manipur highway blockade ends ex-judge defends after four...
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* THE TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAIMONDAY, MARCH 20, 201710 TIMES NATION
New Delhi: Kerala-based Aya-na Charitable Trust, the newname under which US charityGospel for Asia is reportedlyfunding projects in India, hasemerged on top of the list of In-dian NGOs with the highestforeign funding in 2015-16.
It is one of three Christianevangelical NGOs, the othertwo being Believers Church In-dia and World Vision India,that figure among the top fourforeign contribution grossersin the country last fiscal.
Interestingly, Param Shak-thi Peeth, the NGO run bySadhvi Rithambara who wasassociated in the past with RSSand Vishwa Hindu Parishad,was the second highest recip-ient of foreign funding in 2015-16. The NGO has a sprawlingashram in Vrindavan and op-erates women’s shelters, or-
phanages, hospitals and cow-sheds. With foreign funding ofRs 417 crore in the financialyear ending March 2016, as perits FCRA returns uploaded onthe home ministry website,Param Shakthi Peeth has fig-ured for the first time in thepast three years among thecountry’s top ten NGOs interms of foreign receipts.
The NGO with the highestforeign funding in 2015-16, Aya-na Charitable Trust, is suppos-
edly a rebranded version ofGospel for Asia, the Texas-based NGO which ran intotrouble in Canada over allega-tions of financial bungling.
Alook at Ayana CharitableTrust’s FCRA returns, whichdeclared its total foreign fund-ing in 2015-16 at a whopping Rs 826 crore, lists Gospel forAsia, Hong Kong, as the sourcebehind most of its foreignfunding.
Another Kerala-based
Christian evangelical charity,Believers Church India, whichhas been among the country’stop 10 foreign-funded NGOs forthe past several years and re-ceived Rs 113 crore and Rs 125crore in 2013-14 and 2014-15 re-spectively, has shown Rs 342crore foreign funding in its re-turns for the last fiscal. Inter-estingly, it also recorded Rs 500 crore as “foreign fund-ing from local sources”, claim-ing a total foreign funding ofRs 842 crore. However, homeministry officials said it wasnot clear if the Rs 500 crorewas received from FCRA-reg-istered local NGOs. Interest-ingly, Gospel for Asia also fig-ures as a prominent donor offoreign funds to BelieversChurch, which is headquar-tered in Kerala’s Pathanam-thitta district.
Chennai-based World Vi-sion India, which was the topforeign-fund receiving NGO in2013-14 and 2014-15, was pushedto the fourth place last fiscal,with foreign contributionsfalling to Rs 319 crore, from Rs357 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 341crore in 2013-14.
Kerala’s AyanaGot Highest At`̀826Cr Last FY
Christian NGO tops list offoreign funding recipients
NAME OF NGO Funding (in `cr)Ayana Charitable Trust 826.27Param Shakti Peeth 417.94Believers Church India 342.63World Vision India 319.26Care India Solutions For Sustainable Devpt 218.66Rural Development Trust 208.78Kiran Nadar Museum of Art 195.76Public Health Foundation of India 190.82The Hans Foundation 142.16Bal Raksha Bharat 131.54Total 2,993.87
TOP RECIPIENTS OF FOREIGN FUNDING IN INDIA (2015-16) New Delhi: A burger cancost you a lot. Personal data ofmore than 2.2 million usershas leaked from McDonald’sIndia app, McDelivery, cybersecurity firm Fallible said.
The leaked data includesname, phone number, emailaddresses, home addresses,accurate home-coordinatesand social profile links. Cyb-er security experts said hack-ers could use the informationto access financial details ofusers, including credit/debitcard information and e-wal-let details.
The compromised appand website of the US burgerchain is operated by WestlifeDevelopment, which runsMcDonald’s operations insouth and west India.
The official spokespersonof McDonald’s India (west &south) said, “We would like toinform our users that ourwebsite and app does notstore any sensitive financialdata of users like credit card details, wallets pass-words or bank account infor-mation. The website and app
has always been safe to use,and we update security mea-sure on regular basis. As aprecautionary measure, wewould also urge our users toupdate the McDelivery appon their devices. At McDo-nald’s India, we are commit-ted to our users’ data privacyand protection.”
Amit Singh, co-founder ofYitsol, which provides cloudmigration services, said, “Se-curity is the last priority ofmany firms in India. I knowof incidents in Hyderabad,where hackers stole user in-
formation from startups and demanded ransom in Bitcoins.”
With the country goingdigital and app usage on therise companies could not af-ford to relax when it comes tocyber security, he said.
Fallible said it contactedMcDelivery about the dataleak on February 7 and re-ceived an acknowledgementfrom an IT manager at thefirm. “The McDonald’s fix isincomplete and the endpointis still leaking data,” Falliblewrote on its blog on Saturday.
McD app ‘leaks’ info of 2.2m users, co denies it
Nashik: The district consumercourt has ordered the Life Insu-rance Corporation (LIC) to paythe Rs 5 lakh claim amount,along with 10% annual interestsince March 2004 and Rs 12,000in costs, to two children of a de-ceased woman policy-holder for wrongfully repudiating the-ir claim.
The interest component onthe claim amount so far, worksout to over Rs 6.37 lakh and willcontinue to grow until actualpayment is made to the two le-gal heirs. The total amount pay-able works out to more than Rs11.49 lakh. The two children, Ru-hi and Parikshit, were minorswhen their mother, BharatiDeshmukh, a doctor, died onSeptember 11, 2002. Their father,Satish, also a doctor, was namednominee in the policy held byBharati. However, he was triedand sentenced by a court in Au-gust 2005 to eight years’ impri-sonment for cruelty and abet-ment in Bharati’s suicide. Hehas since served the sentence.
On attaining the age of ma-jority, Ruhi and Parikshit sent alegal notice to the LIC on Sep-tember 4, 2015 demanding theclaim amount. However, the in-surer issued them a letter onOctober 14, 2015 stating theirclaim was not tenable.
The LIC rejected the claim,arguing that the nominee (Sa-tish) stood disqualified from inheriting any property of thedeceased policy-holder as perSection 25 of the Hindu Succes-sion Act, 1956. The section barsa person convicted for commit-ting or abetting murder fromsuch inheritance.
The LIC also argued that thechildren’s claim was time-bar-red as it was made after a lapseof 13 to 14 years as against thetwo years within which suchclaim ought to have been made.Besides, the children had notformally submitted a claimform, it said.
However, it was brought tothe court’s notice that Satishhad initiated correspondencewith the LIC as long back as in2003 for the claim amount.From a couple of letters issuedby the LIC on May 15, 2004 and
June 4, 2004, it was also evidentthat Satish was asked to furnishan affidavit relating to certainmissing documents. The mat-ter was pending thereafter. Itwas only after Satish filed a que-ry under the Right to Informa-tion Act in 2012-13 that the LICissued him a letter on April 4,2014 stating that his claim wasrejected. This prompted the twochildren to issue the legal noti-ce to LIC and, eventually, acomplaint was jointly filed bySatish, Ruhi and Parikshit befo-re the consumer court onMarch 9, 2016.
The lawyer representing thecomplainants pointed out thatSatish may have been disquali-fied as a legal heir under theSuccession Act but the LIC hadfailed in its legal duty of payingthe claim amount to the nomi-nee for passing it on to the otherlegal heirs.
A three-member bench ofconsumer court president Mi-lind Sonawane, Prerna Kalunk-he-Kulkarni and Karbhari PJadhav held in an order recent-ly that the LIC caused deficien-cy in service by denying the cla-im to the legal heirs despite Sa-tish not being eligible to get theclaim amount. “Complainantsno 2 and 3 (Ruhi and Parikshit)are legal heirs and it is the dutyof the nominee to pass on theclaim amount to the them,” thebench said.
Insurer to pay `̀11.5L for denyingkids’ claim on mother’s policy
The interest on the claim amountwill continue to grow until actualpayment is made to the legal heirs
Loliem: A 90 m-long sea cave atLoliem beach in Canacona mayput Goa on the world sea cavemap. The wave-cut cave, concea-led in the rocky outcrop ofthe less frequented beach is pro-bably the only one of its kind intheregion.
Naturally formed due to in-tense wave action on metaba-salt rocks over thousands of ye-ars, the L-shaped cave has rema-ined almost undiscovered by to-urism, while sandy beaches ofPalolem and Agonda, barely 15-20 km away, have lured touristsin thousands. From the beach,the cave is concealed behind therocks on its northern side. Un-less one undertakes the climband descent over uneven rocks,one may miss the cave.
“Sea caves are carved thro-ugh erosion usually in the weakareas such as faults and fractu-red areas. Initially, the carvingby wave action begins with nar-row cracks in the rocks,” saidgeographer F M Nadaf, addingthat the dynamics of sea wavesput massive pressure and penet-rate into the cracks, resulting inerosion. Geologically, Canaco-na coast is unique with the seaand forest merging at many pla-ces like Palolem and Talpona.
90m-long seacave found at
Goa beachPaul.Fernandes
@timesgroup.com
Imphal: Ahead of its floor testin the assembly on Monday,the BJP-led coalition govern-ment achieved a significantbreakthrough when it man-aged to convince the UnitedNaga Council to lift its fourmonth-long economic block-ade on the Imphal-Dimapurand Imphal-Silchar highways.
The UNC decided to lift theblockade, which had left Mani-pur teetering on the edge, fromSunday midnight, 139 days af-ter it had launched its protestagainst the creation of newdistricts by the former Con-gress government. The outfit
claimed that the move was det-rimental to the interests of Na-gas as it ended up dividingtheir ancestral areas. They de-manded a rollback and threat-ened to continue the stir if it
was not done. The decision to end the
blockade was taken at a tripar-tite meeting between the UNC,the newly-formed state gov-ernment and the Centre at thedistrict headquarters of Sen-apati. The meeting was held atthe behest of the Nongthom-bam Biren Singh governmentwhich had said that its firstagenda after coming to powerwould be to end the prolongedeconomic blockade. The nextmeeting is scheduled to beheld within a month.
The move comes as a reliefto the people of Manipur whohad to pay almost double theprice for essential commodi-
ties during the period. The an-nouncement by the UNC wasmet with jubilation.
Following a discussion onSunday, an agreement state-ment released on the occasion,stated “the grievances of theUNC which led to the imposi-tion of economic blockade bythem was recognized as therewas non-adherence to the fourMoUs and the Centre’s assur-ance on the matter”. It added,“As the MoUs said that cre-ation of new districts wouldnot be done without consult-ing the stakeholders, the stategovernment agreed to startconsultation with all stake-holders to redress the same.”
Manipur highway blockade endsafter four months, BJP upbeat
K Sarojkumar Sharma TNN
New Delhi: Ex-Meghalaya highcourt Chief Justice Uma NathSingh has defended his retire-ment eve order directing the stateto provide him ‘Z’ category secu-rity post-retirement, saying heperceived threat to his life fromorders he had passed six yearsago as a judge of Allahabad HC.
When the matter was takenup a couple of times by a benchheaded by then CJI T S Thakur,the Supreme Court had questio-ned the locus standi of private ci-tizens who had moved court aga-inst Justice Singh and said jud-ges worked under difficult cir-cumstances. However, SC hadsought the Meghalaya govern-ment’s response.
Suo motu responding to theproceedings, Justice Singh hadon September 28 last year writtento the SC registry explaining hisposition. This letter was kept insealed cover. However, the newCJI J S Khehar ordered a copy ofthe letter to be given to the coun-sel for petitioner and the Megha-laya government.
In his letter, Justice Singh de-fended his decision in Januarylast year to direct the Meghalayagovernment to continue provi-ding him ‘Z’ category securitypost-retirement. He said as a jud-ge of the Lucknow bench of Alla-habad HC in 2010, he had taken a“tough stand” against advocateswho brandished weapons whileassaulting investigating officersin land grabbing and criminal ca-ses. He narrated how he orderedsetting up of an SIT comprisingofficers from CBI, EnforcementDirectorate and Intelligence Bu-reau. Against this order, “miscre-
ants had mobilised a huge crowdin October 2010 with a pre-plan toattack me and vandalise my co-urt,” he said, and narrated howthe state government had provi-ded him with extra security. Healso referred to his order direc-ting eviction of violent Jat pro-testers from railway tracks despi-te the police being reluctant to doso fearing largescale violence.
He said politicians and casteprotagonists too had an axe togrind against him for his 2013 order banning caste rallies in UP, “which caused lots of resent-ment and aggression in theminds of political parties thatlargely depend upon caste combi-nations in the elections”. Healso cited another order passedby him as Meghalaya CJ, ban-ning bandh calls given by proscri-bed outfits.
He said, “The security of jud-ges in view of the facts mentio-ned herein being a serious one...it was my foremost duty to pro-tect the institution and the judgesand secure them against any fearof threat to their lives.” Thoughhe had ordered ‘Z’ category secu-rity for himself after retirement,Justice Singh clarified that “aftermy retirement, I have never had‘Z’ category security, nor have Iever demanded that kind of secu-rity from any government”. “I ha-ve been provided with only twoPSOs and three armed police per-sonnel of UP police who come al-ternatively,” he wrote.
Ex-judge defendsgiving himself ‘Z’category security
Former Meghalaya HC ChiefJustice Uma Nath Singh saidhe perceived a threat to hislife from orders he had passed six years ago as anAllahabad high court judge
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on Sunday termedas “misleading and incorrect” reports of data about corrupt
officials being lost after its portal crashed. The probitywatchdog said it was in the process of switching over from anold portal to one that utilises a cloud-based server and themigration of data was taking time. “Media reports stating thatthe data stored online about corrupt officials was lost ordeleted are totally misleading and incorrect. The Commissionwould clarify that it has not lost any data on corrupt officials orany such information relating to its anti-corruption activitiesand its vital functions,” the CVC said in a statement. Accordingto media reports, the CVC portal has not been functioning forabout four months now. The hard disk of CVC’s portal crashedon November 28 and the data stored online till that date hasbeen lost and there is no backup available, reports said. AGENCIES
CVC refutes reports of data lossTIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: RSS-affilia-ted Swadeshi JagaranManch (SJM) has urgedthe Centre to reduce theprice of Bt cotton seed byRs 25 to provide relief tofarmers suffering fromlow yields.
In a letter to agricul-ture minister Radha Mo-han Singh, SJM askedhim to reduce the traitvalue of BT cotton seedand fix its price at Rs 775.“We believe that there isalapse in trait value fixa-tion by the committeeand request you to checkthe facts,,” SJM’s natio-nal co-convener Ashwa-ni Mahajan said. TNN
‘Reduceprice of Bt
cotton seed’
The Nongthombam Biren Singhgovernment had said that itsfirst agenda after coming topower would be to end theprolonged economic blockade
Prakash SanmukhdasIsrani
Born: 28.3.1953 Son of Mrs Nirmala andLate Sanmukhdas Israni
left for His heavenlyabode on 18.3.2017
at Mumbai. Marka will be held atLaxmi Naryan Temple
18th Road, Kharon 20.03.2017 at 5 pm.
Kozhikode: In a suspected racist attack, a Kerala priest,Father Tomy Kalathoor Mathew, was stabbed inside
a church inMelbourne inAustralia infront of wors-hippers, whohad assembledfor Sunday
morning mass. Fr. Mathew, 48,was stabbed around 11am Aust-ralian time at St Matthew’sChurch in Fawkner, a Melbour-ne suburb. The attack took pla-ce just as the priest was about tobegin the Italian mass.
According to the Australianmedia, who quoted church offi-cials, the assailant yelled “Youare Indian, a Hindu or Muslim,you cannot say mass, I will killyou”. The man reportedly app-roached Fr. Mathew, pulled outa knife and stabbed him in theneck. Though people tried torestrain the attacker, he mana-ged to flee.
Bishop Mar Remigiose In-chananiyil of Thamarasserydiocese spoke to the injured pri-est over phone. “Fr. Mathew sa-id that he could escape the at-tack only by God’s grace as hehad worn special robes for themass, in addition to thick clot-hes. The knife didn’t go deepand just injured the neck musc-les,” Father Abraham Kavilpu-rayidathil, chancellor and spo-kesperson of Thamarasserydiocese, told TOI. Fr Mathewwas rushed to hospital and trea-ted for a neck wound. He was la-ter discharged. Police on Sun-day night arrested a 72-year-oldFawkner man, believed to be ofItalian origin.
Kerala prieststabbed insidechurch in Oz,one arrested
TIMES NEWS NETWORK