Accusing the Congress of changing its position on the Land Bill after the Modi government brought an ordinance, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the 2013 law passed by the previous UPA dispensation is now in force and Centre would permit states to make amendments to the Central law.

In an article ‘The Land Ordinance – The obvious reasons”, posted on Facebook, he dubbed the 2013 Act as a “badly drafted legislation” which has “a lot of ambiguities and obvious errors” as the effect of some of its provisions are contrary to the language used therein and “legitimate difficulties” would arise once the Act is implemented.

“It was at the request of the state governments that the amendment to Land Acquisition law of 2013 was issued. However, after the issuance of the Ordinance, the Congress Party changed its position and wanted to oppose the Ordinance for political reasons,” he said.

Jaitley said the Ordinance was re-issued twice but political stalemate continued and the Bill requiring amendment is pending before a Parliamentary Standing Committee.

Noting that the objective of the 2015 Ordinance was to give a certain amount of flexibility to states as they know their requirements best, he said it was made available to them after the decision taken in Chief Ministers’ meeting held under the aegis of NITI Aayog.

Jaitley said the Prime Minister had convened a meeting of Chief Ministers where they expressed the view that some flexibility should be given to states if the stalemate at the Centre continues and that states should be empowered to bring their own amendments.

Eighteen persons were killed and 12 others injured today when a bus fell 200 mts deep into a gorge at Nathpa on Hindustan Tibet National highway.

Fifteen persons died on the spot while three succumbed to their injuries on way to hospital and twelve others were injured, SP, Kinnaur, Rahul Nath said.

The condition of four injured persons was stated to be serious and they have been rushed to Civil Hospital Rampur.

The private bus was on its way to Rampur from Rekong Peo when the tragedy struck.

The deceased included two policemen while the identity of the others was being identified.

Since most of the people travelling in the bus were locals, a large number of people rushed to the spot and wailing relatives of the passengers looked for their kin.

After hurtling into the gorge, the bus stopped on the bank of Sutlej, a few meters from the river and some of the injured persons jumped out of the bus.

The bus broke into pieces and rescuers struggled to extricate the bodies trapped in the vehicle.

Rescue teams, assisted by local people, had a tough time in bringing the injured to nearest roadhead.

The injured persons have been admitted to hospital at Bhawa Nagar while two seriously injured persons were rushed to civil hospital at Rampur.

The cause of the accident could not be ascertained so far but eye-witnesses said it took place as the driver tried to overtake another bus.

The Janata Dal (United) on Tuesday backed Vice President Hamid Ansari’s comments on minorities, saying they are being targetted by the present NDA regime.

“The minorities are being targetted since this government assumed power. There is discrimination on the basis of religion, because they are either Muslims or Christians. They are debarred from representation and this has been told by Justice Rangnath Mishra also,”JD (U) leader Ali Anwar told ANI. “And this has been pointed out by the vice president academically since he is an academician,” he added.

Anwar further said that the Rajinder Sachar committee has already given its report about the condition of minorities in the country and what should be done for them, but nothing has happened.
“Various reports of different committees have asserted that there are backward Muslims and Christians too. They are also citizens of this country, and the committee talked about their equal opportunity, but nothing has been done,” he added.

The Hindutva organisation said such a demand seeks to “push Muslims in dark alleys of dissatisfaction whose consequences will be dangerous”. “With due respect to the Vice-President’s chair, the VHP condemns this rank communal statement. This is a political statement which does not befit the office of a Vice-President,” VHP’s Surendra Jain said.

Jain said Indian Muslims enjoy more constitutional rights than they do in many Muslim countries, claiming that they have been appeased by various means over the years. He said Ansari should apologise for his “unfortunate” statement.

On Monday while delivering an inaugural address at the “Golden Jubilee Session of All India Muslim Majlis-e- Mushawarat”, Vice President Ansari said “Muslims were an integral part of the freedom struggle against the British rule. They are dispersed all over the country, are not homogenous in linguistic and socio-economic terms and reflect in good measure the diversities that characterise the people of India as a whole”.