Daily News (In Short)-13-July-2015

#* Rahul meets street vendors, says the poor are neglected in Delhi

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Monday interacted with street vendors in the national capital demanding the implementation of a law aimed to protect them from harassment.
 
“These people are oppressed. They are not given their proper space and so I have come to listen to them. There used to be sheds here which have been taken away from these people, so they called me to look into it,” Gandhi said after meeting vendors in Raghubir Nagar area.
 
“The poor people here are being sidelined from the city and I will find a solution for these people,” he added.
 
Before meeting the vendors, Gandhi visited a nearby temple to pray. Senior Congress leaders Ajay Maken and PC Chacko accompanied him.
 
The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill was passed by both houses of parliament last year. It was introduced in 2012 by the previous UPA government.
 
The law aims to regulate street vending, protect the rights of vendors in cities, and prevent their harassment by police and civic authorities. It also has provisions for protecting livelihood rights and social security of vendors.
 
The Congress has said there has been an increase in cases of harassment of vendors in Delhi and demanded that the city’s AAP government should immediately implement the law.
 
“We hear that vendors are being fleeced more than earlier. This is because the act is not being implemented in Delhi. Vendors are being harassed, money is being recovered from them. Police, corporation is fleecing them. Our demand is the act should be implemented immediately in Delhi," Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken told the media.
 
Under the law, vending certificates or licenses can be issued to up to 2.5% of a city's population. Thus, Delhi can have about 500,000 vendors but the Congress claimed not a single vending certificate had been issued after the law was passed.

#* U-turn a day later? Pakistan refuses to seek 26/11 accused Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi's voice sample

Pakistan government will not file a fresh petition in an anti-terrorism court requesting for obtaining voice sample of LeT operations commander Zaki-ur- Rehman Lakhvi in the Mumbai terror attack case, prosecution team's chief Chaudhry Azhar said on Sunday.
His remarks comes just two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in a meeting in Ufa, Russia agreed to discuss ways and means to expedite the Mumbai case trial (in Pakistan), including additional information like providing voice samples.
"The issue of obtaining voice sample of Lakhvi has been over. We had filed an application in the trial court in 2011, seeking voice sample of Lakhvi but the judge (Malik Akram Awan) had dismissed it on the ground that there is no such law exists that allows obtaining of voice sample of an accused," Chaudhry told PTI on Sunday.
Mumbai terror attack mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi. AFP.Mumbai terror attack mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi. AFP.
"The government will not file a fresh petition in the trial court requesting for obtaining voice sample of Lakhvi," he added.
The declaration from the prosecution may man that Pakistan may not go an 'extra mile' in bringing the accused of the Mumbai attack to justice despite Prime Minister Sharif's commitment in Ufa to his Indian counterpart in this regard.
"We have told India in writing that there was no law in Pakistan that allows obtaining a voice sample of an accused. Even there is no such law in India and the USA," Chaudhry said, adding such a law can be introduced only through the Pakistani parliament.
Lakhvi’s lawyer also said that his client won't provide India his voice samples, according to a report in Hindustan Times.
“My client has refused in the past and will refuse again. According to our law, the accused have to give their consent," the report quoted Lakhvi's lawyer, Raja Rizwan Abbasi, as saying.
Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has also not shown government's intention to take this matter to the parliament.
"Pakistan has included the Mumbai issue in the joint statement because we wanted India to provide us 'solid evidence' against the accused for their prosecution," Rashid said, expressing his government’s strong resolve against terrorism.
"Pakistan is prosecuting those allegedly involved in Mumbai attack case. But we need evidence. After the joint statement of Pakistani and Indian prime ministers the onus of
providing evidence is on India," he said when asked whether the government would bring a legislation regarding recording of voice sample.
The minister said India had not yet provided Pakistan "solid evidence".
Lakhvi's counsel Abbasi said the government was knocked off over the voice sample issue in 2011. "Unless it goes for a legislation in the parliament in this regard the voice sample of his client has become a history," he said.
Lakhvi has been out on bail since 10 April. He and six other accused - Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum - have been in Adiala Jail for nearly six years in connection with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008 that left 166 people dead.
India has been upset over the almost non-existent trial in the 2008 Mumbai attack case, with even the mastermind Lakhvi being released by the court as the Pakistan government failed to furnish the required evidence.
Talking at the sidelines of SCO summit in Ufa, Prime Minister Modi had accepted an invitation his counterpart Nawaz Sharif's invitation to attend the Saarc summit in Pakistan in 2016.
The meeting which took place Friday morning lasted more than the scheduled 45 minutes.
The two Prime Ministers had agreed to expedite the Lakhvi trial in the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai case that is being held in Pakistan. The nations had agreed to exchange voice samples that are relevant to the case. The agreement came after India was blocked from getting a UN body to censure Pakistan over the release of prime accused in the case Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi.
The two Prime Ministers had condemned terrorism in all forms and had said that they were prepared to discuss all outstanding issues.
The meeting between the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Ufa was the first meeting between the two leaders since talks between the two countries broke down.

#* Dal, bal aur bahubal: Amit Shah tells BJP workers to use every trick to win UP

Is the magic of Amit Shah wearing off? Many senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders from Uttar Pradesh appear to think so, as was evident from the attendance at the one-day meeting held on Kanpur on 11 July to review the progress of the party’s mass contact programme as part of its Mission 2017.
Till about a year ago, the arrival and presence of Shah, BJP president and closest confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, used to be enough reason for party leaders at all levels to rush to the venue.. At the Kanpur meeting although all BJP MPs, legislators and district party leaders from Uttar Pradesh were expected to attend, the list of absentees was long and prominent. These included Kanpur MP Murli Manohar Joshi and Kanpur mayor Jagatvir Singh Dron, other MPs Mahant Adityanath, Varun Gandhi, Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Maneka Gandhi, Santosh Gangwar, Uma Bharti, Mahesh Sharma, V.K. Singh, Manohar Parrikar and the Mathura MP Hema Malini who was injured in a road accident recently.
A file image of Amit Shan. PTI imageA file image of Amit Shan. PTI image
The absence of most of these was brushed aside as the result of previously scheduled engagements. However, some party leaders recalled that such absenteeism at Shah’s meetings was almost unthinkable till a few months ago. Even during the programme, there were  several disturbances over which Shah expressed his displeasure.
“There was a time that no leader could afford to be absent from Shah’s meetings and there was a clamour among them to show their faces to him, but now apparently the regional and caste differences have started resurfacing,” a leader from Lucknow said.
However, all the party’s MLAs were seen trying to make their presence felt. Another leader also said that it had now become difficult to meet Shah as access to him was now limited through only a few party leaders.
As if to make up for his inaccessibility, the usually cool and aloof Shah did not only pause and wave to waiting BJP workers after arriving at the hotel where the programme was to be held. He wore a smile throughout the welcome ceremony where the state BJP president Laxmikant Bajpai, party vice president and Lucknow mayor Dinesh Sharma, Union minister Kalraj Mishra, MLA Sangeet Som, party leaders Vinay Katiyar, Pankaj Singh and others were present.
Shah’s address, it is learnt, was more like a class as he went on to caution the participants that he would not settle for anything less than a BJP government in UP in 2017. He told the party cadre to use every trick in the book to ensure a BJP win the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election. In fact, his call to use dal, bal aur bahubal (party, strength and muscle power) to ensure BJP victory received a rousing response since the proceedings were dominated by examples of rising crime and the poor law and order situation in the Akhilesh Yadav regime in the state.
Shah also did not mince words in pointing out that all MPs sitting there had previously lost in the state, and that they had won only because of Modi in the 2014 election.

#* UP IPS officer Amitabh Thakur to move Home Ministry for CBI probe amid tussle with Mulayam Singh

The tussle between senior IPS officer Amitabh Thakur and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav is getting uglier. The officer is slated to meet Union Home Ministry officials on Monday to request for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the issue.
The development comes after an FIR was filed by a Ghaziabad-based woman accused Thakur of rape.The IPS officer has accused the Samajwadi Party chief of conspiring against him as the rape charge came a day after he alleged that Mulayam had threatened him. He had termed the filing of FIR against him as a "return gift" from the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
Thakur had also said that after his wife complained to the Lokayukta against state minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati and his illegal property, she started receiving threat calls.
According to Thakur, Mulayam had asked him to "mend his ways" after his wife went to the Lokayukta, accusing the Uttar Pradesh Samajwadi Party government of corruption.
Accusing Yadav's relative Sri Ramvir Singh of conspiring an attack on him, Thakur said that Yadav had called him and said that the result would be worse than Jasrana if he does not follow his orders.
"Sri Ramvir Thakur, Mulayam's relative in Jasrana conpired an attack on me but I managed to survive. Mulayam Singh Yadav called me and said that the result will be worse than Jasrana if I don't do what he says", said Thakur.
Thakur and his social activist wife Nutan Thakur had lodged an FIR against mining minister in Akhilesh Yadav's Uttar Pradesh government, Gayatri Prasad Prajapati along with many others, for trying to "frame" the couple in "false" cases of rape and other charges.

#* Saudi-led air raids in Yemen kill 21 two days into truce

Saudi-led air raids killed 21 civilians in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Monday morning, relatives of the victims and medics told Reuters, two days after the start of a United Nations-brokered humanitarian truce that Riyadh does not recognize.

"Three missiles targeted the neighborhood, destroying 15 houses and killing 21 people and wounding 45 others," said a resident.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition has been bombing the Houthi militia and army forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh since March 26, aiming to push them back from southern and central areas and restore the country's exiled government.

The Houthis, who are allied to Riyadh's main regional rival Iran, advanced from their northern stronghold a year ago, capturing the capital Sanaa in September and then pushing south early this year, prompting the Saudi-led airstrikes.

More than 3,000 people have been killed in the fighting and air strikes so far, amplifying an existing humanitarian crisis, but the Houthis and Saleh's forces remain embedded across the populated Western side of the country.

The United Nations brokered a pause in the fighting on Friday to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered, but the Saudi-led coalition said it had not been asked by Yemen's exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in whose name it is acting, to stop its raids.

Brigadier-General Ahmed al-Asiri, the spokesman of the coalition, was reported by al Sharq al Awsat newspaper as saying there would be no truce because Houthis were not committed to a ceasefire and no U.N. observers had been deployed on the ground to monitor possible violations.

There have also been reports of fighting in breach of the pause conditions in Aden, Marib and Taiz, the main theaters of battle between local resistence movements, tribes, Islamist militants and the Houthis and Saleh's forces.

A Houthi leader, Saleh al-Samad, described the continued Saudi raids as presenting "a clear challenge to the international community to shoulder its responsibilities and seriously try to stop this aggression".

A United Nations Security Council resolution in April demanded the Houthis and Saleh's forces quit areas they have captured, release prisoners and surrender weapons taken from army units that have been overrun.

(Reporting By Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by William Maclean)

#* Start investing in books, rather than in weapons, says Malala Yousafzai 

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai wants world leaders to spend more money, on top of their earlier promises, to secure 12 years of free primary and secondary education for all children across the world.
The Pakistani teenager who was shot by the Taliban in October 2012 for asserting her right to an education says she will continue her fight for children’s right to education and ask world leaders to invest an additional $39 billion annually.
“We will not stop. We will continue to speak out and raise our voices until we see every child in school,” she said ahead of an education summit in Oslo, Norway, attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, among others.
An estimated 58 million children aren’t going to school. While aid for basic education had doubled from 2002 to 2009, it has since stagnated and fallen in recent years, according to a summit paper. Even though many countries have increased their national budget allocations, progress in getting more children to school has stalled.
Universal fee-free primary and secondary education for a 12-year period costs an estimated US$340 billion per year through 2030, according to the Malala Fund, the nonprofit organization she co-founded. Low- and lower-middle-income countries must commit a minimum of 20 percent of their national budgets to education, against the current average of 15 percent.
Governments must “start investing in books, education and hope, rather than in weapons, war and conflicts,” Malala said, reiterating that some 100 countries in May committed themselves to provide free primary and secondary education to all children by 2030.
Malala and India’s Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the Nobel prize in 2014 for helping protect children and advance their education.

#* FIPB to decide fate of 47 foreign investment proposals today

Inter-ministerial body FIPB will take up 47 foreign investment proposals tomorrow including that of Bandhan Financial Services and Catholic Syrian Bank.

The investment applications also include a host of proposals related to pharmaceutical sector, said the agenda of the 221st meeting of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) that will take place on July 13.

Bandhan Financial Services has already been granted universal banking licence by the Reserve Bank. The bank will be launched next week.

Catholic Syrian Bank has received capital market regulator Sebi's approval to raise up to Rs 400 crore through an initial public offer (IPO).
The FIPB, chaired by Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, can recommend foreign investment proposals worth up to Rs 3,000 crore to the Finance Minister for approval.

Other items on the agenda include that of GlaxoSmithKline Asia, Novartis Healthcare, Mylan Laboratories, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation and Diabu Diamond Tools India.

Investment proposals of Volkswagen Finance, ADC India Communications, DEN Networks, Reliance Globalcom, Sistema Shyam Teleservices and Indian Rotocraft are also on the agenda.

India allows FDI in most of the sectors through automatic route, but in certain segments considered sensitive for the economy and security, the proposals have to be first cleared by FIPB.

During the 2014-15 fiscal, FDI grew 27% year-on- year to $30.93 billion as against $24.29 billion in 2013-14, according to the data of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.

#* New Banded Tit butterfly species discovered in Arunachal Pradesh

A new species of butterfly called the Banded Tit was spotted in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh quite recently. Its discovery was revealed by the state Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife and Biodiversity). This tiny species goes by the scientific name Hypolycaena Narada and can be found in the low-lying evergreen forest lands of Changlang.

The lifespan of the adult Banded Tit is just two weeks, and it can be seen fluttering about Changlang in March each year. It has a very intriguing life cycle which sees it spend most of the year in a dormant stage. During this time, the butterfly is expected to lie in the larval or pupal state, a detail that has yet to be confirmed by scientists.The diet of the Banded Tit mostly consists of bird-droppings dotting the streams of the forested area. Since it is a newly discovered species, not much is known about it. There’s no data on the plants that it lives off when it is in the larval stage. Even its breeding behavior and precise habitat needs are largely a mystery to researchers. In 2013, a previously unrecorded species of butterfly called the Bright-eyes Argus or Callerebia Dibangensis (pictured below), was observed in Arunachal Pradesh.

The state plays host to 20 percent of fauna species in India, 4500 species of flowering plants, 23 species of conifers, 35 bamboos species, 400 species of pteridophytes, 20 species of canes, 52 Rhododendron species and over 500 species of orchids. It is counted among the world’s 12 mega diversity ‘hot spots’. Sadly, forestry is the biggest source of employment here, and thus the gradual destruction of a variety of flora and fauna may be inevitable in spite of conservation efforts.Dr Krushnamegh Kunte from the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru, has described the Banded Tit butterfly in one of his research papers. It’s clear from this new find that the forests of Arunachal Pradesh have many more secrets yet to be uncovered and much more should be done it preserve its ecological diversity.

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