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Haircut: SGPC seeks Saudi action
Haircut of Sikh boy rocks House
Congress fomenting Hindu-Sikh row: BJP
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Accused in forcible haircut of Sikh arrested
SC moved on anti-Jat remarks in NCERT books
Iran sending feelers to India yet again
Basu, Surjeet may quit Politburo due to old age
Mulayam woos poor with saris
Restaurant to change name as Jews mount protest
Ban manufacture of Coke, Pepsi: CPI
President accepts TRS ministers’ resignations
Rao ends fast
Protesting medical, engg students cane-charged
HC warning over Ramadoss’ inclusion
Book on Partition released
‘Green fields conceal plight of farmers’
Dullo seeks relief for terror-hit
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Haircut: SGPC seeks Saudi action
New Delhi, August 24 Demanding immediate action, SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar said the action of the Saudi hospital authorities "is intolerable and a direct attack on Sikhism." The SGPC president along with a large number Akali leaders and members of the community holding placards marched to the Saudi embassy in the Capital raising slogans and demanding justice for the community. The delegation in a memorandum submitted to the authorities demanded immediate handover of the passport of Dr Gurcharan Singh and all arrangements to be made for his departure. They also demanded the Saudi government to order a high-level inquiry and punish the guilty. It said Dr Gurcharan Singh, a surgeon, working at Athriyah Medical Centre, Riyadh, had sent an email to the SGPC alleging that his employer, Al Hammadi Est. For Hospital Operation and Management, had been pressuring him to "shave off his hair and take off his turban." It said the doctor's request to send him back to India was not heeded by the company, who had taken custody of his passport, and forced him to stay back in the kingdom. The plight of the doctor was also raised in the Lok Sabha by SAD general secretary Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa saying that the passport of a Sikh was impounded by the Saudi authorities and he was not allowed to go home after he refused to get cut his hair to remain in the job. The letter he wrote to the SGPC was forwarded to the President. Meanwhile, in a letter to the Prime Minister, SGPC member Kuldeep Singh Bhogal urged him to take up the issue with Saudi authorities "to ensure the protection of the religious and human rights of the Sikh community" there. "This is a very serious and sensitive matter which needs your urgent attention and intervention, lest it may culminate into a situation which arose in the US post 9/11 attacks when a number of Sikh residents were unfairly discriminated against on erroneous assumptions and belief," it added.
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Haircut of Sikh boy rocks House
New Delhi, August 24 Cutting across party lines, members demanded stern action against the culprits even as the Centre gave a clean chit to the Rajasthan Government regarding the follow-up action taken by it. The issue triggered a clash between the BJP-Akali Dal and the Congress over the issue of protection of minorities with the rival sides targeting each other over their ‘poor’ record. Congress member Madhusudan Mistry, as soon as the House met for the day, alleged that minorities were not safe in BJP-ruled states, evoking sharp protests from the Opposition. Responding to concerns expressed in the Upper House by emotionally-charged members, particularly from the Sikh community, Mr Patil appealed to people not to fall prey to nefarious designs of certain elements to divide society by whipping up religious passions. Members, cutting across party lines, supported S.S. Ahluwalia (BJP) who raised the issue during Zero Hour. In the Lok Sabha, the incident triggered a clash between the BJP-Akali Dal and the Congress with the rival sides targeting each other over their ‘poor’ record on the issue of protection of minorities. The issue, which forced two adjournments in the Lok Sabha, was raised by Congress member Madhusudan Mistry as soon as the House met for the day. He alleged that the minorities were not safe in BJP-ruled states, evoking sharp protests from Opposition benches. The incident was condemned by Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. As soon as Zero Hour began, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa (SAD) said the incidents had hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community very much. Describing the incident, he said, involved a Sikh student of Jaipur whose hair were forcibly cut after he was beaten up by a group of four students jealous over the boy’s love-affair with a girl. ‘’Severe action should be taken against the four youths who have now been arrested,’’ Dhindsa said. Immediately, the Akali Dal members were on their feet, and were supported by the BJP members. Congress MP Madhusudan Mistry, supported by his other Congress and UPA colleagues, he wanted a statement from the government in this regard. He alleged that the incident only proved that minorities were not safe in the BJP-ruled States. As this led to heated exchanges between the members of the ruling and the Opposition, the Speaker adjourned the house for five minutes.
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Congress fomenting Hindu-Sikh row: BJP
New Delhi, August 24 “The Rajasthan Government had apprised the Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) President and other leaders about the shameful event that took place among the 12th standard students in Kendriya Vidyalaya on August 21 afternoon and the action taken by the authorities. The Sikh leaders were satisfied with the action taken by the state government but the Congress is bent upon projecting this event as some sort of Hindu-Sikh confrontation in Parliament,” BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said at a press conference. Pointing out that the dharna and roadblock at Govind Marg Gurdwara had been lifted last evening, Prof Malhotra claimed that the main accused, now under arrest for ragging, had family connections with Congress leaders. “Efforts are on to apprehend other students involved. Two police officers—Inspector Ramdev Singh and Sub-Inspector Raj Kumar of Gandhi Nagar police station—had been shifted out of the police station and had been placed under suspension,” the BJP spokesman said. He said it was ironic that the Congress and its leaders, who have been charged with responsibility for killing of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi and other places in the country and countless instances of religious insults to the community, was now seeking to project the incident at a school run by the Central Government as some sort of confrontation between the two communities. “Their attempt to speak of morality holds no water and we strongly condemn their conspiracy to boost their own morale in Punjab elections,” Prof Malhotra alleged.
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Accused in forcible haircut of Sikh arrested
Jaipur, August 24 The alleged cutting of the hair of 17-year-old Inderpreet Singh sparked protests by the members of the community, who went on a rampage here on Tuesday, brandishing swords and injuring two policemen in brick-batting. Members of the community also staged violent protests and enforced shutdowns in several towns of Punjab and elsewhere yesterday, even as action was taken against two policemen for negligence in handling the incident. Reacting to the arrest of main accused Arjun Meena, Inderpreet Singh said he was very happy that he had been nabbed. "I have been very sad. Because by trimming my hair, he hurt my religious sentiments. I hope that I will get justice and the guilty will be punished soon," Inderpreet said. "It is a matter of happiness for my family as well as the whole Sikh community." Expressing satisfaction over the arrest of the main accused, Inderpreet's father Jarnail Singh said the case should be tried in a fast track court for speedy punishment of the guilty. "At last the main accused Arjun Meena was arrested and the five other accused would also be booked by the police soon," he said. "It was not only an inhuman act but against the Sikh religion." Following assurances given by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, the
Sikh community today opened their business establishments in Raja Park area.
— PTI
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SC moved on anti-Jat remarks in NCERT books
New Delhi, August 24 A public interest litigation (PIL) filed jointly by two private organisations—Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti and Delhi Pradesh Citizen Council—and Mr Bijender Singh Lather who runs several educational institutions in Haryana said the teaching of such material to students was unconstitutional as it promoted casteism in society and hit at the country’s secular fabrics. The PIL has specifically referred to a class XII book on modern Indian history in which Jats were described as “plunderers of rich and poor, jagirdars and peasants, Hindus and Muslims.” Similarly, it cited the derogatory references towards Dalits in a class XI Hindi book, which according to petitioners’ counsel Jasbir Malik directly violated the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act by using insulting language towards them. The petitioners have held the Human Resource Development Ministry under Mr Arjun Singh, Central Board of Secondary
Education and National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) functioning directly under his supervision, responsible for the serious lapses in printing the books. All of them were named as respondents. The third reference among many other “glaring lapses” in the books, cited in the PIL pertained to inclusion of a poem in the Hindi book for class XI, which has references of prostitutes and pimps, in a context that “there was no distinction between earning ones livelihood by becoming a pimp and selling Ramnami (a cloth inscribed with the name of Lord Rama).” The three petitioners said that despite a correspondence with the HRD Ministry and the NCERT on these glaring lapses in the textbooks, they had not bothered even to acknowledge their representations and there was no option left with them except to seek legal remedy through the forum of PIL as the issue involved was of a great public cause. The derogatory references towards Dalits in particular not only caused injuries and insult to them but attracted action against those who had knowingly violated the law protecting their dignity, the petitioners’ counsel said, adding that efforts would be made to seek early hearing of the case.
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Iran sending feelers to India yet again
New Delhi, August 24 The Iranian request comes at a time when the United Nations Security Council deadline for Iran to suspend work at its nuclear facilities by this month-end draws near and the situation in Lebanon has eased comparatively. The South Block has not yet given a green signal to Mr Safari’s proposed visit and a decision is expected by tomorrow. However, indications are that New Delhi may host Mr Safari early next week. During his interactions with ministers and officials here, if the visit materialises, Iran’s nuclear stand-off and the proposed gas pipeline would inevitably come up for discussion. Teheran is also working out dates for Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki’s India visit. Mr Mottaki was scheduled to come here on an official visit on July 19 for three days but the visit had to be called off at the last minute due to the situation in Lebanon. The Manmohan Singh government has time and again put on record its commitment for nurturing centuries’ old ties with Iran and that New Delhi’s relations with Teheran could co-exist with a vibrant relationship between India and the United States. However, the renewed Iranian zeal for a diplomatic engagement with India could not have come at a more inappropriate time for the Manmohan Singh government. The US Senate is scheduled to take up for voting the Indo-US nuclear deal next month — the very last important hurdle after the House of Representatives has already voted for it overwhelmingly. Moreover, Iran is currently between the devil and the deep sea over its nuclear programme. On August 22, Iran had blown hot and cold in the same breath. It offered to enter into immediate and “serious” negotiations without preconditions on a broad range of issues with the Bush administration and its European allies. However, it also refused to abide by a UN Security Council demand that it suspend work at its nuclear facilities by this month end. A high-profile visit from an important Iranian official to India at this time can be exploited by those Senators who are bitterly against the Indo-US nuclear deal. This is all the more relevant after a US House committee yesterday issued a stinging critique of U.S. intelligence on Iran and has pulled up the American intelligence community for failing to provide direct evidence of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. The 29-page report says “American intelligence agencies do not know nearly enough about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme” to help policy-makers at a critical time. It also says that information “regarding potential Iranian chemical weapons and biological weapons programmes is neither voluminous nor conclusive,” and little evidence has been gathered to tie Iran to Al-Qaida and to the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
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Basu, Surjeet may quit Politburo due to old age
Kolkata, August 24 Both the leaders have been advised by their respective doctors to be in the rest and not to undertake the slightest hardship and any strenuous jobs. It is learnt after his recent fall in his Salt Lake residence, Mr Basu himself expressed the desire to step down from the Politburo. Earlier also, both the leaders wanted to resign on health ground but they were not allowed. Now, if the party’s central committee agrees to release them from the Politburo, they will not, however, retire from politics. Instead, they will attend important Politburo meetings as special invitees as and when necessary. Accordingly, two new posts of special invitees will be created in the Politburo. At present, there are four special
invitees' posts, which are occupied by Mr Samar Mukherjee, Mr T.K.Ramakrishnan, Mr Pappa Umanath and Mr Ahilya Rangnekar. According to party sources, an urgent meeting of the central committee might be held in Kolkata in the middle of September to decide the issue, besides several other important political matters. Both the leaders have crossed 90 and they stepped down voluntarily from their respective posts in the government and the party on health grounds. Mr Basu resigned from the Chief Minister’s chair in November 1999 after heading the Bengal Left Front government at a stretch for 23 years since 1977 to make room for Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Mr Surjeet also retired almost simultaneously from the post of the party’s general secretary after serving there for over two decades uninterruptedly.
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Mulayam woos poor with saris
Lucknow, August 24 Leaving nothing to chance while addressing the anti-incumbency factor in an election year, the Chief Minister has virtually opened the state exchequer's purse strings, systematically wooing section after section. After managing to get Rs 400 crore allocated in his Budget early this year to win over the youth with an unprecedented Rs 500 a month unemployment allowance, now the Chief Minister is zeroing in on poverty-struck women. He had earlier announced this windfall for poor women in July, while laying the foundation stone of the state's first ever para medical college in his native village of Saifai in Etawah. The Chief Minister had said every BPL woman would get two saris this year and "if we come to power again then the number of saris would be increased up to five in a year". Subsequently, the promise was repeated at several public functions held in recent weeks to distribute the unemployment allowance and Kanya Vidya Dhan. However, instead of waiting for his next tenure, he has managed to get Rs 250 crore allocated for the purpose from the Rs 2882 crore supplementary grants passed today. The other sop for which Rs 6 crore was allocated today was Rs 500 a month pension to political prisoners detained in the state during Emergency under MISA and DIR. Significantly, the distribution of saris in the state has a macabre history. In April 2004, at the height of the parliamentary campaign of then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Lucknow, 22 women died in a stampede.
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Restaurant to change name as Jews mount protest
Mumbai, August 24 Promoted by a family of builders, the restaurant came in for strong criticism from local Jews. The Consul General of Israel lodged a strong protest and the ambassador of Germany wrote a strongly worded letter to the proprietor of the hotel. However, owner of the hotel Punit Sablok refused to change the name of the place untill Wednesday. But today, he was singing a different tune after representatives of the tiny Jewish community met with Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil last night and apprised him of the controversy. Copies of letters from the Israeli and German envoys were also provided to Patil. The Sabloks, who are linked with the Shiv Sena, said today a new name would be given to the restaurant. The place will also be shut down shortly and given a facelift. "I have been receiving calls from Jews across the world. The anger of our community against this eatery should be taken into account," Daniel Zonshine, Israel's Consul General, here said. In a newspaper article, he recounted how his grandparents perished in Nazi concentration camps. He was joined by Walter Stechl, German Consul General, who detailed on the destruction caused to Germany by Hitler's politics.
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Ban manufacture of Coke, Pepsi: CPI
New Delhi, August 24 A statement issued by the party’s central secretariat said the CSE study had made “very alarming revelation that 11 soft drink brands of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola contained different pesticides which are much above the prescribed standards”. “The CPI, considering the seriousness and dimension of the issue, urges all state governments and the Union Government to take steps to prohibit the manufacturing and sale of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola under the provisions of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and other relevant rules,” the statement said. It said that Kerela and five other governments had already banned manufacturing and sale of Coke and Pepsi “in the interest of public health.” The CPI statement comes a day after the CPM attacked government for “virtually defending” cola companies and asked it to immediately notify standards to be maintained by soft drink manufacturers across the country taking cognizance of the recommendations of the Bureau of Indian Standards and the Joint Parliamentary Committee. In his statement on the issue yesterday, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said the Health Minister had virtually defended the cola companies in Parliament on Tuesday, demanding that the government should immediately notify the standards finalised by BIS in March this year.
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President accepts TRS ministers’ resignations
New Delhi, August 24 Clearly, Dr Singh waited for some time to see if the agitated TRS leaders would change their mind. That was not to be with Mr Rao having gone on an indefinite dharna since yesterday for carving out a separate Telengana state. Compelled by his own party colleagues and to boost the sagging image of the TRS in Andhra Pradesh, Mr Rao was compelled to take the extreme step of resigning from the government and bidding adieu to the UPA coalition arrangement. In his seven-page letter to the Prime Minister along with a copy to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Mr Rao found it intriguing that 80 weeks had passed and the promise of according statehood to Telengana remains unfulfilled. Claiming that a clear consensus on the formation of Telengana state had already been achieved, the TRS chief stressed that the TDP was the only party which was opposed to it. He insisted that the time was ripe for forming Telengana state and maintained there cannot be any solution to the problems faced by the people of Telengana within the integrated state of Andhra Pradesh.
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Protesting medical, engg students cane-charged
Kolkata, August 24 Medical students from the city’s six government hospitals began their procession from the College Street area and marched towards the Writers Buildings to submit a memorandum to the Chief Minister against the Centre’s new reservation policy. Hundreds of engineering students of several private engineering colleges in and around the city joined them. When the procession reached the Lal Bazar, the police, which cordoned off the area, starting chasing the students, wielding lathis. Some students began resisting the police and several others started pelting stones at the policemen, which injured some police personnel and passersby. The police retaliated by throwing stones at the students and then, cane-charged them to disperse the crowd. Some medical students, including girls, who were bleeding profusely, were taken to the hospital by their colleagues. Senior police officials arrived on the spot and asked the demonstrators to leave the place as Section 144 of the CrPC had been imposed in the area. On the persuasion of senior police officials, the students agreed to send a delegation to the Writers Buildings to meet the state Health Minister.
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HC warning over Ramadoss’ inclusion
New Delhi, August 24 Mr Justice Anil Kumar warned the government that if the court order continued to be ignored, it would be constrained to restrain the minister from functioning as president of the AIIMS governing body, giving two weeks’ time to the government to submit its affidavit. The court fixed September 27 as the next date of hearing, with the warning that if the reply was not filed within two weeks, it would restrain the minister and the Health Secretary from attending meetings of the governing body. The removal of Dr Ramadoss from the presidentship of the governing body had been sought in a public interest litigation by Dr S. Kale and nine others. They had alleged that Dr Ramdoss had got himself inducted in the board illegally while the AIIMS Act, as amended in 2000, had done away with the practice of the Health Minister’s inclusion in it. The amendment in the AIIMS Act had been brought about following a Joint Parliamentary Committee report in 1996, which recommended that the Health Minister and the Health Secretary should not be ex-officio members of the board, as was the practice then, petitioners’ counsel Sugariv Dubey contended. The recommendation and the subsequent changes in the AIIMS Act in 2000 were aimed at protecting the independence of the institute from undue interference of the government in its day-to-day functioning, he argued. |
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Book on Partition released
New Delhi, August 24 Releasing a book by Prof
Anita Inder Singh, “Partition of India”, in the Capital yesterday,
he said, “We should have accepted civil war, if it was inevitable,
than agreeing to Partition. At least after that we would have settled
down to something.” He said Partition failed to solve problems
besieging the sub-continent and even today the region continued to be
dogged by same issues. “Whether it is communal or any other problem,
we continue to be besieged by them even after about 60 years,” he
said. However, he added that at present the onus of improving ties with
Pakistan and Bangladesh was with India, “though it is understandable
that for India the going would be a hard way.” Calling for a
South-Asian federation, sans borders, Mr Nayar said it could be a
reality one day. “This dream will some day come true. After all, for
how long can we keep fighting with each other?...I see in Pakistan some
kind of liberal middle class which thinks of a country with a liberal,
democratic, secular society,” he said. Prof Amrik Singh said the
British left India not because they wanted to, but because they had come
to know that they were losing power and control and needed to move out.
The writer, Prof Anita Inder Singh, opined that historical writers
should be meticulous and provide evidence to authenticate what they
write and to bring credibility to the written word. “I have tried my
bit to do just that in my book…To reflect the findings of my research
work and documents of which I had proof. In writing this book, effort
has been made to address why even today we don’t jointly fight for our
problems- that of communalism. Perhaps it is because how politicians use
religion and because of the problem of identity.”
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‘Green fields conceal plight of farmers’
New Delhi, August 24 “The Centre’s assessment committee comes and seeing the fields green, thinks that all is well with the farmers of the state, but that is not true,” he said. So far, 5,000 farmers in the state had committed suicide, and 200 in Sangrur district alone, said Mr Bajwa and demanded that the Centre should ask the state government for a record of suicides by farmers. He said there had been less than normal rains this year,and there was power shortage.
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Dullo seeks relief for terror-hit
New Delhi, August 24 He urged the Prime Minister to announce a package for
terrorism-affected families on the lines of relief provided to the victims of 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Referring to the extension of fiscal concessions to Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal, he said Punjab should also be provided schemes to offset the disadvantage. Mr Dullo said Punjab had faced the brunt of terrorism and needed special attention by the Centre. Mr Dullo suggested a one-time settlement as a way to tackling the problem of rural indebtness of the state. The farmers had to invest more money in getting water for crops due to falling levels of groundwater and the Centre should provide them appropriate subsidy.
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