Thursday, December 16, 1999
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IT notice served on Laloo PATNA, Dec 15 — The Income Tax Department has served a notice on RJD President Laloo Prasad Yadav, asking him to pay Rs 40 lakh towards tax liabilities within a fortnight or face legal action, including the attachment of property. Munda elected JMM chief RANCHI, Dec 15 — Supporters of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s suspended Vice-President Suraj Mundal today claimed absolute majority in party morcha central committee and elected Mr Ram Dayal Munda as the party president in place of Mr Shibu Soren. |
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Mamata to be projected as an
alternative to Basu CALCUTTA, Dec 15 — The BJP central leadership has decided to project the Railway Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamual Congress, as an alternative to Mr Jyoti Basu and, accordingly, the party’s state unit has been directed to prepare the ground for going ahead with the assembly elections in the state due in 2001.
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Precision radars ‘must’ BANGALORE, Dec 15 — India will have to go in for sophisticated radars for battlefield surveillance and location of weapons in high altitudes and snowy environment, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Union Government, said today. 3 airport officials
suspended Feb
2000 to have 29 days 7
Shiv Sena MLAs suspended Assembly
poll in 3 states likely in Feb 10
m AIDS cases by 2010: Pant Violence
marks AP bandh Ex-PMs
asked to pay dues No
change in govt policy on Army recruitment: PM |
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IT notice served on Laloo PATNA, Dec 15 (PTI, UNI) — The Income Tax Department has served a notice on RJD President Laloo Prasad Yadav, asking him to pay Rs 40 lakh towards tax liabilities within a fortnight or face legal action, including the attachment of property. The Income Tax (Central Range) Deputy Commissioner had sent the notice to Mr Yadav under Sections 226 and 276 (C) of the IT Act a couple of days ago. A top income tax official pleading anonymity told PTI today that the notice followed a decision by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) against Mr Yadav’s appeal seeking quashing of an earlier notice of the Income Tax Department with respect to the valuation of the property possessed by him. The department had made an in-depth assessment of property of Mr Yadav and the earnings he had from the dairy farm run inside the Chief Minister’s residence. The completion of the assessment, IT officials enforced a demand of Rs 40 lakh on the former Chief Minister who later moved the CBDT against the valuation of the immovable assets held by him since 1990. The CBDT had rejected Mr Laloo’s appeal and cleared the action taken by the IT officials to enforce the demand. The official said if Mr Laloo failed to make the payment towards the tax liabilities, the department would proceed with the legal actions, including attachment of his property and bank accounts after a fortnight. IT sources said the department had detected three houses owned by Mr Laloo and listed his bank accounts. The department had already made “discreet investigation” on the expenses incurred at the wedding of Misa Bharati, daughter of the RJD president, here on December 10 and “we are keeping all these things on record.” The RJD today took exception to income tax notices served on Mr Laloo Yadav and Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi seeking details of expenditure incurred on the recent marriage of their daughter and alleged it had “heightened the political vendetta” against the Yadav. Accusing the Income Tax Department of having “acted under pressure” from the political bigwigs of BJP-JD(U) combine, RJD national spokesman Shivanand Tiwari asked Income Tax officials to justify serving similar notice on Mr Yadav’s ‘samdhi’ Rambabu Pathik. NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha today witnessed an uproar when the RJD members protested against the notice served on their supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav by the Income Tax department over the expenditure incurred in connection with his daughter’s marriage, saying the act was politically motivated. The RJD members, including Mr Nagamani, Mr Ram Prasad Singh and Ms Kanti Singh, walked into the well during zero hour when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee declined to respond to their demand that he clarify the position. Mr Nagamani, waving a copy of the newspaper which carried the report about the notice served on Mr Yadav, said it was done deliberately to damage the image of a backward class leader. He was joined by his party colleague Mr Ram Prasad Singh. Mr Raguhbans Prasad
Singh (RJD) said there was nothing unusual about the
reception or the number of guests who attended it and
that it was done as per convention. The Income Tax
Department had chosen to malign him by serving the
notice, he contended. |
Munda elected JMM chief RANCHI, Dec 15 (UNI) — Supporters of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s suspended Vice-President Suraj Mundal today claimed absolute majority in party morcha central committee and elected Mr Ram Dayal Munda as the party president in place of Mr Shibu Soren. Mr Soren was replaced by Mr Munda as the chief of the JMM through a resolution moved by morcha central secretary Mahendra Kachhap and supported by the central committee members present at today’s meeting. The JMM central committee requisitioned by Mr Mandal supporters also elected Mr Prabhakar Tirkey as the general secretary of the party. The post was vacant as Mr Sudhir Mahato had quit to float the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Ulgulan). The meeting also reinstated Mr Suraj Mandal as the party Vice-President quashing his suspension ordered by Mr Soren. Mr Soren had been expelled on charges of violating the morcha constitution and acting against the party’s interests by suspending Mr Mandal. As claimed by Mr Mandal and his supporters, the meeting today was attended by more than 110 members of the 168-strong central committee of which 33 posts are vacant. Addressing his supporters, Mr Mandal challenged the authority of Mr Soren to initiate his suspension without getting the matter ratified by the central committee. The committee is the supreme decision making body in the JMM and no policy matter or issues like suspension or expulsion of any party member can be initiated without taking it into confidence. In a significant development, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Ulgulan) Vice-President Prabhakar Tirkey rejoined the JMM in the presence of Mr Mandal. Accepting him in the party fold Mr Mandal and his supporters elected him as the party’s new general secretary. Mr Soren, however, described today’s meeting, called by Mr Mandal, as “unconstitutional and illegal” and said “Mr Mandal would soon be expelled from the party.” Talking to UNI here, Mr
Soren said disciplinary action would be taken against the
morcha leaders attending today’s central committee
meeting. |
Mamata to be projected as an
alternative to Basu CALCUTTA, Dec 15 — The BJP central leadership has decided to project the Railway Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamual Congress, as an alternative to Mr Jyoti Basu and, accordingly, the party’s state unit has been directed to prepare the ground for going ahead with the assembly elections in the state due in 2001. In the forthcoming Calcutta municipal poll early next year, the BJP will fight the CPM and the Congress jointly with the Trinamul Congress with Ms Banerjee as their leader. This election will be a precursor for the BJP’s joint fight along with the Trinamul Congress against the ruling Left front in the assembly elections. These decisions, which
the BJP’s central leadership took recently in the
presence of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee,
were conveyed to the party’s state unit by the Union
Human Resource Development Minister, Dr Murli Manohar
Joshi, during his visit to the city on Sunday. |
Pak troops active in Kutch: George NEW DELHI, Dec 15 (PTI) — Certain low-level military activities and troop movement have been observed across the Indo-Pakistan border near the Kutch area in Gujarat, the Rajya Sabha was informed today. The Indian Army is monitoring these activities and necessary precautionary measures are being taken, the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes said in a written reply. He said the government was aware of the movement of the armed forces of neighbouring countries and suitable measures to meet any adverse situation were being continued though the situation presently was normal. IAF: The Indian Air Force lost 46 fighter planes in crashes in which 16 pilots were killed from 1997 till December 9 this year, Mr Fernandes said. A high-powered Committee on Fighter Aircraft Accidents (COFAA) was constituted in 1997, which made 84 recommendations, out of which 55 had been implemented so far, he said. Necessary instructions had been issued to the agencies and departments to take suitable action for implementation of these recommendations. Kargil: The total estimated expenditure incurred in the Kargil conflict was Rs 1,984 crore and the government had sought supplementary grants for defence, he said. The government was taking necessary steps to augment aerial surveillance capability in the sensitive border areas, including Kargil. In the Lok Sabha, the
External Affairs Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, said
Pakistan continued to receive external assistance to its
missile programme and India had conveyed its consequent
security concerns to various countries. In a written
reply, the minister said it was understood that North
Korea had assisted Pakistan with liquid fuel, long-range
missiles, missile technology and components and that
Ghauri was a Pakistan version of the North Korean Nodong
missile. |
Precision radars ‘must’ BANGALORE, Dec 15 (UNI) — India will have to go in for sophisticated radars for battlefield surveillance and location of weapons in high altitudes and snowy environment, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Union Government, said today. In a message to the three-day international radar symposium here, he said the Kargil operations had revealed the necessity for such precision radars which should be compatible with the Indian weather cycle. The architect of the country’s missile systems said designers and production agencies of radars should learn from the recent experiences of the Orissa cyclone and set new standards in design and quality assessment for radars. The indigenous radars for cyclone prediction should withstand wind speed of 300 km per hour accompanied by rain and thunderstorm. The development and production of any type of radar in India should not take more than four years if they have to be commercially competitive. Dr Kalam, who was to address the inaugural session, could not come and his message was read out by Bharat Electronics Ltd Chairman and Managing Director Dr V. Koshy. In his inaugural address, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman, Dr K. Kasturirangan, advised radar scientists to seriously look into cyclone forecasting and disaster management to offer solutions for mitigating the hardships of people. This was one of the major challenges facing the scientific community, he added. Dr Kasturirangan, referring to the development of advanced radars by ISRO, electronics and radar development establishment and other defence establishments, for defence and weather forecasting, said such developments augured well for radar activity synthesising basic sciences of electromagnetics and the associated advanced technologies, including information technology. He said development of
Indira and Rajendra Radars by the LRDE, development of
C-band and S-band tracking by ISRO, the joint development
of PCMC radar by ISRO and Bharat Electronics and
successful production of several state-of-the art radars
had demonstrated the achievements of the radar system
community in the country. |
3 airport officials suspended NEW DELHI, Dec 15 (PTI) — The Opposition today launched a scathing attack on government in the Lok Sabha on the issue of death of a seven-year-old girl in the bizarre escalator accident at the Delhi airport, charging it with “suppressing” facts and “delayed” response in the House. When Minister of State for Civil Aviation Chaman Lal Gupta made a statement in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Priyaranjan Dasmunshi accused the minister of making the statement “after 48 hours of the accident”. In response to Mr Dasmunshi’s questions, Mr Gupta said three airport officials had been suspended after a preliminary inquiry. Mr Dasmunshi attacked the government for appointing a probe by officers of the airport authority of India (AAI) saying these officials should not inquire into the incident as they themselves were primarily responsible for the management of airports. Meanwhile, Otis Elevator
today said minimum seven days’ time was needed to go
into the reasons for the escalator accident at Indira
Gandhi International Airport in which an eight-year-old
girl was crushed to death. |
Feb 2000 to have 29 days NEW DELHI, Dec 15 — The year 2000, which is now a fortnight away, will officially be yet another leap year having 29 days in February and not a blunder calendar like 1600 AD, when the second month of the calendar had 30 days. If February 30, 2000, were to be given an official recognition as was given in 1600 AD, financial transactions would have been affected. It would have been of a much bigger magnitude than Y2K. Besides, babies born on this day would have to wait for 400 years (by some calculations 3000 years) to celebrate the birthday on February 30. Fortunately, neither the US Administration, the British Government, the European Commission or the World Bank have taken note of possibility of February with 30 days. The competent authority in the country is the Department of Personnel. In line with the international practice, the Indian Government too has decided to ignore this astronomical aberration. The earth’s revolution period around the sun is not exactly 365 days, but slightly more than that. Calendars over the centuries have been evolved to calculate the time taken by the earth to revolve around the sun. And, so the lunar and solar calendars evolved. The time gap between Easter and Christmas, the two major calendar dates of the Christians, were so near that there was a need for rectification of the problem. The problem arose as the calculations were based on Julian calendar, adopted during time of Julius Caesar and followed for many centuries. An attempt to rectify the problem was made in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII by whose name the modern day Gregorian calendar is named. Pope Gregory proposed a scheme to correct the errors in the Julian calendar which was not synchronous with the seasons. The Julian calendar assumed the year to be 365.25 days and one common calendar year comprised 365 days. By the Julian scheme we would have an excess of 0.00781 days in a year or 3.12 days in 400 days. Pope Gregory proposed that centuries divisible by 400 be leap year and not all centuries. At the end of 400 years, the Gregorian calendar is ahead by 0.124 days. Ten days were subtracted in October in 1852 AD when the Gregorian calendar was accepted to compensate for the accumulated errors of the earlier Julian calendar. Thus the Gregorian calendar will he ahead by only 0.124 days in 400 days or one extra day in 3225.806 years and hence for the current calendar one day needs to be added once in 3225.806 years to be in step with the seasons. The Director of Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi, Dr N. Rathnasree, said there was no controversy regarding the February in 2000 A.D. having 30 days. She said, “February 2000 would have only 29 days like any normal leap year.” Once in 3000 years, we
would have to add an extra day in February that is 30
days in that month instead of 29 days to rectify the
mismatch, Dr Rathnasree said. Thus, after 1600 AD, a
February with 30 days will occur in 4600 AD. |
7 Shiv Sena MLAs suspended NAGPUR, Dec 15 (PTI) — Seven Shiv Sena Members were today suspended for a week for “unruly” behaviour after the Maharashtra Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes following an Opposition demand to suspend question hour to debate the “deteriorating” law and order situation in the state, particularly in Mumbai. The motion for suspension of Dilip Bhole, Rohidas Chavan, Bhaskar Jadhav, Gulabrao Patil, Dnyaneshwar Patil, Subhash Wankhede and Vinayak Raut was read out by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rohidas Patil as soon as the House reconvened. The seven members were the first to climb atop the Speaker’s podium after the Speaker’s ruling that question hour could not be suspended to facilitate discussion on the law and order situation. UNI adds: Deadlock over suspension of the Sena MLAs can be resolved if the leaders of the ruling Democratic Front (DF) and SS-BJP combine Opposition agreed to it,” Assembly Speaker Arun Gujarathi said on Tuesday. Talking informally to
reporters at Vidhan Bhavan this evening, Mr Gujarathi
defended the suspension, saying that it was done to
uphold the decorum of the House. “Once there is a
settlement of the issue between the two sides, suspension
can be revoked through the set procedure,” he said. |
Assembly poll in 3 states likely in Feb NEW DELHI, Dec 15 (PTI) — The assembly elections in Bihar, Haryana and Manipur are likely to be held between February-end and first week of March next year with the Election Commission initiating an elaborate exercise for their smooth conduct, official sources said tonight. Although the dates are yet to be firmed up, elections have to be completed by March 31 to allow the newly-elected assemblies to take a vote-on-account for meeting the financial needs of the states till passage of their Budgets. While the tenure of the Bihar Assembly ends on April 9, those of Orissa and Manipur expire in the last week of March. Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala yesterday recommended to the Governor dissolution of the state Assembly. Meanwhile, Chief
Election Commissioner M S Gill told PTI that Deputy
Election Commissioner Sayam Chatterjee would pay a
two-day visit to Orissa from tomorrow for an on-the-spot
assessment of the situation in the cyclone-hit state for
conduct of Assembly polls. |
10 m AIDS cases by 2010: Pant NEW DELHI, Dec 15 (UNI) — The government today launched the second phase of the National AIDS Control Project with a call for all sections of society to address one of the biggest health challenges facing the country in the next millennium. Inaugurating the project, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission K.C. Pant said the foremost task before the nation was to build up mechanisms to integrate AIDS programmes with ongoing health programmes at district and state levels. This was essential in order to inculcate a sense of ownership of the problem among the states, he stressed. Observing that HIV
infection cases in India were likely to treble from 3.5
million today to 10 million in the next decade, Mr Pant
said the government was abreast of the dimensions of the
problem and had set in motion certain steps to tackle it.
“The Ninth Plan focuses attention on a number of
interventions, including increasing the reach and spread
of the HIV network, improving hospital waste management
to check the spread of HIV infection and strengthening
sentinel surveillances’’, he said. |
Violence marks AP bandh HYDERABAD, Dec 15 (UNI) — Blasting of a railway track and the houses of a ruling TDP MLA and two other political leaders, and setting ablaze of state road transport corporation (APSRTC) buses marred the 48-hour bandh, called by Naxalites of the banned People’s War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh today, in protest against the killings of three top PWG leaders in a recent encounter. The militants blasted
the residence of TDP legislator P. Damodhra Reddy at
Mamidipalli village in Karimnagar district. In a similar
incident, about 25 Naxalites blasted the house of Mr T.
Laxma Reddy, Chairman of the Agricultural Marketing
Committee, also belonging to the ruling TDP, at Akkapur
village in Nizamabad district, causing extensive damage
to the house, the police here said. |
Ex-PMs asked to pay dues NEW DELHI, Dec 15 (UNI) - The government today said legal action would be initiated against some former Prime Ministers unless they clear dues for using aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) for non-official purposes. Additional solicitor general S.R. Jaisinghani told the Delhi High Court that no concessions will be made and the government will charge as per the norms. Nearly Rs 14 crore is pending from former Prime Ministers H.D. Deve Gowda, P.V. Narasimha Rao. In Mr Gandhi’s
case, the respondent is his wife and Congress President
Sonia Gandhi. In others, their political parties. |
No change in govt policy on
Army recruitment: PM NEW DELHI, Dec 15 — The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, today assured the Lok Sabha that there was no change in the government policy on Army recruitment after Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal of the Congress raised the matter during zero hour today. The Prime Minister’s assurance came when he intervened in the matter after Mr Bansal referred to a statement by Mr Bachi Singh Rawat as the then Minister of State for Defence that those desirous of joining the Army should first go to the RSS. Mr Bansal, quoting a newspaper report, sought a clarification from the government and termed the statement as one “fraught with serious consequences”. The BJP Chief whip, Maj
Gen B.C.Khandoori sought to raise an objection quoting
rules while the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr Pramod
Mahajan said if the member wanted to raise the issue, he
should have given notice so that the Minister concerned
could have been present in the House. |
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| Girl raped, burnt to
death JAIPUR: A 16-year-old girl was allegedly gangraped and burnt to death by three youths at Geejgarh village in Dausa district, the police said here on Wednesday. The girl, identified as Mamta who was rushed to Sawai Man Singh Hospital here, succumbed to her burn injuries on Tuesday. The incident occurred on Monday when the youths forcibly entered the girl’s house after her parents left for work. They first raped her and then set her on fire, pouring kerosene over her body. The police has arrested two of the three accused, Kanji and Pappan and registered a case of rape and murder. — PTI Lord Venkateswara richer
by 75 lakh 4 of a family
burnt alive ‘Largest’
brain tumour removed HC imposes fine
on KSRTC Major drug
cartel busted Girl commits
suicide |
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