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A female leopard sits inside a snow covered enclosure at Dachigam Wildlife Sanctuary, outskirts ofSrinagar, India, Jan. 23, 2014. Wildlife authorities in Indian Kashmir are making special efforts to provide food t o the endangered stags known as 'hangul,' as they face difficulty in finding vegetation following heavy snowfall

Joy in Telangana as Lok Sabha passes bill to divide Andhra

Amid pandemonium and a television blackout of the proceedings, the Lok Sabha recently passed a bill to carve out a Telangana stace out of Andhra Pradesh, triggering joy in the Telangana region and protests elsewhere in tl1e southern state.

The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill was passed by voice vote in the face of noisy protests by M"Ps from Seemandh.ra - as tl1e orher C\VO regions (R.ayalsee ma an d coastal Andh.ra) a.re coUectively known - as weU as a section of the opposition parties.

The passage of the b ill, moved b y Home. !vlinister S L1sbilk-umar Shinde, took a total of 90 minutes.

If the b iUalso get5 the approval of Rajya Sabha, the Tel ugu -speaking peop le will have C\vo states w ith Telangana becoming India's 29th state.

Telangana will have 10 districts inclucliug Hydernbad, which will serve as a common capital for a period nor e.,'{ceedi.ng LOyear s The res iduary state of Andhra Pradesh will have 13 districts.

In a move to assure protection to Seemandhra people living in Hyderab ad, the bill proposed that common governor of the two scates will have power of maintaining law and orde r in the city, but ignored the demand from Seemandhra leaders that the city be declared a union territory.

The bill, when passed by Rajya Sabha, will bring curtains on Andhra Pradesh, which can1e into existence in 1956 with the merger of TeJanga.na, then known as Hyderabad State with Andl1.ra Seate, which was earlie r carved out of Madras State.

With an area of l.14lakh square km and a population of 3.52 crore, Telangana will be 12th largest stare in terms of both area and population.

The bill was passed amid dramatic scenes. Those opposing the bill massed near Speaker Meir a Kumar, some shouting slogans and others holding placards. But they were simply ignored as amendments co d1e bill s were taken up and then the bill was finaJJy declared passed by the lower house.

So higb were the tempers in the ho use tbat a group of Congress members from Andhra Pradesh stood near Sh.i.nde as he read out tbe clauses in a bid to pro tect him from anciTelangana MPs

Congress president Sonia Gandhi watched the p roceedings with v isible dismay Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not present.

Participating in the debate, Leader of Opposition Sushma Swa.raj said her BJP supported d1e creation of Telangana 6-m not the way ir was being done.

"I and my party support the bill Telangana should be formed We r ise to prove our credibility and to see wishes of youth of Tela ngana are fulfilled", she said, accusing the Congress of delaying t he process.

Science and Technolog y Minister S. JaipaJ Reddy sai d the. demand fo r separate Telangana was raised for last 60 years.

"I don't think any demand has been raised for such a long period with such an intense feeling", be said.

The passage of the bill and the manner in which it was done came w i der severe criticism from various parrie s.

A fuming Y.S. Jaganmoha.n Redd); leader of d 1e YSR Congress which i s bitterly against the creation of Telangana , d ubbed it " a black day" for the country and called a genera l stri ke in A n dhra Pradesh on Feb 19. The reaction to the development was immediate w:ith cemraJ minister D. Purandeswari reponedJy sen ding her resignation to Sonia Gandhi.

Three Anclhra Pradesh ministers from Seemandhra resigned in protest whiJe Chief lvli.nister N. Ki.ran Kumar Reddy is aJso set to quit soon. Pitani Satyana.rayana, one of the ministers, said Ki.ran Reddy would submit his resignation on Feb 19

Central ministers from Seemandl1.ra hit out at d1eir own p arty-led government for passing die bill in " undemocratic" manner.

"Ir is totally undemocratic, immoral and uned1ical", said Te.xtiles r.1unister K.S. R ao, w ho like other ministers from Seemandhra hope that the bill will be stalled in Ra jya Sabha. Human Resource Devel o pment ~[inister .M.M.Pallam Raju said the bill was passed against all democratic norm s

Another minister I<. Chi.ranjeev.i said after die meeting with Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi last night, they hoped char justice would be done to Seeman dhra. He said the BJP also disappointed d1em Vijayawada 1-fP L. RajagopaJ, who bad used pepper s pray in Lok Sabha last week to protest tabling of the bill, announced that he is retiring from po li tics for failing to stop bifurcation

Telangana erupted in joy on heari n g the announcement, while protests broke our in Seemandh.ra. Telangana supporters in Hyder abad and nine other districts of the region burst 6recrackers and distributed sweets

Rajiv assassination conspirators escape noose, release demanded

The Supreme Court recently commuted the death sentence to three key conspirators in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, h olding the 11- yea.r delay in deciding their mercy petitions "unreasonab le and dehumanising".

Political parties in Tamil Naclu a s well as the elated families have now d emanded the trio's release ln 1998, aU the 26 accused in die case were sentenced ro death by a special triaJ court. was a member of the inte lligence wing of the. now vanquished Tan1.iJ Tigers, whose leader V. Prabhakaran ordered Gandhi's assassination

A bench of Chief Justice P. Satbasivam, Justice Ranjan Gogoi ROd Justice Shiva Ki.rti Singh said, ''\Xl'e commute d1eir death sentence into imprisonment for life. Life imprisonment means te end of one's life, s ubject to an y remission granted by the appropriate government''.

The decision takes to four the n umber of deatl1 row convicts in the case whose se n tences have been commuted.

The three who escaped the gaJJows are V. Sri.haran alias J\1[urugan, A G. Pera.rivaJan alias A.rivu and T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan, currentl y lodged in Tamil Nadu's VeUo re pr ison. They had sough t commucacion of tl1eir death sentences due to tl1e long delay in deciding dieir mercy petitions.

Rajiv GandJ1i, ,vho was tbe prime. minister 1984-89, was killed by a Tamil suic ide bomber Dhanu at an election raUy in Sriperumbud ur near Chennai May 21, 1991. Fourteen otlier people also lost d1eir lives in tbe blast.

In 1999, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences of four - Murugan , Santhan and Pernrivalan and Nalini - whiJe the capitaJ punishment to the others was redL1ced ro varying terms of imprisonment.

While Perarivalan and Nali ni are Indians, the othe r C\Vo a.re Sri Lankan Ta.mils.

The death sentence of Nalini, who is married to lvfurugan and who became a mother in prison, was commuted to life imprisonment after her mercy petition was accepted The petition h ad d1e reco mmendation of Gandlii's widow Sonia Gandhi.

The mercy petitions of the d1ree men were rejected by the Tamil Nadu governor April 25, 2004, and forwarded to tl1e union home ministry J\fay 5, 2004.

After over five years, d1e ministry forwarded the petitions to the president but recaJJed them Feb 23, 2011. EventuaJJy, the president rejected di e mercy petitions A ug 12, 201 1, after m ore than 11 ,ears of the apex court judgment.

The reject.ion was chaJlenged in the Madras High Court Aug 29, 201 1. In May 20 12, the Supreme Courl transferred d1e case to itself.

In its verdict in Chennai, the apex court said tlie delay in dec iding di e mercy petitions was ".inor dina te and no.reasonable".

C hief Justice Sathasivam, junking the government's contention that the death row convict needed to prove that he suffered dur ing the prolonged dela)' in deciding his mercy petition, said tl1at there was no such requirement in Indian law as well as in internatio nal judgments.

The court addressed two questionswhether the nature of delay caused was reasonable or inordinate and whether the dehrnnanising effect on the accused due ro delay has to be ascertained or mere delay on the face of it ,vas Sllfficienl for commutation of death sentence to life.imprisonmenr.

Divya Iyer, a researcher at Am.nesty InternacionaJ India, said, "The posi tive rulings of commutations of January 2014 and those of today offer context and imp etus for India to move rowa.rds a direction of a society that can be free of the death penalty"

Expressing happiness at the Supreme Court's decision, DMK pres ident M. Karunanidhi urged die central and state governments to release tbe convicts from jail.

Iv!DMK leader Vaiko said the judgement should be etched in go lden letters i n lndia's judicial history and also demanded their release.

Communist Party of India's Tamil Nadu secretary D. Panclian also urged the state government to release t he convicts as they have spent more than two decades behind bars.

Elated at the news, Perari.vala.n's mother ArputhammaJ told the meclia that she now hoped tl1e Tami.I Nadu ch ief m inister would help in her son's release.

Murugan's mother Somani also met her son .in Vellore She thanked the media and others for their su pport.

How realistic are Chidambaram's fiscal projections? Obiter Dicta by Arvind

Padmanabhan

One would have expected Finance Minister P. Ch.i.damba.ram to go a litde easy on the fiscal deficit front, given that he presented an interim budget in an election year. But far from it, he has promised to keep the fiscaJ deficit - the difference beC\veen total projected expenditure and reve nues from sources like ta.'s:es, loan recoveries and other receipts - on a tight leash Are d1e numbers realistic?

The target for fiscal deficit for the next year has been kept at 4 1 percem of the countty's gross domestic product (GDP), as opposed to the revised estimates of 4.6 percent for the current fiscal It is equally noteworthy that the finance minister feels the deficit for chis fiscal will be at least 20 basis points lower than his budget estimates

But the above calculations are based on several assumptions. Among them he expects the nominal gross domestic product - the final monetary value of all goods and services produced within a councry - to grow at 13.4 percent i.11 2014- 15, against the official estimate of l 'I .9 percent for this fiscal.

Here, if d1e inAation rises beyond expectations, it will cert-unly boost the nominal GDP, but the real GDP growth , which is what is looked at, will suffer.

That's the reason why he has managed to keep the actual fiscal deficit in monetary terms higher at Rs. 528,631 cror e, against the rev ised estimate of Rs. 524,539 crore for t he current fiscal.

Another pro jection is on tax revenue. He has assumed an increase of 18 percent in the tax revenues next fiscal , against the projected 12.9 percent growth in the currenr fiscal - even though there has been a sho rtfall between the revised estimated for 2013 - 14 and what he h imself had projected in d1e budget presented last year

Tax revenues being one of die key components in determining the fiscal deficit, a shortfall can send the projections haywire. One cannot igno re the fact that d1ere is a tlirect correlation bet:\veen GDP growth and tax collections, if other faccors remain the same.

Compared with the b udget estimates, there has been a shortfall in the revised numbers for this fiscal on account of all sources of ta.xes, collections of corporate tax, income tax, customs, excise and service tax have a ll been lower.

Accordingly, one isn't sure how this sbarp increase in ta.x revenues as projected can be achieved. More so when i:be economy has still not p icked up much and the bulk of d1e growth so far has been contributed b y the agriculture sector which remains a non- tax entity in India

On the revenue-g eneration side, anod1er area where there has been a substantial increase in projection is under d1e head mi scellaneous recejpr, which primarily includes sale of equity in state-nm and nongovernm ent companies. This year, against a projection of Rs 54,000 crore under these two heads, d1e realisation has been only Rs.19 ,000 crore - a shortfalJ of Rs. 35,000 crore. Yet, d1e pro jection for next fiscal is Rs. 51,000 crore.

One may argue drnt money raised from divestment goes into tbe special National ln vestment Fund. But d1e proceeds can be used towards capital addition for state-nm commercial banks and capital expendimre of dJe railways Despite that, there has only been a marginal increase i n d1e budgetary support for the railways, while Rs. '11,200 crore is being provided for the railways.

Subsidy is another area where the finance minister appears to have played with numbers. He has cut the petroleum subsidy from Rs 85,500 crore to Rs. 63,500 crore. At d1e same time, while absorbing d1e rollover of fuel subsid y worth R s. 45,000 crore of last fiscal in d1e cnrrent year, he has only factored in a

Tourists visit a large snow sculpture called "Tomb ofltmad-ud-Daula" of India, during the 65th annual Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan on February 5, 2014. The Agra mausoleum is called ''Jewel Box" or "Baby Taj" and is considered to be an early draft of the iconic Taj Mahal. Some 200 snow statues were on display at Sapporo roll -over of Rs. 35,000 crore from this year to d1e next.

Fuel subs id y, like the doles on food and fertilisers, remains a sensitive issue. Remember, die government bad to roll back even that small. measure of limiting the release o f subsidised cooking gas. In that event, it i s anybody's guess how this massive, real cue of Rs. 32,000 cmre in fuel subs id y will be ac hieved.

In conclusion, one has to concede that Ch idambaram presented the interinl budget with o ne hand tied - he had litd e room for manoeuvrability as far as the receipts side of ch.is exercise was concerned. But it is he who has made the projections - t,-tlJ, modest or understated a s one rnay deem them.

1n any case, it i s tl1e ne.xt government that will p resent the final budget after general elections. All these projections are more li kely to change , even if Chiclambaram comes back to die o rd1 Bl ock as finance minister.

Conseq uendy, when a compari so n is made bet:\veen the projections for the next fiscal with the revised estimates, it will be on the basis of the final budget. What Chi.dambaram presented on Feb 17 will remain, at best, an ac ad emic e.xercise w ith litde meaning or purpose.

India, US to cooperate in fight against terror funding

India and the US have agreed to co operate to crack t he financial network and fimdraising activities of Paki stan- based terror outfits and also in tackling counterfeit currency and illegal financial ttansaction s

This was stated by i\1inister of State for H ome R.P.N. Singh in the Lok Sabha in New De lhi recently.

He said India and the US have agreed to work togedier under the framework of the India- OS (ministr y of home affairs and deparm1em of homeland securiry) bilateral discussions.

A bilatera l meeting held in October 2013 facilitated d1e exchange of such information b etween concerned agencies of both the counrnes

India and die US have agreed to have cooperation between their agencies in fighting against counterfei t currency and illegal financial transactions under the aegis of die India-US Homeland Security d ialogue, said an official statement.

A sub-group on "illicit finance, illegal smuggling of cash, financial fraud and counterfeiting" has been formed to work in d1e areas of information exchange, capacity building and technical/ research cooperation US H om eland Security and Indian agencies are workil1g toged1er to investigate sources of material and technologies llsed in d1e production of fake Indian curren cy n o tes, said the statement.

BEL to invest $100 mi llion in e lectronic warfare products

State-ru n Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) will invest R s 620 crore/$100 millio n over the next five years in developing electronic warfare produces joind y w i t h d1e Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), a top official said recently in Bangalore.

" We will invest $ 100 m i llion fro m ensuing fiscal year (201 4- 15) over tl1e next five years for funding joint programmes witb DRDO to develop electronic warfare products required for our armed forces", B EL chairman and managing director S K. Sharma said at a conference in the city

As the country's leading electroni cs major, BEL manufacture s and suppl ies a range o f pro ducts, inc luding radars, electronic warfare system, sound an d vision broadi;:asting, missiles and sonars to t he Indian army, navy and air force.

W ith nine manufacturing facilities across the country, tl1e company had joindy developed a mobile integrated electronic warfare system 'Sam yukta' with DRDO, E lecu-onics Corporation of ]ndi.a Ltd (EC1L) and me army's signal corp s for tactical batdefield use.

Covering a wide range of frequencies, the system is used for surveillance, analysis, interception, d irection finding and position fixing, listing, prio ritisi ng and jamming of alJ communication and radar signals.

"In v iew of our capability to manufacture electronic warfare systems, we bave decided to associate with DRDO in developing advanced and ne.'s:t gen eration electronic warfa re products from inception to avoid delays in production", Sharma said at the th.ird Jntemational Conference on Electro nic Warfare (E\XTCI 201 4)

As a force multiplier system, an electronic sys tem needs bigh level of secrecy to maintain an e lement of surprise against an adversary. le ensures racticaJ and strategic advantage for armed forces during an operation.

"\Xie sold electronic warfare systems to the armed forces to the value o f Rs.2,000 crore over th e years The market poten tial is about Rs. I0,000 crore i n view of d1e growing requirement for such warfare by tl1e armed forces in the coming years", Sharma added Earlier, delivering a keynote address, A ir Marshal M. Mad1eswaran of d1e Inregraced Defence $t,'lff told about 600 delegates from acros s tl1e country and overseas ma t information operation and information warfare were inseparable.

''Armed forces tend co put electtonic warfare o n backbur ner and information operation in d1e forefront. Gathering information, building u pon mat information against adversary by deception or jamming g ives tactical advantage", he said.

Stressing on tl1e need to educate and tJ"aia mo re engineers on operating electronic warfare systems, he said the academia and .i ndustry should take advantage of d1e policy change to invo lve the priva te sector in d eveloping die technology and products to gather information and use it for national security.