State-owned CIL said that it is ready for the conciliation even as employees’ unions of the coal PSU have threatened to go on five-day strike beginning January 6.

“As and when the (notice of strike) is received, we shall go for conciliation process,” Coal India (CIL) said in a filing to BSE.

CIL said that it has learnt from the newspaper reports that four trade unions–Indian National Mineworkers Federation (INMFW), Hind Khadam Mazdoor Federation, AITUC-controlled Indian Mine Workers Federation and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh– have decided to go on strike from January 6-10.

However, CIL added that it has yet to receive an official notice from the unions.

Employee unions of state-owned CIL and SCCL had on December 17 threatened to go on strike.

The strike call comes at a time when the country is grappling with coal shortages and as many as 43 thermal power plants are facing significant fuel deficit.

The charter of demands include stopping or withdrawing “process of denationalisation of coal sector” and stopping “disinvestment, restructuring of CIL” (Coal India) among others.

The demands also includes extending National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA) wages and other benefits to existing and prospective captive coal workers and lifting the ban on general recruitment.

Regularising contract workers engaged in mining jobs in underground as well as open cast mines is another demand.

Earlier, the proposed strike on November 24 by CIL employee unions was deferred after a meeting between Coal Ministry officials and trade unions.

As per latest data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), 43 thermal power plants had coal available for less than seven days as on December 18.

GUWAHATI, India (AP) — An explosion in the parking lot of a bus station early Sunday killed three people and wounded five others in India’s remote northeastern state, where several separatist groups operate, police said.
The homemade bomb went off in Imphal, the capital of Manipur state, killing three construction workers, said police Superintendent Ibomcha Singh.
Five other men were hospitalized.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Imphal is about 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Guwahati, the biggest city in the region.
At least 17 separatist groups are active in Manipur state and often stage hit-and-run attacks on government forces. Their demands range from greater autonomy for the state to an independent homeland for the people of Manipur.

More than 30,000 suspects have been arrested in a two-month long crackdown on porn and gambling activities in China’s south Guangdong Province.
The province has so far arrested 3,014 people and more than 5,000 others were put under criminal detention in the campaign, the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department said.
In one case, police cracked down an online gambling gang in Huizhou City on November 24.
The gambling activities involved funds totalling 30 million yuan, (USD five million), state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.
Police said they will continue to crack down on the illegal activities to prevent them from rebounding.
Earlier this year, police in the province had captured 3,033 suspects in a prostitution crackdown launched after a February media exposure of sex services offered at hotels in the city of Dongguan, which is notorious for its illegal sex trade.

STANBUL: A Turkish court on Friday remanded in custody the head of a national TV network and three ex-police officers on terrorism charges, in a case linked with a top foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that has strained EU ties.

Prosecutors also asked an Istanbul court to issue an arrest warrant for Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Turkish cleric who Erdogan regards as his top enemy, also on terrorism charges.

Samanyolu TV chief Hidayet Karaca was placed under arrest on charges of forming a terrorist group, after being detained with over two dozen others in weekend raids on journalists, scriptwriters and police accused of plotting to overthrow Erdogan.

The court however ordered the release of Ekrem Dumanli, the editor-in-chief of the Zaman daily which has repeatedly accused Erdogan of running a corrupt regime and who was arrested in the same raids last Sunday.

Both the Zaman newspaper and the STV channel are linked to Gulen, a one-time ally of Erdogan whom the Turkish strongman has now vowed to crush without mercy.

Dumanli defiantly told hundreds of supporters outside the court after his release that “the press cannot be silenced, media will never succumb to intimidations”. Seven other suspects in the case were ordered released by the court in Istanbul while three more — all ex-police officers — were also remanded in custody.

Erdogan accuses Gulen of running a “parallel state” and being behind sensational corruption allegations against his inner circle that broke on December 17 last year.

According to Zaman’s website, Karaca raised his hands after the decision was announced and said: “No need to be worried, God helps”. “Just as this is an arrest order for a fictional scenario, this is a fictional ruling”.

Gulen, who is believed to have millions of followers in Turkey and runs private crammer schools around the world through his Hizmet (Service) group, has vehemently denied all the allegations against him.

The prosecutors asked the court for the warrant to arrest Gulen for leading a “criminal” group acting against the “rules and laws in media, economy and bureaucracy,” the state Anatolia news agency reported.

According to a copy of the request published in Turkish media, Gulen is charged with setting up and directing an “armed terrorist organisation” as well as using intimidation to deprive a person of their freedom.

The United States has so far paid little attention to repeated requests from Turkey for Gulen’s extradition from his secluded compound in the state of Pennsylvania.

LONDON: Mandy Rice-Davies, a model implicated in the Profumo affair that scandalised 1960s Britain and almost brought down the government, has died of cancer at the age of 70, a spokesman said on Friday.
Allegations by Rice-Davies, who became known by her married name Marilyn Foreman, were part of a wave of lurid disclosures that threatened Harold Macmillan’s Conservative administration in 1963.
“It is with deep sadness that the family of Marilyn Foreman, also known as Mandy Rice-Davies, have confirmed that she passed away yesterday evening,” a spokesman for the Hackford Jones PR agency said.
The nightclub dancer was friends with the main figure in the scandal Christine Keeler, who was alleged to be sleeping with British Secretary of State for War John Profumo and a Russian defence attache.