TIMES CITY

THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2015

Will support bill if amended: BJP

Proposes 10 Vital Changes For Jan Lokpal
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: BJPs Vijender

Gupta on Wednesday announced that he was ready to
support the Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill 2015 if 10 vital
amendments were made to
it. A day earlier, Gupta had
vehemently opposed the tabling of the Bill, saying that
it was without the prior approval of the Centre and LG
and therefore illegal.
Gupta held a press conference in the Delhi assembly premises and announced
that he was proposing
amendments. I will meet
chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to impress upon him the
need to adopt these amendments in order to make Jan
Lokpal Bill compliant with
the Constitution and an effective instrument against
fighting corruption, he
said.
Gupta also refused to admit that he had softened his
stand on the Bill. He insisted
that the Bill was still illegal
and would be taken up separately. But he couldnt explain why he wanted to
amend a Bill that he consid-

Yadav too offers support with riders

day after Anna Hazare offered conditional support to Delhi

government on its Jan Lokpal Bill, Swaraj Abiyan member
Yogendra Yadav did the same.
Go back to the Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill of 2014,
which, despite some dilutions, remains the best
guarantee for instituting a strong and effective
Jan Lokpal. If this version is passed and not
approved by the central government, Swaraj
Abhiyan will join all anti-corruption activists in an
agitation against the Modi government, Yadav said.
Delhi government had earlier agreed to incorporate changes
proposed by Anna. TNN

ered had an illegal basis.

We
are
suggesting
amendments for we know
the government through its
majority will manage to pass
the Bill. The fact that the origin of the Bill is illegal will
become evident on its own.
This government doesnt
have the intent to bring a
Lokpal, Gupta said, flanked
by MLAs O P Sharma and
Jagdish Pradhan.
The BJP MLAs want the
recommendation of the selection committee on Jan
Lokpal to be sent to the President for a final decision on
the appointment.
On the issue of removal
of the Jan Lokpal, Gupta has

recommended
that
the
chairperson or any member
of the Jan Lokpal panel can
be removed by Presidential
order on grounds of misbehaviour. This can happen if a
petition signed by two-thirds
of the assembly members is
referred to the Supreme
Court by the President, and
if the court, upon inquiry,
finds that the incumbent
must be removed.
Guptas proposed amendments also talk about LGs
role. He claims Section 2 of
the Bill makes the office of
LG subservient to the council of ministers and thats illegal. BJP MLAs want this
changed.

BJP will try to

draw Jung in
Risha.Chitlangia
@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Intensifying their

protest against the Jan Lokpal
Bill, BJP members, including
former MLAs, will submit a
memorandum to LG Najeeb
Jung on Thursday. They have
alleged that AAP-led Delhi government has introduced the
bill unconstitutionally in the
House and meted out ill treatment to BJP functionaries.
There are serious issues
related to the way the assembly
session is being conducted. Our
members were expelled and the
ruling party is trying to silence
the opposition. We will request
the LG to intervene, said Satish Upadhyay, Delhi BJP chief.
The decision to approach
the LG comes on a day when the
leader of opposition in the assembly Vijender Gupta suggested amendments in the governments draft of Jan Lokpal Bill.
They have introduced all the
bills unconstitutionally. We ha-

ve suggested amendments to
the bill as we are against corruption. We have two issues
with the ruling party regarding
the bill. First, the way it has been introduced and second, its
content, said Gupta.
BJP members say that
AAPs Jan Lokpal Bill is not valid as Delhi still has a Lokayukta Act. They (AAP) should ha-

FIGHT IS ON
ve repealed the Lokayukta Act
first. They cant introduce the
bill without the consent of the
LG. This government is indulging in unconstitutional activities, said Sahib Singh Chauhan, former BJP MLA.
R P Singh, BJP national secretary, said, Till now, none of
the bills passed has been cleared. The government is introducing bills according to its
whims and fancy. Another major issue is they are not ready to
listen to the opposition. There
is no place for discussion.

Shaadi ka laddoo served from above

Continued from P1

or many, like Pardeep

Luthra who recently
married off his son in
Amritsar, A wedding is a
time to spend. Equipped
with ultra-high resolution
(4K) cameras, zoom lenses
and advanced stabilizers, the
drones do provide a unique
visual perspective of the ceremonies The wide-angle
and top-angle shots that you
can achieve with drones are
impossible with regular
cameras, says Riyaz Abdul
Razaak of Silon Talkies in
Mumbai, which has filmed
six weddings in the city so far.
Besides, you never know
when an airborne camera
might more handily meet the
demands of
customers.
Lakshya Manwani almost
shudders when he remembers a client who was flying
in from California and wanted a drone to catch up with
the plane as it landed in Delhi, take a shot of him walking
down the ramp, hurrying towards the exit gate and meeting his bride-to-be.
Theres a desire for a fresh
outlook even in the more reg-

ular images of the baraat, the

jaimala rite and the saat
phere. The easy availability
of these contraptions, many
of them of Chinese make,
helps wedding imagers meet
the clamour for exotic shots.
Of course, it's not as easy
to film with a drone as, say,
saying I do. For one, the venue has to be expansive
enough to allow for unhindered flight for a drone. I feel
using drones indoors which
most Indian weddings are is
a risky business, says Bengaluru freelance cinematographer Ashok V Raman, who
owns two drones: a DJI Phantom and a custom-made
drone. Unlike outdoors, where the drone can be navigated by pre-programming
the route using GPS, indoors
it has to be manoeuvred
manually with a remote device, which poses risks of
crashes. In fact, when Silon
Talkies first started using
drones at Mumbai weddings,
guests were afraid the flying
machines would crash headlong into their perfectly
coiffed hairdos, laughs Razaak. But with increasing
use, everyone is savvier

AERIAL COVERAGE: A wedding shot taken by a drone

about these flying objects.

Then, there is also the
small matter of the legality of
using drones. No one seems
to know for sure whether a
drone is legitimate wedding
paraphernalia or not. The
confusion is confounded by
the lack of a designated central authority to clear such
shoots. Because they can
come in the path of airline

flights and for security reasons, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA),
on October 7, 2014, did order
that till DGCA formulated
proper guidelines for the civil use of drones, no non-government agency, organization or individual could fly
them in Indian civil airspace
for any purpose.
However, enforcement is

lax. Permission has to be

taken from local authorities
but usually most drone operators dont go through the
process, says Rajesh Luthra, a wedding photographer.
Amritsar Police Commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh declares that his force
has no record of wedding
planners or photographers
using drones, and promises,
For now, there are no such
guidelines. If we get them, we
will implement them immediately. As for the service
providers, one Mumbai photographer slyly says, As long
as clients manage the permissions, we dont have a
problem. It's almost as if he
is a character in 'Drone with
the Wind' saying, Frankly,
my dears, I don't give a
damn.
(With inputs from Dharvi
Vaid, Yudhvir Rana,
IP Singh, Mohit Behl,
Mithila Phadke and
Shrabonti Bagchi)

Centre says corpns under

Delhi govt, startles HC
Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The Centre on

Wednesday startled the Delhi
high court by its stand that
the three municipal corporations fall under the Delhi governments control.
A surprised bench of Justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev
Sachdeva asked for a clarification from the Centre after
it claimed that the state government controls the corporations and is ultimately responsible for ensuring earthquake preparedness in the
capital.
This is a very startling
statement by Centre in its affidavit. It is also in the minutes of the meeting, the
bench observed, referring to

HC asks for clarification

when Centre says it is
Delhi that must ensure
quake preparedness
a meeting of all stakeholders
called by the urban development ministry to chart a plan
in case of an earthquake.
We find that a clarification is required as to whether
the municipal corporations
fall under administrative
control of the Delhi government or not. The affidavit indicates that the corporations
are under the state government, it noted in its order.
However, the standing counsel for the Centre, B S
Shukla, remained unpertur-

bed, arguing that the court

should focus on issuing directions to improve safety
rather than on a mistake in
the affidavit. But HC was not
impressed and directed him
to seek instructions from the
government and clarify.
Taking judicial notice
of a series of earthquakes
that occurred close to India
this year, the HC had on the
last date of hearing pointed
out that a majority of buildings in the capital were
structurally unsafe and asked the Centre to submit an
action plan for ensuring buildings survive the quake.
Observing that Delhi falls
in seismic zone IV, a high risk
area, the bench had given the
Centre three weeks time to
submit an action plan .