Under unprecedented attack over the Coal-Gate scam, the
government today cited the 1991 economic crisis in India to justify
the allocation of coal mining blocks to pri-vate parties.
In the Supreme Court today, the Attor-ney General said the
privatization of coal mining was one of the policies to tide over a
major economic crisis.
He also quoted from a speech on by Prime Minister Man-mohan
Singh, who was then the Finance Minister, on the coun-trys economic
tur-moil.
In 1991, the country had only Rs. 2,500 crore in foreign
exchange to run the country for a fortnight. We needed 1, 25,000
crores for to generate power, said the governments top lawyer.
The Planning Commis-sion said there was no objec-tion to
privatizing coal min-ing for power generation.
The Supreme Court said: But we are concerned
whether these policies have legal sanction.
The government said laws were amended to privatize coal blocks
for power com-panies which would supply power to states at
regulated tariff.
The UPA government has been fighting allegations that precious
coal mining blocks were allocated illegally to private parties and
individu-als close to the government
at throwaway prices, costing the country hundreds of crores in
revenue.
The controversy over coal allocation files sought by the CBI
that are missing, stalled much of Par-liaments last session with
the Opposition alleging that most of the missing files are from the
time the PM was in charge of
the coal ministry.After reports that an of-
ficer investigating the coal scam wanted to examine Dr Singh,
but was overruled by the CBI chief, the BJP said the PM should
volunteer himself for questioning.
wednesday september | 18| 2013zabarwan times 7
Agencies
Shabras nine-year-old daughter went missing from Jahangirpuri
slums in 2008. Now over four years later neither the police and
courts nor child rights commis-sions have been able to help her and
her hus-band find their daugh-ter.
The police demand-ed money to help us find our daughter and we
are just too poor to now continue our search. We appeal to the
government is to help us locate her, said Shabra, speaking at a
public hearing on Mon-day organised by Child Rights and You and
Alliance for Peoples Rights which saw the participation of parents
and those working in the area of child rights.
The objective of this public hearing was to understand the trend
for increasing number of missing children, and state the reasons,
challenges and difficul-ties encountered in their search.At the
meeting, parents of missing children from across Delhi presented
their case before the panel comprising National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), State Commission for
Protection of Child Rights, Integrated Child Protection Scheme,
Delhi and offi-cials from Delhi Police.NCPCR member Nina Nayak
said: As soon as the child
goes missing, all the relevant child pro-tection stakeholders
should be alerted for fast tracking of the case. Inputs of family
are paramount in the process of tracing the child and it should be
done in a professional manner. There should be convergence between
all child pro-tection authorities in the State.A re-port on the
status of missing children in
Delhi, which threw light on the lack of coordination between
various depart-ments of the State, was also released during the
public hearing.
The figures of missing children collected from RTIs, ZIPNET
(Zonal In-tegrated Police Network) and NCRB (National Crime Records
Bureau) are differ-ent, which shows the lack of convergence between
child protection agencies. This is a matter of serious concern for
implementa-tion of child rights in the State, said Child Rights and
You regional director (north) Soha Moitra.Stat-ing that adequate
human/material and financial re-sources should be invested towards
establishing an effective system of trac-ing missing children, Ms.
Moitra said: There are no timelines for police depart-ment to trace
missing chil-dren which shows the apa-thy and non seriousness
towards handling these
issues.The stakeholders noted that there is a need for proactive
support from various sectors to address the is-sue of missing
children in a systematic way. There are important questions to be
answered. Where did these children go? Were they abducted? Were
they sold for money? Are they still alive? she demanded to
know.
Tracing Delhis missing children not a police priority
Woman alleges police shielding
molesters, consumes
poison in Sikar Agencies
A woman, who was alleg-edly abducted and assaulted, consumed
poison in a local court during the hearing in her case alleging
that police was shielding the two accused, po-lice said on Tuesday.
The victim consumed aldrin in front of the ACJM Court in Sikar
district on Monday during the hearing of her case for alleged
abduction and assault in March this year, Kotwali SHO Dharamveer
said. She was rushed in a critical con-dition to the Sri Kalayan
Govern-ment hospital after taking her statement. District hospital
doc-tors on Tuesday referred her to Jaipurs SMS hospital for a
better treatment, but she refused to go there, the SHO said. She
report-edly told the court that she did want to live as the police
was trying to cover up the case, the SHO said.
Asaram lawyer Jethmalani loses the argument on Twitter with girl
has a disease remarkAgencies
Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, one of Indias top legal minds,
may need to defend himself against Twitter users who are
criticising him for his contro-versial statement about a girl who
has accused self-styled godman Asaram of sexual
assault.Jeth-malani, while argu-ing for Asarams bail in the
Rajasthan high court on Monday, said the girl was af-flicted with a
dis-ease which draws a woman to a man. He also claimed the po-lice
complaint filed against Asaram and age of the girl had been
fabricated.
Reaction on social media was immedi-ate and angry. Ram
Jethmalani is a vicious combination of Thakral of Meri Jung and
Chad-hdha of Damini, tweeted @indi-antweeter, referring to much
reviled lawyers of Bollywood cinema.
Jethmalani, 90, was called a law-
yer for Mogambos, another infa-mous Bollywood movie villain, and
much worse. People made fun of his age and competence in court.
Mar-tians planted mind control chip in Asarams brain, argues
defence law-
yer Ram Jethmalani, tweeted jour-nalist Praveen Swami.
Dear oh dear, Ram Jethmalani showing that even leading lawyers
can be desperately out of form, tweeted cricket writer and
analyst
Harsha Bhogle. Girl has disease that draws her
to men. Then men raped her to cure the disease? tweeted writer
Tasli-ma Nasreen.
People compared Jethmalani to Delhi lawyer AP Singh, who had
made a contro-versial state-ment about the December 16 Delhi
gang-rape victim while de-fending convicts in the case. If Delhi
Bar Asso-ciation can con-template action on Singh post Dec 16
verdict, cant imagine y they shouldnt act on Jeth-malani, said
@Punditmusings.
A 16-year-old girl on August 20
had lodged a police complaint, ac-cusing Asaram of sexually
assaulting her at his ashram near Jodhpur.
Asaram was arrested from his ashram in Indore, Madhya Pradesh,
and brought to Jodhpur Sep 1.
Coal scam: government cites Manmohan Singhs
1991 crisis speech
CPI wishes encounter specialist Narendra Modi on
64th birthdayNew Delhi:
Communist Party of In-dia (CPI) leader Atul Kumar Anjan on
Tuesday labelled Bharatiya Janata Partys Prime Ministerial
candidate Narendra Modi as an en-counter specialist, and
spite-fully congratulated the Gujarat Chief Minister on his
birthday for be-ing a political murderer.
Today is his birthday, it is the birthday of an encounter
spe-cialist. In his own party he has done several killings and
silent killings, Anjan said.
Like in Mumbai you have encounter specialists, from the soil of
Gandhi ji who set out to unite the country, you have Modi who is
trying to break the country.
In the form of an en-counter specialist, he wants to make the
yatra from Ahmedabad to New Delhi. On Narendra Modis birth-day, I
congratulate him for the flood of political murders that he has
committed, he added. Meanwhile, Gujarat Chief Minister and
Bharatiya Janata Partys Prime Ministe-
rial candidate Narendra Modi, who turned 63 on Tuesday, met his
mother Hiraben here to seek her blessings.This is one of lifes
great opportuni-ties, a mothers blessings, Modi told media after
meet-ing his 94-year-old mother. He further thanked his sup-porters
and followers across
the nation for their greetings.
I have faith that peoples blessings wont go waste, it will give
me strength to go on with my work. BJP
on Friday announced Modi as its prime ministerial can-didate for
the 2014 general elections.
The announcement came after a meeting of the par-tys
parliamentary board in Delhi, which unanimously decided to project
Modi as the prime ministerial candi-date. Modi assured his party
workers and supporters that he would leave no stone un-turned in
ensuring that the BJP emerges victorious in the 2014 Lok Sabha
polls. With the blessings of the national leadership and love of
the party workers, I am sure we will win, he added.
Jats sore at PM, Sonia for visiting only Muslim relief camps
MUZAFFARNAGAR:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and
party vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday came face to face with
the communal divide in western Uttar Pradesh, and also saw their
visit to the riot-hit areas itself becoming a point of discord.
Within hours of their leaving Malikpur, the inhabitants of the
jat-dominated village lamented that they chose to meet Muslims in
the relief camps in Muzaffar-nagar but ignored those from the
majority community who have been equally affected by the communal
clashes. Interestingly, jats did not seem impressed by Sonia and
Rahul either even though the mother-son duo had, on the advice of a
UP government officer, made brief unscheduled stops at
jat-dominated Bawali and Khanjpura.
Alleging disparity, jats said they were ignored. Havent we lost
our dear ones? It seems that only they (Muslims) have been pained,
was the unanimous re-action in the village.
Malikpur is next to Kawal, the Muslim-dominated village where a
clash between two groups of youths on August 27 resulted in the
deaths of Shahnawaz, Gaurav and Sachin and provided the spark for
the communal conflagration.
The PM and the Gandhis, accom-
panied by minister of state for home R P N Singh, must have had
an under-standing of the gulf that separates jats from Muslims when
they interacted
with Muslim victims at the Bassi Ka-lan relief camp. Those at
the camp, like others in Tawli, detailed horror stories during the
45 minutes the leaders spent with them. And they were almost
unanimous that they
were not going to go back to their vil-lages even if the jats
came calling.
Several female Muslim riot survi-vors from different villages
narrated
to the Congress chief how in a flash they were dispossessed of
everything they owned. The survivors also apprised the leaders of
the irresponsible at-titude of police and administra-tion when it
came to their safety and alleged that they feared for their life
every moment.
Forty two-year-old Jameel Bassi, who is from Kutubi, said, We
told the PM that we dont want to go back to our village. There is
threat to our lives. Bassi was seen weeping dur-ing the
interaction. The PM said all help will be extended to us by the
state and central governments.The ire of the people here is
directed against the political class as a whole. So many people
from our com-munity were brutally butchered over the past few weeks
with our meetings being hijacked. There are so many villages in
this whole belt where so many jats have also left their villages
due to fear and they are hiding at residences of their relatives or
in other cities. However, the
PM only comes and meets people in relief camps of Muslims. Hasnt
my son died in the same violence, asked Ravinder Singh, father of
Gaurav who along with his cousin Sachin was killed in a clash at
Kawal.
Agencies
The teams of National Investigation Agency visited Goa along
with IM co-founder Yasin Bhatkal to probe his links in the coastal
state where he had earlier vis-ited, police sources said.
The teams, which were in the state for a day on Monday, took
Bhatkal to places like Anjuna beach, Mapusa, Panaji and Vasco,
which he had reportedly visited during the last decade.
The NIA teams were here but did not share their intelligence
inputs with the state police, Goa police Deputy Inspector General
O.P. Mishra said last night.
However, sources in the police de-partment said the NIA teams
were trying to ascertain whether Bhatkal had been recruiting
gullible youths from Goa into his terror network.
Goa was on alert during the last year end following inputs that
the state, which attracts 25 lakh tourists annually, may be on the
hit list of terrorists.
30-year-old Yasin, arrested along In-do-Nepal border on August
29, is alleged to be involved in a series of blasts from 2006
onwards across the country.
Bhatkal, who was on run since 2008, is wanted in cases of terror
attacks in Ahmedabad, Surat, Bangalore, Pune, Del-hi and
Hyderabad.
Bhatkal, who co-founded Indian Mu-jahideen (IM) in 2008 along
with brother Riaz, is also wanted in the German Bak-ery bomb blast
in Pune on February 13, 2010, that left 17 people dead.
The IM was designated a terrorist
group by the government under the Unlaw-ful Activities
Prevention Act in June 2010.
NIA teams visit Goa with Bhatkal to ascertain terror links
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi,
talk with riot affected people at a relief
camp in Muzaffarnagar.
Today is his birthday, it is the birthday of an
encounter specialist. In his own party he has done several
killings and silent
killings, Anjan said.
Srinagar,Monday April 14 2014 5
