Friday, December 14, 2012

Mom kills boy for not memorizing Quran

UNHOLY ACT

Mom kills boy for not memorizing Quran

London: An Indian-origin mother who beat her son “like a dog” for not being able to memorize passages of the Quran, has been found guilty by a British court of murdering him and setting his body on fire to hide evidence.
    Sara Ege, 33, a mathematics graduate from India, was found guilty at Cardiff crown court on Wednesday of beating her son Yaseen Ege to death at their home in Pontcanna, Cardiff, in July 2010 and setting fire to his body. She was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice at the court. Sentence was adjourned, the BBC reported.
    Sara also claimed at one point she believed the stick she used on her son had an evil spirit in it.
    The boy’s father, Yousuf Ege, 38, was acquitted of causing Yaseen’s death by failing to protect him, the Daily Telegraph reported.
    It was initially thought Yaseen had died in the blaze at the family home but tests later revealed he had died hours earlier.
    Sara had pleaded not guilty to murder and claimed her husband was responsible for Yaseen’s death. Sara said she feared her husband would kill her and target her family unless she confessed to the murder.
    That confession, made to police days after the death of her son, was captured on video and played to the jury during the five-week trial. During the hour-long footage, university graduate Ege described how the young boy collapsed after she had beaten him while still murmuring extracts of the Quran.
    Sara said back then that she decided to burn his body and ran downstairs to get a lighter and a bottle of barbecue gel. In police interviews she also confessed to beating her son for no reason and that her anger often led to her being out of control. PTI

Oslo books AP couple, Delhi stays away

TNN & AGENCIES

New Delhi/Hyderabad: India has ruled out intervening in the case of an AP couple, arrested in Oslo for allegedly scolding their son for wetting his pants. TCS techie V Chandrasekhar and his wife, Anupama, have been slapped with criminal charges and remanded in judicial custody.
    Prosecutors have charged the couple with “gross or repeated maltreatment” of their children by “threats, violence or other wrong” and proposed a minimum sentence of one year and six months for Chandrasekhar and one year and three months for his wife. In Delhi, officials said on Saturday that consular access had been provided to the AP couple.
    Now, the government will wait for the outcome of the court case before deciding course of action, if at all.
    Earlier, the family of the accused couple had sought government help to secure their release. On Saturday, foreign ministry officials said a counsellor from the Indian embassy had met the Chandrasekhar and his wife and helped them find a lawyer. Reports from Oslo said the couple have had problems with Norwegian authorities over child abuse allegations even in the past, one reason New Delhi has decided to be cautious.
    “In any case, the judgment in the case will be pronounced on Monday. Let’s wait and see; it is purely legal now,’’ a source in Delhi said adding there’s no question of India taking up the matter with Norway through diplomatic channels. The couple was arrested apparently because the police feared that they could flee to India to escape prosecution.
    Chandrasekhar works for software giant TCS, which deputed him to Oslo 18 months ago to handle a project. He took his wife and two sons with him. His older son, seven-year-old Sai Sriram, allegedly told his teachers that his parents had “threatened” to send him back to India unless he changed his ways, the software engineer’s nephew, V Sailender, said in Hyderabad.
TROUBLE AT HOME V Chandrasekhar and Anupama accused of “gross or repeated maltreatment” of their child by “threats, violence...”
Couple had allegedly “threatened” 7-yr-old son that he would sent back to India if he wet himself in school
If charges stand, minimum sentence of 18 months for techie, 15 months for wife Oslo couple arrest: Kin meet CM
Hyderabad: The worried family members of Chandrasekhar told STOI that during the conversation he inquired about his two sons -- Sriram and Abhiram. He also told them about the conditions at the Oslo jail.
    “Chandrasekhar said he is fine, but neither he nor we have any information about Anupama. Through some Indian diaspora in Oslo, we came to know that she has gone into depression after the unexpected sequence of events,’’ L Veerabadra Rao, Anupama’s father, said.
    The family members met chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Saturday and requested him to help the couple return to India. However, sources said the chief minister failed to give them any assurance and promised to look into the issue. “CM gave us a very brief audience as he was busy
with Telugu Mahasabha arrangements. He told us that a lot of procedures were involved in the issue and directed the officials to take our representation,’’ a family member said.
    The arrested techie’s kin also faxed a letter to Union overseas affairs minister Vayalar Ravi requesting him to explain to Norway authorities about the cultural differences between India and other countries.
    V Satyanarayana and Veerabadhra Rao, parents of the arrested couple, in the letter said: “Sriram was counselled by his parents as per Indian culture and values.”
    “Both Sriram and his younger brother Abhiram are crying to see their parents… they are not eating food. So, we request you to interfere in this issue and take necessary action,'' Veerabadhra Rao said in the letter. He also narrated the sequence of events that led to the arrest of his daughter and son-in-law, who went to Oslo on deputation by TCS.

What ups partner-violence odds

Washington: Partner violence is two times more likely to occur in households where both partners are working compared to those where only one partner works, a new study has claimed.
    Researchers from the Sam Houston State University took telephone interviews with 303 women who identified themselves as either currently or recently in a serious romantic relationship.
    Based on the Fourth Annual Texas Crime Victimisation Survey, a total of 67% of these women, who ranged in age from 18 to 81, reported some form of physical or psychological victimization by their partner during the preceding two year period. The study found that more than 60% of women in heterosexual working couples reported victimization, while only 30% of women reported victimization in cases when only the male partner was employed.
    While differences in education levels appeared to have little influence on intimate partner violence, when both partners were working, intimate partner violence increased. “When both male and females were employed, the odds of victimization were more than two times higher than when the male was the only breadwinner, lending support to the idea that female employment may challenge male authority in a relationship,” said Franklin and Menaker. PTI

At last, BSY walks out of BJP, quits assembly

Negotiators Fail To Woo Him; No Threat To BJP Govt

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore/New Delhi: In the end, even a pledge to reinstall him as chief minister if BJP returned to power in the May 2013 Karnataka election did not deter B S Yeddyurappa from leaving the party he helped make a powerhouse in the southern state.
    Yeddyurappa’s exit from the saffron fold on Friday and his impending coronation as president of Karnataka Janata Party on December 9 is a heavy blow for BJP as it looks to mount a comeback bid for the 2014 national election seeking to ride on its powerful state satraps and UPA-2’s record on corruption and the economy.
    There is no immediate threat to the BJP government in Karnataka and the party’s Lok Sabha contingent is also unlikely to experience any ripples just yet, but the party is bound to suffer a crucial loss of momentum as Yeddyurappa was a key vote catcher in the state.
    Although the next national election is still some way off, BJP leaders would have been reminded of BJD chief Naveen Patnaik’s shock exit just ahead of the 2009 polls. With BJP banking on state bosses such as Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh, Narendra Modi, Vasundhara Raje and Prem Kumar Dhumal to pull in the votes, Yeddyurappa will be missed.
    Aware that his departure will blow a hole in its southern strategy and hobble it in a state that yielded a rich harvest of 19 Lok Sabha MPs in 2009, BJP negotiators tried hard to dissuade Yeddyurappa. But they found it hard to meet his demand to be made state chief while an IOU for the CM’s post did not work.
    Damage in Karnataka cannot be wished away as BJP is staring at the desertion of the Lingayat vote it carefully nurtured after the community’s disenchantment with Congress. Now, the politically significant community could leave BJP’s game plan in shambles.
    Chief minister Jagadish Shettar is a Lingayat too, but does not command the same support and is not likely to be a match for Yeddyurappa.
    BJP leaders rue that the bar was set high for Yeddyurappa after he was named in the Lokayukta report in illegal mining. But having made corruption a major issue, the party had to force Yeddyurappa to quit, something he never forgave the party bosses for.
    The party has not ruled out the possibility of Yeddyurappa returning to the fold after the 2013 state election, but this is a long shot. Powerful satraps who have parted ways with BJP have not always returned and those who did are often misfits.

SC fumes at FB arrest; govt tries to curb IT Act abuse

PIL Seeks Repeal Of Sec 66A

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday echoed the public outrage over the high-handed night-time arrests of two girls by Maharashtra policefor posting their views on a social networking site, entertaining a PIL seeking the repeal of the controversial Section 66A
of Information Technology Act which has turned out be a source of harassment and attempts to muzzle freedom of speech.
    Thecourt,whichurged attorney general G E Vahanvati to express his views on the plea for dispensing with the section, suggested that it was eager to remedy the situation, while wondering whether the police excess against the two girls — Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan — from Palghar near Thane in Maharashtra was the result of mob pressure.
    “We were wondering why no one was approaching the court and were thinking of taking suo motu notice of the incident,” said a bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice J Chelameswar no sooner than senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi sought an urgent hearing on a petition by 21-yearold student Shreya Singhal.
FIRST BABY STEPS
    Govt introduces ‘guideline’ for booking anyone under Sec 66A of ITAct: permission of a senior police officer required for booking someone under controversial law that’s got even SC worried. The step may be a useful interim check on the abuse of 66A but not lasting solution. ‘Guidelines’ don’t have the force of law or rules written under it. Therefore police and courts not bound by it
WHAT’S STILL WORRYING Govt step doesn’t address substantive issue of the clauses being ‘vague & unconstitutional’. Here’s how: 1 Any message sent as email, FB post or tweet may fall foul of Sec 66A if it causes no more than “annoyance or inconvenience”. False information is punishable for causing ‘danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill-will’. This is far too loosely-worded 2 Punishment for defamation is up to 2 years but 3 years under Sec 66A for sending “offensive messages” 3 Defamation case can be taken only before a magistrate but police authorized under Sec 66A to book cases & make arrests
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?
Sec 66A should be repealed or amended by Parliament
SC should strike down or read down Sec 66A SC to hear AG’s views before ruling on PIL
New Delhi: “The way things were done needs some kind of consideration though the serious charges against the two girls appear to have been withdrawn,” the bench said. It added that the arrests were in violation of the apex court’s guidelines prohibiting the arrest of women after sunset.
    “They were arrested after sundown and for a bailable offence? So the might of police was activated by a mob,” the bench said. It seemed to have many questions to ask, but decided to keep them for Friday when Vahanvati is to appear.
    Although the court also took note of the arrest of a professor in Kolkata for circulating a cartoon which took a dig at WB chief minister Mamata Banerjee, its focus was clearly on the arrest of Dhada and Shrinivasan at Palghar just after they disapproved of the shutdown in Mumbai after the death of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Pegging her PIL on the Palghar arrests, Singhal argued that Section 66A was loosely worded, thus leaving police and authorities with enormous discretion to misuse it and make arbitrary arrests.
    The CJI said the court would like to hear the views of a cross-section of people and wanted to know if others would like to intervene and put forth their views. Senior advocate Harish Salve said he would. “We have a fundamental right to give our opinion on a public platform on political issues. We also have the fundamental right to annoy a politician if he is perceived to be not doing his job or is corrupt. Section 66A is not meant to arrest people for expressing opinion on a public platform,” Salve said.
    Rohatgi said Section 66A was replete with so many words such as ‘offensive’, ‘menacing’, ‘annoyance’, ‘inconvenience’ without the Act defining their meaning. “This is unacceptable in a criminal law as it allows the police to act arbitrarily,” he said.
    Singhal said mere acquittal after a snail-paced prosecution was not enough to compensate the trauma of arrest and loss of reputation linked to it. “The very fact that the machinery of criminal law is set in motion against citizens on frivolous grounds amounts to harassment which is inadequately mitigated by the eventual discharge or acquittal.”

Car bombs kill 54 near Syrian capital, rebels down aircraft

State Media Blames ‘Terrorists’ For Blasts In Pro-Assad Neighbourhood

Jaramana (Syria): Simultaneous car bombings killed 54 people and left a trail of destruction in a town near Syria’s capital on Wednesday, as rebels downed a military aircraft for a second straight day. The explosives-packed cars were detonated at daybreak in a pro-regime neighbourhood of the mainly Christian and Druze town of Jaramana, residents, state media and a rights watchdog reported.
    The blasts ripped through a central square near a petrol station, sending residents fleeing in panic.
    There was a ball of fire at the end of a narrow lane, and the impact of the explosions brought walls down onto cars, crushing them and scattering debris over the ground. Pools of blood and severed body parts were on the streets.
    The death toll mounted as the morning wore on, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights giving tallies of 20, then 29 and later at 54 The interior ministry put the count at 34. “Activists and residents in the town said most of the victims were killed when a suicide attacker blew up his car, just after an explosive device was used to blow up another car,” said the Observatory.
    Residents rushed with the dozens of wounded to hospital, or to visit the homes of bereaved families. “What do they want from Jaramana? The town brings together people from all over Syria and welcomes everybody,” one of them said. Jaramana has now been targeted by four such bomb attacks in three months. It is home to predominantly Christians and Druze, an influential minority whose faith is an offshoot of Shia Islam. Sectarian divides are a key factor in Syria’s armed rebellion, with many in the Sunni Muslim majority frustrated at more than 40 years of Alawite-dominated rule.
    SANA reported that “terrorists” blew up the two car bombs at the same time, as two separate explosive devices were set off without claiming any lives.
    Also on Wednesday, rebel fighters shot down a fighter jet in the embattled northwest on the Syria-Turkey border . The warplane came down in a massive explosion, leaving behind a plume of smoke, a journalist said, reporting several kilometres away from where the jet was downed.
    The aircraft was hit by a missile and crashed at Daret Ezza, said the Observatory, a Britain-based watchdog that relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground for its information.
    It came a day after rebels downed an army helicopter for the first time with a newly acquired ground-to-air missile, in what the Observatory said had the potential to change the balance of military power in the conflict.
    The gunship was on a strafing run near the besieged northwestern base of Sheikh Suleiman, the last garrison in government hands between Syria’s second city and the Turkish border. Little more than a week ago, the rebels seized tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery, 120mm mortars and rocket launchers when they took the government forces' sprawling Base 46, about 12km west of Aleppo.
    Elsewhere on Wednesday, regime warplanes carried out five raids in 15 minutes on Maaret al-Numan, a rebelheld town on the strategic Damascus-Aleppo highway.
    Fighter jets also bombarded anti-regime town Daraya southwest of Damascus and the besieged, rebel-held neighbourhood of Khaldiyeh in the central city of Homs. AFP

Fresh clashes plunge Egypt into deep crisis

Cairo: Egypt on Wednesday plunged deeper into its worst political crisis since Islamist President Mohamed Morsi took office in June, with massive opposition rallies nationwide signalling a new “revolution” nearly two years after Hosni Mubarak was toppled.
    Police early on Wednesday fired tear gas into Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where several hundred protesters spent the night after a mass rally to denounce Morsi’s power grab. Clashes that have been erupting on streets just off Tahrir near the US embassy spilled into the square, with canisters falling into the crowd forcing protesters to run and sending clouds of tear gas over the tents housing the demonstrators.
    The outskirts of the square have seen sporadic clashes now entering their ninth day, in what started as an anniversary protest to mark one year since deadly confrontations with police in the same area. Clashes also raged through the night between supporters and opponents of Morsi in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla and the canal city of Port Said.
    In Mahalla, 132 people were injured while 27 were hurt in Port Said, medical sources said. According to a security official, calm in both towns had been restored by morning. Tuesday’s huge turnout for a protest rally in the iconic square in the heart of Cairo, as well as in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and most of Egypt’s 27 provinces, marked the largest mobilisation yet against the president.
    “The revolution returns to the square,“ headlined the state-owned daily Al-Akhbar. “Revolution to save the revolution,” said the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. Protesters are furious at the decree that Morsi announced last Thursday allowing him to “issue any decision or law that is final and not subject to appeal”, which effectively placed him beyond judicial oversight. AFP

Fighters in Hyd to avenge Kasab hanging: Pak Taliban

Group Says It Has Many Fighters In City, Amritsar

Omer Farooq Khan TNN

Islamabad: A Pakistani Taliban faction has claimed that its fighters were holed up in Amritsar and Hyderabad to carry out attacks to avenge 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab’s execution last week.
    “We will avenge the death of Ajmal Kasab on Indian soil within a month,’’ Ahmed Marwat, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s Jundullah group told TOI from an undisclosed location on Wednesday. “His death will not go waste. (Our) group has a number of fighters in Amritsar and Hyderabad Deccan, who will soon take revenge of Ajmal Kasab. With the death of one Kasab, scores of his other comrades are ready for martyrdom.’’
    Marwat spoke in what seemed like Pashto language’s tribal accent spoken in Pakistan’s tribal northwest bordering Afghanistan. The region has long been an al-Qaida and Taliban safe haven.
    The fresh threat comes days after another Taliban faction threatened to avenge Kasab’s hanging by “striking Indian targets anywhere’’.
    The Pakistani state and minority Muslim sects – Shiites and Sufis -- have so far been the group’s prime targets. Thousands of people have been killed since it launched a wave of destabilising attacks on the country’s armed forces, spy agencies, market places and mosques since 2009.
    The group had taken responsibility for the failed Times Square car bombing attempt in 2010, but retracted days later. Experts doubt its ability to strike overseas, saying the group lacks the sophistication to do so.
    Jundullah has been closely tied to al-Qaida and responsible for sectarian bloodbath across Pakistan. It has claimed responsibility for most of attacks on Shiites across Pakistan in the last two years. The group was blamed for September attacks on Karachi’s Dawoodi Bohra community that killed 11 people. Earlier in February, Jundullah massacred 18 Shiites from Gilgit-Baltistan after pulling them out of a bus near Rawalpindi. The slain were on their way from Kohistan region. Marwat had then claimed responsibility for the attack while claiming to be the group’s Karachibased commander.
    Media reports say the group has entrenched itself in Karachi. “Among the most feared militant groups is Jandullah's Karachi chapter, led by Fasihur Rehman, which is responsible for most of the sectarian attacks in the city,” said Umar Khitab, a Karachibased police officer.
    Sources said Jundullah's chief Hamja Jofi alias Haji Mumtaz founded the group in 2003 in Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The group’s former Karachi chapter head Amir Arif alias Raza was killed in a missile attack in August.

4 Tibetans set selves on fire, 3 die

Saibal Dasgupta TNN

Beijing: The number of self-immolation cases by protesting Tibetans has reached a record level of 21 in the month of November with four more people setting themselves on fire since Sunday. Three of them have died.
Overseas human rights groups said the suicidal moves were accompanied by protest demonstrations by students in a medical college in Qinghai in northwest China indicating that the unrest, which initially begun with monks, is spreading among the country’s students.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Two Zee editors arrested

Raj Shekhar TNN

New Delhi: Delhi Police’s crime branch arrested two editors of the Zee group on Tuesday, acting on a complaint by Congress MP Naveen Jindal who had accused the two of trying to extort Rs 100 crore worth of advertisements from his
company in return for dropping stories linking the Jindal group with Coalgate.
    The arrested journalists are Sudhir Chaudhary and Sameer Ahluwalia, editorial heads of Zee news and Zee business channels, respectively, a senior police officer said. “Prima facie evidence of criminal conspiracy and extortion has been found against the two leading to their arrest,” said S B S Tyagi, DCP, crime branch on Tuesday.
    The editors had earlier denied the charges, calling it an attempt to target investigative journalism.
    Police said the arrests came after forensic experts submitted a report stating the CD submitted by the MP which contained audio and video recording of conversations between the Zee editors and Jindal’s officials, was “not doctored”. Jindal had claimed to have done a “reverse sting” on the journalists to expose them.
    The inter-state cell of crime branch said it had found other conclusive evidence against the Zee journalists.
    “The two editors were called for questioning on Tuesday during which they could not give satisfactory answers to our questions,” a senior cop said. Jindal targeting investigative journalism, says TV channel
New Delhi: “They were informed around 8.30pm about their arrest after four hours of questioning. They will be produced in a Saket court at 2pm on Wednesday,” he added. Earlier, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) had provided the police with audio recordings of telephone conversations and video recordings of three meetings held on September 13, 17 and 19, between Zee and officials of Jindal’s company, JSPL, at Hyatt Regency hotel in Delhi. In its FIR, JSPL had also named Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra and his son Punit Goenka as co-accused, alleging criminal conspiracy, extortion, criminal intimidation and defamation by Zee News Ltd and its officials, police sources said.
    In mid-October, the Broadcast Editors’ Association had removed Sudhir Chaudhary from the post of treasurer and from primary membership of the body.
    The crime branch had registered an FIR against Chaudhary, Ahluwalia and others for allegedly trying to extort Rs 100 crore from the Jindal company. The FIR was lodged under sections of extortion after the HR head of JSPL gave a written complaint to the police.
    The complainant alleged that the two had met officials of the Jindal group and told them that reports against them could be dropped if the amount was paid. Several phone calls were exchanged on the issue. When JSPL declined to pay the money, Zee ran a series of malicious news items targeting the company, the complainant alleged.
    Reacting to the move, Sudhir Chauhary earlier told TOI that the allegations were false and fabricated. “Jindals were the biggest beneficiaries in the coal block allocation scam and we had exposed them. If they are targeting us, they are targeting investigative journalism. It’s an attempt to malign us and seems aresult of their frustration after being exposed,” he had said.

Beware, smoking rots your brain, damages memory

London: Smoking ‘rots’ the brain by damaging memory, learning and reasoning, according to a new study.
    Researchers from the King’s College London in brain tests and analysis of health and lifestyle data of a group of over-50s found that smoking affects the brain negatively even more than high blood pressure and obesity. Participants took brain tests like learning new words or naming as many animals as they could in a minute, the BBC News reported.
    They were all tested again after four and then eight years. Researchers found a “consistent association” between smoking and lower scores in the tests.
    The study of 8,800 people also found that high blood pressure and being overweight also seemed to affect the brain, but to a lesser extent. Scientists involved said people needed to be aware that lifestyles could damage the mind as well as the body.
    The results showed that the overall risk of a heart attack or stroke was “significantly associated with cognitive decline” with those at the highest risk showing the greatest decline.
    “Cognitive decline becomes more common with aging and for an increasing number of people interferes with daily functioning and well-being. We have identified a number of risk factors which could be associated with accelerated cognitive decline, all of which, could be modifiable,” researcher Dr Alex Dregan, said.
    “We need to make people aware of the need to do some lifestyle changes because of the risk of cognitive decline,” he said. Researchers do not know how such a decline could affect people going about their daily life. PTI

Tech overuse tied to ‘semi-somnia’

People Now Suffering From ‘Fizzy Sleep’ As The Brain Is Still Active: Experts

London: A growing number of people are now suffering from a newly identified sleep disorder called ‘semi-somnia’ triggered by stress and technology use, sleep experts say.
    Rather than having totally sleepless nights, sufferers of semi-somnia experience short bouts of sleep disruption — perhaps on particularly busy or stressful days, experts claim.
    An Indian-origin expert has even coined a phrase ‘fizzy sleep’ to explain sleep difficulties faced by sufferers.
    “It’s not a scientific term, but clients say that’s what their head feels like. They are asleep but it’s not restful. It’s a jangly, information-filled sleep where the brain is still highly active,” said Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, a sleep coach at London’s Capio Nightingale hospital, and author of the book Tired But Wired.
    The condition is being called insomnia’s irritating little sister, but despite not sharing the full agonizing symptoms of acute sleeplessness — which has been linked to weakened immune systems, depression, high blood pressure and even heart disease — semi-somnia is far from harmless, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.
    Victims may wake every night for 30 minutes, or find it impossible to sleep for an hour because their minds are racing. Experts are of the opinion that semi-somnia started plaguing people now because of excessive use of technology.
    “We’ve spent five years researching this with 30,000 sufferers and technology is probably the main cause,” said Jean Gomes, chairman of The Energy Project — a consultancy to help people counteract tiredness issues. PTI

Kejri names party after aam admi, mocks Cong

Intellectual Property Theft: GOP

Himanshi Dhawan TNN

New Delhi: With ambitious plans of systemic change while outfitting themselves as an alternative to “corrupt” political establishment, Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan on Saturday launched themselves as a political party, calling it the Aam Admi Party (AAP).
    Although unveiled in the modest setting of a press conference, the AAP aims high, promising empowermentof thecommon man, decentralisation of power, law-making through referendum, devolution of decision-making powers to gram sabha and an accessible judicial system.
    Pitching the party as the platform for aam aadmi, Kejriwal said that therewillbe men andwomen representatives from the village or college level up to the national level.
    The constitution that was adopted on Saturday betrayed a conscious effort to address the concern of Anna Hazare and others that the transformation of the anti-graft movement into a political party would lead the activists to make compromises for survival’s sake. Thus, as part of a lengthy list of do’s and don’ts, the party has decided to have an internal Lokpal, provision for right to recall and for denial of posts and tickets to more than one in a family. The party will also make its donor andexpenselist public.
    The AAP, which plans to make its maiden electoral foray in next year’s Delhi polls, is moving with urgency. On Monday, the activists are launching a membership driveinviting all “aam admis” to join the new party as “founding members’’. An event has been planned at Jantar Mantar, the landmark that hasbeen an integral partof the anti-graft stirs, for what will be the first instance of a political platform soliciting membership in public.
IN NAME OF COMMON MAN
Aam Admi Party to begin electoral fight in Delhi, where assembly elections are due in 2013-end
National council of 320 members, 30-strong national executive, besides state, district councils. Relatives of these members will not be part of any council at any level
    Promises law-making through referendum. Gram sabhas to be involved too, except on foreign policy, external security. Accessible judicial system BSY set to break away on Dec 9
    After months of ultimatums, B S Yeddyurappa is set to break away from the BJP and launch his own outfit, Karnataka Janata Party, on December 9. The exit of the Lingayat strongman, credited with installing the first BJP-led government in the south, will deal a blow to the BJP’s hopes of staging a return to power in 2014. P 6 First electoral battle will be Delhi New Delhi: It was in the fitness of things that launch of the party of the activists who have been a gadfly for the political establishment should spark a controversy right at the outset. Congress accused them of Intellectual Property Rights theft, saying that the AAP was a rip off on their “Aam Aadmi” platform.
    This was just before Kejriwal and Bhushan have mocked their “aam credentials” by parodying Congress’s “Aam Aadmi ka haath Congress ke saath (common man is for Congress)” claim. “Congress ka aadmi Robert Vadra ke saath”, snickered Sanjay Singh of AAP, in a reminder that the just-launched party will keep targeting political parties for corruption.
    On the criticism from Congress, Kejriwal said, `They are just rattled-….Congress could never hijack the aam aadmi despite using the term ``aam aadmi’’. Now they have lost the word too.’’
    The launch of the party came after a day-long meeting of over 300 people during which its constitution was adopted and a 23-member national executive elected. The party’s first electoral battle will be Delhi but it appeared to be woefully short of representations from the south and eastern India as of now. The executive has so far only two women members. Admitting to the gender imbalance Kejriwal said that they hoped to bring in more people to make the national executive more representative of women, youth, minorities and diverse sections.
    Incidentally, names of former Army chief V K Singh and other eminent people who had urged Team Anna to take a political plunge were missing from the list of supporters. When asked about their absence Bhushan said, ``It is true that there were several eminent people who felt that participating in electoral politics was the only way forward. However, one does not have to be a member of the party to support it.’’