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PM’s conduct is disgraceful: BJP
PM, Sonia skip function
Cong loses minority stronghold
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Bypoll Results
Congress creates ruckus on Gujarat
200 TMC workers hurt in police lathi charge Time for
new friends, says Jayalalithaa
Speaker continues to face BJP’s
wrath
‘Errant’ Bihar politicians unnerved
Siddaramaiah scrapes through in Chamundeshwari
Double blow for Sena, more to follow
Uttaranchal renaming Bill passed in RS
Climate change: Large investment, technology need of hour
No hike in MPLADS fund: Centre
Taj wonder awaits online vote
Navy not to shift airport out of Goa
TN House’s plea on Tamils in Lanka
EC clears Ramadoss in OoP case
Shahabuddin lands in fresh trouble
Bollywood shutdown for Dutt on Dec 12
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PM’s conduct is disgraceful: BJP
New Delhi, December 7 Leading the attack on Dr Singh, former External Affairs Minister and present Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh said it was "extremely odd" for the Prime Minister of India to be lobbying for this agreement with the present US Senate, which now retains that office for just a few weeks. "Why has our Prime Minister engaged in such demeaning conduct?", the BJP leader asked and wondered why Dr Singh was not discussing the matter with leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and was not taking the country in confidence as to the nature of the crisis that had arisen, persuading him to parley with a US Senator. Mr Jaswant Singh also recalled that the US business lobby had welcomed the pact as the opening up of Indian nuclear markets while the Prime Minister had referred it to as an " energy agreement". "Which of these aspects is the agreement about?”, the former External Affairs Minister
asked. He demanded that the government must categorically state that "what is being negotiated; what complexities are being encountered and why?" Mr Jaswant Singh said the government should share full details. "What is the status of the IAEA additional protocol and safeguards negotiations agreement", he asked. The BJP leader claimed that the Indian Embassy in Washington had not officially been shown the "final agreed text" and that many of the amendments that India wanted eliminated had been retained. He said the government must stay with the Prime Minister's August 17 statement in Parliament on the pact.
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PM, Sonia skip function
New Delhi, December 7 AIADMK chief J. Jayalalithaa, not exactly on the best of terms with Ms Gandhi, had specially flown down from Chennai for this function. Relations between the two leaders had soured shortly after they joined hands in 1998 to dislodge the NDA government. The situation had changed dramatically since those days as the Congress had since teamed up with Ms Jayalalithaa’s political opponent DMK both at the Centre and in the state. UPA sources said Dr Manmohan Singh and Ms Gandhi deliberately stayed away from the ceremony, citing previous preoccupations, as they did not wish to annoy the DMK. Congress MPs from Tamil Nadu also absented themselves from the function. “Agreed that the AIADMK has been our valuable ally in the past, but what matters is our present partner”, remarked a senior UPA minister. Their decision to skip today’s function was further prompted by Ms Jayalalithaa’s meeting with Congress’ bete noire Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh yesterday. DMK chief and Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi was touchy on these matters. Mr Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, who had to welcome the AIADMK leader in his capacity as parliamentary affairs minister, found it necessary to explain himself to the DMK.
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Cong loses minority stronghold
Patna, December 7 The by-election to Manihari assembly seat was held following the untimely demise of the sitting Congress MLA Mubarak
Hussian. The Congress nominated his son Hamid Mubarak against the NDA-backed JD(U). Manihari is among the few minority-dominated seats in Bihar which hitherto was regarded as a stronghold of the Congress. Even in its worst days, Manihari had returned the Congress candidates in successive elections including the pro-Nitish wave in October-November polls last year. The unexpected defeat of the Congress in Manihari was thus largely being viewed as the party`s failure to come out with a clear cut policy on minority uplift against a vocal Mr. Kumar who strongly advocated reservation for Dalit Muslims. The pitiable condition of the Muslims in India even after 59 years of independence was reflected by the Sachar Committee report placed in Parliament recently. It was also beyond dispute that the Congress had ruled the country the most since independence. Incidentally, Manihari assembly segment is dominated by Dalit Muslims who constituted over 70 per cent of the 28 per cent of minority population in Bihar. JD(U)`s victory here thus could also viewed as an endorsement of Mr.Kumar`s stand favouring reservation for Dalit Muslims. Ever since the NDA had defeated the RJD-led UPA in last year assembly polls, Mr. Nitish Kumar took a series of initiatives to win over the confidence of the minority who otherwise initially was sceptical of JD(U) because of its association with the BJP. Besides opening up old cases in 1989 Bhagalpur riots under then the Congress government which had claimed over 1,000 lives, Mr. Kumar strongly argued in favour of reserving seats for Dalit Muslims on the lines of SC and ST of the Hindus. He also regularised the salaries of Madrasa teachers and increased the state allocation for Haj pilgrims from Bihar. And above all,despite being a partner of the BJP, he distanced himself from the recent Vande Mataram row. The defeat of the Congress at Manihari was also a big blow for the RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav who was known for his mythical "Muslim-Yadav" (MY) equation which had primarily helped him to rule Bihar for 15 years. Despite the differences with the Congress at the recent held Lok Sabha by-polls in Bhagalpur and Nalanda, where the Congress had supported the Left candidates against the RJD, Mr.Lalu Prasad extensively campaigned in favour of Congress candidate in Manihari. In fact, Mr.Lalu Prasad could not reach the accident site at Bhagalpur on time ,where the 150-year-old over ridge- ULta Pul- fell of the Howrah-Jamalpur express on Saturday claiming 34 lives, because of his campaign at Manihari. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar chose to view the victory at Manihari as a mandate on the efforts initiated by him to deliver good governance in the state and bring it back on the tracks of development. Mr.Kumar said he believed in "all inclusive" development to unite the society cutting across caste,creed and religion and that Manihari outcome was just a mandate on that. The JD(U) insiders, too, described the victory at Manihari as politically more significant than the NDA`s recent success to retain Bhagalpur and Nalanda Lok Sabha seats because of Mr. Kumar`s effort to look beyond the BJP crutch. This was evident from his recent overtures to another bete noire of Mr.Lalu Prasad,LJP Chief Ram Vilas Paswan. Both Mr.Kumar and Mr Paswan have mutually agreed to help each other to develop Bihar.
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Cong wins Bobbili, TRS retains Karimnagar
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, December 7 The ruling Congress party barely scraped through in Bobbili with probably the lowest majority recorded for a Parliament election of 157 votes. While Congress secured 3,34,326 votes, the opposition Telugu Desam Party managed to get 3,34,169 votes. Bobbili was one of the five Parliamentary seats that the TDP had won in the 2004 polls. With the current win, the Congress’ tally from Andhra Pradesh has gone up to 30 out of the total of 42 seats. The Telangana cause has received a shot in the arm following the landslide victory of TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao in the Karimnagar byelection. Mr Rao recorded a thumping majority of more than two lakh votes, stunning the friend-turned-foe Congress, which stood a poor second. The TRS, which projected the election as a referendum on a separate Telangana, gathered a whopping 3,78,030 votes, while Congress could muster only 1,76,448 votes. The TDP, the only party which is opposed to a separate state ended up a close third with 1,70,268 votes. As expected, BJP candidates lost deposits in both Bobbili and Karimangar. While the party got crushed between two giants in Bobbili, the saffron party failed to make any headway in Karimnagar despite its new-found commitment for Telangana. The emphatic win of the TRS in Karimnagar is likely to increase the pressure within the Congress on the issue of Telangana. Worried over the repercussions of the party’s ambivalence in the region, the Congress MLAs from the region had already voiced their dissent on the issue. “This is clearly a vote for Telangana. Congress leadership should immediately wake up to the reality and announce the road map for the creation of the separate state,” P. Govarhdan Reddy, MLA and influential leader from Telangana, said. Congress legislators and MPs from the region are concerned that the TRS may consolidate its base further, if the Congress high command failed to spell out its stand on the issue in deference to Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s wishes, who stood for united Andhra.
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Congress creates ruckus on Gujarat
New, December 7 Soon after laying down of papers, Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan called Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh for making his zero hour mention. However, Mr Santosh Bagrodia and Rashid Alvi of the Congress strongly protested that their notices were not being accommodated. Mr Khan clarified that the notices were under consideration of the Chair and only Mr Amar Singh's notice was allowed to be mentioned. There were strong protests from the BJP benches while the Samajwadi Party member waited for conducive atmosphere for putting forth their view points. When Mr Khan failed to calm the slogan- shouting Congress members, he adjourned the House for 15 minutes. When the House reassembled, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh charged the government with giving “step motherly” treatment to Uttar Pradesh by “politicising and scuttling” the Dadri power project in the state. |
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200 TMC workers hurt in police lathi charge Kolkata, December 7 However, they were cordoned off at some distance on the Durgapur highway. The police also resorted to lathi charge when the marchers tried to break the cordon. They were arrested but later released and were forced back to Kolkata. According to the TMC, about 200 persons were injured in the lathi charge and over 3,000 people were arrested. The administration had prevented political leaders, including Ms Mamata Banerjee, BJP chief Rajnath Singh and social activist Medha Patkar from entering Singur. Meanwhile, the West Bengal Human Rights Commission today directed the IG (CID) to enquire into the alleged police excesses on the farmers at Singur and submit a report to the commission within a week. Several lawyers of the Calcutta High Court and some other courts also complained to him that they were denied entry into Singur, where they wanted to go and make an on the spot enquiry into the alleged police excesses on the farmers and their forcible eviction from their lands for transferring these to Tata Motors. Justice Sen said he had also wanted an explanation from the state government why social activist Medha Patkar was detained at the Coal India guest house and not allowed to go to Singur. On the fourth day of her dharna and fast in the Esplanade area today, Ms Banerjee refused to call off her fast even after a formal request from the President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and the state Governor, Mr Gopal Krishna Gandhi. The Governor went to her dharna site last night at the instance of the President and conveyed his request to her. But Ms Banerjee told the Governor that there was no question of her calling off the fast when several other poor and hapless farmers, including women and elderly persons, were on fast at Singur demanding the return of their farm lands, which had been forcibly taken over for Tata Motors.
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Time for
new friends, says Jayalalithaa New
Delhi, December 7 Speaking to mediapersons after the unveiling of the statue of former Tamil Nadu chief minister and AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran at the Parliament House here, Ms Jayalalithaa refused to go into the specifics of the changes expected in the political firmament. Asked about the speculation that the Centre was contemplating dismissing the Mulayam government in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Assembly elections next year, she said it would be highly condemnable. She felt that the imposition of President's rule in Uttar Pradesh would boomerang on the Congress and result in the SP returning to power with a greater majority. Even as she criticised the DMK for boycotting the function connected with the unveiling of the statue, she refused to comment on the conspicuous absence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. "You ask her", was her stoic response. She disclosed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had extended his best wishes for the function as he could not attend it due to some pressing engagements. The relationship between Ms Jayalalithaa and Ms Gandhi had not been cordial for some years now despite the two coming together in 1998 before the fall of the BJP-led government at the Centre. The Congress was now aligned with the DMK both at the Centre and in Tamil Nadu. Ms Jayalalithaa's party was also a part of the third front floated by Mr Yadav and TDP chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu, known detractors of the Congress president. Responding to a question on the women's reservation Bill, she said, "It is a tragedy that the legislation is not been enacted". |
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Speaker continues to face BJP’s
wrath
New Delhi, December 7 Providing a thrust to the NDA's boycott of Business Advisory Committee and meeting with the Speaker, BJP MP Kharabala Swain alleged that Mr Chatterjee was biased against his party MPs as he was not allowing them to seek clarifications during the question time. Facing the BJP's tirade, the Speaker asked other member whether they shared Mr Swain's views. To this, the Left and some Congress members responded instantaneously and lodged strong protests. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs B K Handique quickly crossed over to the opposition benches and was witnessed urging BJP Deputy leader V K Malhotra to restrain Mr Swain. By now, several BJP MPs came to Mr Swain’s support. An agitated Speaker said: "This type of allegation I reject with emphasis.... I totally reject your allegation". He urged Leader of Opposition L. K. Advani and Deputy Leader to ascertain from records whether there was any truth in the allegations against him. The present tussle between the saffron party and the Speaker began on Monday when Mr Advani wanted to raise the issue of the arrest of BJP President Rajnath Singh in West Bengal. The Speaker not only disallowed Mr Advani to raise the issue but also carried on with the official business like the supplementary grants of the Ministry of Railways.
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‘Errant’ Bihar politicians unnerved
Patna, December 7 The firm stand by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who has assured a “free hand” to the authorities to book the guilty coupled with a proactive judiciary has understandably send these politicians, both from the ruling party and the Opposition, into a tizzy. A division bench of the Patna High Court on Tuesday directed the ADG (police modernisation) D.N. Gautam to supervise and control the investigation in the case related to the alleged kidnapping of Lalmani Devi by the supporters of the JD(U) MP from Maharajganj, Prabhunath Singh. Mr Prabhunath Singh, who is the leader of the JD(U) Parliamentary party in Lok Sabha, is an accused in a case related to the murder of Lalmani Devi’s son during the 1995 Assembly poll. While the court asked D.N. Gautam to submit an interim report by December 18 and complete the investigation in eight weeks, it expressed its displeasure over the findings in the report already submitted by the DIG, Saran range, Ram Pravesh Singh, regarding the alleged involvement of the MP, by dubbing it “unsatisfactory”. For Railway minister and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav too, there seems to be no respite. Special CBI Judge Munnilal Paswan has fixed December 18 as the date to deliver judgement in the disproportionate assets (DA) case lodged against him and his wife, former CM Rabri Devi. Mr Lalu Prasad’s brother-in-law, the RJD MP from Gopalganj, Sadhu Yadav, was arrested on Monday for a case of forgery and cheating related to the multi-crore flood relief scam. The flood relief scam had surfaced during the RJD regime in 2004 headed by then Chief Minister
Rabri Devi. Other Bihar politicians embroiled in police or court cases include Union Ministers Taslimuddin and Jayprakash Narayan Yadav. Both of them belong to the RJD. Besides them, RJD MPs Mohd Shahabuddin and Pappu Yadav are in jail facing criminal charges.
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Siddaramaiah scrapes through in Chamundeshwari
Bangalore, December 7 Mr Siddaramaiah defeated JD (S) candidate Shivabasappa in the election which had virtually turned into a war between him and the Gowda father-son duo, who had thrown him out of the party as well as unseated him from the Deputy Chief Minister’s post last year. Mr Siddaramaiah polled 1,15,512 votes as against 1,15,255 of Mr Shivabasappa. All the other candidates, including A.S. Guruswamy of the JD(S) lost their security deposits. Mr Siddaramaiah was quick to make political capital of the victory which is his fifth from the constituency. He said Mr Shivabasappa was only a dummy candidate and that he had in effect defeated Mr Gowda. The Chief Minister should own responsibility for the defeat and resign from his post immediately. Claiming that the victory would put an end to “family politics” of the Gowda family, he predicted a split in the JD (S) soon. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy told mediapersons that the J D (S) candidate had put up a creditable fight considering the fact that Mr Siddaramaiah was the face of the JD (S) in the constituency for the past 20 years. He also indicated that interventions by the Election Commission may have resulted in the loss by saying “the voters have not let me down. You all have seen how the Election Commission has behaved”. Home Minister M.P. Prakash said there was no threat to the JD(S)-BJP coalition government in the state following the party’s defeat in the byelection. Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Ramaseshan today dismissed the pleas of some JD (S) leaders to order a recount in the constituency. He said there was no question of a recount after the result had been announced officially.
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Double blow for Sena, more to follow
Mumbai, December 7 In
Daryapur, Mr Prakash Bharsakhle (45,908 votes) defeated Shiv Sena's S.V. Gawande (41,042 votes). Mr Rane showed his real skill in poll management at
Chimur. For the first time, he handed the BJP a bloody nose, with his confidante Vijay Wadettiwar defeating the latter's Ramesh Gajbe by over 19,000 votes. Mr Wadettiwar bagged 73,832 votes while Dr Gajbe got 54,088 votes. The BJP had hoped to bag Chimur since Mr Wadettiwar had won it by a slender margin of 400 votes in the last Assembly elections on the Shiv Sena ticket. After he defected to the Congress, the BJP had wooed Dr Ramesh
Gajbe, a prominent leader of the Gowari tribe, which had a significant presence in the region, from the Shiv Sena. The BJP's grandstanding against the Shiv Sena for the Chimur seat almost broke the two-decade alliance of both parties. The Shiv Sena had the last laugh since it forced the BJP to yield the safe
Kalyan-Dombivli seat to it in return. BJP leaders in Mumbai now alleged that the party's prospects in Chimur were sabotaged, with the Shiv Sena covertly backing Mr Rane's candidate. On the other hand, Shiv Sena leaders here admitted that the party's entire apparatus in Chimur walked out with Mr Wadettiwar to join the Congress and hence, they were in no way able to influence the outcome of the byelections. A beaming Mr Rane, in Nagpur, attributed the twin victories to party chief Sonia Gandhi. According to his confidantes, two more MLAs from the Shiv Sena were set to resign during the current session of the Assembly. In such a case, the Shiv Sena would be forced to concede the position of Leader of the Opposition to the BJP, straining their ties further. The Congress victory on both seats came at a time when the state was roiled by the killing of a Dalit family in Bhandara's Khairlanji village.
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Uttaranchal renaming Bill passed in RS
New Delhi, December 7 The Uttaranchal (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2006, was adopted by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. During the brief debate, members from the BJP and the Congress tried to take credit for the formation of the hill state and two prominent women members Ms Sushma Swaraj (BJP) and Ms Brinda Karat (CPM) indulged in wordy duel. During discussion on the Bill, the House witnessed a brief furore when Ms Brinda Karat sought to give the credit for the move to form the hill state to the Congress. BJP members Ravi Shankar Prasad and Kalraj Mishra alleged political motives behind the introduction of this Bill in Parliament just couple of months before the coming Assembly poll in Uttaranchal.
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Climate
change: Large investment, technology need of hour New Delhi, December 7 The fact is majority of CDM projects, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat imminent climate change and its fall-outs on economy, livelihood and food security of the world, are largely sourced from Indian money and technology. The broad scientific consensus today is that human-induced climate change is taking place at a significant rate, posing a substantial threat to global development efforts. These risks could undermine gains in agriculture, health and infrastructure, impeding India’s progress towards meeting millennium developmental goals. With the climate change and its effect on economy now becoming a reality, global climate experts, policy makers and academicians from the world over have gathered here in the Capital, seeking to come up with strategic solutions to integrate climate adaptation strategies into the India’s core defence mechanism Speaking on the sidelines of the international conference on “Adaptation to climate change” in the Capital today, MoEF Secretary Pradipto Ghosh admitted that despite CDM being the fastest growing sector in the Indian market, what disappointed him was the scale of foreign direct investment and technology. Urging for financial support and technology transfer from developed countries, the MoEF secretary said better promotion of Indian CDM projects at international meetings and climate negotiations was needed. The conference, being jointly organised by the MoEF along with the multilateral groups -the European Commission and the World Bank-besides bilateral organisations like TERI (India) and the DFID (Britain), hopes to come up with strategic solutions to integrating climate adaptation strategies. A country like India with its geophysical and climate characteristics is prone to the occurrence of extreme events. Also its economy is tied to climate-sensitive sectors, primarily agriculture, which is the backbone of economy. It is now beginning to see the effects of climate change in terms of altered rainfall and precipitation. The risks associated with climate variability and change are well documented. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts an increase in the magnitude of extreme events, including droughts, floods and cyclones, suggesting a strong need to introduce or strengthen strategies to deal with climatic changes. While Dr Ghosh refused to pinpoint any particular event as a clear-cut example of climate change in India, he told The Tribune that a study of series of climatic events in the past years indicated the manifestation of climate change in the country, making it now important for policy makers to recognise climate change as an economical and not just an environmental issue.
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No hike in MPLADS fund: Centre
New Delhi, December 7 The Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation, Mr G.K. Vasan, said in the Rajya Sabha that 79.70 per cent of the funds sanctioned had been utilised and 60.87 per cent works had been completed. Admitting that sometimes work did not take place, the minister said the Centre had asked the state governments to constitute state-level committees to monitor the spending of the MPLADS fund.
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Taj wonder awaits online vote New Delhi, December 7 In what is being said to be the world’s biggest online campaign, the voters can select Taj from a list of 21 finalists. The site also has information on voting by phone. The voting to select the finalists will continue till July 6, 2007, and the names of the seven new wonders of the world announced in a live broadcast at Lisbon, Portugal, on July 7, 2007. The monument, which officially entered the race to be one of the seven wonders of the world, is contending with 20 other finalists, including Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, chosen out of 77 nominees by online and SMS poll in which millions of people across the world participated. As per a statement posted on the website of the New7WondersFoundation, the list also includes Acropolis in Athens, Peru’s Machu Picchu, Cambodia’s Angkor Wat Temple, Turkey’s Haghia Sophia, the Kremlin and St Basil’s Cathedral, the Great Wall and the Sydney Opera House. Selecting world’s wonders happens to be a continuing fascination worldwide and UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites now totals 830 sites the world over. As far as the New 7 Wonders of the World campaign is concerned, it was started by Swiss Adventurer Bernard Weber in 1999. The initial list of nominations included more than 200 sites, which were shortened to 77. Bernard Weber also visited Agra on Tuesday as a part of the campaign to promote the 21 landmark sites across the globe that are up for voting. The Egyptian pyramids are the only surviving structure from the original list of seven architectural marvels. The other six wonders in the list included the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos lighthouse off Alexandria. According to the website, 50 per cent of the revenue generated by the project will be used to fund restoration work nationwide, including the recreation of Bamiyan Buddha.
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Navy not to shift airport out of Goa Mumbai, December 7 In a statement, the Flag Officer Goa Area of Navy Rear, Admiral Sanjay Vadgaonkar, said recently that the Karwar base did not have an airfield which could accommodate large-bodied aircraft. Politicians from the ruling Congress party led by South Goa MP Churchill Alemao have been demanding the shifting of naval airport from Goa. However, with the tourism industry in Goa hampered by the lack of a full-fledged civilian airport, the Indian Navy has been forced to accommodate hundreds of flights every week carrying foreigners to Dabolim airport despite the security risk. The airport which was opened to civilian traffic for only a few hours everyday in the 1990s is open most of the day to foreign charter operators, naval officials say. However, the lack of a proper terminal building and adequate infrastructure to cater to tourists has hampered the tourism industry. With Goa’s politicians taking up the matter with the Prime Minister’s office, the Navy late last month decided to transfer 25 acres of land adjoining the airport to the Airport Authority of India. In return, the AAI will give up an equivalent amount of land to the Navy at Port Blair. An alternative proposal to construct a new airport at Mopa near Goa’s border with Maharashtra split the ruling Congress party on communal lines. The present airport at Dabolim in South Goa brings in tourists to the Christian-dominated South Goa,
benefiting the local economy. Leaders led by the Alemao say the proposed airport at Mopa would benefit the residents of North Goa at the expense of the present beneficiaries. The Goa tourism trade also fear that the airport at Mopa would allow virgin beaches of Sindhudurg in Maharashtra take away a big chunk of the visitors to Goa . With pressure from the state government mounting, naval and AAI officials say the Dabolim airport would be upgraded to facilitate round-the-clock operation of civilian flights.
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TN House’s plea on Tamils in Lanka Chennai, December 7 They felt that India should immediately intervene to put an end to their suffering. The resolution stated:"There is an atmosphere of insecurity for Tamils in Sri Lanka. The situation is deteriorating. This House expresses deep sorrow over this and resolves that the Government of India take appropriate steps to find an early solution to their problem." Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi told the Assembly, "The Sri Lankan Tamil issue is something that is part of our breath and our feelings. Let us not bring pressure on the Centre or on ourselves by passing a detailed resolution. I will propose a resolution that will reflect our feelings."
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EC clears Ramadoss in OoP case
New Delhi, December 7 EC sources said the poll panel has sent its opinion to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who had referred to it as a complaint seeking disqualification of the minister on the ground that he was holding an office of profit as President of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. The sources, however, refused to give details of the opinion. The commission had earlier heard the arguments of both complainant Omesh Saigal, a retired IAS officer, and Mr Ramadoss. Mr Saigal had contended that Mr Ramadoss was holding an office of profit since the office of the President of AIIMS carried allowances and other perquisites.
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Shahabuddin lands in fresh trouble
Patna, December 7 The incident took place at the time when Shahabuddin was absconding to avoid arrest. Chief Judicial Magistrate of Muzzafarpur Bijendra Rai Chaudhary accepted the plea of Deputy Superintendent of Police and Investgating Officer in the case Arvind Kumar Gupta and issued production warrant against the MP. According to the police, during the probe it came to light that the MP himself did not appear in the examination, but somebody else appeared in the examination on his behalf. The police has already arrested Jayant Kumar, the principal of SK College from where Shahabuddin was registered as a student and Tauhid Alam, Principal of RDS college, where the examination centre was located. Shahabuddin, who recently had undergone spinal surgery in AIIMS, Delhi, was now lodged at Siwan jail.
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Bollywood shutdown for Dutt on Dec 12
Mumbai, December 7 Though acquitted of terrorism charges by the TADA court, the actor has been found guilty under the Arms Act for keeping an automatic assault rifle and a 9 mm pistol. Various associations of the film industry have jointly decided to launch a signature campaign at Mumbai's Film City to express solidarity with Dutt. Associations of producers, junior artistes, and TV artistes have all joined hands for the campaign.
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