Chief Minister’s summation of current security and administrative scenario in the state reflected in his address to the annual meeting of chief ministers on internal security in New Delhi entitles him to the ranks of indisputable statesmanship. One cannot imagine a better and more eloquent defence of his government’s views and actions during 2011. The effortless impression one gathers from his presentation is that he is in full control of things and is amazingly clear-headed about the principles and policy of his government, particularly on some of the issues that are baffling, complicated and sensitive. Omar Abdullah’s presentation has to be understood and analyzed in the background of more than two decades of externally abetted militancy and turmoil in the State. The State administration had virtually come to a grinding halt because of deep confusion and chaos which the adversaries and enemies of the people of the State had succeeded to create. Alienation of the people was viciously trumpeted, chance incidents of violation of human rights were blown out of proportion, canards were spread and security forces were demonized. Disinformation campaign was carried to international media and world platforms to paint India and State government in darkest possible colour. One can imagine the hurdles in the path of the elected coalition government if it meant to steer the ship of the State through turbulent storms.
The task of the Chief Minister was made more difficult by some intransigent elements working under negative emotions and impulses that led to disturbances in the State for two consecutive summers. But the young chief minister did not lose his cool and faced all these challenges whether on the ground or on public platform or on the floor of the legislative assembly counter-arguing, challenging and disarming the opposition at every step. He had to deal with a populace that had been misled and confused; he had to deal with administrative machinery some of whose clogs and nut and bolts had collected rust, and he had to deal with an opposition that often defied the fundamental principles of parliamentary opposition and behaved almost opportunistically. In trying to impress upon the stakeholders his vision of current and near future scenario of the State, he had to face a mood of reservation and apprehension. His insistence on withdrawing AFSPA from those areas where militancy has maximally come down and security forces have had not to get engaged in serious encounters with militants is in no way any aspersion on the armed forces rather he has lauded their contribution in curbing militancy. The fact is that the Chief Minister has to restore confidence of the masses of people in the efficacy of the civilian administration and remove all obstructions in the way of flow of justice and good governance. After all, sooner or later, the armed forces have to be withdrawn to barracks, and who is a better judge than the chief minister to decide whether their presence in the deployed areas should continue or not. In any case, the views of the Chief Minister on this issue are getting crystallized and there is serious thinking at the level of Home Ministry and other places of allowing the Chief Minister’s views to prevail. His point of view gets reinforced when in the hindsight we reassess the reaction of the people of the State to government’s initiative of holding panchayat elections successfully. Elections to urban rural bodies will follow and then to bloc and district level boards. This is the right process of bringing democratic dispensation to the grassroots level in the State. Therefore when at higher levels the question of withdrawal of Disturbed Areas Act from some of the districts with reduced or minimized militancy is taken up for discussion, the holding of successful panchayat elections and democratization process should be taken into account.
The Chief Minister has agreed that divergence of views or approaches can be overcome through dialogue. This is an indirect message to the separatists and secessionists in the State to understand the changing winds and adapt to the new ground reality in the region. Pakistan is no more in a position to provide its traditional “diplomatic, political and moral support” to militancy in Kashmir because its own survival is now hanging in balance. Those who claim to be fighting for the “aazadi” of Kashmiris have been exposed fully. One of them is languishing in a jail in the US. The separatists in Kashmir need to open their eyes and stop fantasying. Jammu and Kashmir is on the threshold of a big leap for development and progress. It needs peace to allow mega projects to reach completion and change the destiny of millions of people. Railway link, industrial expansion, opening of higher institutions of excellence, impact of democratic dispensation, all emanate clear and loud signals that the new era of modernity is about to usher in the State.
Discounting PPP mode
Union Health Minister has turned down the proposal of the State government to run six hospitals of the State in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode for the simple reason that doing so would mean putting economically weaker sections of people to great financial hardship. The State government’s plea is those six hospitals, three in Jammu and three in Kashmir, are not running in a manner in which these should run, and hence should be given in PPP mode with free treatment to 25 % patients BPL. The fact is that ours is a backward and hilly state and a large percentage of population cannot afford the heavy cost on medical treatment in private hospitals. Experience has shown that patients from poorer segments receive scant attention in the hospitals because they are not in a position to pay for expensive medical services. The State government needs to reconsider its proposal and also keep in mind the limited financial capability of weaker sections of society in taking care of their health services. Almost everywhere governments provide medical services on subsidized financial implications. It is a requirement of a welfare state. The State government would better find a solution to the issue rather than shies away from it by believing that private sector will bale it out. The bailing out game, if at all it happens will assuredly be at the cost of the toiling masses only.
Clear headed statesmanship
UNSC tightens North Korea sanctions over rocket launch
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17: Strongly condemning the attempted rocket launch by North Korea, the UN Security Council has tightened sanctions against Pyongyang, ordering new “entities and items” to be added to the black list.
In a presidential statement yesterday, the powerful 15-nation body said it “deplores that such a launch has caused grave security concerns in the region.”
US envoy to the UN Susan Rice, president of the UNSC this month, said the statement also provides for new sanctions.
The Security Council has directed its North Korea Sanctions Committee to “designate additional entities and items,” including North Korean companies, to be subject to an asset freeze, as well as to identify additional proliferation- sensitive technology to be banned for transfer to or from North Korea.
“The Committee will also take several other actions to improve enforcement of existing sanctions,” Rice said.
Condemning the attempted launch of the “application satellite,” the UNSC said the action as well as any other use of ballistic missile technology is a serious violation of the United Nations resolutions.
The statement came after North Korea’s Friday’s launch of the satellite, which reportedly rose for less than two minutes before exploding and plunging into the sea near the Korean peninsula.
The Council demanded that North Korea refrain from any further launches using ballistic missile technology and to comply with previous resolutions by suspending all activities related to the country’s ballistic missile programme.
Pyongyang must also re-establish its commitments to a moratorium on missile launches, the Council stressed. (PTI)
Garg murder: Australian court rejects convict’s appeal
MELBOURNE, Apr 17: An Australian court today rejected an appeal of the Melbourne teenager who was sentenced to 13 years in jail for killing Indian student Nitin Garg, a crime which outraged public opinion in India and put the bilateral relations under stress.
The teenager, who was 15-year-old at the time of incident in 2010, had appealed claiming the sentence was ‘manifestly excessive’, given his extreme youth, guilty plea and unintentional nature of crime, Australian news agency AAP reported.
Justices Marcia Neave, Peter Buchanan and Bernard Bongiorno of the Victorian Court of Appeal rejected his plea.
Buchanan said the sentencing judge, Paul Coghlan, had struck the appropriate balance between the boy’s age and the gravity of his crimes.
The teenager, whose name has not been revealed due to his age, stabbed 21-year-old Garg to death during an attempt to rob him of his mobile phone as he walked through local Park in suburb of Yarraville in January 2010.
After pleading guilty to murder and to a charge of attempted armed robbery, he was jailed by the Victorian Supreme Court for 13 years, with a non-parole period of eight years.
Garg’s murder shook Australia’s international education sector to its foundations and triggered a diplomatic storm between New Delhi and Canberra.
While sentencing the boy, the court noticed that Garg’s killing was not racial motivated.
Justice Coghlan said he accepted the boy was remorseful and had no intention to kill when he went to the park.
He said Garg was “an innocent and random victim” and it was his presence in the park, not his race, that led to him being attacked. (PTI)
UK assures India to allow post-study work permits to students
LONDON, Apr 17: Britain has assured India that it will continue to allow post-study work-experience permits to students, provided they get appropriate jobs commensurate with their qualifications or degrees, India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma has said.
After his meetings with Britain’s Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable here, Sharma told media last evening that he had raised the issue of Post Study Work Permits to students.
He shared with them India’s concern about its stoppage as large number of Indian students “come here, they study hard and they should have some practical exposure”.
“The Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Dr Vince Cable have assured that UK will continue to allow…The issue is how they are looking at it,” Sharma said.
“What they have shared with me is that they (students) should get appropriate jobs which are commensurate with their qualifications or degrees. Now that is something which could be discussed,” he added.
The minister said that the very fact that there is this reassurance at the highest level from the British Government, this issue will be resolved.
“I shall follow up my talks today with a communication and I hope that given our relationship, even the fact that a very large number of Indian students from middle class families, ordinary families, students who have taken loans, come and study here and we also are keen to engage more in education and skills sectors where UK has the strength, this issue will get resolved in a correct manner. That is what is communicated to me,” Sharma said.
He added, “They say they have no intention to deny. It is only they are looking at certain specifics so that the domain knowledge is utilised in Post Study Work. Let us leave it at that,” the visiting Indian minister said. (PTI)
Strong quake shakes Chile, no reports of damage
SANTIAGO, Apr 17: A powerful 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck near Chile’s eastern coastal port of Valparaiso early today, shaking buildings as far away as the capital Santiago, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries and the country’s main copper mines were unaffected.
State emergency office ONEMI said a stretch of coastline was being evacuated as a precaution, but there was no tsunami alert.
The quake, which the US Geological Survey measured at magnitude 6.5, struck 42 km north-northeast of Valparaiso, and 112 km northwest of the capital Santiago at a depth of 25.9 km.
‘We have no reports of any damage or injuries so far,’ a spokesman for ONEMI told Reuters. Local media said basic services like power and telecommunications mostly continued to operate normally, although several thousand homes were without power outside Santiago.
The USGS initially said the quake was a magnitude 6.6. Apartment buildings in Santiago shook heavily, and state television broadcast images of lamps swinging in homes in the capital.
State mining giant Codelco, the world’s No.1 copper producer, said its operations were not impacted by the quake, as did global miner Anglo American.
State oil company ENAP also said its Bio Bio refinery was operating normally.
Chile is prone to earthquakes, and was hammered by a massive 8.8 magnitude tremor in early 2010 which ravaged the south-center of the country, devastating industries and triggering tsunamis, in a disaster that killed about 500 people.
The 2010 quake caused roughly $8 billion in insured losses and economic losses of at least twice that.
In the past two years, earthquakes have been a scourge of the insurance industry. In addition to Chile, quakes in Japan and New Zealand in 2011 caused record-breaking losses in the tens of billions of dollars. Mexico has also been rattled by a series of strong quakes in recent weeks.
(agencies)
Lead futures trade lower on subdued demand
NEW DELHI, Apr 17: Lead prices traded marginally lower by 0.61 per cent to Rs 106.75 per kg in futures trade today owing to slackened demand amid weakening global trend.
At the Multi Commodity Exchange, lead for delivery in April traded marginally lower by 65 paise, or 0.61 per cent, to Rs 106.75 per kg in business turnover of 2,461 lots.
Market analysts said apart from weakening global trend, subdued demand from battery-makers in the spot market mainly led to decline in lead prices at futures trade.
Meanwhile, lead fell 0.4 per cent to USD 2,069 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange. (PTI)
Australia to begin Afghan exit a year early
CANBERRA, Apr 17: Australia will start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this year and expects all international forces there to be playing a supporting role for Afghan forces by mid-2013, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today.
Gillard will take her timetable for Australia’s troop to withdraw a year earlier than planned to a NATO conference on Afghanistan in Chicago in May.
‘I am now confident that Chicago will recognise mid-2013 as a key milestone in the international strategy,’ Gillard said in a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
‘A crucial point when the international forces will be able to move to a supporting role across all of Afghanistan.’
All foreign combat troops are due to be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and Australia had been expected to withdraw then too.
But US President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders are expected to define more clearly Western withdrawal plans at the Chicago conference and outline measures to ensure Afghanistan does not collapse into civil war when foreign troops go home.
Gillard rejected suggestions the faster timetable was being driven by Obama and his desire to have withdrawal plans finalised before the November US presidential election, saying it was reliant on progress agreed by Afghan and international forces.
A major assault in Kabul by the Taliban this week has raised questions about whether Afghan forces will be able to control security after foreign troops withdraw.
Gillard said she expected President Hamid Karzai to make an announcement on the transition in the coming months, and that it would take twelve to eighteen months to complete the pull-out.
Australia would argue at the Chicago summit for broad and substantial international support in Afghanistan, Gillard said.
‘I will go to Chicago prepared for Australia to pay our fair share. Australia will also be prepared to provide niche training to the Afghan national security forces after 2014,’ she said.
More than 10 years after the Taliban government was toppled following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the U.S. administration appears settled on a steady withdrawal of most of its troops by the end of 2014, leaving only a small US force to advise Afghan forces and conduct targeted strikes against militants.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is facing a difficult re-election campaign, has announced he would pull French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2013.
US forces number about 90,000 among the 130,000-strong NATO-led force. France has 3,600 troops in Afghanistan and Britain 9,500. Australia has about 1,550.
With 32 Australian soldiers killed and hundreds wounded, the Australian government is under mounting pressure to withdraw troops, and faces an expected election next year which Gillard is forecast to lose. (agencies)
OBC Mahasabha takes out Mashaal Rally
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 17: United Forum of presidents of different OBC organizations under the banner of All J&K OBC Mahasabha held a Mashaal Rally today.
The members of Sabha including ladies assembled near Press Club Jammu and took out a rally which passed through main streets of the city. The members of OBC Mahasabha carrying banners and placards were raising slogans in support of their demands.
They have been demanding implementation of 27 percent reservation in Jammu and Kashmir State in Government services as identified by Mandal Commission. The OBC leaders have stated that State Government was providing them with only 2 percent reservation instead of 27%. They said coalition Government ruling the State has deceived that a number of times and provided them with nothing except false assurances.
Demanding representation in State Legislative Assembly and Council, the OBC leaders asserted that State Government has created various false categories to uisurp the due share of reservation of OBCs.
They are also demanding issuance of Other Backward Classes (OBC) certificate instead of OSC (Other social castes) and Creamy layer be enhanced to Rs 9 lakh instead of Rs 3 lakh as at present.
The dignitaries who lead the Mashaal rally included Bansi Lal Choudhary, convenor All J&K Backward Classes Union, Ayudhiya Kumar Manawa, Vaishno Dutt Dogra, Reham Din Malik, K C Raina, Kasturi Lal Basotra, Abdul Qadir, Jagjit Singh, Madan Lal Gogra, Dharam Pal Kataria, Raj Kumar Verma, Manohar Lal Tidyal, Muni Lal Badan, Mohan Lal Pawar, Rattan Lal Chargotra, Hans Raj Chargotra, Kamal Bhardwaj, Arjit Kumar, Hussain Baksh Sabunia, Mohd Shafi, Mangat Ram, Anil Kumar, Ashwani Kumar, Raj Kumar Sodi, Suresh Dogra, Pawan Kumar, Mohinder, Bashir Ahmed, Mohd Hanief and Ramesh Kumar Angotra.
Revised road-map for payment of pension revision arrears
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 17: Finance Department today issued revised roadmap for the payment of pension revision arrears on account of implementation of 6th Central Pay Commission recommendations.
According to the order issued by Dr M Ishaq Wani, Director Codes, Finance Department, the State pensioner/ family pensioner, who has died or may die after January 1, 2006, leaving behind no eligible family pensioner and has not received any or all the instalments of the pension revision arrears due in terms of implementation of 6th CPC recommendations, will now be paid in one go.
However, where the PPO halves have been surrendered by the Treasury Officer to the Accountant General after the death of the pensioner/ family pensioner, the same will be called back from the Accountant General and surrendered after making the payment to the concerned.
Theft in JE’s house
Excelsior Correspondent
MENDHAR, Apr 17: Some unknown thieves struck in the house of a Junior Engineer and his brother in Mendhar and decamped with some cash, electronic gadgets and some record pertaining to RDD works last night.
Reports said thieves broke into the house of JE, Sajjad Ahmed Choudhary and Ch Chirag Din at Qasim Nagar Mendhar and decamped with Rs 40,000 cash and some electronic goods. After coming from Poonch today, he found cash and articles missing and record torn and thrown into nearby pond. Some of the allotments/ bills etc were also found missing. Both the brothers, working in the same department then lodged an FIR with the Police and informed BDO concerned about the matter. The police registered a case and started investigation.