ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 17 May 2006

Stir Over OBC Quota

CHIEF MINISTERS OF MASS FOLLOWING

By Insaf

The last fortnight saw a heart-warming demonstration of the power of the people. The intense nationwide stir over the OBC quota in higher technical institutions, which paralysed health services in several cities, forced the Centre to work out a mechanism that would protect the interests of all sections of the society.  Even as the students’ agitation began taking a serious turn, five States completed their electoral process by duly electing their Chief Ministers.  Each CM has his mass following built over decades. The new Chief Ministers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, V.S. Achuthanandan and M. Karunanidhi are both 82-plus years of age.  But both are overwhelmingly supported by the people.  “VS”, as Achuthanandan is known, was given a party ticket for the Assembly poll only after a public outcry. 

A member of the Communist Party since 1940, Achuthanandan came up the ranks the hard way, working his way up through a maze of political and trade union work.  As the Leader of the Opposition during the last five years, he emerged as a brand within the CPM, with the hallmark of a crusader.  He astutely managed to turn the people’s attention on issues as diverse as water, sex racket, mafia gangs and plunderers of forest.  He thus emerged as the best-loved Left leader. So much so, that when the party declined even to field him in the polls, a mass public agitation forced the Politburo to reverse its decision.  Now an automatic choice for the Chief Minister, “VS” faces a difficult task from within.  The dominant Pinaraji Vijayan faction in the State CPM is in no mood to cooperate with the new Chief Minister. 

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Gogoi’s Four  Firsts

Assam’s Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi has scored four “firsts” in his political career. He is the first to be sworn-in for a second successive term, first to head a coalition Government in the State, first to break the anti-incumbency jinx since 1972 and first to involve the indigenous tribals in running the affairs of the State.  He was confident from the very beginning about the Congress retaining power in the State.  But despite his confidence, based on several of his initiatives, including his pre-poll alliance with the Bodoland People’s Progressive Front (Hangrama faction), the party High Command had its misgivings about the anti-incumbency factor and therefore did not project him as its next Chief Minister. However, Gogoi has proved his critics and detractors wrong. 

Gogoi is now comfortably placed with 75 MLAs in the 126-member Assembly.  In fact, some more MLAs have offered to join him.  But he is not interested for the present. He has also made it clear to Badaruddin Ajmal that there is no question of his taking any help of the latter’s Assam United Democratic Front since it has grown into a communal party. The people of Assam, he believes, are convinced that communalism and regionalism cannot bring peace and progress to the State. Badaruddin’s outfit cost the Congress only one Muslim seat, contrary to loud claims and propaganda. In addition, he has won back all the tribal seats. The Chief Minister has three top priorities: provide good governance, build peace with the militants and put the Assam’s development on a fast track.

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Karunanidhi Keeps Poll Promise

Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister for the fifth time, M. Karunanidhi kicked off his latest inning by implementing his two election promises: providing ration rice at Rs.2 per kg and waiving cooperative loans of all the farmers of the State. In fact, he signed only one other file on the first day of taking oath as the Chief Minister.  The third order provides for the provision of two eggs per week for each student under the free noon meal scheme for all school students. This will be implemented from July 15, the birth anniversary of the late K. Kamaraj.  The rice at the reduced price will be sold from June 3, Karunanidhi’s birth anniversary. The additional burden on the State exchequer on account of the reduction in rice price and waiver of farmer loans will be Rs.550 crore and Rs.6,866 crore respectively.

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Buddha A Reformist Comrade

In his second innings as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharjee has announced that his pragmatic reforms package will roll. His stress is clearly on providing a better quality of life to the people, a target which can be achieved only by ensuring greater capital inflow from within the country and outside. Interestingly, his list of invitees for the oath-taking ceremony included most of the leading industrialists of the country. The projects for early implementation on his agenda are: Jakarta-based Salim group’s health city, Tata’s small car project, expressway linking Kolkata with Haldia, rapid mass transport system for Kolkata and contract farming by Pepsi, Dabur and others.  Personally, however, his lifestyle remains that of a pucca comrade: living in a two-room Government flat on a party allowance of Rs.3,200 p.m. He has no bank account, no cash deposit, no savings, no property and no cell phone!

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BJP Revolt In Jharkhand

The BJP faces a new bout of factionalism, following a near wash-out performance in the recent Assembly elections. This time the culprit is its Jharkhand unit. Former Chief Minister and presently National vice-president, Babulal Marandi has raised a banner of revolt against Chief Minister Arjun Munda. Babulal, who has reportedly threatened to quit the BJP, has been cut-up with the party leadership for having ignored his claim for the CM’s post after the State’s first Assembly poll. He has joined hands with the State UPA Convenor and former Deputy CM, Stephen Marandi. They have planned a non-political outfit, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM), mainly to highlight the Munda Government’s failure to rein in corruption and ignore development.  Marandi had also launched a tirade against the Munda Government last year which was supported by the party’s senior leader Yashwant Sinha.

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Muslims’ Outfit In U.P.

Emboldened by Sonia Gandhi’s massive victory in Rae Bareli, the Congress High Command has decided to revamp its U.P. unit  and prepare it for an intense political struggle with the ruling Samajwadi Party in the run-up to the Assembly poll early next year.  A State-wide mass-contact programme has been planned, something not done in the Hindi heartland for long.  Both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul are expected to step in to enthuse party workers. But the party’s effort to win back the Muslim vote-bank has suffered an unexpected setback.  Muslim clerics of the State got together in Lucknow on Monday last and announced the formation of a political party on the lines of the Assam United Democratic Front. The Muslims constitute about 23 per cent of the State’s population. They feel they could play a major role (and extract a bigger price) in the State politics by ganging up.

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Sex Scandal In J&K

Jammu and Kashmir continues to agitate against the sex scandal involving some politicians and people holding high offices in the Government, including some senior police officers.  Violent protests continued all of last week, compelling Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to personally intervene and suspend two district police chiefs. Clerics and Imams insist that a special investigation team be appointed and this be monitored by the High Court.  A public interest litigation (PIL) has been admitted in the High Court.  A 12-member CBI team has also started working on the scam, initiated by a woman in Srinagar, who enjoyed the backing of several high-placed persons.  The racket reportedly involved intimidation, drugs and blackmail of teenage girls, who became “comfort girls” for the people in high-places.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 12 May 2006

UPA Strengthened

LEFT SWEEPS W. BENGAL & KERALA

By Insaf

At the end of the prolonged election process for five State Assemblies, three things stand out loud and clear: The Left Front has strengthened its position in the national politics, communal forces are beginning to be eliminated and the Congress has failed to change the ruling UPA’s chemistry of dependency. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself claimed: “It is a victory for the secular forces and a victory for the UPA.” The CPM-led Left Front has swamped West Bengal and notched an emphatic victory in Kerala. Notwithstanding Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s record victory in Rae Bareli, the outcome in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry has little to cheer the Congress which went to battle with high expectations.

The Congress support base has decreased in all the five States, even though the party has emerged almost unhurt. It has retained power in Assam and Pondicherry and has become the main prop for the DMK and its Chief Minister in Tamil Nadu. In Assam, which threw up a hung Assembly, with the Congress winning 52 seats in the 126-member Assembly, against 71 in 2001, the party will have the satisfaction of retaining power, a remarkable feat achieved by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for the first time in 30 years. Contrary to predictions that the Congress would lose power, it has returned as the single-largest party. Tarun Gogoi’s strategy paid rich dividends. He worked hard to improve the State’s financial position in the last two years, implemented several development projects and also ensured communal harmony.    

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Impressive Victories

The CPM-led left Front has conclusively defeated its political rivals in West Bengal and Kerala and has for the first time won four seats in Assam. The Front recorded an impressive tally of 220 in the 294-member Assembly. This is a remarkable improvement from the 2001 score of 199 seats, thanks to Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee’s reformist image and practical economic policies during the last five years, which earned him greater support in urban areas than during the last 28 years of Left rule in the State. The CPM under Jyoti Basu had already built up its vote banks in rural areas by its land reforms. Buddhadev greatly improved on it by giving the CPM a dynamic thrust as the country’s new, reformist Left. In Kerala, the Front wrested power by winning 99 seats in the 140-member Assembly. Anti-incumbency factor and in-fighting in the State Congress led to the downfall of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

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Sonia’s Thumping Win

Sonia Gandhi’s thumping victory in the byelection for the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat was a foregone conclusion. But the low voter turn-out of merely 43 per cent of the electorate was a big surprise.  The Congress leadership has attributed this to various factors.  First, even in 2004 Lok Sabha poll, the voting percentage was only 48.42.  But she had defeated the Samajwadi candidate by a huge margin of over 2,50,000 votes. This time the margin of victory is more than 4 lakh, a record.  Second, the voters were confident about her sure win and therefore, preferred to stay at home to beat the scorching sun. In some of the polling booths in rural areas, there were more poll officials than voters.  Another little known reason for the low polling was that about 40 per cent of the voters in the constituency are migratory labourers and were away to adjoining States for harvesting crops.

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Expensive Elections

The Assembly polls for 824 seats in four States and a Union Territory turned out to be a very expensive affair, literally. They are estimated to have cost the nation a whopping Rs.2,000 crore.  Political insiders have also estimated that an average of Rs. 2 crore was spent in each constituency.  Calculated on this basis, the amount which the mainstream political parties spent on these elections crossed Rs.2,000 crore.  The poll expenses in West Bengal and Pondicherry were comparatively less than what was spent in Tamil Nadu, Assam and Kerala.  Significantly, 90 per cent of the estimated expenditure has been spent by the candidates of two or three major political parties.  According to the Election Commission norms, maximum poll expenses per candidate for the bigger States is Rs.10 lakh and for UTs like Pondicherry Rs.5 lakh.

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Mulayam Another “Vikas Purush”

UP’s Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav has fired his first salvo for the State Assembly poll about eight months away.  He has embarked on a publicity blitzkrieg: full-page advertisements in leading newspapers, projecting him as a “Vikas Purush” and his Government as the champion of development.  This is very much like what the Vajpayee Government did for itself prior to the Lok Sabha poll in 2004.  Mulayam Singh has pledged in these advertisements to make Uttar Pradesh an “Uttam Pradesh”, a “model State” to win friends and influence public opinion. Attention is particularly focused on his Government’s approval for 7,000 MW of power projects in the next six years, electrification of about 6,000 villages and improvements in such areas as agriculture, infrastructure, drinking water, health and education.

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Crackdown On Naxals

Now that the State elections are over, the Union Government has finalized re-deployment of Central para-military forces tied up with the polling exercise. All the 772 Companies of the Central para-military forces spared for the poll duty are being moved to Chhattisgarh, to enable intensified counter-offensive against the Naxalites who have made the new State their latest target.  The plan is to undertake a joint offensive by the Central forces and the State police, using helicopters to para-drop the personnel into the heavily forested Naxal hideouts.  The Union Home Ministry has also decided to set up a dedicated anti-Naxal cell to coordinate intelligence, development outreaches and implementation of policies to check the rising Naxal menace, which has now enveloped 15 States.

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Telangana Remains Elusive

Statehood for Telangana remains elusive as ever.  Clearly, the Congress, which leads the UPA Government at the Centre and rules Andhra Pradesh, is in no hurry to oblige the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).  Nor does it seem to be keen to expedite the Pranab Mukherjee Committee report on the Statehood demand, notwithstanding frequent deadlines set by the TRS and its chief, Chandrasekhar Rao, now the Union Labour Minister. Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy too is evidently opposed to the creation of Telangana.  He maintains that the demand for a separate State was the result of the neglect by the earlier Governments. But now that his Government has launched several development programmes for the backward region, there is no need for a separate Telangana.

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Andolan Agaisnt Supreme Court

The Narmada Bachao Andolan, led by Medha Patkar and supported by several NGOs and celebrities, is getting curiouser and curiouser. It has now turned its agitation against the Supreme Court’s order last week, allowing continuation of the construction of the Sardar Sarovar project across the river Narmada in Gujarat. Patkar organized a sit-in outside the Court, describing the order as “injustice” to the people displaced due to the dam – and subsequently by raising of its height.  Patkar has vowed afresh to continue her agitation.  She now accuses the Centre of making a “mockery” of the rehabilitation of the project-affected families.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 4 May 2006

Vadodara Dargah Flareup

SAUDI ARABIA SHOWS THE WAY

By Insaf

Communal frenzy in Vadodara (Baroda) in riot-prone Gujarat and clashes between fundamentalist Muslims and the authorities over the demolition of an old dargah has raised a basic question for all the States: should religious structures, which obstruct widening or decongesting of roads, be demolished in the interest of planned development and modernisation?  Most cities in India, including the Union Capital, face this problem  and find themselves helpless because of religious sensitivity. The Dargah at Vadodara, which caused the communal flareup and resulted in at least seven deaths, was neither a protected monument nor did it have any ownership title. It was thus demolished as an unauthorized structure that obstructed traffic. But Muslims have made the demolition a religious issue, despite the fact that seven or eight temples, too, were demolished.

Mercifully, the Gujarat High Court has given a secular lead in the matter by taking suo moto notice of the demolition of the Dargah.  It has firmly ruled that all illegal structures, including religious and other encroachments, should be removed forthwith.  Significantly, its approach is in keeping with the enlightened stand adopted in such matters by none other than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, home to Hazrat Mohammad and to Mecca and Madina.  During a visit to the modern Saudi capital of Riyadh, Insaf gathered that the Government of the Kingdom had adopted a practical approach for dealing with mosques and graves which came in the way of its modernization.  All such mosques were given notice to shift to other sites, provided by the Government.  Similarly, keepers of graves too were ordered to be shifted.  Bulldozers moved in wherein the deadline was not kept. No one dared to protest.

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Massacre in Jammu

Militancy seems to be returning to J&K in its full fury.  The terrorists massacred at least 35 Hindus and injured many more in Doda and Rajouri on Monday last.  The carnage by the Pak-based Lashkar-e-Taibba is most worrisome.  More than a decade-old history of militancy in J&K shows that whenever signs of peace become visible in the State, the  militants strike with deadly vengeance. (As many as 17 massacres have taken place in the last ten years, leaving 270 Hindus dead.) This time the group was more livid than ever before,  provoked by a desire to avenge its humiliation at the hands of the J&K voters in the April 25 byelections. More than seventy per cent of the voters cast their votes, defying the militants’ call for boycotting the elections,

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s eagerly-awaited dialogue with the moderate Hurriyat group, led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, in New Delhi on Wednesday turned out to be satisfactory. The PM described the 100-minute second round of interaction as a “meeting of minds” that augured well for the future of Kashmir.  Both sides will now discuss specifics and look at out-of-the-box suggestions with a view to ensuring a lasting solution. In this regard, the Hurriyat moderates have agreed to evolve a mechanism for addressing the issue. The PM and his advisers will examine it in their next meeting. Happily, Hurriyat leaders, on their part, indicated willingness to join the PM’s Second Roundtable, scheduled at Srinagar on May 25.  They had skipped the First Roundtable.

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Naxal Menace Continues

There is no stopping the Naxalites from their killing spree in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.  Hardly a day passes when incidents are not reported from the States which are being presently targetted by the Left-wing extremists. Over the last week-end, three major incidents of great concern took place.  On Saturday, as many as 17 tribals were massacred at Bastar in Chhattisgarh.  Simultaneously, the CPI (Maoists) looted a bank and attacked a police station in Bihar’s Vaishali district, close to Patna.  Next day, the activity moved to Andhra Pradesh, the Naxalites’ main base.  They hijacked two luxury boats on river Krishna and kidnapped about ten of the 234 holiday-makers and 35 crew members.  The Centre and the affected States keep mouthing their concern and talking about “strong measures”. Yet all the talk has so far proved to be no more than shrill rhetoric.

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Hokishe’s Solution For Nagalim

Top Naga nationalist, Hokishe Sema has come forward with an interesting proposal to break the deadlock over the creation of Nagalim or greater Nagaland – demanded by the NSCN(IM) group, led by Isaac Swu and T. Muivah. The octogenarian leader has also shared his thoughts with the Centre’s interlocutor, Padmanabhaiah.  Sema has suggested that the Naga-dominated areas could initially be constituted into autonomous regional councils within their respective States.  Twice Chief Minister and former Governor of Himchal Pradesh, Hokishe Sema made two other points to Insaf during his visit to New Delhi. He wants Khaplang faction of the NSCN also to be involved in the talks for a durable solution. He also wants the parleys with the IM group to be held in India and not on foreign soil, a view that Nehru strongly held vis a vis the Naga rebels. He refused to meet Phizo in London since that would compromise India’s honour. Instead, he offered Phizo a safe passage to India.

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Difficult Task For Rahul In U.P.

The Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, and her election manager, son Rahul Gandhi, are sure to sail through smoothly in the Rae Bareli byelection on Monday, May 8.  But the youthful leader faces a Herculean task in mobilising the UP Congress for next year’s Assembly polls.  All the elections during the last two years in the politically most significant State have shown that the Congress is now reduced to the position of an “also ran”. The trend in U.P. today favours ‘bipolar politics’ with the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh and the BSP of Mayawati as the front runners.  In the Assembly byelections in June last year, the Congress candidates in all the four constituencies forfeited their security deposits. This included Nehru Pariwar’s own Allahabad. The party got barely 660 of the 1,73,280 votes polled in the city’s West constituency. 

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From free rice to free gold. That is the latest from Tamil Nadu in the bizarre poll rivalry between the two main Dravidian parties, the DMK of Karunanidhi and the ruling Anna-DMK of Jayalalitha. Initially, both played the politics of rice for the one day poll on May 8. Now, Chief Minister Jayalalitha has announced that, if voted to power, she will gift four grams of gold to every newly-married couple.  Whether this gambit will work or not is anybody’s guess. One thing alone is clear. Jayalalitha managed to get 132 of the 234 Assembly seats in 2001. She may not reach the figure this time. Remember also, her party’s humiliating defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha poll. She failed to win even one of the 40 seats.

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Left Ahead In Kerala

With the last phase of polling ending in Kerala on Wednesday, the Left Democratic front seems to be poised for a win. This is indicated by the peaceful polling for the 15 constituencies in the Left-dominated Kannur and Kasargoda districts which went to the polls in the final phase.  In 2001, the Left had won 10 of the 15 seats in the two districts. This time the Front may score even better as suggested by the polling trend in 1842 booths which the Election Commission had declared as violence-prone and where nearly 13,000 security personnel were deployed.  Most Exit pollsters had given the Left Front the lead at the end of the first two rounds for 125 of the 140 Assembly seats.  However, top leaders of the ruling UDF have rubbished the Exit polls and claimed triumph.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 26 April 2006

Byelections in J&K

VALLEY VOTES FOR PEACE & STABILITY

By Insaf

Jammu and Kashmir has voted for peace and against terror in the crucial four byelections for the State Assembly on Monday last.  Braving the militants’ fire and a poll boycott call by them, the voters in the three constituencies in the Valley – Sangarawa, Pattan and Rafiabad – registered a whopping 61 per cent turnout. It was about 72 per cent in the fourth byelection for Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s home constituency of Bhaderwah, from where he contested an election for the first time.  According to the Chief Electoral Officer B.R. Sharma, “the polling percentage was an all-time high”.  This is seen as a clear mandate for stability and development, as also for the ongoing Indo-Pak peace process.

Chief Minister Azad can happily look forward to a cakewalk to victory at Bhaderwah.  But post-poll he may have to do some tightrope walking to survive to the State’s coalition politics, if the pre-poll developments are any indication. Undoubtedly, the ruling allies, the Congress and the PDP, were committed to campaign jointly against the National Conference. But some of the Congress leaders in the Valley openly worked for the NC candidates.  In fact, contests for the three constituencies in northern Kashmir turned out to be a battle of “turncoats”.  Two legislators sought re-election from Rafiabad and Pattan after they deserted the NC for the PDP and at Sangrama the PDP was challenged by the son of its slain Minister and a few of its legislators.

Meanwhile, trouble is slowly brewing between the Congress and the PDP, even though Mufti Sayeed honoured the agreement between the two and handed over the Chief Ministership to Ghulam Nabi Azad three months ago for the second half of the six-year tenure. The differences were clearly visible in last Monday’s byelections. No PDP leader visited Bhaderwah to campaign for Azad. That, perhaps, was not required. But in several places in the Valley the local Congress leaders did not campaign for the PDP candidates. In one place two Congress leaders brazenly shared the dais with Farooq Abdullah.

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Left Upbeat In Kerala

At the end of the first three rounds of the five-phase Assembly poll in West Bengal, the CPM-led Left Front seems set to win power for the seventh time in succession.  What is of greater interest to the Front now is that in Kerala too the Front is upbeat and hopeful of   regaining power. At the end of the first round on April 22 for 59 seats in the 140-member Assembly, Exit pollsters predicted a clear majority for the Left Democratic Front (LDF). Election history of Kerala shows that it is these 59 constituencies in the northern and central parts of the State that usually decide who would rule the State for the next five years.  The UDF won 45 of the 59 seats in 2001.  This time the LDF expects to win at least 40 seats.

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Polling Trend Continues In West Bengal

High turnout in the West Bengal Assembly poll is continuing. So also the Election Commission’s elaborate security arrangements. At the end of the second round of polling on April 22, the voter turnout was 74 per cent for 66 seats in Midnapur, Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia. An exit poll has given a “clean sweep” for the ruling Left Front in this segment.  One pollster has given the Front 50 seats, Trinamool Congress 12 and the Congress three.  Contrary to the pollsters’ prediction, the Opposition parties have attributed the big turnout to a “silent revolution” against the ruling Front. Mamata Banerjee, on the other hand, has alleged that the CPM cadres have been rigging the poll, despite the Election Commission’s elaborate arrangements.

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Politics Of Rice In Tamil Nadu

Politics of rice, a staple food for the Tamils, has come to dominate the campaign for the 294-Assembly poll in Tamil Nadu on May 8. It has pushed into the background any other development agenda.  The DMK of Karunanidhi, which is adopting all possible measures to regain power, was the first to make rice a major issue.   If voted to power, it promised rice through the PDS at Rs.2 per kg. The ruling AIADMK rubbished the offer as “impractical and impossible”. But its ally, DMDK offered 15 kg rice free every month to all ration card holders.  Now AIADMK and its ally MDMK of Vaiko have offered 10 kg rice free of cost in the 20 kg. quota per month.  It means 10 kg at the present rate of Rs.3.5 per kg. and the rest free of cost.  Or, Rs.35 for 20 kg, which would be cheaper than the DMK’s poll offer.

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M.P. Bypoll Rescheduled

Madhya Pradesh’s new Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who is contesting a byelection for the State Assembly from the Budhni constituency, has been punished by the Election Commission for violating the model code of conduct.  The poll, earlier scheduled for April 24, will now be held on May 3.  The ruling BJP in the State had been charged of violating the code on the basis of a complaint by the State Congress leaders. The Commission’s representatives too had found misuse of Government machinery in the Sehore district under which the Budhni Assembly constituency falls.  The PCC Chief, Subhash Yadav and the two AICC Observers, J.P. Agarwal and Nandi Yellait, want the Commission to debar Chauhan from contesting. The Commission has, however, ordered the removal of Sehore’s Collector and its Police Chief.

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“Mahatma” In Andhra CM

Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy of the Congress has reason to celebrate. Praise upon praise is being heaped on him by the Centre for his development programmes in the State.  The latest has come from the Union Minister of Panchayati Raj and Rural Development, Mani Shankar Aiyar, who equated the Chief Minister with Mahatma Gandhi. The Union Minister gave him the title of “Mahatma” at a public function for following Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of “Gram Swaraj”. Reddy has now given more powers and financial autonomy to the gram panchayats. Meanwhile, the Centre has cleared a proposal to establish five specialized industrial clusters in the State. A corpus of Rs.950 crore for infrastructure development has been created for the clusters in various sectors for consumer goods production.

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Nitish’s Alert To Centre

Bihar and its capital Patna are equally, if not more, concerned than New Delhi about the developments in Nepal.  Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has written to the Ministry of External Affairs to formally request the Nepal Government to deploy adequate security forces around the Kosi barrage in Nepal in view of the blast threat to it by the Moists of Nepal last week.  The State Government has informed the Centre that at present it is totally unprotected and if it is damaged at least half-a-dozen neighbouring districts in Bihar would be badly affected.  The Centre, on its part, has put the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) on high alert along the Nepal border in West Bengal, Bihar, UP and Uttaranchal. Hundreds of Nepali families have already crossed over to the Indian side and many more are on the way.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)