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with general election 2014 only a few months away...
Assembly polls to decide mood in Parliament
Advani sees no hope in AAP
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AAP a threat to Maya’s jumbo
Cong’s regional big guns woo Delhi
Pak MFN status to India likely after LS elections
JuD opposes proposed construction of wall along LoC
Don't aggravate border trouble: China to India
gujarat riots
Centre to probe misuse of state machinery: Shinde
No proposal for PM’s visit to Jaffna soon
Pesticides have taken away sparrows, says study
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with general election 2014 only a few months away...  Voters seal fate of 2,050 candidates Jaisalmer records highest turnout at 85.52% followed by Hanumangarh, Sriganganagar Girja Shankar Kaura Tribune News Service
Jaipur, December 1 As the state saw a record turnout of 74.38 per cent polling, Rajasthan witnessed one of the toughest electoral battles. In five years since 2008 Assembly elections in the state, there has been more than 100 per cent increase in the number of first-time voters in the state. Of the 200 Assembly seats, polling has been adjourned in Churu constituency to December 13 following the death of a BSP candidate. There are 166 women and one eunuch candidate contesting the polls. Not much has although been said over the past few weeks in the campaigning here about the schemes started by Gehlot, but there is a strong feeling of lack of development in some areas and the state government’s inability to control the rising prices and crime in state. As the polling ended, both Gehlot and Raje claimed victory for the Congress and the BJP respectively. Gehlot predicted a one-sided victory for the Congress in Rajasthan Assembly polls as the party government had carried out development work on a large scale in the past five years. He claimed that there was no Modi or Raje wave in the state. On the other hand Raje also predicted a one-sided victory for the BJP, claiming her development plank had forced the voters to come out in large numbers and cast their ballot to throw out the Gehlot-led Congress government which has failed to carry out development all across the state in its five years at the helm of affairs. “People want to get rid of the Congress and are hungry for development. I am confident the BJP will come to power,” she said. Gehlot is contesting from his home turf of Sardarpura seat in Jodhpur district against BJP’s Rajput candidate Shambhu Singh Khetasar while Congress’ woman NSUI leader and former MLA Meenakshi Chandrawat is contesting against Raje from the Jhalarapatan seat in Jhalawar district. Voting was largely peaceful barring stray incidents of clashes between rival political activists. The police fired in the air at some places and used batons to break up the mobs. Clashes were reported from Dausa, Kekri, Sawai Madhopur, Thana Gaji and some other places. In 2008, Rajasthan recorded 66.25 percent voting. Against 6.71 lakh first-time voters in 2008 elections, there are 16.51 lakh first-time voters this time, an increase of 9.8 lakh electorate. The Congress and the BJP are contesting in all the seats while the National People’s Party (NPP), led by Meena community leader Kirori Lal Meena, has put up candidates in 150 and the BSP in over 100 seats. According to Election Commission officials here, the frontier district of Jaisalmer, with the lowest population density in the state, registered the highest turnout at 85.52 per cent. This was followed by the two districts of northern Rajasthan, Hanumangarh at 85.40 per cent and Sriganganagar, another border district, at 84.06 per cent. Jalore (82 per cent) and Chittorgarh (80.77 per cent) stood 4th and 5th respectively. The lowest turnout, at 61.91 per cent, was registered in Sirohi, which was among the only five districts to have under-70 per cent turnout, including Pali (66.21 per cent), Sawaimadhopur (68.63 per cent), Sikar (69.53 per cent) and Karauli (69.89 per cent).
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Assembly polls to decide mood in Parliament
New Delhi, December 1 On Sunday, the December 8 results of the Assembly elections to the five states of
Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan will be declared and from Monday alignments across the landscape would be starting to appear. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath has convened a meeting of political parties ahead of the session on Monday evening that would give the government a sense of issues that the Opposition would like to focus on as also outline the priority of the UPA in what should be the last major legislative session. Although the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha will be the Budget session starting February, it will be primarily to take a vote-on-account that will allow the government to draw from the treasury beyond March 31 as the House awaits a new government to present a full-fledged budget after the general election. A Congress leader told The Tribune that the AK Antony Committee tasked with the subject of alliance by the party is expected to start preliminary work only after the results of the elections are out. The Congress-led UPA at present has just two major allies in the Nationalist Congress Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh. There are indications of the Congress keepings its channels of communication open with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil
Nadu, while in Andhra Pradesh, the party is banking on the Telengana Rashtra Samiti and the YSR Congress to be on its side, even though its chief Jagan Mohan Reddy is hobnobbing with parties outside the Congress fold. In Bihar, the Janata Dal (United) has not yet given any clear signals of either seat-adjustment or alliance with the Congress. On the contrary, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and
JD(U) president Sharad Yadav attended the Left-sponsored anti-communal convention. Will the Congress join hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Lok Janshakti Party as it did in 2004? There is no clarity as the leader said discussions would intensify closer to the polls.
Winter session from Thursday
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Advani sees no hope in AAP
New Delhi, December 1 Making an all-out attack against the Congress, Modi accused the Delhi government of “complete failure” in addressing any of the major problems despite being at the helm of affairs for a decade-and-a-half. Addressing an election meeting in south Delhi, he urged the people not to let go of the opportunity to defeat the ruling party, saying: “I am appealing to you not to leave the opportunity to oust the Congress government.” Meanwhile, BJP veteran Advani dismissed the prospects of the AAP in the Delhi Assembly elections. When asked about the challenge posed by Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit, Advani said: “Though we could not have a two-party system in India, we (BJP) have ended single party dominance in the country and changed it into a bipolar polity. But there is no place for a third party here”. The senior leader also attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying that he could not be counted out among those responsible for the slew of scams, from Commonwealth Games scandal to Coalgate, during the UPA regime. Advani also targeted UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi saying that since PM did not do anything without her consent and permission, she was “equally culpable in the scams.
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AAP a threat to Maya’s jumbo
New Delhi, December 1 Apparently, it is not just the Congress and the BJP who are feeling the heat of the AAP. The BSP is in the same boat and one of the reasons appears to be AAP poll symbol “jharu” (broom). The “jharu”, it seems, has managed to enthuse a significant number of Mayawati’s dedicated vote bank, dalits and the poor, living in slums and resettlement colonies of Delhi. Notably, the BSP was the third largest party in the last Delhi Assembly Election with a 14.05 per cent vote share. In 2003, it polled around 8 per cent and in the term before that around 4 per cent. Even though only two of its candidates managed to make it to the Assembly in 2008, Mayawati hoped to improve her vote share and win more seats in 2013 because of BSP’s steady gains in the past 10 years. Though the party is contesting all the 70 seats, indications are that the BSP may lose some of its dedicated voters to the Kejriwal’s party this time. An indicator of this is perceptible lack of enthusiasm at the BSP rallies. For example, today’s Dwarka rally in Sector-1 ground appeared well-attended. However, the number of chartered buses lining the road leading to the venue clearly indicated that most of audience had been ferried to fill in the space. Mayawati followed her usual routine as she attacked the UPA government saying that its “wrong policies” had lead to rise in the prices of essential commodities in the country which has hit the country's poor and middle class hard. She also urged people not to vote for either the Congress or the BJP, as their governments had “failed to improve” the social and economic situation of the weaker sections and minorities. But the ground situation appears far from 2008 when she was giving sleepless nights to both the BJP and the Congress. In fact, the two parties appear more concerned about AAP than they are about the BSP. Most of their calculations are based on the AAP in mind. “If an AAP candidate polls 4,000 votes, it will be a BJP loss. If he or she polls more than 4,000, it will be a Congress loss,” explains a Congress leader. So far as the 14% votes that the blue elephant polled in 2008, political pundits predict a dip. They say in 2008 while 50 to 60 per cent of the BSP vote belonged to the party, the remaining was polled by the candidate. Mayawati has erred in candidate selection in a major way this time, meaning candidate’s individual vote may split among others. While the 2008 BSP MLA Ram Singh (Badarpur) had switched over to the Congress, his colleague Surender Kumar (Gokulpur) was not given a ticket this time. What is also working against the BSP is the fact that Mayawati is no longer in power in UP and therefore has been unable to mobilise resources in Delhi.
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Cong’s regional big guns woo Delhi
New Delhi, December 1 In order to woo the denizens of Delhi to vote for the Congress once again, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda addressed a series of rallies in all corners of the city while former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and the Punjab Pradesh Congress Chief Partap Singh Bajwa too lent their weight to the campaign. The tone and tenor of the speeches was to impress upon the voters the development work put in by the Shiela Dikshit-led Congress Government over the past 15 years which they said pales in comparison to alternate model of governance at work in Punjab. Amarinder Singh, Hooda and Bajwa were the Congress answer to the BJP that roped in Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh, speaking in favour of the BJP-SAD candidates in the fray here. Amarinder Singh and Hooda shared the dais at a public meeting in Wazirpur Assembly constituency's Ashok Vihar, where they tried to ensure the victory of local MLA Hari Shankar Gupta by taking promise of the audience to vote and support the Congress. Reacting to television channels predicting BJP's possibility of coming up as single majority, Hooda said the BJP was throwing money to fund such surveys. "We are using money on roads and infrastructure, so they are shining. The BJP is throwing money for media, so they are shining on TV channels," he added. Bajwa, addressing a series of meetings in Kalkaji Assembly constituency, cautioned the people of Delhi against the alliance of SAD-BJP, which he termed as 'opportunistic' and appealed the voters to vote for the Congress. "The people of Punjab had seen enough of the SAD-BJP alliance which is responsible for denting the image of developed state of India. They have created such a mess that it would take decades to recover Punjab from the debt trap, unemployment, rule of mafia and lawlessness. The Congress, on other side, had made Delhi a clean and green city in the last 15 years," he said.
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Pak MFN status to India likely after LS elections
New Delhi, December 1 "Our impression is that Pakistan is committed to according the MFN status to India sooner rather than later because the move will be a game-changer in India-Pakistan trade and economic relations," according to SM
Muneer, president of the India-Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry. He said there was no question of Pakistan reconsidering such a step should a
BJP-led formation formed government in India. "In fact, India and Pakistan had the best of political and economic relations when Vajpayee was the PMof India," he added.
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JuD opposes proposed construction of wall along LoC
Lahore, December 1 The Defia-e-Pakistan Council (Defence of Pakistan Council) is a platform of 30 religious and political parties led by the JuD. “PM Nawaz Sharif should protect the borders of both west and east,” Saeed said. — PTI
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Don't aggravate border trouble: China to India
New Delhi/Shanghai, December 1 The two countries, which fought a brief border war in 1962, only last month signed a pact to ensure that differences on the border do not spark a confrontation. But Pranab's visit to Arunachal Pradesh in the remote eastern stretch of the Himalayas that China claims as its own provoked a fresh exchange of words. "We hope that India will proceed along with China, protecting our broad relationship, and will not take any measures that could complicate the problem, and together we can protect peace and security in the border regions," China's official news agency,
Xinhua, quoted Qin Gang, a spokesman of the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as saying. China has of late grown increasingly assertive and questioned New Delhi's claims over
Arunachal, calling it instead South Tibet. Mukherjee told members of the Assembly it was "a core stakeholder in India's Look East foreign policy" that intends to link the country's northeast with South East Asia. "We seek to make our neighbours partners in our development," Mukherjee said in
Itanagar. "We believe that India's future and our own best economic interests are served by closer integration with Asia," Pranab said. China lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) disputed by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas, while India says China occupies 38,000 square km of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west. — Reuters
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Order on Zakia’s plea likely today
Ahmedabad, December 1 The pronouncement of order was deferred on October 28 for tomorrow after arguments on Jafri's petition by her lawyers and SIT's counsel had continued for five months before metropolitan magistrate B J Ganatra. After completion of arguments, Jafri's lawyer handed over written submissions to the court on September 18 while SIT filed its written submissions on September 30. Magistrate Ganatra had then said he would pronounce the order on October 28. But on October 28, the magistrate deferred pronouncement of order for December 2. Jafri’s husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was among 69 persons killed in the Gulbarg society massacre here during the 2002 post-Godhra riots. — PTI
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snooping row
Mumbai/New Delhi, December 1 The illegal surveillance on the woman architect, allegedly by the Gujarat Police was apparently in violation of phone tapping rules as it was reportedly carried out without the mandatory permission from the Centre when she went out of the state. Asked if Modi should face prosecution for alleged misuse of state machinery, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said “inquiry will be conducted into all this and decision will be taken”. “Union and State Home Secretaries have been authorised to take action against (illegal) snooping,” he said in Mumbai. BJP sources said the party would not like to respond to Shinde’s remark for the moment. Sources said a state Home Secretary is empowered to order phone tapping of a person within the state but when the surveillance is carried out in multiple states, permission of the Union Home Secretary is mandatory. The Gujarat Police seems to have tapped the telephone of the woman when she was even in Maharashtra and Karnataka, besides Gujarat, without taking any authorisation from Union Home Secretary, the sources said. The Gujarat Government has constituted an inquiry committee headed by a retired judge of the Gujarat High Court. — PTI
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No proposal for PM’s visit to Jaffna soon
New Delhi, December 1 Asked for reaction to Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s indication that the Prime Minister could visit Jaffna, a source said the Union Minister’s comment was more in the nature of a political comment. “You must take note of the event at which the Finance Minister made the statement,” the source said, referring to the fact that Chidambaram was speaking at a conference on “Sri Lankan Tamils’ right to livelihood and India’s stand” in Chennai. At the same time, the source pointed out that the invitation to the Prime Minister from the Chief Minister of Northern Province was on the table. But the sense in the official circles is that it would be a “diplomatic disaster” if the Prime Minister were to go to Jaffna at the invitation of a Chief Minister while ignoring President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s invite for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held last month. “It will be an insult to any sovereign nation…. How will we feel if the Chinese President or Premier were to ignore the Indian Government’s invitation and accept an invite from the Chief Minister of a state,” an official said.
Lanka tangle
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Pesticides have taken away sparrows, says study
Yamunanagar, December 1 These results have been established by a study undertaken by Dr Rajiv Kalsi, Associate Professor, Department of Zoology, Mukand Lal National College, Yamunanagar. A three-year project (2010-2013) titled "Comparative Ecology of House Sparrow in Rural and Urban landscape in district Yamunanagar" was funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The research, which concluded in the last week of November, was carried out at various locations of Yamunanagar district and parts of Ambala, Kurukshetra, Panipat and
Karnal districts. "There is no significant effect of electromagnetic radiations on the distribution and dispersal of
house sparrows," said Dr Rajiv Kalsi. The study reveals that the number of insects is decreasing due to high use of pesticides. This in turn reduces the availability of food for sparrows, especially their young ones. Besides, lesser availability of nesting cavities due to the changing pattern in the construction of houses - with more and more buildings having roofs with concrete lintels - is also one of the major reasons of the decline in the population of house sparrows. Dr Kalsi said, “The population of house sparrows is negligible in urban areas.” He said 335 natural nests and 100 artificial nest boxes had been monitored in the study area. The clutch size in house sparrows varied from four to five eggs and the incubation period from 14 to 18 days. The house sparrows had readily accepted the artificial nest boxes and sometimes nested for two to three times in them in one breeding season, he said. "House sparrows were usually encountered in rural areas of the district with a greater probability in areas with houses which had thatched roofs or roofs with wooden poles. Such roofs provide birds with ample cavities to make their nests. In the non-breeding season too, the sparrows preferred to remain in the rural areas, where they could easily get food in the form of seeds and insects," said Dr Kalsi. The study stated that 500 adult and nesting house sparrows had been marked with unique combinations of coloured rings to facilitate individual identification and monitoring. The intensive study areas, where birds were marked and released, were surveyed and those sighted again were identified.
The findings
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Cong rubbishes BJP claim
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Senior BJP leaders LK Advani and Narendra Modi today led the attack against Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Admi Party and the
Congress.
New Delhi, December 1
With just 24 hours left for close of campaigning for the Delhi Assembly elections, the Congress today fielded top guns from neighboring Punjab and Haryana addressing rallies across the city.
The Centre today said it would inquire into alleged misuse of state machinery in Gujarat in the wake of alleged “snooping” on a woman from the state allegedly at the behest of Amit Shah, a close aide of BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Contrary to the popular notion that radiations from mobile towers are the biggest enemy of house sparrows, the species is rather being pushed towards extinction by large-scale use of pesticides.
Nitish reaches out to migrants