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HAPPY VISHWAKARMA PUJA

EDMUND, NOT TENZING, WAS THE FIRST MAN ON EVEREST: BOOK 17

NEWS DIGEST

SAUDI ARABIA HALTS DEPORTATION OF IM OPERATIVE FASIH 16

INDIA PLAY PAKISTAN TODAY IN HIGH-VOLTAGE WARM-UP AHEAD OF WORLD T20 24

Breakaway SFI wins JNU president post

The rebel SFI-JNU group, which was dissolved for opposing its mother party CPMs decision to support Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee for the presidential polls, has won the presidents post in the students union poll held at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Former CPM leader Prasenjit Bose had been expelled from the party for objecting to its stand on Mukherjee. P 14

Buses lead bandhwagon, to go off roads from today

Left Front Calls Strike On Thursday
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

LEWIS HAMILTON IN DRIVERS SEAT AT TOI

Santosh Bane

TAXING TIMES

Attempting suicide set to be decriminalized

The Union health ministry is pushing to decriminalize the act of attempting suicide, which currently is an offence under Section 309 of the IPC, with the new Mental Health Care Bill 2012. P 10

Centre warns state about terror outfit

The home ministry has asked the state government to keep tabs on the activities of SIMI in the state. In a letter dated September 4, V K Sharma, director (national integration) of the home ministry, has alerted chief secretary Samar Ghosh about SIMI activists. P 6

PM urges consensus on Plan health policy

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to sort out differences over the formulation of the health policy in the 12th Plan with Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. P 14

Kolkata: This week, traffic could well be your worst nightmare. Private buses will go off roads from Monday morning for an indefinite period with the demand of fare revision following the Rs 5/lt hike in diesel prices. Taxis will join the bandh bandwagon from Thursday As if that is not . enough, traders organisations have called for a bandh the same day to protest FDI in multi-brand retail. More mandays will be lost, with the Left Front calling a general strike in Bengal that day . On Sunday transport , minister Madan Mitra held a meeting with the transport operators. But the last-ditch attempt proved futile as two major private bus operators

Going by experience, this will be the traffic scene from today

What will go off roads 37,000 private-run buses, which carry the biggest chunk of 40.80 lakh passengers What will ply The entire eet of government buses, carrying 13.90 lakh passengers Metro services will run as per schedule. Almost 5 lakh
organisations the Joint Council of Bus Syndicate and the Bengal Bus Syndicate refused to participate. Condemning the strike, Mitra said: We will press the

passengers travel daily by Metro from Dum Dum to New Garia Nearly 40,000 taxis will ply. Taxis will go off roads from September 20 for three days Autos will also be available Suburban railway (eastern and south eastern) services will be operational

entire fleet of all five transport PSUs to mitigate the impact of the strike. Minibus operators have assured that they will operate. Autos will also run. I dont think the pub-

lic transport system would collapse. I have requested all transport operators to wait till September 18. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already hit the road with her protest against diesel price rise. We are hopeful of a breakthrough shortly . Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has defended the steep hike in diesel price as necessary and called for courageous steps to turn the economy around, the move by transport operators will only add to the troubles of the chief minister, who has hinted at hard decisions if there is no rollback. Mitra said the strike should have been deferred on account of Vishwakarma Puja on Monday Bus oper. ators claimed that 37,000 buses will be off the roads from Monday morning. They have demanded that the minimum fare should be Rs 7 for normal buses and Rs 9 for JNNURM buses. Pushed to edge, P 4 Full Coverage, P 4 & 8

CATCHING UP WITH THE TIMES: 2008 F1 world champ Lewis Hamilton, fresh from his victory at the Italian Grand Prix, added another feather to his cap on Sunday as Guest Editor of The Times of Indias sports pages. Earlier in the evening, the McLaren driver revved his MP4-27 engine and sent Mumbaikars pulse racing as part of the Vodafone Speedfest at the Bandra Kurla Complex. A spell of rain failed to dampen his ardour. I loved it. I told my team that I wanted to do it again. The crowd here is so gracious and so open, he gushed | P 21, 22 & 23

Worldwide shows for Indian cinemas 100

The I&B ministry plans to hold film festivals across the globe, including Poland and Switzerland, to celebrate the centenary of Indian cinema. P 10

Cong wont rush to fill berths

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

IA pilots could be headed for strike

Pilots of the erstwhile Indian Airlines are likely to go on strike again. Their union held an emergency meeting over the aviation ministrys directive to the airline to utilize its pilots as per DGCA rules to increase their flying hours. P 15

New Delhi: The Trinamool Congress rebellion over the Prime Ministers radical economic reforms has raised hopes in the Congress over possible additional vacancies ahead of the Cabinet reshuffle, but the party is unlikely to rush to fill them. On Sunday indications grew stron, ger that Mamata Banerjee may pull out her ministers from the Centre, stopping short of withdrawing support to the UPA. The volatile leader has issued a 72-hour ultimatum for rollback of the decision to allow FDI in retail, and is scheduled to announce her next course

Sharma: Govt to go slow on higher FDI in defence

he government has decided not to immediately push for liberal norms for FDI in defence production. The issue has been discussed and the defence ministry has some concerns. We will wait until the defence ministry agrees to it, commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma told TOI. P 19

of action after a meeting of party leaders on Tuesday . This calibrated disengagement will

create seven berths one Cabinet and six MoS an alluring prospect for the waiting hordes of ministerial aspirants in the Congress who are anyway eagerly awaiting the impending ministerial reshuffle. The convergence of the possible TMC exit and the coming reshuffle has sent hopes in party ranks soaring. The Congress brass, however, is unlikely to show haste in filling the berths created by TMCs exit, lest it send amessage that the ruling party was waiting to see its allys back. Such a message will add fuel to fire in the wake of the trust deficit between the partners. Bailout buzz, P 8

Teens, first-time offenders on Net may get off lightly

Bharti Jain
TNN

New Delhi: Mindful of the young profile of social media users who may unwittingly commit cyber offences by accessing and circulating objectionable content, the government is mulling a graded response to cyber crimes involving teens and first-time offenders. The graded response would involve a warning and parental guidance for first-

Cyber surveillance agency in works

aced with recent episodes of internet misuse to create unrest, the Centre is planning to set up a dedicated cyber surveillance agency to monitor the web and social media networks for malicious content and alert security agencies and state police. P 9

time offenders, many of whom do not realize the gravity of their act, rather than invoking penal action straightaway under the Information Technology Act. Discussions over the graded response to Net offences are still at a nascent stage, and may undergo many permutations and combinations before being concretized into a code. Fine-tuning concept, P 9

Was the increase in price of Diesel & capping of Domestic LPG avoidable?
No , for the following reasons:
Our country needs to import about 74% of its crude oil requirements at international rates. Its important to note two new developments: International prices of crude au have been 2. increasing rapidly and this nse is compounded by sharp depreciation of the Indian Rupee against the US dollar. 3. As a result, Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies incurred an under-recovery of Rs. 1,38,541 crore during 2011-12. During 2012-13 the under-recovery was projected to increase to a very disturbing level of Rs. 1,8 ,127 crore. Such high losses have no 7 precedent in history and pose a throat to oil supplies and our national economy.The Indian Rupee has depreciated from Rs. 47.64 in September, 2011 to Rs. 55 per US dollar, so far. Every Rupee of depreciation against the US dollar increases our import bill by about Rs. 8, 0 croro. 80 4. During 2011-12, the Government of India collected tax revenue of about Rs. 83,7 0 0 crore from the oil sector However,the Government, to provide fuel to the common man at subsidized rate, had to reimburse the entire subsidy burden of Rs. 1 , ,500 crore. 38 The Government of India was,therefore ,a net loser by Rs. 54 ,800 crore . 5. During the same year, State Governments put together collected about Rs. 1,12, 0 90 crore from the oil sector. However,the State Governments do not shoulder the subsidy burden.Therefore ,the State Governments have been advised to lower the State taxes. 6. The recent increase in the price of Diesel will alone yield an additional tax revenue of about Rs. 8,200 crore per annum to the States. The States can, therefore , at-least forego this additional revenue to provide additional comfort to the common man . 7. The oil companies have no doubt shown a profit of Rs. 6,177 crore, which is only 0.7% of their turnover. Even this nominal profit could be shown only because Government organized subsidy of Rs. 1,38,500 crore. 8. In spite of the increase in Price of Diesel, the Government of India is still providing a subsidy of Rs. 13.60 per litre on Diesel and the under-recovery of OMCs on Diesel alone is likelyto cross Rs . 1, 3, 0 000 crore during 2012-13. 9. The data shows that more than 44% of the total Domestic LPG consumers consume 6 cylinders or fewer per annum. They will, therefore, not be affected by capping at 6 cylinders All others will continue to get 6 cylinders at subsidized rates Capping of cylinders will also lead to reduction in misuse/diversion of subsidized cylinders. This measure was unanimously recommended by the all-party Standing Committee of Parliament on Petroleum and Natural Gas. 10. The above decisions will reduce the under-recovery of OMCs by Rs. 20,300 crore only. The Government of India would still have to shoulder an under-recovery burden of about Rs. 1, ,000 crore in the current year. 67 11. 11. The fuel prices (including Diesel) have to be constantly adjusted depending on the international prices. For example, during 1998-2004, the price of Diesel increased 19 times and during 2004-2012, it increased 15 times. 12. it is never a pleasant thing for any Government to increase the prices of consumer products ,except as a last resort. 13. The criticsof these measures are requested to offerconstructive alternativesaswell to meet the currentcrisis. 1.