Yeddy asks Sonia to provide proof of allegations

Bangalore: Hitting back at Congress President Sonia Gandhi for hurling charges of corruption against him, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today shot off a letter to her asking her to provide proof for her allegations. 

"The charges against me are baseless and made with the intention of maligning my government", he said, a day after Gandhi lashed out at BJP leaderhship for not acting against Yeddyurappa despite corruption charges against him. 

In his letter to Gandhi, copies of which were released to the media here, he said "I would like to know whether there is any proof or evidence to prove these charges and if there is any, I request you to send the same to enable me to place the record straight". 

No need for me to lie on Karkare call: Digvijaya

New Delhi:  Congress leader Digvijaya Singh continues to insist he did speak to Hemant Karkare hours before the chief of the Anti-Terror Squad in Maharashtra was killed during 26/11.   

"I am not a liar, there is no need for me to lie that I had spoken to (slain Maharashtra ATS chief) Hemant Karkare," Singh, who has recently been made party in-charge of poll-bound Assam, told reporters in Guwahati.

Digvijaya said he had requested the Telecom Ministry to get the record of the call between him and the police officer from its centre in Pune.

Singh said that he had sent a request in this regard to the General Manager of BSNL at Bhopal but "has got in writing from them that they cannot provide details of this number as the records are kept only for 12 months".

He said he had spoken to Karkare from his number registered in Bhopal.

Petrol prices hiked by Rs. 3 per litre

Oil major Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) on Tuesday hiked petrol prices by about Rs. 2.95 per litre, following a spike in international crude oil prices.

The hike would be effective from Tuesday midnight. This would be the fourth hike after government’s decision to deregulate petrol prices.

Other two state-run refiners Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) will also hike petrol prices by Rs. 2.40 - 2.95 per litre from Thursday, sources told NDTV.

The oil ministry on Tuesday gave the three companies a go-ahead to raise petrol prices after international crude oil prices touched $90 per barrel.

The state-run refiners had on November 9 raised petrol price by Rs. 0.32 per litre to Rs. 52.91 a litre in Delhi.

IOC, BPCL and HPCL have revised rates only four times since June 26 when petrol price was deregulated, while crude oil has jumped from $73-74 per barrel at that time to $90 a barrel now.

A similar hike in diesel rates is likely to be considered by an Empowered Group of Ministers headed by Pranab Mukherjee on December 22.

After Tuesday’s increase, petrol prices have gone up by Rs. 4.44 a litre since deregulation.

The basket of crude oil India buys was at $89.34 per barrel on Monday. It has averaged $88.47 per barrel in December as against about $79 a barrel at the time of last hike in petrol price on November 9.

If prices are not revised, IOC, BPCL and HPCL are likely to end the fiscal with close to Rs. 67,000 crore revenue losses on sale of diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost.

The oil retailers lose Rs. 272.19 on the sale of every 14.2-kg LPG cylinder and Rs. 17.72 per litre of kerosene.

India tops list of countries where bribery is way of life

BERLIN: India is among the countries topping the list for reported bribe payments over the year along with Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cameroon, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria, the Palestinian territories, Senegal, Sierre Leone and Uganda. More than one person out of two in these countries said they had handed out financial sweeteners to officials.

The study, by the Berlin-based non-governmental agency Transparency International, focuses on small-scale bribery and was put together from polls conducted among more than 91,000 people in 86 countries and territories.

The study reveals one person in four worldwide paid a bribe during the past year.

In the past 12 months, one in four paid a bribe to one of nine institutions, such as health, education or tax authorities, according to the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer.

But it was the police who proved most corrupt, according to the study which reported that 29 per cent of those having dealings with police said they had paid a bribe.

Worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa was the region reporting the greatest incidence of bribery with more than one person in two saying they had made such payments to officials in the past 12 months.

The Middle East and North Africa was the next most corrupt region with 36 per cent of people there reporting having paid a bribe.

This compared to 32 per cent in the former Soviet republics, 23 per cent in South America, 19 per cent in the Balkans and Turkey, 11 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region, and five per cent in the European Union and North America.

Nearly half of the respondents said they paid to avoid problems, while a quarter said it was meant to speed up procedures.

Lower income earners reported paying more bribes than the better paid.

The study, the seventh on the matter by Transparency International since 2003, this time involved a greater number of countries, including for the first time China, Bangladesh and the Palestinian territories.

Polling, mostly by the Gallup Institute, was conducted between June 1 and September 30.

The United Nations established International Anti-Corruption Day in 2003 to raise awareness of graft and promote the global fight against it
.

Krishna on Meera Shankar being patted down: 'It is unacceptable'

New Delhi:  India's envoy to Washington, Meera Shankar, is at the centre of a diplomatic storm.

On December 4, Ms Shankar who was travelling from the American state of Mississippi to Baltimore in Maryland was pulled out of an airport security line and patted down by an American security official. That despite letting them know her diplomatic status.

Reports say security singled her out because she was wearing a sari. Ms Shankar presented her diplomatic papers to the officers but witnesses said she was subjected to a hands-on search. 

Foreign Minister SM Krishna has called the incident unacceptable and asked for a report.

                                              
"This is unacceptable to India and we are going to take it up with the government of the United States and I hope that things could be resolved so that unpleasant incidents do not recur," Krishna said.

But former US envoy Ronen Sen says the rules in America are much tougher and do not exempt ambassadors from such searches.

"Firstly, it's not new. Because I've had a similar experience since 2004 to 2009 when I was there and I've had similar experiences in Germany and other countries. So one, it is strictly not restricted to the United States. Second, the security screening at airports is applicable to all dignitaries of all countries with the exception of Union Cabinet ministers and above on official visits, not on private visits. It does not cover ambassadors, Governors, Chief Ministers or Union Ministers of State," he said.

This isn't the first time this has happened to an Indian dignitary. Just a couple of months ago, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel was detained and questioned at Chicago airport because his name was similar to someone on a no-fly list. But with the incident involving Meera Shankar, the Indian government is now saying this is simply not on.

Ratan Tata is not a judge, says BJP

New Delhi:  Countering industrialist Ratan Tata's statement, the BJP has said he is "no judge" and his views will not be given much importance as he himself was a "beneficiary" of UPA's telecom policy.

In an open letter to former telecom entrepreneur and Rajya Sabha MP Rajiv Chandrasekhar, Tata has hit out at the BJP saying that many flip flops in telecom policy occurred during its regime and backed the probe into spectrum allocation covering the period since 2001 when BJP-led NDA was in power.

"He (Tata) is not a judge. He may not be knowing much about what has actually happened," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters outside Parliament.

Chandrasekhar had accused Tata of not being transparent and being one of the biggest beneficiaries of the government telecom policy. But Tata maintained that his company Tata Teleservices "has not" been advantaged in any way by former telecom minister A Raja or any earlier minister.

Javadekar said, "Ratan Tata is a great industrialist and I do not want to comment on him but if he is speaking on this (telecom) he should remember that he also owns a telecom company.

"The person who was benefited by UPA policy, public will not give much importance to his statement," the BJP spokesperson said.

Defending NDA's telecom  policy, Javadekar said, "We unleashed the revolution and today we are boasting of more than 600 million mobiles in the country. It is due to the pragmatic and visionary policy of the NDA and that is why we are proud of our policy."

Lashing out at the UPA, he said, "The mess which UPA created is there to be seen and those who benefited out of the UPA policy will always testify for the UPA but that does not mean anything to the public."

The deadlock continued in Parliament over the 2G spectrum allocation issue for the 20th day as the Opposition stuck to its demand for JPC into 2G spectrum issue.

"The whole country is convinced about the massive corruption and people want the guilty to be punished. Government is engaged in spreading falsehood and denying the democratic demand of JPC but we will stick to it," Javdekar said.

CBI seizes 3 diaries from A Raja's Delhi home

New Delhi:  Sources in the CBI say that during the raids at A Raja's home, they have seized three diaries, written in English, crammed with numbers that seem to indicate details of business transactions. 

Till last month, when he was forced to resign, Mr Raja was the Telecom Minister. Before that, he was the Environment Minister in UPA1, and these diaries are reportedly from that period.

Mr Raja's homes in Delhi and his family's homes in Tamil Nadu were raided yesterday, along with the houses of four of his close aides and a man reported to be his business partner.

The  raids came nearly a year after the CBI filed a police case against unknown officials in the Telecom Department for what's being described as India's largest-ever scam and centres on the allocation of valuable 2G spectrum in 2008 when Raja was Telecom Minister. Many said that the raids were a pretense by the government to suggest that the CBI investigation will indeed uncover those responsible for the great 2G robbery. Critics point out that Mr Raja and those who worked closely with him and are now being questioned had plenty of time to get rid of any documentary evidence of their alleged misdeeds.  However, the CBI said yesterday after the raids that it had found "incriminating documents" but did not specify who these were likely to indict.  

He was forced to exit last month after the government's auditor said that Mr Raja had cost the government 1.76 lakh crores by deciding that an auction for 2G spectrum was not necessary.  Instead, he followed a first-come-first-served policy.  The auditor's report also accused Mr Raja of using 2001 prices to determine the rates of licenses in 2008.  

Mr Raja and his supporters have emphasised that the first-come-first-served principle was in fact introduced by his predecessors in the BJP-led NDA regime.