NEW DELHI : Road and Transport Secretary Sanjay Mitra will be the next Defence Secretary, it was announced on Wednesday.

Mitra, a 1982 batch IAS officer of West Bengal cadre, will succeed G. Mohan Kumar whose tenure ends May 24, said a government order. He will have a fixed two-year tenure as Defence Secretary.

Appointment of Sanjay Mitra, lAS (WB:1982), Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways as Officer on Special Duty in the Ministry of Defence. The officer will take over as Secretary, Ministry of Defence on completion of tenure of the present incumbent Shri G. Mohan Kumar on 24.05.17.

NEW DELHI : The International Court of Justice, ICJ, in Hague has stayed the death sentence given by Pakistani Military Court (FGMC) to Kulbhushan Jadhav. The UN court at the Hague has sent a letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to put an embargo on the previous order as India had accused Pakistan to violating the norms of Vienna Convention. 

India Calls It ‘Premeditated Murder’
The Indian government has repeatedly rejected the charges on Jadhav and has also questioned his arrest. In the wake of this death sentence, India summoned the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi, Abdul Basit, and issued a demarche, condemning the act as ‘farcical’. The demarche also stated: “If this sentence against an Indian citizen, awarded without observing basic norms of law and justice, is carried out, the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder.”
India has always maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran and had no link with Balochistan separatists (which Pakistan accused Jadhav of). Islamabad also repeatedly rejected India’s request to have access to Jadhav, who had allegedly possessed an Iranian residency permit and a passport in the name of Hussain Mubarak Patel. Apparently, the address given in the passport was that of Sangli, Maharashtra.
Some senior Pakistani journalists and leaders have also come to know that the Indian national was allegedly framed by the Pakistani army. They are also of the opinion that he hasn’t been given sufficient chances to defend himself.
The human rights watchdog Amnesty International has also condemned the death sentence given to Jadhav. It has stated: “Under Pakistan’s military courts, no information about the charges or evidence against suspects is made public.”
On the other hand, Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, has said that the death sentence should serve as a ‘warning’ to those ‘plotting against‘ Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Hurry Is Suspicious
In 2013, Indian national Sarabjit Singh, who was also sentenced to death for similar charges, was killed inside Lahore’s Lakhpat Jail in a cold-blooded attack by jail inmates.
Six months after India’s ‘surgical strike’, Pakistan again proved that no number of diplomatic talks can release the tension between the two countries. In the current scenario, bilateral talks between India and Pakistan seem to be a dream rather than a reality.
Pakistan has been continuously accusing India for fuelling violence in Balochistan without evidence. Moreover, despite the fact that India had submitted dossiers on the Pathankot and Uri attacks, which apparently contained sufficient evidence of Pakistani involvement in the attacks, Pakistan was unmoved and remained inactive for months.
Now this impulsive action by Pakistan’s army court may well worsen the diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Options before Kulbhushan Jadhav
According to the existing laws in Pakistan, the military court convicts are not eligible to appeal in the civilian court. But there are two options available to Jadhav. (Source- Indiatoday.in)
– Pakistan Army Act 1952 gives right to a convict to appeal in the Military Appellate Tribunal. – The second option is to appeal for a ‘review’ in the FGCM court. 

NEW DELHI : The Supreme Court on Tuesday held beleaguered liquor baron Vijay Mallya guilty of contempt on plea by consortium of banks.
The court asked Mallya to appear before it on July 10.
A bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit gave Mallya an opportunity to present his case on July 10, when the case will next be heard. 
The court order came on a petition by a consortium of 13 banks led by State Bank of India seeking the recovery of more than Rs 6,000 crore that they had given to now grounded Kingfisher Airlines.
The conviction was on the basis a contempt on plea filed by the consortium of banks.

Exposure to harmful environmental factors across multiple domains — including air, water and land quality — may increase risk of cancer, suggests new research.
  The researchers in the US found that poor environmental quality is particularly strongly linked to prostate and breast cancer cases.   “Our study is the first we are aware of to address the impact of cumulative environmental exposures on cancer incidence,” said one of the researchers Jyotsna Jagai of the University of Illinois, Chicago.  “This work helps support the idea that all of the exposures we experience affect our health, and underscores the potential for social and environmental improvements to positively impact health outcomes,” Jagai said.   Published online in the journal CANCER, the findings may help to reduce the burden of cancer by allowing officials to identify vulnerable communities in need of attention.  To investigate the effects of overall environmental quality across multiple domains, the researchers linked the Environmental Quality Index, a county-level measure of cumulative environmental exposures, with cancer incidence rates.  The average annual county-level incidence rate for all types of cancer was 451 cases per 100,000 people.   Counties with poor environmental quality demonstrated a higher incidence of cancer cases –on average 39 more cases per 100,000 people — than counties with high environmental quality over the study period.   Increased rates were seen for both males and females, and prostate and breast cancer demonstrated the strongest positive associations with poor environmental quality, the study said.

(With Inputs from IANS)

NEW DELHI : The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is set to announce new fares on Monday, an official said.
  “The Board of Directors is meeting to decide on the hike in fares of Delhi metro,” an official told IANS.  “The announcement on the fare hike will be made in the evening,” he said.  He termed as “speculation” reports in the media about the quantum of hike in fares.

(With Inputs from IANS)

NEW DELHI : India’s two most prestigious institutions, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and CSIR joined hands to form a “Make in India Technology Development and Deployment Venture”. 

The MoU was exchanged in the presence of Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Science & Technology and vice-president CSIR, Dr. Girish Sahni, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, S&T Minister expressed immense happiness on CSIR and CII joining hands. He said that CSIR and industry should have synergistic partnership for developing and deploying technologies addressed at unmet needs within a defined time frame. CSIR has a large number of technologies which could be commercialised in partnership with industry. However, CSIR does not have the necessary wherewithal for deployment of these technologies. He emphasized that there should be joint national level programmes in CSIR-Industry partnership mode addressing national priorities.

Dr. Girish Sahni, DG, CSIR expressing joy of joining hands with CII, explained the mechanism that CSIR is putting in place to leverage its partnership with industry. For each R&D / Commercialization project, CSIR, through its chain of R&D labs will provide scientific and technological support in the form of scientific infrastructure and high quality manpower resources in the form of scientists & technical persons whereas the industry will identify the technology need and will invest in the projects. Respective line ministries will be explored to co-invest in these projects to bear the risk.

The CSIR Innovation Fund which would be made operational soon will help handhold the start-ups and would also support the partnership necessary with the industry to take the developments forward in fast track mode once proof of concept is established. He further said that CSIR is also setting up Incubation Centres in CSIR laboratories which would provide the necessary facilities for industry to incubate and work with CSIR laboratories in real time and space.

Indian industry’s R&D spend has been around 0.3% of GDP as against global average of 1.5% of GDP. CII has been working to stimulate industry’s investment through multiple ways while CSIR has been striving to bring technologies in the forefront through industrial research. CII is also instrumental in attracting industry’s R&D investment through its unique PPP Joint Venture Company, Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) where 50:50: investment model has been showing success with DST, MeitY, DHI as the partners. 

This joint initiative “Make in India Technology Venture” will focus on priority sectors aligning to India’s key aspirations under Make in India, Digital India, Start-up India, Skill India, Clean India etc. It will lead to development and deployment of critical platform technologies with many product technologies resulting into India’s technology value addition in manufacturing which will contribute significantly to growth of GDP and high-tech exports. The scope would expand to synergise the efforts with line ministries. The proposal is to have consortium of industries with CSIR through its constituent laboratory (s) working on a single development project with line ministries and industries sharing the risk of financial investment. 

A high-level Apex body named “Technology Development & Deployment Advisory Council” (TDDAC) will also be formed under this MoU. It will provide policy directions and monitor the activities of the program, and the members of the TDDAC will be invited from participating line ministries, experts from academic and R&D institutions, industry associations, participating PE/VC companies.

As a next step, CII and CSIR and respective line ministries will constitute an Apex Body and sectoral project management cells to finalise the priority technology areas and models of partnerships for each case of technology development.

NEW DELHI : The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Monday announced a 15-member squad led by Virat Kohli for the ICC Champions Trophy, starting June 1 in England.
  The team has no surprises, with off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and pacer Mohammed Shami making it back to the team, after their respective injury lay offs. Team for ICC Champions Trophy 
Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, M.S. Dhoni (WK), Yuvraj Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah, Ajinkya Rahane

(With Inputs from IANS)

NEW DELHI : Stepping up his attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, sacked Delhi Minister Kapil Mishra on Monday claimed that Health Minister Satyendar Jain had told him that he had settled a Rs 50 crore land deal in favour of Kejriwal’s brother-in-law. The party trashed the allegations accusing Mishra of being hand in glove with BJP and the central government.

 Two days after he was sacked, Mishra went to the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) and claimed to have evidence in support of his allegations that two people close to Kejriwal tried to influence the probe in the water tanker scam.

 He also dared Kejriwal and Jain to undergo a lie detector test and offered to subject himself to such a test.

 Denying Mishra’s allegations, Jain said that “no such land deal took place” and said he would file a defamation case against Mishra.

 “There is a limit to lying. I wasn’t present at CM’s residence on May 5 (Friday) and I can prove it in many ways,” Jain said. “Show us papers (of land deal) or proof if its true?” he said.

 “He has lost mental balance and making baseless allegations as he did not even spare Kejriwal’s deceased brother-in-law,” he said. 

 Jain said that Mishra was making allegations against Kejriwal’s brother-in-law (Surendra Bansal) who is “no more”.

 The former Water Minister said he will meet Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials on Tuesday, give all evidence in support of the allegations and file an FIR.

 The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) fielded its senior leader Sanjay Singh to trash the allegations leveled by Mishra.

 Singh accused the BJP and the central government of being behind Mishra in his campaign against Kejriwal, saying this is part of a larger conspiracy to “finish off” the party and to “silence” the opposition.

 Singh told the media that the kind of allegations Mishra had made made it clear that he was being used to harass Kejriwal and other ministers in the Delhi government.

 “Mishra is now speaking the language of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. He is saying the same thing the two parties had been saying for months. This makes it clear who is behind all this,” he said.

 Singh said Mishra was making all sorts of allegation like that he witnessed Kejriwal taking Rs 2 crore from Jain.

 “Party’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) will sit today (Monday) and discuss about the action against Kapil Mishra,” he said in response to a question about possible action against the sacked Delhi minister.

 “Making such serious allegations, Mishra did not even feel it important to clarify when the deal was conducted and which relative of Kejriwal was involved,” Singh said.

 On Monday, Mishra filed a complaint regarding what is known as the water tanker scam with the ACB, saying Kejriwal delayed action in the case.

 “The ACB is under the central government which is ruled by the BJP. It is the BJP which is behind all this,” Singh said.

 The AAP leader said that at a time when the country was facing serious internal and external security threats, the only priority for the BJP and the central government was to finish off the AAP.

 Rejecting the BJP’s demand for Kejriwal’s resignation, Singh said that “severe” allegations of corruption were made against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley by suspended BJP member Kirti Azad, but nothing happened.

 “Despite serious allegations of corruption against Jaitley, he is still holding the post of Finance Minister. So, we do not need to learn the lessons of morality and principles from the BJP and the Congress,” Singh said.

 Countering Singh, Mishra met the media again in the evening to claim that Jain had told him that he managed a Rs 50 crore land deal in Chhattarpur (south Delhi) for Kejriwal’s brother-in-law.

 “The deal was finalised for the Bansal family,” he said.

 Rebutting Singh’s charge that he spoke BJP’s language, Mishra said he had always spoken stridently against the BJP’s policies and the government and decried the way the AAP brands people who speak against the leadership. 

 “I would never join the BJP,” he said and dared his detractors to provide even a shred of evidence that he was in league with the BJP.

 Singh rejected Mishra’s allegations about the land deal, saying “these are all wild allegations and without any proof”, a view echoed by Jain.

 He also said it was a conspiracy to arrest AAP ministers and dismiss the government. 

 Meanwhile, ACB chief Mukesh Kumar Meena said Mishra did not give any complaint regarding Kejriwal accepting money from Jain.

 He said that Mishra came to the ACB office to make a statement in water tanker scam case.

 “We will take a detailed statement and then we will start our probe,” Meena said.

(With Inputs from IANS)

KOLKATA : Giving a fresh twist to his three and a half month stand-off with the Supreme Court, Calcutta High Court Justice C.S. Karnan on Monday “sentenced” Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar and seven other apex court judges to five year rigorous imprisonment.

Justice Karnan, who is facing contempt charges for degrading the judiciary and making allegations of corruption against several Supreme Court judges, held the eight judges guilty of harassing a “Dalit Judge” (him), with a “common intention”.

The 12-page “order” said the accused have “committed” an offence “punishable under the SC/ST Atrocities Act of 1989 and amended Act of 2015”.

However, the Supreme Court has already restrained Justice Karnan from discharging any judicial and administrative functions and directed all authorities and tribunals not to take cognisance of any “purported” order passed by him.

The other judges named in the “order” are Justice Dipak Misra, Justice J. Chelameswar, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madan B Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice R. Banumathi.

While seven of the judges were members of the bench that initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against Justice Karnan, Justice Banumathi along with the Chief Justice Khehar had restrained him from discharging any judicial and administrative functions.

Justice Karnan also imposed fines of Rs 1 lakh on three counts under three-sub-sections of section 3 of the SC/ST Atrocities Act on all the eight judges.

The sentences would run concurrently, he said, and asked Delhi’s Commissioner of Police to execute the order.

SC judges have to pay the amount, within a week of receiving the order, to the National Commission, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes.

In case they fail to pay, they would undergo further six months imprisonment.

Justice Karnan also ordered Justice Banumathi to pay him a Rs 2 crore compensation, and directed the Supreme Court Registrar General to recover the amount from her and remit it to his account.

He also refereed to his April 13 order asking the judges (except Justice Banumathi against whom he had not passed any order that day) to pay Rs 14 crore to him as compensation and decreed that the order stood “declared and suitable for execution” as it has not been challenged.

He directed the Supreme Court Registrar General to recover the amount from the salary of the seven judges and remit it to his account.

“If the accused are aggrieved by this order, they are at liberty to approach parliament.

“Until such time the accused 1-8 shall not hold office and not be permitted to deal in any cases on the file of the Supreme Court besides any administrative orders,” Karnan said, pronouncing the order from the ‘make-shift court’ at his residence Rosedale Tower in New Town in Kolkata’s North Eastern fringes.

Karnan directed the union and state governments not to avail the services of the eight judges “since they are functioning out of law for their personal gain”.

He also ordered the government to pay him Rs 2.85 lakh in relief and directed the “District Magistrate of Kolkata” to make necessary administrative arrangements to provide the relief in cash or kind.

In January, Karnan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi naming 20 “corrupt judges”, and seeking probe against them to curb “high corruption” in the Indian judiciary.

The Supreme Court then issued him a contempt notice, an unprecedented step against a sitting judge. After he failed to appear, it on March 10, in another first time move, issued a bailable warrant against him.

But the judge escalated the row by ordering a Central Bureau of Investigation probe against the seven judges.

Karnan appeared before the seven-judge bench on March 31, but renewed the confrontation on April 13, passing a “judicial order” against them for “violating” the SC/ST Act and also asked them to appear before him.

Later, he directed the Air Control Authority in New Delhi not to allow the CJI and other six judges to travel abroad.

The Supreme Court asked him to undergo a medical test on May 4, but Karnan not only refused to comply, but also hit back by directing Delhi Police to conduct a psychiatric test of the seven judges.

NEW DELHi : The Indian government’s demonetisation measures did not impede future black money flows in new denominations, a UN report said on Monday.

According to UN Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2017, complementary measures to demonetisation would be required to target all forms of undeclared wealth and assets.

“Broader structural reforms which could also contribute to enhanced transparency include: the implementation of a goods and services tax; voluntary disclosure of income scheme; and tracking of high-value transactions through taxpayer identification numbers,” it said.

“Other measures, such as reforming the real estate registration process to ensure transparency, are being discussed.”

As per the report, the disruption caused by demonetisation had “greater and longer-lasting” impacts for lower-income individuals, households and businesses that had difficulty insulating themselves against the shock.

“Rural incomes and consumption were affected due to a decline in prices for agricultural products (although again, this was not reflected in the national accounts data which measure agriculture in terms of quantity),” the report said.

“In the medium-term, the currency initiative is expected to bring more economic activities into the formal sector and spur digitisation of financial transactions, helping to broaden the tax base and secure the fiscal space needed for public social and infrastructure expenditures.”

The report pointed out that “one-off” currency measure in effect transferred lost black money to the central government through unclaimed or unexchanged notes.

“Preliminary estimates suggested a 97 per cent recovery of notes, which would imply a 3.16 per cent increase in fiscal revenues for the government,” the report read.

On November 8, 2016, exactly six-months ago Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would withdraw India’s two largest currency denominations — Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 — from circulation.

The two bank note denominations which were withdrawn represented more than 86 per cent of the cash in circulation.

(With Inputs from IANS)