UP lady cop who stood up against BJP leaders, shunted out

New Delhi, Jun 2: Manu Sharma, a convict in the 1999 Jessica Lal murder case, was released from Tihar Jail yesterday on the grounds of good behaviour after serving more than 16 years in prison, jail officials said on Tuesday.

Sharma had received the approval of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi for his release after a recommendation of the Sentence Review Board for the same.

Advocate Amit Sahni, while speaking to ANI, had said that Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal had approved the name of Siddharth Vashishth also known as Manu Sharma for release from Tihar Jail.

He said that Sharma's name was approved in a sentence review board meeting held on May 11. Earlier, Delhi High Court had also asked the SRB to consider his name for release.

Sharma, the son of former Congress leader Venod Sharma, was convicted for shooting and murdering Jessica Lal, when she refused to serve him liquor at Tamarind Court restaurant at Qutub Colonnade in south Delhi's Mehrauli on April 29, 1999.

Vashishth, 45-years-old, was serving a life term in connection with a case registered under Section 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of the offense or giving false information to screen offender) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

According to officials, the convict has undergone imprisonment for 16 years, 11 months and 24 days in actual, and 23 years 4 months and 22 days with remission. He has availed parole 12 times and furlough 24 times.

Earlier, Manu's wife -- Preity Sharma -- had approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) claiming that her husband had been illegally detained for more than the prescribed period of incarceration (20 years with remission) as per the prevalent policy of the state.

New Delhi, Jan 31: Substantial competition and low tariff rates by telecom operators since 2016 have led to a financial stress in the sector, the Economic Survey said on Friday.

The data price in the country came down by over 99 per cent during 2016-2019, making it among the lowest tariff in the world, according to the survey.

"Since 2016, the sector has witnessed substantial competition and price cutting by the telecom service providers (TSPs), creating financial stress in the sector. As a result, the sector is experiencing consolidation. While some operators have filed for bankruptcy, others have merged, in their quest to improve viability," the survey report said.

In April-June 2019, the price of data was Rs 7.7 per gigabyte (GB) as compared to Rs 200 per GB in June 2016, it added.

"The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM based mobile services has also gone down substantially from Rs 126 in June 2016 to Rs 74.30 in June 2019," the survey said.

The tariff war started in the market with entry of new telecom operator Reliance Jio in September 2016.

"BSNL and MTNL are also affected by the tariff war that has impacted their cash flow resulting in mounting losses," the survey said.

The financial health of the public sector telecom firms plummeted to a level where they have been finding hard to pay employees salaries in time.

The government has drawn up a plan to revive these PSUs which is still in works.

The revival plan consists of several measures, including reduction of staff cost through voluntary retirement scheme, allotment of spectrum for 4G services, monetisation of land and building, tower and fibre assets of BSNL and MTNL, debt restructuring through sovereign guarantee bonds and ''in-principle'' approval for merger of BSNL and MTNL.

The survey said that the wireless telephony now constitutes 98.27 per cent of all subscriptions whereas share of landline telephones now stands at only 1.73 per cent where market share is dominated by private sector players.

"The overall tele-density in India stands at 90.45 per cent, the rural tele-density being 57.35 per cent and urban teledensity being 160.71 per cent at the end of September 2019. The private sector dominates with a share of 88.81 per cent (106.06 crore connections) at the end of September, 2019 while the share of public sector was 11.19 per cent (13.36 crore connections)," the survey said.

The lower price of data has also lead in surge of broadband connections and average consumption of the internet.

Total broadband connections increased by about ten times, from 6.1 crore in 2014 to 59.46 crore in June 2019, the survey said.

The number of internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband put together) stood at 66.53 crore at the end of June 2019 as compared to 25.16 crore in 2014.

The number of mobile internet subscribers was 64.36 lakh at the end of June 2019 while the number of wireline internet subscribers was 2.17 crore.

"India is now the global leader in monthly data consumption, with average consumption per subscriber per month increasing 157 times from 62 MB in 2014 to 9.8 GB in June 2019. The cost of data has also reduced substantially, enabling affordable internet access for millions of citizens," the survey said.

Lucknow, Jul 2: Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti Thursday appeared in person before a special court here conducting trial in the 1992 Babri mosque demolition case.      

The special CBI court is currently recording the statements of 32 accused under CrPC section 313 (court's power to examine the accused), a stage in the trial that follows the examination of prosecution witnesses.

The 61-year-old saffron clad BJP leader is the 19th accused to depose before the court in the over 27-year-old case. Thirteen other alleged accused, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani and senior BJP leaders MM Joshi and Kalyan Singh are yet to be examined at this stage. Their lawyers have indicated to the CBI court that they prefer to appear through video conferencing. 

The mosque in Ayodhya was demolished in December 1992 by 'kar sevaks' who claimed that an ancient Ram temple had stood on the same site. The CBI court is conducting day-to-day hearings to complete the trial by August 31, as directed by the Supreme Court.