July 2019
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
6 <strong>July</strong> <strong>2019</strong><br />
ASIA<br />
www.theasianindependent.co.uk<br />
Karnataka CM to seek trust vote on <strong>July</strong> 18<br />
Bengaluru : Karnataka Chief<br />
Minister HD Kumaraswamy will seek a<br />
vote of confidence of the state<br />
Assembly on <strong>July</strong> 18, against the backdrop<br />
of 16 MLAs of the ruling Congress<br />
and JD(S) tendering their resignation.<br />
"I have directed the Chief Minister to<br />
hold the floor test in the Assembly on<br />
Thursday (<strong>July</strong> 18)," Speaker KR<br />
Ramesh Kumar told reporters after a<br />
meeting of the Business Advisory<br />
Committee of the House here on<br />
Monday. The meeting was attended by<br />
Kumarswamy, Congress Legislature<br />
Party leader Siddaramaiah and opposition<br />
BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa.<br />
The floor test will be held at 11 am<br />
on Thursday. The BJP has been<br />
demanding the floor test in the wake of<br />
resignation by 16 MLAs of the ruling<br />
alliance— 13 of the Congress and 3 of<br />
the JD(S)—and withdrawal of support<br />
to the Kumaraswamy government by<br />
two other legislators. The resignations<br />
have not yet been accepted by the<br />
Speaker, who has said he would need<br />
time to study whether these were in<br />
proper format. Unhappy with the delay<br />
by the Speaker in accepting their resignations,<br />
15 of the rebel MLAs have<br />
moved the Supreme Court, apprehending<br />
that they could be disqualified.<br />
The top court on <strong>July</strong> 12 ordered a<br />
status quo on the petitions till Tuesday<br />
when the matter would be heard again.<br />
The Congress-JD(S), along with lone<br />
legislators each of BSP and a regional<br />
party and an Independent, had 118<br />
MLAs, including the Speaker, in the<br />
225-member House, when the staked<br />
claim to form government last year. If<br />
all the 18 legislators, including 16 rebels<br />
and 2 Independents do not attend the<br />
session, the effective strength of the<br />
House for voting will be 205, including<br />
105 of the BJP and excluding the<br />
Speaker and the nominated member.<br />
The BJP has issued a notice to<br />
Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar during the<br />
Business Advisory Committee meeting<br />
attended by party leader BS<br />
Yeddyurappa seeking to move the noconfidence<br />
motion, party state general<br />
secretary CT Ravi said.<br />
“Yes, we have given a notice to move<br />
a no-confidence motion,” he said.<br />
"As the new halfway mark will be<br />
103 for a simple majority, the ruling<br />
combine with 100, including one from<br />
the supporting party BSP will fall 3<br />
short off it (halfway mark) to win the<br />
trust vote and certain to be defeated,"<br />
according to BJP spokesman G.<br />
Madhusudana.<br />
The Supreme Court will take up petitions<br />
of 15 rebel MLAs of Congress-<br />
JD(S) coalition seeking a direction to<br />
assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to<br />
accept their resignations on Tuesday.<br />
Ahead of by-polls, Mayawati, Akhilesh under CBI scanner<br />
Pak anti-terror court grants pre-arrest bail to Hafiz Saeed, 3 aides<br />
Lahore : Mumbai terror attack mastermind<br />
and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed and<br />
his three aides were granted pre-arrest<br />
bail on Monday by an anti-terrorism<br />
court in Pakistan in a case pertaining to<br />
the banned outfit’s illegal use of land for<br />
its seminary.<br />
The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in<br />
Lahore granted interim bail to Saeed<br />
and his aides -- Hafiz Masood, Ameer<br />
Hamza, and Malik Zafar -- until August<br />
31 against surety bonds of Rs 50,000<br />
each, Dawn newspaper reported. During<br />
the hearing, Saeed’s counsel insisted<br />
that Jamat-ud Dawah (JuD) was not<br />
using any piece of land illegally and<br />
urged the court to accept bail pleas.<br />
According to officials, JuD’s network<br />
includes 300 seminaries and<br />
schools, hospitals, a publishing house<br />
New Delhi : Ahead of the<br />
crucial assembly by-elections in<br />
Uttar Pradesh, dates for which<br />
are expected to be announced<br />
soon, the two key opposition<br />
leaders of the ruling BJP,<br />
Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj<br />
Party (BSP) and Akhilesh<br />
Yadav of the Samajwadi Party<br />
(SP), appear to be in big trouble<br />
as the Central Bureau of<br />
Investigation (CBI) is probing<br />
two fresh cases of corruption<br />
against them. The by-elections<br />
will be for 12 assembly seats.<br />
The Rs 1,100 crore sugar mills<br />
scam, which is unraveling the<br />
bureaucrat-political nexus in<br />
selling state assets, involves Mayawati's<br />
former secretary Netram while a multicrore<br />
sand mining scam links Akhilesh<br />
Yadav's aide Gayatri Prajapati with six<br />
bureaucrats in looting public resources.<br />
Sources in the CBI said that after<br />
Wednesday's raids at various premises<br />
of former SP Minister Prajapti and three<br />
IAS officers in UP, the agency can question<br />
Yadav during whose tenure, as UP<br />
chief minister, the mining scam took<br />
place. Sources said that before Prajapati<br />
was appointed cabinet minister, then<br />
chief minister Yadav had held the mining<br />
portfolio from March 2012 to <strong>July</strong><br />
2013. During this period, the chief minister's<br />
office had reportedly cleared several<br />
files related to lease of mines.<br />
The CBI would be auditing these<br />
files to ascertain whether the then chief<br />
minister's office had followed laid down<br />
procedure for approving the lease of<br />
mines. In Prajapati's case, CBI discovered<br />
that mandatory e-tendering norms<br />
were grossly violated. As minister,<br />
Prajapati approved the lease of mines<br />
directly for contractors of his choice.<br />
Subsequently, on Prajapati's instruction,<br />
the then mining secretary and district<br />
magistrates concerned signed on the<br />
files to execute the lease.<br />
Sources said that though Prajapati<br />
and ambulance service.<br />
In March, Punjab<br />
police said that government<br />
seized control<br />
of 160 seminaries, 32<br />
schools, two colleges,<br />
four hospitals, 178<br />
ambulances and 153<br />
dispensaries associated<br />
with the JuD and its<br />
charity wing the<br />
Falah-e-Insaniat<br />
Foundation (FIF) in<br />
province.At least 56 seminaries and<br />
facilities being run by the JuD and FIF<br />
in southern Sindh province were also<br />
taken over by authorities in the same<br />
month.<br />
Saeed-led JuD is believed to be the<br />
was sacked by Yadav at a later stage, the<br />
violations were ignored by the chief<br />
minister's office. As of now, the CBI is<br />
gathering more evidence on the scam<br />
and would further interrogate three IAS<br />
officers of UP to establish the role of the<br />
chief minister's office during Yadav's<br />
tenure. While Yadav faces trouble in<br />
the days to come, his erstwhile alliance<br />
partner Mayawati too seems to be in<br />
deep waters. For Mayawati the problem<br />
stems from the fact that her most trusted<br />
bureaucrat, Netram, has been raided<br />
by CBI in the sugar mills scam.<br />
Sources said that Mayawati's fate<br />
now depends on the disclosure statement<br />
of Netram to CBI<br />
relating to approvals for<br />
disinvestment of 21 sugar<br />
mills. According to the<br />
CBI FIR, sugar mills were<br />
sold at throwaway prices in<br />
2010-11. Mayawati was<br />
UP chief minister from<br />
2007 to 2012. Sources said<br />
that Netram, who ruled the<br />
roost in UP during<br />
Mayawati's chief ministership,<br />
has earlier faced<br />
income tax raids over suspected<br />
tax evasion amounting<br />
to Rs 100 crore.<br />
Another close aide of<br />
Mayawati, Vinay Priya<br />
Dubey, a former managing director of<br />
UP State Sugar Corporation, has also<br />
been raided by the CBI in connection<br />
with the sugar mills scam. Sources said<br />
that Mayawati, who steered away from<br />
the Disproportionate Assets Case earlier,<br />
now faces a tough time as CBI interrogates<br />
members of the inner coterie of<br />
the BSP supremo in the scandal which<br />
has of late rocked politics in Lucknow.<br />
The by-elections are crucial for both<br />
Mayawati and Yadav because, after the<br />
poor showing by their parties in the Lok<br />
Sabha polls, they will decide who is the<br />
principal opponent of the Bharatiya<br />
Janata Party in the state.<br />
front organisation<br />
for the Lashkar-e-<br />
Toiba which is<br />
responsible for carrying<br />
out the 2008<br />
Mumbai attacks.<br />
The US<br />
Department of the<br />
Treasury has designated<br />
Saeed as a<br />
S p e c i a l l y<br />
Designated Global<br />
Terrorist, and the<br />
US, since 2012, has<br />
offered a USD 10 million reward for<br />
information that brings Saeed to justice.<br />
Under pressure from the international<br />
community, Pakistani authorities<br />
have launched investigations into matters<br />
of the JuD, LeT and the FIF regarding<br />
their holding and use of trusts to<br />
raise funds for terrorism financing.<br />
Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court<br />
(LHC) issued notices to the federal government,<br />
the Punjab government and<br />
the Counter-Terrorism Department<br />
(CTD) regarding a petition filed by<br />
Saeed and his seven aides, challenging<br />
charges of terror financing and money<br />
laundering against them.<br />
A two-member bench of the LHC<br />
comprising Justice Shehram Sarwar<br />
Chaudhry and Justice Mohammad<br />
Waheed Khan asked the parties to submit<br />
their replies within two weeks.<br />
A lawyer for the federal government<br />
objected to the notices, arguing that the<br />
petition was non-maintainable. The<br />
bench, however, dismissed the objection<br />
and adjourned proceedings until<br />
TDP MP asks<br />
Naidu to control<br />
his 'pet dog'<br />
Amaravati : The war of words<br />
between two leaders<br />
of the TDP in<br />
Andhra Pradesh<br />
touched a new low<br />
with Vijayawada<br />
MP Kesineni Nani<br />
on Monday asking<br />
the party President<br />
N. Chandrababu<br />
Naidu to control<br />
his "pet dog". The MP asked the former<br />
Chief Minister to clarify whether he<br />
wants him to continue in Telugu Desam<br />
Party (TDP) or not. "Chandra Babu<br />
Garu if you don't want people like me<br />
in the party you can let me know. I will<br />
resign as Member of Parliament and<br />
also to the Party membership. If you<br />
want people like me to continue, please<br />
control your pet dog," tweeted Nani.<br />
The tweet has an obvious referrence<br />
to TDP leader and Member of Andhra<br />
Pradesh Legislative Council Buddha<br />
Venkanna with whom Nani had a war<br />
of words on the micro blogging site.<br />
Reacting to the MP's latest tweet,<br />
Venkanna announced that he was putting<br />
an end to the 'twitter war' for the<br />
sake of the party and Chandrababu<br />
Naidu.<br />
<strong>July</strong> 30, the paper said.<br />
The Counter Terrorism Department<br />
(CTD) of Punjab Police on <strong>July</strong> 3 registered<br />
23 FIRs against 13 leaders of the<br />
JuD, including Saeed, on the charges of<br />
“terror financing” in different cities of<br />
Punjab province.<br />
On Friday, Saeed, who is reportedly<br />
living at his Jauhar Town residence in<br />
Lahore, challenged these FIRs in the<br />
Lahore High Court.<br />
“Hafiz Saeed and other (petitioners)<br />
are not members of Lashkar-e-Toiba<br />
(LeT) as per the (earlier) judgement of<br />
the LHC. The petitioners have no nexus<br />
with LeT or Al-Qaeda,” the petition<br />
said. It urged the LHC to declare that<br />
the petitioners are not linked with the<br />
LeT and therefore the CTD’s FIRs be<br />
declared illegal.