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BJP trains guns
on Sonia, EC SP rules out pact
with Congress Avoid party
politics, Cong tells Shekhawat Left
destabilising govt, says Antony
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Woman gangraped twice in Bihar town Women-only
meetings catch on in MP Digvijay joins
issue with PM
Iraq welcomes
India’s decision on Madrid meet Puri Chief of
Integrated Defence Staff Lashkar running
cells with Dawood’s help VHP leader saved my family, says riot victim Police still to
trace rape accused Centre clears
import of plasma product
Legal notice to
Punjab Kesri HC admits plea
on deaths due to docs’ negligence
Former CM of Mizoram
chargesheeted TV serial on
Sikh history
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BJP trains guns on Sonia, EC New Delhi, October 20 BJP spokespersons Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Prakash Jawdekar took exception to Mrs Gandhi’s recent statement that she had accepted the Indian traditions saying that this was not enough for her to qualify for any constitutional position. The Election Commission’s directive to postpone a scheduled meeting of the North Eastern Council to January would have an adverse impact on the development work, Mr Naqvi said terming the directive as “unwanted”. Mere acceptance of “the Bharatiya traditions and culture is not a certificate for becoming the Prime Minister of the country”, Mr Naqvi said. In this country, thousands of foreigners, who are living and associated with various organisations involved in social services, had accepted the Bharatiya (Indian) culture and traditions and we Indians respect and regard them, Mr Naqvi pointed out. However, they in return had never made a claim to any of the constitutional positions of the country, he asserted. In the same breath, the spokesman asked the Congress “whether it is a part of Bharatiya tradition that made their party President in not accepting the Indian citizenship for 14 years”. If the answer is yes, then the Congress was forgetting the basic principles of the Bharatiya traditions and culture, he said. Claiming that the BJP was going to win in the Assembly elections in five states, Mr Naqvi said the main cause of the Congress defeat was their confusing stand on their policies, programmes and leadership. Asserting that the BJP was very keen to enter the electoral fray on the plank of security, development and prosperity, Mr Naqvi sought to blame the Congress for raising the foreign origin issue of Mrs Gandhi. |
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SP rules out pact with Congress New Delhi, October 20 Talking to reporters here after the meeting of the Parliamentary Board of the party, General Secretary Amar Singh said here that there was no possibility of an alliance with the Congress. The party’s decision comes in the wake of comments of some of the senior Congress leaders, who had been pointing to the secular credentials of the SP especially after it came to power in Uttar Pradesh. In reply to a question, Mr Amar Singh said the Congress had also ruled out an alliance with the SP in the coming elections. Mr Amar Singh quoted senior Congress leader Arjun Singh’s statement, in which he had stated that his party was studying the SP’s secular credentials before deciding on the alliance. Meanwhile, the party at its meeting finalised the names of 65 candidates for Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, 17 for Rajasthan and five for Delhi. The Central Parliamentary Board meeting was chaired by party President and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. The party also announced the names of party candidates for byelections to two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh. Mr Dilip Verma would be the party candidate from Mahasi and Ms Vimla Rakesh from
Harora. The Harora Assembly seat was vacated following the resignation of former state Chief Minister Mayawati. Mr Amar Singh said the subsequent lists for the Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chhattisgarh would be announced soon. The party also announced that Mr Ravindra Singh, brother of Rajasthan Finance Minister Pradyumn Singh, had joined the SP. |
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Avoid party politics, Cong tells Shekhawat New Delhi, October 20 Referring to reports about BJP ticket aspirants meeting Mr Shekhawat during his visits to Rajasthan, Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said the Vice-President was not being able to get over party politics. “We request Mr Shekhawat to respect constitutional propriety and obligations,” Mr Sharma said. He said Vice-Presidents in the past had not taken part in party politics. Mr Sharma skirted questions about any specific instance of Mr Shekhawat violating constitutional propriety, saying it was an issue of public discussion and was being mentioned in the media. Referring to the BJP’s reaction to Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s remarks about following the country’s traditions since her marriage, Mr Sharma said the BJP had at least realised that she was following the traditions. He hastened to add that the party did not need a certificate from the BJP in the matter. Pointing to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s remarks yesterday about lack of development in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Sharma said the BJP had eventually recognised that development was the core issue for politics and elections. |
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Left destabilising govt, says Antony New Delhi, October 20 The meeting comes a few days after senior party leader K. Karunakaran met Ms Gandhi and demanded the removal of the Chief Minister. Mr E. Ahmed, general secretary of Indian Union Muslim League
(IUML), an ally of the ruling UDF, which has been critical of Mr Antony’s handling of the Marad issue and his utterances which had antagonised minorities, also met Ms Gandhi today. Mr Ahmed said the
leadership issue was an internal matter of the Congress and his party would give its views only if asked for. He, however, called for a change in the style of functioning of the government. |
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Woman gangraped twice in Bihar town
Jehanabad, October 20 The Superintendent of Police said the incident occurred last night when the 35-year-old woman, along with her 11-year-old son, was returning from her parents’ house at Bhaisma village in Patna district. The incident took place after she agreed to travel in a hired jeep and go to a dhaba with the driver and few other occupants of the vehicle after the driver assured her to take her to her in-laws’ house at Saidpur village in the district as buses were not plying and it was late in the evening. She was gangraped in the jeep and thrown out of the vehicle at a bus stand. Miscreants in another jeep then hauled her into their vehicle and gangraped her. Raids were conducted and the woman was found in a store of the Bihar State Electricity Board in the town around midnight. The police arrested store guard Manjeet Rout, the drivers of the two jeeps used for the crime and three others in connection with the rape, Yadav said.
— PTI |
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Women-only meetings
catch on in MP Bhopal, October 20 Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed the BJP’s women-only public meeting here yesterday. The Congress had held such a meeting in Indore on September 28, which was addressed by party President Sonia Gandhi. Besides from the uniformed policemen on duty and reporters with special passes, only a couple of top party “men” were allowed to enter the Lal Parade grounds, the venue of the BJP meeting here. Similar was the case at the Congress meeting in
Indore. The BJP had made a massive mobilisation across the state to make its women only public meeting in Bhopal a success. |
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Digvijay joins issue with PM Bhopal, October 20 In a four-page letter sent to Mr Vajpayee, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has pointed out that the Central Government has praised and awarded the state government for “better performance” and the Prime Minister had himself lauded the Madhya Pradesh Government on various occasions. Referring to Mr Vajpayee’s remark about the lack of education among women, the Chief Minister says that Madhya Pradesh has registered a 20 per cent increase in female literacy, “which is higher than what had been achieved in the last three decades”. He reminds the Prime Minister that the Government of India had conferred the Decadal Achievement Award for female literacy to Madhya Pradesh in 2001. The letter refutes the Prime Minister’s charge that Madhya Pradesh accounted for the highest number of atrocities against women and points out that such crimes constitute only 13 per cent of all crimes taking place in the state. The chargesheeting rate in crimes against women and Dalits in Madhya Pradesh is higher than in many other states, it says. The Chief Minister has also described as baseless the Prime Minister’s allegation about the bad condition of the roads in the state. As for the erratic power supply, it is a countrywide problem, according to Mr Digvijay Singh’s letter. |
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Lankan PM meets Vajpayee New Delhi, October 20 Mr Vajpayee had a luncheon meeting with Mr Wickremesinghe and discussed bilateral relations as well as the peace process. Specific issues that came up for discussions between the two Prime Ministers include preliminary talks for further defence cooperation and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the framework of which prepared by a joint study group. The two sides agreed to make sure that CEPA is functional in the next six to seven months. The move towards CEPA was described by India-Sri Lanka Joint Commission, which met in Colombo earlier this week, as the one that would take the two countries to a qualitatively new level of engagement by "intensifying and deepening" bilateral economic cooperation. The issue of terrorism also came up for discussion wherein the two sides underlined the need for the international community to wage a united battle against the menace. Mr Advani told reporters after his meeting with Mr Wickremesinghe that the Sri Lankan Government was awaiting fresh proposals from the LTTE to take the Norwegian-brokered peace process forward. Mr Wickremesinghe was accompanied by Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Tyrone Fernando, Economic Affairs Minister Milinda Moragoda and Peace Secretariat Director-General Bernard A Gunatilleka. |
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Iraq welcomes India’s decision on Madrid meet New Delhi, October 20 Mr Adday O Al Saqab, chief of the Iraqi Embassy here, told mediapersons that Iraq also welcomed any decision by India to contribute troops for the international security assistance force to help stabilise the situation in the war-ravaged country. The Iraqi official noted that New Delhi had welcomed the adoption of a new resolution by the United Nations Security Council on Iraq’s future. He said Indian troops had a long history of serving as part of UN peace-keeping missions and added, “If India takes any decision in favour of sending its troops to Iraq, it will certainly be in the interests of the Iraqi people”. Mr Al Saqab pointed out that Indian officials had denied reports that New Delhi was considering reducing its mission strength in Baghdad in view of the security situation there. He informed that India had decided to soon start operating a 300-bed military hospital at Najaf with the coordination of Jordanian authorities. The Indian government had already started despatching staff to Iraq for the proposed hospital, he said. |
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Puri Chief of Integrated Defence Staff New Delhi, October 20 Vice-Admiral Puri succeeds Lt-Gen Pankaj S. Joshi, the first incumbent, who retired on September 30. After taking over the charge the new chief laid a wreath before Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate this morning and inspected a tri-service guard of honour at the South Block before entering his new office. A specialist in gunnery and missile systems, Vice-Admiral Puri had been the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command prior to this appointment. He has also served as the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff at the Naval Headquarters here and the Fortress Commander of Andaman and Nicobar. His operational commands included India’s first aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, missile destroyer INS Rana and corvette INS
Vijaydurg. |
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Lashkar running cells with Dawood’s help New Delhi, October 20 The LeT has been running cells in countries like Spain, Portugal, France and the UAE with Dawood’s help, sources here told The Tribune today. The LeT-Dawood linkage, so elaborately described to the Americans by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani during his recent US visit, was clearly reflected from the fact that Dawood’s top henchman, Abu Salem, was caught in Portugal. Sources said Mr Advani also briefed the Americans in details about the Dawood-LeT linkage which surfaced in a totally new context: the Haren Pandya murder case. After murdering Pandya, the killers were LeT cadres who were helped by Dawood’s men in travelling from Gujarat to Dhaka through land borders. Pandya’s killers stayed in a house at Dhaka for a month after which the LeT cadres transported them to Pakistan and then later to Dubai. Dawood, son of a police constable, has reigned as one of the pre-eminent criminals in the Indian subcontinent underworld for nearly the past two decades. Dawood’s syndicate is involved in large-scale shipments of narcotics in the UK and Western Europe. The syndicate’s smuggling routes from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa are shared with Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al-Qaida. The US Treasury Department had on October 16 announced that it was designating Dawood as a “specially designated global terrorist” under Executive Order 13224 as the don “has found common cause with Al-Qaida, sharing his smuggling routes with the terror syndicate and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilising the Indian Government.” |
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VHP leader saved my family, says riot victim Ahmedabad, October 20 Deposing before Justice G.T. Nanavati and Justice K.G. Shah, Mohammad Gani Chippa said Pratap Rana, a local VHP leader, took the onus of sheltering his aged parents after he shifted to his in-laws house apprehending large-scale violence in the Behrampura area on February 28 last year when the Hindu outfit called for bandh in protest against the Godhra train carnage. Rana, secretary of the Kankaria ward of the VHP, in his deposition also claimed to have sheltered three Muslim families in his area but alleged that the minority community mob had attacked his society. — PTI |
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Police still to trace rape accused New Delhi, October 20 Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Vivek Gogia claimed that the police had gathered important lead in the case and various teams had been deployed to work out the case. He said fingerprints lifted from the 16 suspects were not sufficient to prove their involvement as it was important to verify their movements on the night of the incident. The police was yet to receive a response from the diplomat. |
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Centre clears import of plasma product New Delhi, October 20 For the first time, the Union Health Ministry is learnt to have placed an order for Rs 1 crore through the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) for the purchase of 1.25 million international units of AHF from Baxter, US. Sources said the NTPC had been chosen as a buying agent because of its understanding of complexities of international tendering. Baxter was chosen following a global tender. The HFI was founded by Mr Ashok Verma with like-minded persons in 1983. AHF has been imported mainly by the Hemophila Federation (India) for the benefit of PWH. The Anti
Hemophilic Factor is indispensable for infusions and its non-availability can lead to disability and even death. The HFI has been making AHF available to PWHs through its 63 chapters across the country. Hemophila is a hereditary bleeding disorder caused by deficiency or absence of certain protein in the blood. Intravenous infusion of the deficient factor known as AHF is needed to control the bleeding. Hailing the government initiative, the Executive Director of HFI, Mr Verma said “The move by the government will ease the burden on HFI by at least 10 per cent. It is a good gift before our 20th anniversary celebration next month.” Few persons can afford to follow the international recommendation on getting AHF every alternate day whether or not they bleed. Mr Verma explained that requirement of AHF by a person depends on his body weight. “For instance, a person weighing 60 to 70 kg needs for each infusion 1000 to 1500 units. The HFI prices each unit at Rs 5.50 and allows it chapters to sell it to needy persons for Rs 6. A single infusion for a person weighing 60 to 70 kg works out to Rs 7000 to 8000. AHF is available in vial sizes varying from 200 to 1000 international units. A vial size of 250 units will cost Rs 1500. Keeping a vial is an ideal situation but few persons do that. They prefer instead to get themselves registered at the chapter nearest to their residence,” he said. Attempts have been made in the past to gain self reliance in the manufacture of AHF which is a complex procedure. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India stopped manufacturing AHF in mid 80s following allegations of HIV infections to at least 700 PWH. The National Plasma Fractionation Unit at the King Edward Medical College Hospital, Mumbai, made efforts to derive AHF IX. They could not collect enough plasma to manufacture AHF VIII. They succeeded in manufacturing AHF IX but it was not
sufficient even for Mumbai. |
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Legal notice to Punjab Kesri New Delhi, October 20 Accusing the newspaper of publishing a report not based on any allegation made by public but on its own, Mr Udit Raj in a press note said the future course of action against the publication’s management would be announced soon. A copy of the legal notice, enclosed with the statement, had sought a reply to the notice within two weeks saying that in case it failed to do so, the party would go ahead with the appropriate legal proceedings. |
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HC admits plea on deaths due to docs’ negligence Kolkata, October 20 Both allegedly died for want of medical treatment and negligence of duty of doctors and employees in government hospitals. The case will be heard by the Division Bench, comprising Mr Justice Asoke Ganguly and Mr Justice S.P.Talukdar, when the high court re-opens after the puja vacation next week. The court today also accepted a separate petition demanding legal action against the Left Front Chairman, Mr Biman Bose, for defaming Mr Justice Amitava Lala’s judgment in banning rallies and processions in Kolkata between 8 am and 8 pm. Mr Bose has been asked to be physically present at the court. |
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Former CM of Mizoram chargesheeted Aizawl, October 20 The chargesheet was submitted to the special court set up under the Prevention of Corruption Act, along with documents. The former Chief Minister was charged with entering into a conspiracy and committing criminal misconduct.
— PTI |
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TV serial on Sikh history New Delhi, October 20 The serial, which has the consent of the SGPC, will project the glorious past of the Sikhs and their contribution to society. Says H. S. Taneja, who will direct and produce the serial, “The serial will depict the course of events from the time of Mohd Ghaznavi and the lives of all Sikh Gurus”. Taneja, says no one will portray the characters of Sikh Gurus and incidents relating to them will be depicted. “I think the glory of Sikh culture needs to be presented in the right way to the young generation. Our effort is to bring Sikhs across the globe nearer to their roots,” he adds. |
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