Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi meet an injured person at a hospital

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi meet an injured person at a hospital in Raipur on Sunday, a day after the party's convoy was attacked by Maoists in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. — PTI

There was speculation on Monday that the Indian cricket board would be naming Ravi Shastri and Ajay Shirke, members of the IPL governing council, to the three-member probe commission that will look into the charges against Gurunath Meiyappan of Chennai Super Kings in the IPL betting/fixing scam.
The third member will be a retired high court judge. Questions now arise over the fairness of an internal inquiry in which an independent member can be outvoted by two deep-rooted BCCI functionaries. The cricket board’s anti-corruption and security unit has also begun a probe into spot-fixing, the report aon which will be submitted to the Supreme Court in two weeks’ time.
With BCCI chief N. Srinivasan, who was booed at the IPL-6 presentation ceremony at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens late Sunday night, now preoccupied with issues relating to the Kodaikanal Golf Club at its annual meeting in the hills, IPL governing council chairman Rajeev Shukla also sidestepped queries from the media in New Delhi.
Questions are already being asked how television commentator Ravi Shastri, who is paid an annual fee of `3.20 crores directly by the BCCI under a tripartite agreement between the board, the TV rights owner and broadcaster, and the BCCI’s honorary treasurer can be considered non-partisan members of the probe commission. “This is just another internal probe which will not stand legal scrutiny because the report will have to be given to the BCCI president, who is an interested party as the probe is about his son-in-law,” a lawyer pointed out.
The police, meanwhile, on Monday turned the heat on Chennai businessman and hotelier Vikram Aggarwal, who is suspected to have been the person who introduced Gurunath to Vindoo Dara Singh. His lawyer Abudukumar says Vikram is in the custody of Tamil Nadu’s CB-CID. The raids on Gurunath’s properties continued Monday with his fancy yacht, Riviera, being searched in Chennai harbour and several mobile phones and a diary recovered. Gurunath bought the yacht from former Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden, a sailing enthusiast.

A day after the IPL finals, there was a severe crackdown on bookies across the country. The Goa police arrested six bookies on information by the Delhi police, which is looking for three “fixers” alleged to be conduits of three more cricketers.
After monitoring a casino where bets for IPL matches were being placed, the teams drew a blank till the Goa police caught six bookies from a rented accommodation at Candolim, 9 km from Panaji. Two dozen mobile phones, laptops, iPads and huge sums in cash were recovered from the arrested bookies. Initial information was that all were from Mumbai. Their voice samples will be taken to match with recordings.
There were also arrests in Mumbai, Pune and Kanpur. Late Monday a bookie was arrested in the Greater Noida area.

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Sibal: No govt role, unless it is unavoidable
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, May 27

Union law minister Kapil Sibal on Monday ruled out any intervention by the government in the functioning of the cricket board unless it “becomes absolutely necessary”, but insisted the BCCI hould have a “transparent” system in place to prevent malpractices.
The law minister said the government should keep away from sports “as far as possible”.
He said: “Sports can’t be run by governments. Governments getting involved in sports activities will ultimately damage sports.”
He went on to add: “As far as possible the government should keep away. But when it becomes absolutely necessary, and there is no way out, then of course at that time the government can take a position.”

Defence minister A.K. Antony, inaugurating a new Air Force Station here Monday, ruled out deploying the Army or Air Force in anti-Naxalite operations.
Asked if the time was right to deploy the Army in anti-Naxal operations given the intensity of the Chhattisgarh attack on Saturday, Mr Antony rejected it. “There is no proposal like that. We extend our support without direct involvement. The real answer is to strengthen the police and paramilitary forces”, he said.
The defence ministry, he added, is strongly opposed to deploying the military in such operations.

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Last-minute route change is a mystery
Rabindra Nath Choudhury
Raipur, May 27

Did the last-minute change in the Congress convoy route lead to Saturday’s tragedy, in which 28 people, including Salwa Judum founder Mahendra Karma, PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel and a host of Congress leaders and workers, were killed by Maoists at Jiram Ghati in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region?
This question is being raised in several quarters in the state as a six-member NIA team arrived Monday to probe the biggest-ever strike by Maoists. There is speculation that a party leader from Dantewada suggested the change in route.

A thorough investigation into Bollywood actor-cum-bookie Vindoo Dara Singh’s involvement in the entire betting-cum-spot fixing scandal has led the police to a shocking conclusion: that he was in touch with at least 22 cricketers, including 13 foreign players.
Confirming this, a Mumbai crime branch source said this included some “big” players. Police officials say they are still checking if veteran actor Dara Singh’s son used his contacts to extract vital team information from these players, or if he used them in any other way to help his bookie friends for spot-fixing.
Taking advantage of his proximity with top Bollywood personalities and IPL team officials, Vindoo used to attend parties that included celebrities and cricketers. At the parties he developed contacts with as many as 22 players, including some of the big foreign players.
“The names of these players cropped up in interrogation and were also found in his diary. We are checking the nature of his association with these players, because as of now it is clear Vindoo was working as a front for many big bookies, including Chandresh Jain alias Jupiter, Pawan Jaipur, Sanjay Jaipur and Ashwin Agrawal alias Tinku, to extract vital information of IPL cricket teams for betting,” a crime branch official said.
“He allegedly used former CSK team principal Gurunath Meiyappan for the same, but we are checking whether he used players also for the same purpose and also if he lured them into spot-fixing or not,” the official added.
The police will produce Vindoo in court on Tuesday and seek an extension of his police custody.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi attends the last rites of slain party leader Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh

Declaring that the killings of top Congress leaders by Maoists in Chhattisgarh was an attack on “national security”, the Centre on Monday handed over the probe to the National investigation Agency, virtually equating the Naxal strike to a terrorist attack. The MHA has made it clear to the NIA brass that a “foolproof” case must be built with “concrete evidence” to ensure it doesn’t meet the fate of the 2010 Dantewada massacre probe, where all the 10 arrested accused were acquitted by a court for “lack of evidence” in March this year.
Spelling urgency to fix responsibility for glaring police lapses that led to 28 deaths, top Central officials led by Union home secretary R.K. Singh will visit Chhattisgarh on Tuesday for some blunt talking with top state officials. Chhattisgarh’s chief secretary and DGP will be asked to undertake a “tactical review” of the anti-Naxal operations and take urgent steps to improve policing, top sources said. The MHA doesn’t want to wait for the outcome of the judicial inquiry ordered by the state government, and may seek a departmental probe against Chhatti-sgarh police officers in charge of security plans for the Congress convoy that was ambushed by over 200 Maoists near Darba in Sukma district.
Amid speculation on how such a large gathering of armed Maoists went undetected by the state authorities, the government said Monday it was “intrigued” by the attack in which almost the entire Congress leadership in the state was wiped out. The sources added it would also probe why the convoy took a route that was known to be “risky”. An official said: “Darba is known as a popular Naxal den. Who suggested that the convoy should travel through it at a time when there was virtually no security cover available?” But he added: “It is too early to jump to any bigger conclusion, and there is going to be a judicial review.”
In Raipur, Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh acknowledged on Monday that “security lapses” had led to the deaths of the Congress leaders, but rubbished charges that proper security was not provided to them. “The charge that we did not provide adequate security is not correct. The government did make arrangements to ensure the safety
of leaders on the yatra. But definitely there are some security lapses. An inquiry has already been ordered to fix responsibility,” Mr Singh said.
The CM said strict action will be taken against those found responsible for the lapses. Asked if the situation warranted Army involvement in anti-Naxal operations, he said the region was not a “battleground”, and added that a two-pronged strategy — development and an integrated action plan to tackle the menace — was needed. He said he had spoken to the chief justice of the Chhattisgarh high court and requested him to depute a sitting judge for the inquiry as soon as possible.
While a manhunt is on for the entire Naxal leadership, NIA investigations are focused on three top Naxalite commanders — Katakam Sudarshan alias Anand; Ramanna, Dandkarnya special zonal committee secretary, and Ganesh Udke, south zonal regional committee secretary. It is also suspected that besides women cadres, even children belonging to the Bal Sangham Wing, the CPI(Maoist) children’s unit, also participated in the attack.
Waking up to the threat of Naxal attacks rising in states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh which will hold Assembly elections in months, the MHA on Monday clearly warned of a “continuing possibility of more attacks on political personalities and programmes”. In a fresh move, it asked all states affected by left-wing extremism to appoint a nodal officer in the state police headquarters exclusively tasked to “coordinate the programmes of all political parties”. It asked all such states to revamp the security of political workers and ensure political activities are not affected by violence.
An NIA team that reached Chhattisgarh late on Monday started its preliminary investigations, but conceded that it may be a long haul before the case is cracked and the actual conspirators are caught, given the modus operandi of Naxals and the difficult terrain in which they operate.
A detailed examination of the spot by the NIA reveals that the entire operation was planned days in advance. Food packets, bananas and water bottles recovered from the site indicates that the Naxals lay in ambush for some days. NIA officials suspect the planning and execution of the attack was done with the aid of the Maoists’ “military intelligence unit” and with the help of its Andhra leaders.
Katakam Sudarshan alias Anand, 53, hails from Adilabad in Andhra, and is one of CPI(Maoist)’s top nine leaders — part of the politburo and secretary of its “central regional bureau”. He is also in charge of operations in the Dandakaranya forests, north Telangana, and the Andhra-Orissa border . He is wanted in at least 17 cases in Andhra Pradesh, including several murders, and has a reward of `12 lakhs on his head.

82% pass CBSE class 12, girls again outshine boys

Class 12 students celebrate after the CBSE results were declared at St. Thomas School in New Delhi on Monday.
Over 82 per cent students cleared the Class 12 CBSE examinations, with girls once again outshining boys and the Chennai region beating others in the overall pass percentage.
Paras Sharma of Lancer Convent Senior Secondary School in Outer Delhi’s Rohini and Sopan Khosla of Delhi Public School from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, are among the all-India toppers with 99 per cent marks.
— BIPLAB BANERJEE

Malnutrition in children at the start of life severely impairs their learning ability affecting their literacy and then affects their earning ability later in life, according to a study commissioned by a British charity. The report has for the first time highlighted the extent to which a child’s brain can be permanently damaged if they do not receive the right nutrition in the first 1,000 days of their life.
Chronically malnourished children are 20 per cent less literate than those with a healthier diet, and less able to read or write a simple sentence, and score lower on maths tests, according to research presented in Save the Children’s latest report Food for Thought.
The report also calculated that children who are malnourished go on to earn 20 per cent less as adults than the children who are well nourished. However, it also quotes another study that estimates this earning deficit for malnourished children at 66 per cent.
By extrapolating a 20 per cent reduction in earnings to a global level, the report, which studied childhood poverty India, Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam, shows that today’s malnutrition could cost the global economy as much as $125 billion when today’s children reach working age in 2030.
In India, it has been estimated that the economic cost of micronutrient malnutrition amounts to between 0.8 per cent and 2.5 per cent of GDP, equivalent to $15–46 billion. In 2012, the UN figures suggested that 47 per cent children under five in southern Asia stunted, that is they were too short for their age due to poor nutrition. In India, 61.4 million children under five are stunted. To highlight the crisis, over 25 of world’s best-loved children’s authors and illustrators on Tuesday called on G8 leaders to step up their efforts to tackle hunger around the world.
“In Andhra Pradesh in India, if nutritional inequalities were tackled in such a way that low-caste children gained the same average nutritional status as their upper caste counterparts, this would close existing caste cognitive differentials by 25 per cent,” the study revealed.

Malnutrition in children at the start of life severely impairs their learning ability affecting their literacy and then affects their earning ability later in life, according to a study commissioned by a British charity. The report has for the first time highlighted the extent to which a child’s brain can be permanently damaged if they do not receive the right nutrition in the first 1,000 days of their life.
Chronically malnourished children are 20 per cent less literate than those with a healthier diet, and less able to read or write a simple sentence, and score lower on maths tests, according to research presented in Save the Children’s latest report Food for Thought.
The report also calculated that children who are malnourished go on to earn 20 per cent less as adults than the children who are well nourished. However, it also quotes another study that estimates this earning deficit for malnourished children at 66 per cent.
By extrapolating a 20 per cent reduction in earnings to a global level, the report, which studied childhood poverty India, Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam, shows that today’s malnutrition could cost the global economy as much as $125 billion when today’s children reach working age in 2030.
In India, it has been estimated that the economic cost of micronutrient malnutrition amounts to between 0.8 per cent and 2.5 per cent of GDP, equivalent to $15–46 billion. In 2012, the UN figures suggested that 47 per cent children under five in southern Asia stunted, that is they were too short for their age due to poor nutrition. In India, 61.4 million children under five are stunted. To highlight the crisis, over 25 of world’s best-loved children’s authors and illustrators on Tuesday called on G8 leaders to step up their efforts to tackle hunger around the world.
“In Andhra Pradesh in India, if nutritional inequalities were tackled in such a way that low-caste children gained the same average nutritional status as their upper caste counterparts, this would close existing caste cognitive differentials by 25 per cent,” the study revealed.

Breaking ranks with his largely silent BCCI colleagues, Union minister of state for power Jyotira-ditya Scindia, who heads the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association, came out with his firm opinion that BCCI president N. Srinivasan should step down from his post until the investigation into the betting, spot-fixing and match-fixing is complete.
“From my point of view, not for a second am I assuming that anybody is guilty. Having said that, in the interests of propriety and in the interest of the game at this point of time, when there is a questionmark surrounding an individual, surrounding the team (Chennai Super Kings) and surrounding the manager (sic) of that team who happens to be a family member, I believe in all sense of the word propriety that Mr Srinivasan must step aside,” Mr Scindia said.
He went on to say: “If you consider the conflict of interest he is in as one of his family members is (accused of) wrongdoing, then propriety demands that he should step aside. I would have done the same had I been in his place. Willy-nilly we are responsible for the wrongdoing of our family members to some extent.”
Mr Scindia told reporters: “The example has to come right from the top. I have made my stand clear.”

British chancellor George Osborne has started negotiations with the UK government departments to cut spending by £11.5 billion. Mr Osborne said on Tuesday that seven departments had already agreed cuts of up to 10 per cent for 2015-16.
The pledges amount to 20 per cent of the £11.5 billion which Mr Osborne wants to cut spending by from 2015.
Mr Osborne also specified that funding security, health, schools and foreign aid would be protected from the spending cuts which he is aiming to make.
He also ruled out raising taxes to reach his target. Mr Osborne has to announce departmental budgets for the first year of the next Parliament, in 2015-16, in the June 26 spending review.
After the growing anger over the role of security agencies in tracking the Woolwich extremists who murdered a British Soldier last week, Mr Osborne also vowed he would not do anything to endanger Britain’s security.
“We’ve been able to protect it in the past and I’m not going to do anything which is going to endanger the security of this country at home or abroad or the fight against terrorism, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t take a vast institution like the home office and look for savings,” Mr Osborne told BBC.

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Cops probe attacks in prison
age correspondent
London, May 28

British counter-terrorism police launched an investigation on Tuesday after an officer at a maximum security prison in Yorkshire was taken hostage by three male prisoners for over four hours and injured.
A male warder at HMP Full Sutton, which houses many terrorists, in Yorkshire was suffered a broken cheekbone after being held hostage by three male prisoners, two aged 25 and one aged 26 years.
A female prison officer, who tried to help her colleague, received minor injuries. Unconfirmed reports claimed that the three inmates were Muslim and had been inspired by the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby, but there has been no official confirmation.
“Inquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident. Given the nature of the incident and the range of skills and expertise within the North East CTU, the unit is leading the investigation at this time,” the North East Counter-Terrorism Unit said.

Resolving all issues with India will be incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s priority number one, his close aides said Tuesday. “There is a list of priorities, and good ties with India are top priority for Nawaz Sharif. He wants to solve all issues with India, including Kashmir”, a senior leader of Mr Sharif’s PML(N) told this newspaper.
“Soon after the oath-taking (likely on June 5), the PML-N government will take steps to come closer to India”, he added.
In his last stint in power, Mr Sharif started a dialogue process with then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for a resolution on Kashmir and other issues.
At a Lahore meeting Monday night with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special representative S.K. Lambah, the two “discussed ways to improve bilateral relations”, a PML-N leader said. “Mr Sharif on the need of a dialogue to settle all outstanding mutual issues”.

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Bubka joins race for top olympic job
Karolos Grohmann
ST. PETERSBURG (RUSSIA), May 28

Former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka will announce his bid for the presidency of the International Olym-pic Committee on Tuesday, a source close to the Ukrainian said.
“He will be making his announcement later today,” the source said.
Mr Bubka will join Germany’s Thomas Bach, Singapore’s Ng Ser Miang, C.K. Wu of Taiwan, Puerto Rican Richard Carrion and Swiss Denis Oswald in a six-way race for one of the biggest jobs in world sport.
— Reuters

Calling the Maoists who butchered Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh’s Darba on Saturday “terrorists”, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh challenged the Naxals for an electoral fight “if they are so confident of their ideology”. He claimed Saturday’s “carnage” will be a turning point in the battle against the Naxals.
Mr Ramesh, who has often visited the Naxal belt, more so after taking charge of rural development, warned left-leaning intellectuals not to “romanticise” Maoists, “who are terrorists as they spread terror”. Speaking to television channels on Tuesday, Mr Ramesh said the extremists “have no faith in the Constitution, democracy or democratic institutions”.

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Cong calls on Raman to quit over massacre
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, May 28

The Congress Party on Tuesday asked Chhattis-garh chief minister Raman Singh to quit for failing to protect people from Maoists, who it called “criminals”. It also demanded responsibility be fixed for this tragedy.
The Congress made it clear it will not abandon the “parivartan yatra” even after 28 people, including senior party leaders, were gunned down last Saturday. Saying that the Maoists were “scared” of the Congress even though it had been out of power in the state for nearly 10 years, party insiders suggested the Maoists had been soft on the BJP, which helped it in the last Assembly polls.
“Raman Singh should step down”, Congress spokesman Bhakta Charan Das said on Tuesday.

The BJP on Tuesday expelled Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani from its primary membership for six years for “breach of discipline”. Mr Jeth-malani, 89, one of India’s top lawyers, was initially suspended from the party in November last year and issued a showcause notice for raising the banner of revolt against then party president Nitin Gadkari.
In a letter to Mr Jethmalani, senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar said the party’s parliamentary board, after going through his reply to the showcause notice, decided unanimously to expel him from the party for six years. The letter said: “The central parliamentary board, after considering all your replies, responses and letters, was of the unanimous opinion that you indulged in a breach of discipline. The parliamentary board, therefore, decided to expel you for six years.”
His expulsion comes weeks after he barged into the parliamentary party meeting and questioned his continued suspension and attacked the leadership for going soft on the Congress over corruption. He said the party should either throw him out or take the notice back.
Mr Jethmalani will now be an independent member of the Upper House.

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PM: Sometimes the best can be enemy of good
Tokyo, May 28: An unusually candid Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Tuesday that in public life “sometimes the best can become the enemy of the good”. He was responding to a Japanese banker’s query about easing restrictions on opening foreign bank branches.
“These are tough technical questions... the preserve of our finance ministry and Reserve Bank of India. If I may confess to you, the higher we go in public life, the lesser we know of lower levels.” — PTI

Union home secretary R.K. Singh talks to the media at the police headquarters in Raipur on Tuesday. — PTI

In a major tactical shift, the government has decided to reverse its defensive posture and corner Maoists from all sides and chase them to their hideouts. Top sources said “multiple operations using multiple forces” will be carried out across the borders of Maoist-infested states in the months ahead. Simultaneously, the Centre virtually forced the Chhattisgarh government on Tuesday to fix responsibility for police lapses that led to Saturday’s brutal attack on Congress leaders which left 28 persons dead.
Hours after the CPI(Maoist) claimed responsibility for the barbaric attack on Congress leaders, the Union home ministry called for intensifying operations by the security forces, rejecting outright the Maoists’ demand to stop the anti-Naxal operations.
In a four-page statement to the media, Dandakaranya special zonal committee spokesman Gudsa Usendi said: “The main objective behind the attack was to eliminate Mahendra Karma and some reactionary Congress leaders”. The statement made it clear that besides Mr Karma, Chhattisgarh PCC president Nand Kumar Patel and former Union minister V.C. Shukla were the “main targets” of the attack. Hours later, the Centre said no peace talks will be held with Maoists till they give up violence. Instead, anti-Naxal forces will launch a multi-pronged offensive and take the battle to the Maoist camps.
Minister of state for home R.P.N. Singh said “Maoist barbarism and cold-blooded murders have peaked in the last six months”, and added there was an urgent need for a relook at policy and intensify anti-Naxal operations.
“The Maoists have no respect for human rights. They are not interested in talks or following democratic processes. There will be no talks unless they abjure violence, There will be more active operations,” he said.
Making it clear it meant business, a Central team led by Union home secretary R.K. Singh that visited Chhattisgarh on Tuesday minced no words in holding the state police responsible for the major security lapse. Late Tuesday evening, the Chhattisgarh government suspended Bastar SP Mayank Shrivastava, shifted Bastar IG Himangshu Gupta and made DGP Ramniwas in charge of VIP security, to be assisted by an IG and DIG level officer.
On the civil side, Bastar collector P. Anbalgan was also removed, and replaced by Ankit Anand.
The Union home secretary briefed Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth after his return to New Delhi. Sources said a clear tactical shift in the anti-Naxal strategy will be seen in the next few months. While earlier the posture was defensive and security forces carried out small intelligence-based operations, an all-out offensive will be carried out now using multiple specialised forces and UAVs.
“The operation will be quite similar to that conducted in the AbujMad forests last year where paramilitary forces combed the entire jungle and every movement of every team was tracked with satellites,” an official said. The decision was taken after discussions at the highest level between the Chhattisgarh government, the Intelligence Bureau, CRPF and others.
“The aim is to force the Maoists to retreat, build pressure to make their cadres surrender and hunt down their top leadership,” a senior official said.
The government will rope in the Andhra Greyhounds, the specialised anti-Naxal force Cobra, Central paramilitary forces CRPF, BSF and ITBP to carry out the offensive across Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and other states. The MHA, however, ruled out bringing in the Army for anti-Naxal operations.
Notably, this time, the Union home ministry is confident of mustering the support of almost all political class given that the Maoists have found “soft targets” in politicians for the first time, and hit at the root of the “democratic process” months ahead of Assembly polls in several states and the 2014 general election.
The June 5 chief ministers’ conference on internal security, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is expected to be critical with the Centre urging all states to come on board to fight the Naxal menace.
States like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which have taken a softer stand in fighting the Maoist menace, are likely to join in. “If there is consensus in the political class to fight left-wing extremism, half the battle is won,” a top security official said.
The CPI(Maoist), in its statement running into several pages, spelt out their differences with slain Congress leader Mahendra Karma to justify his killing. “Karma hailed from a feudal family of Badda Manjhi caste. The family has been a traditional oppressor of tribals. Karma was the architect of Salwa Judum movement, which caused oppression of tribals of Bastar in the form of murders, rape and displacement of a large number of locals”, it said. The statement blamed PCC president Nand Kumar Patel for first deploying Central forces in Bastar when he was state home minister in 2000-03. The statement said V.C. Shukla, who was a Union minister for a long time, was also an “enemy of the common man”. In the statement, the CPI(Maoist) demanded the withdrawal of paramilitary forces from Dandakaranya, shelving of Operation Green Hunt and the release of “innocent tribals” arrested for their links with Maoists.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confers the Padma Shri on Japanese Tamil language professor Noboru Karashima

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confers the Padma Shri on Japanese Tamil language professor Noboru Karashima of Taisho University in Tokyo on Tuesday for his outstanding contribution in the field of literature and education. — AFP

Social activist Aruna Roy has decided not to continue in the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi- led NAC after her term expires on Friday.

Roy has written to Gandhi requesting that she should not be considered for another term of NAC and the UPA chairperson has accepted the request.

“I am grateful for your accepting my request, while assuring your continued support to campaigns for social sector causes being taken up outside the NAC,” Roy has said in a letter to Gandhi.

Roy’s NAC term comes to an end on May 31.

She has also criticised the Prime Minister’s office for not taking up the recommendations of NAC on minimum wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

“I do believe that it is extremely unfortunate that the Prime Minister rejected the NAC recommendations on payment of minimum wages to MGNREGA workers and chose instead to appeal the Karnataka high court judgement ordering payment of minimum wages to MGNREGA workers,” she said.

“Even more distressing is the Government’s refusal to pay minimum wages even after the Supreme Court refused to stay the Karnataka high court judgement. It is difficult to understand how a country like India can deny the payment of minimum wages and still makes claims of inclusive growth. However, I realise that this effort to persuade the Government to respect the minimum wages law must now continue outside the NAC,” she said.

Highlighting the role of NAC, she said the NAC working group on implementation of flagship programmes took up several issues related to implementation of the MGNREGA.

“The recommendations of the working group were sent to the ministry, which has set up a programme advisory group to oversee implementation of these recommendations and the new guidelines that have been issued by the rural development ministry. Despite its contribution to changing the lives of the rural poor, implementation of this crucial flagship programme remains a challenge,” she said.

On the Food Security Bill, Roy said, “The recent record of Parliament on debating policy and legislation underscores the need for this process. Given the hunger and malnutrition scenario in the country, a Food Security Bill should have been debated and passed by Parliament by now. There has been extensive and healthy debate within the NAC as well as in the public domain on the provisions of the Bill, making it clear that if Parliament were to take it up, it would most likely result in robust and well supported legislation,” she said.

The activist appreciated the freedom she enjoyed during her tenure in NAC.

“I would also like to record my deep appreciation of the democratic freedom I enjoyed as a member of the NAC. I can say with absolute certainty, that I have expressed my views fully and openly. It has never been even mildly suggested by you as the chairperson, that I curtail my expression either within, or outside the NAC. This has given me the space to finish my term with the NAC, with the confidence that I contributed my best to its functioning; without intellectual compromise, or negatively affecting my role outside.”

Roy said she looked forward to a continued association with all members of the NAC, and petitioning the NAC from the outside.

The Congress on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of “working in tandem” with the Maoists in Chhattisgarh for electoral gain. It said this ahead of the all-party meeting called by chief minister Raman Singh in the state on Thursday, which the Congress has decided to boycott.
Congress spokesman Bhakta Charan Das said the CLP and the state party unit had decided to boycott the meeting. At the AICC briefing earlier, Mr Das had said the party will attend the meeting, apparently unaware of the state unit’s decision.
Mr Das claimed the Maoists and the BJP were “working closely” in Chhattisgarh, and emphasised “there is substance in our charges, and we are making them forcefully”.
Posing a query to Mr Raman Singh, he said: “Does the chief minister feel he can absolve his responbility after acting against the SP, IGP and collector?”
Reiterating the Congress’ demand, Mr Das said “the chief minister should quit, accepting his responsibility”.

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Sree’s friend among 4 more held for ‘fix’
Age Correspondents
New Delhi, May 29

The Delhi police has arrested four more persons, including two bookies and a third man said to be a friend of arrested cricketer Sreesanth, in the spot-fixing case.
A senior police official said Abhishek Shukla, a friend of Sreesanth, had helped the cricketer hide the money he earned from spot-fixing as well as some other items.
The two bookies arrested are Nitin Jain and Vinod Sharma, while the fourth man is Vicky, alias Vikas Choudhary, a bouncer.
Three of them were produced in a Delhi court on Wednesday. Chief metropolitan magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma remanded the three — Vinod Sharma, Nitin Jain and Vikas Chowdhury — to police custody until Thursday.
The police was pulled up for “hiding” Abhishek’s arrest, and for taking him to Mumbai without its permission. n More on Page 20

With time running out for UPA-2 to fulfill its 2009 poll manifesto, the government is gearing up to call a five-day special session of Parliament from July 1 to 5 in a bid to pass two contentious laws — the National Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011.
The proposal for a special session awaits Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s approval, and is likely to be placed before the Union Cabinet next week after Dr Singh is back from his ongoing two-nation tour. The urgency in calling a special session even though the Monsoon Session begins from August 8 is that states will need a minimum of six months to put in place mechanisms to deliver the Food Bill’s benefits to its recipients, and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls are due by April-May next year.
Sources said the move for a special session was fast-tracked after Congress president Sonia Gandhi voiced her displeasure at the delay in passing the two bills. “The matter was discussed among senior Cabinet ministers, who have agreed to hold a special session for five days from July 1 to 5. The five-day duration will allow MPs to discuss the Food Bill and Land Bill to their satisfaction,” a source said.
While the government had spiritedly pushed the Food Bill in the just-concluded Budget Session, it remained elusive due to disruptions in both Houses.

Pressure from within mounted further Wednesday for N. Srinivasan’s departure as head of the BCCI, rising like the mercury in summer, but the cricket board president remained adamant and refused to heed the growing chorus against his continuing in office until the police investigation and the board’s internal probe have run their course.
Wednesday began with IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla asking Mr Srinivasan to “disassociate” himself from the BCCI probe against his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, but the calls for Mr Srinivasan to go grew shriller with former ICC and BCCI presidents Sharad Pawar and Jagmohan Dalmiya pitching in with remarks that got to the heart of the matter: the fair name of cricket.
Mr Pawar, Union agriculture minister and former BCCI chief with whom Mr Srinivasan has fallen out, broke his silence on Wednesday and sought a home ministry probe into all 75 IPL-6 matches in the wake of the spot-fixing and betting allegations.
Mr Srinivasan, meanwhile, attending to work at the BCCI’s headquarters in Mumbai for the first time since all hell broke loose in the betting and spot-fixing scandals, said defiantly on Wednesday: “I saw Mr Shukla’s interview. What he says is that this commission has been appointed, and I should disassociate myself... I had said in Kolkata I will have nothing to do with the commission — its appointment, terms of reference and its decisions.”
The question that is now being asked in legal circles is how did the BCCI get to pick the two retired judges to serve on the panel when propriety demands that it seek the help of a judicial authority like the Supreme Court to name the judges. An internal probe ordered by a body which has the right to set terms of reference of the probe and act on the findings may not stand legal scrutiny, as the BCCI once found out in its case against players it had Asad Rauf denies role, ready for ICC probe banned in 1989.
Mr Rajeev Shukla, IPL chairman, went further on Wednesday and said his own desire was to “disassociate” himself from the scam-hit IPL next season because of all the scandals having damaged the game’s image. BCCI president-in-waiting Arun Jaitley is also reported to have concurred with Mr Shukla’s view on the need for Mr Srinivasan to stay away from the BCCI until the internal inquiry is complete.
Union minister of state for sports Jitendra Singh was under no such compulsion to pull his punches. He said in a pointed statement: “The BCCI is inquiring into the allegations of match- and spot-fixing. As there is a conflict of interest in this inquiry, therefore the BCCI president should tender his resignation on moral grounds, pending the outcome of the inquiry.” The sports ministry said it was observing the unfolding events “with considerable disquiet”.
Mr Pawar said the reputation of the game and the board had been affected by the scandals, and said he favoured “ruthless and effective action” against anyone found guilty. In a veiled attack on Mr Srinivasan, he said that if he had remained at the helm, he would not have allowed “this nonsense” to happen.
Endorsing the suggestion of his successor Shashank Manohar for a government probe into all IPL matches played this season, Mr Pawar said: “If the BCCI gives in writing to the home minister and requests him to investigate all the matches, the government can then investigate all matches. They can interrogate anybody. They have legal sanction. That is why Mr Manohar’s suggestion is useful and effective, and the board should accept it.”
He added: “If, however, the board does not accept it and says its own anti-corruption unit will do the job, I feel the board is not serious in dealing with wrongdoings.”
Mr Pawar, however, parried a question whether Mr Srinivasan should quit, saying: “I don’t want to say if someone should go or someone should not go because I am nobody... I have no authority to ask for resignations.
Nor do I have the authority to comment on the opinions expressed by others. I would not have allowed this to happen.”
In Mumbai, a Jharkhand cricket association member filed a complaint in a magistrate’s court against the BCCI and its functionaries for “cheating” the public in the wake of the spot-fixing scandal. The complainant, Naresh Makani, who named BCCI functionaries and also Gurunath Meiyappan of Chennai Super Kings, alleged that all IPL matches were “fixed” and that the franchise owners were involved. “The circumstances clearly establish that matches are not arranged as sporting events, but to earn billions wrongfully,” the complaint reads.