After retail, Mamata Banerjee eyes pension bill

Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee during her press conference at her residence in Kolkata. Special: Tata-Singur rowAfter stalling the rollout of upto 51% foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, key UPA partner Trinamool Congress is keeping alliance managers guessing on another important issue - the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Bill.

Among other things,

opponents contend that the bill fails to provide any assured return to subscribers.

Trinamool Congress parliamentary party leader and union minister Sudip Bandopadhyay told HT from Kolkata on Sunday, "Reforms in areas that affect common people are critical issues. In the case of the PFRDA Bill, our leader Mamata Banerjee has not yet decided if we will support it."

Another union minister from the party, Saugata Roy, told HT: "As it relates to lifetime savings of common people, we have certain reservations about it."

The Congress, however, did not seem perturbed.

"If our allies have any apprehensions, we will definitely talk to them and sort out the issues. This is a key bill," said a Congress minister.

While the Centre sees the PFRDA as a major reform-related legislation and is keen to pass it during the winter session of Parliament, the Left parties have already raised their red flags.

While the row over FDI in retail stalled Parliament all of last week, the CPI-M's trade union wing, CITU, led a delegation to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ask for drastic changes in the PFRDA Bill, including a provision for minimum assured return for investors.

The union cabinet recently approved the PFRDA Bill but ignored the recommendation of Parliament's standing committee on finance to keep a 26% FDI cap within the legislation.

While the UPA managers want to keep the FDI limit out of the law to allow changes in it through executive orders, the proposed legislation has also irked a section of the BJP.

The CPI-M's Basudeb Acharia told HT, "We are trying to garner support from other political parties against the PFRDA Bill. We will force voting on the bill if the government tries to pass it in this session."

Mamata remains silent on fake encounter

 The body of Maoist leader Kishenji is seen after he was killed in an encounter with joint action force inside Burishol forest in West Midnapore, about 200 kilometers west of Kolkata. (AP Photo)Top Maoist leader Kishenji's body was flown to Hyderabad on Saturday by a private airlines' cargo plane even as allegations of a staged encounter continued to gain strength. The body identified by the Kishenji's niece Deepa Rao will be taken by relatives to his house at Peddapalli in Karimnagar district of Andhra where his octogenarian mother lives.

The number three in the outlawed CPI(Maoist), was killed in a gun battle in the dense Burisole forests in West Bengal's Purulia district on Thursday.

The 'fake encounter' chorus grew on Saturday after the police failed to show a second body or another arrest despite claiming that they had spotted Kishenji with fellow rebels in the forest on Tuesday. Swami Agnivesh too joined the "fake encounter" chorus and demanded an enquiry into the killing.

Some senior doctors of Jhargram sub-divisional hospital told HT that they had refused to conduct the postmortem because of lack of qualified doctors.

"The district police administration created pressure on us. But we do no have any diploma or degree holders in forensics," said one of the doctors.

These very doctors, however, had performed postmortems of several Maoist leaders including Sasadhar Mahato and Lalmohan Tudu.

Kishenji's body was later taken to the Midnapore Medical College. The doctors there who conducted the postmortem said Kishenji had sustained more than 25 bullet injuries in different parts of his body. But they refused to confirm the distance from which the Maoist leader was shot.

"We have removed six bullets from the body. His lower jaw has been blown away. His stomach, liver, kidney and other organs will be sent to the state forensic laboratory for viscera test," said Dr Somnath Das who along with two other colleagues conducted the postmortem.

Meanwhile, chief minister Mamata Banerjee continued to maintain a stoic silence on the issue.

Mediapersons waiting for a reaction after her return from New Delhi on Friday had to return empty handed.

"In fact, her position has sullied the success of the security forces. With no congratulatory message from the chief minister, the only solace was the visit by the director general of CRPF," said a senior bureaucrat.