LATE CITY PUNE, WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 30, 2013 20+6 (NEWSLINE) PAGES Rs. 3.00 TheIndianEXPRESS JOURNALISM OF COURAGE DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD I CHANDIGARH I DELHI I KOLKATA I LUCKNOW I MUMBAI I NAGPUR I PUNE I VADODARA DECIS ON 2013 CHHATTISGARH I DELHI I MADHYA PRADESH I MIZORAM I RAJASTHAN In poll season, rival Muslim groups unite, meet Sonia (P12) BJP chorus: Wipe out Cong like Harsh Vardhan wiped out polio (P2) IndianExpress.com PAGES 10, 11 Edit & Op-ed AIR OF SUSPICION DEMORALISES OFFICIALS twitter.com/IndianExpress facebook.com/IndianExpress PAGE 18 Sport Tendulkar unbeaten, Mumbai alive in chase INTERNATIONAL US may ban spying on heads of allied states by K. M. Chandrasekhar ■ RBI’S RATE HIKE IS UNDULY HAWKISH, WILL HIT GROWTH IndianExpress.com/Apps (P14) PUNENewsline ● PRIME SUSPECT IN MELGHAT TIGER POACHING CASE ARRESTED IN PUNE ● ‘STOP PIOS FROM FORWARDING APPLICATIONS TO PVT FIRMS’ Nitish draws Hitler parallel JD(U) MEET ❚ Tells Modi: Yours is language of fascism; why this unnecessary excitement and hurry? JAVED RAJA SANTOSH SINGH PATNA, OCTOBER 29 T WO days after facing the brunt of the attack at BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s “Hunkar” rally, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar hit back on Tuesday, comparing Modi to Hitler and saying that his dream of unfurling the national flag at Red Fort would remain unfulfilled. “You (Modi) are telling people ‘chun chun ke saaf karo’ (wipe them out one by one). You can win by getting votes, not by wiping them out... It is not just dictatorship, it is fascism, and those who believe in fascism, their icon is Hitler. They will do what Hitler did... The language of fascism will not work in a democracy,” said Nitish, addressing the JD(U) state convention in Rajgir. “Hitler’s propaganda minister would tell a lie hundreds of times and it would seem to be true. The same thing is happening here now,” he said, adding that the talk about a Modi wave was part of this misinformation campaign. “His dream to unfurl the national flag at Red Fort will remain a dream,” he said. “I was watching his speech live. He kept drinking a lot of water and wiping his sweat. I want to know why there is so much impatience. Ranchi suspects shunned village for hardline faith, bonded together CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Manmohan Singh, Narendra Modi at the dedication ceremony of Sardar Patel National Museum in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. YOU (MODI) are telling people ‘chun chun ke saaf karo’. You can win by getting votes, not by wiping opponents out. JAISE YE kahaani banaawati, hawaa banaawati... yeh kudrati hawaa nahi hai (Just as the story — on sharing a table with Modi — is false, the (Modi) wave too is artificial... it is not natural. NITISH KUMAR, Bihar Chief Minister » MEANWHILE, NITISH’S COLLEAGUE SHIVANAND WAVES A RED FLAG: LET’S NOT TAKE MODI TOO LIGHTLY REPORT, PAGE 4 With Singh listening, Modi says, ‘If only Patel had been our first PM...’ EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE AHMEDABAD, OCTOBER 29 THE bitter rivalry between the Congress and the BJP over the legacy of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel spilled into the open Tuesday as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi crossed swords at their first joint public event since Modi was declared the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. The occasion was the inauguration of a renovated memorial of Patel and Modi was invited as a guest in his capacity as chief minister on a turf controlled largely by the Congress. But Modi spared no attempt to make his point. “Is desh ko hamesha ek gilashikva rahega, ek dard rahega. Har hindustani ke dil me ek dard rahega. Kaash Sardar saab hamare pehle pradhan mantri hote, toh aaj desh ki taqdeer bhi alag hoti, desh ki tasveer bhi alag hoti (This country will always have one complaint. Every Indian will have this pain in his heart. Had Sardar Patel been our first Prime Minister, then the face and fortune of the country would have been different),” he said. Modi also said Patel is an inspiration to fight Maoism and terrorism and to bring youth who have gone astray back into the mainstream. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Business as Usual By UNNY » THE DISPUTED LEGACY OF SARDAR PATEL MORE REPORTS, PAGE 9 RBI raises repo rate 25 bps, Auction of spectrum: This hopes to control inflation time DoT stands up to CAG ning to raise rates. SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya said she would expect some change in KEEPING up his anti-inflationary the interest rates soon. stance, RBI Governor Raghuram RaRajan also lowered his estimate for jan Tuesday raised the repo rate, or the GDP growth at the end of the year to 5 rate of interest at which banks per cent and raised that of borrow from it, by 25 basis projected wholesale price inpoints to 7.75 per cent. flation to 6 per cent. In his second quarter re“Going forward, RBI view of the monetary policy will have to continue its starfor FY14, Rajan, however, ing contest with inflation. cut the marginal standing fa- RAGHURAM RAJAN This implies signalling a cility rate for banks to 8.75 per cent. hawkish stance... achieving lower and This is the additional window for banks more stable levels of inflation is critical to borrow from the RBI when they ex- to revive growth,” HSBC chief econohaust limits under the repo window. mist for India and Asean, Leif EskeThe moves are meant to encour- sen, wrote in a note. age banks to keep EMIs unchanged for Rajan, however, told the media purchases of cars, houses and even edu- that it would be wrong to assume that cational loans. The Rajan prescription the next rate move will be upwards. The keeps these high growth areas for banks RBI has now raised interest rates twice solvent by providing for easy liquidity. in the past two months. » MORE REPORTS, PAGE 15 But bankers indicated they were planENS ECONOMIC BUREAU QUICK TAKES Coal: SC dismisses plea against PM NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea asking it to direct the CBI to name PM Manmohan Singh in its FIR filed against Kumar Mangalam Birla and former Coal Secretary P C Parakh in a coal block allocation case. P 7 APPU ESTHOSE SURESH MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 29 NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 29 IN A confrontation sparked by the embers of the 2G spectrum allotment scandal, the Department of Telecommunication has taken on the Comptroller and Auditor General and asked it to seek legal opinion from the Attorney General before declaring policy issues as “illegal”. Responding to the government auditor’s review of major decisions taken by the telecom ministry during 201213, the DoT has also asked the CAG not to stray into commenting on policy matters. The face-off is centred on the Rs 1,658 crore licence fees paid by telecom firms in 2008 for spectrum, the allotment of which ended up becoming controversial and was cancelled by the Supreme Court. Telecom firms which had paid this non-refundable one-time entry fee for spectrum in 2008 were allowed by DoT to use the amount to pay for spectrum they won in the auction in 2012. The CAG has held that this “is not consistent” with the auction process and the unified access service licence guidelines. The auditor has also said that this decision gave “undue benefits” to private operators. DoT,ithassaid,shouldhavetreated the amount as a forfeit as the apex court hadcancelledthelicencesholdingtheallotment process irregular, and not adjusted it for 2012 auction payments. But the telecom department has rebuffed the auditor, citing the decision of an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM). “The EGoM considered the circumstances in which the set-off was to be allowed and the terms thereof. These were, according to the EGoM, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 DEEPU SEBASTIAN EDMOND RANCHI, OCTOBER 29 THE glue that brought together the four youngsters from Sithio village near Ranchi, named as suspects in the Patna serial blasts, could have been an informal social boycott imposed on them. Residents of Sithio say the four were part of a group of 12-odd men who started following the Ahle-Hadees, a puritanical strain of Islam, about two years back. Following differences with the others, this group stopped praying at the two mosques in Sithio and villagers avoided visiting their houses as far as possible. Imtiaz Ansari, in custody now, and who investigating agencies say led the group from Ranchi, was the first to start following the AhleHadees. “We don’t know who converted him. His father too started following those teachings soon,” said Mohd Shahid Ansari, the deputy mukhiya of Sithio panchayat. Sithio is about 6.5 km from the state police headquarters and just off the road that runs along the Dhurwa dam. Most residents are retired employees of the Heavy Engineering Corporation, hired after HEC acquired their land. A second generation works for HEC now as contract labourers. More than half its population, which also has adivasis, is Muslim. Almost everyone except the followers of AhleHadees subscribe to the teachings of two movements — the Jamaat-e-IslamiHindandTablighi Jamaat — and worship at the two mosques together. Even as they admit to differences with Imtiaz’s group, most villagers are not comfortable talking about the AhleHadees. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEERAJ PRIYADARSHI Outside the ICU where a suspect fights for life » FIVE MORE BOMBS FOUND AND DEFUSED IN GANDHI MAIDAN, SUSPECT NAMES TWO OTHERS » GUJARAT SCALES UP MODI SECURITY, SHINDE RULES OUT SPG COVER PATNA SERIAL BLASTS FULL COVERAGE, PAGE 6 At Unnao, ASI has nothing to show except how it buried rulebook 1 PAGE ANCHOR Eleven days and digging, ASI finds stones and shuts down a trench ANUBHUTI VISHNOI NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 29 E LEVEN days after it rushed to dig for gold that a sadhu saw in his dreams, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) hit loose stones in one of the trenches in Daundiya Kheda, and decided to move the excavation elsewhere. A fresh trench has been marked out nearby, and excavation will begin on Wednesday, ASI director general Pravin Sri- vastava said. He stressed that the project was being extended, not called off. In its bizarre hunt for buried treasure in Unnao, the ASI bypassed the established procedure of scrutiny, and employed the extraordinary powers its top official has to order an excavation. Under the Ancient Monuments and Archeological Sites and Remains (AMASR) Act, 1958, and Rules 1958, the state government is expected to send a detailed proposal to the central Raja Rao Ram Bux fort in UP’s Unnao district PTI FILE government explicitly outlining the historical and archeological objectives of excavating any unprotected site. In case a proposal emerges from within the ASI (as it happened in the case of Unnao), it is submitted for shortlisting before being sent to the standing committee of the Central Advisory Board of Archeology (CABA), a body of 5-6 experts headed by the director general of the ASI. The standing committee makes a recommenda- tion for the ASI DG to approve or reject. The proposal to dig at Daundiya Kheda reached the ASI at the end of September 2013, nearly two months after the deadline for inviting excavation proposals for 2013-14 had passed on July 31. The CABA standing committee was not in existence then, its term having come to an end a few days earlier. “It is true that there is a procedure for conducting excavations. But the DG has the powers to order an excavation when it is deemed fit. This particular excavation was carried out largely on the basis of the report of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and considering the historical value of the site,” Srivastava told The Indian Express. ASI additional DG B R Mani said that several proposals had been taken up for excavation without vetting by the CABA committee. The ASI got the GSI’s report on October 10, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2