After 17 years, Liberhan Babri report with Centre

The report on the December 6, 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was submitted by retired judge M.S. Liberhan to the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Tuesday. It took the commission of inquiry headed by Justice Liberhan 17 years and 48 extensions to arrive at this point.

The government says it is prepared for a full debate on the report in the Budget Session of Parliament, which begins on July 2. It will table the report, along with the action taken report, within the session, which ends on August 7.

The BJP, meanwhile, appears to have already gone on the defensive. Government and Congress sources said the BJP would be completely isolated on this issue, adding that no party in the NDA, barring the Shiv Sena, would support it.

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Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam sending kids to war: United Nations

UN agencies here have accused the LTTE of recruiting children as young as 14 as a desperate measure to fill up its ranks as government troops close in on its last little patch in the Vanni area of northeast Lanka. Many such child soldiers had died in recent weeks, they said.

Stung by the UN criticism, which till the other day was being blamed by the government of being pro-LTTE, the Tigers have hit back, saying the world body abandoned thousands of civilians by pulling out its staff from the battle zone.

According to Lankan military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the Tigers have been decimated to less than 700 and their territory brought down to just about 100 sq km, barely two per cent of what they were controlling when the present war started a couple of years ago.

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Centre offers talks

The all party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence here on Wednesday over the continuing violence in the Jammu region decided to initiate immediate direct talks with the protesters.

The violence has been raging all over Jammu for the past month after the state government cancelled its decision to hand over 100 acres of land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board.

While the government has appealed for peace, BJP president Rajnath Singh stood his ground and reiterated his party’s demands: that the state’s new governor, Mr N.N. Vohra be recalled, the land in question be handed over to the shrine board; and that the government hold immediate talks with the Shri Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti.

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Schools to be bandh-proof

Schools have been affected by 10 bandhs called by political parties in 35 working days since June.

Most schools have announced postponement of their first unit tests from July-end to August. Teachers have complained that they are unable to complete the syllabus.

The government, prodded by a Supreme Court judgment and directions of the State Human Rights Commission, plans to pass a law to insulate schools from bandhs. The law will exclude schools from bandhs, on the lines of essential services like hospitals.

Several schools had approached the State Human Rights Commission urging it to direct the government to ensure that schools are not disturbed during bandhs. The commission served notices to government, prinicipal secretary and director of school education and police department to take immediate steps in this regard.

“We have received the notices sent by the commission. The government is very much in favour of implementing the directions of the commission,” said Mr P Bhanu Murthy, director, school education.

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275 Prime Minister Nukes them all

The two-week long political stalemate ended on Tuesday after a resounding victory for the Manmohan Singh government in the crucial trust vote in the Lok Sabha, which saw a realignment of political parties, heated debates and allegations of money power. In the end, the government won by a comfortable margin.

The victory, which put the Prime Minister firmly in the saddle, will not merely push the country towards the nuclear club, but also enable the government to move ahead with economic reforms.

In his moment of glory, the Prime Minister targeted the Left. “They wanted me to behave like a slave,” his reply to the Lok Sabha debate read.

Though the stalemate began from July 9 after the Left withdrew support to the government, the process of instability had started much earlier, after the government made it clear that it was not backing off from the nuclear deal with the United States.

At the end of the day on Tuesday, the UPA raced ahead in the numbers game. Those in favour of the motion stood at 275, and those opposed it numbered 256. The government won by 19 votes. Altogether 10 members were either absent or abstained from voting.

There were also indications that, in a major blow to the saffron camp, at least nine NDA MPs defied the whip to vote for the motion.

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Braver Congress challenges Left

After getting the Samajwadi Party on board, an elated Congress on Friday virtually dared the Left and the Opposition to topple the government.

The meetings of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Friday were a turning point for the UPA. Their proclamation of backing the controversial nuclear deal with the US divided the anti-BJP and anti-Congress forces and boosted the morale of the Prime Minister’s supporters.

The SP is now ready to seek its price for supporting the Manmohan Singh government for a few months. Shortly after the Left released a letter to external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee asking him to convey the govern ment’s decision by July 7, parliamentary affairs minister Vayalar Ravi and AICC media department chairman M. Veerappa Moily claimed separately that the UPA government was stable and enjoyed a majority.

“Government has the numbers, we are ready to prove it in the Lok Sabha,” Mr Ravi said.

The Congress said Mr Mukherjee would reply to the Left’s ultimatum but remained non-committal about the timing. Rejecting suggestions of an “unholy alliance”, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said, “The SP and the Congress have never been mutually untouchable in the same sense as the Left and the BJP or the Congress and the BJP.”

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State digs heels on tax cut

The Finance Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, on Friday ruled out any cut in Value Added Tax on petrol and diesel to reduce the burden of the steep fuel price hike on the common man.

Opposition parties and economists, meanwhile, pointed out that the state was collecting highest VAT of 33 per cent on petrol and 22.25 per cent on diesel and reducing it was the best way to lighten the effect of the price hike.

However, Mr Rosaiah said a firm no to this suggestion while addressing a press conference with the Commercial Taxes Minister, Mr K.Ramakrishna.

Mr Rosaiah even tried to obfuscate the advice of the Congress president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to reduce local taxes by saying that she had not specified which tax to be reduced to what extent.

“We cannot make adjustments at this juncture because the budget was prepared keeping in view the existing rate structure,” he said.

Experts have pointed out that the government had fixed a higher commercial tax target of Rs 6,500 crore without having any clue about the Rs 400 crore which could come out of the fuel price hike and could very well for go it. However, Mr Rosaiah dismissed this suggestion in his usual sarcastic manner.

Meanwhile, the Opposition parties, including the Telugu Desam, TRS, CPI (M), CPI and the BJP, were angry at the government stance and threat ened to intensify their agitation. “The state gets Rs 20,000 crore from sales tax on petroleum products and if it reduces this, there need not be a hike at all,” said TD official spokesperson, Mr M.V. Mysoora Reddy.

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Prime Minister, Sonia fret about aam aadmi

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday recommended major cuts in ministerial expenses, particularly on air travel and all foreign travel, while Congress president Sonia Gandhi asked all chief ministers belonging to her party to cut sales taxes on petroleum products after realising that the Congress was getting isolated on the issue.

In a letter to his ministerial colleagues a day after his government hiked fuel prices nationwide, Dr Singh asked them to personally adopt austerity measures. In view of the “huge burden on our financial resources due to rising global oil prices, and our dependence on the import of crude,” he said, “I am, therefore, writing to ask you to severely curtail expenditure on air travel, particularly foreign travel, except in cases where it is deemed absolutely necessary.”

He added that while “we need to explain to the people the constraints and reasons that have compelled the government to introduce these measures,” it was “equally necessary to introduce the most economy in our own administrations and establishments”.

Orders would be issued to the Cabinet Secretary “to introduce more rigorous scrutiny of foreign travel proposals,” he said. Dr Singh told his ministerial colleagues: “The best prudence can be exercised at your own level with regard to both foreign travel and local travel for you and your officers.” Congress president Sonia Gandhi, meanwhile, directed the chief ministers of Congress-ruled states to cut sales taxes on petroleum products to give some relief to the “aam aadmi” a day after the government announced a steep hike in fuel prices.

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Andhra Pradesh to exclude creamy layer from quota for OBCs

The state government has decided to exclude the creamy layer among the backward classes from the ambit of 29 per cent quota in all higher educational institutions.

This decision would have major implications on the admission to professional colleges and other institutions of higher education in the coming academic year.

However, the annual income limit to determine the creamy layer has been raised from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh as per the recommendations of a cabinet sub-committee.

A unanimous resolution to exclude the creamy layer from the ambit of reservations was passed at an executive council meeting of the Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education held here on Thursday. Mr D. Christopher, secretary of APSCHE, said that the creamy layer decision would come to play in admissions to 2.5 lakh seats in engineering, medical, MBA, MCA and other professional courses apart from PG courses in various universities.

“In our state, there are 25 per cent reservations for BCs apart from 4 per cent reservations category,” said Mr Christopher. Officials of APSCHE and higher education department and vice-chancellors of all the universities in the state took part in the executive council meeting.

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Centre gives Rs 15 oil sop, to buy pulses

Reaching out to the poor reeling under 7.41 per cent inflation, the government on Wednesday announced a slew of measures, including Rs 15-a-litre subsidy on edible oil, while vowing to take tough measures against hoarders and cartels of steel and cement manufacturers.

The Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, is also contemplating calling a meeting of the state chief ministers to discuss the steps needed to tackle rising prices.

Replying to a debate on the rise in prices on Wednesday, the Union agriculture minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, said the government was planning to import one million tonnes of edible oil. “We have told all public sector companies and they should import edible oil,” he said. To bring down the prices of essential commodities, the government will also import 15 lakh tonnes of pulses and has already placed an order for 11.86 lakh tonnes before March 31, said Mr Pawar.

He said that the government would expedite the report on banning futures trading in food commodities, which it is awaiting from a committee headed by Prof. Abhijit Sen.

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Reinvestigate Gujarat Riots: Supreme Court

Dissatisfied with the investigations into the Gujarat riots, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the plea of the National Human Rights Commission and agreed to set up a five-member special investigation team to reinvestigate cases of communal carnage that rocked Gujarat for close to three months in 2002. Over 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, had lost their lives in these riots.

The riots, however, consolidated the position of the state's BJP Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, as "Hindu Hriday Samrat" and bought him impressive victories in Assembly elections. Reopening of the investigations into the riot cases are likely to bring out several skeletons.

The SIT has been directed to submit its report within three months.

The Narendra Modi government is happy with the setting up of an SIT primarily because it feared that the investigation might be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, over which it would have no control. Pushed on to the back foot, the Modi government did not argue much in the court and readily agreed to an SIT investigation.

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