is there any case
of harassment against him? I
think Vishwas is absolutely an
honest man and this is a move
to defame him," said Ms Khan,
who according to DCW members, has joined AAP.
Rebuffing all the allegations
against the AAP leader as baseless, Ms Khan threatened to resign from DCW if the controversy goes ahead. She said due
to her affiliation with the Congress Party, Barkha Shukla
Singh was unnecessarily politicising the issue.
"We should not have got involved in such political case.
Even though we are working for
women, we should not defame
someone unless we are hundred
per cent sure. Ms Singh is a former Congress MLA and she is
trying to give a political angle
to it. I hold no post in AAP. I
spoke up today as I thought I
should speak up for the right
and Mr Vishwas is a good person," Ms Khan said.
The press conference then
turned into a slanging match
Bidhuri takes dig at AAP
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
Criticising AAP for abondoning its Jan Lokpal movement, Delhi BJP MP Mr Ramesh Bidhuri said that AAP
has abandoned its mission
after coming to power.
During the foundation
laying ceremony of PhaseII of Indraprastha Institute
of Information Technology
in Okhla Industrial area,
Mr Bidhuri said that AAP is
known for Jan Lokpal movement and has always demanded its implementation
but after they came to power, Jan Lokpal has gone missing from the city. It will be
better if they can bring it
back.
The event was also attended by Delhi Deputy Chief
Minister Manish Sisodia.
In a veiled attack on the
performance of the AAP
government, Bidhuri said,
“When AAP came to power
they announced to open 500
schools, but now it has come
‘The party, which
came (to power) for security and dignity of
women, is now not
even ready to protect a
woman. They cannot
even protect their own
party members’
down to 250 schools as the
Chief Minister said that
they can achieve only 50 per
cent of promises made. Going by this statistics, 30
schools come under one constituency. But I ask him to
open two schools in five
years in areas dominated
by weaker sections,” Bidhuri said.
In response, Sisodia said,
“Don't worry we will open all
the 30 schools in South Delhi.”
Claiming that South Delhi does not have a single college, Bidhuri demanded
opening of three colleges in
South Delhi constituency.
“AAP also announced that
it would open 20 colleges in
with Barkha Shukla Singh saying that Ms Khan knows none
of the details of the case and
has not even met the AAP volunteer.
"We got to know that Mr
Vishwas is leaving for USA tomorrow. Why does not he come
to the fore and clear the air if
he is not guilty? We have called
him for peaceful resolution. A
family is getting broken and he
should come forward to clear
the matter. We have issued
fresh summons today and if we
get no response from his end
then matter will be forwarded
to the police," said Ms Singh. The
chairperson has also met the
husband of the complainant and
started counseling sessions for
them.
Meanwhile AAP supremo
Arvind Kejriwal said his party is offended by the recent
events. He asked the media not
to put forward manipulated
facts.
"Our families are very upset
due to the recent allegations.
They are all baseless and our
party will not give any further
explanations over the issue,"
said Kejriwal.
RAMAN PANDIT
ramanpandit.s@gmail.com
New Delhi, 5 May
the city, which means three
colleges in each parliamentary constituency of Delhi.
It is shocking that there is
no college in South Delhi and
no new college was opened
in Delhi in the last 20 years.
“I have demanded land
from DDA and if Delhi Government make efforts, then
I will arrange land from
DDA for all the three colleges,” he said.
Talking to reporters on the
sideline of the function, Bidhuri alleged that AAP came
to power misguiding the people of the city.
On the controversy surrounding AAP leader Kumar
Vishwas, Bidhuri said, “The
party, which came (to power)
for security and dignity of
women, is now not even
ready to protect a woman.
They cannot even protect
their own party members. It
is so unfortunate that the
woman is seeking time from
Chief Minister, but instead
of resolving the issue he is
trying to help Vishwas.”
The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM),economic wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), today took a tough
stand against the Union government over
the land acquisition Bill at a ‘Jan
Sansad’ (People’s
Parliament) held onr key economic
issues at Jantar Mantar in the Capital.
The SJM warned the government that
if the Bill is not revised by 26 June it
would think of holding ‘Jan Sansads’
across the country.
The Union government also reached
out to the SJM and sent Sanjeev Baliyan,
Union Minister of State for Agriculture,
as its representative to Jantar Mantar.
Mr Arun Kumar Ojha, national convenor of SJM, said the land Bill is not
in the interest of people and they have
appealed to the government to revise
it. “If the Bill is not amended by 26 June
than we will think of holding Jan
Sansad at block level across the country.the decison will be taken at the national council meeting of SJM at Vijayawada on 27 -28 June,” said Mr Ojha.
Mr Kashmiri Lal, all India organisational secretary of SJM, said: “Land
acquisition should take place after
acquiring the consent of farmers.”
Govindacharya, swadeshi thinker,
CV Rajgopal, president Ekta Parisad,
and Devendra Sharma, well known
agriculture expert, also participated in
the programme.
Mr Rajgopal, who along with 50,000
Sisodia asks media
to go for ‘vipassana’
Joshi was appointed as the
member-secretary of the Delhi DiaNew Delhi, 5 May
logue Commission (DDC), an advisory body to AAP Government, but
Two days after Delhi Chief Minisa few days later, he was asked to relinquish the charge.
ter Arvind Kejriwal batted for
Replying to a press release is“public trial” of media, his deputy
sued by the deputy director of
Manish Sisodia today said the enInformation and Publicity on April
tire media needs to go for 'vipassa13 last month, Joshi had said, “I
na'.
Sisodia's remarks came when he had mentioned that it is required
by all to inculcate core human valwas asked by reporters about forues, decency and morality... In view
mer DDC member Ashish Joshi's
of last few week's incidents and the
comment that “there is an urgent
way I was repatriated, I strongly
requirement of 'vipassana' and
'anapana' practice /training by one feel that there is an urgent requirement of 'vipassana' and 'anapana'
and all in Delhi Government.”
practice/training by one and all in
“The entire media needs vipasDelhi Government.”
sana,” said the Deputy Chief MinTaking a dig at the AAP governister, who today laid the foundation
ment, Joshi, who was repatriated
of Phase-2 of Indraprastha Instito the central government last
tute of Information Technology of
month, also said, “I was repatriDelhi.
ated in violation of Department of
Kejriwal had in a recent interview to a news portal said, “A very Personnel & Training (DOPT), GOI
orders of 2010.”
large section of the media has ac“I, therefore, also want to recepted 'supari' for finishing off
quest you (deputy director) to use
AAP... There can be a public trial.
your good offices to arrange copies
There can be 8-10 spots in Delhi
of Constitution of India, Transacwhere we can collect a group of
tion of Business rules 1993 etc to
people and show the erroneous
clips. That way we can start a 'janta all concerned, so that no rules are
violated in future,” Joshi said.
ka trial'.”
03
Activists of BJP Mahila Morcha protest against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kumar Vishwas at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence in
the Capital on Tuesday. � SNS
Left and Right protest against land issue
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
Embarrassing the BJP-led
NDA government, the economic wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS); Swadeshi Jagran
Manch (SJM), today staged a protest against Land
Acquisition Bill at Jantar
Mantar.
The NDA government
was targeted over its 'anti
poor' and 'anti farmer' land
bill in the capital in two different protests held by RSS
SJM and another backed by
Left and opposition parties under the banner of
Bhoomi Adhikar Manch
(Movement for Land
Rights).
SJM, which had been
advocating indigenization
and more use of Indian
products also criticized the
field trials of Genetically
Modified crops and FDI in
e-commerce, both backed by
the NDA government. Pointing out the irregularities in
SJM warns of nationwide stir on land Bill
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
farmers marched from Gwalior to
Delhi some months back, said: “Government owns 50 lakh hectares of land.
Therefore, it is not understandable
why they need to acquire agricultural
land.”
Mr Sharma said:All this is happening
so that cheap labour can be available
for industries.” Mr Baliyan assured the
Jan Sansad that the government would
take a decision in the interest of farmers and the country.
The Jan Sansad passed five resolutions. They are: no acquisition of land
without the consent of farmers; social
and environmental impact assessment
of land acquisition; no acquisition of
multi-crop land; prohibition of GM
crops; and ban on foreign direct investment in e-commerce.
AAP GOVT TO MONITOR
CONTENT OF NEWS CHANNELS
New Delhi, 5 May:In
another sign of its
disenchantment with the media, the AAP
government has decided to closely monitor all the news channels while Chief
Minister Arvind Kejriwal asked it to spare
wives and children of party leaders from
being dragged into controversies.
In a first, an order has been issued
to the Directorate of Information and
Publicity (DIP) to monitor the news channels from 9 AM to 11 PM. DIP officials
till now used to only keep records of newspapers cuttings related to the government.
“DIP officials have been asked to start
monitoring the content of news channels related to the government and
send a daily report on these contents
broadcast by them to Chief Minister's
Office (CMO),” a top government official told PTI today.
The order by the AAP government
came days after Kejriwal accused the
media of being part of a “conspiracy
to finish off AAP” and advocated its “public trial”.
Continuing his attack on a section
of the media, Kejriwal accused it of maligning AAP and singling out children
and wives of party leaders,
He said a section of the media was running a persistent campaign to defame
AAP after it got an overwhelming mandate in the Delhi Assembly polls and that
henceforth, AAP will maintain silence
on issues other than those relating to
PTI
government.
the existent land Bill, SJM
ideologue K N Govindacharya said that the protest
intends to educate the poor
and farmers about the bill.
Govindacharya further
accused the BJP-led central
government for not adhering to the ideals of its patrons including Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. He also spoke
against decentralization
of economy and policy matters of NDA government,
poising them not being
'Swadeshi'.
"The policies of this government have proved that
it doesn't subscribe to the
ideologies of Deendayal Up-
adhyaya. We feel agitated
with its anti-farmer and
anti-poor policies, which
include the irrational land
acquisition bill. There is a
strong need for the government to reconsider its policies and it must stop chasing those policies which
had failed the world over and
also failed to address the existent demands of the poor
and the marginalized," said
Govindacharya.
SJM national co-convener, Ashwani Mahajan urged
the centre to assess the social impact of its bill and
to ensure food security and
add the consent clause in
its bill.
"It doesn't matter which
party is in power, we will
raise the issue if it bothers
economic policies and poor
of the nation," said Mahajan. He added that SJM
would also engage in dialogue with the government
'whenever they get the opportunity'.
In a separate rally, Leftbacked farmers' organizations along with opposition parties including TMC
staged a protest against
the Land bill at the parliament street.
In the rally, leftists and
social workers asserted the
'real cause' that NDA government is pushing for the
bill so eagerly and bought
the ordinance.
The protesters pointed
out that while the government had been claiming
that 804 schemes are being
hit due to absence of a
strong Land Law, while 78
percent of those schemes
are private and stuck due
to other reasons while only 8 percent are stuck due
to absence of ordinance.
They maintained that
the bill is against the interest of farmers and country's
future and will lead to food
crisis.
04
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
Civic body engineer assault:
AAP MLA absconding
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
Delhi Police today claimed
that the AAP MLA Jarnail
Singh is absconding after his
alle ged involvement in
assaulting a civic body engineer in west Delhi.
According to Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi,
Singh had filed an anticipatory bail but it was rejected following which he went
into hiding. Mr Bassi later
told media that he hoped
Singh would surrender
soon.
The Tilak Nagar MLA
had to approach the Delhi
High Court after a lower
court rejected his application last week. Singh's advocate, HS Phoolka said he had
been falsely implicated in
the case at the behest of his
political rivals. He also said
the only reason the lower
court had rejected his anticipatory bail was because he
had not been properly represented.
He added that the lower
court had not stated any reason for the rejection of his
bail and that the facts of the
FIR filed against Singh
were false.
On the day of the incident, junior engineer of
the South Delhi Municipal
Corporation (SDMC) Azhar
Mustafa had alleged that he
had gone to Krishna Park
to demolish an illegal construction when local residents, led by the MLA,
obstructed him from carrying out his duty.
He had further alleged
that the AAP leader, along
with others not only prevented the civic team from
carrying out the demolition which was being carried out as per legal proceedings, but even assaulted him in public.
He also claimed that the
municipal corporation had
all the necessary clearances
to carry out the demolition, but Singh tore up the
papers when they were
I, RANJAN Paladhi, father
of Rajashi Paladhi, residing
at B-44/6, Falguni Abasan,
Block-FB, Salt Lake, Kolkata700097, do hereby solemnly
say that the name of my
daughter Nandini Paladhi
will henceforth be known as
Rajashi Paladhi in place and
instead of Nandini Paladhi,
vide
affidavit
dated
04.05.2015 sworn before the
Notary
Public,
Chief
Metropolitan Magistrate’s
Court, Kolkata. Henceforth
Nandini Paladhi and Rajashi
Paladhi is same and one
identical person.
CL00037006
I, SABITA Nemo, D/o.
Bansari Mohan Nemo, Vill. Malikota, P.O. - Panua, P.S. Kotulpur, Dist. - Bankura
(W.B.) after marriage name
is Sabita Nandi, W/o. Nayan
Nandi, Vill.: Hari Hor Chack,
P.O.: Basubati, P.S.: Kotulpur,
Dist.: Bankura (W.B.), vide
affidavit
sworn
before
Notary Public, Bishnupur,
Bankura on 20.04.15.
CL00037010
WANTED
Lady
Receptionist
&
Male
Administrative Officer for a
reputed Degree Engineering
College at Kolkata. Contact
over Phone No.: 9874155125.
CL00037007
MIDNAPORE
INSTITUTE
OF EDUCATION
Rangamati
Midnapore-721102
Applications (with full
biodata along with two
copies of recent passport-size coloured photographs, two sets of selfattested copies of all
marksheets and testimonials) are invited within
30 days for the posts of
Assistant Professors in
(a)
Physical
Science
(Math.), (b) Life Science
(Zoology), (c) Perspective
in Education, (d) Bengali,
(e) Sanskrit, (f) Health
and Physical Education,
(g) Fine Arts, Performing
Arts (Music / Dance /
Theatre).
Qualifications:
Postgraduate Degree in relevant subjects and M.Ed.
with minimum 55% marks
at all levels.
Salary: As per UGC
Scale of pay.
Contact No.: 03222274764 / (M): 7797496125.
Principal
CL00037004
COLLEGE
G.C.M.
of
Education,
New
Barrackpore, Kol.-131 online
applications are invited for
B.Ed. Admission for the
Session 2015-16. For details
log in www.gcmcollege.org
Form is available from 7th
May, 2015.
CL00036963
I, SH. ABDUL Rehman shall
henceforth be known as Sk.
Majaffar Rahaman, vide
affidavit sworn in the Court
of Ld. Executive Magistrate,
Serampore, Hooghly on
10.03.15. Both are same and
identical person.
CL00036998
I, NATASHA Graham, wife
of Naushad Alam, residing
at 52, A.J.C. Bose Road,
Kolkata-700016,
West
Bengal, do hereby state as
under that Afreen Alam,
previously known as Afreen
Ali is my daughter.
I would like to change my
daughter’s name, henceforth to be known as Afreen
Alam, vide an affidavit
sworn before the Notary
Public,
Kolkata
on
29.04.2015. I hereby declare
that my daughter Afreen
Alam and Afreen Ali is identically one & same person.
CL00037005
PROCLAMATION REQUIRING
ATTENDANCE OF
DEFENDANT
(Order 5, Rule 20 of the Code
of Civil Procedure)
In the Court of
Sh. Jagdish Kumar
Addl. Distt. Judge-06 (West)
Room No. 154, 1st Floor
Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi
Suit No. CS-141/2014.
Sh. Dev Kumar
— Plaintiff
Versus
Smt. Rekha Bhatla.
— Defendant
To,
Smt. Rekha Bhatla, w/o Sh.
J. N. Bhatla, r/o B-3/172, Second
Floor, Janak Puri, New Delhi-18.
Also at: A-146, Shankar Garden, Vikas Puri, New Delhi18.
The Defendant abovenamed.
Whereas you are intentionally evading service of
summons it is hereby notified that if you shall not
defend the case on the 9th
day of July, 2015, the day
fixed for the final disposal,
it will be heard and determined ex-parte.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of the Court, on this
the 1st day of May, 2015.
Addl. Distt. Judge-06
(West)
Tis Hazari Court, Delhi
Seal of the Court
shown to him. Mr Mustafa
later registered an FIR
against Singh at Tilak Nagar
police station.
However, Singh has rubbished the claims made by
the engineer. He said notice
was served to the owner of
the property. The MLA had
filed a counter complaint
against the engineer, it was
claimed.
The Delhi High Court
on Tuesday asked Delhi
Police to file status report
on the anticipatory bail
plea of Aam Aadmi Party
MLA Jar nail Singh for
allegedly assaulting a civic
engineer and stopping him
from carrying out his duty.
Justice Sunita Gupta
refused to grant immediate
protection to Singh from the
arrest and issued notice to
Delhi Police to file status
re port on the issue by
Wednesday. "Let them
(police) file status report.
Issue notice to Delhi Police,
said the court posting the
matter for May 6.
The Defendant No. 1 :
Narender Rana, s/o Late Sh.
Prahlad Singh Rana (Borrower), r/o F-2/85-86, Sector-11,
Rohini, Delhi-110085.
The Defendant No. 2 :
Maya Rana, w/o Sh. Narender Rana (Co-Borrower), r/o F2/85-86, Sector-11, Rohini,
Delhi-110085.
Whereas the plaintiff abovementioned has instituted a
suit against you for recovery
of Rs. 28,72,256.05 (Rupees
Twenty Eight Lacs Seventy
Two Thousand Two Hundred
Fifty Six and Paisa Five only)
and whereas it has been
shown to the satisfaction of
the Court that it is not possible to serve you in the ordinary way, therefore, this notice
is given by advertisement
directing you, the abovenamed
defendant to make appearance before Joint Registrar
(Judicial) of this Court on 1205-2015 at 11-00 a.m.
Take notice that in default of
your appearance on the day
beforementioned, the suit will
be heard and determined in
your absence.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of the Court, in terms
of order dated 19-03-2015.
Assistant Registrar
(Original)
for Registrar General
Seal of the Court
CL 37016
‘SINDHURAKSHAK
ACCIDENT DUE
TO ARMING OF
TORPEDOES’
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
The accident on board submarine INS Sindhurakshak on the night of 13/14
August 2013, was probably
due to the process of arming of torpedoes, the Board
of Inquiry (BoI) has concluded, the Rajya Sabha
was told today.
In reply to a question,
Defence Minister Manohar
Parrikar said since none of
the officers and sailors present inside the submarine
survived, it has not been possible to attribute any blame
to any individual for failure
or negligence, if any. However, disciplinary action
against two officers in the
chain of command has been
initiated.
He said lessons learnt
from the reports of Boards
of Inquiry (BoI) are implemented appropriately.
— Plaintiff
Versus
pany Limited.
— Plaintiff
Versus
Diwakar Jha & Ors.
— Defendants
To,
The Defendant No. 1 :
Diwakar Jha, s/o Sh. Surendra Narayana Jha (Borrower), r/o Flat No. 46, Pkt. 24,
Sangam Appt., Rohini, Sector-24, Near Indian Petrol
Pump, Delhi-110085.
Also at: Narayan Clinic, C-39,
1st Floor, Main Road, Prashant
Vihar, Near Aggarwal Bhawan,
Delhi.
The Defendant No. 2 :
Ramakar Jha, s/o Sh. Surendra Narayan Jha (Co-Borrower), r/o 243, Windsor Green, F28, Sector-50, Gautam Budh
Nagar, Noida, Uttar Pradesh201301.
The Defendant No. 3 :
Sh. Surendra Narayana Jha,
s/o Late Sh. Ganpati Jha (CoBorrower), r/o Flat No. 46, Pkt.
24, Sangam Appt., Rohini, Sector-24, Near Indian Petrol
Pump, Delhi-110085.
Whereas the plaintiff has
instituted a suit against you
for recovery of Rs. 29,38,425
and whereas it has been
shown to the satisfaction of
the Court that it is not possible to serve you in the ordinary way, therefore, this notice
is given by advertisement
directing you, the abovenamed
defendant to make appearance before Joint Registrar
(Judicial) of this Court on 1205-2015 at 11-00 a.m.
Take notice that in default of
your appearance on the day
beforementioned, the suit will
be heard and determined in
your absence.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of the Court, in terms
of order dated 11-03-2015.
Assistant Registrar
(Original)
for Registrar General
Seal of the Court
CL 37017
PUBLICATION UNDER ORDER
5 RULE 20 CPC
IN THE COURT OF
MS. KIRTI JAIN
Civil Judge,
(Junior Division)cum-JMIC, Gurgaon.
Case No. 18.
Date of Institution : 02-032015.
Date of Hearing : 26-05-2015.
Dinesh Kumar Ahuja, aged
56 years, s/o Sh. Hukam
Chand, r/o H.No. U-11/49-50,
DLF, Phase-3, Gurgaon, through
Smt. Vijay Laxmi.
To,
Smt. Shashi Lata Kapoor,
w/o Sh. Pardeep Kapoor, r/o
H.No. BJ-20, Top Floor, East
Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi.
— Defendants No. 2
Suit for Possession by the
way of Declaration and Injunction
Whereas it has been proved
to the satisfaction of the Court
that the abovesaid respondent cannot be served through
ordinary way of service.
Hence, the publication under
Order 5 Rule 20 CPC is issued
against him/her directing
him/her to appear before this
Court on 26-05-2015 at 09-30
a.m. personally or through
some authorized Agent/
pleader/Advocate, failing
which ex-parte proceedings
shall be taken against them
according to law.
Given under my hand and
Seal of the Court this the 30th
April, 2015.
Civil Judge,
(Junior Division)cum-JMIC, Gurgaon.
Seal of the Court
CL 036947
PROCLAMATION UNDER
ORDER 5 RULE 20 CPC
IN THE COURT OF
SH. SUKHDEV SINGH
Civil Judge (Jr. Divn.)cum-JMIC, Gurgaon.
Case No. 861/15.
Date of Institution : 16-032015.
Date of Hearing : 25-05-2015.
Canara Bank branch Alwar
Road, Gurgaon through its
Manager.
— Plaintiff
Versus
1. Sh. Aman Yadav, s/o Sh.
Baljeet Singh, r/o H.No. 1978,
Sector-04, Urban Estate, Gurgaon.
— Defendant
Suit for Recovery of Rs.
1,37,119 (Rs. One Lac Thirty
Seven Thousand One Hundred Nineteen only)
In the abovenoted case the
plaintiff Canara Bank branch
Alwar Road, Gurgaon has
prayed for a decree for Rs.
1,37,119 with costs of the suit
and pendentilite and future
interest at the rate of 18%
per annum with monthly rest
against the defendants.
Whereas it has been proved
to the satisfaction of this
Court that the defendant
noted above cannot be served
by ordinary way of service,
hence, above noted defen-
Retd IAS official raises doubts ARMY INDUCTS
SURFACE-TO-AIR
over D K Ravi’s death
MISSILE AKASH
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Sinha,Director,CBI. In addition to this,
copies were sent to Mr K B Chengappa,
principal secretary,Law,Karnataka government, along with one to Mr E V
Ramana Reddy,principal secretary, state
DPAR.
He felt that if at all Mr Ravi’s death
was due to personal reasons, it could well
have taken place on a holiday itself. “But
the fact that he was made to go from his
workplace to his residence on 16 March
within a short time of reaching the office,
tells that things are totally different than
what the police commissioner of Bengaluru had concluded.”
The city police commissioner, incidentally, had said immediately after the
incident that “prima facie it looks like
a suicide.”
Further, Mr Vijaykumar alleges that
the manner in which information about
the young officer’s death was being
leaked “by none other than the CID which
was investigating his death, points to some
cover up by powerful people. “My own
experience has shown that the mafia has
its own laws to deal with those who try
to expose it.”.
According to Mr Vijaykumar, he had
repeatedly brought the alleged corrupt
practices of the “mafia” to the notice of
the DOPT which failed to act on the complaints.
Bengaluru,5 May
Mr Vijaykumar, the IAS official who
was made to retire this week by the
government for alleged indiscipline,
has counter alleged that foul play cannot be ruled out in the death of Mr D
K Ravi, the young IAS officer in March
this year.
According to a letter that he has
written to the CBI, a section of the
bureaucrats whom he terms as “the
mafia” had definite clues that a criminal conspiracy was being hatched against
the deceased officer.
In his letter dated 12 April , Mr
Vijaykumar says a proper investigation into what Mr D K Ravi was doing
to expose the corrupt “ will surely reveal
the names of the same officers whose
corrupt and criminal activities I have
been reporting since 2006.”
Significantly,Mr Vijaykumar was
known to write to his superiors about
what he believed were the corrupt practices followed by a section of the officials
,including senior bureaucrats.
He even sent copies of his 12 April letter to Justice Bhaskar Rao, Karnataka
Lokayukta, Mr Sanjay Kothari, Union
Secretary, Department of Personnel
and Training and Mr Anil Kumar
dant is being informed
through this publication to
appear in person or through
counsel before this Court on
25-05-2015 at 9-30 a.m., failing
which the said suit shall be
heard ex-parte.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of this Court on 22nd
day of April, 2015.
Civil Judge,
(Junior Division)cum-JMIC, Gurgaon.
Seal of the Court
CL 036944
BEFORE DEBTS RECOVERY
TRIBUNAL-III, DELHI.
4th Floor, Jeevan Tara
Building, Parliament Street,
New Delhi-110001.
In the matter of :
OA No. 726/2013-DRT-III
HDFC Bank
— Applicant(s)
Versus
Akeel Ahmed & Ors.
— Respondent(s)
To,
Def.-1 : Akeel Ahmed, s/o
Aziz Ahmed, r/o H.No. 523,
Vill. Kheda Saray, Tehsil: Palwal,
Faridabad-121001
(Haryana)
Def.-2 : Aziz Ahmed, s/o
Asghar Ahmed, r/o H. No. 523,
Vill. Kheda Saray, Tehsil: Palwal,
Faridabad-121001
(Haryana)
Whereas the abovenamed
applicant has instituted a
case against you and whereas it has been shown to the
satisfaction of the Tribunal
that it is not possible to serve
you in ordinary way. Therefore,
this notice is given by advertisement directing you to
make appearance in this Tribunal on 13-05-2015 at 10-30
A.M..
Take notice that in case of
your failure to appear on the
abovementioned day before
this Tribunal, the case will be
heard and decided in your
absence.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of this Tribunal on this
the 25th day of February, 2015.
By Order of the Tribunal
Registrar
DRT-III, New Delhi.
Seal of the Tribunal
CL 37018
DEBTS RECOVERY
TRIBUNAL-III, DELHI.
2nd Floor, Sanskriti
Bhawan, Jhandewalan,
New Delhi-55.
In the matter of :
OA No. 162/2013/DRT-III
Phoenix ARC Pvt. Ltd.
— Applicant
Versus
Archana Rani.
— Defendant
To,
Sole Def. : Archana Rani,
H.No. 23/5, 1st Floor Mathura
Road, Sanjay Colony, Ballabgarh, Faridabad, Haryana120001.
Whereas the abovenamed
applicant has instituted a
case against you and whereas it has been shown to the
satisfaction of the Tribunal
that it is not possible to serve
you in ordinary way. Therefore,
this notice is given by advertisement directing you to
make appearance in this Tribunal on 27-05-2015 at 10-30
A.M..
Take notice that in case of
your failure to appear on the
abovementioned day before
this Tribunal, the case will be
heard and decided in your
absence.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of this Tribunal on this
the 13th day of March, 2014.
By Order of the Tribunal
Registrar
DRT-III, New Delhi.
Seal of the Tribunal
CL 37023
BEFORE DEBTS RECOVERY
TRIBUNAL-I, DELHI
4th Floor, Jeevan Tara
Building, Parliament Street,
New Delhi-110001.
(O.A. No. 208/2014).
Phoenix Arc Pvt. Ltd.
— Applicant
Versus
Ajit Singh Gill.
— Respondent
To,
1. Ajit Singh Gill, 8A/92, WEA,
Karol Bagh, Near MTNL Office,
New Delhi-110005.
Whereas the abovenamed
applicant has instituted a
case for recovery of Rs.
11,39,251.37 (Rupees Eleven
Lacs Thirty Nine Thousand
Two Hundred Fifty One and
Paise Thirty Seven Only),
against you and whereas it
has been shown to the satisfaction of the Tribunal that
it is not possible to serve you
in the ordinary way. Therefore, this notice is given by
advertisement directing you
to make appearance before
Ld. Registrar on 14-05-2015 at
10-30 a.m.
Take notice that in case of
your failure to appear on the
abovementioned day before
Ld. Registrar, the case will
be heard and decided in your
absence.
CL 37009
IN THE HIGH COURT OF
DELHI AT NEW DELHI
(Ordinary Original Civil
Jurisdiction)
In the matter of CS(OS) No.
1480/2014.
ICICI Home Finance Company Limited.
— Plaintiff
Versus
Ramanpreet Singh & Anr.
— Defendants
To,
The Defendant No. 1 :
Ramanpreet Singh, s/o
Mahender Singh (Borrower)
r/o House No. H-340, 2nd Floor,
Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
The Defendant No. 2 :
Jasbir Kaur, w/o Mahender
Singh (Borrower) r/o House
No. H-340, 2nd Floor, Vikas
Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Whereas the plaintiff has
instituted a suit against you
for recovery of Rs. 95,86,245.11
and whereas it has been
shown to the satisfaction of
the Court that it is not possible to serve you in the ordinary way, therefore, this notice
is given by advertisement
directing you, the abovenamed
defendants to make appearance before Joint Registrar
(Judicial) of this Court on 1205-2015 at 11-00 a.m.
Take notice that in default of
your appearance on the day
beforementioned, the suit will
be heard and determined in
your absence.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of the Court, in terms
of order dated 19-03-2015.
Assistant Registrar
(Original)
for Registrar General
Seal of the Court
@yahoo.co.in
KOLKATA
City Office: H/0 Mr. S. K.
Statesman House, 4,
Raha, 1st Floor (opp.
Chowringhee Square
Kanchanjungha Stadium)
Kolkata-700 001
16, Bidhan Road,
Tel: (033) 22127070-76, (033) Siliguri-734015.
71071700
Tel: (0353) 2524077
Fax: (033) 2212-6181 / 7107BHUBANESWAR
1780
Email:
Plot 3A, Zone B, Sector A,
thestatesman@vsnl.com
Mancheswar Industrial
advt@thestatesman.net
Estate, Bhubaneswar-751
010. Tel: (0674)
DELHI
2588060/61/62/2586371,
Statesman House, 148,
Telefax: 0674-2588061
Barakhamba Road,
Email: statesmanbbsr
New Delhi-110 001
@gmail.com
Tel: (011) 2331 5911
BHOPAL
Fax: (011) 2331 5295
Email:
Mr. Yogesh Kumar
delhistatesman@gmail.com
D-Sector-294 Nehru
3/10, INS Building (3rd floor), Nagar, Kotra, Bhopal, (M):
Rafi Marg, New Delhi-110 001. 9424242664
Tel: (011) 2371 8434
HYDERABAD
Email:
delhistatesman@gmail.com
The Statesman Limited 2nd
Ishan House (2nd floor), A-90, Floor, UNI Building A.C.
Sector II, NOIDA, UP 201 301. Guards, Hyderabad-500004,
Ph.: 040-2339 1739
Tel: 0120-3891800,
Email: thestatesman.hyd
0120-3891810,
@gmail.com
Fax: 0120 -2547216
CL 37015
IN THE HIGH COURT OF
DELHI AT NEW DELHI
(Ordinary Original Civil
Jurisdiction)
In the matter of CS(OS) No.
1475/2014.
ICICI Home Finance Company Limited.
— Plaintiff
Versus
Narender Rana & Anr.
— Defendants
To,
BANGALORE
SILIGURI
IN THE HIGH COURT OF
DELHI AT NEW DELHI
(Ordinary Original Civil
Jurisdiction)
In the matter of CS(OS) No.
1490/2014.
ICICI Home Finance Com-
Plot No. 13A, Dabgram
Industrial Growth Centre,
P.O. Fulbari, Dist. Jalpaiguri,
Siliguri-734218
Tel: (0353) 2568063,
2568615, 2568787, 2568685.
Fax: (0353) 2568296,
Email: kkchy1108@sify.com
sil_statesman
4301, High Point IV 45,
Palace Road,
Bangalore-560 001
Tel: (080) 22259129/
22204813
Email: tsmbangalore
@yahoo.com,
thestatesman.sangeeta
@gmail.com
MUMBAI
5, Kasturi Buildings
Jamshedji Tata Road,
Mumbai-400 020
Tel: (022) 2202 1045, 2202
1394, Fax: 2204 4877
Email: sman@vsnl.com,
rishi.bhandoo@gmail.com
CHENNAI
Fagun Mansion (4th floor)
26, Ethirai Road, Chennai600 105, Tel: (044) 28278037,
28279984 Fax: 28224800
Email: statesman@eth.net
patgd65@rediffmail.com
LUCKNOW
2/2, Butler Palace (Near
Jopling Road)
Lucknow-226 001,
Ph.: (0522) 2206705,
9415920949 Email:
soumen.bose
@rediffmail.com
RAIPUR
Mr. Manish Saluja 53, Sahid
Samarak Complex Bombay
Market, G.E. Road,
Raipur 492001
Tel.: 5035985,
(M): 9425202097
RANCHI
11/C, Road#1, Ashoknagar,
Ranchi - 834 002
Fax: (0651) 2247054
Email: inodenarayansingh
@yahoo.co.in
AIR-SURCHARGE : Kathmandu — ` 2. All stations in India — ` 1.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of this Tribunal on this
the 26th day of March, 2015.
By Order of the Tribunal
Malathi Narayanan
Registrar
Seal of the Tribunal
CL 37020
BEFORE DEBTS RECOVERY
TRIBUNAL-I, DELHI
4th Floor, Jeevan Tara
Building, Parliament Street,
New Delhi-110001.
(O.A. No. 168/2014).
Phoenix Arc Pvt. Ltd.
— Applicant
Versus
Aanchal Engineering P. Ltd.
— Respondent
To,
1. Aanchal Engineering P
Ltd., Through its Director, Village Sihi, P.O. Kherki Daula,
Distt.-NR-Haldiram, Gurgaon122001.
Also at: H.No. 222/1, Pocket3, Sector-7, Rohini, New Delhi.
2. Sh. Mahavir Singh
Gehlawat, s/o Sh. Inder Singh,
Village-Malpura, Dhruhera,
Distt. Rewari.
Also at: House No. 1349,
Block-C-2, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon, Haryana.
Whereas the abovenamed
applicant has instituted a
case for recovery of Rs.
23,40,380.00 (Rupees Twenty
Three Lacs Forty Thousand
Three Hundred Eighty only),
against you and whereas it
has been shown to the satisfaction of the Tribunal that
it is not possible to serve you
in the ordinary way. Therefore, this notice is given by
advertisement directing you
to make appearance before
Ld. Registrar on 11-05-2015 at
10-30 a.m.
Take notice that in case of
your failure to appear on the
abovementioned day before
Ld. Registrar, the case will
be heard and decided in your
absence.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of this Tribunal on this
the 13th day of March, 2015.
By Order of the Tribunal
Malathi Narayanan
Registrar
Seal of the Tribunal
CL 37022
BEFORE DEBTS RECOVERY
TRIBUNAL-I, DELHI
4th Floor, Jeevan Tara
Building, Parliament Street,
New Delhi-110001.
(O.A. No. 142/2014).
Phoenix Arc Pvt. Ltd.
— Applicant
Versus
Speadrhead Digital Studio
(P) Ltd.
— Respondent
To,
1. Speadrhead Digital Studio
(P) Ltd. C-161, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi.
2. Rajesh Duggal, s/o Sh.
Prakash Om Duggal, 4B/34,
Old Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi.
Whereas the abovenamed
applicant has instituted a
case for recovery of Rs.
29,49,519.00 (Rupees Twenty
Nine Lacs Forty Nine Thousand Five Hundred Nineteen
Only), against you and whereas it has been shown to the
satisfaction of the Tribunal
that it is not possible to serve
you in the ordinary way. Therefore, this notice is given by
advertisement directing you
to make appearance before
Ld. Registrar on 11-05-2015 at
10-30 a.m.
Take notice that in case of
your failure to appear on the
abovementioned day before
Ld. Registrar, the case will
be heard and decided in your
absence.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of this Tribunal on this
the 13th day of March, 2015.
By Order of the Tribunal
Malathi Narayanan
Registrar
Seal of the Tribunal
CL 37025
SUMMONS IN A SUMMARY
SUIT
(Order XXXVII Rule 2)
In the Court of R
ajnish Bhatnagar
Additional District &
Sessions Judge(Central)
Room No. 209, IInd Floor,
Tis Hazari, Delhi-110054.
Suit No. 36/2014.
Corporation Bank.
— Plaintiff
Versus
K. Swarup & Ors.
— Defendants
To,
1. Mr. K. Swarup
2. Mr. K. P. Veerkumar, 2/37,
Old Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi.
Also at: Flat-A, Maruti Apts.,
New No. 85-A, (Old No. 37 A),
K.R. Kovil Street, West Mambalam, Chennai.
Whereas plaintiff has instituted a suit against you under
Order XXXVII of the Code of
Civil Procedure, for Rs.
5,60,073.00 and interest you
are hereby summoned to
cause an appearance to be
New Delhi, 5May: Army today induct-
ed the indigenously- developed
supersonic surface-to-air missile
Akash,capable of targeting enemy
helicopters,aircraft and UAVs from
a range of 25 kms. The missiles,
developed by the Defence Research
and Development Organisation
(DRDO),will be a boost for the Army
Air Defence Corps,which had been
grappling for years with obsolete
air defence weapons.
“The capability that we have with
this system will ensure that it
takes care of vulnerability of our
assets.Akash is a step towards selfrealisation of indigenisation,”
Army chief General Dalbir Singh
Suhag said while presiding over the
formal dedication ceremony here.
He added that the Army was in the
process of reinventing the command
and control and battlefield management system of the Army Air
Defence. Akash Missile System is
an indigenously developed supersonic short range surface-to-air
missile system with the capability to engage a wide variety of aerial threats up to a maximum range
of 25 km and up to an altitude of
PTI
20 km.
entered for you, within ten
days from the service hereof
in default whereof the plaintiff will be entitled, after the
expiration of the said period
of ten days to obtain a decree
for any sum not exceeding
the sum of Rs. 5,60,073.00 and
the sum of Rs. 5,60,073.00 for
costs together with such interest, if any as the court may
order.
If you cause an appearance
to be entered for you, the
plaintiff will thereafter serve
upon you a summons for
judgement at the hearing of
which you will be entitled to
move the court for leave to
defend the suit.
Leave to defend may be
obtained if you satisfy the
court by an affidavit or otherwise that there is a defence
to the suit on the merits or
that it is reasonable that you
should be allowed to defend.
Given under my hand and
the Seal of the Court, on this
the 21st day of April, 2015.
Additional District & Sessions Judge (Central)
Tis Hazari, Delhi
Seal of the Court
CL 37014
CC NO. 293 of 2008.
Ld. District Consumer
Dispute Redressal Forum,
Unit-I, Kolkata.
Jyotirmoy Panda and Anr.
-VsQuadra Medical Service
Pvt. Ltd. and Ors.
A abovenamed case has
been filed before this Ld.
Forum against Dr. Mukesh
Kedia,
C/o.
Paramount
Nursing Home (P) Ltd. at
109/1, Hazra Road, Kol.-26
and Dr. Arka Banerjee, C/o.
Port View Nursing Home (P)
Ltd. at 7, Dr. Sudhir Bose
Road, Kol.-23. Please attend
and
file
objection
on
25.05.2015 otherwise the
case will be run ex parte
against you.
By the Order of
Forum, Unit-I
Kolkata
CL00037008
LOST & FOUND
IT is notified for the information that my original Certificate & Marksheet of Secondary examination of Main of
year 2005, Roll No. 2104325 &
Senior Secondary examination of year 2007 and Roll No.
6246399 issued by CBSE has
been actually lost. Sahibjit
Kaur, I-5, Jangpura Extension,
New Delhi-110014.
CL 37013
PUBLIC
NOTIFICATIONS
PUBLIC NOTICE
This is for the information
of the public at large that my
clients Smt. Chitra Rekha,
wife of Shri Prem Kumar Jha
and Shri Prem Kumar Jha, s/o
Shri Harish Chandra Jha, residents of 32-A, Gali No. 1, Nangli Vihar, Najafgarh, New Delhi110043 have disowned their
son Shri Munnu Kumar Jha
and his wife Smt. Meenu Jha
from all their moveable and
immoveable
properties.
Henceforth my clients shall
not be responsible for any
acts and deeds of their aforesaid son and daughter-in-law
as they are not in their control.
A. K. Bali
Advocate
Off: 171B, DG-II, Vikaspuri,
New Delhi-110018
Mob. No. 9811597229
CL 036962
PUBLIC NOTICE
This is for the information
of the public at large that my
clients Smt. Kanta Verma,
wife of Shri Balwan Singh and
Shri Balwan Singh, residents
of P-72, Vijay Vihar, Uttam
Nagar, New Delhi-110059 have
disowned their niece Mrs.
Bani @ Noni, d/o late Smt.
Kamlesh, wife of late Madan
Lal, from all their moveable
and immoveable properties.
Henceforth my clients shall
not be responsible for any
acts and deeds of their aforesaid niece as she is not in
their control and her in-law's
control.
A. K. Bali
Advocate
Off: 171B, DG-II, Vikaspuri,
New Delhi-110018
Mob. No. 9811597229
CL 036961
DIRECTOR
THE
of
Transport, A&N Islands, Port
Blair invites sealed tenders
from the manufacturers /
authorized dealers for supply of raw materials for
retreading of Tyres size 9.0020. The tender documents
containing terms and conditions, EMD, details of items
etc. can be purchased from
the
Deputy
Resident
Commissioner, Andaman &
Nicobar
Administration,
Kolkata & DRC, Chennai on
payment of Rs. 500 (nonrefundable) per set and
from
the
Cashier,
Directorate of Transport,
Port Blair on normal office
hours. The terms and conditions of the tender may also
be downloaded from the
official website of the A&N
Administration. Such tenders shall accompany Rs.
500 in the Form of Demand
Draft / Cheque in favour of
Sr.
Accounts
Officer
(Transport)
towards
the
cost
of
the
documents. Tender documents will be sold up to 11
a.m. on 01.06.2015 and
opened on 01.06.2015 at 3.30
p.m.
Assistant Engineer (P&S)
CL00037031
THE
DIRECTOR
of
Transport, A&N Islands, Port
Blair invites sealed tenders
from the manufacturers /
authorized dealers for supply of Spring leaves for Tata
LP 1210 / 1510 / 1512TC & LP
712 model buses. The tender
documents
containing
terms and conditions, EMD,
details of items etc. can be
purchased from the Deputy
Resident
Commissioner,
Andaman
&
Nicobar
Administration Kolkata &
DRC, Chennai on payment of
Rs. 500 (non-refundable) per
set and from the Cashier,
Directorate of Transport,
Port Blair on normal office
hours. The terms and conditions of the tender may also
be downloaded from the
official website of the A&N
Administration. Such tenders shall accompany Rs.
500 in the Form of Demand
Draft / Cheque in favour of
Sr.
Accounts
Officer
(Transport) towards the
cost of the documents.
Tender documents will be
sold up to 11 a.m. on
03.06.2015 and opened on
03.06.2015 at 3.30 p.m.
Assistant Engineer (P & S)
CL00037032
EXECUTIVE Engineer (AI), Planning Division,
SWID invites e-Tender / 01
of
15-16
online
Percentage Rate basis for
Drilling and Installation
of PHS in South 24
Parganas vide Tender ID
No. - 2015_SWID_41985_1
&
2015_SWID_41985-2.
Last date of submission
of bid online only is
14.05.2015 up to 2.00 p.m.
All documents can be
seen / obtained from the
website:
https://wb
tenders.gov.in and Office
Notice Board.
CL00037036
MSTC LIMITED
(A Govt. of India Enterprise)
Eastern Regional Office
225F, A.J.C. Bose Road(3rd
Floor), Kolkata-20
Tel.: (00-91-33) 2281-2877 /
2289-6048 / 1403
Fax: (00-91-33) 2287-4915
Website:
www.mstcindia.co.in
MSTC / ERO / 222abod /
narangi / 15-16 / 2057, 2058,
2059 and 2060 on 13.05.2015.
For details please visit:
www.mstcecommerce.com
or www.mstcindia.co.in
CL00037038
NOTICE INVITING TENDER
(ONLINE)
WBPWD / EE / HD /
NIT-01 / 2015-2016
Executive Engineer (PWD),
Howrah Division, Onkarmal
Jetia Road, Howrah-711103
invites 2 (two) Nos. tender
for bona fide outsider.
Details on N.I.T. and Tender
Documents may download
f
r
o
m
https://etender.wb.nic.in
Last date of Submission of
Tender Documents (Online):
19.05.2015 up to 4.00 p.m.
Tender
ID
No.:
2015_WBPWD_42235_1,
2015_WBPWD_42235_2.
Sd/Executive Engineer
Howrah Division, P.W.D.
CL00037042
CMYK
External Affairs Ministry officials spoke to Chief Secretary
Anjani Kumar Singh and advised me against visiting Nepal
BIHAR CHIEF MINISTER NITISH KUMAR
ON HIS SCHEDULED VISIT TO NEPAL
THUMBNAILS
TRS MPs protest at Parliament
House in New Delhi on Tuesday.
RS PASSES BILLS
TO REPEAL
OBSOLETE LAWS
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
� SNS
Deer population:
Kaziranga National
Park in Assam witnessed rise in eastern
swamp deer population from last year's 854
to currently to 1129,with
328 adult males and
569 adult females,accordPTI
ing to a census.
Kumbh Mela: Maharashtra minister for tribal welfare Vishnu Sawra
said more than eight
crore devotees are likely to visit upcoming
Kumbh Mela at Trimbakeshwar in Maharashtra's Nashik district.
PTI
Poachers data:The government on Tuesday
said that 11 rhino poachers have been killed in
seperate encounters
while 20 of them were
arrested in Kaziranga
Tiger reserve in Assam
PTI
this year.
The Rajya Sabha today passed
the Repealing and Amending
Bill, 2014, that has sought repealing of 90 laws and two
amendments of two laws
and Repealing and Amending Bill, 2015, that has sought
repeal of 36 obsolete laws.
Clarifying a issue raised
by Congress leader K Rahman
Khan, Union Law Minister
D V Sadananda Gowda said
the Wakf Act 2013 was not obsolete and was not being repealed.
Earlier moving the two
Bills, Mr Gowda said the
government has identified
1863 laws that needed to be
repealed. He said these Acts
which needed to be repealed
were identified by the Law
Commission and discussed
by respective nodal minis-
tries. The demand for a sunset clause or automatic repealing process was also being
looked into, he said.
The Repealing and
Amending bill 2014, which
was passed by the Lok Sabha and referred to the Select
Committee of Rajya Sabha,
aims to repeal 90 laws and
pass amendments to two
laws. The Repealing and
Amending Bill 2015 seeks to
repeal 36 obsolete laws that
have been listed in the First
Schedule of the Bill and pass
two amendments to the Acts.
The Congress leaders ,
Mr Avinash Pande and Mr
Shadi Lal Bohra, opposed
the move and said it should
not be done in haste and
should be discussed individually on merit. They claimed that the exercise was being carried out "to undo the
work of the previous gov-
ernment" and the Bills should
be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
Supporting the Bills, the
Trinamul Congress leader,Mr
Nadimul Haque, suggested to
the government that there
should be separate Bills for
repeal and amendment. "In
fact, there should be an automatic repeal clause in the
law and also time intervals
for repealing."
The AIADMK leader, Mr
A Navaneethakrishnan
(AIADMK) also demanded
that laws should be reviewed
every two years and a report
submitted to Parliament.
The BSP leader, Mr Veer
Singh, supported the Bill
and said repealing of obsolete laws should be done anytime. "To repeal, it is not
necessary that that law should
be old."
Cong firm on sending GST LS FURORE OVER HC
FOR
TELANGANA
Bill to standing committee
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
The stand-off between the BJP-led government and a section of the Opposition
has continued over the GST constitutional amendment Bill as the latter has
stuck to its demand that the Bill should
be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for a detailed legislative
scrutiny.
The Bill was taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha today and was debated through the day, even as the Congress and some other Opposition parties
indicated that they might throw a spanner in its works in the Rajya Sabha ~ where
the government is in a minority ~ demanding that it be sent to a Select Committee
of the House.
The Congress today made it clear both
within and outside Parliament that despite supporting the GST Bill "in principle" the party would like it to be referred to the Standing Committee. This position has been backed by parties like the
AIADMK and the BJD, too.
It is another matter that the Narendra Modi government enjoys an absolute
majority in the Lok Sabha and along with
its NDA allies it should secure the passage of the Bill after the voting tomorrow in the Lok Sabha.
The Congress has not revealed its cards
so far on its position during tomorrow's
voting on the Bill. The party is likely to
stage a walk-out from the Lower House,
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
even as it is wary of being accused of being "anti-reforms".
The Rajya Sabha would be, however,
a different ball game.This crucial reforms
legislation,first brought by the previous
Congress-led UPA government, needs to
be passed by a two-third majority in both
Houses of Parliament and subsequently ratified by the legislatures of half the
states in the country to become a law.
The Congress Parliamentary Party
is going to meet tomorrow morning,which
will be addressed by its chief Mrs Sonia
Gandhi. In an unprecedented move,
Mrs Gandhi is also likely to propose an
adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha
tomorrow, seeking a discussion on vacant top posts in a slew of constitutional offices ~ such as the Election Commission, Central Information Commission,
or the Central Vigilance Commission ~
in the country.
The Congress spokesman Mr Gaurav Gogoi today maintained that his party supports the GST legislation but wanted it to be sent to the Standing Committee for examination since "the new Bill
has made several changes to the previous UPA-proposed Bill".
He flayed the Modi government for
its "tendency" to "bypass parliamentary procedures and crucial bodies like
Standing Committees" in its bid to "force
the Bills through". "Out of 51 Bills
brought by this government, only 7 have
been referred to the Standing Committees so far, Why?" he asked.
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 5 May
GUN SALUTE
A Jammu and Kashmir Armed Police guard of honour presents arms as they stand in front of the civil secretariat complex during a ceremony on the first day of the Darbar Move in Srinagar on Tuesday. � AFP
The alleged molestation and death of
a teenaged girl at Moga in Punjab today rocked both Houses of Parliament
today with the Opposition demanding
a discussion on the issue.
Soon after the Rajya Sabha met for
the day, Congress members raised the
issue with Ambika Sonia alleging there
was a complete breakdown of law and
order in Punjab, which necessitated the
Centre's intervention.
Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said it was a “very serious issue as those who are ruling the state
are owners of the bus...Police action has
been only against those involved in the
molestation but owners of the bus
have been left out.”
In the Lok Sabha, Amarinder Singh
(Congress) tries to raise the issue.
Amid protests by Shiromani Akali Dal
(SAD) members, he said the incident
was a "culmination" of the "detriorating" law and order in the state.
However, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan disallowed him, saying the issue had
been raised in the House earlier, a
point also made by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu who
said rules did not allow one issue to be
raised twice in the same session.
The Moga incident saw the Rajya Sabha being adjourned twice. Ghulam Nabi Azad said the case is incomplete without the owners being booked. "There
is anger in Punjab and people of the village did not cremate the body of the victim for three days. Keeping in view the
anger in the state, action should be taken against the owners of the bus."
Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) said the
Chair should allow the Moga incident
to be discussed."Because of the importance of the incident, please allow us
to discuss," he said. "How can a sitting
Govt gives assurance on net neutrality NATIONAL WATERWAYS BILL
CENTRE CONTRADICTS...
New Delhi, 5 May
Mr Rijiju, however, told TV channels today that Dawood is still in
Pakistan,even as he sought to play
down the controversy. He said the
government’s stand has been consistent about Dawood’s whereabouts in Pakistan.
The Congress, however,
launched a scathing attack on the
Modi regime, expressing its “surprise and shock” over the government’s reply, saying that Pakistan and its ISI agency would
have given a similar reply on
Dawood’s whereabouts.
“This statement given by the government seems to replicate Pakistan’s official position on Dawood
Ibrahim. It is almost as if the Indian government’s reply is the same
that the ISI themselves would have
given had they been asked the
same question,” the Congress
spokesman Mr Gaurav Gogoi
charged while taking a swipe at the
Modi government.
“This statement is shocking
because during the 2014 Lok Sabha
election campaign Mr Modi had
made a vociferous pitch that once
he becomes the Prime Minister,
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
The Union IT and Telecom Minister, Mr
Ravi Shankar Prasad, today assured ‘net neutrality’ and "non-discriminatory access to internet" to all citizens.
Replying to a short duration debate
on the issue of safeguarding net neutrality, Mr Prasad said the government
stands for connectivity to internet in
an unhindered manner. He said the government would take a final call on the
issue once it receives recommendations
from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and a high level committee set up by the Union Govenrment
in January this year.
"Government stands for ensuring
non-discriminatory access to internet
for all citizens of the country...It is committed to the fundamental principles
and concept of net neutrality, keeping
the internet accessible and available to
all without discrimination," Mr Prasad
said.
Earlier, The Trinamul Congress leader, Mr Derek O' Brien, who had moved
the calling attention motion, accused
TRAI of "compromising with the privacy" of people by putting out the mail
IDs of 10 lakh people who gave their sug-
gestions to its consultation paper.he said
their names were on the TRAI website
for 36 hours. He demanded an assurance
from the Minister that no action will
be taken on TRAI's recommendation on
this matter without taking Parliament's consent.
Interestingly, unlike in the Lok
Sabha where government and Opposition had clashed over the issue of net
neutrality, the Rajya Sabha saw unanimity on the issue. The issue was raised
in the Lok Sabha nearly a fortnight back
where the Congress vice president,
Mr Rajiv Gandhi, had attacked government for favouring telecom players.
In the Rajya Sabha, all political parties including BJP and Shiv Sena supported and expressed their concern over
the issue and TRAI initiatives. A BJP
member drew a parallel between the fight
for net neutrality with Mahatma Gandhi's salt agitation during freedom
struggle and dubbed telecom companies
as "Shylock" and "sharks".
The Telecom Minister said the government has already formed a high level committee on the issue and its report
is expected by the month end. He assured the House that the Cabinet would
take a final call on the recommendations
made by TRAI and the committee.
INTRODUCED IN LS
STATESMAN NEWS SERICE
New Delhi, 5 May
Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari
today introduced the National Waterways Bill in
the Lok Sabha.The Bill seeks to develop 101 waterways
across the country. The new 101 new inland waterways
will be in addition to the five existing National Waterways.
The government's contention is that the legislation
is aimed at providing a cheaper mode of transport
and reducing traffic burden on roads. The Bill also
provides for the declaration of certain inland waterways as national waterways.
The National Waterways Bill-2015 is also aimed at
providing for the regulation and development of waterways for the purpose of shipping and navigation.
Inland waterways, comprising rivers, lakes, canals,
creeks and backwaters, extend about 14,500 km across
the country. However, potential of this mode of transport has not been fully exploited so far.
The Centre has evolved a policy of integrated development of inland waterways throughout the country and has identified 101 new inland waterways to
be declared as national waterways for the purposes
of
shipping and navigation in a fuel efficient, cost effective and environment friendly way.
New Delhi, 5 May
TRS members protesting against the
"delay" in carving out a separate
High Court for Telangana disrupted
proceedings of the Lok Saha today.
Agitated TRS members stormed
the Well repeatedly as they were dissatisfied with Law Minister Sadanand
Gowda's assurance that he would try
to find a solution soon in this regard.
They kept insisting that the Centre
has failed to take a final call on the
issue despite repeatedly making
promises in the past.
As the House met for the day, the
members started protesting and trooped into the Well with placards.
Amid the ruckus, Speaker Sumitra
Mahajan asked the agitating members to go back to their seats and stop
showing placards.
With the protests continuing, the
House was adjourned during Question Hour, first for ten minutes and
then again for 30 minutes till noon.
Mr Gowda said the Centre has
made sincere efforts for setting up a
separate High Court for the newlycarved state but its "hands are tied"
after a PIL was filed in Andhra Pradesh High Court.
Mr Gowda said he had met Chief
Ministers of both states and the issue had seen progress but he needed
some more time to consult the Chief
Justice of Andhra High Court also.
NIRENDRA DEV
Coffers drying up
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
that will last for just
about a month,” a Greenpeace India statement
said.
Calling it “strangulation by stealth”, the global green body also challenged the Home Minister to stop using arbitrary penalties and
admit that he is trying to
shut Greenpeace India
down because of its successful campaigns.
It said that the Home
Ministry's decision to
block its domestic bank
accounts could lead to
not only the loss of 340
employees but a “sudden
death” for its campaigns
which strived to represent the voice of the poor
on issues of “sustainable
development, environmental justice and clean,
affordable energy”.
“I just made one of
the hardest speeches of
my life but my staff
deserve to know the
truth. We have one
month left to save Greenpeace India from complete shutdown and to
fight MHA's indefensible
decision to block our
domestic accounts,” said
Aich.
It said that following
allegations over foreign
funding, Greenpeace
India has been the subject of a string of penal-
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Minister say that molestation is an act
of God? This is a very grievous matter.Please allow the debate," Yechury said,
adding that it was not a state subject.
Strong protests by Akali members
did not deter Congress members who
entered the aisles and raised slogans
like "Mafia Raj nahin chalega, nahin
chalega". Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa
(SAD) rose to counter the Congress but
was not allowed to speak even as Naresh Gujral (SAD) asked how the Chair
had allowed the Opposition members
to speak.
Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said
no member can raise an issue without
notice as per traditions of the House
and added that no member has given a
notice on the issue. Kurien insisted that
a notice be given seeking a discussion
on the issue. But opposition members
were unrelenting and moved into the
aisles shouting slogans, forcing adjournment.
Dawood would be brought back to
India,” Gaurav said, adding that
it also contradicted the government’s own position on the Dawood
issue.
“It seems that either the BJP government had made a false election
promise which they had no intention to keep or currently they are
not serious about bringing Dawood
Ibrahim back to India,” he said.
Such a reply, the Congress
alleged,also put “India’s own global position on terrorism in jeopardy”
because it has maintained for
many years that “Pakistan harbours
terrorism and those responsible for
the attacks on Mumbai”.
The government’s fresh statement however “diluted”India’s consistent position and indicated that
it has “eased its pressure on Pakistan, which previous governments, for the past 20 years have
built on Pakistan to hand over
Dawood”, said the Congress
spokesman.
Gaurav also said: “There cannot be a compromise on terrorism
and on our foreign policy, we
should be consistent and not have
a flip-flop policy”.
GOVT’S U-TURN...
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
the RSS were said to have deliberated on the Bill following which
the Modi Cabinet today gave its
green signal to the legislation
including Assam.
The Congress today accused the
Modi government of doing a “flipflop”on the issue,but made it clear
that it will now support the Bill.
“This is our Bill now,the UPA’s original Bill,” said the Congress
spokesman and Assam MP, Mr
Gaurav Gogoi. “This Bill was
always in India’s and Assam’s interests and that is why the position
of the Congress on it has been consistent right from the beginning
that Assam must be taken on
board,” he said. Gaurav charged
the Modi government with violating “cooperative federalism”by
not consulting the stakeholder state
of Assam.“It seems it had also not
undertaken a proper consultative
process with Bangladesh when it
chose to delink Assam from the
Bill,”he said adding “this has sent
out negative signals both domestically and also to the international
community”.
LBA likely to hit BJP prospects in Assam
GREENPEACE STARES AT SHUTDOWN WITHIN A MONTH
Greenpeace India today
said it was staring at an
“imminent” shutdown
within a month in the
absence of funds for staff
salaries and accused the
government of “strangulating” it by stealth after the
freezing of its funds.
In his address to the
Greenpeace India staff,
Executive Director Samit
Aich asked them to prepare for the imminent
shutdown of the organisation after 14 years in
the country.
“Greenpeace India
has one month left to
fight for its survival with
the threat of an imminent shutdown looming
large. The NGO has been
left with funds for staff
salaries and office costs
05
Moga incident rocks Parliament
Rafale delivery:The
delivery of 36 Rafale
fighter jets from France
would be in a time
frame compatible with
the operational requirement of the IAF,
Defence Minister
Manohar Parrikar said
on Tuesday.
PTI
Security tightened:
The Arunachal Pradesh
Police have beefed up
security measures to
maintain law and order
in three troubled districts of Changlang,
Tirap and Longding
following the 3 May
ambush by NSCN. PTI
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
nirendelhi@thestatesman.net
New Delhi, 5 May
ties imposed by the
MHA, all of which have
been overturned by the
Delhi High Court. The
latest is blocking access
to domestic bank
accounts funded by donations from over 77,000
Indian citizens.
The Government had
earlier barred Greenpeace India from receiving foreign funds with
immediate effect by suspending its licence for
six months and froze all
its accounts, alleging it
has “prejudicially”
affected the country's
public and economic
interests.
The environmental
activist group has also
been served a notice by
the government which
asked why its registration should not be cancelled permanently.
Faced with a dilemma over the need
to go ahead with the land transfer deal
with Bangladesh, the BJP could face
a tough time in poll-bound Assam as
party workers and supporters see the
Land Boundary Agreement as betrayal of Assam.
However, to assuage the expected
public anguish and the fury of the party cadres, the BJP has decided to enlist "active help and cooperation" of RSS
and other like-minded organisations
like VHP, BJP sources told The Statesman.
Senior VHP leaders like Pravin Togadia and RSS leader Krishna Gopal,
the Sangh's key observer in BJP, are
likely to travel to Assam, sources said.
The state goes to the polls next year
along with West Bengal.
The Land Boundary Agreement Bill
was cleared by the Union Cabinet today at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It seeks to operationalise the pact with Bangladesh in
territories in Assam along with
those in West Bengal, Tripura and
Meghalaya.
The Bill is now likely to come up
in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow. The gov-
CMYK
ernment will have to bring the Constitutional Amendment Bill for passage
and it would also require ratification
by at least 50 per cent of the state legislatures before it comes into effect, sources said.
"With Modiji's pledge for development and clean administration, BJP
had gained ground in Assam where governance under successive Congress and
AGP regimes and more under Tarun
Gogoi in last 15 years has been dismal,"
a BJP MP from Assam said. He lamented that the LBA could now result in
shrinking of the saffron party's support base in Assam.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP had
picked up 7 seats from Assam and also done well during civic polls earlier this year having mustered control
over several panchayats. In as many
as 38 towns, the BJP won a majority
in civic polls in February this year including in key political hubs like Biswanath Chariali, Rangapara, Sarupathar, Barpathar, Nazira, Chabua, Nalbari, Dergaon, Naharkatia, Margherita, Dibrugarh, Hojai, Dhubri, Nagaon and Tezpur, he pointed out.
The Cabinet cleared the LBA Bill
after the government was assured
support from Trinamul Congress chief
and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Mr Modi, who is like-
ly to visit Bangladesh next month, ultimately decided to brush aside the
strong opposition to the Bill from the
BJP's Assam unit, which had described it as 'against Assam's interest'.
The BJP national leadership earlier explored the possibility of keeping
the Assam enclaves out of the purview
of the proposed Bill. However, the
Congress party and the Assam Chief
Minister Tarun Gogoi insisted that the
Bill should be passed in original form.
The top BJP brass met at the residence of party chief Amit Shah in Delhi last night to discuss the LBA as well
as the party's strategy for the Assam
elections. The meeting was attended
by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and also saw participation by RSS joint general secretary Krishna Gopal. Party leaders
and MPs from Assam were also present at the meeting.
"The transfer of land and enclaves
to Bangladesh is a highly emotive issue in Assam and had figured prominently in the electoral campaign in the
last few years," an Assam BJP leader
said pointing at the dissension in the
state on the issue. A senior leader Pradyut Bora has already quit the saffron
party.
06
Few media houses are maligning our party’s image day and night in the
past few months. I am deeply hurt. So we have decided to go silent. We
will answer questions only on government and work being done by us...
ARVIND KEJRIWAL
EXPRESSING ANGUISH OVER INDIAN MEDIA
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
Infighting may have triggered Kerala Maoist leaders’arrest
TN HARASANKARAN
harasankaran@gmail.com
Chennai, 5 May
Was the arrest of Kerala's
most-wanted Maoist leader
Roopesh and his four accomplices, including his wife,
Shyna, in Coimbatore in
Tamil Nadu the outcome of
internal squabbling going on
in the Western Ghat Special
Zone committee of the CPI
(Maoist)?
If information available
from reliable sources is to
be believed, infighting among cadres, divided primarily on linguistic lines, have
badly hit the group's operations in the Kerala-Karnataka-Tamilnadu tri junction
area. The central committee
of CPI (Maoist) is said to have
become so concerned over
the situation that it recently sought a report about the
problems in the group.
According to a source, a
recent confidential report
prepared by the CPI (Maoist)
on the functioning of their
cadres in the tri-junction
area says that infighting
between groups divided on
linguistic lines has increased.
This supports indications
that infighting in the outfit
had slowed down the activities of the members in the
last three months.
According to Kerala
police, the group headed by
Kerala wing leader Roopesh
conducted about 20 attacks
in various part of the state
till January 2015. But for the
past few months there have
been no attacks at all and
finally Roopesh and four
accomplices have been
arrested.
It is believed that, because
of the internal strife, the TN
group operates under Kalidos, while Kerala group was
~ until his arrest ~ under the
control of Roopesh and the
Karnataka squad is headed
by Jayanna and all the
groups function by themselves without co-ordination. An extra marital relationship between a top insurgent leader in the tri-junction area and a woman cadre
has also become a major
point of conflict among the
cadres.
The internal report, prepared by the outfit’s special
council on the infighting says
that "autocratic" way of
functioning of Kalidos, the
top man from Tamil Nadu,has
attracted criticism from the
central committee of CPI
(Maoist). He is said to be
functioning like a 'capitalist'
within the naxal group.
"There is a tussle going
between the western Ghat special zonal committee and
armed squads and missions
are not being executed as
per the plans. Other linguistic groups are questioning Telugu domination in various
committees. Groups from
Kerala,Tamil Nadu and Karnataka prefer to make their
own plans and execute them
HC RELIEF FOR MP GUV,
WITH CRUCIAL RIDER
COURT SAYS POLICE CAN TAKE ACTION AGAINST GOVERNOR ONCE HE DEMITS OFFICE
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Bhopal, 5 May
Providing a major relief to
MP Governor Dr Ramnaresh
Yadav the Madhya Pradesh
High Court today quashed
the FIR filed against him by
the MP Special Task Force
(MPSTF) in connection with
the multi-crore exam scam
of MP Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), on
the ground of the constitutional immunity provided to
him while in office under
Articles 361 (2) and (3) of the
Indian Constitution,
A division bench of MP
High Court in Jabalpur comprising Chief Justice A M
Khanwilkar and Justice
Rohit Arya quashed the FIR
against Mr Yadav (87).
Nonetheless, in a crucial rider, the High Court
pointed out that the immunity would be in force only
for as long as Mr Yadav held
office and allowed the investigating agency, the MP Special Task Force (MPSTF), to
take any action, if necessary,
against Mr Yadav after he
is no longer Governor.
Mr Yadav was sworn in
as MP Governor in September 2011 and his term is
scheduled to end in September 2016.
The Bench observed
“While dealing with the pri-
mary question of extent of
immunity and privilege
extended to the Head of a
State, during his term of
office, which answers the
jurisdictional fact, we proceed to quash the impugned
FIR qua the petitioner (Governor) on that count alone,
with liberty to police to proceed in accordance with
law, after the petitioner ceases to be the Governor. For,
the immunity and privilege
is only during the term of
office.”
The court also observed
that the police were free to
record statements of the
Governor while in office if
it was necessary during pro-
ceedings against the other
accused, with due salutary
precautions not to undermine the majesty of the
office of Governor.
"We say so because the
immunity in Article 361 (2)
or 361 (3) does not extend to
recording of statement of the
Head of a State by the police
in connection with investigation of a crime, if it is so
essential,” the division bench
ruled.
Earlier, on 17 April, the
HC in an interim order had
ordered a stay on the proceedings of the FIR of 24
February against the Governor by the MPSTF in connection with the recruit-
ment scam, asking the prosecuting agency not to take
any "coercive action" against
him.
Mr Yadav is the first Governor of Madhya Pradesh,
against whom an FIR was
filed.
The STF had filed the FIR
against the Governor alleging his complicity in the forest guard recruitment exam
conducted by the MPPEB.
Thereafter, Mr Yadav had
petitioned the high court to
quash the FIR against him.
Mr Yadav's counsel,
senior advocate Mr Ram
Jethmalani, Mr Adarsh
Muni Trivedi and Mr Mahendra Pateria had contended
in the court that criminal
proceedings against the
Governor were contrary to
the provisions of Articles 361
(2) and (3) of the Constitution, which grant immunity to the President and Governors while in office.
However, the STF had
argued that criminal proceedings are not launched
with the registration of the
case. Criminal proceedings
are considered launched
after a charge sheet is put
up in court, it had further
contended. On the other
hand, the Governor's counsel had argued that criminal proceedings start with
registration of an FIR.
Kerry calls Swaraj, reviews Nepal relief
India and the US discussed the overall
situation in the region, specially the relief efforts in quakedevastated Nepal during a call by Secretary of State John
Kerry to his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj.
“Secretary of State John Kerry called External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj. They spoke on overall situation
in region and specially on relief efforts in Nepal”,
Spokesman of External Affairs Ministry Vikas Swarup
tweeted late last night. Both India and the US have been
New Delhi, 5 May:
involved in the rescue and relief work in Nepal to rehabilitate millions of uprooted victims of the devastating
temblor on 25 April that killed at least 7,365 people, including 41 Indians. Later this year, India and the US will hold
their strategic dialogue, jointly chaired by the External
Affairs Minister and the Secretary of State.
The US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs,
Wendy Sherman, was here last week and held talks with
PTI
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on Indo-US ties.
without consulting the central committee," a source
close to the special council
said.
The CPI (Maoist) encourages women members to take
part in the armed struggle and
reserve 40 per cent of the membership in the organisation
for women. But most women
cadres are annoyed at the way
in which they are treated
and not allowed to work on
their own.
Since 2010, CPI (Maoists)
has been trying to make the
tri-junction area one of their
important hubs particularly
after the CRPF started flushing them out from the northern belt.
Even though police claim
they have effectively contain-
ed Maoist operations in TN,
there are indications the
Maoists are regrouping in
some parts of the state.
Recently,the Dharmapuri
SP, Asra Garg, said Maoist
cadres arrested from Natham
village colony have confessed
they went through arms
training in a secret location
just six km from Marina
beach, where the state police
headquarters is located. The
villagers are said to have
undergone arms training in
Arakkona and Chennai in
March of 2013 and a few
months after the training
leaders Kalidos and Chandra
visited the village and supplied arms,says Mr Garg.The
TN police are yet to nab Kalidos and his accomplices.
Another CM skips Buddha
statue, KCR chooses to
stick to superstition
STANLEY THEODORE
stanleytheodore@yahoo.com
Hyderabad, 5 May
The first Chief Minister of
India's newest state Telangana Mr K Chandrasekhar
Rao chooses to remain in
superstition by not going to
the Buddha statue on Buddha
Jayanti.
No CM has ever spared 10
minutes to even look at the
magnificent, once biggest
monolithic statue in the world,
at the centre of the Hussainsagar Lake that separates the
twin-cities. This monolith
was carved out of a rugged,
stubborn hillside,native to the
Deccan.It began its 55-km journey from Bhongir to Hyderabad,precisely to the lakeshore.
Mr NT Rama Rao saw the
Statue of Liberty when returning from his bypass surgery
from USA in August 1984. He
promised to build something
similar in Hyderabad.By the
time he returned, he was
ousted in an infamous coup
scripted by Ms Indira Gandhi.NTR dissolved the Assembly after being reinstated and
returned with a resounding
majority.NTR lost in the 1989
elections to Rajiv Gandhi’s
shock. Congress veteran Mr
Chenna Reddy took over.
Equally excited, he asked for
the statue’s speedy installation
at the Rock of Gibralter.
December 1991 witnessed
the most horrific communal
riots in Hyderabad and Mr
Rajiv Gandhi sacked him.Mr
N Janardhan Reddy took over.
In April 1992 the statue was
retrieved and placed on the
Rock. In September 1992, the
High Court passed severe
strictures against him making his continuance untenable.
Then Mr Kotla Vijaybhaskar
Reddy took over and in 1994
led to the Congress’ worst
ever performance by getting
less than ten per cent of the
294 seats.
NTR was back. A man of
art and theatre, with a desire
of posterity, he looked at the
statue about to be erected. It
needed a formal consecration, which meant global
attention. In August 1995 his
son-in-law overthrew him in
a palace coup, which none
imagined. Mr Chandrababu
Naidu, who knew this
sequence,did not to even look
at the statue while driving to
and from work from his posh
Jubilee Hills home. None of
his officers, aides or drivers
would even speak a word
about the statue’s consecration.Mr Naidu retained power
in 1999 and in 2004 led the party
to the worst loss in its history. Mr YS Rajasekhar Reddy
was in.He knew about politicians’ dread with the majestic statue and let it be.Suddenly
the Dalai Lama announced
that he would consecrate the
statue in January 2006.
The Lama and YSR travelled in the same convoy from
the museum, just over a kilometre away. When they
reached the Telugu Talli Statue,YSR's convoy gently peeled
away,turned left and entered
the Secretariat. The Lama's
convoy went straight, a few
hundred metres away,where
a double decker cruiser was
waiting to take him to the statue.
Mr Rao, a staunch believer in vaastu,was following the
deepening superstition. He
ended his three-day training
programme at Nagarjuna
Sagar on Monday and chose
to garland the Buddha statue
there.Tourists,however,continued their boat rides to and
from the 2 km stretch.
LEISURE
10 MINUTE CROSSWORD
BEETLE BAILEY/Mort Walker
AROUND TOWN
Cinema, Kaushambi 9.45am, 10.30am,
12.20pm, 1pm,
1.30pm, 3pm, 3.30pm,
4pm, 5.35pm, 6pm,
8.10pm, 8.30pm,
9.45pm, 10.45pm,
11.15pm.
Wave Cinema, Raja
Garden -.45am,
10.25am, 12.15pm,
1pm, 2.45pm, 3.30pm,
4.30pm, 5.15pm, 6pm,
7.15pm, 7.45pm,
8.30pm, 10pm,
10.15pm, 11.15pm.
Director's
Cut,Vasantkunj10:15am, 11:05am,
1:45pm, 4pm, 4:50pm,
7pm, 7:55pm, 9:55pm,
10:55pm.
PVR Anupam, Saket 9:05am, 10am,
11:30am, 12:50pm,
2:20pm, 3:40pm,
6:30pm, 8pm, 9:20pm,
10:50pm.
PVR Select City Walk 10:30am, 11:35am,
1:20pm, 2:25pm,
5:15pm, 7:10pm,
8:05pm, 9:55pm,
10:55pm.
PVR Select City Walk,
Gold Class -10am,
12:30pm, 3:20pm,
6:10pm, 9pm.
PVR Priya -11am,
1:50pm, 7:40pm,
10:30pm.
PVR Rivoli -10am,
3:50pm, 9:40pm.
PVR Plaza -1:40pm,
7:30pm.
PVR Naraina -9:45am,
11:15am, 12:15pm,
2:05pm, 3:05pm,
4:55pm, 5:55pm,
7:45pm, 8:45pm,
10:35pm, 11:30pm.
PVR Pacific Mall -9am,
9:50am, 10:40am,
11:25am, 12:20pm,
1:30pm, 2:15 pm,
3:10pm, 4:20pm,
5:05pm, 6pm, 7:10pm,
7:55pm, 8:50pm,
9:55pm, 10:45 pm,
11:40pm.
PVR Vikaspuri -10am,
11:30am, 12:50pm,
2:20pm, 3:40pm,
5:10pm, 6:30 pm, 8pm,
9:20pm, 10:45pm.
PVR EDM -10am,
11am, 12:50pm,
1:50pm, 3:40pm,
4:40pm, 6:30pm, 7:30
pm, 9:20pm, 10:20pm.
PVR Mahagun -10am,
11:20am, 12:50pm,
2:10pm, 3:40pm, 5pm,
6:30 pm, 7:50 pm,
9:20pm, 10:40pm.
PVR Ambience,
Gurgaon -10am,
10:45am, 11:40am,
12:40pm, 1:35pm, 2:30
pm, 3:30pm, 4:25pm,
5:20pm, 6:20pm,
7:15pm, 8:10pm,
10:05pm, 10:55pm.
PVR MGF, Gurgaon 10:10am, 10:50am,
11:30am, 1pm,
HINDI FILM
1:40pm, 2:20pm,
3:50pm, 4:30pm,
Gabbar Is Back
5:10pm, 6:40pm,
Wave Cinema, Noida - 7:20pm, 8pm, 8:40pm,
9.45am, 10.15am,
9:30pm, 10:10pm,
11am, 12.50pm,
10:50pm, 11:30pm.
1.45pm, 3pm,
DT Star
3.25pm,
Promenade,
4.30pm,
Vasantkunj 5.35pm, 6pm,
10am, 11am,
7.15pm,
12.15pm,
8.10pm,
12.40pm,
8.40pm,
1.40pm,
10pm,
2.55pm,
10.45pm,
11.15pm.
Wave
ENGLISH FILM
Avengers: Age Of
Ultron
Wave Cinema, Noida 9.50am, 10.30am,
12.30pm, 1.30pm,
3.10pm, 4.30pm,
5.50pm, 7.30pm,
8.30pm, 10.25pm,
11.10pm.
Wave Cinema, Raja
Garden -9.50am,
10.30am, 12.30pm,
1.30pm, 3.10pm,
5.50pm, 8.30pm,
11.10pm.
Director's Cut,
Vasantkunj -10am,
11:15am, 12:45pm,
2pm, 3:55pm, 5:10pm,
7:05pm, 10:15pm,
10:55pm.
PVR Anupam, Saket 9am, 11:35am,
2:35pm, 4:15pm,
5:35pm, 7:15pm,
8:35pm, 10:15pm,
11:35pm.
PVR Select City Walk 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm,
10:55pm.
PVR Select City Walk,
Gold Class -10:10am,
12:45pm, 3:45pm,
6:4pm, 9:45pm.
PVR Priya -4:40pm.
PVR Rivoli -12:50pm,
6:40pm.
PVR Plaza -10:40am,
4:30pm, 10:20pm.
PVR EDM -6:55pm.
PVR Mahagun 1:15pm, 4:15pm,
7:15pm, 10:15pm.
PVR Ambience,
Gurgaon -11am,
1:45pm, 4:50pm,
7:55pm, 9:10pm,
10:55pm.
PVR MGF, Gurgaon 10am, 11:15am,
12:45pm, 2:20pm,
3:50pm, 5:25 pm,
6:55pm, 8:30pm,
9:55pm, 11:30pm.
DT Star Promenade,
Vasantkunj –10am,
11.30am, 12.50pm,
2.15pm, 3.40pm,
5.35pm, 6.30pm,
7.40pm, 8.25pm,
9.20pm, 11.15pm.
DT Star, Saket -10am,
11.40am, 12.50pm,
3.40pm, 5.15pm,
6.30pm, 8.05pm,
9.20pm, 10.50pm.
DT City Centre,
Shalimar Bagh 11.20am, 12.55pm,
2.05pm, 4.50pm,
7.35pm, 10.30pm.
DT City Centre,
Gurgaon -11.30am,
2.20pm, 5.10pm, 8pm,
10.50pm.
DT Mega Mall,
Gurgaon -11am,
1.50pm, 4.40pm,
7.30pm, 10.30pm.
Spice Cinema Noida 12:40pm, 2pm,
3:20pm, 6pm, 7:20pm,
10pm, 11:20pm.
Sabki Bajegi Band
PVR Anupam, Saket 9:10am, 1:50pm.
PVR Select City Walk 11:55am, 9pm.
PVR Naraina -10am,
7:40pm.
PVR Pacific Mall 10:25am, 12:45pm,
5:25pm.
PVR
Ambience,Gurgaon 10am, 3pm, 8pm.
PVR MGF, Gurgaon 10:30am, 12:50pm,
6:15pm.
DT Star Promenade,
Vasantkunj -10am,
8.45pm.
DT Star, Saket -10am,
3.15pm.
Spice Cinema Noida 10am, 2:10pm,
6:30pm, 10:40pm.
Margarita With A
Straw
Wave Cinema, Noida 12.20pm.
Director's Cut,
Vasantkunj -8:20pm.
PVR Anupam, Saket 11:35am.
PVR Select City Walk 4:30pm.
PVR Naraina -9:55pm.
PVR Pacific Mall 3:05pm.
PVR Mahagun 9:10pm.
PVR
Ambience,Gurgaon 12:30pm, 5:30pm,
10:30pm.
PVR MGF, Gurgaon 3:45pm, 10:45pm.
DT Star Promenade,
Vasantkunj -10.45am,
6.20pm, 8.35pm.
DT Star, Saket 10.50am, 5.45pm,
10.55pm.
Spice Cinema Noida 12pm, 8:30pm.
MALAYALAM FILM
Chandrettan Evideya
PVR Naraina 12:20pm.
PVR Mahagun 1:40pm
PVR MGF, Gurgaon 1:10pm.
DT Star Promenade,
Vasantkunj -11.00
am.
Spice Cinema
Noida -4:10pm.
A scene from
Avengers: Age Of
Ultron
ENGAGEMENTS
INDIA INTERNATIONAL
CENTRE
BOOK
DISCUSSION GROUP TO
DISCUSS "APPLIED
DIPLOMACY: THROUGH
THE
PRISM
OF
MYTHOLOGY:WRITINGS
OF T.P. SREENIVASAN",
EDITED BY DIVYA S. IYER,
BY DR. BIBEK DEBROY,
AMBASSADOR B.S.
PRAKASH,
AMBASSADOR KANWAL
SIBAL,
MR
T.P.
SREENIVASAN AND DR.
DIVYA IYER, CHAIRED
BY MR SURESH PRABHU,
RAILWAY MINISTER, AT
THE
CONFERENCE
ROOM-I, 40, MAX
MUELLER MARG, 6.30
P.M.
MUSIC
INDIA INTERNATIONAL
CENTRE PRESENTS A
STAGED CONCERT OF
OPERA SOLOS AND
ENSEMBLES
BY
NEEMRANA MUSIC
FOUNDATION IN A
PROGRAMME OF SOLOS,
DUETS, ENSEMBLES AND
CHOIR MASTERPIECES
BY MOZART, BIZET,
VERDI AND OTHERS AT
THE AUDITORIUM, 40,
MAX MUELLER MARG,
6.30 P.M.
ROAD, 11 A.M. TO 7 P.M.
(TILL 31 MAY)
VISUAL ARTS GALLERY
PRESENTS "RED, WHITE
& BLUE", A SOLO
PHOTOGRAPHY
EXHIBITION BY SHARAD
HAKSAR, AT INDIA
HABITAT CENTRE, LODHI
HABITAT
WORLD ROAD, 11 A.M. TO 7 P.M.
PRESENTS SOLO TABLA (TILL 10 MAY)
RECITAL BY ROMAAN LALIT KALA ACADEMY
KHAN, DISCIPLE OF ORGANISES ART SHOW
USTAD HASHMAT ALI BY
RENOWNED
KHAN, FOLLOWED BY KOLKATA-BASED
HINDUSTANI VOCAL ARTISTS MALAY DAS,
RECITAL BY USTAD SUBUDDHA GHOSH AND
IQBAL AHMED KHAN AT
ATISH THAKUR, AT
INDIA HABITAT CENTRE,
MANDI HOUSE, 11 A.M.
LODHI ROAD, 7 P.M.
TO 7P.M. (TILL 7 MAY)
EXHIBITIONS
WORLD
HABITAT
HABITAT
WORLD PRESENTS SOLO SHOW
PRESENTS "KAL KE OF PAINTINGS BY ROHIT
KUCH
PAL",
AN SHARMA AT THE
EXHIBITION
OF CONVENTION CENTRE
PHOTOGRAPHS BY FOYER, INDIA HABITAT
AADIL JAMAL AT DELHI CENTRE, LODHI ROAD, 11
O' DELHI FOYER, INDIA A.M. TO 7 P.M. (TILL 7
HABITAT CENTRE, LODHI MAY)
NEED TO KNOW
Ambulance
FD Block Association (Amb)
9830452536, 9830181286
Happy Calcuttans 24400160
City Point Nurses Centre
2567-4113, 9831142623
People’s Relief Committee
2280-4943/9444
Life Care 2284-6940
Peoples Blood Bank
2455-5164/ 5557
RK Mission Seva Pratisthan
2475-3636/39
Police/Fire
Lalbazar (Police Control
Room) 22143230
S. P. (North 24-Pgns)
24 hrs Medical Oxygen
25423005
Delivery
S.P. (South 24-Pgns) 2479BOC India Ltd. 9831277777
3333/1311
Bhawani Bhawan
Blood Banks
24791761/9, 24791933
Ashok Laboratory 24720333
Fire Service Station Salt
Central Blood Bank 23510619 Lake: 2357-5293;
RED EYE/Bill Yates & Mel Casson
ACROSS
1 Floating marker (4)
4 Prohibited (6)
9 Go before (7)
10 Question closely (5)
11 Woollen cloth (5)
12 Slide (7)
13 Artificial (6)
15 Every time (6)
18 Aimless wanderer
(7)
20 Bubbly mass (5)
21 Length of metal
links (5)
22 Fan (7)
23 Creamy dessert (6)
24 Stink (4)
3.30pm, 4.20pm, 5pm,
6.10pm, 7pm, 8.50pm,
9.40pm, 10.25pm,
11pm, 11.30pm.
DT Star, Saket -10am,
11am, 12.15pm,
12.40pm, 1.40pm,
2.55pm, 3.20pm,
4.20pm, 5.30pm, 6pm,
7pm, 8pm, 8.40pm,
9.40pm, 10.40pm,
11.20pm.
DT City Centre,
Shalimar Bagh -10am,
11.15am, 12.40pm,
1.55pm, 3.20pm,
3.45pm, 4.35pm, 6pm,
7.15pm, 8.40pm,
9.10pm, 10pm,
11.20pm, 11.50pm.
DT City Centre,
Gurgaon -10.05am,
11am, 12.45pm,
1.40pm, 3.25pm,
4.20pm, 6.05pm, 7pm,
8.45pm, 9.40pm,
11.25pm.
DT Mega Mall,
Gurgaon -10.05am,
10.50am, 12.45pm,
1.30pm, 3.25pm,
4.10pm, 6.05pm, 7pm,
8.45pm, 9.40pm,
11.25pm.
Spice Cinema Noida 10am, 10:30am,
11:15am, 12Noon,
12:30pm, 1pm,
1:45pm, 2:30pm,
3pm,3:30pm, 4:15pm,
5pm, 5:30pm, 6pm,
6:45pm, 7:30pm, 8pm,
8:30pm, 9:15pm,
10pm, 10:30pm,
11:15pm.
Howrah 2666-8111; Behala
2497-6285
Police Toll Free No. 1073
Transport Deptt. No. 64516718
Civic Services
Kolkata Municipal
Corporation: 2286-1000
Water: 2543-1602
CESC Fault Reporting
1912 and 4403-1912
Calcutta Telephones
Changed Number
Announcement
1951,1952,1953
Taxi Refusal
SMS 575756: Complaint and
registration
Trains
Howrah Station Old Complex
1331/1332 (Auto Telephone
Numbers), 1310, 26387412/3542/2581 (manual).
Sealdah: 2350-3535/3537
Shalimar Station: 2668-1121,
Eastern Railway and SouthEastern Railway: 139.
SUDOKU
DOWN
2 Ineffectual (7)
3 Profit (5)
4 Bosom (6)
5 Conjugal (7)
6 Era (5)
7 Suet pudding (7,4)
8 Fairground ride (6,5)
14 Lockjaw (7)
16 Christian missionary
(7)
17 Card game (6)
19 US state (5)
20 Passion (5)
SOLUTIONS TO YESTERDAY’S CROSSWORD
12 Trough,
6 Accept,
ACROSS
DOWN
14 Visage,
7 Deep,
1 Pawns,
1 Panic,
17 Pat,
13 Optimal,
2 Weeping
4 Tar (Porn
18 Ineffable,
15 Exeter,
star),
willow,
20
Camel,
16 Census,
8 Condemn,
3 Sandal,
21 Squeeze,
9 Eagle,
4 The Magic 17 Puck,
19 Bleat.
10 Enchilada, 22 Law,
Flute,
23
Smelt.
11 Tip,
5 Regatta,
By arrangement with The Independent
Figures in parentheses denote
the number of letters in the words required
HENRY/Dick Hodgins
Directions Make a 2 to
7 letter word from the
letters in each row.
Add points of each
word, using scoring
directions at right, 7letter words get 50point bonus. "Blanks"
used as any letter
have no point value.
All Judd's words are
in The Official
Scrabble Players
Dictionary(MerriamWebster) and OSW
Official Scrabble
crabble and Scrabble Tiles are registered trademarks. All Words(Chambers).
rights in the game are owned in the U.S.A by Hasbro Inc., Judd's solution
in Canada by Hasbro Canada Inc., and elsewhere by J.W. tomorrow.
Spear & Sons Limited, a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc.
10-25-12
Answer to
previous
puzzle
Sudoku is a number-placing
puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with
several given numbers. The
object is to place the numbers 1
to 9 in the empty squares so
that no row, no column and no
3x3 box contains the same
number. The difficulty level
increases through the week.
An advance aircraft such as Rafale can be
produced in India after transfer of technology.
DEFENCE MINISTER MANOHAR PARRIKAR
SPEAKING ON THE RAFALE DEAL
HC DIRECTS WBMC
TO TAKE ACTION
AGAINST
NEGLIGENT DOCS
Kolkata 5 May: In a significant order that may have
major implications on negligent medical practices in
the state, the Division Bench
of Chief Justice Manjula
Chellur and Justice Joymalya Bagchi today directed the West Bengal Medical
Council (WBMC) that it
must abide by the order
passed last January by the
Medical Council of India
(MCI) which had directed
WBMC to suspend the medical licenses of the three
Kolkata doctors (Dr. Tapan
Mukherhee, Dr. Joydip
Basu and Dr. Kamal Kumar
Das) for a period between
1 and 5 years after holding
them guilty for medical negligence causing the death
of a young woman following a gall bladder surgery.
The court further directed WBMC not to proceed on
their investigation any further and to take immediate
action against the three
guilty doctors in accordance with the MCI order.
Instead of suspending
the medical registration
of the three doctors, WBMC
started a new investigation. The three doctors had
moved the court against the
MCI, challenging its findings and the order of cancellation of their medical
licences.
The victim, Mr. Biman
Saha Roy whose wife died
from a botched gall bladder
surgerycame to People for
Better Treatment (PBT)
seeking help to find justice.
In view of today’s order,
PBT is going to move a
Public Interest Litigation
bringing before the court
all such cases of deliberate
shielding of negligent doctors.
SNS
‘MODI, MAMATA MEET
FOR MUTUAL INTEREST’
SELIM SAYS BJP NEEDS TMC FOR PASSING SEVERAL IMPORTANT BILLS
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Kolkata, 5 May
The CPI-M and the Congress today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
West Bengal Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee were coming closer “in a new political equation” for their
“mutual interest”.
Reacting to the recent
developments, particularly after Mamata Banerjee’s
seeking appointment with
the Prime Minister during
his coming visit to the state,
Md Selim said that under the
new political understanding
reached between the two,
“one may easily note that
there has been perceptible
change in the relations and
that is for mutual political
interest”.
“In the role of the Trinamul Congress MPs inside
Parliament towards the NDA
government, particularly
in the passage of controversial bills like insurance,
coal and in the debate on GST
bill, it is clear how close are
the two parties now.” he
said.
“In return, we presume
that the prime minister has
asked the CBI to slow down
the ongoing probe into the
Saradha chit funds scam
against Trinamul Congress,
particularly about the
quizzing of its supremo as
well as the suspended leader
Mukul Roy,” the CPI-M politburo member said.
Md Selim said that its
the Trinamul Congress
chief ’s “political tactics” to
resist the CBI probe “by
her change in political stand
towards Narendra Modi”,
who, in turn, made the gesture “to come closer to Trinamul Congress”.
“In the process, the state
BJP is playing the role of
cheerleader only,” he
remarked.
Congress leader Abdul
Mannan said Mr Modi and
Miss Banerjee “needed each
other for mutual gain.”
Mr Modi, he said, was
desperate to get Trinamul’s
support for passing several
important Bills, including
the GST and Indo-Bangla
land Bill, in the Rajya Sabha,
whereas Miss Banerjee needed the Prime Minister’s help
in “diluting the probe into
the Saradha scam in connection of which several
key Trinamul leaders have
been arrested”.
07
Officials clarify on LG-Delhi
govt jurisdiction row
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
Delhi government officials
today clarified that there is
no confrontation with the
Lieutenant Governor's (LG)
office over routing of files,but
highlighted that the demarcation of jurisdiction was not
clear,and this can be resolved
through dialogue between
the two offices.
The clarifications come
after LG Najeeb Jung had on
Sunday ordered withdrawal
of Chief Minister Arvind
Kejriwal's directions to Delhi
government officials to not
route files through the LG's
office. However, no fresh
directions have been issued
by Delhi Government so far.
The LG's move came in
response to a recent letter from
Kejriwal to all the government
departments directing them
“not to bother the office of the
Lieutenant Governor” to
improve government efficiency citing Article 74, 163
and 167 of the Constitution
and Section 41 and 45 of
GNCTD Act, 1991.
According to a senior government official, there is no
confrontation between the
state and LG, and the recent
order by the Chief Minister
not to send files to LG office
was to improve government's
efficiency. Delhi Government
officials said they are ready
to discuss the role and jurisdiction of the two offices and
demarcate the boundaries.
Highlighting jurisdiction
conflict, a senior government official pointed out that
appointment of Commissioner of Police is defined
under Section 55(2)(b) of
Transaction of Business
Rules,1993.However,appointment of Chief Secretary,Secretary (Home) and Secretary
(Land) takes place after consulting the state government
and the same rule applies for
the appointment of CP.
Officials claim that no
consultation was done before
Commissioner's appointment. Senior government
officials claim that as per provision under the Transaction
of Business rules, LG shall
consult the Chief Minister on
matters related to police,
land and public order.
Government officials mentioned that Section 23 of
Transaction of Business
Rules states that matters
which affect or are likely to
affect the peace and tranquility of the Capital, interest of minority community,
relations of government with
any state government shall
essentially be submitted to the
LG through the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister before issuing any order.
They also explained the
debate over the jurisdiction
of Anti Corruption Branch
(ACB). “ACB recently arrested a Delhi Police constable and
the matter was taken up in a
trial court where both the parties presented their notification and judge gave three
days custody to ACB, clarifying its jurisdiction,” an
official said.
Mamata for enclave exchange
MUTE PLEA
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Siliguri, 5 May
PROBE ORDERS...
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Mr Hooda’s officer on special duty), Mr Pardeep
Kumar (son of Mr Singh
Ram posted as secretary to
the then chief minister Mr
Hooda) and Mr Kanwar
Preet Singh Sandhu (a family member of Lt. General
(retd.) DDS Sandhu, who is
vice chancellor of Kurukshetra University).
The remaining beneficiaries were Mr Dagar
Katyal (related to a senior
deputy advocate general,
Haryana), Dr Ganesh Dutt
Ratan (a close friend of Mr
Hooda), Mr Aman Gupta
(son of a former Congress
legislator from Thanesar),
Lt. Col. OP Dahiya (retd)
who is a relative of a former
Congress MLA from Palwal
and M/s YPT Entertainment House Pvt. Ltd whose
proprietor Mr Sidharth
Bhardwaj is son of Mr Sanjeev Bhardwaj “enjoys very
close proximity” to the former Chief Minister.
The 11th beneficiary is
Ms Manjot Kaur, the daughter-in-law of Mr Justice
MS Sullar of Punjab and
Haryana High Court. Her
husband Mr Prabhjeet
Singh was posted as additional advocate general,
Haryana.
During the recent
Assembly session,the industries minister Capt Abhimanyu had said that “there
were some question marks
about the genuineness of the
candidates who have been
allotted industrial plots”.
He had said the issue was
pending in the court and the
state government would
abid by the directions of the
Punjab and Haryana High
Court. However, the minister had assured that “the
state government would
get the matter investigated
because the government
also felt that the entire matter needed to be investigated”.
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
Members under the aegis of National Association of the Deaf protest outside Shastri Bhavan against the government’s decision to merge the Indian Sign
Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC) with Ali Yavar Jung National Institute. In the capital on Tuesday. � SNS
Governor to examine BengalEC
report on civic polls violence
SULAGNA SENGUPTA
sulagna@thestatesman.net
Kolkata 5 May
Governor Mr Keshrinath
Tripathi is examining the
report sent by the State
ElectionCommissioner
(SEC) Mr Susanta Ranjan
Upadhyay on the violence
during the recent civic polls.
Mr Tripathi had sought
the report after receiving
many complaints by the
Opposition parties regarding booth jamming , and terror campaign by ruling Trinamul Congress.
Mr Triapthi admitted
STICKER FUSS
SUSPENSIONS
The Superintendent of Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital
was today suspended in connection with pasting of stickers reading 'bhukamp' (earthquake) on the foreheads of
injured persons in the recent
temblor among other reasons.
DMCH Superintendent
Shankar Jha was suspended and Senior Deputy Superintendent S K Mishra made
In-charge Superintendent of
the hospital,Health Secretary
Anand Kishore said.
PTI
Patna, 5 May:
that he has received the
report from various sources
and the process of re-examining the reports of violence
during the polls is going on.
Sources in the Raj Bhavan said that the process of
compilation of all the
reports of the pre- poll violence as well as post- poll violence that has been submitted by SEC as well as
other Opposition parties
are being looked after and
a final decision will be taken
after the reports were examined. Governor has also
sought report on the violence perpetrated during
the re-polling in various
districts too.
On 22 April, the Governor summoned Mr Upadhyay at Raj Bhavan to
enquire into the measures
that were taken to prevent
violence for the municipal
elections to be held on districts slated on 25 April.
Significantly although
Mr Upadhyay met with the
Governor and discussed
the issue, but violence continued to remain unabated
in districts as well.
A TMC worker was shot
dead while another suffered
a bullet injury in Burdwan
and North 24 Parganas districts as voting began in 91
municipalities across West
Bengal on 22 April.
Indrajit Singh(30) a TMC
worker was shot at from
point blank range at a
polling booth near Katwa
bus stand in Burdwan District. He died on the spot. On
18 April, a sub-inspector of
the Kolkata Police, Jagannath Mandal was shot at by
TMC goons just an hour
after voting closed in
Kolkata. Mandal sustained
serious injuries and has
been admitted to CMRI hospital.
As the Union Cabinet today
okayed the draft of the
Land Boundary Agreement
(LBA) with Bangladesh,
chief minister Mamata
Banerjee said that her gover nment supports the
exchange of enclaves as
“that is what the people
have always wanted.”
Addressing the Press at
Uttarkanya, the government’s north Bengal secretariat here, Miss Banerjee also said that the government needs to ready the
infrastructure for the thousands of people who will be
displaced after the LBA
implementation and who
will be coming to the state.
“We agreed to support the
agreement after talking to
the people. More land from
this side (around 17,000
acres) is going there, while
the land we will be getting
is less,” she said.
“Around 60,000-70,000
people will come here after
the implementation of the
LBA, and we need to build
roads and hospitals and
keep other infrastructure
ready to accommodate them,
for their livelihood,” she
added. According to her,
people are living in the
enclaves in a pathetic condition. “We agreed to this
agreement as the people
want this to happen, and
since it is a humanitarian
issue,” she said.
Miss Banerjee said they
had sent to the Centre a proposal for a special rehabilitation package for those
people.
The CM further said that
she will raise the issue of
non-availability of central
funds for various government schemes and the social
security sectors when she
meets Prime Minister
Narendra Modi in Kolkata
on 9 May.
“In various government
schemes here, the Centre
has either reduced the
INFOSYS’ MISSIVE TO WEST BENGAL GOVERNMENT
‘Give SEZ status or repay money’
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
it.
Kolkata, 5 May
Mr Hakim, under whose ministry
HIDCO comes, insisted : “There is
no such development about the
Infosys giving any ultimatum.”
HIDCO, a wing of the state government, is the custodian of land in
Rajarhat-New Town area.
State minister Partha Chatterjee
said the state government had
“faith” in Infosys “which is an international organisation”. “Why will
the company move out of the state,
it has to stay here,” Mr Chatterjee
said when asked whether the IT
major was planning to relocate its
project to any other state the way the
Tata Motors had done with its Nano
project.
Former IT minister Debesh Das
said if that happned it would be a
major blow to “the state's economy
which is already in bad shape”. “We
gave the land to Infosys and there's
no dispute over it. The project would
effectively create over 1 lakh jobs
and already over four years had
been lost without any forward movement. There shouldn't be any difficulty in granting the SEZ status,”
Mr Das added.
A purported missive to the state government by IT major Infosys asking
it to either grant SEZ
status to the company's proposed
software development centre at
Rajarhat or repay the money it had
given in advance for the land created
a commotion today in politicalindustrial circles.
“We have told the state government that it should either give us the
SEZ status or return the money paid
for the land,” a senior Infosys official reportedly communicated to the
state goverment.
The previous Left Front government had promised the company
that it would give SEZ status for
starting the project which had the
prospect of creating 20,000 direct
jobs. “But the present government is
not at all willing to honour that commitment ,” the official is believed to
have said.
This was supposed to be the first
Infosys centre in the state. “Even if
governments change, the continuity
in policies should not. We have
immense faith in West Bengal”, he
reportedly said.
Infosys had paid Rs 75 crore to
HIDCO for the land at Rajarhat.
According to industry sources
the state government needed only to
forward the Infosys proposal for SEZ
to the Centre with a recommendation. The company has its presence
in 11 states across the country and
all of them had done exactly that, it
was learnt.
The state government, however
denied it had received any written
communication from Infosys
regarding the option that it is
believed to have given.
State urban development and
municipal affairs minister Firhad
Hakim said HIDCO handled the project and it might have got any communication, but the state government had till now no knowledge of
amount of funds or stopped
funding them at all. This
includes the 100 days’ work
scheme, funds for backward
district programmes, including in Darjeeling, the Jungle Mahal areas, ICDS, Sarba
Siksha Mission and modernization of the police
force,” she said.
08
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
Vol. CXXXXVI 105
Incorporating and directly descended from
THE FRIEND OF INDIA - Founded 1818
Bottlenecks in Nepal
unday’s rescue of 105-year-old Funchu Tamang from beneath the rubble ~ a full week
after the catastrophe in Nepal ~ has been one
of the incredible success stories of the international rescue mission. That reassuring thought
must, however, be tempered with the UN’s caveat,
in itself a comment on the level of cooperation
between Nepal and the comity of nations in the
aftermath of one of the deadliest environmental
disasters. The government in Kathmandu has
been urged to relax import restrictions that are
hampering the delivery of international humanitarian supplies to earthquake victims struggling
to find food, water and a roof over their heads.
This isn’t the moment for Nepal to adopt a unilateral stance in matters of relief and rehabilitation,
let alone a contrived fuss over customs clearance.
Financial “compulsions” are of lesser moment
than the international relief agenda. Discernible
is a measure of dissatisfaction within the UN, one
that can be contextualised with the UN’s humanitarian chief, Baroness Valerie Amos’ diplomatic
reminder to Nepal’s Prime Minister, Sushil
Koirala, that he had signed an agreement in 2007 to
allow simpler and faster customs clearance for
relief in the event of a disaster. The fineprint of
the reminder must be that the government has
conveyed the impression of backtracking. Ten
days after the tremblor that shook the Himalayan
country to its foundations, it beggars belief that
consignments of aid are still piling up at Kathmandu airport, waiting to be taken to affected towns
and villages... with people crying out for relief.
With more than 7300 killed, the international relief
effort has been ramped up. Truth to tell, the government in Kathmandu ought to be grateful for the
promptitude that has marked the international
effort. Enough have perished and many more incapacitated. It is Nepal’s tragedy that insistence on
customs and excise nitty-gritty should impede the
despatch of assistance that has already arrived.
As confusion gets worse confounded, logistics
have turned out to be another bottleneck. Humanitarian intervention, in quite the most profound
sense of the term, has been hamstrung not least
because Nepal’s only international airport has
stopped large relief planes from landing; its only
runway will, the authorities fear, be damaged by
the weight of large aircraft. Not that the runway
has suffered damage; the fear of the civil aviation
authorities might turn out to be a case of overreaction. While medium and small jets will be
allowed to land, the airport has room for nine aircraft on the tarmac at any one time, which creates
yet another bottleneck in the supply chain. The
outlook is direly forbidding considering a senior
civil aviation official’s statement: “The runway
was built to handle only medium-sized jets and not
the large military and cargo planes that have been
arriving since the quake.’’ Equally, Nepal can
scarcely afford the unsplendid isolation. The crisis
deepens with Monday’s directive to 34 foreign rescue teams to quit.
S
Coast Guard betrayal
A
n affidavit filed by KR Nautial, Deputy
Director-General of Indian Coast Guard, in
the Madurai Bench of the Madras High
Court on a contempt petition against officials for disobeying orders to provide security to
fishermen in the Palk Bay betrays its contempt for
fishermen, poorest of the poor in the country, and
ignorance of the legal position. The affidavit stated that 36,865 Indian fishing boats had crossed the
International Boundary Line in the Palk Bay and
indulged in poaching as well as smuggling in Sri
Lankan waters between January 2014 and February this year and that the Sri Lankan Navy had
evidence to prove it. The External Affairs Ministry
should read out to Coast Guard officials Articles 5
and 6 of the treaty India and Sri Lanka signed on
26 June 1974 while ceding Kachchativu, an integral
part of Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu,
to Sri Lanka. The deed was signed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on behalf of India, and Srimavo
RD Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
Article 5 says, “Indian fishermen and pilgrims will
enjoy access to visit Kachchativu as hitherto and
will not be required by Sri Lanka to obtain travel
documents or visas for these purposes.” Article 6
says, “The vessels of India and Sri Lanka will
enjoy in each other’s waters such rights as they
have traditionally enjoyed therein.” The treaty has
neither been amended nor abrogated and as long
as it remains valid Articles 5 and 6 also remain
valid. The agreement that officials of the two
countries signed on 23 March 1976 said in its preamble itself that the boundary in the ‘historic
waters’ of Palk Strait has already been settled by
the Kachchativu agreement.
The Sri Lankan Navy has installed surveillance radars in Kachchativu and captured images
of the 36,865 Indian fishing boats engaged in legitimate activity. It is most unfortunate the Coast
Guard should swallow hook, line and sinker the
propaganda put out by the Sri Lankan Navy to
deny Indian fishermen their legitimate right. The
ill-informed affidavit gives a handle to the Sri
Lanka government to take away the livelihood of
Indian fishermen. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s advice to impoverished fishermen to
desist crossing the IMBL in the ‘historic waters’ of
Palk Bay and to take to deep-sea fishing is like the
callous advice of Queen Marie Antoinette to poor
peasants of France who could not afford to buy
bread to eat cake. Deep-sea fishing is not only capital intensive, it also requires specialised training.
The BJP government of Narendra Modi is committed to solving the problem of fishermen in the
Palk Bay region. If it cannot make Colombo see
reason and honour Articles 5 and 6, it should not
hesitate to abrogate the treaty ceding Kachchativu
to Sri Lanka.
Trial of Juveniles
A member of the
Asia News Network
THE TRANSFER OF A CHILD FROM JUVENILE
JUSTICE TO ADULT COURTS IS AS SEVERE
AS IMPOSITION OF DEATH PENALTY AS IT IS A
DECISION TO END HIS LIFE; THE DECISION TO
SEND A JUVENILE TO AN ADULT COURT IS ALSO
A DECISION TO END HIS CHILDHOOD. BOTH
DECISIONS SIGNIFY A LIFE NOT WORTH
SAVING
Small robot to
enter Fukushima
No. 2 reactor
C
enturies before Christ, Aristotle had characterized adolescents as less able to control their impulses and thus
more prone to taking risks than adults. He concluded
that “the young are heated by nature as drunken men by
wine.” In 1623, a shepherd in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s
Tale wished that “I wish there were no age between ten and
three and twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest: for
there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with
child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.” This
lament proves the latest scientific findings that adolescence
is a period of “storm
and stress.” Freud saw
adolescence as an expression of tortuous psychosexual conflict; Erik
Erikson, as the most tumultuous of life’s several identity crises. Adolescence has always
been a problem.
What a tragedy that
the 21st century government of a progressive
Prime Minister has
taken the regressive
decision to punish juveniles as adults and
sending them to prisons. The violation of
the cardinal principle of classical juvenile justice jurisprudence is justified due to the consequences attached to
heinous crimes committed by a few juveniles in the agegroup of sixteen to eighteen. But then the State’s response
in terms of repressive laws in violation of international law
is a case of the remedy being worse than the disease. Our
new labour law reforms are in violation of the rights of
labour; the land acquisition law against the interest of
farmers; the Union budget is tilted in favour of corporates
and makes huge reductions in terms of allocation to the
social sector; and now the Cabinet has approved the trial of
juveniles by adult courts under the new juvenile law.
It is too small a concession that the decision in this
respect would be made by the Juvenile Board. It seems all
vulnerable groups are suddenly at the receiving end. What
is surprising is that even the Prime Minister’s intervention
has not helped the cause of the juveniles. This is happening
when the Parliamentary Standing Committee in its 15 February 2015 report rejected the proposal of trial of juveniles
by adults. There is consensus amongst experts that putting
children with adult criminals is self-destructive and selfdefeating. Adolescents in conflict with law need adult guidance, not the company of hardened criminals. In the company of hardcore criminals they are bound to become street
gladiators. After all children learn only from adults.
While the Delhi gangrape was tragic, using this incident to take away the rights of juveniles is not justified. In
giving excessively wide definitions of crimes against
women, creating all kinds of presumptions against the
accused, shifting the burden of proof and providing very
harsh penalties such as death or life imprisonment till the
natural extinction of life, we are already violating the classical principles of criminal law. Similarly just because one
of the accused happened to be a juvenile, the proposal of
trial of juveniles by the adult courts is not justified. We
should not convert this into a battle between women and
children. To protect one vulnerable group we cannot take
away the rights of the other.
Children are not committing crimes on their own, but
in the company of adults. As children they tend to follow
adult accomplices in the commission of crime. Violent and
heinous crimes are generally committed by adolescents
when they are emotionally aroused and are with their adult
friends ~ these two factors lead to a dramatic increase in
the likelihood of their impulsivity and sensation. Why are
we condemning and demonizing our children? Where is the
authentic evidence of a rapid rise in the commission of
heinous crimes by juveniles in the age-group of sixteen to
eighteen?
By punishing juveniles as adults we may join the company of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and Yemen where children are still sentenced to death. In 2005, the Supreme
Court in America abolished death penalty for children
below 18 years of age. Recently it ruled against life imprisonment without parole in all juvenile crimes. It is painful to
note that the otherwise liberal
apex court of India has of late
been insisting on harsher penalties for juveniles.
As regards the rise in juvenile involvement in heinous
crimes, facts speak for themselves. The problem is not as
serious as it is made out by the
media, government and judges.
In 2012, approximately 434 milFAIZAN MUSTAFA
lion children were below the
age of 18 in India. While no clear figures are available for
children in need of care and protection, in a report submitted to the Supreme Court in Bachpan Bachao Andolan case,
the government declared that 40 per cent of the children
were vulnerable to the commission of crimes. With such a
large number of children susceptible to crimes, one would
expect a huge majority of them getting involved in criminal
activities. However, the number of children even alleged to
have committed an offence is relatively trifling. A total of
39,822 children were arrested for the commission of 31,973
incidents of crime in 2012; 35346 among these were new
cases while 4476 were repeat offenders. Out of 39,822 children arrested, 2572 were acquitted or otherwise disposed off
and only 18,529 children were found to have committed any
offence in India in 2012. Cases of 10,721 children were pending disposal.
Out of the total
incidence of crime,
27,936 crimes were committed under the Indian Penal Code (IPC)
and 4,037 under the
Special and Local Laws
(SLL). Children committed just 1.2 per cent
of the total of 2,387,188
crimes. Thus out of
100,000 children, only
2.3 children were
arrested for commission of any offence. In
the past decade, juvenile crime has shown
only a slight increase.
Compared to western
countries, the figures of juvenile delinquency in India are
quite low. The UK and the USA have a rate in the range of
11 to 13 per cent. But neither of these two countries are
thinking in terms of juvenile trial by adult courts.
The United Nations has recommended 12 years as the
minimum age of criminal responsibility and non-transfer
of children to adult proceedings till the age of 18 years. We
will face a lot of criticism by lowering the age of juveniles
from 18 to 16 years. Teenagers prosecuted in adult courts
fare worse in life and can go on to commit more violent
crimes than those who are handled by the juvenile justice
system. Transfer of children from juvenile justice has serious repercussions on children and must not be done without scientific reasons. As a matter of fact evidence shows
that the rate of recidivism is higher amongst juveniles who
are sent to adult criminal justice system and the proposed
change would not achieve its stated objective. The transfer
of a child from juvenile justice to adult courts is as severe
as imposition of death penalty as it is a decision to end his
life; the decision to send a juvenile to adult court is a decision to end his childhood. Both decisions signify a life not
worth saving.
There is consensus among neuroscientists that adolescence is an age of significant change in brain structure and
functions. Significant changes take place in brain anatomy
and activity far longer into development than was previously thought. The US Supreme Court discussed this at length
in the Simmons case which abolished death sentence for
juveniles. Adults are able to employ a wider network of
brain regions in comparison to adolescents and thus are
successful in controlling themselves. As a modern and progressive society we should distinguish between people who
are to be held criminally liable and those adolescents who
need societal care and protection. Let the science and not
government decide where to draw the line.
There is no authentic scientific basis either to conclude
that children in the age group of 16 to 18 cannot be reformed
at all. In fact adolescents, even older adolescents, are totally
different from adults as their brains are not yet fully mature
and they cannot yet make rational and conscious decisions.
Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge of New York Court, rightly
said that the ability of making reasoned decisions and
weighing of consequences is not manifest till 18 years of
age. Even teenagers in the age-group of 16 to 18 have difficulty with impulse-control and with resisting outside influences and peer pressure. They lack the capacity to fully
appreciate the consequences of their actions. At the same
time, the systems in the brain that control emotions are
highly activated, leading some to describe the teenage brain
as “all drive and no brakes.” In addition to being more
immature, the teenage brain is also more “plastic,” meaning that it is more malleable and capable of change. Is it the
beginning of acchhe din of our children?
THE WRITER IS THE VICE-CHANCELLOR OF NALSAR UNIVERSITY OF LAW, HYDERABAD
ASIAN VOICES
A
new small robot will be
used to inspect the condition of melted
nuclear fuel at the second reactor of the Fukushima
No. 1 nuclear power plant as
early as this summer, marking
the first full-scale probe since
the disaster caused by the massive earthquake and ensuing
tsunami in 2011.
The use of the robot, which
is now being developed, will
mark the initial step toward
removal of the melted fuel from
Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s
nuclear facility, which may
begin in 2021, according to
sources close to TEPCO and
other related entities.
The results of the inspection will be used to help work
out the
details of a
design for
the robot tasked with removing
the fuel. Two robots were sent
into the No. 1 reactor in April
to examine the condition of the
area around the pressure vessel, photographing debris and
other damage.
In the probe of the No. 2
reactor, on the other hand, a
robot will be sent in via a work
route that passes through the
bottom of the pressure vessel,
into the center of the containment vessel.
The fuel in the Nos. 1-3
reactors has melted, but the No.
2 reactor was chosen for the
first inspection since its route
to the lower pressure vessel
was not damaged as much as
the other reactors.
Based on computer simulations, some of the melted fuel
in the No. 2 reactor is thought
to have fallen to the bottom of
the containment vessel.
If the area directly under
the pressure vessel can be photographed, TEPCO could confirm how the fuel melted and
dropped down, and whether it
has accumulated in the bottom
of the containment vessel.
The position and shape of
the melted fuel would be used
to decide the functions, capacities and other aspects of the
robots that will be needed to
remove the fuel.
The robot to be used in this
probe is being developed by the
International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID), whose members
are domestic power companies
and related manufacturers.
The robot is 54 centimetres
long, but has a width and
height of only nine centimetres, so it can fit through the
pipe leading to the reactor.
It is controlled remotely
via a cable. After passing
through the pipe and entering
the containment vessel, its rear
portion flips upward, making it
look something like a scorpion.
A camera and LED light on
its front end will be used to photograph the vessel, and it is also
equipped to measure temperature and radiation levels.
Toshiba Corp., which is
leading the development project, has been conducting
experiments with the robot
using a mock-up of the No. 2
reactor at its offices in Yokohama.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
BJP must reflect on Shourie’s remarks
SIR, This refers to your editorial, ‘Cowardly deafness’ (5 May).
Arun Shourie’s criticism of the
government has caused a flutter in the roost. There has to be
a conducive atmosphere if rapid industrialisation is to achieve fruition. On this will depend whether Narendra Modi’s
“Make in India” slogan will be
effective. However, the BJP
leadership has not accorded
much importance to Mr Shourie’s remarks. Minister Piyush
Goyal has described him as a
“fair-weather friend”.
Nevertheless, the BJP
needs to reflect on Mr Shourie’s
criticism. He has attacked the
present dispensation and accused the trimurti of Modi, Arun
Jaitley and Amit Shah of controlling all and everything. Mr
Shourie has also raised the
ghar wapsi issue, one that needs to be addressed by the government to protect the country’s secular credentials. For all
that, it is early days to judge the
performance of the government. That evaluation can be car-
TELEVISION MENACE
ried out after it completes its
five-year term.
Yours, etc., Jayant Mukherjee,
Kolkata, 5 May.
COMPULSIVE CRITIC
SIR, The Congress vice-president, Rahul Gandhi’s vacation
has brought about no change in
his brand of politics. He has
nothing new to offer. He continues to attack the Modi government without logic. This
compulsive criticism will not
yield political dividend. In the
manner of Narendra Modi, he
is trying to extend the ambit of
his contacts with the people ~
first it was the farmers; now it
is the middle class which nurtures a dream to own a house.
This technique has failed.
Modi’s charisma is on the decline on the first anniversary of
his government. The common
man is still groping for a solution to his problems. Like Modi,
Rahul is encouraging aam aadmi to dream. Instead of criticising the government, he should
offer practical solutions.
Yours, etc., M Kumar,
New Delhi, 4 May.
CONSPICUOUS OMISSION
SIR, The Ministry of Youth
Affairs and Sports has selected
45 athletes for financial assistance under the Target
Olympic Podium (TOP)
scheme. They include 17 shooters, six shuttlers. five athletes,
SIR, Apropos “Ramananda’s Writings” in the Notebook (4
May), I have come to know that the eminent editor had spoken
his mind on ‘obscene advertisements’. It is so unfortunate that
today there is no one like him who can oppose the display of
the crass and the ugliest of advertisements to titillate both the
young and the old. We are victims of gross violation of our
right to privacy and cannot view the news or even listen to
serious socio-political discussions without these vulgar ads
being imposed upon us. Regretfully, even toddlers often repeat
what they hear. Those who run the television channels have
no commitment to society and look for monetary gains only.
Why can’t the government take recourse to the imposition of
censorship according to Article 19 of the Constitution for
decency and morality? Through this column, I would appeal to
all to end this menace immediately.
Yours, etc., Sucheta Ghosh, Kolkata, 4 May.
seven wrestlers, eight boxers,
and two sailors.
One notable omission is
the celebrated athlete, O P
Jaisha. She is one of India’s
most promising and talented
athletes. Her dedication, devotion and determination can be
gauged from the fact that with
just three months of training
she has participated in Mum-
bai Marathon. She won the race
(2:37:29) and broke the 20-year
record on her debut.
To complete the gruelling
42 km race is a stupendous
task; breaking a two-decade
record is unprecedented in the
annals of the world’s athletics
history.
Yours, etc., EM Adithyan,
Edapal (Kerala), 2 May.
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
09
And what does ‘home’ mean?
Abhik Roy
T
he word “home” has many meanings. It could mean a house, a city,
a neighbourhood, a country, or
even a place where the sick and
the elderly reside. It can also suggest what kind of family one hails
from, for example, a “broken
home.” For many, the word
“home” might imply a strong
social unit where family bonds
are established, maintained and
reinforced. Others may regard a
home as an important site of cultural expression that projects who
they are. For others, it could be
the architectural design of a
building and the décor of the
rooms that psychologically transform the house into a home. A
home is also considered the safe
place where we can go as we are
and not be fearful.
A home serves varied needs: a
repository of memories, a sanctuary from the outside world, and a
cocoon where one feels nurtured.
A person without a fixed abode is
suspect in many societies. There
are several negative labels for
people without a fixed home:
“homeless,” “street person,”
“vagrant,” “hobo,” and “bum,”
among others. Lacking a home
address could be a major impediment for someone who is seeking
a job, renting an apartment, buying a house, opening a bank
account, obtaining a driver’s
license, or trying to vote.
I wonder what constitutes
home for someone like me who
left his ancestral home in Kolkata
about 30 years ago in order to
relocate to the United States. Is it
the house in Kolkata where I grew
up, which provided me with a
sense of belonging and stability?
Where I have so many happy
memories? Or is it my condominium in Santa Monica in California
that I own and where I reside?
Where I have my friends? Does
owning a house and residing
there make it a home?
When I ponder the notion of
“home,” I think of my house in
Tollygunge where I spent my formative years. I cherish all the
sweet memories, intimate situa-
CROSSWORD
tions, feelings of warmth and
security experienced in that
house. I associate my Tollygunge
home with valued experiences
with my parents, younger brother
and my relatives. I remember significant events like my parent’s
25th marriage anniversary and
my younger brother’s wedding,
which was celebrated with
much splendour and gaiety.
On other occasions such as Poila
Baishak and Bijoya
Dashami, my mother would regale our
family with her culinary
delights. I also remember
how much I looked forward
to Lakshmi Puja not for the
rituals but to savour my
mother’s “Narkel Naru,”
“Phita,” and “Puli.” To our
great delight, my mother
often cooked several kinds of
Cantonese food, which she
had learned from a Chinese
lady. Many a happy family
gathering around scrumptious food took on special
meaning and significance
and became part of my contemplative memory. During
those fun-filled days of growing up in that house, I
thought, like the famous
Mary Hopkins’ song, those
were the days that would never
end.
However, like life, nothing
stays the same. My father and all
my uncles and aunts from my
father’s side have left this world.
My mother has sold our house
and moved to a smaller flat. There
are no birthday celebrations or
family get-togethers at my mother’s new place anymore. A doleful
quietude pervades her house.
There are many days when no one
visits my mother or calls her on
the phone. During my visits to
Kolkata, I realise that I have no
sense of association or history
with my mother’s new house. I
also realise rather painfully how
much my family dynamic has
changed. The entire generation of
my father’s family is gone, and
my younger brother, and some of
NO 26331
my close cousins have relocated
elsewhere. I feel a profound void.
Although there must have
been sad and difficult moments in
the home where I grew up, I now
remember only the moments of
joy, laughter, and camaraderie
with my cousins. When we
remember the places where we
grew up, our memories are often
filled with rich narratives that
take on mythical dimensions. In
many Bengali get-togethers here
in the United States, we reminisce
about things that we have left
behind in Kolkata, which now
have assumed a very special
meaning and significance. For the
Bengali gastronomes, Nizam’s
Rolls, Mocambo’s “Lobster Thermidor,” Sabir’s rezala, Shiraz’
biryani, K.C. Das’ rosogolla, or
Ganguram’s lal doi, for some rea-
son, now have a magical quality
about them.
Some of us even complain
about the quality of tea that is
available in the United States
because it never tastes like the
stuff one bought from vendors at
railway stations in India – strong,
piping hot and served in tiny clay
cups. While reminiscing about tea
in India, some of us salivate
thinking about singhara, jhalmuri, hing er kochuri, and ghugni.
For us, who have given up their
homes in India, we seem to have a
propensity to look at things “back
home” with rose-tinted glasses.
Our impulse to hold on to the past
is a way to preserve the self. Perhaps we attempt to retain our
sense of identity by maintaining
our connections with the past.
Objects from the past serve as a
major source of significance and
cultural symbols. This kind of
nostalgia that is experienced by
immigrants such as myself, where
the past is glorified, functions as a
vitally important agency protecting us against marginalisation by
members of the dominant culture.
The concept of home is
inextricably tied to our
notion of identity. In
order to create a
new home in
another country,
we use various artifacts that represent
our culture and ethnicity.
This relationship between
one’s home and identity
plays a crucial role especially when one belongs to an
ethnic minority such as
Asian Indians in the United
States. When members of
the ethnic minority feel
alienated and marginalised
by the dominant power
groups in the public sphere,
the private sphere of our
homes becomes the focal
point of who we are or how
we want to define ourselves.
Our homes serve as the
citadels of our cultural
beliefs, values, mores, and
rituals. Away from the scrutinizing and judging eyes of
the members of the dominant culture, we let our guards down in
our homes, embracing our cultural identity. For some, a new home
in a foreign country, with all the
cultural representations and decorations, makes them feel grounded. However, for others, such as
myself, a new home, even with all
the cultural trappings, still
appears to be somehow alien or
foreign; there’s no sense of
belonging. The Canadian novelist
and poet, Margaret Atwood’s,
quote aptly describes my house in
Santa Monica: “A home filled with
nothing but yourself. It’s heavy,
that lightness. It’s crushing, that
emptiness.” There is an acute
awareness of severing one’s connections with family and friends
back home, feeling marooned
without roots in a foreign country.
A season for friendship
I
YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION
of pear? (5,10)
2 Set up place for art
exhibition with a
will (7)
3 Tedious
documentary’s
beginning and end
(5)
4 New worker mother
took round is
treated roughly (10)
5 Heard of someone
to purchase farm
building? (4)
6 TV character not
investing capital,
close to bankruptcy
(4,5)
7
One settled in
of
yore
containing
ACROSS
mostly free country
new pop song
1 Good deal of money
(3,4,2,2,4)
(7)
– Deutschmarks –
19 Remember to
8
Dig up various parts
flooding a German
make further
of
Leeds City
city (7)
telephone contact
(southern
half)
5 Messed up: played
(6)
showing lack of
‘Reveille’ perhaps
20 Thick pal lost in
concern (15)
about noon (7)
quarry
(8)
13
Creature to make
9 Oriental writer
23
Aromas
in
hot
slow
progress in
featured in The
stews
oddly
cold area (10)
Listener (9)
lacking (5)
15 Keepers of records
10 Some more
24 Compelled to deal
woman itemises
business for a
with
big
criminal
(9)
detective (5)
(9)
11 Southern Thailand
17 Appears in topless
25 Former model who
plane company
dress, wanting
reveals all? (7)
shortened flight
drink (5,2)
26 A comfy place to
(8)
18 Type of mine not
settle in yacht –
12 Satellite obserleft by US force (7)
pardon? (7)
vable in October
21 Mount galloping
only (6)
along (5)
14 For 10 it’s a doddle
DOWN
22 World Cup captain
to pack quickly (4not sporting
1
Meeting
to
3-4,4)
ascertain ripeness
English tie (4)
16 Reissued ciné-film
NOTE: Figures in parentheses denote the number of letters in the words required.
(By arrangement with The Independent, London)
Name muddles
With 315 first time MPs in the 16th
Lok Sabha, government managers
are having a tough time learning
and remembering their names.
Minister of state for parliamentary
affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy has come
up with a novel idea. He carries
with him a file containing an excel
chart scanned from the Speaker’s
office. The chart has the names,
photos and division numbers of all
543 MPs.
Every time he has to approach
THE WRITER, A PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATION
STUDIES AT LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY, LIVES
IN SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA. HE CAN BE REACHED
AT AROY2@LMU.EDU
100 YEARS AGO
MELTING POT ARATI R JERATH
t seems to be a season for political
makeovers. While Rahul Gandhi
has been grabbing eyeballs with his
new, aggressive look, Narendra
Modi has gone in for subtle changes
aimed at making friends and influencing people.
The otherwise forbidding
prime minister who barely acknowledges anyone in Parliament surprised many last week with a display of bonhomie and warmth not
usually associated with him. Not
only did he sit longer than usual in
the Rajya Sabha on his question
day, he did some backslapping and
hand shaking with chosen party
MPs as he was leaving. He patted
Chandan Mitra on the shoulder,
tapped Tarun Vijay on the head,
shook hands with Babul Supriyo
and threw out a casual greeting at
Jitendra Singh.
MPs who have been observing
him for the past one year were left
gaping. Modi is known to walk stiffly into the Rajya Sabha on his question day without exchanging pleasantries with anyone. He comes just
in time for the starred question
relating to the PMO, sits for a few
minutes while his minister of state
Jitendra Singh answers on his
behalf, and leaves immediately.
A couple of days before that, he
shocked members of the Nehru
memorial committee by chatting up
Congress representatives on the
body. Apparently, he was uncharacteristically effusive with Jairam
Ramesh as he recalled the days
when he as BJP general secretary
and Jairam as Congress spokesperson used to go to a leading TV studio in south Delhi to participate in
talk shows and debates. A hint of
nostalgia maybe for simpler times?
Or was he doing some shrewd PR
with the author of the UPA’s land
bill that he wants to overturn.
Many scholars have written
about people who are always on
the move traversing vast distances while feeling very much at
home in any place they visit.
They don’t have angst, feelings of
disorientation or dislocation in
not being rooted in one place.
These people, who can transcend
such cultural boundaries and can
create a home in any part of the
world, are often referred to as a
“Multicultural Person,” a “Cosmopolitan,” or a “Citizen of the
World.” While some may have no
problems finding a home anywhere at any time, there are others who do not feel at home where
they are; they are unhappy and
look back to their past. Millions
in this world today are searching
for their roots. Our roots are
always in a certain place. So is
our home. Can these folks who are
displaced from their original
homes and currently live elsewhere ever find a “real” home
away from home? Why is it that I
have feelings of unfamiliarity and
strangeness in Kolkata where I
grew up? Why is it that I long to
go back to Santa Monica when I
am in Kolkata knowing full well
that once I am back there, I will
miss Kolkata again? How can
playing a Tagore song I grew up
listening to be so emotionally
charged? The great German
philosopher, Martin Heidegger,
believed that the place is the
locale of being. He wrote about
“dwelling,” about place and placelessness. He was acutely aware of
what it meant not to have a sense
of rootedness especially for those
who have lost their sense of home
or place. As I write this piece, I
can’t help but wonder what would
have happened if I had never left
India. Would I have found my
“real” home? Would I feel rooted?
I guess I will never know but, for
now, I find solace in my cherished
memories of my life in Kolkata
and around displaced people like
me in the United States.
MPs he doesn’t recognise, he pulls
out the file and hurriedly glances at
the chart to match the face to the
name. It’s difficult but it’s proving
quite effective. So far he’s managed
quite well.
Is he for real?
Rahul Gandhi has clearly got under
the BJP’s skin. Ruling party leaders have no clue how to handle the
new, aggressive and more confident
Congress vice president who is firing one-liners every day at the government.
But Congress circles too don’t
quite know what to make of the
new Rahul Gandhi. Is he for real?
Can he sustain the momentum? Is
he here to stay at last? Rahul has
been so on and off for the past ten
years that these are natural concerns.
Congress circles have set June
19 as the deadline for their wait and
watch strategy. June 19 is Rahul’s
birthday. So far, he has never spent
it in India, preferring to party with
friends abroad. The buzz in the
Congress is that if he celebrates it
here this year, it signals real
change. Party leaders feel it would
mean that Rahul is finally ready to
be a 24x7 politician.
Unlucky house
After holding on to his plush Lodi
Estate bungalow for many months
following the expiry of his Rajya
Sabha term, former SP leader
Amar Singh is finally set to move
out. He is shifting to a farmhouse
that he has built on the outskirts of
the Capital.
Since Amar Singh had spent
several crores renovating the house
to make it seven-star luxury, his
bungalow was eyed by many MPs.
The one who has got it is controversial minister of state Giriraj Singh.
But there are whispers in parliamentary circles that it may not
be such a prize catch after all.
There are others who consider this
a house of bad omen. They say that
Amar Singh’s flourishing political
career nose-dived after he moved
into it in 2005 following intensive
renovations. His troubles with
Mulayam Singh started soon
enough, leading to his eventual
expulsion from the SP in 2010.
Giriraj Singh is already in
trouble for his controversial statements and was reduced to tears
after Narendra Modi scolded him
for talking about Sonia Gandhi’s
skin colour. With talk of a cabinet
reshuffle in the air after the budget
session, parliamentarians are
watching to see whether his new
house brings him good fortune or
ill luck.
Staying put
Lok Sabha MPs are quite mystified
by PDP’s continuance on opposition benches although the party
has a government in Jammu and
Kashmir in alliance with the ruling
BJP. PDP MPs Mehbooba Mufti and
Muzaffir Baig sit behind Congress
MPs along with CPI(M) MPs in the
Lok Sabha.
Now that was fine as long as
the PDP was a genuine opposition
party. But now that it runs a coalition government with the BJP,
opposition MPs wonder why these
two continue to sit alongside Congress rows. It seems the decision to
change their seats rests with the
PDP, not with the Lok Sabha Speaker or the government. And so far,
neither Mehbooba nor Baig have
requested a seat change to the NDA
benches. Clearly, they want to have
their cake and eat it too. They want
to rule in J&K but be in opposition
in Delhi.
OCCASIONAL
NOTE
The casualties published this morning relate in all probability to the
German offensive against St.
Julien and Hill 60, in the neighbourhood of Ypres. It is hardly possible that the lists for the fighting
of Saturday and Sunday last, described as some of the fiercest during the war, can yet have been collected. The two regiments which
suffered most severely were the
Northumberland Fusiliers (55th),
with 26 officers hors de combat, and
the Durham Light Infantry, with
twenty-two officers’ casualties in a
single list. If these figures represented single battalions they would
almost amount to the extinction of
the officers’ cadres. Happily there
is evidence that they do not. While
it becomes increasingly difficult to
trace casualties in the Army List
owing to the multiplication of battalions and the rapid promotion
which is the sequel to fighting such
as that of the last few weeks, it is
still possible, generally speaking, to
make out from the casualty lists
the battalions of any given regiment engaged. The sixth, seventh
and eighth battalions of the Durham Light Infantry all seem to
have participated in the fighting
covered by the latest lists. Major
MacKay belonged to the sixth and
Major Ritson to the eighth. In the
case of the Northumberland Fusiliers it seems certain that at least
two battalions - Major Lovibond’s
(the sixth), and Captain Bergne’s
(the seventh) - were present.
NEWS ITEM
TRAWLERS
SHELLED
MEMBERS OF CREW
KILLED
London, May 5
A German submarine in the North
Sea shelled the trawler Granton
and killed four of the crew on the
bridge. The remaining seven
escaped in a boat on which the Germans fired, wounding four. A collier picked up the survivors and
took them to Aberdeen. The British
collier Minterne has been torpedoed off the Scillys without warning. Two firemen were killed.
10
THUMBNAILS
Suicide is not a solution to any problem and we
should struggle to overcome our problems.
HARYANA STATE ASSEMBLY SPEAKER KANWAR PAL GURJAR
TERMING THE FARMERS COMMITTING SUICIDE DUE TO CROP FAILURE AS COWARDS
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
BJP-SENA MAY SEVER
TIES IN 2017 : PAWAR
SAYS DIFFERENCES OVER SEAT-SHARING WILL SEE THE DEMISE
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Mumbai, 5 May
Congress vice-president Rahul
Gandhi with MoS Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti at Parliament House in
the capital on Tuesday.
� Shahnawaz Khan
Landmine blast: A
CRPF jawan was on
Tuesday injured in a
landmine blast triggered by suspected
Naxals in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district.
An operation has been
launched to arrest the
PTI
attackers.
Solar project: A 4.2MW solar power plant
set up with an outlay
of �35 crore, using
single axis tracking
technology, was inaugurated in Hoshiarpur.
The plant was inaugurated by Bikram
Singh Majithia.
PTI
Col’s PC extended: A
local court on Tuesday
extended for two days
the police remand of
Colonel Vinod Sahani,
arrested for allegedly
raping a 21-year-old
mentally-challenged
woman at his residence in Deolali Camp.PTI
Abandoned baby
found: A 10-day-old
baby, suspected of suffering from a congenital disorder, was found
abandoned with Rs
40,500 in a plastic basket at the doorsteps of
a temple in Shyam
Nagar locality in Jaipur
on Monday night. PTI
Predicting mid-term assembly election in Maharashtra,
the Nationalist Congress
Party president Mr Sharad
Pawar has claimed that one
of the senior ministers in Mr
Devendra Fadnavis government had confided in
him that the ruling
Bharatiya Janata PartyShiv Sena alliance would
come apart once civic poll
to the municipal corporation
of Greater Mumbai are
announced early 2017.
The NCP leader who is
now on a brief tour of some
cities in the state narrated
his information during an
interaction with the media
in Aurangabad yesterday.
Although he did not name
the minister in the Cabinet,
Mr Pawar said differences
over seat-sharing in the
MCGM election would see
the demise of the saffron
alliance. He had predicted
the fall of the Fadnavis government last month in one
of his campaign speeches in
Bandra (east) Assembly
bypoll held on 11 April. The
NCP had unconditionally
supported the Congress
nominee against the Shiv
Sena’s Ms Trupti Sawant,
who retained the seat for the
Shiv Sena.
The BJP is yet to react to
Mr Pawar’s political prediction while the Shiv Sena
mouthpiece Saamna today
frontpaged the news without offering comment. Analysts say the NCP president
expects the ruling allies to
split and fight the MCGM
election independently like
they slugged it out in last
October’s state Assembly
poll. For both the BJP and
the SS, the Mumbai civic
election are crucial test of
popularity . In the Assembly election the BJP bagged
few seats more than the
Shiv Sena in Mumbai. The
commercial capital has 36
assembly seats in the House
of 288.
Ministerial sources say
Mr Pawar may be trying to
drive a wedge between two
ruling parties who are in an
uneasy alliance for the sake
of power. The rapport of
their previous stint in power
15 years ago is missing. The
NCP as the main opposition
party is trying to thrive on
the prevailing confusion or
mistrust between the BJP
and the SS. The seat sharing in both elections had
been smooth and amicable.
Perhaps, the success of the
ruling parties, analysts say,
may be forcing Mr Pawar to
predict certain fall of the
state government ahead of
MCGM poll.
At the same media briefing, the NCP president
praised the Shiv Sena for its
steadfast opposition to the
formation of a separate
state of Vidarbha. “The
Shiv Sena is consistent and
honest in its opposition to
bifurcate Maharashtra,”
said Mr Pawar. He also rejected the claim that the BJP has
a mandate to carve out a separate Vidarbha because the
region had overwhelming
voted for the party. Th BJP
won 42 of the 62 assembly
seats in the region. He might
have praised the Shiv Sena’s
firm no to a separate state
but his party’s stand is still
ambiguous. In last October’s election, Mr Pawar
had said he would favour a
referendum in Vidarbha to
ascertain whether the voters want to break away from
Maharashtra.
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Beijing/New Delhi, 5 May
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi will pay a three-nation
official visit to China, Mongolia and South Korea from
14-19 May. This will be the
Prime Minister’s tour of
the East after his recently
concluded trip to France,
Ger many and Canada,
which was primarily aimed
at improving ties with the
western world.
Mr Modi will first visit
China where he will travel
to Xian, Beijing and Shanghai from 14-16 May. This is
his first visit to China since
becoming the PM and is
being seen as an important
visit for the bilateral relationship which has always
been high on mistrust.
Mr Modi will hold bilateral meetings with the Chi-
RTE situation
Chennai, 5 May
Alleging that the previous UPA regime was not
serious about implementing the 'Right to Education',
Tamil Nadu government
today asked the NDA to
“rectify the situation” and
ensure that the act is beneficial for children of weaker and disadvantaged sections.
Due to the changes to
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
framework by the UPA
gover nment, the Tamil
Nadu government’s claim
for reimbursement of Rs
25.13 crore for 2013-14 had
not been admitted even as
a 'measly amount' of Rs 14
lakh had been provided
against the claim of Rs
71.57 crore for 2014-15, CM
O Panneerselvam said.
Asking the NDA gov-
nese leadership and participate in cultural and business events. The Prime Minister will also attend an
event organised by the Indian community in China.
Mr Modi will then travel to Mongolia where his official engagements will be
on 17 May. This is the first
ever visit by an Indian Prime
Minister to Mongolia.
Last on the schedule will
be the Prime Minister’s
visit to South Korea from 18
to 19 May.
Mr Modi will hold bilateral discussions with President Park Geun-hye and
meet important business
leaders there, according to
a press release issued today
by the Ministry of External
Affairs.
The Prime Minister, who
has a hectic schedule in
China, said he was eagerly
awaiting his visit. He expressed confidence that his
visit will pave the way for
bolstering economic cooperation with China in diverse
areas.
“PM will attend an event
organised by the Indian
community in China,” the
statement said. Indian associations in different Chinese cities have sent out
invitations to their members
to take part in the event at
Shanghai.
ern
ment to “rectify the situation”,Panneerselvam, in
a letter to Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, said that
the HRD Ministry in March
2014 had written to
all states, indicating that
reimbursement of expenditure incurred for 25 per
cent admissions in private unaided schools has
been included under head
of addressing equity issues
in elementary education in
the SSA framework.
Also, that the reimbursement would be effect ive f ro m 1 Ap r i l ,
2014 and that it would be
only for classes I to VIII and
subject to a maximum ceiling of 20 per cent of the
total annual work plan
and budget approved by the
government of India for a
state or union territory
under SSA, he said.
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
In a meeting with the government tomorrow, trade
unions have decided to
strongly oppose the new
proposals in the Industrial
Relations Bill, which makes
firing of employees easier
and forming of unions difficult.
Labour Ministry will
hold a meeting with trade
unions’ representatives and
employers tomorrow in the
capital on the the draft
Labour Code on Industrial
Relations Bill, 2015.
The Bill proposes to combine Industrial Disputes
Act, 1947, Trade Unions Act,
1926, and Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act,
1946.
Central trade unions,
including the BJP-backed
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh
(BMS) said they will strongly oppose the proposals, saying they deprive workers of
their basic rights.
At present, there are
many classes of workers... There should
only be two categories
~ permanent and temporary.
B N RAI
“There are certain clauses which are against workers, like hire and fire clause
and tougher rules for forming unions. We will strongly protest against these provisions,” said Bharatiya
Mazdoor Sangh President B
N Rai who will attend the
meeting said.
Rai said they got the copy
of the draft Bill four days ago
and discussions are scheduled for tomorrow.
“Gover nment should
have given us ample time
before holding tripartite
discussions on it,” he said.
“If the government would
be adamant then we would
have to take strong decision in the national con-
UP ministers to donate a month’s
salary in CM’s distress relief fund
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Lucknow, 5 May
In view of the earthquake
in Nepal and the relief measures being undertaken in
the neighbouring country,
ministers of the Uttar
Pradesh cabinet have decided to donate their one month
salaries to the Chief Minister's distress relief fund.
The decision was taken in
the light of the immense loss
of life and material in Nepal
because of the fact that the
country also borders Uttar
Pradesh.
Speaking at a function
where the Uttar Pradesh
CM was handed a cheque of
Rs 25 lakhs by the UP Cooperative Sugar Federation,
Chief Minister Akhilesh
Yadav lauded the efforts of
the federation in giving eco-
Lucknow, 5 May: Questioning
claims of BJP becoming
the biggest political party in
the world, Uttar Pradesh
Chief Minister Akhilesh
Yadav today said if people
benefitting from state government schemes were made
members of the ruling Samajwadi Party, it can leave all
others behind.
“Which agency says that
BJP is the biggest party in
the world? ...I will appeal to
workers that if only those
benefitting from our schemes
are made SP members, other
political parties will be left
behind,” Yadav said.
“The problem with the
Samajwadis is that even
those who are benefitting
from government schemes
do not know who is providing them the benefits,” he
said.
BJP chief Amit Shah has
claimed that BJP has 10.3
crore members, making it
the biggest political party in
the world. The UP Chief
Minister met his Delhi counterpart yesterday in the
PTI
national capital.
Cong MLA apologises
for praising Guj CM
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Ahmedabad, 5 May
The state Congress leadership has finally secured an
apology from its MLA for
praising Chief Minister
Mrs Anandiben Patel for
announcing a health assurance scheme for the poor people.
The Congress MLA from
Muslim dominated Dariyapur seat in Ahmedabad old
city, Mr Gyasuddin Sheikh
had issued newspaper advertisements in March this
year congratulating the
Chief Minister, state Health
Minister Nitin Patel and
also his junior minister for
the scheme of financial
assistance of �2 lakhs for
treatment of kidney, heart
or cancer to people with
annual income below Rs
1.20 lakhs.
The state Congress leadership had issued a showcause notice to Mr Gyasuddin Sheikh for the advertisement which was seen as
a huge embarrassment for
the party that is eager to find
holes in the BJP government’s tall claims.
If it has hurt the feelings of my party and
its leaders, including
state Congress president Bharatsinh
Solanki and Leader of
Opposition in Gujarat
Assembly
Shankersinh Vaghela,
I apologise.
GYASUDDIN SHAIKH
The show-cause notice
said that Sheikh’s praise
for the Chief Minister had
hurt the sentiments of Congress workers and damaged
the reputation of the party.
In his apology letter to the
Congress Legislature Party
Chief Whip Mr Balwantsinh
Rajput, Mr Sheikh said that
he feels sorry for his conduct
if his praise for the BJP government has hurt the feelings of the party’s leaders.
PM Modi’s Eastern outreach from 14 May
SACRED SPACE
Canadian professional basketball player of Indian origin Sim Bhullar (C) walks with others as he pays his respects at the The Golden Temple
in Amritsar on Tuesday. � AFP
Tamil Nadu govt Industrial Relations Bill: Unions
asks NDAto rectify plan to oppose hire-fire clause
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
BJP’S CLAIM OF
BIGGEST POLITICAL
PARTY QUESTIONED
nomic assistance to the
quake victims. He said the
federation had always stood
for such causes.
The CM praised the Uttar
Pradesh Samajwadi Party
Mahila Sabha whose members offered a cheque of Rs
1 lakh for the quake victims.
Referring to the massive
losses suffered by Nepal in
terms of life and property,
the CM said it will take time
for things to return to normal life.
As was the case with the
other countries of the world,
India was also extending
all possible help to Nepal. He
spoke about the steps undertaken by his government on
the count and said in addition to buses, medicines,
water, milk and other edible
items had been sent to the
neighbouring country.
In addition to this, the 108
Samajwadi Swasthya Sewa,
the 102 National Ambulance
service was made available
to Nepal.
In response to a question posed by reporters
Akhilesh Yadav said full
payment had not yet been
made to the sugarcane farmers. His government however
was committed towards
ensuring that the same was
made at the earliest. He said
the results of the by-elections
has shown that the people
have reposed faith in programmes and policies of
the Samajwadi Party.
Akhilesh Yadav said his
government was committed
to the cause of the farmers
and made available `1400
crore to the districts for
distribution to the affected
farmers.
vention of central trade
unions on 26 May.”
This strong decision could
be nation wide protest, strike
and gherao Parliament, Rai
added.
Besides, unions are also
concerned about categories
of workers and relief available under the labour laws.
“At present, there are
many classes of workers,
including regular, temporary,
daily wagers and contract
workers. There should only
be two categories ~ permanent and temporary.”
The Code on Industrial
Relations Bill, 2015 is one of
the initiative of the government to subsume 44
labour laws into five broad
codes, dealing with industrial relation, wages, social
security, industrial safety
and welfare.
At present, firms employing 100 or more workers
are required to seek government’s permission for
retrenchment under the
Industrial Dispute Act.
Coal scam: Court to consider GOVT TO PUSH
CBI’s charge-sheet today
BLACK MONEY
Girish Kumar Suneja, R K
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
A special court is likely to pronounce its order tomorrow
on consideration of CBI's
charge-sheet filed in a coal
scam case against industrialist Naveen Jindal, ex-minister of state for coal Dasari
Narayan Rao, ex-Jharkhand
chief minister Madhu Koda
and 12 others.
Special CBI judge Bharat
Parashar on 30 April had fixed
today for considering the
charge- sheet filed in the
case relating to alleged irregularities in allocation of
Amarkonda Murgadangal
coal block in Jharkhand's
Birbhum district in 2008 to
Jindal Group firms —Jindal
Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL)
and Gagan Sponge Iron Pvt
Ltd (GSIPL).On 29 April,CBI
had submitted charge-sheet
accusing 15, including five
firms.
Besides Jindal, Rao and
Koda, former Coal Secretary H C Gupta and six others — Gyan Swaroop Garg,
Suresh Singhal, Rajeev Jain,
Saraf and K Ramakrishna
Prasad were accused in the
case. The five firms named
as accused in the chargesheet were JSPL,Jindal Realty Pvt Ltd,Gagan Infraenergy
Ltd, New Delhi Exim Pvt Ltd
and Soubhagya Media Ltd.
The agency has alleged in
the charge-sheet that Jindal group firms had misrepresented facts to acquire
the coal block in 2008. In its
FIR lodged in the case, CBI
had alleged that Jindal group
was shown favour by the
Jharkhand gover nment
which had dropped other
firms from its recommendation for allocation of coal
block in the state in 2007.
The FIR was categorical
that ministry of power was
against the proposal for allocating Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block to JSPL
and GSIPL.
JSPL, in a statement, had
denied the allegations made
against it and its management
and had said that it would take
appropriate remedy in accordance with law.
BILL: BJP
New Delhi, 5 May: Having mus-
tered a near consensus over the
GST Bill,the NDA government
is now mulling parliamentary approval for some other
key legislation,including a Bill
on black money. The government may consider extending
the Lok Sabha session which
is scheduled to end on 8 May.
The BJP leader and Minister of State for Parliamentary
Affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy
today expressed hope that key
legislation will be pushed
through in the current session.
Sources said 'The Undisclosed
Foreign Income and Assets
(Imposition of Tax) Bill,2015',
which provides for heavy
penalty and stiff punishment
of up to 10 years for stashing
unaccounted funds abroad,
could be brought in for parliamentary approval. The Bill
introduced on 20 March in the
Lok Sabha also provides a
"window" to help persons having such funds abroad to come
clean by paying tax and penalty, BJP sources said.
SNS
HARYANA OFFERS `1 LAKH REWARD FOR INFORMERS
Female foeticide
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Chandigarh, 5 May
To end the evil of female
foeticide, the Haryana
government today
announced a cash reward
of �1 lakh to informers
providing vital information about anyone
involved in the heinous
practice.
The health minister
Mr Anil Vij said once the
people involved in the
crime are caught and on
finding the information
correct, the informer
would immediately be
given the cash award.
For this, a provision of
�25 lakh token money
has been provided under
annual plan 2015-16. The
Chief Minister has also
given his approval to
this, he added.
The minister said that
this step has been taken
in order to completely
put an end to female
foeticide, which has led
to unbalanced sex-ratio
in the state.
“The measure would
create a favorable environment for the girl child
and change the mindset
of people,” Mr Vij said.
He said the state government is committed to
strictly implement PreNatal Diagnostic Test
(PNDT) Act in the state.
For this, the state government besides keeping
vigil on doctors, has also
initiated several schemes
for the welfare of the girl
child. This includes the
“Beti-Bachao, Beti-Padhao” scheme which was
also launched by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
from Panipat in
Haryana.
With the worst sex
ratio in the country, as
many as 12 Haryana districts have found place in
100 districts categorised
as ‘gender critical’ in the
country. The sex ratio in
the state currently
stands at just 879 females
per 1,000 males.
The three Haryana
districts of Mahendragarh (775 girls per 1,000),
Jhajjar (782) and Rewari
(787) have the lowest sex
ratio in the country. The
remaining nine gender
critical districts include
Panipat (837), Sonepat
(798), Ambala (810),
Kurukshetra (818),
Rohtak (820), Karnal
(824), Yamunanagar
(826), Kaithal (828) and
Bhiwani (832).
With parents in the
state going for gender
determination tests ~
although they are supposed to be illegal ~ and
apparently aborting girl
children ~ also supposed
to be banned ~ the child
sex ratio (the number of
girls between 0-6 years of
age) has been on the
decline since 1961.
The ratio declined
from 945 in 1991 to 927 in
2001 and further to 918 in
2011.
Latest figures are also
far from encouraging.
Till November 2014, the
number of female children born in the state
was 2.31 lakh as compared to 2.66 lakh male
children born during the
same period.
Can a political party with unequivocal support in its manifesto to secularism, if given vast majority by the people, still be
entitled to change the Constitution
MAIN SAQIB NISAR
JUSTICE OF PAKISTAN
KERRY IN SOMALIA FOR TALKS
TIGHT SECURITY FOR SECRETARY OF STATE’S SURPRISE VISIT
Mogadishu, 5 May
Secretary of State John
Ker ry made an unannounced trip to Somalia
on Tuesday in a show of solidarity with a government
trying to defeat al-Qaidaallied militants and end
decades of war in the
African country. He is first
top US diplomat ever to
visit Somalia.
Ker ry ar rived at
Mogadishu's airport shortly before noon local time and
was received by Somalia's
president and Prime Minister on the tarmac. He
entered a series of planned
meetings that included
regional leaders and civil
society groups. “I'm glad to
be here,” Kerry said. "We
very much look forward to
working with you towards
building credible elections,
towards the building of a
national army and towards
the ability of Somalia to
serve as a model for its
ability to rebuild and
reclaim its own future," he
added.
“This is a great moment
for us. Thank you for the
time to be with us,” President Hassan Sheikh
Mohamud said as they sat
down together.
The trip was made under
tight security conditions.
Somalia's government only
found out a day ago that
Kerry would join the State
Department's top Africa
official, Linda GreenfieldThomas, on the voyage.
And the fact that he was
only dipping his toe in
Somalia, and not venturing
past the airport, highlighted
just how dangerous and
unstable the country was.
“The next time I come, we
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) speaks with President Hassan Sheikh Mohammed (R) at the airport in
Mogadishu on Tuesday. � AFP
have to be able to just walk
downtown,” Kerry told
Somalian
president.
Mohamud replied, downtown “is very different
now.”
On the top of the agenda is the fight against al-Shebaab. African forces and US
drone-strikes have crippled the organisation's leadership in recent years and
have left the extremists
without much of the territory they once controlled
or cash flows needed to
reverse their losses. But
as al-Shebaab has decentralised, the militants in
some ways have become
even more dangerous,
expanding their activity
in Kenya and other neighboring countries.
Last month, a massacre
at Kenya's Garissa University College killed 148
TENDER
people, mostly students,
and underscored the group's
capacity to carry out relatively unsophisticated but
extremely deadly terrorist attacks far from ts bases
of operation.
Kerry's trip is designed
“to reinforce the United
States' commitment to supporting Somalia's ongoing
transition to a peaceful
democracy,” spokeswoman
Marie Harf said in a statement.
“He will discuss security cooperation and Somalia's progress towards meeting its reform and development benchmarks,” she
said. “He will also meet
with civil society leaders to
discuss the importance of
a vibrant NGO sector and
thank African Union troops
for their role in stabilising
Somalia.”
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Kathmandu, 5 May
Islamabad, 5 May
Caption No.: 20-D
TENDER CALL NOTICE
NO. 01/2015-16
1. Sealed tenders are invited from the fabricators having own fabrication
unit for fabrication of Mini Motor Fire Engine and Towing Tenders during
the year 2015-16.
SI.
List of Items
Approximate
No.
requirement
1. Fabrication of Mini Motor Fire Engine on chassis
17 Nos.
model: -Tata LPT-709/38 of 3800 mm Wheel Base
CAB Chassis, BS-III
(The Chassis, Rear Mounted Pump, PTO shall
be supplied by the Department)
2. Fabrication of Towing Tender on chassis / vehicle
38 Nos.
model: -Tata SFC-407/31 EX Truck Chassis with
Cabin BS-III
(The chassis / vehicle shall be supplied by
the Department)
2. Name of the items along with detail Technical Specifications, probable
requirements against each item may seen from the website
www.odisha.gov.in The quantity may vary during indent of the items
depending upon budgetary allocation.
3. The tender document may be obtained:
a) On payment of Rs. 500 (Rupees five hundred) only between 10.00
a.m to 5.00 p.m. on each working day form the office of the undersigned at the address given below.
b) By sending a self-stamped Rs. 80 (Rupees eighty) only envelop of
size not less than 35cm x 25cm along with a Demand Draft non A/c.
Payee of Rs. 500 (Rupees five hundred) only payable in favour of
D.D.O., Directorate General of Fire Service & Home Guards & Civil
Defence, Odisha, Cuttack.
c) By downloading from Govt. of Odisha website i.e. www.odisha.gov.in
4. The tender document shall be submitted in the office of the undersigned
duly signed by the authorised signatory in each page and duly authenticated with seal in token of having read, understood and accepted the
terms and conditions of the contract. However in case of downloading
tender documents, a non A/c. Payee Demand Draft Rs. 500 (Rupees five
hundred) only payable at SBI, Cuttack in favour of D.D.O., Directorate
General of Fire Service & Home Guards & Civil Defence, Odisha,
Cuttack towards cost of Tender document shall be enclosed. Bids submitted otherwise than in the manner prescribed in the tender document
shall be rejected.
5. Tender calling authority has the right to accept or reject the tender(s) with
the assigning any reason there off.
6. Date of issue of Tender document
- 08-05-2015.
7. Last date for issue of tender document
- 01-06-2015, up to 5-00 p.m.
8. Last date for receipt of tender at
- 02-06-2015, up to 5-00 p.m.
Directorate General
9. Date of opening of Tender / Technical Bids - 03-06-2015 at 11.00 a.m.
onwards.
10. The concerned bidders are required to depute their representatives to
remain present during opening of the received Tender / Technical Bids /
on 03-06-2015 at 11-00 a.m onwards at this Directorate General.
11. The tenders received after the stipulated date will not be taken in to
consideration and liable for rejection.
12. All disputes which may arise relating to tender are subject to jurisdiction
of the competent court at Cuttack only.
13. Address:
Directorate General of F.S., H.Gs. & C.D.
Nuapatna
Cuttack
Pin-753001
FAX-0671-2300584/ 2303387
Junior Staff Officer
I&PR 12006/11/0001/1516
F.S. H.Gs. & C.D.
AUS ENVOY
OFFERS TO QUIT
AFTER ‘BIZARRE’
INCIDENT
Melbourne, 5 May : Australia's
Ambassador to France has
offered to resign after Tony
Abbott's office told the
envoy's male partner to
wait in the car and not on
the airport tarmac to greet
the premier, a report said
today.
According to sources,
Stephen Brady was on the
airport tarmac with his
partner of 32 years Peter
Stephens, waiting to meet
Abbott as he arrived in
Paris on Anzac Day (25
April).
The prime minister's
travelling party sent an
instruction that Stephens
should not take part in
the greeting but should
wait in the car, the Sydney
Morning Herald reported.
PTI
Pak court debates possibility
of secular state
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
DIRECTORATE GENERAL
FIRE SERVICE, HOME GUARDS & CIVIL DEFENCE
ODISHA
NUAPATNA, CUTTACK-753001
Somalia has been without a truly functioning,
nationwide government for
two-and-a-half decades.
After warlords ousted dictator Siad Barre from power
in 1991, they quickly turned
on one another and plunged
the country into anarchy.
Militias, Islamist extremist groups and Somalia's
nominally national military ll vied for power before
the tide turned against alShebaab earlier this decade.
Piracy also has been a major
problem.And yet as a relative calm has settled over
parts of the country, including Mogadishu, Somalia
remains fraught with a
painful history for United
States.American troops
were sent there in 1992 on
a peacekeeping mission to
help stave off a national
famine.
Can Islamic Republic of Pakistan be a secular state? The
question was raised by Pakistan's Chief Justice Nasir-ulMulk himself while hearing
petitions challenging the procedure for appointment of
superior court judges under
the 18th Amendment and
establishment of military
courts under the 21st Amendment to try terrorists.
A 17-judge full court is
hearing the case.
Mulk wondered if article
2 of the Constitution stating
Islam as state religion can be
replaced with secularism and
asked could it be done by the
present parliament or a Constituent Assembly would be
needed, Dawn newspaper
reported.
“Can a political party with
unequivocal support in its
manifesto to secularism, if
given vast majority by the people,still be entitled to change
the Constitution,”asked Justice Main Saqib Nisar.
“Not without a referendum,” said senior counsel
Hamid Khan,representing at
least three district bar associations which had challenged
the amendment.
The salient feature of the
Constitution that “recognises Islam as a grundnorm
(fundamental norm)” is not
open to changes, he said.
The debate on secularism
started when Justice Asif
Saeed Khosa, while sharing
his thoughts, observed that
Pakistan had been created in
1947 in the name of Islam and
it was declared that Islam
would be the state religion.
After the formation of
Pakistan,majority population
from East Pakistan broke
away and carved a new state
called Bangladesh and framed
a new Constitution by changing its basic feature to be secular.Even when Bangladesh's
former president General
Hussain Mohammad Ershad
tried to change the basic feature to Islam,it was challenged
and struck down by the
Supreme Court of that country, Justice Khosa said.
Hamid Khan argued that
only a Constituent Assembly
could make changes in the
Constitution. Justice Nisar
asked him to shed light on how
the Constituent Assembly
was formed;whether it could
only be done through a revolution by annulling the present parliament and whether
all the future generations
could be made hostage to
what the Constituent Assembly determined.
Zardari skips court appearance ANOTHER RAJAPAKSA
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Islamabad, 5 May
Pakistan's former president
Asif Ali Zardari today failed
to appear before an anti-corruption court due to food poisoning, his lawyer said.
Zardari's counsel Farooq
Naek told the court that the
former president was suffering from food poisoning
and was vomiting and should
be granted exemption from
appearance.
Justice Khalid Mehmood
Ranjha of the court accepted the request and adjourned
the case till May 13.
The court in garrison city
of Rawalpindi is hearing a
case of corruption regis-
NORTH BENGAL STATE
TRANSPORT CORPORATION
COOCH BEHAR
TENDER NOTICE
Notice inviting E-tender No.
NBSTC/09/CSP-ET/COB/
2014-15
Online E-tender are invited from
the reputed manufacturer of
Fully Built 55+1 Seater Bus, 7/8
Seater Jeep, Pick up Van,
Recovery Van.
The detail NIT is available at
http://wbtenders.gov.in
Sd/Managing Director
NBSTC, Cooch Behar
tered in 2001 against Zardari,
who is accused of making
illegal assets in 1990s when
his slain wife Benazir Bhutto was the prime minister.
The case has dragged on
for years due to several reasons.
It was dropped in 2007
under a controversial political deal with former military
ruler Pervez Musharraf but
later it was reopened on the
Supreme Court order.
Zardari enjoyed immunity as the President during
his tenure from 2008 to 2013.
He once again faces the law
when anti-corruption watchdog - National Accountability Bureau (NAB)- reopened
the case last month.
11
Koirala visits earthquake-hit districts
Nepalese Prime Minister
Sushil Koirala today visited
Barpak in Gorkha district,
the epicentre of the deadly
quake, 11 days after the temblor jolted the Himalayan
nation, to take stock of the
situation.
During the visit, he pointed out the need for formation
of a separate ministry to deal
with the aftermath of any natural disasters in the future.
Visiting Barpak and other
quake-affected areas in the
district, Koirala said that the
government was fully committed to carry out relief
AGENCIES
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
LOYALIST HELD
Colombo, 5 May: A former
senior minister and close
aide of ex-Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa
has been arrested for fraud,
police said today.
The Colombo chief magistrate ordered that Johnston
Fernando be remanded until
tomorrowand be produced
before a magistrate at Kurunegala,his northwestern provincial base.Fernando was arrested by police's Financial Crime
Investigation Unit (FCIU)
over alleged financial impropriety at the state wholesale
entity Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE)
during Rajapaksa's rule. PTI
NYU STUDENT HELD IN N KOREA
SAYS HE 'WANTED TO BE ARRESTED'
Seoul, 5 May: A South Korean student held in North Korea
for illegal entry has told CNN in an interview from
Pyongyang that he wanted to be arrested.
Joo Won-Moon, 21, who attends New York University and has permanent US residency, said he had hoped
to create an “event” that could improve relations between
North and South Korea.
It was unclear whether he was speaking freely or had
been told by North Korean authorities what to say.
“I wanted to be arrested,” Joo told a CNN reporter,
looking relaxed and even smiling as he walked into a conference room at Pyongyang's Koryo Hotel for the interview.
AFP
works,and the rehabilitation
of the damaged houses and
communities would begin
soon after the relief distribution ends.
“Tents and foodstuffs are
in much demand here and
the government is coordinating with neighbouring
countries to deal with the
post-quake situation,”
Koirala said.
The premier said he was
discussing the issue of
rebuilding the houses damaged by the April 25 temblor.
Koirala also said that all
political parties have agreed
to jointly deal with the current crisis.
The parliament meeting
on Thursday would chalk out
a future course of action to
tackle the situation, he said.
The prime minister had
flown into the district on a
Nepal Army chopper and carried out an aerial inspection
of the quake-hit areas.
Yesterday, he had visited
Sindhupalchowk district,
situated in the east of Kathmandu and the worst-hit by
the 7.9-magnitude April 25
temblor.
12
Our dilemma was between principles or seats. I am happy
that we decided to keep our principles and give up our seats
AVIGDOR LIEBERMA
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
THUMBNAILS
OUTGOING FOREIGN MINISTER OF ISRAEL
UK HEADS FOR HUNG VERDICT
INDIAN VOTES COULD BE THE KEY, PARTY LEADERS REDOUBLE THEIR EFFORTS TO WIN OVER THE ELECTORATE
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
London, 5 May
Former Arkansas Governor Mike
Huckabee holds his grandson,
Chandler Huckabee, 3, after he
officially announced his candidacy
for the 2016 Presidential race on
Tuesday in Hope, Arkansas. � AFP
Bahrain Indians:
Fourteen Indian sailors
stranded on board a
Mongolian oil tanker
off the coast of Bahrain
due to legal reasons since
December last year
have finally left the
Gulf nation, according
to a media report today.
They were among the
16-member crew of
Mongolian vessel MT
Surya Kuber, which
was banned from leaving Bahrain as its Singapore-based owner
7Seas Ship Management allegedly owed
Asry and Kanoo Shipping more than USD
PTI
220,000.
Turkey arrests:Turkish authorities today
formally arrested and
charged with “terrorism” two dozen people detained during
May Day demonstrations in Istanbul, state
media said. According to official figures,
police on May Day
detained 366 people in
various parts of the city
following clashes. AFP
Einstein: You might
not have a brain like
Albert Einstein, but at
least now you can write
like him! A German
artist has created a
font based upon Einstein's handwriting to
let people write like the
famous physicist. PTI
Indian-origin migrants who
form the UK's largest foreignborn voter population could
play a decisive role in the
country's 7 May general elections which could result in
a hung Parliament.
The party leaders from the
ruling coalition ~ Conservatives and Liberal Democrats
~ and Opposition Labour
redoubled their efforts to win
over the electorate in one of
the closest elections in British
history where every vote
will count.
The British Parliament is
made up of 650 seats with 326
required for a majority. In the
last elections in 2010, which
also presented a hung result,
the Tories had 307 and
Labour 258.
The Liberal Democrats'
57 helped the Tories cobble
together a majority but with
the Nick Clegg-led Liberal
Democrats losing much
ground this year, any coalition talks are expected to run
British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron speaks during an election rally in St Ives, south-west England on Tuesday.
on for days as parties may
be forced to resort to horse-
IS claims responsibility for US attack
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Houston, 5 May
The Islamic State today
claimed responsibility for
an attack outside an event
centre hosting a controversial cartoon contest concer ning
Prophet
Mohammed, its first assault
on US soil, and threatened
to carry out “more bitter”
violence in the country.
“Two soldiers...of the
caliphate attacked an exhibit in Garland in American
Texas,” the militant group
said on its Syria-based alBayan radio station, according to the SITE Intelligence
Group which monitors radical factions around the
world.
The attack that left two
gunmen dead represents
the first time the Islamic
State has announced links
to a high-profile attack in
the US.
The statement warned
that the US will be targeted by other Islamic State
fighters waging attacks
that will be “worse and
more bitter, and you will see
from the soldiers of the
Islam State what will hurt
you,” the SITE report said.
The claim, however,
offered no hints about how
the Islamic State purportedly made contact or directed the two attackers from
Phoenix in Sunday's failed
assault.
The two gunmen were
named yesterday as Elton
Simpson and 34-year-old
Nadir Soofi, who was a
roommate of the former,
The Washington Post
re por ted, citing a law
enforcement official.
Simpson, 31, had linked
himself to ISIS in a tweet
posted just before the attack,
a federal law enforcement
source told the newspaper.
Federal Agents were
searching an apartment in
Phoenix, Arizona, where
Simpson reportedly lived,
an FBI official said.
In 2011, hewas convicted of making a false statement involving international and domestic terrorism.
He had previously been
investigated on suspicion
of terrorism offences.
Simpson had been under
Heavy clashes with IS reported in Iraq
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Baghdad, 5 May
Reinforcements are being
rushed to the key Beiji
refinery in northern Iraq
amid heavy fighting with
Islamic State militants
who have been trying to
capture the facility for
months, Iraqi officials
said today.
But Brig Gen Saad
Maan, a spokesman for
the Interior Ministry,
denied during his appearance on state television
that the Islamic State
g roup had taken over
major parts of the refinery, the country's largest,
as some Iraqi media reported.
Aside from its commercial significance, Beiji
is on the road to Mosul,
Iraq's second largest city
and the main center of
the Islamic State's power
in Iraq. If Iraqi forces
hope to eventually take
back Mosul, they have to
secure Beiji the scene of
Iraqi security forces and onlookers gather at the site of a car bomb explosion
in Baghdad's central Karrada district on Tuesday. � AFP
s t u bb o r n f i g h t i n g fo r
months.
Ammar Hikmat, the
d e p u t y g ove r n o r f o r
S a l a h u d d i n p r ov i n c e
where the refinery is located, told The Associated
Press that the troops hold-
ing the refinery have been
battered since yesterday by
a wave of suicide bombi n g s c a r r i e d o u t by
armored vehicles packed
with explosives.
The gover nment has
several times said the
FOURTH HEIRESS IN LINE TO THE THRONE
Queen meets Charlotte
refinery was under control, but militants have
re p e at e d ly c o u n t e r at tacked.
A spokesman for the
provincial government,
Adel al-Samaraie, said
militants are in control of
at least half the refinery
and are seeking to cut the
main supply line to the
embattled troops holding
the rest.
“They are advancing
and taking over many
areas,” al-Samaraie told
The Associated Press in a
phone interview, referring to the militants.
Iraqi state television
devoted an hour-long program today to assert that
the refinery was still in
government hands.
Maan asserted that “it
is impossible for the militants to take over the
refinery.” In recent days,
the Iraqi government has
decried what it describes
as a propaganda war by the
Islamic State to exaggerate their advances.
London, 5 May
minster Register Office.
The nearly hour-long
meeting with the Queen
and official birth registration this afternoon
means the Duke and
Duchess of Cambridge
are ready to head to
their Anmer Hall country home in Norfolk,
possibly tomorrow, for
an extended period.
The Duke will then
begin the final part of
his training before he
begins flying patients to
hospital, mainly based
at Cambridge Airport
with some shifts based
in Norwich.
surveillance since 2006 and
convicted in 2010 of lying
to FBI agents over his desire
to join violent jihad in
Somalia, according to court
documents.
FBI agents and police
searched the two men's
home at the Autumn Ridge
Apartments in north-central Phoenix, cordoning off
the complex and evacuating residents for several
hours. The controversial
event was about to end
when the two gunmen
pulled up in a car and shot
an unarmed Garland ISD
security officer.
Seconds later, Garland
police returned fire and
killed the two gunmen
before anyone else was
hurt.
AFP
in this year's elections, it is
ROUHANI DENOUNCES
WEST FOR BOASTING
OVER ARMS DEALS
tify with the Labour party
is falling very fast,” said Dr
Maria Sobolewska, an
expert from Manchester
University and part of the
team which conducted the
study.
The ruling Conservatives,
led by Prime Minister David
Cameron, had only attracted 16 per cent of ethnic
minority votes at the last election in 2010 and are seeking
to address that by fielding 12
Indian-origin candidates in
these elections.
These include Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthy's
son-in-law, Rishi Sunak, as
well as the first Sikh candidate to contest in Northern
Ireland, Amandeep Singh
Bhogal.
The opinion polls reflect
a neck-and-neck race with the
latest YouGov opinion poll
for the 'Sun' indicating the
Conservatives and Labour
both at 33 per cent, with
anti-immigration UKIP at 12
per cent, and the Liberal
Democrats gaining two percentage points at 10 per cent.
Israeli Foreign Minister
quits; to join Opp
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Tehran, 5 May: Iran's president
Jerusalem, 5 May
denounced western countries for taking pride in arms
sales today,after France signed
a warplanes deal with Qatar,
saying weapons agreements
add to Middle East instability.
Although he did not name
France, Hassan Rouhani's
comments came after it agreed
a 6.3-billion-euro (USD 7-billion)
contract with Qatari defence
officials in Doha.French President Francois Hollande was
at the signing ceremony prior
to a Gulf Cooperation Council leaders' meeting in Riyadh,
the first time a western head
of state has attended a GCC
AFP
summit.
In a blow to Israeli Prime
Minister
Benjamin
Netanyahu's efforts to form
a stable coalition, his outspoken Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman has quit
to join the opposition, two
days before the end of a new
deadline to form the government.
With Lieberman's exit,
Netanyahu's new government has been left with a
wafer-thin majority of 61
members in the 120-member
parliament.
“Our dilemma was
between principles or seats.
I am happy that we decided
to keep our principles and
give up our seats,”Lieberman
told his Yisrael Beitenu party.
“I have decided to resign
from my post as Foreign
Minister,” the ultra-nationalist controversial leader
added. Lieberman said he
could not sit in the government after Netanyahu struck
a series of deals with ultraOrthodox partners.
A bar bouncer once,
Lieberman has been an
important leader of the
almost one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union region and played
a king-maker in previous
government formations
when his party did well in
elections.
SELFIE-TAKING
TOURISTS BREAK
HERCULES STATUE
Gulf leaders gather amid growing
concern over Yemen
London, 5 May: Two tourists
in northern Italy have landed in the soup after they
broke off a piece of a priceless statue of Hercules,
which dates back to 1700,
while trying to climb it and
take a selfie.
The tourists had been
climbing the 'Statue of the
two Hercules', in Cremona,
on Friday night when they
involuntarily broke off a
piece of the marble crown
on top of the monument.
The two perpetrators
have been identified by the
police, 'The Local' reported.
Situated under the portico
of the 13th century Loggia
dei Militi, the monument
depicts two statues of Hercules holding a large shield.
It is considered to be a
symbol of Cremona itself,
which is said to be founded
by the mythological hero,
according to 'Corriere della
PTI
Sera'.
Riyadh, 5 May
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Gulf monarchs gather today
for an extraordinary summit
amid growing international
concern over the Saudi-led air
war against Shiite rebels in
Yemen and a deepening
regional threat from jihadists.
French President Francois
Hollande will become the
first Western leader to sit in
on the Sunni-dominated Gulf
Cooperation Council meeting,
which is also expected to air
concerns over a potential
final nuclear deal with Shiite Iran.
The Riyadh summit brings
together leaders from
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates.
All but Oman are in the
Saudi-led coalition that
launched air strikes in Yemen
in late March against Iranbacked Huthi rebels and their
allies who seized control of
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz (R) meets with Kuwait's Sheikh Sabah alAhmad al-Sabah during the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Riyadh
on Tuesday. � AFP
large parts of the country
including the capital Sanaa.
Yemeni
President
Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi
fled a rebel advance on his
southern refuge of Aden,
and is now in Riyadh.
Anti-government forces
have refused to concede territory or lay down their
weapons despite international pressure.
The United Nations says
at least 1,200 people have
been killed in Yemen since
March 19, and has repeatedly warned that the already
impoverished Arabian Peninsula state faces a major
humanitarian crisis.
Amnesty slams 'crimes against humanity' in Aleppo
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Beirut, 5 May
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Queen Elizabeth II today
met her new greatgranddaughter Princess
Charlotte Elizabeth
Diana for the first time
at Kensington Palace,
three days after the
fourth in line to the
throne was born.
The British monarch
drove from her Sandringham estate in the
east of England to visit
the new-born, her fifth
great grandchild, at
Prince William and
Kate's Kensington
Palace residence in London.
The visit came soon
after William signed the
birth register, witnessed
by a registrar from West-
trading. For the first time,
�
predicted there are a significant number of seats
where the migrant vote is
likely to have the biggest
impact ~ areas where there
are large numbers of eligible migrant voters and a
relatively small majority
for the sitting MP.
In this so-called
“migrant power list” there
are 12 Opposition Labour
marginal seats, six ruling
Conservative seats and
two held by the coalition
partners Liberal Democrats.
The number of Indian
voters, estimated at around
615,000,identifying with the
Labour party has fallen
from 77 per cent in 1997 to
just 18 per cent in 2014, a
fall of over three quarters, according to the figures from a recent British
Election Study.
“The ethnic minorities are seen to be the
core of Labour party vote,
they have been for years,
for decades but...the percentage of people who iden-
Syrian government forces
are committing “crimes
against humanity” by indiscriminately bombing Aleppo, Amnesty International
said today, as it also criticised
rebels for abuses including
“war crimes”.
In a new report, the rights
watchdog said “relentless”
government aerial bombardment of Syria's former
economic powerhouse had
forced many residents to
“eke out an existence underground”.
It slammed the “horrendous war crimes and other
abuses in the city by government forces and armed
opposition groups on a daily
basis”.
“Some of the government's actions in Aleppo
amount to crimes against
humanity,” Amnesty said.
The report was particularly critical of the government's use of so-called
barrel bombs, crudely constructed weapons fashioned
from barrels and other vessels packed with explosives.
Rights groups say the
weapons are especially
destructive and kill indiscriminately.
“By relentlessly and deliberately targeting civilians the
Syrian government appears
to have adopted a callous policy of collective punishment against the civilian
population of Aleppo,” said
Amnesty's Middle East and
North Africa programme
director Philip Luther.
Despite documentation of
the government's use of the
weapons by rights groups
and activists on the ground,
Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad has repeatedly
denied that his forces use barrel bombs.
Their use has created
Philip Luther
“sheer terror and unbearable
suffering,” said Amnesty.
Yesterday, the Doctors
Without Borders NGO said
one of the main hospitals in
Aleppo had been forced to
suspend activities after
recent attacks.
The hospital in rebelheld Sakhur served some
400,000 people, the group
said, renewing an appeal for
all sides “to respect civilians,
health facilities and medical
staff.”
The Amnesty report also
criticised rebels fighting in
Aleppo, which has been
divided between government control in the west and
opposition control in the
east since shortly mid-2012.
The report said rebels
were committing “war
crimes” by using “imprecise
weapons such as mortars
and improvised rockets fitted with gas canisters called
'hell cannons.'”
Rebels regularly fire missiles into western Aleppo,
with Amnesty saying some
600 civilians had been killed
in such attacks in 2014.
Regime barrel bomb
attacks killed more than
3,000 civilians across Aleppo province last year,
Amnesty said.
The report also documented “widespread torture, arbitrary detention
and abduction by both government forces and armed
opposition groups.”
And it slammed the inter-
national community for failing to punish abuses against
civilians in Syria, calling it
a “cold-hearted display of
indifference” that encouraged impunity.
“Continued inaction is
being interpreted by perpetrators of war crimes and
crimes against humanity
as a sign they can continue
to hold the civilians of Aleppo hostage without fear of
any retribution,” said Luther.
The Syrian conflict
should be referred to the
Inter national Criminal
Court so perpetrators “can
be brought to justice”, he
said.
More than 220,000 people
have been killed in Syria
since March 2011, according
to the Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights monitor.
The country's prolonged
conflict began with anti-government protests, but spiralled into a bloody war after
a regime crackdown.
SENSEX
NIFTY
GOLD
SILVER
25,770
27,440.14
27,396.38
28APR 29
30
4 5 MAY
THUMBNAILS
28
29
12 APR
MAY 13
+189
+39
+44
25,695
8,324.80
8,285.60
30
14
154 165 MAY
MAY
27 APR 28
+75
29
4
27
APR 13
28
9 MAY
5MAY
R PER 10 GM
36,350
37,600
29
14
154 165 MAY
MAY
-300
+1250
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
R PER KG
BIG RELIEF FOR E-COM FIRMS
CCI REJECTS ALLEGATIONS OF UNFAIR PRACTICES AGAINST FIVE ONLINE RETAILERS
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
BIS hosts PASC meet:
The Bureau of Indian
Standards (BIS) hosted
the 38th Pacific Area StandardsCongress(PASC)workshop in the Capital on
Tuesday. Director general of BIS M J Joseph said
standardisation of services helps in improving
economic efficiency. The
workshop discussed standardisation in education,
tourism, IT/ITES, logistic and retail sectors.
Around 200 delegates representing 24 countries
attended the workshop. SNS
Rate cut: Bank of Baroda has slashed base rate
or minimum lending rate
by 0.25 per cent to 10 per
cent.State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur has also cut
its base rate by 0.15 per cent
PTI
to 10.10 per cent.
Nivea plant:Global skin
care brand Nivea on Tuesday opened its first manufacturing plant in India
at Sanand GIDC area in
the state of Gujarat along
with an integrated regional development laboraPTI
tory.
NIIT purchase: NIIT
Technologies on Tuesday announced acquisition of 51 per cent stake
in Hyderabad-based Incessant Technologies for
about Rs 107.8 crore.It reported a net loss of Rs 17.5 crore
for March 2015 period. PTI
SAIL sales fall: Sales of
steel major SAIL took a
hit of 2.3 per cent at 11.8
million tons in the financial year ended March
2015 due to subdued demand
during the July-December
period of the fiscal. PTI
PFC subsidiaries:Stateowned Power Finance
Corporation (PFC) on
Tuesday said it has formed
t wo wh o l l y - ow n e d
subsidiaries for setting up
electricity generation
and transmission proPTI
jects.
CURRENCY
CURRENCY*
US$
EURO
UK POUND
YEN
SW FR
CAN$
SING$
MAL RIN
THAI BAHT
(IN RUPEES)
67.09
74.71
101.44
0.55
72.68
55.62
51.34
19.31
2.07
*THOMAS COOK’S SELLING RATES
The Competition Commission of India has rejected
allegations of unfair business practices against five
online retail majors ~ Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon,
Jabong and Myntra ~ as it
did not find any prima facie
evidence of violations.
The complaints were filed
against Flipkart India Pvt
Ltd, Jasper Infotech Pvt
Ltd, Xerion Retail Pvt Ltd,
Amazon Seller Services Pvt
Ltd and Vector E-commerce
Pvt Ltd.
After looking into the
matter for the past few
months, the fair trade watchdog has ruled that these
entities did not violate competition norms by indulging
in cartelisation or by abusing their dominant position.
Jasper
runs
Snapdeal.com, Xerion owns
Kolkata, 5 May
Private carrier Jet Airways
and Air Seychelles, the
national airline of the
Republic of Seychelles, today
unveiled a codeshare partnership that offers travellers enhanced connections on their respective
networks.
The agreement heralds an
era of closer cooperation
between the two airlines
which, in subsequent
months, will include reciprocal frequent flyer programmes, cargo handling,
and expansion of codeshare
arrangements, Jet Airways
said in a Press release.
Jet Airways will place its
“9W” code on Air Seychelles’
flights between Mumbai
and Mahé (four times per
week), as well as the carri-
NO VIOLATION OF NORMS
� Complaints were filed
against Flipkart India Pvt Ltd,
Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, Xerion Retail Pvt Ltd, Amazon
Seller Services Pvt Ltd and
Vector E-commerce Pvt Ltd
� It was alleged that e-commerce websites and product
sellers entered into exclusive
agreements to sell products
exclusively on select portals
� After looking into the
matter for the past few
months, the fair trade watchdog has ruled that
these entities did not violate competition norms by
indulging in cartelisation or by abusing their
dominant position
“It does not seem that
such arrangements create
any entry barrier for new
entrants. It seems very
unlikely that an exclusive
arrangement between a
manufacturer and an e-portal will create any entry
barrier as most of the products which are illustrated in
the information to be sold
through exclusive e-part-
ners (OPs) face competitive
constraints,” the order, dated
23 April, said.
Agreeing with the contention of the opposite parties, the Commission said
that every product cannot
be taken as a relevant market in itself.
“Irrespective of whether
we consider e-portal market
as a separate relevant product market or as a
sub-segment of the market
for distribution, none of
the opposite parties seems
to be individually dominant.
“There are several players in the online retail market which have been arrayed
as opposite parties in the present case, offering similar
facilities to their customers,”
the order said.
The regulator noted that
it does not consider it necessary to go into the question of abuse of dominance
by the opposite parties.
Direct tax revenue
falls short of target
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
Direct tax collections
touched Rs 6,96,200 crore
during financial year 201415 despite difficulties on
the economic front, marginally falling short of the
target.
Officials said the income
tax department, which collects a variety of taxes,
including personal and corporate taxes, mopped up
approximately Rs 6,96,200
crore in the fiscal ending 31
March 2015.
“The collections have
been very close to the target despite a huge tide of
economic slump. The collections fell short by only a
minuscule 1.26 per cent and
not 14 per cent as reported
earlier,” a senior I-T official
said.
The official added that as
the final collections are still
being compiled, the actual
shortfall will “even be lesser by a few points.”
The collections during the
last fiscal are about Rs 9,000
crore less from the projected target of Rs 7,05,000 crore.
Also, the latest collections are 19 per cent more
than the previous fiscal. In
fiscal 2013-14, the mop-up
stood at Rs 5,83,000 crore.
The government had
revised the direct tax collection target to Rs 7,05,000
crore for fiscal 2014-15 against
the initial projection of
Rs 7,36,000 crore in view of
the sluggish economic
growth.
“The sluggish growth,
especially in service sectors and the tax deducted at
source (TDS) category took
a toll on the direct taxes collection. The department, in
spite of these challenges,
achieved the best it could,”
the official said.
The tax department, the
official said, also registered
a growth of only 8 per cent
in the most crucial TDS category as compared to 18
per cent under the same
category during the previous fiscal.
Coal,rail ministries and Brokerages see scope for 25 bps
Jharkhand govt to form JV repo cut in 2 June policy meet
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Patna, 5 May
In a move that could yield
positive results in coal evacuation logistics from North
Karanpura coalfield area
of Central Coalfields Limited, a tripartite memorandum of understanding
(MoU) was yesterday signed
among ministry of coal,
ministry of railways and the
government of Jharkhand
in Ranchi for formation of
a joint venture to undertake
project development, financing and implementation of
identified projects on equity basis. The JV will have
an authorised share capital
of Rs.1,000 crore.
The MoU was signed in
the presence of Jharkhand
chief minister Raghubar
Das and Union minister for
power, coal and non-renew-
SBI REJIGS TOP
MANAGEMENT
Mumbai, 5 May: Country's
largest lender State Bank of
India has elevated five of its
chief general managers
(CGMs) to the post of deputy
managing directors (DMDs),
according to a source at the
bank.
Two of the five newlyappointed DMDs have
already been given new
assignments.
On the directions of the
Reserve Bank, the bank has
split the post of chief risk
and credit officer into two
separate posts which include
chief risk officer and chief
credit officer, the source
said.
Ms Shastri, who has so
far been looking after risk
management, has taken
over as chief risk officer
(CRO), while Ms Varsha
Purandare, who was holding the post of chief risk and
credit officer, will now on act
as the chief credit officer
only, the source added. PTI
Jet, Air Seychelles
ink codeshare pact
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Jabong.com, while Vector is
the company behind Myntra.com.
“... the Commission is of
the prima facie view that no
case of contravention of
the provisions of either Section 3 or Section 4 of the Act
is made out against the
opposite parties,” it said in
a 10-page order.
It was alleged that ecommerce websites and
product sellers entered into
exclusive agreements to sell
products exclusively on
select portals.
In recent months, there
have been rising concerns
that discount sales launched
by various e-commerce websites, including Flipkart,
were anti-competitive in
nature.
With regard to exclusive
agreements, the Competition
Commission of India (CCI)
said that such pacts need not
result in appreciable adverse
effect on competition.
13
er’s flights to Abu Dhabi and
Johannesburg.
In turn, Air Seychelles
will place its “HM” code on
Jet Airways’ domestic services from Mumbai to
Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kochi,
and Thiruvananthapuram,
and also on Jet Airways’
inter national services
between Abu Dhabi and
Mumbai.
Speaking about the agreement, Mr Cramer Ball, chief
executive officer, Jet Airways, said: “We are pleased
to sign this codeshare agreement with Air Seychelles,
which reflects our growing
ambitions in the region.
“The agreement makes
Seychelles more accessible
to our guests, and opens up
other key destinations and
multiple travel options that
we constantly endeavour to
offer our guests."
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Even though inflation
remains within RBI's comfort level, HSBC warned of
potential threats to a price
rise.
“When domestic demand
recovers or global commodity prices rise, the cost
of food could quickly
rebound. Ultimately, sustained disinflation hinges
upon food refor ms in
production and distribution, and a much improved
investment climate,” HSBC
said.
After 2015, the quantum
of cuts depends on structural
reforms, it said, reminding
that the medium target of
RBI is to arrest the price rise
at 4 per cent by 2018.
“If they (structural
reforms) are coming, there
could be space to cut. But if
not, RBI may just have to sit
tight,” it said.
The Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) is expected to cut rates
in its June policy review
meeting on softening food
prices, analysts have said.
“The recent softening in
food prices could continue
into 2015 and forms the
basis for our June rate cut
call,” HSBC said in a note,
but cautioned that we should
not be “fooled” as the food
price disinflation is not yet
entrenched.
BofA-ML, on its part,
said Governor Raghuram
Rajan will go in for a 0.25 per
cent rate cut at the 2 June
policy review, but may pause
thereafter.
“RBI will likely pause
thereafter to see our expected September Fed rate hike
through and cut 50 bps in
early 2016 after markets
price in the Fed tightening,” the American brokerage said.
The retail inflation eased
to a 3-month low at 5.17 per
cent for March, down from
5.37 per cent acceleration in
February, setting off expectations of a rate cut.
BofA-ML said RBI's preconditions for a rate cut
are “largely met”, with
banks cutting their base
rates after some straight
talk from the Governor and
some resilience in food
prices even after the unseasonal rains.
It also pointed to the
recently released minutes of
the Technical Advisory
Committee (TAC), which
showed a divided house
where Mr Rajan vetoed the
majority view for a rate
reduction and chose the sta-
Firstsource net
jumps 6% in Q4
INDIA CAN GROW
AT 9-10%: FM
Exide Life posts 23% AXA ALLOWED
growth in net profit TO UP STAKE
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
government has initiated a
number of reforms in its
first year to encourage
investments and the country has the potential to grow
at 9-10 per cent, finance
minister Arun Jaitley said.
“I do believe that India
has a 9 or 10 per cent growth
potential. To achieve that we
have to invest a lot into
rural infrastructure and
irrigation that's one area we
can move up,” he said.
Besides, he said, a lot of
investment is required in the
infrastructure sector so
that it has beneficial impact
on manufacturing.
“It's only then we can
achieve a 9 to 10 per cent
growth rate and once we are
able to do it for a decade or
so, we can lower poverty rate.
It's only then I will feel
excited about it,” he said in
an interview to a TV channel, in Baku, capital city of
Azerbaijan.
PTI
able energy sources Piyush
Goyal. While the coal ministry will have a holding of
64 per cent, the railway ministry and the Jharkhand
government will hold 26
per cent and 10 per cent
respectively in the JV.
There was a consensus
that there is a need for development of rail infrastructure for evacuation of coal
through rail. The development of the corridors shall
be implemented either
through the proposed JV or
through separate project-specific joint venture companies. The JV also extends to
construction of railway sidings under the Tori-ShivpurKathotia railway line. The
construction work of the railway lines shall be undertaken only after process of
land acquisition and environmental/forest clearances
have been completed, and
financial closure has been
achieved.
Mr Goyal said on completion of this critical railway line around 200 million
tons of coal per annum
would be transported from
Jharkhand with which 40,000
MW of power could be generated. This would be in
line with the government’s
policy aimed at power for all,
he added.
The basic idea is to speed
up the critical Tori-Shivpur-Kathotia railway line.
The important railway line,
with a length of 93.5 kms and
covering a total area of 1053
hectares is one of the three
critical lines that Coal India
Limited, the state owned
coal behemoth, is actively
pursuing. The other two
are in Chattisgarh and
Odisha.
Kolkata, 5 May
Firstsource Solutions, an RPSanjiv Goenka Group company providing customised
business process management and services globally
reported a 5.9 per cent jump
in consolidated net profit at
Rs 62.31 crore for the fourth
quarter ended 31 March
2015, as against Rs 58.84
crore in the corresponding
period of the previous year.
Announcing the results
after the company's board
meeting here today, Mr Sanjiv Goenka, chairman, said:
“In financial year 2014-15 our
focus was on consolidating
the bottomline which we
have been able to achieve.
Going forward the focus
will be on profitable growth.”
The company's consolidated net profit for the full
year ended March 2015 stood
at Rs 234.31 crore, which is
Mr Sanjiv Goenka, Firstsource chairman, addressing a Press conference
in Kolkata on Tuesday. � sns
an increase of 21.43 per
cent over Rs 192.96 crore for
the year ended March 2014.
Consolidated revenue,
however, declined by 5.3 per
cent in the fourth quarter
to Rs 754 crore from Rs 796.2
crore in the same quarter of
the previous fiscal.
The company's revenue
also declined by 2.3 per cent
during the year under review
to Rs 3,034.65 crore from Rs
3,105.87 crore in the previous fiscal.
Mumbai, 5 May
Baku/New Delhi, 5 May: The
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
Kolkata, 5 May
Exide Life Insurance today
announced a net profit of Rs
65.3 crore for financial year
2014-15, registering a growth
of 23 per cent over the previous financial year.
During the fiscal under
review, the company recorded 11 per cent growth in total
premium at Rs 2,027 crore
compared with fiscal 201314, a statement issued by the
company said.
While new business premium registered a growth
of 14 per cent at Rs 645
crore, the insurer's renewal premium went up by nine
per cent to Rs 1,382 crore during the fiscal.
Announcing the company’s financial results, Mr
Kshitij Jain, managing director and chief executive officer of Exide Life Insurance,
said: “Last year was a year
RATE CUT
‘The recent
softening in food
prices could
continue into
2015 and forms
the basis for our
June rate cut call’
tus quo.
Mr Rajan has surprised
the markets with two intermeeting cuts of 0.25 per
cent each in January and
March. The adoption of
inflation targeting framework with an explicit target
in the range of 4-6 per cent
in the medium-term only
makes the job of policymaking a bit easier, according to experts.
of transition and change at
Exide Life Insurance and
amidst that we have successfully grown our business."
The company’s rebranding has seen positive associations for expanding its
national footprint, Mr Jain
said.
Mr Jain said: “Going forward, we continue to stay
focused on our customers to
provide them with financial
solutions that will help them
prepare for a long and happy
life. Our core values of being
a life insurance company
which is dependable,
dynamic, responsive and
foresighted will help us
g row faster than the
industry and help increase
insurance penetration in
India.”
The company's assets
under management stood at
Rs 8,800 crore as on 31 March
2015, the statement said.
IN BHARTI JVS
New Delhi, 5 May: The government has approved a
proposal of French insurance firm AXA to raise
stake in its life insurance
joint venture with Bharti
Group to 49 per cent for Rs
858.6 crore.
The French firm has also
been permitted to raise
stake in the general insurance joint venture with
Bharti. This will entail capital flow of Rs 431.40 crore.
Together, AXA's FDI in
Bharti Group will be worth
Rs 1,290 crore. Both the
insurance deals were
multi-structured transactions.
These are the first FDI
proposals cleared after the
passage of insurance Bill in
March that allowed raising of foreign investment
cap from 26 per cent to 49 per
PTI
cent.
MARKETING MARGIN FOR GAIL WAS FIXED IN RUPEES WHEREAS RIL WAS CHARGING IN DOLLARS
CAG raps govt for favouring RIL
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, 5 May
Government auditor CAG
today criticised the oil ministry for allowing Reliance
Industries to charge a marketing margin on its KG-D6
gas in US dollars terms
and not in rupees saying it
will result in over Rs 201
crore excess subsidy payout
on urea.
“Production Sharing
Contract (PSC) for KG-D6
block did not provide for
marketing margin component. The contractor
(RIL), however, has been
charging marketing margin based on the energy
equivalent of gas supplied, i.e. $0.135 per
mmBtu,” the Comptroller and Auditor General
(CAG) said.
The marketing margin
is over and above the government approved natural gas sale price.
In a report tabled in
Parliament today, CAG
said the oil ministry had
in March 2009 stated that
government had not fixed
or approved the quantum
of marketing margin till
date for sale of natural
gas by any company.
Thereafter, the ministry in May 2010 fixed
marketing margin of Rs
200 per thousand cubic
meters (mscm).
“Marketing margin for
GAIL was fixed in Indian
rupee whereas the contractor (RIL) was charging this in terms of US
dollar,” it said.
MARKETING MARGIN
� Production Sharing Contract (PSC) for KG-D6 block
did not provide for marketing margin component. The
contractor (RIL), however, has been charging marketing
margin based on the energy equivalent of gas supplied
� Charging of marketing margin for KG-D6 gas in US
dollar instead of Indian rupee for a commodity
produced, marketed and consumed domestically is
incongruous with Indian market
Charging of marketing margin for KG-D6 gas
in US dollar instead of
Indian rupee for a commodity produced, marketed and consumed
domestically “is incongruous with Indian market,” CAG said, adding
that exchange fluctuations meant that the margin which was Rs 244.31
per mscm in 2010-11
increased to Rs 325.51 per
mscm in 2013-14.
The ministry of chemical and fertilizer estimates that charging marketing margin of $0.135
per mmBtu for KG-D6 gas
would lead to additional
subsidy outgo of Rs 125
crore a year.
“Additional impact of
charging of marketing
margin by contractor...
on 15 million standard
cubic meters per day of
KG-D6 gas (supplied to
fertilizer units on an
average) in excess of
marketing margin
allowed to GAIL, for the
period from May 2009 to
March 2014 works out to
Rs 201.40 crore,” CAG
said.
The department of fertilizers in January 2014
stated that in the absence
of any policy of the oil
ministry, it has not considered marketing margin paid to RIL in the
determination of cost of
production and reimbursement of the urea
units so far.
“Subsidy claims on
account of marketing
margin on KG-D6 gas was
kept pending from 200910, ie, since the beginning
of supplies by the contractor,” CAG said. There
was a need to regulate
marketing margin especially for natural gas supplies to sectors where
government has to bear
subsidy burden, it added.
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
Persistence isn’t always
a virtue
GAMBLERS ARE SUITORS WHO WILL NOT TAKE NO FOR AN
ANSWER, WRITES S ANANTHANARAYANAN
A
s gambling systems are usually with the odds doubled his/her bet every time they played. Then,
slightly against the player, in the “long run” it no matter when the individual won, he/she
is certain that the player will lose. And yet gen- would cover well over everything lost till then.
erations of gamblers have tossed fortunes away Such high investors must have been popular with
in the belief that the outcome in their own case the operators.
The trouble is that it is far from certain that
would be different.
Luke Clark, Bettina Studer, Joel Bruss, Daniel a punter will win once in every 10 tries. This is
Tranel and Antoine Bechara of the Univer- because in 10 tries, there are all kinds of possisities of Cambridge, Iowa and California report ble outcomes — no wins at all, exactly one win,
in the journal Proceedings of the National Aca- exactly two wins, three wins and so on. To have
demy of Sciences of the USA that it may be a no wins means to lose every time. Losing any
part of the brain that drives tendencies that one time has a nine in 10 chance, or 0.9. For this
make us human, that is hyperactive in the case to happen 10 times in a row, the chance works
out to 0.35. Winning exactly once is to lose nine
of compulsive gamblers.
The fact of the matter is that most people are times. It works out that to win in exactly one of
gamblers to some degree. “Seventy-three per the 10 times round and to lose all the others has
cent of people in the UK report some gambling a chance of 0.39.
involvement in the past year,” says a study conducted in 2010. Even governments promote Expectation goes awry
When we think of winning more times, like
gambling through state lotteries and moderate
chance taking is viewed as stress relieving exactly three times, four times and so on, the
behaviour. And then, many gambling schemes high figure, or 0.9, the losing chance, enters the
are presented like “opportunities” and the ac- reckoning a less number of times and the probcounts of people who were ruined are viewed
as cases where the victims made a “misTABLE IN CHANCES OF WINS IN 10 TRIES
take” while playing, rather than a reason to
No of wins
0 wins
one win
two wins
three wins four wins
stay away from the casino.
Mumbai’s own matka
In this ingenious money-spinner for the
underworld, players (read victims) placed
bets on an “opening” or a “closing” number,
which could be zero to nine, for the chance
to win nine times the money staked. It is
obvious that the matka operator would win
in the “long run”, because he would receive
10 units for every nine units he paid out.
Yet, generations in Mumbai and elsewhere
by “trunk call” played matka with zeal and
determination. How did they expect to profit? A number of “systems” were developed.
If a player took it that he/she would win
once every 10 times he/she played, and the
amount was one rupee each time, he/she
had to be just a little lucky to win nine rupees before having invested the full Rs 10.
And once he/she had won that nine rupees,
it could be taken that a new series had started. A popular system was when a punter
(N) in 10 tries
Chance of
0.35
exactly N wins
0.39
0.19
0.06
0.01
Chance of at
least N wins
1.0
0.65
0.25
0.07
0.01
Chance of at
most N wins
(ie, N or less
than N wins)
0.35
0.74
0.93
0.99
0.99
TABLE II-CHANCES OF WINS IN 100 TRIES
No of wins
0 wins
(N) in 100 tries
Chance of
0
exactly N wins
10 win
20 wins
0.13
0
0
0
1.0
0.55
0
0
0
Chance of at
most N wins
0
0.58
0.99
0.99
0.99
CANCER CELL PROLIFERATION IS ANCHORAGE-INDEPENDENT
AND INSENSITIVE TO POPULATION DENSITY, SAYS
TAPAN KUMAR MAITRA
A
grow well not only when they are anchored to
a solid surface but also when they are freely
suspended in a liquid or semi-solid medium.
Cancer cells are, therefore, said to exhibit
anchorage-independent growth.
When growing in the body, most normal
cells meet the anchorage requirement by binding to the extracellular matrix through cell
surface proteins called integrins. If attachment to the matrix is artificially prevented
using chemicals that block the binding of cell
surface integrins to components of the
matrix, normal cells usually lose the ability
to divide and, in many cases, they self-destruct by apoptosis. Triggering apoptosis in
the absence of proper anchorage is one of the
safeguards that prevents normal cells from
successfully floating away and setting up
housekeeping in another tissue. Because can-
Normal Growth
Outer skin surface
Tumor Growth
Shedding of dead cells
Squamous cells
Cells migration,
differentiation
Basal layer
(deviding cells)
Underlying
tissue
Basal lamina
research purposes. In addition, injecting
human cells into animals is not generally
practical because the animal’s immune system will reject human cells simply because
these are of foreign origin. One way around
the problem is to inject human cells into
mutant strains of mice whose immune systems are unable to attack and destroy foreign
cells. Human cancer cells injected into such
immunologically deficient animals will usually grow into tumors without being rejected.
Cancer cells also exhibit a number of other
distinctive growth properties that allow them
to be distinguished from normal cells. For
example, normal cells don’t grow well in culture if they are suspended in a liquid medium or a semi-solid material such as soft agar;
but when they are provided with a solid surface to which they can become anchored, the
cells attach to the surface, spread out and
begin to proliferate. In contrast, cancer cells
40 wins
Chance of at
least N wins
DISTINCTIVE TRAITS
cancer is an abnormal type of tissue
growth in which cells divide in an uncontrolled, relatively autonomous fashion, leading to a progressive increase in the
number of dividing cells. The resulting mass
of growing tissue is called a tumor (or neoplasm). Although tumors have escaped from
normal controls on cell proliferation, tumor
cells do not always divide more rapidly than
normal cells. The crucial issue is not the rate
of cell division but, rather, the balance between cell division and cell differentiation.
Cancer cell proliferation exhibits a number
of distinctive traits that distinguish it from
normal cell proliferation. One trait, of course,
is the ability to form tumors. With human
cancer cells, it is difficult to study tumor formation experimentally because it is unethical to inject cancer cells into humans for
30 wins
Underlying
tissue
cer cells are anchorage-independent, they circumvent this safeguard.
Another property that distinguishes cancer cells from normal cells is their response
to crowded conditions in culture. When normal cells are grown in the laboratory, they
divide until the surface of the culture vessel
is covered by a single layer of cells. Once this
monolayer stage is reached, cell division stops
— a phenomenon referred to as densitydependent inhibition of growth.
Cancer cells exhibit reduced sensitivity to
density-dependent inhibition of growth and,
therefore, do not usually stop dividing when
they reach the monolayer stage. Instead,
these cells continue to divide and gradually
begin piling up on top of each other.
THE WRITER IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, HEAD, DEPARTMENT OF
BOTANY, ANANDA MOHAN COLLEGE, KOLKATA, AND ALSO
FELLOW, BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF BENGAL, AND CAN BE
CONTACTED AT tapanmaitra59@yahoo.com
Luke Clark
ability comes crashing down (see Table I). It
turns out that the chance of winning at least
once, which is the total of the chances of
winning once, twice, and so on, which is also
just the chance of avoiding losing every
time, comes to 0.65 (notice, this is 1-0.35). Now
this is hardly the expectation of the average
punter of being sure to win once every 10
tries!
The chances of winning at least once in 10
tries gets even lower as the total number of
tries is increased. In Table II, for instance,
the chance of at least 10 wins in 100 tries is
0.55. In 100 tries, in fact, it is almost certain
that one would win at least five times, but the
chance of winning at least even 11 times
drops to 0.42.
Even if the ordinary visitor to the casino
did not know the mathematics of the thing,
losing a few thousands at the table should
help drive home the same lesson. But because some wins keep happening and the
winners celebrate in view of everyone around,
the others think they are just having a “bad
patch” and take lessons in patience. But the
organisers of the racket know that the more the
players, the more stable their assured income.
Research findings
The researchers features in PNAS take note
that persistent gamblers often treat “near misses” as different from any other outcome or that
they act out the gambler’s fallacy of viewing a
series of losses as a reason for the next play to
fall outside the series, in the form of success.
Gamblers “display an array of cognitive biases
that create a distorted expectancy of winning,”
the researchers say in the paper. The group then
conducted trials to see if it were a feature of the
brain that was behind this error of judgment in
habitual gamblers. Rather than try to seek out
the part of the brain that was responsible, the
researchers studied the behaviour of patients
with injuries in different parts of the brain.
“While neuro-imaging studies can tell us a great
deal about the brain’s response to complex
events, it’s only by studying patients with brain
injury that we can see if a brain region is actually needed to perform a given task,” says Dr
Clark.
Patients with injuries to specific parts of the
brain were presented with two gambling situations, one a slot machine where there were “near
misses” and another, a roulette table with a
series of losses, to suggest that the next play
would be different. The parts of the brain affected were the frontal part, which is involved in
cognition, the amygdala, a tiny organ involved
in emotion and aggression, or the insula, a part
in the centre of the brain now thought of as the
seat of social emotions, like lust and disgust,
pride and humiliation, guilt and atonement.
And then there were subjects with injuries to
other parts of the brain and also subjects with
no injuries.
The remarkable result was that all subjects,
but one category, were motivated to keep playing when they got “near misses” at the slot
machine or “continuous losses” at roulette. And
the category that did not respond in this way
was the one with injury to the insula. The insula may thus be the part of the brain that has
evolved in humans to endow us with unique
emotional features, including the tendency to
take chances. “Based on these results, we believe that the insula could be hyperactive in problem gamblers, making them more susceptible to
these errors of thinking. Future treatments for
gambling addiction could seek to reduce this
hyperactivity, either by drugs or by psychological techniques like mindfulness therapies,” says
Dr Clark.
THE WRITER CAN BE CONTACTED AT simplescience@gmail.com
The hidden menace
CURING HIV MEANS FINDING AND ERADICATING VIRUSES STILL LURKING
IN THE SHADOWS. GENEVIEVE MARTIN, MATTHEW PACE AND
JOHN FRATER REPORT
ince the early 1980s, when HIV was first
to virus eradication and its existence raises
identified, our knowledge of the virus — how
several questions for cure strategies. Is it possible
it causes disease, how it interacts with our
to completely eradicate latently infected cells from
immune system, how it responds to drugs — has
the body, or can we keep them silent to prevent
grown by the year. Drugs specifically designed to
viral rebound? Even more to the point, is it
target HIV and given as a cocktail of different
possible to prevent the reservoir from forming in
agents — known as combination Antiretroviral
the first place?
Therapy (Art) — have decreased the mortality
Due to the assimilation of viral genetic elements
associated with infection to the point where, for
into the host genome, researchers previously
newly diagnosed individuals today, life
assumed that once infection has taken hold, HIV
expectancies are comparable to those who are HIV- could never be completely eliminated. Yet in 2009,
negative.
German clinicians announced the case of an
But of the 35 million people currently living
apparent HIV cure in Timothy Ray Brown, also
with HIV, the World Health Organisation estimates known as “the Berlin patient.” He underwent a
that only around 40 percent use Art, partly
bone marrow transplant following unsuccessful
because about half do not know they are infected.
treatment for acute myeloid leukemia with
Providing Art to all who need it is a major
conventional chemotherapy. Following the
challenge and even when the drugs are available
transplant, Brown ceased taking Art and the virus
they are not a panacea. Regardless of treatment,
did not rebound. More than six years later,
there is increasing evidence that HIV-infected
researchers have been unable to find evidence of
individuals may be at greater risk of non-Aids
replication-competent HIV in blood or tissues from
comorbidities, for example, cardiovascular disease
this patient; it appears that any viral reservoir has
and dementia. Moreover, Art has to be taken for
been cleared. Despite the exceptional
life: if the drugs are stopped, virus production
circumstances surrounding this case, many
quickly ramps up and the disease can progress, a
believe that the Berlin patient serves as proof of
phenomenon known as rebound.
the concept that HIV can be cured.
Rebound occurs because HIV forms a reservoir
Researchers have since attempted bone marrow
in long-lived T cells that persist despite treatment.
transplants from donors carrying the same CCR5
As with all retroviruses, a key aspect of the HIV
mutation in six other cases of HIV-positive
replication cycle is the reverse transcription of the patients. Unfortunately, all of these individuals
viral genome into DNA, followed by integration of
died within a year from relapsed malignancy or
this viral DNA, known as the provirus, into the
transplantation complications. In one of these
host genome. In activated cells, this proviral DNA
individuals, rebound occurred after an HIV
can give rise to viral mRNA, proteins and
variant used an alternative T-cell coreceptor,
infectious viral particles. However, in some
CXCR4, suggesting a potential limitation to
infected cells, the virus enters a resting state,
targeting only CCR5.
termed latent infection, in which transcription or
These cases demonstrate the intrinsic dangers
translation is restricted but integrated HIV is still
and difficulties of the Berlin patient strategy,
present. These latently infected cells make up the
which could never be realistically scaled up to help
HIV reservoir and, eventually, may be stimulated
all those infected
to produce infectious virus.
with HIV.
The HIV reservoir consists largely of resting
Researchers have
CD4+ T cells, but other cells, such as
now turned to
macrophages, may also contribute. In patients
another strategy
who have been treated for many years with Art,
to eradicate HIV:
these latently infected cells are rare but still
using gene
present. It has been estimated that the proportion
therapy to turn
of latently infected cells capable of giving rise to
off CCR5
rebound virus production is approximately one in
expression. If
a million resting CD4+ T cells in patients on Art.
successful, such a
However, the difficulty of reliably measuring the
treatment could
reservoir means this number could be
prevent additional
significantly higher or lower.
cells from being
Regardless, the HIV reservoir is a major barrier HIV replication cycle
infected with HIV,
thwarting disease
progression even in
the presence of a viral
reservoir.
Significant work
remains to be done in
the development of a
potential cure and it
is an exciting time in
the field, with
interventional trials
running in parallel
with continued basic
research into the
mechanisms of HIV
infection and
pathology.
S
THE SCIENTIST
14
PLUS POINTS
A picture posted to Twitter of the space espresso,
served in a specially-developed cup.
First coffee in space
Astronauts have made the first cup of
coffee in space — using technology
that had to be painstakingly devised
on earth and then transported up to
the International Space Station in a
rocket. Yes, the ISS crew finally got
to use a specially-devised Espresso
machine, dubbed the ISSpresso.
Samantha Cristoforetti’s tweets
were packed with references to Star
Trek, as The Washington Post noted.
It brings to an end months of waiting
for the space coffee — the machine
had been expected to arrive on a
rocket last year but the SpaceX
rocket carrying it exploded. That
meant that non-essential items were
delayed, which the National
Aeronautics and Space
Administration judged the espresso
machine to be.
It finally arrived on a SpaceX
Dragon ship, along with Italy’s first
woman astronaut and 450 grams of
caviar for the team’s new year feast.
(That Italian astronaut was
Cristoforetti, sent up by the
European Space Agency, who posted
the pictures of herself with the
machine.)
The machine was made by the
Italian Space Agency’s engineering
firm Argotec and coffee company
Lavazza. It required special
technology to be built because
normal coffee machines rely on
gravity and any spillages could lead
to boiling water being thrown
around the space station or coffee
grounds getting thrown around into
the specialist equipment.
Nasa has only sent up 20 coffee
capsules and hasn’t yet worked out
how to dispose of the used ones.
Because each of them are
individually wrapped, they are
creating a lot of rubbish that the
agency is unable to throw away. But
those behind the mission to get coffee
into space hope the same
technologies can eventually be used
for making and consuming other
important things, like medicines.
ANDREW GRIFFIN/THE INDEPENDENT
Invisibility cloak
Scientists have built systems that
hide objects by bending light around
them so that they can’t be seen — but
they have previously only been tiny
and worked at small wavelength
ranges. Now scientists from the
German Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology claim to have built an
invisibility cloak big enough to hide
small objects, like phones, keys or a
wheel of cheese.
In a diffusive light-scattering medium, light moves on
random paths. A normal object casts a shadow, an
object with an invisibility cloak does not.
To use the cloak, objects are put
inside a small, long box that is coated
with a special paint. The box bends
light around it, meaning that the
objects placed in it disappear from
sight. Like previous versions, the
invisibility cloak works by bending
light around the box. But doing that
forces it to take a longer route that it
normally would, posing a problem
for the technology because it’s not
possible to speed the light up.
But the KIT scientists have got
round that issue by covering the
whole box in a light-scattering
material. In effect, that material
slows down all of the light — which
means that it can be sped back up
again. “As we seemingly slow down
the light everywhere, speeding it up
again in the cloak to make up for the
longer path around the core is not a
problem,” said Robert Schittny, who
led the research project.
And because of the way it is built,
the team behind the cloak says that it
can be easily transported and so
could be taken to classrooms to
inspire students. “It is a macroscopic
cloak that you can look at with your
bare eyes and hold in your hands,”
said Schittny. “With a reasonably
strong flashlight in a not too bright
room, it is very easy to demonstrate
the cloaking. That means no fancy
lab equipment, no microscopes, no
post-processing of measurement
data. The effect is just there for
everyone to see.”
THE INDEPENDENT
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
THUMBNAILS
Bopanna wins:Rohan
Bopanna and Florin
Mergea defeated Marin
Draganja and Henri
Kontinen 5-7, 7-6 (5),
10-6 in the $4,660,678
Madrid Open tennis
tournament. The IndoRomanian pair was
involved in a fierce contest.
MURRAY WINS FIRST CLAY TITLE
IT WAS THE FIRST TITLE MURRAY HAS WON WORKING WITH JONAS BJORKMAN
Nadal honoured:
Rafael Nadal, fourth
in the world, was
given an honorary
doctoral degree by
the European University of Madrid in
a ceremony attended by hundreds of
students. Nadal underlined "values and family" in his speech.
Fe r n a n d e z f e at :
Winger Romeo Fernandes has become the
first Indian footballer
to play for a Brazilian
club, enjoying a fairly successful debut
as a substitute for
Atletico Paranaense's
thrashing of Nacional
over the weekend.
India outplay Japan:
After a drab draw in
the opener, India dispatched Japan 2-0 in
the second game of the
four match hockey
test series in
Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. India took the
lead in the 27th minute
when Yuvraj Walmiki gave a fine pass to
S K Uthappa, who
flawlessly struck a
delightful field goal.
Dharamvir effortlessly breached Japan’s
defence in the 48th
minute, landing the
ball into the nets taking for the decisive 20 lead.
Andy Murray in action. ��AFP
PAUL NEWMAN
A
ndy Murray said at
the start of the BMW
Open in Munich that
he would not be donning the
lederhosen which are presented to the champion if he
won the tournament, but
when it came to it the world
No 3 did not disappoint his
hosts yesterday.
After beating Germany's
Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-6, 57, 7-6 in the rain-delayed
final to win his first claycourt title, Murray collected his winner's cheque for
¤80,000 (£59,000) and the
keys to a BMWi8 before
putting on a pair of the traditional Bavarian shorts.
The 32nd title of Murray's
career was won the hard way.
Kohlschreiber, who had kept
the Scot on court for more
than four and a half hours
in a five-set marathon at last
year's French Open, again
pushed his opponent hard.
The world No 24, twice a
champion in Munich, had
led 3-2 in the first set when
rain ended play for the day
on Sunday evening and succumbed only after a gruelling
contest that lasted more
than three hours.
Having lost the first set
on a tie-break, Kohlschreiber
dug deep in the second, getting the better of three
breaks of serve and eventually serving out to level the
contest. The third set, like
the first, did not feature
any breaks, but Murray
held firm in the deciding tiebreak, which he won 7-4.
It was the first title Murray has won as a married
man and his first working
with Jonas Bjorkman, who
joined his coaching
entourage less than a fortnight ago and took charge
of his preparations in
Munich in the absence of
Amélie Mauresmo. In his
first clay-court final Murray
THE INDEPENDENT
rules out the ‘impossible’ Greaves in intensive care
MARINERS LOSE Mourinho
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
JACK DE MENEZES
Kolkata, 5 May: A goalkeeping howler from Shilton
Paul helped bottom-placed
Kalyani Bharat FC stun
league leaders Mohun Bagan
1-0 in an I-League match at
the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati
Sports Complex here on
Tuesday.
With the victory, the fight
for the league title hotted up
with just Mohun Bagan’s
lead slashed to a single point
after the 16th round. They
remained on 32 points just
ahead of Bengaluru FC (31).
Bharat FC improved a
rung, eclipsing Sporting
Cube De Goa (14) to the 10th
spot with 15 points.
Subash Singh scored the
match-clinching goal with
an opportunistic strike
which earned him the Manof-the-Match award.
The home team were
quicker off the blocks building some promising attacks
but lost composure in front
of the penalty box against
a well organised Mohun
Bagan backline.
But they enjoyed control
in the midfield and combined
well to trouble the opposing
defence.
Mohun Bagan took a
quarter of an hour to assert
their influence on the proceedings. Haitian forward
Sony Norde was the fulcrum of their forward forays, attempting long-range
efforts from either feet. IANS
London, 5 May
London, 5 May
Jose Mourinho has insisted
he cannot equal former
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson's record
of 13 Premier League titles,
saying it would be "impossible".
Chelsea boss Mourinho
guided the Blues to the English title on Sunday following a 1-0 victory at home to
London rivals Crystal Palace.
It was the third time the
52-year-old Mourinho, now
in his second spell as Chelsea
manager, has brought the
Premier League title to
Stamford Bridge following
the 2004/05 and 2005/06 triumphs the Portuguese boss
enjoyed during his initial
period in charge.
Ferguson was 51 when he
guided United to the inaugural Premier League title
but Mourinho, who has also
enjoyed domestic title success in his native Portugal,
as well as Italy and Spain,
dismissed talk of equalling
the record of the retired
Scot. "I have a long way to
go, but Sir Alex left the bar
in an impossible position for
anyone. I cannot win 13 Premier Leagues," Mourinho
told BT Sport, in an interview to be broadcast later
Monday.
"I can win 13 championships. I can. I have eight,
I think I can go to 13. But 13
Former England and Tottenham striker Jimmy
Greaves is in intensive care
after suffering a "severe
stroke" on Sunday, his family has confirmed.
The 75-year-old won 57
caps for England, scoring 44
goals that put him fourth on
the all-time list of English
goal-scorers having been
recently overtaken by current captain Wayne Rooney.
Greaves started his career
in 1957 with Chelsea where
he scored 132 goals in 169
matches, and after a season
with Italian side AC Milan,
he joined Spurs in 1961. In a
spell that spanned nine season, Greaves scored 268 goals
in 381 appearances in all
competitions, and he spent
two years with West Ham
before retiring in 1971.
A statement issued on
behalf of Greaves' family
read:"Football legend Jimmy
Greaves suffered a severe
stroke on Sunday May 3,
and is in intensive care in hospital.His wife,Irene,and four
children have asked for privacy during what is a worrying time for the family."
England's greatest ever
scorer was 75 on February 20,
andhasbeenworkingregularly
on the personal appearances
circuit in harness with his
friend and agent Terry Baker.
"Jimmy had a minor
Premier Leagues, no, no
chance," he added.
In addition to his three
titles with Chelsea, Mourinho enjoyed two championship wins with Porto in
Portugal, two with Inter
Milan in Italy and one with
Spanish giants Real Madrid.
Meanwhile, Chelsea captain John Terry said the
club's first Premier League
title in five years would
usher in a new era of success for the west London side.
Chelsea stalwart Terry,
set to lift the Premier League
trophy for the fourth time on
May 24, has spent his entire
professional career with the
Blues and has been on the field
for every minute of their 35
league matches so far this season."This is the start of a new
group, a new era and for
sure this current group are
going to go on to win many
more trophies for the club,"
Terry told Chelsea TV.
"This is a tough trophy to
win. It's been five years
since we won it. It will take
a few days to sink in," the
34-year-old former England
central defender added.
"It's been a long time.
We've been great this season,
fully deserve it. Absolutely
delighted to get it."
Terry, who has won 14
major trophies, hailed Mourinho's influence, saying critics who accused Chelsea of
playing "boring" football
were wide of the mark.
"He's been brilliant,"
Terry said of the Chelsea
manager. "He deserves a lot
more respect as well. "We've
been top since day one. It's
a big feat to do that. We've
done it right from the start.
"He deserves an awful
lot of credit, and his team
around him. Teams come
here and make it difficult,
sit behind the ball. "He finds
a way to break them down.
That's why he's the best. We
love working with him."
Berlin, 5 May
Pep Guardiola is struggling to deal with the
pressure of winning the
Champions League with
Bayern Munich ahead of
Wednesday's semi-final at
Barcelona, according to
ex-Germany captain Stefan Effenberg.
Munich have won backto-back German league
titles under Guardiola, but
the 44-year-old recently
insisted that only the treble of Champions League,
Bundesliga and German
Cup titles was enough to satisfy Bayern's appetite.
The Spaniard will make
his first return to the Camp
Nou for Wednesday's first
leg since winning 14 titles
in four years with Barcelona
before resigning in 2012.
Ex-Bayern star Effenberg, 46, says Guardiola's
occasionally eccentric
behaviour on the sidelines
shows he is struggling with
the pressure to bring a
sixth European title to Bayern.
Guardiola has raised a
few eyebrows during his second season at Bayern by
hugging the fourth official
following heated exchanges
in Bayern's league win over
Schalke last February and
again in their German Cup
semi-final defeat to Dortmund last week.
The Spaniard spends
most of each match passionately encouraging his
players from the sidelines,
much to Effenberg's disapproval. "I am not a fan of
The Badminton Association
of India (BAI today became
the fifth National Sports Federation (NSF) seeking the
ouster of seeking thew ouster
of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president N
Ramachandran.
Steeping up the pressure
BAI said the special General Body Meeting (SGBM)
meeting should be convened
to discuss the issue of a noconfidence motion against the
national Olympic body chief.
BAI move follows the campaign launched by Hoickey
india (HI) president Narender Batra for a Special General Body Meeting (SGBM) to
be called to set things right
within the IOA.
"As per Rule Viii(9) and (ii)
of the IOA constitution, we,
the Badminton Association
of India, are moving a vote
of no confidence against N.
Ramachandran, president,
IOA," BAI president Akhilesh
Das Gupta wrote in a letter
addressed to the IOA.
"We request you to convene
the Special General Meeting (SGM) of IOA at the earliest to discuss on the vote of
confidence against N
Ramachandran, president,
IOA," he said.
Earlier,Hockey India (HI)
demanded that a no-confidence motion be moved
against Ramachandran. HI
president Narinder Batra on
Thursday initiated a move for
an SGBM to discuss
Ramachandran's future.
Batra said he didn't
endorse Ramachandran's
style of functioning which,
he said,has weakened the IOA.
The discontent within the
IOA swelled during the recent
visit of International Olympic
Committee (IOC) president
Thomas Bach. The faction
opposed to Mr Ramachandran
claims that members of the
IOA, representatives of the
IPL
Sony Max
stroke in 2012, but appeared
to have made a full recovery.
He was due to be inducted
into the Tottenham Hotspur
Hall of Fame on 13 May at a
sell-out ceremony at White
Hart Lane."This is all we wish
to say at the present time."
Greaves had recovered from
a minor stroke in 2012, but
his family confirmed that his
latest illness was "severe" and
would release an update
once they know more on his
condition.Greaves remains
Tottenham’s highest ever
goalscorer, and has scored
more hat-tricks than any
other player for England
with six to his name. He
was a key part of the famous
Spurs side that won the FA
Cup in 1961/62 as well as the
1966/67 competition. In
1962/63, Geaves was part of
the side that also won the
European Cup Winners Cup,
but his crowning moment
came in 1966 when he was
part of the England squad
that won the World Cup at
Wembley. Spurs immediately sent their best wishes
to Greaves and hoped the club
legend would make a "speedy
THE INDEPENDENT
recovery".
wrong for them in the semifinals against Madrid last
season. (Real coach) Carlo
Ancelotti performed a tactical masterclass and
exposed Guardiola."
After back-to-back
defeats, Steffenberg says
Bayern go into the semifinal clash as underdogs,
especially given Barcelona's
recent 6-0 and 8-0 victories
in the Spanish league. Their
star-studded strike force
of Lionel Messi, Neymar
and Luis Suarez has scored
108 goals between them
this season.
"But sometimes football
writes a different story and
I will cross my fingers for
Bayern," said the ex-Munich
midfielder, who is now a
pundit for German television. "This will be the
biggest test of Guardiola's
playing philosophy."
National Sports Federations
(NSFs) and state units were
not only peeved over the
"lack of protocol" towards
Bach but also with the treatment meted out to them during their meeting with the IOC
president.
NOT GIVING UP YET: JAJODIA
Ousted Boxing India President Sandeep Jajodia is
unwilling to give up just yet
and has sought a meeting with
International Boxing Association (AIBA) to discuss
what he calls an “externally
engineered” revolt against
him.
Jajodia,who was removed
as Boxing India President at
a Special General Meeting on
Sunday via a No Confidence
Motion, said he won't throw
in the towel despite losing the
vote 2-55. Jaojodia said he
would brief AIBA President
Dr Ching Kuo-Wu of the situation as soon as he meets
him.
The industrialist, who
took charge of BI in September last year, also tried to
strike a conciliatory note
with the rebelling state units,
insisting that their discontent
with him has been actively
fuelled by the Indian Olympic
Association.
“We are in touch with
AIBA, we have told them
what the BI constitution says.
We have told them everything, it's in their knowledge. I will meet AIBA President personally,I have already
sought an appointment,” he
said.
The IOA had steadfastly
refused to grant recognition
to BI. “If AIBA expels BI for
this illegal SGM, then what
will I or anybody do? I feel the
IOA's adamant stand shook
up the state units.They feared
that IOA might create parallel bodies and make them irrelevant. They got worried and
therefore they stalled a functional body. It was a result of
external forces,”Jajodia said.
TODAY IN SPORT
Bangalore vs. Punjab
Guardiola under pressure: Effenberg
Guardiola's extreme coaching during games," he told
German magazine Kicker.
"You have to trust your
players, you have already
prepared them for a match
for days. On top of all that,
Guardiola is also getting
involved in discussions
with the linesmen and
fourth officials. hat only further illustrates the immense
pressure he is under," Effenberg said.
Under Guardiola, Bayern are used to playing
with around 75 per cent possession and Steffenberg
says it was their undoing
in last season's heavy defeat
to Real Madrid at the same
stage of the competition.
"Bayern always have 65
to 70 per cent possession and
want to be an offensive
force," said Effenberg,
adding: "But things went
STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
20:00
MESSI, NEYMAR AND SUAREZ HAVE TOTALLED 108 GOALS IN THIS SEASON SO FAR
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
BAI supports no confidence
motion against IOA chief
New Delhi, 5 May
also became the first British
man to claim a title on the
surface since Buster Mottram won in Palma 39 years
ago.
''I didn't realise I was the
first Brit to win on clay for
so long, so that's obviously
an honour,'' Murray said. ''It
was a really tough match. He
served very close to the line
and I was getting frustrated. The rain made things
really tough, but as a Scot
I'm used to that. It's been a
hard couple of days, so I am
very happy to have won,
especially on clay.''
He added: ''I had very
few chances when I was
returning. I was lucky to get
a couple of good shots when
I was behind in the tiebreak and hang on in the
end.''
The win will put Murray
in good heart for the rest of
the clay-court season, which
reaches a climax with the
French Open, which starts
in 19 days' time.
Before that Murray will
play in this week's Masters
Series tour nament in
Madrid and next week's
event in Rome. He could
meet Kohlschreiber again
tomorrow in the second
round in Madrid. Murray
has a first-round bye, while
Kohlschreiber faces Alejandro Falla in the first
round today.
The Lawn Tennis Association announced yesterday
that the winner of this summer's Aegon Open women's
event in Nottingham will be
presented with the Elena Baltacha Trophy in memory of
the former British No 1,
who died of liver cancer
one year ago at the age of 30.
15
GC Academy
13:00
Lee Janzen - Putting
Ten Golf
Inside the PGTI
07:00
Review Show
Ten Golf
18:30 Asian Tour
Maybank Malaysian Open
Ten Golf
CONTROVERSY CORNER
‘ TIME FOR
FIF A
ANAR CHY
TO END’
AGENCIES
Amman (Jordan), 5 May
Argentina's World Cupwinning captain Diego
Maradona launched a blistering attack on Fifa president Sepp Blatter on Monday, saying that world soccer's governing body had
descended into anarchy
with the 79-year-old Swiss
in charge, according to
website reports.
With the Fifa presidential election less than
a month away, Maradona,
one of the greatest players
ever to have graced the
game and the inspiration
behind Argentina's 1986
World Cup victory, said
the time was long overdue
for Blatter to go.
He said he would do all
he could to help Prince
Ali Bin Al Hussein win the
election, even though the
39-year-old Jordanian royal
hinted on Monday he might
consider pulling out of the
contest if he thought one
of the other two challengers could win.
In a syndicated interview with Guillem Balague, the moderator at the
Soccerex Asian Forum at
the King Hussein convention centre, some 60 km
from the Jordanian capital Amman, Maradona
pulled no punches and
gave his backing to the
Jordanian royal.
Asked why, he replied:
"If I didn’t believe that he
would be a good president,
I wouldn't be here. As the
football world knows, inside
Fifa there is total anarchy,
where there is only one
man who decides everything. But he knows
absolutely nothing. Therefore it is time for a change.
And it is so because even
his colleagues should actually advise him to leave."
Maradona, 54, who was
voted along with Pele the
joint-best player of the
20th century by Fifa in
2000, said he believed that
the continued presence of
Blatter, who is seeking a
fifth term as president,
would continue to harm
football.
"He has done a lot of
damage to football since he
has been there. It’s time for
him to step aside and let us,
who are full of strength,
renovate football."
Maradona played in the
World Cups of 1982, 1986,
1990 and 1994 and later
coached Argentina to the
World Cup quarter-finals
of 2010.
He implied he was
unhappy about way things
were done at Fifa, particularly regarding the choice
of Russia and Qatar for the
2018 and 2022 World Cup
finals.
"First we didn’t know
where the World Cup was
going to be held. Then we
found out that after Brazil
it was Russia and then
Qatar. Without any doubt
whatsoever Blatter is
scared. Blatter is scared.
He’s scared of being left out
of his share of the cake,"
Maradona said.
"That is what really
annoys someone like me,
who has played in four
World Cups. I was chasing
the ball, Blatter is chasing
champagne," he added.
THUMBNAILS
NEW DELHI, WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2015
Bangladesh tour:
The Indian cricket
team will tour
Bangladesh next month
to play a one-off Test
and three ODIs. India
will leave for Bangladesh
on 7 June and the Test
will be held in Fatullah from 10 June.
Big risk: Foreign cricket teams touring Pakistan still face an “unacceptable risk,” the
international players'
body said as Zimbabwe prepared to play in
the country since a
deadly gun attack targeted visiting players
six years ago.
Morale boosted: West
Indies cricket captain
Denesh Ramdin believes
the drawn series against
world No 3 England has
injected a new level of
confidence and belief
into the Caribbean
outfit after a long period of failures.
New benchmark:
Praising Brendon
McCullum for his aggressive leadership, Kiwi paceman Tim Southee said that the New
Zealand captain had set
a new benchmark in
world cricket for his peers
to follow.
Arsenal soar: Alexis Sanchez scored two
goals in Arsenal's 3-1
win over Hull City, a
result that left the Gunners poised to overtake Manchester City
for second place in the
English Premier League.
As of now, City are
second.
Falcao future: English football side Manchester United are yet
to decide on the future
of striker Radamel
Falcao, on loan from
Monaco till the end of
the season, the French
club's vice-president
Vadim Vasilyev has
said.
Face mask: Bayern
Munich striker Robert
Lewandowski returned
to training, showing
up wearing a protective face mask after
fracturing his nose
and jaw last week in
the German Cup semifinals against Borussia Dortmund.
16
MOORES ISN'T MOVING
Peter Moores on Monday continued to mount a defence
that England's beleaguered batsmen would be proud of,
insisting that he was going nowhere despite being in the
midst of the fallout from England's humiliating Test loss
to the West Indies. ''It's not about me as a coach,''
Moores said, adding: ''It's about England.
We've got an exciting group of players."
For more updates
Postal Reg. No. DL (ND)-II/6088/2015/-16-17
www.thestatesman.com
Gung-ho Bangladesh target first Test victory over Pakistan
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Dhaka, 5 May
Bangladesh hope to build on
their new-found confidence
by securing their first-ever
Test victory over Pakistan
when the second and final
match starts in Dhaka on
Wednesday.
The Tigers are buoyed by
a remarkable fightback in
the drawn first Test in Khulna where they avoided defeat
for the first time in nine
matches against Pakistan
despite trailing by 296 runs
in the first innings.
The gallant display fol-
lowed their dominant form
against the struggling Pakistanis in the limited-overs
contests where the hosts
swept the one-day series 30 and easily won the lone
Twenty20 International.
In Khulna, Bangladesh
showed their batting prowess
as Tamim Iqbal hit his
nation's highest score of
206 and shared a 312-run
opening stand with Imrul
Kayes (150) in the second
innings.
Bangladesh's series wins
so far since gaining Test status in 2000 have come against
fellow wooden-spooners Zim-
babwe and against an understrength West Indies.
But former Test captain
Habibul Bashar felt the time
had arrived for Bangladesh
to take a major step forward and win the series
against Pakistan, who are
placed third in the official
rankings.
"We can surely go for the
kill," Bashar said ahead of
the Test at the Sher-e-Bangla
stadium. "We have a positive
mindset which can help us
gain an edge over the opponents.
"Our comeback in Khulna raised the team's confidence to a new level. Not
many teams can do what we
did against a side like Pakistan who have such a versatile bowling attack.After
such a performance, the
boys will naturally look for
a win in Dhaka," he said.
Bangladesh are worried
about the fitness of captain
and wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim (in photo),
having already lost seam
bowler Rubel Hossain for the
Test owing to a side strain.
Rahim hurt a finger on the
right hand while attempting
a catch in Khulna and left
the field. He batted in the second innings but was dismissed without scoring.
Bashar, a selector, said
that Rahim could be replaced
behind the stumps by the
uncapped Litton Das, who
was a wicketkeeper at under19 level.
"Rahim can play as a
batsman alone, but if he is
unable to keep, we may
include Litton," he said.
Pakistan have brought in
all-rounder Bilawal Bhatti
to replace seamer Rahat
Ali, who had been ruled out
of the tour ahead of the first
Test due to a hamstring
injury.
It was uncertain if star
off-spinner Saeed Ajmal
would be recalled after being
ignored for the third onedayer and the Khulna Test.
Ajmal, who returned to
international cricket with
a remodelled action in the
preceding limited-overs
series, failed to impress
with just one wicket in three
games on the tour.
Ajmal told a website that
he needed time to regain confidence and return to his
best.
"I knew it will be tough
moving forward," said
Ajmal. "I'd said prior to
coming here that I need
time and I am disappointed
that I am not able to fulfil the
expectations of the nation.
But I spoke to the captain and
the coach and they had a plan
for me. I need time to regain
my confidence. It does not
come overnight."
MUMBAI BEAT DELHI BY 5 WICKETS
AFTER TODAY'S WIN, THEIR FOURTH ON THE TROT, MUMBAI JUMPED TO FOURTH SPOT WITH 10 POINTS FROM 10 MATCHES
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Mumbai, 5 May
Captain Rohit Sharma and
Ambati Rayudu made crucial knocks as Mumbai
Indians notched up a
thrilling five-wicket win
over Delhi Daredevils in
their rain-affected IPL
cricket match to jump to the
top half of the league table
here today.
Mumbai struggled early
in their chase of 153 as
they were reduced to 8 for
2 in second over but captain
Rohit Shar ma (46) and
Ambati Rayudu (49 not out)
shared 60 runs for the fifth
wicket to repair the innings
before Kieron Pollard took
them home with three balls
to spare with a quick-fire
14-ball 26 not out.
After today's win, their
fourth on the trot, Mumbai
jumped to fourth spot with
10 points from 10 matches
while Delhi dropped to
sixth place with eight points
from 10 matches.
This was Delhi's sixth
loss.
It was a hard-earned victory for Mumbai as they had
to build their innings brickby-brick after early loss of
wickets besides facing rain
interruption.
Credit must also be given
to the bowlers, especially
of f-spinner Harbhajan
Singh who returned with
brilliant figures of 2/11
from his four overs to help
Mumbai restrict Delhi to 152
for 6.
Play was interrupted
after four overs due to lightening when Mumbai were
25 for 2 with Lendl Simmons
(0) and Hardik Pandya (5)
having already returned
to the pavillion.
Play resumed after a
short while, but rain halted it again after 5.2 overs
when Mumbai were 40 for
3 and the home side must
be feeling nervous at the possibility of losing the match
if it could not be resumed.
But play did resume
after half an hour and
Rohit played the role of
sheet anchor after coming
out at 8/2 in the second over
till he was out in the 16th
over. His 37-ball knock had
two fours and three sixes.
Rayudu played a solid
innings of 49 not out from
40 balls which was laced
with four boundaries and
a six.
Pollard then brought the
home supporters at the
Wankhede Stadium with a
cameo of 26 not out from 14
balls which had three sixes
in it as Mumbai scored 153
for five from 19.3 overs.
Brief Scores:
Delhi Daredevils: 152
for 6 in 20 overs (Yuvraj
Singh 57; Harbhajan Singh
2/11, Lasith Malinga 2/33).
Mumbai Indians: 153
for 5 in 20 overs (Ambati
Rayudu 49 not out, Rohit
Sharma 46; Nathan CoulterNile 2/30).
Lasith Malinga celebrates taking the wicket Mayank Agarwal during the match. photos from BCCI
Challengers out to tame Kings XI Punjab
Wanted: home-grown coach
AGENCIES
SNS & AGENCIES
Bangalore, 5 May
Royal Challengers Bangalore, playing their penultimate home game, will be hoping rain stays away on
Wednesday when they take
on cellar-dwellers Kings XI
Punjab in the Indian Premier
League here.
With nine points from as
many games, RCB dropped
to No 5 after Tuesday's game
between Mumbai Indians
and Delhi Daredevils, both
on eight, while the Kings XI
have just four from nine
matches with two wins and
seven defeats.
RCB have won just one of
their four completed games
here and their only win was
in a rain-affected 10-oversa-side match against Kolkata
Knight Riders last weekend. And rain may again play
spoilsport as the met office
has forecast four days of
"thunderstorm/squall
accompanied by hailstones".
Also, following their
crushing loss to Chennai
Super Kings at Chepauk on
Monday, Virat Kohli's RCB
need quickly to regroup
and ensure they do not drop
any more points if they
Virat Kohli and David Miller. � photos from BCCI
hope to finish in the top four
and thus qualify for the
play-offs.
After Wednesday's game,
the Royal Challengers will
be visiting Mumbai, Mohali
and Hyderabad over five
days before hosting the Daredevils in their last league
match on 17 May. Thus,
every outing will have a
bearing on RCB's play-off
chances.
Last year's runners-up
Kings XI Punjab are in a tailspin following five consecutive losses.
The Mohali outfit's fall
has been quite dramatic
and as spectacular as Glen
Maxwell's batting was last
season when the Aussie
smashed 528 runs at a strike
rate of 187.75, compared
with just 74 (SR 134.54) in six
games this year. He is barely able to hold his position
in the playing eleven.
In fact, the Kings XI's
tepid performance this season is about the failure of not
just Maxwell, but also of
their other key batsmen,
like opener Virender
Sehwag, who last year was
among the top run-getters
with a tally of 455, including a knock of 122.
Also adding to the woes
of George Bailey's team is
the bowling that has
appeared toothless with
spearhead Mitchell Johnson
nowhere near his best. The
Australian quick bowler
has taken nine wickets in
eight matches.
Wednesday's game is the
first of three consecutive
away matches for the Kings
XI, who conclude their
league campaign after hosting RCB and CSK.
Though, their hopes of a
play-off berth appear nonexistent, they have the potential to trip the best IPL
teams, and RCB would do
well to bear this in mind.
Kolkata, 5 May
With the Indian cricket team
currently looking for a coach,
Wasim Akram and Dilip
Vengsarkar today advocated a home-grown expert for
his putative knowledge of
domestic cricketers.
Duncan Fletcher’s tenure
ended after India’s unsuccessful World Cup defence.
While Vengsarkar initially
suggested Akram, the Pakistani said it was difficult for
him to make himself available for full-time coaching
owing to his commercial
and family commitments.
The duo was participating in an interactive event
at a school. "Today a team
don't need to be coached
like kids, rather you need a
person who can man-manage. A foreign coach often
goes on holiday when there
is a domestic tournament
and there are no international commitments," said
Akram, adding: “For me, you
need a coach who knows
domestic players and can
pronounce their names. I
think a local coach is the
answer for India.”
Vengsarkar then said: "I
feel Duncan Fletcher should
not continue. A foreign
coach is not aware of what's
happening on the domestic
circuit or in U-19 cricket or
of India A players. You have
to have a coach who is interested in Indian cricket. A guy
who can spot and groom
young talent, which I don't
think foreign coaches are
interested in doing. There
was a foreign coach who
stayed in a Mumbai hotel but
did not even watch a Ranji
Trophy final between Mumbai and Bengal at Wankhede
Stadium."
Akram said it was diffi-
cult for him to coach a
national team. "For me,
coaching a national team will
be tough considering my
commentary commitments,
my job with Kolkata Knight
Riders and, of course, my
family. It will be tough for
me because the Indian team
travel right through the
year," said Akram.
With questions being
raised afresh about Sunil
Narine's action, Akram said
the mystery spinner would
bounce back and Kolkata
Knight Riders were in need
of his services in the Indian Premier League.
SELECTORS WERE RELUCTANT TO DITCH A MAN WHO HAD PLAYED A KEY PART IN ENGLAND'S SUCCESS FROM 2009 TO 2013
Trott calls time on England career
STEPHEN BRENKLEY
Barbados, 5 May
Jonathan Trott, the England batsman, has
retired from international cricket. His decision, sad but perhaps
inevitable, was
announced last night
after his failed return to
the Test team in the
series against West
Indies.
In his six innings,
Trott made 72 runs
which included three
ducks. His recall was
always a huge risk taken
by the selectors. Trott
left the Ashes tour in
November 2013 with a
stress-related condition
after he was severely
disrupted by the menace
of Mitchell Johnson in
Brisbane.
''This was a tough
decision to make but I
don't feel my game is at
the level you need to be
at to play cricket for
England,'' said Trott. ''I
was honoured to be
given the opportunity to
play international crick-
et again and was sorry it
didn't work out.''
If it was not clear
before, it became evi-
dent in the first innings
of the final Test that
Trott still had difficulty
coping with the short
ball. He shuffled into a
bouncer from Shannon
Gabriel and scooped it to
square leg.
Trott will continue to
play for Warwickshire
and can be expected to
prosper. After leaving
Australia he went back
to county cricket last
summer and eventually
settled down to have a
profitable season.
The selectors were
convinced he was ready
to resume at the top
level, reluctant to ditch a
man who had played
such a key part in England's long run of success from 2009 to 2013,
scoring nine hundreds
and averaging in the
mid-forties. But with the
middle order full they
multiplied their gamble
by asking him to open.
''I've had some incredible highs and some real
lows in an England shirt
but wouldn't change a
thing,'' he said.
Alastair Cook, the
England captain, who
was keen to have him
back in the side, said
Trott's comeback had
been testament to his
character and spirit. ''I
speak on behalf of all
this current team and all
those who have shared a
dressing room with him
over the years when I
say it was a privilege to
play alongside him.''
Peter Moores, the
England coach, rejected
the suggestion that
Trott's recall had been a
mistake, saying: ''He
earned the right to be on
this trip. He went back
to Warwickshire and got
runs, went on the Lions
trip, was the lead batter.
Add to that the experience he had.
''We wanted to know
whether he could fill a
role opening the batting.
We knew it was going to
be tough, he's batted at
No 3 before, slightly different but it's still up
there, and that question
needed to be answered.''
It was and yesterday
England had it in a way
they cannot have envisaged.
THE INDEPENDENT
Printed and published by SHIVAJI SAMADDAR for THE STATESMAN LTD, Statesman House, 148 Barakhamba Road, New Delhi � Editor: RAVINDRA KUMAR, � Resident Editor: USHA MAHADEVAN � Printed at Vibha Publication Pvt Ltd, D-160B, Sector 7, NOIDA (UP). ��The Statesman Ltd. RNB REG. No. M-8905,RNI No. 507/57