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Parliament approves Finance Bill 2005-06

     New Delhi: The Rajya Sabha today approved amendments to the Finance Bill, 2005-06 by a voice vote three days after it was passed by the Lok Sabha, and returned it to the lower house. With this, the government has completed the three-stage budget exercise in Parliament The Finance Bill, 2005-06 has been approved by the Parliament with the official amendments to dilute the Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT), exempt all savings account from cash transaction tax and raise income tax exemption limit for women and senior citizens. Heeding to demands from various sections, Finance Minister P Chidambaram diluted some key provisions of the controversial Fringe Benefit Tax, retaining the overall rate at 30 percent. He also removed the proposed 0.1 percent banking cash transaction tax on all withdrawal beyond Rs. 10,000 and gave further income tax sops for women and senior citizens above 65 years. He raised the income tax exemption limit for women from Rs.1, 25,000 proposed in the budget to Rs.1, 35,000 and for senior citizens from Rs.1, 50,000 to Rs.1, 85,000. He raised the threshold limit for the banking cash transaction tax to Rs.25, 000 for individuals and Rs.1, 00,000 for corporate and others from non-savings accounts that will be effective from June one. Continuing its boycott of the Upper House for the seventh consecutive day, the opposition NDA did not participate in the debate unlike in the Lok Sabha.

UPA, NDA cross swords over MPs allowances (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The BJP today again pushed the UPA against the wall, especially the Congress, for claiming that NDA MPs were drawing allowances and perks after signing the daily rosters despite their boycotting both the Houses of the Parliament. BJP leader and spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said that the Congress' allegation was false as none of the NDA MPs had drawn any of the allowances since April 27 when they decided to boycott. She further clarified that Dara Singh, a nominated Rajya Sabha MP of the NDA, had erroneously signed the RS roaster on May 3, and on realising the mistake, he rubbed off his signatures from the register without claiming any allowance. Taking a dig at Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajiv Shukla's statement that Dara Singh Chauhan had drawn allowances, she said that the particular member Shukla referred to actually belonged to the BSP and not to the BJP. Sushma is BJPs deputy leader in the Upper House. On Wednesday, Congress spokesman Anand Sharma had also claimed that some of the NDA members were drawing allowances. But, he failed to give a detailed account of such members. He simply told media persons, "we will soon make available a list of such NDA members to you." Attacking Congress leaders Ambika Soni and Hanumantha Rao's statements inside the Rajya Sabha that the UPA members were drawing allowances and enjoying food in the Central Hall, Sushma said, "we are just boycotting both the Houses of the Parliament' it's our prerogative to come in the Parliament's premises and sit and chat in the Central Hall and library. Nobody can take away these rights from us." She said that by making such statements the Congress leaders were adding salt to their wounds. "Unke byaan ghaav par namak chidakne ke samaan hai," she said while addressing press persons inside Parliament.

UPA tried to prevent Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting: BJP (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Sticking to its claim made a couple of days ago, the BJP today said that the ruling UPA tried to prevent Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf from meeting former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on April 18 when the former was in New Delhi on a three-day visit. Referring to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's statement made in the Rajya Sabha this morning, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said, "we had mentioned this fact in the memorandum which we submitted to the President last week after we decided to boycott the Parliament. We never stated this fact to the press or at any other forum." She further said, "a news report in this regard had appeared in the Business Standard saying that there was an attempt from the UPA to prevent Musharraf from meeting Vajpayee. If this news report was false, the UPA should have contradicted it. but they didn't do so. So we had an apprehension that such an attempt was indeed made." When a clarification was sought from Congress spokesman Anand Sharma as to why the UPA did not contradict such report, he said, "when everyone of us had seen Musharraf meeting Vajpayee with Jaswant Singh and LK Advani on his side, what more was needed to clarify. This is a very unfortunate and irresponsible behaviour from the Opposition party."

Anti-corruption bureau raids top Chhattisgarh state officials (Go To Top)

     Raipur: In a pre dawn operation, the Anti Corruption Bureau in the state raided the premises of five officials in the state administration and recovered disproportionate assets worth Rs 4 crores. Cases under the Anti Corruption Act 1988 have been registered against the officials. The officials who landed up in the dragnet are Narayan Prasad Pandey, Sakharam Verma, Akhilesh Tiwari, A K Sahu and Gorelal Rathore. The anti corruption bureau officials raided 12 premises in Bastar, Raipur, Durg and Vilaspur. Around 800,000 rupees in cash along with some jewellery was seized from the house of Dr. Narayan Pandey, a surgeon in the animal husbandary department. "We had the information earlier, so we conducted the raid. We have raided his office and houses. Till now we have recovered rupees 8,00,000 in cash, gold and silver jewellery, some papers which are being sorted, costly furniture and two four-wheelers etc. He also owns a dairy. The total is worth 8 million rupees," said Ajit Kumar Dhagat, Deputy Director of anti-corruption bureau in the state capital. Dhagat said the search was being conducted under Section 133 of the Income Tax Act. "Whatever we have recovered the raids will be sorted and further investigation will be done on it," said Jayant Kumar Thorat, Superintendent of Police, anti-corruption bureau. Sakharam Verma who was a food inspector in the Health Department in Durg had three buildings in names of his relatives. Akhilesh Tiwari a Junior Engineer in the Irrigation Department runs a school, a hotel and four shops. The authorities say they will continue the raids in the coming days against other errant officials.

Delhi Govt confirms 14 bacterial meningitis deaths (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The Government of Delhi on Thursday confirmed that 14 people had died of Meningococcemia, the deadliest form of Meningitis. It also said that over 90 people are infected with the disease. Cases have been identified in various parts of north and south Delhi. But at the moment, these are isolated cases with no links to each other. "There has been an increase in cases. We are getting cases from all over. But large number of cases from one area have not been reported," said Dr M Kudesia, the Medical Superintendant of the Hindu Rao Hospital, where most of the patients have been admitted. However, the government says there is no need for mass vaccinations as of now. But a day after issuing guidelines to hospitals advising doctors, nurses and paramedics handling patients be vaccinated, Delhi's Health Minister Yoganand Shastri admitted that there was a shortage of vaccines for medical personnel. In fact, he said there was only 30 per cent availability. "Hopefully by tomorrow, we will be able to give our doctors these vaccines right away," he added.

     For the first time today, the government released consolidated figures of those infected. From Friday, reports will also start coming in from private hospitals. Doctors say Meningococcemia is in a state of impending epidemic. Most measures required to control the disease have been taken. But given the contagious nature of this disease, one cannot rule out the possibility of it spreading or getting bigger. Earlier, the New Delhi-based National Institute of Communicable Diseases had confirmed nine bacterial meningitis-related deaths in the Indian capital, and added that another 51 are still under treatment in various city hospitals. According to an official release, the NICD had confirmed Menigococcal etiology in 5 of the 11 samples tested by them and 51 clinically suspected cases of the bacterial disease had been reported since March 29. ''Of these 9 patients have died,'' the release stated. Dr J N Banvarikar, head of the Muncipal Corporation of Delhi's hospital administration, had quoted the same toll saying,'' nine of the 51 people who have contracted brain fever have died in various hospitals. ''The toll is nine till 0900 hrs today,'' Dr Banvarikar said. There have been no children among those who succumbed to the highly infectious disease, he added. At a high-level meeting of officials of the Director-General of Health Services (DGHS) and the MCD, it was decided to vaccinate the medical staff who attend to the meningococcemia patients. After the DGHS-MCD meeting, it was decided to keep 30 beds separately for meningitis patients in each MCD-run hospitals--- ten beds each for male, female and children, Dr Banvarikar said. ''The doctors and the nurses form a high risk group and we have issued instructions that all of them should be given preventive vaccines,'' said Dr Banvarikar.

     Meanwhile, cashing on the panic created by news of the outbreak of bacterial meningitis, chemists and hospitals have raised the price of the vaccines for the disease by Rs.100. There also been reports of a shortfall of the vaccine, which is said to be presently available at a maximum retail price of Rs.900. Doctors however, are being offered the vaccine at a price of Rs.695 Panicky parents have been visiting their respective doctors to get their kids and themselves appropriately vaccinated against the disease. Doctors, however, say that there is really no need for a mass immunisation drive, unless the number of cases crosses the 1500 mark. Delhi is not the only area facing the brunt of the disease. On Wednesday, two cases were reported in Noida (New Okhla Industrial Development Area), a satellite township in Uttar Pradesh on the outskirts of Delhi. People exposed to patients suffering from the disease have been advised to take the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin. Most of the cases have been reported from the Walled City of Delhi. Meningitis patients have been admitted to Apollo Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital, Hindu Rao hospital, Kalavati Sharan Hospital and Guru Tegbahadur Hospital.

Congress refuses to comment on Air-India-Airbus controversy (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The Congress party on Thursday refused to comment on the controversy surrounding Air India's decision to procure 50 Boeing aircrafts, with its European competitor Airbus seeking a CVC probe into it, but said the government should look into the matter if there was any doubt in it. "No comments. We have always said national carriers should be promoted. But the Government should look into this matter if there is any doubt it", spokesman Anand Sharma told reporters when asked to comment on the demand made by the Airbus. He said it was a long pending demand that the two national carriers should get adequate fleet of airplanes for their expanding routes as also to maintain the existing ones.

References: Parliament approves finance bill, UPA NDA MP's allowances, UPA Musharraf- Vajpayee, anti-corruption raids Chhattisgarh officials, Delhi bacterial meningitis deaths, Congress Air-India-Airbus controversy. Kerala Congress (Jacob) quits UDF, Cartostat orbit, six Tihar jail officials suspended, TDP Parliament, Pakistani journalists black day against lathicharge, India, India News, Newspaper, Indian, News, Travel News, India Travel Times, Travel,Tourism, Tour, Tourist, India, Times, News, Hotels, Airlines, Ayurveda, Yoga, Hindu, Taj Mahal, Cuisine, Festival, Temple, Trekking, Hindu, Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Odissi, Dance, Shimla,Varanasi, Kullu, Manali, Dehra Dun, Mussourie, Mussoorie, Haridwar, Hardwar, Rishikesh, Nainital, Delhi, Goa, Kovalam, Darjeeling, Bodh Gaya, Kancheepuram, Kanchipuram, Thekkady, Badrinath, Amar Nath,Vaishno Devi, Tirupati, Sabarimala, Guruvayoor, Kanyakumari, Kodaikanal, Ooty, Chennai,

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