Miscellaneous

A fast-track court judge Vijay Kumar Mandal ordered issue of summons to her after hearing the complainant, an advocate Sudhir Ojha.

The court also issued summons to Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Rita Bahuguna and Muradabad District Congress Committee president Ajay Taleshwar Soni.

Mandal directed that Sonia Gandhi, Bahuguna and Soni should appear in person or their counsels on the next date of hearing on June 26, failing which the court would be compelled to take an unilateral decision.

But the import of the charge lay in the context it was said -- a day when the Delhi L-G's "innocuous" comment had ruffled the feathers of "North Indians". Lalu lost little time in slamming the controversial soundbite, saying it was "meant to increase his (L-G's) visibility on air and was unbecoming of the high office he holds".

But many felt that Tejinder Khanna's gaffe also gave Lalu Prasad the opening to repeat his complaint yet again that the appointment of governors and L-Gs is made unilaterally by Congress in UPA regime. Khanna is considered close to Congress.

In the same vein, Lalu was seen as venting the long-pending demand of allies for a share in the appointment of ambassadors, who are either career diplomats or those considered close to the lead party of the UPA. The blunders by Congress nominees, like Indian envoy to US Ronen Sen's "headless chicken" remark, deepens the angst of the partners also for it is they who are called for fire-fighting. UPA sources confirmed that the railway minister is miffed at Congress not "sharing power" outside the ambit of ministries and alliance politics of Bihar.

The Congress chief gets over 50,000 letters, both registered and post cards, every month, way ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or senior BJP leader LK Advani.

And Sonia must have been used to this top rating; she used to get more mail than even AB Vajpayee when he was the prime minister The letters are pouring in despite the Congress's debacle in the recent Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections.

The confirmation comes from the Nirman Bhawan post office, which has most of the top VVIP addresses under it. Its areas include Safdarjung Road, Janpath, Shahjahan Road, Tees January Marg, Krishna Menon Marg and Tughlag Road.

Postmaster MS Bhardwaj says a large chunk of Sonia's more than 50,000 mail come from Rai Bareilly and Amethi, the Gandhi family's strongholds in Uttar Pradesh.

Bhardwaj, who has spent nearly four decades in the postal department, says Sonia has been getting the flood of mail for the past four or five years. Vajpayee used to get less than 1,000 letters a month when he was the PM, he says.

Prime Minister Singh and leader of opposition Advani get around 2,500 letters each per month, says another official of the post office.

Not all letters are appeals for help, sources said. People also write in to voice their opinions on local, national and international issues.

To be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 1,550 crore, the factory is likely to be set up in a joint-venture with an international partner. The Railways are already in the process of setting up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) which will enter into joint ventures with private players to set up such units.

While the two existing rail coach factories--the Integral Coach Factory at Perambur in Tamil Nadu and the Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala in Punjab--produced 2,500 coaches every year, the Railways, estimates show, will require around 4,500 coaches per year between 2007 and 2012. "With more and more trains being introduced, the demand and supply gap has been widening. This coach factory will help us meet our requirements," say Railway officials.

To come up in an area of 476 hectares, the new rail coach manufacturing unit will have a workshop spread over 138 hectares and a residential colony sprawling across 339 hectares.

Once completed, the factory will see 1,000 coaches rolling out every year. The Railways claim that the coaches produced at this unit will be state-of-the-art and will have pleasing interiors, longer life spans and higher comfort levels.

"The events (riots) in Gujarat were a black spot for us," the former deputy Prime Minister said at the 'India today' conclave.

For the first time in the country, Electronic Voting Machines, EVM's, to be used in local elections in Maharashtra on April 10, 2005, will allow voters to not vote for any candidate.

Even as the supreme court decides on a petition demanding additional facilities on EVM's to log no-votes - or what is popularly called "protest" vote - the Maharashtra state election commission is going ahead with the use of a novel feature that will allow no-voting, spurred on not so much by sympathy for the "protesting" voter but as a practical necessity.

The facility will be available to voters who go to the polls on April 10, 2005 in the two municipal corporations of Navi Mumbai and Aurangabad, and the five municipal councils of Manikpur, Nallasopara, Badlapur, Ambernath, and Mowad.

Though of the same stock as EVM's used in last year's general and assembly elections, the EVM's for these local elections have been modified in some ways. An "end" key, says election commissioner Nandlal, has been added to ensure that the machine gets reactivated for the next voter even if the previous voter does not fully exercise his franchise. "In local elections there are multiple posts to be voted in one poll. So we have modified the balloting unit to permit voting for two to three candidates at on go," he said. For instance, voters in a municipal council can cast their vote for a councillor and the president of the council on the same unit.

However, if a voter does not wish to vote for either one of the two posts, he can press the "end" button to terminate the voting process after casting one vote.

• These now vie for space with pictures of the party’s former poster boys A B Vajpayee and L K Advani at the stall at the party headquarters on 11 Ashoka Road.

The range includes

• ‘go-mootra’-based phenyl (Rs 20) that claims to kill mosquitoes, cockroaches and other pests;
• there is Mukta, a cowdung-based dish-cleaner for Rs 10;
• a panchgavya sandal soap for Rs 12;
• a Goratna aftershave for Rs 20, made from five cow products (urine, dung, milk, butter and ghee);
• Nikhar face-cream for Rs 25; and
• Shubhra Neel (indigo) for Rs 10.

‘‘We are selling them here as we already have a counter and the public has easy access. It’s definitely not part of any party strategy to promote cow products,’’ said party secretary Shyam Jaju. Naqvi adds it’s a ‘‘good thing if swadeshi is promoted. Sister organisations are involved and some party workers are also in it. So, it has been allowed.’’

As NCW chief Vyas would enjoy the rank of a cabinet minister. The post fell vacant last month after Poornima Advani, a BJP appointee, completed her tenure. The post of NCW chairperson has always been occupied by regime favourites.

Vyas lost the lok sabha elections from Udaipur. Congress has had a long tradition to rehabilitate senior leaders who lose elections.

His appointment came after previous governor O P Verma resigned last month. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Deputy CM Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and their cabinet colleagues were present on the occasion.

While admitting that the creamy layer within the SC/ST were drawing maximum benefit from the reservation policy, Kumar said there was no plan to change the existing system. "Reservations for SC/STs are based on a social criteria, we do not plan to insert an economic criteria in this," she said. She should try to explain the reason behind not "inserting" it, and not just stonewall the issue.

In the current fiscal, Rs 233 crore is allocated for the 2,500 social justice ministry-funded NGOs. As a prerequisite to getting funds, the NGOs promise the ministry that they will keep aside vacancies for the backward and the disabled. If they fail to comply, the ministry has the power to stop funds and blacklist the NGO. Kumar said the government will insist that the NGOs follow the reservation policy when the ministry releases the funds. "The ministry does not wish to stop any activity or the flow of funds. While the first installment has been released on the existing staff situation, they have been asked to see that they take steps to improve this position (on reservation)," Kumar said.

To enforce affirmative action in the private sector, promised in the CMP, Kumar ruled out a legislation. "The ministry is in constant dialogue with individuals and representatives of various trade organisations and industry, academics, industrialists and social scientists... Very soon some concrete action plan will emerge," she said.

Same old story of what is art and what is not. But resorting to violence and hurling chairs? You be the judge.

The moment she started dancing, the VHP activists began to allege that the dance was vulgar. Most spectators fled in panic. The programme was immediately called off. The police were hurriedly called in. Many activists hurled chairs at the stage and many also tried to make their way to the stage.

Santosh Singh, a senior police officer, said several VHP members shouted slogans and threw chairs on the dais when Shefali, of " Kaanta Laga ..." fame, began her show on Thursday night at the Minal Residency on the outskirts of Bhopal. Shefali was quickly whisked away. Shefali was in Bhopal to dance at a festival organised by a realtor group. Thousands of people had turned up to watch the performance.

The dimensions of this unprecedented political debacle are manifold. To start with, the Tiranga Yatra failed to achieve its basic objective of scoring political points over the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre and the Congress, which leads the ruling alliance. It also did not succeed in generating the kind of mass appeal it sought to produce. Worse, the yatra, which was expected to enliven the BJP cadre, and lift them up from the state of dejection they were in after the shocking defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, did the exact opposite by becoming a tool to expose a discreditable power struggle in the second-rung leadership of the party.

British hostage on Al Jazeera pleads to Tony Blair to save his life.

Below is the full text of Kenneth Bigley's appeal to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, broadcast on Aljazeera.

"I want to tell my fellow Britons that there is no progress, no negotiations to save my life. And no negotiations to end the humiliation of female prisoners in Iraq.

Tony Blair is lying, lying when he says he's negotiating. My life is cheap. He doesn't care about me.

Please, please help me and the Iraqi mothers.

Mr Blair says he doesn't negotiate with terrorists. The French are negotiating with these people to release hostages.

I'm begging you, I'm begging you to push, push Blair to help me.

And my mother is in hospital. They tell me my mother is sick in hospital. You helped her, you want to help her… Have the same compassion for the female Iraqi prisoners.

All these people want is the female Iraqi prisoners free.

They don't want to kill me. They could have killed me a week, two, three weeks ago - whatever.

All they want is their sisters out of prison and back with their families where they belong.

And Tony Blair. I'm begging for my life, I'm begging for my life.

Have some compassion."

In his cell, Mr. Hussein has a fold-up bed, a small desk and a plastic chair, as well as a supply of bottled water and ice, a prayer mat and a choice of more than 170 books from a library supplied by the International Committee of the Red Cross. He reads Arabic-language books with a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles, officials said, including tales from nearly 1,000 years ago, when Baghdad was the capital of the Islamic world. In the courtyard by his cell, Mr. Hussein has placed white-painted stones around the plants he tends.

Mr. Hussein and his top lieutenants are being held at Camp Cropper, a heavily fortified compound that crouches behind high walls topped with rolls of razor wire, beneath sandbagged watchtowers manned by soldiers with machine guns. The camp lies within a vast American complex known as Camp Victory, which includes a network of palaces as well as lakes that Mr. Hussein filled with fish. Planes using Baghdad International Airport pass low over the prison, 10 miles from the center of Baghdad. The Iraqi leader wears plastic sandals and an Arab dishdasha robe, eats American soldiers' ready-to-eat meals for breakfast, and is permitted three hours' daily exercise in a courtyard outside his cell. He has been flown by Black Hawk helicopter to an American military hospital in Baghdad, where doctors ran tests for an enlarged prostate, which they believe could be an early pointer to cancer.

Mr. Hussein had been denied newspapers, radio and television, and thus knew little about the political events in Iraq that have followed his capture. But he said the former ruler was upset when he was told that a prominent Sunni tribal leader, Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, had been named by the United States to replace him as president.

While the Congress has not opposed it, the BJP, the Bahujan Samaj Party and even the RPI factions are in favour of the division of Maharashtra, barring the Shiv Sena, the Janata Dal (S) and the PWP.