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Mulayam
Yadav criticises From B L Kak
Ahmed Patel to go VADODARA, July 11: Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel today said that Nationalist...more Christians seek expulsion of its member in minority panel THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, July 11: The differences between the National Commission for.......more PATHANAMTHITTA, July 11: About 25 people, including 18 police personnel, were injured in.....more |
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C P Thakur for NEW DELHI, July 11: Health and Family Welfare Minister C P Thakur today said there should be..........more JAIPUR, July 11: Curfew continued for the second day today in Tonk district of Rajasthan even as the toll .......more Controversial NEW DELHI, July 11: A dialogue about the Hindu saint Valmiki in the Hindi.....more Internet Callcentre NEW DELHI, July 11: The Internet Callcentre, the world’s first global call centre.......more |
Mulayam
Yadav criticises Kashmir handling From B L Kak NEW DELHI, July 11: Even as the Prime Minister has obliged the highly-agitated chief of Shiv Sena, Mr Bal Thackeray, by agreeing to offer an additional berth of Minister of State to the Shiv Sena, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee has rejected the demand for the removal of the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah. According to sources in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Mr Bal Thackeray, who did the "maximum" talking during his 50-minute meeting with Mr Vajpayee on Sunday in Mumbai, was told by the latter that the passage of the resolution on autonomy in the J&K Assembly did not call for action against the State Chief Minister. These sources revealed that the Prime Minister was, on more than one occasion during the meeting, provoked by the Shiv Sena supremo. Significantly, Mr Vajpayee chose not to prolong the discussion. Nonetheless, Mr Vajpayee managed to convey to Mr Bal Thackeray that he(Mr Vajpayee) did not, in the given situation, approve of the demand for the removal of Dr Farooq Abdullah. Mr Vajpayee’s talks with Mr Bal Thackeray took place at a time when the BJP’s ties with the Shiv Sena had appeared on the downswing. Indeed, the groundwork for the Prime Minister’s discussion with the Shiv Sena chief was prepared during the Home Minister, Mr LK Advani’s visit to Mumbai on July 6. Sources said that Mr Bal Thackeray aired his grievances during his talks with Mr Vajpayee. The grievances also included what the Shiv Sena chief termed as "lack of response" from the PMO to his messages and the "light portfolios" given to the three Sena members in the Vajpayee Ministry. The Prime Minister, however, sprang a surprise on the Shiv Sena supremo by his ‘no’ to his demand for removal of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah. Prior to his meeting with Mr Thackeray, Mr Vajpayee had passed a similar message to the RSS chief, Mr K Sudarshan. The RSS, the Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, besides a set of hard-liners within the BJP, are not for the continuance of the Farooq Abdullah regime. Considering itself as superior over all other Hindutva parties, the RSS had, obviously, anticipated that its "pupil", namely, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, would have no reservations with regard to the demand for New Delhi’s immediate intervention in Kashmir by way of easing out Dr Farooq Abdullah from the Chief Ministerial gaddi. The RSS leadership, however, was taken aback the other day on Monday when a message from the Prime Minister made it clear that the Centre would not dislodge the present Government in J&K. The message was sent at a time when senior leaders of the RSS as well as the Shiv Sena supremo, Mr Bal Thackeray, had sought to build pressure on the Prime Minister in support of "a firm action" against the ruling National Conference Government in Kashmir. The message also came after the Prime Minister’s plain speaking at his meeting with the two stalwarts of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), Mr LK Advani and Mr Kushabhau Thakre. Mr Vajpayee was said to have told the BJP president, Mr Kushabhau Thakre, that brickbats might outnumber bouquets in the event of the Centre adopting the extreme course of dismissing the Farooq Abdullah Government. "Why remove the J&K Chief Minister when there is no major constitutional breakdown or breakdown of law and order in the State", Mr Vajpayee reportedly asked when his attention was drawn to the demand from the RSS and the Shiv Sena for immediate action against Dr Farooq. Interestingly, even as a section of the BJP is also for the removal of the J&K Chief Minister, Mr Kushabhau Thakre has chosen to speak the Prime Minister’s language on the issue. Mr Thakre, who is a known supporter of the RSS, has disapproved of the RSS demand that the National Conference be expelled form the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) for demanding pre-1953 status for J&K. Mr Thakre’s message, in this regard, is loud and clear: "W do not endorse the RSS demand for ouster of National Conference from the NDA. We do not want that". The BJP president, at the same time, reiterated that the BJP would continue to oppose the autonomy resolution of Dr Farooq’s National Conference. Mr Thakre’s verdict: "This autonomy resolution is divisive in nature. It will encourage divisive forces elsewhere in the country and fuel similar demands in other parts". Mr Thakre also reiterated: "The BJP supports greater power to States. But we cannot be expected to support the J&K Chief Minister for his autonomy resolution which is a totally different matter altogether". And if the moderates in the BJP and some other parties of the Sangh Parivar seek to defend the BJP-led coalition Government at the Centre, former Defence Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, has injected a new element into the situation with his assertion that the resolution on Kashmir autonomy was passed with the "consent" of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. In the course of a chat with a group of mediapersons, Mr Mulayam Yadav, who is the president of the Samajwadi Party, stated that if Mr Vajpayee and Mr LK Advani had not extended their secret support to the J&K Chief Minister, then the Central Government must answer these questions: "Why this demand for autonomy at this stage? Didn’t Prime Minister and Home Minister know that such a resolution was to be passed by the J&K Legislative Assembly? Was this resolution passed only because there was some pressure from external forces?" Mr Mulayam Yadav told EXCELSIOR that his party favoured "greater autonomy" for Kashmir. "But we are not for that kind of autonomy which seeks a separate Supreme Court, a separate Election Commission, a separate Prime Minister and a President. We reject that kind of expression and activity which is meant to sow seeds of dissension and communal hatred", Mr Mulayam Yadav asserted. Former Defence Minister charged the Vajpayee Government with "totally wrong" and "sub-standard" handling of Kashmir affairs. "Poverty and unemployment have resulted in a good deal of dissatisfaction in Kashmir", he said and asked: "What has the Vajpayee Government doe to eradicate these evils?" |
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Ahmed Patel to go on with Congress VADODARA, July 11: Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel today said that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar had erred in revolting against Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the issue of her foreign origins. Talking to UNI in his first visit to this cultural heritage city after tendering his resignation as treasurer of the All-India Congress Committee, Mr Patel said, ‘’Mr Pawar should have continued his fight by remaining in the party instead, and maybe as a senior leader he (Mr Pawar) would have been holding a high portfolio now’’, he added and said that the party would consider accepting him back if he comes up with such a proposal. Asked about the political situation in Maharashtra Mr Patel answered that the situation is neither good nor bad. "Due to a split in the party, we have suffered a major set back in the last general as well as Assembly elections. Otherwise Congress party would have won maximum number of seats." he said that the party did not wish to repeat its earlier mistakes and hence he had decided to tender his resignation. Reacting on the criticism poked at him by a faction of the party at Gandhinagar on June 27, Mr Patel denied his involvement in the expulsion of Madhavsinh Solanki’s supporter from the party for anti-party activities. Mr Patel said he will concentrate on strengthening the party in Gujarat and also at national level. He has appealed to the people Gujarat to show their unity in the forthcoming civic bodies election in the state.(UNI) |
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ESC delegation to visit US for promoting IT services NEW DELHI, July 10: In a bid to promote India’s capabilities in the emerging Information Technology (IT) enabled services market, the Electronic and Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) is taking a delegation to the United States from August one to three. ESC, which is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Information Technology, will take a 20-member delegation to the US to participate in the 12th ICCM call centre management conference and exposition in Chicago, an ESC statement said here today. "The worldwide IT enabled services market is expected to reach 800 billion US dollars by year 2008 and offers huge potential in areas such as call centres, mapping and medical transcription, data entry, web development and multi-media designing," Executive Director of ESC D K Sareen said. As per ESC estimates, the call centre industry alone is expected to grow at compounded annual growth rate of 16.6 per cent during 1997-2004 and the market size is expected to be worth 10 billion dollars by 2004, the statement said. "The call centre market is driven by the increasing need for companies to improve customer satisfaction levels, the influx of new computer technology and internet applications, the growing number of informal call centres and the need to improve the flow of information at enterprise level," Sareen said adding the ESC delegation’s US visit is aimed at translating these trends into real export opportunities for the Indian IT enabled services exporters. ESC has already constituted a special committee on exports of IT enabled services aimed at suggesting ways and means to promote exports from this sector and take up issues of bandwidth availability, delegation and to propogate India as the preferred choice to render IT enabled services. We already have the brand equity of comparative cost advantage to the developed economies in outsourcing from India. The IT enabled services market could, therefore, become a major revenue earner for the country," Sareen said. While the Indian software sector is slated to grow by only nine times by 2008, IT enabled services market, on the other hand, is expected to grow a whopping 34 times by then. The ESC business mission to the US has planned a series of business meetings in Cincinnati, Dallas and San Francisco to explore possibilities of joint ventures and strategic alliances with US companies, the statement added. (PTI) |
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C P Thakur for augmentation of health sector NEW DELHI, July 11: Health and Family Welfare Minister C P Thakur today said there should be an effective synergy between NGOs, the corporate sector and the Government to augment the health sector in the country. "Private health care had grown significantly with an impressive pool of expertise and management skills", Dr Thakur said at a seminar on ‘population and development:prospects for private-public partnership’. Outlining some key strategies for partnership between the private and public and public sector, Dr Thakur stated that the panchayati raj institutions were key to decentralising planning and program implementation through area-specific, need-based demand driven, and people-centered socio-demographic plans at gram panchayat levels. The Government envisages the implementation of a one-stop , integrated and co-ordinated service delivery of basic health care, family planning and maternal and child health related services by the community and for the community, he added. The adoption of the National Population Policy 2000, the minister pointed out mandates focussed attention, in particular, to those states that continued to struggle with below average socio, demographic indices, with a view to accelerating their performance. Six major states of Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa in particular demonstrate persistent stagnations in performance, low social development, and poor achievement of socio-demographic indices, he added. (UNI) |
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PATHANAMTHITTA, July 11: About 25 people, including 18 police personnel, were injured in clashes at a factory premises at Mankoottam in this district of Kerala last night. Police said the trouble started when the police, as per the direction of the High Court, tried to remove the agitators who were holding a satyagraha in front of the PSA factory since June 22. Irked by the police action, the agitators torched a vehicle and damaged a police jeep. The agitators also attacked the police personnel when they tried to remove the jeep from the factory premises late last night and resorted to stone throwing. Police fired in the air to disperse the violent mob. The injured were admitted to a local hospital. It may be recalled that local people were on an agitation demanding the shifting of the bone factory from the locality alleging that it caused pollution in the area.(UNI) |
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