Sahara boss arrested

After hours of high drama, Sahara Group boss Subrata Roy was arrested in Lucknow on Friday and produced before the chief judicial magistrate who directed police to ensure his personal appearance in the Supreme Court on March 4.
Rejecting Roy’s plea for house arrest, CJM Anand Kumar Yadav left it to the discretion of the police with the instruction that he be produced before the deadline set by the apex court which issued a non-bailable warrant against him for his non-appearance on Wednesday in a case of non-refund of over Rs 20,000 crore to investors.
Soon after the court order, the police team took the 65-year-old in a convoy of highend cars to a forest guest house at Kukrail where he was kept under police watch.
The cat-and-mouse game started on Thursday when a police team landed at Roy’s residence to execute the NBW issued by the apex court.
An hour after his arrest, Roy’s lawyers made two unsuccessful attempts in a span of three hours in the Supreme Court, requesting it to urgently hear his emotional and apologetic plea for recall of the non-bailable arrest warrant.
In his application, Roy had narrated his mental and emotional turmoil due to his 92-year-old mother’s fragile health that triggered an error of judgment leading to his non-appearance before the SC on February 26. Moreover, he had tendered an unconditional apology.
Armed with the application, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani requested a bench headed by Justice K S Radhakrishnan to constitute the special bench comprising Justices Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar, which had on February 26 issued arrest warrants against Roy for disobedience of court’s February 20 order, and hear the Sahara chief’s application.
Justice Radhakrishnan declined urgent hearing. But, this did not deter the Sahara group from making fresh attempts. In the afternoon, senior advocate Ravi Shankar Prasad requested Justice Radhakrishnan for a five-minute hearing even after the normal working hours of the court. But to no avail. The day’s drama unfolded when a team of Lucknow police entered Sahara Shaher at around 10.45 am to take Roy into custody. He was produced in court seven hours later under heavy police security which kept the media at bay. The CJM’s court sat specially on a holiday on account on ‘Shivratri’.
Roy was reportedly reluctant to accompany the police initially with his doctors citing medical grounds. Later, his battery of lawyers made a request to take up Roy’s remand at Sahara Shaher itself. It was only around 5.45 pm that the cops finally left with Roy using the rear gate of the compound.
When the police produced the NBW papers before the court, the CJM asked Roy whether he had anything to say on the issue. He told the court that he had always complied with the law of the land and that he had never tried to run away from the court. 

Don’t free Rajiv killers: SC

A week after stopping the release of three convicts immediately after their death penalties were commuted to life terms in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Supreme Court has asked the Tamil Nadu government not to free four other life convicts in the same case.
On the Centre’s writ petition, a bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana issued notice to the Jayalalithaa government and the four convicts – Nalini, Robert Pious, Jaya Kumar and Ravichandran – while asking the state to maintain status quo. The court on Feb 20 had stopped TN proposal to set free these four along with three other convicts Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan after the apex court commuted their death sentences to life imprisonment on the ground that 11-year delay in deciding their mercy pleas had breached their right to life as death row prisoners.
The Tamil Nadu government, true to its word, contested both maintainability and merit of the Centre’s writ petition. “They (the Centre) want the court to quash the letter the Tamil Nadu government had written to the Centre as part of consultation process.... After the Feb 20 order directing status quo on the release of the three convicts, the state has not taken any step to precipitate the matter. Why then this rush,” said senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi who appeared for TN.
Before the Centre, represented through solicitor general Mohan Parasaran and additional solicitor general Sidharth Luthra, could think of an answer to the poser, the bench said, “Who is rushing, you (Tamil Nadu) or the Centre? We have been repeatedly reminding states to follow the procedure prescribed under Sections 432 and 433 of the Criminal Procedure Code before commuting the sentence of a convict. After the convict makes an application for commutation of sentence, the concerned trial court’s opinion has to be obtained and then the state could take an informed decision.”
However, the court assured Dwivedi that it would consider his preliminary challenge to the Centre’s petition on the ground of maintainability when it takes up all the petitions for hearing on March 6.

Tension prevailed in several parts of Chennai after three busts of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were found vandalised, triggering protests. The incident comes a day after some pro-Eelam outfits attacked the Congress state unit HQ in the city over the party’s opposition to the release of Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts. As the news spread, Congress cadres took blocked traffic at many places.

India's tallest temple planned

A 210-metre-high temple is soon going to change the skyline of Vrindavan in Mathura district.
The project, whose foundation stone will be laid on March 16, has been conceived by Madhu Pandit Dasa, president of ISKCON, Bangalore, and will consist of a grand temple of Sri Krishna at its centre and many other interesting elements around it.
Poised to be the tallest and largest religious structure in India, the monumental temple, named the Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir, with a footprint of about four and a half acres and a built-up area of 540,000 square feet, will integrate elements of modern architecture with traditional Indian temple architecture.
Senior vice-president of ISKCON, Bangalore, Chanchalapathi Dasa, said that the project was an attempt to put Vrindavan on the world map. So will it be like any other temple for Krishna devotees? No, says Dasa. “Everything begins in the human heart and that is where we want to make a difference by instilling Krishna consciousness (the term used by ISKCON to mean good thoughts, ideas and intentions) through this massive project,” he said.
Global landscape designers would recreate the 12 scared and verdant forests (dvadasha kanana) of Braj in an area of 26 acres around the temple, from descriptions provided in Srimad Bhagavatam. There would be boating facilities in the Yamuna creek and depictions of ‘Krishna leela’ in the forests.

India’s 1st postal ATM

India's first Post Office Savings Bank ATM was inaugurated in Chennai by Union finance minister P Chidambaram as a part of the government's Rs.4,909 crore IT modernisation scheme for the department of posts.
“The IT modernisation scheme aims at making the postal department a completely technology-oriented one,” he said. The IT modernisation scheme would cover 1.55 lakh post offices and would be implemented by next year, he added. 

Rise Prize

Mumbai Airport is Code F compliant

Mumbai airport has been authorized by the Indian aviation regulator to handle flights operated by superjumbo, double-deck aircraft like the Airbus 380.
The directorate-general of civil aviation (DGCA) authorization made Mumbai the third Indian airport to be Code F compliant after Hyderabad and Delhi. Code F airports can handle aircraft with a wingspan (length from one wingtip to the other) of up to 80 m. They have infrastructure requirements like 60 m runway width and 25 m taxiway width.
The runway shoulders must be ready for jet blast protection and engine ingestion protection as the four-engine A380s have a wingspan of 80 m; even on a Code F runway, its two outboard engines hang over the runway edges. 

Nariman shuns Lokpal search panel

Noted legal expert Fali Nariman has refused to be on the search committee to shortlist likely members of the Lokpal, expressing fear that deserving candidates might be overlooked.
This comes as a setback to the Centre’s efforts to expeditiously set up the anti-corruption watchdog. Nariman’s decision co mes at a time when the Lokpal is still in an incipient stage.
The jurist said he felt the procedures being adopted could result in overlooking the “most competent independent and courageous of persons”.