UPA coordination committee should discuss ordinance: Omar

September 28, 2013
Srinagar, Sep 28: After Rahul Gandhi's attack on the controversial ordinance on convicted lawmakers, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today sought a meeting of UPA coordination committee to discuss the measure threadbare.

omerOmar, whose party National Conference is part of UPA, said Gandhi's remarks were an internal matter of Congress but a meeting of the UPA coordination committee should be called to take all constituents into confidence and set right the "misunderstandings" regarding the ordinance.

"I would want the (Union) Cabinet to discuss it (ordinance) after Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) returns and I also want that a meeting of the coordination committee discuss the issue threadbare," the Chief Minister told reporters here.

Omar said misunderstandings have been created publicly about the ordinance and sought to discuss the issue "privately in a closed room".

"Whatever Rahul Gandhi has said is the internal matter and opinion of the Congress party.

"But as far as the UPA coalition is concerned, I think time has come that a meeting of the coordination committee should be called where all the constituents of UPA be taken into confidence and the misunderstandings which have been created regarding this ordinance and a situation which has been created publicly, that needs to be set right privately in a closed room," he said.

Rahul Gandhi had yesterday denounced the controversial ordinance to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers as "complete nonsense" and which "should be torn up and thrown away".

Gandhi, whose remarks caused political tremors, had said he realised that what he felt about the ordinance was not in harmony with Cabinet's decision and the Core Group's view.

The controversial ordinance seeks to prevent immediate disqualification of convicted MPs and MLAs. Reacting to the Supreme Court ruling on giving voters the right to reject candidates in the elections, Omar said,"I would not say right to reject but as regards to the none of the above (option), it is nothing new. It is allowed under the Representation of the People Act.

"What would be its implications, we have to first go through the order of the Supreme Court. Let the order reach us, we will study it and whatever we have to say, we will say that only then."

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Agencies
May 5,2020

Jammu and Kashmir, May 5: Awarding the prestigious Pulitzer Prize to three Indian photographers, the Pulitzer Board at Columbia University claimed that it was for their work in Kashmir as "India revoked its independence".

The award to Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin in the feature photography category for their pictures for the Associated Press was announced on Monday.

The prizes, considered the most prestigious for US journalism, are associated with the university's Graduate School of Journalism where the judging is done and is announced, although this year it was done remotely.

Besides a certificate, the prizes carry a cash award of $15,000, except the public service category for which a gold medal is awarded.

The public service prize went to The Anchorage Daily News for a series that dealt with policing in Alaska state.

In making the award to the three, the Board said on its website that it was "for striking images of life in the contested territory of Kashmir as India revoked its independence, executed through a communications blackout".

Besides making the false claim about "independence" of Kashmir being "revoked", the board that includes several leading journalists did not explain how their photographs could have reached the AP within hours of the incidents recorded "through a communication blackout".

India's Central government only revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave Jammu and Kashmir a special status and it was not independent.

Indian journalists were allowed to operate in Kashmir, while only non-Indian journalists were barred.

The wording of the award announcement calls into question the credibility of the Pulitzer Board that gives out what are considered prestigious journalism awards.

The portfolio of pictures by the three on the Pulitzer web site included one of a masked person attacking a police vehicle and another of masked people with variants of the Kashmir flag, besides photos of mourners and protesters.

One of the finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism was a reporter of Indian descent at The Los Angeles Times, Swetha Kannan, who was nominated for her work with two colleagues on the seas rising due to climate change.

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Agencies
August 6,2020

The Indian Defence Ministry, which had in its document that China intruded into the Indian territory in eastern Ladakh in early May, on August 6 took down the page which it had uploaded on its website.

According to a report by news channel NDTV, the ministry, in its document, had said the Chinese aggression has been "increasing along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and more particularly in Galwan valley since May 5."

"The Chinese side has transgressed in the areas of Kungrang Nala, Gogra and north bank of Pangong Tso Lake on May 17-18," the document, titled 'Chinese Aggression on LAC' stated.

The document revealed that "... a violent face-off incident took place between the two sides on June 15, resulting in casualties on both sides."

After the clash, a second corps commander level meeting took place on June 22 to discuss the modalities of de-escalation. "While engagement and dialogue at military and diplomatic level is continuing to arrive at mutually acceptable consensus, the present standoff is likely to be prolonged," it said.

A defence ministry spokesperson told the news channel that the document "did not go through him".

The opposition Congress, meanwhile, asked the government why the report was taken down with party leader Rahul Gandhi alleging that removal of the document from websites would not change facts.

"Forget standing up to China, India's PM lacks the courage even to name them. Denying China is in our territory and removing documents from websites won't change the facts," Gandhi tweeted.

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News Network
February 17,2020

New Delhi, Feb 17: Four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder will be hanged on March 3 at 6 am a Delhi court said on Monday.

The Patiala House Court on Monday issued fresh death warrants against four convicts while hearing a petition by the state and Nirbhaya's parents.

Earlier, Delhi High Court on February 5 granted a week's time to the four convicts to avail of all legal remedies available to them and said that the convicts cannot be hanged separately since they were convicted for the same crime.

A Delhi Court had earlier issued a death warrant against the four convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh -- on January 7 and they were scheduled to be executed on January 22 at Tihar Jail. Later, the execution was suspended indefinitely by a Delhi court.

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