From page 1The neighbours rushed to the girl’s help, called an auto and took her to Fortis Hospital.

On Tuesday an FIR was filed and a case registered against the Jains under vari-ous sections of the IPC and Juvenile Justice Act. Jithin has been arrested.

Sushma’s parents learnt about the incident on Mon-day from the man who had introduced them to Rajesh Jain, in whose shop he worked. He took them to Jain’s house in Kumara Park West—where they were told to go to the hospital.

“We live in a slum area in Vinayaka Nagar,” Geetha Il-lay, Sushma’s mother, told DNA. “The family told us they would look after my daugh-ter like she was their own child. They bought her new clothes and said she would not have much work to do. They even said they would give us money for her marriage.”

In the past, whenever Su-shma’s parents visited her at her employers’ house, she would convince them that all was well with her.

She could not tell them otherwise because her em-ployers would always be nearby, listening to every word she said.

Also, Sushma felt she had to continue working at the Jains’ when she thought about her asthma-stricken mother who could not work, her heavy-drinking TB-afflicted father and her three younger siblings, aged ten, seven and three.

Although Sushma was to be given a salary of Rs 2,000 per month, her family only got a total of Rs 35,000 in the last two years, according to Illay.

Child Welfare Committee chairperson Meera Jain, who visited the hospital on Tues-day, promised to provide all support to the family.

Beaten & blamed, minor domestic tries to kill self

DNA Correspondent

‘The Dirty Picture’ may not be as dirty any-more, as the information and broad-casting (I&B) ministry on

Tuesday cleared the screen-ing of the Vidya Balan star-rer after ordering several cuts in the movie. After that the movie can be broadcast on television. The movie was banned by the I&B in April.

The makers are believed to have made 59 cuts in the movie amounting to a total of 3 minutes and 10 sec-onds. “Following this, the censor board has made a remark on the film’s certifi-cate to that effect and cleared it for general view-ing on television,” a censor board official said.

Dirty Picture cleared for TV screening

DNA Correspondent l New Delhi

Just six days after his term as the chief of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was extended till the year-end, EK Bharat Bhushan was stripped off his post on Tuesday. Bhushan was asked to hand over the charge to Prashant Narain Sukul, a joint secretary in the ministry, who would be holding the position as an additional charge.

It was only last week that the appointments committee of the cabinet had approved the extension of additional charge of the post of DGCA to Bhushan for another year “with effect from December 1, 2011 or till the appointment of a regular incumbent, which-ever is earlier.”

Incidentally, three months ago, a search committee set up to find his replacement had failed to select a suitable can-didate, following which his tenure was extended till fur-

ther orders.Even though civil aviation

ministry maintained that it was a routine administrative transfer, the manner in which it was done raised a lot of eye-brows. According to sources, Bhushan’s no-nonsense ap-proach and strong-arm deal-ing of Air India (AI) and King-fisher Airlines with regards to the non-payment of dues to their employees may have been the reason for his uncer-emonious exit.

Bhushan, an IAS officer of the 1979 batch from Kerala cadre who took over from Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi in Decem-ber 2010 as DGCA chief, will continue to serve as an addi-tional secretary in the minis-try, official sources said.

As the director general of civil aviation, Bhushan brought in stringent measures to pre-vent airlines from compromis-ing on safety matters on ac-count of their financial trouble.

—(with inputs from Agencies)

DGCA chief Bharat Bhushan removed

Phnom Penh: India has proposed to Pakistan September 7-9 as possible dates for the much anticipated visit of external affairs minister SM Krishna for bilateral talks with his Pakistani coun-terpart Hina Rabbani Khar.

Krishna had to earlier defer his July 18-19 visit to Pakistan to review the peace talks, which picked up after the 26/11 chill, due to the Presidential elec-tions scheduled around the same time.

Krishna, who arrived here this even-ing to participate in the 10th ASEAN In-dia Ministerial meeting and the Second East Asia Summit Foreign Ministerial meeting, said the government has pro-posed the new dates and was now wait-ing for “concurrence” of the Pakistani government. “I look forward to my own visit to Islamabad which was due to take place on 19th of this month but now has to be postponed because of our presiden-tial election and also the impending Par-liament session. We are hoping that they would convey their concurrence,” Krish-na said.

Asked about his meeting with Khar in Tokyo on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan, Krishna refrained from giving details and said it was part of

meetings aimed at bridging the trust deficit between the two countries.

“Hina Rabbani Khar after assuming the onerous responsibility of guiding the for-eign affairs of Pakistan has been extreme-ly cooperative and as she assured me when she visited Delhi that she comes with a new mindset and that mindset has been an ongoing one,” he said.

Krishna’s visit comes after the meet between foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan that concluded last week with the decision to carry forward the dia-logue process in a purposeful and result-oriented manner. —PTi

India proposes Sep 7-9 for Krishna’s visit to Pak

Lucknow: In a move aimed at curbing waste of electricity, Uttar Pradesh urban development minister Mohammad Azam Khan Tuesday warned that if street lights were found on in the morn-ing, deductions would be made from salaries of civic agency officials.

Ordering that no power bills would be paid for street lights unless he was in-formed of a closure of lights in the morn-ing, the minister warned officials that they would be held accountable if elec-tricity was wasted. Class IV employees will be exempted from the measure, he added. Azam Khan said that this direc-tion has been sent to all city commis-sioners and executive engineers with a message to ensure prompt compliance lest they want their salaries cut.

Following the orders of the minister, the urban development department stopped payment of all pending power bills and said no payments will be made till heads of municipal corporations give a written assurance that no power was being wasted. He also asked the urban development department for the elec-tricity bills paid of all municipal corpora-tions in the state in the last five years. –iANS

UP: Save electricity or get salary cut

New Delhi/Mumbai: A sec-tion of pilots of Kingfisher Airlines on Tuesday went on a strike over non-payment of salary and other dues for the past five months, forcing can-cellation of five flights.

Airline officials said the pi-lots who did not report to work were those who operate the 70-seater ATR turboprop aircraft on short-haul routes connecting regional airports. In Delhi, two flights each to Dharamsala and Dehradun and one flight to Shimla have been cancelled by the Vijay Mallya-owned airline since this morning.

However, the Airbus A-320 operations of Kingfisher were going on as per the normal schedule, the officials main-tained.

This is the second time in last eight days that the air-line’s pilots have gone on an agitation over non-payment of their dues.

“A section of the airline’s pilots, mainly operating ATRs, did not report for duty on the salary payment issue.

Owing to the agitation, the airline has cancelled five flights as we could not get pi-lots to operate the aircraft,” the officials said.

The number of pilots who have joined the agitation is not immediately known, they said, adding that Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Aggarwal was ex-pected to meet the agitators

soon. Kingfisher Airlines spokesperson was not imme-diately available for comment.

On July 2, when the pilots in Mumbai had threatened a strike, the management repre-sentatives had a meeting with the Mumbai-based employ-ees and promised to start dis-bursing salaries from July six.

The meeting was attended by CEO Aggarwal, executive vice president Hitesh Patel and chief financial Officer HG Rag-hunath, besides a cross-sec-

tion of employees, including pilots, cabin crew, engineers and ground handling staff.

While a large chunk of jun-ior staffers got part of their dues, the airline management said the pilots and other staff would be paid in a few days thereafter.

“The pilots’ patience now seems to be running out. How long one can survive without pay for such a long time? The management is simply doling out promises but what we need is money,” an agitating pilot, requesting anonymity, said.

Kingfisher is, at present, carrying out truncated do-mestic and international op-erations with about 15 aircraft, in place of 64. A large number of its flight engineers have re-portedly quit over the past five months, primarily due to de-layed payments. In April this year, around 200 engineers reported sick as a mark of pro-test over the issue. —PTi

Section of Kingfisher pilots go on strike, 5 flights cancelled

Puducherry: The ongoing relay under ‘Flame of Truth’ banner, launched by Committee on Tibetan Parliament-in exile in various parts of the country would generate awareness on the ‘worsening’ situation there and urge U.N to de-bate the Tibetan issue, committee member Karma Yeshi said here on Tuesday.

Yeshi, who heads the relay for the southern leg of its campaign, which started from Kochi on Jul 6 (synchronising with the 77th birthday of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama),told re-porters that the aim of the relay was to collect not less than three lakh signatures from India and all over the world.

“We will urge the United Nations to hold a debate on the issue of Tibet and settle it on the basis of the resolutions it had adopted in 1959, 1961 and 1965.”

The six month long campaign was launched by former judge of Supreme Court of India Jus-tice VR Krishna Iyer at Kochi on July 6 for the southern leg of the campaign.

Two other two teams commenced relays simultaneously from Leh (Ladakh) and Shillong (Meghalaya). All teams from India and other parts of the world would meet at Delhi on Dec 10.

“We will create awareness among people on the grave and worsening situation in Tibet. We

will mobilize not less than three lakh signatures through the campaign in India and in different parts of the world” he said.

The signatures would be handed over simul-taneously to the UN headquarters at New York, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN Information centre in Delhi on Dec 10 (World Human Rights day) urging the world body to have a debate on the situation in Tibet in its general Assembly and to settle the issue on the basis of its earlier resolutions.

“We would also urge through the relays the United Nations to send a fact finding delega-tion to Tibet to investigate and monitor the ongoing crisis there and to solve the issue on the basis of aspirations of Tibetans inside Ti-bet”, he said.

He said that Tibetans, Tibet`s Well Wishers and groups supporting Tibet would join the relay and collect signatures.

Around 42 Tibetan youth in the age group of 16 to 44 years had immolated themselves for the sake of Tibet since 2009.

He disputed China’s claim of peace in Tibet and that people enjoyed freedom. “If that is so, then why are people in Tibet burning them-selves?” he asked and urged the UN to send a fact finding delegation to Tibet to monitor the situation there. –PTi

Tibet ‘Flame of truth’ campaign

Tibetan exiles carry a portrait of spiritual leader the Dalai lama during a candlelit vigil. About 40 people have set themselves on fire over the past year and a half in ethnic Tibetan areas of China

DNA Correspondent l MuMbAi

Alleging foul play in the en-deavour to destroy contro-versial files, the opposition has demanded a judicial probe in the Mantralaya fire that destroyed the top four floors on June 21. However, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan rejected the demand and appealed for unity in the challenging time.

Eknath Khadse, leader of opposition in the state as-sembly, raised doubts about the intention of the govern-ment and said that the probe by an agency under the government control would not be sufficient. He added that if the govern-ment was ready for an im-partial probe and was hon-est about it, a retired judge should be appointed under the Commission of Inquiry Act to probe the incident.

Khadse said that the un-reasonable time taken to douse the fire has raised doubts about the entire inci-dent. “Not only us, but even the people of Maharashtra had doubts in their mind. A judicial probe will help an-swer the doubts,” he said.

Replying to the debate, which lasted nearly six

hours, Chavan said that the interim reports by the crime branch, fire brigade and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had es-tablished that there was no attempt of foul play in the fire.

“The Mumbai crime branch has recorded state-ments of 197 eyewitnesses and the people related to the fire. Similarly, other agencies, in their primary reports have clearly main-tained that the fire was an accident,” he said.

Chavan admitted to the discrepancies in the system, but said that it would be un-fair to claim that Mantralaya was purposely set on fire. He also claimed that all the files related to the contro-versial land deals were safe.

“Not a single server is lo-cated at the Mantralaya building. The servers of various departments are lo-cated in other cities like Hy-derabad, Chennai, New Delhi and Pune, and hence most of the files are safe. The reconstruction of nearly 10% of the files that were destroyed has been com-pleted and the rest of the work will be completed in the next one month,” he said.

Oppn seeks judicial probe into Mantralaya blaze

One of the greatest and most poignant myster-ies of life is how every

time man errs and darkness engulfs us, the Supreme, the Divine, or whatever name we give It, sends down upon earth His instruments — the avatars, shaktis, gurus, yogis, saints, vibhutis — to help hu-manity.

Most of these instruments are vilified in their own time, and only when they die are they deified. In the old days, avatars and gurus were phys-ically tortured: Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross by his own people. Nowadays, there is no need to crucify gu-rus physically; they are just pilloried by the media. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, one of the most selfless gurus today, whose pranayama techniques have benefited millions, and whose volunteers work tire-lessly all over the world to alleviate pain, has been at-tacked again and again.

Recently, Pierre Monegier, the Delhi-based correspond-ent of France 2, the French national channel, ap-proached the Art of Living Foundation with an appar-ently innocuous request for an interview: ‘We are plan-ning to do a story on the im-portance of religion and spir-ituality in India.’ The request was granted and Monegier and his reporter, Nida Hasan, were allowed access to every corner of the Bangalore ash-ram, as well as an interview with SSRS. This is what came out on July 4 in the prime time news of France 2: Sri Sri was introduced by a voice over as the ‘head of a vast flourishing business.’ The Bangalore ashram was de-scribed as being ‘a gigantic resort with many hotels and restaurants (absolutely false), and innumerable

shops dedicated to Sri Sri Shankar.’

Importance was given to images showing devotees touching SSRS’s feet, or ask-ing him to hug them (with voice), and having tears in their eyes, as Monegier knew it would shock French view-ers not used to the Indian ways of devotion. Then, Mo-negier stated: ‘Most disciples pour into the organisation 10% of their income,’ which is a lie. Finally, of the interview with SSRS, they chose only one quote, which could again shock the French: ‘I am like any other doctor — a special-ist who can bring happiness to people… the ultimate goal of money is after all happi-ness’ and Monegier conclud-ed: ‘Some of these auto-pro-claimed popes of Hinduism have a flavor of scandal to them.’

Now this is a serious mat-ter: what if an Indian journal-ist based in Paris asked for an interview with the Cardinal of Paris, lying about his true intentions, and used the op-portunity to defame the Car-dinal and French Catholicism in general? His or her visa would not be renewed or could even be revoked at once. Usually, it is very easy to denigrate gurus and Hin-dus — and probably Monegier and Hasan banked on that. But this time, everybody has reacted: the Art of Living is considering filing a defama-tion suit against France 2 In-dia; the French embassy in India and the Indian embassy in Paris have been contacted and an Indian government of-ficial has said that ‘he was ap-palled by the France 2 foot-age.’

The accusation of Gurus being super-rich, running empires, having assets in tax-free countries is nothing new.

But what I have seen with my own eyes is that a guru starts with a few disciples, and as the ashram grows, people have to be fed, expenses met. Then he has satsangs, which have to be paid for, depart-ments have to be started to run housing for guests, kitch-ens, administration… At some point donations are not enough and extra money is sought through sales of DVDs, ayurvedic products, photos... France 2 focused on the shops of the Art of Living ashram in Bangalore, even having a close-up of a cash register in an ayurvedic outlet and a saleswoman with a bundle of rupees in her hands. From the beginning, Sri Sri has tried to revive ayurveda in India, see-ing how every third shop here is an allopathic one and that this ancient, wise and unique medical system was slowly dying. Sri Sri started his own ayurvedic factory under one of his most senior disciples and brought out some pio-neering products, which to-day are marketed under Sri Sri Ayurveda. What’s wrong with that?

True, in the end, a move-ment like the Art of Living has to be run like a multinational — yet every rupee is poured back into seva projects or into ashrams that are always run-ning into losses.

France 2’s film is highly bi-ased, and is a direct attack on India’s ancient culture. That France is only the 11th biggest investor in India, behind smaller countries like Bel-gium or Mauritius, is un-doubtedly due to the wrong image that is propagated by channels like France 2. Will Pierre Monegier get away with what he has done?

Follow Francois Gautier on Twitter @fgautier26● inbox@dnaindia.net

How modern-day gurus are crucified