YEH MERA INDIA

Milk adulteration- caught in action

Mumbai : The Versova police, busted a milk-adulteration racket and arrested six persons. The police seized 700 litres of adulterated milk, said an official. The Versova police said they raided a room at Bharat Nagar at Four Bungalows in Andheri West, following a tip-off. The police said the accused were caught red-handed while mixing water in branded milk packets.

The police said that the accused were retailers and would sell the plastic milk packets of various brands after buying them in bulk. Their modus operandi, the police said, was to make very tiny holes in the plastic milk packets that are not visible to the naked eye. They would inject out the milk and inject water in thereafter. They would then seal the hole neatly with a candle. The police said that a few local residents had complained to them about the adulterated milk, following which the accused were arrested.

Rs. 53000 crores worth projects stalled on minor issues

New Delhi: The Highways Ministry has said it hopes that soon there may not be any need for compulsory environment nod for mining minor minerals like sand and soil for road projects which has stalled 53 projects worth over 53,000 crore. "Leases of minor minerals, including their renewal for an area of less than 5 hectares, can be granted by states only at present after getting Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) clearance. We are taking steps to address it soon so that no environment nod is required," Road Transport and Highways Secretary Vijay Chibber told PTI.

 "Now only three issues are left to be resolved including the need for doing away with the mandatory environment nod, which will further boost the sector," he said. According to the National Highways Builders Federation, 53 highway projects worth over Rs 53,000 crore are struck for more than a year after the Supreme Court in February 2012 brought minor minerals, including their renewal for an area of less than 5 hectares, under the ambit of MOEF clearances.

 Buses better nourished than kids

Bhayandar: Every time you take a municipal transport bus in Mira Bhayandar, 15 paise of the ticket fare is set aside as surcharge for a dedicated fund to help feed malnourished children in the state, however in a shocking revelation, the money is being diverted to maintain the transport utility by the private operator for the past couple of years.

The anomaly came to fore after the Regional Transport Office (RTO), Thane, impounded four buses of the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Transport (MBMT), undertaking for non-payment of child nutrition surcharge (CNS). Apart from the CNS, the MBMT has been charging 3.5 per cent amount as commuter tax on each ticket.

As per government directives, the transport utility is supposed to collect both levies-CNS and commuter tax and deposit it in the bank account of the transport commissioner, every month. However, both the levies stand pending since 2010, prompting the RTO to take punitive action.

The Ulhasnagar-based, Kestrel Infrastructure, which is operating the bus services on a PPP scheme, pays a royalty of Rs 1 per kilometre to the MBMT. “It is true that we have stopped paying nutrition tax (still collected from commuters), to the government since 2010. With no hike in fares, we were left with no other option and helpless as the transport body was incurring losses.” said Kestrel-in-charge, Shivaji Shrishkar.

Many transport authorities in Thane district have been demanding for exemption, however, the matter remains pending with the State government.When contacted, Assistant Civic Chief, Deepak Sawant, said, “The private operator is liable for making the CNS payments. Even as efforts to seek exemption was on, we have already taken an undertaking from the private operator who has agreed to clear the dues if the demand of a rollback is rejected.

Introduced in 1997, the CNS allows the government to keep 10 to 15 paise of the ticket fare from each commuter in major cities in Maharashtra to generate funds to tackle malnutrition in the state.

Church &Chinese coffins

Thiruvananthapuram: A Kerala church has asked its followers not to use Chinese made coffins, saying they are not environment friendly. “Swarga Petti” (heavenly box) has been found to be an unfriendly product by the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar due to delay in decaying in the soil. Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan, the supreme head of the church, in an article in the latest issue of Sabha Tharaka, its official mouthpiece, has asked people to use environment-friendly products. 

Tribal helplessness

Thiruvananthapuram : Having failed to stop unauthorised sale of oral contraceptive pills in the tribal hamlets in Idukki district of Kerala, the health authorities have recommended a total ban on sale of the birth control pills that were being misused widely by tribal women to delay or avoid menstruation.

The women have been resorting to the unhealthy practice to avoid quarantine during menstrual cycle. The custom being followed by the tribals insists that menstruating women should stay away from their family homes during the period of menstruation.

They are usually put in quarantine homes called Valapuras during this period. The stay there lasts three to seven days every month depending upon the menstruation. The women have been trying to avoid this as the quarantine homes lack basic facilities that women need.

They found the pills that were promoted by the government for birth control ideal as they could delay or avoid menstruation. The government had banned unauthorised sale of these contraceptive in the tribal hamlets after it was found that continued use of the pills had led to several disorders, including infertility.

Indian FBI does it with private taxis!

New Delhi : If Mumbai were struck with yet another 26/11 type of terror attack, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) set up on the lines of the American FBI agency does not have its own cars, what to say of bullet-proof vehicles, in the metropolis to rush and get cracking.

The Finance Ministry cited austerity measures felt necessary to meet the resource crunch for refusing release of funds to the agency to buy vehicles for its three regional offices set up in Mumbai, Kochi and Lucknow last year.

The NIA chief disclosed this to a parliamentary standing committee on home ministry while listing the major handicaps with which his agency has to function. The committee report tabled in Parliament a day earlier says the officers in these regional offices have been asked to hire private taxis to rush to the terror spots. The NIA chief said this handicaps effective functioning of the staff.

The agency was established in Delhi in 2009 as a sequel to the Pakistani terrorists” attack on Mumbai in November 2008 and since then it has expanded to have regional offices in five cities, first in Hyderabad and Guwahati and then in the three other cities where no office cars are provided till todate. It is also because of the austerity diktat of the finance ministry that the NIA had to put off its decision to open three more regional offices in Kolkata, Bhopal and Patna.

The standing committee blasted the government for not providing even basic facilities for functioning to the agency and expect quick results from it. No surprise, the NIA has failed to achieve any major success in the last four years in 44 terror cases transferred to it for investigation.The committee report also expressed concern that almost 40 per cent of the posts sanctioned to the NIA are still lying vacant. There is no direct recruitment for the senior posts as the officers are to come on deputation from various central and state agencies and yet only 475 officers have joined the agency as against the sanctioned strength of 657.