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Vilayat Khan, sitar maestro, passes away
Mulayam Singh's SP Govt will soon be in minority: Congress
Congress finalises 100 more names for Lok Sabha election
AB Vajpayee, Dr M M Joshi, Kalyan Singh to cotest election
Madrid blast: Two Indians among five held
Supreme Court warns against PIL misuse
Maoists kill five Bihar villagers
KLO kills two in Jalpaiguri
Kanchi Sankaracharya lauds gesture to Iraqi kids
Indian and Pak cricket teams in Islamabad
Ten Sports allegation against Prasar Bharti
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Vilayat Khan, sitar maestro, passes away  (Go To Top)    

          Mumbai: The body of renowned sitarist and music director Ustad Vilayat Khan was flown on Sunday to Kolkata for the last rites. Khan died of prolonged illness in Mumbai late on Saturday night. He was 76. Khan died following lung cancer. He was admitted to hospital on February 26 for treatment of diabetes, hypertension and lung cancer. He is survived by his wife, two sons Shujaat Khan and Hidayat Khan and two daughters. Friends and relatives were joined by Khan's fans who came to pay their last tributes at the morgue where the body was kept. He was known worldwide for revolutionizing sitar performance through his introduction of the gayaki ang, or vocal style. Apart from winning laurels all over the world, Ustad Vilayat Khan also gave music for some films, like Satyajit Ray's "Jalsaghar".

Mulayam Singh's SP Govt will soon be in minority: Congress  (Go To Top)

         New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday said the Mulayam government would soon be reduced to a minority, citing a possible disqualification of BSP MLAs who had defected to the ruling party. Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal told reporters here that the issue of MLA disqualification was "still under the carpet". The Speaker may disqualify the BSP MLAs, who had defected to the SP, under the anti-defection law. His remarks came in the wake of SP general secretary Amar Singh's comment that his party did not need "crutches" of the Congress to run the state government. Sibal also said there was a possibility of the state being put under the President's rule. Earlier, CWC member Arjun Singh had indicated in Lucknow that the Congress might withdraw support to the Uttar Pradesh government to end the contradiction of supporting the state government on one hand and fighting against each other in the Lok Sabha polls, on the other.

Congress finalises 100 more names for Lok Sabha election (Go To Top)

         New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday announced that it had finalised 100 more names of candidates for Lok Sabha polls in Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Guajrat. The party's central election committee (CEC), which met here last night, concluded its deliberations on the nomination of candidates for Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, party spokesman Kapil Sibal told reporters here. Congress president Sonia Gandhi was now having discussions with general secretaries of the concerned states on the selection of candidates, Sibal said. The CEC would announce names of candidates for Uttaranchal, Orissa, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Kerala shortly, he said.

          The party, which had earlier announced its first list of 75 candidates in 21 states, is expected to release the second list of over 100 candidates on March 16, party sources said. In Maharashtra, names of CWC member Mukul Wasnik (Buldhana), Gurudas Kamat (Mumbai North-East) and Suresh Kalmadi (Pune) are understood to have been cleared. It is still not clear whether film star Govinda, Maharashtra PCC chief Ranjit Deshmukh, former naval chief Vishnu Bhagwat and former Mumbai police commissioner MN Singh would be Congress candidates in Mumbai. From Dausa Lok Sabha seat, Sachin Pilot is likely to be fielded in place of his mother Rama Pilot who is understood to have expressed her desire to opt out.

AB Vajpayee, Dr M M Joshi, Kalyan Singh to cotest election (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani are among the candidates for the general election announced by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in its first list released on Sunday. Former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh also figures in the list. "The Bharatiya Janata Party has finalised 136 candidates from different states. We are releasing the first list. In this 54 names are from Uttar Pradesh, of which Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee from Lucknow, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi from Allahabad, Kalyan Singh from Bulandshahar and Vinay Katiyar from Khiri," Pramod Mahajan, general secretary of the BJP, told reporters in the Capital. The two-day meeting of the BJP central election committee, which began here on Sunday, also decided to field all senior ministers. However, the party decided not to field law and commerce minister Arun Jaitley, agriculture minister Rajnath Singh, Mahajan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi besides party incharge for UP Kalraj Mishra, all members of the Rajya Sabha.

Madrid blast: Two Indians among five held (Go To Top)

         Madrid: Two Indians and three Moroccans have been arrested in Madrid as part of the investigation into train bombings that killed 200 people, Spain's Interior Minister Angel Acebes is reported to have said. "Sixty hours after the brutal attack we now have five detentions," the minister told a news conference on Saturday. All the detentions were made "for presumed implication in the sale and falsification of the mobile phone and cards found in the bag that did not explode", Acebes said. He was referring to a phone found in a backpack with unexploded explosives on one of the trains targeted in Thursday's attacks.

Supreme Court warns against PIL misuse (Go To Top)

         New Delhi: The Supreme Court today has warned against misuse of public interest litigation to suit personal interests or for vendetta. The ruling came when the apex court imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on a petitioner who had questioned the appointment of a judge to the Punjab and Haryana High Court through a PIL without any material support. Declaring that "newspaper reports per se do not constitute legally acceptable evidence", a Bench of Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat imposed the cost on petitioner B. Singh, and directed the High Court to recover it from him using coercive methods if he did not deposit the same within six weeks. The court said "when there is material to show that a petition styled as PIL is nothing but a camouflage to foster personal dispute or vendetta to bring to terms a person, not of ones liking, or gain publicity or a facade for blackmail, said petition has to be thrown out." The PIL, which has now come to occupy an important field in the administration of law should not be "publicity interest litigation" or "private interest litigation" or "politics interest litigation" or the latest trend "praise income litigation", Justice Pasayat, writing for the Bench, said.

Maoists kill five Bihar villagers (Go To Top)

          Gaya: A Maoist rebel attack and retaliatory violence left at least five people dead and many injured in Gaya district. The Maoists are fighting for a radical redistribution of land to the landless lower caste people. Eyewitnesses said around 150 armed activists of the outlawed Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) on Saturday swooped down on Adai village, 100 km south of Patna, and shot dead three persons and wounded as many while they were asleep. All the upper caste victims were believed to be supporters of Ranvir Sena, a banned militia of landowners in the region. "A villager suspected the men to be of MCC (Maoist Communist Centre) and sounded an alert in the village. Then, people ran for their lives. The entire village was surrounded by MCC and the people tried to protect themselves. But some of the men who were entering their houses were fired at and killed," Lalitha Singh, an eyewitness, said.

          The MCC and Ranvir Sena are locked in a bloody feud in the state in which more than 1,000 people have died over the last decade. Besides MCC, People's War Group and a faction of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) are the other Maoist groups operating mainly in Bihar, neighbouring Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. The Maoists, who are fighting for peasents rights, have targeted rich landowners and government offices.

KLO kills two in Jalpaiguri (Go To Top)

         Banglajhor (West Bangal): At least two people were killed and three injured when suspected rebels opened fire on them at Banglajhor village in Jalpaiguri district. Eyewitness said rebels of the banned Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), dressed in armed fatigues, on Saturday opened indiscriminate firing at around 8 p.m., killing two villagers on the spot. "In the evening, six people came on a motorcycle, they parked the motorcycle under a tree and came to a nearby shop apparently to buy something and started firing from there. They fired indiscriminately, nearly 100 bullets were fired. Two people were killed and six were injured," said Monoranjan Sarkar, an eyewitness.

          Mishra, Inspector-General of Police, North Bengal, said an intensive search operation has been launched to nab the rebels. "We suspect that the KLO (Kamtapur Liberation Organisation) is behind the incident. They have been active in this area for sometime. During the Last two three months they were lying low but this is the latest incident they have committed. We are trying to nab them," Mishra said.

          KLO, which operates in eastern parts of the state, was one of the three outfits whose camps were run over by royal Bhutan army when they launched a military offensive in December last year. West Bengal is home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups. More than 50 rebel groups are active in the region, circled by China, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Kanchi Sankaracharya lauds gesture to Iraqi kids (Go To Top)

          Chennai: A Hindu seer blessed a group of Iraqi children, recovering at a local hospital after life-saving heart surgeries. Eighteen children from the war-ravaged nation were treated free of cost at an upmarket super-speciality hospital, as a goodwill gesture. The children who arrived in India with help of a voluntary organisation are now ready to leave for Baghdad on March 20. The Sankaracharya of Kanchi, His Holiness Sri Jayendra Saraswati, blessed the children and their families and gave them holy offerings. The overwhelmed families were graetful to cardiac surgeon Dr KM Cherian, chairman of the institute, for his generosity. The Central government has also sanctioned a grant of Rs 500,000 to the hospital for its good work. The Shankaracharya said such philanthrophic actions should be carried forward.

          "The children are going back in good health. Dr Cherian is a good man and, of course, God's grace is always there...both these factors have helped the children recover so well. My blessings are there for these people so that they can carry forward the good work," the seer said. Eleven months after US forces began their attack on Iraq, dethroning Saddam Hussein, the impoverished nation is making a slow progress towards normalcy.

Indian and Pak cricket teams in Islamabad (Go To Top)

          Islamabad: The Indian and Pakistani cricket teams arrived in Islamabad late on Saturday amid tight security, soon after playing the first one-day international at National Stadium, Karachi. India clinched a thrilling victory over the hosts in the first one day international in Karachi on Saturday. Both teams would stay in the twin cities, Islamabad-Rawalpindi, for four days to play the second one-dayer of the series that both countries hope will cement a fledgling peace process in the region.

         The teams arrived at Islamabad airport by a Pakistan Airlines flight and were escorted to the team hotel by a dozen police motorcycles and a pickup mounted with a machinegun. Cars and pedestrians were cleared from the road to allow the cavalcade to pass. The VIP lounge of the airport was closed for other people during the players' presence in the area. The officials of the Punjab Cricket Association and representatives of the local administration received the two teams at Islamabad International Airport.

         While the Indian cricket team has cancelled its practice session on Sunday afternoon, and will rest the entire day, the Pakistani team will have swimming pool and gymnasium training sessions in the morning and light training in the evening. The second one-day international will be held on March 16 and both teams will leave for Peshawar on the 18th, after attending a reception by Indian High Commission, to play the third match on 19th. India's tour of Pakistan is its first in more than 14 years and includes five one-day internationals, followed by three Tests.

Ten Sports allegation against Prasar Bharti (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: Ten Sports on Sunday alleged that Prasar Bharti deleted its logo and all its advertising during Saturday's Indo-Pak cricket match and the Doordarshan signal was stolen in several countries since it was not encrypted. "Ours was a full signal with logo and ads. Prasar Bharti deleted our logo as well as the ads. Besides, the DD signal was carried free-to-air. This resulted in signal pilferage," advisor with Ten Sports' distributor RK Singh said over phone from Mumbai. He said Ten Sports has "communicated" its objections to the public broadcaster on the match telecast but there has been no word from Prasar Bharti on the matter as yet.

          While declining to quantify what would deletion of the Ten Sports logo and advertising mean for the sports channel in terms of investment lost, Singh said, "We have communicated to Prasar Bharti that their act has resulted in a breach of our ad contracts and has severely hurt the Ten Sports' business fundamentals......They were serving only their own commercial interests, not any public interest in doing so." The Dubai-based channel also asserted it has not been contacted by Prasar Bharti for reaching any "commercial" agreement for getting rights to telecast the remaining matches. "No one from Prasar Bharti has contacted us for any commercial deal."