Kolkata: Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda on Friday said that the files pertaining to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose should be declassified and the truth should come out.

The Netaji files should be declassified and laid in the Parliament. The truth should come out”, Hooda, a Lok Sabha MP from Rohtak constituency, told reporters here.

The statement from the Congress Parliamentarian came amidst the growing demand for declassification of the files by a section of Netaji’s household, particularly after revelation of reports of snooping on his kin’s family.

Saying that Netaji and Jawaharlal Nehru were never at loggerheads as portrayed in the media, Hooda said that both of them had the same economic ideology of socialism.

“In fact, Sardar Patel and Netaji were at loggerheads, and not Bose and Nehru”, he said.

The friendship between them was such that Netaji named his INA regiments after Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and and Maulana Azad.

Hooda said that he had moved a private member bill in the budget session for creation of two regiments in the Indian Army named after Bose.

“I think this is the most unique way of showing respect to the great leader”, he said.
PTI

Senior Congress leader and former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar today said the Centre as well as the West Bengal government must reach out to Indian Gorkhas and the Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha to resolve the problem in Darjeeling hills.
Former union home secretary RK Singh also endorsed the option of a union territory for Darjeeling hills, supporting the proposition suggested by senior journalist Swaraj Thapa that a centrally administered model in the form of a union territory may be a permanent solution to the issue.
“I agree that a union territory can be considered for Darjeeling provided that the West Bengal government is agreeable to the idea,” he said speaking at a seminar organized by the Darjeeling Foundation, a Delhi based think tank promoting the cause of separate state of Gorkhaland. The foundation has been initiated by Swaraj Thapa and a few other like minded individuals in Delhi. Criticizing the Trinamool Congress for its unyielding attitude , Aiyer said he was its founding member but quit within three months after realizing that Mamata Banerjee was not democratic in her approach .

Senior BJP leader and Darjeeling MP Jaswant Singh also supported the idea of a union territory, recalling that the sacrifice of Gorkhas towards the nation is commendable.
Speaking in the seminar, Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha spokesperson and Kalimpong MLA Harka Bahadur Chettri maintained that the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration was only a temporary arrangement and the GJM was committed to the issue of Gorkhaland.
Telengana Rashtra Samiti leader and former MP B Vinod Kumar said that the demand for Gorkhaland was being misrepresented in the national media in general and in the Telegu media in particular. “The media is very biased and it has tried to project it as if creation of Gorkhaland will lead to disintegration of India. This is wrong. You must counter it effectively” he said and added that more states were necessary for the country if development was to reach to all segments of the people. He also contended that national integrity would be strengthened if more states were formed.
Addressing a packed audience at the Teen Murti Auditorium here in Delhi, the speakers acknowledged the contribution and role of Indian Gorkhas in the development of the country and said that they would have to be given their due. Mani Shankar Aiyar specifically recalled his association with former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and said that as an OSD in the then Prime Minister’s Office, he had been assigned to organize the (infamous) public rally in Darjeeling in 1986 which was boycotted by the then GNLF. Disregarding the advise of the PMO and state Congress leadership, Rajiv Gandhi went ahead with the rally and addressed just a handful of policemen and Congress workers at the St Joseph’s grounds for over an hour. “Later while I was travelling back with Rajivji in the car, I asked him what possessed him to agree to such an embarrassment and address empty stands. Rajivji told me that people may not have come to see him but they were hearing every part of what I said. ” Mani Shankar Aiyar said. In other words, Rajiv Gandhi wanted to reach out to the Indian Gorkhas notwithstanding the fact that they had boycotted him. And the results paid when two years later an accord was signed with the GNLF leading to the creation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council.
“We need to help Indian Gorkhas rather than alienate them. An answer has to be found” he said.

Aiyar also gave a historical perspective to the DGHC accord, saying that much of the autonomy proposals and devolution of powers through the DGHC was actually drawn from the Sri Lanka accord. “At that same time, Rajiv Gandhi was tackling the Sri Lanka problem. We in the PMO had to devise proposals that were aimed at devolution of powers in the Sri Lanka provinces, especially to the provinces in the Tamil majority Southern part of Sri Lanka. Much of the DGHC proposals were modeled along the same lines as the Sri Lanka devolution of powers proposal” he said. Supporting the concept of smaller states, he said that they were easier to administer.
Former union home secretary RK Singh conceded that he had earlier opposed statehood for Gorkhaland as well as Telengana on the ground that it would lead to more such demands elsewhere. However, after listening to the participants like Swaraj Thapa and Harka Bahadur Chettri, he said that he was convinced that there is considerable merit in their arguments. He admitted that the region had been neglected for long and development was negligible in the Darjeeling hills.
Darjeeling MP Jaswant Singh underlined the need to narrow down differences in the perception on Gorkhaland between the Indian Gorkhas and the Centre and the state government.

Ranjan Sharma , Media Coordinator has in a press report stated that the response of the guests was positive and they supported the idea of creation of a state of Gorkhaland. We shall frequently organize such events in future and support our cause . After all we are not asking anything out of the box and it is a constitutional demand which should be treated at par with Telangana.

The seminar, organized by the Darjeeling Foundation was held at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Auditorium, Teen Murti House.

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15 Apr 2015

Judge Minakshi Madan Rai was on Wednesday sworn in as the first woman judge of the Sikkim High Court by Governor Srinivas Patil at a function held at the Aashirvad Hall of Raj Bhavan in Gangtok. She was administered the oath and sworn to secrecy by the Governor. The function had the presence of Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, Sikkim High Court Chief Justice SK Sinha, senior judge SP Wangdi, Sikkim Legislative Assembly speaker KN Rai, Ministers, Chairmen and Bar Association members among others. Rai has taken over the charge her office after the swearing in ceremony. The dignitaries present at the function offered the traditional “Khadas” to the newly sworn-in judge and congratulated her. Rai is also only the third person from the state to be sworn in as the judge of Sikkim High Court. (HS)

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat high court on Thursday granted conditional bail of three weeks to Narayan Sai, son of self-proclaimed godman Asaram, who has been behind bars for more than a year in connection with a rape case filed against him by a Surat-based woman.

Justice Paresh Upadhyay granted the relief to Narayan, who has been lodged in a Surat jail since his arrest in December 2013, to enable him to attend to his ailing mother Lakshmiben Harpalani.

The bail order will be applicable from May 4, the judge said, adding Narayan will be under the police surveilence during the bail period and state DGP will deploy an officer for this purpose.

Narayan had said in his plea that his mother had been suffering from a spinal cord-related ailement and that doctors at Ahmedabad’s Sterling Hospital had suggested surgery.

The woman had accused Narayan of repeated sexual assault between 2002 and 2005 when she was living at his Surat ashram, following which he was booked under various sections of IPC including rape, unnatural sex, molestation, wrongful confinement etc.

Interestingly, the elder sister of the victim had lodged a separate complaint against Narayan’s father Asaram accusing him of repeated sexual assault between 2001 and 2006 when she was living in his ashram on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

Lakshmiben was also booked by police for abetment, but was later granted bail by a local court in 2013.

Asaram is currently lodged in a Rajasthan jail since his arrest in September 2013 for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor girl at his Jodhpur ashram.

MUMBAI: Stocks of Tata Motors went up by 2 per cent on Thursday as the company reported a 9 per cent growth in in global sales, including those of Jaguar Land Rover, in March.

The stock rose by 1.38 per cent to Rs 550.80 apiece on the BSE.

On the NSE, it gained 1.99 per cent to Rs 551.25 per scrip.

Even as sharp movements in air fares continue to raise concerns, the Ministry of Civil Aviation is “reluctant” to regulate the ticket prices on grounds that any such move would be against free market principles.

Currently, airlines have been allowed to fix fares on their own depending on supply and demand.

Sources said that more than 100 Parliamentarians have written to the Ministry raising concerns over the movement of air fares over the past six months and most of them are in favour of regulations to control the prices.

Parliamentarians, cutting across party lines from various states, including Jammu and Kashmir, northeast India and Andaman and Nicobar, have been raising concerns about the matter from time to time, source added.

Despite receiving representations from various quarters, a section of top Ministry officials is averse to the idea of regulating air fares and want them to remain market-linked, they said.

According to sources, some Ministry officials are “reluctant” as they feel that when there are no such international practice of regulating the price of air tickets, why should India be moving in the opposite direction.

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, on several occasions in the past, has said that putting caps and floors for air fares would have their own implications and that pricing should be left to the carriers to decide.

Interestingly, the Ministry had last year circulated a note for internal discussion where it suggested steps to cap air fare at minimum and maximum levels for the economy class in airlines.

As per that note, the maximum economy class fare need to be capped at Rs 20,000.

However, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma had last week pitched for regulating “predatory” air fares rather than having a total pricing control.

“We understand that the predatory price (of air fares) at lower end or higher end should have some regulation. This is my individual opinion but this is subject to discussion and a Cabinet decision has to be taken on this issue.

“…In principle, I feel there should be some regulation on the prices at both ends. Of course we will not totally regulate prices but some regulation has to be there,” he had said.

Nevertheless, aviation regulator DGCA recently asked domestic carriers to provide the quantum (percentage) of the tickets sold by domestic carriers at different pricing levels (highest and lowest fares buckets) for each sector over the next few months.

Hillary Clinton’s views evolved on same-sex marriage within the first 72 hours of her presidential run, as her campaign said Wednesday that the former secretary of state now backs marriage equality as a US constitutional right.

The about-face, dropped as Clinton was preparing the second of two progressive-leaning appearances in Iowa, represents a significant – if not completely unexpected – shift from her previous statements that same-sex marriage should be legislated state-by-state rather than on the federal level.

LGBT activists said the move, while potentially motivated by politics and conveniently timed to Clinton’s presidential run and a looming US supreme court case, represented something of a milestone.

“Hillary Clinton supports marriage equality and hopes the Supreme Court will come down on the side of same-sex couples being guaranteed that constitutional right,” Clinton spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod said in a statement confirmed by the Guardian.

The supreme court is scheduled to hear arguments on the constitutionality of state bans of same-sex marriages on 28 April, with a decision expected in June that could effectively make marriage equality legal nationwide.

Last June, Clinton told NPR that she thought marriage was a state issue.

“[F]or me, marriage has always been a matter left to the states,” she said in the interview with public radio’s Terry Gross. “I fully endorse the efforts by activists to work state by state.”

Since then, Clinton had repeatedly dodged press inquiries on the topic.
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The former secretary of state did not formally say whether she supported same-sex marriage at all until March 2013, when she appeared in an online video released by the LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Previously, Clinton had only said publicly that she supported civil unions.

The former first lady did advocate for LGBT rights while at the State Department: “Gay rights are human rights,” she said during a 2011 speech in Geneva.

HRC president Chad Griffin called Wednesday’s more direct federal coming-out party a “strong statement”.

Gregory Angelo, president of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay advocacy group, was less charitable.

“It was good to see that Clinton, after much heel dragging, has finally come into line,” he told the Guardian.

Indeed, Clinton has a complicated history on gay rights.

While first lady, former president Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma), which prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Much of that law was struck down by the supreme court in the 2013 case of United States v Windsor.

This year’s new landmark case before the high court, Obergefell v Hodges, represent a kind of full-circle rotation by the judiciary branch after Clinton long-derided 1996 signature of Doma, which he admitted to regretting just before the Winsdor case was argued.

Bill Clinton also approved the controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell”, which prevented openly gay men and women from serving in the US military.

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley – perhaps Hillary Clinton’s most aggressive competitor for the Democratic nomination in 2016, though he has not declared – has already said that same-sex marriage is a human right and should not be left to the states.

He released a video on Wednesday, in which his narration says, in a not-so-subtle dig at the competition, that “history celebrates profiles in courage, not profiles in convenience”.

O’Malley, who successfully pushed for the passage of same-sex marriage in Maryland, has also evolved on the issue and previously only supported civil unions himself.

Beleaguered national carrier Thai Airways International Plc (THAI) is expected to turn the corner by next year followingthe implementation of a business rehabilitation plan. The plan will start to improve…

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The plan, approved by the State Enterprises Policy Commission, also known as the superboard, includes divesting ageing aeroplanes and non-core assets, scrapping unprofitable routes, lowering the size of…

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Washington: Indo-US relationship is not merely government-to-government but is widely endorsed by the people and it is stronger than ever, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said.

Jaitley made the remarks at a dinner reception hosted in his honour at the Indian Embassy which was attended by many senior Obama Administration officials and senior ministers.

It is rare for so many administration bigwigs, including three cabinet rank ministers, to attend a reception for a visiting Indian minister.

“This relationship is not merely a government-to- government relationship, it is a relationship widely endorsed by the people,” Jaitley, who is here to attend the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, said.

In his brief remarks, Jaitley acknowledged that the presence of top officials was a reflection of the new era of India-US ties.

“Prime Minister Modi was here in the US last September. President Obama became the first President to visit India twice during his presidency. The kind of reception he received at our Republic Day where he was the chief guest is only an endorsement of the fact that…It is a relationship widely endorsed by the people,” he said.

India, Jaitley said, is going through a very transformational change.

“It’s a change where we can see the role ahead of us,” he said.

The role is to strengthen the economy, get rid of several legacies of the past so that the government is able to serve its people the most it can, Jaitley said.

The India-US relationship is stronger than ever, Jaitley said.

The Indo-US partnership now extends to various fields.

Jaitley said, it is not merely a partnership in terms of business activity, or creation of smart cities, or skill development, it is a partnership in strategic areas that impacts the lives of the people of the two nations.

The reception was attended by top administration functionaries like Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Transportation Secretary Anthony Fox and US Trade Representative Mike Froman.

Several powerful American lawmakers, including Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Congressmen Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Committee on Rules Pete Sessions and newly married Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, attended the reception held here.

The US India Business Council Chairman and Master Card CEO Ajay Banga and Honeywell CEO Dave Cote were among the top American corporate leaders to attend the reception.
PTI