Poll dates any day, UPA clears building of 1 million houses

The UPA government today cleared a scheme to build a million “affordable” houses across the country over four years to bridge the glaring gap in home-ownership and kick start the sputtering economy. The scheme — to be notified next month — was cleared today, barely days before the Election Commission is expected to notify the elections and bring the code of conduct into effect.

A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave the go ahead for construction of a million houses in partnership with the private sector over the next four years.

The scheme, though targeted at housing for middle and low-income families, will also have 2.5 lakh houses for the economically weaker section (EWS).

The houses will have a plinth area of 300-1,200 sq ft and will be sold at a predetermined price that is expected to be lower than the market price.

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Ashok Chakra for only two from Mumbai Police: Karkare and Omble

The UPA government has decided to restrict the Ashok Chakra for those who died in the Mumbai terror attacks to ATS chief Hemant Karkare and ASI Tukaram Omble.

On the night of November 26, Omble took the bullets but held on to the gun which led to the capture of terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab at Girgaum Chowpatty while Karkare was killed in the line of duty at Cama Hospital.

Though the Maharashtra government had recom mended that all 16 policemen who died in the attacks be awarded the country’s highest peacetime gallantry award, the Centre decided to award it to two with Kirti Chakra for six, including Ashok Kamte, Vijay Salaskar and Shashank Shinde, and police gallantry medals for the rest.

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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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Egg on both UPA and Left faces as NAM and Iran slam nuclear deal

In a severe embarrassment, ironically for both the UPA government and its Left allies although for quite the opposite reasons - the Non-Aligned Movement countries which are signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty have called for "complete prohibition" of any kind of nuclear cooperation with countries that have not acceded to the NPT Iran, too, has jumped in, making this part of a formal proposal and calling all NPT members for an endorsement.

At the ongoing meeting of the preparatory committee for the 2010 NPT Review Conference in Geneva, Indonesia, making a statement last week on behalf of NAM countries that have signed the NPT stated: "Without exception, there should also be a complete prohibition of the transfer of all nuclear-related equipment, information, material and facilities, resources or devices and the extension of assistance in the nuclear, scientific and technological fields to states, which are not parties to the NPT."

Going beyond this, the statement reads: "The recent developments, in particular the nuclear cooperation agreement signed by a NWS (Nuclear Weapon State) with a non-party to the NPT is a matter of great concern."

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