Archives for June 2017

New Delhi: Opposition candidate Meira Kumar on Wednesday filed her nomination for the July 17 Presidential election, which she termed “a fight of ideology for democratic principles” and said she has appealed to members of the Electoral College to “listen to their conscience” and vote for her.

“From today our fight has begun. This is the fight of ideology. Our ideology is based on the values of democratic principles, building an inclusive society, freedom of expression, press freedom, transparency and abolition of caste,” Meira Kumar told reporters after filing her nomination in Parliament House here.

“I have requested all the electors that this is a crucial time. The nation today stands at the crossroads from where one way leads to the place where there is narrow mindedness and no concern for the poor, Dalits and downtrodden,” she added.

The other way, she said, leads to where the poor, Dalits, marginalised, women and people from all religions have their rights and dignity.

“I have requested all the honourable members of the Electoral College to listen to their conscience and vote for me,” the former Lok Sabha Speaker and daughter of noted Dalit leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Babu Jagjivan Ram said.

Earlier, opposition leaders, including from the Congress and Left, accompanied Meira Kumar to the Lok Sabha Secretary General’s chamber to file the nomination.

Besides former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the other leaders present were NCP chief Sharad Pawar, BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI leader D. Raja and TMC leader Derek O’Brien.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy and Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah were also present.

Unlike the NDA show where all the prominent BJP leaders and leaders of parties supporting Ram Nath Kovind’s candidature were present, major opposition leaders including RJD Chief Lalu Prasad, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and BSP Supremo Mayawati were conspicuous by their absence.

BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra tried to play down his leader’s absence saying all the 17 parties supporting Meira Kumar’s candidature were present.

“Why are you looking for individuals? Look, all the 17 parties are present here, all of them are being represented by their representatives. The party chiefs have so many other things to attend to, other engagements etc. But their representatives are here,” Mishra said.

Bihar Minister Alok Mehta of the RJD, who along with fellow Minister Vijay Prakash came to represent his party, said that Lalu Prasad could not make it to the nomination due to his personal engagements.

On Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U President Nitish Kumar breaking away to back Kovind in the presidential election, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja said that it is for Nitish Kumar to “justify supporting the RSS”.

“This is a battle in defence of secular democracy,” Raja said.

Before reaching Parliament House, Meira Kumar visited Raj Ghat and Samta Sthal, the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi and her father Babu Jagjivan Ram respectively.

(IANS)

Jharkhand: An unruly mob assaulted a dairy farmer and set his house ablaze. The incident took place after the attackers found a carcass of a cow close to his house in Giridih district in Ranchi on Tuesday.

According to the jurisdictional police, a group of approximately 100 people attacked 55-year-old Usman Ansari of Beria Hatiatand village after they spotted the dead animal’s body outside his residence.

The frenzied crowd which grew in number attempted to lynch Usman, but the bid failed after the local police intervened and rescued the family. “Police had to resort to lathi charge and fire aerial shots after the mob tried to obstruct the rescue attempt and pelted stones at the police personnel,” Jharkhand Police Spokesperson and ADG (Operations) RK Mullik said.

One person named Krishna Pandit was shot in the leg. Both Ansari and Pandit were shifted to a hospital in Dhanbad for treatment and now are reported to be stable,

According to police sources, the cow belonged which belonged to Ansari had died of illness. However, a miscreant slit the cow’s throat with an intention to frame Ansari.

More than 200 security personnel have been deployed at the spot to ensure law and order. Ansari’s family is shifted to safety.

The incident is the latest in a string of attacks, reported from across the country in the name of cow protection.

One June 22, a Haryana teenager was lynched on a train by his co-passengers. The crowd called the teenager and his brothers as beef-eaters.

In April, a Muslim dairy farmer was lynched in Rajasthan for allegedly smuggling cows. In May, three Muslim cattle traders were lynched on alleged child-lifting rumours in a Jharkhand village.

(Agencies)

Mumbai: Mustafa Dossa, one of the six convicts in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, has died hours after he was admitted to the JJ Hospital in Mumbai after complaining of chest pain.

The channel quoted Mumbai Police as saying that Dossa succumbed to hypertension and chest pain at around 2.30 pm on Wednesday.

JJ Hospital dean Dr TP Lahane confirmed the news and told Firstpost, “Dossa died of a cardiac arrest. The post-mortem is at underway under the supervision of a three-doctor panel. It is being conducted as per the jail manual. Further details will only emerge after post-mortem is complete.”

Early in the morning, Dossa was admitted to JJ Hospital after he complained of chest pain and hypertension.

“Dossa was admitted to the jail ward of the hospital at 3 am,” Lahane said. Dossa (lodged in Arthur Road Jail) complained of chest pain and had hypertension, diabetes and infection, Lahane added.

Dossa also informed the special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court about his heart condition and said he wanted to undergo a bypass surgery. On Tuesday, the CBI sought capital punishment for Dossa, arguing that his role in the blasts was “more severe” than that of hanged convict Yakub Memon.

In fact, the family of the deceased feared for his life after he was convicted by the TADA court. Reacting to the verdict, Dossa’s son, Shahnawaz said, “Everything is over… My dad is not going to come back now.”

Special CBI counsel Deepak Salvi told the special TADA court that Dossa was one of the “brains” behind the conspiracy and that his degree of responsibility towards the commission of the crime was the highest. “If not for him (and other absconding accused), the crime would never have taken place,” Salvi had told the court.

He told the court that first conspiracy meeting held at Dossa’s Dubai residence had sowed the first seeds of the conspiracy. Salvi had argued that Dossa was one of the masterminds and was in a position of authority.

“Dossa was from among the prime conspirators giving instructions to others,” the counsel had told the court. He had argued that Dossa financed for landing of arms and explosives and sending people to Pakistan for arms training etc.

Dossa had the effective control over the incident and he was one of the architects of the blasts, he had said.

“Just like the supreme court had held that Yakub Memon’s deeds cannot be viewed distinct from the act of Tiger Memon (a wanted accused in the blasts case), the same can be attributed to Dossa and other suggestion would be futile and worth discarding at the first glance,” Salvi argued.

He had said Dossa was among the “archers wearing the quiver and releasing arrows and one of the principal perpetrators who got the work done through others.”

“The offence could have been averted had it not been hatched by the absconders (including Dossa) or if he had not initiated it by sending the first consignment of arms,” Salvi said.

The CBI counsel had said that from the execution of the conspiracy, there is a clear instigation by Dossa and he was directly responsible for the blasts as he was one of the brains behind plotting the attacks.

“The crime of terrorism is in itself the aggravating circumstances as it carries a special stigmatisation due to the deliberate form of inhuman treatment it represents and the severity of the pain and suffering inflicted,” Salvi had argued.

He had said Dossa was a known smuggler and has criminal antecedents.

“The crime committed by him is of the utmost gravity, heinous, dastardly, diabolical and demonic with no regard towards the country and her citizens, and was carried out pruriently relishing the act of spilling the blood and slaughtering,” Salvi had argued.

In the second installment of the trial, the court had on 16 June convicted five accused, including Dossa and extradited gangster Abu Salem, under the charges of murder, conspiracy and sections of now repealed TADA, while the sixth accused Riyaz Siddiqui was convicted only under TADA Act.

As many as 257 people were killed in the coordinated blasts that ripped through the city on 12 March, 1993.

The trial of the seven accused — Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Karimullah Khan, Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan, Riyaz Siddiqui, Tahir Merchant and Abdul Quayyum — was separated from the main case as they were arrested at the time of conclusion of the main trial. The court had acquitted Abdul Quayyum of all the charges.

(Agencies)

Bengaluru: Senior Journalists, Publishers of Kannada Periodicals Ravi Belagere and Anil Raj have filed a writ petition before Karnataka High Court on Tuesday urging the court to stay the order passed by Karnataka Legislative Assembly speaker KB Koliwad recently. The speaker announced one year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 against the duo after recommendations of a legislative committee which found the duo published derogatory content against two assembly members in their respective periodicals.

In his writ petition Ravi Belagere said, the assembly doesn’t has the authority to punish him and the move of the assembly is unconstitutional. Also, the committee didn’t record two journalists’ opinion before announcing one year jail term and fine of Rs 10,000. Advocate representing Ravi Belagere filed the writ in his absence today. Ravi Belagere reportedly admitted to KIMS Hospital in Dharwad following severe health issues.

(Agencies)

Ahmedabad: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Monday said it has passed a resolution demanding the immediate scrapping of the National Commission for Minorities and the Ministry of Minority Affairs, as they “give credence to a separatist mindset”.

The VHP’s Central Governing Council met in Vadtal in Kheda district of Gujarat between June 24 and 25, where it concurred that minorities “gather sympathy” and carry out “anti-Hindu and anti-national activities” with the help of the minorities commission.

“The National Human Rights Commission is more than enough to take care of the rights of all citizens of the country… The workings of the minorities commission creates a false feeling that the Muslim and Christian community are being persecuted,” reads the resolution.

The VHP also reiterated its demand of enacting a law for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

“Iron Man Sardar Patel has already shown us, through the example of Somnath temple, how this can be done. The best tribute to the Iron Man would be if the Ram temple could be built on the lines of the Somnath Temple,” the resolution said.

Freedom fighter and India’s first Home Minister Sardar Patel was born in Kheda district.

The VHP also expressed concern over the imposition of GST on “prasad” of the Tirupati and some other big temples. It asked Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to quash all taxes on Hindu religious items such as agarbatties, dhoop, gods and goddesses’ idols, etc.

It stated that there was a conspiracy to malign the image of “gau rakshaks” (cow vigilantes).

“Gau rakshaks never take law in their own hands and it is police who file false cases against them to hide their own failures,” the VHP resolution said.

(IANS)

London: A Sikh couple in the UK have alleged that they were refused permission to adopt a white child because of their “cultural heritage” and told to adopt a child from India instead.

Sandeep and Reena Mander, British-born business professionals from Berkshire, were quoted by The Times as saying that they were told not to apply to become adoptive parents on the basis that white British or European applicants would be given preference.

The couple, who are of Sikh-Indian heritage, had told Adopt Berkshire adoption agency that they would be delighted to adopt a child of any ethnic background but were rejected as potential parents on the grounds that only white children were available.

The Manders, both in their 30s, claimed they were told to adopt a child from India instead.

Adoption agencies are allowed to prioritise on the basis of race in order to match children to prospective parents of the same ethnic background. But the government has also said that a child’s ethnicity should not be a barrier to adoption.

The Manders, whose cause has been taken up by Prime Minister Theresa May as their local MP, will take their case to court.

They are applying to Slough county court, seeking a declaration that the policy should allow them to adopt. They are being represented by the law firm McAllister Olivarius and their case is supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

David Isaac, chair of the EHRC, said, “There are many children who are waiting for a loving family like Sandeep and Reena to help give them a better life. To be denied this because of so-called cultural heritage is wrong.”

The Manders had an assessment and home visit from Adopt Berkshire, an agency run by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM), last year.

They were allegedly told that, while in other respects they would be suitable adoptive parents, they could not apply because only white children were available for adoption and therefore white couples would be given priority.

Adopt Berkshire has not commented on the allegations but its website says that it welcomes applicants from different cultural, religious and sexual backgrounds.

Mander, vice-president of sales at Continuum Commerce Solutions, a payments technology company, said that the couple had been trying to conceive for seven years, including 16 sessions of IVF treatment, and decided to adopt.

“Having attended introductory workshops organised by RBWM and Adopt Berkshire, giving an adopted child — no matter what race — the security of a loving home was all we wanted to do,” he told the daily.

“What we didn’t expect was a refusal for us to even apply for adoption, not because of our incapability to adopt, but because our cultural heritage was defined as ‘Indian/Pakistani’,” he said.

The Manders tried at first to get the agency’s decision reversed through the council’s complaints procedure and the Local Government Ombudsman, which is awaiting the outcome of their legal action.

(PTI)