The Delhi High Court on Thursday (13 March) upheld the death sentence awarded to the four convicts in the brutal gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old girl here on December 16, 2012 that shook the nation's conscience and led to widespread protests. A bench of justices Reva Khetrapal and Pratibha Rani confirmed the sentence of Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh, saying the offence committed by them falls in the category of rarest of the rare and upheld their conviction. "Death reference is accepted. Death sentence awarded by the trial court is affirmed. The appeals of the convicts are dismissed," the bench said. The parents of the victim were also present in the court at the time of pronouncement of the verdict. "We have got full faith in the judiciary. We had expected this verdict. But the ultimate satisfaction will be when the convicts meet to their ultimate fate," the mother of the 23-year-old paramedic told the media outside court room after the verdict was delivered. "Hume pura nayay tabhi milega jab sab faansi par latkaye jaege (We will get justice only when all of them will be hanged)," she said. The trial court had on September 13, last year awarded capital punishment to the four, saying they be "hanged till death" as the "beastly" and "hair-raising" manner in which the crime was committed against the girl fell in the rarest of the rare category. The high court had reserved its verdict on January 3 after a marathon three-and-a-half-month long hearing on the death sentence reference sent to it by the trial court and the appeals of the four convicts. On the night of December 16, 2012, Ram Singh, Vinay, Akshay, Pawan, Mukesh and a juvenile had gangraped the girl in a bus after luring her and her 28-year-old male friend, who was also assaulted, on board the vehicle, which was later found to be plying illegally on Delhi roads. The girl succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 in a Singapore hospital. Ram Singh, who was the prime accused, was found dead in his cell in Tihar Jail in March last year and the proceedings against him were abated. The sixth accused, the juvenile was on August 31, 2013 convicted and sentenced to a maximum of three years in a reformation home by the Juvenile Justice Board. (PTI)
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The BJP-led ruling coalition’s rivals attacked Budget 2014, giving it different monikers. If some called it the “Rs 100-crore scheme” Budget for the 28 Rs 100 crore proposals suggested by the finance minister, others said it borrowed heavily from the previous Budget presented by the UPA government’s P. Chidambaram.But if we did indeed miss the big message behind this year’s Budget, it was clearly BJP’s attempt to redeem itself after a bitter election campaign. Right through the fight for Lok Sabha 2014, the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi were attacked for being pro-big business and pro-rich. With Budget 2014 — the first real statement of the intentions of the ruling coalition — the government made an attempt to project itself as pro-small business, pro-SMEs and pro-poor. Perhaps, even pro-middle class.That said, it appeared to have been put together in a hurry by accommodating several demands of multiple industry associations.Big businesses will really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to salvage something for themselves — except for defence manufacturing, if it does take off at all.Naysayers aside, this Budget was about small businesses, entrepreneurs, foreign institutional investors and real estate. Period. In the following pages we attempt to present an easy-to-grasp ready reckoner of the key takeaways of Arun Jaitley's maiden Budget. Read on... (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 21-08-2014)
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Australia has committed to purchasing the US Navy's MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft, its prime minister said on Thursday (13 March), continuing a trend amongst Asia-Pacific nations to protect commercial maritime interests amid rising regional tensions. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that Australia will acquire an undisclosed number of the surveillance aircraft once they become available. The US Navy is still testing the Triton and has plans to buy 68, with the first due in service in 2017. The aircraft will be used "to secure our ocean resources, including energy resources off northern Australia, and help to protect our borders", Abbott said in the statement. Defence analysts say maritime surveillance is the most pressing security need in East and Southeast Asia. Rival maritime claims that have pitted China, which has one of the world's fastest growing militaries, against Japan and other Asian nations have made the South and East China Seas dangerous flashpoints. More than 80 per cent of China's oil imports transit through the Indian Ocean on Australia's west coast. Japan, India and South Korea are also dependent on Indian Ocean routes. The Triton, under development by Northrop Grumman, is the size of a small airliner with a 40-metre wingspan. It can cruise at 20,000 metres for up to 30 hours, sweeping a distance greater than Sydney to London with 360-degree radar and sensors including infra-red and optical cameras. Australia wants drone aircraft to complement its purchase last month of eight of Boeing Co's P-8A Poseidon long-range spy planes for A$4 billion ($3.6 billion). Abbott said that the total number of Triton aircraft to be acquired, as well as their introduction into service date, will be decided in 2016. The planes will be based at RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia state, Abbott said, and will bring in A$100 ($89.72) million in investments to the state, which has struggled with the loss of its manufacturing sector. (Reuters) tags : MQ-4C Triton, Asia-Pacific, Tony Abbott, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, P-8A Poseidon, RAAF Base, news 7
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Three members of a Dutch Disaster Victims Identification team arrived in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Monday (21 July), the first international investigators to reach rebel-held territory since the airliner crashed last week.They declined to give any details of their plans but a representative for the rebels in the Donetsk region said rebel leaders were prepared to meet and assist them in reaching the site or the refrigerated train where some bodies are being kept.Sergei Kavtaradze, an official of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said the rebels would take advice from the international experts as to where to send the train."We are waiting for the experts to come and decide," he told Reuters.A group of Malaysian officials is also due to arrive in eastern Ukraine on Monday.Officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been in Donetsk since the end of April to monitor the situation in rebel-held territory.They are the only international officials to have been at the scene, which investigators need to be secure to have a chance of determining what and who caused the plane to plunge into the steppe.A source at the OSCE said the Dutch experts would go to the town of Torez to check the bodies in refrigerated wagons. (Reuters)
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Efforts to assuage Indian concerns about a landmark global trade pact appear to have failed, sources involved in the discussions said on Monday (21 July), setting off a frantic rush to win its support before a Thursday deadline.India is the most prominent of a group of developing nations angry with rich countries for failing to address their concerns about a deal on trade facilitation struck by WTO member states in Bali, Indonesia, last year.Proponents believe the deal could add $1 trillion to global gross domestic product and 21 million jobs by slashing red tape and streamlining customs, eliminating delays at the border that can often cost more than tariffs themselves.A failure could prove disastrous for the moribund World Trade Organization (WTO) and the system of global free trade deals it underpins.As late as Sunday, hopes were high that publicly addressing Indian concerns during a G20 Trade Ministers meeting in Sydney this past weekend would give it a face-saving path towards reaffirming its assent before the July 31 deadline.India stockpiles food for its poor, citing the need for food security, but doing so puts it at risk of breaking the rules of the WTO which worries that the stockpiling of subsidised food can distort trade.In Bali, WTO members agreed to give India a pass on its stockpiles until 2017, while negotiating a permanent solution.Officials told Reuters that India had not supplied any clear indication of concessions it wanted, so attempts were made at the meeting to reassure it that its concerns, whatever they may be, were being heard."India clearly and forcefully expressed its concern that work proceed on all fronts, including food stockpiling, and received assurances that all G20 members are committed to the full implementation of all Bali agreements on the agreed timetables," US Trade Representative Michael Froman told Reuters on Monday.'Main Concern'A confidential "Summary of Discussion" circulated to G20 participants by Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb obtained by Reuters details what one official said was an example of India winning acknowledgment of its concerns.The document notes that specific Indian concerns about the deal were raised by the members and pledges to work constructively this week to address those issues.In principle, the WTO could pass the agreement on the basis of a qualified majority, but experts say that would be unprecedented and virtually impossible in an organisation that operates on consensus."India is quite influential, so let's hope that they're going to back down in some way," Peter Gallagher, an expert on free trade and the WTO at the University of Adelaide, told Reuters.But despite reassurances it received at the meeting and in public afterwards, Indian officials again said on Sunday they had not been convinced."The way things are moving, there is no way we can agree to the trade facilitation agreement being pushed by the developed nations at WTO within the prescribed deadline. Food security has always been India's main concern and this time we are not going to concede," an Indian official told Business Standard.One official involved in the negotiations, speaking under the condition of anonymity to speak frankly, said the statement was emblematic of "erratic" Indian behaviour over the deal and cast doubt on its trustworthiness as a negotiating partner.The row over subsidies has raised fears that the so-called trade facilitation agreement, the first ever global trade agreement under the WTO, will be derailed.A deal was only reached after New Delhi extracted promises that its concerns related to food subsidies would be addressed and Gallagher said it was unclear why those concerns were resurfacing now when they are unrelated to trade facilitation.(Reuters)
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Britain, Germany and France agreed on Sunday they should be ready to ratchet up sanctions on Russia over the downing of a Malaysian jet carrying 298 passengers when European foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Tuesday. US Secretary of State John Kerry also demanded that Russia "step up" and take responsibility for the actions of allied separatists in Ukraine who are suspected of shooting down a Malaysian passenger plane last week Ukraine on Sunday accused separatist rebels of hiding evidence that a Russian missile was used in the shooting down of the airline that has intensified a showdown between the Kremlin and Western powers.Ministers should be ready to announce a fresh round of sanctions at a meeting of the European Union's Foreign Affairs Council, said a statement from British Prime Minister David Cameron's office, issued after calls with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel."They ... agreed that the EU must reconsider its approach to Russia and that foreign ministers should be ready to impose further sanctions on Russia when they meet on Tuesday," the statement said.The leaders also agreed to press Russian President Vladimir Putin to ensure investigators had free access to the crash site.Before the jet crashed last week, EU leaders had already agreed to sanction some Russian companies and block new loans to Russia by multilateral lenders, but the measures still were less stringent than U.S. restrictions announced at the same time.'Pariah State'The 28-nation EU has been under pressure from the United States and Ukraine to take a harder line but some EU governments are wary of potential retaliation from Russia, the bloc's biggest energy supplier, if they imposed trade sanctions.Speaking earlier on Sunday, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that unless Moscow's position radically changed, Britain would be pushing more reluctant European states to agree to new sanctions.He warned that Russia could end up in international isolation."Some of our European allies, have been less enthusiastic, and I hope that the shock of this incident will see them now more engaged, more willing to take the actions which are necessary to bring home to the Russians that when you do this kind of thing it has consequences," Hammond told the BBC.In a separate interview, Hammond said Russia must use its influence over rebels to ensure safe access to the crash site and cooperate with international investigators."Russia risks becoming a pariah state if it does not behave properly," he said on Sky television.He said information so far pointed strongly to the conclusion that the plane had been shot down from territory held by pro-Russian separatists and the missile was almost certainly supplied by Russia."The Russians have influence if not direct control over these people," he said."They have been supplying them, they have been supporting them, they have been providing them with succour. They cannot deny their responsibility for the acts that these people are carrying out.Kerry Asks Russia To Take ResponsibilityUS Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States has seen major supplies moving into Ukraine from Russia in the last month, including a 150-vehicle convoy of armored personnel carriers, tanks and rocket launchers transferred to the separatists several weeks ago."It's pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia," Kerry said in an interview on CNN.Kerry said the United States intercepted conversations about the transfer to separatists of the Russian SA-11 radar-guided SA11 missile system it blames for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on Thursday.Moscow accuses the Ukrainian military in the shootdown that killed 298 people.Kerry's remarks reflected Washington's growing anger with Russia over the crash.In appearances on a string of Sunday news shows, Kerry called on Moscow to publicly seek responsible action from the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, including access to the crash site."The separatist are in control," Kerry said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "And it is clear that Russia supports the separatists, supplies the separatist encourages the separatists trains the separatists and Russia needs to step up and make a difference here."Kerry, who spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in a phone call on Saturday, expressed outrage over the chaotic scenes in the aftermath of the crash.He said foreign investigators have been given only limited access to the crash site, 75 minutes on Friday and three hours on Saturday, despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin had promised unfettered access."Drunken separatists have been piling bodies into trucks and removing them from the site," Kerry said on NBC. "What's happening is really grotesque and it is contrary to everything president Putin and Russia said they would do."(Agencies)
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Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Wednesday (12 March) vowed to take "revenge" for yesterday's Naxal ambush in which 15 security personnel and a civilian were killed in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, saying the attack could be an attempt to disrupt the Lok Sabha polls. "We will definitely take revenge," he told reporters here. The Home Minister, who is on a day-long visit to Chhattisgarh to review the situation arising out of the killing of 11 CRPF personnel, four Chhattisgarh policemen and one civilian in Sukma district, said the probe into incident will be conducted by the National Investigation Agency. Asked how the "revenge" will be taken, Shinde said like in the past the central and state forces will jointly conduct anti-Naxal operations and hunt down the Maoists involved in the ambush. "We know where they are," he said. The Home Minister said the incident could be an attempt to disrupt the general election beginning April 7, but said authorities would ensure that the polls will be as successful as the assembly elections held in Chhattisgarh late last year. "It could be an attempt to threaten the Lok Sabha polls. We will conduct the election as successfully as we have done during during the assembly polls. We will provide adequate forces," he said. The Home Minister said contrary to reports, there was no prior specific intelligence input about the Naxal attack in Sukma. "There were intelligence inputs ...two-three times... but it was not specific," he said. Shinde said there were reports that the CPI(Maoist) had been weakened and the cadres of the outfit were scared due to presence of security forces and continuous anti-Naxal operations. The Home Minister said he had held a detailed discussion with Chief Minister Raman Singh, Governor Shekhar Dutt and other senior officials and reviewed the situation in Chhattisgarh. "This is the second similar incident. We have already discussed it. We have to follow the previous instructions. Some time mistakes do take place. But we have full confidence that the security forces will do the needful to avoid such incidents and arrest those involved in the attack," he said. Asked about deployment of forces during the general elections, Shinde said the Naxal problem exists in Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh as well as some other states. "We will also have to deploy forces in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka. We have to provide forces as per the security requirements," he said.(PTI)
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Former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla and nine others, arrested in the Rs 10-crore cash-for-post railway bribery case, will face trial with a special court today framing charges of criminal conspiracy and corruption against them.Paving the way for the trial, Special CBI Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma framed the charges against the 10 accused under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC read with provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act and posted the matter for August 25 for commencement of recording of evidence in the case.After the court framed charges against them, the accused said, "We do not plead guilty and claim trial."Congress leader Bansal, who resigned as the Railway Minister in May last year after the case came to light, has been arrayed as a prosecution witness by the CBI in its charge sheet filed last year."You (Singla) during the period between January 2013 to May 3, 2013 had accepted illegal gratification of Rs 89,68,000 from your co-accused Mahesh Kumar, N R Manjunath, Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir, Sushil Daga, C V Venugopal and M V Murali Krishan for yourself or for any other person as a motive or reward for inducing by the exercise of your personal influence on any public servant for appointing your co-accused Mahesh Kumar as Member (electrical) in Railway Board and thereby you committed an offence under section 9 of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 and within my cognisance," the judge said.The court had earlier ordered framing of charges against all the accused, including the then Member (Staff) of Railway Board Mahesh Kumar.Apart from Kumar and Singla, the court framed charges against Managing Director of Bangalore-based G G Tronics India Pvt Limited N R Manjunath, middlemen Ajay Garg and Sandeep Goyal besides Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir, Sushil Daga, C V Venugopal and M V Murali Krishan.The matter has now been fixed for August 25 for recording of statements of prosecution witnesses, Vinay Mittal, former Chairman of Railway Board and another official of Ministry of Railways. The court observed that the accused had prima facie entered into a criminal conspiracy to get Mahesh Kumar appointed as Member(Electrical) in the Railway Board and for that Singla was to be paid Rs 10 crore illegal gratification.It observed that as per the records placed before it, Rs two crore was to be paid immediately and Kumar had instructed Manjunath to arrange the bribe of Rs two crore through other co-accused."You (Kumar) during between January 2013 to May 3, 2013 while working in various capacities, General Manager, western Railways till forenoon of May 1, 2013 and Member (staff) Railway Board in the Ministry of Railways as public servant at various places i.e. Delhi and Mumbai had demanded illegal gratification of Rs 2 crore and had accepted part of it from your co-accused," the judge said."You Mahesh Kumar ...by abusing your official position obtained pecuniary advantage to the tune of Rs 89,68,000 from accused N R Manjunath, Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir, Sushil Daga, C V Venugopal and M V Murali Krishan which was delivered on your behalf to Vijay Singla and Sandeep Goyal at Chandigarh and thereby you committed an offence under section 13 (2) read with 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 and within my cognisance," the judge said.The court, while ordering framing of charges, had said that corruption in the country has reached "unimaginable proportions" and the case revealed a "novel way" of payment of bribe to achieve the aim."As I had observed earlier in my order, the culture of 'Sifarish' (recommendation) and right contacts with powerful persons are the only thing which matter today for earning quick money."Needless to say, with each changing day, the modus operandi of such corrupt person is also not only changing but the corrupt are becoming more cautious and secretive taking lessons from the previous instances of cases where corrupt officers have been caught and sent for trial," the judge had said.(PTI)
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