Why stop foreign journalists from reporting from J&K: Omar Srinagar, August 1 (IANS): Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday wondered if the situation in Jammu and Kashmir had deteriorated so badly that the government was afraid of allowing foreign correspondents to report freely from the state. Annie Gowen, the India bureau chief of Washington Post, tweeted on Tuesday that she was in Kashmir for a friend's wedding. But she said she was not reporting because the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs had not granted the special permit now required for foreign correspondents. She said she applied for it on June 22. "Unacceptable delay." The National Conference leader took exception to the denial of permission to Gowen. "Has the situation in Kashmir deteriorated to such an extent that we are now afraid to let foreign correspondents report freely from Kashmir? Another crowning achievement of BJP's Kashmir policy ably assisted by its partner in crime the PDP." In the early 1990s too, foreign journalists had to seek permission from the Home Ministry to report from Jammu and Kashmir. INX media case: No arrest for Chidambaram till Sep 28 New Delhi, August 1 (IANS): The Delhi High Court on Wednesday extended till September 28 the interim protection given to former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the INX Media money laundering case. Justice A.K. Pathak directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) not to take any coercive steps against Chidambaram till that date, when the case will come up for hearing again. On July 25, the court granted interim protection to Chidambaram till August 1 directing him not to leave the country without its permission and to co-operate in the investigation. The Court was hearing Chidambaram's anticipatory bail plea in the case. The ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are probing how Karti Chidambaram managed to get clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) when his father was in office. Karti was arrested on February 28 by the CBI for allegedly taking money to facilitate the FIPB clearance to INX Media in 2007 when his father was the Union Finance Minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Later, Karti was granted bail. Karti's chartered accountant S. Bhaskararaman was also arrested by the ED and he was later granted bail. AAP points finger at Centre, Delhi Police over human trafficking New Delhi, August 1 (IANS): The AAP on Wednesday questioned the Delhi Police and the Centre on their alleged inaction against human trafficking and said those involved in the racket were hand in glove with the top echelons in power. The Aam Aadmi Party's accusations came after the Delhi Commission for Women rescued as many as 74 girls from different locations in Delhi in the past one week. Addressing the media here, AAP Chief Spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said: "It is shocking that the Delhi Police had no intelligence about the girls being brought here from Nepal to be sold in some Gulf countries. It is almost as if the police had no interest in the matter." He said that the areas from where these girls were rescued were not some remote locations. "Everyone knew about it, but even then the police did not bother to file an FIR or arrest anyone, except small fries like cooks and drivers." "Their inaction just shows how the whole international syndicate is linked to top levels in the Delhi Police and the central government," Bharadwaj added. The AAP leader also took a dig at the prevailing situation vis-a-vis the human trafficking in India. "When a cow is being transported from one city to another, it is intercepted multiple times. But when girls are being illegally transported through multiple cities and are then sold to other countries, no one knows anything." Bharadwaj also dubbed the External Affairs Ministry as the "so-called Twitter Department of India" and asked how could authorities in the Ministry or its Immigration Department know nothing when girls with "forged" NoCs (no-objection certificate) were sent abroad.
