Round The States

New Delhi, 28 November 2007

Mounting Islamic Terrorism

STATES ASKED TO STEP UP VIGIL

By Insaf

All the States have been alerted to step up vigil following the serial bomb blasts in Varanasi, Faizabad and Gorakhpur. The Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, told Insaf that a nation-wide alert had been sounded to apprehend the culprits. Refusing to apportion blame on the State Government, Patil said that the Centre would extend all help to the UP Administration in tracking down the culprits. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, too, will confer with all the Chief Ministers before long. Causing concern is the new breed of Islamic terrorism that has reared its deadly head in the last few months. In fact, UP seems to have become a fertile ‘bombing’ ground for the terrorists. Clearly, the terrorists have misused the Centre’s policy of doling out largesse to the Muslims. Instead, of using it to educate and uplift the minority community, it is being used to largely encourage Muslim fundamentalism.

Meanwhile, two terrorist organizations, 'Indian Mujahideen' and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen have claimed responsibility for the UP blasts which left 13 dead. What has added a frightening dimension is the fact that this new breed of Islamic terrorists is tech-savvy. The threat of the impending disaster was sent via an e-mail to a private TV channel just a few minutes before the blasts occured. It claimed that "'Islamic raids" would be conducted against lawyers, who had thrashed terrorists and refused to take up their cases. More. The intelligence agencies have unearthed a Jaish-e-Mohammad plot to kidnap Rahul Gandhi and get dreaded terrorists, including Mohammad Afzal convicted in the attack on Parliament, released in exchange. Clearly, the call of a new jihad should make the Centre take a fresh hard look at its “appeasement” policy --- as also on the need for a stringent POTA-type law to deal with the threat.

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Hundred New Faces In Gujarat Poll

Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Modi is leaving no stone unturned to return to power the third time around.  The “messiah of Hindutva” has got a push-up with the former BJP maverick leader and ex-Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharati throwing her weight behind her erstwhile colleague. For the sake of Hindutva, Bharti has directed Bharatiya Janshakti candidates to withdraw and extend support to the BJP in the Assembly elections. However, she is still non-committal about her return to the parent party. The BJP is going all out to win through “carpet bombing” of the State, with 80 leaders simultaneously addressing rallies all over. Significantly, Modi, has calculatedly chosen to field 100 new faces in the poll. More than 50 sitting MLAs, including Ministers, have been dropped to overcome the anti-incumbency factor. It remains to be seen whether the Hindutva promise of Ram and Roti and a hark back to Godhra will emerge victorious. Notwithstanding, the satta bazaar surprisingly showing Modi slipping from being the top favourite.

Nitish Completes Two Years

Bihar’s Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, has much to pat himself for on the completion of two years in office. His tenure so far has given much-needed impetus to development and to delivering speedy justice. Leading to a marked improvement in the overall environment of the State. Not only has the crime graph gone down but, more importantly, communal harmony has been maintained. The State is in the throes of construction activity with new roads being built and battered ones repaired. The power situation too has improved substantially. Interestingly, the CM has announced a slew of incentives for the girl child as a reward for the peoples’ support. Ranging from a payment of Rs 2,000/- for a girl born in a BPL family to Rs.5,000/- for the marriage of a girl in a family earning less than Rs.60,000 per annum. Expectedly Rabri Devi has denounced Nitish’s “tall claims” as an eye wash. But few take her seriously. Even veteran Congressmen are discreetly applauding Nitish!

Mayawati’s Impressive Maharashtra Debut

UP’s Chief Minister, Mayawati, is fast earning the title of an “unstoppable whirlwind” now that she is beginning to spread her wings to the other States. The Dalit icon is all set to try and repeat her social engineering of Brahmin-Dalit module in the forthcoming Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. After wooing voters in Gujarat and addressing large meetings in Ludhiana and Jammu, the BSP supremo held an impressive rally of some two lakh people in Mumbai last week, taking her opponents, the ruling Congress-NCP and the BJP greatly by surprise. In Himachal, she has placed a helicopter and huge sums of money at the disposal of her party’s state unit which is contesting all the 80 Assembly seats. Mayawati is determinedly using the ensuing State polls as a testing ground for her ultimate bid for India’s Prime Ministerial crown in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. She is confident of bagging at least 60 seats out of a total of 80 in UP. This, she believes, would give her a head start over her rivals.

Adivasi Violence Rocks Assam

If ULFA and various militant outfits spelt bad news for volatile Assam, a new Adivasi brew is turning out to be almost as deadly. A new outfit, the All Adivasi Students Association of Assam (AASAA) held Guwahati to ransom by organizing a 36-hour Assam bandh from Monday in protest against last week’s unprecedented violent attack on Adivasi protestors by the locals, which left one dead and about 240 injured. Demanding their right to be given scheduled tribe status, they accused the State Government for the violence. Meanwhile, the State Government has termed the stripping of an Adivasi woman as an “isolated incident committed by some miscreants.” At pains to dispel misgivings among the tribals, Dispur has tossed the complicated ST status issue in a State brimming with tribals in the Centre’s court. New Delhi alone is empowered under the Constitution to decide in such matters.

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Jamir’s Miraculous Escape

God’s grace and Mrs. Jamir’s prayers to the Almighty miraculously saved S.C. Jamir, Goa’s Governor, from a fourth attempt on his life since 1993. On his way to Dimapur from his village in Mokokchung, the former Nagaland Chief Minister’s 20 vehicle convoy was attacked with automatic weapons and mortars. Recall, the NSCN-IM in September last had declared Jamir “anti-people and anti-national” and even issued a fatwa barring him from returning to Nagaland. But Jamir and his spouse, both true Nagas, refused to be cowed down. “God was great”, as he put it. “Three of the four bombs planted among the road failed to explode and so also two mortars fired at our car.”  Clearly, the militants have not only violated the ceasefire in the State, as agreed to between the Centre and the NSCN-IM, but continue to do so with impunity.  Time for New Delhi to take serious note, what with the Assembly poll due in February.

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Sanskrit Compulsory In Madhya Pradesh

The BJP Government in Madhya Pradesh is going all out to popularize Sanskrit, ‘the mother of all languages’. From the next academic year, the State Government plans to make Sanskrit compulsory for tiny tots seeking admission to Class I in the schools. The premise? Teaching Sanskrit would enable the State to revive Indian culture which, it believes, is getting corrupted due to English and the Western culture. Moreover, if English could be made compulsory in a non-English speaking state, there was no reason why Sanskrit should be discriminated against. Interestingly, there are 769 Sanskrit schools and colleges in the state in which as many as 25,000 uttar madhyamik (equivalent to higher secondary) students pass out every year. That is not all. The state administration is also set to create history by establishing a Sanskrit University in Ujjain.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)