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Cong warms up for elections
PDP behaved like a vicious opposition:
China says no to yatra during Olympics
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PM’s statement causes flutter in Left camp
Left to pull out by July 10
Portugal promises to back India at NSG
Govt replies to Left, invites it to a meeting of UPA-Left panel
‘N-deal not a religious issue’
SP for alliance with Cong in UP, MP
BJP lashes out at Amar Singh
Peace initiative receives blow
Bofors Case
Rajiv Gandhi Assassination
Dasmunshi undergoes angioplasty
MP faces ‘stonewall’ in capital city projects
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Cong warms up for elections
New Delhi, July 7 Sonia herself will head the campaign committee while external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee will be its vice-chairman. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, senior union ministers and AICC general secretaries, including Rahul Gandhi, are among its members, AICC media cell chairman M. Veerappa Moily told reporters here. The 21-member manifesto committee comprises: Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh, Veerappa Moily, Digvijay Singh, P. Chidambaram, S.M. Krishna, Margaret Alva, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Mukul Wasnik, Mukut Mithi, Rahul Gandhi, Ajit Jogi, Salman Khurshid, Arjun Sengupta, Jairam Ramesh, Kishore Chandra Deo, G. Parameshwar, Radhakant Nayak, Meira Kumar, Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Rahul Gandhi has been included in the campaign committee in his capacity as general secretary in charge of party’s frontal organisations. The high-powered panel also includes: Arjun Singh, A.K. Antony, Veerappa Moily, Virbhadra Singh, P R Dasmunsi, Vayalar Ravi, Kamal Nath, Meira Kumar, Ambika Soni, Shakeel Ahmed, party general secretaries, treasurer, chairman of the media committee, chairman of the publicity and publications committee and convenor of the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Raj Sangathan. PCC presidents, chairpersons of campaign committees and CLP leaders will be called for the panel’s meeting when their state issues are to be discussed. The inclusion of former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in the campaign committee is being considered significant as he had been sulking for quite sometime having been denied his due in the party set-up. The Antony committee on strengthening the organisation had also suggested his rehabilitation. Sonia Gandhi also appointed new Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh. Siddharth Patel, son of former chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel, will head the Gujarat Congress. He replaces Bharat Solanki, who quit the post after the party’s drubbing in the assembly election in December last year. Tusharbhai Choudhary, son of another former CM Amarsingh Choudhary, and Kunwarjibhai Mohanbhai Bavalia, are the working presidents of the Gujarat PCC. K.V. Thangkabalu will be the new president of the Tamil Nadu PCC, replacing V. Krishnaswamy, and Thakur Kaul Singh, former speaker and seven-time MLA, is the new chief of the Himachal Pradesh unit of the Congress.
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PDP behaved like a vicious opposition: Gen Sinha
New Delhi, July 7 Terming the resignation of Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad as “tragic”, Sinha said the PDP had always acted as a vicious opposition in Jammu and Kashmir and lent communal colour to a virtual non-issue. The PDP, he said, was a “strange party which ensured relief to families of terrorists, but was not concerned to help the Kashmiri pandits living in deplorable conditions in Jammu and Delhi.” The proposal over which the PDP withdrew support to the Congress-led government in Jammu and Kashmir was passed only after three years of review by PDP’s ministers Qazi Mohd Afzal and Muzaffar Baig, Sinha said today. “They not only conveyed their acceptance of the proposal to the Cabinet, but also justified the transfer when it was criticised. If anyone has a role in this transfer of this land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, the PDP has,” Sinha told The Tribune. He defended himself as a “secular” Governor by listing his “attempts to restore Kashmiriyat in the valley” and claiming that his tenure was a “high watermark”. On the back foot nevertheless for unsavoury political developments, Sinha still defended his decision to propose land transfer to the shrine board as “just”. “I was only seeking it for the security of pilgrims and construction of temporary accommodations for yatra, and nothing else,” he said, criticising the Congress for the way it dealt with the situation arising out of the land- transfer issue. “I do not for a moment suggest that revocation of order diverting the land to the shrine board was wrong, but the Congress could have done it in a better way, by saying that it was doing so to prevent further hurt to the sentiments of people. Virtual disbanding of the shrine board was uncalled for and was not even being demanded. It was an overdrive of appeasement,” Sinha told The Tribune, terming the talk of disbanding of Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board as “unfortunate”. As for land transfer, he said it was no big deal as forestland had earlier also been transferred to different agencies undertaking development works. He referred to the permanent transfer of forestland to Vaishno Devi Shrine Board in Jammu, to Reliance for setting up communication towers and to the PWD for constructing roads. “What’s so big about the land transfer to Amarnath Shrine Board?” he said, fearing the current situation could lead to militant attacks. “But our Army can deal with it,” he added, feeling sorry for the Congress laying the blame of the J&K situation on him.
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China says no to yatra during Olympics
Dehra Dun, July 7 The first two batches of annual pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar starting from June 1 were suspended following refusal by the Chinese government. “We have postponed the first two batches of yatra starting from June 1 and June 7 from New Delhi due to want of permission from the external affairs ministry. Now again we have been instructed by the ministry that there is no permission from China for a month starting from July 26,”
D.K. Sharma, regional manager of KMVN, said.
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PM’s statement causes flutter in Left camp
New Delhi, July 7 There are also reports from Vienna that the IAEA board is likely to meet on July 28 and India may be able to present its case then. The Left leaders, who are meeting here on Tuesday to discuss and deliberate the government response, are in two minds whether they should withdraw support tomorrow or go to the UPA-Left coordination committee meeting scheduled for July 10. They had warned the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on July 4 not to proceed any further with the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. Otherwise they threatened to go to President Pratibha Patil with their support withdrawal letter, reducing the government to a minority, as of today. In their last meeting they wrote to external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee seeking a categorical reply. On Monday Mukherjee invited them to the committee meeting for July 10, assuring them that government would decide only after that meeting. In spite of the ultimatum, the Left parties were reluctant to pull support while the Prime Minister was away in Tokyo to attend the G-8 summit. There were divergent views in the Left meeting. One set led by RSP general secretary T.J. Chandrachoodan felt there was no need to wait any longer and rather submit withdrawal letter on Tuesday, if the Prime Minister was going to Japan to further the deal. On the other hand CPM general secretary Prakash Karat felt that the Left should stick to its stand that it will move only if the government goes to Vienna or says it is going. Yet another view was that “we should not embarrass the Prime Minister while he is on foreign soil attending an international summit.” Mukherjee’s letter strengthened the case of the soft-liners in the Left. But after the Prime Minister’s announcement the hardliners in the Left parties, are likely to press for immediate withdrawal on Tuesday. Left leaders said, “We may go through the motions on July 10, attend the meeting and may go to the President only after that.” The Prime Minister’s statement has also caused some confusion in the Congress circles. Before the statement, Congress spokesman Verappa Moily had advised restraint to the Left and said, “They should wait for the committee meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss. To conclude the findings of the committee will be premature.” The Prime Minister may have got the SP on board to compensate for the loss of support of the 59 Left MPs in the event of a trial of strength in Parliament, but there are several allies in the UPA who are not happy with the Congress jettisoning the Left.
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Kolkata, July 7 “The four Left parties have decided not to support the central government any longer. We will go to the President and withdraw support by July 10”, Biswas told a press conference here. “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is solely responsible for the present political turmoil in the country as he is determined to sign the Indo-US nuclear deal. We (Left parties) committed a great mistake by allowing the Centre to have discussion with the IAEA, ” he reiterated. “The government has totally failed on every front, and owning moral and ethical responsibility, the Congress-led UPA should dissolve the government and seek fresh mandate,” he stated. He said now there was no confusion as to whether the government was going to finalise the civil nuclear deal and, in that context, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee’s reply to the Left parties was of little consequence. The Left parties would meet in Delhi tomorrow to take a collective view on the reply of Mukherjee in response to their queries to know whether the government was proceeding to seek the approval of the safeguards agreement by the Board of Governors of the IAEA. — UNI
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UPA under no threat: Antony
Kochi, July 7
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Portugal promises to back India at NSG
New Delhi, July 7 Protugal foregin affairs minister Luis Amado, whoheld talks with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, also expressed confidence that the 27-nation European Union would be able to evolve a common position on India’s nuclear issue and support it.
— PTI
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Govt replies to Left, invites it to a meeting of
New Delhi, July 7 Though the government has given its reply to the Left parties before the expiry of the July 7 deadline, it has not given a specific explanation to the Left’s query on whether it was going ahead with the finalisation of the India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The Left had been threatening to withdraw support to the 50-month-old government in the event of it going ahead with its engagement with the IAEA. The reply given by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is the convener of the UPA-Left joint mechanism, which was constituted eight months ago to find a meeting ground between the ruling UPA and the supporting Left parties, has suggested that the panel meet at 4 p.m. on July 10, a day after Dr Singh returns from the G-8 summit. AICC Spokesman Veerappa Moily told mediapersons that the last meeting of the panel, the ninth in the series, on June 25 this year had dispersed after deciding to meet again to finalise the findings of the panel which has 12 members, six each from the UPA and the Left parties. The joint statement issued after the last meeting also said that the panel had completed its discussion on all aspects of the deal and that its findings would be finalised at the next meeting to be convened in due course. Moily said the only agenda of the proposed July 10 meeting was to conclude the findings of the panel which had studied all aspects of the deal during its nine meetings. Hoping that the Left parties would attend the July 10 meeting, he said that the government had been addressing the concerns of the Left parties on the nuke deal issue during the past several months. If they needed any more clarification, they were free to seek them at the next meeting. He said if the Left parties were democratic-minded, they should participate in the next meeting of the panel. “Are they timid to run away?” he asked. — UNI
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‘N-deal not a religious issue’
Lucknow, July 7 The Uttar Pradesh state unit of the Jamait-e-Ulema Hind (JeUH) passed a resolution saying the nuke deal was not a religious issue and condemned attempts by political parties to give a Muslim dimension to the deal to garner votes.
— PTI
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SP for alliance with Cong in UP, MP
New Delhi, July 7 “I think, Manmohan Singh is fine,” SP general secretary Amar Singh said when asked whether his party would like the Congress to project anybody as Prime Ministerial candidate like the BJP has done. “I don’t think, they have got anybody else’s name,” he told PTI in an interview, adding that Sonia Gandhi has expressed confidence in him “which is visible”. The Mulayam Singh Yadav-led party feels that the alliance with the Congress in UP as also in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra would be in the mutual interest of the two parties. Asked whether the SP would like to have an electoral alliance with the Congress in UP as they are coming close at the Centre, Singh said: “Why only UP, it can also be in MP and Maharashtra.”
— PTI
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BJP lashes out at Amar Singh
New Delhi, July 7 BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy was commenting here today over the SP shedding its traditional anti-Congress stance and gravitating towards the UPA on the plea of supporting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh move to go ahead with the 123 Agreement between India and US for securing nuclear fuel for civilian nuclear power plants. He released a 118-page booklet issued by his party listing the “failure of the UPA government on all fronts.” Rudy said, “From terrorism, to internal security, to appeasement of Muslims to back breaking rise in prices, to betrayal of farmers, this government has failed on all fronts.” Rudy, however, justified his party’s overtures earlier to the SP. BJP leader in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh said on July 5 that he met UNPA leaders in July 2007, at Maurya Hotel, and made a general offer to the entire UNPA and not just one individual. When asked about this Rudy said, “That was no deal he was merely conveying the NDA offer to the UNPA to secure support for Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s candidature for presidentship.” Elaborating further the BJP spokesman said, “If Bhairon had won the presidential elections with the UNPA support the UPA government would have fallen. Therefore it was conveyed to the UNPA leaders that the NDA was willing to support a government led by them.”
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Peace initiative receives blow
Guwahati, July 7 In a statement e-mailed to the media here, the fugitive chairman of ULFA, Arabinda Rajkhowa, announced that “capt Mrinal Hazarika, second lieutenants Moon Bora (alias Jiten Dutta) and Joon Sonowal (alias Joon Bhuyan), have been relieved of the primary membership of ULFA and expelled from the organisation for their unauthorised overture to begin a process of dialogue with the colonial government of India. All members of ULFA and the freedom-aspiring people of Assam are hereby requested not to extend any cooperation to these expelled leaders of the outfit.” The statement issued by the ULFA chairman has virtually derailed the efforts initiated by the leaders of ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies of the 28th battalion of ULFA to mobilise public opinion in favour of unconditional talks between the top leadership of the ULFA and the government of India. Only yesterday, a large number of former members of the outfit (surrendered ULFA militants) from eastern Assam district announced at a public meeting that they would back the peace initiative launched by the leaders of ‘A’ and ‘C’ companies of ULFA. Meanwhile, the Union home ministry has extended the designated camp policy to the peace-seeking ULFA faction allowing them to open up such camps in Assam like the NSCN or NDFB elsewhere. This was confirmed by a senior home ministry official today, although the process was unclear about laying the arms, which the pro-talk leaders refused to part with.
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Bofors Case New Delhi, July 7 “Solanki was a Union minister for external affairs. In his capacity as minister, he was clothed with a duty to maintain and support judicial system of the country. Instead of extending support to judicial system, he tried to scuttle the judicial proceedings going on at the behest of this court,” Special CBI Judge R.K. Yadav said. The court’s direction comes on an application filed by the CBI in 2003 seeking permission to prosecute the former minister for handing over a “misguiding” request to the Swiss authorities. Solanki, in his official visit to Davos in February 1992, had allegedly given an “unsigned” and “fabricated” memorandum to Swiss foreign minister Rene Felber to cause them to form an “erroneous opinion” on a letters rogatory then issued by the Delhi court for the collection of evidence in the case. “This court will not allow anyone to interfere with judicial proceedings, whosoever he or she may be... Even otherwise, courts are jealous of protecting the legal process. Therefore, I find it expedient to record a finding against Solanki for filing a case under Section 193 (punishment for hampering judicial probe) of the
IPC,” the court said. The CBI had in 2003 filed an application under Section 340 of the Cr.PC in the court alleging that the then minister had misused his official position and made an attempt to nullify a judicial order, seeking assistance from foreign authorities in collecting evidence in the infamous case.
— PTI
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Rajiv Gandhi Assassination
Chennai, July 7 In their petitions, the two Sri Lankan nationals, who were awarded life sentence by the Supreme Court, The convicts, presently lodged in the Vellore Central Prison, along with other convicts, said their conduct in the prison was good and pleaded for early release. When their petitions came up for hearing, Justice A. Kulasekaran ordered notice, returnable by two weeks, to the state government represented by the Home Department, the Vellore district collector, who is heading the Advisory Board for premature release of life convicts, and the superintendent of Vellore Central Prison. They said Section 432 of the CrPC empowered the state government to release the life convicts prematurely. However, in their case the release was delayed due to the political sensitivity of the case. They said during the past 17 years in the jail, they were in solitary confinement, which were violative of the orders passed by the Supreme Court. Robert Pyas, in his petition, also submitted that he had obtained MA degree from the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University during his confinement and there was no complaint against him. The life convicts said the Advisory Board, after hearing their case for premature release, had not made any negative findings against them. Allowing a person to languish in jail for his life was against the principles of basic human rights, they contended. — UNI
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Dasmunshi undergoes angioplasty
Kolkata, July 7 The Apollo Gleneagles Hospital authorities said in a bulletin that Dasmunshi was in the ICCU and still on liquid diet. He was “progressing steadily,” the bulletin said. West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi visited the minister at the hospital. Former WBPCC president Somen Mitra also met Dasmunshi. The minister underwent angioplasty after he was diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome caused by coronary artery disease revealed by a subsequent angiogram. He fell ill and complained of chest pain during a journey in Malda district
yesterday.
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MP faces ‘stonewall’ in capital city projects
Guwahati, July 7 The capital city of Assam has been reeling under problems of flash floods and clogged drainage system during the rainy season, unabated illegal construction on hill areas and forestland, within and outside the city. The MP, however, said he had not been able to do much regarding the development of the state as he was hardly consulted by the concerned government agencies in implementing various schemes granted by the Central government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNN URM). Referring to the erosion threat posed by the Brahmaputra to the international airport in Guwahati, the MP said a sum of Rs five crore had been sanctioned by the Central government for controlling erosion near the airport. “The project is lying unfinished as the authorities concerned claimed that erosion control did not fall under the infrastructure development for which the fund was sanctioned,” he said.
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Maharashtra minister quits over killing of chinkara 7 killed as bus overturns
in Bihar Training programme for
LS officers New secy, border
management, takes charge Bandh hits life in Manipur SCs submits memorandum 
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