Govt to go ahead with women’s bill

New Delhi , March 30: The government on Tuesday announced it would go ahead with the controversial Women’s Reservation Bill even before undertaking an exercise to evolve a consensus on it among political leaders.
Law minister M. Veerappa Moily once again reiterated the government’s intention to move the bill in the Lok Sabha during the current Budget Session of Parliament without any dilution. The Rajya Sabha has already passed the bill.

His reiteration has sent out a clear message: that the talks that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee proposed to hold with leaders of political parties may not be fruitful. The government, too, is not keen on convincing the SP, BSP, RJD, JD(U) and JD(S) on this Constitution amendment bill, which envisages 33 per cent reservation for women in the LS and the state Assemblies.
Venkatesh Kesari
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Jinnah will copy found in Mumbai
Mumbai, March 30: In a new twist in the legal battle over Jinnah House, the property of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Mumbai, a copy of his will bequeathing the property to his sister was found recently.
The will mentions that the leader bequeathed the property to his sister Fatima Jinnah, an official said. Dina Wadia, Jinnah’s daughter, has laid claim to Jinnah House, a colonial bungalow in Mount Pleasant Road on south Mumbai’s posh Malabar Hill.
“The will, dated May 30, 1939, and a copy of the legal certification from the Bombay high court was found in the records of the custodian of enemy property for India,” Dinesh Singh, in charge of the custodian’s office in Mumbai, said. The high court in 1962 had legally certified the will as genuine and executed it in Fatima’s favour. “We have sent the copy to the ministry of external affairs for their perusal,” Mr Singh said.
Dina Wadia (90), a British national and mother of industrialist Nusli Wadia, approached the high court in August 2007 claiming rights to the bungalow on the ground that her father had not left any will.
According to Ms Dina Wadia, her father was a Khoja Muslim and this sect followed Hindu Law and not the Sharia and, therefore, Hindu succession law, which leaves the property to his daughter, would be applicable and not Islamic law where the deceased’s siblings also have a right over the property.
According to the Central government, after the enactment of the Bombay Evacuee Act in 1949, Jinnah House was declared an evacuee property and the government became its owner. The Central government, in its affidavit filed before the high court, had said it had decided to convert the house into a South Asia centre for arts and culture. —PTI