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New Delhi, March 31 The CPM today sharply criticised the BJP’s Vision Document, saying it was aimed at converting India’s secular democratic polity into a “rapidly intolerant fascist Hindu Rashtra”.
BJP criticises Jogi’s
nomination
Uma Bharti downplays
reports on brother
HC order in Swiss couple’s child abuse case
stayed
Mumbai varsity VC told to probe paper
leak
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CBI team reaches Kolkata Internationally acclaimed sand sculptor Sudarsan Pattnaik vents his shock at the theft of the Nobel Prize medal of Rabindranath Tagore by making Tagore's sculpture at Puri beach, Orissa, on Wednesday. — PTI photo Naga peace talks on in Thai capital
Hearing in Raja Bhaiyya case put off
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Document a repackage of RSS agenda, says
CPM
New Delhi, March 31 “There is an orchestrated campaign of disinformation that suggests that the BJP has softened its stand on the contentious Hindutva agenda. Mere verbal acrobatics cannot remove or conceal the real intentions”, CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechuri said here. “The BJP is a chameleon that changes its colours depending on the environment. The RSS, however, is a leopard which cannot change its spots. This document is an expression of this leopard-chameleon partnership,” he asserted. On Article 370, Mr Yechuri said the BJP’s earlier demand of abrogation of the Article is now couched in a different manner. Saying it was “only a transitory phenomenon” and only a ploy, he added that “given a chance, the BJP would like to do away with it as soon as it gets a chance”. The BJP has not changed a bit on issues like temple construction at the “same site” in Ayodhya and ban on cow slaughter. Mr Yechuri took strong exception to Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani’s statement at Porbandar that Hindutva was essentially secular and had emerged through contributions of people like Ramakrishna Paramhans and Swami Vivekananda, saying it was a “monumental atrocity” committed on these personalities and their interpretation of the Hindu religion. The CPM leader said that late V.D. Savarkar, who had coined the term Hindutva, had “himself stated that it had little to do with Hinduism and is essentially a political slogan to capture state power”. Stating that Mr Advani had also “invoked and distorted” Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of “Ram Rajya” in his political campaign, Mr Yechury quoted Gandhi as having categorically asserted that the term had nothing to do with Hindutva but denoted provision of basic needs to all sections of people. “How many times will they murder Gandhi? The tallest of Indian leaders in the freedom struggle was a victim of the RSS conspiracy. The second time they killed him was when Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said the communal carnage was an atonement of sins committed by Gandhi. And now they are murdering him again”, he said, adding that it was “obnoxious” to see Gandhi’s photograph in the Vision Document as one of those who inspired the BJP. “To invoke his legacy to justify their pernicious ideological agenda is something even the devil would shudder to do,” Yechury said. He said the Vision Document was “nothing but the repackaging of the RSS agenda. The attempt has been so characterless that it cannot even be termed as ‘old wine in a new bottle’. This is the BJP’s unstated real vision of India’s future”. In yet another attack, Mr Yechuri said despite the Railways being more energy efficient than road transport, the government had “starved” the Railways of investments and just about 200 km of new lines had been laid by this government. For the first time in its history, the Railways could not pay dividends to the Centre in 2000-2001 and 2001-02, which indicated that for two consecutive years their earnings had gone down. The high density network connecting the four metros comprises only 16 per cent of the total network but carries 65 per cent of the total freight traffic and 55 per cent of the passenger traffic, it said ruing that the corridor had been saturated fully due to the introduction of new trains without augmenting the capacity of the tracks. |
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BJP criticises Jogi’s
nomination
New Delhi, March 31 Admitting to the mistake of inducting Uttar Pradesh muscleman D.P. Yadav which was rectified in a couple of days, BJP spokesperson Arun Jaitley said a lot of hue and cry was raised by the Congress then. “But, now the Congress owes an explanation on candidature of Mr Jogi from Mahasamand and Mohammad Shahbuddin from Siwan, who has been nominated by one of its alliance partners,” Mr Jaitley said. “They (Congress) have declared him (Mr Jogi) innocent even as the CBI has chargesheeted him in a forgery case and probe is on in connection with his involvement in bribing MLAs for defection...neither the court has acquitted him nor the CBI has dropped the case... It is a classic example of Congress’s double standard and political hypocrisy,” he said. Challenging the Congress to debate on developmental issues, he said “The nominations for the first phase of elections has ended today but it is not clear with whom the Congress is forging electoral alliance, on what grounds and what is the common
minimum programme.” Instead of clarifying its stand on the coalition politics, the Congress was raising petty issues, which manifested its desperation, he said. Stating that the Congress had not specified any of the major issues it would raise in the elections, Mr Jaitley said, “In the absence of any focus and any key issue the campaign of desperation is being run by it.” |
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Uma Bharti downplays
reports on brother
New Delhi, March 31 Denying that she was in touch with Lodhi to pursuade him from leaving the BJP, Ms Bharti said her brother was “free to take his own decision.” “It is not an issue of importance to me to comment,” Ms Bharti said when asked whether Mr Lodhi had threatened to join the Congress if denied a BJP ticket to contest the Lok Sabha poll from Khajuraho. She was addressing a press conference here to inform about the arrangements being made by the State Government for the smooth conduct of the month-long Simhastha Kumbh at Ujjain beginning April 5. She preferred not to reply to a question of whether Mr Lodhi had written to her threatening to join the Congress. Ms Bharti, one of the Hindutva mascots of the BJP, also sought to downplay the non-inclusion of Article 370 in the BJP’s Vision Document released here yesterday. “Those issues were reflection of people’s will. Now they are not. Today issue is development and that has taken the centrestage,” she said. Ms Bharti, however, asserted that the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya is still a national priority. She charged that some of the issues like ban on cow slaughter, which was done in Madhya Pradesh after the BJP came to power in December last year, were being given religious colour “when the fact is cow forms the core of agriculture and rural economy.” Earlier, giving details about arrangements for the Kumbh, Ms Bharti said over 15,000 security personnel would be deployed to ensure the peaceful conduct of the Kumbh, in which a record three crore pilgrims were expected to participate. She said to ensure foolproof security arrangements for the Kumbh, additional security personnel had been requested from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Chhatisgarh. Taking a dig at the previous Congress government for not making adequate budgetary provisions for the Kumbh, Ms Bharti said her government had got sanctioned an additional Rs 140 crore from the Centre and the Planning Commission and worked on a war-footing to make arrangements for the Kumbh in a record time of two and a half months. |
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HC order in Swiss couple’s child abuse case
stayed
New Delhi, March 31 A Bench of Chief Justice Mr V.N. Khare, Mr Justice S.B. Sinha and Mr Justice S H Kapadia stayed the high court order after an NGO filed an appeal against it. Fixing April 5 for hearing the appeal by the NGO, Forum Against Child Sexual Exploitation, the apex court in its
interim order said till the disposal of the matter the high court order would remain stayed. The Swiss couple Wilham and Lily Marty were sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment by a sessions court in Mumbai for taking
obscene pictures of minor children and then selling them to pornographic magazines abroad. The police had said six children in the age group of 8 to 13 years, allured by the couple for the dubious activity, were identified by it when the husband and wife were arrested in December, 2000. They were prosecuted for outraging the modesty of the children, kidnapping and selling of pornographic material. The high court, while allowing the appeal of the couple, had reduced their sentence to three years and allowed them to leave the country after paying a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to each of the child. The NGO in its appeal said the high court was not right in its conclusion that no useful purpose would be served by keeping the Swiss couple in jail for seven years. |
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Mumbai varsity VC told to probe paper leak
Mumbai, March 31 Minister of State for Higher and Technical Education Anees Ahmed said, “We have asked Vice- Chancellor Balchandra Mungekar to make inquiries relating to the leak of the paper and asked him to submit the report within 48 hours.” Ahmed also said the Vice-Chancellor held already formed the committee which would probe the matter under his (Mungekar’s) leadership. The university, was forced to cancel the Accounts Paper for the second time, after the paper was leaked last night and copies of the same were easily available to those scheduled to take the exam at 11 am today. The university, which till this morning maintained that the examination would be held on time, was forced to call off the paper at the eleventh hour. The last minute turn of event found the staff frantically telephoning all centres to inform them about the cancellation of the paper. In an embarrassing turn of event, the university, came in for a lot of flak after the paper, originally scheduled to be held on March 17, was cancelled after several students managed to get a copy of the leaked papers, hours before the exam. Student groups who gathered at the Kalina campus of the university also demanded resignation of the Vice-Chancellor, who was holding a meeting with the Controller of Examinations. University sources said the examination for today’s paper had been rescheduled for April 8. The university has registered a case at a local police station in connection with the incident. Angry students protesting the cancellation of the exams gathered outside the university campus and shouted slogans demanding the resignation of the Vice-Chancellor. —
PTI |
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CBI team reaches Kolkata Kolkata, March 31 Two CBI officials of the Kolkata office already reached Santiniketan yesterday to make a preliminary study of the situation. An advanced official team of the special protection group of the Prime Minister’s security, soon after arriving at the Kolkata airport in the morning, left for Santiniketan to make security arrangements of the Prime Minister during his stay there on Friday. Mr Vajpayee will reach Santiniketan on Friday. Meanwhile, the CID, which has been probing the case, last night detained Pradip Barui, a former panchayat member of the CPM from his house at Ruppur village near Bolpur town. The police also raided a house at Durgapur, belonging to Biswajit Singha Roy, stated to be a “receiver” of stolen
artifacts. |
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SC moved to protect historical objects
New Delhi, March 31 A public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a Kolkata- based chartered accountant, urged the apex court to order the Union Government to create a central security force to protect these objects of national importance on the lines of the Central Industrial Security Force. It also said the objects which were kept in the custody of the Asiatic Society of India, National Museum, National Libraries, Victoria Memorial Hall, Visva Bharati University museum and similar other museums in the country, be kept at more secured central place. |
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Naga peace talks on in Thai capital New Delhi, March 31 The meeting, sixth since the Delhi round of talks last year, is crucial to maintain the momentum of the peace process and would contribute to resolving the differences between the two sides an ddeepen mutual trust imperative for an early solution of the five-decade-old Naga insurgency, official sources said. All five rounds of talks since January, 2003, when NSCN (I-M) Chairman Isak Swu and General Secretary T. Muivah visited India after 36 years to hold discussions with the Indian leaders have been held on foreign locations. The Indian side is being led by its interlocutor on the vexed Naga issue K. Padmanabhaiah and includes senior officials of the government. After the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, it would have been futile to hold discussions in India as no major political decisions could have been taken with a caretaker government in power, sources said. Moreover, any visit by Mr Muivah and Mr Swu prior to the poll would have sent a wrong signal and might have helped the ruling coalition in the poll, the sources said. Although substantial progress has been made on less contentious issues including autonomy and financial package during the peace talks, the Naga leaders are intrasingent on their demand for “Greater Nagaland” comprising the existing Nagaland and contiguous Naga majority areas in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. The Centre is considering various proposals, including extension of Article 371 (A), to the Naga majority areas outside Nagaland. —
UNI |
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Hearing in Raja Bhaiyya case put off
Kanpur, March 31 The next date for hearing of the transfer case is fixed on April 6 and the POTA case at Kanpur would be taken up only after the decision of the High Court. —
UNI |
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