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Committee to ensure empowerment of local bodies: Jagmohan NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Urban Development Minister Jagmohan today said a committee is being set up to ensure . .....more
Vidhan Parishad poll LUCKNOW, Apr 29: Various political parties have expressed fears of cross-voting in the May four Vidhan Parishad poll in which.....more
Sonia welcomes CBI GUWAHATI, Apr 29: Congress president Sonia Gandhi today welcomed the Union Government’s order for a CBI inquiry into the match-fixing allegations .........more Alarming rise in
factional violence From B L Kak |
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Letter to PM was in tune with RSS, BJP stand, says Khurana NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Former minister Madan Lal Khurana who was removed last night from the party’s vice presidentship, today defended his letter to .....more
Centre drafts model regulation building bye-laws: Minister SHIMLA, Apr 29: The Centre has drafted model regulation building bye-laws for mandatory installation of solar hot water systems in functional new ...more Women migrate in Ajmer district, scanty relief BHAKRAWALI (RAJASTHAN), Apr 29: Holding her son in the arms, 35-year-old Ambe Devi sobs as she prepares to leave her home for a journey ..more
Vajpayee seeks help NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today appealed to the.more |
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Committee to ensure empowerment of local bodies: Jagmohan NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Urban Development Minister Jagmohan today said a committee is being set up to ensure administrative and financial empowerment of urban local bodies under the 74th constitution amendment. The committee would review the impact the amendment had already brought about in the functioning of the elected bodies in cities and towns and come out with measures that are to be taken further, Mr Jagmohan said while inaugurating a two-day national conference of mayors here. His ministry was trying to persuade state governments to fall in line with the constitutional provisions for holding timely elections to local bodies and delegating adequate powers for their effective functioning, he said. About 400 delegates, including 90 mayors, from across the country are attending the national conference, being held as a follow-up of four such meets held earlier at regional levels. Mr Jagmohan said the Planning Commission had endorsed his ministry’s proposals for setting up a separate cadre for urban administration and an urban academy to train administrators and technologists to deal with the civic problems of urban areas. These were necessary as the present urban population was equal to that of the entire population of the country in 1947, he said. The ministry also planned to initiate a human settlement technology, specially suited to present day-requirements. Citing an example, he said the use of trenchless technology would do away with the need for cutting roads for laying of telephone and electricity cables. Mr Jagmohan also suggested amendments to municipal bylaws for water harvesting in urban areas. The water problem being faced in cities could be eliminated in five years if water harvesting was made compulsory in big buildings and cooperative housing societies. The human settlement technology would help check air pollution caused by burning of firewood by slum dwellers and convert human waste into energy. The minister also suggested formation of regional and national federation of cities. There was another proposal for selecting from each state at least one place which had a cultural heritage to develop them as model cities to promote tourism. The development of Katra as a base camp for pilgrims to Vaishnodevi Temple in Jammu had revolutionised the lifestyle of the people there, besides yielding revenue to the state exchequer. The number of pilgrims visiting the temple had gone up from three lakh a few years ago to 50 lakh now, he said. Minister of State for Urban Development Bandaru Dattatreya called for preparation of master plans for the development of urban areas. (UNI) |
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Vidhan Parishad poll LUCKNOW, Apr 29: Various political parties have expressed fears of cross-voting in the May four Vidhan Parishad poll in which Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta’s political fortune is at stake. Mr Gupta, who took over the reins of the State Government about six months ago, is currently not a member of either of the houses of the State Legislature. He is to become a member of the state legislature by May 12 to continue as the Chief Minister. BSP leader and former Chief Minister Mayawati and some other leaders of various parties have also expressed apprehensions of cross-voting in the biennial elections to 13 seats of the Vidhan Parishad. According to senior cabinet minister Kalraj Mishra, about 24 party’s MLAs, including some ministers, did not vote for their official candidates in the recent Rajya Sabha elections from the state. The Samajwadi Party, however, is hopeful that his party’s MLAs would not indulge in the cross-voting. Sixteen candidates for this elections include six of the BJP, one each of the BJP allies Loktantrik Congrss Party (LCP) and Jantantrik Bahujan Samaj Party (JBSP), four of the opposition Samajwadi Party, two of the Bahujan Samaj Party, and two independents. They are Ram Prakash Gupta, Sunil Shashtri, Ramapati Ram Tripathi, Manvendra Singh, Babulal Balwant, Ramchandra Balmiki(all BJP),Siraj Menhdi (LCP), Narendra Pal Verma (JBSP), Ram Sharan Das, Kashinath, Khwaja Halim and Vinod Barthwal(SP), Babu Singh Kushwaha, Dharveer Singh Ashok (BSP) and Jaiprakash and Bharat Singh. Both the independents are backed by JBSA’s MLAs. A candidate requires 31 first preference votes to win the election. According to the latest official party position in the Assembly, five candidates of the BJP, three of SP and one of BSP can easily win the election while for the remaining four seats, different parties would have to enter into some sort of understanding. Both the LCP and the JBSP are coalition partners in the Ram Prakash Gupta Government. The LCP claims that it has the requisite number of votes —31— to enable its candidate to get through in the first round itself. The LCP, which has only 20 members in the House, took pride in the recent elections to Rajya Sabha from the state when its candidate and noted tv anchor Rajeev Shukla got maximum 50 first preference votes. Former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, who after his expulsion from the BJP has formed Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP), is also expected to fish in troubled water. He may play an important role in the cross-voting particularly on the part of the BJP MLAs of whom some are openly supporting the former CM. Mr Singh had extended his support to former Union Minister Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal candiate. But RLD candidate Kiran Chowdhery, who was earlier with the BJP, has withdrawn her nomination. The RLD, which has only nine MLAs in the Assembly, says it withdrew its candidate as the Congress did not extend support to it in this election. Congress has not fielded any candidate and is likely to extend support to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidates. According to Ms Mayawati, her party had 52 votes and required only eight additional votes from other parties to get both of its candidates through. She said she was in touch with other parties for the purpose. Of the two BSP candidates Babu Singh Kushwaha and Dharveer Singh Ashok, the former had recently contested the Rajya Sabha election but did not win. The biennial elections were necessitated as the present six-year term of 13 members of the house ends on May five. According to the Vidhan Sabha Secretary and electoral officer for this election R P Pandy, the polling will be held on may four and the results would be announced the same evening. (UNI) |
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Sonia welcomes CBI probe into match-fixing GUWAHATI, Apr 29: Congress president Sonia Gandhi today welcomed the Union Government’s order for a CBI inquiry into the match-fixing allegations that recently rocked the cricket world. We welcome the decision and hope that the truth would be revealed by such a probe, Gandhi told reporters here. The Congress party, she said, had been demanding a CBI probe into the match-fixing allegations. She hoped findings of the probe would remove the bad name that has been associated with cricket since the allegations were made. (PTI) |
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Alarming rise in
factional violence From B L Kak NEW DELHI Apr 29: Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has intensified its activities in south Indian States, particularly Andhra Pradesh. "There is no doubt about it", Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Mr Vidyasagar Rao, has asserted. Mr Rao cannot be faulted for his assertion, considering the volume of irrefutable evidence the Ministry of Home Affairs possesses in this regard. And, hence, all the more reason for him to State: After north India, Pakistani ISI is active in south India, particularly his home State, Andhra Pradesh. The ISI has been found providing arms to select fundamentalists and pumping in huge amounts of fake currency in order to destabilise India’s economy. In Andhra Pradesh, the ISI is active in the twin cities of Secunderabad and Hyderabad and Telangana, besides Nizamabad sectors. Mr Vidyasagar Rao has said: "Investigations have revealed that the ISI, through its agents, is luring youth with fissiparous tendencies and communal bent of mind. Frankly speaking, there are only a handful of them, but they are enough to cause havoc and disrupt peace". The death of Azam Ghori, an alleged conduit of the ISI, in a police encounter at Jagtiyal (Andhra) has further strengthened the police belief in increasing ISI network in Telangana. Intelligence inputs available with the Home Ministry also speak of the stepped-up activity of the ISI agents and operatives in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in recent months. Alarming, indeed, are Pakistan-aided fundamentalists’ plans to increase the number of mosques and Islamic study centres in sensitive localities of these two States. If these intelligence inputs are any guide, as many as 15 underground cells of subversives exist in the three southern States-Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Mr Vidyasagar Rao has revealed that the Centre will consider setting up of a joint command in south India to deal with the ISI on the lines of the one established to take on the Naxals. He said in an interview that if the situation warranted, the Centre will certainly set up a joint command to deal with the ISI. Andhra’s Director-General of Police, Mr HJ Dora, is said to have informed the Union Home Ministry that the four "killers" of a Hyderabad Jeweller, now in police custody, belonged to a fundamentalist outfit called Indian Muslim Mohammadi Mujahideen, which is actually a front for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba. The four "killers" carried out the task at the orders of the "dreaded ISI agent", Azam Ghori, who, incidentally, was shot dead by the Nizamabad police at Karimnagar. According to Mr Dora, Azam Ghori had visited Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and was extensively trained by the ISI before being made a part of the Lashkar-e-Toiba. After returning to Hyderabad, Ghoti floated the Indian Muslim Mohammadi Mujahideen in order to carry out the Lashkar’s subversive activities, and began recruiting several Muslim youngsters into his fold. In order to spread the activities of his organisation in Andhra Pradesh, Ghori had recruited youths from Adilabad, Nizamabad and Karimnagar, besides Karnataka and Maharashtra. The main idea was to indoctrinate the youth in the fundamentalist activities inspired by the ISI. Investigations had revealed that Ghori had established a network of of information with his contactmen through the Internet and also via STD and PCO operators in different towns. Ghori was also alleged to have circulated the provocative speech material of Maulana Masood Azhar asking them to launch a jehad. The ISI is also said to have created pockets of influence within Left-wing outfits, including People’s War Group (PWG). The three events, though not inter-linked, point to the escalating violence by Naxals, especially in the Telangana region, the growing menace of frontal organisations of the ISI and the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Hyderabad and other parts of Andhra, and the alarming rise in factional violence in Rayalaseema region. As per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, public order and police are State subjects. However, the Centre, as pointed out by Mr Vidyasagar Rao, shares intelligence inputs and provides financial and infrastructure support to curb ISI and Naxal activities. Mr Rao says that the police and State Governments need to alienate the Muslim community by suspecting them of abetting the crime. |
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Vajpayee seeks help from industries to combat drought NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today appealed to the leaders of the Indian industry to help the Government in combating the severe drought and shortage of drinking water in various states. Addressing the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry, Vajpayee expressed hope that they would join the national endeavour to mitigate the hardships faced by the people in the drought affected areas of four states. All of you are aware that in four major states of the country, millions of people are affected by severe drought and shoratge of water. I have already made an appeal to the nation to contribute to the efforts of the Government to ensure that their hardship is mitigated to the maximum extent, he said. The Prime Minister said I hope that leaders of the corporate world, which include all of you here, would join this national endeavour. Four states Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are under the grip of a severe drought forcing many to migrate to urban areas in search of food and water. Experts say this is one of the most severe droughts in last 100 years. The Prime Minister also announced that the theme of the next council meeting would be drinking water and rural infrastructure. Confederation of Indian Industry President Arun Bharat Ram told newsmen after the meeting that the industry has assured all possible help to the Government in this regard. (PTI) |
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