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MP ahead of Punjab in several aspects, Amarinder tells voters Tolerance must for democracy: Advani No report sought from Afzal,
says Advani Naidu criticises CEC’s ‘instant reaction’ |
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Special CRPF wing to tackle Naxalites Defence Notes Assam bandh against train attack today Parties out to appease dissidents Assam Rifles refuses ground for Sonia’s rally Prefer Biharis in Rlys’ selections, says Laloo Bombs seized outside temple
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Lucknow, November 16 Ms Madhumani Tripathi today failed to turn up for questioning before the CBI despite two opportunities extended by the agency. With this, her arrest by the premier investigating agency, probing the sensational case, is imminent. The CBI had yesterday pasted a notice at the residence of former minister Amarmani Tripathi - under judicial custody - asking his wife Madhumani to make herself available for questioning today at 1000 hrs. But when she failed, agency sleuths pasted another notice giving her five more hours to turn up at her Lawrence Terrace house here. When two investigators came to her house after 1500 hrs, they were told that she had not yet arrived. When Ms Madhumani had approached a local court against her arrest, the CBI was directed not to arrest her without sufficient evidence. The CBI had recently arrested Santosh Kumar Rai, alias Satya Prakash Tripathi, and Prakash Chandra Pandey - the alleged killers who confessed that they were paid Rs 2 lakh by Rohit Chaturvedi, maternal cousin of Amarmani Tripathi, at the behest of Madhumani. She was reportedly peeved at the intimacy Madhumita shared with her politician husband. With Madhumani not making herself available for questioning following the arrest of the two alleged killers, the CBI feels it could now move ahead with her arrest. “We can arrest her as we are constantly tracking her movements. But since she is a woman, we want her to voluntarily appear for questioning,’’ said a CBI officer adding that her arrest after the questioning could not be ruled out. A fresh notice pasted today said Madhumani should make herself available at her house at 3.30 pm. Another notice was pasted outside the house of State Welfare Minister (independent charge) Shyam Narain, the uncle of prime accused Amarmani Tripathi, to appear before the agency office here on November 19 at 1000 hrs. The CBI has also recovered a .315 bore country-made pistol from a house in Gorakhpur which the killers had used to kill the seven-month pregnant poetess.
— UNI |
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MP ahead of Punjab in several aspects, Amarinder tells voters Bhopal, November 16 Addressing a press conference at the PCC office here this morning, he did not give much importance to the Madhya Pradesh Government’s public debt of Rs 36,000 crore. Punjab’s public debt was 42,000 crore, he said. The dropout rate in Punjab was much higher than that in Madhya Pradesh. Schoolteachers in Punjab also remained absent in large numbers from their places of posting. So was the case with doctors, he said. Mr Digvijay Singh had, he said, implemented all points of the Panchayati Raj but Punjab had implemented not even one. Shortage of electricity? So was the case in Punjab. When a reporter said in rural areas, electricity was available for merely six hours, the Captain quipped: “in Punjab villages even that much is not available. Not that I don’t want to give electricity to the villagers, but I have no electricity”. Bad roads? The roads in Punjab had potholes, he said. The Chief Minister claimed that a lot of development had taken place in Madhya Pradesh but it did not manifest as the state was vast. He did not have any doubt that the Congress was coming to power in the state once again. Not only that, the Captain said he saw a wave in favour of the Congress in villages of Madhya Pradesh, though he admitted that he had not visited any village. He was in Indore yesterday and in Bhopal in the forenoon today. Jabalpur and Gwalior were the other cities on his itinerary. |
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Tolerance must for democracy: Advani New Delhi, November 16 Refusing to comment on The Hindu case as it was sub-judice, Advani said: "I have certain viewpoins that I can only give when the case is not before the court." "If democracy runs successfully in any country, it is due to the spirit of tolerance," Advani said while inaugurating the National Press Day celebrations organised by the Press Council of India (PCI) here. Advani said he felt disheartened by politicians and mediapersons for their role during the Emergency. He said it was only the judiciary that had showed "some backbone in those days". Earlier, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "one cannot support" the Tamil Nadu "experience" but refused any further comment on the issue. On having 'code of ethics' for the media, the Minister said if the media unanimously proposed codification of its ethics, the government would be ready to pursue it. |
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No report sought from Afzal,
says Advani New Delhi, November 16 ‘’If we have to do something it will be on the basis of talks with the Maharashtra Government,’’ Mr Advani said after a 30-minute meeting with state Governor Mohammed
Afzal. He said Mr Afzal did refer to the scam during the meeting. However, it was more important ‘’what the state government says on the issue’’. Mr Advani said he had not asked for any report on the scam from the Governor but he had been submitting reports from time to time. The Governor also discussed the possible central assistance to tackle drought in 10 districts of the state, the Deputy Prime Minister said.
— UNI |
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Naidu criticises CEC’s ‘instant reaction’
Hyderabad, November 16 Taking strong exception to Mr Lyngdoh expressing inability to hold Assembly elections by February 2004 in the state, he told reporters here that the Election Commission was a statutory body and was bound by the Constitution. ‘‘It is the responsibility and duty of the EC to conduct elections at the earliest,’’ he added. Besides, the people should also not be deprived of their rights, he said referring to the ‘‘inappropriateness’’ of a caretaker government continuing for long. In reply to a query on whether the President’s rule would be imposed in the event of delayed poll, Mr Naidu replied in the negative, saying there was no need for that. ‘‘The CEC should finalise a date for elections in consultation with the state administration,’’ he said, adding that three months were more than enough for the EC to hold elections. — UNI |
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Special CRPF wing to tackle Naxalites New Delhi, November 16 A formal decision in this regard is expected to be taken when the Coordination Committee on Naxalite problems, headed by Union Home Secretary N. Gopalaswami, meets on November 21 at Bhubaneshwar, Home Ministry sources said here today. The proposed wing, comprising initially about 20 to 25 companies of the CRPF, would remain a striking force to be “dovetailed” with the composite action initiated by states themselves against underground as well as overground cadres, they said. The committee, set up in 1998, is represented among others by the chief secretaries of the Naxalite-affected states — Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Orissa, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Based on the intelligence inputs about the growing links between the Left Wing extremist groups and Maoists of Nepal, the committee has already called for special care to sustain the tempo of measures intended to snap the links. Due to severe resource crunch, these states have been from time to time urging the Centre to help them fight the menace. The Left Wing extremist movement, involving 53 districts in nine states, remains a cause for serious concern with Naxalite violence increasing during 2002 in comparison to the previous year (1,465 incidents/482 deaths in 2002 as against 1,208 incidents/564 deaths in 2001). Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa were amongst the worst affected states. According to a recent Home Ministry report, the Maoist Communist Centre and the Communist Party-Marxist Leninist- Peoples’ War Group (CPML-PW) continued to make strenuous efforts to increase their areas of influence and operation, streamline their organisational functioning and strengthen and militarise their underground apparatus and accounted for around 85.9 per cent of naxalite violence and resultant deaths. “Their primary motive together with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) CPN(M) is to spread into new areas to carve out a compact revolutionary zone (CRZ) spreading from Nepal through Bihar and the Danda-Karaniya regime to Andhra Pradesh,” it says. |
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Defence Notes It is not often that the office of the Additional Principal Information Officer (PIO), Defence, issues a press release twice for the same event. Once a full-fledged three-page release and then on the second occasion just a three paragraph note and that too on a Sunday. This happened earlier this month after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had addressed the combined commanders conference of the armed forces on November 1. After all the newspapers had carried lengthy reports of the Prime Minister’s address on Sunday morning, the additional PIO’s staff was back in office in the afternoon to issue three paragraphs of which just one was new. The reason: an officer in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had objections to the additional PIO’s staff deleting that one paragraph from the draft which had been forwarded from the west end of the South Block. The paragraph with some political tones had read: “By our recent measures, we have also silenced the whispering campaign that the requirements of forthcoming elections dictate a harsh Pakistan policy. The political leadership of this country is well aware that the constituency for peace with Pakistan is much larger than that which favours hostility”. The additional PIO’s staff in its wisdom thought it right that a political message to the country’s commanders should actually not be sent out to the general public. But for the officers sitting in the PMO it has become a major issue to the extent that an explanation has been sought from the additional PIO’s staff. The officers in the PMO believe that the paragraph should not have been deleted when the fact is that any political message to the commanders is always construed negatively by the opposition parties. The lesson learnt.. The boss is always right. Don’t alter anything even if it could mean trouble for the political leadership later.
Need of the hour There is a saying that one must change with the times. And the country’s armed forces have also learnt this lesson although a little belated and after the increasing number of shortage of officers. It was first the Indian Air Force (IAF) which realised the need of the hour and now it is the Indian Coast Guard which is following suit. Recently the IAF at its Commanders Conference announced the decision of changing the “service rules” to attract the best talent in the country. The Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy said that their proposal of changing the service rules to make it easier for personnel to leave the force had been accepted by the government and it would be implemented soon to make the force leaner and meaner. The IAF would also be scrapping the Short Service Commission only for men and would not be rehiring retired staff. Now it is the Coast Guard which has announced similar plans. Director-General of Coast Guard Vice Admiral Suresh Mehta announced last week that as part of its plans to fill up its 20 per cent shortage of men it would be bringing about a change in its service rules also. From January 1, 2004, the Coast Guard would be opening up its aircrew cadre to those even holding the commercial pilot’s licence. Vice Admiral Mehta said that with the hard service rules becoming a hindrance in attracting men to the force, the government has allowed a change in the service rules. He said that the Coast Guard had proposed to the Government that service rules may be changed so as to allow men in the aircrew cadre to leave the force after a short service of seven to ten years. This proposal has been accepted and he pointed out that it would now be a win-win situation for all.
Over exposure for the Air Chief The Chiefs of Staff have always been a rare commodity for the media and on the rare occasions that they used to meet the correspondents there would be a lot of news and good stories. But things seems to be changing fast. The Chiefs of Staff are interacting more with the media, which is a good sign as it helps not only to clear a lot of doubts but also
lifts the clouds of secrecy from a number of matters. However, of late some of the Chiefs of Staff seem to be over exposing themselves because of which they are only repeating themselves on every occasion. The case seems to be particularly bad with the Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy. His advisers seem to be over exposing him to the media and in the last month or so he has had a number of interface with the media. And on the last occasion
at the Western Air Command Commanders Conference he made an appearance without
actually being able to give out much to the reporters. In fact the advent of too visual media also seems to have played a part in it. The Chiefs of Staff have actually been obliging the TV channels by even going out of the way to provide them with “bytes” even when they have spelt all they had to say at the press conference. The bytes come not only in English or Hindi but at times even in regional languages. |
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Assam bandh against train attack today Guwahati, November 16 The bandh has been called by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) against the recent attack on Assam-bound trains allegedly by miscreants belonging to Bihar. Though no major incident has been reported so far from any part of the state, reports of threat and intimidation have been received. The Bihari population all over the state has been staying indoors for the past two days to avoid any trouble. NEW DELHI: Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani today said he would talk to both Assam and Bihar Governments in a bid to reduce tension over the alleged denial of opportunity to Bihari students from appearing in Railway recruitment tests in the north-eastern state. “I will now talk to both Assam and Bihar Governments to ensure that the tension created between them is removed”, Advani said here during an interaction with women students from Bihar. He was responding to a question from a student of Patna Women’s College who enquired about the steps being taken to ensure security of female students from Bihar who may visit Assam in future.
— UNI, PTI |
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Parties out to appease dissidents Sriganganagar, November 16 Political observers said both the parties had to fine-tune their election strategy in view of the changed ground situation and feedback from various agencies. The magnitude of the exercise can be gauged from the fact that of the 200 constituencies, the Congress alone has to face the prospect of going to the electorate with over 60 dissidents all over the state. There are several instances where even senior leaders or sitting MLAs have been denied the ticket to field new faces. The position of the BJP, with a similar number of dissidents in the fray, is no better. The BJP had circulated the lists of dissident candidates to be contacted and impressed upon to withdraw their papers in the name of party discipline and loyalty. The local satraps who were demanding ticket for their favorites are being asked to prevail upon their family members or friends to step down for the larger cause. Central and RSS leaders who wield influence in the state are augmenting the efforts. The word is that they must close ranks if the party has to emerge victorious. |
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Assam Rifles refuses ground for Sonia’s rally Aizawl, November 16 The decision has irked party leaders Salman Khursheed and Margaret Alva, who are here to locate a suitable piece of land in this cramped town where the only piece of flat land is a football ground belonging to the Assam Rifles. The ground is out of bounds for political activities. “The permission has been refused. This is unfortunate,” said Mr Khursheed.
— UNI |
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Prefer Biharis in Rlys’ selections, says Laloo Patna, November 16 “I will raise the matter in Parliament during the coming winter session demanding preference for people from Bihar, Orissa and seven north-eastern states in recruitment to the Railways,” he told reporters here. People from these backward states faced unequal competition for long and therefore, they should be given preferential job opportunity in the Railways and other sectors, he said.
— PTI |
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Ahmedabad, November 16 Senior officials along with bomb disposal squad and sniffer dogs rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area.
— PTI |
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