NewsBriefs
Back to Headlines

Rajya Sabha passes Office-of-Profit Bill

      New Delhi: The Rajya Sabha on Thursday again passed the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill, 2006 in its original form with 98 votes caste in favour of the Bill and 48 against. After four hours of heated discussion, which included the rejection of all the amendments moved by the BJP and the Trinamool Congress, the Bill was passed for the second time in the Upper House. The Opposition asked for division in which 98 votes were cast in favour of the Bill and 49 against. Popularly called the 'Office of Profit' Bill, it was reintroduced in the Rajya Sabha on July 25 after President A P J Abdul Kalam returned it to the Parliament for reconsideration. The Bill was earlier passed by the Parliament in its Budget session following which it was sent to the President for approval. However, President Kalam sent the Bill back to the Parliament for reconsideration and called for a holistic view of the entire office-of-profit controversy. He had also suggested the introduction of a uniform legislation in both the Centre and the States. He was also peeved that the Bill was passed with retrospective effect. The controversial Bill proposes to exempt 56 posts from being considered "offices of profit," including the post of chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC) which was held by Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The Bill aims at amending the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959. Article 102 (1) (a) of the Constitution explicitly disqualifies a person from membership of Parliament "if he holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of the state".

Captains of industry meet PM on quota (Go To Top)

      New Delhi: The captains of Indian industry on Thursday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on JJ Irani Committee Report on reservation in the private sector. The Irani Report opposes any law that curtails the employer's freedom in the matter of employment. The business chambers have said that the details of the report and discussions held with the Prime Minister would be disclosed on Friday. The report prepared by the CII-ASSOCHAM panel comprises of CII President R Seshasayee, ASSOCHAM President Anil Agarwal and J J Irani, Hero Honda group's Sunil Munjal and former president of CII Subodh Bhargav. The Irani committee was formed to suggest ways and means to help the backward people to get employment to avoid any legislation by the government in this regard. According to a private news channel, CNN-IBN, which claims to have a copy of the Irani Committee report, said that the Committee was silent on job quotas. The report states that the freedom to employ and the competitiveness of enterprise is non-negotiable. Some of the initiatives include setting up of coaching centres for 10,000 dalit students in universities, 50 scholarships in premier institutes like the IITs and IIMs, the news channel said. The channel claimed that the Committee has also proposed tying up with NGOs to improve schools in 104 dalit districts and collection of an education cess to fund the programmes.

1 killed in grenade attacks in J-K (Go To Top)

      Srinagar: A teenaged girl was killed and 18 others were wounded in separate grenade attacks in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, police said. One of the attacks took place in Sopore town, 45 km (30 miles) from here, while the other attack was on the home of a former militant, Shabir Ahmad, in Doda district. In Sopore, eyewitnesses said militants hurled a grenade at a police station in a crowded market but the grenade missed the target and exploded in middle of civilians. "I just don't know how it happened. My uncle and myself were on a bike when all of a sudden there was a blast and we were injured. It happened near the Sopore Police Station. I think 8-9 people must have been injured," said Hilal, an injured. Yaseen, a local resident, said the attack took place at around 10 a.m. "The explosion must have taken place at around 10 o'clock (local time) in the morning in which around nine people must have been injured. The explosion took place near the police station," he said. The attacks come a day ahead of President A.P.J Abdul Kalam's visit to the Valley where he is scheduled to attend some functions on Friday and Saturday.

Three convicted in Japanese rape case (Go To Top)

      Jaipur: A fast-track court, after two and a half months of hearing, has convicted three of the five accused of raping a Japanese female tourist at a hotel in Pushkar. The main accused, Bablu, the son of the hotel owner, in which the tourist was staying, has been jailed for seven years. Babbu's mother and brother have been sentenced to prison terms of three years each. Two friends of Bablu were acquitted by Additional District Judge Mahaveer Prasad Sharma. It may be recalled that the unidentified victim had sent a fax to the Ajmer Superintendent of Police from Agra on April 18, 2006, a fortnight after she was allegedly raped. In the fax she claimed that she was robbed of Rs 54,000 and raped after being drugged by Bablu.

BPO employee confesses to killing (Go To Top)

     Bangalore: The murder of BPO employee Tania Banerjee was solved on Thursday when one of her colleagues confessed to killing her in a "fit of rage". Kishore Gururaj told Bangalore Police today that he had committed the crime. Police said that 27-year-old Gururaj and Tania had left together for the day at around 9.30 p.m. on Tuesday. Gururaj stabbed 25- year-old Tania on the way when she refused to marry him. Tania's body, bearing stab injuries, was discovered on Wednesday night almost 200 km from Bangalore near Hassan. Aviva, the company for which both worked, said that Tania had not left the premises in an office car on Tuesday. This is the second time that a BPO employee has been killed in Bangalore. The last murder took place in December 2005.

Delhi hosts avian flu conference (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: In the backdrop of the recent avian flu outbreak across Asia, Europe and Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) is organising an international conference on "Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Preparedness in Asia" from today. The conference is being organised in association with the Government of India and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The objective of the two-day conference is to review the Avian Influenza situation and how to avoid the risk of a pandemic, besides sharing mechanisms for integrated and multi-sectoral response at the national level and strengthening inter-country collaboration. Avian Influenza outbreaks have resulted in substantial poultry deaths as well as the culling of more than 200 million poultry, with huge economic loss to the affected countries. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has granted Rs. 23 lakhs for the conference. Geoffrey R. Pyatt, Charge d' Affaires of the US Embassy and Dr. Salim J. Habayeb, WHO Representative to India, signed the grant agreement. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has also provided an equal amount of money for the conference. Ministers of Health, Agriculture and Livestock from neighbouring countries are expected to participate in the conference.

10 Haryana cops killed in road mishap (Go To Top)

      Mahendergarh (Haryana): At least ten policemen were killed and nine injured when the jeep in which they were travelling collided with a truck. Witnesses said nine of the policemen died on the spot. The collision occurred at 5.00 p.m. on Wednesday in Haryana's Rohtak District. The 21 policemen were returning from a shooting range practice at the time of the mishap. "The police bus had a head-on collision with a truck on the Mahendergarh-Narnaul Road. Till now, there are ten casualties, the rest are injured," said C.S. Rao, Superintendent of Police, Rohtak District. The injured are being treated at the PGI Medical College in Rohtak. The Haryana Government has announced a compensation of 300,000 rupees to the family of those killed and 50,000 rupees each to the injured.

'US lacks strategy to combat Muslim extremism'

     Washington: A study conducted by the US Institute of Peace (USIP) has concluded that the US still lacked an integrated and sustainable strategy to confront religious extremism in the Muslim world. According to the study, compiled by USIP Director of Muslim World Initiative Abdeslam M. Maghraoui, efforts made by the US in the past to address the challenges of the Muslim world had often contradicted one another and worked at cross-purposes. It objects to the use of terms like "jihadists", "salafists" or "extremists" because the ideological and political differences among Islamic groups were still misunderstood or were too subtle to warrant attention. It says that democracy promotion efforts were likely to empower extremists in many Muslim sates. According to it, free elections, although desirable in principle, may not be the best mechanisms to negotiate substantive political issues and deep suspicion of formal authority structures persistent in Muslim societies. Titled 'American Foreign Policy and Islamic Renewal', the study says that the US policymakers had failed to recognise that the challenge was not only a conflict between the Muslim world and the West, but it also involved ideological shifts within the Muslim World, the Daily Times reported. It suggests that the single most important initiative the US could take to combat Islamic extremism was to support "Islamic renewal". According to the study, the US must engage modern Islam because core aspects of the religion had an enormous moderating and modernising potential that US policymakers had overlooked till now.

Political outrage over Hindu girl's
kidnapping in Pakistan  (Go To Top)

     Islamabad: The kidnapping of a minor Hindu girl, Payal, has invited criticisms from various politicians. Cutting across party lines, activists of the Pakistan People's Party, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) and Jamiat-e-Islam (JI), teachers associations and Shahab Milli took out procession to protest against the kidnapping of the eight-year-old girl from the Hindu Mohalla in Kashmore six days ago. Crossing the Hindu Mohalla, the protesters, according to the Dawn, reached the Indus Highway and blocked the road for about an hour, which led to suspension of traffic to Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.

France heat wave claims 40 lives (Go To Top)

    Paris: At least 40 people have reportedly died in France, which is under the grip of a heat wave. According to Professor Gilles Brucker, the chief of the French sanitary control Institute, In VS, the heat wave has struck parts of south west France, southern Spain and north west Italy. Brucker was quoted by the Chinese news agency Xinhua as saying that the heat wave could last for more than a fortnight. He said that the general public must be vigilant to factors contributing to the heat wave, and advised regular intake of fluids to ward off the threat of heat stroke. Temperatures are hovering around the 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) mark across Europe. In 2003, close to 50,000 people succumbed to a heat wave across Europe, including 15,000 in France.

Back to Headlines                  Go To Top