Timeline Refresh
AIADMK, BSP, JDU wanted bill to be passed to select panel, but the bill has been cleared finally by the Rajya Sabha. The Lok Sabha had cleared it six months ago.
The Bill replaces the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. It addresses children in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection. The Bill permits juveniles between the ages of 16-18 years to be tried as adults for heinous offences. Also, any 16-18 year old, who commits a lesser, i.e., serious offence, may be tried as an adult only if he is apprehended after the age of 21 years. Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB) and Child Welfare Committees (CWC) will be constituted in each district. The JJB will conduct a preliminary inquiry to determine whether a juvenile offender is to be sent for rehabilitation or be tried as an adult. The CWC will determine institutional care for children in need of care and protection. Eligibility of adoptive parents and the procedure for adoption have been included in the Bill. Penalties for cruelty against a child, offering a narcotic substance to a child, and abduction or selling a child have been prescribed.
However, the bill does not have retrospective effect, which means it will not affect the juvenile convict in the Delhi gang rape case.
"I seek PM Narendra Modi's resignation for conducting such a "flop" raid," the CM says on the CBI raids at the Delhi Secretariat. "If my job is to punish corrupt officers, it's also my job to protect honest officers. For six days my secretary Rajender Kumar was interrogated for hours. I want to ask PM, what did he discover? Nothing. Unfortunate such incidents are increasing. Apart from making a law, social awareness also important," Kerjiwal says.
"Earlier Modi didn't get visa, now he is travelling the world," says Kejriwal.
The parliament has been debating the bill since 2 pm. The bill is likely to be passed today.
Nearly 300 people were across the state in rain related incidents. Assocham had earlier said that the financial losses from the torrential rains and floods in Tamil Nadu might exceed Rs 15,000 crore. Automobile and IT industry were affected the most.Earlier this week, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during his visit to Chennai asked bankers to go mission mode to extend soft loans to people in the flood-affected districts of Tamil Nadu. Jayalalithaa had then asked Jaitley to release Rs 2,000 crore for sustaining reconstruction efforts.
Jaitley held discussions with Jayalalithaa during which she apprised him of the "calamity of unprecedented magnitude" that ravaged the Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Cuddalore districts."We have set high targets for the banks today,"Jaitley told reporters after the meeting.
Sisodia claimed that during the raid, enquiries were made by the probe agency's officials about people who had visited Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and each and every file kept in a CMO room was looked into in the "garb" of investigating Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar.
Incidentally, Kumar was seated in the visitors' gallery of the Assembly during the proceedings. When her turn to speak came, AAP MLA Alka Lamba heaped praises on him, saying, "We are proud of an officer like you."
Amid protests by Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta, Sisodia, flanked by Kejriwal, moved a resolution on the floor of the Assembly to constitute a Commission of Inquiry to probe the alleged corruption in DDCA. The Deputy Chief Minister said that internal committee of the Delhi Government, after talking to stakeholders, had prepared its report which "pointed fingers at Arun Jaitley".
The approval lists a number of strict conditions that the project must fulfil before going ahead, including how and where the sediment can be moved. The decision comes two months after the government approved Adani's plan to build one of the world's biggest mines.
Over 2,000 schools are closed across Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, while hundreds of others have been attacked, looted, or set on fire by Boko Haram jihadists in their quest to create an independent Islamic state, said UNICEF.
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has given his military commanders until the end of the month to end the Boko Haram insurgency, but even if victory is possible analysts say his government will have to contend with social turmoil stemming from a generation of children who have not gone to class. "The longer they stay out of school, the greater the risks of being abused, abducted and recruited by armed groups," said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF regional director of West and Central Africa.
Alam Khan was 12 years old when he saw his father being murdered by a family friend in 2003. He had secretly planned his revenge ever since and finally seized his chance last week when he invited the killer over for a drink.
After getting Mohammad Rais drunk at his home in Moradabad district, Khan knifed him to death before using a hammer and hacksaw to dismember the body, he told reporters on Monday after his arrest.
He and an accomplice then packed the body parts into plastic bags which they threw into a river. When the bags washed up on the river's banks, police were able to identify Rais from a surgery scar on his torso.
Khan was arrested after witnesses recounted how Rais had last been seen visiting his home, and he confessed to the crime. "I played some music at full volume and cut his body into 12 pieces," Khan was quoted as saying by the Times of India. He had never told anyone about the identity of his father's alleged killer and had instead waited for 12 years to "realise his dream" of taking revenge, the police have said.
He was "happy it was now done," he told his interrogators. Police Superintendent Ram Suresh Yadav told the newspaper that Khan had confessed to his crime with an "utter lack of remorse". The murder weapons, including the hammer and hacksaw, were recovered from his home.
-- The Bill says that after three years the child is out of a remand home. He wants to the house to consider changing the years to may be five or seven or 10 so that the person has a real shot at reformation. "Sometimes these people need our protection to reform," he said.
-- The bill says after they leave the remand home they will be given financial support. O'Brien wants educational and psychological support to be given to the person.
He ends his speech saying he would like to compliment the Congress, BJP and "all of us in between" (regional parties) for passing the bill today.
He says he has a 16-year-old daughter and if something like this had happened to her, as a father he would have taken a gun and shot the accused. Opposition members heckle O'Brien saying that it was an irresponsible statement to make as a MP.
O'Brien says that he is a law-abiding citizen and would not have done it, but that's the kind of emotions the matter raises. He says he can't even imagine what the girl's parents must have gone through and are still going through.
"We support the bill, it is a good bill," he says. "We need good people in juvenile boards," he said.
-- Nirbhaya's mother is not fighting for justice only for her daughter, but to ensure that such crime doesn't happen again: Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress.
-- We may not be able to do anything about the Juvenile convict in the Nirbhaya case, but we can deter many other boys from doing the same: Maneka Gandhi
-- Juvenile crime is fastest rising segment of crime. Juvenile Justice Bill will help to stop rise in Juvenile crime: Maneka Gandhi
Piecemeal remedy is not going to work. We need to start from the grass roots.Our Juvenile centres are pathetic: Ravi Verma, SP in Rajya Sabha.
Juvenile Justice board will decide whether a child committed the crime in a childish or adult frame of mind: Maneka Gandhi
-- A juvenile offender will not go directly to jail under the new law. This is a nuanced bill: Maneka Gandhi.
Union minister Venkaiah Naidu reiterates that the bill will not have retrospective effect and will not effect the Nirbhaya case.
The government has assured the parents that the JJB, which will allow juveniles between 16-18 years to be tried as adults in heinous crimes, will be passed today.
The parents of the victim met Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi at his residence today. After the meeting, Naqvi told reporters that government has spoken to every party and they have assured it that the bill will be passed today.
"Discussions will start today. The House is a place for discussions. If any one has any suggestion they can place during the debate but we feel there should not be any more delay as it has already been too late," he said.
The Minister said government had listed the bill 12 times during the monsoon session but because the House was not functioning it could not be taken up.
"Even in the winter session we have listed it for five times including today. We hope that it will be passed today so that a strong and effective law is in place to deal with heinous criminals, whatever age they may be of," he said.
Yesterday, the parents met Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, seeking the passage of the Bill. "We have been assured that the bill will be passed tomorrow (on Tuesday) and we believe that. Now, it is not the right time to talk about him (the juvenile convict of the gangrape case) as he is a free man and there is no law to hold him back. Our fight is not only for us but for all women and girls," the victim's father Badrinath Singh said.
Before meeting Azad, the parents had participated in a candlelight march at Jantar Mantar here along with hundreds of youth and activists. Amid protests, the juvenile convict in the case was sent to an NGO in Delhi on Sunday. The victim's mother Asha Devi said notwithstanding the release of the juvenile convict yesterday, she and her husband will continue their fight to ensure death penalty for the rest of the convicts who are currently lodged in Tihar jail.
Yesterday, after finance minister Arun Jaitley filed a criminal and civil defamation case against Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders, the Delhi CM tweeted: "Arun Jaitley should not try to intimidate us with a case. Our fight against corruption will continue."
aitley on Monday filed both civil and criminal defamation cases against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders for allegedly defaming him and sought Rs 10 crore in damages and their prosecution for offences that entails a punishment of upto two years in jail.
A week after a Central Bureau of Investigation raid on the chief minister's secretariat against his principal secretary that triggered allegations by AAP against Jaitley in the affairs of the Delhi's cricket body DDCA, the minister took the legal recourse saying the AAP leaders' "malicious and defamatory" campaign was causing irreversible damage to him.
The others who have been named in both the petitions are Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai.
This comes a day after Bihar BJP leaders criticised and condemned statements made by party Azad against senior party leader and finance minister Arun Jaitely.
Modi has demanded action against Azad, a cricketer-turned-politician from Darbhanga. He is the son of former Bihar chief minister Bhagwat Jha Azad.
Sushil Modi who was the main contender for the post of chief minister from the BJP in the Bihar assembly polls last month, said the party should act against Azad.
Eartlier, the state BJP president Mangal Pandey said that Azad should not make such remarks against Jaitley. "This kind of statement against party colleagues must be discouraged as it damages the party's image," he said.
Pandey said that the central leadership of the party has been keeping close watch on Azad's statements against Jaitely since only the central leadership is authorised to take action in this case.
Media reports quoting BJP sources said that Azad would be served with a show cause notice after parliamentary session ends tomorrow. He will be suspended for anti party activity and is accused of acting in cohorts with opposition leaders and publicly embarrassing Jaitley.
-- MI Khan, Patna/Rediff.com
The 34-year-old McCullum will become the first cricketer to play 100 consecutive Test matches when he takes the field in New Zealand's first Test against Australia in Wellington from Feb. 12. McCullum is expected to make the second Test of that series -- starting in Christchurch on Feb. 20 -- his last match for New Zealand.It is likely that McCullum, one of the world's hardest-hitting and most innovative batsmen, will also play a limited role in New Zealand's forthcoming one-day series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and will miss next year's Twenty20 World Cup.
"I would have preferred to wait until after the Test in Christchurch to make this news public," McCullum told a news conference Tuesday."However, the schedule for naming the ICC World T20 squads means I could not have managed this without causing a lot of confusion and speculation -- something I was keen to avoid."I've loved my opportunity to play for and captain the Black Caps but all good things have to come to an end and I'm just grateful for the wonderful experience of playing for my country."
McCullum, who is expected to be replaced by 25-year-old batsman Kane Williamson, hopes to continue to make a full contribution until his final match.
Batting for Jaitley, accused by Congress and AAP of financial irregularities in Delhi cricket body when he headed it, Modi hit out at Congress at BJP's parliamentary party meeting for levelling "wrong and manufactured" allegations to "defame" the government.
At the parliamentary party, no reference was made to similar charges made by BJP MP Kirti Azad, who was not present in the meeting today.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu quoted Modi as having said that BJP leaders like Sushma Swaraj, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje had similarly faced such "wrong" charges from Congress earlier.
"The Prime Minister gave the example of L K Advani. The government at that time tried to implicate him in the Hawala case. Advani came through with flying colours and the strategy of Congress boomeranged. Same thing is going to happen regarding allegations against Jaitley... Congress is inventing issue to defame the government," Naidu said.
Advani and a number of other leaders were investigated by CBI during the Congress government headed by P V Narasimha Rao. Advani had resigned from Lok Sabha in 1996 after allegations were levelled against him in the hawala case. The case, however, later collapsed due to lack of evidence.
BJP has rallied around Jaitley as Congress and AAP have tried to corner him over the issue and demanded his resignation. Party chief Amit Shah issued a strong statement in his support yesterday. A number of Union Ministers had also joined Jaitley, a key party strategist, in a court where he had filed defamation cases against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders.
Aiming to take the battle to the opposition, BJP MPs of the Lok Sabha will be spending one night in each assembly constituency in their seat to spread awareness about the "good work" being done by the Modi government and the opposition's campaign to "defame" it. This will be done in January, Naidu said.
Slogan-shouting Congress members moved to the aisles and later into the Well, disrupting the proceedings. Soon after the papers were laid, Deputy Chairman P J Kurien disallowed Kumari Selja (Cong) from raising the issue of "a ruling BJP MP levelling serious allegations" against Jaitley over the functioning of DDCA. Jaitley headed DDCA till 2013.
"Jaitley istifa do (Jaitley should resign)," they shouted forcing Kurien to adjourn the House first till 1130 hours. "A very serious issue has come up with a member of ruling party levelling serious allegations against Finance Minister," she said without referring to BJP lawmaker Kirti Azad. Kurien disallowed her motion to suspend business to discuss the issue, saying the procedure for raising allegations against a member of the House was not followed.
"I am not asking you not to raise the issue. All I am saying is there is a procedure. If there is an allegation against a member, you should give written intimation to the Chairman, you should give written intimation to member also. Without that, you cannot raise the allegation," he said disallowing the motion. He asked her if she had given written notice to the Chairman and Jaitley. "Have to you done that. You have to intimated the member," he asked. "For an allegation of incriminating nature, advance intimation has to be given. Then only such an allegation can be taken up," he said.
As Kurien called for Zero Hour mentions, Congress members moved into aisles shouting slogans. "Why do you obstruct Zero Hour? Zero Hour is time for members to raise important issues. What is the rationale of doing this I am not able to understand," he said before adjourning the House till 11:30 hours.
The house resumed function at 11:35 am but Congress members continued raising slogans against Jaitley. The house has now been adjourned till 12:35 pm.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday filed both civil and criminal defamation cases against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders for allegedly defaming him and sought Rs 10 crore in damages and their prosecution for offences that entails a punishment of up to two years in jail.
A week after a Central Bureau of Investigation raid on the chief minister's secretariat against his principal secretary that triggered allegations by AAP against Jaitley in the affairs of the Delhi's cricket body DDCA, the minister took the legal recourse saying the AAP leaders' "malicious and defamatory" campaign was causing irreversible damage to him.
The others who have been named in both the petitions are Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai.
The Patiala House courts in the heart of the city saw the rare spectacle of a union minister walking amidst a jostling crowd of Bharatiya Janata Party supporters, who shouted slogans against Kejriwal, to enter the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal to file the criminal complaint.
Jaitley came to the court a little after lunch at 2.05 pm and the proceedings lasted 35 minutes. A phalanx of union ministers, including M Venkaiah Naidu, Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and J P Nadda, also came to the court and later said they were showing solidarity with Jaitley describing him as a man of impeccable integrity.
Noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani will represent Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the suits.NDTV reports that the plane hit a wall and then crashed into a septic tank. The aircraft burst into flames and has been badly damaged. A part of it is in water.
More than a dozen fire engines are at the spot, besides security forces and a crowd from a village nearby.These aircraft are usually used by top officials and ministers. The plane that crashed had senior technicians who were flying to Ranchi to repair a helicopter.
"The tragic news of BSF plane crash near IGI airport in New Delhi is extremely painful. Rushing to the crash site immediately," Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweet.
The BSF charter plane took off at 9:45 am and crashed at 9:50 am. The charter plane was called Super King and was a 10 seater. The plane was bound for Ranchi and crashed at Bapdola village near Dwarka on the outskirts of Delhi. The aircraft was on fire when it crashed, but the fire has now been put off.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh to visit the crash site. Mahesh Sharma (MoS, Civil Aviation) says that an inquiry has been ordered.