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UPA rallying for consensus on fuel price hike

          New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday held discussion with the finance and petroleum ministers as the nation battles to protect its expanding economy from soaring oil prices. Analysts have said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government is facing his toughest challenge since assuming power as a nearly three-rupee raise in petrol and diesel prices becomes imperative. The new coalition is also rallying for a political consensus, especially from the Left, before any price hike can go through. The previous government had frozen retail oil prices since December as the average price of crude imported by the country rose 27 percent. Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar is expected to announce the government's stand on Tuesday and analysts have predicted that it could either fuel inflation or lower tax revenue. With India's oil companies in danger of sliding into the red, analysts say the government could either cut excise duties of 30 percent on petrol and 14 percent on diesel, the main transport fuel, or lower import duties on crude. Or, it could do a bit of both, they said. Another possibility is to raise retail prices of fuels like petrol, diesel, kerosene and cooking gas. But analysts say this is unlikely because it would spark an outcry from the very voters that propelled the government to power last month in a surprise election result.

Kaizad remand extended (Go To Top)

          Mumbai: An Indian court on Monday extended by a day the remand of a Bollywood film-maker arrested on allegations of making false statements about the death of his British assistant, who was killed by a passing train during a film shoot. London-based film and media studies graduate Nadia Khan, 26, died more than two weeks ago in Bombay, India's film capital, while shooting a movie on railway tracks near a train station in the central part of the city. Police said film director Kaizad Gustad and two of his assistants had filed a false complaint of a road accident, claiming Khan was hit by a vehicle. They were arrested earlier this month, under a non-bailable criminal law pertaining to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Metropolitan Magistrate P.T. Rahule declined bail and extended the police custody of all three men to June 15.

Protest against scrapping of anti-conversion law  (Go To Top)

          Chennai: A Hindu organisation in Chennai on Monday staged a protest rally against the scrapping of the anti-conversion lawl by the state government. The protestors shouted slogans against alleged conversion by Christian missionaries in the state. The protest rally was led by the president of the Tamil Nadu state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, C. P. Radhakrishnan. "Conversion may be right action during 18th or 19th century or may be even 20th century but in 21st century when all are equal, all religions are equal, the guidances are same why we should go for conversion. Conversions will only increase conflicts between the two societies. So conversion should be stopped at all cost," said Radhakrishnan. The Tamil Nadu state government last year had passed an ordinance saying any person guilty of bringing about forceful conversion would be punished with a fine of 50,000 rupees. All religious conversions must also be reported to district authorities, the order said. The decision had come in the wake of accusation by high-caste Hindu groups that various Christian and Buddhist organisations were forcibly converting people, especially low-caste Dalits. Christian leaders however have always denied the charge. Dalits, variously referred to as outcastes, untouchables, Harijans (god's people) and scheduled castes, sit on the margins of the Hindu system of social hierarchy. Hindu scriptures separate people into Brahmin priests, warriors and traders and labourers, while the rest fall outside the framework of the caste system. Numbering 160 million, close to the population of Brazil, they represent 16 percent of India's population of more than one billion.

Dharam Singh rules out release of Cauvery water to TN (Go To Top)

          Bangalore: Karnataka Chief Minister N Dharam Singh on Monday categorically ruled out release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu and asserted that the need for yielding to the Centre's "pressure" on the issue did not arise. Maintaining that government would not compromise on the interests of the state and its farmers, Singh told the legislative assembly "(the question of) releasing even a drop of water is not there (before us)". Singh said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had faxed a letter informing Karnataka of her government's decision to send an "official delegation" to Bangalore on June 15-16 to seek water release.

Militants kidnap 42 traders in Tripura (Go To Top)

         Agartala: Forty two people were kidnapped by militants in two separate incidents in Tripura, police said on Monday. Insurgents of banned National Liberation Front of Tripura (Biswamohan group) kidnapped 37 people, mostly traders, from Kampui-Bhandarima road in North Tripura district early this morning, they said. About 30 insurgents, armed with sophisticated weapons, stopped two trucks and kidnapped the traders, who were going to a market at Kampui, police said. Senior officials rushed to the spot with heavy contingent of police and paramilitary forces to rescue the kidnapped persons.

BJP president says Modi won't be removed (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) denied that the riots in Gujarat two years ago were one of the reasons for its debacle. Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had in an interview to a private channel at the weekend admitted that the riots affected party's prospects in the April-May elections and that Gujarat chief Narendra Modi should be removed. At least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in repraisal attacks after a Muslim mob allegedly torched a train burning alive 59 Hindus. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was blamed for not doing enough to stop the killings. But the BJP president Vankaiah Naidu said that Modi won't be removed from his post.

Film on lesbians causes furore in Varanasi (Go To Top)

          Varanasi: "Girlfriend", a mainstream Hindi movie about an obsessive lesbian woman, has caused a furore amongst Hindu right-wing activists who have warned cinema theatres against screening the film. Activists in the holy city of Varanasi burned posters of the film and shouted slogans outside theatres saying the film was against Indian traditions and was corrupting young minds. The controversial film, being touted by Indian media as a macabre version of the Angelian Joeli starrer "Gia" features actresses Isha Kopikar and Amrita Arora in a three-hour tale of sleazy love, kickboxing and bloody violence. Koppikar, who plays the lesbian in the movie, is a man-hater after she was sexually abused by a middle-aged neighbour as a child. While Hindu activists are terming the movie as pornographic and against moral values, some women groups as well are against it for presenting lesbianism as the result of unnatural circumstances. In New Delhi, the movie bombed recording as less as 40 percent bookings in its first week. This is only the second time Bollywood has ventured into lesbianism, an issue shunned, reviled and kept under carpets by Indians. In 1998, huge protests marked the release of "Fire", a film about two bored and neglected housewives from a middle class Indian household taking to lesbianism. The film had to be recalled after protestors attacked cinema theatres and burned screens.