1. law, govt and politics
2. government

English Daily
[email protected]
www.indianhorizon.org RNI No: Deleng/2013/51507
Published from New Delhi and Hyderabad
Volume No: 3 Issue No: 48
New Delhi,Friday, February 20, 2015
Government not serious enough
on black money: Jethmalani
SC stays arrest
of Setalvad,
husband
Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon during the
poster launch of first Bollywood feature film
‘Rab Naa’ in New Delhi.
Provident fund starts
web help desk for
inoperative accounts
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has introduced an
online help desk to assist members in tracing out
"inoperative accounts", the labour ministry said
Thursday.
The EPFO will "assist the holders of inoperative accounts to trace out their accounts and effect
settlement or transfer of the same to their present
account", a statement here said.
Provident fund accounts that fail to make contributions for 36 continuous months are classified as
inoperative and interest is not credited to these accounts from the date they turn inoperative.
A sum of Rs.27,000 crore was lying in inoperative
accounts of the EPFO as on March 2014.
This online help desk can be accessed through
the EPFO's website. Subscribers are required to fill
in information like company name and year of employment in order that the help desk can assist in
finding other details.
Teesta Setalvad
Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The
Supreme Court Thursday
restrained Gujarat Police
from arresting activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband
Javed Anand in connection
with alleged misuse of funds
collected by their NGO Sabrang for setting up a museum at the spot of one of the
worst carnages during 2002
Gujarat riots.
Reserving its judgment,
a bench of Justice Dipak
Misra and Justice Adarsh
Kumar Goel said: “As an interim measure, it is directed
that the appellants (Teesta
Setalvad and Javed Anand)
shall not be arrested in connection with FIR being CR
No.1 of 2014, registered
with DCP, Crime Branch,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat.”
The court also asked senior counsel Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for the
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Gujarat government, how
an alleged misappropriation
or mismanagement of funds
warranted custodial interrogation.
Reminding
Jethmalani
that liberty was too precious
to be taken away so lightly,
the court asked “whether
the liberty be put on ventilator or put in Intensive Care
Unit” because accounts are
not in order or there is mismanagement of accounts.
“Could they be called for
custodial interrogation on
the grounds that money collected by NGO Sabrang was
not spent for the purpose
it was collected for,” said
the court. The court meanwhile directed Setalvad and
Anand to provide all the
documents required by the
Gujarat Police in respect
of donors to the fund from
within India and overseas.
5 held for allegedly leaking
petroleum ministry papers
on oil prices, exploration to
business houses
New Delhi: Two Petroleum Ministry employees are among 5 persons arrested for allegedly leaking
confidential government documents to private companies, Delhi
Police on Thursday said. Sources
said a clerical staff and a peon of
the Petroleum Ministry were apprehended by the police.
They said provisions of Official
Secrets Act may be slapped on
them. The sources said the two Petroleum Ministry employees used
to provide confidential information to private companies in return
for money.
The classified information, reportedly, had details of policies
used for oil exploration, pricing as
well as imports. Petroleum Minister
Dharmendra Pradhan said strong
action would be taken against the
Komalkant Sharma, CMD of
Leela Group of Companies.
Made on the penultimate day
of the three-day auction, Patel’s
bid is the biggest so far, Rs 27 lakh
more than Wednesday’s highest
of Rs 1.21 crore by textile trader
Rajesh Juneja. Earlier in the day,
Global Modi Fan Club’s Rajesh
Maheshwari, also from Surat, had
made a bid of Rs 1.25 crore. There
were four other bids of less than Rs
1.21 crore for the suit which Modi
had worn during his meeting with
the US President Barack Obama.
Kolkata, Feb 19 (IANS) West
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee Thursday dismissed
reports that two officials of stateowned wagon-maker Burn
Standard Company (BSC) were
assaulted by agitating workers
allegedly owing allegiance to the
ruling Trinamool Congress.
The opposition hit out at
Banerjee for trying to downplay the incident and ac-
taly Borodich, vice president (military sales) of
Irkut Corporation.Irkut is
the subsidiary of Russia’s
state-run United Aircraft
Corporation which is the
umbrella organisation of
that country’s aerospace
industry.
Borodich claimed that
the IAF has also accepted
that it is human factor.
JD(U) given
main Opposition
party status
Patna, Feb 19 (PTI) Bihar Legislative
Council recognises Nitish Kumar as Leader
of Opposition in place of BJP’s Sushil Kumar
Modi. Ahead of Bihar Chief Minister Jitan
Ram Manjhi’s floor test, Assembly Speaker
Uday Narayan Chaudhary on Thursday
granted the status of principal Opposition party to JD(U) in place of BJP, which
slammed the move as “arbitrary“.
The Speaker granted JD(U) leader Vijay
Chaudhary the status of leader of opposition
in place of BJP’s Nand Kishore Yadav.
“Assembly Secretariat has to act according
to numerical strength and since JD(U) had
sought the status of main Opposition, we
had no reason to deny them this considering their numbers,” Speaker Uday Narayan
Chaudhary said.
Meanwhile, the Nitish Kumar has been
recognised as Leader of Opposition in the
Bihar Legislative Council in place of the BJP’s
Sushil Kumar Modi, according to Council
chairman Awdesh Narayan Singh.
Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi after being expelled by party President Sharad Yadav
has been declared as unattached member in
the Legislative Assembly. He has to prove his
majority in the House tomorrow.
“On the basis of numerical strength, we
have no option but to recognise JD(U) as
main opposition party in the Legislative
Council,” Chairman of Council Awdesh Narayan Singh told PTI.
Meanwhile, a furious BJP sat on dharna
in front of Assembly entrance to protest the
Speaker’s “arbitrary” decision.
“This is for the first time in the country that
a party JD(U) will sit in both treasury and opposition sides,” Nand Kishore Yadav said.
He contended that BJP was inclined to
support Manjhi on issues but this did not
mean it was joining Manjhi government.
“They (IAF) do accept
and, therefore the aircraft
is in operation,” he said,
briefing a group of journalists on the sidelines of the
Aero India air show here.
However, the IAF, which
has ordered a Court of Inquiry on the crash, denied
that any final conclusion
has been arrived at.
Noting that the incident
cused her of hurting the industrial scenario in the state.
“I have cross-checked thrice
from various sources, there was
no assault. Yes, there were heated arguments with the management after 175 workers were
laid off. The workers have been
agitating for some days and
there was some heated debate,
but no violence took place,” Banerjee told media persons here.
relates to “inadvertent firing” of ejection seat of the
plane, Air Force Chief Arup
Raha said India has had
similar incidents or accidents in the past.
“In this case, we have
done a thorough investigation but it is not yet complete. A final report is yet
to come. But, we did not
really find anything wrong
with the system.
“And it does not, of
course, indicate that there
is a human error or a pilot
error,” he said.
Price: 2:00
9
Mamata Banerjee
denies assault on
PSU officials,
opposition slams her
Sukhoi 30 plane crash: Russia
blames human factor; IAF
BENGALURU, Feb 19
(PTI) Russia on Thursday
blamed “human factor”
for the crash of a Sukhoi 30
MKI fighter aircraft in October last year that led to
the grounding of the entire
fleet of India’s frontline
fighter plane for a month,
a charge denied by the Indian Air Force. “Our stand
is human factor,” said Vi-
two employees of his ministry who
were arrested by police for allegedly leaking confidential government
documents to private companies.
“They will be severely dealt
with. Police is probing the case.
We will take strong action against
the guilty. Government will come
down hard on them,” he said when
asked about the case on Thursday.
Asked whether any corporate
lobbyist could be involved, the Petroleum Minister said it was up to
the police to investigate.
“The government was conscious.
Agencies are investigating. They
will come out with full facts,” he
said. Terming leaking of information as a serious issue, the Minister
said CCTV cameras were installed
inside the Ministry as part of security measures.
Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley with MoS, Finance, Jayant Sinha
and others during ‘Halwa Ceremony’ to mark the beginning of printing
of budgetary documents, in New Delhi on Thursday. PTI
Surat businessman bids Rs
1.48 crore for PM
Narendra Modi’s suit
Surat: Bidding for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pin-striped
bandhgala suit intensified on
Thursday with a Surat-based
diamond trader offering Rs 1.48
crore, upping his earlier stake by
Rs nine lakh and eclipsing the bid
of Rs 1.41 crore of a Bhavnagar
businessman. Surat-based Mukesh Patel enhanced his bid to Rs
1.48 crore from Rs 1.39 crore he
had offered earlier.
The fresh offer outstrips by Rs
7 lakh the Rs 1.41 crore bid by
Bhavnagar-based Ship-breaker
Pages 12 + 4 pull out (P16)
America “not at war with
Islam”, says Obama
4
Briefs
[email protected]
In memory of Dr Asima Kemal and Prof. Dr. Salim W Kemal
However, the central public
sector undertaking has already
filed a police complaint and declared suspension of work alleging assault on the two officials
- Santanu Sarkar and Debashish
Bhattacharya.
G.H. Nag, BSC deputy general
manager for personnel relations,
said a complaint was lodged
Wednesday with the Howrah
police station and a letter sent
to the central government informing about the incident. The
alleged altercation took place
Wednesday as BSC officials went
to make peace with the agitating casual workers, affiliated
with the Trinamool, who were
demanding regularisation and
other amenities since Feb 11.
Indian Horizon, Delhi
Short Takes
110 more swine flu cases
in Delhi, no new deaths
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) A total of 110 more
swine flu cases were reported in the national
capital Thursday while the Delhi government
added two more designated laborataries to test
for the disease and said the stock of medicines
has been doubled.
The total number of swine flu cases has reached
1,789. No fresh deaths have been reported,
Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain told the
media here.There are 26 designated hospitals to
treat swine flu patients, 13 of which are under
the Delhi government.Jain said: “The situation
is under control as we have enough stock of
medicines. The cases are going down. We have
all facilities available for testing and treatment.
The stock of medicines has been doubled.”
“The virus has been in Delhi for quite a few
years so the people of Delhi have developed
some resistance therefore the situation is under
control,” he said adding: “States which are new
to the virus are badly affected, but not Delhi.”
Recycle waste water: HC to
ASI, others
NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over rising
pollution levels in a lake in Tughlaqbad area, the
Delhi high court on Wednesday issued notice
to Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), SDMC
and DPCC. A bench of justices B D Ahmed and
Sanjeev Sachdeva also directed DDA to furnish a
map indicating the extent of the waterbody and
its location. On February 4, the court had asked
the civic authorities why sewage water cannot
be recycled as is done in several foreign nations.
It is hearing a PIL filed by one Manoj Kumar
seeking clean water for animals and birds in
the city. The petitioner said that in a forested
area near Tughlaqabad Fort chemicals and
hazardous water flowing into the forest has
created “artificial lake”.
Drug racket busted in Dwarka,
2 Nigerians nabbed
New Delhi: Two Nigerians have been arrested for
allegedly supplying drugs and 340 gram cocaine
worth Rs 3.5 crore was allegedly recovered from
them, police said today. Azubnozu Ekene Patric (38)
and Olantude James (45), both residents of Nigeria
were arrested by the Crime Branch in two separate
operations recovering 130 and 210 gram cocaine
from their possession respectively.
The first instance took place on Monday, after a
tip-off was received that one of the members of a
West African drug syndicate would come to deliver
huge consignment of the banned drug to one of its
customer at Kakrola More Bus Stand, Dwarka. “On
this information, a team laid a trap and the accused
Azubnozu Ekene Patric was arrested from the given
place where he was waiting for his customer and 130
gram of fine quality Cocaine was recovered from
his possession,” said Joint Commissioner of Police
(Crime) Ravindra Yadav.
Patric was staying in India without valid documents.
“A case under section 21 NDPS Act & 14 Foreigners
Act was registered in this regard and the accused
was arrested,” said Yadav.
In the second incident, tip-off was received on
Tuesday that a cocaine transaction was going to
take place at Bus Stand, Sector-19, Dwarka, Delhi.
“Our team laid a trap and arrested the drug trafficker
Olantude James with 210 gram of fine quality
cocaine in his possession,” Yadav added.
Delhiites need permission to
put up political posters: Court
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court said Thursday the
city`s residents can put up political posters at their
homes but with prior permission from authorities.
A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and
Justice RS Endlaw upheld the Delhi Prevention of
Defacement of Property (DPDP) Act which was used
by the then Congress government in 2013 to restrain
people from putting up Aam Aadmi Party posters at
their homes.The court said people who are willing
to put posters would require prior permission from
the city`s civic bodies.The court`s order came on
plea filed by AAP supporters against the government
decision.
Robbers take away
ATM in Delhi
New Delhi: An ATM of a public sector bank was
taken away by robbers here on Wednesday.The
incident happened in north Delhi’s Wazirabad.
As per reports, the ATM (automated teller
machine) belonged to state-run Corporation
Bank.There were approximately Rs 17 lakh
inside the ATM when it was stolen.Police have
registered a case and are on the lookout for
robbers.
2
City
Friday, Feb 20, 2015
Carriageway of Bahadurshah Zafar
Marg may stay shut
NEW DELHI, Feb 19 (Agencies) Once
Delhi Metro completes construction of
the station at ITO, it may not be back
to old days.According to sources, the
traffic police are considering keeping
one carriageway of Bahadurshah Zafar
Marg permanently closed. A senior
official said, “Though the road will be
handed over to the road owning agency
once construction is complete, the
carriageway is unlikely to be reopened.
It’s because the existing traffic
circulation plan has been working very
well.”
If that happens, it won’t be the first
time that a diversion made by Delhi
Metro for its construction work has
been converted into a permanent
traffic circulation plan. It happened in
the case of the AIIMS-to-Green Park
road-Aurobindo Marg-as well, say
experts. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation
sources said it will hand over the road
to PWD by end of March.Senior traffic
officials are in the process of consulting
PWD and Metro officials to find out
the most feasible solution. A traffic
officer said circulation should be such
that it does not clash with the existing
ITO decongestion plan, still under
consideration.In the present circulation
plan, traffic police have proposed they
maintain the existing setup of keeping
one-way traffic flow on Bahadur Shah
Zafar Marg from Delhi Gate to DDU
Marg. Vehicles going towards Delhi
Gate would continue to be diverted
through the ITO post office-Bal Bhavan
route. Under this plan, the part of the
road that has been shut down for Metro
construction now may be turned into a
parking zone.
Plea for better running of Kherki Dhaula toll plaza
New Delhi, Feb 19 (Agencies) For
industrialists from Manesar, the Kherki
Dhaula toll plaza is an issue of concern.
Usually traffic snarls leading up to one
kilometre are witnessed on both sides
of the plaza leading to chaos beside
wastage of fuel.
Demanding that the toll should
be better managed, the Manesar
Industrial Welfare Association (MIWA)
has said that the sensors installed by
concessionaire are not effective at
all and the toll operator punches the
registration numbers of vehicles, which
takes a lot of time.Even the “Monthly
Pass System” which the concessionaire
initiated has failed badly. In the last
one year they have not initiated any
“Online Recharge Service”. In the age
of internet all industrialists and the
employees are compelled to stand in a
queue to get the monthly pass renewed.
Moreover, they were yet to introduce
the ‘Smart Mobile Tags’ which could
be used in different vehicles. They were
issuing stickers in the name of vehicles
and not individuals, said MIWA.
Last year, when the Government gave
the contract to the concessionaire,
the company assured that the things
would be streamlined in a month,
but that appears to be mere eyewash.
MIWA also wrote a mail to Haryana
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar
on January 23 in this regard. Also,
MIWA representatives met DelhiGurgaon Expressway concessionaire,
Millennium City Expressway Private
Limited (MCEPL) on January 28 but all
was in vain.
MIWA general-secretary Manmohan
Gaind said: “We are not shying away
from the responsibility of paying toll
but it should be well managed. We are
industrialists and want that we should
have an easy access to our work place.”
He further said, “It is a serious issue
and we want that the government
should interfere and get the things
streamlined as this is the only road that
connects us to our workplace and we
are suffering because of this.”
Media won’t be allowed
in secretariat: Delhi
government
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The Delhi government
Thursday reiterated that no media would be allowed
inside the Delhi Secretariat building and would only
be allowed to sit in the media room.The decision was
taken following a meeting between a delegation of
five senior media personnel and representatives of the
government in an effort to end the impasse.One of the
journalists present in the meeting told IANS that the
Arvind Kejriwal-led government said “reporters with
DIP and even PIB accreditation cards would not have
access to the secretariat”.
“They will be allowed to sit in the media room,” the
journalist said.The journalist in the know also said that
all the press conferences would take place in the media
room.
“In order to meet any minister or senior official,
government spokesperson Nagendra Sharma will have
to be approached first who will arrange the meeting,”
the journalist said.
However, the scribes present in the meeting expressed
their unhappiness over the new guidelines following
which the officials sought time till 6 p.m. Thursday to
decide on whether DIP card holders should be able to
access the building freely or not.The government has
not allowed media persons to enter the Delhi Secretariat
since Monday, the new government’s first working day,
leaving many journalists incensed.
The decision was taken following a scuffle among some
journalists, TV crew and photographers.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with the delegation of Imams during a
meeting at Delhi Secretariat in New Delhi on Wednesday. PTI
Over 1,000 gather to meet
Kejriwal at Janta Darbar
Ghaziabad, Feb 19 (IANS) Over a
thousand people gathered here to meet
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on
the first two days of his Janata Durbar
programme, Aam Aadmi Party leaders
said Thursday.
The Janata Durbar, which started Feb
18 at the AAP office in Kaushambi in
Ghaziabad, will go on till Feb 20.
The visitors apprised the chief minister
about their problems, and Kejriwal
assured them that he will look into their
respective issues and direct officials to
address them at the earliest.Over 100
roadside vendors also met the chief
minister and informed him that police
extort money from them for carrying
out business, AAP leaders said.Kejriwal
assured them that he will look into their
grievance, following which the vendors
said they were happy after meeting the
chief minister.Out of over a thousand
visitors, only half of them could meet
the chief minister Wednesday and
Thursday.Some people, who were
asked to come Friday, said they were
happy even to wait for a day or two and
they were sure their problems would
be solved on priority basis.A group
of disabled people also came to meet
the chief minister, and were accorded
precedence over others.
After meeting Kejriwal, they said they
were happy that the chief minister
listened to their problems very patiently.
Some women, who were casual
employees of the Delhi government, also
queued up to meet the chief minister.
Some visitors, however, complained
that Kejriwal stopped meeting the public
at noon when Malviya Nagar legislator
Somnath Bharti reached the place
along with a dozen women from his
constituency to meet the chief minister.
Kejriwal later met party workers and
interacted with them on internal affairs.
Govt finishing Ganga in Himalayas itself: Sharad Yadav
New Delhi, Feb 19 (PTI) Lashing
out at the Centre for allegedly
suggesting construction of new
dams in the Himalayas, the JD(U)
on Thursday said the government
was “finishing” river Ganga under
the garb of rejuvenating it.
In the garb of Namami Gange and
Ganga Rejuvenation programme,
the government is planning to finish
the Ganga in the Himalayas itself,”
Yadav said.
“Different studies carried out by
scientists have proved that in the
massive disaster of June 2013,
these hydropower projects have
contributed in escalating the
disaster. Despite this, the new
government, instead of removing
these projects, is suggesting
construction of new dams in the
area,” he said.Yadav stressed
that
haphazard
construction
activities are leading to massive
deforestation,
blasting,
tunnel
formation, mining crushing and
will disrupt the delicate balance of
Himalayan ecology.“This will kill
the River Ganga in its womb itself,”
he said.
The JD(U) supremo also noted
that in an an affidavit filed in the
BJP leader accused of sexually
assaulting assistant professor
New Delhi, Feb 19 (Agencies) Bharatiya Janata
Party leader and chairman of Vivekananda
Institute of Professional Studies (VIPS), S.C. Vats
has been accused of sexually assaulting an assistant
professor teaching at the institute.A case has been
registered at the Maurya Enclave police station.
The woman, in her complaint to the police, said
that Mr. Vats had hired her over a year ago without
asking for her documents.The woman, who hails
from Bihar, lives in Mukherjee Nagar and joined
VIPS in July, 2013, as an assistant professor.
Supreme Court two months ago,
the government had mentioned
the main reasons for the June
2013 disaster as the hydro power
projects, which have caused
ecological balances.“Yesterday the
same government mentioned in
the Supreme Court that there is no
reason to think of these projects as a
danger to the environment because
they met all the substantive and
procedural requirements of law.“I
do not agree with the contention
of the government and therefore I
have written to the Prime Minister
in this regard,” Yadav said.
No interview
“I was not interviewed since Mr. Vats approved
me by just seeing my face,” the woman said in
her complaint. She also said that when she was
looking for a rented accommodation, Mr. Vats
offered her to stay with him in his house where
he was staying alone.When she refused the offer,
he started sending her SMSes on her phone and
calling at odd hours.
The woman alleged that Mr. Vats sexually assaulted
her in his cabin at the institute on October 18, 2013.
She said that she resisted and tried to run away, but
he allegedly threatened that it was his college and
that he would not let her go out of the college alive.
Couple found dead in Gandhi Nagar flat
New Delhi, Feb 19 (Agencies) A couple
in their mid twenties was found dead
inside their flat in East Delhi’s Gandhi
Nagar on Wednesday evening.The
victims have been identified as Sanjay
(25) and Sugandhi (22), who lived at a
rented accommodation in Ajit Nagar of
Gandhi Nagar, and worked as tailors at
a local shop. The couple got married in
2013.
According to the police, Sanjay was
found hanging from a ceiling fan with
both his wrists cut, while Sugandhi
was found lying on the floor.“While the
man died due to excess loss of blood
because of his slit wrists, the reason
behind the woman’s death is not clear
. No external injury has been found on
her body. Both the bodies have been
sent for post-mortem and the exact
cause of death will be clear only after
we get the report,” said a police officer.
The police suspect that Sanjay killed
his wife Sugandhi before committing
suicide. No suicide note has, however,
been found.
“Since the couple was married for less
than seven years, the SDM has been
informed, and we are carrying out an
investigation to find out what led to the
couple’s death,” said a senior police
officer. The police are likely to question
the couple’s relatives and friends..The
police suspect that Sanjay killed his wife
Sugandhi before committing suicide. No
suicide note has, however, been found.
People on the streets with their umbrellas after heavy snowfall gripped
Srinagar on Thursday. PTI
3
Indian Horizon, Delhi
City
Friday, Feb 20, 2015
DDA should be renamed ‘Delhi Destruct Authority’, says HC
New Delhi, Feb 19 (PTI) The
Delhi High Court Wednesday
termed
Delhi
Development
Authority (DDA) as “Delhi
Destruct Authority” while saying
that the land-owning agency
and other departments are not
concerned about Delhi.
“You all are not concerned
about Delhi. All of you should
be renamed. DDA should
be renamed Delhi Destruct
Authority,” said a division bench
of Justice B.D Ahmed and Justice
Sanjeev Sachdeva.
The court’s observation came
while hearing a PIL that said there
BJP MLA’s protest against Bihar Assembly speaker Uday Narain Choudhary
for recognising JD (U) as the main opposition party in Patna on Thursday.
PTI
40 per cent beds for EWS
patients lie vacant
New Delhi, Feb 19 (Agencies)
Forty per cent beds in private
hospitals meant for patients from
the economically weaker sections
(EWS) across the Capital are lying
vacant. This during a season when
the city is battling swine flu besides
rise in cases of seasonal infection,
fever with the hospitals complaining
about an ever increasing in-flux of
patients.
“Of the forty-four identified private
hospitals in the city, which together
provide 624 free beds for poor
patients, as on Wednesday only
251 are occupied,” noted Ashok
Agarwal, a member of the Delhi
High Court-constituted committee
for monitoring bed/other medical
facilities availability to the EWS
patients.
City hospitals, including Max
Shalimar Bagh (12), Dharamshila
(18), Batra Hospital in South Delhi
(35), Fortis Vasant Kunj (seven),
Gujarmal Modi (Saket City) (nine),
Pushpawati Singhania Research
Centre (eight), Max Saket, East
Block (17), M.G.S. Super Speciality
(seven), Primus Super Speciality
Hospital (four), R.B.S. Seth Jessa
Ram (nine) and Bensups, SouthWest Delhi (14) are among the “top
violators” of the Delhi High Court
order.
The order had directed private
hospitals that were granted land
at concessional rates to provide a
percentage of their total beds to
patients under the EWS category.
The figures are as per the latest
available updated list by the Delhi
Government on February 18 of real
time availability of free beds in
various private hospitals.
In terms of the said judgment, 49
private hospitals in Delhi were
identified and directed to provide
free treatment to EWS-category
patients.
Later, out of these, four hospitals,
Moolchand Hospital, St. Stephen’s
Hospital,
Sitaram
Bhartiya
Institute of Science and Research
and Rockland Hospital, Qutub
Institutional
Area
(Foundation
for Applied Research in Cancer)
preferred writ petitions in the Delhi
High Court and got exemption from
providing free treatment.
The grounds they offered was “that
the lease-deeds of these hospitals
did not contain any condition
for providing free treatment to
EWS patients, despite the fact
that land was allotted to these
hospitals by government agencies at
concessional rates”.
However, as per this latest list,
hospitals covered by the order in
Delhi continue to flout the direction
by withholding treatment/beds to
EWS patients.
“Things are improving,” said Mr.
Agarwal. He, however, cautions that
many EWS patients suffer because
they are ignorant of their rights or
don’t know how to go about it.
ONGC inks MoU with SWTPL
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IHNN) In yet
another step towards providing
leadership in quest of indigenisation
in import intensive oil and gas
industry, ONGC has undertaken an
important initiative for innovation
in the field of hydraulic fracturing,
while
significantly
addressing
environmental concerns.
ONGC today entered into an MoU
with Super Wave Technology Pvt.
Ltd. (SWTPL) for doing research
on alternative technology for
hydraulic fracturing. SWTPL is a
company incorporated by Society
for Innovation and Development,
Indian
Institute
of
Science,
Bangalore.
The event was held at IISc,
Bangalore in the gracious presence
of Hon’ble Prime Minister of India
Shri Narendra Modi. Minister of
State (I/c) MoPNG Shri Dharmendra
Pradhan, Secretary MoPNG Shri
Saurabh Chandra, CMD ONGC Shri
Dinesh K Sarraf, Director IISc Prof.
Anurag Kumar and Director SWTPL,
IISc Prof Gopalan Jagadeesh were
also present on this occasion.
The MoU was signed by Shri Shashi
Shanker, Director (Technology &
Field Services) on behalf of ONGC
and Prof K P J Reddy on behalf of
SWTPL.
With this partnership ONGC will
provide assistance to SWTPL for
developing Shock Wave Assisted
Fracking Technology, an alternate
to the conventional hydraulic
fracturing which if proven effective
as a substitute to hydraulic
fracturing, in particular for shale gas
exploitation, will be a game changer
for the oil & gas industry.
Hydraulic fracturing requires very
large quantity of fresh water and
huge quantity of energy for pumping
the same at very high pressures.
Post hydraulic fracturing, the well
produces substantial quantity of
effluent water which needs to be
disposed. These are some of the
issues that are bothering the current
hydro-frac technology. Therefore,
the global oil & gas industry has
been searching of late for alternate
technique for fracturing which
either does not require any water or
minimum quantity of water.
Shock Waves are one of the
most efficient energy dissipation
phenomena. Sudden release of
massive amount of energy in a
miniscule space domain triggers
the formation of these waves. The
impulse generated by these waves
can be used for many interesting and
innovative applications.
In the present project with ONGC,
SWTPL proposes to use shock/
blast waves for initiating fractures/
features
in
sandstone/shale
reservoirs located initially at depths
of 1000-1500m.
The MoU signed today will provide
impetus for development and field
implementation of Shock Waves
technology for oil & gas fields.
Once successful, the technology
will be jointly patented by ONGC
and SWTPL for further commercial
benefits worldwide.
was a forest area in Tughlakabad
and birds and animals were
dying because of poisonous and
polluted water released from
illegal factories in the area.
The discharge has created an
“artificial lake” and the polluted
water “is spreading in the whole
forest”, the plea filed by resident
Manoj Kumar said. It said
animals were dying on a large
scale.
The court wanted to know which
government body is responsible
for looking into the issue of
contaminated water and whether
the water body is a natural lake or
not but none of the departments
could answer the court’s query.
The
court
also
expressed
unhappiness on the meeting
held on Jan 29 on court’s
earlier direction to chalk out
remedial measures to clean
the contaminated water in the
Tughlakabad Ridge area. It had
also asked the DDA to explore
the possibility of converting the
polluted artificial lake and 200
acres of surrounding land behind
the Tughlaqabad Fort into a
biodiversity park on the lines of
the Yamuna biodiversity park.
“None if them appears to be
Delhi to set up its own thermal
power plant
New Delhi, Feb 19 (Agencies) The Delhi
Government is understood to have put “all
major schemes in each department” under
review with three of these having come up for
discussion before the Cabinet on Wednesday.
According to a senior Government official,
schemes under the Departments of Food
and Supply, Environment and Transport
were discussed with “significant” decisions
having been undertaken. Among these,
a policy for e-rickshaw drivers, to be
modelled on the employment, recruitment
and wage structures of the Delhi Transport
Corporation (DTC) was currently on the
anvil.
We are reviewing many policies and taking
a holistic view on these to make them
more efficient and people-friendly,” said
an official.In a related development, Power
Minister Satyendar Jain said the Delhi
government had decided to bid for coal
blocks with an aim to set up new power
plants and increase its own electricity
generation capacity.The Government said
its aim was to increase power generation
from the current 1,000 mega watts to 4,000
mega watts. They said government plans to
set up its own coal-based power plants to
meet the rising power demand of the city
which had touched 6,000 MW in the last
summer.A letter would soon be written to
the Centre seeking its view on the matter.
In its manifesto, the AAP had promised to
make Delhi self reliant in power generation.
Currently, the Delhi government power
plants generate around 1,000 MW.The
Government had set up a gas based power
plant at Bawana at a cost of around Rs 4,500
crore but the plant was generating around
300 MW due to shortage of gas supply.
Power was a major focus area of AAP during
the election campaign.
Driver robbed of vehicle by ‘sales
tax’ officers
New Delhi, Feb 19 (Agencies) Four men posing as sales tax officers allegedly robbed a
driver of his vehicle filled with copper wires in North Delhi’s Civil Lines on Monday.
No arrests have been made yet. According to the police, Deepak Kumar Yadav was
transporting about one-tonne copper wires from Shahdara Industrial Area to Civil
Lines.
“When he reached close to Sushruta Trauma Centre, a person dressed in a suit waved
him to stop. As Yadav applied brakes, another grey car pulled by his van and three
others emerged from it. They introduced themselves as sales tax officers and said
that they needed to check the goods in the van,” said a police officer.
The men allegedly told Yadav that there was some issue with the goods he was carrying
and that he needed to accompany them to their office at ITO. He was further directed
to get into the car while one of those men followed in his van. “When the two vehicles
did not stop at ITO and instead went to Ghazipur , Yadav enquired about it. One of
them allegedly whipped out a pistol and threatened to kill him if he raised an alarm,”
said the officer. The men drove away after throwing Yadav out of the car in an isolated
place in Ghaziabad’s Mohan Nagar. They also robbed him of his mobile phone.
“When he reached close to Sushruta Trauma Centre, a person dressed in a suit waved
him to stop. As Yadav applied brakes, another grey car pulled by his van and three
others emerged from it.
Public health area of concern: Nadda
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The public health
system was a key area of concern and the
central government will provide an assured
set of services encompassing preventive,
promotive, curative and rehabilitative
healthcare, Health Minister J.P. Nadda said
Thursday.
“Providing assured and comprehensive
health services will be the foremost priority
of the health ministry, which will provide
an assured set of services encompassing
preventive, promotive, curative and
rehabilitative healthcare,” Nadda said
at the second meeting of the Mission
Steering Group (MSG) of the National
Health Mission here.Pointing out that one
of the key areas of concern was the quality
of healthcare in the public health system,
Nadda said healthcare needs to be patientcentric.He said the ministry proposes to
give a major thrust to improving the quality
of healthcare in public facilities.
On the National Health Mission, the
minister said decentralisation lies at the
heart of the health sector reform process
under the NHM, as also a consciousness
that the principles of federalism and
subsidiary were paramount.
Among those who attended the meeting
were Urban Development Minister M.
Venkaiah Naidu, Women and Child
Development Minister Maneka Gandhi,
Human Resource Development Minister
Smriti Irani and Social Justice and
Empowerment minister Thawar Chand
Gehlot.
Noted Lawyer Ram Jethmalani speaks during a panel discussion on black money,
in New Delhi on Thursday. PTI
aware as to what has to be done...
All these concerned bodies don’t
know who are responsible,”
said the bench Wednesday as
it added the Archaeological
Survey of India (ASI), the South
Delhi Municipal Committee
and the Delhi Pollution Control
Committee as parties in the case.
The bench issued notice to ASI,
SDMC and DPCC and sought
their responses by March 4. It
also asked DDA to submit a map
indicating the extent of the water
body and its location along with
layout plan of the surrounding
park.
3 arrested for bid to
smuggle gold bars
New Delhi, Feb 19 (PTI) Three persons,
including an Afghan national, have been
arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle into
the country gold bars worth over Rs. 50 lakh, at
the Indira Gandhi International Airport in two
separate incidents.
A passenger was intercepted by Customs
officials after his arrival from Dubai here
on Monday. He had handed over a gold bar
weighing a kilogram to an employee working
as customer service agent for a firm engaged
in ground-handling work at the airport, a
Customs official said. On personal search of the
agent, the gold bar worth about Rs. 24.79 lakh
was recovered. Both the persons were arrested.
In another case , Customs officials intercepted
an Afghan national. “A detailed examination
of his baggage and personal search resulted in
recovery of 12 pieces of gold weighing 1.1 kg
and valuing about Rs. 28.26 lakh,” the official
said.The passenger was arrested. The total
value of the gold seized in the two cases is Rs.
53.05 lakh.
Warm Thursday in
Delhi, Friday to be
partly overcast
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) The national capital
experienced a sunny, warm Thursday as the
maximum temperature settled at 29.3 degrees
Celsius, five notches above the season’s average.
The Met has forecast a partly, overcast Friday
with light showers in some parts of the city.“There
could be one or two spells of very light rain in some
areas till afternoon. There will also be shallow
fog in the morning,” said an official of the India
Meteorological Department.The maximum and
minimum temperatures are likely to hover around
29 and 17 degrees Celsius.Thursday’s minimum
temperature settled six notches above the season’s
average at 17 degrees Celsius.The day’s maximum
humidity was recorded at 96 percent.
Is rainwater
harvesting possible
in 13 flyovers: NGT
New Delhi, Feb 19 (Agencies) With water crisis
worsening in the city, the Delhi Government has
been directed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT)
to assess possibility of harvesting rain water on
some of the flyovers across the city.A Bench headed
by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar directed the
Delhi Government and the Central Ground Water
Authority to inspect the 13 flyovers which found
mention in a 2004 Delhi High Court order.“Let
inspection be conducted by the NCT Delhi and the
Central Ground Authority of all the 13 flyovers and
to submit whether it is possible to install rain water
harvesting system or not,” the Bench said.
The NGT was hearing a petition filed by Vinod Jain,
a resident of Mehrauli.
He was seeking directions to the Delhi Government,
Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) and the
Ministry of Urban Affairs and Poverty Alleviation
to make it mandatory for all existing government
building of 100 sq metres and above to have rain
water harvesting through storing of rain water runoff
and have recycling facilities too. Mr. Jain said as per
the estimate given by Delhi Jal Board, 65,000 litres
of rain water can be captured from 100 sq metres
sized roof top which can meet water requirement
of a family of four for 160 days. The fact, he said,
came to be recorded by the Delhi High Court in its
2004 order in a writ petition filed by him.Mr Jain
said that in the same order of the High Court, it
was recorded that the CGWA had pointed out that
rain water harvesting could be implemented easily
in 13 flyovers in Delhi.The Master Plan assesses
annual rain water harvesting potential at 900 billion
litres per day.He said government buildings like
Sena Bhawan, Krishi Bhawan, Parliament House,
Rashtrapati Bhawa have a large roof top surface
area which can be used for harvesting rain water.
Indian Horizon Delhi
BJP to support Jitan
Ram Manjhi’s in Bihar
Patna, Feb 19 (IANS) A day
ahead of Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s floor test in the
assembly Friday, Speaker Uday
Narain Choudhary Thursday notified JD-U leader Vijay Kumar
Chaudhary as leader of opposition, replacing Nand Kishore Yadav of the BJP which will support
Manjhi during the confidence
vote.
The speaker accepted former
chief minister Nitish Kumar’s
demand that Janata Dal (United)
(JD-U) be given the status of the
main opposition party.
Meanwhile, the BJP decided
to support Manjhi during the
confidence vote in the assembly
Feb 20, said BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.“After a long meeting
of the BJP legislators, the party
has decided to support Manjhi
during his confidence vote in
the assembly,” Modi said.Earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
legislators created a ruckus and
protested in the Bihar assembly
complex against the decision to
appoint the JD-U leader as the
leader of opposition.
“We will not sit silently... giving the status of the opposition
party to JD-U is not correct. We
will protest against this move,”
Yadav told IANS.
“How did the speaker take
away the opposition party tag
from the BJP,” asked senior party
leader Shahnawaz Hussain.
“We protest against this move
as well as the way the JD-U is
treating Manjhi, who is a Mahadalit,” Hussain said at a press
conference in Delhi.Hussain
also said that the BJP has nothing to with the charges of horsetrading being made by the Nitish
Kumar’s camp.Manjhi, after being expelled from the JD-U Feb
9, has been declared as an unattached member in the assembly.
He was expelled for allegedly “indulging in anti-party activities”.
But he has refused to resign and
has to prove his majority in the
house Friday.
Manjhi Thursday said he will
offer cabinet berths to legislators, who will support him during the confidence motion. “Aaiye mera samarthan kijiye, mantri
pad lijiye (come to support me
and become a minister),” he
told reporters, attending a function here.The statement was
criticised by the JD-U.Earlier, the
Patna High Court ordered that
eight rebel JD-U legislators, considered close to Manjhi, would
not vote Feb 20 during the confidence motion in the assembly.
A bench of Justice Iqbal Ahmad barred the JD-U MLAs from
voting after hearing their petition, seeking permission to vote
during the floor test.
Government not serious enough
on black money: Ram Jethmalani
New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS) Former law minister and veteran
lawyer Ram Jethmalani Thursday said the central government
was not “serious enough” on the
issue of bringing back the black
money stashed abroad.
At a ‘Meet the Press’ programme, the lawyer said Prime
Minister Narendra Modi was
“quite serious” about the issue
but questioned his team.
“I have no doubt on the prime
minister,” he said, adding that
he had no faith on some of the
people of his team.
“There are only two ways
that the government can get
the money back - one is the
German-French way, where the
countries mentioned bribed
the banks concerned to get the
names of defaulters, and the
second is by arresting the high
officials of the banks involved as
the US did in getting the names
declared by them.
“The people concerned are
not serious enough. Everything
is in a mess (as far as bringing black money back is concerned)”, he said.
He, however, said the Special
Investigation Team (SIT) was
doing a good job in probing the
matter.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy said
he was hopeful that the black
money would be brought back
home.“I agree there has been
delay on the issue but I am
said.CBI had filed the closure
report on December 11 claiming that the girls had committed suicide and they were
neither raped nor murdered.
Later, on February 5, the
agency submitted evidences
in a POCSO court to corroborate its “closure report”.The
agency had submitted 91 page
file. It contained 34 page closure report, two pages each of
the post mortem examination
of both the girls, four pages
containing the list of witnesses, while the remaining
pages had statements of the
witnesses, DNA, forensic and
status reports among others.
The agency had filed its
report saying there was no
forensic or circumstantial
evidence suggesting rape and
murder as alleged in the FIR
registered by Uttar Pradesh
Police after the girls’ bodies
Burn Standard shuts Howrah
plant after assault on officials
Kolkata, Feb 19 (IANS) State-owned
iconic wagon-maker Burn Standard
Thursday suspended work at its factory in West Bengal’s Howrah town and
lodged a police complaint naming five
people including Trinamool Congress
leaders for a purported assault on two
of its officials. Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee, however, dismissed reports
of any assault.“We have sent a letter
to the government and lodged an FIR
(first information report) Wednesday
night following the assault on Santanu
Sarkar and Debashish Bhattacharya,
both senior company officials. Also, a
suspension notice has been put up in
the Howrah plant,” said deputy general
manager for personnel relations G.H.
Nag.
The company’s other unit in Burnpur of Burdwan district was functioning normally, he said.“Another group of
workers lawfully affiliated with a trade
union in the company wants work to
resume in Howrah,” he said.The alleged altercation took place Wednes-
Punjab Launches Toll Free Anti
Corruption Helpline Number
CHANDIGARH Feb 19
(PTI): To keep a check on corruption Punjab Vigilance Bureau today launched a toll free
helpline number and website
where people can register complaints against irregularities
in government offices.The toll
free number 1800-1800-1000
and website - www.vigilancebureaupunjab.org - have been
made functional as a complaint panel, a spokesperson of
Vigilance Bureau said in Chan-
Kolkata, Feb 19 (IANS) A total
of 111 Bangladeshi fishermen
were repatriated Thursday, on
a day when West Bengal Chief
Minister begins her three-day
visit to Bangladesh.
Hours before her scheduled
departure for Dhaka, Banerjee
announced the repatriation of
the Bangladeshi fishermen.“Just
like in the past, this year too,
fishermen and Bangladeshi nationals who were arrested for
crossing the border illegally, are
being released,” said Banerjee,
who will be meeting Bangladesh
President Mohammad Abdul
Hamid and Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina during the visit.
Banerjee said 1,826 Bangladeshi
nationals were freed in 2012,
followed by 3,127 in 2013. Last
year, 2,424 Bangladeshi nationals were freed and allowed to go
back to their country.The 111
Bangladeshi fishermen released
during the day were apprehended by the Border Security Force
(BSF) from Frazerganj and Kultoli in South 24 Parganas district.
“After the Calcutta High Court
sanctioned their release, 111
fishermen along with six fishing trolleys were handed over to
Bangladeshi police with facilitation from the BSF,” a BSF officer
said.“The Bangladeshi fishermen were handed over to the
officer-in-charge of Shamnagar
police station in Bangladesh
near Shamsher Nagar border
outpost,” the officer added.
Articles of Prime Minster Narendra Modi on display for auction in Surat on Thursday. PTI
SURAT Feb 19 (PTI):
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s pin-striped suit is
hogging all the limelight
at a Surat auction but the
humble Cricket Australia
T-shirt gifted to him by
bowling great Brett Lee is
getting the cold shoulder.
While a diamond trader
from Bhavnagar has offered a staggering Rs 1.41
crore for the navy blue
suit Modi wore during his
meeting with US President Barack Obama last
month, the bids for Lee’s
T-shirt range between a
measly Rs 1,500 and Rs
2,000. ”People are only
looking for Modi suit.
There is a T-shirt of Brett
Lee gifted by Cricket Australia just beside the suit,
but the bids for it are very
low,” said a member of
MUMBAI Feb 19 (PTI): In a major setback to Mumbai
University vice-chancellor Rajan Welukar, a few months
before his retirement, Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar
Rao has directed him to abstain from attending the office
and discharging his duties as the VC with immediate effect.
“Pro Vice Chancellor of the University Prof Naresh Chandra has been asked to act as the officiating vice-chancellor
of the University until further orders,” a Raj Bhavan spokesperson said here today. The Governor, who is the Chancellor of Universities in the state, has taken the decision in the
backdrop of orders passed by the Bombay High Court from
time to time while hearing the petitions challenging Welukar’s essential eligibility qualification and considering the
fact that the court has directed a Search Committee to reconsider the question of the eligibility of Welukar for the post
of Vice Chancellor, the spokesperson said. The requirement
for having minimum five research publications after PhD in
international peer reviewed journals which should be reference for studies in higher education is one of the criteria for
being shortlisted for the post of VC.
the organising committee.
“About 40 to 50 people
have placed bids ranging
from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000
for the T-shirt that Brett
Lee gifted Modi during the
latter’s visit to Australia in
November last year,” he
said, showing the written
bids of a handful of interested people. A Suratbased diamond trader
Mukesh Patel, who made
a bid of Rs 1.39 crore for
Modi’s suit, said he is not
interested in buying the
yellow Cricket Australia
T-shirt.
“I am not interested in
buying the T-shirt. I want
to purchase that historical suit only as it created
a hype in the media. If I
buy the T-shirt, I will be
tempted to wear it. How
can I wear it?” Patel said .
Swine flu patients in MP
being treated free of cost: Govt
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Government on
Thursday told the state Legislative Assembly
that swine flu patients in the state are being
provided medical help and treatment free of
cost.
“The spread of swine flu in 22 states has taken shape of a natural calamity. We are providing all medical help and treatment free of cost
to patients of H1N1 virus in all districts of the
state,” State Health Minister Narottam Mishra
told the Assembly in response to an adjournment motion brought by opposition Congress.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state
Chief Secretary Anthony DeSa and top health
officials are keeping a tab on the steps being
taken to control the spread of swine flu and
there was enough stock of medicine and kits to
treat the patients, Mishra added.
The adjournment motion was brought by
the Congress members Dr Govind Singh, Arif
Aqueel and Ramniwas Rawat. Replying to it,
Mishra said the Centre has capped prices of
swine flu diagnostic tests at a maximum of Rs
4,500.
“However, no money was being charged for
such tests in Madhya Pradesh,” he said.
Up politics Heat After Release Of Former
Union Minister Rasheed Masood
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj launches a web portal at the
announcement of the new second route for the ‘Kailash Manasarovar
Yatra’, in New Delhi on Thursday. PTI
Saharanpur Feb 19 (Agency) Utter Pardesh Politics have Became
heat after release of Former Union
Minister Rasheed Masood, on bail by
the Supreme Court recently . Samajwadi Party is believed to be that far in
front of the local representative of the
SP Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had
taken them to increase their number
Now the government may have to be
away from the horse to leave the car.
Qazi Rasheed Masood was the political student of Chaudhary Charan
Singh, former Prime Minister of the
political school.
He has started his political journey
with their political values. Qazi Rasheed Masood health minister in the
Janata Dal government found guilty
in the scam of medical seat. After divison of janta Dal twice Mulaya Singh
Yadav.formed the Samajwadi Party
and the SP of the state’s political equation. In Parliamentary Politics there
was a great need of minority face for
enlighten Samajwadi Party in Central
Politics. Qazi Rasheed Masood was
the helpline number along with
website so that people could report any irregularity in the project noticed by them.Earlier,
PWD authorities used to mention only details regarding the
name of the ongoing project,
cost incurred and the date of
execution and finally the date
of completion on project display board, he said.
Maharashtra Governor asks
Mumbai University VC to
abstain from attending duties
Modi suit hogs limelight, T-shirts
get the cold shoulder
were found hanging from a
tree in Katra village on May
28 last year.The CBI had said
that the girls committed suicide fearing retribution as the
elder girl’s affair with a local
boy from a different caste had
come to light.
The girls’ families had alleged that they were kidnapped and murdered by five
youths from the village.
The incident sparked an
outcry in the country and
abroad with questions were
raised over the law and order
situation in UP.
The agency had closed the
investigation after dropping
charges against five persons,
Pappu, Awadhesh and Urvesh
Yadav (brothers) and police
constables Chhatrapal Yadav
and Sarvesh Yadav named as
prime accused by the state
police in the case.
day as the officials went to make peace
with around 175 agitating contractors’
workers, affiliated with the state’s ruling
party Trinamool Congress, who were
demanding since Feb 11 they be absorbed in the company.
“The protesters are not affiliated to
any party banner and don’t have a trade
union registration. However, some
of the workers from that group have
been putting up Trinamool-affiliated
INTTUC banners. The hunger strike of
these workers is also illegal as no prior
notice was served,” he said.
Nag said the suspension of work will
affect nearly 840 personnel in the company, one of the oldest in the country.
digarh.He said, complaints
against government employees
would be taken on priority and
officials found indulging in corrupt practices and misusing official powers will be dealt with
seriously.In a step to keep all
ongoing projects under public
scrutiny, it has been decided
that PWD department or construction agency would display
111 Bangladeshi fishermen
repatriated
hopeful as his government and
party are working on the issue,”
he said.
“I am not a pessimist as Jethmalani is on the matter and I
hope, with work on, we will be
able to solve the issue for sure.”
However, both agreed on a
point that black money was
dangerous for India’s economic
health.
“It’s a cancer for the country’s
economy,” Swamy said with
Jethmalani echoing the same
sentiment on the point.
Jethmalani also accused former prime minister Manmohan
Singh and his finance minister
P. Chidambaram of being involved in “illegal” financial activities.
Badaun case: Family of cousins
challenge CBI’s closure report
Badaun, Uttar Pradesh Feb
19 (PTI): Family members
of the two teenage girls who
were found hanging from a
tree in May last year at a village here has moved a court
here challenging the closure
report filed by CBI in the case.
A protest petition has been
filed in the court of Additional
District Judge (POCSO Act)
Anil Kumar, said Kokab Hasan
Naqvi, lawyer of the family,
while claiming that there are
a number of points on which
the report could be dismissed.
He said that they had come
prepared for arguments in
the court but CBI had moved
an application that its lawyer
could not appear on Thursday.
“We have seen CBI’s closure report. There are a number of points on which the
report will be dismissed,” he
4
Nation
Friday, February 20, 2015
not only a fit face for that, He has a
glories face.
SP Cheif Mulayam Singh Yadav
announced the assembly ticket of
Shahi Imam Ahmed Bukhari’s son
in law Omar Ali Khan from Behat assembly a part of Saharanpur Parliamentry constituency. Ticket allocation given by the party chief Mulaya,
Singh Yadav without consenting him,
he feel that SP Cheif has spoiled his
parliamentary political equation and
Qazi Rasheed Masood had to leave
Samajwadi Party and also SP Cheif
Mulayam Singh Yadav. Qazi Rasheed
Masood has resigned from the membership from Rajya Sabha. He joined
Congress and the Congress gave
him respect , because Qazi Rasheed
Masod had fought the Vice President
election from Samajwadi Party . Congress make them special invitees and
awarded membership of the Council, but in the meantime Qazi found
guilty in medical seat scam by trial
Court, and punished for four-year
sentence and declared not eligible to
fight the election. His membership of
Rajya Sabha was finished. He is the
first politician in India for a scandal
not only choose to fight, but he was
disqualified from the Rajya Sabha had
stripped, After some time Bukhari’s
son in law Omar Ali Khan and Qazi
son shadan Masood finished there
distance. It is said that Qazi Rasheed
Masood will not fight an election in
the future.but promote his son and to
his supporters and allies. Upon their
release is believed that the SP will
see considerable changes in the local
level.
Indian Horizon, Delhi
5
Nation
Friday, February 20, 2015
Short Takes
Students called for talks
to Chennai
The bench stated this while hearing a
PIL filed by one K K Ramesh, Managing
Trustee of TamilNadu Centre for PIL.
The petitioner submitted that there
Coimbatore, Feb 19 (PTI): The
representative of Students of For- are 3.13 lakh party flagposts all over the
est College and Research Institute in state, causing traffic congestion.
Mettupalayam, who are on indefinite
fast for the last three days, have been 17 arrested for attack
asked to come to Chennai to hold a on forest dept jeeps
ministrial level discussion on the issue, tomorrow.
Udhgamandalam (TN), Feb 19 (PTI):
Accordingly, a few students will go to Seventeen persons have been arrested
Chennai to attend the meeting, fixed in for allegedly indulging in arson and
the afternoon tomorrow at the secre- violence, including burning forest detariate, the Institute sources said.
partment jeeps, after a woman estate
Chief Minister O Paneerselvam, For- worker was killed by a tiger last week
est Minister, M S M Anandan and Agri- in Pattavayal in Nilgiris District, police
culture minister, Agri S S Krishnamoor- said.
thy will hold talks with the students on
Those who had indulged in violence
the issue of 100 per cent reservation for were identified with the help of footthe post of rangers and quota for the age from cameras placed by forest deappointment of foresters for the for- partment personnel and were arrested
estry graduates.
from their homes late last night, they
said.
Cases against
Police said they suspected the involvement
of some anti social elements
Nisham not being
and Naxalites in the attacks and said
soft-pedalled: DGP
the arrests would continue, as cases
Kochi, Feb 19 (PTI): A senior police had been registered against 500 perofficial in Kerala today denied media sons.
reports that the criminal cases against
Kerala
businessman
Muhammed Three killed in mishap
Nisham, who had allegedly mowed a
Mangaluru, Feb 19 (PTI): Three
security guard to death, were being persons were killed and two seriously
soft-pedalled.
injured in a collision between a tipper
Director General of Prosecutions T lorry and a car at Sampaje in the disAsaf Ali said the reports appearing in a trict, police said.
section of the media in this regard were
The family was returning after attotally “false and baseless” and devoid tending a funeral at Virajpet, when the
of truth.
accident took place yesterday.
There had been reports regarding
The injured have been hospitalised,
quashing of serious offences against police said.
Nisham as his petitions were filed
through Advocate General’s private of- GPS, fish detection
fice.
equipment in boat
He clarified that the prosecutors
destroyed by SL navy
were following the directions of the
Supreme Court in Gyan Singh’s case
Rameswaram (TN) Feb 19 (PTI): A
that criminal cases, having predomi- GPS and fish detection equipment in a
nantly personal nature, can be settled boat with six fishermen on it were alby courts.
legedly destroyed today by Sri Lankan
naval personnel in the Gulf of Mannar,
KNPP’s second unit to
officials said.
The fishermen were part of a group
start generating 1,000
of 3,000 who had set sail from this
power in 6 months
coastal town late last night, they said
Tirunelveli (TN) Feb 19 (PTI): The adding that the others were not quessecond unit of the Kudankulam Nu- tioned by the naval personnel.
The naval men were clearing Katchaclear Power Plant will start generating
1,000 MW power in six months, a se- teevu islet for celebration of the annual
St Anthony church festival.
nior official said today.
Inaugurating the “Techno Fair” here
today, Additional Chief Engineer of Kerala tourism launches
the Plant, Kaliraj said the first unit was user friendly tool
generating 1,000 MW of power and the
second unit “will come into operation
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 19 (PTI):
in another six months and generate Kerala Tourism has introduced a Quick
1,000 MW power.
Response(QR) Code-aided search, an
He said the Kudankulam Nuclear innovative tool which helps travellers
Power Plant (KNPP) was generating to acquire information about destina“clean power without pollution.”
tion on the department’s official website.
Hallmark Group to set
Launching the facility here yesterday,
Tourism Minister A P Anil Kumar
up 50MW solar power
said this is the first such initiative of its
plant in TN
kind in the country.
Chennai, Feb 19 (PTI): Real estate
developer Hallmark has made a foray Decision on Light
into the renewable energy sector and Metro soon
plans to set up a 50MW solar power
plant in Tamil Nadu.
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 19 (PTI):
“Hallmark has also ventured into Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy
the energy sector and there are plans has said that state cabinet would take
to start a 50MW solar power plant in a decision regarding the implementaTamil Nadu”, the company said in a tion of light metro proposed for Thirustatement. On the real estate front, vananthapuram and Kozhikode.
Hallmark Group has completed over
Speaking at a meeting that discussed
0.5 million square foot of construction the issues connected with the project
activities and has set a target to con- yesterday, Chandy said state Planning
struct over 10 million square foot over Board has put up some suggestions in
the next four years.
this regard.
Provide exact details
of roadside statues,
temples, flagposts: HC
CPI demo against
attack on Govind
Pansare and wife
Madurai, Feb 19 (PTI): The Madras
High Court bench today directed a
PIL petitioner to provide exact details
on roadside statues, temples and flagposts which disturbed free traffic flow
and caused accidents so it could pass
appropriate orders.
“Affidavits should not be of general
nature, it should contain specific information and details about the statues that affected the flow of traffic on
the highway or in the cities”, Justices S
Tamilvanan and V S Ravi said.
Puducherry, Feb 19 (PTI): CPI here
staged a demonstration on a main
thoroughfare here today condemning
the attack on party leader Govind Pansare and his wife in Kolhapur in Maharashtra on February 16.
The party described the attack as an
assault on democracy and a challenge
to social activists in the country.
CPI secretary R Vishwanathan,who
led the protest,demanded that the
Centre intervene and arrange for an indepth probe into the incident.
Uproar in TN Assembly,
DMDK MLAs suspended
Chennai, Feb 19 (PTI):
The Tamil Nadu Assembly
today witnessed tumult after a remark by the Deputy
Leader of the Opposition
against AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa, with the Speaker’s podium being damaged, marshals attacked
in the corridor and DMDK
MLAs suspended.
Deputy Leader of the
Opposition and DMDK
MLA, R Mohanraj without
naming AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa made an implied
reference to her, which
was strongly opposed by
the treasury benches.
Ruling party members
led by Chief Minister O
Panneerselvam
urged
Speaker P Dhanapal to
initiate appropriate action
against Mohanraj.
Mohanraj’s
remark
came after an AIADMK
MLA made an indirect
reference to DMDK chief
Vijayakanth, which was
considered disparaging by
his party members.
Speaker Dhanapal expunged Moharaj’s remark
even as he was arguing
noisily and ordered his
eviction as he obstructed
proceedings.
DMDK MLAs led by
party Whip V C Chandrakumar rushed towards the
Speaker’s podium to protest his eviction.
A melee unfolded and
the Speaker’s podium was
pushed forward and a portion of it was damaged,
dockets were flung across
and caps of marshals tossed.
DMDK MLAs were evicted forcibly by the marshals
and some of them were attacked in the corridor by
the MLAs.
Speaker P Dhanapal
called the incident a historic low in the annals of
the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
Leader of the House
and Electricity Minister
Natham R Viswanathan
moved a resolution seeking suspension of the
DMDK MLAs through the
rest of the ongoing session. It was adopted by
voice vote. The matter was
also referred to the Privileges Committee.
“The DMDK MLAs created an unsafe situation
for the Speaker, defied his
orders, intimidated and
attacked the marshals.
Chandrakumar and others
have repeatedly created
ruckus and brought disrepute to the House,” Viswanathan said.
DMDK MLAs C H Sekar, K Thinakaran and others attacked and injured
the Marshals outside the
House (at the corridor)
and action will be taken
against them, he told the
House.
Pinarayi, VS trade
charges on eve of
CPI(M) state meet
Alappuzha (Ker), Feb 19 (PTI): In a flare-up of prolonged rivalry on the eve of the state meet, CPI(M)
state secretary Pinarayi Vijyan mounted a merciless
attack on party’s senior leader V S Achuthanandan
for shooting a strongly worded letter to central leadership on the state unit’s functioning.
Reacting sharply to Vijayan’s barbs, the nonagenarian leader said he is “rejecting with deserving
contempt” the allegations of the state secretary and
said he expected a reply on issues raised by him from
the polit bureau.
“I have sent a letter to polit bureau. I expect a reply from them (PB members). I reject with deserving
contempt his (Vijayan’s) statement,” Achuthanandan, who was also in Alappuzha, told reporters.
Significantly, the trading of charges between the
two leaders happened on the eve of the crucial state
conference where Vijayan will step down as state
secretary on completion of three consecutive terms
at the key post.
A founding leader of the CPI(M), Achuthanandan
had sent a strongly worded letter to the polit bureau
citing serious lapses on the part of the state leadership, which also got leaked to sections of media.
Questioning the contention of the Vijayan-led
state unit that it had been performing quite well over
a decade, the senior leader alleged that the leadership had in fact committed several serious mistakes.
Defence procurement procedure
should be more friendly: Parrikar
Bengaluru, Feb 19 (PTI): Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar
today conceded that the current
defence acquisition process is
complex and said it should be
more friendly.
“I agree that current procedure
is very complex....really appreciate those who are still in that
toughness to go through the process of defence acquisition,” Parrikar said.
Speaking at the interactive
session on ‘Leveraging Defence
Offsets for Make in India’ organised by Confederation of Indian
Industry here, he said “...I think
these are issues of concern, the
defence procurement procedure
(DPP) can be more friendly...it
has to be.”
“There has to be a defined time
frame for everything and not only
setting defined time frame - that
defined time frame should be followed, any deviation should be
an exception...,” he added.
Baba N Kalyani, Chairman
of CII’s National committee on
Defence and Chairman Bharat
Forge, said, “We really do not
need any further changes in this
offsets, because we have been
talking for the last two to three
years on offsets and keep making little little changes but less of
implementation. We really need
implementation and action.”
On Kalyani’s call for implementation and action, Parrikar
said ,”I for one am a strong believer of this line. I think we have
had enough interactions, I have
enough data with me.
Whether it is offset policy or
Make in India or whether it is
DPP- probably 80 to 90 per cent of
the problems are understood....it
is high time that the valuable inputs are put into operation.”
He said that his nature of function is “not making speeches, but
delivering”.
Stating that the “Make in India” concept as it stands today
talks only of a platform, Parrikar
said, “I don’t understand why
only platforms. The big equipment definitely has to be there
and that can be also identified in
the list of items which we need to
develop in India whether through
technology transfer or through
research and development.”
He said Small and Mediumsized Enterprises participation
in Make in India is absolutely essential.
Cauvery issue: Steps to
expedite case in SC, says TN
Chennai, Feb 19 (PTI): With the Centre yet
to constitute the Cauvery Management Board
and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee, the Tamil Nadu government today said it
was taking steps to expedite a case in this regard in the Supreme Court.
“Senior advocates of Tamil Nadu are discussing the possibilities of expediting the
case,” Chief Minister O Panneerselvam informed the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
While the 2007 final award of the Cauvery
Water Disputes Tribunal had been notified in
a central gazette in February 2013, paving the
way for constituting of CMB and CWRC, it had
not been done so far, with his predecessor and
AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa repeatedly
taking it up with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that year, he said.
The government had in November 2013
moved the Apex Court, seeking a direction to
Centre for constituting CMB and CWRC after a panel set up by the Centre to supervise
water release “did not take any steps” in this
connection,the Chief Minister said.
However, the court had then declined an
urgent hearing saying that the petition could
be heard along with the pleas challenging the
2007 final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.
Panneerselvam recalled that the Tamil
Nadu Assembly had adopted a resolution in
December 2014 urging Centre to immediately
constitute CMB and CWRC and that the same
had been communicated to Prime Minister
Narendra Modi.
School kids enjoy during the 2nd day of the AERO India 2015 at Yelahanka Air base
in Bengaluru on Thursday. (PTI Photo)
Rafale deal: Dassault
says no change in pricing
Bengaluru, Feb 19 (PTI): Confident of
signing the much delayed USD 10 billion
contract for Rafale fighter jets with India
“soon”, French Defence major Dassault on
Thursday said its pricing remains the same
from day one and it has not wavered from
the request for proposal (RPF).
It also said an empowered team has already arrived in India and carried forward
the talks as decided by the Defence Ministers of the two countries in December.
“The pricing issue is very clear. Our
pricing remains the same from day one of
LI (Lowest bidder). So there has been no
change on that front,” Dassault Aviation
CEO Eric Trappier said.
Asked about claims that Dassault is not
willing to stand guarantee for the 108 jets
to be made by state-run HAL here, Trappier denied there was any deviation from
what the RFP said.
“We are exactly in line with our answer to
(Request for Proposal (RFP). This answer led
the government of India to select L1 which
was Rafale. And we have stuck to the same
commitment which is totally in line and
compliant with the RFP,” he told PTI here.
Trappier, who is here to take part in the
Aero India air show, stressed that his firm
is convinced that it is totally in line with
the RFP.
Kerala film academy to promote movie fests abroad
Thiruvananthapuram,
Feb 19 (PTI): With the aim
of spreading the legacy of
Malayalam films across
the globe, the Kerala State
Chalachitra Academy is
extending support for organising film festivals in
different world countries.
The state-run Academy,
organisers of the wellknown International Film
Festival of Kerala, has already offered support to
conduct a Malayalam film
festival in Malaysia in April
and discussions are on to
organise similar fests in
Europe, USA, Germany
and Saudi Arabia.
The Academy would
play the role of facilitator
in these festivals and it
would help selecting films
for screening in these galas, a top official said.
“The festivals are organised by local Malayali
organisations and other
Indian agencies in these
countries. We are playing
the role of facilitators in
these galas and the Academy has no financial investment in them,” Academy
Chairman Rajeev Nath
told PTI.
The first such festival
would be held in Malaysia
from April 18 to 24, he said.
The seven-day festival
in Malaysia is organised
jointly by Indian High
Commission, All Malaysians Malayali Association
(AMMA) and a local television channel there with
the support of the Acad-
emy, he said.
“As many as 25 films, including old and new ones,
will be screened in the festival. The selected movies
comprise award winning
ones, evergreen classics
and blockbusters.”
“Viewers can see a real
cross section of Malayalam films in the festivals,”
he said.
6
Indian Horizon Delhi
EDIT
On and off India-Pakistan talks
Indian Horizon Delhi
Dismal results needn't
block the effort
BY INDER MALHOTRA
Friday February 20, 2015
Benefit of smart cities
Development is related to the concept of
smart cities, their planning and achievement. You cannot develop a smart city in a
vacuum and without any material available.
Industrial life and early development features should have a deep desire to jump into
a new environment and paradigm to make
life better and more prosperous and fast.
This is possible only if we have mastered the
new methodology and new means of travel
to cover long distances in a short time without loosing the facilities one has enjoyed
and one can learn to work in two varying environments. The slow sturdy growth must be
rooted in a place, where speed over comes
every need within a reasonably convenient
time. It widens the scope of availability of
advanced and developed life with a little
amount spent on travel. The connections
of railway, land travel and air must follow
each other with reasonable speed to keep
the tempo of development and give people all the facilities that are available to the
people at a little distance, which is usually
made possible with little cost but, one may
not approve oneself and ones family to be
transported into a new environment. Speed
is the essential element of life that makes
an impact on smart cities for the luxury and
convenience of people without exhausting
Friday February 20, 2015
A
FTER the abrupt cancellation of the Foreign
Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan, scheduled in August, there was some
criticism of New Delhi even though Pakistan’s
brazen violations of the cease-fire along both
the Line of Control and the international border
with Jammu and Kashmir were continuing. And
earlier this week there was applause when Prime
Minister Narendra Modi announced that the new
Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar would be going to
Pakistan as part of his “SAARC yatra” though Islamabad would not be his first destination. As has
been widely reported, this was preceded by much
behind-the-scenes activity.
Mr Modi had written a highly sympathetic letter
to his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, after the
savage terrorist attack on an Army school in Peshawar. The two Prime Ministers had also talked privately at the “SAARC retreat” restricted to leaders
only near Kathmandu. National Security Adviser
Ajit Doval had visited the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi and the Pakistani High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, had met Mr Jaishankar. Soon
after this meeting, Mr Basit had also received Hurriyat leaders from Kashmir — something that was
the principal reason for the cancellation of the August meeting of the two foreign secretaries.
It is no secret that these developments were
influenced by two major factors. First, President
Barack Obama, who accepted Mr Modi’s invitation to be the chief guest on Republic Day, privately advised his host to resume the dialogue
with Pakistan. The United States has a keen interest in securing Pakistan’s cooperation in its withdrawal from Afghanistan. American officials make
no bones about their policy of maintaining friendship with both India and Pakistan. This is so in
spite of the fact that in balancing the military and
economic might of an over-assertive China India
alone can play a major role. China’s “all-weather
friend” would not or, indeed just cannot, even if it
wanted to. As is his wont, Mr Modi used the IndiaPakistan cricket match for the World Cup to talk
to Mr Sharif and leaders of other cricket-playing
South Asian countries to wish them all the best.
Cricket, he remarked, promoted “connectivity” at
the people-to-people level. However, what actually happened as soon as the match was over in
Australia was shocking beyond words. At Adelaide
the deeply disappointed Pakistani fans went on
the rampage to beat up all and sundry even inside
bars and restaurants, not just jubilant Indian fans.
What happened within Pakistan was a lot worse,
as Washington Post has reported. Like Indians,
all Pakistanis were also glued to their TV sets. As
Pakistan lost, scores of TV sets were smashed by
their angry owners to show their hatred for India.
So great was their fury that none of them paused
to ponder that given the precarious state of Pakistan’s economy, they might not be able to buy a
new TV set. In any case, as the founder of Jang
newspaper, Khalil Rahman, famously said once,
Pakistani cricketers treat a cricket field as a “battleground” and a battlefield as a “playground”.
This reminds me of something even more revealing that happened way back in the early
1980s. Pakistan’s suave and respected Foreign
Minister at that time, Nawabzada Yaqub Ali
Khan, a retired Lieutenant-General, was visiting
New Delhi and, as always, invited some of us for
a background briefing. The nuclear issue was on
top of the agenda. But one senior journalist said
that he wanted to discuss something “non-sexy”.
Pakistan was at that time suffering from an acute
shortage of food while India had plenty of wheat
to spare. The questioner asked the Sahibzada:
“Instead of importing wheat from the USA, Argentina and Australia, why don’t you take it from us?
From Amritsar it will get to Lahore in just over an
hour”. The Sahibzada replied: “I must be candid
and tell you that our people don’t like to eat Indian
food”. Thanks to my stars, I have covered most of
the critically important summits and negotiations
with Pakistan, beginning with the Nehru-Liaquat
Pact signed in Delhi in April 1950. This was one
meeting which did produce some result. The two
Prime Ministers managed to avoid a very destructive general war between the two countries so
soon after the first Kashmir War (1947-48). It was
not easy to reach the agreement. The two sides
remained engaged for a whole week. The first ten
draft agreements were rejected by one side or the
other. Only the eleventh one was accepted. Even
so, fresh tension erupted between the two neighbours only a few months later.
After the traumatic border war with China
in the high Himalayas, India came under high
Anglo-American pressure to settle the Kashmir
problem. Six rounds of talks between Swaran
Singh and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto lasted as many
months but collapsed because Bhutto demanded
that the entire Kashmir, except for Kathua, be
handed to Pakistan. After the 1965 war between
India and Pakistan, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur
Shastri and Field Marshal Ayub Khan of Pakistan
met in Tashkent, then a part of the Soviet Union,
and signed the Tashkent Declaration largely because of mediatory efforts by the Soviet Prime
Minister, Alexi Kosygin. Even so the much-hyped
Tashkent spirit evaporated fast.
Nearly seven months after the liberation of Bangladesh in a war in which India had won a strategic
victory under Indira Gandhi’s leadership, she and
Bhutto met at Simla to usher in a lasting peace between the two neighbours. It is far from clear why
this country’s most hard-headed Prime Minister
trusted Bhutto’s verbal assurance that he would
gradually convert the Line of Control in Jammu
and Kashmir into a permanent border between
India and Pakistan. Being a customer as slippery
as an eel, he was almost certain to renege on his
solemn promise. Despite all this, it is perhaps unnecessary to say no to discussions with Pakistan,
except in situations like 26/11, for terrorism and
talks cannot go together. However, as the saying
goes, better jaw, jaw than bang, bang.
IANS
Loss in Delhi bad for Parivar, not the BJP
BY SAEED NAQVI
I
n politics, sometimes normalcy looks abnormal. That the Bharatiya Janata Party should be
with its back to the wall in the Delhi battle is
abnormal for those who have not yet recovered
from the awesomeness of Narendra Modi’s victory in May 2014. That was a tsunami. Tsunamis
subside. Modi has risen phenomenally, riding that
and another wave. A third is due, maybe after the
Delhi elections. The first wave he crested when
he became chief minister of Gujarat without ever
having contested an election. This was 26 days after the two planes brought down the twin towers
in New York on Sep 11, 2001 - 9/11, in brief.
The US air strikes against Afghanistan began
on Oct 7, exactly the day Modi became chief
minister. Of course there is no connection between the two. And yet, there is. The saturation
TV coverage pummelling Muslim societies created for the BJP a favourable atmosphere. The
BJP hoped to win the crucial election to the Uttar Pradesh assembly due in February 2002. Rajnath Singh was the chief minister in Lucknow.
To his and his party’s dismay, BJP lost the election which had been fought on a hard platform,
Ram Mandir included. The 'kar sewaks' assembled at Ayodhya for victory and Ram Mandir
celebrations were stunned by the election reversal announced on Feb 24/25, 2002. Imagine
the black mood in which the kar sewaks boarded
Sabarmati Express which reached Godhra on
the morning of Feb 27. Gujarat BJP was waking upto two defeats in bye elections. Modi won
Rajkot narrowly. Then the Godhra train carnage
took place and the Gujarat pogrom. The lesson
from the electorate’s rejection of the hardline in
UP should have been a sober and softer line in
the future. But, no, the 96-year-old head of the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Keshvaram Kashiram
Shastri thought otherwise. The global war on
terror was a boon. In an atmosphere so conducive for Hindu consolidation a harder, not softer, line was required.
I met Jayanti Ravi, collector of Godhra when
Gujarat was still smouldering. The investigations, she said bitterly, had instantly been handed over to Vijay Vipul, DIG anti-terror squad.
Terror was the flavor of the season. So, terror it
was for Godhra and Gujarat too. Then Modi rode
the second crest with even greater aplomb. This
one was to deliver unto him the prime ministership of India. A timid Manmohan Singh carrying
on his forehead labels of scams he may not have
committed, made for a soft target. Worse was the
Nehru-Gandhi family. Yes he will; no he won’t,
but he might - this exasperating indecision of
Rahul Gandhi made for a silly side show in the
middle of what should have been a do or die
campaign. He made a fool of himself with FICCI,
CII, in the Arnab Goswami interview, the high
point of his life being a night of great simplicity
he spent with David Miliband in a Dalit hut. The
mother would disappear to far off hospitals and
reappear without the nation being any the wiser
as to what the ailment was and whether a transition was round the corner. Election after election was being lost but the mother and son duet
would neither disappear nor connect. A private
social group remained more important than the
more public, but supine political group. It was
appalling for the country’s oldest party to be
neither in nor out of reckoning. Meanwhile corruption charges, beginning with Bofors, would
just not go away.
It was this universal anger with Congress leadership that Modi’s campaign managers brilliantly
harvested. Add to this the greatest media campaign ever mounted. The helpful Sonia-Rahul
negative image is, alas for Modi, now out of the
way. A Muzaffarnagar-like polarization cannot be
repeated in quick succession. This is too gentle a
country. Even Kali and Durga have their seasons.
The open season given to Yogi Adityanath,
Sakshi Maharaj and a Sadhvi adept at abusive
diction will never be tolerated by the world’s
oldest civilization. The writing has been clear on
the wall since the bye-elections in UP. A reversal
in Delhi will not be such a bad thing for the BJP.
It will enable the party to off load those interests who by their vulgarity neutralize gains like
the Obama visit and who have all too frequently
made the BJP look embarrassingly inelegant.
IANS
them. Thus a new system of life develops in
which speed and saving time and enjoyment
of convenience plays an important role. In
the bargain, we have many comforts which
otherwise we could not achieve.
The first thing that is needed is interconnection of travel and various types of management. Cooperative organizations through
which, distance is covered with speed without much trouble and not taking unbearable
strain of over developing cities and have the
facility of long week ends, resting sufficiently and equipping one self with many conveniences. Ones children`s education of early
ages must be reasonably priced and easily
available. Small cities can be defined as an
active life at a reasonable price and enough
time and leisure for one and ones family`s
enjoyment and enough time for relaxation.
If these facilities are not achieved, then the
quality of smart cities is lost.
Hot water treatment for Indian mangoes for EU market
BY RANJANA NARAYAN
I
ndia’s prized Alphonso mangoes will be
treated with “hot water” as part of procedures to remove any contaminants like fruit
flies before being exported to Europe, especially
Britain, where they have a large market, a top
EU trade official said. Maurizio Cellini, First
Counsellor, Head of Trade and Economic Affairs
team of the European Union to India, told IANS
that among the procedures India has to abide by
to export mangoes to the 28-member bloc is of
treating fruit with hot water.
Cellini also said that while the mango has been
allowed for export, the ban on four other Indian
products - eggplant, bitter gourd (karela), taro
plant (arbi) and snake gourd (chichinda) - has not
been lifted. The EU had last May slapped a ban
on the Indian mango and the vegetables following concerns over contamination, mainly from
non-European fruit flies. The European Commission voted to lift the ban on Indian mangoes in
late January and the final decision was taken on
Valentine’s Day Feb 14. Cellini said a number of
controls have been put in place by India, including some conditions for the packaging.
“There has been a commitment by India to
treat mangoes with hot water, which was an additional requirement which is apparently important in order to guarantee that the products are
free of contaminants like mosquitoes, insects
which may come with the fruit,” Cellini told IANS.
“I know that Indian mangoes are very popular
in Britain, so there will be strong export to Britain; other European countries import mangoes
from Africa and Brazil,” he added. Regarding the
other four vegetables, he said India has not been
able to provide the necessary guarantees yet that
the packaging and treatment would be done in a
way to eliminate the insects. “Our experts came to
India and made an inspection a few months ago.
The result of the inspection was that things were
making progress for the mango but for the other
products they were not there at the right point,”
he added. On the dragging India-EU free trade
agreement negotiations that have been going on
since 2007 but are stuck on certain niggling issues,
Cellini said that EU is fully committed to negotiations and if completed “it would be a boost to the
European Union and to India alike.
“There are some difficult points still to discuss and we need to get back to the table and see
whether India is willing to consider certain sensitive points of the negotiation which for the EU are
important. “If we see positive signals, I’m sure the
negotiations can continue and we are hoping to
reach a mutually satisfactory solution in a short
time,” he added.
The negotiations are stuck over the EU demand
for duty cut on European automobiles, auto components and wines and spirits. India has been
asking for greater access to the European markets,
mainly the UK and Germany for its professionals.
Cellini also said the EU can contribute to the
Narendra Modi government’s initiatives like Make
in India, Smart Cities, infrastructure and renewable energy. “Europe is very advanced; We have
the right technology and right solutions and we
think cooperation in this area could be mutually
beneficial,” he said.
On the Modi government’s Make in India
initiative, Cellini said the initiative signals improvement in ease of doing business, in transparency and in predictability, reforms in taxation system, and improvement in the general
business climate. “If this is done then I am pretty sure the EU companies, multinationals and
small and medium enterprises will be encouraged to come to India to do business.
It is important that these reforms become a
reality and are translated into real facts and realised and that life for entrepreneurs becomes
easier in India. If that happens I’m sure that
activity of EU business will increase in India,”
Cellini told IANS. He said the government’s initiatives signal good business sentiment. “Business sentiment is a good thing, but you still
have to be convinced to make the investment
and to take action; probably we are not there
yet but the sentiment is certainly positive and
has improved, compared to a few months ago.
Readers Response and contribution Welcome
IANS
OP-ED
Indian Horizon Delhi
Friday February 20, 2015
Iraq needs the
ground war now
As blood continues to flow, the damage
inflicted by Daesh will be perpetuated
for generations to come
BY FRANCIS MATTHEW
I
t is deeply shocking that the barbarians of Daesh
(Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) have controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq for more than
nine months. They have been able to establish themselves as the effective authority over many millions of
Iraqis and Syrians who are suffering dreadfully under
their vicious dictatorship. Even if the 61-nation coalition against Daesh does not yet have a clear strategy, it is clear that the war cannot be won from the
skies. Only ground forces can hope to reconquer the
territory, which must be done by fighting it out with
Daesh forces town by town, street by street, house
by house, until Daesh is no longer an effective force.
It is just over nine months since Daesh stormed into
Mosul on June 10 — a city of more than one million
people, which they have ‘governed’ ever since. But it
was only on February 9 that General John Allen, who
is the American coordinator for coalition, said that the
Iraqi Army, backed by coalition air strikes, will launch
a ground offensive “in the weeks ahead” to regain the
territory lost to Daesh, including Mosul.
This slow response to Daesh’s invasion has been
excoriated around the world. The British parliament’s cross-party Defence Committee chaired by
Rory Stewart produced a scathing report last week,
in which Daesh was described as the most dramatic
and significant threat to regional stability and international security from the Middle East in decades, and
the committee commented that it was “surprised and
deeply concerned that the UK is not doing more”. The
committee was shocked by the inability or unwillingness of any of the service chiefs to provide a clear and
articulate statement of the UK’s objectives or strategic
plan in Iraq. There was a lack of clarity over who owns
a policy — and indeed whether such a policy exists.”
This kind of chaos is very disturbing, even given Prime
Minister David Cameron’s determination to avoid offering any British leadership over Iraq. The UK parliamentary committee visited Iraq in December and was very
surprised to find that only three UK military personnel
were outside the Kurdish regions of Iraq, compared with
400 Australians, 280 Italians and 300 Spanish.
Retaking territory
This minimal amount of support for the regular Iraqi
forces does not speak of any eagerness to prosecute the
forthcoming crucial ground war with vigour, when the
Iraqi forces start the essential work of retaking their territory from Daesh. Another example of confusion (although this case was not from the formal coalition) was
provided by Prince Turki Al Faisal, former head of Saudi
Intelligence and head of the King Faisal Research Centre,
who expressed his worry at the recent Annual Meeting
in Davos that the Iraqi government has refused to share
or take intelligence on Daesh (or any other topic) from
the Saudis. “Why can we not help?” he asked, making
clear his frustration with the Iraqi government over his
impression that the Iraqis were working under a close alliance with Iran, which was refusing to allow its regional
Arab rival, Saudi Arabia, to play a significant role in Iraq.
Daesh is an existential threat to all Arab states and
to the rest of the world. The deeply offensive organisation has murdered thousands of people, often in the
most barbaric fashion. It has taught children to take
guns and kill people. It has crucified some of its victims. It has burnt alive the Jordanian pilot Muath Al
Kaseasbeh. And earlier this week, it beheaded 21 Copts
it captured in Libya. It has forced entire populations
into slavery and has massacred large numbers of others in attempted genocide.
Given all this, after a successful offensive this spring,
the new Iraqi civil authorities will have the exceptionally difficult task of rebuilding civilian trust in an Iraqi
regime that still has lingering Shiite sympathies, which
trigger deep Sunni doubts despite Prime Minister
Haider Al Abadi’s work in putting this right.
The incoming governors and administrators will
struggle to win back the population’s loyalty, while at
the same time, they will need to go through the population to establish who were the willing supporters of
Daesh and who had been forced to collaborate for fear
of torture and their families being massacred.
It would be very hard not to collaborate when faced with
the prospect of being burnt alive in a cage if you refused or
watching your wife and children being beheaded.
Yet, the returning refugees who lost everything to
the Daesh assault will be burning for revenge and
anxious to eliminate every vestige of collaborationists and there is a real danger that they will not bother
too much about distinguishing between the unfortunate forced collaborators and the genuine Daesh supporters. As blood continues to flow all over Iraq, the
damage that Daesh has done will be perpetuated for
generations to come. And all this applies only to Iraq,
which is only one half of Daesh’s theatre of operations.
Daesh is also firmly based in Syria, where the coalition
members are nowhere near agreeing on how to find a
political solution to the raging Syrian civil war, which
all adds to the confusion.
COURTESY : GULF NEWS
Why Merkel is
holding firm on
Greece
BY MARK GILBERT
I
t is one minute to midnight for the euro. The
standoff between Greece and its creditors, led
by Germany, looks increasingly like it could lead
to the first nation exiting the common currency.
The new Greek government’s suspension of stateasset sales and plans to rehire government workers and increase wages have not helped negotiations. But it is German intransigence that is forcing
Greece into a financial corner from which the only
escape may be Grexit. Why is German Chancellor
Angela Merkel being so relentlessly uncompromising? Here are three possible explanations.
1. Germany sees the “Grexit” as not just survivable,
but desirable.
At the beginning of the year, Germany’s Spiegel
magazine ran an incendiary article saying Merkel’s
government had decided a Greek departure from
the Eurozone could happen without damaging the
broader currency project. ‘Grexit Grumblings: Germany Open to Possible Greek Euro Zone Exit,’ said
the headline. Re-reading with the benefit of hindsight, the article actually went further than that. The
key passage was: “Officials in Berlin and Brussels
no longer subscribe to the so-called domino theory,
which held that a Greek collapse would be followed
by others. It has been replaced by the ‘chain theory’,
which holds that the entire chain would become
stronger were its weakest link to be eliminated.”
Even as the discussions between Greece and its
creditors have become increasingly deadlocked, there
is almost zero evidence of contagion. Portugal, typically viewed as the second-weakest euro member, is
enjoying 10-year borrowing costs today that are only
a whisker away from the record lows of a few weeks
ago. Here is a thought experiment: The morning after
the reintroduction of the drachma, would the euro be
stronger or weaker based on its trading levels in the
foreign exchange market? A couple of months ago, I
would have argued that Grexit would be disastrous
for the health of the euro project. Now, I’m not so
sure. The euro was up half a per cent against the dollar on Monday, even after talks between Greece and
the euro region’s finance ministers broke down the
same night. That could be because investors expect
a compromise. But it could also be that they have
Ceding ground to
Athens to keep it
in the euro may
encourage other
countries to
strengthen their
demands for more
spending and fewer
budget cuts
stopped caring whether Greece is in or out.
2. Germany would sacrifice Greece to keep
everyone else in line.
Germany has been steadfast in its demands for fiscal discipline from its neighbours and its insistence
on economic austerity. Others are not so keen. France
has been whispering ever louder about the need
to boost growth, while in Spain, the anti-austerity
Podemos party leads Spanish opinion polls, with an
election due by the end of the year. Ceding ground
to Greece to keep it in the euro may encourage other countries to strengthen their demands for more
spending and fewer budget cuts. Again, the January
Spiegel article seems prescient: “Berlin officials fear
that giving in to a new, Leftist government in Athens
would further call into question controversial austerity and reform policies — an eventuality that would be
welcome in France and Italy, countries where reform
has not been welcomed with open arms.” In the immediate aftermath of the Greek election on January
25, France seemed to be making conciliatory noises
about reaching a compromise to keep Greece’s lifesupport funding switched on. On Monday, though,
Finance Minister Michel Sapin stuck to Europe’s
official position that extending Greece’s rescue programme was the only way forward. By holding the
line on austerity, Germany seems to have corralled
its European Union peers back onto the path of Teu-
Will India finally get its wish-list?
Both BJP and Congress face an existential challenge, but whether
AAP can trigger another insurrection is the question
BY RAVI MENON
W
ill India finally get its wish list — a Congress
party minus the dynasty and a Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) minus the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS)? Can the staggering win of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi assembly polls and the urban
insurrection unleashed by it bring about what many
Indians of all persuasions have longed for long?
The Congress party’s humiliation is complete.
Sixty one of its 70 candidates lost their security deposits in Delhi, including Ajay Maken, the party’s
chief ministerial candidate. Has the time come for
the freedom party to heed Mahatma Gandhi’s advice in 1947 to disband the party? Modi and the BJP
have also to face up to harsh truths: Can the party
cut its moorings to the RSS once and for all and chart
a course that is totally devoid of sectarian overtones?
Sadanand Dhume wrote tongue-in-cheek in Foreign Policy that India ought to go for a constitutional
monarchy for, after all, it has a royal family in the
House of the Nehru-Gandhi. Beneath its biting sarcasm, Dhume’s piece captures the utter irrelevance
of a dynasty in modern India. Be that as it may, the
Congress party’s slavish dependence on the dynasty
stems from the fear that they have none else with a
pan-Indian appeal. The AAP’s rise and Modi’s ascent should lay to rest that mindset. Indeed, a family connection would appear to be a positive disadvantage in Modi’s and Arvind Kejriwal’s India. The
AAP’s team is eclectic and a rainbow alliance of high
achievers in diverse fields — pen warriors to innovators in fund raising, back room geeks who run the
social media campaigns to grandees of yesteryears.
Atishi Marlene is 33, a Rhodes Scholar with a St
Stephen’s-Oxford background and a spokesperson
for the party who is a familiar face on TV. Another
is Ragav Chadha, 30, a chartered accountant and a
specialist in fundraising.
Ankit Lal, 30, is a social media geek and Dilip
Pandey, 38, an ex-Hong Kong based IT professional
— both work on AAP’s outreach programme. Embedded within this youth set are people like Rajmohan Gandhi and Yogendra Yadav who bring a
vast amount of experience to mentor and guide the
fledgling AAP. The common thread that holds this
polychromatic group is the belief that politics is a
vocation to serve and not a career. Almost all of them
seem to have responded to a higher calling. Which
indeed was Mahatma Gandhi’s creed and the driving philosophy of the Congress in its early days. It
drew to itself, men and women of different persuasions and of high calling to serve the nation.
The corruption of this high ideal set in the moment the party fell prey to dynasty: A crippling dependence on the House of Nehru-Gandhi to garner
votes during elections. The party’s decline has been
constant except for short interludes, but now the rot
is cancerous. The body blow it had to endure during
the 2015 parliamentary elections was bad enough
and there was this feeling that the party may rise
Tricky times ahead for US-Israel ties
BY GEORGE S. HISHMEH
A
ll eyes are now focused on the upcoming fortnight,
awaiting the much-promised address to the jointsession of the US Congress by the defiant Israeli Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, which is likely to turn
matters sour between Israel and the US. This will most
likely be the case should Netanyahu retain the Israeli
premiership after the elections on March 17.
However, all this depends on what happens in the
next few days preceding the national elections and
whether Netanyahu and his short-sighted supporters
maintain their aggressive positions. These include the
continued rejection of Palestinian ambition to gain
statehood, as well as the participation of the US alongside the four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in critical negotiations with Iran
over its nuclear ambitions — an issue that is troublesome to Israel, also believed to have nuclear ambitions
as well, but remains unchallenged by key western nations. Official and unofficial American supporters of
Israel and the Israeli public remain seriously divided
over the arrogant and unyielding performance of Netanyahu ahead of the Israeli elections and the simultaneous negotiations with Iran. A significant American
warning came this week from Martin Indyk, a twoterm ambassador to Israel and the current vice-president and director of the Foreign Policy Programme at
7
the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington.
The former US special envoy to last year’s failed Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations was also a participant
last week in the annual Institute for National Security
Studies (INSS) conference in Tel Aviv.
He warned at the INSS conference, according to the
Jerusalem Post, that if the Israeli government emerges
after the election and does not launch a diplomatic initiative or opposes a Palestinian state, Israel will likely
face a UN Security Council resolution proposed by all
permanent members designed to “lay out the principles of a two-state solution”. US Secretary of State
John Kerry is said to be working on such a project at
this time. Indyk, who did little to hide his position that
Netanyahu was responsible for the breakdown of the
peace talks, underlined Washington’s concern that the
situation on the ground was reaching a boiling point,
something that had been exacerbated by Israel’s withholding the transfer of tax funds to the Palestinian
National Authority so that it could pay salaries of the
Palestinian civil servants. “The way forward,” he continued, “begins with coordinating an initiative with
the United States ... and then, looking to Egypt and Jordan and the resurrection of the Arab Peace Initiative”.
What may, however, tone down Israel’s anxiety about
the Obama administration’s position is the appointment of a new secretary of defence, Ashton Carter, a
tonic economic righteousness.
3. Germany is not interested in game theory.
Much has been made of the game-theory background
of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and how it
may help Athens achieve a compromise. But people are
less rational and logical in real-life negotiations than in
theoretical ones. As my colleague Justin Fox put it earlier this month: “Greece’s negotiations so far with the
EU, though, have repeatedly resulted in outcomes that
leave both sides worse off. They have gotten stuck in a
prisoner’s dilemma — which seems all the more reason
to try to shake up the negotiations.” In the Greek negotiations, two implacably opposed ideologies are butting heads, the seemingly unstoppable force of Greece’s
democratic mandate meeting the immovable object of
German economic philosophy. In his novel Walking on
Glass, Iain Banks suggested the only outcome in such
a collision is that “the unstoppable force stops, the immovable object moves”. Right now, that is not happening. Commerzbank now puts the chances of Grexit at
50 per cent, double what it was predicting last week. A
one euro bet on Grexit with the bookmaking company
Paddy Power will net you a profit of less than 38 cents.
Last month, you would have made 3 euros (Dh12.55).
We may be on the verge of finding out whether a Greek
exit from the euro is a self-contained explosion or an existential threat to the single currency.
COURTESY : AL-JAZEERA
once again, as it had in the past, but the cataclysmic
results of the Delhi elections put paid to such misplaced optimism. Its tryst with dynasty is at an end!
Rainbow coalition
It will need to reinvent itself and a 130-year-old
party may finally have to learn politics from a fledgling two-year-old party. For indeed in the AAP manifesto there is much in common with the Congress’s
programmes. In its early days, the Congress was also
a rainbow coalition, a mass movement that accommodated diverse interests in the service of the nation. The AAP is the Congress minus the toxic dynasty; a Congress that may have been if it had allowed
competence and merit to flourish instead of paying
homage to bloodlines. The drubbing that the BJP
and Modi have suffered during the gruelling Delhi
elections, though not as devastating as that of the
Congress, has been severely demoralising and the
sheen of Modi’s apparent invincibility shorn forever.
It has given a second wind to the entire opposition.
Modi and the BJP will have to rein-in their overweening arrogance and go back to the drawing board and
reinvent themselves. If the party is serious about its
slogan ‘development for all’ it has to cut its roots
from the RSS. Indeed it seems as though the party
coined this clever catch phrase simply as an electoral gimmick without thinking it through. In actuality
‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (with all, development for
all) in Hindi has such a simple yet metronomic quality to it that it has captured the imagination of the
nation. And if the BJP wants to walk the talk on this
and other equally compelling agendas it will have
cut its umbilical cord to the RSS. Both the BJP and
the Congress are faced with an existential challenge.
The upper echelons of both parties are risk averse
and, therefore, unwilling to shed their past.
COURTESY : GULF NEWS
longtime Pentagon aide. The Jerusalem Post described
Carter as “an ardent supporter of Israel who has also
enjoyed a close relationship with (Israeli) Defence
Minister Moshe Ya’alon”. Another American, who
had immigrated to Israel and is now its ambassador
in Washington, Ron Dermer, who reported, according
to Politico Magazine, that congressional Democrats
were “already suspicious of him, alleging that he has
been undermining negotiations with Iran by distributing negative talking points” to Congressional offices.
According to the New York Times, the White House
chief-of-staff, Denis McDonough, among others, had
initially resisted the appointment.
Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA analyst, wrote in the National Interest, that “the naming of Dermer is a statement that manipulation, with a hard-Right twist, of
American politics is not just something that arises
from time to time in US-Israeli relations but instead
is the main aspect of the relationship”. He elaborated:
“It also is a statement by Netanyahu that he isn’t bothered if the relationship is seen that way.”
Much as Obama seems angered by Netanyahu’s
upcoming trip to Washington and addressing a joint
session of Congress, days before the Israeli election,
Israeli polls “across all ideological groups [show] a majority does not trust Obama to ensure that Iran does
not achieve a nuclear weapon”, reported the Times of
Israel. “Among undecided voters, the distrust is slightly deeper, with 17 per cent saying they trust Obama
and 76 per cent saying they do not.”
COURTESY : AL-JAZEERA
The views expressed in these columns are the writers’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indian Horizon or its management.-Editor
8
Indian Horizon, Delhi
Nation
AP govt mulls setting
up aerospace, aviation
hubs in state
Hyderabad, Feb 19 (PTI):
In a bid to attract investments into the aerospace,
defence and aviation sectors, the Andhra Pradesh
Government today said it
is mulling to set up related
industrial hubs in the state.
According to a statement
issued by the state government, Chief Minister N
Chandrababu Naidu today
met CEOs of 11 prominent
companies from the sectors
after the Aero India 2015
show in Bangalore.
The Chief Minister had
one-on-one meetings with
executives from aerospace
companies such as Russia’s
Sukhoi Sikorsky and UTC,
Rafael and Boeing International Corporation India
Pvt Ltd, Raytheon International Inc, Bell Helicopter
India, Honeywell India, GE
Aviation, delegates from
the American Chamber of
Commerce in India (AMCHAM - India) and the USIndia Business Council, the
press statement said.
“He (Naidu) elaborated
the state government’s
plans to establish defence
and aerospace hubs in Chittoor, Anantapur, Kadapa,
Kurnool and Prakasam districts,” it said.
Later, the chief minister
made a powerpoint presentation to 175 CEOs and
industrialists explaining
the opportunities for aviation and defence players in
the state.
The state government
had already reduced the
tax on Aviation Turbine
Fuel from 16 per cent to
one per cent.
“We are also promoting
Greenfield and brownfield
airports and giving full
support to allied sectors
like MRO, cargo, general
aviation and training,” he
added.
Explaining that Andhra
Pradesh will develop cargo
and MRO infrastructure as
a priority, the Chief Minister
said that the state is focusing on developing cargo infrastructure at new airports
and improving connectivity
between ports, airports and
logistics hubs as well.
After his presentation,
many CEOs have expressed
their willingness to partner
with Andhra Pradesh and
are keen to invest in setting
up manufacturing units in
the state, the release said.
AP govt forms Group of
40 academicians to drive
Knowledge Mission
Hyderabad, Feb.19 (NSS):
Turning a new leaf in the state’s
Higher Education chapter, the
government of Andhra Pradesh
has nominated 40 academicians from Universities and
Colleges across India to form
an Executive Group to drive the
state’s “Knowledge Mission.”
The “Knowledge Mission Induction Programme” (Residential Programme) was organized by the Indian School
of Business, Hyderabad from
17th–19th February 2015.
The State Government of
Andhra Pradesh aims to transform the state into a knowledge
state and education hub.
Delivering a key note address, Sumita Dawra, IAS, Secretary for Higher Education de-
partment, said stressed on the
need to improve higher education sector both qualitatively
and quantitatively to match
global standards.
During the programme,
professors from the ISB, Hyderabad, conducted technical sessions on execution of
Knowledge mission. The delegates went through a series of
case studies of well - executed
projects and listed the strategies that led them to their
success.
The participants were given
the dual task of identifying
the ways of strengthening
existing Higher Education institutions and in setting up of
new institutions addressing
global needs.
‘Aqua Aquaria India 2015’ kicks
off in Vijayawada today
Vijayawada, Feb 19 (PTI): The third edition of ‘Aqua Aquaria
India’, the largest aquaculture-cum-aquariculture show in Asia,
is beginning here in Andhra Pradesh from tomorrow.
The three-day event, to be inaugurated by Chief Minister N
Chandrababu Naidu, is going to be the biggest in the series with a
target of 300 plus stalls and 20,000 delegates.
Leena Nair, Chairperson of the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) which is organising the event, told
reporters the conference and exhibition will be attended by at
least 20,000 delegates and 300 institutions will display their products at stalls.
The event involves an exposition of recent developments in
aquaculture and ornamental fish sectors along with technical
sessions focusing on themes relevant for the development of the
sectors. Nair said the technical sessions will be held on recent developments in the aquaculture and particularly on ornamental
fisheries.
This conference will be an ideal platform for farmers, hatchery
operators, feed manufacturers, input suppliers, manufacturers
and suppliers of various aquaculture and aquarium implements,
she said, adding the event is also an ideal platform for scientists
and experts from around the world to update the latest developments in the field.
Friday, February 20, 2015
NIA court convicts
15 persons for fake
currency circulation
Hyderabad, Feb 19 (PTI): A special
NIA court here today convicted 15
persons in a 2012 case of circulation
of huge quantity of counterfeit Indian
currency notes and sentenced them to
rigorous imprisonment ranging from
four to five years.
A total of 25 persons were
chargesheeted and 15 of them were
convicted by the court of the First
Additional Metropolitan Sessions
Judge-cum-NIA special court. Out of
the rest, nine accused were acquitted
while one accused is facing the trial
in a juvenile court.
A total amount of Rs 31,57,200 had
been seized from the accused.
“In view of that huge counterfeit
currency notes are found in possession of accused and are seized at the
instance of accused, only presumption
that could be drawn is that the accused
were in possession of these notes with
an intention of using them as genuine,”
Judge G Lakshmipati observed in his
orders.
NIA had busted the pan-India network of fake currency notes (FICN)
racketeers in 2012 in which Morjen
Hossain of Malda district in West Bengal and Mohd Hussain of Uttar Pradesh,
Bablu Sheikh of Jharkhand and Mohd
Rakib Shaik of Medak district in Telangana and others were involved.
The counterfeit notes were in the denomination of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 and
were circulated through a huge network of persons working as construction labourers and by others under
various disguises in Delhi, West Bengal,
UP, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana, NIA said.
The court convicted Morjen Hossain
along with Mohd Rakib, Rizavul Haque,
Manik Shaik, Bablu Sheikh, Mohsin
Sheikh and Imran Khan under section
489 B (using as genuine forged or counterfeit currency-notes or bank-notes)
of IPC and sentenced them to rigorous
imprisonment of 5 years.
MIDAS announces PG
program on Smart City
Chennai /Hyderabad, Feb.19
(NSS): MARG Institute of Design and Architecture, Swarnabhoomi (MIDAS), a leading
architecture college in Chennai
today announced the launch of
a Post Graduation (Diploma)
program in Habitat Planning &
Management, a first of its kind
courses in India. This one year
program is a specialization
in Smart Cities with a focus
on sustainable development
through transformation of architecture.
Aligning with the Union government’s initiative to develop
100 smart cities in India, the
program has been meticulously designed to cover various dimensions such as energy,
infrastructure, aesthetics, open
spaces, environment, education, healthcare and aspects
of happiness and well-being
of the citizens in a sustainable
manner. The course will also
focus on educating the stu-
dents on how to bring these
aspects together, and integrate
them into actual town planning
which is needed for building
the 21st century smart habitations.
GRK Reddy, founder and
promoter of Swarnabhoomi
Academic Institutions said,
“India is currently in the significant transformation with new
policy and initiatives. Smart
cities concept will play a key
role by bringing in sustainable
solutions. Smart cities drive,
which is going to play to key
role in this transformation, is in
need of skilled talents and this
motivated us to introduce this
course which will help architects to betterment their skills
on smart cities and contribute
right from the beginning.”
Rangapriya Goutham, Head,
Educational Services, Swarnabhoomi Academic Institutions, said, “We are delighted
to introduce this unique course
Japan’s Mayewaka
Manufacturing to support AP
in food processing sector
Hyderabad, Feb 19 (INN): Japan’s Mayewaka
Manufacturing Company executives met Chief
Minister N Chandrababu Naidu at his residence on
Thursday and discussed the areas of collaboration
between the state government and the company.
Following Chief Minister’s visit to Japan last November, Mayewaka Manufacturing chairman Yoshiro Tanaka informed the Chief Minister about his
visit to Srini Food Park in Chittoor district.
Tanaka explained that the company can support
the state in bringing about technological improvements in the food processing sector of the state. He
added that Mayewaka will seek Official Development Assistance (ODA) with Japanese government
agencies such as METI, MAFF, JBIC, JETRO & JICA.
Tanaka said that the company is looking to
for the first time in India. What
makes us feel happier is our institute being located at Swarnabhoomi, which offers unparallel practical exposure to the
students. With strong faculty
on board, I am confident that
MIDAS will provide a greater
learning for the students and
produce industry ready talent
to support the smart city initiative”. The curriculum for the
course has been designed after
an extensive research with the
help of Mr. Srijan Pal Singh, Adivsor and the course will commence from July 2015.
MIDAS is also hosting a two
day exhibition at School of Architecture and Planning, Anna
University. The exhibition will
display the works of MIDAS
students and painting panels
of 57th NASA Convention delegates on the theme of transformation based on smart cities
concept. The exhibition is open
to public from February 21.
bring investments worth $8-9 billion to the state.
He informed the Chief Minister that Mayekawa
has already tied up with 24 potential companies,
who are the customers of their technology in Japan and they want to bring them to invest in AP
to construct a Mega Food Park.
While Special Chief Secretary (Planning) S.P.
Tucker explained the opportunities for investments in the state, the Chief Minister asked
Mr. Tanaka to identify a potential site near
Krishnapatnam port for exports and enquired
about the major food imports that are required
by Japan.
Mayekawa chairman told officials that India’s
share of food exports to Japan is less and added
that Japan has high demand for margarine oil,
butter, chicken, tuna fish and shrimps. He also
informed that Japan has greater demand for
chicken (which they import from Brazil) than the
current supply.
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Red bull aircrafts
collided with
each other while
performing
during the 2nd
day of the AERO
India 2015 at
Yelahanka
Air base on
Thursday. (PTI
Photo)
Couple attacked by youths
Rajahmundry, Feb 19 (PTI): Three unidentified
youth here attacked a couple while they were returning home, hurling beer bottles at them, police
said today.
R Suresh and Jaysree, who live in Gollaprollu
mandal of the district, got married four-days back
and were returning home last night when three
youths in an inebriated state chased them on a motorcycle and attacked them with empty beer bottles,
an official at Pithapuram police said.
Jayasree received injuries on head, neck, while the
miscreants beat up Suresh and also robbed gold ornaments and other valuables from them, they said.
The passers-by who saw the couple laying on the
road took them to Pithapuram government hospital
and informed the police.
Police arriving at the spot and later shifted the
couple to government general hospital in Kakinada.
Pithapuram police have registered a case and further probe was on.
SCR to Run Two Special
Trains between Secunderabad –
Visakhapatnam via Nalgonda
Hyderabad, Feb.19 (NSS): In order to clear extra rush of passengers, South Central Railway will
run two special trains between Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam .
Train No. 02728 Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam
Special Train will depart Secunderabad at 09:40
pm on February 21, 2015 (Saturday) and arrive Visakhapatnam at 10:25 am on the next day. In the
return direction, Train No.02727 VisakhapatnamSecunderabad Special Train will depart Visakhapatnam at 04:45 pm on February 22 (Sunday) and arrive
Secunderabad at 05:30 am on the next day. Enroute,
these special trains will stop at Nalgonda, Miryalaguda, Nadikude, Piduguralla, Sattenapalli, Guntur,
Vijayawada, Eluru, Tadepalligudem, Rajahmundry,
Samalkot, Annavaram, Tuni, Anakapalli and Duvvada stations in both the directions.
AP urges SCR to take up doubling of rail lines
Hyderabad, Feb.19 (NSS): The AP Chief Secretary
has requested the South Central Railways to put on
priority doubling of the Railway Line between Guntur and Guntakal in the existing Railway projects.
Chief Secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao reviewed the
existing Railway Projects in Andhra Pradesh with
the Chief Administrative Officer, Construction,
South Central Railways, today. He discussed about
Kadapa-Pendlimari, Kotipalli-Narsapuram, Kakinada-Pithapuram, Nadikudi-Srikalahasthi, GootyDharmavaram railway projects. For doubling of
Railway line between Vijayawada and Gudivada,
Machilipatnam, Bhimavaram, Narasapuram, Nidadavolu, Guntur, Tenali.
The SCR officials said the survey was completed
for doubling the Railway line between Guntur and
Guntakal. The Chief Secretary asked Principal Secretary TR&B to write to the Railway Board Chairman
for taking up the projects on priority. SCR Construction CAO Boolchandani, CE Vijay Kitike, senior officials of AP Anil Punetha, B. Sam Bob, Ajeya Kallam,
J.C. Sharma and others attended the meeting.
Jindal officials met CM ; Seeks
to set up steel co at Khammam
Hyderabad, Feb.19 (NSS): Appreciating new industrial policy of Telangana state as the most favorable, noted business company Jindal Group officials
today expressed interest to invest in Telangana State
if the government extends a helping hand. Jindal officials Niraj Kumar, Manish Kumar and Rajiv Singh
called on Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao here
at Secretariat and offered to distribute pipes for its
prestigious Water Grid project. They also revealed
that the company is ready to set up steel factory at
Khammam and a new pipe production unit in the
state besides participating in Telangana development. KCR while informing the team about various
projects stated that they will offer steel factory project to Jindal company if the Steel Authority of India
Limited could not install the same. The chief minister while expressing pleasure said that the state has
ample space for new industries and the government
will encourage them in a big with all facilities. The
government, he said, will look into Jindal proposals
for water grid project besides inviting applications
from other noted companies when they launch new
industrial policy.
Congress to protest over students’ problems
Hyderabad, Feb.19 (NSS): Telangana Pradesh
Congress Committee has demanded that the State
government release notifications for filling vacant
posts and funds for fee reimbursement.
TPCC president Ponnala Laxmaiah on Thursday
held a meeting with the JAC that was constituted to
solve problems of students and unemployed youth in
the State in Gandhi Bhavan. Former MP Ponnam Prabhakar, Youth Congres president and MLA Vamsichand
Reddy, MLA Sampath Kumar, NSUI president Avinash
Goud and others participated. Ponnala exhorted students and unemployed youth to stage protests in order
to bring pressure on the State government.
9
Two Cyclones Roar
Towards Australia
SYDNEY Feb 19 (AFP): Two cyclones were roaring towards
Australia on Thursday with residents scrambling for shelter as
one of the tempests rapidly picked up intensity, with warnings
of “a very destructive core”.
Tropical Cyclone Lam, a category three storm, was tracking
towards the sparsely populated Northern Territory Aboriginal
communities of Milingimbi and Gapuwiyak, with landfall expected early Friday morning.
Of more concern was Tropical Cyclone Marcia further
south, which was reclassified from a category two to four
within hours and a warning that it could strengthen to five
by the time it comes ashore in heavily populated southeast
Queensland.
Female terror suspect arrested
in London airport
London, Feb 19 (IANS) A woman travelling with her oneyear-old son has been arrested in London’s Heathrow Airport
on suspicion of terrorism offences, a media report said Thursday.
Tareena Shakil, 25, was held on suspicion of terrorist offences connected with a trip to Syria, Mirror.co.uk reported.
She had reportedly travelled to the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa
in northern Syria from where she was said to have later made
a dramatic escape to Turkey having refused to enter into a
forced marriage.Her father Mohammed, 47, mother Mandy,
48, and brother and sister went to the airport in the hope that
they would be able to meet her after she was deported by
Turkey.“I’m delighted to have her back on British soil where
she belongs. Tareena realises she made a huge mistake and
has vowed to help stop others repeating it once she is free,”
Mohammed said.She apparently left the family home in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, last October claiming that she
was taking her son Zaheem on a holiday to Spain.
Eight labourers die of
electrocution in Pakistan
Islamabad, Feb 19 (IANS) At least eight labourers died and
one was injured after they came in contact with a live electric
wire while working on a tubewell in Pakistan’s Punjab province Thursday, media reported.
Nine labourers were engaged in the construction of a tubewell in Muzaffargarh district when a pipe, used for boring
wells, came in contact with a power transmission line, Dawn
online reported.Seven construction workers died of electrocution on the spot while one of the injured labourers succumbed while being shifted to a hospital for treatment.
Woman arrested for locking up
daughters `for years`: Swedish police
Stockholm Feb 19 (AFP): Swedish police arrested a woman
on Thursday on suspcicion of keeping her daughters confined
to an apartment amid media reports that they were locked
away for a decade.
Police suspected the 59-year-old woman had “restricted
her children`s freedom... for quite a few years,” spokeswoman
Ewa-Gun Westford told AFP.
According to tabloid Expressen, one of the now adult children managed to briefly leave the apartment and convince a
neighbour to call the police, saying that they had been locked
up for over a decade.“The blinds were always pulled down
there and we haven`t heard any noise from the apartment,” a
neighbour told the paper.
Soft drink consumers at a
higher risk of cancer
New York, Feb 19 (IANS) People who consume one or more
cans of cold drinks per day are exposing themselves to a potential carcinogen, warns a new study.
The ingredient, 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI) - a possible human carcinogen - is formed during the manufacture of some
kinds of caramel colour. Caramel colour is a common ingredient in colas and other dark soft drinks.“Soft drink consumers
are being exposed to an avoidable and unnecessary cancer
risk from an ingredient that is being added to these beverages
simply for aesthetic purposes,” said Keeve Nachman, senior
author of the study.
KIEV Feb 19 (AFP): A plea from
Ukraine for international peacekeepers to enforce a shattered ceasefire in
the east ran into strident opposition
today from pro-Russian rebels and
Moscow.
They argued the appeal, made
late on Wednesday by Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko, sought
to “destroy” the UN-backed truce
agreed under European mediation
last week in the Belarus capital Minsk.
But four days after coming into effect,
that truce was already in tatters.
This week, the rebels ignored it to
storm a strategic town they had surrounded, Debaltseve, forcing thousands of government troops there to
flee. Kiev, the EU, US, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) tasked with monitoring the truce all said the rebel assault on Debaltseve was a violation
of the ceasefire meant to apply to the
whole conflict zone. Ukraine and the
West accuse Russia of cynically manipulating diplomacy while covertly
deploying soldiers and military backing to the pro-Moscow separatists.
The Kremlin denies the allegation.
Poroshenko late on Wednesday
won approval from Ukraine’s national
security and defence council to invite
UN-mandated peacekeepers into the
country to monitor the frontline. “We
see the best format would be a police
mission from the European Union,”
he said. The decision has yet to be approved by Ukraine’s parliament.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly
Churkin, quickly responded by saying Poroshenko’s move “raises suspicions that he wants to destroy the
Minsk accords”.
The co-leader of the rebel’s selfstyled Donetsk republic, Denis
Pushilin, flatly told the Interfax news
agency that the appeal “is a violation... of the Minsk agreements”. He
said Ukraine’s two rebel breakaway
territories would write a letter to Russia, France and Germany to make
Kiev abide by the terms of the faltering peace deal.
Washington, Feb 19 (PTI)
President Barack Obama
has said that America is “not
at war with Islam” but with
people who have perverted
the religion, asserting that
terror groups like ISIS and alQaeda do not speak for a billion Muslims who reject their
extremist ideology.“We are
not at war with Islam. We are
at war with people who have
perverted Islam,” Obama said
at a White House Summit on
Countering Violent Extremism.
Obama asked Western
and Muslim leaders to unite
to defeat the “false promises
of extremism” and reject the
notion that “terrorist” groups
represent Islam, as he called
for a focus on preventing
“terrorists” from recruiting
others.“Al Qaeda and ISIL
(ISIL) and groups like it are
desperate for legitimacy.
Afghan Taliban to meet US officials
for talks in Qatar: sources
Kandahar, Afghanistan Feb 19
(AFP): Taliban representatives
are to meet US officials in Qatar soon for possible peace talks
on Afghanistan, sources from
the militant group told AFP on
Thursday. There have been several fruitless attempts at dialogue
in recent years between the Taliban and the United States, the
Kabul government’s chief supporter, aimed at ending the 13year conflict in Afghanistan.
The timeframe for the latest
round of meetings was not immediately clear, with one source
suggesting it could begin as early
as Thursday and another that it
would more likely be in the coming week.
The Taliban opened an office
in Qatar in June 2013 as the first
move towards a possible peace
deal, but it shut a month later
after enraging the then-Afghan
president Hamid Karzai by styling it as the unofficial embassy
for a government-in-exile.
The election last year of President Ashraf Ghani, who pledged
to make peace talks a priority, as
well as supportive signals from
Pakistan, which has influence
over the Taliban, has boosted
hopes for possible dialogue.“Five
former members of the supreme
council of the Afghan Taliban,
headed by Tayyab Agha, will
hold talks with the US,” a senior
Taliban cadre based in Pakistan
told AFP.A senior member of the
Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s governing council, confirmed the
news, saying Karzai’s departure
as president had helped clear the
way.
“This time the Taliban will
speak to Americans face to face
in Qatar, this is what Karzai was
afraid of, he did not want Ameri-
Greece requests Eurogroup to
extend bailout for 6 months
Brussels, Feb 19 (IANS/
EFE) Jeroen Dijsselbloem,
chairman of the Eurogroup
finance ministers, confirmed
Thursday that he has received
Greece’s request to extend
the existing bailout agreement for another six months.
“Received Greek request
for six months extension,”
Dijsselbloem posted on his
official Twitter account but
did not provide further information on the terms set out
in the request by the government of Greek Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras.The deadline
for repayment of the Euro-
Fears grow in Denmark of jails as
radicalist breeding grounds
said a taxi driver from the
housing estate where ElHussein lived and played as
a child.
Copenhagen`s longstanding problem with criminal
gangs means the authorities are now concerned that
El-Hussein`s journey from
joining a gang in the immigrant community where he
grew up, via prison into extremism could mirror a wider trend.Having been sentenced to two years in prison
for a stabbing, he displayed
a newfound interest in religion after being released just
Friday, February 20, 2015
Russia, rebels attack Ukraine’s America ‘’not at war with
Islam’’, says Obama
call for peacekeepers
WORLD SNIPPETS
Copenhagen
Feb
19
(AFP): Something happened
in prison to Omar El-Hussein, the 22-year-old identified
by police as the gunman
who killed two people in
a weekend shooting spree
in Copenhagen. His transformation from small-time
criminal to cold-blooded
killer is fuelling a debate
about whether a radicalised
environment in Danish prisons is pushing smalltime
gangsters into the arms of
Islamic extremism.“He was
crazy. When he came out of
prison he was totally nuts,”
Indian Horizon Delhi
International
a fortnight before the attacks
that targeted a synagogue
and a cultural centre hosting
a debate on free speech and
Islam.
“The things he talked
about completely flew over
the boys` heads,” a source
who knew him since his
childhood days on the inner
city Mjoelnerparken estate
told the Berlingske newspaper.Emerging from jail, he
was no longer talking about
“cars and girls”, the paper
quoted sources as saying,
but about “ending up in
paradise”.
pean portion of the bailout
funds that Greek banks received in 2012 is set to expire
at midnight Feb 28.
That deadline would be extended from March 1 through
the end of August, if Greece
and its European creditors
agree on terms in the extension request, which were not
immediately disclosed.
The Euro Working Group,
comprising the deputy heads
of the Eurozone economy
and finance ministries was
scheduled to meet Thursday to evaluate the request,
sources said.An extraordi-
Bangladesh court issues death
warrant against Jamaat leader
cans to represent the Afghan government,” the commander told
AFP.An Afghan Taliban commander recently told AFP the
militants thought Ghani was doing a “good job” in moving matters towards negotiations.
The Quetta Shura member
stressed that the preliminary
contacts announced Thursday
did not mean the top Taliban
leadership and its chief Mullah
Omar had fully agreed to peace
talks yet. Agha, Omar’s former
private secretary, is the head of
a political branch of the Taliban
that has been open to talks for
several years.
But his is only one part of
the Taliban’s supreme council,
which makes strategic decisions
for the movement and has previously said it was against talks
with the Americans as long as US
soldiers remained on Afghan soil.
nary Eurogroup meeting in
Brussels will be held Friday.
Legally, Athens is also required to request the extension of “credit agreement”,
a document known as the
Framework Agreement on
Financial Assistance Mechanism, establishing the terms
of the loans it received from
the Eurozone temporary rescue fund.
According to sources, the
Greek government has requested the extension of the
assistance programme.This
document stipulates that the
member state receiving aid
must comply with the measures set out in the memorandum of understanding
linked to the loan.
They try to portray themselves as religious leaders,
holy warriors in defense of
Islam,” he said.
“That’s why ISIL presumes
to declare itself the Islamic
State and they propagate the
notion that America, and
the West generally, is at war
with Islam. That’s how they
recruit.That’s how they try to
radicalise young people,” he
added.
“We must never accept the
premise that they put forward, because it is a lie, nor
should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy
that they seek. They are not
religious leaders; they’re terrorists,” Obama said during
the second day of the three
day conference, which is being attended by leaders from
more than 60 countries, including India.He said those
outside Muslim communi-
Dhaka, Feb 19 (IANS) Bangladesh’s International Crimes
Tribunal has issued a death
warrant against Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mohammad Kamaruzzaman for crimes against
humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, media reported
Thursday.
The warrant, wrapped in red
cloth, was sent to the jail Thursday afternoon, bdnews24.
com reported.The process to
Myanmar
National
Democratic Alliance
Army (MNDAA).
At least 50 government soldiers and 27
rebels have been killed,
according to state media.The fighting has
forced tens of thousands of people from
their homes, and about
30,000 of them have
fled into China.China
has called for peace
and said it supported
efforts to resolve the
conflict so refugees
could go home.The
foreign ministers of
execute the Jamaat leader will
start after the prison officers
read out the warrant to Kamaruzzaman.
The warrant will also be sent
to the home ministry and district magistrate.
Jamaat assistant secretarygeneral Kamaruzzaman can
file a review petition within 15
days from Wednesday.
The full verdict was published Wednesday.
Thai prosecutors press criminal
charges against ex-PM
BANGKOK, Feb 19 (PTI):
Thailand’s attorney general has
pressed criminal charges against
former Prime Minister Yingluck
Shinawatra for negligence related
to her government’s money-losing rice subsidy scheme.
The prosecutors’ office on
Thursday submitted 20 boxes of
the case’s documents to the Supreme Court’s criminal division
for politicians.
They accused Ms. Yingluck of
dereliction in overseeing a rice
subsidy scheme that lost billions
of dollars and temporarily cost
Thailand its crown as the world’s
top rice exporter.
Britain’s Prince Charles, centre right, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
pose with lion dancers, during an official visit to Chinatown to mark Chinese New Year, in Chinatown, in London, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015. AP/PTI
Myanmar urges China prevent rebel
attacks from across their border
Yangon Feb 19
(AFP): China should
cooperate with Myanmar to prevent “terrorist attacks” being
launched from Chinese territory, a Myanmar official said on
Thursday after 10 days
of fighting between
the Myanmar military
and insurgents. Fighting broke out on Feb.
9 between the army
and a rebel force in
the Kokang region
of northeast Myanmar, on the border
with China, called the
ties need to reject the terrorist
narrative that the West and Islam are in conflict or modern
life and Islam are in conflict.
“I also believe that Muslim
communities have a responsibility as well.Al Qaeda and
ISIL do draw selectively from
the Islamic texts.”
“They do depend upon the
misperception around the
world that they speak in some
fashion for people of the Muslim faith, that Islam is somehow inherently violent, that
there is some sort of clash of
civilizations,” Obama said.
“The terrorists do not
speak for a billion Muslims,”
he told delegates in the wake
of a string of brutal attacks
in Europe and the Middle
East.“They no more represent
Islam than any madman who
kills innocents in the name
of God, represents Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism
or Hinduism. No religious
is responsible for terrorism;
people are responsible for
violence and terrorism,” the
US president asserted.
both countries met on
Tuesday to discuss the
crisis, Hmuu Zaw, an
official from the office
of Myanmar President
Thein Sein, said in a
Facebook post.
“It is necessary to
cooperate ... on the
understanding
that
terrorist attacks on
Myanmar are not allowed from Chinese
territory,”
Hmuu
Zaw said.Officials at
China`s embassy in
Myanmar were not
available for comment.
The MNDAA emerged
from the remnants of
the Communist Party
of Burma, a powerful
Chinese-backed guerrilla force that battled
the Myanmar government before splintering in 1989.Led by
ethnic Chinese commander Pen Jiasheng,
the MNDAA struck a
truce with the government which lasted
until 2009, when government troops took
over their region in a
conflict that pushed
tens of thousands of
refugees into China.
Bangladesh government
forms special tribunal for
troublemakers
Dhaka, Feb 19 (IANS) Bangladesh government
is mulling the formation of a special tribunal to
try those fomenting trouble during the current
blockade and shutdowns enforced by the BNP.
Law Minister Anisul Huq Thursday spoke about
the proposed formation of an Anti-terrorism
Special Tribunal. Sessions judges would try
such criminals until the tribunal was formed,
bdnews24.com reported.
“We have sent letters to the sessions judges so
that an additional sessions judge can give priority
to trying such cases,” he said.Earlier this month,
chief of the Standing Committee on Law, Justice
and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry Suranjit Sengupta said the government was thinking about
passing a law with death sentence for violence
during blockade and shutdowns.
10
Business
Indian Horizon Delhi
Friday, February 20, 2015
Govt being criticised for being
too fast: Arun Jaitley
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): Virtually
rebutting criticism by leading banker
Deepak Parekh, Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley Thursday said the government is being criticised for rather
being “too fast”. While Jaitley parried a question on Parekh’s criticism
yesterday that impatience has begun
creeping in among businessmen as
nothing has changed on ground in
the first nine months of the Narendra Modi government, Commerce
Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: “I
think the Finance Minister has spoken in a way about it.”
Launching the e-biz portal of the
government, Jaitley said: “We have
to actually see what are the various
steps that we have taken and the
community of investors both within
and outside the country watch us.
“In the first instance, what is the
credibility of this government. What
is the decisiveness of our decision
making process? What is the process by which government treats
business? And it’s an irony that after
having seen lethargic governments,
you today have a government which
is criticised for being too fast.” He
made no direct reference to Parekh’s
comments but said that government
has chose the ordinance route to
expedite legislative changes to promote businesses. “Why you bring
ordinances, you should wait till the
cows come home and everybody
can be settled and decisions can be
taken. So in fact one great criticism
which has come is you should have
waited and not acted fast,” he said.
Separately Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal also dismissed the
industrialist’s criticism saying share
prices of Parekh’s own group companies HDFC and HDFC Bank have
gone up and the stock market only
reflects improvement in economy.
He further said he doesn’t know if
the banker had any personal reason
for making such comments.
The Finance Minister himself criticised the way things were being run
during the previous UPA regime.
“There are lots of self goals over the
last few years that have been scored.
In a country where you are not certain whether you will get land to set up
business, you are not certain as to the
stability and predictability of taxation
is going to be, and I think we scored
too many self goals in the past. “India
cannot be divided into two different
schools of thought. There is a stance
for the businesses, there is a stance
for the poor people,” Jaitley said. The
Minister, who is scheduled to present
the budget on February 28, promised
to make it easier to do business, expedite environmental clearances for
projects and encourage domestic as
well as overseas investments. He said
the best way to deal with the problem
of poverty is encouraging business
and industry as they bring in higher
revenues and increase the ability of
the government to deal with the problems. At a time when the competing economies are facing challenges,
Jaitley said, “the history has provided
us with a rare opportunity where the
world is looking at us with investment
and the present government is deter-
EPFO to raise pension
age Thursday, appoint
fund managers
New Delhi Feb 18 : Retirement fund
body EPFO is likely to appoint fund
managers Thursday for a three year term
from April 1 and raise age limit for vesting of pension by two years to 60. Both
the proposals will be taken up for discussion and approval by the Employees’
Provident Fund Organisation’s apex decision making body - Central Board of
Trustees (CBT) - as per the agenda listed
for the meet. Asset management firms
ICICI Securities Primary Dealership, Reliance Capital AMC and HSBC AMC have
emerged as top bidders for managing
huge corpus of the EPFO.
However, as many as six firms have
qualified in technical as well as financial
bids for managing EPFO funds. Though
SBI had also submitted its bid, the CBT
has already nominated it as fund manager for another term and will approve
its appointment at the meeting tomorrow. As per the agenda listed for the CBT
meet, ICICI Securities Primary Dealership has been ranked as top bidder on the
basis of technical and financial parameters followed by Reliance Capital AMC
and HSBC AMC. The other shortlisted
bidders are UTI AMC followed by ICICI
Prudential and Birla Sun Life AMC. EPFO
manages a corpus of Rs 6.5 lakh crore.
The funds are being managed by SBI,
HSBC AMC, Reliance Capital AMC and
ICICI Securities PD. The term of these
fund managers ends on March 31, 2015.
EPFO has a subscriber base of over five
crore and receives over Rs 70,000 crore as
incremental deposits every year. During
the current financial year, EPFO’s incremental deposits are estimated to be Rs
79,000 crore. CBT, headed by the Labour
Minister, will also consider a proposal
to raise age limit from 58 to 60 years for
vesting of pension under the Employees’
Pension Scheme (EPS-95).
At present, a formal sector worker covered under the EPS-95 can make contributions towards pension scheme till the
age of 58 years and can claim pension
after that. Raising the age limit would
reduce the deficit in pension fund and
would increase the pension benefits of
members as there would be two additional years of service, as per the agenda
listed for the meeting. As per a report of
valuer on EPS-95, increasing age limit
would reduce shortfall in pension fund
by Rs 27,067 crore. It is also proposed by
to increase the short service pension entitlement age from 50 years to 55 years.
This measure would reduce the shortfall
in pension fund to the extent of Rs 12,028
crore. At present, members can ask for
fixing pension at he age of 50 years provided they have served for at least 10
years. It is also proposed that the pensionable salary should be determined on
the basis of 36 months average wages immediately preceding the date of exit from
the scheme in place of existing.
mined, having eased many processes,
to go on that path. “The starting point
of growth of Indian economy, the
starting point of job creation is going
to be investment into the country -investment both from within and investments which is in an additionality
of resource coming from outside.” The
Minister was also critical of the “ultra
aggressive” tax policy of the UPA government saying that it had driven away
the global investors and also promoted
the domestic industry to look for investment opportunities elsewhere. On
environmental clearances, Jaitley said
“our government took a decision that
environmental permissions where
they have to be given while balancing
it with ecological consideration.
Goyal projects
Rs 15 lakh crore
bonanza to states
from coal
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): The allocation of coal blocks,
including through the ongoing auction, will fetch a whopping Rs 15 lakh crore over the next 30 years, for the respective states, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said Thursday.
He further said that bidding for coal mines would also ensure adequate fuel supply to end-use plants. “The important thing is that post these auctions (of coal block) there
will be three to four very important changes...Overall the
entire economy will get a push with adequate fuel reaching these end-use plants,” Goyal told reporters here. Post
auctions, he said, the country would also see the power
costs coming down because the benefit of the auction will
have to be passed on to the consumers.
The Eastern part of the country, particularly Odisha,
Jharkhand, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh will get significant amount of revenues from the auction of the mines
which would help them to develop faster. “At the end of
the fifth day (of the auction of blocks), we are looking at
about Rs 60,000 crores in the next 30 years accruing to the
state governments,” Goyal said. The Minister further said
that the mines on auction are very small and producing
blocks as a result the “pricing was a little more aggressive.” “...So, we will have to look at a more sustainable
valuation once the process of of schedule III mines (ready
to produce) is also underway,” he added.
“But it certainly gives me confidence that we are not
looking at anything less than... (Rs) 15 lakh crore coming
out of these 204 coal blocks as they start producing over
the next 30 years,” he said. The government has put on
offer 19 coal blocks in the first lot for auction. Of these, a
total of 15 blocks have been sold so far. The government
is auctioning the coal blocks after the Supreme Court cancelled allocation of 204 mines in September last year.
Coal block auctions in India see
aggressive bidding
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): Indian
metal and cement companies have
bid aggressively for coal blocks in the
country`s first auctions to sell mines
as they look to cut imports and their
dependence on inefficient government monopoly Coal India Ltd. The
auction follows a court cancellation of all previous licences and the
initial bidding suggests companies
are keen to secure supplies as the
economy improves. The companies
are allowed to bid for enough coal to
fuel a 50 percent expansion of their
current metal or cement capacity.
The stiff competition may strain
the balance sheets of the winners, including aluminium makers
Hindalco Industries and BALCO,
Jaiprakash Associates, Sunflag Iron
and Steel, OCL Iron & Steel, Reliance
Cement and Essar Power.
Most of the winning bids so far
have been higher than analysts` expectations based on the benchmark
price of state-run Coal India. OCL,
for example, would pay 2,302 rupees
($37) per tonne, 50 percent more
than Coal India`s average price for
the grade available in the mine OCL
has won. The companies have declined to comment on the auctions
until the whole process is complete,
which should be March 5.
Though world coal prices have
fallen about 30 percent over the
past year, a tonne of imported steelmaking coal costs about $120 in Indian ports while the thermal variety
comes for $70. “We should not read
too much into the current prices
companies are bidding as we are
looking at the next 30 years,” said
Dipesh Dipu, a partner with Jenissi
Management Consultants. “With
their own mines, companies will
have control over costs, while for imports you can forecast just for a year.
Also, given the growth in the economy, Coal India is unlikely to be able
to meet demand.” India is on track
to overtake the United States as the
second-largest coal consumer after
At $8.7 bn, brand TCS
grows fastest among
global IT firms
China this decade, but Coal India
has failed to ramp up supply in line
with demand. Coal India`s prices
are set according to cost rather than
based on supply and demand in the
market and its costs are high at 1,118
rupees per tonne, more than half of
which comes from employee and
social costs.
Mumbai Feb 19 (PTI): The brand
value of the country’s largest software exporter TCS grew to USD
8.7 billion in 2015, clipping at a
growth of 271 per cent from USD
2.3 billion in 2010, making it the
fastest growing software brand in
the world over the past five years.
With this, the Tata Group flagship
retains the IT industry’s highest
brand strength rating of AA+, and
cements position as one of the top
global brands in the industry, TCS
said in a statement, quoting Brand
Finance, issued from London and
Mumbai. “During the past five
year period 2010-15, TCS emerged
as the clear growth leader in the
industry, increasing its brand value from USD 2.3 billion to USD 8.7
billion, while retaining the industry’s highest brand strength rating
of ‘AA+,” the statement quoted
Brand Finance, which is a world’s
leading brand valuation firm, as
saying on Thursday.
TCS was also recognised as one
of the top four global brands in IT
services space for the fourth year
in a row, cementing its position in
the highest league of the industry,
the company added. To arrive at
the brand value, Brand Finance
assesses the dollar value of the
reputation, image and intellectual property of the world’s leading companies. Commenting on
the development, Brand Finance
chief executive David Haigh said,
“New-age brands are seeing immense growth in valuations. One
example is Twitter, which was
the fastest growing brand in 2015
across all sectors, tripling its brand
value to USD4.4 billion.”
“Another brand we are tracking
with great interest is TCS, which
has had an impressive performance over the past five years
with a growth of 271 per cent, taking its brand value to USD 8.7 billion,” Haigh said. Crediting TCS’
customer focus and bid to become
a trusted business partner over
the long term as the reasons for
its achievement, Haigh said these
qualities have held the brand in
good stead. “Not only has TCS become one of the strongest brands
in its sector. , it has also seen the
largest increase in brand value
over the past five years.
OECD pins high hopes
on GST; recommends
flexible labour laws
Ahmedabad Feb 19 (PTI): Economists at the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) Thursday called for reforms
in tax regimes and labour laws to
give a fillip to the manufacturing sector and the overall Indian economy.
Making a presentation on ‘Third
OECD Survey of India’ at the Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, OECD Chief Economist Catherine L Mann listed out several macroeconomic challenges faced by India,
revealed during its recent survey.
“Our survey revealed that public
deficit and debt are still very high. India’s debt-to-GDP ratio is higher than
other emerging economies like Brazil, Mexico and China. Spending on
health sector is also lower than other
countries. Only 10 per cent of subsidies reach the poor,” she said.
“In comparison to other emerging economies, corporate tax is high,
but it yields low revenue. Thus, it has
not proved to be a productive tax
structure. I believe that the proposed
Goods and Service Tax (GST) structure can solve this problem,” she said.
She was accompanied by senior
economist and Head of OECD India
Desk Isabelle Joumard. In her presentation on Indian manufacturing sector, Joumard too stressed on reforms
in the tax regime. Findings of the survey presented by her said that there
is a lot to be done to improve India’s
manufacturing sector. “Contribution
of manufacturing sector to India’s
GDP growth is low. It comes after
services and non-manufacturing industry. Our survey reveals that manufacturing sector has contributed little
towards job creation. We also found
that Indian firms tend to stay small. A
very large number of firms have less
than ten employees,” Joumard said.
“The survey pointed out that taxes
on large firms are high. India also
has relatively stringent labour regulations compared to other emerging
economies, which promote informal
employment,” she said. To overcome
these challenges, Joumard listed
various suggestions, including implementation of the GST. “India needs
to implement GST at the earliest and
streamline special tax regimes. One of
our key recommendation is that India
should reduce barriers to formal.
CCI clears SpiceJet’s
proposed deal
with Ajay Singh
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): In a sign of
relief for the troubled airline, the Competition Commission of India (CCI)
Thursday approved SpiceJet’s proposal
deal with Ajay Singh, its original owner.
With the approval, the deal will now
see a new ownership in Ajay Singh as
well as a new infusion of funds into
the airline. The proposed deal had
been cleared by the Civil Aviation
Ministry earlier but was awaiting certain clearances, including from the
Competition Commission. Under
the revival plan, the carrier’s original
promoter Ajay Singh would acquire
majority stake and control in the airline. Besides, outgoing promoters,
Maran family, would put in funds.
The SpiceJet board, in late January,
had approved transfer of Maran family’s entire 58.46 percent existing stake
to Singh, while the company would
raise Rs 1,500 crore through issuance
of fresh securities. Besides, Marans
would also infuse Rs 375 crore into the
budget carrier in lieu of ‘non convertible preference shares’ to be alloted
to them despite they offloading their
entire existing equity stake in favour
of Singh and resigning from the board
of the airline. SpiceJet’s net loss widened to Rs 275 crore in three months
ended December 2014, mainly on account of lower passenger numbers
and a one-time cost of Rs 295 crore.
In a sign of relief for the troubled airline, the Competition Commission of
India (CCI) Thursday approved SpiceJet’s proposal deal with Ajay Singh, its
original owner.
With the approval, the deal will now
see a new ownership in Ajay Singh as
well as a new infusion of funds into
the airline. The airline was forced to
ground flights for some days during
the December quarter after its vendors
refused to offer credit. This resulted in
the airline seeing a 31 percent decline
in capacity, while revenue fell 27 percent to Rs 1,300 crore.
11
Business
Commodity takes
Gold, silver
rebound on
marriage season
demand
lar fashion, silver ready moved up by
Rs 200 to Rs 37,400 per kg and weeklybased delivery by Rs 225 to Rs 36,825
per kg. On the other hand, silver coins
traded at last level of Rs 60,000 for
buying and Rs 61,000 for selling of 100
pieces. Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank
New Delhi, Feb 19 (PTI) Gold prices on Wednesday lifted the ban on imrecovered by Rs 95 to Rs 27,285 per 10 ports of gold coins and medallions by
grams at the bullion market on Thurs- banks and trading houses.
day on emergence of buying by jewellers to meet wedding season demand
amid a firm global trend. Silver followed suit and rebounded by Rs 200
to Rs 37,400 per kg on increased offtake by industrial units and coin makers. Bullion traders said apart from
Mumbai, Feb 19 (PTI) Refined palfresh buying by jewellers, a firming molein eased in an otherwise listless
global trend mainly supported the up- Vashi oils and oilseeds wholesale
side in the precious metals. Globally, market on reduced demand from
gold in Singapore rose 0.4 per cent to retailers. Meanwhile, groundnut oil,
USD 1,217.78 an ounce after minutes linseed oil, castorseeds bold and casfrom the Federal Reserve’s January tor oil commercial maintained a stameeting signalled many officials were ble trend in the absence of any largeinclined to keep interest rates near re- scale buying activity. In the edible
cord lows for longer. Silver also rose segment, refined palmolein moved
0.8 per cent to USD 16.63 an ounce. In down by Rs 3 per 10 kg to Rs 512 from
the national capital, gold of 99.9 and Wednesday’s closing level of Rs 515.
99.5 per cent purity recovered by Rs However, groundnut oil closed un95 each to Rs 27,285 and Rs 27,085 per changed at Rs 960 per 10 kg. Moving
10 grams, respectively. It had record- to non-edible segment, castorseeds
ed this year’s biggest fall of Rs 510 on bold, castor oil commercial and linWednesday. Sovereign, however, held seed oil closed unaltered at Rs 3,800
steady at Rs 23,700 per piece of eight per 100 kg, Rs 790 per 10 kg, and Rs
grams in restricted buying. In a simi- 775 per 10 kg, respectively.
Refined
palmolein eases
in listless trade
India Inc likely to give 10.6%
salary hike in 2015: Survey
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): Employees in
India are expected to get an average pay
hike of 10.6 percent this year - slight improvement over last year, as businesses
adopt a “positive yet cautious” path
on salaries, HR consultancy firm Aon
Hewitt said on Thursday. Notwithstanding the fact that 7 out of 10 organisations
in India expect an improvement in business outlook this year, this optimism is
not getting reflected in salaries.
According to Aon Hewitt’s Annual
Salary Increase Survey, corporate India
is expected to offer its employees average salary rise of 10.6 percent for 2015,
a slight improvement over last year
when it was 10.4 percent. “Companies
across industries are continuing to take
a cautious stance and are not going for
aggressive pay increases,” said Anandorup Ghose, Rewards Consulting Practice Leader at Aon Hewitt India, adding that they are not willing to increase
their fixed costs. “Increasing the salaries
mean increasing their fixed costs. I think
people need to see more actual activity
to be able to increase their fixed costs,”
Ghose added. Meanwhile, key talent
across the board top performers are
expected to get 1.6 times the salary increase awarded to average performers.
Moreover, in order to contain the attrition of key talent, organisations are
increasingly developing separate retention plans and policies for their top
talent, wherein along with salary, programmes on leadership opportunities,
overseas assignments are fast gaining
prominence. Though attrition in 2014
continued to be broadly at par with 2013
at 18.1 percent, but key talent attrition
in 2014 registered at 5.9 percent as compared to 4.5 percent in 2013, the report
said.
A sector-wise analysis shows that real
estate and infrastructure is likely to get
the highest projected salary rise in 2015
(12.2 percent), followed by Life Sciences
(12), Media (1.8) in the second and third
place respectively. Among all leading
APAC nations, India continues to lead
the pack for Asia in salary increases and
also tops the chart for highest inflationadjusted salary increases.
“Though the projected salary increase
number shows a subtle improvement
over salary increases in the last three
years, however it does not yet show
a complete resurgence,” Aon Hewitt
added. There is a steady trend towards
greater performance-based pay and it
indicates a shift in overall pay philosophy across Indian companies. Top/
Senior Management would see around
a fourth of their total compensation being variable and even the bottom of the
pyramid, at entry levels roles, more than
12 percent of compensation can be expected to be paid through performance
-linked pay.
Videocon Telecom to invest
Rs 1,200 crore for 4G rollout
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): Videocon
Telecom, the telecom brand of the $4
billion Videocon Group, will be investing over Rs.1,200 crore in the next three
years for 4G rollout in 29 cities, a company statement said here Thursday.
The service will be rolled out in three
circles in UP East, UP West and Bihar,
the statement said. “Our strategy now
is to take the first mover advantage on
data and do what we couldn`t do on
voice having missed the bus.
This will also give us the distinction of
being the first telco to offer 4G LTE FDD
services on 1800 MHz in the country,”
Arvind Bali, director & chief executive
officer, Videocon Telecom said. “We
plan to invest over Rs.1,200 crore in the
next 3 years for rollout of 4G services in
these 3 circles, and with this, we also
plan to prioritise our ISP rollout in these
circles to compliment 4G,” he said. The
company plans to offer 4G data at 2G or
3G rates to encourage early adoption,
and will be offering bundled devices as
well. “We will be offering bundled 4G
devices including Mifi dongles,” Bali
added. The telco which holds 5Mhz liberalized spectrum in the 1800 Mhz band
in the circles plans to utilize the entire
spectrum for rollout of 4G LTE services
in 29 key cities and offer voice on overlay
network in these select cities. In remaining coverage area, the telco shall offer 2G
voice on own network.
The company will be rolling out 4G
in six cities in the first phase, 12 cities in the second phase and another
11 cities on the third covering the key
potential cities across these circles. It
is working closely with Deloitte as its
consulting partner and Huawei & NSN
as its technology partner, who are also
Videocon Telecom`s partners in their
existing operations. Talking about the
voice market.
Indian Horizon Delhi
Friday, February 20, 2015
Stable policy regime must for
investments in gas sector: Expert
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): Slamming the new natural gas formula
as making “no sense”, world renowned energy expert Fereidun
Fesharaki has said only guaranteed market prices along with
stable policy regime would bring
in investments from global majors. Fesharaki, who advises many
countries including OPEC kingpin
Saudi Arabia on energy policy, said
arriving at a price for gas produced
in India using average of rates in
US, Canada and Russia was like
“wanting to buy an house in San
Francisco but I want to index it to
price in Delhi.” “US is gas surplus
country, exporting LNG (liquefied
natural gas (LNG). Canada is a gas
surplus country, Russia is a gas
surplus country. Why do I get their
numbers and average it for India.
Makes no sense,” he told PTI in an
interview. The USD 3-4 per million
British thermal unit price in United
States was reflective of the surplus
gas scenario in US and rates will
rise the moment exports are allowed, he said.
Similarly, Russia flares gas equivalent to India’s annual production
and rates prevalent there are not reflective of market scenario. He said
US gas in form of LNG will be USD 7
higher than the current Henry Hub
price of under USD 3 per mmBtu on
account of liquefication, transport,
pipeline and regassification cost.
The rate will compare to the USD
5.61 per mmBtu price approved
by the government for period upto
March end. Similarly, bringing gas
through a transnational pipeline
like
Turkmenistan-AfghanistanPakistan-India (TAPI) will cost no
less than USD 10-11 at the Indian
border, he said, adding this was
without accounting for the hardships in moving the gas through
hostile territories without the pipeline being blown up.
Global energy giants, he said,
want “market prices together with
stable regulatory regime and no
Medical devices could
be a $30 bn industry in
10 yrs: AdvaMed
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI):
Medical devices industry
has the potential to touch
USD 30 billion mark in the
next ten years if proper regulatory framework is provided to the sector, trade
association AdvaMed said
on Thursday. “Appropriate regulatory framework,
aided with proper government policies could help
the industry grow to a USD
25-30 billion in the next
ten years,” AdvaMed India
Working Group Chair Sanjay Banerji told reporters
here. Currently, the size
of medical device industry
in India is estimated to be
around USD 4 billion and
represents just 7-8 per
cent of the total healthcare
industry, he added.
AdvaMed is an association of medical devices
makers representing 80
per cent of medical technology firms in the US
and its member companies produce more than
40 per cent of medical
devices used annually
around the world. In In-
dia AdvaMed currently
has around 200 members
including various medical device manufacturers
including Zimmer India,
Johnson and Johnson
and Stryker. Elaborating
on the regulatory framework, Banerji said the
recently released Draft
of Drugs and Cosmetics
(Amendment ) Bill, 2015
addresses several of the
industry’s challenges.
“It (bill) is a big leap forward for healthcare delivery and allied sectors in
India. This is particularly
so in case of the medical
devices industry which
for the first time has been
accorded a distinct status
and definition in the bill,
he added. Currently, 14
categories of medical devices and eight additional
products are regulated as
drugs under the Drugs and
Cosmetics Act, 1940.
“This is problematic because medical devices are
very different from drugs
and thus need to be regulated as a different category
altogether,” Banerji said.
Besides, the industry is
hoping that issues like risk
based classification, separate chapter for clinical trials and separate regulatory
entities for the medical devices sector would find
space in the new Drugs
and Cosmetics (Amendment) Bill, he added. “It
(bill) is a big leap forward
for healthcare delivery and
allied sectors in India.
This is particularly so in
case of the medical devices
industry which for the first
time has been accorded a
distinct status and definition in the bill, he added.
Currently, the size of
medical device industry
in India is estimated to be
around USD 4 billion and
represents just 7-8 per
cent of the total healthcare industry, he added.
AdvaMed also asked the
government to create an
ecosystem for the growth
of the sector, including allocation of funds for medical technology (medtech)
parks in the country.
company will invest in India without these, no matter how many
NELP round India does.”
The new price was 33 percent
higher than USD 4.2 per mmBtu
old rate but lower than USD 8.4 per
mmBtu approved by the previous
UPA government. The new price
is also lower than USD 5.71 rate
charged for western offshore gas
field and USD 8 that Cairn charges
for gas from its Rajasthan block.
“You come up with this formula,
and wonder why no one is investing,” he said, adding the “government do not want to act on anything that is considered remotely
benefiting Reliance Industries”.
Profident fund starts
web helpdesk for
inoperative accounts
New Delhi Feb 19 (PTI): The Employees` Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has introduced an
online helpdesk to help members trace out and settle “inoperative accounts”, the labour ministry said
Thursday. The EPFO will “assist the holders of inoperative accounts to trace out their accounts and effect settlement or transfer of the same to their present
account,” a statement here said. Provident fund accounts that fail to make contributions for 36 continuous months are classified as inoperative and interest
is not credited to these accounts from the date they
turn inoperative.
A staggering Rs.27,000 crore is lying in inoperative
EPFO accounts as on March 2014. This online helpdesk can be accessed through the EPFO`s website.
After the members provide details of the inoperative
accounts, a reference ID is created. “Based on the
reference ID generated, the field office concerned
(where the member held his PF account) shall contact the member and guide subscribers in getting the
settlement or effecting the PF transfer as the case may
be,” the ministry said.
“The introduction of Universal Account Number
(UAN) is expected to greatly facilitate the above initiative as UAN would enable consolidation of multiple previous PF account numbers with the present
one,” it added. The decision to set up the helpdesk
follows instructions by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi on the occasion of the Shrameva Jayate programme in October last year, the statement said.
While the growth rate in construction sub-sector has
been 21.56 percent, the transport, storage and communication sector recorded 12.18 percent growth.
Banking and insurance sub-sector showed a growth
rate of 11.09 percent and in community, social and
personal services sector the growth was 9.90 percent,
said the report.
Sensex extends gains for the 7th day,
ends higher by 142 pts
Mumbai, Feb 19 (PTI) The
benchmark Sensex today rose 142
points, extending its winning run
to the seventh day, buoyed by
gains in HDFC, Infosys and L&T
as well as fag-end buying in metal
shares after some firms won mines
in coal block auction. Growing expectations of rate cuts after inflation slowed and hopes of a growthoriented budget also provided
support. Shares of Jindal Steel &
Power zoomed by 25.6 per cent,
the biggest gain among BSE listed
shares today, after its unit Jindal
Power Ltd bagged two coal mines
in Chhattisgarh. Sensex constituent Hindalco also surged 3 per cent
after it secured the Gare Palma
IV/5 block. Sesa Sterlite jumped 7
per cent as mining and metal firms
caught investors’ fancy.
HDFC, Infosys, L&T and TCS
shares saw moderate rise and
helped the Sensex end in the positive terrain. Losses in ICICI Bank,
ITC, Tata Motors and SBI weighed.
The BSE Sensex resumed higher
at 29,434.91 and shot up further
to a high of 29,522.86 on strong
buying. It declined afterwards to
29,108.15 on profit-booking in
select counters before finishing
at 29,462.27, logging a net gain of
142.01 points or 0.48 per cent. In
seven days, the Sensex has gained
1,234.88 points or 4.37 per cent.
“Initially, selling pressure in the
banking space especially in PSU
pack pushed the bulls on back
foot. However, buying activity in IT
majors alongside recovery in metal
and realty space kept the recovery
hopes alive,” said Religare Securities, President-retail distribution,
Jayant Manglik. Similarly, the NSE
50-share Nifty index firmed up by
26.20 points, or 0.30 per cent, to
close at 8,895.30.
In Asia, Japanese stocks settled
higher, helped by gains in financial and shipping companies. The
Nikkei 225 average was up 0.36
per cent. Indices in Singapore,
South Korea and Taiwan moved
up by 0.16 - 0.58 per cent. Chinese
markets are closed for Lunar New
Year holiday. Coming back to Indian markets, foreign portfolio
investors bought shares worth a
net Rs 2,187.96 crore yesterday
as per provisional data released
by the stock exchanges. Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs)
also bought shares worth a net
Rs 327.87 crore yesterday. . European markets were trading mixed
today as tension over Greece’s finances dampened the mood. Key
indices in France and Germany
moved up by 0.05 per cent to 0.11
per cent while the UK’s FTSE was
quoting down by 0.12 per cent. In
the Sensex, 20 scrips ended higher
and 10 fell. Major Sensex gainers include Sesa Sterlite (6.95 per
cent), Hindalco (3.07 per cent),
Tata Power (2.56 per cent), Tata
Steel (2.29 per cent) and M&M
(2.28 per cent).
L&T (2.13 per cent), HDFC (2.04
per cent), TCS (1.74 per cent),
Bharti Airtel (1.42 per cent), Infosys (1.34 per cent), Coal India
(1.09 per cent) and Maruti Suzuki (0.96 per cent) also notched
up moderate gains. In laggards,
shares of Wipro fell by 1.36 per
cent, followed by Tata Motors 1.10
per cent, ICICI Bank 1.08 per cent
and SBI 1.05 per cent among others. Among the S&P BSE sectoral
indices, the Metal index rose by
3.82 per cent, followed by Capital
Goods 1.36 per cent, Realty 1.06
per cent and Power 0.86 per cent.
The total market breadth turned
negative as 1,508 stocks ended in
red, 1,379 finished in green while
102 ruled steady. The total turnover fell to Rs 3,876.12 crore from
Rs 4,162.06 crore yesterday.
CRICKET WORLD CUP 2015
Let s know more about it
12
Indian Horizon Delhi
Friday, February 20, 2015
Friday,
ICC Cricket World Cup: New Zealand vs
England - Preview
Wellington Feb 19 (PTI):
Hammered by hosts Australia
in their lung-opener, England
face another stern test when
they take on the unbeaten
New Zealand in their Pool A
match of the cricket World
Cup, here on Friday. England
could not have thought of
a more nightmarish start to
their World Cup campaign
as Australia inflicted a
humiliating 111-run defeat
on them.
The way Aaron Finch,
George Bailey and Glenn
Maxwell tore apart England’s
bowling
unit
at
the
Melbourne Cricket Ground,
a lot will depend on how
skipper Eoin Morgan and his
men recover from the moraleshattering loss. New Zealand,
on the other hand, are
already in touching distance
of a quarterfinal berth after
two consecutive wins. After
a convincing 98-run win
against the 1996 champions
Sri Lanka at Hagley Oval
in the tournament opener,
Brendon McCullum and his
men beat Scotland by three
wickets in their second game.
For England, running into the
co-hosts after facing Australia
makes it all the more difficult
as they are aware another slipup would kill their chance
of going further. The onus
thus will be on skipper Eoin
Morgan to lift England’s spirit
and give their batting a boost,
especially since he has scored
abysmally low -- just two runs
in five innings -- in the run-up
to the tournament so far.
Shoehorned into captaincy
after Alastair Cook’s axing,
Morgan will have to lead from
Anil Kumble to be
inducted into the ICC
Cricket Hall of Fame
DUBAI Feb 19 (PTI): Former Indian
captain Anil Kumble is all set to become
the 77th member of the ICC Cricket Hall
of Fame after his name is inducted in the
prestigious list during India’s World Cup
match against South Africa on Sunday.
Kumble, who is now the chairman of
the ICC Cricket Committee, is the fourth
India cricketer to be inducted into the
ICC Cricket Hall of Fame after fellow
former captains Bishen Bedi, Kapil Dev
and Sunil Gavaskar were inducted into
the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009.
Joining Kumble as the 78th inductee
would be the late Betty Wilson, one of the
greatest women’s cricketers of all-time.
Kumble, with 619 Test wickets, is the third
highest wicket-taker in Test cricket after
Muttiah Muralidaran (800) and Shane
Warne (708), while his 337 wickets in
ODIs ranks him in ninth position on the
all-time list of most successful bowlers in
that format. Kumble captained India in
14 Tests between 2007 and 2008, winning
three and losing five. In the 138-year
history of Test cricket during which 2,156
Tests have been played to date, Kumble is
one of only two bowlers after England’s
Jim Laker to have taken all 10 wickets in
an innings. He achieved this feat against
traditional rival Pakistan in New Delhi in
February 1999. Kumble made his Test
debut in 1990 in Manchester and his final
appearance was in New Delhi in OctoberNovember 2008. During his career,
Kumble played 132 Tests and 271 one-day
internationals. Apart from his 619 Test
and 337 ODI wickets, Kumble also scored
2,506 runs in Tests and 938 runs in ODIs.
Wilson, a former Australia batter,
played 11 Tests between 1947 and 1958
in which she scored 862 runs at average
of 57.4 and took 68 wickets at 11.8 per
wicket. On her debut against New
Zealand at the age of 26 in 1948, Wilson
scored 90 and took four for 37 and six
for 28. In her second Test, she scored
111 against England, becoming the first
Australia woman to score a Test century
against England, and took nine more
wickets. Against England in 1957-58,
she became the first cricketer, male or
female, to score a century and take 10
wickets in a Test. Wilson passed away
on January 22, 2010, aged 88. Kumble
and Wilson will be formally inducted into
the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame during the
innings break in the India versus South
Africa match at the Melbourne Cricket
Ground on Sunday. ICC director and
chairman of Cricket Australia, Mr Wally
Edwards, will present Kumble with his
commemorative cap, while Wilson’s
commemorative cap will be received by
her nephew, Ken Wilson, from ICC chief
executive David Richardson.
the front to inspire his team
when it takes the field at the
Westpac Stadium tomorrow.
“He’s aware of the fact that
he wants more runs and it’s
important for the team that
he plays his part. He thinks
about his own game. He knows
his strengths. So the onus
of responsibility is on him
because of his experience,”
England’s batting coach Mark
Ramprakash said. Needless
to say, New Zealand are the
strong favourites going into the
game tomorrow but the way
the co-hosts struggled to score
143 against Scotland in their
last match, the co-hosts will
have to sort their batting woes.
Teams (from):
England: Eoin Morgan
(capt), Moeen Ali, James
Anderson, Gary Ballance,
Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Stuart
Broad, Jos Buttler (wkt), Steven
Finn, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan,
Joe Root, James Taylor, James
Tredwell, Chris Woakes.
New
Zealand
(from):
Brendon McCullum (capt),
Trent Boult, Grant Elliott,
Tom Latham, Martin Guptill,
Mitchell
McClenaghan,
Nathan McCullum, Kyle Mills,
Adam Milne, Daniel Vettori,
Kane
Williamson,
Corey
Anderson, Tim Southee, Luke
Ronchi (wkt), Ross Taylor.
Unwell Hamilton
withdraw s, Felipe Nasr
fastest in Barcelona
Barcelona Feb 19 (PTI): World
champion
Lewis
Hamilton
had to pull out of the opening
day of the second pre-season
test in Barcelona due to a fever
after completing just 11 laps.
The Englishman was replaced
by Mercedes test driver Pascal
Wehrlein, who had started the
day testing Force India`s car
from the 2014 season.
Mercedes logged over 500 laps
over four days in the first test
of the season in Jerez and team
principal Paddy Lowe explained
they didn`t call in Hamilton`s
teammate Nico Rosberg for the
rest of the day so as to not overtax
the German`s workload with last
season`s runner-up in the world
championship due to drive on
Friday. “For the programme we
have for today, it is better to use a
test driver,” he told Sky Sports.
“It`s a tough programme and
we don`t want to over-use Nico
Rosberg.” Sauber`s quick pace
from the first test continued
as Brazilian Felipe Nasr, who
topped the time sheets on day
three in Jerez, went fastest in
1min 27.307 ahead of Lotus`
Pastor Maldonado and Daniel
Ricciardo in the Red Bull.
Susie Wolff made the most of
her morning testing the Williams
as the Scotswoman racked up
more laps than anyone else with
77. The Englishman was replaced
by Mercedes test driver Pascal
Wehrlein, who had started the
day testing Force India`s car
from the 2014 season.
However, there were more
troubles for McLaren as after a
promising start, their day ended
after just 21 laps from Jenson
Button due to a faulty seal
meaning a power unit change is
needed before they can try again
with Fernando Alonso at the
wheel on Friday.
ICC World Cup 2015: Sean Williams stars in
Zimbabwe’s 4-wicket win over fighting UAE
Nelson Feb 19 (PTI): Sean
Williams’ timely knock of
76 helped Zimbabwe beat a
determined UAE by four wickets
here today, giving the African
nation their first win of the
cricket World Cup.
Williams’ unbeaten innings off
65 balls made the difference as
Zimbabwe chased down the 286run target in 48 overs. Put in to
bat, UAE posed a competitive 285
for seven which happened to be
their highest ODI total.
UAE
complimented
their Zimbabwe batsmen until a 83- Williams and Craig Ervine (42
batting by making life difficult for run sixth-wicket stand between runs off 32 balls) took the game
World Cup 2015: Team India’s
sounds of silence irks media
MELBOURNE
Feb
19
(PTI): Defending champions
India may be one of the
most high-profile teams at
the World Cup, but their
reluctance to interact with
the media has frustrated the
large contingent of travelling
reporters.
The
players
have not spoken publicly
since skipper Mahendra
Singh
Dhoni
addressed
the mandatory post-match
conference after the victory
over arch-rivals Pakistan in
Adelaide last Sunday. When
the squad’s media manager
puts out a release detailing
practice times and venues,
he does not fail to emphasise
there will be ‘no media
activity’ after training. The
earliest a member of the team
will speak now is at the next
mandatory pre-match media
conference on Saturday
ahead of the key Pool B
match against South Africa
at the Melbourne Cricket
Ground the next day.
A media release said
Dhoni
will
skip
the
conference, leaving his vicecaptain Virat Kohli to take
questions. While other teams
organise
regular
media
interactions
during
the
six-week tournament, the
Indian squad is apparently
following a diktat from the
Board of Control for Cricket
in India (BCCI) to speak
publicly only when it is
mandated by rules. “I think it
all boils down to the mistrust
of the media,” said veteran
Indian journalist R. Kaushik
of the WisdenIndia website.
“There has to be a reason for
it, but I don’t know what.
“Maybe they feel players
are misquoted for the sake
of creating a controversy.
But it is a challenge reporting
on the Indian team.” Dhoni,
one of the most popular
cricketers in India, rarely
gives one-to-one interviews
and has even gone on record
to say he speaks to the media
only because his job requires
him to. During the World
Twenty20 in England in 2009
after reports of dissension
in the team appeared in an
Indian newspaper.
away from the team playing its
first World Cup since 1996.
UAE sensed a famous win
with Zimbabwe needing 109 off
the last 90 balls and half their
side back in the pavilion. That
was when the experience of
Williams and Ervine came into
play. They took the attack to the
opposition which appeared to
run out of steam after putting up
a spirited show for the majority
of the game. The dangerous lefthanded pairing blasted 45 runs
in the powerplay between 36-40
overs to ease off the pressure.
Venus, Ana crash
out on day of
upsets in Dubai
DUBAI Feb 19 (PTI): The leading
ladies in the draw - Petra Kvitova, Ana
Ivanovic, Agnieszka Radwanska and
Venus Williams - wilted under a brutal
desert sun on Wednesday, winning just
two sets between them, in round of
sixteen action in the Dubai Duty Free
Tennis Championships.
Wimbledon
champion and the tournament’s second
seed Petra Kvitova’s loss to Spain’s Carla
Suarez Navarro, 3-6, 6-4, 3-6 was the
shock result of the day . Ana Ivanovic, the
fourth seed, failed to hold off the fastrising Czech talent Karolina Pliskova,
falling 2-6, 6-4, 4-6. Earlier in the day,
Radwanska, the fifth seed, bowed to the
young Spaniard Garbine Muguruza 4-6,
2-6 and defending champion Venus,
had her 16-match winning streak here,
snapped in her 4-6, 2-6 loss to the
sweetsmiling Czech Lucie Safarova.
World Cup 2015: Batsman Dhoni seeks Shastri’s advice in testing times
MELBOURNE Feb 19 (PTI): An
overwhelming win over Pakistan
may have brought a lot of cheer
to the Indian cricket team after an
indifferent ‘Australian Summer’,
but there are a few grey areas that
are yet to be addressed by the side,
including skipper Mahendra Singh
Dhoni’s poor run with the bat.
Therefore, it was not really
surprising to see the captain
spending some quality time with
Team Director Ravi Shastri during
India’s training session at the St
Kilda’s Junction Oval ground on
Wednesday. From a distance, it
looked like an animated discussion
between the Indian captain and
Team Director on the execution of
horizontal bat shots -- namely the
productive pull-shot.
After a session in the nets, Dhoni
came walking down to the square leg
area, where Shastri was sitting in a
chair. The two were seen immersed
in a discussion, after which the
former India captain stood up
and started doing a few shadows
showing the exact body movement
and balance that should be there
while playing the pull-shot.
Shastri’s
knowledge
about
performing in Australian wickets
can’t be questioned as he was
‘Man of the Series’ or ‘Champions
of Champion’ during the Benson
and Hedges series in 1985 and also
scored a double century in Sydney
during the 1991-92 series. In the
last 10 ODIs that Dhoni has played,
he has scored only one half-century
(51 not out) against the West Indies
and didn’t get to bat in two other
matches. In the remaining seven
games, Dhoni has crossed the 30-
run mark only once while getting
out to some good deliveries as well
as poor shot selection. In fact, apart
from the 10 official ODIs, Dhoni
also failed to fire in the two warmup games against Australia and
Afghanistan where he scored 0 and
10, respectively. While, he hasn’t got
time to build an innings.
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