The home ministry will be holding the second round of peace-talks with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom on October 25 in New Delhi.
Disclosing that union home secretary R.K. Singh would chair the meeting with Ulfa leaders, the joint secretary home (Northeast) Mr Shambhu Singh told this newspaper that basic objective of this meeting would be to decide a road-map to take the peace talks with Ulfa to a logical end. “Though, Ulfa has already submitted a charter of demand to the government but now talks will be held on individual issues of charter,” he said.
Informing that home secretary would also review the implementation of grounds rules by Ulfa rebels, Mr Singh said, “There were some directions given to Ulfa leaders to restrict their cadres inside designated camps besides depositing the arms and ammunition into the safe and joint custody of police.”
Mr Singh said that after meeting with home secretary peace-interlocutor would take over the responsibility of carrying forward the peace-talks on behalf of New Delhi.
“We are keeping a close watch on their activities. There are reports of extortion by NDFB rebels. Some senior NDFB rebels are still holed up out side the country,” Mr Singh said.
“The NDFB will have to announce through a press statement that they bide and respect Indian Constitution,” he said.
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SC upholds IIT-JEE test module
New Delhi, Oct. 13: The Supreme Court has refused to interfere with the ranking and selection process adopted for the prestigious IIT-JEE entrance exams saying there was no arbitrariness or ulterior motives in fixing the methodology.
A bench of justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik said courts would interfere with the procedure only if there was proven malafide, caprice or arbitrariness, which it said was lacking in the present system adopted by the the Joint Admission Board, the nodal agency for conducting the exams across the country.
“The fact that the procedure was complicated would not make it arbitrary or unreasonable or discriminatory. There are several statistical methods of preparing the ranking for the purpose of selecting the best candidates for admission to a course, some simple and some complex. Each method or system has its merits and demerits and can be adopted only under certain conditions or by making certain assumptions.,” it said.
“Any such statistical technique should be under continuous review and evaluation to achieve improvement in the light of experience gained over the years and new developments, if it is a reliable tool in the selection process,” Justice Raveendran, writing the judgement, said. The apex court passed the judgement while dismissing the appeal filed by an aspirant Sanchit Bansal, son of an IIT professor in Kharagpur, who had appeared in IIT-JEE 2006 as a general category candidate.
— PTI