6 HIMALAYAN MIRROR NATIONAL GANGTOK, MONDAY 05 JANUARY 2015 Land acquisition act amendments for enhanced compensation: Jaitley New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS) : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday came out against criticism of the amendments to the land acquisition act, made through an ordinance, saying they "balance the developmental needs of India, particularly rural India" and provides enhanced compensation to the land-owners. In a Facebook posting, titled "Amendments to the Land Acquisition Law - The Real Picture", he said that the 2013 Act had "over 50 drafting errors" and the "provision" in the ordinance with regard to rectification of errors "will be used to cure most of them. "Some are being cured through this ordinance which alters the earlier mandate of the 2013 law that unused land has to be returned five years after the acquisition. The earlier provision was clearly defective". "Creation of smart cities, townships, industrial corridors, business centres, defence projects, cantonments, ports, nuclear installations, building of highways, irrigation projects, dams have a long gestations period. They cannot be Kashmir border quiet but villagers stay away Jammu, Jan 4 (IANS) : The Jammu and Kashmir border was quiet Sunday, a day after Pakistani gunfire left two Indian soldiers and a civilian dead and forced hundreds to flee their homes along the frontier. Although no firing or shelling was reported Sunday, frightened villagers chose to stay away in makeshift camps in Samba and Kathua districts where they have been sheltered, an official said. "Since yesterday (Saturday) evening, there has been no ceasefire violation by the Pakistani troops on the international border in the two districts," a senior official told IANS. Around 1,400 villagers who fled their homes Saturday due to indiscriminate shelling by Pakistan Rangers were still camped at safer places away from their homes, the official added. They were in camps at Hiranagar, Chan Kahtriyan and Maren in Kathua and at Regaal and Chichi Mata in Samba. The official said male members of some of the families visited their villages Sunday morning to feed the cattle but decided against returning home with the women and children for now.A woman was killed and eight other civilians were injured Saturday in Pakistani shelling along the international border in Samba and Kathua, police said. The woman identified as 45-year-old Toshi Devi, wife of Somnath and a resident of Mangu Chak village in Samba, was injured in the shelling and suc- cumbed to her injuries at a hospital in Jammu. The eight injured civilians were being treated in the same hospital, a police officer told IANS. The shelling forced scores of villagers to migrate to safer places. Reports from the border villages of Manyari, Paansar, Bobia, Londi, Sadechak, Chailari, Chachwal, Mangu Chak, Regaal, Mawa, Sadho and Chak Fakira said dozens of families left their homes because of the shelling. In the other incident of Pakistan firing on the Line of Control in Tangdhar sector of Kupwara district, police said rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) fired at an Indian army post triggered a blaze in which two soldiers of Gorkha Rifles were killed and two others were injured. completed in five years. "If the earlier provision is to be effected, we would be a nation of incomplete projects on account of defective legislative drafting," he said. Countering criticism of the acquired land to be also given to developers, he said that the draft provisions of the 2013 Act "enthusiastically provide that no part of an acquired land could be used for a private educational institution or a hospital. "How will new smart cities and townships come up? Will they only have a civil hospital and a government school/college and no other healthcare and educational institutions will be allowed to be established there? "The ordinance permits hospitals and educational institutions to be established on an acquired land. That is the purpose of acquisition for townships. A township without a social infrastructure would be inherently incomplete." Jaitley said the needs of "a modern growing and developing India need a balanced approach" where "development and justice to the land-owner must coexist. One cannot be done at the cost of the other". According to him, the amendment ordinance "is based on extensive consultations where state government of most political parties supported these changes. Those who are opposed to it can certainly mandate their party's state governments not to use the provisions of the ordinance. History will judge how these states will lose out in the era of competitive federalism. On Dec 31, the government promulgated an ordinance to amend provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act, 2013. Security tightened at Delhi airport after terror threat New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS) : Security was Sunday tightened at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport here following an intelligence alert that terrorists may target Air India flights going to Afghanistan, officials said. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which looks after the airport's internal security, has been asked to be on alert and keep a tab on the activities of every person. Besides, Delhi Police, which is in charge of security outside the airport, was also put on alert. "Security has been extended and policemen have been increased," Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI) M.I. Haider told IANS. CISF spokesperson Hemendra Singh said security has been tight since the last two months. the fact that Modi had addressed five rallies in Delhi ahead of the previ- ous assembly elections last December. "The last time too we wanted him to hold a couple of more rallies but that did not happen due to some reasons. We think that might have been the reason that we fell slightly short of victory," a senior party leader told IANS. The BJP won 31 seats in the Delhi assembly with the support of a lone Akali legislator but fell short of the magical figure of 36 in the 70-member house. "But hopefully, this time round, it will be an all out attack on the opposition," the leader said. According to the leader, the focus of the rallies will "obviously" be on the unauthorized colonies. "They (colonies) have always been pivotal for all parties and our efforts towards their regularisation will help us," said the leader, adding that the party was hoping to bag Man injures wife, commits suicide New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS) :A 32-year-old man committed suicide here by hanging himself after critically injuring his wife on her head with a sharp object, police said on Sunday. The mother of the deceased informed security personnel after finding herself locked from outside in a room of the flat at Platinum Heights Apartments in Dwarka area of south Delhi around 4.30 a.m. Sunday. The security personnel, after freeing the elderly woman, found the man hanging from a ceiling fan in another room and his wife lying in a pool of blood. She was rushed to a nearby hospital where her condition was stated to be critical. The security guard also informed police. The couple married last year in November but their short-lived marriage was fraught with frequent quarrels, police said. They also said that no suicide note was recovered. Venkaiah Naidu to meet municipal commissioners New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS) :Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu will Monday interact with municipal commissioners of cities with population of more than a lakh, as the government launches a series of "consultative workshops" for top civic officials. The first such workshop for municipal commissioners will be held in Hyderabad Monday for the southern states, before the government launches its new initiatives on urban development and housing. Municipal commissioners from over 70 cities and officials of urban development departments from the five southern states - Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh - and the union territory of Puducherry will attend the first workshop, a government statement said Sunday. "Implementation issues pertaining to the schemes viz., Swachh Bharat Mission, urban renewal of 500 cities/towns, housing for all by 2022, skill development and self-employment of urban poor under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana and capacity building of urban local bodies will be discussed in detail," it said. During the workshop, Naidu will also nominate nine 'Swachh Bharat' ambassadors each from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Over 3.65 lakh treated for drugs in Punjab "Flights going to Afghanistan are being monitored carefully," he said. Air India spokesperson G.P. Rao told IANS that their control room in Kolkata Saturday received a call from an unknown person who said the Kolkata-Kabul flight will be hijacked but it later turned out to be a hoax. "We have not received any official input from intelligence agencies about a threat on DelhiKabul flights. But checks are on," Rao said. In 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked by terrorists who took it to Kandahar in Afghanistan and demanded the release of three terrorists from Indian prisons in return for the passengers. Modi to address over a dozen rallies in Delhi, focus on unauthorised colonies New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to address over a dozen rallies in the capital ahead of assembly polls likely in February, sources in the party said, adding that the focus would be on the over six million residents of the city's unauthorised colonies who have now got a new lease of life. According to these sources, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident that the union cabinet's decision to regularise all illegal settlement colonies that came up in Delhi till June 1, 2014, will pay rich dividends in poll-bound Delhi. "He (Modi) is likely to hold around 12 to 14 rallies all over Delhi. We want him to address all the 14 districts," said a senior leader of the BJP, which doesn't have a chief ministerial candidate for Delhi and is instead banking on Modi's image to get it through. The importance of winning Delhi, where the BJP has remained out of power for 15 years and is facing the heat from the AAP, can be gauged from Short Takes over 25 seats that fall under such colonies. The previous Congress government had found 895 of the 1,639 illegal colonies eligible for regularising. However, after a Dec 29, 2014, cabinet nod, all the 1,639 colonies, along with another 300 that came up after March 2002, will be regularised. Considered a traditional vote bank of the Congress for years, the residents of these colonies switched allegiance in last year's assembly polls and played a key role in helping the AAP bag 28 seats. The BJP has however set its eyes on the substantial chunk of voters from these colonies - the majority of whom are labourers and workers from states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. "Although every resident knows about the decision but when Modi interacts with them personally, it will have a deeper impact on them and they will know whom to vote for," another BJP leader told IANS. Modi will Jan 10 formally kick off the BJP's campaign for the Delhi assembly elections with a rally at the Ramlila Maidan that will be attended by the party's three newest chief ministers from Haryana, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra. Meanwhile, another source in the know said that the party's first list of candidates is likely to be announced January 18. Chandigarh, Jan 4 (IANS) Over 3.65 lakh patients were treated last year or are undergoing treatment at various medical facilities in Punjab for drugs de-addiction, a senior health official said here Sunday. "Field workers mobilized people with substance use disorders to the nearest CHC (community health centres) where they were treated and those requiring admission were admitted," K.K. Talwar, adviser on health and medical education to Punjab government, told the media here. "Till Dec 15, 330,533 patients had been treated at the OPD (out patient department) and 11,656 were treated as indoor patients," Talwar added. Talwar said that the patients were identified on the basis of a de-addiction camp conducted state-wide in June last year. "In an effort to address this serious issue (of drug addiction), the Punjab government had conducted a de-addiction campaign from June 19 to 28, where sensitization, treatment and counselling facilities were provided to substance abusers," Talwar said. With rampant drugs abuse inside jails in Punjab, the state government also set up de-addiction centres inside the prisons last year.The official said de-addiction centres have been set up in each of the eight Model Central Jails at Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Patiala, Bathinda, Faridkot and Ferozepur. "Till now, 22,669 patients have been treated, 461 patients are under detoxification and 718 patients are in rehabilitation wards," Talwar said. In the past two years, 27 Drug De-addiction Centers (DDCs) have been made operational in the state at an expenditure of Rs.38 crore. Seventeen more such centres are being set up in the state at a cost of another Rs.70 crore. The DDCs being set up at Jalandhar, Patiala and Bathinda will have facility of 50 beds each. Amritsar and Faridkot have 50-bedded DDCs already. Amit Shah to launch BJP's drugs campaign Jan 22 Chandigarh, Jan 4 (IANS) : BJP president Amit Shah will launch the party's campaign against drugs from Amritsar Jan 22, a senior BJP leader said Sunday. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sukhminderpal Singh Grewal said that the campaign would be launched under the aegis of the party's youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). "BJYM president and MP Anurag Thakur and Punjab BJP chief Kamal Sharma would be supervising the campaign against drugs. The drive would cover Punjab state in three phases, with its culmination to take place on the occasion of Baisakhi on April 14," he said. Grewal said BJP leaders would tour villages and towns to create awareness about drug menace and educate people on the harm that drugs are doing to the state. The BJP's drugs campaign has become a bone of contention with its alliance partner in Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal. The Akali Dal, in a clear move to preempt the BJP campaign, has announced its own protests against drugs in Punjab's border belt to be held Monday (Jan 5). Differences between the BJP and Akali Dal leaders emerged after Sharma demanded that state Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia should resign as he had been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged links to money-laundering by some NRIs in a Rs.6,000 crore international synthetic drugs racket busted by the Punjab Police in 2013. Grewal said that the BJP wants Majithia ousted from the Parkash Singh Badal government in the state. He said that the Akali Dal protests against the Border Security Force (BSF) over the drugs issue could demoralise the force.
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