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Saturday,
September 13, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Mulayam evasive on
backing Sonia as PM
Sonia seeks package
for Kashmiri Pandits Cabinet panel reviews
security situation RSS for law on
building temple Medha Patkar slams
Coca Cola |
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Notice to Centre on
Pak prisoners SC seeks trial court
order in Raja Bhaiya’s cases Iranian Foreign
Minister calls up Sinha Twin blast mastermind killed 2 SIMI men held
planting explosive on rail track US team briefs Indian
Navy on P3 aircraft
Rao, Kalha made
rights panel members Cops complete cyber
crime course BJP leader dies in
Bihar flood
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Mulayam evasive on backing Sonia as PM New Delhi, September 12 “This is an irrelevant question. Are Lok Sabha elections being held now? Where is the issue of Prime Ministership? Where is the majority to form government?......Our stand is for issue-based support. We will both (Congress and SP) decide jointly”, Mr Yadav told a press conference here. While denying any move from his side to form any front comprising ‘secular parties’, Mr Yadav said “we will give and take issue-based support. We have never talked of forming any front nor we have formed one.” Mr Yadav, who had met Ms Gandhi two days ago, appealed to the Congress President to reconsider her decision to support his government from outside. In an apparent move to maintain close links with the leaders of opposition parties, Mr Yadav announced that he would soon convene a dinner meeting of opposition leaders in Delhi on the lines of such meets hosted by the Congress President. Mr Yadav was also evasive when asked whether his party would support the Congress in the Assembly elections in four states, merely saying the SP had left the matter to its state units to decide. When asked whether his government would investigate the land scam during Mayawati’s regime, the Chief Minister said the Supreme Court had asked the state government to give a detailed report about the properties of certain people. He was apparently referring to the Apex Court’s directions in the Taj Heritage Corridor project. Asked about the reported plans by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani to revive the Ayodhya issue, the Chief Minister said, “Mr Advani will be disappointed as people will now cold-shoulder the issue as they do not think it is important.” “The court has not asked us”, he said when asked whether he would issue a fresh notification in the Babri Masjid demolition case in which Mr Advani and HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi were the accused. On questions about POTA, he declared that his government would not use it as an instrument to take political revenge. Mulayam Singh Yadav said his government would deal sternly with perpetrators of atrocities on the Dalits, women and minorities. Earlier in the day, Mr Yadav called on President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and extended him an invitation to visit the state. “It was a courtesy call”, Mr Yadav told newspersons after the half-an-hour meeting with Dr Kalam, the first after he took over as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. |
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Sonia seeks package for Kashmiri Pandits New Delhi, September 12 In a letter to Mr Advani, the Congress President said a delegation from the Hindu Welfare Society (HWS) had recently given her a petition regarding the problems of the Kashmiri Pandits residing in Jammu and Kashmir. She said 95 per cent of the Kashmiri Pandits had reportedly moved to Jammu and Delhi in the past 13 years of militancy. ``Today, I am told, there are just 8,865 Pandits left in Kashmir in 270 villages. They have somehow been persuaded to stay on in Kashmir by their Muslim brethren and organisations like the HWS even after the Nadimarg massacre in March 2003, on the assurance that their demands will be met,’’ she said. Terming the HWS demands as “modest and entirely feasible,’’ Ms Gandhi said that she had advised the state Chief Minister to prepare a comprehensive package and send a formal proposal to the Centre for assistance for certain specific items. |
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Cabinet panel reviews security situation New Delhi, September 12 The CCS which met in the South Block reviewed the security situation in the country for over two-and-a-half hours and also took into view the Prime Minister’s recent visit to China. This was the second meeting of the CCS in a span of eight days. Official sources said the meeting discussed the “general security situation” in the country and that there were no specific references to developments in Iraq or Jammu and Kashmir. “It was a scheduled meeting of the CCS which took stock of the general security scenario in the country,” the sources said. Reports said the Chief of Army Staff, Gen N.C.
Vij, gave a detailed presentation on various security aspects to the CCS. Apparently a briefing was also given regarding sending troops to Iraq or Liberia. Mr Vajpayee is scheduled to leave for a two-nation tour on September 16. He would first stop over at Turkey and then go to New York to address the UN session. The meeting was also attended by Deputy Prime Minister
L.K. Advani, Defence Minister George Fernandes and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha. |
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RSS for law on building temple New Delhi, September 12 Addressing newspersons at a press conference on the RSS premises at Keshavkunj, RSS spokesman Ram Madhav said in the light of the ASI report, which had vindicated the fact that the Babri structure was constructed on a demolished structure, a legislation was the best option for construction of a Ram temple. Asked if the RSS was asking Prime Minister and leader of the NDA Atal Bihari Vajpayee to convene an all-party meeting for evolving a consensus on legislation, Mr Madhav evaded a direct reply, saying that the RSS was asking all political parties. He said RSS would support the VHP agitation for the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya. The VHP would announce its programme in the next two days after the meeting of the Margdarshak Mandal, Mr Madhav said. While Mr Madhav denied that the RSS-backed VHP agitation was being launched with an eye on the coming Assembly elections in the four northern states and the Lok Sabha, it is learnt that the sangh has decided to gauge the public mood and sentiments on the issue. Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani is likely to play a key role in the RSS strategy as Mr Vajpayee is understood to be opposed to it, sources said. On Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to New Delhi, he said it was a landmark in the direction of tackling the global menace of terrorism. |
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Medha Patkar slams Coca Cola New Delhi, September 12 They were allegedly beaten up with iron rods by the guards during a symbolic protest against sourcing of groundwater from the villages by the company. Mr Pandey and the demonstrators were arrested on Wednesday night. Nuclear scientist turned activist, Mr Pandey received the 2002 Magsaysay award for `emergent leadership in community. Ms Patkar, leader of the National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM), has “lambasted the Coke-administration nexus which operates against the interest of people, polarises money and power making the poor poorer and far more exploited.” Ms Patkar has condemned the illegal detention of hundreds of activists, denial of medical treatment and refusal of the Magistrate to record statements of those injured/arrested/jailed. “Our government is acting as an appendage of multinational corporations which increases the impoverishment of our own people.” Ms Patkar has further criticised the elected representatives for allowing Coca Cola India to take out millions of litres of groundwater everyday. “As a result, water table has sunk too low and people of the area are facing hardships in accessing water. Handpumps are dry. Farmers have no water for irrigation and are left with no option but to go for deep-pumps.” Coca Cola India Vice-President, Public Affairs and Communication, Sunil Gupta, on the other hand, claimed that Coca Cola India was working in perfect harmony with the community and had contributed to the socio-economic amelioration of the villagers through employment generation. |
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Notice to Centre on Pak prisoners
New Delhi, September 12
A Bench of Mr Justice M.B. Shah and Mr Justice A.R. Lakshmanan, while seeking replies from the Centre and the state government, said the petition would be taken up for further hearing on September 18 along with identical petitions by 11 other prisoners, including eight from PoK and three from Pakistan.
— UNI |
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SC seeks trial court order in Raja Bhaiya’s cases New Delhi, September 12 The direction was issued by a Bench comprising Mr Justice S Rajendra Babu, Mr Justice Arun Kumar and Mr Justice G P Mathur, while hearing a petition challenging the Mulayam Singh government’s decision of withdrawing the POTA cases against him from courts. The UP Government’s August 29 order for withdrawing the cases against Raja Bhaiya, his father Udai Pratap Singh, MLC Akshay Pratap Singh, alias Gopalji, was challenged by three witnesses who had deposed against them in courts alleging that their release from jail posed a threat to their lives. One of the petitioner, S.K. Shukla, had alleged that the trio were accused in the 1982 murder of his son. |
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Iranian Foreign Minister calls up Sinha New Delhi, September 12 In another development Iran has taken exception to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s remarks regarding Teheran during his just-concluded India visit and said by using hostile language against a third country violated the diplomatic norms and international laws. In a strongly-worded statement, the Iranian Embassy here said Israel was “the leader of state terrorism and Mr Sharon “with a 50 years history of killing the people of Palestine and Lebanon, is famous as the hero of massacre of the Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.” The statement said that even the Israeli people objected to such an act and the court of Belgium was prosecuting him as a criminal against humanity because of these massacres. |
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Twin blast mastermind killed
Mumbai, September 12
Acting on a tip-off that Nasir, wanted in connection with the blasts which killed 52 people, along with another gangster, would assemble near Ruparel College in suburban Matunga, the police laid a trap. In the encounter the police shot them dead. Joint Commissioner of Police Satyapal Singh said the police recovered 92 gelatin sticks, eight detonators, two alarm clocks and two American revolvers from Nasir and his accomplice.
— PTI |
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2 SIMI men held planting explosive on rail track Kolkata, September 12 Sahanul (29) and Mohammad Sahid (32), who were trained in Kashmir by militants, were arrested while planting explosive on the track. Both had been in the wanted list of the Jammu and Kashmir police and Bihar police in connection with several terrorists operations. They told the police that they had a plan to blow up the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express which was to pass on the line around 7.30 p.m. Another New Delhi-bound Rajdhani Mail, that left Sealdah station at 5.15 p.m. was their second target in case they failed in their first attempt, they added. |
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US team briefs Indian Navy on P3 aircraft New Delhi, September 12 The Indian Navy is considering the purchase of these aircraft to improve its capability in anti-ship, anti-submarine, surface surveillance, command and control, and search and rescue missions, it said. |
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Moon mission to cost Rs 386 cr New Delhi, September 12 The spacecraft will have a dry weight of 525 kg in lunar orbit and a mission life of two years. A bi-propellant system will take it from the geostationary transfer orbit to lunar orbit. The same system will be good for orbit and altitude maintenance. The telemetry tracking control will be in S-band and scientific payload data transmission in X-band, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology here today. The new technologies to be used in the spacecraft will be lithium-ion batteries, gimballed antenna system, miniaturised communication system, miniaturised star sensor and spacecraft bus management. The facilities will include deep space network located in Bangalore. ISRO’s time-tested workhouse PSLV will place the mooncraft into a geo-synchronous transfer orbit. Later it will be manoeuvred and placed in its final orbit, 100 km circular polar. The payloads will include a terrain mapping camera with 5 m spatial resolution and 40 km swath; a hyper-spectral imager, a lunar laser ranging instrument, a low-energy x-ray spectro-meter for measuring fluorescent x-rays emanating from lunar surface and a high-energy x-ray
mappingcamera. |
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Rao, Kalha made rights panel members New Delhi, September 12 Justice Rao and Mr Kalha have been appointed in place of Sudershan Aggarwal and Justice K. Ramaswami, who retired in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Mr Kalha, a 1965 batch IFS officer who retired in February as Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, assumed charge today. |
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Cops complete cyber crime course New Delhi, September 12 Speaking at the ceremony, the US Embassy’s acting Deputy Chief of Mission Walter North said: “This course represented one more important step forward in the increasingly collaborative relationships between Indian and US law enforcement agencies.” |
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BJP leader dies
in Bihar flood Patna, September 12 |
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