Hindustan Times (Delhi)

SC slams DDA

- (With inputs from Jeevan Prakash Sharma)

The measures were to come into effect after the Master Plan 2021 was amended by the DDA, which agreed to the changes in its February 2 meeting.

The Supreme Court was hearing a petition against the sealing -- being carried out under instructio­ns of an Sc-empanelled monitoring committee -- filed by more than 30 marble shop owners in Chattarpur. The DDA , along with the municipal corporatio­ns, was appearing as a party to the case.

The bench chose to address the DDA directly and pulled it up for its recent proposal.

When contacted, DDA vicechairm­an Udai Pratap Singh said: “We will follow what the Supreme Court has ordered. We will file the affidavit as sought by the court.”

“The court’s instructio­n to DDA has put question mark on their proceeding­s and in given circumstan­ces, how can they approve the amendment in Master Plan 2021?” said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general, Confederat­ion of All India Traders. “But we request the apex court to ensure that the monitoring committee adheres to Delhi municipal corporatio­n norms and sealing is carried in constituti­onal manner in city,” he added. cials, including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and a former RAW chief, as the persons who were allegedly involved in recruiting and facilitati­ng Jadhav’s activities, the two persons said. The rest of the officials on the list are intelligen­ce operatives, bank officials and passport officials, they added.

The external affairs ministry declined to comment.

The letter sent by the Foreign Office to the external affairs ministry contains a request for access to the Indian officials to facilitate the i nvestigati­on against Jadhav, the people familiar with the matter said.

India has maintained that Jadhav is a former naval officer who was kidnapped from the Iranian port of Chabahar, where he was running a business. Pakistan has turned down India’s repeated requests for consular access, saying this is not possible in the case of a person allegedly involved in espionage and subversive activities.

Observers i n Islamabad believe Pakistan’s Foreign Office offered to arrange a meeting between Jadhav and his wife last year to improve the optics in the case, especially following India’s strong argument that Jadhav’s rights were repeatedly violated after his capture. are aimed not only at causing Indian casualties but also to help terrorists sneak into Jammu and Kashmir. However, the gamble hasn’t paid off for Pakistan.

India lost more than 60 troops at the disputed border but Pakistani casualties have been far higher. At his annual press conference on January 12, army chief General Bipin Rawat said the Pakistani army was suffering heavy losses along the LOC and its casualty figures were three to four times higher than India’s.

India is retaliatin­g to inflict punishment, said strategic affairs expert Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd). “This should be progressiv­ely increased till it eventually becomes prohibitiv­e (for Pakistan). They understand no other language,” he said.

The unending firing and shelling has left the November 2003 cease-fire in tatters. “The ceasefire is good for both India and Pakistan. But the Pakistanis should remember they need it more than us,” said General Bhatia. chairman last year and assured him that they would comply with Khadi Mark Regulation­s.

A fashion industry insider said that as long as a designer is procuring the handloom from a credible source it should not matter if a weaver is spinning it in a mechanised or hand-woven spinning wheel. “As a consumer your only concern should be that you are getting a credible product,” said Sunil Sethi, president, Fashion Design Council of India, an independen­t associatio­n of fashion designers. “Having said that, I do feel that you have to have a regulatory body to ensure that spurious material is not passed as khadi. If KVIC has set up norms, everybody including Fabindia should meet the requiremen­t,” he added.

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