THE TIMES OF INDIA, INDORE SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2018 7TIMES NATION

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: Congress president Ra-hul Gandhi kept up his attack on theRafale deal and alleged that itsmacked of “globalcorruption” amid re-ports that the compa-ny which got the off-sets contract had pro-duced a film for thepartner of thenFrance presidentFrancois Hollande.

“Globalised corruption. This Ra-fale aircraft really does fly far andfast. It’s also going to drop some bigbunker buster bombs in the nextcouple of weeks. Modiji, please tellAnil (Ambani), there is a big prob-lem in France,” Rahul tweeted.

The tweet appeared to suggestthat more disclosures may surfacein the coming days.

Congress spokesman AbhishekSinghvi said there were too many co-incidences in the Rafale controversyto be taken at face value, referring toAmbani’s company producing afilm for Julie Gayet, partner of thethen French president who signedthe Rafale deal. Ambani’s companyhas secured the offsets contract.

Rafale deal smacksof ‘global graft’,alleges Rahul

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday is-sued notice to the Centre and governments of Ut-tar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh and Telan-gana seeking their response for alleg-edly misusing taxpayers’ money andnot complying with its guidelines onissuing public advertisements.

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi,Navin Sinha and K M Joseph agreed tohear a plea filed by Aam Aadmi PartyMLA Sanjeev Jha alleging that thesestate governments were blatantly vio-lating the directions of the apex courtand the committee, appointed by theCentre to supervise government advertise-ments, had failed to take any action againstthem. Jha also made BJP a party in the case say-ing states ruled by it were using governmentfunds to give advertisements to promote the par-ty and that the amount should be recovered.

The court asked the governments and BJP to

file their response within four weeks. The Su-preme Court had in March 2016 held that onlyphotos of President, Prime Minister, Chief Jus-

tice of India, governors, chief minis-ters, Union and state ministers beused in public advertisements. It hadsaid that minister’s photo can be pub-lished only in place of photos of PrimeMinister or chief minister.

The court had said that tax-payers’money was being misused by publish-ing photographs of politicians associ-ating them with government policiesand achievements which could devel-op a personality cult, an antithesis of

democratic functioning. It had said that there was nothing wrong

in government publishing advertisementshighlighting its policies and achievementsbut it must be done without naming the partyin power and without publishing the picturesof its leaders. TNN

SC notice to Centre, states for notcomplying with ad guidelines

TIMESNEWSNETWORK

New Delhi: Seeking to un-dercut what it sees as RahulGandhi’s “Hindu outreach”,BJP claimed on Friday thatthe Congress chief sought a“see-off” from Chinese diplo-mats for his Kailash Mansa-rovar trek. It said the Chi-nese embassy had asked forthree passes for the IGI Air-port lounge.

“MEA didn’t react to theChinese request but why didRahul want a see-off by the Chinese envoy eventhough he went to Nepal from where he willproceed to China for the Man-sarovar trip?” BJP spokes-person Sambit Patra said. Pa-

tra refused to comment onthe pilgrimage itself, sayingit was a personal visit, butsaid, “Why should the Chi-nese ambassador want to seeoff a non-Chinese person?There is no such protocol.”

BJP also played a videoclip of several commentsmade by Rahul in which hehighlighted achievements ofthe neighbouring country,and alleged that the Con-gress president acted like a“Chinese spokesperson”. Pa-

tra said during the Doklamstandoff, Rahul had met theChinese ambassador to un-derstand Beijing’s perspec-tive without taking the Indi-an government into confi-dence or seeking to know theIndian position. Congress’sresponse took note of theHindu undertone of BJP’scharge and said “Shiv bhakt”Rahul would not be deterred.It accused BJP of trying tocreate hurdles due to pettypolitics even over a pious is-

sue. “Will one have to seekpermission of Narendra Mo-di to visit the abode of LordShiva? Has he become biggerthan god?” Congress spokes-person Randeep Surjewalasaid. He said calling the ya-tra ‘honeymoon tourism’was the “vilest attack onHindu faith and beliefs”.“Shiv-bhakt Rahul willseek the god’s blessingsfor the country and its peo-ple, its progress and safe-ty,” he added.

‘EmbassySought 3

IGI Passes’

Rahul wanted China rolein his Mansarovar trip: BJP

Amidair scare involving a private aircraft ferrying RahulGandhi from Delhi to Hubli on April 26 possibly happened

due to a fault in the flight control computer that led to theauto pilot disengaging, a panel set up by the aviation ministryto probe the incident said on Friday. The situation gotaggravated due to a 15-second delay by the pilots in takingmanual control of the aircraft, it said, adding that the “theincident was survivable”. The Falcon 2000 business jet wascruising at 41,000 feet when the snag took place and the delayby pilots saw the aircraft banking sharply to right and havinga free fall of about 730 feet. TNN

‘Computer snag led to midair scare’

Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Indian airlines want the govern-ment to tweak its move to allow flyers to can-cel tickets without any fee. The aviation min-istry in May had proposed a full refund —without any cancellation charge — for flyerscancelling domestic air ticketswithin 24 hours of booking a flightthat is at least four days away. Air-lines, however, want the flight to beat least a week away for not levyingany charge on ticket cancellationswithin 24 hours of booking.

“The airline industry has toldDirectorate General of Civil Avia-tion that the lock-in fare facilityshould only be for flights that areover a week away. The final call onthe number of days will be taken by the avia-tion ministry,” said a source.

Cancellation fees are a big hassle for pas-sengers. At present, the charges are base fareplus fuel surcharge or Rs 3,000, whichever isless. An extended fare lock-in period — fromfour days to a week — could mean cutting“revenue losses” for airlines from this move,said a source.

All Indian airlines are deep in red due tospiraling operational costs and they blamebelow-cost fares for their losses. While air-

lines mostly keep fares relatively low, othercharges like cancellation, excess baggage andseat selection have been consistently hiked inthe past to generate revenue.

The aviation ministry had proposed theconcept of lock-in fares in its draft passengercharter which contained several flyer-friend-ly moves, including compensation for defi-

ciency in services. “Another changemade in the draft is that if a persondenied boarding is not given an alter-nate flight or the option given doesnot suit him or her, airlines will haveto offer a full refund of airfare,” said asource.

The draft contains proposals like— if an airline informs a passenger24 hours before departure that the do-mestic flight has been delayed bymore than four hours, the flyer is en-

titled to a full refund. Similarly, airlines mayhave to offer compensation between Rs 5,000and Rs 20,000 to passengers missing connect-ing domestic flights (one same PNR) due tothe first flight being late.

Almost all airlines have opposed the pro-posals. The government had sought com-ments from stakeholders on the charter andthe industry. “DGCA has taken into consider-ation the comments received. Now the minis-try is likely to finalize the same very soon andthen the charter will be in force. The final

Tweak full-refund rule forcancelled tickets: Airlines

CHANGE IN LOCK-IN PERIOD

New Delhi: The Delhi bench of the IncomeTax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has upheld thepenalty imposed by the income tax depart-ment on Young Indian, the company in whichCongress president Rahul Gandhi and his sis-ter Priyanka Vadra are directors.

Young Indian, launched in 2010, came intocontroversy and faced several challenges incourts soon after it acquired assets of Associ-ated Journals Ltd, which owned newspaperbrands like National Herald and Navjivanand had properties worth around Rs 500crore. Sources said Delhi ITAT upheld levy ofpenalty on Young Indian for for non-furnish-ing of information requisitioned by the in-come tax department.

“The conduct of the assessee is not at allbona-fide” the order said. The Young Indian(YI) had, however, argued that the informa-

tion sought by the I-T department was identi-cal to issues raised in the complaint filed byBJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamyand the matter is presently pending beforeDelhi High Court. It further argued that anyadjudication made by the department in thatregard will result in prejudging the issuespending in the courts. The ITAT, however, re-jected the pleas of YI and upheld the penaltyimposed by the I-T’s directorate of investiga-tion. The ITAT further rejected YI’s standthat since all details requisitioned were al-ready available either in the records of theI-T department or on the website of theministry of corporate affairs, there was areasonable cause on its part for non-sub-mission as those details would have goneinto the hands of political opponents thatcould then be misused. TNN

Panel upholds penalty levied on Young Indian

New Delhi:The government onFriday assured that banks willremain open in first week of Sep-tember and operations will con-tinue “unimpeded.” The assur-ance came against the backdropof rumours circulating on socialmedia. “It has come to notice thata rumour is circulating on socialmedia that banks will be closedfor six days in the first week ofSeptember 2018, causing unduepanic among the general public,”a statement from the financeministry said. TNN

‘No disruption inbank services inSept first week’

The militants also dis-seminated on socialmedia separate videos

of all 14 persons in whichthey are seen appealing tostate DGP S P Vaid not to ha-rass the families of mili-tants. “Otherwise providesecurity to us,” Irfan Gulzar,a sub-Inspector, is heard say-ing in a video.

Former J&K CM andPDP president MehboobaMufti condemned the abduc-tions on Twitter. “Militantsand forces victimizing eachother’s families is highlycondemnable and marks anew low in our situation.Families shouldn’t becomecasualties and made to suf-fer for something they havelittle control over,” shetweeted.

Earlier in the day, Na-tional Conference vice-pres-ident and former CM OmarAbdullah had termed the sit-uation as “worrying”. “11ab-ductions! This is a very wor-rying reflection of the situa-tion in the valley. What’sworse is the selective out-rage — people/leaders whoare so vocal about alleged se-

curity force excesses are si-lent about these abduc-tions,” Omar tweeted.

The only statement fromthe police was a Twitterstatement confirming“some abductions” had tak-en place. “Some incidents ofabduction have come to thenotice of Police in #SouthKashmir,” the J&K policesaid in a tweet. “We are as-certaining details and cir-cumstances. In due course itshall be placed in the publicdomain,” the tweet added.

The police had arrestedat least four relatives of mili-tants, including AssadullahNaiko, father of Hizb com-mander Riyaz Naiko, whohad been taken into custodyon Wednesday night fromhis home at Beighpora inAwantipora, in south Kash-mir’s Pulwama district. Ri-yaz Naikoo, alias Moham-mad bin Qasim, is Hizb chiefof operations.

Ghulam Hassan and histwo brothers, Zubair and Na-deem Ahmad, kin of activeHizb militant Lateef Tiger,had been arrested from theirresidence in Dogripora Pul-wama during a Wednesdaynight raid. TNN

‘Families shouldn’t becomecasualties & made to suffer’�Continued from P 1

Thelast time data on caste was collected aspart of the decennial census was in 1931.Although a socio-economic caste census

(SECC) was conducted between 2011 and 2013in deference to the demand of the powerfulOBC lobby, it was part of the rural develop-ment ministry’s survey of socio-economic sta-tus of households.

The decision marks a victory for OBCs, whostridently campaigned for bringing caste backin the census exercise. They maintain that theyconstitute more than 50% of the populationand it was time this “reality” was acknowl-edged through the Census.

Many believe the insistence has been in-spired by the objective to demand that the shareof OBCs in resources and representation becommensurate with their numbers by doingaway with the 50% cap on quota.

There has, in fact, been much heartburnamong the backward classes that the govern-ment has given a virtual go-by to the OBC enu-meration done through the SECC. The OBCoutfits have been complaining that the govern-ment did not form the committee to process thedata that has been in its possession for the lastthree years. Sources, however, said the SECC,

which was purely a response-based exercisewith respondents being asked to mention theircastes, threw up a mountain of data which wasfull of anomalies. In contrast, the collection ofOBC data during Census 2021 will involve enu-meration based on a list of OBCs notified byeach state. However, while a reliable and accu-rate headcount of OBCs marks a victory for the“backwards” who have cornered the lion’sshare of reservation in government jobs andeducational institutions, what might take awaytheir happiness is that this will happen in tan-dem with a simultaneous exercise to sub-cate-gorise OBCs so as to identify the most back-ward classes among them that lag far behindthe “creamy” layer in terms of ability andachievement.

Sources in the home ministry said the pro-posal to collect data on OBCs as part of Census2021was to complement a commission, headedby former Delhi high court Chief Justice G Ro-hini, constituted in 2017 to examine sub-cate-gorisation of OBCs. The commission has beentasked with examining the extent of inequita-ble distribution of reservation benefits amongcastes or communities with reference to thecentral OBC list and also work out the mecha-nism, criteria, norms and parameters in a sci-entific approach for sub-categorisation.

OBCs maintain that they constitutemore than 50% of the population

�Continued from P 1

Rahul’s Mansarovar trek hasassumed a political colour

PTI

POLITICS ONRESERVATION

CCI NG 3.7 Product: TOIBhopalBS PubDate: 01-09-2018 Zone: IndoreCity Edition: 1 Page: TOIIND07 User: madhuri.keswani Time: 08-31-2018 23:50 Color: CMYK