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INDIA
www.abplgroup.com - Asian Voice 28th February 2015
BJP, PDP seal deal to form govt in J&K
Jammu & Kashmir will get a government soon with the BJP and PDP sealing a deal on government formation in the state. PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti met BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday. After their meeting, the two addressed the media and formally announced an alliance between the two parties. Addressing reporters, Amit Shah said, "In a few days, Jammu and Kashmir will get a PDP-BJP alliance government. The deadlock that existed on some issues, has been broken," Shah added.
"After several rounds of discussion a common minimum programme has been arrived at," he said. Mehbooba Mufti also said, "keeping in mind, the development and aspirations of J&K people, we have formulated an agenda of alliance between BJP-PDP". "This alliance is not for power sharing but to win the hearts and minds of people of J&K," she added. The swearing-in ceremony of the new government headed by PDP chief Mufti Mohammed Sayeed is likely to take place on March 1, sources
privy to the talks said. Sayeed had earlier headed a coalition government with Congress for three years from 2002. In the assembly polls held in December last year, PDP emerged as the single largest party with 28 seats while BJP got 25 seats in the 87-member House. Both parties have kept under wraps the details of the common minimum programme (CMP), particularly with respect to the Article 370 and Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the two issues over which the two parties have completely opposite
views. The CMP needs to be read in totality and not in bits and pieces, leaders from the two parties said. The two sides are understood to have agreed on formation of a committee which will go into the AFSPA issue and suggest areas from where it could be revoked. On Article 370, while BJP has given no written assurance as demanded by the PDP, the CMP is expected to say that both parties will respect the aspirations of the people of the state within the Constitution, the sources indicated.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's blue pinstriped suit with his name etched on it went under the hammer for Rs 43.1 million. He wore the suit during US President Barack Obama’s visit to India last month. Bids went as high as Rs 5 million but were rejected as they came in two minutes after the auction closed at 5 pm, said District Collector Rajendra Kumar. Ending the three-day scramble for the controversial suit that had the prime minister’s full name, Narendra Damodardas Modi, woven into the fabric as stripes, Laljibhai Patel, a diamond merchant in Surat, placed
ishing firm, Dharmanandan Diamonds. Starting as a small partnership firm in 1985, the firm has grown to employ 3,800 skilled workers Laljibhai Patel standing near now and exports Narendra Modi’s pinstriped suit diamonds. Modi used to the winning bid. Patel told auction his possessions the media that he would when he was the chief put the suit on display in minister of Gujarat, too, his factory and had paid to raise funds for welfare such a hefty sum for “a schemes. Those, however, social cause”. The prowere relatively low-profile ceeds from the auction of events, cumulatively the suit, along with 455 fetching a little over Rs other items belonging to 900 million. the prime minister, will go The prime minister to one of his pet projects, was criticised for wearing the Clean Ganga Mission. the allegedly Rs 1000,000 Patel runs a diamond pol-
suit, in contrast to the humble “chaiwala” (tea vendor) image he had projected during the Lok Sabha polls that brought him to power last year. Bidding for the pinstripe bandhgala suit started on Wednesday last, with the first bid for Rs 1100,000. Not just wealthy diamond merchants and local traders, but even two children, Vedant (seven) and Siddhant Karnavat (13) bid for the suit with their pocket money. The bidding intensified on Thursday when a Suratbased diamond trader offered Rs 14.8 million and left behind a Bhavnagar businessman who bid Rs 14.1 million.
Continued from page 1 player in the espionage case, and questioned eight others. In what will have implications for the country’s security, police interrogated a defence ministry employee for more than six hours on Monday, highly placed sources said. He has been identified as Virender, who is suspected to have leaked classified documents from the highly sensitive ministry and was in touch with some of the accused in the case. With classified defence documents coming into the probe ambit, cops are likely to invoke the official secrets Act. Defence is the fourth ministry, after oil, coal and power, to enter the list of compromised departments. Meanwhile, police arrested 33year-old energy consultant Lokesh Sharma, who worked for Noida-based firm Infraline Energy and was leaking documents from the petroleum, coal and power ministries. Police are looking for the firm's owner. Cops believe Sharma not only supplied leaked documents to his company but also to other accused, including Santanu Saikia and Prayas Jain, and earned multiple profits in the
operations. Saikia and Jain have been arrested earlier and hunt is on for other receivers. Cops have registered a second FIR under similar sections in the case against Sharma and others and are analyzing the nature of the documents that were leaked from these ministries. A team led by additional CP Ashok Chand and ACP K P S Malhotra has been assigned to further probe the case. Sharma was taken to Shastri Bhawan around noon where he led the cops to the rooms of employees he was in touch with to obtain government papers. Seven of them were picked up for questioning and were asked about their frequent contacts with Sharma. Police are seeking to establish the money trail before arresting some of these employees, sources said. Reliance employees arrested Employees of some of the conglomerates controlled by four of India's most prominent tycoons, including billionaire brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani were also arrested. Two officials from Reliance Industries and
Modi's suit sold for Rs 43 mn
Corporate espionage racket busted in India
Reliance Power, which are owned by Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani respectively, were brought before a court in New Delhi following their arrests. Three employees working for other energy sector businesses also appeared in court, including the Essar conglomerate, which is controlled by Ruia family, and Cairn India, the oil exploration division of billionaire Anil Agarwal’s London-listed Vedanta Resources. India’s oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan promised a full investigation into the scandal, which emerged last week. This followed a police sting operation which led to the arrests of a series of middlemen on suspicion of illegally obtaining and then selling documents to the companies involved. “This government will not permit anyone to breach the system or bend the rules.” Reliance Industries and Essar said they have launched internal investigations into the arrests of their employees. A spokesman for Reliance Power said it would “ensure full co-operation with the investigative agencies”. Cairn India declined to comment.
Sad Demise
It is with deep regret that we announce that Mrs Sulekhaben Navin Shah (fondly known as Baki) passed away peacefully in the presence of her loved ones on Sunday 08 February 2015 in London, UK. She was the mother of Nishma and Visesh Satish Gosrani.
Familes of missing girls appeal for their safe return
The families of three teenagers who are believed to be making their way to Syria spoke with the media at New Scotland Yard and made direct appeals to the girls to come home on Sunday, 22 February. Abase Hussen said his 15-year-old daughter Amira Abase, told him she was going to a wedding on the morning she travelled to Gatwick Airport to fly to Turkey, and had been behaving in a normal way. He said: "She said 'daddy, I'm in a hurry', there was no sign to suspect her at all." Mr Hussen said the family had asked her about a fellow pupil at Bethnal Green Academy in east London who fled to Syria in December. She said: "I'm sad for that little girl." "It's completely different now," Mr Hussen said. "We are depressed, and it's very stressful. The mes-
sage we have for Amira is to get back home. We miss you. We cannot stop crying. Please think twice. Don't go to Syria." He added: "What she's doing is completely nonsense. Remember how we love you. Your sister and brother cannot stop crying," and that his wife has a "broken heart." Speaking of her younger sister, Shamima, Renu Begum, 27 said: "Mum needs you more than anything in the world. You're our baby. We just want you home. We want you safe." She added: "Her family love her more than anybody else in this world can. If anyone is telling her they're going to love her more than us, they're wrong. We're hoping she wouldn't do anything that would put her in danger." Sister of Kadiza, Halima Khanom said: We want you know that we all miss you and we love you.
mother and parents - for four generations and which appears to be slowly imploding under his halfhearted and erratic leadership. “It seems an incredibly irresponsible and goofy thing to do,” Siddharth Varadarajan, a senior fellow at Shiv Nadar University, said. “It’s awful timing. It just shows that neither he nor the party is prepared to do what it takes to be a fighting force.” While many Congress activists privately grumble about Rahul and his lack of leadership abilities, rival factions have long looked to the illustrious NehruGandhi dynasty, often referred to as the party’s “high command”, as the only unifying force capable of preventing the party from splintering. It seems an incredibly irresponsible and goofy thing to do. It’s awful timing. It just shows that neither he nor the party is prepared to do what it takes to be a fighting force Siddharth Varadarajan Rahul was 14 when his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, and 19 when his father, former
prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, was killed by supporters of Sri Lanka’s LTTE, a Tamil separatist group. Although he entered politics a decade ago, Rahul, a 44-year-old bachelor, has often seemed uncomfortable in his public role, quoting his Italianborn mother, who described power as “poison”. During the past decade of Congress rule he repeatedly refused to take any cabinet or ministerial role despite pleas from Manmohan Singh, then prime minister. Gandhi said at the time that he wanted to focus on overhauling Congress to make it more open and democratic and to end its dependence on his family. His efforts brought few results. In May he led the party to its worst parliamentary election battering, which saw it winning just 44 seats, down from 206 in the previous legislature. The campaign was personally bruising. Rahul was mocked by Modi as “shahzade” (crown prince), amplifying already widely held perceptions of the young Congress leader as someone who had risen by virtue of his bloodline.
Rahul Gandhi takes leave from politics
Continued from page 1 debate on business-friendly amendments to a Congress-designed land acquisition law, which Modi wants to push through to make it easier to acquire land from farmers for mining and industry. But according to reports, Rahul, who was absent as the session got under way on Monday, had asked Sonia Gandhi, his mother and the Congress president, for permission to take a few weeks’ leave of absence “to reflect on recent events and the future course of the party.” Sonia declined to elaborate. Rahul's decision to skip the crucial session excited ridicule on social media. “Does anyone know where Rahul Gandhi is going on holid . . . I mean ‘leave of absence’ to deeply contemplate the future of Congress?” Sadanand Dhume, the writer and fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, tweeted to his nearly 60,000 followers. His absence has given rise to deeper questions about Rahul's judgment and his role in a party that has been led by members of his family - including his great-grandfather, grand-