New Delhi, December 4
The long pending demand for registering the marriage of the members of the Sikh community appears to have found favour with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice headed by E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan unanimously as it today recommended to the Congress-led UPA government to come forward with a simple amendment to the Anand Marriage Act of 1909.

The Committee at its meeting here impressed upon union Law secretary K.N. Chaturvedi of the necessity to amend the Anand Marriage Act, thereby facilitating the Sikh community to register the marriages as mandated by the Supreme Court recently.

The members of the committee strongly favoured that the Anand Marriage Act be amended. Besides, a dozen MPs of the community cutting across party lines and belonging to both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, including Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha Charanjit Singh Atwal, signed a letter to the chairman of the committee to add the clause of registration to the Anand Marriage Act.

Other MPs who signed the letter were Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, M.S. Gill, Rana Gurjit Singh, Rajmohinder Singh Majitha, Rattan Singh Ajnala, Atma Singh Gill, Naresh Gujral, S.S. Bajwa, Zora Singh Mann, Preneet Kaur, and Sharanjit Singh Dhillon.

Rajya Sabha MP and former chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities, Tarlochan Singh, has been in the vanguard of overcoming the glitch of not being able to register marriages of the Sikh community under the Anand Marriage Act necessitating them to take recourse to the Special Marriage Act, 1954, or the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The community felt rather perturbed about this aspect, which assumes significance especially in the wake of the order of the Supreme Court some time back that the registration of marriages was a must.

Chaturvedi is believed to have found merit in the contention of Tarlochan Singh and other MPs along with the members of the said committee that the Anand Marriage Act needs amendment to a limited and specified extend. Nevertheless, the draft of the proposed amendment by Tarlochan Singh will now be considered and vetted by the law and justice ministry. It is widely believed that the simple amendment to the Act might well become a reality in the Budget session of Parliament next year.

The committee forwarded to the law ministry Tarlochan Singh’s draft amendment Bill to the Act. Of late it was being felt that in the absence of a distinct form of registration of marriages, a lot of avoidable confusion was caused. The proposed Bill provides for the enabling provision to provide for an Anand Marriage Register in every state for the registration of such marriages.

A letter addressed to the committee was also forwarded to the law and justice ministry by the SGPC, Amritsar.

The letter observed that that the Anand Marriage Act moved by Tikku Ripudaman Singh of Nabha was passed by the colonial British government on October 22, 1909, after a threadbare discussion on the issue. The basic objective of this Act was to give a legal sanction to a marriage ceremony common among the Sikhs known as “Anand Karj”. However, the SGPC noted that it was an incomplete Act since there was no provision of the registration of marriages performed. 

New Delhi, December 4
The Supreme Court today found no urgency for an early hearing of senior advocate R.K. Anand’s petition for the transfer of the Delhi High Court’s suo motu contempt case against him for alleged bribing of a crucial witness in the high profile “BMW hit and run” case from the present Bench of Justice Manmohan Sarin.

He wanted the case be transferred form a division Bench, headed by Justice Sarin, to some other Bench alleging that due to his old differences with Justice Sarin, he would not get a fair trial. Anand’s lawyer Rajiv Dutta also sought stay on the high court proceeding till his petition was decided by the apex court.

While finding no ground for stay and urgent hearing, the apex court Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P. Sathasivam said the petition would be listed in a routine manner and the high court proceedings would continue.

Anand moved the apex court after Justice Sarin had refused to withdraw himself from the Bench and Justice S.K. Mishra, sitting with him, had refused to concur with his decision on the ground that since he was not aware of the factual position about the past relations between Justice Sarin and Anand, he could not give his opinion.

Due to the split decision the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court had referred the matter to the third judge, Justice Madan Lokur, who concurred with Justice Sarin finding no merit in Anand’s plea for rescue of Justice Sarin.

Consequently, the high court had decided to proceed with the contempt of court proceedings against Anand, a former MP. Though the case was listed by it for further hearing, it was adjourned in view of Anand approaching the Supreme Court.

The Bench told Anand’s counsel that the legal remedy of approaching the Supreme Court would always be open for Anand even if the high court would give its final verdict.

But the apex court said lawyers must remember that the judges had a delicate duty to perform and before levelling such charges of “bias” they should take note of the fact that while taking charge of their office, judges take an oath that they would perform their duty “without any fear and favour”.

The apex court said if it started treating petitions for change of the judges as urgent matters on allegations of “bias” it would open a pandora box and every litigant would then resort to “hunting of the Benches”, reducing the court proceedings to a farce.

Justice Sarin also had rejected Anand’s petition for his withdrawal with equally strong words terming his attempt as nothing but an exercise of “forum and Bench hunting or brow-beating the court”.

The high court had taken suo motu notice of a sting operation showing Anand as defence lawyer and his long standing buddy I.U. Khan, a special public prosecutor, hobnobbing in the BMW case against Sanjiv Nanda, a grandson of former Naval chief S.M. Nanda. Sanjiv is facing trial for killing six persons, including three policemen by his BMW car in 1999.

In a second round of the sting operation telecast by the TV channel yesterday, Anand was accused by the channel of sheltering key prosecution witness Sunil Kulkarni during the past eight years, including at his house in Shimla for 18 months.

New Delhi, December 4
The government informed the Rajya Sabha today that it was keeping a watch on a person who was suspected to have used the booming Indian share market for terror funding.

“Recently one case has come to our notice. It is suspected that it may be linked to a person under watch. I cannot divulge further details,” finance minister P. Chidambaram said.

He was answering a question by BJP member Ravi Shankar Prasad who asked whether the government was aware of money being poured into the stock market by terrorist outfits.

Prasad said national security adviser M.K. Narayanan had also raised concern over possibility of markets being used by terrorists.

Commenting on the issue of ban on participatory notes, the minister said the decision in that regard by the SEBI was taken on October 25, 2007, in consultation with the government and the RBI.

The notes have been in vogue for many years. The FII is one of the ways of inflow of funds and there are many other instruments, he added. — PTI

Lucknow, December 4
Following an FIR against Reliance Communications Group chairperson Anil Dhirubhai Ambani the telecom service provider today tendered an unconditional apology to the Sikh community for circulating a racially prejudiced mobile joke to its subscribers.

Averting the controversy from snowballing a Reliance Communication spokesperson today said, “We at Reliance Communications respect the religious sentiments of all countrymen as also that of our valued subscribers and while regretting the incident have no hesitation in tendering a sincere apology for any hurt to the sentiments of our Sikh brothers”.

The company in turn, has filed an FIR against the vendor to whom Reliance Communication had outsourced the service of sending SMS to subscribers. “The SMS jokes were provided by a third party vendor to the subscribers of telecom operators on a subscription basis. Therefore, the vendor is responsible for the content provided. The vendor has already apologised to the subscribers as also to the party,” he said.

Ahmedabad, December 4
Former Gujarat Chief Minister and a rebel leader of the BJP has kicked up yet another storm by “blessing” a candidate of the Congress.

Television channels that have been tracking Patel ever since he announced that he would not campaign for the Narendra Modi-led BJP in this month’s elections have recorded the event.

Janak Lalavaderwala, Congress candidate from Chaurasi, showed up at a wedding in the family of Keshubhai Patel yesterday. Even as television cameras recorded the event, Patel “blessed” Lalavaderwala. Patel had earlier said he would not campaign for the rebels, as he was a “disciplined member” of the BJP.

The incident came just one day after an organisation fronted by the BJP rebels issued a newspaper advertisement containing quotes by Keshubhai that attacked Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Though Keshubhai refused to come out in support of those who put out the advertisement, he said he stood by the remarks published in the advertisement.

Mumbai, December 4
Elections to the Gujarat Assembly scheduled for December 11 and 16 will be held amidst tight security.

The state administration had already pressed in the CRPF to carry out routine patrol across the state to instill confidence among people. Apart from the CRPF several companies of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) would also be pressed for duty ahead of the elections, officials said.

Today, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) staged flag marches in different parts of Gujarat. In the next few days, 16 more companies of the CRPF would be brought in for duty, they added.

Paramilitary forces will be deployed in all sensitive constituencies.

Lucknow, December 4
Chief Minister Mayawati today dashed yet another letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, lashing out at his Congress-led UPA government for adopting a policy of discrimination against Uttar Pradesh in the allocation of power.

In an obvious reaction to Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi’s recent charge of the state government being responsible for the poor state of power in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati today once again squarely blamed the Central government for the pitiable power situation as, according to her, Uttar Pradesh was not getting its due share from the central power agencies since 1980.

Addressing a press conference to fire salvos at the Congress for its reported “misleading charges”, Mayawati said not a single of the eight power projects of 4,000 MW, each being currently set up by the Central government, was based in Uttar Pradesh.

Substantiating her charge of discrimination, she declared that Uttar Pradesh was getting a share of merely 30 to 32 per cent from Singrauli and Rihand power projects set up in 1980. In contrast, today the state government’s share in power projects had risen to 50 to 60 per cent, she pointed out.

According to her, the Central government’s lack of response to her government’s demand for a 80,000 crore package for the development of Purvanchal and Bundelkhand region was also responsible for the state being power starved, as the package included Rs 6,800 crore for the new power projects, which would have been an integral part of the region’s development profile.

Lucknow, December 4
In the wake of the recent serial blasts in civil courts of Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi, the opposition parties today demanded an all-party meeting to chalk out a common strategy to respond to the growing threat of terrorism in the state.

Moving an adjournment motion, leader of opposition parties charged the ruling BSP for indulging in a blame game instead of taking them into confidence to build an environment of confidence in which the people of the state could feel more secure.

Drawing attention to the government’s lack of seriousness in tackling terrorism, former minister and BJP leader Hukum Singh said despite today being the first day of the Assembly after the blasts took place on November 23, the Chief Minister neither made a statement in the House nor found it worthwhile to remain present.

“The state needs a full-time Chief Minister, not one whose eyes are focused on the chair in New Delhi. For her canvassing for the Gujarat elections and holding rallies in other states take precedence over the security of the 18-crore population of Uttar Pradesh”, the BJP leader charged.

Samajwadi Party leader Ambika Chaudhury wanted to know if New Delhi was calling the shots in Uttar Pradesh as she said Mayawati was putting the ball in the Central government’s court in each matter. Be it no prior information regarding the attacks, infiltration from across the border or even the unavailability of fertilisers. 

Patna, December 4
A case was filed today at the Sasaram police station against the suspended "bahubali" JD(U) MLA Sunil Pandey for allegedly abusing and threatening jail superintendent Sanjay Chaudhary for the latter’s insistence to strictly implement the jail manual that prevented Pandey from flotuing some rules within the jail.

Pandey, a criminal-turned-legislator, is at present, lodged in the Sasaram jail. He is facing criminal charges, including murder, kidnapping, extortion and looting.

The police said Pandey threatened to kill Sasaram jail superintendent on Monday evening for his move to strictly follow the jail manual. The case was reportedly filed, charging Pandey with obstructing a public servant in performing his duty by issuing threats.

Pandey has been languishing in the jail for the last one year for allegedly demanding extortion money from a senior official of the Hyderabad-based Vijay Electricals Ltd. He representes the Piro constituency in Bhojpur district.

The JD(U) had suspended Pandey from the party in August last year for mocking CM Nitish Kumar’s "good governance" claims after he was booked for his drunken brawl at a city hotel, during which he had threatened a cameraman of an electronic media with dire consequences for daring to shoot his misconduct.

New Delhi, December 4
Cautioning that the global threat of avian and pandemic influenza continues, union health and family planning minister Anbumani Ramadoss today stressed that the international community must look at low-cost options to fight this problem. "Empowerment of the community is emerging as the most powerful tool in preparing for the pandemic, and all countries and organisations need to focus on this aspect," Ramadoss observed in his keynote address at the International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza. Wondering if the global community is really doing enough, the minister said that solace could be drawn from the UN system and World Bank progress report on the global state of influenza pandemic readiness and capacity to control highly pathogenic avian influenza released a few days ago. Ramadoss cautioned that any country that lags behind in its efforts in controlling avian and pandemic influenza could become the weak link that negates the consolidated efforts of the rest of the world. While acknowledging that the capacity to respond will wary from country to country, he said, "We must stand together and move forward as one in our commitment and resolve to fight this virus. We can collectively achieve this by setting agreed to milestones and work towards realising them with sincerity and transparency."

Stressing that India has clearly defined action plans for both animal and human health, the minister said it has become imperative to find a simple yet effective tool in creating national and global capacity to resist and fight the threat of an avian influenza pandemic. This vision for the road map is based among other things on India's experience in successfully containing the outbreaks in 2006 and 2007.

In this context he explained that prompt and reasonable compensation has been the hallmark of India's containment operations. The Plan recognises that the programme of culling of affected birds will succeed only if a system of adequately compensating the poultry farmers is put in place and activated immediately after the outbreak of avian influenza is confirmed.

Stating that while India achieved freedom from avian influenza last month, Ramadoss said that the government continues to maintain a constant vigil for any outbreak. An important concern is to raise the level of bio-security in poultry holdings. To ensure affordability and compliance of implementing necessary strategies we may need to develop simple and affordable bio-security measures to provide institutional support at the community level to mobilise prevention and control actions.

Guwahati, December 4
A documentary film on the andangered river dolphins of Assam and the on-going efforts to save them has been selected for the Indian competitive section of Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2008.

‘Children of the River: The Xihus of Assam’, is a documentary film directed by filmmaker Maulee Senapati, and produced and

scripted by the noted journalist and writer, Sanjoy Hazarika under the banner of Mimesha Productions.

The MIFF is the most prestigious platform for short and documentary films in the country. Next year’s chapter of the festival will begin on February 3.

“Shot on location along the Brahmaputra River in Assam , the film deals with how humans and dolphins have co-existed for ages and how this relationship is breaking down in the face of economic pressure and poverty,” the producer of the film , Hazarika said.

‘Children of the River’ captures on camera for the first time in the region to show the secret method used by dolphin hunters to catch fish. The oil extracted from river dolphin is believed to attract fish when sprinkled on the river water.

The film had its inaugural screening in the Northeast in Guwahati on December 3, 2007, to a packed audience. It was earlier screened at the Indian International Centre on November 15, 2007.

Patna, December 4
The Bihar government has asked “Aaja Nachle” distributors to delete an objectionable reference from a song.

After the Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana governments, the Bihar government too has asked film distributors in the state to delete the objectionable reference to a particular community in the title song before screening it in theatres.

Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana governments, which had banned the film, allowed its screening after the objectionable portions were deleted.

Patna district magistrate B. Rajender said the distributors had already been asked to do so if they wanted the government to allow its screening.

The film is yet to be released in theatres across the state. Rajender, however, said he was not aware when the film would be released in the state.