Keralam

25 Mar 2011

Anil Gote said he was not justifying the slogan-shouting by opposition MLAs on the budget day, but "the thin line between political differences and enmity has been blurred". In the Legislative Council, Leader of Opposition Pandurang Phundkar (BJP) and Shiv Sena's Diwakar Raote told the Chairman Shivajirao Deshmukh that opposition was staging a walk-out�to protest the action against nine MLAs. Council proceedings began subsequently in the absence of the opposition.

25 Mar 2011

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday hit out at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for ridiculing its party patriarch L K Advani in Parliament on the issue of prime ministership.During a debate on Cash-for-Vote in the just concluded Budget Session, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took a potshot at Advani saying that the latter had never forgiven him (Singh) for failing to be the PM since the people elected the Congress to power. On Friday, BJP leader Arun Jaitley chose the press conference on his party's success in the session to say it is the Congress which believes in birthright politics.

25 Mar 2011

Protestors of the Jat community have continued their agitation over reservations in government jobs and educational institutes, despite orders from the Punjab and Haryana High Court directing them to vacate the rail tracks blocked by them, immediately. A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court headed by the Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had passed the order on Thursday and a copy of the judgement has been served to the Jat leaders in all districts by the respective Deputy Commissioners as per the direction of the court. The agitators in Haryana have countered the court order, saying that the court should ask the resolve their issue.

25 Mar 2011

The Bharatiya Janata Party walked out of the Lok Sabha today, over the Government's delay in tabling the Shunglu Committee report, probing the alleged irregularities in the conduct of Commonwealth Games. Senior BJP leader LK Advani raised the matter as soon as the House met for the day and said that the Shunglu Committee's report had already been submitted to the government, according to media reports and that the Government should table it in the Parliament today itself and possibly have a discussion on it. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, said the Shunglu Committee was set up by the government through an Executive Order and its report was yet to be looked into by the government.

25 Mar 2011

The death toll of Myanmar's Thursday earthquake has increased to 74 with the injured remaining at 111 as of Friday 2:30 p.m. local time, according to an official statement. A total of 390 residential houses, 14 monasteries and nine government department buildings were destroyed in the mainly affected areas of Tarlay, Naryaung and Monglin. Of them, Monglin was badly ruined in terms of residential houses with 128. Relief measures are being taken by the state's Natural Disaster Preparedness Committee and local Red Cross as rescue teams are rushing to the stricken areas. The quake also triggered landslides and collapsed buildings in Myanmar's northeastern Tachileik and Tarpin, Shan states.

25 Mar 2011

Ricky Ponting doesn't think Australia bowing out of the World Cup marks the end of an era, but it's impossible to come to any other conclusion. For more than a decade, Australia have owned all sorts of silverware, Cricket Australia's headquarters in Melbourne more a trophy cabinet than an office. Now, the last of those major prizes is finding a new home after 12 years in Australian hands. Over the past six months, Ponting's men have lost the Ashes and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, or to be more accurate, they have failed to regain them. Those crowns were already gone. They are clinging on to the Champions Trophy, but there's every chance the ICC will soon scrap that event entirely. In any case, it is a trinket compared to the World Cup.

23 Mar 2011

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Wednesday said industrialisation was the only path along which the state could develop and careful measures have to be taken while acquiring land for industries. 'We will acquire land only after reaching a consensus with all the interested parties,' Bhattacharjee told reporters at a press meeting here. 'We have made up a land use map. We will not acquire fertile land. If the government has to acquire land we will go forward after reaching a total consensus in that area,' the chief minister stressed.

23 Mar 2011

Congress' defeat, particularly in Kadapa, comes as a shock to state Agriculture Minister Y S Vivekananda Reddy as he was supposed to be wielding more clout than his nephew Jagan.In fact, the biennial election in Kadapa was for the Council seat Viveka would be vacating at the end of the month.He is now supposed to be the Congress candidate for the by-election from Pulivendula Assembly constituency, due shortly.Apart from two other ministers from the district, the minister in-charge for Kadapa had made tireless efforts to defeat Jagan's nominee.There were also allegations that TDP did not field its candidate in Kadapa as per a tacit understanding with the Congress to trounce Jagan.

23 Mar 2011

Facing a united Opposition attack in Parliament on Wednesday over the WikiLeaks disclosure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh strongly denied allegations that his government paid MPs cash for votes during a crucial floor test in 2008. "None from the Congress party or from the government indulged in any unlawful activity during trust vote...nor authorised anyone to indulge in such unlawful activity," Singh said in Lok Sabha. "We have chosen to go for what some embassy official write about us, I must warn the House that it's dangerous. Many persons referred in these cables have denied their involvement," he said.

23 Mar 2011

Amid reports that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is planning to target the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) headquarters here to "destroy" the documents related to the alleged 2G spectrum scam, the agency today denied that it has received any such "specific threat". "Non-specific threat perceptions are often received by the CBI owing to the nature of job of the agency," a CBI spokesperson said, adding that no "specific threat" from a person or group has been received. The official said if there were any threat, the inputs were passed on to the appropriate agency (Home Ministry) for necessary confirmation or action.