1400 HRS

07th April, 2013

THE HEADLINES

• Prime Minister stresses the need to significantly enhance the number of judges to administer justice and reduce backlog of cases.

• Chief Justice of India calls for improving Juvenile Justice system.

• Supreme Court stays the hanging of eight death convicts whose mercy petitions were rejected by the President.

• India successfully test-fires medium range nuclear capable Agni-II missile from the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast.

• Five more persons, including an assistant municipal commissioner arrested in connection with the building collapse in Thane district of Maharashtra.

• Pervez Musharraf's nomination papers for another parliamentary constituency also rejected.

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Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has stressed the need to significantly enhance the number of judges to administer justice and reduce backlog of cases. Addressing the joint conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts in New Delhi today, Dr Singh said over three crore cases are pending in courts across the country and 26 per cent of them are over five-year old.

"I am conscious of the enormity of the task we face in reducing the backlog of cases and increasing the pace at which trials takes place."

Dr Manmohan Singh assured full Central assistance to the States and urged the Chief Ministers to support the initiative to address the twin problems of pendency and delay in disposal of cases.

"The judge to population ratio at the current level of 15.5 judge per million population is indeed grossly inadequate. We need to alter this equation, so as to address the problem of pendency and delays in disposal of cases. However, the initiative in this must come from our State Governments."

The Prime Minister said that the government will ask 14th Finance Commission for allocation of more funds to the States, especially for the judicial sector. The Centre will also request the Commission to earmark funds for establishing fast track courts for speedy trials of heinous crimes and offences against the elderly, women and children.

The Prime exhorted the Chief Ministers for collective efforts to ensure that the laws governing daily lives of citizens are certain, stable and reasonable. He emphasized that the laws must deliver on respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights besides ensuring inclusion of disadvantaged sections in the justice delivery process. He also called for intensified efforts to deal with offences against women.

"I must thank the judiciary for establishing special courts for fast tracking trials of offences against women. But a great deal more needs to be done, as far as, offences against women are concerned."

Dr. Singh said fundamental principles of law and natural justice must not be compromised to satiate the rhetoric of the political discourse. The Prime Minister said the government's chosen path of development, based on fast, inclusive and sustainable growth will reduce disparities and ensure a life of dignity for all citizens.

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Speaking on the occasion, Chief Justice of India Justice Altamas Kabir underlined the need for improving the Juvenile Justice system. He said 42 per cent of India's population comprises the youth and if they are not taken care of properly, it may lead to a very chaotic situation in the next 15 years. Justice Kabir said the youth must be weaned away from the menace of drug addiction. He sought the Centre and States' help in setting up mediation centres for institutionalizing additional dispute redressal system.

On improving physical infrastructure of courts, he said attention must also be paid to doubling or increasing the number of judicial officers in subordinate courts.

Law and Justice Minister Dr Ashwani Kumar said the government has supported mediation, conciliation, arbitration and lok adalats as alternate dispute redressal mechanism through various schemes to reduce backlog of pending cases. He informed that about 11 lakh lok adalats have helped in settling over 3.76 crore cases which testifies their popularity.

The Minister, however, expressed concern over slow pace in setting up of gram nyayalayas which were envisaged to bring justice to the door steps of people. He said against the goal of five thousand gram nyayalayas, only 172 have been notified so far with 152 operational in the country.

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The Supreme Court in a special sitting last night stayed the hanging of eight death convicts whose mercy petitions were rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee earlier this week. A bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam and M Y Eqbal stayed the executions on a PIL seeking to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment on grounds of inordinate delay in disposal of the mercy petitions.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has also stayed the hanging of Dharampal till April 10, who is facing death sentence for killing five members of a family.

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The medium range nuclear capable Agni-II missile was today successfully test-fired from the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast. Our Correspondent reports that the trial of the surface-to-surface missile was conducted from a mobile launcher from the Launch Complex-4 of Integrated Test Range at around 10.20 this morning:-

The successful test-firing of nuclear-capable Agni-II missile from Wheeler Island off Odisha coast has added one more feather to the ballatic missile programme of India. Agni-II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) has already been inducted into the services and today's test was carried out by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Indian army with logistic support provided by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The two-stage missile equipped with advanced high accuracy navigation system, guided by a novel scheme of state of the earth command & control system was propelled by solid rocket propellant system. The entire trajectory of the trial was tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars, telemetry observation stations, electro-optic instruments and naval ships located near the impact point in the down range area of the sea. The 20-metre long Agni-II is a two-stage, solid-propelled ballistic missile. It has a launch weight of 17 tonnes and can carry a payload of 1000 kg over. The state-of-the-art Agni-II missile was developed by Advanced Systems Laboratory along with other DRDO laboratories and integrated by the Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), Hyderabad. Agni-II is part of the Agni series of missiles which includes Agni-I with a 700 km range, Agni-III with a 3,000 km range, Agni-IV and Agni-V. PRAKASH DASH/AIR NEWS/ BHUBANESWAR.

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In Mumbai, five more persons, including unassisted municipal commissioner and a NCP corporator, were today arrested in connection with the building collapse in Thane district, With this, the total number of arrests has gone up to eight. According to Police sources, the five arrested persons are Assistant Municipal Commissioner Babasaheb Andale, constable S Sayeed, local NCP corporator Hira Patil, Thane Municipal Corporation clerk Kisan Madke and collection agent Jabbar Patel.

The arrested persons have been booked under relevant sections of IPC, including causing death by negligence, causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others and attempt to commit culpable homicide.

Civic authorities yesterday pulled down some go downs in the vicinity and two more illegal buildings which had come up near the ill-fated building at Shil Phata area in Thane district.

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In Manipur, two powerful bombs, allegedly planted by insurgents to attack security personnel, were found in Imphal West district yesterday. Police sources said, a trained-dog of Assam Rifles personnel detected a powerful bomb, weighing more than two kg and planted at the end of a roadside culvert, when the para military forces were patrolling Wabgai Leirak Achouba area, about 27 km south-east of Imphal. Police forces detected another powerful bomb, planted at a roadside area, at Koirengei, about 17 km north of the State capital which was later defused.

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BJP National Office Bearers meeting is underway in Delhi. Senior party leaders including L.K Adwani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley are participating in it. The issues related to strengthening of party organization in the view of General Election and upcoming state assembly polls are likely to be discussed in the meet. Our correspondent reports, it is the first meeting of the office bearers after the announcement of party's new team under the Presidentship of Rajnath Singh.

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In Jharkhand, polling is on for 26 local civic bodies. Polling which started at 7.00 a.m. today morning all over State except Ranchi and Bundu will end at 3PM. 8.5 lakh voters are to choose 26 Chairmen of different municipal bodies from 267 candidates whereas 2846 candidates are for the post of different Ward commissioners. The security has been tightened in view of the bandh called by the naxals.

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The News Services Division of All India Radio in its weekly "PUBLIC SPEAK" programme tomorrow will bring you a discussion on "Digitization of Cable TV." The Secretary I&B Mr. Uday Kumar Varma will participate in the discussion. This can be heard on FM Gold Channel and additional frequencies from 9.30 p.m. Listeners can pose questions to the experts sitting in our studio on telephone number: 011-2331-4444. This programme is also available on Doordarshan DTH.

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Pervez Musharraf's nomination papers for a parliamentary constituency in Pakistan's port city of Karachi were rejected today. It comes two days after his candidature was disallowed in another seat in Punjab province. Election officials rejected the former military ruler's papers for parliamentary constituency number 250 in Karachi. Jamaat-e-Islami leader Niyamatullah Khan, who intends to contest the May 11 polls from the same constituency, had yesterday objected to Musharraf's candidature on the ground that he had twice violated and subverted the Constitution. The Returning Officer for a constituency at Kasur in Punjab had rejected Musharraf's nomination papers on Friday on the ground that the signature did not match the one on his national identity card.

The PML-N has filed an application in the Election Commission seeking Musharraf’s disqualification on the ground that he is an accused in four cases, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti in a 2006 military operation.

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In a goodwill gesture, Border Security Force has handed over a Pakistan national, who inadvertently crossed into Indian territory in Gurdaspur sector on Thursday evening, to Pak Rangers. BSF sources told AIR that 20-year old Md. Azim of district Narowal, Pakistan was apprehended by BSF troops. During questioning it was established that he inadvertently crossed the International Border. Nothing objectionable was recovered from his possession.

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A US media report says, in a secret deal, Pakistan allowed American drone strikes on its soil on the condition that the unmanned aircraft would stay away from its nuclear facilities and the mountain camps where Kashmiri terrorists were trained for attacks in India. The New York Times reported today that under secret negotiations between Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and America's CIA during 2004, the terms of the bargain were set. The secret deal over drone strikes was reached after CIA agreed to kill tribal warlord Nek Muhammad, a Pakistani ally of the Afghan Taliban who led a rebellion and was marked by Islamabad as an enemy of the state.

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NEWS JUSTI IN:

Pervez Musharraf's nomination papers for another Parliamentary constituency at Chitral in Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa province, have been accepted.

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The new Lebanese premier, Tammam Salam has said that his priority is to work for a national interest government and keep Lebanon out of the taking sides in the crisis in the neighboring Syria.

"The new Lebanese premier was chosen by 124 out of 128 MPs in the parliament to form a new cabinet which will oversee the upcoming general elections in June. Tammam Salam said there is a need to bring Lebanon out of its state of division and political fragmentation and to stay clear of the crisis in Syria and ward off the regional tensions. He takes charge at a time when Lebanon faces rising sectarian tensions due to Syria's civil war. Lebanon's two largest political blocs support opposite sides in the fight between Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and rebel fighters trying to oust him. Besides more than 400,000 Syrian refugees have taken shelter in the country, putting a severe strain on the country to cope with the influx of the refugees."ATUL TIWARY/AIR NEWS/ DUBAI.

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The World Health Day being observed today. The day aims at creating awareness among the people about health related issues. This year the theme of the Day is High Blood Pressure. Our correspondent reports that the event focused on scaling up action on hypertension in the country are being organized in different parts of the national capital.

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In the ongoing IPL Twenty-20 cricket tournament, Pune Warriors will take on Kings Eleven Punjab in Pune at 4 PM, while Sunrisers Hyderabad will lock horns with Royal Challengers Bangalore in Hyderabad at 8 PM. Earlier, in another match, Rajasthan Royals beat Delhi Daredevils by 5 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi.

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In Tennis, the Reverse Singles matches of the Asia Oceania Group-I Davis Cup relegation play-off tie between India and Indonesia will be played in Bangalore today.