Guwahati, November 17
Night running of all trains in Lumding-Badarpur Hill section passing through the insurgency-ravaged North Cachar Hill District has been brought to a halt by the Railways because of renewed threat from militants belonging to Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel Garlosa) or Black Widow militants.

A spokesman of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), Jayanta Sharma said night running of trains along the hill section passing through the disturbed North Cachar Hills district had been suspended afresh as per advice on by the state government.

The Black Widow ultras threatened to disrupt train services in the section which is a vital link to south Assam, Tripura and Manipur from Assam Valley, in protest against the Assam government’s lukewarm response to the unilateral ceasefire declared by the outfit with a hope for holding talks with the government.

Earlier, on May 11 this year, the Railways suspended night running of passenger trains in that section after an attack by Black Widow ultras on May 10. All trains were suspended in the hill section from May 15 last after one engine driver had been killed by Black Widow militants on May 14 last during an attack on a running train. The Railways though resumed goods train services from May 25, kept the passenger train service suspended till July 31 since then citing lack of adequate security cover.

The Black Widow ultras have shown fresh belligerence since October 30. They gunned down seven policemen in the hill district on that day and attacked a Nepali settlement near Umrangshu few days later killing two persons.

The Black Widow is a breakaway faction of the parent DHD outfit that is now in truce with the government of India and engaged in a peace process to achieve their goal of a separate state for Dimasa tribe living in the North Cachar Hill district.

“Haaro, harwao, phir jito” -- first lose, then work for others’ defeat, and then win. This is the motto of the BSP, known more because of its single leader and Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Mayawati, than anything else.

Certainly, it is an interesting new strategy for winning election battles, acknowledge even many “chunao war” veterans.

The “mast hathi” — BSP’s election symbol — is sending both ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress for a safety cover. Their campaign managers are busy visualising how to corner it.

After implementing this strategy successfully in the largest populated state, Uttar Pradesh, the BSP is now busy putting this into final action in the current Assembly elections. Political pundits see this as Mayawati’s larger design to grab power in New Delhi later.

In Madhya Pradesh, both Congress and BJP are worried about the possibility of the BSP’s ‘elephant’ going on a rampage in the November 27 Assembly polls, spoiling their applecart at various places.

As part of the election strategy, the BSP is concentrating on 39 constituencies bordering Uttar Pradesh. In many such constituencies, the BSP has given ticket to a dozen influential leaders, who left the Congress or the BJP to be part of Mayawati’s ranks in this state.

Continuing her new concept of “social engineering”, which she successfully implemented in Uttar Pradesh to grab power, Mayawati has distributed party ticket to persons from the OBC, SC, ST, minority and upper caste communities. The upper caste candidates include Thakurs, Brahmins, Banias and Kayasths.

The BSP’s national vice-president, Rajaram, is the in charge of the party’s election campaign in Madhya Pradesh. It is Rajaram who selected the candidates for the whole state. In past 18 months, he has toured the entire state. His team includes two influential Brahmin leaders, Umesh Tripathi (state party general secretary) and Subhash Chander Tripathi (former DGP).

Over two decades, the BSP has managed to make in-roads more or less everywhere in this vast state, and adjoining Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh states. It is no longer confined to pockets in the Chambal belt of Bhind-Morena, Shivpuri-Gwalior, Baghelkhand or Bilaspur, which was earlier part of Madhya Pradesh, and now it falls in Chhattisgarh. On Sunday, “bahenji”, as Mayawati is popularly known, held a massive election rally in Bilaspur.

Similar rallies are being organised in various parts of Madhya Pradesh. The BSP is hoping to do far better this time in Madhya Pradesh. In the previous Assembly polls, the BSP had managed to increase its vote share at a time when the scene was dominated by the then BJP “sanaysan” leader Uma Bharti’s wave.

In the 2003 elections, the two BSP MLAs won on general constituencies. It contested only 157 of 230 seats then. Today, the election campaign of the “elephant” is moving across the entire state. Out of 230 constituencies, the BSP has fielded 224 candidates. No political party, including the ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress, has fielded candidates in all the constituencies.

The BSP chief has found a space for herself in widening economic disparities among lower classes losing their faith in the Congress. “The poor and backward classes have witnessed long the Congress and the BJP rule in Madhya Pradesh at the cost of development and a rising crime rate,” said Ramkhilawan Ahirwar, a small farmer in Bhind. “All the political parties have been working to undermine the BSP and Mayawati didi,” he felt.

Compared to the pampered workers of the Congress and the BJP, one can find the BSP’s activists shabbily dressed but very active in canvassing for their candidates. They are not wasting their time in doing the campaign everywhere “they are concentrating mainly among poor and backward classes”.

“These people are our real constituency, they have been voting for us for decades, and this time, they know that we are very near to victory,” commented a BSP worker, Janardhan, studying law in an outside state.

For the ruling BJP, an increase in the number of seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is a major cause of concern in view of the growing clout of the BSP. The 82 seats reserved for the SC/ST hold the key for the formation of the next government.

The counting of votes on December 8 will only tell whether the “elephant” will succeeded in fracturing the Congress “hand” and eating the BJP’s “lotus”.

New Delhi, November 17
From jingles to print advertisements, the Election Commission has found one more avenue to motivate residents of the metropolis to come to the polling booth and vote in the assembly elections on November 29 - the India International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan.

At the Delhi pavilion, which showcases women’s empowerment and infrastructure development in the city, the Election Commission’s jingle based on the lines of the recent Bollywood hit ‘Pappu can’t dance’ appeals to visitors to cast their vote.

“Since a large number of visitors throng the trade fair daily we hope they will watch and hear the jingles being displayed on the screen put up on the pavilion and get inspired to cast their votes,” a senior election official said.

It has been observed that people use their voter identity cards to get passports and licences made and bank accounts opened. However, when it comes to elections, taking part in governance takes a back seat, he said.

The last assembly election saw 43 per cent of the electorate casting ballots, the official added. The election office will also inform visitors about the documents other than EPICs that can be used to cast votes.

Manoj Parida, managing director of Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation, which has put up the pavilion behalf of the state government, said it (allowing election message on its screen) was a part of corporate responsibility of the organisation.

He said the pavilion also showcases the achievements of various departments such as power, forest and environment, urban development. — PTI

Patna, November 17
The Janata Dal (United) has distanced itself from its old alliance partner- the BJP- on the issue of defending the Hindu saints accused in the bomb blast cases at Malegaon and Samjahuta Express. Earlier, the party had made its stand clear on the Shiv Sena as well.

While refusing to share the dais with Shiv Sena leader Udhav Thackeray at an NDA rally in Haryana recently, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar minced no words in saying that the JD(U) can never even think of sharing the dais with the Shiv Sena.

Responding to the charges levelled against him by his bete noire in Bihar politics, Lalu Prasad Yadav that the former (Nitish) should make his stand clear on the involvement of Hindu seers in terrorist activities.

Nitish said that the JD(U) would never support anyone involved in any kind of terrorist activities nor the party would ever interfere in the police investigation into such cases. Nitish rather advocated a thorough probe into all kinds of terrorist activities and stringent punishment to all those found involved in it by carrying out speedy trial of the cases.

Lalu was referring to the BJP coming in defence of Lt Colonel Shrikant Purohit and Pragya Singh Thakur arrested by the anti-terrorist squad (ATS) in connection with the said blast cases.

Clarifying the JD(U)’s alliance with the BJP in running the government in Bihar, Nitish said the government was functioning on a common minimum programme and there was no hitch from either side in pursuing the policies of respective parties.

Even when it came to the resignation of MPs from the Lok Sabha to protest against the Centre’s indifference to the happenings in Maharashtra, the JD(U) went ahead with its decision without waiting for the BJP or other constituents of NDA to follow suit, Nitish said.

Taking a dig on the RJD supremo and railway minister Nitish said he does not need any certificate from Lalu to prove his secular credentials. “It is known to one and all who had protected the perpetrators of communal riots in Bhagalpur by giving them important posts in the party”, he added. The NDA government in Bihar reopened the cases pertaining to the worst ever communal riots in the state and after reinvestigation of cases, the main culprits were sent to jail, he said.

Nitish also made provision to pay regular pension to all widows and disabled victims of the riots. The state government was also working for return of properties to the victims from which they were disposed of either by force or by making distress sale in the aftermath of the riots.

New Delhi, November 17
The VHP and the BJP have simultaneously charged the Maharashtra ATS, investigating the Malegaon blasts of aiding Pakistan by trying to pin the blame of blasts in Samjhauta Express, in 2007 on Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Swami Amritanand.

The two held separate press conferences with a single objective of charging the ATS with working against the national interest by shifting the blame of the Samjhauta Express blasts from Pakistan to the “Sadhus and the Indian Army,” said VHP general secretary Praveen Togadia here today.

He said, “Mumbai ATS forgets that three are other state departments, central government foreign affairs departments and many others who have investigated earlier blasts like the Samjhuata Express or the Hyderabad blasts have certain conclusions, based on which the Government of India had sent proof of Pak hand in those terror blasts.”

He said, “Now the Government of India has to decide if they want to face international shame withdrawing true letter sent to Pakistan.”

In a similar vein BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said, “The BJP charges the Congress of directing and misusing the ATS probe in Maharashtra for its selfish political benefit.”

He charged the government of “deliberate attempts to malign the sadhus and the Indian Army,” adding, “Never earlier such misuse of the police machinery” has taken place.”

While the BJP has merely criticised the UPA government, the VHP has threatened to launch a nationwide “militant agitation” to fight the government if the ATS is not restrained against the sadhus, sants and the Indian security forces.”

Meanwhile, the CPM has condemned the BJP and the Hindutva parties for trying to shield the accused in the Malegaon blasts.

A statement issued by the CPM Politburo said here today, “The BJP is making a dangerous argument that no person affiliated to the Hindutva organisations can be investigated for terrorist offences. This has blown the BJP’s stance against terrorism and exposed its rabid communal outlook.”

Guwahati, November 17
She hit the headlines last year for all the wrong reasons while participating in a road show organised by leaders of her community. Today, she has recovered from her trauma to fight back against those who had disgraced her.

The young Adivasi woman from non-descript Jopoubari village in Sonitpur district of North Assam, Lakshmi Orang was stripped, terrorised and assaulted in board daylight on the street of Guwahati by a mob during a rally of the Adivasi tribe on November 24 last year. The incident shocked the entire nation.

Still, the ignominy she had to face in full view of the public was not enough to earn the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to her Adivasi brethren in the state.

Lakshmi Orang has now decided to put behind the tragedy, and plunge into active politics. She now aspires to be a Member of Parliament and take the long-standing fight of her community to the highest forum of our democracy.

She has become a member of the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF), the conglomerate of minority political groups in Assam and led by perfume mogul, Badaruddin Ajmal. She sought a ticket to contest the next parliamentary polls as the party candidate from the Tezpur Lok Sabha seat that is now being represented by controversy shrouded Congress MP Mani Kumar Subba.

“Lakshmi became the member of the party two weeks back and sought a party nomination to contest the Lok Sabha polls from the Tezpur constituency. The concerned district committee of the party has already recommended her name as the prospective party nominee after getting the green signal from the top party leadership.

We will scan her candidature in appropriate time and gauge her acceptability among the people. She is most likely to be nominated in absence of a more suitable candidate,” said H.R.A. Choudhuri, the working president of the AUDF.

The ADF leader claimed that Lakshmi was drawn to the AUDF for the reason that it was the only political party in the state that really stood by her during her days of distress after the tragedy had befallen her.

New Delhi, November 17
With the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) giving the go-ahead to New Delhi to undertake nuclear commerce, Russia is all set to sign an agreement with India for setting up four more reactors at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s maiden official visit to India in the first week of December.

The agreement for four additional reactors was earlier expected to be signed in November last year when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had visited Moscow for the India-Russia annual summit. However, the Russian side showed its reluctance to ink the accord in the absence of a clean NSG waiver for India to do nuclear trade.

Confirming that India and Russia were set to expand their nuclear cooperation, foreign secretary Shiv Shanker Menon today said the two countries were determined to deepen their ties in a change international scenario. “We hope to expand civil nuclear cooperation. All the formalities are done,” he said at a seminar on India-Russia relations, organised by the Observer Research Foundation.

Official sources said the summit between Manmohan Singh and Medvedev would provide an opportunity to the two leaders to establish a personal rapport between them.

Meanwhile, Russian ambassador to India Vyacheslav Trubnikov, confirmed to the media at a press conference, that an agreement for nuclear cooperation would be signed between the two countries during Medvedev’s visit but there were problems with regard to the acquisition of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov by India.

He said the agreement on Kudankulam would include two reactors of 1000 MW each in addition to the existing two and induction of two more with a capacity of 1200 MW each.

The Russian minister for nuclear industry would shortly be in Mumbai for talks with Indian officials dealing with nuclear matters and would also visit Kudankulam.

Bangalore, November 17
India’s space scientists have developed hydrogen fuel cells to power an automobile bus by leveraging their know-how of the home-grown cryogenic technology for rockets.

The two-year effort has yielded positive results and the scientists are now readying for the fuel cells to be fitted into a bus.

“That’s not exactly cryogenic technology... (It’s) liquid hydrogen handling and that’s where we have some expertise. So, we have finalised the design,” chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G Madhavan Nair said here.

According to ISRO’s honorary adviser V Gnana Gandhi, leading the technical team in the project, the ISRO and Tata Motors signed an MoU in 2006, to design and develop an automobile bus using hydrogen as a fuel through fuel cell route.

Nair said, “Tatas are taking the responsibility for the locomotive part of it, and hydrogen handling system also. The first protomodel has been assembled. The results are good. May be next year, it should be on the road.”

Gandhi said, “We are planning to integrate the system in the first quarter of the next year and vehicle integration in the second quarter.”

He said the hydrogen cells were a spin-off of the cryogenic technology that ISRO had been developing for the past few years. “ISRO has a very rich technology in producing, storing and handling gaseous and liquid hydrogen in the past three decades. Our expertise is also in safety. We want to develop (hydrogen fuel cells for automobiles) for India. Hydrogen is the future energy.

ISRO officials said the agency entered into a tie-up with Tata Motors because it did not have expertise in automobiles.

Gandhi said the ISRO team had generated technical specifications for all elements and general specifications for the bus, while the preliminary and detailed design review for all components and the subsystems had been completed.

The flow and thermal analysis for critical components had been carried out. Most of the components, including gaseous hydrogen and air compressors, coolant pumps, hydrogen storage system, regulating system and ejectors, had been realised. — PTI

Chandigarh, November 17
An ordnance factory employee who had expired in May was shown to be present on duty in July. In another instance an ordnance factory made salary payment to employees who had resigned and no longer on its rolls while in another case, employees where recorded as present in different locations on the same day.

These are a few examples of glitches that have plagued the electronic attendance recording system (EARS) installed by government-owned ordnance factories in their premises across the country.

Substantive testing has revealed that EARS continues to be an ineffective system to the extent that not only back end manipulation of data is allowed, but irregular salary and overtime payments have been made to employees. Also, the business logic of EARS was not found fully complying with the Factories Act.

The Ordnance Factory Board had planned for the implementation of EARS way back in 1990, but little progress could be made over the next 15 years. Finally, a decision was taken in July 2004 to implement the system in all ordnance factories by the end of the year. The procurement of EARS itself was delayed and there were additional delays in commissioning the system against the schedule chalked out.

The system has still not been made fully operational in all factories and is lacking integration with production planning and control software in all factories, which was one of the objectives while planning for EARS.

Further audit documents revealed huge variation in costs of procurement of different hardware items by different factories. While the total EARS system was procured by the Medak factory for Rs 168 lakh, the factory at Itarsi spent as little as Rs 21 lakh. A biometric reader, for example, was procured by the Rifle Factory for Rs 78,000 while a factory at Kanpur another got it for just Rs 11,292, A server cost the factory at Ambernath a whooping Rs 1,85,000 while the Dumdum factory spent just Rs 47,000.

There have also been instances in some factories where EARS generated reports, which did not confirm to the rules and regulation of factories, revealing lack of application control in EARS. In some cases EARS software as well as the wage roll package did not have any control mechanism to restrict overtime payment to workers.

New Delhi, November 17
The Supreme Court today vacated the Rajasthan High Court stay on the implementation of the Bhamasha insurance scheme for the empowerment of poor women and allowed the state government to go ahead with it, adhering to the restrictions imposed by the Election Commission in view of the assembly polls.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and P. Sathasivam passed the order on a petition filed by the state government.

The Election Commission had restrained the state, till the completion of the election, from transferring the sanctioned amount to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries who had already been selected and from issuing smart cards to them. The HC, however, stayed the entire scheme.

The scheme envisaged providing an incentive of Rs 1,500 to each BPL family, besides a medical insurance cover to the tune of Rs 30,000 each. Under the scheme, a bank account would be opened in the name of a woman member of a BPL family with biometrically identifiable smart cards for which Rs 150 crore has been allocated.

OBC QUOTA: The Bench asked the Centre to file an affidavit on the problems it was facing in passing on the unfilled OBC quota seats in central educational institutions such as IITs and IIMs to the general category.

DATA BASE: Disposing of a PIL, the Bench asked the government to consider a plea for maintenance of a centralised National Data Base System for all citizens. Appearing in person, the petitioner, Gurbinder Singh from Delhi, contended that the government was issuing 35 types smart cards at present, including voter I-cards, incurring a huge expenditure of Rs 50,000 crore, while the centralised scheme would cost just 4 per cent of this (Rs 2,000 crore).

CONTEMPT: The court dropped contempt proceedings against Kerala Minister and CPM leader Paloli Mohammed Kutty after he clarified and apologised for his reported statement that courts were giving judgments weighed against currency notes. The minister clarified that he was merely referring to the exorbitant fees charged by lawyers.

New Delhi, November 17
Emphasising upon the need to modernise the state police force and to adopt international technology to fight against terrorist activities, Sriprakash Jaiswal, union minister of state for home, today assured a gathering of industrialists that they need not be nervous as terror strikes in the country’s commercial hubs would not affect their economic prospects or the country’s economy.

Jaiswal was speaking on the national and regional security at the India economic summit, 2008, organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the CII.

He said the government had already decided to set up an inter-state joint task force to facilitate coordinated and synergised anti-naxalite operations across state boundaries and strengthen intelligence network for this.

The key challenge was to rehabilitate states like Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orrisa which were affected by naxalite activities, he added.

Rejecting a view that India had failed to tackle terror, Shekhar Dutt, deputy national security adviser, said security issues were uppermost in the minds of state and Central authorities.

“The approach has to be negotiation and dialogue,” he said, and suggested better sharing of information and communication between the Centre and the states.

Responding to a question whether there were loopholes in existing laws that resulted in low rate of conviction, he said a lot of evidence was needed before someone was convicted. Dutt said there was no unwillingness on the part of states to cooperate and added that despite the country’s federal structure, the Maharashtra’s anti-terror squad (ATS) had been going to other states to collect evidence on the Malegaon blast case.

During the discussion, speakers expressed concern over some recent terror strikes in the country and felt unrest was spreading from the north east and Kashmir to commercial hubs.

Looking at the worsening situation in Afghanistan, Dutt said, “Violent incidents have risen by 30 per cent this year in Afghanistan. The situation on the ground has deteriorated and militancy has resurged. This has had a global impact and co-ordinated efforts must be put in place to tackle this problem.”

Jack Leslie, chairman, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, USA, said that new technologies should be adapted to engage the staggering young population of India so that they don't get diverted into terrorist activities.

BRIEFLY

Air exercises with China
NAGPUR: Chief of Air Staff (CAS) Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major on Monday said the Indian Air Force (IAF) would soon have joint exercises with its Chinese counterpart, the first of its kind ever. The Air Chief Marshal said the joint exercises could be held “a year or two later”. “During my recent visit to China, I had discussions with my Chinese counterpart there and also with their minister of defence. We explored the possibility of exercising together. — UNI