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Friday,
October 18, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Shift officers before poll, EC tells Gujarat Rebel BJP MLAs to hold meeting today BJP Nagpur meeting in Nov BJP opposes case against Thackeray
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Vajpayee govt’s image takes a beating Mahathir takes dig at US hegemony
IAF to launch recruitment drive India, USA to hold air exercises
PM to attend SAARC summit in Pakistan Kalam to lay stone of academy tomorrow Contempt notice against Manisha dropped
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Shift officers before poll, EC tells Gujarat New Delhi, October 17 In the run-up to the announcement of the Gujarat Assembly elections, likely to be held in late November or December this year, the Election Commission today directed the state government to immediately transfer officers who had served for four years at a place or those serving in their home districts. The government was told to take these steps ahead of the formal announcement of the schedule for the Assembly poll, according to a commission’s directive to the Gujarat Chief Secretary. The commission is expected to announce the schedule for the Gujarat Assembly elections by this month-end or in the first week of November. As per the Election Commission policy, officers involved in the conduct of elections are shifted if they have served for four or more than four years at a place or if they are posted in their home districts. This is done to ensure that elections are conducted in a free and fair manner and without official connivance with candidates. The commission’s order to the Gujarat Government includes both police and civil administration officials. The police officials affected include those of the rank of Inspectors-General of Police, Deputy Inspectors-General, Commissioners of Police, Superintendents of Police, Deputy Superintendents and Inspectors. On the civil side are Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Collectors, Deputy Collectors, Assistant Divisional Magistrates, Sub-Divisional Magistrates and “Mamlatdars.” These officials function as Returning Officers or Assistant Returning Officers during the poll. The commission in its order today also told the Chief Secretary to consult the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on the new officers to be brought in to man the posts. As the transfer of hundreds of officials would be involved, the state government was told to complete the exercise immediately to avoid large-scale dislocation of officers after the announcement of the poll schedule. In another step putting the state in election mode, the electoral rolls of 20 riot-hit districts, where the EC had ordered a special revision, were published this week. The commission had in August, rejected the Gujarat Government’s plea to hold early Assembly elections on the ground that the condition in the riot-hit state was not conducive to hold free and fair elections. It also noted that the electoral rolls in the violence-torn areas had become “substantially defective’’ and needed to be made updated. |
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Rebel BJP MLAs to hold meeting today Lucknow, October 17 The venue of the meeting is not yet clear but the legislators, who have been deprived of ministerial berth’, claim that over twenty four legislators are expected to take part in the meeting. Senior BJP legislator Ganga Bux Singh, who had even sent an angry letter to the state president of the BJP, Mr Vinay Katiyar, over selection of ministers said in a democratic party all legislators had right to voice their grievances. The meeting is likely to take an ominous turn if senior legislators like Mr Harish Chand Srivastava, who was Finance Minister in the last BJP government, and Mr N.K.S. Gaur, former Higher Education and Cane Development Minister, decide to take part in the meeting. Though it is not clear whether or not these two senior leaders will take part in the meeting, but their meeting with Mr Ganga Bux Singh just two days back has given credence to this belief that the rebels enjoy tacit support of these leaders. Mr Katiyar has played down this meeting as just formal get-together of some legislators after Dusehra. “I and Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon had met the Chief Minister and when she had agreed to induct two-three more persons in her ministry there is no question of any heart-burning now,” Mr Katiyar told The Tribune today on telephone. The in charge of Uttar Pradesh affairs Kalraj Mishra too claimed that there is no bad blood among legislators over the constitution of Cabinet. “Right candidates will find place in the Cabinet soon,” he said. The BJP rebels are not ready to take the words of party leaders at the face value. One of the rebels told mediapersons that the Chief Minister should announce as when she would induct more ministers in the Cabinet and the party leaders should declare as who would find place in the ministry this time. The bone of contention among legislators is that many first-timers have been given Cabinet rank or the rank of Minister of State with independent charge. Mr Laloo Singh, who was Minister of State in the last government, had refused to take oath as he was refused promotion while Amita Singh, a first-timer, was given a higher rank. The party should clarify as what formula it had used to distribute ministries. Till we were convinced we would not drop the idea of holding meeting, said the rebel BJP legislator. |
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BJP Nagpur meeting in Nov New Delhi, October 17 The two-day meeting, which will be held in the second week of November, is likely to be attended by some top RSS leaders. The meeting assumes significance as it is being held at a place where the RSS headquarters is located. According to party insiders, party President Venkaiah Naidu with the guidance of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani will be fine-tuning the agenda for the meeting. Which is being convened to galvanise party cadres to take on the Opposition parties, especially the Congress which is slowly but steadily widening its presence. According to the tentative programme drawn by the party, Mr Vajpayee will inaugurate the meeting and Mr Advani is likely to make the valedictory address. The meeting will be utilised by the BJP central leaders to assess the performance of its MP and MLAs and also to put pressure on them to implement government’s programmes with added vigour and build their constituency afresh. |
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BJP opposes case against Thackeray New Delhi, October 17 The Congress and Nationalist Congress government in Maharashtra is trying to hatch a dangerous design of linking terrorism with religion by filing a case against Mr Thackeray. They are doing this for their own political gain,” party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said here. Taking note of the Shiv Sena chief’s speech on Dasehra, the Maharashtra Government has accused Mr Thackeray of promoting enmity between different groups by asking Hindus to form suicide squads to deal with terrorism. He said though the party did not agree with some of the remarks by Mr Thackeray, “we believe that his statement should not be construed against the minority community.” The state government should not use “legal provisions” as a crutch to gain political mileage, Mr Naqvi added. The Maharashtra police today registered a case against Mr Thackeray, accusing him of promoting enmity between different groups, a charge under which he can be arrested. Later, BJP spokesman Arun Jaitley said it was “politically motivated and legally unsustainable”. He said the Congress-NCP government had failed to control communal situation in the state. Almost 66 communal riots had taken place in the past four years, he alleged. |
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BJP attacks Cong on NCERT issue New Delhi, October 17 “We had expected and hoped that after the Supreme Court judgement, this issue would now stand closed. But it appears that the Congress has double standards in honouring Supreme Court
judgements,” BJP spokesperson Arun Jaitley told mediapersons here. “Not only with regard to NCERT textbook issue, but you have a case where the Karnataka Chief Minister going on a political yatra in the face of his defiance of Supreme Court order on the Cauvery issue...” |
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Vajpayee govt’s image takes a beating New Delhi, October 17 The mood and perception in a section of the officialdom of these key ministries is that the image of the Vajpayee government has taken a beating and the message that has gone across is that it is a confused and weak government rather than a government which talks of adopting a “pro-active approach” in fighting Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. It is pointed out that instead of ending or curbing terrorism, the deployment of troops had failed to even check cross-border infiltration and the terrorists continued to have a field day. Well-placed sources, talking on the condition of anonymity, said the Vajpayee government ended up in sabre-rattling when it deployed the troops on the borders in the wake of December 13 terrorist attack on Parliament House and did not take any punitive step to crush terrorism. The government, they said, had dithered and had come out with a soft response on two more occasions — the 1999 Kargil conflict and the IC-814 hijacking. The Parliament attack was the ultimate test of Indian patience and when nothing more happened, the terrorists resumed their activities after a brief lull. Terrorist attacks on the Durgiana temple in Jammu, the Kaluchak massacre and the Akshardham temple carnage were relatively lesser provocations after the December 13 attack. On each of these occasions, particularly the Parliament attack, the message India got from the international community, a euphemism for the USA and the UK, was to exercise restraint. Now the same international community is preparing to invade Iraq. |
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Mahathir takes dig at US hegemony New Delhi, October 17 “The world today is too complicated and too democratic a place for imperialism to be a viable approach to true peace. Hegemony and imperialism are neither productive nor possible in today’s world”, the Malaysian Prime Minister said while speaking at a session on ‘Asia in 2020: Challenges and Prospect’ during the India-Asean Business Summit organised here. “It (hegemony) generates too much resentment and too much hate in too many areas. 190 states with six billion people can be controlled. But million or two of them who can learn the rudiments of bomb-making over a weekend, cannot be easily controlled”, he said. In perhaps an oblique reference to Pakistan, Mr Mahathir Mohammad said it was not easy to sustain “prosper thy neighbour” policies “when your neighbours are strange or different, when they might cause you so much trouble and inconvenience or say the wrong things about you”. “But I assure you that the returns are worth all the difficulty”, he said while underlining the need for Asia to work together to shape the international economic system. On the complex military balance emerging globally among various nations, he said “rigid military balances of check and counter-check divert attention and energies from more important agendas”. “When balance of power systems work, at such substantial cost, all that you achieve is a cold and adversarial peace.... post-September 11... warfare has ceased to be the monopoly of the state... A cold and adversarial peace cannot secure the minimum level of security”, he said. |
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IAF to launch recruitment drive New Delhi, October 17 Faced with a 15 per cent manpower shortfall — 1,600 in officer cadre and almost 19,000 in airmen, due to recent policy of extension in service at higher level, the IAF is bracing for intake of up to 7,000 personnel annually for the next three years, mostly skilled hands, according to Air Marshal Narayanan Menon, Air Officer in Chief (Personnel) at Air Headquarters here. Coupled with a new recruitment drive being set in motion, Air Marshal Menon said the IAF was also on the threshold of introducing new merit and shorter age eligibility promotion policy in order to retrieve the youthful profile of the air warriors and to catch up with promotion profile of the other two services, the Army and the Navy. In the run-up to the new recruitment drive, the Air Marshal said the IAF’s selling point would not be perks or privileges but the challenging carrier that life in the Air Force entailed. “We are out to pick up the best,” he said. He said selection procedures were being tuned to keep pace with the ongoing modernisation programme. Air Marshal Menon said IAF was now on virtual “talent hunt” as it needed youngsters with a technology flair. He said with the introduction of systems like Airborne and Air early warning Radars, Mid-Air Refuelling aircraft and latest fly by wire fighters, the force would be fielding some of the most frontline technology in Asia. Meanwhile, a two-day conference of the Airmen Selection Centres (ASC) was also inaugurated by Air Marshal Menon. The Central Airman Selection Board (CASB) under the Air Headquarters is the agency responsible for recruitment of Personnel Below Officer Rank (PBOR). The conference would be attended by personnel from 13 ASCs from across the country who will also help the IAF in recruiting men from the remote areas. The conference would address issues like proposed changes in the selection system keeping in view the fast changing requirements within the IAF with the induction of highly-sophisticated weapon systems. The conference would also look at ways and means to increase awareness among the youth for joining the IAF. |
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India, USA to hold air exercises New Delhi, October 17 The exercise, the third being organised by the militaries of the two countries in the past two months, will provide quality training for aircrew and maintenance personnel, exchange of information on airlift operations and procedures, emphasising interoperability. USAF and IAF observers will fly on each other’s planes and loadmasters will demonstrate their skills on the American C-130 and IAF’s AN-32. The USAF will perform various cargo drops and will airdrop Indian paratroopers during day and night. COPE India is funded by the US Pacific Air Forces. USAF personnel from Japan and Hawaii will participate. A C-130 plane has been brought from the USAF base in Hickam, Hawaii. “With COPE India 02, the USAF hopes to continue the momentum it has built up over the past year and to lay the groundwork for a long-term beneficial relationship with the goal of enhancing regional stability. The recently restarted air force executive steering group process was the first step in organising a USAF-IAF military-to-military plan. Out of this was born COPE India, which will be the cornerstone of U S-India future security cooperation efforts,” the American embassy said. |
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PM to attend SAARC summit in Pakistan New Delhi, October 17 Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the valedictory function for a journalism course for Afghan nationals, Mr Sinha said: “If the SAARC summit is held, the Prime Minister will definitely attend it. But the summit should have an objective and it should not be just to see each other’s faces.” |
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Kalam to lay stone of academy tomorrow Dehradun, October 17 The Uttaranchal Governor, Mr Surjeet Singh Barnala, Union Minister for Tourism and Culture, Mr Jagmohan, and Uttaranchal Chief Minister, Mr N.D. Tiwari, will be present on the occasion. The Centre had recently allocated funds for the setting up the Academy. The project, being jointly executed by the Central Department of Culture and the Uttaranchal Government, will cost about two-and-a-half crore rupees. |
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Contempt notice against Manisha dropped
Mumbai, October 17 Mr Justice R.M. Lodha and Mr Justice Dilip Bhosale dismissed Manisha’s appeal against September 5 order of the high court rejecting her plea to delete objectionable shots in the movie and restraining producer Shashilal Nair from releasing the film until the settlement of dispute raised by the actress.
PTI |
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Dalits’ lynching: CPM for action against VHP New Delhi, October 17 “It is shocking that the lynching took place in front of police officers, the City Magistrate and other authorities who made no effort to use force to prevent the killings,” the party politbur said in a statement. Demanding the arrest of VHP elements “who instigated the attack” and action against the officials, the CPM claimed the five persons were targeted because “they were skinning a dead cow which they had bought for disposal. It is obvious that the communal elements deliberately utilised the situation to whip up mob frenzy”. |
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Hindi litterateur Laxmi Kant dead Allahabad, October 17 Born in Basti district of Uttar Pradesh in 1922, Mr Verma took an active part in the country’s freedom movement. UNI |
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