Army brass defied Government on pay hike by citing ‘larger interest of the services’

The armed forces have agreed to implement revised pay scales and arrears from October 1 but in a highly controversial move last Friday, the Army top brass, taking a cue from the Navy, cited “the larger interests of the services” to justify their defiance and “delay” in implementing revised salaries.

The Army signal was sent the day Defence Minister A K Antony talked tough with the three Services chiefs and told them in very clear terms to implement the Cabinet decision on the Sixth Pay Commission report.

Top sources confirmed to The Indian Express that via a signal on September 26 — two days after Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta signalled his men — Lt Gen V K Chaturvedi, Director General, Manpower Planning, under the Adjutant General of Army, informed “all ranks up to unit level” that the revised pay scales were delayed. The signal, being kept under wraps, was sent to Headquarters/Commands and Corps of the 1.1 million-strong Army.

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United States House clears nuclear deal, Prime Minister says happy but wait for final outcome

India and US are now just one step away from closing a 38-month Herculean effort to have a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries after the House of Representatives cleared the agreement with a two-thirds majority late Saturday night. The pact now rolls over to the Senate where a senator backed by five others has moved an “on hold” anonymous motion that has got the Senate leadership back on its toes to have it passed early next week.

Singh, meanwhile, is all set to preside over the signing of a similar agreement with France as Department of Atomic Energy head Anil Kakodkar joined his delegation in France. The two countries will also sign a path-breaking space launch agreement, where medium-weight French satellites will be launched by the PSLV.

The news of the House approval — 298 votes in favour, 117 opposed — broke minutes before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to address the Indian community, setting the stage for his speech in which he thanked the US Administration for their efforts. Later, on his way to Marseille for the Indo-EU summit, Singh gave his first reactions. “I have just heard that the House has passed the Bill which will now go to the US Senate.

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India bans Chinese dairy products

The Commerce Ministry on Thursday imposed a ban on the import of Chinese dairy products after these items were found contaminated with melamine that killed children in China recently.

The ban, which comes into immediate effect for three months until further orders, follows the Union Health Ministry’s letter to the Customs Department and Commerce Ministry in this regard.

“We had asked the Customs Department and the Commerce Ministry to look into the milk products which are imported from China, as Chinese milk powder, sweets and chocolates containing milk are seen in the market,” said a senior official in the Health Ministry.

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Bhatkar’s journey: from underworld to terror

In the first clear indication of the links that exist between members of the underworld and terrorist groups, investigating agencies have established Roshan Khan, who is believed to be a co-founder of Indian Mujahideen, is actually Riyaz Bhatkar, a former member of the Fazl-ur-Rehman gang.

“Bhatkar was a former member of the Fazl-ur-Rehman gang and floated the ‘Aryan gang’ that used to operate in Kurla (in Mumbai). He has been involved in Terror activities since he turned radical in 2001,” said a top police officer.

Bhatkar, the police believe, is now hiding out in Pakistan.

Bhatkar’s name had also cropped up during the investigations into the 7/11 and Malegaon blasts. A probe conducted by the Crime Branch and the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad had revealed that Mohammad Ali Shaikh (also an accused in the 7/11 case) had allegedly received Rs 1.85 lakh through hawala channels from Bhatkar.

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From Udupi: 3 calls, a ‘Bhai’ and 10 bombs

Mohammad Saif, who was arrested from L-18, Jamia Nagar, after an encounter last Friday, and Shadab Bhai, who is on the run, boarded Mangala Express from Udupi on August 29 with 10 bombs, investigators have discovered.

One of the bombs was defective the rest were planted in Delhi’s markets on September 13. The Delhi Police Special Cell took Saif to Udupi on Monday.

Saif and Shahdab reached Udupi on August 28 night by the Nizamuddin-Eranakulam Mangala Express. They travelled AC three-tier, one of them in the name of Rahul Sharma. At 2.30 am, they checked into room No 207 of New Broadway hotel, costing Rs 250/night .

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Sacked staff of Italy-based firm lynch Chief Executive Officer in Greater Noida

Sacked employees of an Italian auto-parts maker bludgeoned the chief of the company’s India operations to death following a violent disagreement with the management on the firm’s premises in Greater Noida’s Udyog Vihar on Monday afternoon.

Lalit Kumar Choudhary, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Graziano Transmissioni India Pvt. Ltd was allegedly beaten with iron rods. He was declared dead on arrival at Kailash Hospital in Greater Noida. He is survived by his wife and a young son.

“A total 40 injured from both sides have been admitted in the hospital. Half a dozen are in the Intensive Care Unit,” said Dr Mahesh Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director of Kailash Hospitals.

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To Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes add another Scheduled Castes, raise job quota over 50%: Ministry

The Ministry of Social Justice is piloting an amendment in the Constitution to add denotified tribes as a new beneficiary of reservation with the job quota ceiling raised beyond 50 percent — the limit fixed by the Supreme Court — to accommodate them.

In a Cabinet note to the Ministry of Home Affairs this month, the Ministry has asked it to consider the proposal of the National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes to provide reservation to them by adding a new Article 342A defining the tribes as a ‘Scheduled Community’.

“Once a denotified tribe is notified as a scheduled community, delete it from the list of scheduled tribe, scheduled castes or Other Backward Castes, as the case may be... Reserve 10 percent of Government jobs for DNTs even if the ceiling of 50 percent is exceeded,” the Ministry restates the recommendations while pushing the First Stage Proposals for Action.

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Centre ready with Article 355 rocket for Orissa, Karnataka

In a late-night move, the Centre was reported to be preparing the ground for a politically controversial move of invoking Article 355 against Orissa and Karnataka, the two NDA-ruled states which are witnessing large-scale targeted attacks on the Christian minority community over the last few weeks ostensibly in protest against conversions.

Article 355, one of the most rarely used provisions of the Constitution, enshrines on the Central Government a “duty to protect every state against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every state is carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”.

Article 355 is one of the three controversial “emergency provisions” in the Constitution along with Article 352, which empowers the Centre to impose a national Emergency, and Article 356, which enables it to dismiss a state government.

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Blast-hit UPA wakes up to tougher law, faster courts

The UPA Government, under attack for seeming ineffective in the face of terror, for the first time has acknowledged the need for new counter-terrorism initiatives, including strengthening the existing law and introducing fast-track courts.

Before a two-hour emergency Cabinet meeting late tonight that discussed such measures, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking at the conference of Governors at Rashtrapati Bhavan today, had set the tone.

In an apparent rebuttal of the BJP charge that vote bank politics was the reason Congress was soft on terror, Singh said: “The public debate on the issue of terrorism has, unfortunately, tended to get driven by politics, and has centered on certain laws enacted or repealed by Governments of different political persuasions...Our Government has no fixed, inflexible or ideological view in this regard.”

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IIMs get their reality check: those six-figure Wall Street salaries will have to wait

Over the weekend, as Lehman Brothers went bust, Merrill Lynch was sold and the world of global high finance shook, hearts broke on Kolkata’s IIM campus. For two students of IIM-C’s Class of 2009 who had accepted pre-placement offers only a couple of weeks ago, the immediate future was suddenly a void.

“We interned at Lehman’s London office only this summer. Work was as usual, no one had any idea that trade was declining,” one of them told The Indian Express.

The student could have been speaking for hundreds of fresh graduates at Indian Institutes of Management from Kolkata to Ahmedabad, Lucknow to Bangalore. Firms like Merrill and Lehman have been among the biggest recruiters on campus, and the investment banking and financial services sector has been setting the aspirational benchmark with offers of salaries that have ranged from $120,000 to $360,000 annually.

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Now, India’s first weather channel

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is set to roll out the country’s first, much-awaited weather channel early next year, if everything goes according to schedule.

Five leading private channels have come forward with expressions of interest, and IMD Director General Dr Ajit Tyagi has asked for a Request For Proposal (RFP) from them in the next two months to get the channel running by February-March 2009. The idea is to have the channel up before the next monsoon.

The channel will provide information on oceanic movements, temperature and rainfall, as well as warnings about natural disasters. “It will be a private-public partnership and we would be involved with the data collection while the entire funding would come from the private channel,” Tyagi said.

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Hunt begins all over again: Same prime suspect, similar bombs, SIMI links

A day after serial Blasts left at least 21 dead and nearly 100 injured, Delhi limped back to normalcy while police, looking for leads, were said to be questioning two persons who had been detained. Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal said they had come across “vital clues” which would help them track down perpetrators of the blasts who police suspect belong to the Indian Mujahideen-SIMI network.

Abdus Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer, who remains at large and is wanted by police in Gujarat for his alleged role in the Ahmedabad bombings, is emerging as one of the main suspects in the Delhi blasts too.

Sources said police and Central security agencies were looking for three SIMI sympathisers — Abu Zair, Danish and Aftab — who apparently arranged a safehouse in Delhi for Abu Bashar, arrested from Azamgarh in UP after the Ahmedabad blasts. Bashar, police sources said, stayed in Delhi from July 24 to 26.

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Terror email: To clear his name, Haywood on way back to Mumbai

US National Kenneth Haywood, who left India last month while being investigated in connection with the Ahmedabad bomb Blasts e-mail sent from his account, is set to return to Mumbai tonight in a bid to clear his name.

Source said Haywood, the Navi Mumbai -based employee of business skills coaching firm Campbell White, is flying back to his home in US through London on British Airways flight BA 139 due to land after midnight on Wednesday.

Sources said Haywood sent “feelers” to Mumbai Police that he regretted the way he left India despite a look-out notice. While he is not expected to be arrested since the Maharashtra Anti- Terrorism Squad (ATS) has since given him a clean chit, Haywood is expected to visit ATS on Thursday.

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Zardari sworn in as Pakistan President

Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday took over as Pakistan's President and swiftly pledged to come out with ‘some good news’ on Kashmir before this month-end.

The 53-year-old businessman-turned politician, who spent over a decade behind the bars on corruption and other charges, was administered oath of office by Chief Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar in a ceremony at the presidential palace attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai among others.

Zardari, husband of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, said he would work together with all neighbouring countries.

"We shall stand with each other, we shall not stand in each other's way."

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Chinese Foreign Minister kept waiting for Sonia appointment

As New Delhi today expressed its “disappointment” over China’s role in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG), visiting Chinese Foreign minister Yang Jiechi, who had requested for a meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi, was kept waiting for an appointment.

Chinese Embassy officials told The Indian Express tonight they had asked for an appointment with Sonia before Yang left Beijing — while his schedule was being prepared — but had not heard from her office until late tonight.

In his first trip to India, the Minister has kept tomorrow morning aside for “sightseeing”, said officials, and will deliver a lecture on “India-China relations” in the afternoon.

After a meeting with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Yang denied that Beijing had attempted to block consensus at the NSG. “Facts speak louder than these reports,” he said.

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No dream sequence this: the Swiss now have their own Bollywood film

Sonja is a waitress in a countryside restaurant in the Bernese plateau of Switzerland. Engaged to her boss, she has a secure life-plan. Until a Bollywood film crew lands up for a shoot. The highly gifted cook of the crew woos her relentlessly and soon she is faced with a dilemma — a choice between security and status on one side and passion and magic on the other...

Bollywood film crews have been coming to Switzerland for decades to shoot dream sequences or honeymoons. And now, Switzerland hits back with its own home-grown Bollywood film, Tandoori Love. Made in the Swiss German dialect and English, the film was premiered before a packed audience at the lakeside open-air theatre in Zurich last Saturday.

The film takes a comic look at the clash of two totally different, rather contrasting cultures. “I love Indian culture and its chaos,” says Oliver Paulus, writer-director of the film. “And you can imagine what happens when this chaos enters a Swiss village where everything is so perfectly organised.”

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Sleepless in Vienna: China threatens to leave for home, US works into the night

With Austria and Ireland still holding out and the Chinese delegation threatening to leave for Beijing, tough negotiations were on late into the night at the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna to forge a consensus to end India’s three and a half decades of nuclear isolation.

A new NSG draft was in the works and had been sent to Washington for clearance although India made it clear that there was almost no scope to revise the draft in substantive terms.

The Chinese, sources said, objected to what they called was the manner in which matters were being pushed on an issue they said involved the future of the global non-proliferation regime.

Well aware of the stakes in the Indo-US nuclear deal — and the tight Congressional calendar ahead — the “highest levels” in Washington got in touch with their counterparts in Beijing to get China to stay on by including it in the consultative process.

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I wasn’t fast enough for cricket, says fastest man

Growing up in rural Trelawny in Jamaica, he had only one dream — to be a pace bowler and make a name in cricket. But then he ran into Pablo McNeil, a local sports teacher, who led him to the tracks. Usain Bolt never looked back and in Beijing last month, the fastest man on earth was hailed as the most exciting track-and-field star the world has seen in more than a decade.

“I played cricket till the junior level. I was around 12-13 when I left the game,” said Bolt during a chat on the sidelines of the Athletisim a Super Grand Prix in Lausanne. Asked why he left cricket, he said: “I was not fast enough. But I was good at running. Some of my friends used to make fun that my run-up to the crease was faster than my deliveries.”

Teacher McNeil was dead right when he told him that the track was his natural home. At age 15, Bolt set a junior world record for 200m with 20.61 seconds. Two years later, he became the first junior sprinter to break 20 seconds for 200m. And in Beijing, he showed why he is the best.

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Rush to open IITs is a disaster: Prime Minister Science Advisor

In its hurry to boost higher education before elections, the Centre has pushed through six new IITs, setting up some in infrastructure challenged temporary campuses, and packing others into existing IIT complexes. It is a “disastrous” move, feels Prof C N R Rao, head of the Prime Minister’s Scientific Advisory Council.

“There was no proper discussion on this issue. Things could have been planned better. It took over 50 years to make IITs what they are today. After all it’s not like opening primary schools. These are institutes of excellence that have international standing. I am very upset that eight new IITs have been announced for implementation at one go. In July, I had written to the PM as well as the HRD Ministry and have made my views known to the PM when I met him later,” Rao said. He added that the move would bring down the brand value of the IITs.

Of the eight new IITs, six have started functioning in the current academic session in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Gujarat and Punjab. For the time being, IIT Rajasthan, Punjab and Orissa will operate from existing IIT campuses in Kanpur, Delhi and Mumbai. IIT Patna and IIT Gandhinagar will function out of temporary campuses.

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We have objections, put pay hike on hold: 3 service chiefs again

Raising fresh objections to the Sixth Pay panel notification after the Cabinet cleared it on August 14, the three chiefs of the Armed Forces, in an unprecedented move, have written to Defence Minister A K Antony that implementation for officer ranks be “held in abeyance” until their objections are addressed.

Earlier, they had raised two broad objections: higher salary for Personnel Below Officer Ranks (PBORs) and parity with civil servants for officer ranks. While thanking the government for hiking salaries of PBORs, they claim the disparity has only increased between service officers and their civil service counterparts.

Their objections:

•Disparity in Pay Bands: The chiefs claim the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) moved the Director rank into Pay Band 4 but retained Lt. Col and its equivalent in other services in Pay Band 3. Earlier, they claim, a Lt. Col got the same pay as an IAS Director and Rs 800 more than a non-IAS Director. Now he gets Rs 14000 less than an IAS director and Rs 11000 less than a non-IAS director.

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For clean polls in Congress youth wings, Rahul turns to former Election Commission

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has asked former Election Commission (EC) officials to help conduct organisational elections. So when the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) kickstarts direct elections for its Punjab unit in October, right from the block president to the state chief, K J Rao, who as an EC observer made a name during the Bihar elections of 2005, will act as the watchdog to ensure that criminal elements don’t find their way into the organisation.

“Rahul Gandhi has accepted our suggestion that any candidate found to have committed a crime punishable for two years under the law should be barred from contesting the organisational elections,” Rao told The Indian Express.

Rahul got in touch with former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) J M Lyngdoh some three months ago to streamline the organisational polls in the IYC and the National Students Union of India, the two organisations under his charge. Lyngdoh, in turn, directed him to Delhi based Rao.

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