New Delhi, May 8: The human resources development minister, Mr Arjun Singh, has expressed unhappiness at the way the Congress is functioning.  He has drawn attention to how the “process of consultations” within the party has “fallen into a bit of disarray,” and cautioned that “when people do not have the feeling that they have contributed to the decision-making process, then they have no hassles in defying it.” Mr Singh, who is known for his public displays of loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family, had earlier stated that the AICC general secretary, Mr Rahul Gandhi, had all the qualities of his father, the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, suggesting that Rahul too was prime ministerial material.

Soon after this a party spokesperson issued a statement trying to discourage an “atmosphere of sycophancy” in the party. Mr Arjun Singh was not the only leader to see Mr Gandhi as a potential Prime Minister; this line was publicly endorsed by the external affairs minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, the minister of state for home, Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal, and some others. In a wide-ranging interview to journalist Kanhaiyalal Nandan published in a book edited by him Mohi Kaha Vishram, a compilation of articles on and interviews with Mr Arjun Singh (which will be released by the President, Ms Pratibha Patil, on Friday), the HRD minister said that earlier “there were many opportunities to contribute to decisions, and major decisions of the Congress were taken after a process of consultations.” “But now this process has fallen into a bit of disarray, and when people do not have the feeling that they have contributed to the decision-making process, then they have no hassles in defying it.”  Asked whom he considered his “guru” in politics, Mr Singh said if a teacher was one whose views you valued the most, it had to be Pandit Nehru.

Bangalore, May 8: Bangaloreans need to ‘log on to’ the Congress party to regain its glory. And the opportunity for city voters to press the ‘password’—that is the Congress party’s symbol hand — on electronic voting machine when they go to vote on Saturday.
This was precisely what Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh said during his election address to the intellectuals at a meeting here on Thursday.  Dr Singh read out the prepared speech to woo voters while his speech was telecast live through four Kannada TV channels. Without using a single harsh word, Dr Singh criticised the BJP- Dal (S) government and asked the people to vote for his party.

Comparing the performance of the Congress with that of the coalition governments, Dr Singh said the Congress was compelled to enter into a coalition to provide a secular government. Dharam Singh tried to do his best give good governance and the UPA government helped him to get approvals for the Bangalore Metro and new international airport.

Chandigarh, May 8: Bollywood actress Soha Ali Khan’s licence to possess the rifle, that was  allegedly used by her father — former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali
Khan Pataudi — to hunt and kill an endangered blackbuck in 2005, has been revoked by the Haryana government. Gurgaon district magistrate, Rakesh Kumar has held the actress “guilty” of “suppressing facts at the time of the renewal of her arms licence” as well as for permitting “misuse of her rifle by her father Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi”.

The “misuse” pertains to her father’s using the .22 bore rifle to hunt and kill a blackbuck — an endangered species of antelope — in Haryana’s Jhajjar area three years ago. The district magistrate told reporters in Gurgaon that he had informed the Jhajjar district police about his decision with instructions that the weapon, which has been in their possession since it was seized from the Pataudi Household, “is not to be released to Ms Khan”.

Bangalore, May 8: Bangaloreans need to “log onto” the Congress party to regain its glory. And the opportunity for city voters to press the “password” — that is the Congress party’s symbol hand — on electronic voting machine when they go to vote on Saturday. This was precisely what Prime Minister Manmohan Singth said during his election address to the intellectuals at a meeting here on Thursday.

Dr Singh read out the prepared speech to influence voters while his speech was telecast live through four Kannada TV channels. Without using a single harsh word, Dr Singh criticised the BJP-JD(S) government and asked the people to vote for his party. Dr Singh was of the view that, between 1999 and 2004, the state was the pride of India. It was a leading state in industry, in IT and in development. On the one hand Bangalore was the hottest investment destination for IT and electronics, he said. Comparing the performance of the Congress government with that of the coalition governments, Dr Singh said the Congress was compelled to enter into a coalition to provide a secular government. Dharam Singh tried to do his best give good governance and the UPA government helped him to get approvals for the Bangalore Metro and new international airport.

“The BJP and the JD-S entered into an opportunistic alliance and displayed their selfishness, greed and lust for power. Partners in government made accusations and counter accusations against each other. There has been no stability or good governance. The state and the city lost their reputation across the country. Other cities which were once imitating Bangalore went far ahead on several fronts,” he said. He went on to say that though the Devanahalli airport was sanctioned much before the Hyderabad project was cleared, the Hyderabad airport became operational. “Here, we do not have proper connectivity to the airport. Long term planning for the future and the welfare of the people have suffered grievously. One does not know whether this is a farce or a tragedy.”
He said the Congress was the only party that could provide stability and good governance to the state.

“Bangalore needs a government that can regain its glory. The city, whose skills are respected and feared across the world has suffered from lack of adequate infrastructure.”
Bangalore needs a new beginning with the infrastructure required to meet its needs to re-emerge as India’s knowledge capital. The airport needs an expressway to connect it to the city. The roads need to be improved. The administrative set up needs to be revamped to match the needs of a global city,” he said. Dr Singh assured the people in the city that his party, if voted to power, would provide a government to transform Bangalore to make it a global city.

Panaji, May 8: With the Goa police facing scores of unnatural foreigner deaths, increased crime and narcotic overdoses, a two-year backlog in specialised forensic tests is complicating matters and causing embarrassment to the state government. Nearly 200 cases have been referred and are pending with the overburdened Central Forensic Science Laboratory — the lab Goa police uses for viscera tests. Of these, 28 relate to unnatural deaths of foreign tourists. Cases are pending for chemical analysis tests (to determine narcotic overdoses), serological and biological tests from April 2006, according to information procured under right to information laws.

Cases are only now being sent to the Mumbai Forensic Science Laboratory of the Maharashtra government, after the Scarlett Keeling case was referred to it. The tests costs Rs 20,000 as against the CFSL, the official central laboratory, with international recognition and whose findings are accepted in law courts. Even as the administration here is readying its own lab in Verna, south Goa, it is under pressure from Russian consular authorities and its legal representative Vikram Varma to expedite investigations into several other unnatural deaths of Russian visitors, including the December 2007 death of Evgeny Kuzmin.

Kuzmin, said to be a Russian cop, arrived on a tourist visa in November 2007 along with a male friend with whom he stayed for a while. In early December, says IGP Kishan Kumar, Kuzmin began living alone, and befriended a Russian woman at a restaurant. The following morning he was found dead in the woman’s rented accommodation in North Goa. With no injury marks on the body, the cause of death was kept pending by doctors who conducted an initial autopsy, while Kuzmin’s viscera was dispatched to CFSL for a chemical analysis. With reports and a clear cause of death expected two years from now, the case of unnatural death will remain pending on police files.  — a system increasingly unacceptable to consulates.

New Delhi, May 8: Former BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu rejected the pre-poll surveys that predicted a win for the Congress and asserted that the BJP was projected to win 119 to 129 seats in the Karnataka Assembly elections.  The half-way mark is 113 seats in Karnataka, which eluded all the three major political formations — the Congress, BJP and Janata Dal (Secular) — in the last Karnataka Assembly election in 2004.  The BJP has projected stability, ability of its leader, good governance and development as the major poll planks of the party in the upcoming Karnataka Asse-mbly elections. As part of good governance and development planks, the BJP is also focusing on the 20 months period, when B.S. Yediyurappa presented popular Budgets.

The first phase of polling is slated for May 10, the second phase on May 16 and the third and last phase on May 22. Results are expected to be out on May 25.  Mr Naidu said that the Congress bid to project a united face in Karnataka resulted in showing up the chinks in its armour. Former Karnataka chief minister S.M. Krishna, who quit as Maharashtra governor and returned to active politics, was missing at the Congress election manifesto release.

Apparently, Mr Krishna stayed away from the election manifesto release on the ground that he was not given his due importance. “The fact that Mr Krishna was inducted amid fanfare and later he was denied party ticket to contest the Karnataka Assembly elections showed the Congress in a state of utter confusion,” Mr Naidu said.  Betrayal of the JD-S in not allowing the BJP to complete its 20 months in office, the back-breaking price rise, the Bangalore infrastructure and the Congress move to lift the ban imposed by former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa have been identified as the key election themes by the BJP.  Regional imbalances, the poor state of Bangalore infr-astructure and Bangalore growing into a terrorist hub have turned out to be new election themes of the BJP.

Bangalore, May 8: Curtains came down on Thursday on the high-voltage campaign for the first phase of Assembly elections in 89 constituencies in Karnataka on May 10 which will decide the electoral fate of a number of political heavyweights, including former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, of JD-S. An estimated 1,72,88,358 electorate are involved in this phase from the 11 districts of Tumkur, Chikballapaur, Kolar, Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural, Ramanagara, Mandya, Hassan, Kodagu, Mysore and Chamarajanagara.

A total of 941 aspirants are in the fray for the first phase. Top candidates who are facing the electorate include former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy of JD-S in Raman-agara, his brother, former minister H.D. Revanna from Holenarasipura in Hassan district, former deputy chief minister of Congress in Varuna, Union minister and Congress MP, Ambarish, striving to make his Assembly debut from Srirangapatna in Mandya district and former minister Katta Subramanya Naidu of BJP, contesting from Hebbal in the city. Other notable candidates in the fray are: CWC member and former minister G. Parameshwara (Koratagere), former Union minister V. Srinivasa Prasad, seeking entry into Assembly from Nanjangud, former JD-S leader, G.T. Devegowda, fighting for re-election from Hunsur on BJP ticket and former minister R. Ashok of BJP in Padmanabhanagar.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in Bangalore to step up the Congress campaign for the first phase, has addressed partymen and asked them to strive unitedly to ensure the party’s return to power in the state. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi completed her electioneering for the first phase on Wednesday while L.K. Advani went on a two-phase campaign.  Front ranking leaders and candidates from all parties and even independents spanned out to seek votes beating the 5 pm deadline by which time electioneering came to end.  BSP chief Mayawati, JD-S president H.D. Devegowda and his JD(U) counterpart Sharad Yadav and BJP president Rajnath Singh were others who campaigned in several areas.