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Terror camps persist in Pak, say
Buddhadev seeks PM’s intervention in
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PM visits Gurdwara Jagatsudhar
CBI to probe more defence deals soon
Jaya to boycott PM’s function
Sonia averts crisis in Meghalaya
Monsoon on time
Villages sold out to drudgery
J&K highway to be four-laned
Rare planet alignment today
Cong wants Left to reconsider decision
Left pursuing ‘politics of fraud’: BJP
NAC for all-India judicial service
Natural gas worth $ 50b found
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Terror camps persist in Pak, say US officials
New Delhi, June 26 “The US counter-terrorism authorities say the detention of a California-based group of Pakistani men this month underscores a serious problem: the Islamabad government’s failure to dismantle hundreds of jihadi training camps,” the Los Angeles Times said in a report. Since post-9/11 military strikes against Al-Qaida strongholds in Pakistan’s tribal territories, “the jihadist training effort has scattered and gone underground, where it is much harder to detect and destroy”, the US daily said in a report titled “Terror camps scatter, persist”. “Instead of large and visible camps, would-be terrorists are being recruited, radicalised and trained in a vast system of smaller under-the-radar jihadist sites”. “Many US officials say it is not surprising that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has not cracked down harder on militant groups and what they describe as their increasingly extensive training activities,” it said. The newspaper said “for years, the ISI has worked closely with the groups in training Pakistan’s own network of militants to fight on conflicts in Kashmir and elsewhere and to protect the country’s interest in neighbouring Afghanistan. The militant groups also derive tremendous influence from their affiliations with increasingly powerful fundamentalist political parties in Pakistan”. The daily quoted American intelligence officials as saying that over the past two years in particular, three militant groups — Jaish-e-Muhammad, Harkat-ul-Mujahidin and Lashkar-e-Toiba — and some smaller ones have taken in thousands of Al-Qaida soldiers and senior operatives as well as Taliban officials who fled Afghanistan and Pakistan’s border areas to escape US-Pakistan dragnet. It said the training was now not overseen by senior Al-Qaida men but by “at least three of Pakistan’s largest militant groups, which are fuelled by a shared radical fundamentalist ideology. “The militant groups have long maintained close ties to Osama bin Laden and his global terrorist network,” it said. The paper said these groups, “wield tremendous political influence, are well-funded and are said to have tens of thousands of fanatic followers, including a small but unknown number of Americans who have entered the system after first enrolling at Pakistan-based Islamic schools or madarsas”.
— PTI |
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POK parties drag Pervez govt to court
New Delhi, June 26 According to a statement, chairman of APNA Arif Shahid said it was unfair that the government had been choking the voice of genuine Kashmiri political parties that were opposing to sign the declaration form in which Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan had been termed final. The election papers of all candidates of APNA were rejected by the authorities in PoK and they claimed that it was done at the behest of the government. He said APNA had filed a petition in the High Court of PoK and if they failed to get justice here, they would move the International Court of Justice. APNA leaders flayed the visit of Hurriyat Conference’s leaders to PoK and questioned their representative character saying “they preferred to visit Karachi and Islamabad”. “If the Hurriyat delegation had this kind of schedule, then they should not have done the drama of entering PoK via the bus. They should have rather chosen Wagah to come to Pakistan,” he said.
— PTI |
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Pak official coming today for Tulbul talks
New Delhi, June 26 The move signals that the Indo-Pak dialogue process is very much on despite a spurt in terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir in the past few days and India’s rejection of Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s request for a visit to Srinagar by the June 30 Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus. India has consistently stated that the peace process should not be event-specific. Instead, the two sides should take into account all issues, including that of Jammu and Kashmir, without setting any deadlines for their resolution. After the June 28-29 talks on
Tulbul, India and Pakistan would be left with three more meetings for completion of the second round of the dialogue process: Cultural Secretaries (July end), Commerce Secretaries (August 9-10) and Home Secretaries (August end). This would mark the completion of the second round of the Composite Dialogue process. After this, the two countries’ Foreign Secretaries would meet to review the second round and prepare the agenda for talks between the Foreign Ministers of the two countries. |
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Buddhadev seeks PM’s intervention in state issues
Kolkata, June 26 Dr Manmohan Singh had arrived this morning on a short visit to attend the 'chautha' ceremony of his late brother-in-law Rajinder Singh. Official sources said the Chief Minister drew the Prime Minister's attention to some important projects pending in the state and sought his personal intervention for their speedy implementation. The recent hike in prices of petroleum products also came up for discussion, it was officially learnt. Mr Bhattacharjee is also believed to have raised the issue of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and the role of its supremo Subhas Ghising in deferring the scheduled elections to the Council. Dr Manmohan Singh is reported to have assured him of an early response.
— UNI |
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PM visits Gurdwara Jagatsudhar
Kolkata, June 26 The gurdwara, established in 1927 in the southern part of the city, was a centre for exchange of ideas among freedom fighters during the pre-independence struggle. Jawaharlal Nehru was another towering figure who came to the gurdwara before 1947, according to Rachpal Singh, senior member of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha, which manages the place of worship. For devotees in the gurdwara, it was a great experience to have the Prime Minister in their midst. “It was a great experience. But what is more of a pleasant surprise, is he never made us feel that he was a man of such stature. He sat there throughout the ritual just like one of us,” said Sunita Kaur, chief of the Sikh Nari Manch. Manmohan Singh, who paid a private visit to attend the Bhog ceremony of his brother-in-law, sat through the one-a-and-half-hour ritual along with his brother, six sisters and two brothers-in-law. “He sat on the floor and listened intently to the Shabad Kirtan and the tributes paid to the late Rajinder Singh. He also went to the langar and shared food,” said Rachpal. Once the rituals got over, Manmohan had some words of comfort for his widowed sister Gobind Kaur and her two sons Ravinder Pal Singh and Gurdeep Singh. Meanwhile, since morning, residents in the neighbourhood of the gurdwara had a taste of the stringent security arrangements that were put in place during a VVIP visit. There were policmen everywhere, on the streets, nearby lanes, and even on roof tops and balconies. A part of the Rashbehari Avenue, on which the gurdwara stands, was closed to vehicualr traffic and a 150-m area near the place of pilgrimage was also sealed off.
— PTI |
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CBI to probe more defence deals soon
New Delhi, June 26 Official sources in the ministry said the CBI had sought some more details and an official complaint which has been hereby forwarded to the agency. The government had handed over 24 cases of defence deals, including the casket purchase during Kargil conflict, to the CBI. Among the cases referred to the CBI were automatic grenade launchers (Rs 52.13 crore), bullet proof jackets (Rs 51.65 crore), multi-purpose boots (Rs 30.37 crore), charging/ generating sets (Rs 28.15 crore), sleeping bags (Rs 20.69 crore), surveillance radar (Rs 9.86 crore) and sniper rifles (Rs 9.54 crore). It was not immediately clear as to which 12 cases had been sent to CBI for registering of the formal cases. The CBI said the complaints or the official notification would be scrutinised by the legal cell of the agency before deciding on whether to file a preliminary enquiry or a regular case. The government had handed over the cases of defence deals to the CBI in April this year which were handed back to Defence Ministry after senior CBI officials raised several queries about the nature of the cases and lack of details. There were 13 other cases with the CBI that were an offshoot of the Tehelka expose. The CBI was asked to probe into purchase of hand-held thermal imagers and terminally-guided munitions (Krasnapol), purchase of special ammunition for 155 mm guns for Rs 166.44 crore, spares for 155 mm guns for Rs 97.65 crore and special clothing and mountaineering equipment worth Rs 95.15 crore. These cases had found a mention in the Tehelka expose. The CBI had already filed a regular case to probe the alleged corruption in South African armament firm Denel’s securing an Indian defence deal during the NDA rule.
— PTI |
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Jaya to boycott PM’s function
Chennai, June 26 Ms Jayalalithaa said here yesterday, “Subverting the environmental clearance process merely to have a grand function for political gain needs to be condemned and I am unable to participate in this function.” Narrating the history of the project she recalled that an expert committee was appointed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to go into all aspects of the project before forwarding the proposal to the state government to furnish the mandatory “no objection certificate” to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. “This committee has categorically concluded that the Environmental Impact Assessment report prepared by NEERI has a number of deficiencies,” she observed. Taking a dig at Union Minister for Shipping T. R. Baalu, she said, “The unseemly haste with which this function has been organised, that too in Madurai and not at the coast where the project is to be executed, is indeed startling.” Ms Jayalalithaa went on to state: “Mr Baalu seems to have fully imbibed in his previous stint as Union Minister of Environment the techniques required to subvert the environmental clearance process. He has bulldozed his way through the process for the project with another DMK minister A. Raja conveniently in the ministry.” Though the project is being inaugurated but the mandatory “no objection certificate” has not been given by the Tamil Nadu Government. The Chief Minister said, “The travesty of this clearance process will be noticed as all environmental concerns have been brushed away and simply put as conditions to the clearance by the Union Ministry of Environment.” She felt this had raised genuine worries among fishermen and all people in the coastal districts of the state as to what really lay in store once the project is commissioned. She further stated, “It is incredible how even the elementary precautions for such a large project with admittedly serious environmental impact are given short shrift. I am deeply troubled by this abuse of the environmental clearance process.” Describing Mr Baalu’s attitude as “callous and devil-may-care” Ms Jayalalithaa warned saying “He (Mr Baalu) ought to remember that he is playing with the lives of lakhs of poor people of Tamil Nadu, including fishermen, and posterity will never forgive him for the extreme haste with which he is launching the project abandoning even semblance of respect for environment.” Reacting to Ms Jayalalithaa’s allegations Mr Baalu, who is camping in Madurai, denied that he had subverted the environment clearance process, and went on to claim that the TNPCB had indeed given its clearance. “The Chief Minister has not been properly briefed about the clearance given by her officials,” he told reporters. He said the project would bring honour and prestige to Tamil Nadu and India and he was not one who would bypass environmental requirements. As president of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2002, he knew that the world would be looking at him, when a major project like that one was being implemented. He said he wanted to concentrate on the project rather than join issue with her in any controversy. |
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Sonia averts crisis in Meghalaya
Shillong, June 26 The demand for the bifurcation of the MBOSE by the Khasi Students Union (KSU) and the opposition to it by the Garo Students Union,with both oganisations calling for separate bandhs in Khasi and the Garo hills for the past three days, not only paralysed life in the state, but threatened to split the state between Meghalaya and Garoland. The root of the problem was the fiasco by the MBOSE, with its headquarters at Tura in Garo Hills, in distributing the mathematics paper during the recent examination in time.This prompted the KSU to demand the bifurcation of MBOSE and to appoint a separate chairman and secretary for the board with its headquarters at Shillong to look after the higher education division. The Garo Students Union opposed it. However, after the recent resignation by Paul Lyndoh, the state Sports and Youth Affairs Minister, who was a former KSU president, Chief Minister D.D. Lapang declared to appoint one secretary each for the MBOSE to be posted in Shillong and Tura, which amounted to the bifurcation of the board. The decision was preceded by a three-day bandh call given by the KSU. Soon after the Chief Minister made his decision public, the Garo Students Union called for a 48-hour bandh to oppose the decision and raised a demand for the bifurcation of the state. A powerful leader from the Garo hills and former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma had flown from Delhi to fish in the troubled waters by demanding to declare Tura as the winter capital of Meghalaya. As Deputy Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, who is in charge of the education portfolio representing the Garo hills, also threatened to resign, the Chief Minister convened a Cabinet meeting on the bifurcation issue. However, before the Chief Minister went to attend the Cabinet meeting, a phone call from 10 Janpath reminded him of the loyalty shown by the people of the Garo hills towards the Congress and to take a decision accordingly. The emisssary on behalf of 10 Janpath reminded Mr Lapang that even Mr Sangma joined the Nationalist Congress Party, a majority of Garo Congress supporters were with the parent party. Even now, of the 29 MLAs of the Congress, 13 are from the Garo hills. On the contrary,the Khasis were not that loyal to the Congress. Mr Lapang, who himself is a Khasi, had to digest the argument put forward by the Congress high command to prevent Mr Sangma and his NCP to capitalise on this emotive issue. As a result, the six-hour Cabinet meeting, which continued till late evening yesterday, reversed the earlier decision of the Chief Minister to appoint one secretary each for Tura and Shillong for the MBOSE. The Cabinet empowered the Chief Secretary of the state to include four academics in the existing committee on education to take a decision on this issue and submit a report within two months. |
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Safety measures in place, says Centre
New Delhi, June 26 Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi convened a meeting of top officials here this afternoon to review the arrangements to cope with the threat of flood. Home Secretary V K Duggal said after the meeting that the
situation “was not highly dangerous.” He said the Centre and state governments were keeping a constant watch on the situation. Mr Duggal said nearly 4,500 people had been evacuated to safer places with the Army and the Air Force having been asked to provide necessary help to the state government. He said two companies of specially-trained disaster management force had been sent to Rampur and MI 7 and MI 8 helicopters had been kept in a state of readiness at Chandigarh. Mr Duggal said rising waters had washed away nearly five bridges in Kinnaur and caused damage to houses and roads but there was no loss of lives. He said a few areas in Kinnaur district had been partially submerged and some damage had also been caused to infrastructure of the Army and the ITBP. The Chinese government had been informed about the rise in waters of the Sutlej. Information about a sharp rise in the flow of water in the Sutlej was first received at 9.30 am today from the ITBP post at Sugar Point on the Indo-Tibet border. He said the water was at its peak at Sugar Point at 11 am where its depth was between 40 metres and 50 metres. At Sumdoh, which was about 40 km downstream, the depth of water was between 30 metres and 40 metres. He said the water level receded later and stabilised at about 20 metres at Sumdoh. State Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had made an aerial survey of the affected areas. An inter-ministerial team would visit the state soon to assess the damage and provide relief. He said all units of the Nathpa Jhakhri project had been closed down yesterday due to the presence of heavy silt in the rising water levels. He said the melting of snow in higher reaches and rain in the catchment areas of tributaries of the Sutlej could be a reason for the rise in the water levels. He said satellite pictures would be available by tomorrow to know if the rise in water levels had been caused by a wide breach in the artificial lake on the Parchu tributary of the Sutlej in Tibet. He said China was cooperating with India. He said the lake had a small breach on the left side and the experts were to look at the possibility of widening the breach to cause a slow release of the waters. |
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Monsoon on time
New Delhi, June 26 The rainfall deficiency recorded in the first 15 days of the month due to the initial delay in the its progress is also likely to be neutralised as the monsoon progresses further, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), hope. The normal date for the onset of monsoon over Delhi is June 29. In Punjab and Haryana, it arrives around this very date with a standard deviation of eight days and today’s rain and the monsoon’s progress have almost made it certain that it will keep its date with Delhi and neighbouring states. The monsoon today reached Lucknow and advanced northwards covering the east Utter Pradesh and parts of west Utter Pradesh after a brief lull yesterday. The monsoon currents also covered entire east Madhya Pradesh, most parts of west Madhya Pradesh and Uttaranchal, Gujarat, east Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. The northern wing of the monsoon is now touching Nallia, Ahmedabad to Kota, Gwalior, Bareilly and Dehra Dun to Sunder Nagar. According to IMD Director (Operation) S.C. Bhan, the pre-monsoon showers are likely to continue in the region till tomorrow and there can be a lull of two to three days before the actual monsoon sets in. |
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Villages sold out to drudgery
(Chakrata-Jaunsar) Dehra Dun, June 26 She can neither tell her age nor her year of marriage but this nearly 40-year-old woman has slogged her way to telling physical illness, only to ‘be’. In six feet by six feet shack, about five feet high where she retires after a long day along with her family of seven, there is little that matters apart from the Rs 60,000 debt that her family has to repay to the local thakur. Her family and many others were freed after the implementation of the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, 1976, but the freedom did not last. The land the government allotted to them was infertile and the goats from the plains could not adapt to the hill climate and died, she says. The aid given to them was 20,000 they were told but they received only a small part of it. Maku Devi had to go back to the thakur for borrowing money and life resumed its old course. A few months ago she saw the thakur's men abuse her son and drag him out of the bed to work. Nearly 30 years after the Bonded Labour Abolition Act was put in place the Chakrata block of Dehra Dun district is replete with people who were born sold to drudgery. Kurad village, about 15 km from Chakrata, is just a case in point. Out of the 28 families of the SCs living in the village, 20 are those of bonded labourers. Set deep in the Jaunsar Bawar tribal valley in these hill villages where jobs come at a premium, the forward castes employ generations of backward castes for a salary that just settles the interest on the principal amount of their debt. The meals for the workers are a perk to ensure survival. Repaying is a far cry for these people whose only concern is to keep the interest from piling up. Hairpin bends running in kilometers through pines and deodars in this restricted area could well be ideal for picture postcards. However, within the valley with its rich potato farms and the right soil for off-seasonal vegetables, people continue to live in the practiced comfort of ignorance. With generations of the Backward Castes involved in bonded labour, none of the children from these families go to school. Out of the 300 persons from the families of the SCs in Kurad not even three have been to school. Gusso Devi, the daughter in law of Budha, a bonded labourer, says her father in law has a debt of Rs 50,000. He borrowed the money to build his pucca shack and to get his son married. Now her husband is also serving the moneylender and her two-year-old son would grow up to do the same, she says. Another family had to flee the village two years ago since the debt had piled up and pressure to repay was huge, the villagers said. Locally called matts, almost 20,000 bonded labourers were reported from the Jaunsar Bawar tribal belt, Tehri and Uttarkashi in the seventies. The bonded labourers were rehabilitated by the Department for the Rehabilitation of Bonded Labourers, set especially for the purpose. However, the villagers say they received only small parts of the aid marked for them as a part of the schemes run by the government. The land was infertile and with the lack of sustainable means of employment they had to look back at where they were coming from. With villages after villages telling the same story, the administration says it is not aware of the resurgence of the practice. District Magistrate Dehra Dun Puneet Kansal told The Tribune he was not aware of any cases of bonded labour in the district. It is an old issue but it was over after schemes run by the Labour Department. Admitting the wide presence of the practice in the region, the local officials at Chakrata said the administration has provisions to help the bonded labourers and register cases against their ‘masters’ but most of them do not report. |
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J&K highway to be four-laned
New Delhi, June 26 As per the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the four-lane highway project that is already in an advanced stage of formulation, new stretches with lesser bends and easier curves have been planned on the existing highway after making new alignments and the existing alignments better for a safe and comfortable journey. The project is likely to take off in a year’s time. When completed, the improved highway, stretching between the Jammu bypass and the Srinagar bypass, would not only substantially reduce the travel time between the two major cities of Jammu and Kashmir, but also ensure a smoother and more enjoyable ride for commuters on a road having lesser number of bends and easier gradients, a highly placed National Highways Authority of India official told The Tribune. The new highway would be at least 40 km shorter than the existing 294-km road between Jammu and Srinagar. Its improved geometry would cut short the travel time by at least four to five hours from the existing 10-12 hours it presently takes to cover the distance between the two cities, he said. While the highway will ensure a faster, smoother and safer connectivity, it is also expected to provide a much-required boost to the tourism industry, the mainstay of the economy of the state. Moreover, when the construction work on such a mega project begins, sufficient employment opportunities for youth in the militancy-stricken state would also be generated. He said the project, which was likely to kick off in a year and take another three years to be completed, would be undertaken by the NHAI with public funding as the route did not offer much scope for good returns for operators if executed on the built-operate-transfer basis like all other NHAI projects being planned. The planning for the project was in advanced stage with the DPR of the new highway in the advanced stage of formulation. The NHAI, he said, had to do some extensive surveys besides conducting rigorous feasibility studies for checking the possibility of carving new stretches on some of the most difficult hilly terrain in the areas. These included some extensive consultations with experts on various alignment options. |
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Rare planet alignment today
Chennai, June 26 According to Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Centre Executive Director P.
Iyamperumal, the brightest of these three planets would be Venus. A dimmer Saturn can be seen at its lower right. Mercury can be viewed to the lower left of Venus. The three planets can be seen fitting within a circle 2 degrees wide, about the size of the thumb held at arm's length. Mercury and Venus will appear like twin planets as the angular distance between them shrinks to a mere 0.1 degrees, he said. Jupiter can also be seen far away from these three planets in the evening sky. That makes it the fourth planet that would be visible to the naked eye. The fifth Mars, can also be seen after midnight, he said. Due to this alignment, all these planets would appear as if the distance between them is the same. But this is an illusion, he said, adding that Mercury is roughly 14.5 crore km away, Venus about 22.4 crore km and Saturn 149 crore km.
— UNI |
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Cong wants Left to reconsider decision
New Delhi, June 26 AICC treasurer and CWC member Motilal Vohra said differences could be resolved at a meeting of the Left parties with the Congress. He, however, did not say when such a meeting would take place. Mr Vohra said the Left parties’ decision to suspend participation in the Coordination Committee meetings would only benefit those who did not want the government to run and were themselves unable to form the government at the Centre. Meanwhile, the BJP accused the Left parties for taking the decision with an eye on the forthcoming elections in West Bengal and Kerala. BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the announcement was nothing but the second part of the mock fight going on within the
UPA. Accusing the Left of lacking in commitment to ensure that the promises made to the country were kept, he said the forthcoming elections were the only reason behind the announcement. |
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Left pursuing ‘politics of fraud’: BJP
Patna, June 26 Addressing a meeting of the state party executive committee here, Mr Jaitley sharpened his diatribe against the Left parties for their “untenable political behaviour.” “The Left parties cannot pursue such politics of fraud for long,” Mr Jaitley contended, while asking them not to “camouflage” their realpolitik. He said the Left parties should either support the NDA when the alliance opposed the hike in prices of petroleum and diesel in Parliament or else accept the price rise without betraying the feelings of their supporters.
— UNI |
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NAC for all-India judicial service
New Delhi, June 26 The fourteenth meeting of the NAC, chaired by Ms Sonia Gandhi, discussed social security of the unorganised sector workers, modernisation of land administration and key issues in judicial reforms. According to an official spokesman, discussions took place on the proposed legislation which will benefit a large number of workers in the unorganised sector. He said a draft of unorganised sector workers’ social security Bill had been formulated which would be sent to the Ministry of Labour and Employment to facilitate further consultation. The draft bill would also be placed on the website. The spokesman said NAC discussed some of the key issues in the field of judicial reforms in the light of the papers circulated on the subject. |
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Natural gas worth $ 50b found
Ahmedabad, June 26 Dedicating the project, now named “Deen Dayal” (God and saviour of the poor) to the nation, Modi told reporters here that this natural gas find, made 10 days ago, was worth Rs two lakh crore after an investment of Rs 250 crore was made. He said the money generated from this project would be put into education of children living below the poverty line (BPL). “This discovery will almost double the current gas production of the nation and the state government’s priority will be to begin its commercial production and sell at the earliest,” Modi said. The corporation discovered the gas in the KG#8 block, located six km away from the shore of the Yanam-Kakinada coast of Andhra Pradesh, after drilling up to 5,061 metre at a temperature of 400 degrees Farenheit, a feat that Modi said was the first ever in the country.
— PTI |
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