8 TIMES NATION THE TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABAD

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2017

Taking steps for poor Sahara refused

to abide by Narada sting: Ministers, MPs PC: EDs move to
stop me from
to get access to quality SCs orders
health services: PM Continued from P1 among 12 of TMC booked criticising govt
Continued from P1

T P
he bench said since the Chidambaram dismissed

Continued from P1 Besides, the ministry has

M
odi said, We have
done this work, and
you can imagine how
angry the manufacturers of
medicines will be. Despite
the wrath of a very powerful
lobby, the government is tak-
ing one step after another so
that poor people and middle
class get quality health ser-
vices.
The PM outlined a series
of measures planned by the
health ministry in line to
regulate cost of medical care
in the country with recent
price control or caps on med-
ical devices being one such
initiative.
The health ministry has
recently issued a draft ga-
zette notification making it
mandatory for pharma com-
panies to carry generic
name of drugs on packs that
is at least two fonts larger
than the brand name.
This clause will be a le-
gal provision as a rule under
the exisiting Drugs and Cos-
metics Act and any violation
will be punishable under the
provisions of the law, a se-
nior health ministry official
told TOI. The ministry has
sought public comments on
the draft within 45 days, after
which it is likely to become
part of the drug law.
also issued orders to the
Medical Council of India
(MCI), state governments
and all central government
hospitals asking them to en-
sure that doctors write pre-
scriptions with generic
names of medicines in legi-
ble hand writing.
The move assumes sig-
nificance as medicines ac-
count for 70-75% of a house-
holds out of pocket expendi-
ture on health. While gener-
ic medicines are good
quality low cost drugs with
equal efficacy as branded
drugs, doctors and chemists
often push the more expen-
sive alternatives.
Despite stringent price
control, big pharma compa-
nies manage to spend exorbi-
tantly on marketing and
branding of their drugs.
Since advertisement of pre-
scription medicines are not
allowed in India, companies
or medical representatives
push their products through
doctors, chemists and dis-
tributors in lieu of freebies,
junkets and incentives.
Modi said his govern-
ment brought in a health pol-
icy after 15 years and capped
the prices of medicines and
stents, which has not gone
down well with some phar-
maceutical companies.
group refused to abide
by the SCs orders, the
time had come to act on the
courts threat to auction the
groups prime property
Aamby Valley. The SC had
earlier rejected Saharas
plea for time till July 2019 to
refund the balance amount.
As no amount has been
deposited by the contemnor
(Subrata Roy), we are in-
clined to go ahead with the
auction of Aamby Valley
City near Lonavala, Maha-
rashtra, the bench said and
appointed the official liqui-
dator of Bombay High
Court to elicit details of the
property and proceed with
the auction.
Invoking its powers under
Article 144 of the Constitu-
tion that mandates all author-
ities to act in aid of the SC, the
bench said, The official liq-
uidator must complete the ex-
ercise of valuation within 10
days and send a report to the
apex court. We are sure all
shall work in harmony to
comply with the directions
passed by this court.
The SC also directed Roy
to remain present in the
court on April 27 at 2 pm and
said it would decide whether
he was entitled to bail or
should be sent to jail. The
bench warned Roy that he
should not play truant with
the contents of the affidavit.
CBI FIR A
Political Game,
Says Mamata
Neeraj.Chauhan
@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: The Central Bu-
reau of Investigation (CBI)
filed on Monday a case
against 12 senior members
of Trinamool Congress, in-
cluding Rajya Sabha mem-
ber Mukul Roy, former West
Bengal minister Madan Mi-
tra, and Lok Sabha mem-
bers Saugata Roy, Aparupa
Poddar, Sultan Ahmed, Pra-
sun Banerjee and Kakoli
Ghosh Dastidar, for alleged
criminal conspiracy and
corruption on the basis of
the Narada sting operation.
The sting operation pur-
portedly showed them tak-
ing money, allegedly against
future favours. It was broad-
cast by a portal called Nara-
danews.com just before the
assembly elections last year.
According to the CBI, its
preliminary enquiry into
the matter revealed that the
12 MPs, state ministers and
MLAs of West Bengal were
shown to have either accept-
ed money in cash given by
the representative of a
Chennai-based company
CAUGHT ON CAMERA
CBI probe against whos who of
TMC in Narada sting operation
What agency FIR says
Mukul Roy | Was shown
to assure support to sting
operator Mathew Samuel in
his business proposal after
April 24, 2014 with full amount
of money. He is shown telling
Samuel to hand over money to
SMH Mirza (IPS ofcer) which
he (Samuel) brought for him
(Roy). He also said he wont
accept money for himself and
advised Samuel to go to his
ofce at 6A Elgin Road after
one hour and hand over
the money to staff there
Madan Mitra | Was shown to
have accepted Rs 5 lakh from
Samuel, who told him that his
company was looking for work
pertaining to highway and
infrastructure projects in West
Bengal. Mitra told Samuel
he had seen as to how he
used to get the work done
Saugata Roy | Was shown to
(sting operator Mathew Sa-
muel, who introduced him-
self as the representative of
a firm named Impex Consul-
tancy), or asked him to hand
over the money to someone
else on their behalf . They
were also shown to have
asked for money for them-
have accepted 5 lakh
from Samuel
Sultan Ahmed | He asked
Samuel to hand over Rs 5 lakh
to a person named Iqbal. In
another video, he was heard
advising Samuel to support
Prasun Banerjee, Kakoli Ghosh
Dastidar and Dinesh Trivedi
nancially, who were contesting
2014 Lok Sabha election, while
selves and others, the agen-
cy added. The enquiry re-
vealed that the accused per-
sons either accepted illegal
gratification or agreed to ac-
cept illegal gratification
from Mathew Samuel dur-
ing April-May 2014 and their
video images have been
Ajit Ninan
assuring help from them in
promoting Samuels business
in their constituencies after
the election
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar |
Was seen accepting 5 lakh
from Samuel
Prasun Banerjee | Was
shown accepting 4 lakh from
Samuel to help him in his
future business endeavour
identified, it said.
The probe has revealed
that most of the TMC mem-
bers shown in the sting oper-
ation demanded money a
few weeks before the 2014
general elections.
For the full report, log on
to www.timesofindia.com
the charge against his son as
baseless, and said the EDs
move was meant to stop him from
criticising the government. The
ED has the habit of recycling alle-
gations from time to time. Todays
press release by the ED is another
example. The allegations in the
press release are baseless, totally
false and ridiculous, the former
finance minister said.
No notice has been served up-
on Karti Chidambaram so far. If a
notice is received, a suitable reply
will be sent, he further said.
He added, By targeting Karti
Chidambaram with baseless no-
tices, the government cannot si-
lence my voice or stop my writ-
ing. Significantly, the ED state-
ment emphasised that it was also
probing the former finance min-
ister for bypassing the Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs
to allow mobile service provider
Aircel-Maxis to bring in foreign
investment worth Rs 3,500 crore.
The total amount of contra-
vention identified on different
counts committed by Advantage
Strategic Consulting in the sale
transaction of shares of Vasan
Healthcare to overseas investors
is around Rs 45 crore. Show-cause
notice has been issued to Advan-
tage Strategic, its directors and
also to Karti P Chidambaram,
who appears to be the controller
and ultimate beneficiary in these
transactions, the ED said in its
press note.

AI asked to use
JNU, BHU may get Chorus of revolt as Sonu Cops analysing docs, Hindi in its tickets
financial autonomy
New Delhi: Top ranking educational institutions
Nigam slams loud devotion technical aspects Continued from P1

M
such as Jawaharlal Nehru University, Banaras ukherjee has accepted
Hindu University, Delhi University, Shri Ram Col- Continued from P1 Joint commissioner some recommendations of
lege of Commerce and Lady Shri Ram College Mohua.Das@timesgroup.com Gundagardi hai bus... he tweet- faiths. Praveer Ranjan has formed the committee of Parlia-

A
which the Centre funds could get full operation- ed to 5.94 million followers. Predictably, Twitterati ex- IADMK had contest- several teams for a thor- ment on official languages which

S
al autonomy, including in financial matters. inger Sonu Nigam climbed
The move to grant autonomy to well-perform- to the top of Twitters trend-
ing educational institutions is part of a wide- ing chart on Monday morn-
ranging educational reform plan being finalised ing over a series of posts ques-
by a high-powered panel headed by Niti Aayog tioning the use of loudspeakers
vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya. by places of worship.
This would allow these institutions to raise re- God bless everyone. Im not
sources independently and also have freedom to a Muslim and I have to be woken
hire the best talent. TNN up by the Azaan in the morning.
When will this forced religious-
ness end in India. And by the way
Mohammed did not have elec-
tricity when he made Islam
(sic), he posted.
Why do I have to have this ca-
cophony after Edison? I dont be-
lieve in any temple or gurudwa-
ra using electricity. To wake up
people who don't follow the reli-
gion. Why then..? Honest? True?
The comments were in circu-
lation all day and while the de-
mand to ban high decibel broad-
casts found resonance on social
media, Nigams rant was seen as
targeting a specific com-
munity and ended up pola-
rizing the debate.
Many Muslim commu-
nity leaders and activists
too criticize the muezzins
call as needless and one
which the community should
regulate.
However, singer Sonu Ni-
gams choice of words on Mon-
day did not endear him to this
section, even though he did
make an effort to temper his crit-
icism by mentioning other
ploded in a heated debate, mostly
slamming the singer for bigotry
and hurting sentiments but
some in support of greater re-
straint on use of loud speakers,
irrespective of religious
congregations.
Am a Hindu but isnt
same inconvenience faced
by Non Hindus too when we
blare loudspeakers for Nav-
ratri n Ganesh proces-
sions? The screeching loud-
speakers hurt old patients, dis-
turb students studying for ex-
ams n scare babies argued
Maya Sharma in her tweet.
Despite several attempts, Ni-
gam remained unavailable for
comment.
ed the R K Nagar as-
sembly bypoll J
Jayalalithaas seat on
the hat symbol as the EC
had frozen the two leaves
following a split in the par-
ty. EC had cancelled the
election poll on evidence of
large scale bribing of vot-
ers.
Police said Sukesh had
flaunted his connections
with senior EC officials
and promised to get the
symbol back for the party.
He apparently came to Del-
hi 10 days ago and began
meeting people. However, a
tip-off on alleged hawala
transactions did him in.
ough probe.
While one team is focus-
ing on serving summons to
the accused, including Dhi-
nakaran, another team is
looking for the missing Rs
8.7 crore.
A third team is analys-
ing seized documents and
technical aspects of the
case.
During interrogation,
Sukesh told cops that Rs 10
crore had been sent
through hawala by a Kochi-
based operator.
It was received by him
at Chandni Chowk in Del-
hi. Police have secured his
remand for eight days.
state: All dignitaries including
honble President and all the min-
isters especially who can read and
speak Hindi may be requested to
give their speech/statement in
Hindi only. The committee,
headed by former Union minister
P Chidambaram, made these rec-
ommendations in 2011.
Though Hindi-speaking
states like Madhya Pradesh, Ut-
tar Pradesh and Rajasthan con-
duct official business predomin-
antly in Hindi, speeches by cen-
tral government functionaries,
file work and statements are pre-
dominantly in English. The move
is expected to impact central min-
isters the most and may mean
that most statements or speeches
made in Parliament or govern-
ment functions would be in Hin-
di, accompanied by a text of En-
glish translation.
Another recommendation
that has been accepted says that
national carrier Air India should
use Hindi in its tickets. The rec-
ommendation was for all Indian
airlines but the President has re-
stricted his approval only for Air
India. The national carrier will
also be expected to beef up its
reading list to include Hindi
newspapers and magazines. The
committee was of the opinion
that the language is grossly ne-
glected and announcements both
for railways and airlines should
be in Hindi. .