Malegaon probe: Lt Colonel is from Intelligence, studying Chinese

Lt colonel Prasad Purohit, the serving Army officer being questioned by the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra Police in connection with the Malegaon blasts, belongs to the Intelligence Corps and was posted in Nashik with the Army’s Liaison Unit (ALU). It was there that he first got in touch with Major (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, the ex-Army officer who is currently in police custody for his alleged role in the blasts.

Sources in Delhi said that Purohit was moved from Nashik last year to take a Chinese language course at the Army Education Corps College in Panchmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, where he is currently posted.

Army Headquarters confirmed that ATS officials met Purohit to “seek clarification from him so as to proceed with further investigations.” “The officer has been called to help the ATS in their investigations as he was in touch with some of the suspects as part of his posting. As a Liaison Unit officer, he was in touch with several people, including ex-servicemen in the region,” a senior Army Officer in New Delhi said.

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Rate cut in the air as growth, not inflation, Government’s new headache

The government has come to a judgement that in the growth-versus-inflation debate, the balance is now clearly in favour of growth and more corrective measures, specifically, monetary actions, such as a further cut in the signal repo rate, need to be taken to help India sustain the growth momentum.

The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.5 percentage points today, joining a new round of global cuts kicked off by China. China and India increasingly appear to be the world’s last engine of economic growth. China cut its interest rate to 6.66 percent from 6.93.

“Monetary policy (in India) has dual objectives: growth and inflation. The weights have clearly changed in favour of growth,” Arvind Virmani, Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, told The Indian Express in an interview today. (Excerpts tomorrow).

“Producers and other economic players are not clear what is happening to the monetary stance or how the policy will evolve. So, there are apprehensions in the short-term,” Virmani said.

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Why falling crude oil is hope rising

It may be gloom, doom and bust on Dalal Street this Diwali as the economy braces itself for a “cloudy” growth outlook and the Finance Ministry admits that fiscal deficit targets for this year won’t be met. But if there is one silver lining and for India, Asia’s third largest economy, a bold one at that it is the dramatic fall in global crude oil prices from nearly $150 a barrel this June to $56 now.

This slide in crude oil presents Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his lieutenants a significant fiscal headroom to pump-prime the economy and risk some adventure in big-ticket infrastructure spending, both social and physical. Besides, it also helps the rupee hold on to its own because of lesser demand for dollars by oil refiners. Last, but not the least, it douses inflationary expectations, giving the government and the Reserve Bank of India more leeway in lowering lending rates and infusing more liquidity into the system to spur growth.

India imports almost 70 per cent of its fuel needs, and oil is the biggest item. In 2007-08, it imported 121.672 million tones of crude oil and the bill was a staggering $68 billion.

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Plan panel slams Sreedharan U-turn on the model for Hyderabad Metro

Reminding him that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) he heads had itself endorsed the Build Operate Transfer (BOT) model for the Hyderabad Metro project while preparing a detailed project report (DPR), the Planning Commission has slammed E Sreedharan for now expressing reservations on the project and for not backing with “facts or evidence” his “suspicion” that this “might lead to a big political scam”. The panel has also pointed out that indirect subsidies enjoyed by the DMRC are in fact a huge burden on the government.

Sreedharan, in a letter to the Planning Commission on the Hyderabad Metro project, had not only questioned the sanctity of its BOT model but also warned that it would lead to a scam of sorts. “Apart from the fact that this might lead to a big political scandal sometime later, it is apparent that the BOT operator has a hidden agenda which appears to be to extend the metro work to large tracts of his private land holdings so as to reap a windfall profit 4-5 times the land price,” Sreedharan stated in the letter.

Countering this in a hardhitting reply, the Commission said the charge that the Hyderabad project could lead to a political scandal was a mere suspicion “which have not been supported by any facts or evidence.”

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Timing, 786 sticker raised red flags: Modasa cop

While the Maharashtra Police attribute the Modasa and Malegaon blasts to the Hindu Jagran Manch, investigators in Gujarat say they had similar suspicions right from Day One.

This is based on two vital clues — an apparent lack of knowledge of the Ramzan prayer schedule that day and the “fresh” nature of the 786 sticker on the motorcycle that carried the bomb, Deputy Superintendent of police K K Mysorewala, who heads the Modasa probe, told The Indian Express today.

The Modasa bomb, timed to go off at 9.26 pm on the night of September 29, was kept on a motorcycle parked a few feet away from a mosque in the crowded Sukka Bazaar area in Modasa, with an intention to cause “maximum damage” as Esha Namaz gets over by this time.

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Amroha girl chose jeans, not burqa, joined Indian Space Research Organisation

Among the scores of families of ISRO scientists who woke up early on Wednesday, prayed and waited for the successful lift-off of Chandrayaan I, was one in Chaugori Mohalla, a tiny, traditional Muslim neighbourhood in UP’s Amroha.

Khushboo Mirza is just one of the 12 engineers of the Check-Out Division of Chandrayaan I which carried out the thermal, vacuum and assembling checks on each component of the satellite. But the story of the 23 year-old is inspiration for a village which once looked at her journey in shock and disbelief.

When her father died when she was seven, her mother, Farhat, broke norms to run the family’s petrol pump to keep her children in school. Her brother, Khushtar, a 2005 BTech from Jamia Millia Islamia, shelved his career ambitions to take charge later. To get out of the claustrophobic by lanes of Amroha, Khushboo applied for B Tech at Aligarh Muslim University. A volleyball player, she qualified through the sports quota. When she graduated, she landed a lucrative job with Adobe but gave it up to join ISRO two years ago.

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Aussies very down under in Mohali, India’s perfect end to perfect Test

Stand-in skipper, stand-in blazer,” Mahendra Singh Dhoni beamed at the post-match press conference, on a charm offensive after an aggressive India had completed a whopping 320-run win to take a 1-0 win in the Test series against Australia.

The fact that Dhoni walked out for the toss in an oversized jacket, after Anil Kumble had to pull out on the morning of the match, was the only blip over five days in Mohali where everything else fit just right. Needing five wickets to wrap up the game on the last day, Dhoni threw the ball to Zaheer Khan first thing in the morning. He could well have been throwing the left arm pacer a pair of boxing gloves.

Brad Haddin saw the first five deliveries of the day pitch on middle and leave him, but he quite clearly didn’t see the one that pitched on middle and hit middle. His bat hung limp in his hands, searching for contact at least six inches off target.

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In pirate season, tension in Saurashtra as no word from three Gujarat ships

In the port town of Salaya on the Saurashtra coast, all ears are tuned to news from the Gulf of Aden where Somali pirates are calling the shots,boarding ships and holding crewmen hostage for ransom.At least three ships from Gujarat have gone“missing”in the region with 15 men from Salaya.Though the ship owners and Gujarat maritime board officials believe that bad weather may be behind the loss of contact with the ships, there are growing fears in Salaya that their men may have run into Somali pirates.

The three ships — Shiv Shambhu (it sailed from Mumbai on October 3), Bashir and Zuber — carrying sugar and rice were headed for ports on the African coast. There is talk in Salaya that Shiv Shambhu may have been boarded by pirates near Ras Hafun on the Somalia coast and people are counting on naval deployment in the region to bring word on the Gujarat ships.

The Mandvi-Kutch Vahanvata Association of seafarers is not sure whether it is the pirates or bad weather that is responsible for the radio silence. But the MKVA is willing to wait and so is Ashok Bhanushali, owner of Shiv Shambhu. “It could be the weather. We are not sure if there are looters or pirates on board the ship.

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Kerala points north, makes terror arrest: There’s a Valley link

Almost a fortnight after a suspected militant from Kerala was killed by security agencies in North Kashmir, the state police today arrested Abdul Jaleel, 38, a resident of Kannur. Jaleel, an activist of Kerala-based right wing Muslim outfit National Development Front (NDF), is alleged to have had close links with the suspected militant.

According to state intelligence sources, Jaleel, had been under the police radar for some time now following law and order issues in his locality of Edakkadu in Kannur. A painter by profession, he was allegedly active in propagating fundamentalism. He had also taken part in a recent rally organised by the NDF in Kannur to protest against the Indo-US nuclear deal.

While tracking his movements, police reportedly stumbled upon several mobile phone calls that Jaleel had received from Kashmir till October 5, two days before the encounter in Kupwara in which the suspected militant from Kerala was killed.

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On Indian Mujahideen trail, Karnataka beachfront is hotspot

With rolling hills on one side and the shimmering Arabian Sea on the other, Jali beach in Bhatkal is a serene stretch of sand frequented by locals who come here to unwind after a hard day’s work. But if the Mumbai Police is to be believed, this picture-postcard location in coastal Karnataka is the Ground Zero of a new wave of home-grown terrorism. It is on a remote tip of this beach, they say, that six of the 20 Indian Mujahideen operatives arrested recently were trained in the use of arms and explosives.

A row of elegant and spacious beach bungalows overlooks this stretch. Built by the local Nawayath Muslims who migrated to the Gulf for employment and prospered, these houses are mostly empty when they are not rented out to the occasional tourists. On one end is the ‘American Bungalow’ — so named because its owner is settled comfortably in the US where he is said to own several fast food outlets.

At the other end is a bungalow named Bahrain House, in which Mumbai Police claim Indian Mujahideen kingpin Riyaz Bhatkal and several operatives stayed and held meetings. Its entrance is locked but entry is easily gained through a gaping hole in the wooden gate.

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1,900 pink slips at Jet, red and saffron fly into political chance

The much-feared shakeout in the Indian aviation industry began to hit home on Wednesday as hundreds of employees of leading private airline Jet Airways took to the streets in protest after they were fired overnight, a move the company said was in the greater interest of regaining viability and security its economic health.

While the company said it had “released” 800 flight attendants recruited recently for Jet’s planned expansion programme, it added another 1,100 employees to that list later in the day and said they would include probationary and unconfirmed personnel in other areas including cockpit crew and management personnel.

Aviation industry sources said that this seemed like the beginning of a bloodletting in the sector and other airlines, including Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines which joined hands with Jet only two days ago to share facilities and cut costs, could follow suit. Kingfisher last month sacked 300 employees, many of them from Air Deccan with which it merged earlier this year.

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Sonia dares Maya: I’m ready to go to jail

Unfazed by the Mayawati government’s moves to scuttle her visit to Rae Bareli, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today landed in her Lok Sabha constituency, calling it her “karmabhoomi” and declaring she was “ready to go to jail” for the sake of development.

“Rae Bareli and Amethi have been the karmabhoomi of Feroze Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. It is also Rahul and my karmabhoomi. Rae Bareli and Amethi are like my home. Can anyone prevent me from coming home? No one can,” she told reporters in Lalganj.

Taking a swipe at Chief Minister Mayawati, Gandhi said that like the rail coach factory in Rae Bareli, allotment of land for which was cancelled by the UP government, several other schemes were being blocked by the state. “There are over a dozen such development projects that the Central government has funded and plans to bring to the state. But in each, the state government has put some hindrance or the other,” she said.

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Modi refuses to speak at National Integration Council, hands speech text slamming UPA on terror

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today stunned the meeting of the National Integration Council, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when he “declined” to speak and submitted for the records the text of his written speech.

Belying expectations, Modi sat quietly, listening to the verbal duel between Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik over deployment of paramilitary forces in the state which is battling a wave of anti-Christian attacks.

Asked about Modi, P K Gera, Gujarat’s Resident Commissioner in Delhi, confirmed that the CM declined to speak.“Yes,he did not speak. Perhaps he didn’t find any reason to speak with so many airing their views.”

Modi’s “reluctance” to speak surprised the large gathering because he was expected to raise a storm over the issue of terror. “We were expecting he would create an uproar. We were taken a back when he refused to speak,” said a Union Minister.

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United States space tourist Garriott blasts off in Russian rocket

US video game magnate Richard Garriott blasted off into space aboard a Russian rocket on Sunday watched by his father, a NASA astronaut who went into space at the height of the Cold War.

The Russian Soyuz TMA13 spacecraft lifted off in clear weather from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppes just after 1.00 pm.

A video game developer from Texas, Garriott paid $35 million to fly into space alongside US astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov.

Garriott’s father, Owen, watched the blast off through binoculars on an observation platform and Garriott’s girlfriend, Kelly Miller, burst into tears.

“I am very happy for him. It is one of the things he really wanted to do,” Miller said as others opened Champagne to celebrate the successful launch. “I can see he is really enjoying it like a little kid in the candy shop,” Miller said.

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Bush signs deal into law, guarantees India fuel supply, reprocessing rights

More than three years after the blueprint was outlined in a Indo-US joint statement in Washington, the nuclear deal got its final legal sanctity today when US President George W Bush signed the 123 agreement into law and made it clear that US will fulfill all its fuel assurance commitments in the agreement. He also specified that the agreement recognises India’s right to reprocess spent fuel.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will formally ink the deal tomorrow.

In an effort to address any doubts in India over the contents of the legislation he was signing and concerns that it had deviated from what the two countries had negotiated, Bush recorded in his signing statement, which is a reflection of how the US President interprets a particular law for further implementation and has its own sanctity, that Washington will meet all its obligations in the 123 agreement.

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Modi, Tata drive Nano to its new home in 4 days

The Tatas today announced they were shifting their Rs 1-lakh Nano car project to Sanand near Ahmedabad — this was first reported by The Indian Express — after a controversial stay in Singur in West Bengal. The Tatas, who quit Singur last Friday, said they would be investing Rs 2,000 crore and would go all out to meet the deadline for the world’s cheapest car, even if it meant turning to a makeshift plant.

A Tata Motors statement said it would explore the possibility of manufacturing Nano at its existing facilities in Pune and Pantnagar and would launch the car in the last quarter (January-March) of the financial year.

“This is an extremely momentous and happy day for us because we have been through a rather sad experience from a small quarter of residents of West Bengal despite the efforts of the state government,” Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata said at a joint press conference with Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

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Global Internet firm engineer among 15 caught in terror web

Less than two weeks after announcing that they had arrested five men and uncovered the backbone of a terror module responsible for a majority of terror attacks since 2005, Mumbai Police on Monday said they had arrested 15 more men after what “the largest manhunt exercise” and possibly averted a terror attack on the metropolis during the ongoing festival season.

The latest arrests included Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy alias Munawar, a 31-year-old computer engineer who police said worked with a reputed Internet firm and earned Rs 19 lakh a year. He is alleged to be the head of the “media wing” of Indian Mujahideen and was responsible for preparing and sending the terror e-mails before and after the recent blasts. His arrest, along with others in the “media wing”, had neutralised the unit, police said.

Officials said that they had seized laptops and WiFi routers from the“media wing” of IM while the other arrests had led to the seizure of 10 kg of explosives, 35 timers, four live bombs, 15 detonators, carbines and pistols among others.

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Terrorists are at work in Jammu and Kashmir, India is not a threat: Zardari

Declaring that India is not a “threat” to his country, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has described the militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir as “terrorists”, the first such admission by any top Pakistani leader.

“India has never been a threat to Pakistan. I, for one, and our democratic government is not scared of Indian influence abroad,” Zardari told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

He spoke of the militant groups operating in Kashmir as “terrorists,” the paper said noting that former President Pervez Musharraf would more likely have called them “freedom fighters.”

Indicating a major shift in Pakistan’s well known position, Zardari had, as chief of Pakistan People’s Party, said in March that the ties between two countries should not be held “hostage” to the Kashmir issue, which should be left for future generations to decide, raising hackles at home.

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Rice arrives today not sure if she can sign nuclear deal, India wants Bush to do it first

Bureaucratic drama has clouded the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice beginning tomorrow with a question mark on when the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, sealed and delivered, will be signed. Talks are on to make it possible when Rice is here but a late-night advisory issued by the Ministry of External Affairs made no mention of a “signing ceremony” at Hyderabad House. A photo-op, however, is scheduled for the lunch hosted by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

The US State Department argues that signing of the agreement between Rice and Mukherjee need not wait for a Presidential signature as there is no “sequencing.” But India wants US President George W Bush to sign the agreement into law with a statement of interpretation of US commitments before both sides ink the agreement in New Delhi.

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To let younger officers take charge, 1800 ranks in services to be upgraded

Days after the defiant service chiefs were forced to fall in line and issue the pay hike notification on October 1, the Cabinet tomorrow is scheduled to implement the second batch of recommendations of the Ajay Vikram Singh Committee and upgrade ranks of 1,896 serving officers.

The rationale: to bring down age profile of officers at the command, operational level and improve promotion prospects of junior officers.

While the first set of recommendations dealing with promotional avenues for Non-Select Ranks (Lt Colonel and below) was implemented in 2004, the current proposal of Defence Secretary Vijay Singh deals with upgradation of officer cadre in the three services, a reduction in the regular cadre with a corresponding increase in the cadre of Short Service Commissioned (SSC) officers.

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Reserve Bank of India scotches ICICI Bank rumours, Government says don’t panic, we are watching

Finance Minister P Chidambaram and regulators, SEBI and the RBI stepped in to soothe financial markets today after the benchmark Sensex plunged 442 points or 3.5 per cent to its lowest levels in two years and panic gripped ICICI Bank customers who queued up outside ATMs in certain cities to withdraw deposits. Their assurances helped and the market closed 2.1 per cent up at 12,860 points.

Barely minutes after the market opened sharply lower, SEBI chairman CB Bhave who was in Delhi allayed fears of the impact of the global credit crisis on the Indian markets. “There is no panic... we are monitoring the situation closely. We will take the severest action against any institution circumventing our short-selling rules,” he told reporters before his meeting with the Finance Minister and other officials in North Block.

After a meeting with Bhave and economic affairs secretary Ashok Chawla, Chidambaram said, “We are suffering the consequences of turbulence around the world. Basically, the Indian market is a sound, attractive and well-regulated market.”

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