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Assam flood toll rises to 17
Maya blames centre for floods
CBI helped Quattrocchi evade arrest, SC told
SP to concede not more than 12 seats to UP Cong |
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Day 1: Singur talks end on hopeful note
6th Pay Panel
Dutt allowed extended
stay abroad
Patil draws ire at cabinet meet
Teachers’ Recruitment Scam
Mayawati to withdraw draconian UP crime act
Bid to lay siege to Asaram ashram
IFFDC chief Marwaha dead
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Assam flood toll rises to 17
Guwahati, September 5 Over 12 lakh people are reeling under floods that has so far inundated 1.35 lakh hectares of cropped land. Over 35,000 people, who have been rendered homeless by the devastating floods and soil erosion, are now lodged in 189 government-run relief camps. With no special relief package forthcoming from the Central government in sharp contrast to its benevolence toward flood-ravaged Bihar, different social, political and students organisations, including the influential All Assam Students Union (AASU), have raised a demand for adequate flood relief from the Centre. However, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi defended the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre saying the state government had a corpus of Rs 700 crore for flood relief operations and hence no fresh package was required from the Centre. Meanwhile, relief operations in Majuli river island, where 95 per cent of the landmass is under floodwaters, has been severely hit because of the breakdown of the mobile phone network. Bases of most of the mobile phone towers in the river island are under floodwaters, rendering the generators attached to them useless. Majuli SDO P.C. Deka said the whole process of providing relief to flood-hit and the evacuation of people had been badly affected due to the failure of the mobile phone network. The administration has been forced to bank on the police wireless network. Meanwhile, floods have provided an opportunity to the banned United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to take a dig at the Central government. The fugitive chairman of the outfit, Arabinda Rajkhowa, in a statement, alleged “step-motherly” attitude of the Centre toward Assam in providing relief.
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Maya blames centre for floods
Lucknow, September 5 Blaming the central government for the floods that have devastated Bihar and a sizeable part of eastern Uttar Pradesh, she said the main reason of floods in Bihar and eastern UP was the water released by Nepal rivers. Following an aerial survey of the flood-hit districts of Bihar, Mayawati spoke to the media at the Patna airport where she squarely blamed the central government for not taking the initiative of finding a permanent solution to the annual flood problem by holding talks with the Nepal government. She underlined the fact that under the Mahakali Pact of 1996 between the Indian and Nepalese governments, Pancheswar Project on Sharda river, Karnali embankment project on Ghaggar and Namure/Bhalubang multi-purpose project on Rapti river had to be setup. “If these projects had come up in a time-bound manner, it would have not only generated power and created irrigation facility but would have also controlled flood control especially in Poorvanchal”, she said She regretted that the officers’ level talks between the two countries were moving at a snail’s pace during the past 12 years and the work on any of these projects had not been started with any sincerity. On the occasion she also announced a relief of Rs 11.16 crore for Bihar flood victims. It included Rs 11 crore on behalf of the state government, Rs 10 lakh from Bahujan Prerana Trust headed by her and another Rs 6.2 lakh collected from one-day salary of IAS, IPS and PCS officers of the state.
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CBI helped Quattrocchi evade arrest, SC told
New Delhi, September 5 “It is ex-facie clear that the CBI is helping Quattrocchi ever since the change of guards at the Central government after the general elections in 2004 in the country and at every step the CBI is facilitating Quattrocchi so that he may get free from the Bofors investigation,” the lawyer alleged in the 47-page document. Earlier, he had filed an application with the court raising doubts over the government’s seriousness in getting Quattrocchi extradited from Argentina, where he was detained on February 6, 2007, and charged the CBI with failing to produce the original warrant against the accused to take him into custody at El Dorado. In today’s affidavit, Aggarwal said he had gone through the order passed by the Argentine court and noticed that the El Dorado court had declined extradition of Quattrocchi as the CBI had produced an arrest warrant “of February 24, 2007, that is subsequent to the arrest of Quattrocchi in Argentina and this arrest warrant was not a reasoned one”. “...it is clear that the CBI instead of nabbing fugitive Quattrocchi had been helping him to secure not only his freedom but also the ill-gotten money, which he had robbed from the people of India,” the advocate said. Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, however, said the government made all possible efforts to secure his extradition despite the fact that there was no treaty between India and Argentina for the deportation of the accused to make him face trial.
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SP to concede not more than 12 seats to UP Cong
New Delhi, September 5 SP general secretary Amar Singh indicated this at a Meet-the-Press programme organised by the Press Club of India here today. He referred to remarks of AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh who had described RJD chief Lalu Prasad as the model ally in UPA and said, “I too have immense respect for Laluji. Bihar has 40 seats and Laluji gave Congress four seats. If we adopt his model as the criterion, then we give eight seats. “If we adopt the 2004 General Election as the criterion then we give 12 seats to the Congress,” said the SP spokesman. The Congress and SP held their first seat-sharing meeting here earlier this week. Amar Singh along with SP secretary general Ram Gopal Yadav represented their party while AICC general secretaries Rahul Gandhi and Digvijay Singh as well as UPCC president Rita Bahugna Joshi participated on behalf of the Congress. Though Singh maintained a brave face, there were clear signs that the talks have run into some difficulty since Digvijay Singh had earlier indicated that there could be some friendly fights. Amar Singh however firmly rejected the friendly fight suggestion. He also ruled out giving up claim on most of the seats where the party has sitting MPs. The Congress is staking claim to some of these seats. “We are willing to accomodate only Jitin Prasada who had contested from Shahjehanpur but whose seat has now become reserved.” He also sought to extend SP-Congress alliance to other states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. He offered to be generous and accomodative towards erstwhile party MPs Beni Prasad Verma and Raj Babbar if they showed the same change of attitude towards the SP as demonstrated towards the Congress.
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Day 1: Singur talks end on hopeful note
Kolkata, September 5 “We are heading towards a solution,” said leader of the Trinamool Congress Partho Chatterjee. But industries minister Nirupam Sen said nothing had been finalised so far and another round of talks would be held tomorrow. The Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, who chaired the meet, told mediapersons that they had held around three hours of meaningful discussion and hoped that both the groups would show the same spirit of co-operation during tomorrow’s meeting. However, Raj Bhavan sources said there were heated exchanges among the participants during the talks and at one point of time, the Trinamool Congress, leading the farmer groups, wanted to stage a walk-out. But at the intervention of the Governor, the situation was soon normalised. Sources further said the state government had agreed in principle to return lands to the unwilling farmers, but not the entire 400 acres as Mamata Banerjee has demanded. There were also discussions on the compensation packages and the shifting of the ancillary units to a vacant site opposite that of the Tata Motor’s plant. But no decision could be arrived on these issues. Notably, neither Mamata Banerjee nor the chief minister was present at today’s meeting, which the industries minister Nirupam Sen, panchayet minister Surya Kanto Mishra and several other senior officials attended. From the farmers’ side, those present included Partha Chatterjee, former bureaucrat D. Bandopadhyya, Purnendu Bose, advocate Kalyan Banerjee and SUCI’s Manik
Mukherjee.
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6th Pay Panel
New Delhi, September 5 Admiral Mehta, who is chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, met the PM last night and handed over a written note stating how the Sixth Pay Commission had lowered the status of officers. He had gone to brief the PM on his recent visits to Japan and Korea. He requested for a direct intervention by the PM to restore parity of the defence forces officers with their civilian counterparts, sources in the armed forces said. He also requested for directions to the finance ministry to correct the parity and not let it rot at the anomalies commission. Meanwhile, in the defence circles, the step by the Naval Chief is seen a bold step keeping in line with the leadership qualities of a chief. Admiral Mehta along with the two other chiefs, General Deepak Kapoor and Air Marshal Fali Homi Major, has already protested before the defence minister A.K. Antony seeking restoration of parity. The brief note of Admiral Mehta to the PM was that the pay commission has upset the parity especially at the middle level. This will have an effect on the organisational structure in various fields where the defence officers and civil officers work together. Lieutenant Colonels and their equivalents in the Navy and the Air Force form the backbone of the forces. However, they have been left in the lurch. By one stroke of the pen a commandant of the Assam Rifles, who is second in command to the Lieutenant Colonel, has been placed in higher pay-band. Even the military service pay that is supposed to meet the aspirations of the defence forces and maintain the edge over civilian pay scales, cannot bridge the gap in the present format.
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Dutt allowed extended
stay abroad
New Delhi, September 5 A Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam asked Dutt to complete his ongoing film shooting in South Africa by November 15 and surrender his passport to the CBI by November-end. The actor is on bail and has challenged his conviction for the possession of illegal arms that attracts a six-year jail term. In March, the court had allowed him to go to Malaysia, Thailand and the US to shoot for “Blue” and “Chatur Singh Two Star” till September 30. The request for the extended stay abroad was made by his counsel Fali S. Nariman.
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Patil draws ire at cabinet meet
New Delhi, September 5 Expressing concern at the continuing attack on Christians in Orissa, it was suggested that the Centre should issue a directive to the Naveen Patnaik government under Article 355 on the ground that the state is not being ruled in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. Article 355 is a precursor to Article 356 which provides for the imposition of President’s rule in a state. Several UPA ministers were upset with Patil’s account of his day-long visit to the riot-hit Kandhamal district in Orissa where he had described the situation as “neither volatile nor normal but something in between.” They were further incensed when the home minister maintained that the violence in Orissa was triggered by local enmity between two tribal groups. He was instantly taken to task by his cabinet colleagues who said the minister was shying away from naming the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who were actually responsible for the attacks on Christians in Orissa. It was also suggested that the Centre should ban these two organisations for their activities. The attack against the home minister was initiated by minority affairs minister A.R. Antulay pointed out how the chief minister and the state administration turned a blind eye to the violence unleashed on poor Christian tribals and villagers from August 25 onwards, when the VHP/Bajrang Dal had observed a state wide bandh. He wanted to know if Patil had reminded Patnaik of his responsibilities towards the minority community. Antulay was soon joined by union minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, Kapil Sibal, Vyalar Ravi and Lalu Prasad Yadav who explicitly expressed their reservations on what they considered a very weak and inadequate response of the home minister to such a grave situation. They wanted to know if Patil sought an explanation from the chief minister about how minister of state for home was prevented from entering the riot-hit areas while VHP general secretary Praveen Togadiya was given a free run of the place. The general consensus was that Patil should have been more firm with the Orissa chief minister and done some tough talking. They also mentioned that the home minister’s lukewarm response to the Orissa situation was in sharp contrast to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s reaction who had told the chief minister to be more proactive in dealing with the situation.
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Teachers’ Recruitment Scam
New Delhi, September 5 Special CBI judge R.K. Yadav allowed their bail plea after they furnished a personal and surety bond of Rs 50,000 each. The court had on August 20 granted bail to 56 other accused and issued summons against the Haryana leaders. Earlier, the court had taken cognisance of the chargesheet filed by the CBI in the case saying that “prima facie sufficient evidence” has been produced against as many as 62 accused to proceed with the trial. Out of the 62 accused, which included self-proclaimed whistle blower and IAS officer Sanjeev Kumar, two have died during the four-year-long probe. The CBI had filed an FIR on May 25, 2004, following a directive from the Supreme Court against Chautala and his son, IAS officers Vidya Dhar (the then officer on special duty to the chief minister) and Sanjeev Kumar, political adviser to Chautala Sher Singh. Earlier, the court taking note of the alleged findings against the accused, said “Chautala was the Chief Minister, who was the sole custodian of law in Haryana state. Ajay was an MP and was supposed to maintain high standard of conduct and rather they took law into their own hands.” The CBI has sought the prosecution of accused under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the IPC dealing with forgery, using fake documents as genuine and criminal conspiracy. — PTI
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Mayawati to withdraw draconian UP crime act
Lucknow, September 5 Today Mayawati dared the Congress to dump a similar law enacted in Maharashtra. “We have dumped the UPCOCA Bill in 'raddi ki tokri' (dustbin) with immediate effect.” The Congress is of the view that there is no need for a new law. If it is so why the Centre did not do away with MCOCA in Maharashtra?” she questioned. Accusing the Congress of following double standards, Mayawati said that UPCOCA was indeed prepared on the lines of MCOCA. “After my government returned to power with an absolute majority it decided to frame a similar law as per the central direction of June 6, 2001 to the states to frame a law dealing with organised crime”. According to her when she assumed powers in May 2007 criminals were ruling the state. “UPCOCA was passed to control them. But without it the state police and local administration have managed to establish the rule of law. Due to strict implementation of existing laws, the crime graph had registered a fall,” she said. The UPCOCA was first passed in the Vidhan Sabha on November 6 2007 but failed in the Upper House and was sent to the select committee. After being reintroduced in the Vidhan Sabha it was finally passed on February 13 and was sent for presidential approval.
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Bid to lay siege to Asaram ashram
Bhopal, September 5 The ashram was in news last month after two students, who were residing in the ashram, were found murdered. Though the police has arrested a senior student of the ashram on the charge of murder but the anger of the local residents against the ashram remains undiminished.
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IFFDC chief Marwaha dead
Chandigarh, September 5
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Centre seeks report on elephant deaths Mini buses to be phased out Overcrowded prisons Maiden space exposition 
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