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ROUND THE STATES
New Delhi, 1 June 2006
Roundtable On Kashmir
REGIONAL APPROACH A
POSITIVE MOVE
By Insaf
The Prime Minister’s second Roundtable at Srinagar
last week had at least one positive outcome: New Delhi’s
regional approach to resolving the prolonged intra-State Kashmir tangle between
the Valley, Jammu
and Ladakh regions. Even though the
All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) skipped the second meet, despite having
clearly indicated earlier that it would attend with a “road-map” for a solution,
the decision to create five working groups shows a forward movement and New Delhi’s keen desire
to address various aspects of the
complex problem. These groups will look into relief and rehabilitation of the
militancy-affected, take initiatives for softening the LoC, oversee accelerated
efforts to improve the economy of the State, address
governance and study issues relating
to “self rule” and “autonomy”, proposed by the PDP and National Conference
respectively.
Importantly, Manmohan Singh has not shut the door on the
moderate group of the APHC, led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. He is willing to hold another round of talks with
them in New Delhi
to make the negotiations truly representative. However, the APHC’s absence in
the last two Roundtables has clearly indicated the need for effective action at
the official and political levels prior to any talk with them. As past experience shows, the group shows
willingness to talk to the PM, but
whenever the time comes it finds excuses to absent itself. Therefore, in the event
of any future talks, their participation should be firmly ensured prior to the
meet. Especially, since the AHPC equates itself with the mainstream
organizations with election-established credentials. In fact, this should have
been done before the Srinagar Roundtable with the help of intermediaries,
including Wajahat Habibullah.
* * * *
Congress May Join Govt. At Chennai
The Congress is
all set to join the Government in Tamil Nadu and thereby end its 39-year exile
from power in the southern State. The
party has been kept out by the two Dravidian outfits since 1967 when,
coincidentally, the Karunanidhi-led DMK defeated the Kamaraj Government. Ironically, it is now going to share power
under Karunanidhi’s Chief Ministership, who is leading the DMK Government for
the fifth time. Initially, the Congress High Command had decided to support Karunanidhi’s
minority Government from outside. But
intense pressure from the State
Congress for joining the Government
has prompted the High Command to bow to the State Unit’s wishes. The DMK, too, is willing in the interest of
stability. A formal decision will be
announced after Karunanidhi meets Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi next week.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Karunanidhi, who has proved
himself to be an icon of the Tamilians, is going ahead to fulfil his election
promises. After ordering distribution of rice at Rs.2 per kg. on the very first
day of his taking over, he has now finalized his plan to distribute free colour
televisions to the poor. He is also pursuing the DMK’s upper caste stance.
First, his Government permitted non-Brahmins to become temple priest. This has
now been followed up with a decree that the VIPs should not be given the
traditional temple honours or “Parivattam”, a rare privilege of wrapping a VIP with
brocaded silk shawl earlier draped on a deity. The DMK Government had in fact
stopped the practice during its 1971-76 tenure, but the AIADMK had revived it.
* * * *
Red Rift In W.
Bengal
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s
“reformist brand” has run into difficulty. The Left Front cadres have started
questioning his economic policies, described as “contrary to the communist
ideology”. The Front Chairman and CPM State
Secretary, Biman Bose has publicly spotlighted the trend against the Chief
Minister. This reflects a growing tussle
between the hawks and the doves. Bose, a
known hardliner is following the Jyoti Basu line, which downplays
Bhattacharjee’s role in West Bengal’s
pro-investment makeover. He and earlier Jyoti Basu have claimed that the seeds
of development were sown in 1994, when the latter was the CM. The first sign of
the rift between the two ideologies was visible at a demonstration last week by
villagers at Singur against the Government’s decision to acquire farmer’s land
for Tata Motors people’s car project.
* * * *
Towards Healthy
Madhya Pradesh
The BJP Government of Madhya Pradesh, headed by Shivraj
Singh Chouhan, is literally striding towards a healthy State, if its several
public health plans are any indication.
Various progammes which the State Government has announced recently are
intended to provide preventive, curative and primitive care to all classes of the society. The main mission is to “prevent disease and preserve health”.
Under the mission, as many as 41 new
primary health centres and ten new district hospitals have been sanctioned,
causing a budgetary increase of 46 per cent for the BPL families. The emphasis
on other schemes like “Janani Kalyan Bina”, a crusade against malnutrition, and
stopping of maternal deaths, is designed to take care of the BPL families in
the State.
* * * *
Politicians
Please-All Reactions
Even when the anti-reservation agitation continued to create
a panic situation across the
country, political leaders of all hues preferred to make “please all”
statements. Most statements were “vote centric”. The BJP National Executive meet in New Delhi
earlier in the week, which was vertically divided on the issue, resolved to take the middle path: support
quota for the OBCs and demand the appointment of an expert committee to ensure
merit and excellence in the institutions, exclusion of creamy layer from
reservations and quota for the poor among the upper castes. In U.P., the main
contestants for the Assembly poll
early next year, the ruling Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh and the BSP of
Mayawati, have gone all out to ensure upper caste votes. Both the leaders
favour protection of the general seats even as they stand for reservations for
the OBCs.
* * * *
Protest From Within
UPA
Bihar’s strongmen in the Union Cabinet, Lalu Yadav,
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Ramvilas Paswan, have taken up cudgels against
their own Government at the Centre, over the selection of 200 backward
districts all over the country among which Rs.5,000 crore is to be distributed
from the Backward Region Grants Fund. A proposal for rejigging rules for selecting
the eligible districts was halted by them at the Cabinet Committee for Economic
affairs meeting last week. The protest from within the UPA came in the wake of
a suspicion that the new rules for selection of backward districts were
reframed to benefit the Congress. The
Planning Commission’s selection of
200 beneficiaries in 251 Lok Sabha seats shows that the Congress represents 70 of the 111 UPA seats. The new
criteria, yet to be cleared by the Cabinet, would mean inclusion of districts
geographically co-terminus with 46 Congress-held
constituencies, obviously to the Congress
advantage.
* * * *
Mizo Hunters To Fight
Naxals
Mizoram’s crack squad, one of the toughest rebel hunters,
has been deployed in three CRPF special platoons to take on the Naxalites in
Chhattisgarh. The Mizo hunters, some of them trained by American commandos in
guerrilla warfare over the past decade, have been brought in by super-cop
K.P.S. Gill, retired IPS from the Assam
cadre whom Chief Minister Raman Singh has appointed Adviser to the Chhattisgarh
Government for tackling the increasing Naxal menace in the State. With the onset of monsoon in the State, the
Mizo Platoons would be camping at Sukma, Narayanpur and Bijapur for better
logistics and availability of terrain.
The Mizo deployment and the CM’s move to give a free hand to Gill, is
expected to help the State in controlling the Naxal terror. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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