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A day after the special tribunal of Delhi High Court lifted the ban on the controversial organization, Students’ Islamic movement of India (SIMI), the Supreme Court re-imposed the ban on Wednesday staying the Tribunal order.  After the home ministry had challenged the controversial judgment of the Delhi High Court and filed an appeal in the SC.

The apex court has issued a notice to SIMI asking as to why it should not be banned and has given them 3 weeks to respond to the same.

Justice Gita Mittal stated, “As the Centre’s order dated February 7 for further extension of the ban on SIMI was not backed by strong evidence, the Delhi High Court’s single judge Bench had to take such a decision.“

The Tribunal had lifted the ban on SIMI, citing lack of a concrete reason for continuing the ban. The organization was banned in 2006 with the charge of indulging in anti-India activities.

The ban will now continue as earlier. SC stated the decision in wake of recent terror attacks happening in the country. When the entire country is under the shadow of terror blasts, the verdict is justifiable. Because of these serious concerns, SC intervened and re-imposed the ban on SIMI before completion of 24 hours.

SIMI was first banned for two years in 2001, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act,

Tags: Ban, Delhi High Court, High Court, Justice, SIMI, Students Islamic Movement of India, Supreme Court

The Delhi High Court Tribunal headed by Justice Geeta Mittal, lifted the ban on controversial Students Islamic Movement of India on Tuesday night. The otherwise banned organization was prohibited since 2006 with the charge of indulging in anti-India activities but the tribunal observed no concrete evidence against SIMI to continue the ban.

“Material given by the Home Ministry is insufficient, so ban cannot be continued,” the judge said in a sealed order handed over to the ministry. However, the Home Ministry has said it will appeal in the Supreme Court against the ban.

SIMI was first banned for two years in 2001, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, after intelligence reports showed that its cadres were joining Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and was were providing support in setting up of ‘sleeper cells’ in India.

The ban has since been re-imposed after every two years, the last one being imposed on February 08, 2006 against which SIMI has appealed in the court.

Tags: Ban, Delhi High Court, High Court, Justice, SIMI, Students Islamic Movement of India, Supreme Court

Joining the growing list of countries enforcing total bans on smoking in enclosed spaces, the Indian government also announced a nationwide ban on smoking in public and private buildings in India from October 2 this year. The announcement was made on Friday, the World Population Day.

“From October 2 this year, nobody in India can smoke in buildings, both public and private. Anybody who wants to smoke can do so on the road,” Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said addressing a function in Patna.

Ramadoss said that if the urge for a quick puff proves too strong, then the smokers have to go out in the open space for that. Last year, the ban was restricted in workplaces, restaurants and hotels, includes theatres, pubs, bars, malls and any other enclosed spaces.

“Smokers can have a puff at the risk of their health in private, in their bedrooms, provided they have the permission of their wives,” Ramadoss said.

Countries like Japan and some parts of Australia (Queensland) and Ireland have a partial ban on smoking outdoors, especially near schools and hospitals. India is among 67 countries in the world to have imposed total or partial bans on smoking in public due to the harmful effects of tobacco smoke on the health and environment, but the inclusion of private buildings within its purview is a rarity.

Tags: Ban, India, Patna, Ramadoss, Smoke, Smoking

The Appellate tribunal has reduced the ban imposed on Pakistani pace man Shoaib Akhtar, to 18 months instead of earlier 5 years imposed on by Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Rs 70 lakh was also fined on him with this ban on Saturday.

In March 2008, Shoaib was banned for five years by the disciplinary committee of the PCB for violating code of conduct. Shoaib appealed against the five-year-ban and today the decision was delivered in Lahore by the tribunal, legal counsel of the Pakistan Cricket Board.

“The tribunal has taken the decision with a clear conscience and under no pressure from either the board or anyone else,” tribunal head Justice Aftab Farrukh told a news conference, adding that the three-member tribunal unanimously felt the original punishment was too harsh.

“We also took into consideration the past record of Shoaib and that he had publicly apologized for his behavior and past deeds,” Farrukh said. “He has promised to reform himself and we have also recommended to the board that he should be given proper counseling.” He added.

He was allowed to play in the Indian Premier League [Images] after the tribunal suspended his ban for one month.

The player always remains in controversies because of his short tempered nature. Many times, he became a part of such incidents for his misbehavior or for other such reasons.

Last year, he was banned for 13 international matches and fined Rs. 3.4 million ($120,300) for four breaches of discipline including striking team mate Mohammad Asif with a bat before Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa and put on two-year probation.

Shaoib’s has played 46 tests and 138 one-day internationals and due to this ban he will miss the Asia Cup and Champions Trophy being hosted by Pakistan this year.

His lawyer Abid Hasan Minto however said that they will appeal to higher court regarding the case. “But we will take a decision after going through the long and detailed order of the tribunal,” Minto said.

Tags: Ban, Cricket, Pakistan, Shoaib, Shoaib Akhter

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has given permission to five year banned Pakistan player Shoaib Akhtar to resume his career outside the country giving him a chance to appear in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Kolkata Knight Riders but BCCI denied his part in Twenty20 League.

“Akhtar can play anywhere in the world except for Pakistan,” said Farrukh Aftab, chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board appeal tribunal, told reporters on Wednesday.

“Unless he is cleared to play for Pakistan, he cannot play in the IPL. This was the decision taken by the special general body of the BCCI at Bangalore before the start of the Twenty20 event,” informed BCCI sources.

PCB has imposed a five year ban on the player earlier this month for indiscipline breaches and Shoaib has appealed against the decision which was rejected on Wednesday by a three-member appeal tribunal but was permitted to resume his career overseas.

Akhtar was bought for USD 425,000 (approx Rs 1.7 crore) by the Kolkata franchise team owned by Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment. He can now play for the team after the decision.

Akhtar’s lawyer Abid Hassan Minto told reporters that it would request the appeal tribunal meet again before its scheduled deliberation in June if the IPL did not lift its upholding of the Pakistan ban.

Tags: Ban, BCCI, India, IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders, Pakistan, PCB, Shoaib AKhtar

The Finance Minister P.Chidambaram said that an 8-9 % economic growth will be fine for this fiscal year and that further export bans could be considered as a way to drive down inflationary expectations.

He said that to get a specific forecast for the year ending on March 31, 2009 is hard but we must aim at 9 per cent.

He said, “we must be happy if it’s between 8 per cent and 9 per cent.”

Chidambaram said that inflation is the biggest problem in Asia today. Increasing price of foodstuffs and other commodities is a matter of concern of developing countries.

He said, “Inflationary expectation is driving prices.”

The wholesale price index, which reached a 41-month highest of 7.81 in the week ended on March 29 get lowered to 7.14 per cent in the week ended on April 5. The central bank had aimed for close to 5 per cent at the end of the 2007/08 fiscal year and its medium-term goal is around 3 per cent.

Inflation was also being stoked by a mismatch between supply and demand, and by cartel-like behaviour in some sectors of the economy, said Chidambaram.

India has banned the export of some rice and Chidambaram said he would consider banning exports of other goods, even if that went against the principles of free trade.

“As a short term measure … we will consider such bans, too,” he said, mentioning the possibility of export bans in the steel sector.

Tags: Ban, Business, Chidambaram, Export, Finance, PC

Pakistan’s Telecommunications Authority’s (PTA) decision to block the access of YouTube in Pakistan has stirred the users of this website on Sunday as it caused disruption on the internet. Due to some technical mistake access to YouTube was lost for several hours all over the world.

After 2 days of blockage, PTA has lifted the ban on the access of the website after removal of the allegedly “blasphemous” movie clips from the Web site. Google, the owner of YouTube, confirmed service had been restored in Pakistan.

It was known that PTA has blocked the famous video sharing website to prevent the citizens to watch some offensive clips on the site. While doing so some technical mistakes were done and the outcome of which was a global blackout of the site for around 2 hours on Sunday. What happened was that packets sent to YouTube were flowing to Pakistan.

Reports said that the website was blocked as some of the content on the site was considered offensive to Islam including hosting Dutch cartoon’s to the trailer of a forthcoming movie.

There is along list of countries which blocked the site for some reasons. On the list, it’s now Pakistan’s turn to object the contents. There are some videos on the Prophet Cartoon story. So, it is considered by PTA that Pakistan youngsters shouldn’t be seeing anything like this on the video site. Though there are many wonderful videos are also available that can be informative.

Pakistan Telecom gave the order to the 70 ISP’s operating in the country. Multiple reports blame it on a mistake by an engineer at Pakistan telecom or a more vicious claim of IP hijacking by the Telco which created this blaster mistake.

Their technical mistake gives a clear indication that Pakistan is still far behind India to compete in IT sector. Do they need better software skills and improvement in their hi-tech knowledge? Sursh Rao, a 26 year old software engineer from Bangalore comments that they should outsource all their research to India and then they can have their nuclear weapons cheaper and faster.

Pervez Musharraf is in favor of this decision as Rashid Qureshi, the spokesman for him said, “We have every right to protect the ignorance of Pakistani people from the propaganda that is disseminated through low grade short clips on YouTube. This clip on YouTube poses the greatest threat to the current stability and peace of Pakistan. We would do anything to keep the peace: burn embassies, dissolve judiciary and parliament, and impose martial law”.

Most of the people are saying against the decision and said the action as unfair and against democracy. Using religious beliefs as a reason to block websites seems to be unacceptable by many people. Rahim Masood, a 24 year old student and a pro-democracy leader said, “If we are not allowed to see offensive material on YouTube, you tell me how we will know what to protest against? How will we decide which flag to burn? In this information age, access to offensive information is a must”. According to him YouTube is much informative then offensive and let them know what is right and what is wrong. He protested the action and denied to agree with the decision.

YouTube has a long history of being blocked. So many countries earlier also banned on this site and objected the content provided. Thailand and Turkey both are again seeking to block YouTube. Ban by Pakistan on the site is highlighted worldwide because blockage in Pakistan caused global break down of the site. It showed how easy it is to setup domain errors. What makes the internet so easy for people to use also makes it vulnerable for attacks. And it is likely that similar outages will happen in the future.

Tags: Ban, Internet, Pakistan, Youtube