UPA meet to formalise VP poll; Trinamool, Cong face off likely

A meeting of the UPA and its allies will be held on Saturday to hold consultations to decide on the nominee for the Vice-President's post. Though officially the Congress has said a formal decision on the nominee is yet to be taken, sources said that Vice-President Hamid Ansari is likely to be fielded by the congress for the second term.

The Trinamool Congress, which skipped the UPA meeting to decide the Presidential nominee, would attend the meeting represented by railway minister Mukul Roy and he is expected to put forward their own choice.

According to reports, the Trinamool is keen on former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi or Krishna Bose, a relative of Netaji Subhas Bose.

A second term for incumbent Ansari appears certain with several parties in the alliance and outside giving their support to his candidature.

The last day for filing nomination for Vice-Presidential election is July 20 and elections for the post is scheduled to be held on August 7.

R-Infra not keen on running Airport Metro: DMRC

New Delhi: The Delhi Metro has disclosed that Reliance Infrastructure – the concessionaire for the Airport Metro Express which has been shut temporarily for repair works – wanted to quit the showpiece line. 

After closing down operations at the Airport Metro Express last Sunday, Reliance Infrastructure had said that the Delhi Metro – which was responsible for civil works on the high-speed line built on PPP model – had carried out shoddy work. 

However, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) chief Mangu Singh has written to Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, stating R-Infra allowed the situation to "worsen to such an extent that services were required to be suspended”. 
“Any professional operator would not have allowed the situation to come to that level," Singh is quoted as saying in the letter, according to a report in a leading national daily. 

The ‘routine’ letter’ dated July 11 further says that "the current situation has arisen due to the fact that there were defects in fixing of the bearings and the same was not detected by Reliance in time". 

Singh indirectly accused R-Infra of trying to use the bearings issue as an excuse to quit the Airport Metro project. 
"As I have already brought to your kind notice, Reliance, even prior to this issue of damage to the bearings, had represented to DMRC about the financial viability of the project and had in fact written to DMRC in this respect. They had expressed that either DMRC take over or restructure the entire project so that the financial burden on them is reduced. Meanwhile, they were able to find this issue of bearings and suspended the services," the DMRC chief reportedly wrote in the letter. 

The concessionaire has so far refuted the claims that it shut the operations due to financial reasons and not on the ground of safety. 

Singh blamed the consultant for the project, RITES, and the contractor for the poor civil work. "Prima facie indications are that the bearings were not fixed as per the design and specifications by the contractor," Singh wrote. 
The DMRC chief also said that there was no need to suspend operations on the entire line and the services between Dwarka Sector 21 and Aero City Station could have been continued as that portion of the line was “not affected at all”. 

Kingfisher pilots on strike again, 28 flights cancelled

New Delhi/Mumbai: Several flights of Kingfisher were cancelled today due to a strike by pilots to protest non-payment of wages for almost five months.

Three flights from Mumbai and several across the airline's entire network were cancelled. 25 flight cancellations were reported from Delhi alone - 11 arrivals and 14 departures.

An airline spokesperson said, "A certain section of employees have decided to stay away from duties due to salary payments not being credited to the bank accounts of all employees by Friday. Kingfisher wishes to state that more than 75 per cent of employees have actually received their promised salaries on Friday".
"We have further promised that the balance of our employees will receive their salaries by Monday", the spokesman said.

The passengers booked on the affected flights have either been re-booked or given refunds, he said.

This is the third time in the last twelve days that the pilots have struck work. The earlier strike on July 11 saw 12 flights getting cancelled.

The strike on July 2 was called off after a few hours with the management promising to pay some sections of staff from July 6.

Kingfisher is, at present, carrying out truncated domestic and international operations with about 15 aircraft, in place of 64.

A large number of its flight engineers have reportedly quit over the past five months, primarily due to delayed payments. In April, around 200 engineers reported sick as a mark of protest over the issue.

The airline, which has not posted profit since its inception in May 2005, has reported a loss of Rs. 1,151.50 crore in the March quarter, has a debt of over Rs. 7,500 crore and almost an equal amount of accumulated losses.

India looking to reverse ban on Pakistani TV channels

NEW DELHI: India has assured Pakistan that it will consider a proposal to lift the ban on Pakistani television channels in the country. This was after Pakistani foreign secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani's strong pitch last week proposing India allow transmission of not just Pakistan government ( PTV) but also private channels, both news and non-news. 

Making his point, Jilani said all Indian channels are available in Pakistan and Islamabad has done nothing to impose restrictions on their telecast. During talks between the two countries here last week, Pakistanis told the Indian delegation, led by foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai, that if India wants to spruce up people-to- people contacts, it must allow Pakistani channels into Indian homes. 

Pakistanis recalled popularity of PTV's soaps like Deewarein, Waris and Jungle in the 1980s in India saying current programmes on Pakistani channels have the potential to become as popular. 

PTV 'anti-India' drive a worry

Indians seem to have conceded the point. "It was conveyed to them (Pakistan) that India will look positively at the proposal although the matter will have to be first discussed by the information and broadcasting ministry and its counterpart in Pakistan," said a source, adding that PTV's "anti-India" campaign in the past over internal issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, has been a concern.

In 2009, Pakistani Senate's standing committee on information and broadcasting appealed to the Indian Parliament to ensure airing of Pakistani channels in India. The same Senate next year asked Pakistani cable operators to stop airing Indian TV channels citing "cultural invasion". But with people-to-people contacts finding favour, the Pakistani request might fall on more receptive ears in New Delhi.

India and Pakistan are looking at signing an MoU for promotion of arts and culture during the visit of foreign minister S M Krishna to Pakistan in early September. The two sides are expected to further hasten the groundwork for Krishna's visit as Pakistan's high commissioner-designate Salman Bashir finally presented his credentials before President Pratibha Patil and assumed full charge after weeks of waiting. As a former foreign secretary, Bashir was instrumental in bringing ties back on track after the hiatus caused by 26/11 attacks.

The MoU was also proposed by Pakistan with its Pakistan National Centre of Arts (PNCA) taking the lead after its patron-in-chief Tauqueer Ahmed Nasir visited India for "informal" meetings in April. Among other things, Pakistan wants its street puppet shows, extremely popular in the country, to be performed in India.

During the talks, both sides underlined the importance of greater people-to-people contacts and friendly exchanges in building "a relationship of trust and friendship between the two countries". They emphasized the importance of greater parliamentary exchanges; promotion of cooperation in various fields including facilitating visits to religious shrines and "cessation of hostile propaganda against each other".

Girl raped in Gujarat; video uploaded on Internet

 Ahmedabad: Crime against women is constantly on the rise in the country and this was evident once again after a college girl was reported to have been raped by a youth in Gujarat’s Dahod area. 

What was more painful for the victim is that the shameful act was recorded by the youth who along with his friend uploaded the video on the Internet. And if this was not enough, they even made CDs of the act and circulated them.  According to reports, the youth is said to be a neighbour of the victim and had repeatedly expressed his love for her in the past.

The girl has alleged that the youth came to her place when she was alone and served her a drink laced with sedatives, following which she fell unconscious. The youth then raped and filmed the act. 

The parents have registered a complaint against the youth. 

Amar Jyoti Kalita most wanted: Guwahati Molestation case

 Guwahati: The Assam police has arrested four people from the 11 that it has identified as part of a mob that molested a young woman in Guwahati, but the main accused, a man called Amar Jyoti Kalita, prominent in a red t-shirt in a video of the incident, is still missing. 

The police believes Kalita instigated and led the mob that molested the victim. He is seen in the video at the forefront of the mob frenzy, pulling at the girl, pummeling her, he even tries to rip her shirt off. All through he is grinning and playing to the camera that he knows is recording the molestation.  

The police have said Kalita is a part-time actor and government employee with the Assam Electronics Development Corporation Ltd. (AMTRON); he has since been suspended. 
Kalita's facebook page confirms he works at Amtron. He wears a red t-shirt in his profile picture too, though the photo was put up on July 1. His last post is a photograph of himself on Tuesday, a day after the incident. In the same red t-shirt with stripes on the arms.

Kalita, according to his Facebook page, finished his schooling from the Guwahati Refinery High School in 1995. He likes to call himself Bond - the references to 007 are many.  

The police, slammed for what is seen as inaction in the case - it arrived 40 minutes after the ghastly incident began and made its first arrest only after two days - has by now arrested four men and says it has identified seven others. 

The men arrested are Dhanraj Basfar, a sweeper, Puspendu Das, a shopkeeper, Md Habijuddin, and BikashTiwari, who is just 18 years old. Apart from Kalita, those identified but not arrested are Rubul Ali, Debo Das, a man with the surname Baruah, Dipak Dey an auto driver, Tinku Deb and Bablu.

Riots erupt in Northern Ireland

July 12 is the busiest day of the marching season in Northern Ireland. Thousands of Orangemen and women, accompanied by marching bands, held their main Belfast event commemorating King William III's 1690 Battle of the Boyne victory over Catholic King James II. The tradition is seen as provocation by Irish nationalists who want to be part of a united Ireland. Police fired water cannon at Catholic youths in Belfast after rioting erupted.