Patna, May 24
Voters today beat up a youth leader of the RJD for allegedly trying to intimidate them and loot the booths during the fourth phase of panchayat poll at Siwan.

The incident came close on the heels of Nitish Kumar-led NDA completing six months in office yesterday.

Unlike such incidents in the past, today's incident at Siwan assumed special significance because the district was associated with the name of the controversial RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin who was now behind the bars facing 35 criminal cases.

A senior district official said, "Till recently Mohammad Shahabuddin used to run a parallel administration in Siwan and the RJD leadership here was represented by him only. Today's incident proved that people were no longer terrorised with either the name of Shahabudin or any other RJD leader".

Violence that had marred the first three phases of panchayat polls in the state had claimed 16 lives so far. The polling for the fourth phase was not only peaceful but also did not experience a single casualty.

The district administration, backed by 63 companies of Central forces, virtually manned each and every nook and corner of the sensitive areas by threatening the candidates to face FIR if they tried to disturb the poll process.

The polling took place in 67 blocks of 38 districts where as many as 65,246 candidates were in the fray for 15,139 posts.

New Delhi, May 24
The Supreme Court has refused to stay the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court for demolishing certain structures in an engineering college in Punjab, which allegedly were raised by it on forest land.

Directing the Central Empowerment Committee (CEC) on forests for an assessment of the situation at the ground level and submit a report, a Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice R.V. Raveendran said no order for maintaining the status quo could be issued till the report was received.

“We will examine the matter only after receiving the report of the CEC”, the Bench told senior advocate J.L. Gupta, appearing for IITT College of Engineering located at Pojewal.

Giving six weeks’ time to the CEC to file its report, the court also refused to restore electricity to the college, which was disconnected not acceding to the request of Gupta, when the matter came up for hearing on Monday.

The court, however, issued notices to the Punjab Government and its Forest Department on the special leave petition (SLP) of the college against the High Court order, asking them to submit their affidavits also in six weeks.

The apex court had of late been taking tough stand on issues pertaining to encroachment on forest land and recently sent a Maharashtra minister and a senior bureaucrat to jail for one month for violating its guidelines in establishing saw mills in protected forest areas.

Mr Gupta sought restoration of the electricity, citing the hardships being faced in peak summer by nearly 800 students getting education in the college, while arguing on an application for interim stay.

The High Court had passed the order about six months ago after the Forest Department had alleged that the college had encroached upon the forest land in violation of the rules and the apex court guidelines.

New Delhi, May 24
An anguished Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Speaker today questioned the Election Commission’s decision to place his name among those guilty of holding an office of profit on its website before establishing the veracity of this charge.

The Speaker said not only did the Election Commission rush to make the list public without establishing a prima facie case against, him but it did so without hearing him out. He said he was still awaiting a communication from the commission.

“I am not challenging the Election Commission’s authority to entertain complaints of such nature. But it would have been better if they had put the list on the website after establishing a prima facie case, ” Mr Chatterjee told mediapersons at his customary session-end briefing today.

Stating that he had suffered the worst kind of mental agony as he was subject to a trial by media, the Speaker said what was more painful was that a constitutional authority had allowed these insinuations to continue without substantiating the charge made against him.

This controversy arose when Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Bannerjee petitioned the Election Commission that as Chairman of the Sriniketan Shantiniketan Development Authority (SSDA), Mr Chatterjee was holding an office of profit.

Mr. Chatterjee asserted emphatically that he was not holding any office of profit and he would resign from his post if anybody could prove this charge. He maintained there was not an iota of truth in the allegations which were politically motivated.

Asked if had informed the Election Commission at the time of filing his nomination that he was Chairman of the SSDA, Mr Chatterjee said it was not necessary as it was not an office of profit.

Although he spoke at length on this issue, the Speaker refused to be dragged into the latest controversy over the motion on the Privilege Committee recommendation for admonition of former Lok Sabha secretary-general Subhash Kashyap adopted by the Lok Sabha yesterday.

As for the BJP’s threat to bring a no-confidence motion against him, he said it had every right to do so.

Kolkata, May 24
The Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and the Left Front chairman, Mr Biman Bose, have requested striking doctors and students not to hamper medical services.

Mr Bose, who is also the CPM state unit secretary, said the admissions to medical colleges, IITs, IIMs and other higher education institutes should be through joint entrance examinations only.

But the OBCs should also get opportunity of higher education and their admission facilities should be met by increasing the number of seats to be specially earmarked for them.

State Congress leaders also made the same demand and requested the Prime Minister to intervene in settling the stalemate.

The Trinamool Congress and the BJP, however, have came out openly in support of the striking students. Leaders of these parties alleged that the quota decision had been taken jointly by the UPA and the Left in order to increase their respective vote banks.

Meanwhile, junior doctors and medical students blocked roads at several places. Those studying in IIT, IIM and the Indian Institute of Science also extended their support to the striking medical students.

Doctors and students of the SSKM and National Medical College and Hospital held a demonstration on the EM bypass at Park Street in the morning. This affected the VIP movement on way to the airport. Air passengers also had a tough time at the airport.

The BT Road, connecting Kolkata with cities in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, was also blocked. The striking students burnt effigies of Mr Arjun Singh and Ms Sonia Gandhi.

In Siliguri, doctors and students began fast against the UPA’s new quota policy. They also locked the gates of the North Bengal Medical College.

New Delhi, May 24
While favouring reservation for OBCs in institutions of higher education, the main Opposition party, the BJP, today drew the UPA government’s attention towards the constitutional amendment related to reservation, which was passed during the last session of Parliament, also covered private institutions.

Giving the party’s initial reaction to the UPA government’s proposal on reservation yesterday, BJP spokesperson and former Law Minister Arun Jaitley said here “The BJP is in favour of reservation. But, the party also feels that the excellence of institutions should not be diluted. The space meant for merit should not get reduced. So, capacity building should be speeded up”.

In fact, the Vajpayee-led NDA government had outlined the roadmap for setting up of six new AIIMS-type institutions across the country and setting up of several IITs and IIMs, Mr Jaitley said, adding “but this Congress-led government has not bothered to carry it forward”,

The BJP leader was critical of the UPA leaders, especially Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, for failing to adopt a consensual approach on the reservation issue.

“The UPA government should have ensured that all sections of society are taken into confidence and remove an impression that the reservation is being forced for political gains”, Mr Jaitley said.

“In fact, the Prime Minister had assured that the report of the Group of Ministers will be discussed with leaders of Opposition parties...But, this did not happen”, he said.

The BJP spokesperson also pointed out that his party was against exempting minority institutions from the ambit of reservation for OBCs and would oppose any move for religion-based reservation.

Asked whether the BJP favoured caste-based reservation, Mr Jaitley said “under the present system and constitutional provision as interpreted by the Supreme Court, caste will not be the only determining factor but a key determinant”.

The BJP leader also attacked the UPA government for what it called its failure to adopt a clear-cut policy vis a vis Jammu and Kashmir and tackle the menace of terrorism.

“Whether it is country’s foreign policy, internal security situation or its relationship with neighbouring countries, policy on Jammu and Kashmir is the key factor. However, in the two years of UPA government it had been the single largest failure”, Mr Jaitley said.

New Delhi, May 24
Despite the fact that no breakthrough could be achieved during India-Pakistan talks on Siachen issue in the two-day talks here that concluded today, the Pakistani side is exercising restraint and conducting itself far more maturely than the previous nine rounds of talks on the dispute.

Pakistan’s Defence Secretary Lt Gen (Retd) Tariq Waseem Ghazi told this correspondent tonight that Islamabad did not think it necessary to authenticate the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL), the main demand of the Indians in the recent rounds of talks.

Gen Ghazi stuck to his point when reminded by this correspondent that the Government of India considered authentication to be of paramount importance because it was worried that if India were to vacate vantage positions on the world’s highest battlefield without authentication, the fear was that the Pakistanis might occupy the vacated heights. His argument was that there were no international boundaries or mutually agreed international positions which had not been violated.

Instead, the Pakistani Defence Secretary insisted on mutual withdrawal of troops from Siachen which is not guaranteed by any cartographic delineation but by the two sides’ mutually agreed verification mechanism based on credibility, transparency, faith and understanding.

General Ghazi also went to the extent of rubbishing media reports which described Siachen talks as having failed. He said there were three reasons why these talks had not failed: (i) the two sides understood each other better than ever before; (ii) they agreed to continue with the ceasefire and (iii) the two sides stayed engaged and agreed to resolve the dispute amicably.

General Ghazi said that there was a desire on both sides to resolve Siachen issue in the larger benefit of the two countries and peace process.

General Ghazi dispelled the impression of rigidity on Pakistan’s side and said Pakistan presented a comprehensive package of suggestions at the talks and wanted to resolve the 22-year-old dispute once and for all. The defence Secretary said Pakistan wanted to view the matter in the spirit of Simla agreement and added that both New Delhi and Islamabad had reached an in-principle agreement in 1998 to withdraw troops from Siachen to peace locations, but it could not materialise practically.

Chennai, May 24
The newly elected Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is in trouble as Congress MLAs now wants to share power in the Tamil Nadu Government which is being run the DMK.

The Congress, after the Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA) won the State Assembly elections, said it would extend “unconditional support” from outside, but most Congress men are unhappy and want to have a share in power.

Now, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Tamil Nadu has passed a unanimous resolution in the presence of AICC member in charge of Tamil Nadu, Mr Veerappa Moily; demanding that all DPA partners be included in the ministry.

Congressmen here are also angry that even the Deputy Speaker’s post was not offered to one of their legislators.

The entire issue now rests with Mr M. Karunandihi and Ms Sonia Gandhi.

But a repeat of what happened in Uttar Pradesh in the late 90s when Congress men broke away and formed a Loktantrik Congress to share power cannot be ruled out here.

In that case, the present government will collapse and there has be elections again in Tamil Nadu.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunannidhi after the victory did not rule out sharing power, but was vague in his reply to newspersons

The CLP resolution said the people’s mandate was clearly for a DPA government headed by Mr M. Karunanidhi, but the matter should be taken up with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress legislators also demanded that since “they were elected by wishes of the people of Tamil Nadu”, which had voted the DPA to power, it had to be respected.

The strongly worded resolution stated that according to the aspirations of the people Tamil Nadu after 40 years, the party had got an opportunity to be a part of the government and it should not miss it

The Congress MLAs said they were not begging from the DMK, but only insisting its right to a share in power.