Quicktakes

Contingency fund

NEW DELHI: The President K R Narayanan, tonight promulgated an ordinance to raise the corpus of the Contingency fund to Rs 14,700 crores to meet the government expenditure including elections, new wage bill due to Pay Commission award and food and fertiliser subsidy.

EC order

CALCUTTA: The Election Commission on Friday relaxed its earlier order stopping disbursal of fund to the MPs and MLAs under the local area development fund scheme. In a fresh directive to the states, the Election Commission said that work could continue in those cases where it had begun before December 8. West Bengal chief electoral officer Jahar Sarkar told newspersons here that the Commission also directed that work could also go on in case of those projects where plans had been chalked out prior to December 8.

Air chief’s threat

NEW DELHI: Air Chief Marshal S K Sareen on Friday warned that acts of indiscipline in IAF would not be tolerated and said "severe disciplinary act" had been initiated against those who had violated norms. The warning by the air chief comes in the wake of unprecedented resentment expressed by ground duty staff over pay anomalies in certain Air Force bases including Bhuj and Jamnagar in Gujarat since last month.

Sabarimala

SABARIMALA: Thousands of devotees of Lord Ayyappa from different parts of the country, on Friday offered worship at the hill shrine on the occasion of Mandalapooja. Earlier the thanga angi (gold vestments), brought from the Parthasarathy temple at Aranmula in a procession, was adorned on the deity. The temple was closed after the evening poojas and would reopen again on January 1, 1998. The usual poojas, including the Neyyabhishekam (ghee offering) would begin on January 2.