New Delhi: Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Monday emerged as a front-runner for vice presidential candidate of the ruling NDA, sources said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Parliamentary Board will meet on Monday evening to pick its vice presidential candidate. The meeting will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to informed party sources, Naidu’s name has almost been finalised as candidate for the Vice President’s post.

Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao’s name is also being considered for the post.

The Vice President’s election will be held on August 5.

The last date for filing nomination papers for the vice-presidential election is July 18, Tuesday.

The term of Vice President Hamid Ansari, who is also ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, ends on August 10.

(IANS)

Bengaluru: A top police officer, who came out with a controversial report on alleged special treatment in jail to AIADMK (Amma) leader V K Sasikala, has been served a notice by the state government asking her to explain why she reported the issue to the media.

“It is absolutely against the rulebook,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, expressing open displeasure over public comments by Deputy Inspector of General (Prisons) D Roopa on her report, which has also brought her superior and other prison officials under a cloud of bribery allegations.

Siddaramaiah said she could have approached any of her superiors about her charges against senior officials.
“It is inappropriate on her part to share details with media,” Siddaramaiah told reporters in Mysuru.

He said the allegations before the mainstream and social media has brought embarrassment to the police department.
Roopa has been asked to give a reply to the notice served on her, the chief minister said.

He also said a probe has been ordered into thecharges levelled by Roopa against DGP (Prisons) Sathyanarayana Rao.
A retired officer has been appointed to look into bribery allegations, he said.

In her report submitted to her superior Rao, Roopa had alleged that there was “talk” that a sum of Rs 2 crore had exchanged hands to provide preferential treatment to Sasikala and even said there were allegations against him as well.

Rao, however, has rubbished Roopa’s charge against him, terming it “absolutely false, baseless and wild”. He said he would take legal recourse against his junior.

He has said no special treatment was being given to Sasikala. In her four-page report after visiting the central prison on July 10, Roopa had said a special kitchen was functioning in the jail here for Sasikala, a convict in a corruption case, in violation of the rules.

Sasikala has been lodged at the Parappana Agrahara central jail here since her conviction in February in a disproportionate assets case along with her two relatives, V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, all serving a four-year jail term.

Taking “serious cognisance” of the allegations of irregularities in the central prison, Siddaramaiah yesterday ordered the probe and warned of “strict action” based on the inquiry report, if anyone was found involved in wrong-doing.

(Agencies)

Shillong: Cattle smuggled from India is harming the economy of Bangladesh, a senior officer of Border Guards of Bangladesh said today and formally requested the Border Security Force (BSF) to stop it.

“Actually it (cattle smuggling is harming our economy. If it doesn’t come from India then our dairy farmers can go up and we can take care of ourselves,” BGB Region Commander Addl Director General Md Zahid Hasan told reporters here.

He said, “We have requested BSF to stop smuggling and a lot of other related issues can be resolved by that.”

The BGB officer who attended the four-day BSF-BGB Border Coordination Conference here also admitted that cattle smuggling was one of the agendas of the conference.

Stating that cattle all by itself cannot walk across the border, Hasan said, “We have requested that such kind of smuggling be stopped because these cattle are coming from deep inside from within India and from West of India.”

The BGB region commander and the Meghalaya frontier BSF IG P K Dubey also met Meghalaya’s Director General of Police S B Singh and discussed on the issue of cattle smuggling and cross border crimes.

“Action plan has been drawn on intelligence sharing on real time basis on criminal activities on either side of the border, both the forces will promptly act,” Hasan said.

The BGB commander has also raised the issue of firing by BSF personnel on Bangladesh nationals.

“There are few in our areas of concern which we have discussed. Some of the incidents categorically were brought before the discussion. We have discussed the issue and we have agreed on certain issues on that and hopefully that will come down to zero,” he said.

The Meghalaya Frontier BSF IG P K Dubey said border related issues were discussed in details and efforts have been taken to curb trans-border crimes.

“Our main concerns were killing of innocent Bangladeshi nationals and smuggling of drugs, and also to find out the modalities to build our relationships,” he said.

He also said, “We have expressed zero tolerance for smuggling of fire arms and explosives, human trafficking and drugs. We have agreed to enhance the confidence building measures between both the forces on the ground.”

The BSF-BGB conference takes place twice a year and the last one was held in Sylhet in November.

(PTI)

Panaji: The ongoing desecrations in South Goa district continued on Friday with another Catholic cross being vandalised in Margao town, police said.

A police spokesperson said the desecration occurred in the early hours of Friday. Margao is 45 km away from Panaji.

The desecration of the cross occurred in Calconda area in Margao, the spokesperson said.

This is the seventh such instance of desecration of a religious icon in Goa over the last few weeks.

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has called the desecrations “an attempt to disturb the communal harmony in Goa”.

The Goa Church has already expressed “pain” over the incident, while also urging police to crack the series of mysterious desecrations.

(IANS)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today directed a probe by the CBI into the alleged extra-judicial killings by the Army, the Assam Rifles and the Manipur Police in the insurgency-hit state. A bench of Justices M B Lokur and U U Lalit asked the CBI director to appoint a team of officers to conduct the probe into the alleged killings.

The court was hearing a PIL seeking probe and compensation in the alleged 1,528 extra-judicial killings in Manipur from 2000 to 2012 by security forces and police. On April 20, the Army had told the apex court that it cannot be subjected to FIRs for carrying out anti-militancy operations in insurgency-prone areas like Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur, while alleging local bias in judicial inquiries conducted against it in these regions, which have tarnished its image.

“In every military operation, the Army cannot be disbelieved. Every judicial inquiry cannot be against the Army. The alleged extra-judicial killing cases in Manipur are not cases of massacre, rather these are cases of military operations,” the Centre had told the court.

The bench had also pulled up the Manipur government for not taking action on such alleged fake encounters by armed forces and asked was it “not supposed to do anything”. The Army had told the court that the judicial probes conducted into alleged extra-judicial killing charges were “biased” and slanted against them due to local factors.

It had alleged that the district judges, who were locals, had conducted the judicial inquiries into the alleged killings and local factors came in the way of the probe reports which went against the armed forces. The court was earlier told that there were 265 cases of deaths which have to be examined and there were various reports of the commission of inquiry in which serious allegations have been levelled against armed forces personnel.

The apex court had earlier asked the Centre to segregate the cases related to the armed forces from the list of 265 incidents of extra-judicial killings in Manipur. The Centre had said that out of the 282 cases, which were referred to it for verification, 70 matters were found to be related to the Army and Assam Rifles, while the rest concerned the state police.

In July last year, the apex court had directed a thorough probe into the alleged fake encounter killings in Manipur saying the use of “excessive or retaliatory force” by the armed forces or police was not permissible in ‘disturbed areas’ under the controversial Armed Force Special Powers Act.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today considered the Centre’s submission that proceedings to extradite embattled businessman Vijay Mallya are going on in London and said the contempt case against him would move further only when he is produced before it.

A bench comprising Justices A K Goel and U U Lalit took note of the fresh status report, referred by Attorney General K K Venugopal that efforts to bring Mallya back were on. The apex court, which was to pronounce quantum of the sentence today against Mallya, who has alreday been convicted for its contempt, said proceedings can’t move further unless the businessman is produced before him.

Earlier, Mallya had failed to make a personal appearance before the top court despite being directed to do so. The apex court had on May 9 held Mallya, who is presently in the United Kingdom, guilty of contempt on a plea by the consortium of lender banks, led by the State Bank of India, for his failure to furnish details of all his Indian as well as offshore assets.

It had directed Mallya to appear before it today to argue on the quantum of punishment. The offence of contempt of court entails a maximum imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of upto Rs 2,000 or both. India had recently asked Britain to ensure early extradition of Mallya, who is an accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The apex court’s order had come on a plea by the consortium of banks, led by the State Bank of India (SBI), which had said that Mallya had allegedly transferred INR 2,581.41 million received from British firm Diageo to his children in “flagrant violation” of various judicial orders. The bench had reserved its order on two pleas of lending banks seeking contempt action and a direction to Mallya to deposit INR 2,581.41 million received from offshore firm Diageo respectively.

The banks have alleged that Mallya had concealed facts and diverted the money to his son Siddharth Mallya and daughters Leanna Mallya and Tanya Mallya in “flagrant violation” of the orders passed by the Karnataka High Court. The bench had also pulled up Mallya for not giving details of the INR 2,581.41 million which he had allegedly received from Diageo in February last year, saying it was of the “prima facie view” that proper disclosure as per its earlier order was not made.

The banks had on August 29 last year told the Supreme Court that Mallya had deliberately not made full disclosure of his assets including the INR 2,581.41 million he received on February 25 from Diageo.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Facebook on Friday said India, with 201 million active users, continues to be its second largest user base after the US that has 214 million active users.

“India has 201 million active users and retains the second place after the US,” a Facebook spokesperson told IANS on Friday.

Earlier this year, when Facebook announced its earnings for the fourth quarter and full year 2016, it showed a steady growth in its revenue and user base.

Facebook reported $8.8 billion in revenue, $3.56 billion in profit and said more than 1.23 billion people were using the social network every day and that 1.15 billion log in from mobile devices each day.

Facebook earlier announced it now has more than two billion monthly users around the world.

(IANS)