Kolkata, December 12
On the ninth day of Ms Mamata Banerjee's fasting, the CPM today organised a massive counter-rally near her dharna manch in the Esplande area where over 1000 farmers and their families claimed to be from Singur also took part.

These farmers were in the crowds but their identities and the particulars of their lands were not not known.

Trinamool Congress MLA at Singur Mr Monoranjan Bhattacharyya and leaders of the Singur Kishi Bachaoo Committee alleged that these farmers did not belong to Singur but they were from some other places who had been brought to the rally by the CPM.

Ms Brinda Karat, CPM MP from West Bengal, who addressed the rally, however, claimed they all were the genuine land-owners and farmers at Singur, who had willingly handed over their lands to the government for the Tata Motors car project since they now came to realise that the proposed project would be in their own interest.

She accused Ms Banerjee and others of unnecessarily politicising the Singur issue for their survival in the state. She hoped soon some good sense prevail in her and she would call of her fast.

Though Ms Banerjee, due to her continuous fasting, had now problems in the kidney functioning and blood circulation, still decided to continue her fast. The Governor, Mr Gopal Krishna Gandhi, again today appealed to her to call off the fast and come to the negotiating table with the Chief Minister.

Yesterday, the Chief Minister requested Mr L.K.Advani to persuade Ms Banerjee for calling off her fast. But he made it clear to the BJP leader that the project would start at all cost.

TMC leaders will meet tomorrow to review the health condition of Ms Banerjee vis-a-vis their agitation programme. Some leaders were gradually losing interest in the agitation finding their leader losing the battle. But several others still wanted to stick to the agitation progarmme and accordingly would widen their movement all over the state.

New Delhi, December 12
The BJP today decided to launch a week-long campaign against Congress’ politics of appeasement from December 15.

While the BJP Parliamentary Party passed a unanimous resolution condemning the Muslim appeasement steps by the UPA government, Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani told party MPs that the party should launch a campaign in their constituencies against Dr Manmohan Singh's remarks that plans for minorities, especially Muslims, must have the first claim on the country's resources.

The resolution said the Prime Minister's statement at the NDC meeting "is no accident" as it was the latest step in a series by the UPA government seeking to appease Muslims irrespective of the injury that would be inflicted on the national interest, and indeed on the Muslim themselves.

"Advani said there should be a countrywide campaign against such comments as they reek of communalism," deputy leader of the Lok Sabha Vijay Kumar Malhotra told reporters after the BJP's Parliamentary Party meeting here.

The party, Prof Malhotra said, regarded Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia's "clarifications" of the Prime Minister's remarks as in fact a "confirmation" of what he had spoken at the National Development Council (NDC) meeting on Saturday.

In Parliament, the BJP would raise other issues, such as the India-US nuclear deal and the woes of Kashmiri Pandits, which it had on its agenda for the remaining session, he said.

Ahead of its national executive meeting in Lucknow from December 22, the BJP would hold demonstrations and sit-in protests across the country to protest the Prime Minister's comments, party chief Rajnath Singh said.

With Vande Mataram topping the BJP's agenda at its Dehra Dun conclave in September, he said the party would take up Singh's comments as a key issue at its Lucknow meeting. 

New Delhi, December 12
Members of Parliament, cutting across the party lines from Vidharba region of Maharashtra, today urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to give funds for the construction of Nanded-Yavatmal-Wardha railway line by 2008, the year when 300th birth anniversary of Guru Govind Singh will be celebrated across the country.

In a four-page signed letter to the Prime Minister, 12 MPs have pointed out that Yavatmal was still a backward area in the country lacking even railway service and made a strong plea for sanctioning Rs 500 crore for the construction of Nanded-Yavatmal-Wardha railway line.

" The Ministry of Railways has already done survey on the feasibility of this line. Keeping in view the 300th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, which will be held in the year 2008 with particular vigour in Nanded, construction of this line is very necessary. During the anniversary lakhs of people not only from India but also from foreign countries will visit Nanded to pay homage to the 10th Guru,” the letter said.

Apart from this, a rail link would also help the region economically, the letter said and added that after construction of a rail line, coal from this area would be transported not through road but through railways resulting in saving of diesel and petrol.

Thanking the Prime Minister for the Vidharba package, the MPs from Vidharba said sanctioning of Rs 500 crore in addition to the package would make it easy for Railways to construct the line.

The MPs have further urged Dr Singh for sanctioning another Rs 500 crore for irrigation schemes like lift irrigation and deep wells.

Additional funds for upgradation of Government Medical College at Nagpur, increase in cotton prices and grant of subsidy to farmers and compensation to those killed and injured in the recent firing in Yavatmal were some of the other demands that the MPs made to the Prime Minister.

Signatories to the letter include Haribhau Rathod, Madhav Rao Shivankar, Sanjay Dhotre, Suresh Waghamane, Hansraj Ahir, Shubhas Deshmukh, Anant Rao Gude, Bhawana Gawdi, Rosaheb Danve, Shisuhpal Patle, Vijay Darda and Datta Meghe.

Patna December 12
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today gave an assurance that his government would leave no stones unturned to book the culprits behind the brutal murder of the noted historian Papiya Ghosh.

Talking to the mediapersons here, Mr Kumar said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to him yesterday to enquire about the progress of investigation in the shocking murder. "Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee also spoke to me", he said.

Mr Kumar said that he was quite aware of the seriousness of the crime and the related shock to the intellectuals across the country in view of the international repute of the slain professor as an academician.

Papiya Ghosh was working at the Patna Women`s College and she along with her domestic help were stabbed to death on December 2 while trying to resist robbers at her home in capital`s post Pataliputra colony.

Papiya`s sister, an IAS officer, was working with the Lok Sabha Secretariat in Delhi.

The ruling NDA today, however, appeared to be on the defensive on this murder issue as Mr Kumar favoured keeping the options open for a CBI probe in the event the police failed to solve the mystery behind the same.

The remarks by Mr Kumar was in sharp contrast to his stand yesterday when he had ruled out a CBI probe demanded by the opposition.

Mr Kumar said: "The police should be given a chance. They are heading in the right direction. In case they fail, I do no have any hesitation in handing over the case to the CBI".

Meanwhile, the entire opposition led by the RJD boycotted the proceedings of the House in the Assembly, demanding a CBI probe.

In a related development, hundreds of college and university teachers in Bihar have decided to go on a daylong strike on December 14 to demand for the CBI probe.

The All India Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisation has given the strike call to put pressure on the government for a speedy investigation. Nearly 33,000 non-teaching staff of the nine universities would also join the strike.

The RJD leader and MLA Shyam Rajak alleged that Papiya Ghosh was killed because some ruling party legislators wanted to grab her big house.

New Delhi, December 12
The Public accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has pulled up the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over the import of robotic de-mining equipment and has adviced the three services to use fast track procedures for acquisition of weapons systems and platform only in "emergent unavoidable conditions".

Stating that 40 sets of the equipment were imported 16 months after Operation Parakaram, when 97 per cent of the 10 lakh mines had already been manually removed on the Indo-Pak border, the committee asserted that evoking fast track procedures in peace time led to payment of higher price and absence of equipment being tested in Indian conditions.

The committee pointed out that of the 2,78,300 mines proposed to be recovered through the equipment, only 1182 mines, just about 0.42 per cent of the total, were recovered using the de-mining equipment and the remaining mines were recovered manually.

While the Op Parakram ended in 2001, the proposal to purchase the de-mining equipment through the fast track procedure was made in August 2002. Significantly, while the contract for the import of robotic de-mining equipment at a cost of 19.05 million Euro (Rs 103.91 crores) from a Denmark firm was concluded in March 2003, the delivery of the equipment was stipulated over a period of nine months.

The equipment was actually received between June 2003 and March 2004, eight to 16 months beyond the date indicated by Army Headquarters. Given the urgency, the cumulative delay in delivery of the equipment was inexplicable, the committee said.

The committee also found it strange why the Army had not agreed to the vendor's proposal for a shorter delivery period of four months.

Lucknow, December 12
A significant order passed by the Allahabad High Court has today directed the "state government to forthwith withdraw security from all ineligible private persons such as students, student leaders, contractors and all political workers and to positively report compliance of this order by 15.12.2006".

The bench, consisting of Mr Justice Imtiyaz Murtaza and Mr Justice Amar Saran, passed this important order that specifically mentions the withdrawal of security to all "ineligible private persons such as students, student leaders, contractors and all political workers".

The decision comes just when Lucknow University Vice Chancellor is under heavy fire by political parties for closing the University sine die following students' violence against the Lyngdoh committee report.

During a debate in the Vidhan Sabha yesterday, political leaders across the spectrum, led by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav squarely blamed the VC for closing down the university and playing with the future of students.

Incidentally, the VC had closed the university and cancelled student union elections after prolonged violence and disruption of the academic calendar by security-protected student leaders protesting against the Lyngdoh committee report.

Interestingly, today's HC order has mentioned that no person can be provided security merely on the wishes or direction of the CM or any other authority.

The order further says that no exception is to be made in the matter of giving security simply on the grounds that there is threat to the life of the person if the person concerned has any criminal antecedents.

The only exception to be made in the court order is when the private person being provided security is a witness to a severe crime and that too if he has no criminal antecedents.

New Delhi, December 12
The Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, today stated in the Lok Sabha that an early decision on the mercy plea of Mohammed Afzal, sentenced to death for the 2001 Parliament attack, was unlikely, resulting in the Opposition staging a noisy walkout.

“There are many formalities involved in this. The government does not want to take a hasty decision. The past records also show that the decision on clemency petitions have always been a long process,” the Home Minister said on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the terror attack.

Noting that the mercy plea had been made recently, Patil said, “If the decision of the government is not in conformity with the law, the Supreme Court can intervene.”

He was responding to L.K. Advani’s demand to take a decision on Afzal before December 13 as families of the security personnel killed in the attack had asked the government to reject the clemency petition before the anniversary date.

Patil accused the Opposition of “whipping up the emotions of the family members” of those who died protecting the Parliament building.

After Advani raised the issue in Zero Hour, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi said the Opposition leader, who was the Home Minister then, should apologise for not protecting the Parliament building in 2001. This provoked BJP and Shiv Sena members and led to heated exchanges.

BRIEFLY

Son left to die in captivity
JAMSHEDPUR: A 17-old boy was allegedly left to die in a locked room by his parents in Sonari area of the steel city. The boy, Abhishek Das, is mentally deranged. According to a neighbour, the father of the boy K.K. Das, and his second wife and their two daughters left the house about a week ago, leaving the boy on his own fate in the locked room, where he was kept in captivity for the last five years. The boy had gone into depression after his mother and the first wife of Mr Das had reportedly committed suicide five years back. The police, who visited the house on Monday, said a case was lodged. — UNI

Dalits enter Bhilwara temple
BHILWARA: More than 400 Dalits together entered a temple in Bhilwara district’s Suliya village peacefully on Tuesday, defying the age-old ban on their entry there, enforced by the influential Gurjars. The Dalits were led by priest Bhopa Hazari Balai into the sanctum sanctorum of the Chamunda temple in Suliya village and offered prayers. Social activists Aruna Roy, Mamta Jaitely and others were present during the entry and expressed solidarity with Dalits cause. — UNI

Protesting Dalit woman dies
AHMEDABAD: A Dalit woman in Gandhinagar, who staged a sit-in demanding police protection against atrocities on her family members committed by a gang, died on Monday. The police, however said the woman Manjula Rathod had succumbed to cancer. Rathod staged a sit-in along with her 14 family members in Gandhinagar since November 11. Congress leader Girish Parmar alleged the woman died due to the apathy of the state government towards her family. — PTI