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Jaitley,
Rajnath new BJP General Secretaries
News
Analysis |
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SC to
record evidence in HP arrears suit Milon
Banerjee comes back as AG Over 30
dead in UP storm ‘Don’t view sun directly tomorrow’
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Jaitley, Rajnath new BJP General Secretaries New Delhi, June 6 While the union
ministers, Mr Arun Jaitley and Mr Rajnath Singh, have been appointed as General
Secretaries, Mr Pramod Mahajan, who along with Mr Sanjay Joshi, continues to be General Secretary in the new team, has been assigned the task of gearing up the party for the Assembly elections in Maharashtra later this year. The other General Secretary will be Mr Shivraj Singh Chauhan, MP from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, who was earlier National Secretary. He has also been given the responsibility as the Secretary of the Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee, a post held by Mr Pramod Mahajan. Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who was the General Secretary, has been pushed up in the ladder and made Vice-President of the party with the additional responsibility of the Headquarters in-charge. He will also continue to be spokesperson for the party. The former External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, has been made party spokesperson while Mr Manvendra Singh, first-time MP from Barmer and son of former Finance Minister Jaswant Singh will be additional spokesperson. Mr Prakash Javadekar, who was the additional spokesperson, has been asked to go back to the Maharashtra unit in the wake of the coming Assembly poll in the state. Mr Naidu who kept the reconstitution of his team in abeyance after taking over as the party chief, in February, in view of the Lok Sabha elections, has appointed two former Chief Ministers, Mr Kalyan Singh and Mr Babulal Marandi as Vice-Presidents. Besides Mr Naqvi, Mr Kalyan Singh and Mr Marandi other Vice-Presidents are Mr Balwant P. Apte, Mr Sushil Modi, Mr Thawarchand Gehlot and Mr Jaskaur Meena. A senior BJP leader and RSS Pracharak Pyarelal Khandelwal has been dropped as Vice-President. He, however, has been retained as member of the National Executive and also made a member of the Central Election Committee of the party. Mr Naidu has dropped Mr Ramdas Aggarwal as Treasurer, replacing him with Mr Sukumar Nambiar who had held this post during the presidentship of M. Jana Krishnamurthy. The seven Secretaries are Mr Kishan Singh Sangwan (Haryana), Mr La Ganesan (Tamil Nadu), Mr Shahnawaz Hussain (Bihar), Bhai Girkar (Maharashtra), Mr Sadananda Gowda (Karnataka), Mr Kiran Maheshwari (Rajasthan) and Mr Tapir Gao (Arunachal Pradesh). The 10-member Parliamentary Board of the BJP comprises Mr Naidu, Mr Vajpayee, Mr L. K. Advani, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, Mr Jaswant Singh, Mr Pramod Mahajan, Ms Sushma Swaraj, Mr Arun Jaitley and Mr Shivraj Singh Chauhan. Mr Sanjay Joshi will be a Special Invitee. The Central Election Committee of the party comprises Mr Naidu, Mr Vajpayee, Mr Advani, Mr M. M. Joshi, Mr Jaswant Singh, Mr Mahajan, Mr Rajnath Singh, Mr Jaitley, Ms
Swaraj, Mr Naqvi, Mr Marandi, Mr Gehlot, Mr Khandewlwal, Mr Chauhan, Mr Sushil Modi and Mr Sanjay Joshi. All senior leaders, including a former BJP
President, Mr Bangaru Laxman, who is facing allegations in the Tehelka expose case,
the former union
ministers, Mr Shanta Kumar and Mr Chamanlal Gupta and a former MP from
Haryana, Ms Sudha Yadav have been included in the 78-member National Executive. Former cricketer and first -time MP Navjot Singh Sidhu has been made one of the 21 special invitees in the National Executive. |
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News Analysis New Delhi, June 6 There is credible evidence that terrorist groups operating from the PoK have been supplied with hi-tech communication gadgets like Inmarsat and Thuraya satellite phones and laptop computers from Saudi Arabia. Many of them are operating under new names and are running training camps in Chilas, Skardu, Gundigiran, Sensa and Shumali (PoK). According to an estimate, the total number of terrorists in the region is between 2,300 and 2,400. A few weeks ago, a prominent Kashmiri leader, speaking at the UN Human Rights Commission, said there was enough evidence to suggest that the Pakistan army had the power to calibrate the activities of terrorist and
religious extremist groups
in Kashmir. Quoting a report, the leader, Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, chairman of the United Kashmir People’s National Party, said, “the duplicitous and contradictory alliance between the Pakistan army and religious political parties and other sectarian groups is the key reason that the latter retain power and influence in domestic Pakistani politics.” He said the military continued to rely on the radical Islamists to pursue its multiple agendas, which included keeping the people living in the (POK) subservient and devoid of basic human rights. Gross violations of human rights are happening in the Gilgit and Baltistan area with 1.5 million inhabitants. Many who are fighting the cause of Kashmir believe that Gilgit-Baltistan was forcibly annexed by Pakistan. People in these areas are denied even the most basic political freedom. Despite rich natural resources, no effort has been made in the past five decades to improve the economic condition of the residents. Basic infrastructure like roads, telecommunication, educational and health facilities are non-existent or at best rudimentary. Even the main cities of Gilgit and Skardu do not have regular supply of clean drinking water. The rulers in Islamabad, specially the army, have adopted a deliberate policy of keeping the people of Gilgit-Baltistan ignorant, poor and backward to serve “strategic interests”. The average annual per capital income in the region is US $ 184, half of the average income of Pakistan. These problems have been compounded by the growth of religious and sectarian extremist groups in the recent past, especially after September 11, 2001. There are reports that the Pakistan army and ISI have sheltered Al-Qaida cadres in the region. There are also reports that various sectarian and religious extremist groups are being encouraged to operate from this region, creating in the process a situation of sectarian tension in the region that is being exploited by Sunni-dominated terrorist groups. One of the suspects arrested for an abortive bid on the life of the President Pervez Musharraf last December was a member According to strategic analyst Jasjit Singh, the possibility of the Afghan/Pushtun and Pakistani components (which was the majority) of the Al-Qaida slipping into and through the rugged northwest frontier of Pakistan and thence ingressing into PoK and across the Line of Control cannot be ignored. “The existing Pakistani jehadi groups may be under pressure. But if we go by the past record of the ISI recreating jehadi groups under different names, but with the same aims and objectives, it is clear that this phenomenon would continue,” he said. Recently when two residents, Ghazi Anwar and Shafaqat Ali Khan, complained to the higher authorities in Islamabad about the growth of religious extremist, sectarian and terrorist groups in the region, they were abducted either by the terrorist groups or, as some allege, by the ISI. Many human rights organisations working in the region fear that Shafaqat Ali Khan, who has been campaigning against the ISI-terrorist nexus for the past few years could either be in confinement or has been liquidated. According to Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, part of the Pakistan army-ISI conspiracy to turn the region into a terrorist safehouse is to keep the political process in the region in a state of limbo. He said “hundreds of political leaders and workers belonging to secular, nationalist parties and organisations continue to languish in prison on trumped up charges of sedition and conspiracy. Political workers are routinely kidnapped, tortured and even killed by the intelligence agencies.” If no attention is paid to this growing network of terror in a remote region like the PoK, the War on Terrorism might end up caught in another hopeless, protracted attempt to cut off the head of a hydra-headed monster. |
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NTR’s son held for murder bid Hyderabad, June 6 The heir to the Telugu matinee idol NTR’s film legacy, Balakrishna, had on Thursday night shot the producer of his latest film, Mr Bellamkonda Suresh, and Mr Satyanarayana Chowdary, an astrologer close to both of them, at his Jubilee Hills residence. The police had registered a case of attempt to murder against the actor who was arrested at around 1.30 a.m. today and produced before the Magistrate who sent him to the hospital for medical care. Sources in Tollywood, as the local film industry is known, told The Tribune that efforts were being made to work out a compromise between the actor and the victims to ensure that the law did not upset the industry applecart. No wonder, most of the film personalities such as A. Nageswara Rao and former Union Cabinet minister S. Krishnam Raju expressed the view that it was hard to believe that a soft-natured Balaiah, as Balakrishna is affectionately called, would have tried to kill anybody. Interestingly, Mr Srinivas, son of Mr Chowdary, told reporters that he did not file any complaint with the police as “we cannot accuse anybody because we don’t know what exactly happened.” Mr Suresh’s sister, Ms Nagalakshmi, herself a film producer, also said that there was no question of her or her family demanding arrest of Mr Balakrishna as the family had high regard for the actor. |
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SC to record evidence in HP arrears suit New Delhi, June 6 After clearing a wrangle over whether the cross-examination of the witnesses should be done by the Punjab and Haryana High Court or the Delhi High Court, the apex court finally decided that its Registrar (Judicial) would record the evidences. Himachal Pradesh’s Additional Advocate-General
J.S. Attri said the state government would offer former Chief Secretary
A.K. Goswami and state power board’s former Member (Technical) H.C. Thakur as its key witnesses for the examination by counsel of the opposite parties. Mr Attri said the suit had been pending since 1996. In the suit the state has sought a decree against the Union Government and the other respondent states for its “rightful” claim of 7.19 per cent share of electricity from the Bhakra and Beas projects since November 1996 under the Punjab Reorganisation Act. According to the state’s suit, the Centre, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Chandigarh jointly owned Rs 841.78 crore as accumulated arrears till filing of the suit in 1996 as they had been using about 5 per cent of its 7.19 per cent share of power since November 1966, while Himachal was only getting 2.5 per cent of it. It has further claimed Rs 1347.04 crore arrears from the Centre, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Chandigarh together as its 12 per cent free power share from the Bhakra and Beas projects. |
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Milon Banerjee comes back as AG New Delhi, June 6 Ever since the new government took over, Mr Banerjee, an astute lawyer was being considered as the frontrunner for the post in view of his experience of working with the Congress governments headed by Mr P. V. Narasimha Rao and late Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Banerjee had started his practice as a lawyer in Kolkata in 1955 and was designated as a Senior Advocate in 1972. He had served as Solicitor-General of the country from 1986 to 1989 during the Rajiv Gandhi regime. The most important cases handled by him include the Ayodhya dispute in 1992, before the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the dismissal of BJP governments in four states in the aftermath of the demolition. |
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Over 30
dead in UP storm Lucknow, June 6 “Over 30 persons have died in the storm and deaths have been caused by falling trees or houses,” a spokesman of the Home department said. “Over 100 persons have also been injured.” Strong winds starting blowing in Gonda and Basti regions on Friday night and continued till early Sunday morning. Thatched houses, trees, and electric poles were blown away. People were crushed to death by falling trees, the official spokesman said. The injured have been admitted to government hospitals in Gonda and Basti while those in serious condition have been referred to Lucknow. Traffic was also disrupted in and around Gonda. “Rail traffic was restored early on Sunday but roads are yet to be cleared,” the spokesman said. |
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‘Don’t view sun directly tomorrow’
New Delhi, June 6 "Never look at the sun directly for even a brief glimpse as the star of our solar system is likely to cause serious eye damage," Chander Devgun, vice president Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE), told PTI. He said a safe way to observe sunspots, transits or eclipses was to project the image of the sun using a telescope or binoculars on to a white screen. "Never look at the sun using a telescope or binoculars," Mr Devgun said adding for it would surely cause partial or total blindness. Even famed astronomer Galileo Galilee suffered permanent eye damage when he looked at the sun using a telescope. Mr Devgun also warned against using blackened glass, dark sunglasses, floppy disks, compact discs and exposed X-ray films to look towards the sun.
— PTI |
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Best Bakery retrial begins today Ahmedabad, June 6 Three of these accused — Tulsi Bhikhabhai Tadvi, Dinesh Phoolchand Rajbhar and Bahadursinh Chandrasinh Chouhan alias Jeetu — were shifted to a Mumbai jail on May 28. The fourth, Ravi Rajaram Chouhan, was out on bail and the remaining 17 accused are still absconding, Mr S K Sinha, Police Commissioner of Vadodara, informed today.
— UNI |
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