Defiant Anna in Tihar: back channel talks now?

New Delhi: The deadlock between Anna Hazare and the government continues. The anti-corruption crusader spent the night in jail despite being freed by authorities. 

Despite being released, Anna Hazare spent the night in Tihar Jail refusing to come out insisting on an unconditional release and permission to launch his fast at JP Park. 

Tihar Jail has overnight become the new Jantar Mantar with Anna's supporters gathering there. Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar visited the jail late on Tuesday evening but was refused to meet Anna. 

PM to explain action?

 

Sources say the government is now planning to open back channel talks with Team Anna. The Congress core group is meeting on Wednesday morning and the PM may make a statement in Parliament today.

Government sources told CNN-IBN Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Tuesday evening met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed the situation arising out of the arrest of social activist Anna Hazare. They decided against any personal attacks. 

Sources have told CNN-IBN that the government is opening back channel talks with Team Anna. Swami Agnivesh is likely to hold talks with Team Anna. 

According to Congress sources, Hazare, set to be released from Tihar Jail, was being freed after Gandhi's intervention. 

Gandhi, according to the sources, urged the prime minister to allow the situation to be defused.

Hazare and his activists galvanised support from various parts of India with opposition parties rallying behind him in unison. 

The social activist and some of his supporters were arrested Tuesday ahead of their planned fast to press for a strong anti-graft Lokpal bill.

Read more »

Identify sex workers in metros willing to quit: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to identify sex workers willing to give up the trade in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai and suggest mode and manner of imparting vocational training to enable them earn a dignified livelihood.

A bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra also set up a panel headed by senior advocate Pradeep Ghosh and asked the Centre and state governments to conduct a survey and report to the panel, which will then suggest and assist the court in passing appropriate orders.

Other members of the panel are senior advocate Jayant Bhushan, Usha Multi-purpose Cooperative Society through its president and Delhi-based NGO 'Rohini' through Salma Hasan.

The panel was set up to assist the court after the bench learnt that neither the Centre nor the states had filed an affidavit in response to its February 14 order asking them to suggest schemes to impart vocational training to sex workers, who number between 7-12 lakh.

The Union health ministry says there are 6,88,751 "registered" sex workers, while National Aids Control Authority ( NACO) estimates their population at 12.63 lakh. Andhra Pradesh has more than one lakh registered sex workers while Karnataka has 79,000. They are followed by Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Among the metros, Delhi leads the list with 37,900 sex workers.

The bench asked the governments to file their affidavits in two weeks, posted further hearing on August 2 and said it would give directions to the Centre and states from time to time based on the panel's recommendations.

"Since this is a continuing mandamus, to begin with, we will focus on the metropolitan cities of India, namely, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai as this problem of sex workers is more acute and on a much larger scales in these metropolitan cites. However, this does not mean that we will not take up other cities into consideration," it said.

The court said it was taking up the exercise to give a chance to sex workers to live a life with dignity, a right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

"It is only if a sex worker is able to earn a livelihood through technical skills rather than by selling her body that she can live with dignity, and that is why we have requested all the states and the Union of India to submit schemes for giving technical training to these sex workers," it said.

The SC order for survey of sex workers followed senior advocate Anand Grover's suggestion for ascertaining how many sex workers wanted rehabilitation and the type of vocational training.

The court on February 14 had said, "A woman is compelled to indulge in prostitution not for pleasure but because of abject poverty. If such a woman is granted opportunity to avail some technical or vocational training, she would be able to earn her livelihood by such vocational training and skill instead of selling her body."

It had directed the governments to prepare schemes for giving technical or vocational training to sex workers and sexually abused women and ensure that goods produced by vocationally trained sex workers had a market.

The order came on a petition filed by one Budhadev Karmakar who was convicted and sentenced for killing a sex worker in Kolkata on September 17, 1999.

Read more »

Politics makes Delhi-Howrah route corridor of death

NEW DELHI: Sunday's rail accident that killed at least 68 and injured 181 occurred on the Delhi-Howrah route — one of the busiest routes — thanks to successive ministers from the eastern part of the country.

The ministers — be it Ram Vilas Paswan, Lalu Prasad or Mamata Banerjee — pushed railway mandarins to run new trains at higher speed catering to their constituency despite the route being saturated.

In this route, where more than 70% of the sections are critical, 17 sections of this route are more than 120% utilized, 12 sections are more than 100% utilized and 11 are more than 80% utilized, according to calculations of 2007-08.

The route, a part of golden quadrilateral, was put under more strain after Banerjee took charge and went on to announce a slew of Kolkata-bound trains in quick succession. With technological advances, though railways manages to run more trains on this route, the situation turns worse during winter heightened by intense fog.

To make matters worse, the pressure on tracks have increased over the years due to increasing loading capacity per wagon, despite warning from several committees and experts that "overloading" has been damaging tracks, and consequently putting human lives at risk.

"The pressure has increased as the ministry could not lay new tracks or upgrade the existing one," an official admitted.

R K Singh, an ex-chairman of the railway board, put the inadequacies in perspective. "For the last three budgets, railways has depleted its depreciation reserve fund, which is used for renewal, security, upgrading of assets, and also capital fund spent for creating new assets," said Singh, during whose tenure a special safety fund of Rs 17, 500 was set up and used for renewal of 17,000km of rail tracks.

Figures show that within less than four months at least 125 people were killed in train accidents, excluding 38 deaths when a train rammed into a bus at an unmanned crossing in Uttar Pradesh.

According to latest data, there were 57 deaths between April and June, and the number of accidents stood at 24. Authorities claim to reduce the accidents by calculating it in terms of accidents per million train kilometer which was 0.17 in 2009-10 against 0.44 in 2003-04, but it disregards the fact that the number of people killed in train mishaps has increased in recent years. In 2009-10, 238 people were killed and between April 2010 and January 2011, the figure was 336.

While railways adopted corporate safety plan (2003-13) long ago, though a lot of announcements came from successive railway ministers, not much happened on the ground.

Passenger's safety could not find a place in the ministers' scheme of things, who were busy in pushing populist policies. They ignored recommendations of expert panels and the Planning Commission to undertake structure reforms and push zero-accident policy.

Railways attempt to fill around 1,22, 000 safety-related vacancies got mired in controversy after the central bureau of investigation raided the railway recruitment board over hiring scam.

Read more »

HRD ministry, DU spar over OBC quota in UG courses

The OBC quota for undergraduate admission in the Delhi University (DU) has turned into an intense debate between the HRD ministry and the varsity.

NEW DELHI: The OBC quota for undergraduate admission in the Delhi University (DU) has turned into an intense debate between the HRD ministry and the varsity.

Last week, the ministry told the DU not to confuse "cut-off" marks with eligibility. The ministry also said there is no eligibility in DU other than pass the class XII board examination. But, the DU contended that there is indeed "eligibility" for admission in undergraduate courses. The varsity gave elaborate information to the ministry, spelling out different eligibility criteria for admission in science/commerce/humanities streams.

For instance, in case of BA/B Com (Honours), the eligibility is 45% aggregate in class XII. While in case of B Sc (mathematics) and B Sc (statistics), the eligibility is 45%, but with a rider that in mathematics the candidate should have secured 50%. In science courses, the DU said, eligibility ranges between 50% and 55%, and even 60% for some courses. The university also gave a long list of additional eligibility norms required for admission in undergraduate classes. In its reply to the ministry, the DU also referred to court orders that had stated that cut-offs should be on the basis of the aggregate.

The ministry, in its response, said, "We didn't know there is a minimum eligibility for admission in Delhi University other than class XII marks." The university has been asked to explain how it intends to fill the OBC seats in view of eligibility criteria. With five cut-off lists already declared, it is unlikely that the OBC seats would get filled even this year.

The ministry said, "In DU, contrary to other universities like the Jawaharlal Nehru University, there is no eligibility requirement other than pass at the Class XII board examinations. Since there cannot be any eligibility cut-off differential – between general and OBC candidates – in case of DU, it has to be interpreted in a way different than other universities in order to give effect to the constitutional mandate for ensuring reservations to deprived classes."

In case of DU, the ministry said, all successful class XII non-creamy layer OBC candidates are eligible for admissions, and the university should admit them to fill 27% seats reserved for them through "inter-se merit" (merit among OBCs). The ministry had also said ``referencing the admission cut-off for OBC to the general category cut-off being done by the DU goes against the spirit of Central Educational Institutions Act, 2006."

Such referencing, the ministry said, assumes that 27% of seats would be filled from among OBC candidates from a 10% band of marks after excluding those students in the same category, who have scored higher and become part of general category students. "This would lead to diversion of seats meant for OBCs to general candidates, which is not desirable," the HRD added.

Read more »

Jairam Ramesh may get Cabinet rank, new ministry

NEW DELHI: Four cabinet ministers are likely to be dropped in a ministerial reshuffle on Tuesday, which seeks to tone up the functioning of key ministries, massage a few hurt egos and brings in new faces.

Minister for north-east BK Handique, corporate affairs minister Murli Deora, tribal affairs minister Kantilal Bhuria and statistics minister MS Gill are likely to be dropped from the union cabinet in what may be seen as a substantive surgery given the modest expectations.

Kapil Sibal is likely to retain both the key portfolios that he has – telecom and HRD. Importantly, environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who holds independent charge, is up for elevation as cabinet minister and could get either rural development or roads and highways ministry. In case of his moving in to RD, Vilasrao Deshmukh could get science and technology.

That highways ministry is being considered a likely slot for Jairam shows the disappointment with incumbent CP Joshi who was given the charge only in the January reshuffle.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had in February promised a restructuring of the government. Indications are that there cannot be any change in the top four ministries – home, finance, external affairs and defence. But the exercise on Tuesday promises to be much bigger than what it had seemed in the runup, thanks to the concern in the government about the sluggish performance of key ministries which include social sector and infrastructure.

An indication of the nature of rejig can be gauged from the fact that the PM and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi held yet another round of discussion on Monday which may stretch into Tuesday morning by when the PMO must forward the names for the swearing in ceremony slated for 5 pm. Rashtrapati Bhavan was not forwarded any names till late evening.

AICC spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan is likely to be rewarded with independent charge. She could replace Jairam in environment ministry.

Sources said water resources and minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid could get a weightier portfolio. There are chances of his getting the law ministry in which case the incumbent Veerappa Moily may shift to corporate affairs ministry. Otherwise, Khurshid may just retain his existing portfolios. Murli Deora has already offered to resign from the cabinet where he holds the corporate ministry. His son Milind, an MP from Mumbai, is in for induction as a junior minister.

In case Kantilal Bhuria is dropped as tribal minister, having been appointed the Madhya Pradesh Congress president, Andhra MP Kishore Chandra Deo may come into the key slot. A tribal, hailing from a royal family on the borders of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, Deo's chances have also brightened by the fact that A Sai Pratap, who is a junior minister from Andhra, is learnt to have been asked to quit.

Paban Ghatobar may be the likely replacement from Assam where Handique is likely to go out on health grounds while Charan Das Mahant, the solitary Congress MP from Chhattisgarh, may finally make it to the union ministry.

E Ahmed, who is MoS railways, will be elevated, at least to holding independent charge, possibly of ministry of overseas Indian affairs.

Mamata Banerjee's nominee Dinesh Trivedi, who is MoS health, will be elevated to Cabinet rank with the responsibility of railways -- the crucial infrastructure portfolio that the Trinamool chief held before winning the chief ministership of West Bengal. Trivedi's current assignment may go to another nominee of Mamata, Sudeep Bandopadhyaya.

DMK had till late on Monday not spelled out its preference for the two cabinet vacancies caused by resignations of A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran.

Others who may get elevation are Beni Prasad Varma and Gurudas Kamat, minister of state for home. Varma may get Cabinet rank while Kamat is tipped to get charge of civil aviation. Srikant Jena, minister of state for fertilizers, is also likely to get cabinet rank.

Charan Das Mahant, the solitary Congress member of Lok Sabha from Chhattisgarh, is also mentioned as a possible induction as minister of state. The coming polls in Uttarakhand have raised the prospect of the elevation of minister of state for labour Harish Rawat or the induction of Vijay Bahuguna. Sikh MPs from Punjab, another state which goes to polls next year, were hopeful of making it to the ministry this time. Raj Babbar, MP from UP, is also in line for induction.

Read more »