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Gilani: Pak
playing politics over bus service proposal Regrouping of
terror groups worries Pak
BSP to contest 55
seats in Chhattisgarh BJP to declare
candidates by Nov 7 |
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CPM charges
Antony with desperation Institutions need
not charge uniform fee: HC Bofors case: CBI
team rushes to UK Defence
Notes
Doctor held for
assaulting scribes
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Gilani: Pak playing politics over bus service proposal
New Delhi, November 2 In a statement here, London-based IKA Chairman Sayed Nazir Gilani said, “Pakistan, which claims to be a friend of Kashmiris, has always ended up in creating more confusion rather than solving it.” “Pakistan has been admitting Kashmiris earlier on Indian visas. What has changed now? Moreover, it gives more weightage to New Delhi’s statement that Islamabad is trying to politicise the confidence-building measures,” Mr Gilani said. “Pakistan, in its controlled part of Kashmir, does not still allow unrestrained freedom of travel and freedom of political activity in Gilgit and Baltistan,” he said. Accusing the Pakistani administration of adopting double standards on the issue of Kashmir, he said, “After 13 long years, Pakistan has remembered the rape victims and orphans of Kashmir. It is interesting that Pakistan’s institutional wisdom on Kashmir has decided to turn humane for the first time.” “It may interest many Kashmiri watchers to note that Pakistan has failed on the humanitarian component of its responsibility,” Mr Gilani said while referring to the non-compliance of a judgement of PoK’s Supreme Court on Northern Areas. He said the humanitarian interest of the Pakistani establishment in Kashmir had always remained suspect and self-serving and added that it had never favoured a feel of honour and dignity to the people of Kashmir. Appealing to Pakistan to rethink the Kashmir-specific proposals, Mr Gilani stressed the need for allowing Kashmiris to travel between the two sides. He appealed that senior citizens be allowed to cross from Uri (Baramula).
— PTI |
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Regrouping of terror groups worries Pak
New Delhi, November 2 "There are indications that militants want to begin a new and more deadly round of sectarian violence,'' Pakistan's The Friday Times said. These reports say militants from banned sectarian outfits such as the Sipah-e-Mohammad Pakistan, Sipah-e-Sahabs, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a sectarian terrorist group accused of killing hundreds of Shias, and even splinter groups are forming the new terror groups. "One such report even talks about the formation of a group in Karachi and Quetta with the sole objective of avenging the killings of Hazara in Quetta in two major terrorist incidents in June and July,'' the newspaper said. Officials also refer to a speech by Abdul Ghafoor Hyderi, a leader of the Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan, warning at a demonstration of the possible formation of the ''Lashkar-e-Azam'' if the government failed to arrest the killers of Millat leader Azam Tariq. "Intelligence officials are taking these threats very seriously. The undercurrents are similar to those in 1996 when Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was formed and went on a killing spree,'' the official said. According to observers, the situation could get worse than in the mid-nineties.
— UNI |
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2 Pak prisoners released Hyderabad, November 2 Mohd Farooq Khan, alias Shaik, and Mohd Mansoor Khan, alias Abu
Kafa, both natives of Shakotine village of Punjab state in Pakistan, were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in 1998 after they were found guilty of criminal conspiracy and illegal possession of firearms by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Sessions Judge.
— PTI
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BSP to contest 55 seats in Chhattisgarh
Raipur, November 2 Addressing a press conference here, BSP national general secretary Narendra Kumar Kashyap said in the changed political scenario, the party had decided to contest for 55 out of the total 90 seats in the state. Stating that the candidate for the Mandirhasaud seat would be announced later, he said the BSP list comprised 19 candidates belonging to the OBCs, who constituted nearly 51 per cent of the state’s population. He said 18 candidates belonged to the Scheduled Castes while 12 candidates belonged to various scheduled tribe communities. Besides, two candidates each of Muslim and religious minorities also figured in the list. Two candidates belonged to the upper castes. In the remaining 35 constituencies, Mr Kashyap said the party had asked its cadre to vote for those candidates, who were in a position to defeat the BJP nominees. "Now our strategy is to defeat the BJP. We are fielding our candidates only in those constituencies where the BSP has winning prospects", he added. Mr Kashyap said his party was not fielding any candidate from Marwahi (ST) — the constituency of Chief Minister Ajit Jogi — as it felt that its candidate was not in a position to win that seat. In its 54 member list of candidates, the BSP has re-nominated its two sitting legislators — state BSP president Dauram Ratnakar from Pamgarh and Mr Rameshwar Khare from Sipat — to contest the elections.
— UNI |
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BJP to declare candidates
by Nov 7 New Delhi, November 2 “The party's central election committee would commence the process tomorrow and complete it by November 7,” the BJP leader told newspersons after inaugurating a central election control room at the party headquarters here. "Thereafter, between November 18 and 28, senior leaders, including the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, would tour the states to reach out to the
electorate," he said. He asserted that BJP would come to power in all four states and also make a beginning in Mizoram. Mr Naidu said the Congress, which was holding the reins in the four states, had "not been able to fulfil its promises". |
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CPM charges Antony with desperation New Delhi, November 2 Alleging that Mr Antony’s unbalanced outbursts stemmed from desperation, a CPM politburo statement here said there was no need for the CPM to conspire against the Chief Minister as his own deeds and differences with in the Congress would prove to be his undoing. The CPM and the LDF in Kerala were in no way obliged to bail Mr Antony out of his unenviable position, the statement pointed out. The Chief Minister had refused to order a judicial inquiry into the Muthanga firing and unleashed repression on the opposition, during which hundreds of CPM leaders and cadres were injured on a single day. “If this were to happen in any other state, Mr Antony and his likes would have been screaming about the murder of democracy,” the statement said. |
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Institutions need not charge uniform fee: HC
New Delhi, November 2 “If centres of higher education, or at least a few of them were to move from mediocrity to excellence, education may perforce become expensive, Justice Vikramajit Sen said. “Each college, educational institution need not charge a uniform fee. Some can be more expensive than others. Where the fee structure does not correspond to the quality of teaching imparted, market forces will soon step in to reduce the fees commensurately,” he said. Some of the premier colleges around the globe have professors whose salaries were comparable to heads of business enterprises. This definitely resulted in raising not just the prestige of the college but more importantly the content of its educational standards. It was deleterious to the interest and quality of teaching if the college was perennially and painfully short of funds, he added. The most significant aspect of the fee structure regime established by the Supreme Court in T.M.A. Pai’s case was the introduction of laissez-faire into college education and the gentle but hopefully irreversible removal of education from total state or bureaucratic control and its transfer to the specialised and experienced hands of academics, the judge said. “Let us leave education to the educationist.” It was now firmly entrenched in educational jurisprudence that in seeking affiliation to a university the college concerned would have to strictly conform with the standards set by that varsity, he said. “Educational standards should be improved progressively, and maladministration should not be brooked even for a moment. This is how universities in the USA, the UK and Europe are administered.” The other facet of laissez-faire was that educational institutions would have to raise their own resources, thereby making it possible to channel state funds into improving school education, which was an essential right of every citizen of India, he added. “The stark reality is that graduates quite often feel fortunate if they secure even menial and cleaning jobs. University education can and is perused because it is absurdly cheap in our country.” This is not to say that only the elite or financially strong were entitled to pursue higher studies. It was the bounden duty and obligation of the state to ensure that meritorious students desiring to pursue graduate and postgraduate studies were provided financial assistance for their pursuits, by way of scholarships or bursaries, Justice Sen said. The court was dealing with a petition by Institute of Technology and Management at Gurgaon, Haryana, against the AICTE prescribing uniform tuition fee to be charged by all technical colleges affiliated to it.
— UNI |
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Bofors case: CBI team rushes to UK New Delhi, November 2 According to sources the team comprising a CBI official and the agency’s Additional Legal Advisor left for London to help the Crown prosecutor office in preparing the argument for the court hearing scheduled for November 4. The CBI team would also apprise the British authorities of the details of charges levelled against Quattrocchi. The CBI briefing to the Prosecutor General would focus on Quattrocchi’s role in the Bofors payoff case and his continuous attempt to evade appearance in the court, the sources said. CBI contends that Quattrocchi, one of the main accused in the Rs 133-crore Bofors scam, “in a deceitful manner...had been transferring the funds from one account to another to evade detection by the law.”
— PTI |
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Defence Notes Having faced a rough time over the past few months mainly due to the controversy dogging the MiG-21 aircraft in the wake of frequent crashes, the Indian Air Force (IAF) recently decided to get more aggressive in its effort to attract talent to the force. With even the Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal S. Krishnaswamy admitting that the best of talent was not being attracted to the blue uniform, the IAF has taken upon itself to reach out in making the force better than what it is today. As part of this exercise, the IAF has been organising air shows all over the country. The last one was at Jammu and prior to that in Nagpur. The IAF is now going to the North-East and would also be holding such air shows in Manipur and also Nagaland. The idea was not only to showcase the air power of the country but to reach out to the youth to hop into the blue uniform to enjoy the best that is there on offer from the IAF. And the shows have been an all out hit among the school and college going students. The day after the shows the IAF has also been organising recruitment rallies at the same places. No surprises then that there has been a very good response to the rallies. For the first time the IAF managed to recruit men even from Tripura. As a senior IAF officer explained, the idea is not only to motivate the people to join the force but more importantly to make them aware about flying and flight safety and especially from the areas where the youth have not generally joined the IAF. Incidentally, the IAF has also organised recruitment rallies in other parts of the country, including Srinagar and Hyderabad. The IAF now seems to be following the policy of the more you invest the more profit you make.
De-mining relief Although it’s been more than ten months that the government announced the re-deployment of the troops who had been mobilised along the Indo-Pak border following the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament, the Army has still been working assiduously to clear the farm lands and other areas of the mines which had been planted with an aggressive intent in mind. A recent assessment by the Army reveals that with all the hard and deliberate effort almost 89 per cent of the mines have been recovered or destroyed. There has been a controversy raging over the mines laid by the Army as not only some troops but also local people have lost their lives and limbs by stepping on them. Notwithstanding all the hard work that goes into the demining process, the assessment now is that while the Southern Command has been 100 per cent successful in clearing the mines in its operational area, Western Command has cleared over 90 per cent and Northern Command, which still remains in focus due to infiltration bids from across the border, has been just 52 per cent successful. Significantly, the Army has been handing back the demined areas to the farmers in a systemetic manner and of the Rs 152 crore amount cleared by the government for compensation to the farmers, more than Rs 127 crore have already been disbursed mainly in the Rajasthan, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir sectors.
Fencing necessity The killing of a large number of terrorists, all foreigners, by the Army over the past few weeks in counter infiltration operations has again raised the issue of carrying out fencing along the Indo-Pak border in the Kashmir region. Senior officers point out that till such time the fencing was not complete, such infiltration bids by the ISI-backed terrorists would not stop. But they are hopeful that a day would come when the Army would have no trouble controlling the infiltration. Fencing remains an arduous task because of continuous shelling and small arms fire from across the border thus endangering those involved in this task. Even though the Army has decided to undertake selective fencing along the Line of Control (LoC), it still plans to fence a total of 523 km in an extremely difficult terrain. In Jammu and Kashmir along, fencing 223 km falls in the dangerous areas of Poonch, Rajouri, Naushera and Sundarbani sectors, which is south of the Pirpanjal Range. And of this the Army hopes to complete just about 95 km by the middle of 2004. Only after that would the remaining work be undertaken. But till then our troops will have to carry on with such encounters. |
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Doctor held for assaulting scribes Kolkata, November 2 Santosh Mondal, a junior doctor, was, however, later released by the police on personal release bond and he would appear in court tomorrow, the Director of Medical Education, Dr C R Maiti said today. State Health Minister Surjya Kanta Mishra would hold a meeting on the incident tomorrow.
— PTI |
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