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| Cong MLAs suspended for a day
World to face acute HAMIRPUR (RAJASTHAN), Mar 28: President K R Narayanan today warned that the world is going to face severe water shortage in the future if it was not used properly and conserved.......more
Five-fold strategy needed MUMBAI, Mar 28: India needs to adopt a five-fold strategy, including firm dealing with willful defaulters, to curb the growing problem.......more |
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New alignments Third Front or Third Force or Third Alternative From B L Kak
JMM case enters NEW DELHI, Mar 28: The trial in the multi-crore JMM MPs bribery case involving.........more BJP facing difficult task LUCKNOW, Mar 28: Going by the official party position, it will not be difficult for the.......more INS to hold 2 day LUCKNOW, Mar 28: The Inqilabi Navjawan Sabha (INS) will hold from March 31 a two-day.......more 2 acquitted in NEW DELHI, Mar 28: Twenty-two years after filing a case of charas smuggling against them.....more |
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GANDHINAGAR, Mar 28: All the opposition Congress members in the Gujarat Assembly were today suspended for a day for disrupting proceedings of the House and creating pandemonium over the death of a large number of cattle in a camp in Ahmedabad district recently. The Congress members numbering 55, including the leader of the opposition Amarsinh Chaudhary, in the 182-member house, were physically removed by the marshals on the order of the speaker after the Assembly adopted by voice vote a motion to suspend them, moved by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Mehta and seconded by Health Minister Ashok Bhatt. The Speaker Dhirubhai Shah earlier had to adjourn the house twice for ten minutes each after the question hour when Congress members continued to shout slogans and tried to disrupt the proceedings. The trouble erupted when the Speaker took up the call attention motion moved by Lalit Patel (Cong) for discussion relating to the death of 886 cattles, including 133 cows at a cattle camp at Virpur village in Viramgam Taluka of Ahmedabad district for want of fodder. The Congress members were on their feet shouting slogans "Gayain Hatya Bandh Karo" (stop the killing of cows) and gathered in the well on two occasions leading to the adjournment of the House. They also staged a dharna there. At one stage, the Speaker also ordered the removal of a Congress member Khumansinh Chauhan for repeatedly arguing with the Revenue Minister Vajubhai Vala when the latter was replying to the call attention motion. (PTI) |
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World to face acute water crisis: President HAMIRPUR (RAJASTHAN), Mar 28: President K R Narayanan today warned that the world is going to face severe water shortage in the future if it was not used properly and conserved. Water would be a scarce commodity as rain water was not harvested properly and water bodies were drying up due to their over-exploitation in rural areas. Earlier, the President gave away the award, which carried a cash prize of Rs 100,000 and a citation, to the village community of Bhaonta-Kolyala in appreciation of its outstanding work in rain water harvesting, rural engineering and revival of the river arvary. The recipients included three women. Others who spoke on the occasion included the Rajasthan Governor Justice Anshuman Singh, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Director of the Centre for Science and Environment Anil Agarwal. (PTI) |
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Five-fold strategy needed to curb NPAs: Sinha MUMBAI, Mar 28: India needs to adopt a five-fold strategy, including firm dealing with willful defaulters, to curb the growing problem of Non-Performing Assets (NPA) in banks, Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said today. "A five-fold strategy envisages creating conditions to stem the tide of NPAs, greater professionalism, quick settlement of disputes, transparency coupled with boldness in actions and coming down heavily on willful defaulters", Sinha said at the Annual General Meeting of Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) here. However, he cautioned that proper judgement has to be made between genuine and willful defaulters. "NPAs need to be liquidated. No way can we continue with such high volumes of non-performing assets", Sinha said. Banking and finance sector needs to bring all willful defaulters before the debt recovery tribunals as it was the responsibility of lenders to ensure that their money was safe, he added. The prevailing transaction cost of 2 to 3 per cent is the other problem facing the banking sector, Sinha said adding but it can tackled in two ways — bring down by actually cutting costs and/or by raising volumes at the same costs. Indian industries, agriculture and service sector cannot compete globally, burdened with such high cost of funds, he added. (PTI) |
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New alignments From B L Kak NEW DELHI, Mar 28: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition headed by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee is divided down the line on the 2000-2001 Union budget of Mr Yashwant Sinha. Though Mr Sinha has reiterated that the NDA is "solid as a rock", he is likely to yield to the pressure mounted on the Government by the NDA allies to restore the subsidy cuts announced in the budget. There is resentment even with the Sangh Parivar, which will be more emboldened to arm-twist the BJP in respect of its economic policies in the wake of the RSS chief, Mr K Sudharshan’s strong advocacy of swadeshi economics. Between now and April 16 when Parliament will reconvene after the mid-term recess, Mr Vajpayee and his Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, will have to persuade the allies to accept the budgetary cuts in food and fertiliser subsidies. Considering the political compulsions the allies themselves face, and given that no party wants to tackle the inevitable political fall-out from unpopular decisions, they may not succeed in their efforts. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Leftists and other non-BJP non-Congress groups consider the present political situation conducive to the revival of the Third Front or Third Force or Third Alternative. Former Prime Minister, Mr VP Singh, a strong believer in the politics of equi-distance from the BJP and the Congress, has summed up the situation candidly: "The potential is certainly there. However, the period of incubation might be longer. Some of the present allies of the BJP will have to break loose from the NDA before the Third Force can take concrete shape. There are inherent contradictions in the NDA. The BJP allies will have to re-assert their indentities before they become too weak at the ground level". The CPI(M) politburo member, Mr Sitaram Yechuri, is more optimistic. According to him, some recent developments like the Gujarat Government order allowing its employees to join the RSS, the violent Sangh Parivar reaction to the shooting of water, the institution of the Constitution Review Committee and the post-election events in Bihar have exposed the BJP in its true colours. This will eventually lead to the parting of ways between the BJP and the major regional forces which are now the major constituents of the coalition. In this context, Mr HD Deve Gowda’s disclosure that the recent get-together of four former Prime Ministers-himself, Mr Chandra Shekhar, Mr IK Gujral and Mr Vishwanath Pratap Singh-in New Delhi had discussed the strategies for the formation of a Third Front is interesting. Mr VP Singh feels that it may be premature to conclude that the meeting represented the nucleus of the revival of the Third Force. On the other hand, the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), seeking to end its political isolation in Tamil Nadu and touched by the ‘home-coming’ syndrome, is gravitating towards its parent body, the Indian National Congress. A TMC-Congress merger is on the way, its timing to be decided early in April, when the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, is scheduled to visit Tamil Nadu. When the merger does take place, the wheel would have turned a full circle. A section of the State Congress parted company with the party before the 1996 Lok Sabha elections when then Congress president and Prime Minister, Mr PV Narasimha Rao , refused to heed their plea not to enter into an alliance with Ms Jayalalitha. Mr GK Moopanar made the split more effective by forming the Tamil Maanila Congress which showed considerable promise in its early days. It alliance with the Karunanidhi-led DMK, however, proved short-lived. Protesting against Mr Karunanidhi’s alliance with the BJP in the 1999 polls, the TMC snapped its ties with the DMK and tried to establish a separate identity once again. Even at the height of the TMC’s popularity, Mr Moopanar kept his links with the Congress alive, and maintained personal contact with Ms Sonia Gandhi. However, Mr Moopanar’s efforts to float a Third Front in Tamil Nadu which would stay aloof from the two Dravidian formations-AIADMK and DMK-could not take off despite the sympathetic reaction the move attracted initially. Mr Moopanar, obviously, realised, just as the Congress had done some years ago, that a national or a non-Dravidian party cannot survive in Tamil Nadu unless it allies itself with one of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagams. This is what prompted him, much to the surprise of the DMK and all other parties, to announce support for the AIADMK-Left alliance in the recent Assembly by-elections. Though the alliance’s performance was unremarkable, Mr Moopanar’s decision to continue the TMC’s association with the alliance for the State Assembly elections due early next year was understandable. |
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BJP facing difficult task to win 5 RS seats from UP LUCKNOW, Mar 28: Going by the official party position, it will not be difficult for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to ensure a passage to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh for its five nominees- Union Surface Transport Minister Rajnath Singh, former Delhi Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj and senior journalists Balveer Punj, Ramnath Kovid and Rambaksha Verma. To win a candidate needs at least 35 first priority votes and the Samajwadi Party can pick up two and the Bahujan Samaj Party one when polling for the biennial elections to eleven Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh takes place here tomorrow between 0900 and 1600 hrs. Counting will be held at 1700 hrs same day. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded five candidates, Samajwadi Party- three, Bahujan Samaj Party - two and one there is each from Loktantrik Congress Party (LCP), Congress and Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), besides three independents backed by some members including ministers belonging to the coalition partner Jantantrik Bahujan Samaj Party (JBSP). The Samajwadi Party has fielded former Union Minister Janeshwar Mishra, former MP Swami Sakshi Maharaj and Dara Singh Chauhan while the Bahujan Samaj Party has put up former MP Ghanshyam Kherwar and Babu Singh Kushwaha. Noted TV anchor Rajeev Shukla (Loktantrik Congress Party), Inder Kumar Khosla (Congress), Jayant Kumar Malhotra of the Rashtriya Lok Dal and B A Ramesh, Prakash Chandra and M M Agrawal (all independents) are also in the race. Apart from the three-way split of the eight seats,the contesting parties would have to enter into some understanding with others for the remaining three seats. Except BJP, SP and BSP no party enjoys the support of 35 members in the house on its own. Eight of the eleven seats will fall vacant following the retirement of Rajnath Singh, Mrs Malti Sharma, Mr Ranveer Singh, Mr Ramnath Kovid, Mr Rambaksha Verma (all BJP), Mr Janeshwar Mishra (SP), Mr Dara Singh Chauhan (BSP) and Mr Jayant Kumar Malhotra (Ind). Ish Dutta Yadav of the SP had passed away and two seats fell vacant with the resignation of Raj Babbar (SP) and Jitendra Prasada (Congress) after their election from Agra and Shahjahanpur to the Lok Sabha. (UNI) |
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INS to hold 2 day convention from Mar 31 LUCKNOW, Mar 28: The Inqilabi Navjawan Sabha (INS) will hold from March 31 a two-day national convention here to discuss strategy to combat "saffron attack by RSS and its allied organisations" on democratic institutions in the country. The conference will be inaugurated by CPI(M-L) secretary general Deepamkar Bhattacharya, said Sabha general secretary and former Allahabad University Students Union president Lal Bahadur. On the first day of the conference, a march from Charbag will culminate at the Vidhan Bhawan where representatives from different parts of the country, prominent intellectuals and cultural activists will organise a sit-in, he said. (UNI) |
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2 acquitted in 22-year-old charas smuggling case NEW DELHI, Mar 28: Twenty-two years after filing a case of charas smuggling against them, two persons have been acquitted by a city court which found several loopholes in the prosecution case. Additional Chief Metropolian Magistrate (ACMM) Sangeeta Dhingra Sehgal recently acquitted Baldeep Singh and James Tewary saying, no cogent evidence emerged on record against the accused persons in any manner to connect them with the alleged contraband. Customs Department had launched prosecution against Baldeep and James and five others including three foreign nationals charging them with smuggling huge quantity of charas to USA in rubber tyres under the Dangerous Drugs Act. The case was registered here in April 1978 after the US Customs Department informed Indian Government that it had seized 50 kg of charas concealed in steel rims and covered with solid rubber tyres consigned by AB Associates here. Customs officials here had subsequently recovered over 480 kgs of charas concealed in 189 fork lift trolley tyres from a room in Karol Bagh and at Palam Airport but could nab only four accused persons. Of the four, two accused, Frances Coralie Mullin and Nassim Janiv, absconded after grant of bail while two others James and Baldeep were facing trial. The three foreign nationals— Johanan Pery, Gustav Shapire and David Willium Singer- could not be arrested in the case. (PTI) |
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GANDHINAGAR, Mar
28: All the
opposition Congress members in the Gujarat Assembly.....
