Wednesday, May 12, 1999
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N A T I O N |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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‘No plan to
develop’ Agni-III Sonia toppled govt at foreign
powers’ behest |
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Laloo appears before CBI
‘judge’ PATNA, May 11 — Former Bihar Chief Ministers Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra today appeared before the court of designated CBI Judge S.K. Lal in a conspiracy angle case of fodder scam.
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BJP ultimatum to Kalyan Migrants get ‘pehchan
patras’ Mercy appeal option open Jackie to float theme restaurant |
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‘No plan to develop’ Agni-III NEW DELHI, May 11 (UNI) — The government has no plan to develop Agni-III with an enhanced range of 3500 km of inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), Surya, with a range of over 8400 km, Defence Minister George Fernandes has said. Asked by a Japanese newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun, whether India was developing Agni-III, Mr Fernandes said: "The Defence Ministry has not got into any such plan so far.’’ Janes Defence Weekly recently reported that India was in the process of developing Agni-III after having tested Agni-II. "These are all speculative reports and there is no substance in them’’, the Defence Minister said in an interview to the newspaper. Regarding reports about the development of the ICBM, Surya, he said: "This is again purely based on conjectures.’’ He said Agni-II had reached a stage where it could be "productionised.’’ he added: "We have not yet decided any time-frame for production. We will decide about it in the course of time because proper evaluation of our security concerns has to be made.’’ On the issue of minimum credible deterrence, Mr Fernandes stressed the doctrine of nuclear "no-first-use" and the ongoing confidence-building measures (CBMS) with Pakistan and China to create a ground for an agreement on this issue. "India has already proclaimed that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons... our strategy is to persuade them (China and Pakistan) to debate this issue and come to a similar agreement. And if they do that, then I do not see any reason for us to think in terms of any long range missiles,’’ he said. He described Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s historic bus ride to
Lahore and the resumed meetings of the India-China joint
working group as positive steps aimed at creating better
understanding with Islamabad and Beijing. |
Laloo appears before CBI ‘judge’ PATNA, May 11 (PTI) — Former Bihar Chief Ministers Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra today appeared before the court of designated CBI Judge S.K. Lal in a conspiracy angle case of fodder scam. Both RJD President Yadav and Bihar Jan Congress chief patron Mishra are on bail in the case. The case relates to fraudulent withdrawals of more than Rs 97 lakh from Deoghar treasury by state Animal Husbandry Department officials through “forged and fake” bills. Among others who also appeared in the court included former Bihar ministers, C.P. Verma, Vidyasagar Nishad, RJD MLA, R.K. Rana and Congress MLA Jagdish Sharma. Lal fixed May 13 as the next date for their routine attendance. Senior IAS officials, including K. Arumugam, Mahesh Prasad, Beck Julius and a few other accused who are lodged in Beur jail, were produced before the court by jail authorities in connection with the case. Earlier, arguing on behalf of RJD President on the petition filed by him seeking amalgamation of the two cases senior counsel P.N. Pandey said the CBI had already filed the chargesheets in both the cases in which he claimed the charges against Yadav were “similar”. Pandey said the agency had also relied on the same sets of evidence. “Keeping in view
the facts it will be prudent to amalgamate the two cases
in the interest of speedy trial,” he argued. |
Doubts over Pokhran blasts NEW DELHI, May 11 (PTI) — While the government is today celebrating the first anniversary of the Pokhran-II nuclear blasts, scientists outside the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have for the first time openly raised doubts about the DAE’s claims that the nuclear explosion had a total strength of 60 kilotonnes. A fresh analysis of the seismic signatures by these scientists has also revealed that the Indian and Pakistani tests (conducted on May 28, 1998) were “intrinsically different” in the manner in which the energy of the two explosions was distributed among different frequencies of the seismic waves generated by the blasts. The latest study reported in Current Science was carried out by Mr Harsh Gupta, Mr M. Ravi Kumar and Mr D. Sarkar of the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) Hyderabad, and Mr S.N. Bhattacharya of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) here. Both earthquakes and nuclear explosions generate seismic waves in different frequencies and the scientists said they compared the energy content of the Indian and Pakistani explosions in various frequency ranges. They found that the “energy from the Pokhran event peaked in the frequency range of 3.5 to 6 hertz compared to a range of 1 to 3 hertz for the Chaghai (Pakistani) explosion”. The NGRI-IMD team says the method used by DAE scientists to calculate the strength of the explosions on the basis of magnitude estimates is questionable. Such estimates are usually made for seismic waves of frequencies around one hertz or lower. But in the case of the Pokhran blast the energy was found to be concentrated in frequencies up to 7 hertz, the scientists said. Hence they said the yield of 60 kilotonne estimated by DAE scientists only on the basis of the magnitude of the seismic waves — without considering their spectral characteristics — is “uncertain to a great extent”. The NGRI-IMD team further said yield estimation from seismic magnitudes in the Indian subcontinent as followed by DAE “is not a correct approach” because such relations between magnitude of seismic waves and yield of explosions were developed by the Americans and the Russians on the basis of numerous tests they had conducted in Nevada (USA) and Novaya Zemlya (Russia). In contrast, India had
carried out just one test in 1974 at the Pokhran, and
hence “we do not have such data base to make a
similar calibration applicable for our
subcontinent”, the Current Science Report said. |
VHP accusation NEW DELHI, May 11 — In what appears to be a joint strategy, the BJP and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) today launched an attack on Congress President Sonia Gandhi by raising questions about her citizenship. While the BJP said that Mrs Sonia Gandhi registered herself as a voter without giving up her Italian citizenship, the VHP accused her of toppling the Vajpayee Government “at the instance of foreign powers”. The BJP spokesman, Mr K.L. Sharma, posed three questions, asking the Congress to clarify whether it was a fact that while Mrs Sonia Gandhi got herself enrolled as a voter in January 1983, she gave up her Italian citizenship only on April 30, 1983. Quoting Form 4 in the Registration of Electoral Rules, 1960, and Section 30 of the Representation of the People’s Act (RPA), Mr Sharma asked as “what steps does the Congress think should be taken to enforce the law in this case”. The BJP spokesman said Section 30 of the RPA said: “Any person who makes a statement or declaration which is false and which he either knows or believes to be false or does not believe to be true, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year or with fine or both.” Earlier, the VHP Working President, Mr Ashok Singhal, said that after the Pokhran tests, foreign powers apprehended that the Vajpayee Government would not dance to their tunes and hence considered a person of foreign origin most suitable for the prime ministership. Claiming that a conspiracy was hatched to hand over the reins of the country to Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Mr Singhal said that foreign powers considered a woman of foreign origin to be the most suitable for running the country at their behest. “The Indian National Congress has been transformed into the Catholic Congress ever since Mrs Sonia Gandhi has assumed the leadership of the party”, Mr Singhal said, adding that she had been using the church as a political tool. Asked to name foreign powers, Mr Singhal declined to identify them, saying “you know who they are”. Asked whether the VHP had some understanding with the Samajwadi Party, which had also raked up the issue of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin, Mr Singhal replied in the negative, saying that she “will be a liability for the Congress rather than an asset”. The VHP would neither campaign for any party nor its office-bearers would contest the coming Lok Sabha elections, he said. In an effort to underplay the Ayodhya issue, Mr Singhal said the Standing Committee of the VHP, at its meeting on May 9, held the view that the decision to construct a temple at Ayodhya would be taken only by the religious leaders and saints. The VHP performed only an assisting role, he said. Asked if the VHP would continue to support the BJP as issues like Ayodhya were no more on the common agenda of the BJP and its allies, Mr Singhal said the temple construction was the job of saints . Mr Singhal, who refused to go on record when asked if the VHP had accepted the national agenda without the temple figuring in it, said “we have nothing to do with the national agenda”. The VHP leader said supporting Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee for the prime ministership and helping in temple building were equally important for his organisation which had sought to protect the interest of Hindus through its 40-point “Hindu agenda”. At the same time, Mr Singhal said work on the Ram temple was in full swing at five places. When asked whether the
VHP would abide by the court verdict on the Ayodhya
issue, he said as far as the VHP was concerned, there was
no court case with regard to the idol. |
Migrants get ‘pehchan patras’ NEW DELHI, May 11 (PTI) — Coming to India from his village in eastern Nepal was no problem for Ram Bahadur. He only had to ensure that he carried no goods when the police intercepted him at the border. Once here, landing a job was not difficult — he could earn his living either as a watchman or cleaning cars. As thousands of migrants from Nepal and Bangladesh settle into various nooks and corners of India, sociologists differ on the impact of migration on the cultural life of the country. The Capital’s south district has hundreds of such ‘squatter families’, says Rakesh Gupta of the Centre for Urban Development at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) here. “The growth of squatter families in Delhi has been remarkable over the years. It is estimated that there are over 1,089 jhuggi jhompri (JJ) clusters, housing a population of over three million,” says Gupta. “Illegal immigration, particularly from Bangladesh, in Assam alone is more than one million if one goes by estimates,” says Sanjoy Hazarika of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) here. But sociologist Asis Nandy of the Centre for Studies of Developing Societies (CSDS) believes that Delhi’s economy is not affected by such immigration. “For example, those coming from Bangladesh have the skill to cultivate on the banks of the Yamuna, in which few people from the area can specialise. Similarly, certain jobs are done only by those from Nepal. Thanks to a treaty between Nepal and India, Nepalis are not illegal immigrants whereas the absence of such a treaty makes Bangladeshis illegal immigrants, Nandy says. As another election looms large, Mahavir Thapa, pradhan of one such Nepali settlement here, says, “It is the time when politicians come and promise us a lot of things.” “As with each elections, politicians will try to woo us. But they give us nothing. They only bribe a certain section of our people with money and food,” alleges 28-year old Nepalese Sapna Raj, who has been in Delhi here for the last nine years. “Such immigrants are an added burden to the resources here, leading to environmental degradation,” says social worker and environmentalist Iqbal Malik. And, with the Election
Office issuing them “pehchan patras” (identity
cards) during elections, on the basis of which they are
issued ration cards, they are here to stay, she says. |
BJP ultimatum to Kalyan LUCKNOW, May 11 (PTI) — Even as the BJP leadership again rejected the dissidents demand for removal of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, a senior party leader disclosed today that the party had issued an ultimatum to him to change his style of functioning to defuse the crisis. "Kalyan Singh was served an ultimatum enlisting five points, including a direction to change his style of functioning", party General Secretary Sanghpriya Gautam told a press conference in Chandigarh. He said Kalyan Singh has also been asked to cancel all controversial appointments, take future decisions with the consent of party’s state unit president Rajnath Singh, provide security to legislators apprehending danger to life and probe cases of victims implicated in false cases. Mr Gautam, however, did not say what the high command would do in case the Chief Minister did not follow the high command’s directives. Party leader and former
Union Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is here on a visit,
ruled out a change of leadership saying "this is not
the time to bring the party’s internal differences
to the fore as it is facing a bigger battle ahead.
Controversies invariably affect the prospects of an
organisation." |
Mercy appeal option open NEW DELHI, May 11 (PTI) — Two options are left for the four convicts awarded death sentence in the Rajiv assassination case today - to move a review petition before the Supreme Court or to file a mercy petition before the President - to save themselves from being sent to the gallows. Additional Solicitor General Altaf Ahmed said all the seven convicts, including those against whom death sentence was upheld, could move a petition before the Supreme Court seeking review of today’s order within 30 days from today. The four, who have been awarded capital punishment, could move a mercy petition before President under Article 72 of the Constitution. Article 72 (1) provides
that “the President shall have the power to grant
pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment
or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any
person convicted of any offence” and Clause (C) of
Article 72(1) provides that the President has such power
in regard to “all cases where the sentence is a
sentence of death”. |
Jackie to float theme restaurant NEW DELHI, May 11 (UNI) — Inspired by Hollywood counterparts like Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone, Bollywood ‘hero’ Jackie Shroff is contemplating to float a chain of theme restaurants in India. “It has been a pet project with me. I had been toying with the idea for some time now,” Jackie told UNI here. A few other cine stars
from Bollywood — Salman Khan, Govinda, Karisma
Kapoor and Mahima Chaudhary — have already floated a
theme restaurant under the brand ‘Planet
Bollywood’. |
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| Dara Singh’s aide
held BHUBANESWAR: In a major breakthrough, Madhu Mahanta, a close associate of Dara Singh, the main accused in the killing of Graham Staines was arrested from Talapati village in Orissa, about 95 km from here on Monday night. Mahanta, who carried a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head, was hiding in the house of a teacher in the village when he was nabbed. The raid was conducted by a special squad led by SI Manoj Kumar Mahanta. — PTI Spurned lover gets police
remand Mother kills
prankster son 50 injured in
bus accident 3 kids run over
by train Two engineers
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