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All-Party Meet On J&K:CENTRE FUMBLES YET AGAIN, by Insaf, 16 Sept, 2010 Print E-mail

Round The States

New Delhi, 16 September 2010


All-Party Meet On J&K

CENTRE FUMBLES YET AGAIN

By Insaf

 

A big question mark hangs over the future of Kashmir once again. Sadly, the Centre continues to fumble on how to restore normalcy in the volatile State. Pertinently, after five-hours of the all-party brain-storming meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday last, the only decision which emerged was to send an all-party delegation to the State this Sunday! Its mandate: “open invitation” to anyone interested to come and talk. Clearly, the Centre seems to be caught betrween a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the Prime Minister has made plain “the trust and governance deficit” and put Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on a veiled notice. On the other hand, Omar now boasts of Congress General Secretary’s continued backing.. A day after the meeting, Rahul asserted in Kolkata:  “Omar needs time and support.”

 

Notwithstanding, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and the PM initiating dialogue with their erstwhile coalition partner and NC’s bete noire Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP. Raising speculation of reviving an old power alignment in the State. The party meeting failed miserably on arriving at a political consensus on the contentious issue and demand of the NC seeking witdrwal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Many leaders went all out to back the Air Force Chief P.V. Naik’s view that the security forces “deserved legal protection they could get to operate in Kashmir”. With all this confusion at the Centre, the Hurriyat hardliner Ali Shah Geelani seems to be having the last laugh on New Delhi’s dithering and failure to take bold decisions. He and his followers seem determined to continue their stir for azaadi!

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Communal Frenzy In W Bengal

 

Extremist communal frenzy in West Bengal’s Deganga market town, about 50 km from Kolkata’s Dum Dum airport, has sadly gone unnoticed. Ten days ago, the town in North 24 Parganas district witnessed looting, burning and ransacking of Hindu shops and houses by the Muslim goons, allegedly led by the local Trinamool MP, Haji Nurul Islam. This happened because the locals resisted the mob’s bid to take over their land traditionally used for community Durga puja. Shockingly, the Hindus, once a majority, are now a hopeless minority of just about 30 per cent of the population thanks to the glaring shift in the town’s demographic profile because of unrestrained illegal immigration from Bangladesh. The infiltrators armed with ration cards, voter IDs and other evidence of citizenship rule the roost. While some semblance of order was finally restored with the Army being called in, Deganga is yet another case of vote bank politics playing havoc with the nation’s secular credentials.

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Talibanisation Of Kerala?

 

Sinister and brazen fundamentalism shamelessly continues to go unchecked in Kerala. All the stake holders, including the Left Democratic Front Government, remain silent spectators to the agony of college lecturer TJ Jospeh, whose hand was chopped off by the extremist Islamic outfit, the Popular Front of India (PFI) in July last for allegedly insulting the Prophet. Adding insult to injury, the college dismissed Joseph and suggested he could be reinstated if he apologised to the Muslim community! The Kothamangalam diocese of the Syro-Malabar church on Sunday last too defended his dismissal from the college saying he hasn’t apologized for his mistake. Worse, the Achuthanandan government has been dithering over a probe, obviously eyeing its Muslim vote bank. However, the grave point that is being missed is that this communal appeasement may well lead to the Talibanisation of Kerala, God’s own country.   

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Apex Ultimatum To States

 

Places of worship have no business to be on public land in a civilized society. Having said this a year ago, the Supreme Court on Tuesday last threatened to summon respective State Chief Secretaries if they failed to comply with the directions to remove or relocate places of worship built on public land. As per the affidavits filed by various States, Tamil Nadu tops the list of defaulters with 77,450 such structures, followed by Rajasthan 58,253, Madhya Pradesh 51,824, Uttar Pradesh 45,000, Maharashtra 17, 385, Gujarat 15,000 and Delhi only 52. As against this, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland and Mizoram have no illegal structures. In September 2009 that the SC had ordered against unauthorised religious structures on roads, pavements or other public places as these were an inconvenience to the people. With States dilly-dallying on its direction, the apex court has now given two weeks to the States to file their response or else face the music. 

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Chhattisgrah Shows The Way

 

Tiny Chhattisgarh has reason to be proud. Its “food-for-poor” scheme is being viewed by the Centre as a role model for the States for the implementation of the Food Security Act. The BJP-ruled State has achieved the highest growth rate at 11.49 per cent this year among the States. Its Chief Minister Raman Singh has for the past year had a ready formula for on ground delivery to the disadvantaged groups: Warehouses, godowns shops must be set up at the State level; the Public Distribution System has to move from the private to cooperative sector and self-help groups and elected panchayats need to be trusted. This apart, he feels that the glaring leakages in the system could be plugged with the help of Unique ID card which would ensure 90 per cent coverage. Once in place, the biometrics would rule out duplication and enable online tracking of the PDS consumption. Interestingly, Singh’s food security model was not given more than a year to last. But now the Planning Commission wants to replicate it across the nation!

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Jat Trouble In Haryana

 

The reservation bug has now stung the Haryana Government. The Jat community in the State is demanding reservation in Government jobs and educational institutions. With a protestor killed in police firing on Monday last, the Jats went on a rampage in Hisar, Rohtak, Jind, Bhiwani, Sirsa and Fatehabad targeting government and private property the following day, forcing the Government to keep the Army on standby. Fortunately, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda managed to quell tempers by announcing a Rs 10 lakh compensation to the family of the deceased and assured the All India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti that he had favourably forwarded its demand made in April last to the Centre. Though the Samiti  has decided to end its protest “for the time being” it has warned of carrying forward the fight for  reservation. It has threatened to disrupt the Commonwealth Games if the Centre fails to announce a quota for the Jats by October 3. ---INFA

 

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

 

 

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