About 20 to 25 members would be inducted into Mr Siddharamiah’s ministry in Karnataka on Saturday, They would take an oath of office and secrecy. This was indicated by the Congress here on Thursday.
According to the well-placed sources, the Karnataka PCC chief, Dr G Parmeshwar, is unlikely to be inducted. He and former Union minister C.M. Ibrahim got defeated in the recently held state Assembly polls.
But Dr Parmeshwar would be “rewarded”, they said.
The Congress leadership is said to have suggested to Mr Siddharamaiah not to induct a full-fledged Cabinet keeping about 10 portfolios vacant. V. Sreenivasa Prasad, H.S. Mahadev Prasad, M.H. Amarnath (Ambarish), Roshan Baig, H.K. Patil, A. Manju and H.Y. Meti, R.V. Deshpande and D.K. Shivkumar are some of the prominent ministerial aspirants.
Intense lobbying is on for ministerial berths in the state which can have only 33 ministers besides the chief minister.

There are 60 to 70 MLAs in Congress, who have won for second and third time making it difficult for the party to choose from among them.

“I do not have a dream of my own. Any politician who has his own personal dreams and personal goals can never be happy. I have a dream, a goal for my state and my country,” BJP general secretary Varun Gandhi said and won a thunderous applause from the thousands who had gathered at the Khurshid Club here on Thursday for BJP’s Swabhimaan rally.
Mr Gandhi said that whenever he faced hardships in life, he always thought of those who face d greater hardships in their lives.
BJP MP and party general secretary Varun Gandhi established a direct connect with the people when he said, “Sultanpur is my home. My father’s hand was in your hands and now I will work for you. Your hardships will be my hardships and your dreams will be my dreams.”
However, he clarified that he was not making any announcement about his likely candidature from Sultanpur.
“That is for the party high command to decide and announce,” he said and added, “You will always be in my heart and you can meet me, talk to me anytime you want.”
He avoided speaking on contentious issues but spoke of his personal bereavement when he said that he had lost his one-month old daughter last month. “She was my first born. While coming here, I had a heavy heart but then I thought that God may have taken her away but the lakhs of children in Sultanpur are like my own children and I have to work for their future,” he said.
Mr Gandhi lashed out at the Akhilesh government when he said that in the past one year, there had not been a single new project in Uttar Pradesh that could ensure employment for the youth.
“The common man is not safe — if he is physically safe, he is economically insecure. The chief minister is also young and he should understand the aspirations of the youth and ensure employment. Who will invest here if there are no roads, no power? I wrote to the chief minister saying that there should be a super highway that can bring a new dawn for the state,” he said.
He said that he did not wish to criticise SP and BSP but the fact remained that they had failed to fulfil the aspirations of the people.
Criticising the caste sammelans being held in UP, Mr Varun Gandhi said that as a child, he had asked his mother about the caste to which he belonged. “And she said that I belonged to the biggest caste group in the world — humanity,” he said.
Mr Gandhi said that while he would work for Sultanpur, the neighbouring districts like Pratapgarh, Jaunpur and Ayodhya would also benefit from development.

A concerned India has asked the Sri Lankan government to not take steps that would go against its commitments on the 13th amendment following media reports that Colombo is considering the removal of land and police powers from the provinces ahead of elections in the northern provinces. External affairs minister Salman Khurshid called up his Sri Lankan counterpart G.L. Peiris and also raised the issue of 26 Indian fishermen who are in detention in his country while seeking their early release.
According to sources, Mr Khurshid urged the Lankan government not to take any step in the light of its own commitments relating to the amendmentand their expressed intention to build upon it.
According to media reports, Udaya Gammanpila, whose party is a key nationalist ally of Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is planning legislative action for the abolition of the country’s provincial councils while opposing local elections in the Tamil-dominated north. Mr Gammanpila said his party’s policy making central committee on Thursday decided to move parliament within the next two weeks.

***
Trade union secy disrupts kharge speech
Age correspondent
New Delhi, May 17

The inaugural session of the two-day Indian labour conference was disrupted briefly by secretary of the Assam unit of All-India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Subhas Sen, who demanded a response from Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the alleged inaction of the Assam government over a CBI probe into the killing of his colleague there in March.
Interrupting the speech of Union labour minister Malliakarjun Kharge, he alleged that the “Congress goons” killed his friend and AICCTU leader Gangaram Koul as he was fighting on behalf of the tea garden workers’ movement in Assam.

Acknowledging that there cannot be two views on issues raised by the trade unions during their February strike, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Friday said that his government was in the final stages of considering a universal social security cover for workers in both the organised and unorganised sectors. He also said that the UPA dispensation is mulling the creation of a national social security fund, fixing a national floor-level minimum wage and a minimum pension of `1,000 per month under the Employees’ Pension Scheme.
Inaugurating the 45th Indian Labour Conference here, he said that the Union government is very much in agreement with demands for strict implementation of labour laws apart from demands for concrete measures for employment generation and inflation containment. He said, “The recent two-day strike by trade unions focused on a number of issues relating to the welfare not only of the working classes but also the people at large. These include demands on which there can be no disagreement.” He added, “ There can however be differences on the best ways of fulfilling these demands.” Referring to the Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted under the chairmanship of Union finance minister P. Chidambaram in the light of the two-day strike resorted to by the trade unions that had sought the implementation of their 10-point charter of demands, Dr Singh said, “Soon we will see some forward movement.”

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea filed by CBI officers seeking that the Group of Ministers (GoM) examining the issue of the agency’s autonomy be directed to refer to parliamentary panel reports on the CBI before making its recommendations.
A bench of justices B.S. Chauhan and Dipak Misra refused to hear the plea of a group of CBI cadre officers saying it cannot interfere in the functioning of the GoM. The petitioners moved the apex court to restrain the Centre from framing new rules for the appointment of officers against the recommendation of the parliamentary committees which have suggested building of a strong CBI cadre and to reduce dependence of deputation.
Noting that they cannot pass such an order, the judges said the officers can approach the bench, which is seized of the matter pertaining to filling up vacancies in the CBI, for redressal of their grievance. “We cannot pass such order of mandamus to the government. We cannot pre-empt ordinance,” the bench said, adding, “Propriety says that it should come before the same bench.”
The officers, in their petition, have questioned the government for setting up of the Group of Ministers (GoM) and not implementing the recommendations in parliamentary committee reports. They have submitted that the GoM must give them the opportunity to make representations before it. “Under the garb of the direction of this court, the government which has deliberately disregarded and failed to take into consideration various reports of parliamentary standing committees, has arbitrarily set up a GoM,” advocate Kamini Jaiswal, appearing for the CBI officers, said.
The petition has said, “Cadre officers have been deliberately kept away in the functioning of CBI as none of them in the last 50 years has even been appointed to any post in the organisation dealing with policy-making decision.”

The CBI, probing multiple murder cases of Kunda, is all set to record the statements of certain relatives of village head Nanhe Yadav, who was shot dead on March 2 at Walipur village in Kunda, under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
Sources said, “The agency may record the statements of two relatives of Nanhe Yadav under Section 164 of the CrPC. Statement recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC is deemed as evidence in the court of law. Their statements may help CBI in establishing the identity of the killers”. The CBI has registered four FIRs in connection with the killings of DSP Zia-ul-Haq, village head Nanhe Yadav and his brother Suresh Yadav during violence at Walipur village in Pratapgarh district on March 2. The agency has also booked former Uttar Pradesh Minister Raja Bhaiyya under murder charges in the killing of DSP, Zia-ul-Haq. The Special Crime unit of the CBI (Delhi) is probing multiple murder cases of Kunda.
“The CBI officials are also planning to record the statements of certain policemen, who first reached the spot where Nanhe Yadav was killed, under Section 164 of CrPC. Initial probe has revealed that a suspended inspector, who was on duty with the slain DSP, allegedly left the spot immediately after the murder of Haq and Nanhe Yadav,” sources said. “Role of certain policemen including suspended SHO and senior sub-inspector of Kunda police station and eight other policemen is also under the scanner of the agency. The CBI officials are scrutinising call details of these police officials”, sources said. The CBI officials are also collecting details of wireless conversations and evidence collected by the local police.

The government has told airlines that they cannot arbitrarily charge passengers extra for seating on a large number of seats in the aircraft and have ordered airlines to submit a list of seats they consider as preferential seats. The government is upset over feedback that a private low cost carrier is charging extra from passengers for every seat on the aircraft.
“Usually, one would consider seats in the first row of the economy section and the row of seats near the emergency exit doors (that have more legroom) as preferential seats but charging for almost every seat in the aircraft cannot be permitted. That’s why we have now asked airlines to submit a list of preferential seats for which they are charging extra from passengers,” top civil aviation ministry sources said on Friday.
The government had earlier allowed airlines to “unbundle” some services which meant they could charge extra for preferential seating and some other services.
The government sources expressed dismay over the fact that a prominent low-cost carrier is charging extra for every seat on the aircraft, including differential rates for window and aisle seats on one hand and middle seats on the other. “We have feedback that another private airline is unofficially treating its first two rows as a business class. This is unacceptable,” said a top ministry source. In fact, the government also wanted more “moderation” of fares by airlines and asked them why they could not boost load factors so that lower fares can be charged on those seats.
However, the airlines insisted that a certain number of seats were bound to be vacant on flights despite the dynamic pricing.
The government had allowed airlines to unbundle services since they (airlines) could generate more revenue but the government sources said the passengers cannot be arbitrarily charged on account of this.

In a fresh attempt to appease the Muslim community in Uttar Pradesh, the state government declared a holiday on Friday to mark the annual Urs at the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer.
The holiday in Uttar Pradesh, on this occasion, has little justification since the Urs is held in Rajasthan and not in UP.
Interestingly, Rajasthan, where the shrine is situated, observes only two local holidays for the Urs in Ajmer.
The Ajmer DM has declared a two-day holiday for Urs but it is not applicable to entire Rajasthan.
The Akhilesh Yadav government, incidentally, has been happily indulging in the politics of holidays ever since it came to power in 2012.
The chief minister has scrapped three public holidays announced by his predecessor, Mayawati. These include the birth anniversary of late Kanshi Ram on March 15, his death anniversary on October 9 and the death anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar on December 6.
All these occasions had been declared holidays by the Mayawati regime in honour of the dalit icons.
However, the chief minister has also added three new holidays to the ever-growing list of holidays in UP. These include Valmiki Jayanti on October 29, Nishadraj Jayanti on April 5 and now the Ajmer Urs on May 17.
The Maharaja Nishadraj Jayanti is not celebrated as a holiday in any part of the country, not even in coastal regions where the boatmen community lives in large numbers.
The chief minister, according to sources, is also likely to announce a public holiday on the Maharana Pratap Jayanti on May 9 from next year. This is being done to assuage the feelings of the Thakur community that has been rather upset with the Samajwadi Party in recent months.

After getting a clear majority in the Karnataka Assembly polls, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is seriously concentrating on Maharashtra and is likely to come to the state on a two-day visit.
This will be his second visit in the last three months. However, there was no official confirmation from the All-India Congress Committee yet.
Mr Gandhi is believed to be in Maharashtra from May 27, as part of his feedback meetings with workers and office-bearers on the party’s prospects in the LS elections.
The interactions may take place in Pune or Mumbai. The tentative dates of the visit are May 27 and 28, party sources said.
In March, Mr Gandhi had held district-wise meetings exclusively for Mumbai and this time the two-day deliberations will cover the rest of the state.
He then held district-wise meetings attended by the district president, three elected district vice-presidents, one elected treasurer and all block presidents, MLAs (Member of Legislative Assembly), MLCs (Member of Legislative Council), MPs (Member of Parliament), municipal councillors and the all candidates, who had contested MLA elections last time. This time again he is expected to arrange similar meetings to get agrip of the actual situation of the party.

***
Cong V-p meets party leaders from UTs
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, May 17

A meeting of Congress leaders from Union Territories convened by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday saw strong pleas to make the Union home ministry proactive to resolve the problems faced by the areas ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
The leaders from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Lakshdweep, Daman and Diu as also Chandigarh impressed upon Mr Gandhi that since the home ministry is administering the areas, it needed to take special interest to address the problems of the people there.
Leaders from Andaman and Nicobar sought a subsidy in airfares to the islands on the
lines available to the northeastern region to ensure greater connectivity while those from Daman and Diu sought help for fishermen in the area.

With the West Bengal government declaring the dates for the panchayat election in consultation with the state election commission (SEC), the Opposition have demanded a revision of the date for the third phase of the election. The state government had accepted the proposal of the SEC for holding the elections on July, 2, 6 and 10. But the Oppostion has demanded that the third phase be held on July 9 instead of 10, as the Ramzan month begins from that day and even Rathyatra falls on the same day. Meanwhile, the SEC filed a curative petition before the Calcutta high court claiming that the court’s May 14 order, directing holding of panchayat elections in the state in three phases by July 15, was “not a consent order”.
The state government issued a notification to the SEC on the dates and an all-party meeting was convened by state election commissioner Mira Pandey on Friday. The government notification proposed polls in nine south Bengal districts of North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia and Burdwan in the first phase.

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CBI trying to divert attention from rail scam: tmc
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, May 17

Claiming that the CBI is looking into all cases of appointments for senior positions in the Railways since 2009, the Trinamul Congress has alleged that the investigating agency is attempting to divert attention from the cash for promotion scandal involving close relatives of former Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.
The TMC nominees had headed the Railways for about three years after 2009. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and party leaders Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy had been Union railways minister, after which the ministry went to the Congress kitty after a gap of about 17 years.
“Till a few weeks ago, the Congress was boasting of running the Railways on its own for the first time in two decades. But within eight months of the Congress gaining control of this asset-rich ministry, scandals and swindles have begun to pour out. The Congress, which ignores the process of auction and price discovery when it comes to selling public resources, adopts these mechanism, instead, to sell senior government posts,” the TMC stated.
The ruling party in West Bengal, which had walked out of the UPA in 2012, alleged that the “Congress-led UPA government has taken recourse to its trademark vindictiveness”.

The four-day old Siddaramaiah ministry in Karnataka will be expanded on Saturday with the induction of 29 ministers, an exercise from which the “tainted” will be kept out.
Mr Siddaramaiah, who was sworn in as the chief minister on May 13 marking return of the Congress to power after a seven-year hiatus, however, ruled out induction of any deputy chief minister.
Twenty-nine ministers will be sworn in at Raj Bhavan, the 64-year-old chief minister said in the district headquarters town of Mysore on his return from Delhi where the first list of ministers was finalised in consultation with the party’s Central leadership. The Karnataka Assembly has a strength of 224 and Mr Siddaramaiah can induct up to 33 ministers. “The swearing-in is at 10.30 am (at Raj Bhavan),” he said, adding, governor H.R. Bhardwaj will administer the oath of office.
A section within the Congress and freedom fighter H.S. Doreswamy have strongly pushed the party leadership not to give Cabinet berths to those allegedly involved in illegal mining scam and facing corruption charges.
In this context, party sources suggested that the Lad brothers — Anil and Santosh — may not find a berth, as also former working president of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) D.K. Shiva Kumar, who had also staked claim for the chief minister’s post.
Ruling out induction of any scam-tainted person, Mr Siddaramaiah said there will be no one involved in any scandal who will find a place in his ministry.
He said the focus of the Cabinet expansion will be on “region and social justice”.
Meanwhile, the Speaker’s post may go to octogenarian MLA Kagodu Thimmappa, who won from Sagara in Shimoga district.
“We are thinking of Kagodu Thimmappa,” Mr Siddaramaiah said.
But Thimmappa has reportedly turned down the proposal.
Mr Siddaramaiah said there will be no deputy chief minister, a post eyed by KPCC president G. Parameshwara, who lost in the May 5 polls, and senior MLA T.B. Jayachandra.

A Siddi dancer performs as devotees throng the historic Shah-e-Alam Roza in Ahmedabad on Friday

The Congress’ emphasis on “social engineering” may push the upper castes towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and regional parties, feared a section of the party.
The recent appointments of the PCC chiefs in Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and Mumbai made it clear that the party wants to reconnect to the dalits, backwards and tribals.
According to the party insiders, the Congress will come back to power at the Centre on its own on the support of minorities, dalits, backwards and women besides projecting Mr Rahul Gandhi as the leader. This will attract youth across the country.
But the party leaders are silent on whether people vote for a party, its ideology, candidates or influenced by castes.
The Congress has appointed Ashok Chaudhary, Sukhdeo Bhagat and Jayadev Jena as the Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa PCC chiefs respectively and made Janardan Chadurkar the head of the Mumbai regional Congress.
While Dr G. Parmeshwar is the Karnataka PCC chief, Kantilal Bhuria is the Madhya Pradesh party chief.
But the party’s social engineering has not been working in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Gujarat for the simple reason that the opponents have more credible leaders than the Congress.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party and the BSP are competing with each other to keep brahmins in good humour while RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has realised that his anti-upper caste strategy has proved counter-productive and made Mr Nitish Kumar the leader in Bihar.
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena-BJP combine consolidated OBCs, urban middle and lower middleclass and attracted youth.
Brahmins are deserting the Congress after realising that it has no future in the party.
While the Congress-NCP combine government kept brahmins away from the Cabinet, the Congress has not even made a single legislator from this community in the state.
The Congress had made a Muslim (Salman Khurshid) the Uttar Pradesh Congress chief twice but that did not work.

The UPA is shrinking at a time when it is celebrating ninth anniversary on May 22, putting a question mark on the longevity and relevance of this experiment. The UPA was formed in 2004 to check the communal forces from coming to power at the Centre.
The DMK and the Trinamul Congress quit the ruling front on certain issues but no new (or old) allies have joined the UPA from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal so far. On the other hand, key supporting parties — Samajwadi Party, BSP and the RJD — are main hurdles in regaining lost grounds in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The Congress too has not been comfortable with the NCP despite sharing power with latter since 1999.
Can the Congress fight with the BJP-led NDA and regional players simultaneously in the coming Lok Sabha elections? The picture about this could become clearer after May 22.
The Congress party returned to power at the Centre through coalition route after eight years in 2004. The disintegration of the NDA had begun after the Gujarat riots in 2002. But this did not affect the BJP which had won Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh Assembly polls in 2003 and thus had advanced the Lok Sabha polls. But it had miscalculated.The DMK, NCP, Left, RJD, LJP, National Conference, TRS and other regional parties came together under the UPA umbrella and changed the national mood within four months. The BJP-led front got defeated in the general election held in April-May 2004.
The UPA-1 came to power on the common minimum programme and the outside support of the Left. The Congress and the Left leaders used to discuss policy issues periodically. But such mechanism did not exist in the UPA-2 barring few meetings with the ally leaders. This is because the allies were concerned more about their state specific interests, packages, concessions.
But the coalition spirit did not last long in the UPA. While the TRS came out of it on the issue of separate Telangana state, the Left withdrew their support on the issue of nuclear deal with the US in July 2008. A section of the Congress had wanted the party to seek a fresh mandate but the party managed support though defections.
And in 2009 polls, the Congress had won over 200 seats in the Lok Sabha which it never thought of.
The UPA 2 has seen scams in 2G, CWG, coal, helicopter purchase, Aadarsha housing besides price rise. But the spin doctors are confident to retain power for a third time consecutively because of the BJP’s failure to emerge as an alternate to the Congress and the absence of a third alternative.

Hyderabad: Ministers Dharmana Prasad Rao and Sabita Indra Reddy who quit their posts said that they have not committed any crime and will come out unscathed in court.
They were speaking to the media after meeting the Chief Minister on Monday evening for a second time. They said that they resigned to avoid the Congress getting a bad image. The ex-ministers maintained that they had just followed business rules and never violated rules to favour anyone.
They said that they had submitted their resignations after the CBI named them in its chargesheet in connection with Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s illegal assets case. Both Sabita and Dharmana claimed that they were innocent.
Prasad Rao said that he signed the files according to Cabinet decisions and that he did not take any personal decision regarding the allotment of lands. He said that the Opposition did not understand the case correctly.He said the CBI allegation was that some issues were kept secret from the Cabinet and that he violated some laws. He said that as revenue minister he did not hide anything from the Cabinet regarding allotting land for the Vanpic port. The CBI has pointed out only some technical issues, he  added.
Sabita Indra Reddy said that she had not indulged in any corruption in her career. She said she gave her resignation to the Chief Minister 20 days ago. She said that they had cooperated with the CBI investigation even when they were in power.
Sabita assured that she would abide by the decision taken by the High Command. Sabita said that she is completely relieved after the resignation.
Meanwhile, Sabita’s supporters staged a demo at her residence and raised slogans against the Chief Minister. They also gave a bandh call in Ranga Reddy district on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, several ministers visited the houses of Dharmana and Sabita on Monday. Dharmana told the ministers that he was made a scapegoat and that there was no case against Jagan Mohan Reddy. He said the GOs were a collective decision, and not that of any one individual.He said that he would obey the directions of the Congress High Command and continue to serve the party.
Dharmana, Sabita to file discharge plea
Home minister Sabita Indra Reddy and roads and buildings minister Dharmana Prasad Rao have decided to file discharge petition in the CBI special court of charges levelled by the investigation agency.
The duo quit after being named accused in the alleged quid pro quo investments case of Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. The same legal team is defending both Dharmana and Sabita Indra Reddy.
Sources in Sabita’s camp said that the opinion of senior criminal advocate Padmanabha Reddy will be taken while fighting the cases. The two ministers have to appear along with other accused before the court on June 7.
“Initially, we wanted to fight the case stating that we were charged though no permission to prosecute us was granted. We expect the resignation to be accepted. There is no need for permission  when ministers are not in office. The other legal option is to go for discharge petition,” said a source close to Sabita.
The ministers will be taking a stand that there is no evidence against them in the CBI chargesheet and that they only implemented the Cabinet decisions.
A CBI prosecutor said, “discharge petitions are filed after a chargesheet is filed. The court takes cognisance of them and before framing of the charges. In Jagan case five chargesheets are filed so far. In three cases the accused file discharge petitions.” 
Sources said that Kadapa MP Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy will also be filing discharge petition in the courts regarding the chargesheets filed against him stating that there is no case made out against him.
 

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Hyderabad/New Delhi: Telugu Desam chief Chandrababu Naidu on Monday said that he would not rest till all tainted ministers are removed from the Kiran Kumar Reddy government in the state.
Addressing the media after calling on President Pranab Mukherjee to request him to direct the authorities to act in the matter he said, “ I will not rest until I succeed in my mission.”
Training his guns on late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy (YSR) the TD president said YSR led the most corrupt Cabinet in the history of the state. Accusing the late chief minister and his son and Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of being hand-in-glove with the mining mafia, he said that they (mafia) not only changed the fate of AP, but also its boundary.
“They (mafia) not only changed the fate of AP, but also its boundary with Karnataka,” he said. Charging Jagan Mohan Reddy and his associates of committing “white collar” crimes, he said that the state lost Rs 43,000 crore on account of that. He further said that the CBI, which is investigating the disproportionate assets case, has made all the allegations and that he was only pointing to it.
Kanna Lakshmaiah, Dr J. Geetha Reddy and Ponnala Lakshmaiah are the three other ministers, who have been issued notices by the Supreme Court in the 26 controversial government orders’ case.
Naidu also said that the Kadapa MP diverted money to his own companies and one among them was a media group through which he told stories against Opposition leaders.
Ministers Sabita Indra Reddy and Dharmana Prasad Rao have tendered their resignations. Mopidevi Ramanna is already behind the bars in the Vanpic case.
Kanna Lakshmaiah, Dr J. Geetha Reddy and Ponnala Lakshmaiah are the three other ministers, who have been issued notices by the Supreme Court in the 26 controversial government orders’case.
Naidu also alleged that his efforts to compel Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to act against corrupt ministers, in the past has not been of any avail.

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The Congress on Monday removed all eight zonal presidents in Uttar Pradesh, including Union ministers R.P.N. Singh and Jitin Prasada and CWC member Rasheed Masood, and inducted local leaders.
The party took this corrective step in the backdrop of complaints reaching vice-president Rahul Gandhi. It named eight zonal in-charges, eight coordinators and 31 District Congress Committee chiefs “with immediate effect”.
The axed zonal chiefs included senior leaders P.L. Punia and Rajaram Pal, both MPs, and state leaders Vivek Singh, Anugrah Narayan Singh and Bijendra Singh. They were made zonal presidents only late last year.

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No BJP, jd-u rift: nitish
age Correspondent
Patna, May 20

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar denied Monday there was any rift between his JD(U) and the BJP, refuting the charge that he snubbed Darbhanga BJP MP Kirti Azad, while BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha reminded him that he had a “duty” to “strengthen” the NDA.

The UP lokayukta, Justice N.K. Mehrotra (Retd), has given a clean chit to BSP supremo Mayawati in the UP memorial scam while her government was in power, but said `1,400 crores was siphoned off by two former ministers, legislators, bureaucrats and technocrats in constructing memorials.
These revelations came after a year-long investigation by the lokayukta into alleged irregularities in construction of parks and memorials under the Mayawati government.
The lokayukta found 199 persons guilty of siphoning off money in the projects, and recommended action against them in a report that he submitted to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday.
The report says there is clear evidence of commission on the part of the 199 found guilty. He told reporters he had recommended filing of FIRs under the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) against 19 persons.
Justice Mehrotra has said FIRs should be filed against former BSP ministers Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Babu Singh Kushwaha, and 30 per cent of the money siphoned off should be recovered from them. The report claimed these two were at the centre of the scam.
He also recommended action against former legislators Sharda Pratap and Anil Maurya and sitting BSP MLA Ramesh Chandra Dubey. Of `4,300 crores spent on constructing memorials, it was found `1,400 crores was embezzled through inflated billing.

The Delhi police special cell on Monday recovered `20 lakhs in cash from the house of a relative of arrested cricketer Ajit Chandila at Palwal in Haryana. Chandila’s voice sample along with that of two bookies, Mannan and Jiju Janardan, have been taken to match the tapped conversations. The Delhi police Monday took Chandila to Palwal to conduct a raid at his aunt’s house that was videographed.
Earlier Monday the Rajasthan Royals filed a complaint against the three players, Chandila, S. Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan, for cheating and breach of trust, with the Delhi police, while a former Ranji Trophy player, Baburao Yadav was detained for questioning. Reports said the Rajasthan Royals also suspended the contracts of the three arrested cricketers. In what is emerging as a murky story of sex, sleaze and money, police sources claimed there was CCTV footage of Sreesanth with several girls.
Law minister Kapil Sibal, meanwhile, reiterated Monday that the government was considering bringing in a law to tackle match-fixing and betting in sports.
After Chandila’s interrogation, the police raided his aunt’s Palwal residence and recovered the slush money, sources said. The police claimed this `20 lakhs was the amount given to Chandila by bookies as part of the spot-fixing deal.
With questions being raised about the BCCI’s role, its anti-corruption unit chief Ravi Sawani, who was asked to head its spot-fixing probe, on Monday met Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar and other senior officials. After the meeting, Mr Sawani said the BCCI “will hold a separate disciplinary probe”, and the board would take the necessary steps after the anti-corruption unit gave its report. However, he refused to provide any deadline for submitting the report.
While there is no evidence of Sreesanth directly talking to bookies, the police claimed there was “enough evidence” and that others were “talking on his behalf”. While going through tapped conversations between the players and bookies, the police came across the name of Baburao Yadav. It was this player who allegedly fixed a meeting between Chandila and arrested bookie Sunil Bhatia.
With evidence creeping out from every corner, questions are now being raised on whether the “fixing” was limited to three IPL matches and just three players. So far a total of 17 people, including three IPL players and two former players, have been arrested since Thursday for alleged involvement in spot-fixing.

India and China were back to business on Monday, just a fortnight after their border standoff ended, signing eight agreements during the visit of Chinese Premier Li Kequiang.
The pacts ranged across several areas, including trade, culture and water resources, and were singed after the delegation-level talks between the two sides led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Li. With trade imbalance being a major issue, the two sides set up three working groups: Services Trade Promotion Working Group, Economic and Trade Planning Cooperation Group and Trade Statistical Analysis Group. This pact was signed by commerce minister Anand Sharma and his Chinese counterpart Gao Hucheng.
The joint statement after Monday’s discussions noted the two countries have agreed to take steps to tackle the trade imbalance. “These include cooperation on pharmaceutical supervision including registration, stronger links betwen Chinese enterprises and Indian IT industry and completion of phto-santiary negotiations on agro-products,” it said.

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Pil for probe by sit, IPL halting
Age Correspondent
new delhi, may 20

A public interest litigation case was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking formation of a Special Investigation Team to probe alleged irregularities, including recent revelations of spot-fixing, during IPL matches. The PIL has also sought a stay on the remaining four IPL matches, including the final, till the completion of the probe.

Acknowledging the need to maintain “peace and tranquility” along their border, India and China agreed on Monday to “push forward” negotiations on the boundary question and “seek a framework for a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” settlement.
The decision to seek an early resolution of the border dispute assumes significance in the backdrop of the recent incursion by Chinese troops in Ladakh lasting three weeks and leading to a military standoff. Importantly, the joint statement issued at the conclusion of delegation-level talks on Monday did not mention India’s affirmation of a “one China” policy that states Tibet and Taiwan are a part of China. Beijing had been keen on its inclusion in the joint statement, but New Delhi was “evasive” on the issue and ensured it was not included. Earlier, India had managed to avoid its mention in 2010 during the visit of then Premier Wen Jiabao too.
Yet another prickly issue between Beijing and New Delhi, the Dalai Lama’s continuing presence in India, was also raised by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during Monday’s discussions though “not at any great length”. India, however, stuck to its oft-repeated stand — that the Dalai Lama is a respected spiritual leader and does not carry out any political activities on Indian soil.
After Monday’s talks, the two sides also signed eight agreements, besides discussing trade and economic issues at length and agreeing to take steps to “address the issue of trade imbalance”. The two nations hope to reach a turnover target of $100 billion by 2015.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his remarks after the discussions, said the two sides “took stock of lessons learnt from the recent incident”, while also noting that the “existing mechanisms (to resolve disputes) proved their worth”. He further said the special representatives of both countries will now “consider further measures
that may be needed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border”.
There was no discussion Monday on the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement that has been proposed by the Chinese side, and to which New Delhi has adopted a cautious and calibrated approach. Having given a counter-proposal to Beijing, it now says they have to respond before any further discussion on this matter, while also seeking an exchange of maps first.
India’s ambassador to China S. Jaishankar told reporters later on Monday that the Chinese incursion was an “unusual incident”, and added: “We need to look into how this happened, and what are the lessons to be learnt.”
On yet another contentious matter, the building of dams by China on trans-border rivers like the Brahmaputra, which has raised Indian concerns, Mr Jaishankar said Beijing’s response was “sympathetic” and they had given assurances that “they will not do something which would damage India’s interests”.
Terming Mr Li’s visit, his first trip overseas after taking over, as “significant, substantive and a productive” one, Mr Jaishankar said: “There were wide-ranging talks, candid and frank... All matters were discussed. And it took place at a time when actually the relationship is expanding in many ways, cooperation is growing.”
The joint statement said the two sides will “further strengthen cooperation on trans-border rivers”. But it were the PM’s remarks that India wants the mandate of the expert-level mechanism to be expanded to include information-sharing on upstream development projects that really indicates India’s concerns about the proposed projects.
Significantly, in the joint statement also seemed to put behind them the recent tensions following the incursion. Tellingly, it not only took note of “mutual sensitivities for each others’ concerns and aspirations” but said both countries “view each other as partners for mutual benefit, and not as rivals and competitors”.
On a day that saw “personal chemistry” between the PM and the Chinese Premier, the latter admitted there were “some problems” between the two countries. On the boundary question, he said: “Both sides believe that with regard to the boundary question, one that is left over by history, the two sides have over time established the principles on this question.”
The Chinese leader added that “we need to improve the various border-related mechanisms that we have put in place, and make them more efficient and appropriately manage and resolve our differences”.
As for why the Chinese Premier chose India as his first stop overseas after taking over, there are indications that Beijing is anxious about US President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy. The declaration by then US defence secretary Leon Panetta that India was “a linchpin” in this strategy has raised Beijing’s concerns, hence its desire to reach out to India first.
With both sides appearing to put the recent boundary tensions behind them, the boundary talks between the special representatives are likely in late June, for which national security adviser Shivshankar Menon will travel to Beijing.
Further, in an indication that the recent military standoff was merely a blip on the radar, the two sides also agreed that “enhanced interaction in the military field was
conducive to building mutual trust and confidence” and agreed to increase exchanges between their armed forces.
Defence minister A.K. Antony will travel to China soon, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has accepted an invitation from the Chinese Premier to visit that country. The visit is expected to take place later this year.