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No
move to dismiss CHENNAI, Aug 12: National Democratic Alliance convenor George Fernandes....more
Nehru
wanted US to NEW DELHI, Aug 12: Time is when India faces US sanctions for testing nuclear weapons.....more PIL
alleges minister’s MUMBAI, Aug 12: Mumbai High Court will hear on August 14 a Public Interest Litigation ...more Petition
for delimitation NEW DELHI, Aug 12: A petition seeking direction.....more |
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Abhishek
Bachchan to MUMBAI, Aug 12: So what if all the four films he has acted in till date - ‘Refugee’, ‘Tera Jadoo Chal Gaya’, ‘Dhai Akshar Prem Ke’ and ‘Bas Itna Sa Khwab Bai’- had bombed at the box office? Abhishek Bachchan is indeed ..........more No nexus between Jaya, ex-UTI chief: AIADMK CHENNAI, Aug 12: The AIADMK today said there was not even an ‘iota of truth’ on the reports of nexus between the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the former UTI Chairman P Subramanyam. ......more Kith,
kin of freedom NEW DELHI, Aug 12: It will be an independence day occasion with a difference when kith and kin of freedom fighters, who have stayed away from. ......more INSAS
is not performing NEW DELHI, Aug 12: Army has complained that the country’s indegenious state-of-the-art 5.56mm Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) is not ....more |
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No move to dismiss AIADMK Govt: Fernandes CHENNAI, Aug 12: National Democratic Alliance convenor George Fernandes today ruled out any move by the centre to dismiss the AIADMK Government and impose President’s rule in Tamil Nadu for arresting of Union Ministers Murasoli Maran and T R Baalu on June 30. "There is no such thing on cards", Fernandes, told reporters after his 45-minute meeting with DMK chief M Karunanidhi, at his residence here. Asked about the PMK’s re-entry into the NDA, he said PMK was now with the NDA at the Centre. The decision on PMK’s entry into the NDA in Tamil Nadu led by DMK had to be taken by Karunanidhi, he said, adding, that DMK was not upset over the re-entry of PMK. He said PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss and Karunanidhi were yet to meet. On the re-entry of Trinamul Congress into NDA, he said the issue would be taken up in the coming NDA meeting. Later, Karunanidhi told reporters that Fernandes had apprised him about the re-entry of PMK and wanted him to hold talks with Ramadoss. (PTI) |
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Nehru wanted US to stop
making nukes, NEW DELHI, Aug 12: Time is when India faces US sanctions for testing nuclear weapons. Time was when an Indian leader had suggested that New Delhi refuse American aid because Washington was making nuclear weapons. Way back in 1955, a good 19 years before India exploded its first nuclear device in Pokhran, C Rajagopalachari had suggested that India should stop accepting aid from US as it was manufacturing nuclear weapons. However, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had turned down the advice, saying that "it would have a contrary effect and would not lead to the objective that we aim at." "For US to declare that we would not take any American aid because they are manufacturing nuclear weapons would put a severe strain on our relations with the United States. It would not affect the nuclear weapons situation, but it would certainly make the Americans and their Government very hostile to us." In the letter to Rajagoplalchari, published in the new release of "Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru", of the Nehru Memorial Fund, the first Prime Minister had argued that he was never anxious to get American aid and at no time asked for American aid. "We have accepted it as it came." Nehru’s selected works bring to the fore interesting facets of the country’s foreign and nuclear policy under the first premier, who was an ardent advocate of complete disarmament himself. So complete was Nehru’s committment to disarmament that he steered the first Afro-Asian conference in Bangdung to issue a communique calling upon all states to "co-operate, especially through the UN, in bringing about the reduction of armaments and the elimination of nuclear weapons under effective international control." It also appealed to "all concerned to speedily bring about the regulation, limitation, control and reduction of all armed forces and armaments, including the prohibition of the production, experimentation and use of all weapons of mass destruction, and to establish effective international control to this end." Even as he sought effective international control to check the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes, Nehru was very alert to the formation of any control regimes that were discriminatory in nature and would lead to exploitation of the lesser developed Asian and African countries. For instance, he opposed tooth and nail the formation of the International Atomic Energy Agency as was first proposed by the US in the summer of 1955. "As suggested it appears that the agency will consist of the US, the UK, Canada, France, Belgium, Australia, South Africa and Portugal. This agency is supposed to have a pool of atomic materials and will be a clearing house for the purpose." "This suggestion cannot be welcomed by US as it means handing over the control of such a pool to a few countries. In fact it means the US trying to corner atomic materials in a large part of the world. "Another undesirable feature of this will be the exploitation of atomic energy minerals by colonial powers for their own advantage no doubt. Thus apart from the big countries, Portugal and Belgium will expolit regions of Africa. "Thus, from every point of view, we cannot welcome this proposal and we have no intention, whatsoever, of becoming a member of this pool if the conditions remain as indicated," nehru had written adding that "it is not enough to say that we might be permitted to join the pool later." In India’s preparation for the Bangdung conference, Nehru had suggested the following line of argument in opposition to the proposed structure of IAEA. "Such an agency confined to these powers would not be representative. Some countries mentioned in this list are apparently included simply because they are colonial powers." "There are other countries in Europe and Asia which are scientifically and technologically more advanced than these colonial powers. A political group of the kind suggested would have no relation to any scientific and objective approach to the problem and would tend to perpetuate colonial domination and the exploitation of large parts of Asia and Africa to the advantage of some great powers and some countries owning colonial territories. "This conference, is therefore, strongly of the opinion that the mineral deposits in Asia and Europe must only be used with the consultation of and for the benefit of the people of those countries," Nehru had written to bureaucrat B K Nehru ahead of the Bangdung Conference as the line of argument for New Delhi to take on the subject. (PTI) |
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PIL alleges minister’s hand in illegal construction MUMBAI, Aug 12: Mumbai High Court will hear on August 14 a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) alleging illegal construction of a community hall in Baramati near Pune with MLA fund of Maharashtra’s Irrigation Minister Ajit Pawar. The PIL alleged that the community hall had come up illegally on an approach road. Shamsunder Potre, who filed the PIL, alleged that no plans had been submitted to Baramati Municipal Council for construction of community hall which had been constructed on the road. He alleged that the illegal construction had the blessings of the Irrigation Minister as it had been constructed from his MLA fund. Besides, official of Civic Body, PWD and Irrigation Departments had also helped in this endeavour. The PIL prayed for demolition of this structure, reconstruction of the road where the community hall was built and action against officials who had encouraged such illegal construction. On last occasion, a bench headed by Chief Justice B P Singh had ordered the respondents to file affidavits. The respondents are Pune Collector, Irrigation Minister Ajit Pawar, PWD’s Regional Engineer, Baramati Municipal Council and Engineer of Irrigation Department. (PTI) |
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Kith, kin of freedom fighters to be honoured NEW DELHI, Aug 12: It will be an independence day occasion with a difference when kith and kin of freedom fighters, who have stayed away from limelight after their near ones sacrificed lives for the country, will be honoured and brought on one platform. Though the occasion "Swadheenta Sangram Diwas", organised by All India Terrorist Front led by Maninderjit Singh Bitta, will honour noted persons like former President R Venkataraman and former Prime Minister P V Narsimha Rao, the limelight could be shared by family members of Udham Singh, Mangal Pandey, Rajguru and Sukhdev, who sacrificed their lives and formed a part of the Indian independence history. The function, which will be held on August 14 in the capital, will also honour family members of leaders like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Lala Lajpat Rai. "I was shocked to see the condition of brother of Bhagat Singh, whom neither the political parties nor the Government remembers after 53 years of independence," says Bitta, adding "that this led me to bring all such unknown faces before the public so that the new generation, which has to run the country in future, salutes these brave people." He said though in history classes "a student is taught about Udham Singh or Mangal Pandey or Rajguru or Sukhdev, how many people know about their family members who allowed them to fight for independence." Bitta said "what an irony it could be that it took me nearly eight months to locate the kith and kin of the freedom fighters of this country as neither the State Governments nor the Centre was maintaining any records about them." "The new generation has to be made aware about the esteemed sacrifices that the martyrs made and accepted the gallows of Britishers as garland," he said. Asked about the honouring of leaders like Venkataraman and Rao, Bitta said "everyone remembers them as President or the Prime Minister of the country but no one apparently knows that they participated in the freedom fight very actively and confronted Britishers on several occasions." During the function, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, niece of Subash Chander Bose, brother of Baghat Singh, grandson of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai, wives of Shanker Dayal Sharma, Giani Zail Singh and I K Gujaral, sons of Gulzari Lal Nanda, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Lal Bahadur Shastri and daughter of Jagjivan Ram will be honoured. Freedom fighters A K Hangal, G V G Krishnamurthy, Bhishm Narain Singh will also be honoured besides Venkataraman and Narsimha Rao. (PTI) |
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INSAS is not performing to optimum level: Army NEW DELHI, Aug 12: Army has complained that the country’s indegenious state-of-the-art 5.56mm Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) is not performing to the optimum level with major defects like cold arrest, breakage and cracking of components reported in active areas like Siachen Glacier, Kargil heights and other high altitude areas. "Major defects in assault rifles as well as light machine guns like change lever system, breakage of carrying handle, screw locking butt, crack of retainer and breakage of barrel bulge have come to the fore from forward areas," top Army officials said. They said that these defects, which had come to the fore even during the Kargil conflict, had been brought to the notice of rifle specialists at Ishapore factory as well DRDO scientists and that the defects were yet to be rectified. These defects as well as ordinance factories not keeping to delivery schedules had forced the army, with Government clearance, to import one lakh AK-47 assault rifles from Romania at a cost of Rs 85 crore. The imported AK-47 had been used to equip special forces, like the commando groups, units engaged in counter insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the forces facing Pakistani troops across the Line of Control (LoC), officials said. They said a special task force comprising officials of master general of ordinanace, Directorate General of Quality Assurance, rifle specialists and DRDO scientists had been constituted to rectify the defects. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has also taken Defence Ministry to task for a three-year delay in fulfilling Army’s plan to re-equip all its formations with indigenously developed 5.56 mm small arm system. "The Army’s plan was to equip all its forces with these light arms by 1998 and ordinance factories supplied only 2.75 lakh rifles and light machine guns as on March 2000," CAG said in its latest report tabled in Parliament. Army officials said the light machine gun from the INSAS series had been put through user trials from November 1987 to April 1992 and cleared for troop trials which also were completed by 1995. Army served a bulk order production in 1997 subject to carrying out modification in carrying handle, mount for optical sight, pistol grip and locking pin. CAG in its report said that despite Army having asked the ordinance board in July 1989 to speed up the process of development so as to introduce the weapon in 1990, "development and establishment of the weapon had lagged behind by eight years". The report said the worse was the case of the INSAS carbine, which small arms factory, Kanpur, was not successful in developing even after 13 years leading to the army, supposed to be the bulk consumer, foreclosing its requirement of carbine in the present form. The CAG also pulled up ordinance factories for massive shortfalls in supplies of small arms ammunition to the Army during the last seven years saying against an order for 43.46 crore round of ammunition, the ordinance factories had supplied only 26.55 crore rounds. The report also said failure to produces carbines was even more glaring as a sum of Rs 22.18 crore had been spent on purchase of machine alone. It also took to task ordinance factory, Varangaon, saying it had taken more than 12 years for development of tracer ammunition for the 5.56 mm system. Giving a year wise break up in failure to meet delivery schedule of the 5.56 rifles, it said in 1993-94 Army against a requirement of 48,000 rifles placed an order for just 7000 without receiving even a single gun. And between 1995 and 2000 against a requirement of 5,28,000 rifles, the Ishapore factory had only managed to supply half the number of 2,69,612 rifles, while to date against a requirement of 37,600 light machine guns, Army had barely received 5778. (PTI) |
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