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Round The States
New Delhi, 18 November 2009
Ambitious Power
Targets
ELECTRICITY FOR ALL
BY 2012
By Insaf
The Centre has once again, sought from the States their full
and energetic cooperation in meeting the rising demand of India’s growing
economy for power and providing electricity to all by 2012. Sunday last saw
Union Power Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, convene a meeting of the Power
Ministers of the States in New Delhi
to discuss ways and means to achieve the Ministry’s ambitious target of 78,700
MW for the 11th Five Year Plan. Projects with a total capacity of
18.235 MW have already been commissioned till October 25, 2009 and 62,375 MW
are under various stages of construction. Considerable concern has been caused
over the months by the short fall in the addition of power generation capacity,
together with the high rate of theft in transmission. Consequently, the meeting
concentrated on timely completion of projects, raw material shortages and the
rising demand during the ensuing winter. The country’s total installed power
generation capacity now stands at 1,50,000 MW.
The States have expectedly assured full cooperation. But
they want early clearance for power projects from the Centre together with an
increase in free power from the projects in their areas. A majority of them
also want removal of service tax on transmission. The Centre, for its part, has
taken the initiative for facilitating the development of a few ultra mega power
projects of about 4,000 MW capacity each under tariff based competitive route
using super critical technology on build, own and operate basis. In the first
phase, four projects at pithead sites and five projects at coastal locations
have been proposed. The projects at pithead sites would be based on domestic
coal whereas those at coastal sites will use imported coal as fuel. The
identified locations are: Sasan in Madhya Pradesh, Mundra in Gujarat,
Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Akaltara in Chhattisgarh, Tadri in Karnataka,
Girye in Maharashtra, Cheyyur in Tamil Nadu,
Sundergarh District in Orissa; and Tilaiya in Jharkhand.
* * * *
Vande Matram Not
Un-Islamic
Gujarat has given a thought-provoking lead
in the controversy that continues to rage over the singing of Vande Matram, the
national song. Even as the All-India Shia Personnel Law Board has sought an
“authenticated and officially approved” Urdu translation of Vande Matram,
Gujarats’ first Muslim Director General of Police, S.S. Khandwawala has
reportedly urged Muslims to sing Vande Matram, asserting that to do so is “not
un-Islamic”. He has cited his personal case to make the point: “I give a salaam
to my mother every day before I leave home and also to my motherland. Moreover,
when we offer namaaz, we bow down and
kiss the ground, which itself is a salute to the motherland. Religion never
prevents a man from respecting his motherland”. That is not all. He adds:
“Earth gives us food, fulfils all our needs and we take our last breath in its
lap. Therefore, calling earth a mother, saluting her and respecting her (as
prophet Mohammed said) is the duty of every Muslim. Singing Vande Matram should
thus be a matter of pride for all Indian Muslims, as it is an action that
respects the values of Islam”.
* * * *
UP Muslims On Top
UP Muslims have reason to sit back and smile. Their vote in
the recent by-election to the Lok Sabha from Ferozabad has made them
all-important in the State. Every party, barring a few, wants their favour --- and support. Time was
not long ago when Mulayam Singh and Kalyan Singh were like Siamese twins. Both
had joined hands to consolidate the Lodh and Other Backward Class votes. But
post Ferozabad, Mulayam and Kalyan have been flying at each others throats,
even accusing the other of betrayal. The Congress has already gone all out to
woo the Muslims through the Sachar report which, sadly, follows in the
footsteps of the infamous and motivated Pirpur Report, produced at the instance
of Jinnah in 1938. But Mulayam has to win back his honorific title of Maulana,
which he lost after he embraced Kalyan Singh. Fortunately for Mulayam and his
Samajwadi Party, destiny has favoured him with a new mascot out of the blue:
Abu Asim Azmi, a native of Azamgarh in UP, who was abused and slapped by the
Maharashtra Navniraman Sena’s members in the Maharashtra Assembly for
courageously taking oath in Hindi as an Samajwadi Party MLA.
* * * *
Punjab Loses To Haryana
Punjab has lost out to Haryana in more
ways than one. It was eager to get a nuclear power plant in the State and had
lobbied vigorously for it, topping its efforts with a strong plea to the Centre
by Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal himself. New Delhi
has instead approved a nuclear power plant in Fatehabad in Haryana, not far
from the site that was planned for it in Punjab.
Experts believe that political dithering on the issue by successive Punjab
Governments is mainly responsible for the State’s loss and Haryana’s gain.
Badal has accused the Centre for not keeping it in the loop before taking a
final decision. But then one fact stands out. Akali Dal had opposed the Indo-US
civil nuclear deal. What is more, the Centre found the approach of the State’s
ruling alliance “rather flip-flop”. Nuclear power is expected to provide a
total of 3380 MW towards India’s
ambitious schedule of generating 78,700 MW in the 11th Five Year
Plan.
* * * *
“Love Jehad” In
Kerala
Ever heard of “Love Jehad” or “Romeo Jehad”? Never, for an
overwhelming majority of our people. Yet, the two Jehads are creating filmy ripples
in Kerala, which has given Jehad an altogether new dimension. “Love Jehad” is reportedly
a campus-based campaign by young Muslims for converting non-Muslim girls into
Islam by trapping them in love affairs with the help of plenty of money, used
for buying costly dresses, mobile phones and, importantly, ornaments. More than
4,000 girls are reported to have been trapped so far and converted to Islam
since 2005, causing mounting concern. Significantly, this concern is not of a
paranoid Islamophobic American militarist or an anti-Muslim Hindutva
campaigner. Concern was initially voiced by noneless than a good Christian: Johny
Kochuparambil, Secretary of the Social Harmony and Vigilance Commission of the
Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference (KCBC). His fear? Kerala, admired for its
long history of cultural and religious amalgamation through marriages, may get
needlessly pushed towards social confrontation.
* * * *
New Form Of Terrorism?
Love Jehad, according to reports, is widely known to be the
outcome of a determined move by Islamic extremists to boost the Muslim
population in the State in terms of numbers. It is also to get girls to work as
couriers for terror operators and sex slaves in terror camps inside and outside
India
for sex-starved underground operatives living away from home. All this has
expectedly stirred most Hindu organizations in the State, which are now
campaigning against what they describe as “a new form of Islamist terror”. The
Left Government of the State and the Congress Opposition have so far remain unmoved.
The CPI(M)-ruled Kerala Police says it is yet to get “actionable evidence.”
However, chilling facts put out by the KCBC cannot be ignored: 2866 girls fell
into the trap of Love Jehad in three years beginning 2006. Of these, only 703
cases were registered to avoid embarrassment to the families. From among these
missing girls only 264 returned. Johny
Kochuparambil reportedly vouches that his statistics are from “very reliable”
sources! ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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