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Sunday,
November 3, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Punjab CM
in eye of storm Cong to
campaign in Gujarat from Nov 11 Cong
nominates Das, Rawat for RS poll TV serial
artists
Smriti Malhotra (left) and Kiran Karmarkar with producer Ekta
Kapoor (centre) after receiving the Indian Telly Awards at a
function in Mumbai on Friday. — PTI Govt
unable to check march of MNCs: RSS |
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PIL
against VHP leader dismissed Pak
blocking economic progress: India Cauvery:
Assembly session on Nov 11
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Punjab CM in eye of storm Hardwar, November 2 A dispute between Captain Amarinder Singh and others on the one hand and the Nagar Palika Parishad, Hardwar, and the Hardwar Development Authority on the other, about the ownership of a plot, reportedly worth about Rs10 crore, has triggered a controversy taking political overtones. Captain Amarinder Singh and others filed a suit in the court of the Civil Judge, Hardwar, in 1999, claiming the ownership of the disputed plot, measuring about five acres, in Saptsarover area of the city. The Civil Judge, delivering his judgement on October 11, upheld the claim of Captain Amarinder Singh and others on the land. The Nagar Palika Parishad and the Hardwar Development Authority filed an appeal against the order in the court of the District Judge on October 16. However, with political joining in, the land dispute is snowballing into a major controversy. The local BJP MLA, Mr Madan Kaushik, told mediapersons here a few days ago that the local administration, at the behest of the state government, had been favouring the Punjab Chief Minister and did not plead the case properly in court. Politics makes strange bedfellows. The Samajwadi Party, generally at loggerheads with the BJP, is lending support to it on the issue. The national general secretary of the party, Mr Ambrish Kumar, said here a few days back that the controversial land, known as Yatri Padavyaan, had always been the Kumbh mela land and had always been used to provide shelter to the pilgrims during the Kumbh and the Ardha Kumbh melas. Now land records were being tampered with to help Captain Amarinder Singh, he alleged. The Samajwadi party activists also held a rally at the disputed plot, protesting against the alleged complicity of the local administration. The sant community queered the pitch of the raging controversy, when a delegation of some prominent sants, led by Mahant Shankar Bharti, the chief of the All-India Akhara Parishad, the apex body of sadhus and mahants, met the Chief Minister, Mr N.D. Tiwari, recently and threatened to boycott the coming Ardha Kumbh mela, if the mela land was not retrieved. On the contrary, the Congress leaders are blaming the BJP and the Samajwadi Party for taking to the streets a matter which was purely legal and sub judice. The spokesman of the state Congress, Mr Rajesh Shivpuri, said the opposition parties are raking up the issue only to derive political mileage in view of the coming urban bodies’ elections in the state. The vice-chairman of the Hardwar Development Authority, Dr Dilbagh Singh, termed the allegation of the complicity of the local administration as baseless. The District Magistrate, Mr S.K. Maheswari, set up a committee to examine the land records and measure the disputed land again. Sources said it would soon submit a detailed report in court. |
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Cong to campaign in
Gujarat from Nov 11 New Delhi, November 2 Addressing a joint press conference here, Mr Kamal Nath, general secretary in charge of Gujarat and party leaders including the PCC chief, Mr Shankarsinh Vaghela, the CLP leader, Mr Amarsinh Chaudhary, Mr Naresh Raval and Ms Urmilaben Patel, said the Congress was confident of dislodging the “corrupt’’ BJP government. Mr Kamal Nath said if voted to power the Congress would set up special courts to probe the cooperative scam which had affected lakhs of people in Gujarat. He said the Congress would explore the possibility of an electoral understanding with the secular forces for the December 12 assembly elections. Mr Kamal Nath said the Congress would consider forging an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Lok Janashakti and the Left parties. The local leaders of the Congress were in touch with the NCP leaders in the state, he added. He said in the course of the campaign, which would include several rallies addressed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the party would promise to fight corruption and expose the ``ill-deeds’’ of the BJP government. Mr Vaghela said the Congress campaign would focus on the scam-ridden rule of the Modi government. Terming Narendra Modi’s gaurav yatra as “hypocrisy,’’ he said the state government had gone bankrupt and was surviving on overdrafts. There was no money to carry on the development works, he alleged. Mr Ahmed Patel, political secretary to the Congress president, Mr Suresh Pachouri and Ms Shelija were also present. |
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Cong nominates Das, Rawat for RS poll New Delhi, November 2 While Mr Das is a sitting Rajya Sabha member, Mr Rawat is the PCC chief in Uttaranchal. There were several claimants to the two seats in the Congress. Mr Rawat’s election to the Upper House is expected to be a smooth affair but Mr Das will need the support of some more legislators besides the 24 MLAs of the Congress. |
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Govt unable to check march of MNCs: RSS
New Delhi, November 2 “There is a group in the Planning Commission that feels there should be 100 per cent FDI in all sectors. There have been attempts to allow multinationals in the retail trade. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch has gone to the Prime Minister thrice and got the proposal scrapped. But they are advancing again because there are officials connected with MNCs,” Mr Sudarshan said in an interview with India Today in its latest issue, which will hit the stands this weekend. He said the RSS had been holding meetings with the Prime Minister “every three or four months” and was aware of the constraints of the coalition government. Listing three major constraints of the government, he said the first was to keep the coalition going. Secondly, international agreements signed by previous governments had to be honoured. Lastly, there was a difference between what the BJP had earlier said and what it was doing now. “The BJP had earlier opposed the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but in government, it has to implement these agreements...There is unhappiness in the party. Despite this answers can be found. We should try and increase interaction with people,” he said. The RSS chief said he had told Mr Vajpayee that there were two streams in the government. “One feels we must get assistance from abroad and use it for development. The other feels that we should focus on the resources available in the country and that foreign capital has marginal use,” he said. Asked whether the Jammu experience, where the RSS supported the Jammu Statehood Morcha, nullified the Sangh Parivar concept, he said in the media it was called a “parivar” but each organisation was independent taking inspiration from the Hindu thought process. He said what went wrong in Jammu was the government’s reaction to the RSS resolution that the state be trifurcated.
UNI, PTI |
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PIL against VHP leader dismissed
New Delhi, November 2 “By filing such a petition you want to keep the issue alive. If we issue notice the matter will be before the court and keep revolving and you will get publicity every time,” said a Bench, comprising Mr Justice Anil Dev Singh and Mr Justice R.S. Sodhi, while “dismissing as withdrawn” a public interest litigation (PIL) by advocate Anel Sirohi. Stating that courts should not take congnisance of such matters, which were inspired with a desire of publicity, the Bench told Mr Sirohi that his petition was based entirely on newspaper reports, which had no legal value. How could any inference could be drawn on the basis of such “obnoxious” reports when the petitioner himself had not heard Mr Togadia uttering these words, the court asked. While the petitioner said if a person was allowed to go scot free for such “utterances against minorities” it would lead to communal tension in the country, the court held that by giving importance to such persons “the media was in a way playing in their hands.” On newspaper reports, which were cited by petitioner as proof of Mr Togadia’s utterances, the court said: “These are all public statements. These in turn will provoke the other side. Unfortunately religion is being exploited to serve their own interests by some people.”
PTI |
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Pak blocking economic progress: India New Delhi, November 2 Asked to comment on the outcome of the recently concluded discussions in Kathmandu under the South Asia Preferential Trade Agreement (SAPTA), a foreign office spokesman here said: “Any lack of progress on economic cooperations generally weakens the SAARC process.” The Kathmandu discussions concluded inconclusively because Pakistan offered 250 items for tariff line concessions, of which 146 were banned in India. |
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Cauvery: Assembly session on Nov 11 Bangalore, November 2 The state Cabinet meeting on November 4 would take a decision on the duration of the session, official sources said. Caught off-guard by Krishna’s sudden move to undertake a padayatra to his home district of Mandya, the opposition parties have launched an offensive against him since then accusing him of bungling on the Cauvery issue. Mr Krishna’s explanation on his padayatra has not satisfied the opposition about his intention which, they alleged, was political. They even refused to attend an all-party meeting on Cauvery called by him on Sunday.
PTI |
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