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Sangh to have greater role in Rajnath’s team
Ex-servicemen return bravery medals
BSP split in UP: verdict reserved
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Cops ‘beg’ to catch killer
Shiv Kumar
TMC men remove fencing of Tata land
Kaif sorry for short skirt
Bihar gets Dalit priest
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Sangh to have greater role in Rajnath’s team
New Delhi, January 16 Mr Ramlal, who has been RSS worker in Uttar Pradesh for a considerable period, is being made the general secretary (Organisation) with an eye on the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state. The decision to bring seasoned and senior RSS worker Ramlal to the key post is not only for reviving the party's electoral fortunes in UP but also to have a bigger say for the Sangh in the scheme of things. A bigger role for the RSS was approved at the National Council session of the BJP held in Lucknow where the party's Constitution was amended to pave the way for having more full time Sangh workers not only in the central organisation but also at the state and district levels. Sources said Mr Rajnath Singh would effect subtle but forceful changes in the existing team retaining 70 to 80 per cent of the old team members and filling rest with new faces. The new team would have Mr Singh's signatures. Former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and former Health Minister C.P Thakur may be brought as vice-presidents in the party. Present BJP vice-president Gopinath Munde is likely to be appointed general secretary. Mr Rajnath Singh is likely to pick up either Thavar Singh Gehlot or Satyanarayan Jatia as another general secretary. The RSS had advised Mr Rajnath Singh to end factionalism in the party and that is why the Sangh had lent its dedicated workers Ramlal and Ramesh to the BJP. Meanwhile, a RSS worker Makhanlal has been appointed general secretary (Organisation) in Madhya Pradesh where the BJP had to face lot of infighting between followers of former state Chief Minister Uma Bharti and the old guard.
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Ex-servicemen return bravery medals
New Delhi, January 16 They said they were doing so in support of Parliament attack victims’ families and the fact that “ ex-servicemen and widows of those who lay down their lives for the country were often not accorded the respect, dignity and help they deserved from either the government or officials concerned”. Col Kanwar Bhardwaj (retd), Col R.K. Sharma (retd) and Major Ishwar Singh Jakkhar(retd) from Haryana, along with their counterparts from Bijnore in Utter Pradesh, said they wouldto deposit their gallantry medals with All-India Anti Terrorist Front chairman M.S. Bitta Mr Bitta told The Tribune that the medals, after being respectfully mounted and framed, would be sent back to the government. Colonel Bhardwaj (retd) is the father of the late Capt Umang Bhardwaj, who laid down his life while fighting terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir four years back. Colonel Bhardwaj, who says that he also participated in the 1971 war, is now fighting another battle: which is to build the petrol pump allotted to his wife after the death of their son on the land he bought on the Patuadi road. “Officials tell me they cannot give me a no-objection certificate or the certificate for change of land use because, as per them, the land is unauthorised. Maybe, they want something in return. So many times when I approach officials for help, saying that the petrol pump has been allotted to the mother of a martyr, I am told that anyone who joins the Army should be prepared to die. As an ex-serviceman, I refuse to beg now,” he said. Five years after they lost their husbands, brothers and fathers during the terrorist attack, family members of the victims also returned bravery medals to the President House Directorate on December 13, 2006, in protest against “the delay in implementation of the death penalty to Mohammad Afzal”. While most of the terrorist attack victims claimed of not having received a large chunk of the promised help, the story of 28-year-old Sunita Devi, the wife of photographer Vikram Singh Bisht, happens to be most poignant. The mother of eight-year-old Naveen and five-year-old Priya is still running from pillar to post to get a decent job. The last offer she received was from the Uttaranchal Government, that of a peon.
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BSP split in UP: verdict reserved
New Delhi, January 16 The case is considered politically crucial for Mulayam Singh government as his Samajwadi Party (SP) could muster the majority only after a split in the BSP in 2003 as 42 MLAs of the breakaway group had joined his party. But the important question for the decision before the constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G Balakrishnan is whether the split in a political party is a one time event or a continuing process as the 42 MLAs had left the BSP at least in three installments over a certain period of time. The then UP Assembly Speaker Kesri Nath Tripathi had recognised the merger of the breakaway faction with the SP. Initially, 13 MLAs had left the party, followed by some others to raise their number to 37. The breakaway group had formed a new party the Loktantrik Bahujan Dal (LBD) before merging with the SP. Five, who had joined the splitting group, had returned to the BSP after the Allahabad High Court last year asked the Speaker to decide the matter afresh with first deciding the application of the BSP seeking the disqualification of 13 MLAs who had revolted initially as they attracted the provisions of anti-defection law for not meeting the requisite number of one-third to constitute a legal split, then the legality of split of the 37 MLAs and their merger with the SP in that order. The Speaker had kept the applications for disqualifying the 13 MLAs and on the split issue pending and fist decided the merger application of the break away group, which was challenged in the High Court. The Mulayam Singh government has challenged the High Court order in the Apex Court.
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Pune, January 16 Fifty-seven-year-old Prafulla, an IIT, Delhi graduate in chemical engineering, who also happens to be the great grandson of freedom fighter and Marathi litterateur Vishnushastri Chiplunkar, fell on bad times in 1980s following an accident in a private company at Palampur where he was employed. Having suffered severe burn injuries in the accident, subsequent hospitalisation took away his job and he was rendered penniless. Married to a Thai girl and blessed with a son, bad financial condition after the accident forced jobless Prafulla to ask his family to shift to Thailand. The news of his wife and son's death in a car accident in 2002 shattered him completely and the ensuing depression led him astray. Cut off from relatives for marrying a Thai girl, Prafulla avoided taking help from them though many of them are settled in the city. He began working as a watchman in a housing society and also took up other menial jobs for survival before taking recourse to begging two years ago. However, his habit of reading English newspapers and magazines outside Sarasbaug, a popular garden, made passers-by and vendors curious. Certain that he was not an ordinary beggar, two vendors informed local mediapersons, including veteran journalist Moreshwar Joshi. "I verified his antecedents and when sure, informed local people who regarded Veer Savarkar as a great freedom fighter," Joshi said. Many people came forward to help Chiplunkar and he was taken by Sanjay Dhongade, a social worker, to his home on Saturday. His friends are trying to find shelter for him, Joshi said, adding that after the news that Veer Savarkar's grandson was living on the streets hit the headlines, a woman from Delhi called up offering to look after him. "The woman said she was employed as a maid in Chiplunkar's house decades ago. Now that he has fallen upon bad times, I am ready to discharge my responsibility as a daughter towards him. Today we are having everything going good for us and are in a position to take care of his needs," the woman told mediapersons here. Chiplunkar told reporters that everything he had — family, wealth and peace — were taken away by the cruel hands of destiny, forcing him to live on the streets. "I was avoiding my relatives because I did not want their social life to be disturbed because of me," he said. Now Chiplunkar is keen to start his life afresh. — PTI
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Cops ‘beg’ to catch killer
Shiv Kumar
Mumbai, January 16 According to the police, the number of victims of the serial killer so far has risen to 10 with the police adding three bodies found last month to the list. The last victim was killed on early Friday morning. All victims were male and homeless using underpasses below railway bridges as shelters for the night, according to the police. The police is looking for a homosexual, probably from a middle-class background, since all victims bore the marks of anal sex. They were found with stab wounds and their heads smashed with a big stone. Beer cans were found near all murder spots. A scrap of paper bearing the line “Welcome to the Clan” was also found from one site. At another site, a scrap of paper with the name “Powell” was found. With no clear clues emerging about the killer, undercover policemen disguised as beggars and equipped with walkie-talkies have taken up position at different points of Mumbai. The police has mapped the murder sites and is trying to predict where the killer will strike next. All murders happened between 2 am and 4.30 am when the city’s train services shut down. Joint Commissioner of Police Arup Patnaik told reporters today that the police was working on a number clues and hope to catch the killer soon. According to him, the killings could have been the handiwork of more than one person. So far only one victim has been identified. The police suspects that all of them could have been migrants from other parts of the country trying to eke out a living in Mumbai. As a precautionary measure, more than 150 policemen have been deployed to chase away homeless men sleeping near railway stations.
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TMC men remove fencing of Tata land Kolkata, January 16 Yesterday, a group of the angry farmers, including the women, did not allow Tata Motors officials to visit the site. Instead they had been forced back to Kolkata without completing the works of taking over of the land. Interestingly, TMC workers and supporters of the committee, led by Mr Saugata Roy and Mr Sovondeb Chattopadhyya, reached the Singur site keeping the police and the district administration in the dark and removed the boundary made by barbed wire and hoisted the TMC flags there.
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Kaif sorry for short skirt
Mumbai, January 16 The Dargah management had issued notices to Kaif and other crew members of the film, Namastey London. Though Kaif had worn a knee-length skirt inside the shrine, the trustees had termed the attire improper.
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Bihar gets Dalit priest
Patna, January 16
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