Accusing Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar of misbehaviour, as many as 10 ex-soldiers have threatened to commit suicide, according to a new video and letter circulating on social media

CONFESSION EX­Pak NSA says the strike was a ‘classic example’ of cross­border terror; denies role of the govt or ISI in the carnage

NEWDELHI: Pakistan’s former top security officer Mahmud Ali Durrani on Monday said the 26/11 Mumbai strike was a “classic example” of cross-border terrorism, carried out by a Pakbased group and hoped that its chief Hafiz Saeed is punished.

HT FILEThe terror strikes in Mumbai in 2008 had claimed 166 lives.

However, Durrani, a former national security advisor of Pakistan, maintained that the government had no role in the terror strikes that claimed lives of 166 people.

“26/11 Mumbai strikes, carried out by a terror group based in Pakistan, was a classic transborder terrorist event,” he said while addressing a conference on combating terrorism at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis here.

Later talking to reporters, he said, “I know (this) for definite. I have very good information that the Government of Pakistan or the ISI (Pakistan’s spy agency) was not involved in 26/11 (terror attack). I am 110 per cent sure.”

Asked to elaborate, Durrani declined to divulge details, saying he was sacked by the Pakistani government for certain statements he made regarding the Mumbai attack.

“I made a statement which the government did not like and I got sacked,” he said.

Reacting to the statement minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said, “India’s position is very well known and consistent. There is nothing new for us.”

In response to a question on JuD chief Saeed’s usefulness to Pakistan, Durrani said he has “no utility” for the country and that the Mumbai attack mastermind should be “punished”.

Durrani, who had served as a major general in the Pakistani army, was sacked in 2009 for having indicated that Ajmal Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist arrested for the Mumbai terror attack, may have been a Pakistani. Kasab was hanged by India.

India has been maintaining that Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the 2008 Mumbai terror strikes and has been demanding action against Saeed.

Pakistan has been maintaining that it demands more evidence to bring Saeed to book.

Durrani also sought to debunk India’s assertion that it carried out surgical strikes on terror camps across the Line of Control (LoC), saying he did not see evidence of any such attack by the Indian forces.

China’s annual defence budget is set to officially cross $150 billion for the first time in 2017, the finance ministry said on Sunday, three times India’s planned defence spending for the fiscal year.

The ministry’s statement came hours after the exact figure for the sector was surprisingly not included in the government work report released earlier in the day.

Speaking to the Associated Press, an unnamed official from China’s finance ministry pegged the defence budget at 1.044 trillion Yuan or $151 billion, a 7% increase from last year’s outlay. The 7% hike was announced by National People’s Congress spokesperson Fu Ying. In comparison, in the fiscal year starting April, India plans to spend 3.6 lakh crore rupees or $51 billion.

No reason was offered as to why the budget wasn’t part of the work report – as is the case every year – which was released by Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People to mark the beginning of the annual session of China’s rubber stamp Parliamen. “A ministry information officer told AP the exact figure had already been released to the almost 3,000 delegates to the NPC. But he didn’t say why it had been withheld from the government budget report, where it usually appears,” the news report said.

Beijing would continue to deepen military reforms while upholding the party’s absolute leadership of over the armed forces, the government work report said.

China’s defence budget is considerably less than that of the US though the Communist country has the largest armed forces in the world – China defence spending last year accounted for less than a quarter of that of the US.

But the Chinese government has been criticised about not being transparent enough with information about its expenditure in defence sector, which is undergoing a modernisation programme.

ECONOMY FORECAST LOWEST IN 25 YEARS

China on Sunday reduced its growth forecast to around 6.5% for 2017, down from the target range of 6.5-7% it had put itself up for a year before, a government report released at the inaugural session of the country’s Parliament said.

The closely-watched growth target for the world’s second largest economy was a 25-year low since the previous low of 6% in 1992.

Pushed down by falling demand for its goods globally and overcapacity in its manufacturing and steel sectors, China’s growth rate has fallen sharply in recent years, raising fears of a crippling slowdown.

“[China will] pursue better results in actual economic work,” Premier Li Keqiang said. “Stability is of overriding importance,” Li said.

The report said the projected target was in line with both economic principles and realities, adding it will help stabilise market expectations and facilitate the country’s structural adjustments.

WHY BJP LEADERS NOT HOLDING MORCHA AGAINST LPG RATES NOW: VEDIO 

COL GETS 3-YR JAIL IN GRAFT CASE

SAHAYAK NOT SLAVE, BUT A BUDDY AND COMPANION TO HIS OFFICER

JAWAN IN VIRAL ‘SAHAYAK’ CLIP DEAD, ARMY QUESTIONS ROLE OF WEBSITE

MOTHER HITS BACK AS GURMEHAR TROLLED AGAIN

BJP LEADER POSTS VIDEO EXPLAINING BACKGROUND OF ABVP TO GURMEHAR

AMARINDER’S GRANDSON TIES KNOT: WEDDING ROYALE

PROTEST AGAINST ARMY IN CM’S HOME TOWN

TWO ASSOCIATES OF SUSPECTED MIDDLEMAN GET BAIL

SUMMARY COURT MARTIAL EXCEPTION, NOT RULE: SC

INDIA RAISES VISA CONCERNS WITH CANADA

New Delhi, March 4

India has raised concerns over the changes made by Canada in its Temporary Foreign Workers Programme, making it difficult for domestic companies to send employees to their Canadian units on short-term visas, impacting services trade.Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has raised the issue with the visiting Canadian officials who have assured of certain steps to ease the movement of professionals.The issue was discussed at a meeting between the Canadian Minister of International Trade François-Philippe Champagne and Sitharaman. He “assured” of taking steps to facilitate the ease of movement for professionals. — PTI

The MiG-29K had taken off from aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. — File photo

Mangaluru/New Delhi, February 28A MiG-29K fighter jet of Indian Navy made an emergency landing at Mangaluru airport due to a hydraulic failure and was stuck on the runway for several hours as it suffered a tyre burst.As many as eight flights were affected as the runway operation was shut completely for about three hours.”During a routine training sortie, a MIG 29 K fighter aircraft diverted to Mangalore airfield following a hydraulic emergency.”During the landing the aircraft experienced a tyre burst and couldn’t clear off the runway. A second MIG 29K had escorted the aircraft,” Navy Spokesperson Captain D K Sharma said.A recovery team was sent to Mangaluru airport which cleared off the runway around 8 pm.Several flights were diverted from Mangaluru to Benguluru.Three arrivals and five departures were affected due to the runway closure between 5 pm and 8 pm, a Manguluru airport official said.The MiG-29K had taken off from aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and when the pilot suspected hydraulic failure, he decided to divert the aircraft to Manguluru airport and sought its emergency landing. — PTI 

ZERO HOUR Amarinder says he’s committed to poll promise of waiving farm debt

CHANDIGARH:Laying to rest apprehensions raised by the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal in the Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday, chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh clarified that debt-ridden farmers will not face ‘kurki’ (sale of mortgaged property) in Punjab.

KESHAV SINGH/HTPunjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh addressing the House on the last day of the first session of the 15th Vidhan Sabha in Chandigarh on Wednesday.

Amarinder’s campaign managers had coined the slogan ‘Karza Kurki Khatam, Fasal Di Puri Rakam (end to farm debt and its recovery, and full payment for the crop)’ ahead of the assembly polls in Punjab. The CM said he remained committed to the poll promise.

During the zero hour, Akali legislator NK Sharma posed a query to the government on farmers receiving notices from banks to pay back loans. Replying to it, the CM said “no such notices were sent” and the banks were given clear instructions not to approach farmers for recovery of loans.

“Our government has made it clear that no bank will initiate ‘kurki’ of farmers’ property to recover the outstanding debt,” Amarinder told the House.

Talking to mediapersons after the House was adjourned sine die, Amarinder said the Congress had already promised in its poll manifesto to waive farm debt and was in the process to devise a mechanism to implement it. “I will get it checked if any bank has sent recovery notices to farmers despite my government’s clear instructions,” he said.

Earlier in the House, former finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa questioned the government’s orders to halt ongoing development works started during the Akali-BJP regime. He said the government has the powers to issue such orders to the state departments but not to the civic bodies.

Congress legislator Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said under the Akali-BJP government, panchayats were asked to bring in resolutions that the public works department would carry out development works in rural areas. “Was that justified?” he questioned.

BJP HAILS MOVE TO END HALQA IN-CHARGES

Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Som Parkash praised the Congress government for putting an end to the halqa in-charge system prevalent during the Akali regime. “The decision should remain in place,” he said. The system of giving prominence to local Akali leaders in respective assembly segments was opposed by their alliance partners BJP a number of times.

Earlier, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief whip Sukhpal Singh Khaira raised the issue of potatogrowers, seeking subsidy for transportation of their produce to other states on the pattern of Gujarat. AAP legislator Baljinder Kaur sought relief for the kin of the four persons who died in an accident in her constituency, Talwandi Sabo, last week. Her party colleague Aman Arora asked the government to restore power connections to the state-run waterworks.

In Cong’s new season of Game of Thrones, it’s Manpreet vs Sidhu

STUDY IN CONTRASTS In their distinctive styles, both cabinet ministers Manpreet Badal and Navjot Sidhu are making their presence felt in the assembly — all to woo their Captain

Sidhu and I are good friends. We even consult each other often. But we are completely opposite. He is flamboyant and has the star power. MANPREET SINGH BADAL, finance minister

CHANDIGARH: The new Punjab assembly has many contrasts. The youngest member is 25-yearold Congress MLA Davinder Singh Ghubaya and the oldest, 89-year-old former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. Its two opposition parties — rookie Aam Aadmi Party and the seasoned SAD-BJP — too are a study in contrasts. But it is ruling party’s two knights in shining armours, Manpreet Badal and Navjot Singh Sidhu, who the new House is talking about. They too are as different as chalk and cheese.

KESHAV SINGH/HTPunjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal presenting supplementary demands in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday.

Manpreet quotes Urdu poetry and loves history. His interventions in the House are based on “when spoken to or asked to” principle. A man of economics and state’s finance minister, he cites facts and figures. He countered the opposition’s demand for a debate on the vote on account and supplementary demands by striking a camaraderie with the AAP and some straight talk on finances with the Akalis.

Sidhu, on the other hand, is loud, flambuoyant and follows the mantra of “speak when you can”. Left to himself, Sidhu can be the judge, jury and the prosecution. All he needs to do is bowl Sidhusims (funny one-liners). In the House on Monday, he silenced protesting AAP MLAs by mocking their election slogan. “Kende si Kejriwal, Kejriwal, sara Punjab tere naal. Hoon kende ne Kejriwal ae ki ho gaya tere naal (they used to say Kejriwal, entire Punjab is with you. They now say look what happened to Kejriwal). On Wednesday, he was bowling googlies to the SAD. “Che mahine mein toh Kumbhkaran bhi jaag jaata tha, tum das saal so rahe the (even Kumbhkaran woke up once in six months. Were you sleeping for last 10 years),” he said.

Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh — who has opened the new season of ‘Game of Thrones’ in the Congress by saying it is his last election and he would like to groom a successor — looks impressed with Manpreet when he talks in the House and amused when Sidhu shoots from the mouth.

While Manpreet is making the right noises in the new government by setting its agenda such as no-VIP culture and austerity, Sidhu has an inherent penchant for making news and how! On the first day of the four-day session, he sat on the CM’s chair rather inadvertently! He shook hands with senior MLAs who took the oath, patted the younger ones and hugged his former associates, the Bains brothers of Ludhiana. Even when he is not speaking, he makes a style statement through his colour-coded attire — matching turbans, pocket squares and scarves! Manpreet’s dressing is more demure and aristocratic.

They are both competing for being next in line to the throne. They are both wooing Amarinder. Manpreet through crediting Amarinder for all their government is doing and Sidhu by chatting up Amarinder and being by his side. The Akalis are amused too. Former SAD minister Bikram Singh Majithia, who has no love lost either for Manpreet or Sidhu, describes it as “in-house rivalry” in the Congress. Manpreet laughs off the rivalry bit.

“Me and Sidhu are good friends. We even consult each other often. But we are completely opposite. He is flambuoyant and has the star power. He can attract any audience. In fact, we have a mutual admiration club. Majithia is trying to drive a wedge between us but he will not be able to succeed,” he quipped.

Sidhu, who loves to take on Majithia with “chitta” (a colloquium for synthetic drug in Punjab) jibe, too, rubbished it, with not one but two Sidhusims. “Duniya mein sab se bara rog, kya kehenge log (the biggest disease in the world is what people say about us). The second? “Gaal harda ae hawai, like a pie in the sky”. We leave you to figure this one out by yourself!

Bonhomie gives way to rancour on final day

CHANDIGARH: The bonhomie that marked Day 1 of the first day of the 15th Vidhan Sabha gave way to rancour as the session came to an end on Wednesday.

KESHAV SINGH/HTAAP chief whip Sukhpal Khaira speaking in the assembly. The party legislators stormed the House well and spent the last 10 minutes of the session raising slogans against the speaker.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators, who had staged a walkout on the second day of the session, once again protested and stormed the well of the House and raised slogans against the speaker in the last 10 minutes of the session.

It was in stark contrast with the scenes in the assembly on the first day that witnessed warm hugs and handshakes.

Speaker Rana Kunwarpal Singh tried his best to be a tough monitor and handle the MLAs who were pointing fingers and deriding each other amid barely masked hostility on both sides of the benches.

The AAP made an issue of their allies, the Lok Insaaf Party’s Bains brothers — Simarjeet and Balwinder — not getting seats next to them in the House. The two have been allotted seats away from AAP MLAs, but have been sitting with them during this session. The speaker barred them from speaking in the House till they sat on their designated seats, resulting in leader of opposition HS Phoolka and AAP chief whip Sukhpal Khaira lodging protest. The treasury benches too reciprocated in kind. Pleading with them to allow the two to sit next to them, Khaira said: “Why are you scared of them? It will only help us prepare our floor strategy better and discuss issues yaar. It has taken you barely a week to become like Akalis. Look at what has happened to them,” he said, pointing to the low number of Akali MLAs in the House. His imploring left the Congressmen speechless till Amrinder Singh Raja Warring was heard saying: “Speaker saab even I want to sit next to the CM; I want to hold some discussions with him!”

PHOOLKA, KHAIRA NOT ON SAME PAGE

While Phoolka did not seem to want to blow the issue out of proportion, Khaira wanted the AAP MLAs to protest against the speaker. He huddled them together asking them to leave their seats and walk into the well of the House, where they sat for the last 10 minutes of the session, raising slogans.

The dissonance between Phoolka and Khaira had also surfaced on the issue of government bringing out a ‘white paper’ on the state finances. “It should be timebound and include the deeds of governments of the past 20 years,” said Phoolka. “It should be from the time Punjab was a revenue surplus state in 1985,” said Khaira, forcing Phoolka to later clarify that a white paper on the last 20 years was acceptable.

Later, addressing a press conference, Khaira said the speaker was “partisan” and had brazenly favoured the Congress.

Govt yet to foot PSCPL’s ₹2,600-cr power subsidy bill

PRINCIPAL SECY A VENU PRASAD HAS TOLD THE PUNJAB AND HARYANA HC THAT OF TOTAL ₹6,113 CRORE BILL, ₹2,875 CRORE HAVE BEEN PAID AND ₹633 CRORE HAVE BEEN ADJUSTED AS INTEREST

CHANDIGARH : The state government is yet to pay ₹2,600- crore power subsidy bill to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL).

Principal secretary, department of power, A Venu Prasad has told the Punjab and Haryana high court that of the total ₹6,113.66 crore bill, ₹2,875.18 crore have been paid and ₹633.32 crore have been adjusted as interest on account of loan under the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana.

UDAY was launched by the Centre for operational and financial turnaround of the DISCOMs. Concerned over the whopping bill, the high court has sought time from the state government by which the due amount would be paid.

The information was given by government during resumed hearing of a contempt petition in which the high court had specifically asked the government to supply details.

Seeing state’s response, the bench of justice Rajesh Bindal observed that if the government had given loan to the corporation, it is entitled to claim interest.

“Equally on the other side, if the state is to pay the amount to the corporation, the corporation is also entitled to claim interest from the state if the payment is unreasonably delayed,” justice Bindal said, asking the government to give details as to at what rate it was claiming interest. The court said it should also be clarified that as to how much loan has been advanced by the corporation and if the state is not able to pay the amount due to the corporation, why the loan should not be adjusted against the amount payable.

CENTRE RELEASES ₹29 CRORE FOR SSA

The central government also filed an affidavit stating that ₹29.16 crore have been released on March 23 as share of the Centre towards Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme. The response had come following high court asking it to respond to Punjab’s claims that delay in release of salaries to SSA teachers who have not got salary since September, 2016 was due to delay in disbursal of Centre’s share of ₹365 crore to the state.

Of the total budget of ₹1,059.24 crore for the SSA in 2016-17, the Centre’s share was ₹635.55 crore and the state’s ₹423.69 crore.

The Centre had given only ₹270 crore as the first instalment, of which ₹263.45 crore has been released for salary. The state has released ₹175.64 crore from its own share, Punjab had claimed

Army men take position near the encounter site in Budgam. Tribune Photo: Amin war

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, March 28

Frames moved frantically. A person shouted, “Where is this boy from?” The video then moved closer to the face of a fatally wounded protester. His beard neatly dressed and his eyes shut.A dozen-odd boys and men struggled to move the motionless body, later identified as that of Zahid Rashid, through a barren field as mobile phone cameras follow in pursuit — metres away from the site of a raging gunfight.The video, one of the many that overwhelmed the social media on a bloody Tuesday, provided rare glimpses into a chaotic Kashmir where civilians are rushing to sites of gun battles to help out besieged militants. These videos opened an unprecedented live stream from the encounter area, beaming visuals onto mobile phones and laptops, and triggering a wave of anger.Rashid, whose last moments were captured on the video, became the first of the three protesters who got killed in the Chadoora area of central Kashmir.In another video, which captured Rashid’s journey home from the hospital, an angry teenager runs a commentary from inside the ambulance as it is intercepted by the police near the Jehangir Chowk here.The video shows frantic moments as police personnel halt the vehicle leading to fistfights with the ambulance inmates. As the police fire tear-smoke shells to disperse the crowds that assembled around the ambulance, the video kept rolling and captured a woman’s emotional outbursts from inside the vehicle.These videos are increasingly being uploaded on the social media. A worried police had launched a crackdown earlier this month as it detained several dozen youth for administrating online messenger groups in one of the districts of south Kashmir in a bid to root out the growing coordination between protesters.However, the impact of such crackdowns is becoming ineffective. The state government had also previously blocked the internet and phone signals in the areas where the security forces were involved in counter-insurgency operations.The visual elements — photographs and videos — are proving to be a mobilising factor in the region, where the front lines are changing drastically. The militants have effectively used the social media in recent years, releasing video statements, which have catapulted their popularity and their cause.