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JOURNALISM OF COURAGE
LATE CITY I NEW DELHI I FRIDAY I NOVEMBER 7 I 2008 I 24+6 (NEWSLINE) PAGES I Rs. 3.00
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Five JD(U) MPs to quit today

NEW DELHI: The Janata Dal (U) has said its five Lok Sabha MPs from Bihar will resign Friday to protest the attacks on North Indians in Maharashtra. They will submit resignations to the Lok Sabha Speaker, JD(U) MP and parliamentary party leader Prabhunath Singh said. PAGE 3

Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton dies

LOS ANGELES: American author Michael Crichton, who wrote The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park and created the popular TV drama ER, died of cancer Tuesday. The medical doctor-turned-novelist and filmmaker was 66. PAGE 13

Lt Col is key man, faked papers for arms: ATS

PRANAB DHAL SAMANTA PEACE TRAIN: Six thousand Muslim clerics from all over India are gathering in Hyderabad for a seminar on national integration. About half of them are taking the Sheikh-ul-Hind train from Deoband in Uttar Pradesh and passing through the heart of central India. REPORT, PAGE 9

MALEGAON Held camp in MP, talks with Bangla Hindu militants, forgery in J&K

Day after Uma slap, more BJS workers quit

CHHINDWARA: A day after Bharatiya Jana Shakti party president Uma Bharti slapped a party worker, the partys Chhindwara district president, Nemi Chand Verma, quit along with 350 workers, including several office bearers.

No. 40 FOR SACHIN

Agrees to open repo window to accept high-quality corporate paper

P VAIDYANATHAN IYER
NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 6

RBI will allow banks to unlock their corporate bonds for cash
ing bonds to raise funds and these are subscribed by banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, NBFCs, etc. While in most developed economies, these are actively traded in the secondary market, in India, the market for bonds has not developed rendering them illiquid. A bank chairman who recently met officials in the finance ministry and the RBI said the basic problem was of liquidity. Corporate bonds sit idle on bank balance sheets. Mostly, companies hold them till maturity. And the secondary market for corporate paper has no depth. It is virtually absent, he said. Indeed, daily trading in corporate paper is just about Rs 200 crore.

NAGPUR: Sachin Tendulkar slammed his 40th Test century, helping India reach 311/5 at stumps on Day 1 in Nagpur. Sachin now has 82 international centuries, including 42 in One-Dayers. REPORT, PAGE 19

SBI cuts rates, loans will be cheaper

NEW DELHI: State Bank of India has cut both lending and deposit rates. The prime lending rate is down 0.75% to 13%. PAGE 17 TheIndian EXPRESS POLL Does the Obama victory make you more hopeful about the future?

TO ease the liquidity crunch, the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Ministry will soon allow banks to avail of a refinance facility by depositing their corporate bond holdings as collateral. The proposal, pushed by some state-ownedandprivatesectorbanks, wasdiscussedrecentlybythegovernmentandtheRBI.Afavourableview hasbeentaken,agovernmentofficial told TheIndianExpress. As on March 31, 2008, total bank investment in corporate bonds is estimated to be about Rs 80,000 crore. State-owned and private sector companies issue interest-bear-

To begin with, the RBI will accept AAA-rated bonds of public sector undertakings (PSUs) as collateral in the repurchase operations through its liquidity adjustment facility, said the official. Since these are exceptional circumstances, and given the demand for bank credit, the RBI has, in principle, agreed to widen the ambit of its repo operations by accepting high quality corporate paper as collateral. Essentially, what this will do is create a market for corporate bonds, which otherwise are illiquid. The rate at which the RBI lends to banks with such bonds as collateral could be a tad higher than the repo rate of 7.5 per cent now.

Cong MP says PM told him no probe in Jamia encounter

D K SINGH
NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 6

54% 29% 17%

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Bhutan crowns new King: 28, modern, deeply traditional

SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY
THIMPHU, NOVEMBER 6

Do Sachin, Laxman performances show senior players are still key?

Business as Usual
By UNNY

HISMAJESTYJigmeKhesarNamgyelWangchuckwascrownedKingof Bhutaninanelaboratefour-hourceremonythatbeganinsub-zerotemperature at the sprawling Tashichhoddzongfortressearlythismorning.The 28-year-old succeeds his father King Jigme Singey Wangchuck as the worldsyoungestmonarchandfifthin the royal line that has ruled Bhutan foroverahundredyears. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra and Robert Vadra were among the very few guests in the Throne Room of the Tashichhodzong,wheretheactualcrowning took place. President Pratibha Patil and External Affairs Minister PranabMukherjeetoowerepresent. 53-year-old King Jigme Singey stepped down in favour of his son in December2006and,sixmonthsago, Bhutanbecametheyoungestdemoc-

King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck was crowned King of Bhutan in Thimphu Thursday. ANOTHER REPORT, PAGE 8

racy in the world. Prime Minister Jigme Y Thinley refused to allow media questions on comparisons between father and son: Bhutanese will never compare and judge Kings. The fifth King is similartohisfather.ThefifthKing willbeasgreatasthefourth. He also warded off queries on the young monarchs bachelorhood: Yes, you all know he is smart and should be marrying sooner than later. I cannot answer beyond that, Jigme Thinley said. The Oxford-educated King is said to be a man of modern thinking who, however, remains loyal to Bhutanese traditions. Today, from the time of his arrival to the Tashichhodzong in a procession that included warrior dancers, monks, civil servants and barefoot dancers from Ha, bordering China, the young King went through each ritual with a meticulous keenness.

PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh is said to have turned down the demand for a judicial inquiry into the Batla House police encounter as raised by a section of the ruling Congress and ally Samajwadi Party. He conveyed this to a Congress MP who met him yesterday to ask for a probe. The PM said it is not possible to have an inquiry in the Batla House case, Congress MP Raashid Alvi told The Indian Express today. Sources said the Governments argument is that the case is in court and ordering a probe into the encounter where a police officer was also killed could prejudice it. And that police investigation has yielded a wealth of crucial evidence that will anyways have to withstand judicial scrutiny. Alvi disagreed. I told the PM that if a Cabinet Minister like Kapil Sibal had doubts about the encounter, it would be better if an inquiry is conducted. When a Bihari youth who had a pistol in hand is killedinMumbai,alltopleadersincluding Lalu Prasad Yadav, Meira Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and Nitish Kumar come together and then an inquiry is set up. Here there are so many people having doubts about police encounter but nothing is done. What is the problem in holding an inquiry into Batla House encounter? Truthwillcomeout,saidAlvi.TheRajya Sabhamembersaidthathewouldwriteto the PM again to ask for an inquiry. There are some in the Congress nervous about what they call the potential fallout of the encounter in the elections. AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh said there were several questions being raised about the police encounter and they needed to be addressed by the government. Many leaders even met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to seek her intervention. Among those who went public with their doubts were AICC General Secretary Mohsina Kidwai, senior leader Salman Khursheed, AICC minority department chairman Imranur-Rehman Kidwai and AICC Secretary Parvez Hashmi.

HILE THE Army tries to come to terms with the arrest of its intelligence officer Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit in the Malegaon blasts, the Maharashtra police have claimed that the officer was not an aide but the kingpin who allegedly forged documents during his stint in Jammu & Kashmir for obtaining arms licences for others. According to the Mumbai ATS, which has passed on the relevant information to Army authorities, Purohit during his stay in J&K some time in 2004-05 obtained these licences with which weapons were procured and handed over to Abhinav Bharat members. As a founder of the organization, sources said, he is alleged to have provided weapons, ammunition and explosives that were used for training. It may be noted that the ATS has claimed that one of the accused was asked by Purohit to keep some weapons which he had arranged. The police have apparently traced how these weapons were purchased with the help of forged documents. In fact, investigation details shared with intelligence agencies show that he even held a training camp a couple of months ago in Panchmarhi where he was posted only in JulyAugust. According to Maharasthtra police, 54 members attended the Panchmarhi training camps where they were allegedly trained in handling arms and explosives. He is said to have held similar camps near Pune, and took leave to attend meetings in Bhonsala Military School which emerged as the hub for Abhinav Bharat activities. Authorities have been told that investigators suspect that one more serving Army officer may be involved, though there is no official intimation yet. Not just that, ATS officials have also alleged that Purohit was in touch with a Bangladeshi Hindu militant outfit and had held a meeting in this connection at Kolkata. While this angle is still under probe, police have told the Army that the network was spreading quickly even though it had started only a few years back.

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 6

HINDU JAGRAN MANCH MAN DETAINED IN GUJARAT

SURAT: The Mumbai ATS has detained a Hindu Jagran Manch member, Sunil Dhawadi, a resident of Ambapada village in Dangs, who was earlier associated with Swami Ashimanandji Maharajs ashram. Dhawadi, who was picked up from Vapi on Wednesday afternoon, has been taken to Mumbai for questioning. According to sources, Malegaon blasts suspect Sadhvi Pragya Thakur was close to the Swami, who is reported to have gone underground after her arrest. PAGE 2

Hindu groups join hands for legal aid

PUNE: Hindu groups here Pratibha Jha, younger have come together to form sister of Sadhvi Pragya a Hindu Legal Aid Firm to Singh Thakur outside the provide free legal aid to the Mumbai ATS office on Malegaon blast suspects and Thursday. PTI to any Hindu who, they claim, is meted out injustice by the police. Announcing this on Thursday, Hemani Savarkar, president of the Hindu Mahasabha, said a bank account in the name of Hindu Legal Aid Firm has been opened in Delhi. The firm will raise funds for providing free legal aid to the Hindus who would be falsely implicated in terror acts, Savarkar said in the presence of representatives of Hindu groups.

Day after: Obama seals his Chief of Staff, his aides tamp down The Great Expectation
PETER BAKER & JEFF ZELENY
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 6

INDIAN-AMERICAN ON ADVISORY BOARD

WASHINGTON: Indian-American Sonal Shah, 40, who heads Googles philanthropic arm, has been appointed an advisory board member by US President-elect Barack Obama to assist his team in the smooth transition of power. Shah currently works for Google.org where she is engaged in defining their global development strategy and promoting the firms philanthropic work. Before Google, she was Vice President at Goldman Sachs. PTI

PRESIDENT-ELECTBarack Obamabegantomoveto buildhisadministrationand makegoodonhisambitious promisestopointtheUSina differentdirection,ashis commandingvictoryreorderedtheAmericanpoliti-

PAGE ANCHOR

callandscapeandtransfixedmuchof Americaandtheworld. A day after becoming the first African-American to capture the presidency, Obama announced a transition team and prepared to name an ally as his White House chief of staff in his first steps toward assuming power. President Bush

vowed to work closely with Obama to ensure a smooth transition in the first handover since the attacks of September 11, 2001. RepresentativeRahmEmanuelof Illinois,thefourth-rankingHouseDemocratandaclosefriendofObamas fromChicago,wasofferedthejobof WhiteHouseChiefofStafflatein theevening(Indiatime)camethe newsthathehadacceptedtheoffer.

ObamanamedJohnDPodesta,the formerClintonWhiteHousechiefof staff,toleadhistransitionteamalong withValerieJarrett,alongtimeadviser,andPeteRouse,hisSenatechief ofstaff. InturningtoEmanuelandPodesta, Obamasoughtouttwoof thehardest-hittingveteransofPresidentBill

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 VERDICT 08, PAGES 12 AND 13

Barack Obama leaves a gym in Chicago on Thursday. AP