Thursday, August 26, 1999
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Bellary voter unaware of
Sonia’s origin BELLARY, Aug 25 — while BJP leader Sushma Swaraj is seeking to turn the Lok Sabha contest here into a fight between “deshi” and “videshi” many voters in this backward area of Karnataka are not even aware of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. BJP equates Cong with Pak
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Pak refusing to identify PoWs NEW DELHI, Aug 25 — India today accused Pakistan of creating complications for repatriation of their own soldiers saying Islamabad refuses to confirm their identity.
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BJP steals Cong thunder NEW DELHI, Aug 25 - Alarmed at a simultaneous reply by a BJP-friendly organisation to a Congress poser through a prominent advertisement in leading dailies today, the party’s campaign managers have launched a major exercise to zero in on the moles. Reconsider step, RJD
urges CPI Company
Secretaries exam results 7-party
front to ‘contest’ Bihar poll Nitish
Kumar to contest from Barh Sonia
Gandhi on Internet Class
IV staff go on leave en masse President
greets people on Raksha Bandhan Yashpal
Sharma’s plea to PM |
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Bellary voter unaware of Sonia’s origin BELLARY, Aug 25 (PTI) — while BJP leader Sushma Swaraj is seeking to turn the Lok Sabha contest here into a fight between “deshi” and “videshi” many voters in this backward area of Karnataka are not even aware of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. Ms Swaraj at her public meetings emphasises that Mrs Gandhi is a woman of foreign origin and it is a fight between “swedeshi (native)” and “videshi (person of foreign origin)” but many voters this correspondent spoke to are not aware that the Congress president has Italian origin. For quite a few of them it is the name of the Gandhi family that matters. When asked, someone, “Sonia Gandhi is Indira Gandhi”. Venkata Rao of a village under Siriouppa Assembly segment said, “I have not heard the name of Sonia Gandhi”. While 27-year-old Manjunatha said his family always voted for the Congress. “It is because of Indiramma (Indira Gandhi) that my sister and my aunt (who are government servants) are getting their salaries,” he said. In another village, 38-year-old Kannappa says there is nothing wrong in electing Sonia Gandhi. “So what if she has Italian origin. She is here for a long time, is she not,” he asks. In Shanavasapura village, 35-year-old Manoalapoura is furious. “We have problems regarding toilets, drinking water and power supply. Nobody seems to bother. I am not going to vote in this election. It is not going to make any difference”. In his observations, retired teacher Menasinkar says, “It seems that Sushma has an edge now. She is swadeshi. There is the question of swadeshi-videshi. However, the issue of her (Gandhi having Italian origin has not totally sunk in the minds of voters”. A bus driver in Bellary says the fact that the Congress has never lost a Lok Sabha election from the district does not mean that it will emerge victorious this time also. “The situation cannot remain the same. It has to change,” he says. According to Deputy Commissioner and Returning Officer, Rajkamal, the literacy rate in Bellary has come from 35 per cent in 1991 to about 55 per cent following the total literacy programme. Basically a dry area,
Bellary — one of the most backward districts of
Karnataka — records an annual rainfall of
approximately 600 mm only, official sources said. |
BJP equates Cong with Pak
Oppn NEW DELHI, Aug 25 — The Bharatiya Janata Party today criticised the Congress stand of portraying India’s victory in the Kargil conflict as a “defeat”. “The breast-beating of the Congress leadership is akin to the breast-beating of the Opposition parties in Pakistan which actually lost the war”, the BJP spokesperson, Mr M Venkaiah Naidu, told newspersons here today. Stating that the soldiers fighting under trying conditions recovered the territory captured by the intruders in the Kargil sector, Mr Naidu said the Congress party’s policies had resulted in the loss of 3,781 soldiers and loss of 1,21,100 square km during the 1947-48 Kashmir conflict, 1962 Chinese aggression and the IPKF operations. “Did the country win during those times when the Congress was at the helm of the affairs,” Mr Naidu asked. The BJP also pointed out the contradictory stand of the Congress regarding Pokhran II. The Congress Working Committee on June 23, 1998, had stated that “while Pokhran tests had established our weapons capability, weaponisation of armed forces remains to be done. This has to be done keeping in view national security and economic considerations.” Mr Naidu said “the Congress which had demanded weaponisation following the Pokhran tests, has now criticised the very tests. If the Congress actually believed in 1998 that nuclear weapons are in the interest of national security and economic consideration, then criticising the tests in 1999 amounts to working against national security and economic considerations.” The party spokespersons said the Congress government “buckled under pressure” from the West and called off the nuclear tests in 1983. Mr Naidu clarified that Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, did not address any election rally in Thiruvananthapuram on August 21, as alleged by the Congress. While transiting through Thiruvananthapuram, Mr Vajpayee, told media persons that “they (Ram Mandir, Article 370, uniform civil code) are no longer part of our manifesto or the allies’ programme. The BJP has not come out with its own manifesto. We (NDA) decided on a common manifesto and the manifesto contains only those issues on which there is agreement.” When asked to clarify
whether Ram Mandir, Article 370 and uniform civil code,
were part of the BJP’s agenda, Mr Naidu said
“what has been agreed has been stated in the NDA
manifesto. The BJP will not force anything on its allies
without evolving a consensus with the allies.” |
Pak refusing to identify
PoWs NEW DELHI, Aug 25 — India today accused Pakistan of creating complications for repatriation of their own soldiers saying Islamabad refuses to confirm their identity. Responding to a question, the spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr R.S. Jassal said while “it is the universal practice for the identity of the PoWs to be acknowledged and confirmed by the receiving country before the handing over takes place, Pakistan is refusing to do this and insisting on describing the PoWs generally as ‘soldiers in Indian custody’”. “Pakistan has adamantly refused to acknowledge the involvement of their troops in the Kargil misadventure, despite conferring awards on many of their soldiers and honouring them for their involvement in Kargil”, Mr Jassal said adding that Islamabad hopes that by continuing to refuse to accept the status of these eight soldiers as Prisoners of War, they can continue to perpetrate the myth of non-involvement of their regular troops in Kargil. “It is this obsession with falsehood which is preventing the return of their PoWs”, the spokesman said clarifying that under the Geneva Convention, all soldiers of one state taken in custody by the troops of another state during an armed conflict are termed as Prisoners of War. “No formal declaration of war is necessary. Pakistan is deliberately attempting to obfuscate this reality”, the spokesman pointed out. These Pakistani PoWs were part of the Pakistani troops who had intruded into the Indian side of the Line of Control in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir during Pakistan’s recent armed intrusion and aggression in this area, the spokesman said adding that “they were captured by our troops during the course of our operations to evict the intrusion”. “These PoWs were not in uniform and nor did they have on their person the customary identification tags or discs. In spite of this blatant breach of military custom and international convention, India has in a gesture of goodwill, treated them as PoWs and approached the ICRC for their repatriation to Pakistan”. “Their names and identification as declared by them has been made known. We have made all these available facts and information known to the Pakistan Government,” the spokesman said. The offer to repatriate
these soldiers was conveyed to Pakistan on August 13.
Thereafter, in keeping with international practice, India
approached the ICRC to effect the repatriation of these
PoWs, the spokesman said adding that it was reprehensible
on the part of Pakistan to create complications for the
repatriation of their own soldiers. |
Notices issued to 86 public schools NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (UNI) — The Delhi High Court today issued show-cause notices to 86 public schools in the Capital on a contempt petition alleging that the educational institutions had violated court directives of not hiking fee beyond 40 per cent between April 1997 and March 1999. Among the prominent
schools which have been issued contempt notices are:
Ahlcon Public School, Apeejay School, Army Public School,
ASN Sr. Secondary Public School, several schools of the
DAV group, Bal Bharti Public School, Birla Vidya Niketan,
Cambridge foundation, three branches of Delhi Public
Schools, Greenfield Public School, Mater Dei School,
Modern Schools, Barakhamba Road and Vasant Vihar, Oxford
Public School, Ramjas Public School, Summer Ville School,
three branches of Spring Dales School, Summerfields
School and two schools of the St Xavier group. |
BJP steals Cong thunder NEW DELHI, Aug 25 - Alarmed at a simultaneous reply by a BJP-friendly organisation to a Congress poser through a prominent advertisement in leading dailies today, the party’s campaign managers have launched a major exercise to zero in on the moles. The AICC today inserted an advertisement questioning the Atal Behari Vajpayee caretaker Government :"If Pokharan II was a deterrent, why was there a Kargil war? and went on to raise issues related to it. The party which hoped the reply would come in due course, got a shock when it appeared simultaneously today in some dailies along with the Congress insertion. The reply was designed in similar typestyle and gave a point by point rebuttal. The advertisement was inserted by an organisation, Lok Abhiyan, which operates from the official residence of Mr Vijay Goel, the BJP candidate from Chandini Chowk Parliamentary Constituency in New Delhi. This was the second time that the Congress Campaign Committee was confronted with such a situation, the first being the when the party launched its offensive in the print media on August 14. On that occasion too the reply came simultaneously. However, the Congress ignored that incident even though it suspected the BJP of spying on it. What set alarm bells in the party ringing was the manner in which the BJP got to know of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s ‘secret’ plan to file her nomination from Bellary. The advertisement goof-up has only added to its misery. The Congress Campaign Committee today held an emergency meeting to find out from where the possible leak took place and also asked the agencies handling the insertions to do a thorough system check. ‘‘There could be moles anywhere. We have asked all concerned to do a thorough check,’’ a senior official of the Congress Campaign Committee said today. The Congress has hired three agencies to carry out its campaign — Madison, Sony and Concept — through which these advertisements are being canalised to newspapers. Today’s reply by
Lok Abhiyan was not only matching in content but appeared
strikingly similar in design and style. |
Reconsider step, RJD urges CPI NEW DELHI, Aug 25 — The RJD today asked the CPI to not to pull out of the poll pact it had with the party in Bihar and said that it (RJD) was hopeful that a compromise could be reached on the issue of seat sharing. Talking to newsmen here
today senior RJD leader and former union minister
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said: “ We appeal to the CPI
to keep the alliance intact for making it possible to
defeat communal forces in the state”. “An
understanding has to be worked out properly and we are
hopeful that a compromise could be arrived at”, he
added. The CPI yesterday gave enough indications of
moving out of the poll pact by announcing its candidates
for nine Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar. The decision
went against the offer of three seats made by RJD leader
Laloo Prasad Yadav to the party. |
Company Secretaries exam results NEW DELHI, Aug 25 — The results of the Company Secretaries Examinations held in June were declared here today and were released to all the regional and chapter offices of the institute and superintendents of examination centres throughout the country for information of students and the general public. The results are also available on the internet at the website - WWW.ICSI.INDIA.COM. The break-up of marks will be available at the website from August 29. The next examinations of
company secretaryship for foundation course, intermediate
and final will be held from December 26 to January 2. The
last date for receipt of enrolment applications is
September 27, says a press release. |
7-party front to ‘contest’ Bihar poll NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (PTI) — Bharatiya Jan Congress leader Jagannath Mishra today said a seven-party front would contest the coming poll in Bihar with the sole aim of “rescuing” the state from RJD “misrule”. “Talks are on with the leadership of six secular parties, including the Janata Dal (S), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the CPI,” Dr Mishra told reporters here. He said among others Mr
H.D. Deve Gowda, Mr Sharad Pawar and Mr Mulayam Singh
Yadav had been contacted and “all have agreed in
principle to fight the corrupt and inefficient
RJD-Congress combine”. |
Nitish Kumar to contest from Barh NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (UNI) — The Janata Dal (United) steering committee today decided to field Defence Minister George Fernandes from Nalanda and Nitish Kumar from Barh while party president Sharad Yadav will contest from Madhepura. The Samata Party candidates would contest on the arrow symbol allotted to the JD (U) in the 25 constituencies allocated to the party by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). This was stated by a party general secretary Mohan Prakash and his Samata Party counterpart Jaya Jaitly here while releasing a list of 24 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Manipur and Lakshadweep. Senior party leader Ramvilas Paswan will contest from Hajipur, Bihar Pradesh Samata Party President Raghunath Jha from Gopalganj and Devndra Prasad Yadav from Jhanjharpur. The party has fielded former union minister Capt Jai Narain Prasad Nishad a member of the dissolved house who resigned from the Rashtriya Janata Dal from Muzzaffarpur. Other members of the dissolved house securing nomination from the steering committee include Mr Mahendra Baitha, Prabhunath Singh, Brahmanand Mandal, Vishistha Narayan Singh and Sushil Kumar Singh. The party is fielding Mr Siddarth Rai, son of the late Kalpanath Rai, from Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh. The former union minister was a Samata Party member in the dissolved house, but had shifted his loyality to the Congress. The JD (U) is fielding candidates in Salempur, UP, Banswada, Rajasthan, Outer Manipur and Lakshadweep. The steering committee
also authorised Mr George Fernandes to finalise the names
in the constituencies of Vaishali, Sheohar, Balia,
Khagaria and Begusarai. |
Sonia Gandhi on Internet NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (UNI) — Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who had virtually shunned the media ever since she took over the leadership of the party, is now available to citizens for questioning on the political situation through the Internet. "Sonia Gandhi Online" developed for the Internet would enable people to question her regarding the party, her role, her views on party positions and the elections. The questions will be
answered by Mrs Gandhi and the individual concerned will
receive an e-mail with an answer in less than 24 hours
from www.soniagandhionline.com, according to a party
release. |
Class IV staff go on leave en
masse FATEHABAD, Aug 25 — Class IV employees of the local Civil Surgeon office went on mass casual leave today to press for their demands. The call had been given by the district unit of the Haryana Class IV Employees Union. Addressing the employees, Mr Ramesh Sharma, president and Mr Verender Singh Rawat, secretary of the union, said their problems had not been solved since long due to the indifferent attitude of the authorities. They warned the union would be forced to take drastic steps in case their demands were not met immediately. The class IV employees have been demanding payment of the arrears of Fifth Pay Commission, arrears of the DA instalments from 1996 till date, arrears of the house rent and medical allowances and payment of ex-gratia and other benefits to the retired employees. Meanwhile, the Haryana
Roadways Workers Union, affiliated to the Sarva
Karamchari Sangh, has expressed resentment over the
non-re-instatement of the employees and 34 nurses
dismissed during agitations. |
President greets people on Raksha Bandhan NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (PTI) — President K.R. Narayanan and Vice-President Krishan Kant today greeted the people on the eve of Raksha Bandhan. In his message, the President said: "May this festival of love, affection and mutual trust between sisters and brothers of every community strengthen the ties of fellowship amongst all the citizens of India." The Vice-President said:
"May this great festival fill our hearts and minds
with love, amity and goodwill which will endure." |
Yashpal Sharma’s plea to PM NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (PTI) — The Govt College cricket ground in Ludhiana appears to be jinxed — it has become the “rallying point” for political parties. Former Test cricketer Yashpal Sharma, a product of that ground, has sought Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s help once again, to save it from the “onslaught of political parties”. The Prime Minister, who kicked off his election campaign at this very ground on August 7, had assured the former middle-order batsman that whatever damage it might suffer would be repaired. Now, Sharma is upset
that Congress president Sonia Gandhi is scheduled to
address an election rally at the same venue today. |
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| Rape bid: probe against 3
officials DHARWAD: A departmental inquiry has been ordered into the alleged attempt by three senior Food and Civil Supplies Department officials to rape a ration shop owner’s wife here on Sunday last. Dharwad district Deputy Commissioner Vandana Gurunani said on Wednesday that she had asked the Assistant Director of Food and Civil Supplies to conduct the inquiry, though she had not received any written complaint about the incident. — UNI British Foreign office gifts books CPM activists
kidnapped Web journal on
India Noted painter
Vasudev Smart dead |
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