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PM meets Vajpayee amid Parliament deadlock

     New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met the NDA Chairman and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today at a public function today even as their standoff in parliament continues. Bharatiya Janata Party-led opposition had decided to boycott parliament for the whole session earlier this week, seeking the government dismiss Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav who has been charge sheeted in the fodder scam case. The NDA on Friday decided to continue its boycott of parliament rejecting the fresh appeal by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to end the boycott and discuss all the issues on the floor of the House. The war of words between the government and the opposition intensified yesterday as the NDA accused the PM of showing disregard and insult to the opposition in terming it as childish and false on the floor of the house. The senior leaders of the BJP discussed the PM's statement made in Rajya Sabha on Thursday on the opposition's boycott and also key ally TDP's decision to end its boycott. The BJP led NDA had rejected Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's appeal to end the boycott and decided to continue with its protest for the rest of the budget session till May 13. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had on Thursday slammed reports shown by the BJP that his government had tried to prevent Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who made a landmark visit to New Delhi last month, from meeting Atal Behari Vajpayee, former Prime Minister credited with having revived and put back on track the almost discarded peace process. The BJP had accused Prime Miister with "misleading" the nation on the NDA's Parliament boycott, saying his statement in the Rajya Sabha was "beyond facts".

New system for appraising IAS officials (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday approved the new appraisal system for fixing accountability, increasing efficiency and giving due recognition to IAS officers. The new system comes in place of the old system of Annual Confidential Report (ACR). The new system is known as Performance Appraisal Report (PAR). Informing the decision on PM's behalf his media advisor Snajay Baru said, It would be a tool for career planning and training, and not just a statement of a senior's opinion of a junior. Besides PAR, a new system of peer review of senior officers by an Eminent Persons Group (EPG) has also got the Prime Minister's nod.

CBI asks for more time in Satish Sharma case (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has conveyed to the Supreme Court that it needs more time to apprise the Apex Court about its decision to close all 15 cases against former Union Minister and Congress leader Satish Sharma for alleged irregularities in allotment of petrol pumps and gas agencies. The court posted the matter to 23rd July. The agency also told Special CBI Judge Pratibha Rani that the matter was still being examined and it would file an affidavit in due course. Last month, the judge had said that the matter be brought to the notice of the SC then only she would consider the closure report. The CBI had asked for the closure of all the cases against Sharma as the UPA government didn't give sanction for his prosecution. Sharma was alleged to have favoured some allottees in the allotment of petrol pumps and gas agencies during his tenure. The CBI had registered 15 cases against him and some other allottees in 1997.

Sweden hands over replicas of Tagore's Nobel medallion (Go To Top)

     Kolkata: External Affairs Minister K.Natwar Singh handed over two replicas of the stolen Nobel medallion of the poet Rabindra Nath Tagore to the Visva-Bharati authorities on Saturday, two days ahead of Tagore's 144th birth anniversary. The Gold and silver replicas of the original medallion, which was stolen in March 2004, were formally handed over to Dr. Sujit Basu, the the Vice-Chancellor of the Visva-Bharati University, at the Uttarayan complex near here. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, West Bengal Governor G K Gandhi, besides Swedish Ambassador to India Ingaerikson Fogh and Nobel awardee Amartya Sen were also present on the occasion. The handover was accompanied by ceremonial singing of Rabindra Sangeet by students of the university and a traditional welcoming of the guest with tilaks, angavastra and flowers. The gold replica will be stored in the strongroom of the Visva- Bharati while the silver one will be put on display along with the citation of the Nobel foundation at the Uttarayan complex. The original Nobel medallion besides some memorabilia of the Tagore family were stolen from the museum at Rabindra Bhavan in the Uttarayan complex of the university on March 25, last year.

Order CBI probe on Shourie, Centaur deals: CPI(M) (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The CPI(M) on Saturday demanded a thorough probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the "personal role" of former Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie in the Centaur deals and said the "dubious deals" only justify the demand for their cancellation. Noting the "devastating comments" made by the Comptroller and Auditor General in its report on the deals to sell the hotels in Mumbai airport and Juhu area, the party Polit Bureau asked for cancellation of the sale of the two Mumbai hotels alleging it had caused a loss of crores of rupees to the public exchequer. In a statement, it said the CAG report clearly pointed out that "undervaluation had been done by the NDA government to serve private interests 'without the benefit of competition' for any other party". The report, it said, also pointed out "how Shourie took special interest in pushing forward the deal throwing overboard all the norms". The CPI (M)'s demand came a day after the Comptroller and Auditor General of India pulled up the previous NDA government headed by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for diversion of funds and unauthorised expenditure of Rs 63.23 crore for its 'India Shining' campaign even as the BJP dared the govt. to institute a public inquiry.

      "Ministry of Finance did not obtain approval of Parliament before incurring an expenditure of Rs 63.23 crore on the media campaign," CAG said in its report tabled in Parliament. "The action of the Ministry in not obtaining prior approval of Parliament before incurring expenditure on the activity, which was a new service or instrument of service, was unauthorised," it said. The Ministry incurred the expenditure through diversion of funds although this activity was not contemplated in the annual budget, CAG said while tracing the expenditure. An expenditure of Rs 63.23 crore was incurred by re-appropriating Rs 68 crore from the sub-head 'Cooperation with other countries' to a sub-head 'other expenditure' under Major Head 3605 in Demand No. 31, Department of Economic Affairs for 2003-04, CAG said. The Bharatiya Janata Party, however, has dared the government to institute a public inquiry into government spending and accused the Comptroller and Auditor General of projecting ''wrong on facts''. While commenting on the CAG, leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha and former Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said the CAG was in ''error'' in its observations as the government had made a grant of Rs 100 crore for the purpose. The fact can be verified and he would welcome any public inquiry or through any agency, Singh said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, however, told the Rajya Sabha earlier this week that the NDA was not giving a correct picture of the developments that have taken place since Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's visit to New Delhi between April 16 and 18. He said that the NDA charges against his UPA were not substantiated or true, and that he had made several efforts to convince the opposition to return to the House for debates on all issues that were concerning it.

Manmohan Singh to visit Russia (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: On Sunday, Dr. Manmohan Singh will embark on his first visit to Russia since becoming Prime Minister last May, which could see the nearly five-decade-old bilateral relationship being cemented further. In undertaking his three-day visit, Dr. Singh will be joining a distinguished group of former prime ministers, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, V.P.Singh, P.V.Narasimha Rao and Atal Behari Vajpayee to have visited Moscow while in office. Nehru was the first Indian Prime Minister to set foot in Russia, then known as the Soviet Union, in June 1955. During that visit, New Delhi and Moscow set the tone for friendly bilateral ties based on realpolitik. India's non-alignment enabled it to accept Soviet support in areas of strategic congruence, as in disputes with Pakistan and China, without subscribing to Soviet global policies or proposals for Asian collective security. Close and cooperative ties were forged in particular in the sectors of Indian industrial development and defense production and purchases at the height of the Cold War. It was followed by the trip of Premier Nikolai Bulganin and General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to India in November and December 1955. In 1962, Nehru manage to obtain a Soviet commitment to remain neutral on the India-China border dispute and the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Shastri used his only visit to Taskent in January 1966 to cement bilateral ties. The most productive phase of Indo-Soviet ties took place during Indira Gandhi's tenure in 1971-76 and again between 1982-84. In the first phase, India and the Soviet Union signed a 20-year-long Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. Rajiv Gandhi, who followed Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister, visited the Soviet Union four times -- 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1989. After the Soviet Union's disintegration in 1990, New Delhi and Moscow took steps to redefine their relationship keeping post- Cold War realities in mind. Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao visited Russia in 1994, while Prime Minister H.D.Devegowda visited the country in 1997. and Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Russia in November 2001 and May 2003. Though not a bilateral visit in the real sense, Dr. Singh is expected to meet various heads of state on the sidelines of the 60th anniversary of the Victory Day Parade.

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