I-T inquiry ordered into Maya currency garland

The UP Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati’s garland of currency notes worth crores of rupees rocked the Lok Sabha on Tuesday and forced the Income Tax department to probe the issue.

The Lok Sabha had to be adjourned twice in the first half as the Congress, BJP and the SP members attacked the BSP chief for wearing a huge garland at a public rally on Monday and disrupted House proceedings.

As chaos continued the Deputy Speaker, Mr Kariya Munda, adjourned the House for recess till 12 pm.

“We want a CBI probe into the source of the money used in the garland,” said the SP chief, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The I-T department will probe the funding and ownership of currency notes, sources said.

The department has also asked its intelligence wing to gather information in this regard including the funding of the entire event that took place to celebrate the BSP’s silver jubilee.

The department will also probe the genuineness of the notes which could be seized for the purpose, they said.

Senior US official in Syria as relations improve

A senior U.S. official is meeting the Syrian president as part of President Barack Obama’s attempts to improve ties with Damascus after years of tense relations.

William Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, was received on Wednesday by President Bashar Assad. Mr. Burns is the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Syria since January 2005.

The visit comes a day after Mr. Obama said he would nominate a career diplomat to become the United States’ first ambassador to Damascus since 2005.

The tense relations between Syria and the U.S. started to improve after Mr. Obama took office last year. Mr. Obama made changing the United States’ image in the Middle East a priority of his first year.