Lucknow, December 23
The three-day session of the party’s highest policy making fora has confirmed the complete stranglehold of the RSS with the BJP adopting amendments to the party’s constitution that enables the party president to draft full time workers to the crucial posts of general secretary (organisation) not only at the national level but also in states and districts.

While former BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu moved the amendments to the articles 21 and 27 of the party constitution, which paved the way for drafting “full time workers” (meaning Sangh Pracharaks) as the general secretary (organisation) at the national, state and district levels, another fiery speaker Sushma Swaraj was chosen to introduce a resolution on “The UPA government’s vote bank politics”.

The resolution, which was adopted by a voice vote and targets hard core and fundamentalist BJP vote bank, said the UPA policies “are turning Indian against Indian, kindling divisive identities, jeopardising the country’s social cohesion and compromising national security”.

In a scathing attack on the Congress and like-minded parties, the resolution charged them for “recklessness” and “expediency” and accused them of “competitive appeasement” of the Muslims, which was nothing but “narrow sectarian politics”.

In a conscious effort to win its traditional hardcore Hindu vote, the resolution and various speeches said, “The past year has witnessed the Congress president, the Prime Minister, senior ministers and key political figures in the states trying to outdo each other in offering sops to Muslims regardless of its damaging consequences”.

Seeing Muslim appeasement in each and every action of the UPA, the BJP asserted that the development has become synonymous with “communalisation” and pointed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement at the National Development Council meeting.

Condemning the alleged communalisation of the government’s development programme and the use of religious identity to apportion taxpayers’ money, the resolution said the Congress had initiated an “unhealthy, divisive and potentially dangerous political trend” and cited 15 “misdeeds” of the Central Government to buttress its allegation.

Sounding as true friends of Muslims, the resolution goes on to say that they (Muslims) “are an inseparable part of India. They share with the rest of the people a common ancestry and culture. Their struggle for economic prosperity, social dignity, women’s empowerment and education make them one with the rest of India”.

Having said the Sangh controlled and inspired the BJP, the party comes out in its true elements saying, “By separating Muslim issues from the rest, the government is creating an artificial divide, breeding resentment and nurturing divisive forces”.

“In linking the fate of terrorist conspirators with Muslim interests, the Congress and its allies are implicitly suggesting that the Muslims have a stake in terrorism aimed against the ordinary people of India”, the resolution said and tried to woo “nationalist Muslims” saying it is “a gross injustice” to them.

Accusing the Congress and other “secularist” parties of having a “vested interest in keeping Muslims poor, ghettoised and in a state of permanent nervousness”, the resolution charged the above parties for perceiving “Muslims as voting fodder”.

Falling back on cases like that of Shah Bano and Imrana, which along with Ram Mandir” movement, resulted in the BJP’s phenomenal political growth in the mid-eighties and early nineties of the last century, the BJP said, “If unchecked the attempt to create special citizenship for Muslims will pave the way for second partition” and promised to resist it with all its might.

New posts of the zonal secretary (organisation) apart from secretary (organisation) to assist the general secretary (organisation) had also been created by the amendments, which were adopted today.

Mumbai, December 23
President APJ Abdul Kalam today asked the alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology to reach out to the vast majority of Indians who could not afford this elite institution and help search for talent.

Inaugurating the PanIIT Global Conference 2006, the largest gathering of the IIT alumni at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in suburban Mumbai, Dr Kalam said their greatest challenge would be to bring out hidden talent into the mainstream of society. “The greatest challenge for the Pan IITians and the nation is to find a mechanism to identify those needles in the haystack,” Dr Kalam said.

Throwing up some statistics, the President said only children from urban affluent families, who could afford to pay Rs 10,000 per month on education alone, could dream of joining the IIT. Only eight per cent of students in the IITs were girls while the national average in engineering colleges is 30 per cent.

Beginning his address on a humorous note, Dr Kalam said he researched his speech at today’s function on the IIT by speaking to a cross section of society. Quoting one such person, a professor of Indian origin in the USA, the president said the value addition by the IITs on its students was very low. “Of the 20 million children born in India every year only one per cent join the IIT. They are the best children in India. Wherever you put them they will do very well,” the President quoted the professor as saying.

Quoting another friend, the President said, “The IIT takes the best students and delivers the best to the world, but India herself enjoys minimal benefits from them in terms of knowledge products and intellectual property”.

“Since the IIT selected the cream the output is also cream. And the cream of the cream goes to the USA and they become the best there. The best in and best out,” the President noted.

Dr Kalam also warned the top brass of the IIT against complacency. “The IITs, which are acknowledged as the best minds in teaching and research are unable to attract quality faculty members”. For this, he called upon the IIT alumni to tap into the countrywide network of technical universities. “This will create a vast number of quality students and faculty. This is particularly important not only for taking care of the faculty needs of IITs but also for taking up the challenges of development.”

New Delhi, December 23
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today underlined the need to arrest sharp inter-region imbalances and exhorted less developed states, particularly Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, to understand the imperatives of development to avoid social and political unrest.

"Unless these regions catch up, the process of growth will remain uneven and give rise to social and political unrest", Dr Manmohan Singh observed here while giving away the Laxmipat Singhania-IIM Lucknow national awards for 2006.

Stressing that backward regions constituted a large chunk of the population, the Prime Minister impressed upon young management students to focus on the developmental potential of these states and help improve the quality of management in the region both in private and public sectors.

He said though India had managed to accelerate economic growth to more than 8 per cent. the preceding two decades witnessed an average national growth of 6 per cent.

During the two decades, there were some regions that experienced a higher average economic growth of 8 or 9 per cent.

At the same time, Dr Manmohan Singh pointed out that there were some other regions that have remained stuck at 3 or 3.5 per cent growth over the last two decades.

He urged institutions in the country to analyse and come forward with focussed strategies to help both urban and rural areas in backward regions accelerate development.

He stressed that these institutions should engage political leaders in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and other states to help them understand the imperatives of development.

New Delhi, December 23
Air and rail services to the capital were hit today as a thick blanket of fog enveloped the city and adjoining areas early this morning, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. Air services at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) were suspended this morning as Runway Visibility Range (RVR) dipped to below 50 metres at 7:00 a.m. Forcing suspension of flights.

At least two Delhi-bound international flights, that could not land at the IGIA, were diverted to Mumbai and Karachi. President A P J Abdul Kalam’s departure to Mumbai was also delayed due to the inclement weather.

The RVR had improved to 300 metres at 10:30 a.m. And six Indian Airlines flights took off using the CAT III B Instrument Landing System. Six international flights — three arrivals and three departures — also operated from the IGIA. — PTI