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Terror at Ludhiana Fighting poverty |
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Reprehensible!
Nepal Maoists against polls
Memories linger on
Pak still major centre for terror training How the Che Guevara legend lives on Delhi Durbar
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Terror at Ludhiana One
again Punjab has had to suffer the bitter taste of terrorism after so many years following Sunday night’s cinema blast at Ludhiana. The inhumanity of it all can be well gauged from the fact that they targeted the poorest of the poor labourers during a Bhojpuri film show. That only goes on to show that for these enemies of humanity, human life has no value. The timing of the blast was equally diabolic: it coincided with Id as well as Navratras. The happy occasions were twisted into gory ones by those who ostensibly claim to fight for the downtrodden. But then, when have they listened to reason or voice of conscience, whether at Ajmer dargah or else where? For them, any public congregation is a “soft target” to be exploited. They even have the gumption to gloat over these “successes”. That is the problem with all sick minds blinded by communal or other kinds of hatred. Whether there was intelligence failure in Ludhiana or not, it is necessary to stop up the vigil at least now. The incident has underlined the fact that terrorists are still at work. The only way to nip the mischief is by bringing the culprits quickly to book. If they get away, it will only encourage them to strike again at a place and time of their choice. The public on its part can help the cause by taking some steps. One, it should not panic. That only helps the enemies of the nation. Two, it should not think of retaliating against any group or community because that again amounts to falling into the trap of the killers. Three, instead of leaving he job entirely to the police, they should become its eyes and ears. Such bloody conspiracies in such a large country may escape the attention of the cops but cannot remain unnoticed by the general public. A hawk eye on all suspicious activities can prevent a lot of mischief. At the same time, the police high-ups have to ensure that any clue given by the public is acted upon diligently. That will build a bond of trust which is as good as broken at the moment. |
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Fighting poverty The
interim assessment of the UN Millennium Development Goals provides a reality check to India, which is currently in the grip of a growth euphoria, thanks to a booming stock market. In September, 2000, 189 nations committed themselves to achieve seven goals, which include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, improvement of maternal health and reduction of child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and ensuring environmental sustainability. India has scored poorly on most parameters and it is no comfort that none of the countries, not even China, is on track to achieve all the eight goals. The slippage is quite glaring on the poverty eradication target. India is home to a third of the world’s poor and one-third of its population survives on less than a dollar a day. The progress on the poverty reduction front has been dubbed slow by the UN interim report. Besides, India has also failed to provide sanitation to a large segment of its population. Although there is some improvement in the sanitation coverage from 3 per cent to 22 per cent in the past seven years, the rate is still slower than what is required to achieve the millennium goal. The third notable omission is regarding the reduction of carbon emissions, though the forest cover has increased. On three benchmarks — primary school enrolment, fighting diseases like HIV/AIDS and TB and access to drinking water — India’s achievement has been found satisfactory. The challenges are formidable, no doubt. Though the UPA government has increased its budgetary allocations for the social sector, a lot more obviously needs to be done. Red tape and corruption are rampant. Funds alone will not help much unless there is a change in the mindset at the politico-bureaucratic level and the administration becomes service-oriented. The tall claims of “India shining” and 9 per cent GDP growth will not yield electoral dividends unless benefits of growth percolate and the improvement is visible at the grassroots level. |
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Reprehensible! We
in India have always been guilty of casual comments, which particularly come to the fore when dealing with dark-skinned people. Insulting chants directed at Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds at Vadodara and Nagpur are deeply distasteful, and the BCCI should not hesitate to make an example of the people who are indulging in it. Today’s cricket is highly visible, and the television cameras, apart from dedicated “spotters” in the stadium, can be employed to nab those responsible and ban them from international cricketing venues. We should do this not just because the ICC has now asked the BCCI to look into the matter. We should do it for our own sporting souls, or wilt in shame at the inability of our people to discard attitudes that have no place in an India of the 21st century. India has launched many a campaign against what it sees as racism in cricket, manifesting itself as blatantly biased umpiring decisions or indictments for “undisciplined behaviour” on the field. India has indeed been justified in many of these, as it was obvious that many lesser indiscretions from Indian players were being penalised while others went off scot-free. BCCI’s money power has seen us muscle our way through these conflicts. But we now need to occupy the same moral high ground that we took then. It is no defence that the Aussies “are no saints on the field.” All sportsmen deep down have a sense of fairness, and clearly a line is being crossed here. Some of S. Sreesanth’s behaviour has been churlish to say the least, and Ricky Ponting’s observations about what constitutes true aggression are as well-directed as his front-foot drives. Similarly, with Symonds, whatever the provocation, resorting to boorish behaviour is uncalled for. As for racist slurs from spectators, that is a criminal act, and should be dealt with accordingly. |
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History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies. —
Alexis de Tocqueville |
Nepal Maoists against polls Shorn
of his throne and royal powers, King Gyanendra has become a commoner, virtually ending the 239-year old Shah dynasty in Nepal. His pictures have been removed from everywhere, including the erstwhile Royal Nepal Army. His face—or what’s left of it —is visible only on the Rs 500 notes and that too because it costs too much to reprint these notes. A pair of pouncing tigers obscures his visage, with just the top of his head visible. On September 30, in violation of an understanding, he quietly visited the Durbar Square to seek the blessings of the Living Goddess infuriating even his most prominent supporter, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. Gyanendra has single-handedly played into the hands of the Maoists who were once his staunch allies. His sole purpose in the three rounds of peace talks with the Maoists under various titular Prime Ministers between 2001 and 2004 was to ascertain how far they were prepared to go in accommodating monarchy. Probably the most authentic account of negotiations comes from former Nepali Congressman, minister and member of the negotiating team, Col Narayan Singh Pun, who says that the bottom line for the Maoists was elections to a Constituent Assembly. On the question of a Republic, they were flexible as long as the Nepal Army was put under civilian political control. Once the Maoist stand was known, Gyanendra abandoned the dialogue and took over the country. On their part, too, the Maoists had other ideas and new designs like scuttling the elections. By imposing unacceptable and new demands in contravention of earlier agreements and walking out of the government they derailed the peace process and early prospects of a new Constitution for which they waged a 10-year-long war and sacrificed 15,000 of their supporters. They have been instrumental in getting the elections postponed thrice. Unfortunately, an ineffective government is handicapped by the absence of any enforcement mechanism for the implementation of various agreements. Instead, it had to concede their mounting demands to keep them on board the peace process. The army is known to be increasingly unhappy over the government’s policy of appeasing the Maoists, and some even say that Mr Koirala may lose his job as well as the support of the army. Maoists have reneged on two of their agreements — on the monarchy and the elections through a mixed system. The interim constitution provides for a mix of the first-past-the-post and the proportional representation system of elections. But fearing they will do badly in a mixed election system, the Maoists are insisting on a complete switch to proportional representation. They also want Nepal to be declared a Republic before the elections. According to the past agreements, the fate of the monarchy was to be decided by the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly. At their insistence, an amendment was incorporated in the constitution, which empowered two-thirds of the House to declare Nepal a Republic if the King was seen to be interfering in the elections. Not satisfied, the Maoists have sought a special session of Parliament on October 11 for the passage of its two demands. The government will have to invent some ingenious formula to satisfy the Maoists on proportional representation. Even so, the Maoists are likely to come up with new demands and pretexts to delay the elections. The Maoists are not ready for elections because they believe they will emerge third after the reunified Nepali Congress and the United Marxist Leninist Party, a grassroots party and best organised for an election in a free and fair poll. Rather than face this humiliation they are playing for time. The real test for all will be the elections to Parliament where the goal of the Maoists is to turn Nepal into a totalitarian republican state. Maoist hardliners like Ram Bahadur Thapa, Chandra Prakash Gajurel and Mohan Baidya — the last two spent three years in Indian jails — who want the armed revolution to be revived, are prevailing upon others who brought them into the political mainstream when winning Kathmandu militarily had become a pipedream. The Maoists have a Plan B. The strategy is the subversion of the system from within. For this they have infiltrated into the civil services, the military and industry and have a powerful trade union and students’ union. While the Maoists are unlikely to revive their armed campaign as all their cadres have been identified, they will try and improve their standing in the nearly 80 per cent of the countryside they control. Their arms and armies are spread across the country and the Divisional Commanders keep the keys to the arms containers. The Maoists exaggerate the threat posed by the royalists and periodically raise the spectre of a coup by the army. They do this to rebuild their own image as the real custodians of the state and society when the security forces are not only demoralised but also ineffective. The law and order situation is bad. The police is afraid of challenging the Young Communist League — the forerunners of the PLA — the Maoist groups and criminal gangs. In the most recent troubles in the Terai around Kapilavastu, 1700 armed policemen were unable to quell the disturbances. There were widespread reports of Indian mafia gangs stoking the fires in the Terai. The army is confined to the barracks but is not sitting idle. It has organised seminars and conferences to prove its democratic credentials and is engaged in security sector reforms. Army chief Gen Rukumangud Katawal does not miss a chance to remind the new army that it will be guided by the civilian political authority. Some senior Generals still swear by the King though all contact with the monarchy is forbidden. Divisional Commanders have been meeting in Kathmandu to discuss contingency roles for troops during the elections. Exercises have been held to deal with any Maoist urban insurgency for power grab when ground conditions and political instability begin moving towards chaos and anarchy. While the mood in the country is overwhelmingly in favour of elections, it is increasingly clear that the Maoists are trying to hedge the electoral process by shifting the goalposts. Even if the government finds a way to satisfy the Maoists on the proportional representation system, they will bring up the question of changing the leadership in the government and integrating the PLA with the army before the elections. The postponement of the elections is bound to exacerbate the law and order situation, especially in the Terai where numerous Madhesi groups are contesting for political spoils and space. The Maoists will soon return to reclaim the lost ground in Madhesh. Further, communal fissures and Pahadi-Madhesi disputes may be reopened. In such an eventuality, the army may break its quarantine to uphold the country’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty. A clash with the Maoists will be inevitable. One way to net the Maoists into the peace process is through international efforts. Such a politico-economic initiative should be led by the US but guided by India and may have the UK (and EU), Japan and, possibly, China on board to motivate the Maoists. At another level, the people of Nepal have to raise their voice against the Maoist rank and file and the YCL’s routine misdemeanours while praising their unique sacrifices during the people’s war. The Maoists are indivisible from the process of making a new
Nepal.
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Memories linger on
It
was about two months since the new Vice-Chancellor had taken over the reins of one of the leading universities in Punjab. The university was his alma mater where he spent more than six years as a hosteller almost three decades earlier. He left India when he got a job in a university abroad. Now back on the campus here, every evening the Vice- Chancellor would change into his jogging suit and walk around the campus. One place the VC always wanted to go to was the tea vendor near gate number III. As his car entered or came out of the university walls, he would always look at the old man crouched over the burning stove, adjoining the wall. He was always reminded of the late night cups of tea he would enjoy with his friends there. He always wanted to stop by and say hello to the once young vendor. He never could muster enough courage. One Monday morning, a Sikh gentleman in his mid-sixties came to the Vice-Chancellor’s office. The tall man sporting a long greying beard and wearing a kurta-pyjama alighted from a car and tried to enter the VC’s room. The peon stopped him. “Sir is in middle of a very high-level meeting”, he said. The visitor felt insulted. He took a seat in the adjoining waiting room. After nearly three hours, three senior officers came out of the Vice-Chancellor’s room who accompanied them to their cars bearing red lights. The Vice-Chancellor turned and saw the Sikh gentleman standing in front of his room door. The Vice-Chancellor narrowed his eyes and smiled “Guru”. Guru looked angry. The Vice-Chancellor caught him by the arm and pulled him along inside his room. Gurkanwaljit Singh lent a vent to his fiery feelings: “Is this the friendship we shared during our university days? Those tie-clad officers have become more important. You forgot we were roommates, we skipped classes for movies and we spent holidays at each others villages. I was about to leave”. The VC said “sorry”. The VC got his friend to his home. After a long session reminiscing the past during the night, Guru said: “Let us have a cup of tea at our favourite spot”. The VC agreed reluctantly. The tea stall near gate III did not have any customers. The VC asked the vendor: “Do you recognise me?” “Very well, you are the the old thin bunch of bones, except that now you wear suits, boots and glasses”, the tea vendor replied. There was silence. The vendor asked: “Will you have your special tea?” Guru laughed “you still remember, our laat sahib used to have his tea without sugar”. “Why did you not come and see me in my office?” the VC said. “I never came to see you even earlier. It was always you who came here. Why didn’t you come?”, the vendor
replied. |
Pak still major centre for terror training ULM, Germany — As al-Qaida regains strength in the badlands of the Pakistani-Afghan border, an increasing number of militants from mainland Europe are traveling to Pakistan to train and to plot attacks on the West, European and US anti-terror officials say. The emerging route, illuminated by alleged bomb plots dismantled in Germany and Denmark last month, represents a new and dangerous reconfiguration. In recent years, the global flow of Muslim fighters had shifted to the battlefields of Iraq after the loss of al-Qaida’s Afghan sanctuary in 2001. “There have always been people going to Pakistan, but it is more frequent now,” said a senior French intelligence official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity. “There is a return. It is a cycle. ... And you have the attractive phenomenon that all the big chiefs of al-Qaida are there.” Unlike Iraq, where foreign fighters plunge quickly into combat, recruits in Pakistan are more likely to be groomed for missions in the West. Aspiring holy warriors drawn to the Pakistani-Afghan border region today include European converts and militants from Arab, Turkish and North African backgrounds, investigators said. “Pakistan worries me more than Iraq,” a top Belgian anti-terrorism official said. “It’s true that Iraq scares them a bit because many of them end up getting strapped up with the explosive belt right away. In Pakistan, they have time to be trained as operatives.” But the path is not straight or easy. In the German case, at least a dozen suspects meandered among Koranic schools in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, then traveled through Iran into Pakistan. Several suspects were detained by Pakistani authorities en route to training camps, their seemingly improvised, sometimes amateurish odysseys contrasting with their alleged ferocity. In the past, the main threat from that part of the world has involved young men from Britain’s large Pakistani diaspora targeting Britain and the United States. In half a dozen plots since 2003, British operatives trained in Pakistan, made contact with fugitive al-Qaida leaders and returned home to strike. They succeeded in July 2005, when the first suicide bombings in Western Europe killed 52 people aboard the London transport system. In contrast, extremists from North African and Arab immigrant communities in Germany, France, Spain and Italy have been more likely to join networks based in North Africa or the Iraq region. But today, even small countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland have detected non-Pakistani extremists going to Pakistani training outposts, officials say. Pakistani immigrant communities in mainland Europe are smaller than Britain’s, but could serve as conduits to the networks, police say. In Spain, radical Pakistani imams and recruiters are muscling into predominantly North African mosques, a senior Spanish anti-terror official said. In Italy, Moroccan and Tunisian extremists communicate by Internet with extremists in Pakistan in an effort to show they are major players, an Italian anti-terrorism official said. These new links, combined with the unprecedented plots against Germany and Denmark, show a gathering menace, the official said. “I think that Europe has been at extremely high risk during the past six months,” he said. “First, because many fighters have returned from Iraq. Second, because of the real problem of Pakistan.” In the Danish case, the leader of an alleged cell was trained by al-Qaida in Pakistan in an apparent plot to kill Danish civilians, partly as revenge for the publication of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, anti-terrorism officials say. In the German case, police in September arrested three suspects accused of assembling 1,500 pounds of explosives materials for vehicle bombings near US military bases. The trio allegedly took orders from Islamic Jihad Union, an al-Qaida ally based in Pakistan. Although not a crime under German law, training in a foreign militant camp is a vital step in radicalisation. The idea of the journey itself has ideological resonance, evoking the prophet Mohammed’s flight from Mecca to Medina in the seventh century. The German case is a reminder of the loose, almost anarchic workings of a radical underworld; extremists need time, perseverance and initiative. “It is very organic, not planned or structured,” a German intelligence official said. “It’s the chaos principle, just as al-Qaida has always been chaotic. It is about chance. No one sits somewhere in the Hindu Kush with a map and draws circles on it and says: This is where we have to send people.” It is believed that Fritz Gelowicz, the accused ringleader, met a key contact at a Quranic school in Damascus, Syria , in 2005: a militant from the Baluchistan region of Pakistan who became the liaison to the camps, according to an anti-terrorism official. In March 2006, Gelowicz and two other suspects trained at a camp in the lawless Waziristan region, according to Pakistani and US intelligence provided to German investigators. Intelligence reports indicate that a German-speaking trainer worked with some German suspects, an anti-terror source said. Investigators say the training camp was located near the city of Mir Ali, which has seen heavy fighting in recent days as Pakistani forces clash with al-Qaida and Taliban militants. The suspects used a variety of contacts and routes. But they all entered Pakistan via Iran, German investigators say. In a police state such as Iran, it seems unlikely that security forces would not spot foreign militants in transit, particularly German converts, investigators said. Iranian authorities either looked the other way or were complicit, they said. The attitude of Shiite Iran to Sunni al-Qaida has been ambiguous. Iranian authorities have arrested some al-Qaida figures and protected others, seeing al-Qaida as a useful weapon against the West, anti-terror officials say. The role of the Quranic school in Syria raises similar questions. Several European investigations have identified schools in Damascus as busy gateways where foreign fighters, posing as students, make contact with operatives who help them join the Iraqi insurgency. That recruitment and logistical activity has the permission or involvement of Syrian spies, European investigators say. As the plot gathered momentum early this year, a second wave of associates set off from Germany. But US and German police had begun intense surveillance, and Pakistani police were on alert. During the first half of the year, Pakistani authorities arrested seven militants. Their futile treks suggest that there is no smooth and sophisticated pipeline to the camps. On June 10, two alleged key figures in the group only made it a few miles across the Pakistani border before their capture at a bus stop. Tolga Duerbin and Houssein al Malah had met a contact in Tehran, the Iranian capital , paid $100 to a smuggler in an Iranian border town, and were carrying satellite phones and fake Afghan IDs when they were caught, according to investigators and a defense lawyer. Pakistani police locked them in an underground prison in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, blindfolded them and grilled about associates in Germany, said Duerbin’s lawyer, Michael Sertsoez. Duerbin claimed that American agents were present during interrogations, the lawyer said. Like most of the people arrested in Pakistan, the two eventually were deported. Duerbin is in jail in Germany, accused of recruiting the leader of the group, while Al Malah and another suspect are free and being monitored. But police continue hunting for three accomplices thought to be on the loose in Europe and Turkey, potentially dangerous veterans of the path to Pakistan. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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How the Che Guevara legend lives on
London — the image of Che Guevara is perfect for the modern world, not just a revolutionary but a celebrity revolutionary. Posh Spice probably sees his picture everywhere and screams “Why can’t my agent get me on that many magazines and baseball caps?” Even if she’s read this week’s commemorations of his death as a guerilla 40 years ago, she’ll imagine he spent his days running through a Cuban swamp with Churchill Insurance on his combat fatigues. Or that he often stopped to film an advert in which he says “Hi, I’m Che Guevara, the world’s most famous guerilla. But you know, when I’m trying to fire on government agents the last thing I need is to lose concentration by worrying about my split ends. That’s why I use new Clairol Herbal Essence conditioner, to give my hair extra bounce, and my ambush extra pounce.” It clearly didn’t do Che’s brand any harm to be a revolutionary who countered most images of the revolutionary. So his account of his road trip, The Motorcycle Diaries, was reviewed in Bike News as “Six months of high drama in which the main concerns of Che are where the next drink is coming from, where the next bed is and who might share it.” But also, no matter how debased his image, and how many watches and bars and cocktails and shirts he appears on, even if people don’t know much about him, they’re aware he was a little bit naughty. Through 40 years of posthumous commercialism, he’s somehow survived as a rebel. And that’s probably reasonable, seeing as how he helped to overthrow the old government in Cuba, became head of the bank, but then left in disguise to go to the Congo and then Bolivia to start all over again. The CIA compiled a report on him that said: “Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino.” And in a further attempt to get a job as a phone-in host on TalkSPORT they added “Unusually for a Latino, he doesn’t submit to their native rhythms.” So it’s possible the CIA reports were being written by a bloke in a pub in Kent. And it went on: “And you’ve got to watch yer Mexicans, wearing them tablecloths and screaming ‘Yrrrrrr yahaha yeehaaah’ and firing guns everywhere. Mind you, I’d still take them over the French.” It would seem that Che’s most obvious legacy is in Cuba, where the government he helped set up survives, in spite of US blockades, countless farcical assassination attempts on Castro and still being on George Bush’s list of countries sponsoring terrorism. And the regime it replaced was run by gangsters, in which one-third of all public payments went directly to the corrupt President. But this is where the idolisation of Che becomes a problem. Because for many people this image is part of a Cuba that’s all it claims to be, a socialist beacon of equality and justice that doesn’t fit the reality. Because much of the workforce has no choice but to work for dire wages, many of them servicing foreign companies or tourists, but any attempts to organise trade unions or opposition movements are stamped on. Within this atmosphere of no dissent, Che is almost treated as a messiah by the Cuban authorities and their supporters, and you can no more suggest he was flawed than you could shout in church during a sermon about Jesus: “I bet he didn’t kiss Judas – he just thought ‘I’ve ballsed this situation right up’.” I came across a tiny version of this deification of Che, courtesy of a cosy cafe in my area, in which the walls are covered with Che pictures. So one morning I went in for a cup of tea, and was told “GET OUT”, because the owner had heard a radio programme I’d done, which was mildly critical of her hero, and I’ve been banned ever since. The strange thing is I admire her for this, and I’ll be quite disappointed if she ever lets me back in. The real Che was clearly flawed, because when your plan to overthrow a government ends in a group of 11 hiding in a hill with no support and getting shot, that suggests things haven’t gone entirely to plan. And the Cuba he helped to create is flawed. But his main legacy is to leave behind a symbol of opposition. And there can never have been a politician less on the make. When some students invited him to speak at their college, offering him a fee, he went berserk, saying he could never accept money for what he saw as part of his duty. Maybe a few years later the same college tried to get Cherie Blair, and she went similarly berserk, screaming “Only 20 grand? Don’t you know who I am?” So although millions of companies have used his image, it’s always in an attempt to appear on the side of spirit and rebellion. It still signifies something. So it can be worn by millions, including many who probably disagree with most of his ideas, but it’s never been more popular in South America, and you’re unlikely to see it worn by Margaret Beckett or Donald Rumsfeld or Noel Edmonds. And even if Gordon Brown had piercing blue eyes and a Marlon Brando laconic smile, in 40 years no student would put up his poster and say: “His vision for the future, man, it was, well, cool.” By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Delhi Durbar Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh drew pointed attention to India undergoing a demographic revolution. “We are a nation of young people with a new generation entering the electorate at every election. Each generation has its own dreams.” The Prime Minister told the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in the capital last week that in a society of such rapid demographic and social change, new ideas and experiences capture the imagination of each passing generation. “The India that we imagine that can be today may well be obsolete tomorrow.” Therefore, it is imperative to remain in touch with the changing reality and understand the India “that is” even as we seek to imagine the India that “can be.” Observing that the Indian Republic is itself the product of our collective imagination, the Prime Minister stressed that the “Idea of India” draws inspiration both from our civilisational roots and from the social, political, intellectual and above all the emotional basis of our national movement. “A nation based on such diverse sources of human imagination – rather than on mere ethnicity, religion or language – has limitless possibilities. No static ideology can freeze or straight jacket the creativity, the enterprise and the imagination of our people. That is why I am filled with optimism when I think of the future of India,” the Prime Minister added.
Creating achievers in science Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal is a believer in the vitality and vigour of the youth. The minister is keen on getting a relaxation in recruitment procedures to get bright, young scientists in research. The minister wants a rewards programme for achievers so that merit gets its due in terms of recognition and financial incentive. While striving for promoting merit in his ministry, Sibal is keen that universities and other educational institutions also devise a system where utmost importance is given to the quality of manpower. He feels that as generators of knowledge these institutions should not be run in a bureaucratic mould.
Ambushed The announcement of early assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh has put the ruling Congress in a bit of spot. While it was not happy over the timing of the elections which put paid to its plans of making some major announcements, and the resultant curtailment in the tenure of the present assembly, the party was not sure if it should offically criticise the timing of election. While some party leaders did welcome the election announcement in their first reactions, there were a few who did raise the question of the timing. For Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who was on his maiden official visit abroad as CM, the annoncement did come as a surprise. Though a website initially quoted him as welcoming the announcement of polls, an agency copy later contended Virbhadra Singh was feeling ambushed by the Election Commission. Contributed by S. Satyanarayanan and Prashant Sood |
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