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PM, HM face
piquant situation From B L Kak NEW DELHI, Dec 22: Overburdened Home Minister, Mr LK Advani, is believed to have left the matter to be taken care of by the Prime ....more Surjeet
asks PM NEW DELHI, Dec 22: CPI(M) leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet has accused the Prime Minister of failing to rein in Union ..more Recall
of Pak High MYSORE, Dec 22: BJP president Jana Krishnamurthy today said India’s decision to recall its High Commissioner ....more Unity
moves once NEW DELHI, Dec 22: Notorious for umpteen splits and mergers, the ‘Janata Parivar’ saw.more |
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Gujarat recovers AHMEDABAD, Dec 22: A monumental tragedy and controversies made horrid circles over Gujarat for most part of the passing year but Gujarat, ..more Take
me in custody PATNA, Dec 22: Apparently concerned over frequent remand to custody, RJD supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav today petitioned the designated CBI ....more NEW DELHI, Dec 22: Congress president Sonia Gandhi today assured all help to Kashmiri Pandits when their delegation called on her here today. .....more 2001 set to be second warmest year ever NEW DELHI, Dec 22: The year 2001 is the second warmest in world history. According to data available till date, the average temperature during 2001 .....more |
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PM,
HM face piquant situation
From B L Kak NEW DELHI, Dec 22: Overburdened Home Minister, Mr LK Advani, is believed to have left the matter to be taken care of by the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, himself—the matter arising from the reported missive to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) asking for permission to question the Governor of Jarkhand, Mr Prabhat Kumar. People of consequence in the MHA, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the CBI have adopted ‘mother knows best’ policy, each one of them declining to be drawn into discussion on the martter. This notwithstanding, reports are doing rounds of the media vis-a-vis the CBI’s interest in obtaining exact details about some of the revelations made by an office-bearer of a company. The Governor of Jarkhand has studiously avoided responding to the alleged revelations. The queswtion being asked in political and bureaucratic circles is whether the Ministry of Home Affairs will act on the CBI missive or put it in the deep freezer. It is reported that the CBI’s letter was dispatched days before the suicide squad attack on Parliament House on December 13. It is also reported that one or two other names figure in the request letter of the CBI. Obviously, since Government permission is being sought, it is presumed that they twoo are Government servants. A media report, in fact, pointed out that the name of a top bureaucrat was also mentioned in this connection. Will the Government clear the request? Those in the know feel that it is highly unlikely. Mr Prabhat Kumar had became Cabinet Secretary in spite of the fact that he is part of the chargesheet filed in Ayodhya on the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He was Principal Secretary (Home) in Lucknow during the Kalyan Singh regime. He went on to become the Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India. He was, thus, viewed as someone who enjoyed a good rapport with the present leadership in New Delhi. Will the Prime Minister and the Home Minister want to embarrass Mr Prabhat Kumar and open a Pandora’s box? A precise answer can be expected only from these two important personalities. Usually constitutional officials have been forced to step down whenever the CBI put them under microscope. There is the case of Mr Motilal Vora and Mr Shiv Shankar who both put in their papers when the CBI was allowed to move forward against them in the Hawala case. In the case of Mr Prabhat Kumar, the CBI is reported to have decided that instead of acting on the information available (which is what it did in the case of Jain diaries) it will take the more prudent course of first questioning and then acting. A new situation may develop if the North Block was asked to put the matter in the deep freezer. Reports are doing the rounds that detractors of Mr Prabhat Kumar may not hesitate to take legal recourse in that situation. |
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Surjeet asks PM to rein in Joshi NEW DELHI, Dec 22: CPI(M) leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet has accused the Prime Minister of failing to rein in Union Minister Murli Manohar Joshi for "unabashed propogation of Hindutva ideology", saying this exposed Atal Behari Vajpayee’s secular proclamations. In a letter to Vajpayee, he said "this only exposes your secular proclamations. This gives rise to justified apprehensions of a threat to India’s pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multi-national and multi-cultural society with its secular edifice under attack". Condemning Joshi’s "provocative actions and vituperative outbursts", he alleged that the Prime Minister was condoning these "only giving credence to belief that after installing RSS men in key ministries, the incumbents are permitted to muzzle through RSS ideology unhindered". On the minister’s comments on prominent historians, Surjeet said he was "using canard based on fabrication and lies to cover up his effort at communalising education and rewriting Indian history". "Despite Joshi generating a lot of controversy for unabashed propogation of the Hindutva ideology and attacks on anything that is considered secular and antipathy to the ideology followed by him, you have refrained from controlling him, if at least to console your allies, some of whom may have objections," Surjeet said. Surjeet questioned the appointment of B R Grover as Chairman of Indian Council for Historical Research, saying he "was rewarded for organising `evidence’ as the VHP representative on a Government panel on the Babri Masjid dispute to argue that a Ram Temple indeed existed on the Babri Masjid site". Institutions like ICSSR, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (Shimla), Indian Institute of Mass Communication, All India Council for Technical Education, Indian Institute of Philosophical Research, Archaeological Survey of India, National Museum, Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, NCERT and NIEPA "have all been similarly revamped", he said. Regardless of the fact that Joshi did not manage to push through his agenda formally at the State Education Ministers’ Conference, "he has been defiantly implementing it", Surjeet said, adding that a new curriculum had been "thrust on the nation despite protests". "At Joshi’s behest the component of history in the school syllabus is sought to be tailored to suit the RSS designs and concerns. Anybody challenging such acts is termed anti-national or a westerner," the CPI-M leader added. (PTI) |
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Recall of Pak High
Commissioner first MYSORE, Dec 22: BJP president Jana Krishnamurthy today said India’s decision to recall its High Commissioner in Pakistan was the "first of many moves the Government will be making soon" to root out terrorism from the country. Hailing the Government’s decision as "a step in the right direction", he told reporters here that New Delhi was sure of its position in handling the fight against terrorism. The situation was such that the Government should not be "hustled" into action as various factors had to be taken into consideration, the BJP chief said. Asked if the logical end to the fight against terrorism meant a war with Pakistan, he said he did not want war. It was not a fight against Pakistan but against terrorism. He said it was still hoped that Pakistan would respond positively to India’s demarche and not compromise with terrorism. After the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, Pakistan had pledged to fight with the rest of the world against terrorism, he said, adding, "we want Pakistan to keep its word". Stressing that this was the time when India should stand united to fight terrorism to safeguard the sovereignty and democracy, Krishnamurthy appealed to all organisations not to say or write anything that hurts any section in the country. "Some are giving a twist to the whole situation. Terrorism has no religion", he said, adding that so many organisations representating the minorities had expressed solid support to Government. He said he was also happy that the opposition parties had also decided not to allow their political differences come in the way and particularly appreciated the congress stand in this regard. (PTI) |
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NEW DELHI, Dec 22: Congress president Sonia Gandhi today assured all help to Kashmiri Pandits when their delegation called on her here today. The delegation asked Gandhi to use her influence over her party’s Government in Delhi and as the opposition leader at the central level to help meet certain demands, including restarting of registration of migrants, regularisation of migrant teachers working in Delhi Government and MCD-run schools and hike in monthly cash assistance. Gandhi told the delegation of Kashmiri Samiti, a frontline organisation of Kashmiri Pandits, that she would depute party general secretary Kamal Nath and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to look into their demands in the capital and deputy leader in Lok Sabha Shivraj Patil at the national level. The delegation, led by Samiti president Sunil Shakdher, apprised the Congress chief of the sufferings undergone by the community even since their displacement from Kashmir following eruption of militancy there in 1989. Shakdher said as a follow up of the meeting, a delegation of the Samiti will meet Kamal Nath and Dikshit on December 26 to discuss the future course of action. A cell will also be created in Congress for Kashmiri Pandits to help redress their grievances, Shakdher said. (PTI) |
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2001 set to be second warmest year ever NEW DELHI, Dec 22: The year 2001 is the second warmest in world history. According to data available till date, the average temperature during 2001 was 14.42 degrees, the second highest ever, the highest being 14.57 degree in 1998, the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland says. Most of the temperature increase this year occurred in Central Canada and Eurasia, while some parts of the globe, like north west Australia and Kamchatka, were unusually chilly. Rainfall was also affected unevenly around the globe, with Afghanistan suffering from a bad drought and Indonesia plagued by torrential rainfall that triggered massive landslides, says a report in new scientist. The planet averaged an even 14.0 0c between 1961 and 1990. While not all of the data for 2001 is in yet, researchers predict the average temperature will be 14.42 degrees, the report says. Researchers say this adds further weight to the reality of a global warming trend. The last decade holds nine of the 10 warmest years since 1860, with the hottest being 1998. Greenhouse gases are suspected to be the major contributors to this trend. It is a significant trend. We suspect that greenhouse gases are a major player, though natural variations certainly play a part too, says David Parker of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction in Berkshire, England. For example, when El Niqo, the reversal of usual ocean and wind currents in the Pacific Ocean, occurred in 1998, the result was the highest ever annual average of 14.57 degrees. Average temperatures have risen by more than 0.6 degrees over the past 100 years, though the rise has not been continuous. While these differences may seem tiny, they can have a big effect on climate. For example, if the annual temperature in the UK rises 0.6 degrees, an extra week can be added to both ends of the growing season. Global averages are calculated by analysing temperatures from more than 1000 land-based stations, 7000 ships and 1000 buoys. Areas not covered by the global spread of instruments are filled in by computer estimates. The average offers a clear way to compare years says Parker. Though some scientists feel that many of the land-based temperature readings are biased because they pick up heat from urban centres and incorrectly assume a larger area is the same high temperature, Dr Parker says this would at most make for an error of 0.05 degrees in a global average. (UNI) |
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