Round The States

New Delhi, 16 August 2007

Assam’s Killing Fields

ULFA PLAYING BANGLADESHI GAME

By Insaf

Picturesque Assam is once again in turmoil. Its plantations and rice fields are turning more and more red with blood. The outlawed ULFA continues to play Dhaka’s diabolical game and has killed over 70 Bihari workers during the past few weeks. Thousands of Bihari labourers in the State have expectedly panicked and started moving back. This suits Dhaka and Pakistan’s ISI eminently and is, in fact, in accordance with their game plan. Exit of Bihari labourers from the plantations of Assam clears space for illegal Bangladeshi migrants to move in and change the State’s demographic landscape. The North-East Students Organisation (NESO) already feels that the continuing influx of illegal Bangladeshi migrants has become “critical” not only for Assam but for the entire North-East region.

In fact, both NESO and AAPSU (All Arunachal Pradesh Students Union) have given notice to New Delhi and Guwahati that they are “determined to throw the illegal migrants out.” They want New Delhi and Guwahati to adopt an effective mechanism to push out the illegal migrants without further delay. Additionally, they want the entire region brought within the Inner-Line Permit regime. This would oblige all outsiders to secure a permit to enter the region. AAPSU has already got some 25,000 “suspected nationals” (namely non-Indians) to leave Arunachal and move into Assam by serving “quit notices” on them. NESO is livid that Guwahati has allowed them to stay on in Assam and has threatened to launch an aggressive movement unless the Centre and the Assam Government act fast.

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Maharashtra To Set Up Special Courts

The Maharashtra Government appears all ready to reopen old wounds By setting up a special court to try “some select” 1992-93 riot cases, uncovered by the Srikrishna Commission.  The Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, under pressure from his Party high command, avowed to explore all options for the speedy implementation of the recommendations. Deshmukh may have succeeded in buying time, but the moot point is whether he will be able to assuage the feelings of the minorities, especially in the wake of judgment in the bomb blasts case. Or will he end up creating more bad blood amongst the majority community and give the saffron BJP-Shiv Sena combine a political weapon to whip up religious ferment. 

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Trouble For Modi In Gujarat 

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, is apt for beleaguered Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Grappling with growing dissent against him, Modi received a rude Independence Day shock when the former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel for the first time publicly lambasted his successor and arch-rival’s style of functioning at an I-Day function in Surat. Patel’s outspokenness has put a spanner in the wheel of the BJP’s central leadership efforts to broker peace between Modi and Patel. Inarguably, the most powerful leader of his community, Patel’s anti-Modi tirade holds out ominous portends for the BJP’s chances of retaining power in the State which goes to polls in November.

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Mayawati Blazes New Trail

Amid a heated national debate on job reservations in the private sector, the UP Chief Minister Mayawati has conjured up a nouvelle voluntary job reservation policy. Riding on the coattails of her much acclaimed Dalit-Brahmin social engineering, the State Government has proposed offering fiscal incentives for private sector companies providing 30 per cent employment  to the downtrodden comprising the SCs, STs,OBCs and the poor among the upper caste. Some leading corporate bodies have, no doubt, rejected the sops being offered. But a good few industrialists have welcomed her proposal, describing it as “brilliant.” It now remains to be seen whether Mayawati’s maya will score when the Centre has failed in pushing quotas in higher education, following a stay by the Supreme Court. Interestingly, the Andhra Pradesh Government too is planning to follow suit.

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Hyderabad Muslims Bear Fangs

The Congress-led Andhra Pradesh Government’s much touted minority appeasement policy seems to have come unstuck. Following attacks by its ally Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen’s (MIM) MLAs on the exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. At a function where Taslima had gone to release the Telugu version of her controversial book the MIM MLAs began hurling flowers pots, books, chairs et al at her. Worse, the MIM President Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi defended his MLAs and called for the expulsion of Taslima from India. Even as Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy denounced attack as  barbaric and said the attackers would be punished, the police have registered a case against Taslima and the MLAs but nothing seems to have come out of it. India’s commitment to secularism and a liberal open society is on test.

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Goa SEZs Face Land Trouble

The Goa Chief Minister may have won a reprieve for his Government by engineering crucial defection from the Opposition ranks in the State’s political roller coaster, but his plans to develop special economic zones (SEZs), face landing trouble. His Government does not know how to acquire land for them. The tiny coastal State, which wants to emulate the success of Bangalore and Hyderabad in IT, has sought permission to establish 15 economic zones, mainly catering to IT and ITES sectors. No doubt, the Centre has given in-principle approval for seven of them, but the State has to answer the crucial question: who will acquire land for the SEZs? Against the backdrop that nearly 40 per cent of the State’s land fall under forest zones. Unwittingly, the State Government now finds itself caught in a crossfire, between the industries and locals who fear losing their livelihood.

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Anti-Hindi Stir In TN

Signs of a revival of the anti-Hindi agitation have appeared in Tamil Nadu, thanks to a job advertisement by a nationalized bank last week. According to the ad, candidates applying for the post of probationary clerks and officers in the State should have  compulsory knowledge of Hindi. This is unacceptable to the Tamils, who do not learn Hindi as a language in schools. A stir by the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBE) launched against the clause is threatening to take an ugly turn, even as the Bank has clarified that the standardized format does not strictly apply to the States like Tamil Nadu. The AIBE has been joined by the Dalit Party of India and the Chief Minister’s office for withdrawal of the “offensive” clause. Is the Finance Ministry listening?

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Red Alert Along Ganga

A red alert has been sounded all along the banks of the mighty Ganga in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar. The flood situation in the three States is likely to worsen in the coming days. Uttarakhand which has been receiving incessant rains since the past four days, sounded the alarm as the river was flowing near the danger mark at the holy cities of Rishikesh and Hardwar earlier this week. According to officials, the warning has been issued for all towns and cities situated on the banks of the Ganga. In Bihar, already reeling under the onslaught of floods, all flood control centres up to Patna have been put on high alert by the Central Water Commission (CWC).---INFA

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