Wed, 27/01/2010 - 10:35pm K’taka Chief Justice victim of conspiracy: Gowda

K’taka Justice victim of conspiracy: Gowda
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 25
Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda has expressed apprehension that Karnataka High Court Chief Justice PD Dinakaran might be a victim of a conspiracy since he had ordered action against the NICE company for alleged irregularities in some projects.

A group of MPs led by the BJP had submitted a signed memorandum to Vice-President and Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari to impeach Dinakaran for allegedly indulging in land grabbing following which a three-member committee was set up to study the allegations and submit a report. If the committee finds substance in the allegations, Parliament could go ahead with impeachment proceedings against Dinakaran.

Deve Gowda, who has been agitating against the BJP government headed by Chief Minister BS Yedyurappa for bartering off farmers’ land around Bangalore to NICE company, alleged here today that the Karnataka government appointed the legal counsel of NICE the state’s Advocate General.

He also said Dinakaran struck down the land grant to NICE and pointed out that the lawyer BV Acharya was the main mover against Dinakaran. “Maybe some people involved in this case were angered by Dinakaran judgement,” said Gowda.The former PM has written a second letter to the CM wondering why he had also set aside the findings of the BC Patel Commission.

“You and your government are indulging in systematic acts of collusion with NICE Ltd. to bury the fraud and reverse all decisions taken by a Cabinet of which you was a part as the deputy CM and the Finance Minister,” Gowda wrote in his letter

Wed, 20/01/2010 - 9:45pm Orissa victims of communal violence to boycott inquiry

Orissa victims boycott inquiry
January 20, 2010
In October that year, the Orissa government appointed retired state High Court judge Mohapatra to a one-man commission to investigate the violence.
Survivors of last year’s anti-Christian violence in Orissa have decided to boycott a government inquiry into the riots.

“What is there to inquire when the commission has already made up its mind?” said Bipra Nayak of the Sampradayik Hinsa Prapidita Sangathana (SHPS), an association of survivors of the violence.

The victims made their intentions clear in a letter sent to commission chief Sarat Chandra Mohapatra informing him of their decision to boycott proceedings.

Orissa’s Kandhamal district was at the center of the violence that started on Aug. 24, 2009, a day after Maoists gunned down a Hindutva religious leader and his associates.

Hindu extremists blamed Christians for the murders and attacked their homes, churches, convents and other institutions.

Seven weeks of rioting left around 100 people dead and more than 50,000 others homeless.

In October that year, the Orissa government appointed retired state High Court judge Mohapatra to a one-man commission to investigate the violence.

Nayak, the association’s convener in Balliguda, Kandhamal, told UCA News the victims say Mohapatra is biased. “We have no alternative except to boycott this prejudiced inquiry,” he added.

Praful Pradhan, a tribal leader, said the victims were shocked when Mohapatra determined that the violence was not a sectarian conflict even before receiving affidavits from the public on the violence.

Mon, 04/01/2010 - 10:56am Happy New Year ? For whom ?

04/01/2010TJS George column:

There’s a brand new addition to our National Register of Shame. The law has been amended to allow free air travel, business class, to “any number of companions and relatives” of ministers. MPs were already enjoying this obscene privilege, but not ministers. The latest amendment is “to remove this discrepancy”.

Of course there was a more decent way to end that discrepancy - by scrapping the undeserved charity given to MPs. But such thoughts do not occur to netas and babus who love living off others. Notice the important detail: The amending bill was passed in an instant. No debate, no dissent, not disruption from the well of the House. Jai Hind!

And just who are these people whose privileges We the People are forced to finance? Of the 545 MPs, perhaps 50 may be considered legitimate parliamentarians. As many as 153 are criminally tainted, 75 of them by "serious cases" involving murder and gang wars. Many who are not on the certified criminal list are routinely involved in lucrative contract/promotion/lobbying rackets.

Then there are the famously shameless. Remember the MP who was arrested in 2008 for using his official passport to smuggle people to Canada? Four other MPs were involved in that scurrilous abuse of privilege. And remember the eleven MPs who were caught on camera accepting bribes for raising questions in Parliament? Even if we set aside these headline-making criminalities, MPs as a collective still loom as a blot on democracy, blocking proceedings and shouting one another down as a matter of policy. In 2008 a frustrated Speaker Somnath Chatterji referred 32 MPs to the Privileges Committee for disorderly behaviour. He was persuaded to drop the matter, but he did make the point that Parliament had been reduced to a House of Disorder.

Are these the people who should get everything virtually free - free accommodation, free laundry, free phone calls, free electricity, free water, free travel and now free travel for any number of companions and relatives?

This parasitic culture, sanctified by successive governments and all political parties, is what has made the political class as a whole an object of loathing across the country. Official defenders of the system, especially righteous-looking spokesmen like Jayanti Natarajan and Manish Tiwari, blame critics for criticising the political class as a whole. But that is precisely what the public does. They do not accept the professional defenders' argument that the few black sheep are exceptions. In fact, the few white ones are the exceptions; delinquents are the rule.

What is it if not the class character of our politicians that makes the indefensible defensible? What explains a popular hero whom adoring masses called "Guruji" turning into a personification of corruption the moment he gets power? The hero-turned-convicted-murderer has again become Jharkhand's chief minister. What explains Madhu Koda, Karnataka's Bellary Brothers, communist rulers with capitalist tastes? For that matter, what explains the sex maniac former police chief of Haryana and the rapist police chief of Rajasthan absconding for a decade? They all think that power gives them the right to plunder and rape and kill. What makes it a "class act" is their absolute conviction that they do nothing wrong. Koda said people were attacking him because they were jealous of his success. The Haryana police molester talked about constitutional rights.

Against the background of offenders posing as patriots with constitutional rights, perhaps free air travel for ministerial companions may look like a non-issue. But it is a pointer to the wide spectrum of iniquities we live with. (For every N.D.Tiwari who retires, there will be another requiring half an aircraft to take his companions along). We have developed a system where Good subsidises Evil. Unhappy thoughts for a New Year. But not unrealistic ones.

(TJS George is a well-known journalist, columnist and author. He began his career in Bombay's Free Press Journal in 1950 and moved through the International Press Institute, The Searchlight and the Far Eastern Economic Review to become the founding editor of Asiaweek (Hong Kong). He is currently the Editorial Advisor of The New Indian Express.)

Thu, 26/11/2009 - 4:22pm 23,000 Indian schools running under open sky -MP leads

New Delhi, Nov 26

When education reforms are said to be a primary focus of the central government, a human resource development (HRD) ministry document has revealed that nearly 23,000 government schools are running under an open sky.

To be precise, 22,762 schools including 7,827 run by local bodies have no building, while 1,757 others across the country are running from tents.

Students in Madhya Pradesh are the worst sufferers as more than 4,400 schools are running in the open. While 3,424 schools in Bihar are functioning under similar conditions, the same is the fate of over 2,200 schools in Uttar Pradesh.

Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura are some of the states where no school is functioning in such pitiable conditions.

Fri, 13/11/2009 - 7:09am Karntaka chief Minister ignores flood victims ,spends millions for make over

Yeddyurappa spends Rs 1.7(170Million) crore to redo home,while the state is reeling under worst flood
Anil Kumar M, TNN 13 November 2009, 01:01am IST
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BANGALORE:
Last week, in New Delhi, a weepy Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa lamented how his political rivals, the "Bellary Reddys", were Karnataka CM B S Yeddyurappa's residence in Bangalore.
preventing him from tending to the hapless flood victims, but a new revelation shows that the chief minister's priority is not just selfless service of his state.

An RTI reply has revealed that Yeddyurappa has been equally committed to improving his own living quarters. He spent a staggering Rs 1.7 crore to renovate his bungalow, Rs 35 lakh of which went into redoing his bedroom. Going by the current austerity norms for politicians, Yeddyurappa's generous spend is unlikely to make him a role model.

Sat, 31/10/2009 - 9:25pm Rath(chariot) to reach Orissa on Nov 7 to ban cow slaughter

Biswa Mangal Go Gram Yatra Rath to reach Orissa on Nov 7

Biswa Mangal Go Gram Samiti sponsored 108 day national wide Yatra seeking complete ban on cow slaughtering and maximum funds for rural India, will reach Orissa on November 7, the hosts here said on Saturday.

The main Rath of the Yatra would stay in Orissa for four days from November 7 to 10. It will arrive at Rourkela on November 7 from Ranchi and reach Sambalpur on November 8 Cuttack on 9 and on 10, it will be at Berhampur and on 11, it would leave for Visakhapatnam.

The Yatra is demanding national animal status for cow and asked the Centre as well as respective States Government to impose a complete ban on cow slaughtering.
The Yatra, which spread the message of 'save cow and save village', had been kicked off on September 28, 2009, on Vijaya Dashami Day at Kurukhetra in Hariyana and will calumniated at Nagpur in 2010 on Makar Sankranti Day," . The Yatra would traverse some 20,000 kilometers. Apart, from the main Yatra, 15,000 smaller Yatra including 150 in Orissa to traverse some 10 lakh kilometers during in 108 days while meetings will be held at 400 places across the country and signature of 50 crore people will be collected and submitted to the President of India seeking complete ban on cow slaughter.

Fri, 18/09/2009 - 1:58am Molested UK woman 'humiliated' in Ahmedabad court

Molested UK woman 'humiliated' in Ahmedabad court
TNN 16 September 2009,

AHMEDABAD: “How many of your room mates smoke?” “Do you drink?” — Pamela could take it no more. Hurt and humiliated, she broke down in the

overcrowded courtroom, pleading for privacy in the trial. This is no scene from a film, but what a 23-year-old British national living in the city went through at a metropolitan magistrate’s court, which was hearing a case on Tuesday of how she was allegedly molested by a plumber. The girl is in city on a three month internship programme and lives in a flat in Satellite area.

The accused — Pragnesh Chhatrada — had come to their apartment to repair a shower. Seeing her alone, he pulled her by the hand and tried to kiss her, Pamela (name changed) told the police. Even when Pamela went to the Satellite area police station to lodge her complaint on August 25, an interpreter was called since nobody could understand her.

Her effort to get justice turned out to be another ordeal as she was humiliated in an open court and ridiculed on Monday when defence lawyer Sanjay Prajapati asked her whether she smoked and drank. Pamela found herself alone in the witness box — there was no interpreter and public prosecutor JS Joshi was busy in another case.

Prajapati, immediately sprang into action, aggressively cross-examining her on whether she and her roommates had informed the police station concerned about hiring a house or were illegally living in the city. He went to the extent of accusing her of faking the case to get a good grade in her internship.
After a point, Pamela refused to answer in absence of the public prosecutor. Unable to stand the ridicule, she broke down. This forced magistrate NM Bundelia to adjourn the proceedings on Monday. Meanwhile, the girl and her well-wishers made representations before Gujarat High Court to contain the humiliation. Advocate Meena Jagtap volunteered as interpreter but Prajapati continued with his tirade.

Jagtap and Joshi repeatedly urged the court to stop Prajapati from raising irrelevant questions leading to an argument between Jagtap and Prajapati. At one point Prajapati said, “If I were a woman and behaved like her (Pamela), one man would go to jail daily”. This enraged Jagtap and the magistrate also took this on record.

Amid this drama, Pamela moved a plea for in-camera trial and journalists and lawyers were asked to leave.