Archives for January 2018

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the acquittal of “Pipli Live” co-producer Mahmood Farooqui in an alleged rape case, rejecting a plea by the complainant challenging the Delhi High Court order.

Observing “it was an extremely well decided case, no need for intervention”, Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice L. Nageswara Rao rejected the plea by the victim challenging the High Court order.

Farooqui was convicted by the trial court and sentenced to undergo seven years in prison on charges of sexually abusing a research scholar from Columbia University.

(IANS)

Beijing: China on Friday said it will keep building infrastructure in Doklam and India has no business to comment on construction activity on Chinese territory.

Some satellite images purportedly show massive infrastructure build-up in Doklam, as close as 81 meters to the point of face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in the disputed plateau last year.

“I don’t know who offers such kind of photos. I don’t know the detailed information,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said when asked about the images.

“You must be quite clear. Donglong (Doklam) always belongs to China and is always under China’s effective jurisdiction. There is no dispute in this regard,” Lu said.

“China is exercising its sovereignty in its own territory. It’s legitimate and justified. Just as China will not make comments about Indian construction of infrastructure on India’s territory, we hope other countries will not make comment on China’s construction of infrastructure on its territory,” Lu said.

India and Chinese troops were locked in a 73-day stand-off at Doklam, which is claimed by Bhutan.

The face-off began when the Indian military halted road building by the Chinese at Doka La in the region which is very close to India’s highway.

Even as both sides resolved the crisis by retreating from the point of face-off in August, news reports suggested that China was busy building infrastructure to fortify its position in the region.

(IANS)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh to condemn the “unprovoked ceasefire violations” by Indian forces along the International Border in Sialkot Sector, that left one civilian dead and injured nine others.

A 24-year-old man Irfan, resident of village Harpal, was killed while the injured included women and elderly persons, a Foreign Office statement said.

Director General (SA & SAARC) Mohammad Faisal conveyed to Singh that the Indian forces were “continuously engaged in indiscriminate and unprovoked firing with heavy mortars and automatic weapons on the civilian populated villages, since the last two days”.

In 2018, the Indian forces have carried out more than 125 ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and the International Border in just 19 days, resulting in the death of four civilians, and injuries to 20 others, the Foreign Office statement said.

It said: “This unprecedented escalation in ceasefire violations by India is continuing from the year 2017 when the Indian forces committed more than 1,900 ceasefire violations.”

It deplored the “deliberate targeting of civilian populated areas” which it said was “contrary to human dignity, international human rights and humanitarian laws”.

“The ceasefire violations by India are a threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation”, the statement said.

However, India, maintaining that Pakistan was continuing violation of the ceasefire along the international border in Jammu and Kashmir, said a Border Security Force (BSF) trooper and two civilians were killed and three others injured in indiscriminate firing and shelling by Pakistan Rangers on the international border in J&K.

“You are aware that Pakistan violates the ceasefire as a cover to infiltrate terrorists across the border into India. We, of course, retaliate in such cases and we also take up the matter at the appropriate level with the Pakistani side.” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a media briefing in New Delhi.

“We strongly condemn the continued and unprecedented ceasefire violation by Pakistan, which has caused loss of lives and property,” spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

Pakistan Rangers indulged in indiscriminate shelling and firing at 20 border outposts of the BSF along the international border in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts on Friday, official reports received in Delhi said.

(IANS)

New Delhi: In a major blow to the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi, the Election Commission (EC) on Friday recommended disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs for holding ‘office of profit,’ according to media reports.

The recommendation has been sent to President Ramnath Kovind for his nod.

The President is bound to go by the recommendation of the Commission. In cases where petitions are made seeking disqualification of lawmakers, the President sends a reference to the EC which decides on the case by sending back its opinion.

Following the shocking move, the AAP has approached the Delhi High Court against EC’s recommendation to disqualify its MLAs.

In the present case, the petition was made to disqualify 21 MLAs, but one had resigned a few months back.

The EC, however, said that the disqualification is sub-judice, and it will not comment on what recommendation has been given to the President.

A petition filed by lawyer Prashant Patel sought the disqualification of the MLAs on the grounds that they were holding an ‘office of profit’ as parliamentary secretaries.

In 2015, soon after AAP swept the Delhi elections, Kejriwal had appointed 21 legislators as parliamentary secretaries.

This disqualification will lead to by-polls in Delhi.

The ruling AAP has a massive majority in the Delhi Assembly with 67 out of 70 seats.

This disqualification will not meddle with AAP’s position in the assembly, but is definitely a serious setback for the party.

The MLAs’ pleas that the case against them be dropped were rejected by the EC in June 2017.

Both Congress and BJP had been pushing the EC to order the disqualification.

Here’s the list of disqualified 20 AAP MLAs:

Praveen Kumar (Jangpura) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Education Minister

Sharad Kumar (Narela) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Revenue Minister

Adarsh Shastri (Dwarka) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Information and Technology Minister

Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Vigilance Minister

Shiv Charan Goel (Moti Nagar) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Finance Minister

Sanjeev Jha (Burari) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Transport Minister

Sarita Singh (Rohtas Nagar) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Employment Minister

Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Labour Minister

Rajesh Gupta (Wazirpur) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Health Minister

Rajesh Rishi (Janakpuri) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Health Minister

Anil Kumar Bajpai (Gandhi Nagar) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Health Minister

Som Dutt (Sadar Bazar) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Industries Minister

Avtar Singh (Kalkaji) as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Gurudwara elections

Vijender Garg (Rajinder Nagar) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of PWD

Jarnail Singh (Rajouri Garden) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Power

Kailash Gahlot (Najafgarh) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Law

Alka Lamba (Chandni Chowk) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Tourism

Manoj Kumar (Kondli) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Food and Civil Supplies

Nitin Tyagi (Laxmi Nagar) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Women and Child and Social Welfare

Sukhvir Singh (Mundka) was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Languages and Welfare of SC/ST/OBC respectively.

(Agencies)

Mumbai: A city-based lawyers’ association today filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay High Court against the CBI decision not to challenge a lower court order discharging BJP president Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter case.

In the PIL, the Bombay Lawyers Association has urged the High Court to issue a direction to the CBI to file revision application challenging the sessions court order discharging Shah.

The petitioner’s lawyer Ahmad Abidi said the plea would be mentioned before a division bench of justices S C Dharmadhikari and Bharti Dangre on January 22.

“The CBI is a premier investigating agency. It has public duty to observe the rule of law in its action which it has miserably failed,” the petition said.

It submitted that the trial court had similarly discharged two Rajasthan Police Sub Inspectors Himanshu Singh and Shyam Singh Charan and senior Gujarat Police officer N K Amin.

“The petitioner has learnt that the CBI has challenged their discharge before the high court. This act of the CBI in challenging discharge of the accused persons on selective basis is arbitrary and unreasonable, rather malafide,” it alleged.

The petition claimed that the Supreme Court, while transferring the trial in the case from Gujarat to Mumbai, had ordered that it to be concluded expeditiously.

“The Supreme Court had said the Administrative Committee of the high court would assign the case to a court where the trial may be concluded judiciously, in accordance with the law, and without any delay. The Administrative Committee would also ensure that the trial should be conducted from beginning to end by the same officer, the apex court had said in its order,” it said.

Sohrabuddin Shaikh, alleged to be a terrorist, was killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat and Rajasthan police along with his wife Kauser Bi and his associate Tulsi Prajapati in 2005.

(PTI)

Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba at the Grand mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia September 8, 2016. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

The Central BJP government decision to abolish the subsidy given to Hajj pilgrimage is purely communal in nature, said Elyas Muhammad, national general secretary of Social Democratic Party of India. He said, subsidy is not only being given to Hajj pilgrimage but to lots of other Hindu pilgrimages too.

Elyas said that the subsidy being given to Hajj pilgrimage is nothing but an eyewash. While Hajj pilgrims compel to pay an exhorbitant airfare which is actually double overcharge than the normal airfare during out of Hajj season. This excess amount of airfare charged by the airlines were actually compensated by the government in the form subsidy. Hence, the subsidy from the government was not actually beneficial for Hajj pilgrims but yielded major profits only to Air India. Charging excess airfare from the pilgrims and ripping off the excess charges to Air India in the form of subsidy which is a well scripted drama which was both benefitted politically to BJP by so called metaphor ‘minority appeasement’ and ‘helping Muslims’ by Congress.

Elyas reiterated that, the citizens of this country should know the reality of this ‘Subsidy politics’ of the BJP government. In 2012, the subsidy amount was Rs.837 crores which has been decreased every year and in 2016-17 the centre had only allocated Rs.450 crores for Hajj of which major portion of this amount benefitted only Air India. At the same time the centre and state governments have been providing thousands of crores of rupees to Hindu pilgrimage.

The central government spent Rs.1,150 crores on Allahabad Kumbh Mela and Maharashtra governmet spent Rs.2,500 crores for Nashik Kumbh Mela in 2014. The Union culture ministry had allocated Rs.100 crores to Madhya Pradesh government for ‘Simhastha Mahakumbh’ in Ujjain. MP government spent nearly Rs.3,400 crores on the even in 2016 and this is expected to rise to Rs.5,000 crores. The previous UP government started giving a grant of 50,000 to every pilgrims from the state to Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet, China. Present Yogi government raised this amount to Rs.1 lakh. Yogi government granted Rs.10,000 subsidy to every pilgrims from the state to Sidhu Darshan in Ladakh. The state governments in Chathisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand also provides financial supports to Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims. The central government too spends major amounts on Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, Amarnath Yatra, Ganesh Chathurthi, Chhath Puja.

Elyas reiterated, if Hajj subsidy can be abolished by the central government, why can’t it abolish the subsidies and financial aides to Hindu pilgrimages which runs several thousand crores every year? This will save thousands of crores of Rupees to government exchequer which can be used for the developmental works of poor women and children of this country. Central BJP government is always thinking communally to suppress the voice and dignity of the Muslims in many ways, now in the name of Hajj subsidy. He said, Muslims doesn’t need government’s dramatic subsidy through hiking airfare and ripping off to airlines. Elyas said, the monopoly given to Air India to carry Hajj pilgrims must be abolished by allowing other airliners to provide services which enables cheaper airfare to Hajj pilgrims.