New Delhi, March 16
Making a mockery of the newly constituted Third Front, the Congress today said the alliance was a “stillborn baby” and the party’s prospects faced no threat from it.

Sonia to launch campaign from K’taka A move that may substantiate the view that the Congress was “worried” by the formation of the Third Front, AICC president Sonia Gandhi would be kicking off the party campaign from the same state where the front’s constitution was announced a few days ago - Karnataka. While Sonia would be launching her campaign from Davangere, about 260 km from Bangalore, announcement of the Third Front formation was made at Tumkur (also in Karnataka).

Warning the electorate against the Third Front’s “lack of credentials”, Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: “I am poking fun at a non-existent, stillborn entity. I am distressed how people of this country are being taken for a ride.”

Notably, some days back when various regional parties had announced the formation of the Third Front in Karnataka, another Congress spokesman had termed the formation as the “biggest mirage” of Indian politics and a “ghost” that appeared every two-three years only to disappear soon after.

Meanwhile, in the context of the Congress’ repeated reactions against the front, political observers opine that the new alliance had started worrying the national party. At a time when the Congress leaders should had been focusing on their energies on defeating their arch-rival BJP and its allies, party spokespersons were spending precious time in running down the Third Front, observers say.

According to Singhvi, the only reason behind his raising the Third Front issue was to send a message to the public “not to take the conglomerate of ‘rag-tag’ political parties seriously”. “There is no question of being obsessed with the Third Front,” he explains.

But, observers say the Congress has been taken aback by the emergence of the Third Front and its fear right now was that the newly formed alliance may harm the UPA more than the NDA.

“If the Third Front is a stillborn baby, the Congress not be talking about it so much. They are talking about it because the baby is alive and kicking and has the capability of harming its traditional vote base by dividing the secular votes and inadvertently helping the BJP,” they point out.

New Delhi, March 16
Russia’s grounding of some of its MiG 29 fleet, has Indian defence authorities caught between the proverbial devil and the deep sea. Even as questions are being raised about the future of the naval variant of the aircraft - MiG 29-K - India can only wait and watch while opting for another aircraft at this stage is ruled out.

In case of the IAF, operational reasons along the Indo-Pak border and also the fact that the MiG 29 is already in service for more than two decades, a decision has been taken not to ground them. However, in case of the Navy, India does not have an option at this stage when everything is finalised and the process of purchase is underway.

The first 16 of the lot were to be supplied before the end of this year. This seems improbable now, officials said here and added that there was an entire check list for the new aircraft and reiterated that it seemed to be a problem with metallurgy rather than the engines or the design.

India has approved of a sum of Rs 5,380 crore to buy the naval variant for its naval aircraft carriers for increasing the air-strike power at sea and making changes now can jeopardise future naval plans. Indian naval warships are designed to primarily fly the Russian aircraft.

Some British built sea harriers are operated but the aircraft carriers will need changes that will be impossible to incorporate at this stage to accommodate, fighter aircraft made elsewhere, said officials. India has one aircraft carrier INS Viraat that is under going a refit at the Kochi shipyard. Two others - INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov) and the indigenous aircraft carrier - are under construction. In case of Gorshkov it is being made in Russia and the purchase price - that is under re-negotiation -comes with a package of on board fleet of 16 MiG-29Ks. Indian naval pilots have already under gone training and the delivery is originally scheduled to start at the end of next month.

The indigenous aircraft carrier, a 38,000 tonne displacement ship, is also designed to fly the MiG-29 K and also the naval version of the light combat aircraft. Though the air force version of the LCA is being inducted, the landing gear of the naval version is yet to be perfected and could take years. The take off thrust and landing styles of naval fighters are different from the Air Force version. At sea, the space to land or take off is limited.

Source in the IAF said technical checks were a regular feature in India while the Russian metallurgy was susceptible to salinity and needed care.

New Delhi, March 16
On a day when the political turmoil in Pakistan subsided somewhat, India named Sharat Sabharwal as its next High Commissioner in Islamabad, succeeding Satyabrata Pal who retired on February 28.

Sabharwal, who served as India’s deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan from 1995-1999, is expected to take up his new assignment shortly, an External Affairs Ministry announcement today said.

Sabharwal, a 1975 batch IFS officer, is currently special secretary in the ministry, in-charge of administration, consular, passport and visa affairs. The Pakistan Government had given its formal consent to the appointment of Sabharwal on Saturday.

His appointment is being considered significant in the backdrop of a new low in India-Pakistan relations in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, in which the complicity of the elements in Pakistan has already been established.

The earlier thinking in top echelons of power was that a decision on crucial appointments of new envoys to Pakistan and the United States should be left to the new dispensation that will assume office at the centre after the Lok Sabha elections. However, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee put his foot down, contending that the two positions were too important to lie vacant for long as that would send a wrong message to the world community.

Sabharwal’s appointment comes at a time when India is nudging Pakistan to take sincere and credible action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and deliver on its commitment not to allow the misuse of its territory for terrorist activities.

India is also concerned over the political crisis in Pakistan, particularly the stand-off between President Asif Ali Zardari and PML (N) chief Nawaz Sharif, fearing that it might further weaken the civilian government’s will and capability to fight terrorism and punish those behind the Mumbai mayhem.

Earlier, the name of Sudhir Vyas, India’s ambassador to Bhutan, was also considered for appointment as the High Commissioner to Pakistan. However, Pakistan did not appear agreeable.

The reason was that Vyas was declared persona non grata by Pakistan in 2003 when he was serving there as deputy High Commissioner soon after India expelled then acting Pakistani High Commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani for allegedly aiding Kashmiri separatists.

Vyas has now been appointed the new ambassador to Germany to succeed Meera Shankar who goes to the US as new envoy in place of Ronen Sen.

New Delhi, March 16
The Supreme Court today dismissed a PIL seeking to restrain the BJP from using lotus as its election symbol as the petitioner could not produce the government notification by which lotus was reportedly declared as the national flower.

Rejecting the petitioner’s plea for a day’s time to submit the notification, a three-Judge Bench headed by Chief Justic e KG Balakrishnan said the court was not in a position to entertain the PIL in the present form.

Justice P Sathasivam noted that the Election Commission had allotted the symbol to the BJP more than 25 years ago. The third Judge, Justice VS Sirpurkar, was also of the view that the apex court could not hear such time-barred issues.

Naushad Ahmed Khan, counsel for the petitioner Shaheen Parvez, however, maintained that such a violation could not be ignored due to lapse of time as it involved lotus, the national insignia that had religious importance as well.

The court rejected the plea, stating that it could not consider the plea in the absence of the official record showing lotus as the national flower. However, it clarified that despite the dismissal, it would consider the issue if the petitioner produced any authentic material.

According to the PIL, the petitioner approached the apex court after her failure to get a positive response from the Election Commission, the President of India and the Delhi High Court. She had first raised the issue, just ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha election, by writing to the EC and subsequently pursued it with the President and the HC.

Chennai, March 16
Despite objections by Tamil Nadu Congress leaders, VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, a strong supporter of the LTTE, today met Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and booked his place in the DMK-Congress alliance.

The Dalit leader, who has a strong presence in the northern parts of the state, said the Chief Minister had already ensured a place for his party in the alliance by his observations yesterday that the DMK and VCK shared common social ideology and they would raise their voice together for their principles.

The fiery orator and powerful leader of Dalit community is expected to fight the elections from Chidambaram constituency, where he contested alone and polled about 2.25 lakh in the 2004 elections, pushing the AIADMK front’s candidate to the third spot.

State Congress leaders had appealed to the DMK to expel Thirumavalavan from the alliance and some of them had demanded his arrest for speeches supporting the Tigers. The VCK is part of the Sri Lankan Tamils Protection Movement, which is holding protests “against the Centre’s support to the Sri Lankan army involved in a genocidal war against the island Tamils”.

Guwahati, March 16
A day ahead of the trust vote, Opposition Congress in Meghalaya Assembly today moved a no-confidence against Speaker Binod M Lalong.

The Meghalaya People’s Alliance (MPA) government, led by Chief Minister Dr Donkupar Roy, is scheduled to face trust vote tomorrow to prove the majority in the wake of desertion of the ruling coalition by four legislatures, including two independent MLAs and two ministers.

Immediately after customary address by Governor RS Mooshahary on the first day of the budget session, the Opposition Congress moved a no-confidence motion against the Speaker pre-empting that the latter might resort to disqualify those who had deserted the MPA camp ahead of the trust vote.

The Speaker had, earlier, slapped show-cause notice to those deserters who precipitated a political crisis by reducing the one-year-old MPA government to a minority.

As many as 12 Congress MLAs signed the notice of no confidence motion against the Speaker that was moved by Congress legislator RV Lyngdoh. Admitting the notice, the Speaker fixed March 27 for debate on the notice.

New Delhi, March 16
If you still thought the Oscar-clincher “Slumdog Millionaire” was all about India-bashing, here’s the evidence to help you change your mind. The 2009 World Development Report argues that slums are not bad things at all. They are, in fact, drivers of growth, and no country has ever urbanised without them.

Citing the case of Singapore, which had slums not so far back in time, the World Bank’s flagship report released here yesterday asks governments to stop worrying about the growing size of metropolises and cities and focus instead on making these work well for migrants. It goes on to challenge the long-standing myths that migration is bad and that economic growth needs to be spread out across regions. These controversial claims make the report important and relevant.

To drive home the importance of migration, the report shows that Mumbai could well have been Shanghai or Singapore had it not closed its doors on people and policies to make living and earning easier for them.

“People need to move from villages to cities to prosper. Migration is very good because people need to reduce the distance to economic activity,” the report states. In this claim, it challenges many schemes of the Government of India, most importantly, its flagship programme NREGA, which seeks to stop migration by employing people where they are.

“That’s a highly flawed idea. The fact is that globally as well as nationally, people need to move to improve their prospects in life. The world’s most geographically disadvantaged people know all too well that growth does not come to every place at once,” Indermit Singh Gill, WB’s chief economist for Europe and Central Asia told The Tribune yesterday.

In India, in the second half of the 1990s, about three million people moved from lagging states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to leading states like Maharashtra and Punjab. The trend should be encouraged if cities have to prosper and not crawl as Mumbai did despite the potential to grow.

Mumbai was home to about 7.5 million people in the 1980s and despite attempts to discourage the inflow of people, the city today has more than twice as many people; over half of them live in slums. “The fact is that people will move. The government in Mumbai should have accommodated the influx by establishing versatile land market institutions and providing basic amenities,” Gill says.

The report offers lessons to Punjab and Maharashtra, especially the latter, where anti-migrant sentiment picked up post Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s violent agitations.

That apart, the report also challenges the assumption that economic activities must be spread geographically to benefit the world’s most poor.

Lucknow, March 16
A Dalit woman suffered a miscarriage after she was beaten up by residents of an Uttar Pradesh village following an argument between her son and their children, the police said.

Some locals of Pakariyapur village in Sitapur district on Friday beat up Geeta, 30, after her son had a verbal dispute with their children while playing in the fields, the police said. “I have directed the officials to register a case against the villagers who assaulted Geeta,” district police chief P Singh said on Monday.

According to the police, four villagers, armed with wooden sticks, forcibly entered Geeta’s house on Friday night and beat her up. When her family members came in the way, the villagers dragged her outside the house and beat her in public, the police said.

“All four who are accused of beating up Geeta are absconding. Efforts are on to nab them,” Singh said. Geeta is being treated at a government hospital in Sitapur, some 80 km from Lucknow, the police added. — IANS

Rampur, March 16
Samajwadi Party MP and candidate from Rampur Lok Sabha seat Jayaprada has pleaded innocence on the allegation of the violation of election code of conduct in her constituency.

In response to the notice issued by District Magistrate (DM) Shankar Lal Pandey, the SP MP said the complaint against her was wrong. She was alleged to have distributed cash to her electorate at Baghdad-e-Sharif, a muslim religious place in her constituency on March 13. A complaint in this regard was lodged on behalf of BJP candidate from this seat Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. — UNI

BRIEFLY

Muthalik’s entry banned
Mangalore: Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik, whose outfit evoked national outrage by attacking girls and boys at a pub here, was on Monday banned from entering Mangalore district for one year. The ban was ordered by District Administrator and Deputy Commissioner V Ponnuraj following Muthalik owning up responsibility for the attack in January this year, official sources said. — PTI

Remains of 26/11 attackers
Mumbai: No one has come forward to claim the bodies of the nine terrorists involved in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, Police Commissioner Hassan Gafoor told reporters today. Going by the procedure, the police would approach the courts to dispose of the bodies, Gafoor said. The police would make an application before the special court hearing the terror attacks. As per practice, the police determine the religion of the dead and conduct the funeral as per religious norms. — TNS

Anand Jon — A victim?
NEW DELHI: Alleging that Anand Jon was a victim of “conspiracy”, “racism” and “prosecution misconduct”, the family of the Indian-American fashion designer convicted of sexually assaulting budding models on Monday appealed to US President Obama to ensure justice for him. “President Obama should look into the issue. Being a person of colour, he knows about racial prejudice. If he does not, I will launch a fast-unto-death demanding justice... We want the Indian government to intervene as well,” Jon’s sister Sanjana told reporters here. — PTI

Flights to N-E disrupted
GUWAHATI: Flights of all airlines, including Air India, Jet Airways, Kingfisher and Indigo, to Guwahati could not land here on Monday due to a severe dust storm in the city, which is experiencing a dry spell for over four months. The situation was compounded as the Instrumental Landing System (ILS) was not functional at the Gopinath Bordoloi Airport here. — PTI

Rally to save homes
PANAJI: Goa’s historic Azad Maidan in Panaji city will host a massive rally on Tuesday seeking justice for the traditional fishermen whose houses fear to be bulldozed by the state government terming them illegal. The protest will be against Digamber Kamat-led government for ‘failing to save their houses falling within 200 metres of high tide line’. United under the banner of Goenchea Raponkarancho Ekvott (GRE), the traditional fishermen community, has called for a massive rally on Tuesday. — PTI

Cyber crimes on rise
MUMBAI: The number of cyber crimes here has increased by over five times between 2005 and 2008. According to Mumbai police statistics, the number of cyber cases abruptly rose from 142 in 2005 to 775 cases in 2008. Credit card frauds, vulgar content, identity theft, hacking and lottery scams are among the other practices being used to cheat Mumbaikars. — PTI