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BALCO
deal NEW DELHI, Mar 11: Union Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie today challenged Chattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi to make public names of.......more Russian
academic NEW DELHI, Mar 11: A Russian scholar has suggested that the commission probing Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s....more ‘Mainstream
cinema MUMBAI, Mar 11: Renowned documentary film maker Anand Patwardhan believes mainstream cinema can play vital role in fighting evils like ...more How
seismically NEW DELHI, Mar 11: India’s monument of monuments, the "Taj Mahal is the safest monument and will survive even if the whole of agra is flattened by ...more |
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Kashmir isn’t
East Timor: India From B L Kak New
technique for NEW DELHI, Mar 11: A new, rapid and accurate technique to detect genetic disorders, specially down’s syndrome,.more
Laws recognising only physical documents now obsolete: Jaitley NEW DELHI, Mar 11: In the age of Information Technology (IT), existing laws like the Evidence Act, which recognise.more ‘Administrators
were NEW DELHI, Mar 11: More than individual cricketers, the apathetic administrators are to be blamed for the perpetuation ....more |
BALCO
deal NEW DELHI, Mar 11: Union Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie today challenged Chattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi to make public names of those alleged to have received Rs 100 crore bribe in the BALCO deal. Denying Jogi’s allegation of corruption in selling 51 per cent Government stake in Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO) to Sterlite Industries for Rs 551.5 crore, Shourie asked public to write letters to the Central Vigilance Commissioner to force him seek proof of charges of corruption in the disinvestment of BALCO from Chattisgarh Chief Minister. "If Jogi comes out with names, these officers will haul him to courts for defamation. In my opinion, Government should assist these officers to fight such baseless allegations," Shourie said in a programme on a private television channel. "Its the duty of Central Vigilance Commissioner to implement Prevention of Corruption Act," he said adding disinvestment process would come clean of such controversies and would be further strengthened. Shourie warned that unnecessary delay in the process of disinvestment would prove costly to the nation. On Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), he said today there were six more gateways apart from VSNL and by March 2002, monopoly of VSNL in international telephony would end and then no company would be intrested in buying into it. Asked about selling the so-called crown jewels of Air India and Indian Airlines, the minister said none of the international airlines are willing to take over the "headache" of operating 23 airplanes with a staff of 18,000. Shourie said "this whole business that the public sector is discharging a social responsibility by running in losses is just not founded in truth. Getting aggressive strategic partners into these companies is probably the only way left today to save the jobs of persons." "Industrial Dispute Act had enough safeguards for providing job security to employees in private companies. No one can just throw out (of the organisation) employees," he said adding trade unions were being misguided about the whole issue of job security in private companies. Denying that most disinvestment decisions were being made in secrecy, Shourie said the disinvestment policy had been discussed in both Houses of Parliament seven times and in the last two sessions itself more than 320 questions had been answered. The whole process of disinvestment in Public Sector Undertakings was being done in most transparent and accountable way and records of every deal would be put before the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, he added. (PTI) |
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Russian academic contests
claims NEW DELHI, Mar 11: A Russian scholar has suggested that the commission probing Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s death travel to Russia and study the official and KGB files of the period to set at rest all controversy regarding the Indian leader’s detention in Soviet Union after 1945. "The new commission can go to Russia and see the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the KGB and the Ministry of External Affairs between 1940 and 1945 to get the truth whether or not, the Indian leader flew to Diren from Manchuria instead of perishing in a plane crash in Taihoku (Japan) as is widely held," Prof Prigori G Kotovsky, Dy Co-chairman, Indo-Russian Joint Commission for Cooperation in Social Sciences said. Taking strong exception to recent press reports that Bose was under detention in Russia during the reign of Stalin and had a meeting with the then Indian Ambassador Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Prof Kotovsky told PTI that the new commission could also access the files during the stalin period, which the US has procured to put to rest all rumours about Netaji. "With relations between India and Russia on a new high after the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin, it should not be difficult for the Governments to agree to share information contained even in the Foreign Ministry files of the period," Kotovsky said. (PTI) |
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‘Mainstream cinema can play vital role in fighting evils’ MUMBAI, Mar 11: Renowned documentary film maker Anand Patwardhan believes mainstream cinema can play vital role in fighting evils like communalism in the country, but so far this serious problem has been ignored by this powerful medium. Speaking to UNI, the maker of widely acclaimed documentary films like ‘In the name of god’, ‘In memories of friends’, and ‘Father, son & holy war’, all of which are on the backdrop of communalism, Mr Patwardhan said communalism is on the rise in the country and something needs to be done to contain its menace. Patwardhan, a well-known filmmaker, has won national and international awards for all his films. Ironically, Doordarshan the national channel, has always refused to telecast his films and everytime he was forced to go to court. Recently Mumbai High Court ordered Doordarshan to telecast Mr Patwardhan’s latest film "Father, son and holy war". Earlier Doordarshan had to telecast Mr Patwardhan’s three films "Bombay our city", "In the name of god" and "In memories of friends" after the court’s direction. Mr Patwardhan said "communalism in the country started in the eighties, after ‘Operation Blue Star’, where the Army stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar and later the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which gave rise to anti-Sikh riots. In late eighties, Hindu fundamentalist groups raised the issue of Ramjanmabhumi and Babri Masjid controversy, which led to the demolition of the Masjid which again spread communal riots throughout the country, he said. Mr Patwardhan opined that Indian mainstream cinema was always anti-communal. After the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, for two decades fundamentalists were considered ‘villians’, and communalism as ‘evil’. "Many film makers had gone through trauma of partition like Mehboob Khan, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt and many more but they were ‘progressive’ in their filmmaking and not ‘reactionary’ and they made films on social issues", he pointed out. He said in the recent past not only were very few films made on the theme of communalism but in some films film makers unconsciously were on the wrong side. He gave examples of Mani Ratnam’s film ‘Bombay’ and John Mathew Mathan’s film ‘Sarfarosh’. "On one level ‘Bombay’ looks anti-communal, but on the other level it depicts wrong picture of mumbai riots, as the riots were not not on an ‘equal’ level but were targetted against the minorities," he said. He said in ‘Sarfarosh’, a Muslim has to prove his loyalty to his country otherwise he will be treated as ‘traitor’. He believes that film industry is secular but is not not aware about its role. In the last 30 years, Mr Patwardhan has made 12 documentaries, in which some are ‘Prisoners of conscience’, ‘Bombay, my city’ and ‘Narmada Diary’, which is based on the Narmada Valley agitation in Gujarat. According to Mr Patwardhan documentaries are medium of democracy. "They can strengthen democracy by increasing understanding between different sections of society", he felt. He complains that Doordarshan and Government does not not encourage serious film makers, though good films are made but they dont see the light of the day. He said that even the audience do not not care as they need entertainment. "Forces which control things have corrupted the tastes of the audience", he concluded. (UNI) |
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Laws recognising only
physical NEW DELHI, Mar 11: In the age of Information Technology (IT), existing laws like the Evidence Act, which recognise only physical documents, have become obsolete, Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley has said. Speaking at a recent seminar on "challenges of internet/cyber law and enforcement of copyright law, Mr Jaitley said the Information Technology (IT) Act was only an enabling legislation and a beginning in the right direction. The experience has been that whenever a new development or commission is created, its jurisdiction is fixed and the policies and programmes are set. It is desirable that the state and the legislature keep certain matters out of the regulatory mechanism, he said, adding that this was why the IT and broadcasting sectors were success stories in the Indian context in recent times. There has been least regulation in these sectors, he pointed out. Mr Justice S P Bharucha of the Supreme Court said the internet had proved to be the fastest growing communication phenomenon ever, adding that issues like identification of culprits and their trial needed an effort by experts from both law and internet technology. He proposed incorporation of provisions from international treaties in domestic laws so that a better mechanism can be developed for controlling cyber crimes. Mr Jaitley stressed the need for a concerted effort by the international community to have uniform legislations in all countries to deal with these issues. Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah said a recent challenge to legislators and the judiciary was regulating the use and abuse of copyright materials accessed through the internet. He reminded that India was yet to ratify the two World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) internet treaties - WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), which address the issues of definition and scope of rights in the digital environment and some of the challenges of online enforcement and licensing. NASSCOM president Dewang Mehta said that due to awareness of copyright laws and enactment of IT laws, the piracy rate in the IT sector has gone down from 89 per cent to 59 per cent. He stressed the need to train persons, especially judicial officers, advocates and police in information technology. (UNI) |
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‘Administrators were silent conspirators in match-fixing’ NEW DELHI, Mar 11: More than individual cricketers, the apathetic administrators are to be blamed for the perpetuation of match-fixing that ate into the spirit of the game over the years despite repeated warning signals, says a book on the episode that shook the foundations of cricket last year. In ‘Match-fixing: The enemy within’, sports journalist G Rajaraman blasts the administrators for their apathy to the evil when it was at the stage of murmurs, much before the sensational disclosure by Delhi Police on April seven last year on Hansie Cronje and his band. Rajaraman describes the administrators of the game as "silent conspirators" and finds them as culpable as any player who was involved with bookmakers. The constant refrain of "we do not believe match-fixing exits" of the administrators, he stresses, delayed action. "All boards were guilty of sweeping the first signs of dirt quickly under the carpet... Because stern action was never taken, the problem grew bigger and more menacing. "It was all too apparent that those in the International Cricket Council only tried to protect their own country’s interests rather than treat this as an issue that the game needs to be cleansed of," he writes. He finds it baffling that Ali Bacher, the former chief of South African Cricket Board, took long to expose that "two matches of 1999 World Cup were fixed" and came out with it only after cronjegate fell upon him. The writer has similar words of criticism for the BCCI mandarins. Throwing and ball-tampering pale in comparison to match-fixing. It needs help from within its ranks if it is to escape the vice-like grip that sinister elements seem to have on the game now, he says. The book, released by former India captain Bishen Singh Bedi at a function here on Friday, traces the eruption of the scandal in the year 2000 and digs into the links between betting and cricket. It looks at corruption in cricket as a reflection of the society in which it is played taking the cue from the classic ‘beyond the boundary’ by C L R James. In a separate chapter called the ‘Hall of Shame’, the book also casts a glance at each of the cricketers who is banned, suspended or fined by cricket boards across the world with special focus on India’s former skipper Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja. Despite the involvement of Manoj Prabhakar, who has been banned by BCCI for five years, the writer nevertheless praises the former Indian seamer’s contribution to help start clean up the game in the country. The writer says the game was probably conceived to delight and despair bookmakers and punters just as much as plain simple fans. The myriad events within a match allow immense scope for the punters and bookmakers from the choice of a side’s 11 players to the toss, nature of pitch, batting or bowling order and scores. No other game offers as much to the devotees of money. It is time cricket gets back to a situation where people believe that what’s happening out in the middle has to do with skill, courage, heroism and endeavour, and has nothing to do with some seedy conversation the night before in a hotel room or on a mobile phone, Rajaraman says. From now on, he concludes, officials would have to make a sincere effort to educate and warn players of the dangers posed by sports betting gamblers so that their nerves hold in the face of lure by nefarious elements. (UNI) |
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