 |
Friday,
September 6, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
Karnataka
gets act together Veerappan
‘sends’ second cassette BJP
subjugating minorities: VP States
oppose tourism on Concurrent List Indian
team to visit USA to check sensors Babies’
death: hearing on PIL today |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
14
feared dead as boat capsizes Sonia to address poll meeting in Mandi Delhi
Govt’s relief to HP apple growers Sheila may convene
special session PM
renames SHAR after Prof Dhawan UP
employees say no to J&K poll duty CRPF
deploys 160 more companies in J&K Indo-US
military exercises in Alaska
|
|
Karnataka gets act together Bangalore, September 5 The CRA meeting and its decisions are crucial to Karnataka to bail itself out of the present situation following the September 3 Supreme Court directive to release 1.25 tmc ft water daily to Tamil Nadu till the CRA took a decision. Karnataka is making all-out efforts to plead with the Prime Minister to summon the CRA meeting, at least a day prior to Mr Vajpayee’s departure to work out a formula to share the distress situation. Karnataka Minister for Water Resources H.K. Patil told reporters here that Chief Minister S.M. Krishna, who spoke to Mr Vajpayee last night, had a talk with him again this morning. Meanwhile, Mr Patil convened a meeting of the experts committee on Cauvery to seek guidance on the water-sharing tangle and to finalise the stand to be adopted by the state at the September 7 Cauvery monitoring committee meeting. Mr Patil and Law Minister D.B. Chandregowda said the Central Water Commission had sent a set of guidelines on evolving a distress formula, but declined to elaborate. The meeting was attended by former Karnataka Chief Minister M. Veerappa Moily, Opposition BJP leader Jagadish Shettar, Janata Parivar leaders P.G.R. Sindhia, M.C. Nanaiah and former Irrigation Minister H.N. Nanjegowda and experts. Mr Sindhia and Mr Nanaiah said they suggested that at the monitoring committee meeting, state Chief Secretary A. Ravindra should argue that the distress formula be based on the existing ground realities. They said, considering the prevailing situation, the state was not in a position to accept the CWC guidelines on the distress formula. Mr Sindhia said currently the state had only 40 tmc ft of water in all four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin and in the event that the state did not receive rain, it would not be in a position to release water to Tamil Nadu hereafter. Meanwhile, vehicular traffic came to a standstill between Maddur and Mandya on the Bangalore-Mysore highway as farmers resorted to “rasta roko” in Mandya district in protest against the Supreme Court directive asking Karnataka to release 1.25 tmc ft of Cauvery waters to Tamil Nadu daily till the Cauvery River Authority met. Tension prevailed in the Cauvery belt of Mandya district and the adjoining areas with farmers squatting on roads at many places even as an all-party meeting held in Mandya rejected the Supreme Court direction. Many towns and villages, including Nagamangala, K.M. Doddi, Malavalli, Maddur and Pandavapura observed bandh today.
PTI, UNI |
|
Veerappan ‘sends’ second cassette Bangalore, September 5 Talking to mediapersons here today, Home Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said the government was checking the authenticity of the information and also about the contents of the cassette. He said according to ‘rumours’ the cassette was handed over to the family members of Mr Nagappa. “We are ascertaining who handed over the cassette”, he added. Immediately after kidnapping Janata Dal (United) leader H. Nagappa on August 25, the brigand had sent a cassette with a short message. MYSORE: Special Task Force (STF) personnel, awaiting information from Veerappan on Mr Nagappa, today continued search operations in forest areas from M M Hills to the Tamil Nadu border. STF sources said Director-General of Police V.V. Bhaskar and ADGP Subash Bharai had left for Bangalore to discuss the law and order situation in the state. Meanwhile, an associate of Veerappan, Murugesan, involved in the kidnapping of Kannada matinee idol Dr Rajkumar two years ago, surrendered before the Pennagaram court in Tamil Nadu yesterday. Dejected over the delay in Mr Nagappa’s release and lack of information from the police authorities, supporters of kidnapped minister today called for a meeting at Kollegal to intensify their agitation. The relay fast by supporters of Mr Nagappa in front of his house was suspended following a two-day strike over the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
UNI |
|
BJP subjugating minorities: VP New Delhi, September 5 “They (BJP) believe that non-Hindus cannot be assimilated and they cannot be thrown out as they are in large numbers. The only way left here is to subjugate them and for this purpose fear is an element,” Mr V.P. Singh said while deposing before the Liberhan Commission, which is probing the events that led to the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Accusing the BJP of being the largest subscriber of the two-nation theory in which Hindus and Muslims are recognised as having different identities, the former Prime Minister said: “M.A. Jinnah was the biggest exponent of this theory and now the RSS and the BJP are its biggest proponents.” Mr V.P. Singh was replying to a question by commission’s Counsel Anupam Gupta, who had sought his opinion on the analysis of Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani’s 1989 rath yatra by US scholar Richard H Davis in which he had highlighted the participation of hard-core and soft-core images within the Hindu society. The former Prime Minister said the views of the US scholar reconfirmed the basic thought of the Hindu nation that had been the foundation of the RSS and its off-shoots which called for consolidation of Hindus to save the country and those who have come from outside to pay homage to the Hindu society or be subordinate to it. He maintained that the problems with non-Hindus oscillated between three positions. First calling for outright rejection of minorities, second for assimilation, which the BJP adopted for a short time; and third, subjugation. Earlier, when told that the placing of idols at the disputed structure led to the demolition, Mr V.P. Singh said the event did give an impetus to the construction of the temple and the demolition of the mosque, besides being strengthened by the 1988
shilanyas. When advocate I.B. Singh, appearing for the then District Magistrate R.N. Srivastava and SSP
D.B. Roy, asked him what was the state of the Ayodhya problem in 1988, Mr V.P. Singh said the issue was in the air but with the
shilanyas, the temple movement got a “local address”. |
|
States oppose tourism on Concurrent List New Delhi, September 5 The other states which have not accepted the proposal are Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab and Karnataka which feel that development of tourism can be better if it remains on the state list. Tourism and Culture Minister Jagmohan told reporters after the day-long State Tourism Ministers Conference that efforts were underway to convince these states about the advantages of having tourism on the Concurrent List. Although the set of documents circulated at the conference gave details about states who still oppose this proposal, Mr Jagmohan did not make any reference to this in his address to the participants at the conference. Noting that his emphasis at the conference had been on the implementation of various programmes, Mr Jagmohan said he had made it clear that no Central help for developing tourism infrastructure would be given to those states which did not take steps to clean the environment and the area around important monuments. Mr Jagmohan claimed that domestic tourism had risen by 40 to 42 per cent in the first eight months of this year as compared to the same period last year, and the drop in foreign tourists arriving into India had also been brought down from 15 per cent to just 2 per cent in some states. The minister said the threat posed by advisories by some countries had been met adequately with tourists from those countries visiting India, stating categorically that they felt safer here than in cities like New York. The new National Tourism Policy was geared to increasing the volume of domestic tourism, he said, and noted that it provided for the establishment of a national tourism advisory council. There was also increasing emphasis on giving attention to remote, backward and rural areas and link the programmes of rural development with those providing access to sites having potential for developing tourism and culture. He noted that the total plan outlay in the 10th Five-Year Plan had been increased to Rs 2,900 crore as against Rs 525 crore in the Ninth Plan. |
|
Indian team to visit USA to check sensors New Delhi, September 5 Reports here suggested that the Indian team consisting of officials from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) would specially visit the US border along with Mexico to study the working of the sensors. The visit is likely to come about during the end of the month. The USA has successfully deployed the hi-tech ground sensors along the US-Mexico border over the past few years to check on the illegal entry from across the border. It faces maximum problem of illegal entry from Mexico and has been able to seal the US-Mexico border completely with the help of the sensors. Since India is facing similar problems along the Indo-Pak border, the USA has suggested the visit by Indian team to the US-Mexico border having already earlier cleared the sale of the hi-tech sensors to India. According to reports, after seeing the working of the sensors along the US-Mexico border, the Indian delegation is likely to visit Sandia National Laboratories to work out the details of the deployment of sensors on the Indo-Pak border. As part of the pilot project the Sandia Laboratories are expected to initially deploy the ground sensors over an area of about 2 km along the Indo-Pak border. |
|
Babies’ death: hearing on PIL today Kolkata, September 5 The petition was filed yesterday by Jaswant Rakshit, a relative of a victim’s family. The Bench will consider why a judicial probe should be conducted into the babies’ death as demanded by almost all Opposition parties. At the same time, the State Human Rights Commission will also enquire into the incident as decided at a meeting between the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Mr Justice J.S. Verma, and his state counterpart, Mr Justice Mukul Gopal Mukherjee, here yesterday. Meanwhile, the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, yesterday visited the hospital and talked to patients, guardians of some of the victims and the hospital authorities. In the evening, the Health Minister was summoned at the CPM office at Alimuddin Street and reprimanded by the leadership and the Chief Minister. It is likely, that Mr Bhattacharjee will temporarily take over the charge of the Health Department from Dr Mishra as a damage-control exercise. Steps are being taken to improve the hospital’s condition for which an amount of Rs 2 crore has been sanctioned. The government is also trying to extend children’s healthcare facilities at Dr B.C. Roy Polyclinic at Wellington Street by setting up some new wards there. |
|
14 feared dead as boat capsizes Bettiah, (Bihar), September 5 Deputy Police Superintendent Nawal Kishore Singh said here that the ill-fated boat was ferrying 21 persons. Eight persons swam to safety while the rest were feared drowned. Local divers were pressed into service to fish out the bodies.
UNI |
|
Sonia to address poll meeting in Mandi New Delhi, September 5 Mandi has been selected as venue of the Mrs Gandhi’s meeting as she had earlier addressed meetings in other parts of the state. The meeting will be held after October 4, after the ‘shradhs.’ The coordination committee of the party for Himachal Pradesh, which met here today as part of preparations for the coming Assembly elections, decided to ask the party MLAs to prepare maps of their areas to present the party’s viewpoint before the Delimitation Commission. The meeting, presided over by party General Secretary Mohsina Kidwai, was attended by former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, PCC chief Vidya Stokes, besides party leaders Kaul Singh, Anand Sharma, Chander Kumar, Sat Mahajan, K.D. Sultanpuri, Chander Kumar, Ganga Ram Musafir and Rangila Ram Rao. Later talking to The Tribune, Mr Kaul Singh said “corruption” of the BJP government and “lop-sided development” of the state would be among the issues to be raised by the Congress in the Assembly polls. Mr Sat Mahajan, who heads the manifesto committee for Himachal Pradesh, later met Mrs Gandhi and briefed her about the progress of the manifesto. |
|
Delhi Govt’s relief to HP apple growers New Delhi, September 5 The decision came following today’s meeting of Himachal Pradesh Horticulture Minister Narender Bragta with Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit. Talking to The Tribune here, Mr Bragta said while the Delhi Government had asked the agents not to charge extra 2 per cent commission from September 9, the growers who had been charged extra would be reimbursed their money by the agents. About 75 per cent of the apple produce of Himachal Pradesh comes to Azadpur Market and Mr Bragta said the decision would help apple growers to save about Rs 40 crore per season. He said the Dhumal government had been pursuing the case of apple growers with the Delhi Government since 1998. The apple growers would now be charged 6 per cent commission against the earlier 8 per cent, though the Himachal Pradesh Government is pressing the Delhi Government to implement its order of January 13, 2000 under which the agents were to charge 6 per cent commission from “buyers” and not from “sellers.” Mr Bragta said in no other market in the country, including Chandigarh and Mumbai, was commission being charged from apple growers. The minister said the Delhi Government had assured him of forming a committee soon to work out the modalities for implementing its order of not charging commission from apple growers. The minister said the state government was expecting a production of 1 crore apple boxes this season, of which 65 lakh had been exported out of the state so far. Mr Bragta said the Agricultural Market Marketing Committee of Azadpur Market had failed to create facilities for growers though it was charging a market fee of 1 per cent. He said facilities for stay of growers and amenities like toilets and water supply should be created. Meanwhile, Mr R.K. Dipta, vice-president of the Himachal Pradesh Fruit Growers Association along with several orchardists who were in Delhi, said that today’s decision had fulfilled a long-pending demand of apple growers. |
|
Sheila may convene
special session New Delhi, September 5 Congress leaders said the Delhi Government would convene a special session of the Assembly where it might bring a resolution against the Centre’s decision. The party leaders feel that such a move would force the Delhi BJP to take an unambiguous stand on the Home Ministry’s orders and help the party take the issue to people. Congress General Secretary Ambika Soni, who is also an MP from Delhi, said the Delhi Government had accomplished “several landmarks” and the BJP was feeling worried with elections only a year away. “Traffic management has improved, pollution has been controlled and progress on the metro rail has been very fast in the past four years,” she said. Criticising the Centre’s order about directing the Delhi Cabinet decisions through the Lieut-Governor, Ms Soni said there was already a multiplicity of agencies in Delhi and the state government did not even have control over land use. |
|
Nitish to flag off Chandigarh Jan Shatabdi today New Delhi, September 5 Chief Public Relations Officer, Northern Railway, Davinder P.S. Sandhu told TNS here today that the train would start from Chandigarh at 9.15 am and reach Delhi at 1.15 p.m. It would start from Delhi at 2.15 p.m. and reach Chandigarh at 6.15 p.m. The seven-coach train comprising an AC chair car coach with 65 seats and six non-AC coaches with 80 seats each has a passenger carrying capacity of 545. The coaches have been manufactured at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. They have sound insulation of roof, floor and sidewalls, heat insulation on the roof and a mini pantry. Mr Sandhu said the fare for the AC chair car was Rs 345 while the fare for the second class was Rs 115 besides a safety surcharge of 5 per cent which totals up to about Rs 120. Passengers would also be served tea and biscuits during the four-hour journey. Of the 16 Jan Shatabdis announced by the Railway Minister, the Northern Railway has already started two Jan Shatabdis including the Lucknow-Varanasi Jan Shatabdi, flagged off by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajapyee from his constituency on June 27 and the Dehra Dun-Delhi Jan Shatabdi, on August 16. Mr Sandhu said the Northern Railway would start the fourth Jan Shatabdi between Kota and Nizamuddin soon. |
|
PM renames SHAR after Prof Dhawan New Delhi, September 5 Renaming the Sriharikota Space Centre
(SHAR) after space scientist Prof Satish Dhawan, the Prime Minister lauded the determination and innovative skills of Indian space scientists. He said due to their efforts India was part of the club of six major space-faring nations in the world despite technology denial regimes. The renaming of the SHAR in Andhra Pradesh as Professor Dhawan Space Centre was done by the Prime Minister from his residence. He unveiled a plaque at Sriharikota through a satellite link. “As we offer our satellite launch facility for satellites from around the world, the Centre that bears Professor Dhawan’s name will attain greater prominence on the international map,” the Prime Minister said, adding that the Centre would continue to play a critical role in satellite launches. Mr Vajpayee said further development of the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle
(GSLV) and newer applications of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) would continue to excite the imagination of all Indians. Describing Professor Dhawan as a rare combination of excellence in scientific achievement and a visionary with administrative abilities, Mr Vajpayee said he put the Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO) on the path of harnessing space programme for the country’s development needs. He said by renaming the SHAR after Professor Dhawan “we are honouring a great scientist and a distinguished pioneer in India’s space research programme. Minister of State for Space Vasundhara Raje and ISRO Chairman K. Kasturirangan were among others present at the function. |
|
UP employees say
no to J&K poll duty Lucknow, September 5 Today, on Teachers’ Day, employees of polytechnic colleges staged a demonstration. They have even sought help from the Prime Minister’s Office, urging Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is also an MP from Lucknow, to intervene. The Chief Electoral Officer, Mr Noor Mohammed, told The Tribune that around 2500 government employees from Uttar Pradesh had been asked to go to Kashmir on poll duty. He accepted that a section of the employees had refused to go there for fear of terrorist attacks. “The situation in Jammu and Kashmir has improved. Government employees from Uttar Pradesh had gone there during the Assembly elections in 1997. They too had voiced their apprehension before going. But they did go there, performed their duty and returned safely,” he said. |
|
CRPF deploys 160 more
companies in J&K New Delhi, September 5 Eighty companies have been deployed in the Jammu region alone for election duty. Twelve companies have been deployed in Jammu district, seven in Doda, four in Kathua, 21 in Poonch, 29 in Rajouri and seven in Udhampur, an official note said here today. These 160 companies, exclusively deployed for election duty, are in addition to the 227 companies of the CRPF which are already in Jammu and Kashmir for maintaining law and order and conducting counter-insurgency operations, it said. |
|
Indo-US military
exercises in Alaska New Delhi, September 5 Reports here said that troops from the Indian Parachute Brigade and IL-76 aircraft of the Indian Air Force would take part in the two-week-long exercises, named as“Geronimo Thrust”. From the US side, the Para Infantry Regiment, C-130 aircraft and Chinook helicopters of the US Pacific Air Force would participate. The armed forces from the two countries had conducted joint exercises, “Balance Iroquois”, at Agra in May this year. |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
In video (
