BL Joshi appointed new Lt Governor of Delhi
New
Delhi: Former IPS officer BL Joshi was on Thursday appointed
as Lt Governor of Delhi to succeed Vijai Kapoor. A Rashtrapathi
Bhavan communique said the resignation of Kapoor has been
accepted and the Rajasthan cadre police officer has been
appointed in his place. "The President is pleased to appoint
Joshi as the Lt Governor of the National capital territory
of Delhi with effect from the date he assumes charge of
his office," the communique said. An IPS officer from Rajasthan
cadre, Joshi, is understood to have been close to former
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and was in the personal security
of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Admission to Delhi University
begins (Go
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New
Delhi: For over five million students seeking higher
education it is the time of the year when they take stock
of their dreams and realities. Delhi University admissions
to undergraduate courses started on Thursday at 12 centres
across the Capital. For all of the hopefuls to the coveted
university, however, these hot, sweating days of June are
a major turning point in life. While some meritorious students
will stride fruitfully towards what they want and achieve
their ambitions, the others with lower academic scores might
not be as lucky. But in a departure from the conventional
norm when students had to hop from one college to another,
this year students are required to fill a single centralised
admission form, which will help them to apply in several
colleges for more than one course at the same time.
Students
have welcomed the new admission procedure based on Intelligent
Character Reading forms that has not only made the whole
process less tardy but also hassle-free. "The ICR (Intelligent
Character Reading) forms are very helpful. We do not have
to go JMC (Jesus and Mary College) and St Stephens (colleges
in Delhi University). I have got both the forms. Yes, the
ICR forms were quite good. The police protection was good.
Everything was quite organised," said Divya Nair, an applicant.
University authorities said that they were making all efforts
to minimise chaos and inconvenience to the students. "He
(a student) needs to submit all forms at one time. He can
leisurely procure the form from any of the 12 centres, take
them home, leisurely read all the instructions given in
the form and fill up the form. And then can submit them.
There is no need to panic. It will be better they concentrate
on the courses that one needs to pursue," said P. Mohan
Raju, Joint Dean, Students' Welfare, Delhi University.
Last year, the university printed as many as 2 million admission
forms and even those were not enough. Delhi University has
just about 43,000 seats on offer at the undergraduate level,
while nearly 82,362 students have cleared qualifying Class
12 examinations in the capital alone. Add to this the mad
rush of students from other states like Bihar, Orissa, the
North-East and Uttar Pradesh. Police said that strict arrangements
have been made to avoid any stampede or gate-crash. "We
have done a few things which are different from the previous
years. We have firstly increased the number of pickets inside
the university campus and around the university campus.
We have tried to regulate the ingressed and outgressed routes
and see that they are properly manned," said Garima Bhatnagar,
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, North District,
where the main campus is located. Scramble for seats in
the premier university is an annual occurrence with a large
number of students applying for just a few thousand seats.
As in the past, the University will again be short of seats
for the capital's young hopefuls. The University of Delhi,
one of India's oldest and finest central varsities, attracts
a vast number of students from across the country.
India undecided over
oil price hike (Go
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New
Delhi: The Chiarman of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
(ONGC) ruled out OPEC's meeting on Thursday influencing
any immediate hike in domestic oil prices. New Delhi is
keenly monitoring the meeting, the outcome of which is crucial
in formulating a new pricing policy for petrol, diesel,
cooking gas and kerosene. "As far as OPEC (Organisation
of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is concerned, you see
the world consumption level is almost 80 million barrels
a day, of which OPEC countries contribute about 24-25 million
barrels. So there is a huge majority of production which
comes from non-OPEC countries. There are several uncertainties
which is perhaps why prices are rising too much," ONGC chairman
and Managing Director Subir Raha said on the sidelines of
a seminar.
Opposition demands removal
of tainted ministers (Go
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New
Delhi: Opposition coalition on Thursday took out a march
to protesting against the inclusion of tainted lawmakers
in the new Congress-led coalition government. National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) leaders, led by leader of the opposition
Lal Krishna Advani, submitted a memorandum to President
A P J Abdul Kalam and sought his internvention in removing
the ministers who have a criminal background. "Those politicians
are involved in multi-million scams and have been going
to jails, they have done such criminal activities, which
I cannot describe. This is a question for the entire nation
and for its people to raise, we shall take the fight to
the people. If the present government does not want to lead
the country to destruction, it should remove the tainted
ministers from the cabinet," NDA convenor George Fernandes
later told reporters.
The NDA has been protesting against the inclusion of four
ministers who have criminal cases registered against them,
into Manomhan Singh's cabinet. The ministers including Laloo
Prasad Yadav and a Congress party member Taslimuddin are
facing various corruption or criminal charges in courts.
The opposition parties have ridiculed the Congress party's
stand on criminilisation of politics. "We are particularly
concerned with the double standards that the Congress party
has followed, particularly when they have been raising their
voice against those who had criminal cases... and at the
same time, they have been inducting criminals who have been
involved in hardcore crimes," Arun Jaitley, senior leader
of the Bharatiya Janata Party, said. The Congress had boycotted
Fernandes, when he was the Defence Minister, in parliament,
demanding he be dropped from the cabinet for his alleged
role in a defence-deal scam. Under election reforms undertaken
over the years, persons sentenced to imprisonment terms
of three years or more are debarred from contesting elections.
But the move has largely proved ineffective as India's judicial
process is slow and tedious.
20th anniversary of
Operation Blue Star observed (Go
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Hoshiarpur:
Several Sikh religious organisations in Punjab on Thursday
marked the 20th anniversary of the "Operation Blue Star"
by holding prayers. "Blue Star" was the code name given
to an operation launched by the security forces in 1984
to flush out extremists from the Golden Temple. The extremists
waging a war against the Indian government for a separate
Sikh homeland had taken shelter in the Golden Temple. A
prayer meeting was organised in a Sikh shrine in Hoshiarpur
in memory of the people who died during the operation. The
religious leaders also organised an exhibition of photographs,
books and periodicals written during those times. Harcharan
Singh Dhami, the working president of Khalsa Dal (a religious
party) said that following the Blue Star operations, the
Sikh community had lost faith in India. "The day the Indian
government launched the operation Blue star, the entire
Sikh community lost faith in India. We are staying here
but we want freedom," he said. The incident led to the assassination
of then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, at the hands of her
Sikh bodyguards-who were outraged at the desecration of
their holy temple. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in the
riots that followed the assassination. New Delhi had crushed
the violent Sikh campaign in Punjab for a separate state
of Khalistan in the eighties.
Chidambaram's budget
(Go
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Mumbai:
Union Finance Minister P.Chidambaram said on Thursday
(June 03) the budget for the current financial year will
be presented in the first week of July. Chidambaram was
speaking to reporters after meeting with bankers, fund managers
and industrialists on his first visit to after being appointed
as finance minister on May 23. "Budget will be presented
in the first week of July and we hope to pass it by the
first week of August," he said. Chidambaram also said he
saw investments in the country picking up. "Bankers, industrialists
and others have told me that they clearly see a rush of
investments in the next 10 months and thereafter," he said.
Rahul takes oath as
MP (Go
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New
Delhi: Rahul Gandhi, son of Congress president Sonia
Gandhi, on Thursday took oath as a member of the 14the Lok
Sabha. The son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi and the grandson of another assassinated leader,
Indira Gandhi, the UK-educated Rahul read out his oath in
Hindi, appreciated with a loud desk thumping from the treasury
benches. Rahul's mother Sonia had won "against the odds"
driving her party's campaign almost single handed and despite
personal attacks against her Italian origin from the Bharatiya
Janata Party. Sonia's daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who
campaigned for her mother and brother, said she was proud
of her brother. "I am happy and proud. I have seen my father
sitting inside parliament. Today I have seen my brother
there... I am sure he will work hard with sincerity," she
said. Sonia and her children have an enormous fan following
across the country, with the siblings being seen as heralding
an era of youth politics.
Karnataka coalition
on the precipice (Go
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New
Delhi: Less than a week after sewing up an alliance,
cracks started appearing in the ruling coalition in Karnataka.
The Congress, which also heads the federal government, and
the Janata Dal (Secular), JD(S), fought bitterly to lay
claim to the top Chief Minister's post before JD(S) finally
relented. Following the patch-up, Dharam Singh of the Congress
took over as Chief Minister on May 28, with S. Siddaramaiah
of JD(S) as his deputy. But now the two uneasy partners
have locked horns over ministry formation with each side
trying to grab a larger share and prime portfolios. The
Congress even went to the extent of saying that the alliance
may be up. "If they (Janata Dal-Secular, the ally of the
Congress party) are not coming for any settlement, then
there would not be any alternative for us. We have to sit
in the Opposition," Janardhan Poojari, state chief of the
Congress party, said. Poojari said his Congress party deserves
more seats as they are the larger party in the legislature.
"As far as Maharashtra formula (where the Congress party
will head the government and deputy chief ministership is
for the ally) is concerned, we have said in the beginning
that it is confined to the Chief Minister and the Deputy
Chief Ministership. Now they are extending it to the cabinet
formation. What we are saying is that we must have more
seats as we are leading the government," he added.
But deputy chief minister S. Siddaramaih made it clear he
was eyeing for the Home Ministry on the model of Congress-led
alliance in Maharashtra. "There is no question of key portfolios
or important portfolios. Whatever portfolio, they (Congress
party) had allotted to the Nationalist Congress Party (Congress'
ally in Maharashtra) will have to come to us," S.Siddaramaih
said. The coalition was formed after last month's elections
gave three- way verdict for the 224-member state assembly.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alongwith its ally Janata
Dal (United), emerged as the largest group with 82 seats
in the legislature but fell well short of a majority. The
Congress, which ruled the state, finished second with 64
seats and the Janata Dal (Secular) got 57 seats.
